by Tom Turner
“So we know she had a temper and somehow got her hands on a gun,” Crawford said. “I’m talking about that incident in the backyard.”
Ott nodded. “Yeah, potentially lethal combo,” he said. “Plus there was that liquor store hold-up. A gun there too.”
Crawford nodded. “Yup.” He said. “The question is, once again, if she did it, why would it have remained dormant for twenty years?”
“Yeah, I know,” Ott said. “If she’s living somewhere—a thousand miles away for all we know—with all her expensive jewelry and big ass limo, what would prompt her to come back and pop gramps?”
Crawford shrugged and took a pull on his beer.
Crawford’s cell phone rang. He looked down at the number, deciding whether to answer it.
“Hello,” Crawford answered.
“Hel-lo, Charlie,” she said. “It’s your persistent friend.”
“Hi, Alexa. What’s up?”
“So it’s Monday, how ‘bout dinner tomorrow?” she said. “You can’t be going to cop bars every single night.”
“Sorry, think I’m gonna be working late tomorrow.”
“On Loadholt?”
“Yeah.”
“What if I told you I dug up something good on it?”
“Like what?”
“You have to have dinner with me to find out.”
“So, where do you want to go?” he asked.
“How ‘bout…there’s a nice little Cuban place down on South Dixie.”
“Havana, yeah, know it well,” Crawford said. “How ‘bout I pick you up at eight?”
Alexa told Crawford where she lived and they said goodbye.
“The helicopter girl, huh?” Ott said. “Buzzing overhead again.”
Crawford nodded. “Says she got something on Loadholt.”
“That’s maybe half of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Ott said. “Another woman who’s fallen for the Crawford…” Ott shrugged, “whatever-the-hell-it-is.”
Crawford drained his beer. “Oh, Christ, put a lid on it, will ya.”
“Gwendolyn Hyde, Lil Fonseca, Dominica McCarthy, Rose Clarke, the list goes on.”
“Enough.” Crawford shook his head and scowled. “Back to Loadholt’s granddaughter. We gotta track her down, wherever she is. I’m thinking we get back to Martha Raymond or one of the other women at her fifteenth reunion and find out where she stayed when she was here. Try to get her home address from a hotel she was staying at.”
“Good idea,” Ott said. “Or maybe get her license plate from one of the photos.”
Crawford nodded. “The reunion is definitely the key. Someone who was there has to know something about the woman. I also need to call that one up in Illinois too.”
Ott called back the high school office and got the names and phone numbers of everyone who had attended the fifteenth reunion, class of ‘97.
He was given a hundred and twenty-two names and numbers. Theoretically, Crawford and he would split them up and make the calls, but Ott knew there was no way in hell Crawford was going to call sixty-one people. Six maybe, but the man had an attention span that was shorter than his list of girlfriends was long.
He knew exactly what Crawford was going to do. He was going to con Bettina—don’t call me Betty—at the stations front desk to make a bunch of calls for him. Write out several questions for her to ask and butter her up, tell her that her help may be critical to solving a case. Tell her he needed someone who was dogged and determined to dig around and get crucial answers.
Ott knew his partner only too well.
And sure enough, that’s exactly what Crawford did.
Ott looked over Bettina’s shoulder as she started to go down Crawford’s list of questions for classmates who had attended the reunion:
1. Do you happen to know where Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt stayed while she was in West Palm Beach for her reunion? At a hotel? With a friend?
2. Did she happen to mention where she presently lives?
3. Can you, by any chance, show us any photos that she was in?
4. Did you see the license plate of her limousine or remember what state it was from?
Ott walked back to his office, shaking his head. Then he started calling up the best hotels in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, figuring it was unlikely that someone with a mile-long limo would be staying at a fleabag. He had struck out with The Breakers, the Chesterfield, the Flagler, and the Four Seasons. It was time-consuming getting them to check back four years into their records. He called another five hotels, told them Loadholt’s name and the dates of the reunion and asked them to call him back if they found out she was staying there.
