by Tom Turner
The three got to the table and Ott followed them with the drinks a few moments later.
Silver raised his martini glass and leaned forward toward Crawford and Ott. “To that bastard Clyde Loadholt, not being around anymore to make people’s lives miserable.”
“Hear, hear,” said Baxter, raising his glass and clinking it with Silver.
“So you knew why we wanted to talk to you,” Crawford said.
“What else could it be?” Silver said.
“And, yes, we were here when it happened, and, no, we didn’t do it,” Silver said. “As much as we couldn’t stand that sadistic cretin.”
“A man who owns a shop over near your old one said you were going to a boat the night Loadholt was killed,” Crawford said.
“Yeah, Chris told me he told you,” Silver said. “We were there from six thirty ‘til the next morning. You can ask the other two staying there.”
“What are their names?” Ott asked pulling out his pad.
“Len Barrow and Darcy Cole,” Silver said.
“Is Darcy a…woman?”
“Yes, Detective,” Silver said. “We’ve been known to consort with the occasional heterosexual couple.”
Baxter laughed.
“So why did you say you were at that hotel in Miami?”
Silver eyed Baxter then turned to Crawford. “‘Cause we planned to be,” he said. “Then, last minute, Darcy called and asked us up to Palm Beach for my birthday.”
Sliver shrugged. “Why not, we figured,” he said. “Never got around to canceling the hotel reservation. Then when you called, after I read about Loadholt’s murder, and you said you were a cop…well, I knew what you were calling about.”
Crawford thought a moment then nodded. “Okay, we’re gonna need to speak to your friends.”
“Be my guest,” Silver said, and Baxter nodded.
“Hey, look,” Crawford said. “If it’s any consolation, we didn’t even know Loadholt. And obviously we don’t condone what he did—”
“Condone it?” Silver said, his voice turned into a low growl. “He crippled Johnny, for chrissake. Clyde Loadholt was a sick fuck and a gay-bashing asshole who got exactly what he deserved. Only problem is it took someone ‘til he was almost dead to do the job.”
“So where was your friend’s boat?” Ott asked.
“Up in Jupiter,” Silver said. “I forget the name of the marina.”
“And your friends can vouch for the fact—”
“That we never left it,” Silver said, nodding.
“Hey, look,” Baxter said. “I don’t know about you, Ben,” turning to Silver, “but I haven’t wasted one second thinking about that guy in the last ten years.” Silver nodded. “Why would we waste our time on a shithead like that?”
Baxter finished off his martini.
Crawford put his hand out to Baxter. “Thanks,” he said. “Appreciate you sitting down with us.”
Baxter shook it and smiled. “Wish guys like you were around twelve years ago.”
Then Ott shook his hand as Crawford shook Silver’s.
“You may not believe it,” Ott said, “but most of the men in the department are pretty good guys.”
“Glad to hear it,” Silver said, standing up.
Crawford heard a loud crash and looked over to the far side of the bar.
A well-dressed man with a shaved head in his fifties threw a wild, roundhouse punch at a man in a blue blazer with a fashionably short ponytail. His fist smacked into the side of the man’s head. Then a younger man stepped between them, trying to separate them. But the shaved-headed man shoved him out of the way and took two steps forward, his arms raised.
Crawford took off like a shot, Ott right behind him.
As Crawford rounded one side of the bar he saw the man with the ponytail take a swing but miss by a good foot.
Crawford tackled the shaved-headed man, bear-hugged him, and drove him back several feet. Ott grabbed the man with the ponytail and pulled him away.
“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Ott yelled at the ponytailed man.
A third man—short, young, handsome—came over to Ott and the man he was restraining.
“That jerk had his hands all over me,” the man said, pointing at shaved-head. “Peter was just trying to stop him.”
Peter was apparently the man Ott was holding. “Guy’s always pulling shit like that,” Peter said, gesturing with his head to the shaved-headed man.
“All right, all right,” Crawford said. “We’re cops. You’ve got a choice. Either you go home or come down to our station.”
