Palm Beach Bedlam

by Tom Turner

  That sounded a little lame, not to mention the first part of the conversation would be him breaking the news about Bard’s death. He figured some of them might have gotten the word before he called, because bad news traveled faster than a speeding locomotive in Palm Beach. But most probably wouldn’t have heard yet.

  It occurred to him that he needed to listen very carefully to people’s reactions when he broke the news about Bard’s murder. Because it just might be that one of them was the killer. But then, it didn’t seem to matter much, because all he was getting was answering machines.

  Finally, on his fifth call—to Roddy Sproul—he got a live human being.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Sproul, it’s Detective Crawford. Have you heard about Asher Bard?”

  “No, what happened?”

  “Sorry to have to tell you, but he was murdered.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s terrible. How?”

  That would be the first thing anyone would want to know, but Crawford had no intention of going into great detail. He wanted to keep it vague.

  “It took place on his boat. My question to you is, did he ever mention anyone who may have threatened him, or maybe someone he had a grudge against. Or someone he was scared of?”

  Sproul didn’t answer for a few moments. Then: “Well, that’s not usually something guys talk about except maybe with their best friend, and I wasn’t his best friend. But I do remember something. About a week ago on the golf course, I overheard him say something to Joe Mitchell about someone out to get him, and he was going to turn the tables on him.”

  “Get him for what?”

  “I don’t know. I just kind of heard the tail end of the conversation.”

  “And who was he talking about?”

  “I don’t know that either. You gotta talk to Joe.”

  This was a good lead. “Thank you, that’s helpful. And I also need to ask you where you were between the hours of twelve thirty and one forty-five this afternoon.”

  Sproul laughed. “You gotta ask what you gotta ask, I guess. I just finished up a long, slow eighteen at Poinciana. Want to know who I played with?”

  “No. You’re pretty low on my suspect list.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  A few minutes later Lord Sunderland called back, breathless.

  “I know why you called. I just heard about Asher.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Just that he was killed on the Mandalay.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

  “Absolutely none. I mean, I guess the poor man had enemies, like a lot of men in high places, but there’s no one I can possibly think of who’d do something like that to him.”

  “So, you heard how it happened?”

  “He was beaten to death on his boat is what I heard.”

  “Okay. I’m asking everyone I talk to this: Where were you between twelve thirty and one forty-five this afternoon?”

  “I was, well, I was visiting a friend.”

  “And who was your friend?”

  Long hesitation. “I’d rather not say.”

  “I’d rather you did.”

  “She’s married.”

  “She’s also your alibi.”

  “Stephanie Saint Germaine.”

  The name meant nothing to Crawford. “I’ll need her number.”

  Deep sigh. “Oh, God.” Reluctantly, he recited a New York-area phone number.

  “Thank you.”

  “I wish I could say you’re welcome.”

  He heard the familiar steps of Ott, who walked in and plopped himself down in “his” chair.

  “Anything?” Crawford asked.

  “Nah. I scoured the boat. Nothing. But what occurred to me is that it didn’t make sense, Bard giving a tour of the boat to a guy he just said ‘I got you cold’ to.”

  “You left out ‘motherfucker.’”

  “I’m trying to clean up my act for my date with Jennifer Atwood,” Ott said. “But seriously, did you think about that, why they were wandering around the boat?”

  Crawford nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

  “I mean, what were Bard and the killer doing in the gym?”

  Crawford shrugged. “Good question.” Ott shrugged back. “You know who I came up with as a suspect?”

  “Who?” Ott asked.

  “Harlan Brody.”

  Ott lurched forward in his chair. “Holy shit, never thought about him.”

  “Motive, right? Bard set back his career five years.”

  Ott was nodding vigorously. “Yeah, embarrassed the shit out of him, too. Made him a laughingstock.”

  Crawford nodded. “Guys don’t forget stuff like that.”

  “Or forgive.”

