by Tom Turner
“And what was the other man’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
Crawford frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”
Kathleen shook her head. “Nope. I asked her, and she just said he was handsome, smart, funny, and—”
“Let me guess, married?”
Kathleen pointed a finger at Crawford. “Yes, unfortunately. I also know he wasn’t from around here. I got a feeling he was from up north.”
Crawford shrugged. “So, maybe here on business?”
“Maybe. I just don’t know.”
“So, back to Jack Marin? She just broke it off and that was the end of it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Well, she broke it off, but that definitely wasn’t the end of it.”
“Why, what happened?”
“She told me he followed her around. Like one time she looked out the window of her apartment and saw him parked in his car. Another time he followed her to her gym. Stalker-type stuff.”
Suddenly, Jack Marin was taking on special interest to Crawford. So was the married man.
“So, Marin lives here?”
Kathleen nodded. “Yeah, up in Zephyrhills.”
“Where’s that?”
“North of here,” Malchoff said.
Crawford nodded. “This is all very helpful, Kathleen. I really appreciate it. Anything else you can think of?”
“No, that’s about all … except, boy do I miss her. Sorry, I can’t help you with the other man’s name.”
“That’s okay,” Crawford said. “Is there anybody else, another friend of Grace’s maybe, who might know the name of the second man?”
“I’m not sure,” Kathleen said. “You could try Natalie Weir. Grace may have told her. They’ve been friends for a really long time.”
“Natalie … how do you spell the last name?”
“W-e-i-r. She works at Anderson Insurance here in town.”
“Thanks, and what about Jack Marin. Do you know where he works?”
Kathleen put her hand on her chin, then smiled. “Pretty sure he does what you do.”
Crawford’s eyes widened. “A detective, you mean?”
“Yes, except not for the police. A private investigator, I’m pretty sure. I know he works a lot at night because Grace told me once they had a hard time getting together sometimes.”
Crawford had a silent chuckle: there were getting to be enough investigators for a convention. “Thank you. Again, that’s very helpful. You don’t happen to know the name of the agency where he works?”
“No, sorry.”
“Well, I really appreciate everything,” Crawford said.
Kathleen got to her feet. “You’re very welcome.”
Crawford reached for his wallet, took out a card, and handed it to her. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”
“I sure will.”
“Thanks, Kath,” Malchoff said as she walked past him.
“Anytime.”
“I’m really glad I spoke to her,” Crawford said. “I’m thinking while I’m here, I’ll pay a visit to Jack Marin.”
“You want to use a computer? Look up where he lives?” Malchoff asked.
“Thanks,” Crawford said, holding up his iPhone. “Got an app here that oughta tell me.”
Crawford had just called Ott and caught him up on his meeting with Kevin Malchoff and Kathleen Esposito.
“Sounds like it was worth the drive,” Ott said. “Unlike mine with Jennifer Atwood. ’Course, that was only a three-minute drive.”
“Why, what did she have to say?”
“Had no clue who the strippers were. Said they were a birthday present from Lord Sunderland. And she seemed to think Harlan Brody is out to get Asher Bard for political reasons.”
“So that was all you got?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“I got a date.”
“All right! Nice work.”
“In a couple of days. I told her I was pretty busy at the moment.”
“Attaboy. Playing hard to get.”
Ott chuckled. “You headed back now?”
“No. I figured I’d go have a talk with Grace Spooner’s ex-boyfriend.”
“Where’s he?”
“Some place called Zephyrhills. You’ve got two more interviews this afternoon, right? Guys at Bard’s party.”
“Affirmative.”
“Ah, Mort … love it when you talk cop-talk.”
14
Crawford hit the clicker and slid into his Crown Vic, which was parked in the underground garage at the Bank of America Plaza building. Then he took his iPhone out of his pocket while reaching for his wallet. Quinn Casey had given him a card when they first met in Crawford’s office. He pulled it out, saw the number, and dialed it.
“Don’t tell me, you got the killer behind bars?”
Quinn Casey seemed typical of many New Yorkers, who answered their phones with a question or a statement because they were too busy for “hello” and “goodbye.”
“No such luck,” Crawford said. “I have a question for you. Actually two.”
“Shoot.”
“The first one is, in your conversations with Grace Spooner, did she ever tell you about when she was a teenager living in a place for quote-unquote emotionally troubled teens, called Cedar Knolls?”
“Sure did. Sounded like a place that if you had problems, it would only make ’em worse.”
“And did she mention two brothers who lured some of the girls out of the place to have sex with johns?”
Casey fell uncharacteristically silent.
“You there?” Crawford asked.
“Is this totally confidential?”
“Totally. Having loose lips in my business is a big negative.”
“Okay, those two brothers were going to be key players in my article. Their names are Frank and Johnnie Begay. Grace Spooner was going to tell me all about them at breakfast the other day. But, obviously, that never happened.”
“But she’d mentioned them before?”