“Let me go,” said the man with the shaved head, struggling to break out of Crawford’s grasp.
Crawford released his bear hug. “Home, right?”
The man nodded and started walking quickly out of the Shadow Lounge.
The bartender waved at Crawford. Crawford walked over to him. “That’s not the first time he’s pulled something like that,” the bartender said. “I asked him to leave once before. Peter and Bob were just minding their own business.”
“Thanks,” Crawford said, then walking over to Ott, who was still holding onto Peter. “You can let him go.” Then to Peter and Bob, “You guys are free to stay.”
“Thanks,” said Bob, the younger one. “That guy wouldn’t leave me alone. Peter was just—”
Crawford nodded. “I know. Come on, Mort.”
“Thanks,” Peter said.
Crawford and Ott walked back to the table where Silver and Baxter were still sitting.
Sliver shook his head and smiled. “That was a first,” he said to Crawford.
Crawford smiled. “Doesn’t strike me as a place that has a lot of barroom brawls.”
“I’ve certainly never seen one here before,” Silver said.
“Well, thanks again,” Crawford said. “Nice to have met you guys.”
Ott nodded at them.
Crawford and Ott walked out.
Out front, Ott gave the valet the ticket stub and turned to Crawford. “That was an experience,” he said. “Not much different from any straight bar.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, some random guy tries to horn in on another guy’s date, the date gets pissed, words are exchanged, it escalates and next thing you know, one of ‘em starts swingin’.”
Thirty-Five
The Mentors were meeting at Marla Fluor’s modern house at the corner of Dunbar and the ocean.
None of them would admit it but there was an unspoken competition between all of them about whose was the better house. Why would they be any different from rich, highly successful men, who, since the beginning of time, were always trying to one-up each other? The bigger house, the bigger boat, the bigger bank account, the bigger…well, the list goes on.
It was nip-an-tuck between the top two, but Marla’s was probably the winner based on the artwork in hers. A noted curator from Sotheby’s, who had been through her house, estimated that she had over two hundred million dollars in paintings covering her walls. That would put Elle in second place. She had a distinctive old Maurice Fatio house, which had won the Residential Architect Design Award in 2014 and the RIBA award in 2015. The decorating, though, was a little on the dowdy side featuring a lot of old, out-of-style brown furniture— highboys and the like—which perhaps reflected Elle’s conservative New Hampshire upbringing.
Rose, they all agreed, had the nicest view, with three hundred feet on the ocean. But Rose’s house was only four thousand square feet—the size of Marla’s guesthouse. Rose, however, found that her house was actually about a thousand square feet more than what she needed. And she was more into comfort and casual than size and dazzle.
Marla’s house approached flashy, but didn’t quite cross the line. Starting with her art collection, full of big and loud Pop Art—Warhol, Rosenquist, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg and Hockney—which made walking into her living room unprepared almost an assault on the senses. Some of her pictures were so bi
g she needed every inch of her sixteen-foot high walls. Someone had observed that Marla’s house had “every nouveau riche bell and whistle there was”—but made the person she said it to promise she’d never be quoted.
Diana was smart. She had entrusted the design of her house to Timmy Greer, the New York decorator and successor to Mario Buatta, who specialized in restrained, WASPY, good taste. One could tell that all her extravagant furnishings cost a fortune, but it was not something that she was shouting from the rooftop. What nobody knew was that Diana had quietly campaigned a friend at Architectural Digest to shoot her house for the cover of the Christmas edition in 2015 a few years back.
Beth had flown in that afternoon and was explaining why the author she was so excited about couldn’t come down to Palm Beach to meet with them. “First of all, she lives way up in the upper peninsula of Michigan. In like some cabin with no electricity and an outhouse—”
Diana groaned. “Seriously? An outhouse?”
“Yeah,” Beth said. “I don’t even think she’s got a car.”
“They don’t have Uber in Michigan?”
Beth laughed. “Uber snowmobiles maybe.”
