Palm Beach Bedlam

by Tom Turner

  Casey was frowning now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s pretty clear,” Crawford said, then launched into his bluff. “His father was Asher Bard. And Asher told him he was going to meet you on his boat three days ago. Then we know what happened.”

  Casey slowly shook his head. “You know, Charlie, I had a lot of respect for you. Your perfect clearance record. How you went about solving cases. But now you’re grasping at straws—” Then, like he had a brainstorm, “Wait a minute, I bet you were behind that thing with the woman yesterday.”

  Crawford played dumb. “What woman?”

  “You know. Cheryl somebody. Yeah, you were, weren’t you?” Casey said, shaking his head.

  He took a few steps and picked up a pair of boxing gloves. “So, you and your pal Tyrell here are trying to pin Bard’s murder on me, is that it?”

  Crawford felt his footing was none too solid. “Are you saying Tyrell was mistaken when he heard his father say he was going to go meet you?”

  Casey took a step closer. “Yes, Charlie, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Tyrell’s badly mistaken and a dead man … well, a dead man doesn’t make for much of a witness.”

  Tyrell glared at him but didn’t move. Crawford could see his swelling rage wasn’t far from exploding.

  “Well, I’ve got a workout to get to,” Casey said. “Nice to meet you, Tyrell.”

  He walked away.

  “What are we going to do?” Tyrell hissed. “Just let him go?”

  “That’s all we can do at the moment.” Crawford lowered his voice. “I need more evidence.”

  “I want to kill that asshole,” Tyrell said.

  “Just do what I said,” Crawford said. “Hang in a little longer. For now, you gotta just take it out on that speed bag over there.”

  Confronting Quinn Casey was only one of the reasons Crawford had come to the gym. As Tyrell went to hammer the speed bag, Crawford headed for the locker room. He went in and started opening locker doors. There were only about ten or twelve men in the gym at this hour, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find Quinn’s. He’d told Tyrell the night before that one of the reasons he wanted him there was to act as a sentry. He’d told him he was going to go into the locker room at some point and if Tyrell noticed Quinn Casey heading in that direction, to cut him off. Distract him. Whatever it took to keep him out of the locker room. Tyrell assured him he would, even if it meant taking him out at the knees.

  Crawford had opened several lockers with clothes in them but no blue jeans and white sport shirt. He opened two more; still nothing. Finally, he opened one and saw the blue jeans hanging on one hook and the white shirt on another.

  He felt for a lump in the blue jeans and pulled out a brown wallet. He opened it and saw a New York driver’s license. Quinn Casey had a cocky smile in the photo. When Crawford called The New Yorker the night before, he had spoken to an office staffer named Tony. Crawford had ID’d himself and asked Tony a simple question: Does a man named Arnold Riegart work there?

  Tony hadn’t hesitated. “Yeah, he’s a photographer. Why?”

  Then Crawford had asked a second question: Does Arnold work with Quinn Casey?

  “Yeah,” said Tony. “In fact, they’re working on something together now.”

  And there it was.

  The night Crawford had gone to The Colony Hotel and met with Rick Hodding, he had discovered it was Arnold Riegart’s credit card that had been used to make a reservation for Grace Spooner and another penthouse room on the sixth floor. Crawford suspected Quinn Casey had either borrowed the card or stolen it from his coworker so he couldn’t be traced to the transaction. On both sides of Casey’s wallet were rows of cards. He pulled out an Amex card in the name of Quinn T. Casey. Next, a Visa card, also Quinn T. Casey. He realized they were the only credit cards Casey had in the wallet and figured he must have returned the “borrowed” credit card to Riegart.

  There was a bunch of what appeared to be receipts in the fold next to Casey’s cash. He pulled them out. One from a Citgo for forty-one dollars’ worth of gas, another from CVS for toothpaste and contact-lens cleaner. A third one, from Home Depot, caught his eye.

