The Greatest Player Who Never Lived Read online

  Before Arnold gives up his amateur status, I suggest that he play a friend of mine who is a career amateur. His name is Patrick Harris. He is extremely talented—on a level with prominent playing professionals. Playing Patrick may show Arnold that he can remain an amateur and fully test his game (particularly if Patrick beats him).

  If you think my suggestion has merit, I will send Patrick to you.

  Sincerely yours,

  R.T. Jones

  Deacon Palmer’s reply was short and sweet. It read:

  “Great idea! Please put Mr. Harris in touch with us.”

  Now I understood a handwritten note by Jones that I had encountered earlier in the file. It appeared to be a record of a telephone call from Deacon Palmer. Stedman had shot 70. Young Arnold took two strokes less at 68. If the plan was to discourage Arnold Palmer from turning pro, it clearly failed. Deacon Palmer must have been disappointed.

  The note was dated September 8, 1954. As far as I could tell, this was Stedman’s first loss since the 1929 Metropolitan Open. He had been undefeated since then in his “matches” with the great golf champions of the day. I felt some disappointment, but it had been a remarkable run nonetheless. No one can win ’em all in golf.

  Then I found a letter from Arnold Palmer to Jones. It was dated September 13, 1954.

  Dear Mr. Jones,

  Thank you for your interest in me and for sending Patrick Harris to play a match. I always enjoy competition, and he is a great player.

  My father tells me that you thought Mr. Harris would provide good competition. He certainly did. Dad suggested we play two days, with two rounds the second day. He said that was the best way to show a player’s true ability, and it would give Mr. Harris time to learn the course.

  I really thought I had him. I shot 68 the first day and was ahead by two strokes. But Mr. Harris was just getting warmed up. He shot 67 to my 69 the next morning and then really turned it on in the afternoon. I had another 68, but he shot 64, one off our course record. (I had a 63 here two years ago.) Mr. Harris ended up beating me by 3 strokes.

  I don’t like losing and was pretty disappointed. But Mr. Harris said I have what it takes. He told me not to let anything stand in the way of my dreams. He said he hadn’t been able to chase his own dreams and always regretted it.

  I know that my father worries that I will be wasting my education. But this is what I want, and I would always wonder what would have happened if I didn’t try.

  I will remain an amateur so that I can play in next year’s Masters as the U.S. Amateur champion. Right after that, I will become a professional.

  Thank you again.

  Sincerely,

  Arnold Palmer

  So Beau remained undefeated after all. Jones’s note must have been written when Deacon Palmer called him right after the first round. Beau won the battle, but Deacon Palmer lost the war. Still, he lived to see his son become golf’s first millionaire and to use his education to construct a business empire that eventually included golf course design and construction, golf equipment, golf clothing, and investments. Wake Forest remains a power in college golf to this day in large part because of a series of scholarships endowed by its most famous golf alumnus.

  Like Jones, Arnold Palmer’s stature continued to grow long after his competitive days ended. Palmer’s last PGA Tour win was the 1973 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. But his popularity was so great that the PGA Senior Tour was conceived in large part to provide a place for him to continue playing for the public.

  That Beau Stedman played a role in all that was one more reason his story had to be told.

  22

  I WAS BECOMING more and more convinced that golf history would never truly be complete if Beau Stedman’s story was not told. The very point of an historical record in any sport is to celebrate the accomplishments of its masters so that standards of excellence remain clear. The level of play demonstrated by Stedman over the years was as good or better than anyone who ever played the game.

  Besides, he deserved the recognition. I was aware, of course, that there were those who would perhaps disagree. They believed that athletic achievement didn’t count unless it had the proper moral tone. It was that kind of thinking that kept Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose out of Cooperstown.

  While I was uncertain of what such a litmus test of athletic morality consisted, it seemed fairly certain that an unresolved murder charge would present a real obstacle to my efforts to secure Beau Stedman’s rightful place in golf history. Celebrating the playing exploits of a suspected killer would be a hard sell.

  Although I was personally convinced of Stedman’s innocence, the fact remained that I had no real evidence to support my convictions. Stedman had Bobby Jones as a character reference (and as character references go, he was hard to beat), but even I knew the difference between that and proof of innocence.

  The question was, did he do it? Something obviously made Jones believe that he didn’t, but there was nothing in these files to reveal what that was. I would have to have more. I needed something that would show that Stedman didn’t do it.

  Anyone who watches television knows that the best way for a lawyer to prove his client’s innocence is to expose the real culprit. If I was going to be successful in claiming that Stedman didn’t murder Mrs. Gladstone, I probably needed to prove who did. It didn’t take me long to see that the idea of a first-year law student solving a 70-year-old murder was more than a little absurd.

  I had just about resigned myself that there was little I could do to clear Stedman when I found a rather curious file among the last of Jones’s papers. It was a genuine legal file, not like the pseudo-legal files that disguised Jones’s record of Stedman’s exploits.