“What’s her name again?” Elle asked.
“Carol Owurson,” Beth said.
“What is that…Swedish?” Elle asked.
“Yeah, Swedish, Finnish, I’m not sure,” Beth said.
“So is she like the female equivalent of J.D. Salinger?” Elle asked. “Living like a hermit up in Vermont?”
“New Hampshire,” Diana said. “And he’s not living there anymore.”
“He moved?” Elle asked.
“He died,” Diana said.
“Oh, sorry.”
“So I’d say we all hop in my jet and go see her,” Beth said, “but I doubt we’d all fit into her little cabin.”
“I don’t want to sound spoiled,” Diana said, “but I just can’t see peeing in an outhouse.”
“So, unlike with Lulu Perkins, I guess we’re just gonna have to make a decision based on the book,” Beth said.
“So I guess if the book came out, she’d never go on Oprah,” Diana said.
“If Oprah wanted her,” Beth said. “Trust me, I’d fly the jet up there to pick her up.”
“You know what I’ve been hearing?” Diana said. “Dystopian novels are all the rage since carrot top won the election.”
Rose laughed. “Carrot top, huh?”
Diana smiled.
“I heard that too,” Marla said.
“So what are we waiting for?” asked Beth.
Diana threw up her hands. “Let’s sign her up.”
Thirty-Six
Crawford came through the tunnel from the beach at eleven fifteen and Balfour was waiting for him, sitting in one of the leather chairs.
Crawford had told Balfour earlier that he was going out for an hour or two, but not where he was going.
“So where’d you go, Charlie?” Balfour asked.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Crawford said. “Anything new here?”
“Something just dawned on me,” Balfour said. “The assistant pro at the Poinciana is Spanish. Accent and all. And I remembered his name. It’s Camilo.”
Crawford sat down opposite Balfour and leaned close to him. “So he took out Lila a few times?”
“Yeah, like a couple of months back. Maybe three,” Balfour said. “My sense was that it didn’t really go anywhere.”
Crawford started wondering how they could talk to the assistant pro without tipping him off that he had just become a possible suspect.
“I keep thinking,” Balfour said, “that chances are it is someone who knows Lila. Otherwise, like we said before, why wouldn’t they kidnap a billionaire’s kid? I mean, I’m on the lower end of the net-worth spectrum here.”
Crawford smiled. “Yeah, but it’s all relative. Maybe the lower end in Palm Beach, but probably in the top one percent of the whole country.”
“I guess you’re right,” Balfour said, tapping his fingers on the table. “Charlie, I want to make it absolutely clear, I’m fully prepared to pay that money and never see it again to get Lila back. You got that, right?”
“Loud and clear,” Crawford said. “Getting her back is top priority.”
They talked a little bit more then Balfour went back upstairs. It was eleven forty. Crawford went and brushed his teeth, spread the two sheets and comforter over the leather couch and climbed in between the sheets and fell asleep right away.
His cell phone woke him up at seven thirty. It was Ott.
“Fucking asshole, Rutledge,” Ott croaked.
“What’d he do this time?” Crawford asked.
“Said he couldn’t find your cell phone number, so he called me.”
“Better you than me, ” Crawford said. “What’d he want?”
“So he starts out, ‘You and your boyfriend are making me proud again, I see.’ I go, ‘What the hell are you talking about, Norm?’ He says, ‘Duking it out in some gay bar.’”
Crawford groaned. “How the hell’d he find out about that so quick?”
“I asked him,” Ott said. “Asshole just said, ‘I have my sources,’ in that smug way of his. So I told him we were there workin’ the case. Not ‘duking it out,’ but breaking up two guys who were.”
“And he said?”
“‘First that fight in Mookie’s last year, now this,’” Ott said. “Then he goes, ‘If I’m not mistaken, you guys have a murder you’re s’posed to be workin’ on. Guy by the name of Clyde Loadholt. Not screwin’ around in gay bars.’”
“What a jackass. What did you say?”