  It was from ten days before, and there were three items on it: duct tape, nylon rope, and a knife. Crawford had not been looking for the receipts, but it was an even better find than what he had been looking for. The knife said “Gerber knife” and cost $54.91. The duct tape … well, it spoke for itself. Used to cover the mouth of Grace Spooner and keep her from screaming. And the rope answered the question he’d been mulling ever since Spooner’s body was discovered: why the hallway camera didn’t show the perp entering Spooner’s penthouse.

  There was one more receipt, partially torn. It was from Buccan, a Palm Beach restaurant, for $109.14. It was dated the night before Grace Spooner’s death. Crawford wasn’t sure whether it had any significance or not.

  Feeling exhilarated, Crawford took out his iPhone and snapped a few shots of the Home Depot and Buccan receipts. Then he took two more close-ups of Casey’s Amex and Visa cards.

  He put the receipts back where he found them, then the wallet back in the blue jeans and the jeans back on the hooks in the locker. He walked out of the locker room back into the gym.

  Quinn Casey was lying on a bench, bench-pressing what looked to be around two hundred pounds. Crawford walked over to him and waited for him to finish.

  “Pretty good, Quinn. Bet you had no problems swinging a forty-pound kettlebell?”

  Casey eyed him coldly. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know damn well … what killed Asher Bard.”

  Casey shook his head and played disgusted. “Give it up, Charlie. You got nothing, absolutely nothing on me.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Crawford said. “I’m curious about something, why you changed Grace Spooner’s reservation at the last minute from the Chesterfield to The Colony.”

  “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Casey said, wiping his brow with a gym towel.

  “Sure you do,” Crawford said. “You used your photographer’s credit card so your name wouldn’t show up. You did that, my guess is, because you found out about Asher Bard’s birthday at The Colony and moved Grace Spooner there at the last minute. Why? Because since Bard was there, at the hotel, the cops would assume he did it. Or one of his friends, maybe. Gotta hand it to you, pretty slick move.”

  “You got one hell of a fertile imagination, Charlie.” But Crawford could see he’d gotten to him. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my workout.”

  “I don’t mind,” Crawford said with a smile. “Just a few more things and I should have this thing wrapped up.”

  41

  He went straight to The Colony Hotel next. He felt confident the theory he had hatched was going to prove correct. He’d called Ott and asked him to meet at the front desk at nine o’clock. He got there a little early and waited for Ott. In the meantime, he introduced himself to the woman who was at the desk.

  He saw Ott shamble through the front door and come up to the desk. “What are we doin’ here, Charlie?”

  “I’ll explain as we go along,” Crawford said. Then to the woman working the front desk, “This is my partner, Detective Ott.”

  “Detective,” she said with a smile.

  “Denise,” he said, reading her gold name bar.

  “So, what we’d like to do is look back at your list of guests staying on the penthouse floor last Tuesday,” Crawford said to Denise.

  “Okay,” she said, punching a few keys on her computer. “That’s pretty easy.”

  “Thanks.”

  Denise looked up at Crawford. “You want me to just read off the names? Turns out eight of the ten rooms up on six were occupied.”

  “Yes, please,” Crawford said. “Just go right down the list. Better yet, can you just show me the names?”

  “Sure.” She turned the computer screen so he could get a better
look. “Can you see okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, reading down the list.

  The seventh name he saw was the name he was looking for. Arnold Riegart. Room 609.

  He pointed to the name. “Bingo.”

  “Who’s Arnold Riegart?” Ott asked.

  “A photographer at The New Yorker.”

  Ott nodded slowly. “Ok-ay.”

  Crawford turned to Denise. “Is anyone in 609 now?”

  Denise shook her head. “It was vacant last night.”

  “Would you mind giving me the key for it? And holding off checking a guest in, please?”

  “Will do,” Denise said, reaching for the key, then handing it to Crawford.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll probably get it back to you in an hour or two.”

  She nodded, and Crawford and Ott walked toward the elevator bank. Crawford pulled out his iPhone and dialed.

  “Hi, Dominica,” he said. “You doing anything?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. What’s up?”

