by Tom Turner
As Ott put a call in to the state police jurisdiction for that area, Crawford’s cell phone rang.
It was Rutledge. “Jackpot,” Rutledge said. “The guy’s pounding the hound.”
Fortunately, Crawford could understand Rutledge-ese. He was saying that Quinn Casey was on a Greyhound bus.
“Shit, man, that was fast,” Crawford said.
“I don’t dick around,” Rutledge said.
“Where’s he going?” Crawford asked.
“Bought a ticket to Atlanta. My guess would be to go somewhere from the Atlanta airport.”
Crawford Googled Greyhound West Palm to Atlanta on his iPad. “So, that means it’s on the Florida Turnpike now, then I-75, makes stops at … Fort Pierce, Melbourne, Rockledge, Titusville, then Orlando where there’s an hour-and-twenty-minute layover.”
Ott had clicked off his call and was listening intently.
“See what the driving time is to Rockledge and Titusville from here, will ya?” Crawford said to Ott.
Ott nodded and started working his iPhone.
Crawford looked down at his watch. It was almost three o’clock. “So, the Greyhound left West Palm at 2:05. I’m thinking we catch up and get on board in either Rockledge or Titusville,” Crawford said on his cell to Rutledge.
“Okay,” Rutledge said. “You need backup?”
Crawford thought for a second. “Nah, I think the idea is to take him by surprise. We show up with the cavalry, and no telling what could happen. He could take a hostage. The fewer the better is the way to go.”
“I hear you,” Rutledge said. “Keep me in the loop.”
“Yeah, will do,” Crawford said, turning to Ott. “All right, me and Leadfoot here gotta get our asses in gear.”
43
They only had a quarter of a tank, so they had to gas up at the Chevron on Okeechobee Boulevard. While Ott filled up, Crawford ran inside and bought two hats and two pairs of sunglasses.
“Any-chance-to-go-fast” Ott fishtailed out of the Chevron station and was on the Florida Turnpike ten minutes later, doing ninety.
“This is nothing,” Crawford said, looking down at the speedometer. “Dominica was doing ninety-five on her way back from Tampa.”
Ott pushed down on the accelerator.
Crawford chuckled. “Never gonna let a woman go faster than you, huh?”
“That’s a sexist comment.”
“Yeah, accurate, though.”
“Hey, I’m a big fan of Danica Patrick,” Ott said, referring to the female race car driver.
“Quit yappin’ and eyes on the road.”
Crawford made several calls on the way to alert the state police not to arrest a speeding white Crown Vic. Ott kept his speed to just over ninety-five.
“Can’t really enjoy the countryside going this fast,” Crawford said, hitting the button of the calculator on his iPhone.
“What are the times again for the Hound?” Ott asked.
Crawford looked down to where he had written the schedule. “Forget Fort Pierce and Melbourne. It gets in to Rockledge at five.” Crawford checked his watch. “I think we can make that easy. You could even slow down to ninety.”
Ott chuckled. “Yeah, then you’d tell Dominica.”
At exactly 4:26, Crawford saw a Greyhound bus up ahead. They were gaining on it rapidly.
“Slow down,” Crawford said as he reached in the back for one of the hats he’d bought. The one he planned to wear himself was a twill bucket hat that had a Harley-Davidson logo on it. He put it on along with a cheap pair of wraparound sunglasses. Ott glanced over. “Very chic.”
“Now you speak French, too?” He handed Ott another hat as Ott slowed down to seventy and stayed back behind the Greyhound.
It was a black felt cowboy hat. “I like it,” Ott said, putting it on. “Like something Richard Petty’d wear.”
Crawford glanced back down at what he had written. “Greyhound gets in to Rockledge in half an hour.”
And at that, Ott tromped on the peddle and went roaring past the Greyhound. Just to be safe, Crawford put his hand up over his face even though the Harley-Davidson bucket hat and big wraparounds made him unrecognizable.
They agreed that two men with funny hats boarding the Greyhound at Rockledge, Florida, might attract attention and decided only Crawford would get on the bus. Ott would follow in the Crown Vic.