  “I’m putting myself in Brody’s shoes. He’s been waiting a long time to nail Bard, then star witness Grace Spooner gets murdered and kills his case. It’s pretty extreme, but maybe he’s thinking, it’s time to take the law into my own hands.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Crawford stroked his cheek. “The question is, how do we approach the guy? It’s not like we drop by his office and say, ‘So, Mr. State Attorney, we know Asher Bard was high on your shit list. Did you kill him?’”

  Ott laughed. “We could say, ‘Excuse us, sir, but did you have any role in bringing about the demise of Asher Bard?’ Sounds better.”

  Crawford smiled. “Seriously, I’ve been thinking about it and don’t have a clue how to approach it.”

  “Maybe we talk to Rutledge,” Ott said, referring to their chief.

  “Yeah, let him question Brody.”

  “I don’t know, man, can you see him doing that?”

  “Not really,” Crawford said. “Oh, before I forget, Roddy Sproul, the golfer, told me how a week ago on the golf course, Bard said something to Joe Mitchell about someone out to get him. How he was going to ‘turn the tables’ on the guy.”

  “That’s interesting. I better circle back to Mitchell. Hey, what about Mitchell as the doer?”

  “I don’t know, you know him better than me. What do you think?”

  Ott shrugged. “Guy’s kinda murky, but I’m not sure I see him swingin’ a forty-five-pound kettlebell.”

  Crawford looked at his watch. It was six fifteen. “Well, whatever we’re gonna do, it can wait ’til tomorrow.”

  “What are you gonna do now?”

  “I got a couple more hours’ worth of calls to make.”

  “Why don’t you give me half of ’em.”

  “Okay, but don’t you have a hot date with Jennifer Atwood?”

  Ott smiled broadly. “Tuesday night.”

  26

  Crawford went to the gym every other morning. Usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. His gym, called Ultima Fitness Performance—formerly just plain Ultima—had moved from Clematis Street to the less convenient fourth floor at 625 North Flagler. They had cut back on their hours, too, so it was not only less convenient now but also open less often. Still, Crawford liked the trainers and was a creature of habit, so for at least the foreseeable future it would remain his gym. He usually got there right around seven and did a nonstop fifty-minute workout, which allowed him to get to the station by eight or a little after.

  He was doing his ten minutes of stretching, which preceded weight training and aerobics, when he heard a voice above and behind him. “Sure beats that two-thousand-calorie breakfast at Green’s.”

  He turned to see The New Yorker reporter, Quinn Casey.

  “You still hanging around down here?”

  “Yeah, especially now, after what happened yesterday,” Casey said. “I was hoping to catch you here.”

  Crawford held up a hand. “Sorry, but I don’t have time for a million questions.”

  “Okay, but do you have time for information that might help in your investigation of Asher Bard’s murder?”

  “You have something?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Tell you what, I�
��ll buy you one of those fancy waters after my workout”—he pointed to where a few metal-top tables were set up—“and we can sit over there.”

  Casey nodded. “Sounds good. Now let’s see you sweat out those sausages from the other day.”

  Crawford smiled and got back to work.

  A half hour later, both still sweating a little, even after showers, Crawford and Casey sat down, expensive non-alcoholic drinks in front of them.

  Crawford wiped his brow with a towel. “So, whatcha got, Quinn?”

  “I got nothing but speculation.”

  “Which, as you know, is usually pretty worthless.”

  “It may be, but if I was going after a suspect, the guy I’m going to tell you about would be top of my list.”

  Crawford nodded. “Who and why?”

  “Khalid Al-Ansani and a hundred reasons why. No, actually, forty million reasons why.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  “We talked a while back. Fact is, I’d never even heard of him until a little while ago.”