  “Can you bring your bag of tricks and come over to room 609 at The Colony Hotel right away?”

  “Sure. That a proposition, Charlie?”

  As they walked to the elevators, Crawford explained to Ott that Quinn Casey had used his photographer’s credit card to pay for room 609. That way there’d be no trace of Casey being the one staying there.

  Ott walked toward the bank of elevators that went to the penthouse where Grace Spooner had stayed.

  “No, not those,” Crawford said, pointing to two elevators on the opposite side. “These here.”

  Ott frowned. “Wait, those go to the penthouse, too?”

  “Yeah, the ones on the other side of the building.”

  An elevator opened and they got in.

  “Holy shit,” Ott said with a wide smile.

  “You put it together yet?”

  “Yeah, so two separate hallways, right?”

  Crawford nodded. “You got it.”

  “Which is why we never saw the perp go into Grace Spooner’s suite on the hallway camera.”

  Crawford slapped him on the shoulder. “Exactly. Because he never did. Plus, he was on this side, not the other one.”

  The elevator door opened on the sixth floor.

  Ott was shaking his head. “So … you figure he went from his terrace to her terrace?”

  Crawford nodded as he slipped the plastic card into the lock for penthouse 609. “Which was easier than you think. He probably didn’t even need the rope.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Ott said, following Crawford into the room. “So, I’m guessing you saw Casey on the surveillance tape on this side?”

  “Good guess.”

  Ott slowly shook his head. “One hell of a smart perp, this guy.”

  “Hey, what do you expect? Princeton and Oxford.”

  There was a knock on the door. Crawford went over and opened it. It was Dominica.

  “Hey, boys,” she said, “so catch me up.”

  Crawford turned to Ott. “Mort, why don’t you do the honors.”

  Dominica was a quick study and got it right away.

  A few minutes later they walked out onto the penthouse terrace.

  “To get to her terrace, he figured he might need a rope,” Crawford said as he scrolled to a photo on his iPhone and showed Dominica the receipt from Home Depot. “He bought the rope”—he pointed to it on the receipt—“the day before Spooner’s murder.”

  Dominica read the other items on the receipt. “Along with a knife and duct tape.”

  “Kind of makes it an open-and-shut case,” Ott said.

  Dominica looked around. “Even though it was over a week ago, I should be able to lift a print of his. Or find hair, DNA, or a rope fiber.”

  “See what you can come up with,” Crawford said. “We probably don’t need ’em to put him away, but it sure would help.”

  “Why wouldn’t we need ’em?” Ott asked, then it dawned on him. “Oh, I get it, ’cause we got Casey’s mug on the surveillance camera on this side.”

  Sure enough, as Crawford had seen before on the hallway surveillance camera, there was Quinn Casey walking down the hallway, blue Yankees cap on his head, a crimson knapsack on his back.

  Crawford pointed at the knapsack. “Guess what he’s got in that?”

  Ott nodded knowingly. “Rope, duct tape, and a badass knife. We ready to take him in?”

  “Just about,” Crawford said. “There’s one more camera I’d like to take a look at.”

  “Which one?” Ott asked.

  “At the Brazilian Court.” The hotel where Quinn Casey had told Crawford he was staying.

  “What if we run across him there?”

  “Well, then, we got a jail cell with his name on it.”

  Ott nodded. “Sure do.”

  Dominica stayed behind at The Colony while Crawford and Ott drove to the Brazilian Court at 301 Australian Avenue.

  Turned out they found what they were looking for much quicker than at The Colony. The reason was because they knew the exact date when Quinn Casey made his three purchases at the Home Depot on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. Then, they guessed, he took a twelve- to fifteen-minute drive—if he made no stops—from the Home Depot to the Brazilian Court. Ten minutes later, they found what they were looking for. It was from a camera that covered the Brazilian Court’s parking lot, and the footage was clear: Quinn Casey parking his blue Cadillac CTS. Then, getting out of the car with a distinctive orange-tinted Home Depot bag in hand, crossing the parking lot, and heading for the front entrance of the Brazilian Court.