They were in the men’s room of the bus station in Rockledge. Crawford figured that with the bucket hat pulled low and cheap sunglasses on, he could only be recognized by his mother and maybe Dominica. He looked at his watch again. The Greyhound wouldn’t get there for another ten to twelve minutes.
“I’d hunch over a little, too, so you don’t look so tall,” Ott said.
Crawford nodded. “All right, you better get back in the Vic.”
Ott punched Crawford’s shoulder. “Go get him, man.”
There were four people in line to board the Greyhound. A woman with a small child, a short man dressed in cargo shorts and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, and a tall woman in tight black jeans and a loose-fitting blouse.
Crawford cut in line behind the woman who was in front of the man. The man made a noise somewhere between a snarl and a groan but didn’t say anything.
Crawford handed his ticket to the bus driver as he got on board. He wished he had a suitcase or even a knapsack to look more like a traveler, but he didn’t. He was hunched over, to make him look older and shorter, and immediately saw Quinn Casey in the third to last row, in an aisle seat. He was glad Casey had left a couple of rows behind him.
The bus was only about half full, which Crawford figured owed to the fact it arrived in Atlanta at three a.m. He shuffled back slowly, close behind the tall woman, and as he got to Casey, looked away. Then he sat down in the seat directly behind him.
He was sitting next to a woman who gave him a look like, with all the empty seats on this bus, why do you have to sit next to me? He gave her a nod anyway. She didn’t acknowledge him and glanced out the window. The bus driver started up the bus. They backed up, then the driver drove slowly out of the station bay. Sun streamed through the windows of the bus as Crawford felt for his SIG Sauer in his shoulder holster. There was no point in delaying his move. The woman next to him evil-eyed him, like, why is this guy in the dopey hat and bad shades reaching inside his jacket? And, why is he wearing a jacket on such a hot day? Or maybe that was Crawford’s imagination running on overdrive.
The last thing he wanted was for his fellow passenger to tip off Casey with a gasp at the sight of his pistol. He glanced over again, and she was looking out the window.
Now or never.
He slipped the SIG Sauer out of its holster and pressed the barrel to the back of Casey’s head. “Hands in the air, Casey.”
Casey didn’t react right away.
“Now.”
A few heads jerked around and Casey’s hands went up. Crawford stepped around, pulled out his handcuffs, and slipped them onto Casey’s wrists.
“I’m placing you under arrest for the murders of Grace Spooner and Asher Bard.”
44
Ott was behind the wheel doing a mere eighty miles per hour back to Palm Beach. Crawford was riding shotgun, and Quinn Casey was in the back seat, handcuffed.
“What did you do with the knife?” Crawford asked Casey.
“What knife?” Casey spat back.
“A Gerber StrongArm 420 tactical knife, to be exact,” Crawford said, turning in his seat so he could watch Casey.
“The one you used at The Colony Hotel,” Ott added.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Casey said.
“Probably tossed it in Intracoastal or somewhere,” Ott said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Crawford said, “the ME’s matching up the stab wounds from one just like it right now. Got a pretty distinctive blade, he told me.”
Casey tried not to react, but Crawford noticed his head jerk back a fraction.
“Why
’d you do Spooner?” Ott asked. “We understand Bard was about to expose you as a serial woman-abuser. Probably get you fired from your New Yorker and CNN gigs. But why Spooner?”
Casey was dead silent.
“Well, since the cat’s got Quinn’s tongue,” Crawford said, “I got a theory.”
Ott tapped the steering wheel and smiled. “You always do, Charlie. Let’s hear it.”
“Spare me,” groaned Casey.
“Well, I don’t need to tell you this, Quinn, but you got a pretty nasty temper. So, the way I figure it, you were out to dinner with Grace the night before she was killed—”
“You mean the night of, don’t you?” Ott asked.
