Charlie and Karl on the course

"So," said Charlie, "what do we have here? Four murders in the last twenty minutes, and you're looking for what?"

"The murderer?" asked Karl, "isn't that who anyone would be looking for?"

Charlie answered, "Well, that's what you'd think, right? Right. But no, Doug here has to try and figure out who's gonna be the lead investigator here. Idiot."

Doug began to defend himself, saying, "Hey, look, don't blame this on me. The department mandated that I make a history type thing for them-"

"Oh come off it," said Charlie, "we all know why you're here: the department has no money, they sell the rights to any future crimes to your publishers, you write the book, we get some money."

"Yeah," Karl chimed in, "This is hardly history-you're selling us here. In fact, you'd probably like a cop to die, huh? Would make for a better story, eh?"

Doug felt that he was rapidly losing control of the situation, and he figured he'd end the conversation before anyone (himself) got hurt. "So what you're saying," he said, "is that right now there is no lead investigator here?"

Charlie and Karl pretended to ignore Doug, and as they walked downstairs, passing Doug's tastefully appointed office and pausing for a quick doughnut at the local Dunkin, they muttered to each other about the sick taxpayers, whose fault this whole thing really was. Doug followed them, a worried look on his face; you could tell he was worried because he didn't even stop for a doughnut before getting in his journalist/police car and preparing to follow Charlie's 1999 Crown Victoria as it drove to the scene of the four murders in the twenty minutes.

By the time the two cars, three people got there, the bodies had been cleared so that the foursome behind them could continue on. Charlie stepped onto the sixteenth green, just behind the tee where the foursome was preparing to launch their drives, and asked them if they had seen anything unusual. "Oh, unusual?" said one of them, "well, now that you mention it, it was quite strange to see blood all over the sixteenth green. I don't think I've ever seen blood all over there-you'd have thought that the guys ahead of us would have had the courtesy to clean up after themselves. The bunkers especially were horrendous-all that blood just clumped together with the sand and made it impossible to play the game properly. I shall have to take it up with the committee as soon as possible."

"Very good," said Charlie, "you may now carry on."

With this permission granted, the first member of the foursome hit his tee shot into a tree on the left of the fairway, and he announced to no one in particular that he'd be taking a mulligan on this one. Charlie snorted in derision (she was after all the sectional champion in regional qualifying for the Ladies USGA three years running), but Karl looked concerned for a moment, and then said, "I'm placing you under arrest." Saying this, he took out his hand cuffs and placed them around the golfer. Charlie looked confused, and Karl explained. "It's very simple," he said, "basically, he ran ahead of his group after 'losing' his ball in the trees on the sixteenth, and murdered the group ahead of his own with the rake, which, you will notice, is incorrectly placed inside the bunker!"

Charlie grasped Karl's intent immediately, and she said, "Oh, I see it. Hmm."

Doug, who had been negotiating the purchase of a hot dog from the green's attendant while all this was occurring, came up the group just as some mustard was beginning to fall onto his shirt. "So what happened?" he asked, "have you apprehended the killer? Was anyone hurt? Who is the lead investigator here?"

Karl and Charlie exchanged disgusted looks, and walked back to Charlie's 1999 Crown Victoria, dragging the golfer between them, who was crying piteously. Karl just said, "Really? They provoked you with a seven iron? Tell it to the judge." Charlie laughed a cold, dark laugh that made shivers go down everyone's spine, and made mustard go up Doug's (who had been hurrying to catch up) nose. "Really?" said Charlie, "a mashie niblick on a 3 par 218? A likely story."