  Casey took a sip of his drink. “Well, when they came up with that old cliché ‘he knows where the bodies are buried,’ my guess is they were talking about Khalid. Maybe because he was the one doing the actual burying.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Word was that, early on in his nefarious career, some of his business rivals would just vanish—poof, gone. I heard they found one of ’em out in the desert outside of Riyadh getting picked at by vultures. There were a lot of other things that were rumored, not all of them substantiated. Probably plenty of bullshit thrown in, too.”

  “Sounds like you know a lot about the man.”

  “I’ll give you a little taste ... you in a big hurry to get back to your office?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Well, I won’t drag it out too long,” Casey said. “So, anyway, Al-Ansani starts doing deals, like, in the first grade, practically.”

  “What do you mean? What kinds of deals?”

  “I got ’em all catalogued in my office up north. He went to some fancy private school somewhere—Switzerland, I think—and, so the story goes, had a Libyan classmate whose father wanted to import towels. So Khalid found an Egyptian classmate whose father manufactured them. And just like that, he’s off to the races. Next thing you know he hears about some big construction company who’s got these trucks that have traction problems in the desert sand. So, he gets his father to lend him some money and buys a bunch of trucks with really big wheels. He’s, like, twenty-one at the time.”

  “When I was twenty-one, all I cared about was beer and babes.”

  “Me, too,” Casey said. “Then he steps up in class and somehow gets an in with Lockheed—you know, the aircraft company—and next thing you know, he’s selling fighter jets to the Saudi Arabian government one minute, then to Iran the next. So, by 1990, age, like, thirty or thirty-two, he’s a bona fide billionaire. But then, ten years later, because maybe he’s not minding the store the way he should—with all the wives and mistresses and yachts and mansions all over the world—he hits a bad patch. A couple of bankruptcies, the French government puts him under house arrest in Paris for something, a scandal here, a financial bust there.”

  “Wow, man’s got a hell of a history. But, on the surface anyway, it appears he and Bard were friends. I mean, back when that scandal about the young girls was taking place, they were both knee-deep in it. Then he has him over for his birthday bash …”

  “Appearances, man. Hey, Hillary Clinton went to Donald Trump’s wedding.”

  Crawford shrugged. “That’s true.”

  “But here are the facts. You ready?”

  Crawford nodded.

  “Bard sold his duplex in Olympic Towers in New York to Al-Ansani four years ago for forty-five million dollars, of which only five million was in cash.”

  “You don’t mean, literally, cash?”

  Casey laughed. “No, no, not like he showed up with a wheelbarrow full of C-notes. What happened was, one of Al-Ansani’s companies had just gone belly-up. The flagship, I think it was. So Bard agreed to take back a mortgage for forty mill.”

  “Meaning he basically funded the whole sale.”

  “Basically, and the way I heard it, Al-Ansani never even made the first payment.”

  “And I’m guessing it’s a pretty hefty monthly number.”

  “No kidding. Try over two hundred thousand a month. Two hundred thousand times four years is—I’ve done the math—over nine and a half million.”

  Crawford shook his head. “That’s a world I can’t even begin to comprehend.”

  “You and me both. So, after a bunch of letters from his lawyers trying to get the money, Bard gets pissed off. And, according to a very good source, he tells Al-Ansani he’s going to foreclose on him. Can you imagine the public humiliation of that? Front page of the Post and the Daily News: ‘Former Billionaire Heading to Poor House.’ Something like that. Even highfalutin’ rags like mine would be all over the story.”

  “So, he kills Bard to prevent that from happening?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s all you got. A maybe.”

  “Seems like a pretty good motive to me. You got something better?”

  Crawford pondered for a few seconds. “I’m thinking that sounds like a decent theory. But it doesn’t jibe with something else I heard.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, according to someone who I’d also call a reliable source, Bard was overheard on his phone saying something like, ‘I got you cold, and when it gets out, the #metoo women are gonna be all over you.’”

  “He said that?”

  “Yup, in so many words. According to this source, who’d have no reason to lie.”

  Casey nodded. “So, who does that lead you to?”