  Jones apparently represented a contractor who had built a golf course on Hilton Head Island many years earlier. The developer ran short of money and conveyed half the mineral rights to the property to the contractor in settlement of his charges. As Hilton Head grew, the golf course became the centerpiece of a successful resort property called Ocean Breakers. When the original owner died many years later, his heirs challenged the validity of the mineral conveyance in the probate proceedings.

  I was routinely indexing this file when I saw the name of the original owner: Harold Gladstone.

  The probate proceeding had been filed in 1964. By that time, Jones’s health was rapidly declining. In fact, I was somewhat surprised that he was handling any legal matters at that point. I could only assume that this was an old client.

  Jones’s notes indicated that the heirs were the four children of Mr. Gladstone. Given the ages at which they were listed, they would have been very young when their mother died. Jones must have found this as intriguing then as I did now, because he had written questions about life insurance proceeds that Mr. Gladstone had received upon his wife’s death.

  These proceeds apparently formed the basis for Gladstone’s purchase of some 600 undeveloped acres on the island. Although I had no way of knowing whether Mr. Gladstone recognized the potential value of the property, the subsequent history of Hilton Head Island and its explosive growth as a resort destination had made him a very, very wealthy man. In fact, at the time of his death, the probate inventory (which was conservatively valued to avoid estate taxes) listed his wealth at $15 million.

  Jones had written Stedman’s name next to the note about life insurance. After staring at it a few moments, it dawned on me that the life insurance could have been the motive for Mrs. Gladstone’s murder. The obvious suspect, of course, would be the one person who stood to gain financially from Mrs. Gladstone’s death—the beneficiary on the policy. That would have been Mr. Gladstone.

  Could it be that Mr. Gladstone murdered his wife for the insurance money and then blamed it on Stedman? I quickly read through the rest of the file but found no answer. Instead, the file showed that, immediately after Jones made an inquiry to that effect, the heirs conceded the validity of the mineral conveyance and dropped their claim.

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p; The file included the original papers on the mineral conveyance. I didn’t catch it at first, but as I read idly through the documents, I saw the name of Mr. Gladstone’s attorney at the time: Henry Montgomery. The selfsame District Attorney who had so eagerly accepted Mr. Gladstone’s version of events in 1930 and accused Stedman of the murder. No wonder, I thought, Mr. Montgomery didn’t want to look any further or otherwise discover the truth about Mrs. Gladstone’s murder. He had a wealthy client who was going to build a major golf resort in Bankens County. Who was he to stand in the way of such progress?

  Eventually I realized that, if there was a way to prove Stedman’s innocence, it would most likely come from Gladstone’s children. I wrote down their names and the addresses listed as they were in the file. Even though the information was over 30 years old, it was a starting point. Hilton Head was only a few hours away. I could drive there and check around. Surely at least one of the children—or some of their children—were still in the area.

  There was only one problem. The affairs of a client were confidential. It is the sacred trust of a law firm not to make any of its client’s dealings public without permission. All of my “detective” work had been great fun, but it had also been within the confines of the firm’s offices. No one had authorized me to go digging around outside of the office.

  I needed to share all of this with Ken Cheatwood, as I trusted his judgment. Over lunch, I explained my dilemma. My friend was sympathetic and, as usual, got right to the point.

  “Under Georgia law, the attorney-client privilege ends when the client dies. Is this client still living?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a corporation.”

  “That ought to be easy to check. A corporation only exists if the state recognizes that it exists. The public records at the Georgia Secretary of State’s office will show if this corporation is still in existence. If not, it’s as if the client has died, and the information in the file is no longer privileged or confidential.”

  I still saw problems. “Even so, I’m not sure the law firm wants to me to get into all of this.”

  My buddy wasn’t so easily deterred. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. First, check and see if the corporation still exists. If it doesn’t, let’s go see Fred.”

  I called the Georgia Secretary of State that very afternoon. In typical bureaucratic fashion, I was referred to three different people before someone finally confirmed that the franchise for the construction company had lapsed in 1983. It was no longer a valid corporation in the eyes of Georgia authorities. I requested a certificate confirming that fact, which I paid for out of my own pocket. It arrived in the mail two days later.

  It took us over an hour to persuade Fred Nathan to let me go forward with it. At first, he was firmly against it. I believe the reason he eventually relented was because we convinced him that Jones probably would have done it himself if he had not become so ill. I have to give credit to Cheatwood for that pitch. He was going to be a natural as a trial lawyer.

  I headed for the Bankens County Courthouse the next morning.

  23

  IT TOOK ALL of four hours to make the drive to the Bankens County Courthouse, which was located in a small one-McDonald’s town called Beaufort. The courthouse wasn’t very hard to find; it was located in a square in the middle of town, which indicated that it had probably been the first building provided for in the original plan for the community.

  I had left Atlanta at the crack of dawn and arrived at the courthouse by mid-morning. I entered through the main entrance, checked the building directory, and went to the second floor where the conveyance records were located. Starting with the probate judgment transferring the property to Gladstone’s heirs, I ran the indices to see if there were any subsequent transactions involving the property.