“No, the night before. I found a receipt from Buccan. Looks like Quinn had a steak and Grace had veal chops. Or maybe the other way around. Anyway, I went there, to Buccan, showed Grace’s photo and yours to the maître d’ who was on duty that night. He remembered you both because he said you got loud and belligerent. Directed your wrath at poor Grace. So, as I know from Grace’s friend Natalie Weir, part of the reason Grace came down from Tampa was to end her relationship with you.”
“No more abuse, no more beatings, no more Quinn,” said Ott.
“That was the idea. The other reason she came was because she had agreed to let you interview her for The New Yorker, and you were paying her.” Crawford’s eyes drilled into Casey’s. “Okay, that part was fact, this part is conjecture, but conjecture based on facts: I’m sure you figured, given your superior intellect and persuasiveness, that you could talk Grace into continuing the relationship. But she said absolutely no way in hell and threw you a curve: she threatened to tell your wife about the affair if you didn’t stop badgering her. But you kept on and didn’t let up. So, after a while, you left Buccan. She went to the Chesterfield, you went to the Brazilian Court. What you didn’t know—until, I’m guessing, you got an irate call from your wife—was that Grace called her. She had had enough of your bullying and beatings.”
“No shit,” Ott said with a look of disbelief on his face.
Casey was struggling mightily to keep a straight face, but his eyes were blinking a lot more than usual.
Crawford was eyeing Casey like he wanted to see past his eyes and into his brain. “I know this because I had a conversation with your wife a little while ago. Not to mention, the waiter at the Buccan said he overheard the word ‘wife’ half a dozen times.”
Casey finally looked away, his eyes refocusing into a thousand-yard stare.
“Tell you what, Quinn. I think I’d be authorized to let you plead down from double-homicide-one to a lesser charge. That is, if you give us a full confession.”
Casey turned to Crawford, his eyes squinty and hateful. “Not in a million years.”
Crawford raised his hands and shrugged. Then he turned to Ott. “You want to hear the rest, Mort?”
“Absolutely. This is good,” Ott said enthusiastically. “Beats the hell out of listening to shit on the radio.”
Crawford smiled and nodded. “So, later that night, Quinn, who I can only imagine is seething with rage, decides he’s going to get his interview, then kill Grace. His marriage just blew up, Grace just cut him loose. So—gotta hand it to you, Quinn—he does a masterful job of setting it all up: He moves Grace from the Chesterfield to The Colony so Bard and his friends seem like the likely perps, goes to Home Depot and gets the murder weapons, gets a room on the same floor as Grace in someone else’s name—”
“—that would be Arnold Riegart.”
“Exactly. Oh, wait, I forgot something.”
“What’s that?”
“Flash back to a couple weeks ago … Quinn goes to Avis or Budget or wherever, right after he sees Johnnie Begay, who he ran across researching Bard, driving a blue Caddy CTS, and rents the exact same car. Tries to set up the poor, unsuspecting Johnnie redneck as the killer.”
Ott shook his head, almost in admiration, then glanced at Casey in the rearview mirror. “Man, gotta give you credit, Quinn, you’re the damn Einstein of killers.”
“Yeah, so all that’s left to be done before he kills Grace is to get his interview … but, surprise, surprise, Asher Bard beats him to the punch. With that three-hundred-thousand-dollar check, he owns Grace. So now—sorry, Quinn—interview’s off.”
Ott was nodding. “So ol’ Quinn’s totally screwed.”
Crawford nodded back at him, then drilled in to Quinn Casey’s dark eyes. “You have anything you’d like to say, Quinn?”
Casey didn’t move or say a word.
“One last thing I don’t have a theory about is why you killed Asher Bard in his gym.” Crawford shrugged. “I mean, why there?”
Nothing from Casey.
“Maybe he just asked Bard to give him a tour of the boat, and when he saw a good murder weapon and perfect opportunity, he jumped at it?” Ott said.
Crawford nodded his head. “Maybe. And maybe we’ll never know. Or why Asher Bard turned off the boat’s security system. I talked to a woman who Bard was supposedly having an affair with, asked her if she was meeting him that afternoon, but she just played dumb. Anyway, here’s the reality: It doesn’t much matter if we don’t have every single detail exactly right because, fact is”—he eyed Casey—“we can place you on the same floor as Grace Spooner at The Colony Hotel. And we have forensic evidence—fibers from that rope we can prove you bought. Plus, fingerprints and DNA.” He stretched it a little. “All you had to do was climb around, over to her terrace.” He paused. “You think that might be enough for a jury, Quinn?”
