The Greatest Player Who Never Lived Read online

  Within just a few months of their arrival, Reverend Leigh developed a nagging cough. When it wouldn’t go away, he went to the doctor. It turned out to be lung cancer. He died eight months later.

  Mrs. Leigh had apparently not found many people to talk to since her husband died. She didn’t mention anything about children, and I didn’t feel that I should ask. In any event, she was delighted when I asked to visit her. We agreed to meet the following Saturday.

  It was a bright and hot August afternoon when I pulled up in front of Mrs. Leigh’s cottage. As I got out of my car, I felt the clemency of the ocean breeze. As slight as it was, the air movement replenished the energy that had been drained by the stagnant air that enveloped the interstate throughout my drive. My clothes were rumpled from the perspiration, but I figured Mrs. Leigh wasn’t looking for a fashion show.

  She was waiting for me with the door half open by the time I reached her front steps. Wearing a light blue sun dress, Katharine Leigh had a far more youthful appearance than I had expected. She was still pretty, and she welcomed me with a warm smile that put me instantly at ease.

  In a pleasant accent familiar to the region, she said, “Come in, Mr. Hunter. You’re right on time. I like punctuality in a young person.”

  She then led me down a central hall to the rear of the cottage, which featured large windows that took full advantage of a wonderful view of the ocean.

  “This is extraordinary.”

  She smiled appreciatively. “Thank you. It is lovely, isn’t it? The only bad thing is the work you have to do whenever there’s a storm in the area. The house wasn’t built with shutters to fit windows this big, so we have to board up the entire rear of the house every time there’s a hurricane warning.”

  “That’s a small price to pay, I would think.”

  She smiled again and looked out at the deep green water. “I can honestly say it never gets old, but it does remind me to appreciate it a little more when I share the view, I must admit.”

  She pointed to the coffee table between us.“I have coffee or, if you prefer, something cooler.”

  “Coffee’s fine,” I said. In front of me was a tray with silver service and demitasse cups. She served me a cup. No matter how hot it was, I always enjoyed fresh coffee.

  After the usual pleasantries, she turned to me and said, “So tell me again how you became interested in my mother.”

  There was something about Mrs. Leigh that seemed familiar. It was as if I already knew her. I remember thinking that she looked like someone I knew, but I just couldn’t place who it was. Regardless, I knew I still had to earn her trust. The only way to do that was to be absolutely honest with her. If she suspected me of any deceit, I wouldn’t get a second cup of coffee.

  “I’m between my first and second years of law school, and I’ve spent this past summer working as a law clerk for an Atlanta law firm called Butler & Yates. They have me cataloging a bunch of files that belonged to a former partner at the firm who’s been dead quite some time. His name was Robert T. Jones, Jr. He was quite a golfer. You may have heard of him. Most people knew him as Bobby Jones.”

  I looked at her expectantly. She smiled at me in an indulgent way and said, “Of course I’ve heard of Bobby Jones. My family’s been in the golf business all of my life. You can’t help but know who Bobby Jones was. I’m afraid I can’t say that I know a lot about him, but I certainly know who he was.”

  “At one time, Mr. Jones represented a man named Beauregard Stedman. He was the man who was accused of murdering your mother. In looking at the files, however, I couldn’t find any evidence that he had done it. Mr. Stedman happened to be a great golfer, too, maybe as good as Mr. Jones. If I can clear his name, perhaps I can get him the recognition that he deserved.”

  Mrs. Leigh frowned. “I’m a little confused. I didn’t think the person who murdered my mother was ever caught.”

  “That’s correct. The District Attorney said your father accused Mr. Stedman of doing it. Mr. Stedman was never arrested or tried. In fact, no one was ever arrested or tried. That’s why I’m digging into this. It seems to me that everyone is entitled to the truth.”

  She seemed puzzled by what I had said. “Why don’t you think Mr. Stedman did it?”