  “That’s the problem, no one. Not yet anyway,” Crawford said. He was not about to broach his state attorney theory to Casey. That was something he wasn’t ready to go public with. Especially to a reporter.

  Casey shrugged. “Well, just thought you’d want to know about that Al-Ansani thing. Consider it my scoop to you.”

  “Hey, I appreciate it,” Crawford said. “I’d say it’s time I have another conversation with Khalid.”

  Chief Norm Rutledge didn’t want to touch the Harlan Brody thing with a ten-foot pole. “That’s like … I don’t know, J. Edgar Hoover killing someone,” Rutledge said after Crawford put forward his theory in Rutledge’s office.

  Not the most timely comparison, but Rutledge’s points of reference were frequently dated and often far-fetched.

  “Or a famous football player and movie star,” Crawford responded, “who ran through airports in commercials and ended up killing his ex-wife.”

  Ott nodded in agreement.

  “He got off, right?” Rutledge said.

  “Yeah, but come on,” Crawford said, catching a whiff of something.

  Ott had once commented about how Rutledge’s office smelled of Chinese food and Labrador retriever farts. He had voiced his observation about the latter once immediately after he and Crawford had exited Rutledge’s office.

  “How is a Labrador retriever different from any other dog?” Crawford had asked.

  Ott was ready with the answer. “All we had growing up were Labrador retrievers,” he said with a shrug, “so they’re the only ones I know.”

  At the time Crawford had just rolled his eyes, shaken his head, and let it die.

  “So, Norm,” Ott was revving up. “You don’t think it’s worth having a conversation with Harlan Brody? ’Cause, let me tell you, when he was in Charlie’s office the other day, the man was out for Bard’s blood.” He turned to Crawford. “True, right?”

  Crawford nodded his agreement.

  “How do you propose this little Q&A of yours take place?” Rutledge said, already foisting the job off on Crawford and Ott.

  “I don’t know,” Crawford said. “
I’ve been thinking more about it, and maybe we get someone in his office, one of his assistants, to tell us where he was between twelve thirty and one forty-five yesterday. That way, if he’s got an alibi, we don’t need to talk to him.”

  “Or piss him off,” Rutledge said. “What else is goin’ on?”

  “I’m getting the runaround from this guy Khalid Al-Ansani. Called him four times, no call back.”

  Crawford watched Rutledge conjure up a response. “Maybe he hopped on his magic carpet and beat it out of town?”

  Crawford glanced at Ott, who looked like he was upwind of another Labrador retriever gas emission. “Time to dust off that résumé and get it over to Saturday Night Live, Norm.”

  “Come on, Ott, where’s your sense of humor?”

  Ott shook his head slowly. “Hey, we got two stiffs down at the morgue. And you’re yukkin’ it up here.”

  “All right, all right, who else do we need to talk about?”

  “Joe Mitchell,” Ott said. “I got my suspicions about him.”

  “You talk to him since Bard’s murder?”

  “Haven’t tracked him down yet. Charlie said that golfer, Roddy Sproul, overheard Bard tell Mitchell something about a guy who was out to get him, then Bard said he was gonna turn the tables on him.”

  Rutledge perked up. “Well, doesn’t that jibe with what what’s-his-name … Darnell said?”

  Crawford nodded. “Tyrell. Yeah, it does, but I also got that New Yorker reporter telling me about a credible motive Al-Ansani might have.”

  “Sounds like you’re kind of all over the place,” said Rutledge.

  “Yeah, at the moment we kind of are,” Crawford said.

  “Well, then, you need to do something about that,” Rutledge said.

  Crawford shot a quick glance at Ott. He could see that Ott was getting squirmy, the way he did when he had gotten his quota of Rutledge.

  “All right, I’m going over to Bard’s house now, and Mort’s going to the man’s office. Maybe we can dig something up.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Rutledge said, “’cause these two cases are starting to fester. And festering cases are not what we need in this town. Because when a case begins to fester—”