“Not to mention,” Ott piped in, “we’re still waiting for a positive ID of DNA found under Grace Spooner’s fingernails.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,” Crawford said, taking a pocket recorder out of his jacket and holding it up. “What do you say, Quinn? Time to talk?”
45
Not another word was said on the ride back, except for Ott cursing out a driver for trying to cut him off on Okeechobee Boulevard.
Crawford glanced back in the rearview mirror a number of times and never saw Quinn Casey change his expression. He was just staring out his window, looking like he’d rather be any place in the world other than in the back seat of a car that could use a new set of shocks.
When they got to the station, Casey asked if he could make a call. Crawford had relieved him of his cell phone when they were on the Greyhound and decided he didn’t want Casey to use it to make the call. There were too many things that could happen. Casey could drop it in the toilet or disable it in a lot of different ways, and Crawford was betting on it revealing evidence that could be useful to Casey’s prosecution.
Crawford handed him his own phone.
“Thank you, Charlie, that’s very kind of you,” Casey said.
“You’re welcome.” He pointed at a room nicknamed “the guilty room.” “That room at the end on the left. It’s all yours.”
“I suppose you got a couple bugs in there.”
Crawford chuckled. “We don’t need to bug your conversation. We already got you dead to rights.”
“You think so, huh?”
“I know so.”
“I got a New York lawyer who’ll run circles around any Florida prosecutor.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”
“I guess we will.”
In the end, Quinn Casey copped a plea.
He chose to follow the suggestion of his attorney and the lead of many other criminals before him: Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man accused of holding three women captives in his home for a decade, who pled guilty and got a lesser sentence than the death penalty. Subway restaurant pitchman Jared Fogle, who pled guilty to possessing and distributing child porn and got only five years. The Texas man who killed his pregnant wife and her father in 2009, who pled it down to second-degree murder.
Casey’s plea bargain got him twenty-eight years but with no possibility of parole. Crawford did some quick math and figured that meant he�
��d be behind bars until he was sixty-two.
He deserved longer, but it was far from the worst possible outcome.
46
Crawford and Dominica, Rose, and John the shrink were out in back of Rose’s house on the ocean. It was a night in the low eighties, so clear you could see forever. A smoke-belching tanker appeared to be only a mile offshore, but it was probably more like ten miles out. Crawford was grilling two thick rib eye Kobe steaks Rose had provided because John the shrink had stated he was not “a griller … Well, except at my job maybe.” He followed his little accidental joke with one of those heh-heh-heh laughs. Maybe he wasn’t a griller, but he was pretty good at knocking back Rose’s Macallan single malt scotch. Crawford had brought two bottles of Santa Margarita pinot grigio because he knew both Dominica and Rose liked it.
Rose was telling them about a difficult real estate deal she had recently closed on. “I don’t know who was worse, the buyer or the seller,” she said. “The seller claimed there was ten more feet of frontage on the ocean than he actually had, and the buyer wanted the seller to throw in all the furniture because, as he said, ‘it’s mostly junk anyway.’” Rose shook her head and groaned. “Half of it was stuff the seller had just bought at Restoration Hardware and Walker Zabriskie two years before.”
“But you got it done, right?” Dominica asked, taking a sip of her pinot grigio.
Crawford stood at the grill, giant fork in one hand, beer in the other. Dominica had picked him up a six-pack of an IPA called Audrey Hopburn. Rose, Dominica, and John sat at the distressed-wood dining table.
“Yeah, I got it done,” Rose said, “but, man, was it bloody. The buyer called the seller a liar at the closing table. The seller wanted me to give up a chunk of the commission, but I told him, ‘Forget it. I earned every penny.’”
Dominica raised her wine glass. “Well, here’s to you and another million-dollar payday.”