by Tom Turner
In the back of his mind he seemed to remember seeing a bright yellow sports car with a stripe when he’d looked at the photos a few days before. Back when yellow sports cars were of no significance.
Crawford couldn’t get over the size of some of the yachts as he scanned the glossies. In one he saw two women sunbathing in the nude, clearly not bothered by the hovering helicopter as one of them was waving up at it. In another he saw a man with a golf club in his hand, who seemed to be hitting drives at some unseen target out on the Intracoastal. In another he saw…he bolted out of his chair and ran down to Ott’s cubicle.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing excitedly at the yellow sports car with a teal stripe. “It’s her car.”
Unlike Crawford, Ott was a car guy. “It’s an Aston Martin Vanquish,” he said. “Where’s this?”
“Palm Beach Marina,” Crawford said.
Ott bolted out of his chair. “Well, let’s go, man.”
They went out the rear of the station and got into a Caprice and made the short drive from the stationhouse to the Palm Beach Marina.
They drove around the parking lot, then got out and walked it from end to end. There was no yellow Aston Martin Vanquish anywhere. Then, glossy in hand, they asked a few people they came across if they’d seen it. One woman said she remembered seeing the car but had no idea who its owner was. Another man thought that its owner also owned a yacht called the Lady Moura.
When Crawford and Ott tried to get on the Lady Moura they were rebuffed by two large, well-dressed black men with shaved heads.
Crawford and Ott flashed ID and one of the men said to wait on the dock. A few minutes later a man in a thobe, who looked to be Middle Eastern, walked off the boat and came up to them.
“May I help you?” he said in perfect English.
“Yes,” Crawford said, holding up the picture of the yellow sports car, “is this your car, sir?”
The man looked at it, then he frowned, as if the photo was of a big steaming turd.
“Please,” he said, thrusting the picture back at Crawford, obviously insulted. “My car is a Lamborghini Veneno.”
Then he turned and walked up his boat’s gangplank.
“A Lamborghini Veneno?” Crawford shrugged.
“Yeah, goes for about four mil,” Ott said. “If you can find one.”
They spent another hour walking and talking to anybody they could find. But they came up empty. A few people had seen the car but nobody knew who it belonged to. Crawford said to Ott he was going to arrange for a round-the-clock stakeout of the marina parking lot, so if the car showed up they would get word right away.
“It’s a good sign the car was there the day after Loadholt got killed,” Crawford said on the way back to the station.
“Why’s that?” Ott asked.
“What if it was at the airport instead?” Crawford said.
Ott thought for a second, shrugged. “Not that she couldn’t have taken a cab.”
Crawford hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt had flown back to Macau. After returning from New Orleans, before finding the tape, he had rung up a pretty hefty phone bill trying to track her down at the Starworld Hotel in Macao where, he had confirmed, she was the general manager. And still going by the name Lisa Troy. But if she was there, she was certainly in no hurry to call him back. He had left four messages and gotten no return call.
Finally, he took a different tack with his latest voicemail. “Ms. Troy, I will be flying to Macau this Thursday and, along with three officers of the PSP,”—which he’d looked up and found stood for Public Security Force of Macao—“would like to interrogate you.”
That sounded suitably intimidating, he felt.
And sure enough, within the hour, he got a call back from a woman who identified herself as ‘Ms. Troy’s assistant.’
“Ms. Troy apologizes for not getting back to you, sir,” said the assistant who said her name was Li-wan. “The problem is she travels extensively to other countries and just hasn’t been here for a while.”
Crawford perked up, thinking one of those countries might be the U.S. “Thanks for getting back to me. Why does she travel so much?” he asked. “My understanding is she’s the manager there.”
“She is,” Li-wan said, “but she also is active in the acquisitions of other properties.”
“Where?”
“All over the world,” Li-wan said. “Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka—”
“What about the U.S.?”
There was a long pause. “Yes.”
“Recently?” Crawford asked.
“I…I’m not sure.”
“I thought you were her assistant,” Crawford said. “You don’t know where she is?”
“Please understand, sir...” Li-wan’s voice had bumped up an octave higher. “Ms. Troy’s schedule isn’t always…predictable. A lot of things happen at the last minute.”