“Told him that’s what we were doing there, workin’ on Loadholt,” Ott said. “And the dipshit starts laughing like a hyena and goes, ‘Maybe it’s time you and Charlie came out of the closet.’”
“What a dick.”
“What is it you always say, Charlie?”
Crawford thought for a second. “Oh, you mean, upper one percentile of world-class assholes?”
“Yeah,” Ott said. “I think that about captures it. Hey, by the way, I had to give him your number, so I wouldn’t answer your phone.”
Crawford heard the beep of call waiting and looked at his display. “There he is now,” Crawford said, “Mr. Upper One Percentile.”
Crawford could smell the bacon again and ten minutes later Balfour came down to the basement with a tray. On it was a plate of eggs, bacon, toast, a glass of orange juice, and the newspaper.
“I only know how to make one breakfast,” Balfour said.
“I could get used to this,” Crawford said.
“I’ll expect a nice tip when you check out,” Balfour said. “I was just about to call the Poinciana golf shop, see whether Camilo’s going to be in today, but they don’t open until eight.”
It was quarter of eight. Crawford ate his breakfast as Balfour read the newspaper.
At exactly eight, Balfour dialed his cell on speaker.
The voice answered, “Larry Hobart.” He was the golf pro.
“Hey, Larry, it’s David Balfour, I’m thinking about a lesson today. Does, ah, Camilo have any time available?”
“Sorry,” Hobart said, “but he called in Friday morning and said he had a really bad flu. I told him to take a few days off, that me and Ted could cover for him. What time were you thinking of, Mr. Balfour?”
“Either of you got anything available this morning?”
Hobart didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m checking the book,” he paused. “Yeah, looks like Ted had a cancellation. Eleven work for you?”
“Sure, that’s good,” Balfour said. “I’ll be there.”
He hung up and gave Crawford a look.
Crawford nodded slowly. “I wonder if maybe he was moonlighting as a carpenter day before yesterday.”
“So you heard it all,” Balfour said. “Maybe I can find out something from the other pro.”
“You mean, more than just how to putt better.”
&
nbsp; Balfour smiled and nodded as Crawford wrote out a line of questioning for Balfour to use with Ted.
Balfour walked up to the practice tee at the Poinciana. Ted—short, stocky, mid-twenties, ultra-clean-cut—gave Balfour a quick wave and a smile as he approached. Balfour had heard that Ted was a born-again Christian.
“Hey, Mr. Balfour.”
“Hey, Ted.”
Ted had Balfour’s golf bag propped up on a stand on the practice tee. “So what do you want to work on today?”
“Wedge and low irons,” Balfour said. “Then chipping, if we’ve got any time left.”
“You got it,” Ted said, pulling Balfour’s fifty-six-degree wedge out of his big leather bag.
After ten minutes of wedge shots and listening to Ted’s suggestions, Balfour shifted gears, trying out his three-iron.
“So Larry said Camilo was out with the flu?”
“Yeah, picked up something, I guess,” Ted said then he told Balfour to try to keep his left arm straighter on his back swing.
Balfour hit a few balls. They went a little farther than usual.
“Camilo’s been out on a few dates with my niece,” Balfour said, looking up at Ted. “‘Course she doesn’t tell me anything about her love life. They still seeing each other, you know?”
“Me and Camilo are actually pretty good friends,” Ted said, pulling a four-iron out of Balfour’s bag, and lowering his voice. “Way I heard it from him—and you didn’t hear this from me, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re off the record here,” Balfour said, taking the four-iron and handing Ted the three-iron.
“He told me that Lila wasn’t really interested in him, or there was another guy in the picture, maybe it was. So I think they just had the two or three dates like two months ago,” Ted said. “But he’d kill me if he knew I was—”
Balfour put his hands up and smiled. “What? Does it look like I’m wearing a wire or something?”
Ted laughed.
“So that was the end of it?” Balfour asked.
“Well, yeah, except—”
“Except what?” Balfour said, addressing the ball with the four-iron.