  I sipped from my coffee cup, mainly to buy some time to organize my thoughts. “In all honesty, I don’t have any evidence at this point that he didn’t do it. However, Mr. Jones had known him for many years and, from what I read in his files, believed that he was innocent. As far as I know, Mr. Stedman had no motive to hurt your mother.”

  Ms. Leigh was obviously testing everything I said for credibility. “Having a prominent friend doesn’t necessarily make you innocent, now does it?,” she sniffed. “Mr. Jones wouldn’t be the first person who made a mistake vouching for someone he shouldn’t have.”

  I had to be careful not to argue with her or become her adversary. Instead of challenging her, I treated her question as rhetorical and decided to alter the direction of our conversation. After a long pause, I asked her, “Do you know anything about a life insurance policy on your mother?”

  Her reaction was telling. With her cup and saucer in hand, she stood up and walked to the large picture window and stared out at the breaking waves. After drinking what was left in her cup, she turned back to me.

  “I knew when you asked to come here that we would reach this point. And if I hadn’t wanted to I wouldn’t have agreed to see you. But as much as I want to go there, I don’t want to go there.” She tried to stifle a laugh. “That sounds rather idiotic, doesn’t it?”

  We were at an obvious critical point. I struggled to find something to say. “There is nothing more personal than family. It’s a very emotional issue. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  “It’s a bit frightening to dig things up when they’ve been buried such a long time.”

  “Maybe so, but it seems to me that burying a lie doesn’t change it into the truth. It’s still a lie.”

  I should have called a two-stroke penalty on myself for preaching to a woman three times my age. If Mrs. Leigh was offended by my lack of tact, however, she didn’t let it show. She seemed to be somewhere else, as if she were thinking of other things.

  “I’ve known about the insurance for a number of years. But every time I asked questions, I got nowhere.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arms and said, “I can’t tell you where I heard it, but at some point I suspected that this whole place started with money from my mother’s life insurance. Something about that has bothered me a long time.” She paused. “I wished it had bothered my brothers as much.”

  I knew I had to keep her talking. “What do you mean?”

  “I suppose I’ve always had this awful fear that what we have came from blood money. You have to understand, my father was a hard man. He was not affectionate toward me. I never was ‘daddy’s little girl.’ He was content to leave me with nannies. And I’m afraid my brothers are a lot like him. I probably would be too, but I was blessed to have a very loving man as a husband for so many years. He taught me another way.”

  She was now looking directly at me. “And he taught me that no amount of money can wash away the stain of sin.”

  I liked Mrs. Leigh. And I felt sorry for her. It must have been truly painful living all these years with the nagging suspicion that your father may have killed your mother.

  I spoke softly to her. “Mrs. Leigh, I’m just a young law student, and, although I talk a good game, I really don’t know all that much about the law, or about anything else, for that matter. And I certainly don’t know anything about your mother. But it seems to me that you’re entitled to know the truth about what happened to her.”

  Her eyes were moist with tears. Mine were, too.

  My quivering voice surprised me with its emotion as I said, “I can’t find the truth without your help.”

  She bit her lip and didn’t speak for a long time. Finally, she stood up. “Come with me. I know where there are some
papers you may want to look at.”

  I followed her outside, and we got into her car. She drove me to the main administration building of the resort. As we walked inside, she said, “It didn’t take us long after Daddy died to figure out that we couldn’t manage this place ourselves. Mr. Montgomery didn’t have the time or energy to do it, either. So we hired an outside company to run things. That’s been the arrangement for a number of years. But we still have a lot of Daddy’s old records in here.”

  She took me down a long hallway to a large file room. She walked directly to a large steel filing cabinet, pointed to it, and said, “These were his personal papers. I overheard my brothers talking once, not long after he died. I spent a long time convincing myself I didn’t hear what they said, but I guess I just don’t have the energy for that kind of rationalizing anymore. There’s a good chance you will find something in here that just might clear your golfer’s name.”

  Her voice faltered, and she began trembling. “I think there are papers in here that will tell you that my father killed my mother.”

