Palm Beach Bedlam

by Tom Turner

  Crawford had first met Balfour when he went to his house to question him about a woman—well, actually a high-class prostitute—who Balfour knew and who had died, horrifically, from snake bites suffered while skinny-dipping in a pool on Barton Avenue.

  Even though Crawford had arrived in the role of a cop asking tough questions, the two hit it off almost immediately. Balfour was clearly a rich and pampered patrician. One quick glance was all you needed. The perfect part of his hair, the confident smile, the stylish Maus & Hoffman silk sport shirt, the Belgian suede shoes with cute little bows. Normally, those things would be a turnoff to Crawford. But he liked Balfour’s easygoing, unpretentious, self-effacing manner and the fact that he didn’t seem to take himself too seriously. Self-absorption was a condition Crawford had observed in many Palm Beach men, but not in Balfour.

  Balfour seemed to like him, too. Crawford didn’t know why, but he suspected Balfour felt they shared some personality traits, not to mention interests. They’d played golf a couple of times at Balfour’s private club, the Poinciana—which was a far cry from Crawford’s public course, the scruffy par-three down at the south end. They both were big fans of the New York Giants football team and had commiserated through the last few seasons of sub-par performance. In fact, Balfour still had Crawford over for the occasional Giants night game, during which they both favored the same beer: Sierra Nevada Torpedo.

  A few days ago, Crawford had been given a warning about the shaky state of Balfour’s marriage when Balfour told him on the phone that things were “pretty rocky” with Missy.

  “It’s over,” his latest pronouncement, was a whole lot more conclusive, if not completely shocking. Balfour had already admitted to Crawford that his relatively short engagement with Missy might have been due to his rebound from a failed relationship with a woman named Brie Ackerman, who he had been madly in love with. Turned out, though, Brie was having an affair while ostensibly dating Balfour. But … that was another story.

  Crawford parked and pressed the buzzer of Balfour’s two-story Georgian.

  A few moments later, Balfour opened the door. “Thanking for coming,” he said in an uncharacteristically dead monotone.

  “You all right, man?”

  Balfour rolled his eyes. “I’ve been better. Come on in.”

  Balfour turned and walked—shuffled was more like it—through his living room into his library. Balfour was way too young to be shuffling, Crawford thought, but kept that to himself. Balfour sat down in his big leather chair, Crawford opposite him.

  “I don’t get it,” Balfour started out.

  “What?”

  “Why women have affairs behind my back,” Balfour said. “I must suck as a lover.”

  Crawford smiled. “Missy was? Having an affair?”

  “Yup. Apparently, she met some struggling artist … and now wants to live in squalor in West Palm.”

  “That’s the place to do it,” Crawford said. He, too, lived in West Palm, not in squalor, but not exactly high on the hog either.

  “This is not real good on my ego, Charlie,” Balfour said, shaking his head dolefully. “What am I going to do?”

  “Jesus, man. It seems like you two were just walking down the aisle five minutes ago.”

  Balfour patted the arm of his chair. “I know. I just keep wondering what I did wrong.”

  “I doubt you did anything wrong. It was just”—he started to say “one of those things” but felt he could do better—“not meant to be, maybe.”

  He wasn’t sure that was much better.

  He looked around the library. The same place they watched the Giants lose Sunday after Sunday. A space that had more athletic trophies than books.

  “So, I just got served,” Balfour said. “This lowlife process server. Looked like someone out of The Walking Dead.”

  Crawford chuckled, conjuring up a mental image. “So, you got a good lawyer?”

  “Yeah, but she’s got a better one. This ballbuster from New York.”

  “A woman?”

  “No, a she-devil,” Balfour said. “Can we not talk about it anymore?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did you call me about anyway?”

  Crawford leaned forward in his chair. “Oh, yeah. Rose told me you know Asher Bard. What can you tell me about him?”

  No hesitation. “That’s easy: he’s a sleazy lowlife and one of the richest guys in Palm Beach. Used to be a friend of mine, until he showed his true colors. Why?”

  “There was a murder early this morning. A woman who was one of his underage victims ten years ago.”

  Balfour sat up straight. “No shit. What happened?”

  “It was pretty grisly. She got stabbed a bunch of times then got tossed from the penthouse terrace at The Colony. Her tongue was cut out, too.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s terrible.”

  “Can you see Bard doing something like that?”

  Balfour sighed and thought for a moment. “Personally, no. But if she was going to, as you guys would say, rat him out, who knows?”

  “She was.”

  “Really?”

  Crawford nodded. “So I’m led to believe.”

  Balfour shook his head slowly. “Cut her tongue out … Jesus, how sick is that?”

  There was clearly unanimity on that.

  “I was invited to his sixtieth birthday party last night,” Balfour said. “No way in hell I’d ever go, though.”

  “Where was the party?” Crawford asked. “His house?”

  A pause, like Balfour was trying to remember. “No, come to think of it, it was at The Colony.”

  5

  After leaving David Balfour’s house, Crawford went straight to Ott’s cubicle.

  Ott, typing something on his computer, looked up. “What’s up?”

  “Guess where Asher Bard was last night?”