Crawford was not buying it. “I’ll ask you again, is she in the U.S. now or not?”
“I’m not sure,” Li-wan said. “She was looking at a property there a little while ago—”
“Where?”
“I really can’t reveal that,” Li-wan said. “A lot of what Ms. Troy does is highly confidential. I’m sure you can understand, sir, we’re in a very competitive bus—”
“I’ll tell you what I do understand: you’re giving me the runaround,” Crawford said, in full kick-ass cop mode. “Unless you tell me the whereabouts of Ms. Troy right now, be expecting a visit from Constable Zhao”—another guy at his gym—“of the PSP immediately.”
“She is in America,” Li-wan said.
“America’s a big place,” Crawford said. “Where exactly?”
“Las Vegas,” Li-wan said. “She’s also been taking some vacation time.”
“Where is she staying?” Crawford asked.
“She made her own reservations there,” Li-wan said. “I really do not know. She’s still got a boat there, from when she was living there three years ago.”
“I got news for you, Li-wan,” Crawford said. “There aren’t a lot of boats in Las Vegas.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been to the U.S.,” Li-wan said.
“See, Las Vegas is in the middle of the desert.”
“Mr. Crawford, I am sorry, but I can’t help you further.”
“Is that the same answer you’re going to give Constable Zhao?”
“Yes,” Li-wan said. “I really do not know anything more.”
Crawford believed her. “Surely you know what her cell phone number is.”
“Yes,” and she gave it to Crawford.
“How often do you speak to Ms. Troy?” Crawford asked.
“Not often,” Li-wan said. “She talks to one of the owners more than me.”
“Give me his name and number, please,” said Crawford.
Reluctantly, she did.
He felt that was all he was going to get out of her. But it was plenty.
He then called the owner of the Starworld and left a message. Later in the day, he called him again and left another message. That night he called him yet again and said he’d be flying there on Thursday and would come visit him along with three officers from the PSP. This time the bluff didn’t work. He never got a call back.
After the conversation with Li-wan he went over to Ott’s cubicle.
Ott was on the phone.
He waited until Ott hung up then told him about his conversation with Li-wan.
“So she’s here,” Ott said and a big smile lit up his face.
“Looks like it. I called her cell and left a message,” Crawford said. “Something tells me I’m not going to be hearing back from her.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t hold your breath,” Ott said.
Crawford nodded. “Remember when that guy, the manager at Harrah’s, said: How he heard something about her company looking to buy a casino in Vegas?”
Ott nodded. “I remember, she had a non-compete. Couldn’t
work for another casino in the states for ten years.”
“Exactly,” Crawford said. “You remember the name of the casino?”
“No, he never said,” Ott said. “Don’t think he knew.”
“I’m going to look into casinos there that have sold recently,” Crawford said. “See if I can find out if she was involved. Easy for her to get around that non-compete.”
Ott nodded. “Yeah, she could negotiate the deal, then have the Chinese guys be the actual buyers.”
“Or it could be bought in the name of an LLC,” Crawford said.
“Exactly,” Ott said. “While you’re on that, I’m gonna keep checking every boat tied up at the Palm Beach Marina. See if one belongs to Elizabeth Jeanne Loadholt or Lisa Troy.”
Crawford got up and patted Ott on the shoulder. “We’re back in the game, Mort.”
“I know,” Ott said. “And something tells me our perp could be right under our noses.”
Forty-Eight
Trying to track down Lisa Troy’s involvement in the purchase of a Las Vegas hotel was a dead end. Crawford couldn’t find any names at all in the sale of any hotels nine months ago, only LLCs.
He eyed the stack of photos taken at the Palm Beach Marina again and picked up the one that had the yellow Vanquish in it. This time he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. The car right next to it. It was a black Jag convertible with a thin white stripe.
He took out his cell phone and dialed.
Rose Clarke answered. “Hi, Charlie.”
“Hi, Rose. Question: have you parked your car at the Palm Beach Marina in the last couple of weeks?”
“Yes, a couple of times. Why?”
Crawford took a deep breath. “Do you know a woman who owns a yellow Aston Martin with a wide teal stripe?”