  “Bingo on two counts,” Ott said, “the bag and the car.”

  “I don’t know why we didn’t think to check his car,” Crawford said.

  “We’re slipping,” Ott said.

  “Well, while we’re here, let’s go get him.”

  They walked quickly to the front desk of the Brazilian Court.

  The man who they had spoken to and who had given them permission to study the tapes of the parking lot was talking on the phone. He held up his hand, signaling just a moment.

  Crawford nodded. A few moments later, the man hung up.

  “Yes, detectives, how can I help?”

  “We need to see Quinn Casey. What room is he in?”

  The man shook his head slowly. “Oh, I’m sorry, but Mr. Casey checked out two hours ago.”

  Ott groaned.

  If something was handy, Crawford would have flung it across the room.

  “Okay, thank you,” Crawford said, trying to stay cool, but what he really wanted to do was yell, Jesus, what next?

  42

  Crawford stepped away from the desk. Ott followed him as Crawford turned and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’m gonna call Rutledge,” he said. “Why don’t you get Casey’s plate number and put a BOLO out on his car.”

  Ott called in the “be on the lookout” order as Crawford dialed Rutledge’s cell phone.

  “Yeah, Norm, our suspect, Quinn Casey, just checked out of the Brazilian Court. He was scheduled to stay through the end of the week, so he’s in the wind. I need you to dispatch men to the airport, here, Lauderdale, and Miami, also the train station, bus station, and … even ships departing Miami.”

  “I’m on it,” Rutledge said. “What are you gonna do?”

  “First, I need to call a guy, then Ott and I are going to go find the son of a bitch.”

  Crawford dialed the number he had called the night before. “The New Yorker,” said a woman.

  “I’m trying to reach Arnold Riegart, please.”

  “Arnold’s not in, but I can give you his cell number?”

  “Please.”

  She read the number to him.

  “Thank you,” he said, clicking off, then he dialed the number.

  Arnold Riegart picked up on the first ring. “Riegart.”

  “Mr. Riegart, my name is Detective Crawford, Palm Beach Police. I’m one of the lead detectives on the Ash
er Bard and Grace Spooner murders and have a question for you.”

  “Okay, whaddaya wanna know?” Riegart asked in a pronounced Brooklyn accent.

  “Quinn Casey used your Visa credit card to pay for two rooms at The Colony Hotel last week. Question is, does he still have your card?”

  “No, he just used it that one time. Gave it right back to me. He said he was having problems with his Mastercard, paid me back with a check right away.”

  “That’s all I need to know,” Crawford said, making a mental note to get a copy of Riegart’s Visa statement. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Oh, also, do not contact Casey or tell him we spoke. Okay?”

  “Uh, sure, you got it.”

  Crawford clicked off.

  “What now?” Ott asked.

  “I’m thinking he may make a run to New York. Thinking that might be the hardest way for us to find him. It’s about eighteen, nineteen hours by car. See if you can find a statie in the Jacksonville area to set up a checkpoint for his Caddy. If he’s making a run, he’ll be in the Jax area in about two hours. Assuming he went straight up 95 from here.”

  Ott nodded.

  “I’ll do the same for the Florida Turnpike and I-75. Try to find someone in Gainesville to keep an eye out.”

  They walked out of the Brazilian Court, then to their Crown Vic, and started making calls. Ten minutes later, they had state troopers set up on I-75 near Gainesville and I-95 near Jacksonville on the lookout for a blue Cadillac CTS.

  “What if he went down to the Keys to just hide out and be invisible?” Ott said.

  “Good call,” Crawford said. “See if you can get someone down there. He’d already be past Miami by now if that’s where he’s headed.”

  Ott had his phone out and had clicked on a map of the Florida Keys. “Maybe Islamorada or just past there, Duck Key. That’s about a three-hour drive.”

  “Sounds good,” Crawford said, who had gone down to Key West five years before after burning out up in New York. His sense of the geography down there, however, was somewhat tequila-challenged.