  24

  HAROLD GLADSTONE MUST have been one strange man, but, then, what murderer wasn’t. I had heard of people leaving suicide notes. I had heard of people signing confessions. This was a peculiar variation of the two.

  Apparently, Gladstone had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in late 1963. He began organizing his affairs, and much of the paperwork in these files related to the creation of the trust for his children.

  However, as with any man faced with undisputed medical evidence of his mortality, Gladstone underwent a kind of spiritual transformation. That may have been putting it kindly. What really happened, I suspected, was that Harold Gladstone was worried about going to hell.

  So he wrote a long note confessing to a 30-year-old crime. In it, he admitted that he had beaten his wife on many occasions before and that his cruelty toward her probably justified her adultery with young Stedman.

  He really didn’t blame the boy, either, he wrote. Even after four children, his wife remained a vibrant and attractive woman. Although he hadn’t exactly caught them in the act, he could tell something was going on.

  Gladstone’s note admitted that he couldn’t stand the humiliation of a manager’s wife taking up with the hired help. So he killed her and accused Stedman of the murder loudly enough to make him skip town. This avoided a criminal investigation, which even in Montgomery’s clumsy hands might have stumbled upon the truth.

  Of course, Stedman’s flight only appeared to confirm his guilt. It also eliminated any immediate need to focus on other suspects.

  At first, Mrs. Leigh did not want to look at the papers she was handing me, and she sat quietly as I read them. However, when I was done, she somehow summoned the courage to confront the reality they contained and read them herself.

  When she finished, she cried softly for a few minutes. I felt awkward and, after a time, clumsily put my hand on her shoulder. She smiled, patted it as if to reassure me, and said, “My brothers will hate me for this. But I could have no family peace living with this secret anyway. And at least Mr. Stedman’s name will finally be cleared. Maybe then at least his family can have some peace.”

  I had explained to Mrs. Leigh that, if I had evidence of Stedman’s innocence, I might be able to carry out Mr. Jones’s apparent plan to have him recognized for his golf. She seemed pleased to think that some good would come of this.

  I took the note back with me to Atlanta.

  I showed it first to Ken Cheatwood. He agreed that it cleared Stedman.

  “So Jones was right all along. Our man was framed from the get-go. What a sad story of what might have been.”

  I nodded. “Think of the championships this man would have won but for this. How many majors would he have taken from others? Jones might not have won the Grand Slam. Hogan might not have won four Opens. Sarazen might not have won all four majors. And what about Nelson’s streak? Stedman might have been too old for military service in World War II. What if he had been playing the tour in 1945? There’s no way Nelson could have won 11 straight with Stedman out there.”

  Cheatwood pondered my stream-of-consciousness narrative for a second. “Well, we’ll never know, will we? That’s the shame of it all.”

  It didn’t take us long to decide what to do next. We took Gladstone’s note to Fred Nathan. He claimed to be impressed by my detective work and said I had the instincts to be a good trial lawyer. Coming from Nathan, who had uncompromising standards of excellence, that was high praise.

  After allowing me to bask in his praise for a moment, Nathan grew serious and said, “Okay. So Stedman was innocent. After all this time, where do you go from here?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’m sure he’s been dead for years, and I don’t have a clue how to notify his next of kin, if he has any. I don’t think there is any legal action to take. I still would like your permission, though, to do something positive with this.”

  Nathan looked at me curiously. “What do you mean?”

  I looked at Cheatwood and then back at Nathan. “Ken’s father has a friend who is a past President of the Georgia State Golf Association. I’d like to find out if there is some way to get Stedman’s playing record recognized. He didn’t win any major championships, but he beat virtually all of the great players of his time. His story deserves to be told.”

  I almost winced as I finished speaking. It was not fashionable for law students to be quite so sappy; we were supposed to be fitting ourselves for the cloak of cynicism that veteran lawyers wear so well.

  I braced for a put-down. Fred Nathan only smiled.