  There were several mortgages placed on the property over the succeeding years to secure loans to the heirs, apparently for the purpose of additional construction or renovations at the resort. In each instance, the full name of the heir was listed, as well as his or her address. By running the records in this manner, I figured to get current addresses on the Gladstone heirs.

  I had to hope they were still living. If they were small children when their mother was killed in 1930, they would all be close to either side of 70 by now.

  When their father died in 1964, all four children—three sons and a daughter—were still living. The sons were named Benjamin, Bryan, and Michael. The daughter’s name was Katharine. She had married a man named Leigh and had subsequently signed all papers in her married name.

  Under the terms of Harold Gladstone’s will, the four children inherited his entire estate in equal shares. However, the estate had been left in trust, and Henry Montgomery had been named trustee. When he died ten years later, the terms of the trust dictated that the four children select the successor trustee.

  It was an unusual arrangement. Ordinarily, the settlor of the trust provided for alternate or successor trustees in the event that the designated trustee was unable to serve. Leaving it to a vote of the beneficiaries only served to invite family conflict.

  Seeing Henry Montgomery’s name as the initial trustee confirmed my suspicions about his prosecution of Stedman back in 1930. He and Gladstone apparently had a pretty cozy relationship. Gladstone must have seen an opportunity to buy some very attractive land. As the manager of another club on the island, he was more aware than most of the enormous potential to make money by developing additional land on the island. All he needed was capital. The proceeds of a life insurance policy provided a convenient source of funding.

  I imagined that Gladstone had recruited Henry Montgomery to be his attorney shortly after Mrs. Gladstone’s death. It was possible, too, that he even gave Montgomery a partial interest in his project and promised him additional legal work as he developed his planned resort.

  All of that made it very easy for Montgomery to overlook the obvious and focus instead on Gladstone’s uncorroborated accusation against Stedman. No wonder Montgomery had been so prickly in response to Jones’s letters.

  The first mortgage in the records that appeared after Henry Montgomery’s death indicated that the trust, which was the proper mortgagor, was now represented by one of the sons, Michael Gladstone. He appeared as the trustee, so he had apparently been elected to that position by his brothers and sister. The mortgage gave Michael’s address as 2 Audubon Court, Greenville, South Carolina.

  I knew that the conveyance records would probably have a copy of the designation and election of Michael Gladstone as successor trustee. This would be required as evidence to show his authority to enter into subsequent transactions. If I was lucky, the instrument would contain the names and addresses of the other three children to confirm their vote to elect the successor trustee.

  And I was right. Turning two more pages in the index, I found an entry showing the election of Michael Gladstone as successor trustee and his authorization to bind the trust in future transactions. I located the instrument in the appropriate conveyance book and took down the addresses of the other three Gladstone heirs. Benjamin Gladstone had a Baltimore address. Bryan Gladstone lived in Charleston. Katharine Gladstone Leigh lived on Hilton Head Island.

  I contacted Michael first. It wasn’t hard to find him. When I spoke with him, it wasn’t hard, either, to figure out why he was the trustee. He was very forceful and direct.

  “Why is this any of your business?”

  I had to admit it was a perfectly reasonable question. Here I was, a total stranger, asking him about the circumstances under which his father acquired the property that eventually made him and his brothers and sister millionaires.

  I didn’t know if I could be quite as forthright.

  “When your mother was killed in 1930, her murder was never solved. The police claimed that a young man named Beauregard Stedman did it, but they never caught him. Nor did they ever produce any real evidence proving that he did it. I’m a law student, and this ha
s become sort of a project with me. I have reason to believe that Stedman had nothing to do with your mother’s death, and I would like to see if I can determine the truth.”

  Michael Gladstone wasn’t buying any of it. He said sharply, “I have no desire to be part of your little project. Kindly let my mother and my father rest in peace.” He then hung up on me.

  My telephone call to Benjamin Gladstone ended much the same way, and I discovered that Bryan Gladstone had died a few years earlier.

  Katharine Leigh was my last chance. Now almost 70, Katharine was the youngest of the four children. In fact, if my math was right, she was just an infant at the time of her mother’s murder. According to my notes, Mrs. Leigh actually lived on the resort property. I really had no idea what to expect when I called her.

  She sounded pleasant when she answered the telephone. When I told her that I wanted to find the truth about her mother’s death, Mrs. Leigh was naturally puzzled. I offered her my well-rehearsed explanation of how my interest in the crime arose. She was not as hostile as her brothers, but clearly somewhat defensive.

  We continued to talk, and I felt her defenses begin to weaken. She wanted to know where I was from and what my family did. I knew I had passed that part of the interview when she finally said, “You know, I’ve always wanted to know what really happened to my mother. I was only three months old when she was killed, so I never really knew her. Her death was something we never were allowed to talk about. I asked my father more than once about it, but he could not stand to discuss it.”

  Instead of pouncing on the opening, I returned the pleasantries by asking Mrs. Leigh about herself. She told me that she lived in a beach cottage on the property. She was the widow of a Methodist minister, and they had lived in Charleston where he was pastor of First United Methodist Church for 28 years. They had retired to the resort only a few years earlier.