“In broad terms. Just that they were basically pimps who preyed on girls at places like Cedar Knolls in Jupiter. She mentioned she heard they got arrested and charged once, but they got off.”
“For what?”
“She wasn’t sure, so I looked it up. Lewd and lascivious battery, but like I said, they got off.”
“And a lot of these girls were really young, right?”
“Yeah, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.”
“You have any idea where these brothers are now?”
“Sure do. Johnnie and Frank are the proprietors of a quaint little spot called Puss in Boots.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Come on, Detective, you playing dumb? A strip club over in West Palm.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Then you haven’t lived,” Quinn said. “I think that place may be a side hustle to make ’em look quasi-legit while they still run women. Or teenagers, as the case may be.”
“Okay, so now my second question: I interviewed a guy, friend of Asher Bard, who told me Bard is the money behind a chain of non-profit rehab centers on the east coast. For troubled kids, supposedly. I’m just wondering if—”
“Holy shit, Charlie, you’re a better investigative reporter than me,” Casey said. “So, you’re thinking Cedar Knolls is one of them and that was the Grace Spooner-Asher Bard connection.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Crawford said. “I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.”
“Tell you what, I’ll do the legwork on that one. After all, you served up this scenario on a silver platter. It’s the least I can do.”
“All right, let me know,” Crawford said. “You’ll appreciate this … Bard apparently got some humanitarian-of-the-year award for his support and charity toward emotionally troubled teens.”
Quinn laughed. “What a scumbag.”
“Yeah … couldn’t’ve said it better m
yself.”
15
On the drive up to Zephyrhills, Crawford got the number of Anderson Insurance, workplace of Natalie Weir, the friend of Grace Spooner that Kathleen Esposito had mentioned. He got her voicemail and left her a message asking her to call.
It was three thirty when Crawford got to Jack Marin’s house at 6565 Paden Wheel Street in Zephyrhills. The town with the funny name apparently had funny-sounding street names, too.
Parked in the driveway of the Paden Wheel Street address was a tricked-out black Chevy Silverado with big wheels. Its cab was way off the ground, and it looked to Crawford like you’d need a ladder to get up to it. He pulled in behind it and got out.
It was a nice neighborhood, the kind where all the houses look the same except for different paint colors. Like most of the buildings in Tampa, the house looked fairly new.
He walked up and pushed the doorbell.
He could hear a TV inside. A few moments later a man opened the door. He looked to be around thirty, had a Fu Manchu with flecks of gray, and was wearing sunglasses.
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you Jack Marin?”
“Who wants to know?”
Crawford hated that response. It was so passive-aggressive.
“My name is Crawford. I’m a detective from Palm Beach.”
“Okay, and what do you want?”
“I’m investigating a murder and have reason to believe you knew the victim”—Marin’s eyes started blinking—“Grace Spooner.”
Marin lowered his voice and looked down. “Yeah, I definitely knew Grace.”
“You mind if I come in? Ask you a few questions?”
“Yeah, all right.” Marin turned and walked into a living room.
The house was light on furniture but had the biggest flat screen Crawford had ever seen. On it was a women’s tennis match. There was something incongruous about this big guy with a Fu Manchu, a former soldier from Afghanistan, now a P.I. with a macho truck, watching a women’s tennis tournament.
Marin went over to a table, picked up the clicker, and clicked off the TV. “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to a couch facing a beige recliner.
Crawford sat down as Marin took a seat in the recliner.
“I was told you went out with Grace for a while.”
Marin nodded. “Yeah, I did. About a year.”
“So, you know what happened to her?”
Marin nodded.
“How’d you find out?”
“I got a brother in Port St. Lucie. He saw it on the news—” Marin let out a long sigh and slumped in his recliner. “Guess I expected someone to come around sooner or later. This was just a little sooner than I expected.”
“So, being a P.I., you know what the first question I’m going to ask you is, right?”
“Yup. Where was I the night she got killed?”
“You got it. So, where were you?”
“Hey, man, I loved that woman. The last thing I’d ever do—”
“Where were you, Jack?”
Marin sighed. “I was actually down in your neck of the woods.”
“What were you doing?”
He broke eye contact and glanced at the blank flat screen. “I wanted to know who she was seeing.”
“Why? You two had broken up.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to get back together with her.”
Crawford rubbed his forehead. “Did you think the way to do that was to dog her all over the state of Florida?”
“Who said—”
“I heard from someone you had been following her around, and you just admitted it.” Crawford leaned closer. “Where were you between ten and twelve that night, Jack?”
“I was on the road back here. Got in a little before one.”
Crawford tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch. “Okay, let’s back up. So, you followed Grace down from her place in Tampa to The Colony Hotel?”
“No, this other hotel. The Chesterfield.”
“What do you mean, ‘the Chesterfield?’ She was staying at The Colony.”
“I’m telling you, she went to that place, the Chesterfield, first. Checked in at around two in the afternoon, but then checked out around five and went to The Colony.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Beats the hell out of me, but she did.”