  “Frankly, Charley, I find that admirable. You’ll never make a living on that kind of mission of mercy, though. Clearing a dead man’s name won’t even qualify as pro bono work. You’re chasing a ghost, you know that, don’t you?”

  Neither one of us could call forth any kind of rebuttal to his obviously correct observations.

  Instead of showing us the door, however, Nathan looked at us both and asked, “Are you sure that corporation no longer exists?”

  We showed him the certificate. He looked at it carefully, even turning over the back. I tried to read his expression but he remained poker-faced. The silence was becoming uncomfortable, as if he was looking for a diplomatic way to tell two of his firm’s prized recruits how foolish we were.

  His features finally relaxed and, with a trace of a smile, Nathan said, “Well, then, I guess there’s no way anyone can say we violated a client’s confidences. See what you can do for poor ole Stedman.”

  We thanked Fred Nathan profusely and left. As Cheat-wood and I congratulated ourselves, I realized that I had really begun to like Nathan. To this day, I believe the only reason he didn’t say no was because he didn’t want to embarrass us or hurt our feelings. He had difficulty admitting it, but he was something of a softie himself. I concluded that Fred Nathan wouldn’t be a bad guy to practice law with.

  I certainly had better luck convincing him of the importance of bringing Beau Stedman to light than I did with Nicole Chapman, the girl back in New Orleans I had begun dating in law school. She thought I was a little nuts over this whole thing.

  “I don’t understand. Nothing’s going to change. What do you think you’re going to accomplish with all this?”

  “It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “What principle?”

  “There was an injustice. It has to be corrected.”

  “Why you? No one appointed you to correct this. Don’t you have enough going on?”

  “It needs to be done. Like Dr. John says, ‘If I don’t do it, you know somebody else will.’”

  “You are so obsessive-compulsive.”

  “Maybe that’s what you like best about me.”

  We must have repeated that telephone conversation at least a half dozen times over the summer and reached the same stalemate every time.

  25

  I DON’T KNOW what I was e
xpecting the weather in New Jersey to be like, but I was surprised at how cold it was, even for the week after Christmas. I guess I had gotten too used to the South.

  At least the snow was fresh and still clean-looking. It was quite a change of pace from New Orleans, which was a balmy 70° when I left Moisant International Airport on Continental Flight 123 to Newark.

  It seemed like it took forever for my rented Ford Escort to warm up, but I finally regained full feeling in my hands and feet. I was a little worried about driving in the snow, but Beverly LaFleur at the USGA assured me that I would be fine. The directions she sent me were helpful, too. Every landmark was exactly where she said it would be, and I began to relax as I drove to Far Hills, where the USGA’s headquarters are located.

  As I motored along, I reflected on the events that had brought me to New Jersey during a time of year when I should have been at home with my family. By the time Fred Nathan had given me the green light on Stedman, my summer with Butler & Yates was almost up. As much as I wanted to pursue Stedman’s vindication immediately, I still had a couple of boxes of Jones’s files to sort through. That was, after all, my summer work assignment.

  I finished indexing the last box around noon on my last day. I then spent the afternoon thanking everyone and trying to gauge the sincerity of their compliments of my work.

  I wasn’t sure what a first-year law clerk needed to do to rate an invitation to return the following year. The requirements must have been minimal, though, because Fred Nathan let me know that I was welcome to come back next summer. He advised me to stay in touch during the school year.

  I had only a week or so after that before classes started again at Tulane, and I spent that time with my family in Birmingham. Although Birmingham wasn’t far from Atlanta, I had only been home for a couple of weekends. My parents also visited me in Atlanta once, but that was still less time than I wanted with them. I guess I missed my mother’s cooking.

  The old saw about law school is that they scared you to death in the first year, worked you to death in the second year, and bored you to death in the third year. My law school career thus far had proved that to be true. I spent most of my first year terrified, and the first semester of my second year definitely was more hectic than anything that had gone before.