Meanwhile, Bettina got what seemed like a promising hit with a woman named Terry Parsons. Parsons referred to herself as the “unofficial photographer” of the reunion. She said she had taken, literally, hundreds of photos of the event. Bettina went into Crawford’s office to tell him about Parsons and gave him her phone number.
Crawford called Parsons right away. It turned out she lived up in Palm Beach Gardens. He asked if he could come right over. She said that was fine and gave him her address. She lived in a nice development off of PGA Boulevard.
She offered him a glass of water and they sat down at her dining room table, where she had laid out the reunion pictures.
The only problem was there was not one of Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt.
“I can’t believe it,” Parsons said, looking through them a second time. “It’s almost like she was avoiding the camera…” Which was exactly what Crawford was thinking. “I mean, I went out of my way to get shots of everyone.”
She then pointed to one where a woman in a white skirt was looking away. Like she had turned from the camera at the very last second. “I think that’s her,” Parsons said. “I remember her wearing that skirt.”
Even Crawford could tell it was an expensive designer dress.
They spent another fifteen minutes looking through the photos, but there was definitely none of Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt.
Ott had no luck with the other hotels. But of the sixty-one classmates he tried to contact, a woman finally called him back with something that seemed to have potential.
“I’m looking at a picture of Elizabeth Jeanne’s limo,” the woman said with a laugh. “Some of us at the reunion nicknamed her Limo Liz.”
Ott got the woman’s address and said he’d be right over.
He hit her buzzer, ramped up with anticipation.
She opened the door and had the photo in her hand.
She handed it to him. He looked at the long, white limo parked next to a black VW. It had to be at least four times as long as the Bug.
He looked at the license plate. It was a Louisiana plate, with Sportsman’s Paradise at the bottom and the vanity plate, H#1.
“I have a copy of it,” said the woman, whose name was Linda Stroh. “You can have this one.”
“Thank you very much,” Ott said. “This is very helpful. I don’t suppose you’d know what H#1 stands for?”
“Sorry,” she said. “No clue.”
He thanked her again and, amped up, dialed the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles as soon as he got back to the office. Twenty minutes later he knew who the limo was registered to: Harrah’s New Orleans, a hotel and casino at 228 Poydras Street in New Orleans.
Forty-Two
Ott walked into Crawford’s office with a big grin on his face.
Crawford looked up at him. “I know that look anywhere,” he said. “You just struck oil, didn’t you?”
“Yup,” Ott said, plunking himself down in the chair opposite Crawford. “More like gold. The big, white limo that Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt came to her reunion in is registered to Harrah’s Hotel & Casino in New Orleans.”
“What the hell would—”
“Then it gets a little murky,” Ott said. “I spoke to the General Manager there, who’s been there ten years, and he
has no idea who Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt is. He told me they use the limo for high rollers. You know pick ‘em up at the airport, have it at their disposal if they want to go somewhere. But the guy hadn’t heard of her, so I guess she wasn’t a high roller.”
“Unless she went by another name,” Crawford rapped his desk and stood up. “We gotta go to New Orleans and check it out.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Can we drive there?” Crawford asked.
“It’s ten to eleven hours.”
“Let’s book a flight.”
Ott’s grin got bigger. “Done. We leave in an hour and forty-five minutes.”
They had a short conversation—their favorite kind—with Norm Rutledge. They told him that their prime suspect in the Loadholt murder might be in New Orleans and they wanted to go there and bring her back.
Her, said Rutledge.
Yeah, Loadholt’s granddaughter, said Crawford.
Rutledge cocked his head and looked dubious. “Sure that’s a good way to spend the department’s time and money?”
Another thing about Rutledge, the man was cheap.
Crawford put the hammer down. “So, let me get this straight, Norm, you don’t want us to catch Loadholt’s killer because of an eight hundred dollar airfare?”
Then Rutledge said, ‘Well, why can’t just one of you go?”