  “Girl Scout meeting?”

  “How ’bout his sixtieth birthday party at The Colony?”

  “You gotta be—”

  “Nope. David Balfour told me, and I just called The Colony. They said Bard rented out the entire restaurant there. The CPB. Even though there were only about twenty people who came.”

  Ott put his feet up on his desk. “Why so few?”

  “I’m guessing he’s not the most popular guy in Palm Beach,” Crawford said. “Did you try him again? The birthday boy.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got three calls into him. Nothing back.”

  “All right, let’s wait an hour, and if we haven’t heard from him, just show up on his doorstep.”

  “What about that guy at his house? The guy Quinn Casey told us about? Tyrell,” Ott said.

  “You can handle him.”

  Asher Bard did not call back in the next hour, so Ott tried him again.

  No luck.

  He walked down to Crawford’s office. Crawford was on a call. He had been trying to locate Grace Spooner’s next of kin. From what they could tell, there was no mother or father in the picture. Which made sense, given Casey’s account of her teen homelessness.

  Someone at her PR firm said she had a sister in Palm City whose last name was Henderson, and Crawford was trying to track her down. So far, unsuccessfully.

  Crawford looked up when Ott walked in. “No call back from Bard?”

  Ott shook his head. “Let’s go break the guy’s door down.”

  Asher Bard had a house at the end of Ocean Lane. It looked to be on at least two lots, maybe three, and was huge. Crawford was surprised they could drive right up to it, that it had no gate or, as was the case with some Palm Beach houses, a gatehouse manned by someone whose job it was to stop anyone who wasn’t friends or family or driving a Rolls.

  Ott, who was at the wheel as usual, drove right up to the oversized front door and parked in front of it.

  Crawford pointed. “They do have a parking court, you know.”

  “Screw that. I like to save shoe leather.”

  They walked up the steps to a landing th
at had big marble columns on either side of the front door. Ott hit the buzzer.

  Nothing. He leaned forward to press the buzzer again just as the door opened.

  It was a large African-American man who had a flattop you could land a drone on and biceps that resembled the house’s stone columns.

  “Tyrell?” Ott asked.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  Another large African-American man came up behind him. Not as tall but just as wide.

  “We’re detectives,” Crawford said, flashing his ID. “Palm Beach Police.” Then to the other man, “And you are?”

  “His brother, Darnell,” the man said with a smile.

  Crawford nodded. “We need to talk to Mr. Bard.”

  “Sorry, man, not here,” Tyrell said.

  “Where is he?” Crawford asked.

  “Halfway to Costa Rica. In his plane.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  Tyrell shrugged. “I’d say ‘whatever he feels like,’ but you probably wouldn’t think that was a satisfactory answer.”

  “You’re right. What’s he doing there?” Crawford asked again.

  “Just a little golf vacation. He’ll be back in three days.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Couple hours ago. Why, what you want him for?”

  Ott stepped in front of Tyrell. “We’re asking the questions here, Tyrell. Who went with him?”

  Tyrell’s wide smile revealed a large diamond stud in his tongue. “Well, tough guy, I don’t know the answer to that. You’ll have to ask his assistant, Jennifer.”

  “How do we contact her?”

  “The office. 350 Royal Palm Way. Jennifer Atwood.”

  “Thank you, Tyrell,” Ott said.

  “You’re very welcome, Detective. Got any more questions?”

  Ott glanced over at Crawford, who shrugged.

  “Just one,” Ott said.

  “Well, fire away.”

  “Y’ ever get food stuck on that diamond?”

  Ott was pulling out of Asher Bard’s driveway. “Costa Rica’s a long way to go to play golf.”

  “Sure is.”

  “So, what was your first thought when he said Bard had gone there?”

  Crawford was tapping his fingers on the console. “Probably same as you.”

  “What?”

  “Sex.”

  Ott nodded. “Yup, exactly what I was thinking.”

  “What else is going through that brilliant analytical mind of yours, Mort?”

  “I was just thinking of Ward Jaynes.”

  “Huh?”

  “This reminds me of him.”

  Crawford flashed back to their first case together in Palm Beach. Ward Jaynes was a billionaire Wall Street tycoon who also had a thing for young girls. One in particular. Whose brother Jaynes ended up killing because he was trying to extort a million dollars from him. Jaynes was ruthless and diabolical, and it took them a long time to take him down, but eventually they did.

  “I know what you mean,” Crawford said. “So, if we play this right, maybe Bard ends up Jaynes’s roommate in prison.”

  Ott smiled and nodded.

  “Could be wishful thinking, though, since we got a long way to go,” Crawford said. “I remember my brother telling me about Costa Rica.”

  “Your rich brother?”

  “Yeah, he went there once. He liked it and was thinking about buying a house.”

  “What happened?”

  “Told me he got turned off after seeing a bunch of old American guys with young Costa Rican girls.”

  “Your brother’s got class.”

  Crawford nodded wistfully. “Yeah, if only he could knock off the booze.”

  Ott took a left instead of going straight to the station. He parked in front of 350 Royal Palm Way. They got out and took the elevator up to the second floor.

