Par For The Course

A Surprising Disclosure

   It was almost two years ago to the day  when the Evergreen Country Club experience was etched into the minds of Jules, Joe, and Doug. The three were breakfasting at the Heritage in Hackensack, a common twice-a-week get-together for the trio. Doug seemed a bit excited and anxious to get something off his chest. He began the conversation.

   “I’ve got some news, hot off the press, that will knock you for a loop.”

   “Well, stop that gloating and spill it, Mr. FBI agent,” Jules responded.”

   Joe remained wordless, but stared intently at Doug, expecting nothing more than some boring news about a recent FBI investigation in which Doug was involved.

   “Okay guys, hold your horses.  On a daily basis my office gets thousands and thousands of reports from around the country, including many that never become legal cases, being pursued in the courts, or under investigation by the local police. Whenever I take a break, I like to glance down the sheets that usually take up no more than a line or two. And guess----”

   “Why is it, Doug, that it always takes you a year and a day to come to the point? So what is it that you MUST share with us? Shoot!” Jules said, obviously impatient with his buddy.

   “Okay, you’re not going to be able to guess anyway. I’m sure you guys recall our experience at the Evergreen Country Club in Tarnow, Alabama?”

   Joe interrupted. “Are you kidding, Doug? Will any of us ever forget? It’ll stick in my craw forever.”

   “Mine too. Yesterday, they found an eighteen year-old black man hanging from an oak tree at the seventeenth tee at the Evergreen Country Club, and the body of a nineteen year-old white girl in a ravine at the fifth hole.”

   “Hooey!” yelled Joe that caused diner patrons in their vicinity to turn their heads toward the table where the threesome was sitting. “Go on, Doug! Go on! The Evergreen. Wow!”

   Jules chimed in and asked, “Was it a double murder or what?”

   “You won’t believe this,” Doug continued, “but then you might after our experience in that neck of the country.”

   “Boy, you sure like to drag out a story and keep us in suspense. So-?”  Joe probed further.

   “Well, the local cops, the Tarnow police, came in along with a detective from the Montgomery Police Force, and declared that the case was an open and shut one--that it was a murder-suicide. They claim that the black guy strangled the white girl in a rape attempt, and then hung himself.”

   “Then it was a murder-suicide--or don’t you think so?” asked Jules. Now both he