Six Strokes Under by Roberta Isleib

said. "Kaitlin got Julie involved with this stuff several months ago? I thought she just filed the suit against Coach Rupert last week?"
    "The lawsuit is new," said Eve, "but the accusations against her father are not."
    "Next thing we knew," said Mary, "Julie's wondering if she's a lesbian. You'll probably see her dad this week. He's been picketing every stop we've made for the last couple months. He's got the girls in the Bible study group in a tizzy over this, too. Julie used to hang with the Bible thumpers; now the group doesn't speak to her at all."
    "Is her father that Leviticus guy?" I asked.
    "You know this dude?"
    "I saw him marching outside Kaitlin's shrink's office last week in Myrtle Beach." It occurred to me that these girls might wonder why I was that familiar with a shrink complex. "It was big news in the Myrtle Beach paper," I added quickly. "First Kaitlin filed her lawsuit and then the psychiatrist was murdered. I couldn't figure out why a Bible thumper was picketing there. So he blames that psychiatrist for his daughter's problems?"
    "From what I heard, Kaitlin set Julie up for a consultation with her doctor. That's when the trouble started."
    "What a mess." I sighed, more than ready to change the subject. "Have any of you played the courses yet?"
    "The Panther's a bitch," said Adele. "I really hope I get it over with the first day."
    "The good news is you only have to play it once," said Eve.
    "Yeah, but once around the Panther's Claw is plenty."
    As I finished my beer, the girls joked about their practice round earlier in the day. I suddenly felt exhausted. Some girls liked to socialize the whole time they were here at Q-school, distract themselves from what otherwise might feel like unbearable pressure. I was glad to have made the acquaintance of some friendly faces, but at the same time, I felt desperate to get off by myself and regroup. I hoped for an inspirational and sexy phone message from Jack Wolfe. I also wanted to talk to Joe. I just wasn't sure I was quite ready to forgive his defection.
    "I'm going to hit the hay," I said, standing and sliding a twenty-dollar bill onto the table. "I'm beat."
    "Sure you don't want to go clubbing with us?" Eve demonstrated an abbreviated funky chicken.
    "Thanks anyway, big date tomorrow. My first encounter with the Panther."
    I made my way back through the bar, which was now crowded, noisy, and smoky. I caught sight of Gary Rupert sitting at a stool on the far side of the room, but I'd had enough conversation for one night with him as well. It wasn't until I was buckling the seat belt in my rental car that it occurred to me how familiar the man talking with him looked. Something about the broad shoulders and slightly thinning hair.
    I drove back to my motel, wishing I could get Sheriff Pate's warning out of my mind. Even worrying about double bogeys on the four holes that comprised the Panther's Claw would be preferable to imagining the possibility of being stalked for information I did not possess. I thought back over the evening. I decided to put any feelings about Gary, sexual or otherwise, on hold. His sweet defense of Kaitlin reminded me of my own brother, Charlie. Charlie would stick up for me no matter what the circumstances. In this case, Gary had to be off the mark. From all that my dinner companions reported, Kaitlin didn't have much going that could be sincerely defended. In fact, I didn't have to stretch far to picture her, in my place, in the ugly scenario Sheriff Pate had described—a crime of passion gone sour. Disappointment twisted into murder. For what it was worth, I'd run that by Pate tomorrow.

 
    Chapter 9
     
     
      Finally,my turn on the tee had come. I smelled the sharp scent of the newly cut Bermuda grass. A morning mist made visibility zero more than fifty yards down the fairway. Not that it mattered. My three-wood had squirted short and crooked, barely out of sight. Then Kaitlin's drive whistled three hundred yards straight down the