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Crawford said in a tone reserved for five-star morons.
They bought toothbrushes, toothpaste, razor blades and shaving cream in the airport. So now they were up to eight hundred twenty-five dollars.
Then Crawford made a call on his cell.
“Alexa, I am really sorry, but—”
“Oh, God, not again,” Alexa Dillon said. “Why don’t you just tell me you have no intention of ever—”
“I’m at the airport going to New Orleans—”
“Oh, goodie, can I come? Mardi Gras is just three months off.”
“Alexa, if you’d just let me finish a sentence.”
“But all your sentences have bad news in them.”
Crawford chuckled. “Hey, I’m not moving to New Orleans, I’m going there on business, probably for a few days,” he said. “So as soon as I get back, we’ll go out for dinner.”
“Okay, Charlie,” she said. “I hear the announcements in the background. Go do what you gotta do. Don’t miss your flight.”
“Thanks,” Crawford said. “I’ll be in touch when I get back.”
He hung up.
Ott looked at his ticket. “Oh, I forgot to tell you: there are no direct flights. We’ve got a stop in Cleveland.”
Crawford frowned. “West Palm all the way up to Cleveland, then back down to New Orleans? Can’t be,” he said, taking out his ticket for a look.
“Says right here, CLT,” Ott said, pointing. “What else could it be?”
“Since when is there a T in Cleveland?” Crawford asked as a pair of Jet Blue flight attendants approached. “Excuse me, what does CLT stand for?”
“Charlotte,” one said.
“Thank you,” Crawford said.
“Too bad,” Ott said with a sigh. “I was gonna get my old Cleveland cop buddies to come to the airport and meet the great legend I work with.”
Forty-Three
The flight between Charlotte and New Orleans was bumpy, enough to cause Ott to grab Crawford’s arm at one point.
Crawford patted his hand. “Relax, we’re gonna make it, Mort.”
Other than that, the five-and-a-half-hours they spent in the air passed uneventfully. At the airport in New Orleans, they rented a Chevy Cruze from Enterprise.
As was their usual custom, Ott would drive while Crawford made phone calls and served as navigator.
“You know what I want to do while we’re here in the Big Easy?” Ott said.
“What’s that, Mort?”
“I want to go meet Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell,” Ott said.
Crawford chuckled. “You do know they’re fictional characters.”
“Maybe go out to Bayou Teche and pet Tripod too,” Ott went on.
Ott’s favorite author was James Lee Burke, who wrote a crime series set in New Orleans. His heroes, anti-heroes was probably more like it, were two detectives named Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell. Violent, prone to alcoholism and vigilante-like actions, the two were fanatically loyal to each other. Robicheaux had a three-legged pet raccoon named Tripod.
Crawford had another thought on the subject. “Besides, Robicheaux works out at some place called New Iberia, not New Orleans.”
“Yeah, I know, I looked it up, it’s about two hours west.”
“So you want to drive out there, walk into New Iberia PD, and ask to see Dave, is that it?”
Ott shook his head and chuckled. “I know they’re not real, Charlie. I just wish they were,” he said. “Guys are baad dudes.”
While they made their way through the city, Crawford called the general manager of Harrah’s.
“Mr. Eaton, I’m Charlie Crawford, Palm Beach, Florida, Police Department,” Crawford said. “My partner, Mort Ott, spoke to you earlier today.”
“Oh, yeah, how ya doin’?” said the general manager.
“We wondered if we could come talk to you,” Crawford said. “We just got into town.”
“Yes, sure, I’ll be here ‘til six, come on by,” Eaton said. “You’ve got the address, right?”
“I do,” Crawford said. “See you in fifteen, twenty minutes.” He clicked off.
“What do you s’pose the Big Easy means anyway?” Ott asked.
“I don’t know, Mort,” Crawford said with a sigh. “Why don’t, every once in a while, you just ask normal questions. You know like, ‘Do I go straight? Or turn right?’”