“So, she ends up paying for both places?”
Marin shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I don’t get it,” Crawford said. “So, you were tailing her all this time?”
Marin nodded.
Crawford shook his head. “I don’t get that hotel change at all,” he said again.
Marin shrugged again. “Neither did I.”
“We were told that at around seven o’clock, she got picked up by someone”—Crawford suddenly wondered if it might have been Marin himself—“probably a man, in front of The Colony, and they went somewhere. Dinner, I assume. So, where’d she go, Jack? You were there. And I need you to describe the guy at the wheel.”
Marin’s red face got redder. “Can’t help you with that.”
“What do you mean? You were there,” Crawford said again.
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t. I was starved. Went to Burger King at around six forty-five.”
“Great timing,” Crawford muttered. “You didn’t see her when she came back?”
“I nodded off for a while in the car.”
Crawford shook his head. “Jesus, Jack, how’s this P.I. job working out for you, anyway?”
Marin looked offended. “Just fine. Gotta eat, gotta sleep, you know.”
“Yeah, but your timing really sucks,” Crawford said. “So, you came back to The Colony and nodded off. Then what?”
“At around ten o’clock I headed back here. Nothing more I could do.”
Crawford nodded. “Got any proof of that? Buy gas along the way or anything?”
Marin sighed. “You’re really looking at me as a suspect?”
“You and everyone else in the state of Florida.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“Prove to me you took off from Palm Beach at ten.”
“Listen, man—” Marin’s gaze fell to the floor. Crawford heard bottled-up emotion in the two words. Marin cleared his throat. “I loved that woman. All I wanted to do was get her back. I just didn’t know how to do it.”
If he was acting, he was good. His voice brimmed with pain, regret, and sincerity.
Crawford got to his feet and reached for his wallet. “All right, you have any ideas you think might be helpful, call me.” He handed Marin a card. “Meantime, I’ll let you know when we get something.”
Marin was on his feet. “I appreciate it.” He walked over to Crawford and shook his hand.
Crawford gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Well, I guess you can go back to your tennis match now.”
16
Crawford got into the Crown Vic and right away his iPhone rang. It said Quinn Casey on caller ID.
“Hi, Quinn, what’s up?”
“Man, you called it,” Casey said. “Asher Bard’s dirty hands are all over those rehab centers. There’re thirty-one of them from New York down to Miami. And they may be non-profits, but Bard sure as hell gets something out of them.”
“Meaning girls.”
“Your words, not mine,” Casey said.
“So, I’m adding the Begay brothers to my suspect list, along with Bard—”
“— and a couple dozen others you’re not telling me about.”
“Hey, a guy’s gotta have some secrets.”
Crawford drove from Zephyrhills to the Puss in Boots strip club in West Palm in a little under three hours. He tried Grace Spooner’s friend Natalie Weir again but, as before, only got her voicemail. He arrived at the Puss in Boots at seven forty-five. Its address was 31245 Zip Code Place and the location was, at best, sketchy. But what would you expect with that address? It wasn’t exactly Worth Avenue. What it was, was a combination of indus
trial buildings and low-end housing. He got out of the Vic and walked to the front.
A big guy dressed all in black with weightlifter muscles and a shaved head stood just inside the door.
“Welcome to the Puss,” he said in a lifeless monotone. “Ten bucks.”
Crawford wondered how he’d explain this on his expense sheet.
He handed the guy a ten-dollar bill. “Receipt, please.”
The guy looked at him funny. “You fuckin’ kiddin’ me?”
“No, boss makes me account for every penny.”
The guy shook his head and brushed him along. “Whatever.”
It was dark inside. Straight ahead was a large four-sided bar being worked by two female bartenders. In the middle of the bar was a stage with a woman, naked except for a leather g-string and motorcycle boots, dancing robotically to a rap song. She was a bleached-blonde and clearly had some mileage on her. Along with a hundred tattoos. The old expression “ridden hard and put up wet” occurred to Crawford.
Crawford walked over to an empty bar stool and sat down, trying to act like he was a regular.
One of the bartenders meandered over. “Hey, honey, what can I getcha?”
He smiled at her. She reminded him of Miss Polly, his old Sunday school teacher, except with nicotine-stained teeth and a stud in her nose. “A 7-Up, please.”
“Sorry, we don’t carry that,” she said. “I’m kidding … That’s really what you want?”
Seemed she was challenging his manhood. “A seven and seven is what I meant.”
“That’s more like it, tiger,” she said, turning to make the drink.
He felt a touch on his shoulder and turned around. “You’re cute,” said a tall, skinny brunette, her arms sleeved in tats. She was topless and had a bikini bottom and fake brown alligator boots. “Wanna go to the back room?”
Crawford had no idea how to respond to that. “Ah, what goes on back there?”
“Anything you want, cowboy.”
Crawford cocked his head. “Cowboy, I like that.”
He wondered if everyone there was going to give him a nickname.