  It turned out Jennifer Atwood was Asher Bard’s only employee.

  “His main office is up in New York,” Jennifer explained as they faced her in the tidy office. “He uses this when he’s down here on weekends and vacations.”

  “He flies down on weekends?” Crawford asked.

  Her office had a distant view of the Society of the Four Arts building and its garden beyond. Jennifer was a short woman in her forties who had a nice smile and pretty brown eyes.

  “Yes, comes down almost every weekend. Except in the summer.”

  “Probably has a place in the Hamptons for then, huh?” Ott said.

  Crawford turned to his partner, surprised. How did a cop from Cleveland and the son of a locker room attendant even know about the Hamptons? He saw Ott was checking out her left hand. For a ring, was his guess.

  “No, actually Nantucket,” Jennifer said.

  The other place captains of industry summered, Crawford knew.

  “Must be nice,” Ott said. “What kind of plane does he have?”

  “A Cessna Citation X. Goes about seven hundred miles an hour.”

  “So”—Ott did the math—“takes him about an hour and a half to get down here?”

  “Yes, well, not door to door. He’s in the air that long, though.”

  “I imagine some people in New York have commutes that long,” Ott said.

  “I guess that’s true. I’ve never lived up there,” she said with a bright smile.

  “Ms. Atwood,” Crawford said. “We are looking into that murder that took place at The Colony Hotel. I’m sure you’ve heard about it by now—”

  She nodded. “That was so horrible.”

  “Yes, and we know your boss had a birthday party there last night.”

  “Yes, but you don’t think—”

  “We don’t think anything at this point. We’re just talking to a lot of people and asking a lot of questions. Since Mr. Bard and his group were there where it happened, naturally we want to talk to him and the others. Do you have the guest list for the birthday party?”

  “I sure do,” Jennifer said, reaching into a desk drawer. “It was not a very large group.”

  She handed Crawford two pieces of paper. “The ones with checks next to their names came. Or accepted, at least. The others … had other plans, I guess.”

  Or like David Balfour, didn’t want anything to do with Asher Bard.

  Crawford scanned the list. By his unofficial calculation, one in every three invited had accepted.

  “So, it looks to be about twenty,” Crawford said.

  “Another question.” It was Ott’s turn. “How many went to Costa Rica with him?”

  “Well, that I don’t need a list for. There were three other men.”

  “And they were going there for … what reason?”

  “A golf trip. Apparently, there’re some really good golf courses in Costa Rica.”

  “Is that right?” Ott said. “And who were they, the men who went with him?”

  “Well, there was Joe Mitchell, Ainslie Sunderland, and Jerry Reposo.”

  Ott wrote the names down in his old leather notebook. Joseph Mitchell was the lawyer and author Quinn Casey had mentioned as a frequent interviewee on Fox News about legal matters. Ainslie Sunderland was an English lord who had become well known because his daughter had just married into the royal family. Jerry Reposo was an unfamiliar name.

  “They’re all good friends of Mr. Bard,” Jennifer said.

  “And I see all of them went to his birthday party, too,” Crawford said, scanning the list. He noticed the ex-senator Quinn Casey had mentioned was not on the birthday list, either as an invitee or an attendee. He must have been told by his wife to clean up his act.

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So, did you make reservations for Mr. Bard and his friends at golf courses in Costa Rica?” Ott asked.

  She glanced out the window then turned and shot Ott a smile. “Ah, no. Actually, I didn’t. He did that.”

  “Is that the kind of thing he usually does?” Ott asked.

  “No.” She shifted in her chair. “Usual
ly I do.”

  Ott smiled at her. “Just not this time, huh?”

  She smiled back at him. “Exactly.”

  “And I assume Mr. Bard belongs to a golf club around here,” Crawford asked. “The Poinciana, maybe?”

  “No, Seminole up in Juno Beach.”

  Crawford nodded, then thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t have any more questions”—glancing at Ott—“how about you?”

  “Just curious,” Ott said, “have I maybe seen you at St. Edward Church, by any chance?”

  That was about the last question Crawford expected to come out of his partner’s mouth.

  “Ah, no. I go to St. Ann’s,” Jennifer said.

  Ott nodded and smiled.

  Crawford got to his feet. “Well, thank you so much for meeting with us, Ms. Atwood.”

  “Yes, we really appreciate it,” Ott said, shaking her hand with both hands. “Especially it being spur of the moment and all.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Jennifer said. “So nice to meet you both.” Crawford could have sworn she winked at Ott.

  Crawford waited until they got to the elevator. “She winked at you, didn’t she?”

  Ott’s face went crimson. “You’re seeing things, my friend.”

  Crawford shook his head and laughed. “I don’t think so,” he said. “And what was that thing about the churches?”

  “I just noticed the cross she was wearing.”

  “So, let me guess: You figured you’d let her know you were a good God-fearing, church-going man? That it, Mort?”

  Ott shrugged. “Never hurts.”

  “You’re hopeless,” Crawford said. “I bet the last time you went to church was back in Cleveland.”

  “Not true. Remember when we went to church on the Palmer-sisters case?”