The light changed where they were stopped. Ott looked over at Crawford. “Well?”
Ted Eaton had a large, cluttered office on the second floor of Harrah’s. He had no window, so Crawford assumed rooms with windows were reserved for paying customers. Eaton sported a thin mustache, the kind favored by movie actors in the 1940s and wore a burgundy blazer with a gold name bar that said, ‘Ted.’
Crawford had just shown Eaton the picture of the limo and explained that it had transported a woman named Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt to her fifteenth reunion at Forest Hill Community High School in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“Which would have made her around thirty-three years old at the time,” Crawford said, handing Eaton the yearbook picture Megan Sullivan had given them. “So ‘bout thirty-seven today.”
“Holy shit,” Eaton said, pulling the picture close.
Then he clicked a button on his phone. “Rusty, come in here, will ya.”
A few seconds later a short man with almost no neck and hair that was transitioning from orange to orange-gray walked in.
“This is Rusty Bolton, assistant manager,” Eaton said, waving him over. “Take a look at this sweet-looking, little high school girl.”
Rusty walked around Eaton’s desk and looked at the photo.
Rusty laughed. “Before she grew up to be the queen of the ballbusters,” he said. “Who’d she kill this time?”
Crawford and Ott’s eyes got big.
“Just kiddin’,” Rusty said. “Woman’s just a real hardass.”
“Who is she?” Crawford asked.
Eaton turned to Rusty, “These fellas are detectives from Florida.”
“Lisa Troy,” Rusty said. “Used to work here.”
“Matter-of-fact,” Eaton said, “this used to be her office.”
“She was general manager?” Crawford asked.
“Uh-huh, when she was real young too,” Eaton said. “Thirty-two or so.”
“So where is she now?” Ott asked.
Eaton glanced at Rusty. “Macau, right?”
Rusty nodded. “Last I knew.”
“Macau, as in that place off of China?” Ott asked.
“Yeah, across the river from Hong Kong, to
be exact,” Rusty said.
“She got a big offer from a place over there two years ago,” Eaton said.
“Place called Starworld,” Rusty added.
“A casino?” Crawford asked.
“Yeah, owned by these two Chinese brothers, I think,” Eaton said. “I heard she got equity in it.”
“What’s that?” Ott asked.
“Meaning she got a piece of the action,” Eaton said.
“One percent of a place like that and you’re set for life,” Rusty added. “Macau’s way bigger than Vegas.”
Eaton turned to Rusty. “Remember how Humboldt made her sign a non-compete?”
Rusty nodded.
“Ah, can you explain that, please?” Crawford asked.
“Yeah, sure. Lisa’s contract was up for renewal three years ago,” Eaton said, “and our CEO made her sign something that said if she left Harrah’s she couldn’t take a job at a rival casino anywhere in the U.S. for ten years.”
Rusty smiled. “Nothing about Macau, though.”
“And the scuttlebutt is,” Eaton said, “she upped the gross over there by twenty percent in the first year alone.”
“No doubt about it,” Rusty added, “girl knows how to run a casino.”
Crawford looked over at Ott, whose expression matched Crawford’s own look of disappointment. He wasn’t thrilled about limping back to Palm Beach with his tail between his legs. Having to tell Rutledge their prime suspect could be ten thousand miles away.
“So as far as you know that’s where she still is? In Macau?” Crawford asked Eaton.
“Far as I know,” said Eaton. “Why would she come back when she’s got such a sweet deal over there?”
“So there’s nothing, nothing at all that you can think of, of a business nature, that would bring her back here?” Ott asked
Eaton glanced over at Rusty. Rusty shrugged.
“Wasn’t there something about those Chinese guys looking to buy a hotel in Vegas?” Eaton asked.
“Yeah, I did hear something,” Rusty said. “I’m not sure what happened, though.”
Crawford looked at Ott and shrugged. “Well,” he said, standing up. “Thanks for your time, fellas. Not exactly the ending we were hoping for, but we appreciate the information.”