“Sure, that’s Beth Jastrow’s car. Why?”
Crawford was as amped up as he had been in a long time. “Beth Jastrow. Who is she?”
“Remember a while back I told you about The Mentors?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Well, she’s one of us. She’s got a boat there. I’ve had lunch and dinner there in the last couple of weeks.”
“And is she there now?”
“No, she went somewhere on a cruise,” Rose said. “Left this morning.”
“I need to speak to her. Do you know how to reach her?”
“Sure,” Rose said. After a moment of searching her phone, she gave him the number.
Same as the one Crawford had tried.
“She’ll be back for our next meeting in three weeks, if you can wait,” Rose said. “But, knowing you, you probably can’t.”
“Yeah, no, this is something that can’t wait five minutes,” Crawford said. “What’s the name of the boat, Rose?”
“Revenge,” Rose said. “It’s a beautiful boat.”
“Do you know where she went?’
“Sorry.”
“Thanks for the info,” Crawford said.
“And my reward is?”
“Lunch at the Crab Shack?”
“How ‘bout dinner at La Bohéme?”
“You got a deal,” Crawford said. “But it’s got to wait until I wrap this up.”
“So what are you waiting for?” Rose said. “Wrap it up.”
“I’m trying. Oh, and by the way, that conversation about Beth Jastrow. We never had it, okay?”
“Okay. But I never asked what you want to talk to her about,” Rose said.
“I know you didn’t. And thank you for that,” Crawford said, clicking off.
Crawford got down to Ott’s office in record time. Ott was on his computer.
“We got a boat to find,” Crawford said.
Ott looked up. “Didn’t we do this already?” he said. “With Hector Reyes and The Ghost?”
Forty-Nine
“It’s not like she had to file a flight plan or something,” Ott said, facing Crawford from his cubicle.
“Yeah, just haul up the anchor and go,” Crawford said. “But someone’s got to know where she was going.”
“Yeah, maybe a friend of hers,” Ott said. “Or a friend of her captain or one of the crew.”
Crawford stood up. “Okay, so let’s do this. I’ll call Rose back, get some names and numbers of Jastrow’s friends. Make a bunch of calls and see what I find out. You go back down to the marina and ask around about the captain and the crew of the Revenge. Maybe someone has one of their cell numbers or something.”
“Yeah, okay, I’m on my way,” Ott said, grabbing his jacket. “Gotta say, bro, if I was gonna go kill a bunch of people I‘m not sure I’d advertise it on the back of my boat. Know what I mean?”
Crawford called every one of The Mentors, and the closest he got to locating Beth Jastrow’s destination was from one of the members named Marla Fluor, who said, “I don’t know, the Bahamas maybe.”
The Bahamas was a big place.
Actually, he realized as he looked at his handwritten list, there was one more member he hadn’t spoken to yet. Diana Quarle.
He drove down to the Palm Beach Marina and found Ott in conversation with a man who was wearing the uniform of a crewmember. On the breast pocket of his white shirt it said Dreamchaser.
Ott introduced the man to Crawford. His name was Dale Harris. He said he knew the first name of captain of the Revenge was Jerry but didn’t know his last name. He said the captain of a boat called the Mommie Dearest, moored down at the end of the dock, would know for sure. Dale said the Mommie Dearest’s captain was named Archie and that Archie and the captain of the Revenge went fishing a lot in between cruises.
Crawford and Ott thanked him and walked down to the Mommie Dearest. It turned out Archie was in West Palm getting supplies for a trip but was expected back soon.
Crawford and Ott decided to hang around and wait for him. Fifteen minutes later, a man showed up pushing a large white cart down the dock. It was filled with four boxes of liquor and three cases of Heineken.
“Are you Archie?” Crawford asked the man as he pulled up to the gangplank of the Mommie Dearest.
“Sure am,” the man said, shading his eyes.
“My name’s Detective Crawford, Palm Beach Police, and this is my partner, Detective Ott,” Crawford said. “Mind if we ask you a few questions?”
“No problem,” Archie said. “What do you want to know?”
“We understand you’re a friend of Jerry, the captain of the Revenge?”
“Yeah,” Archie said, clearly concerned. “Something happen to him?”
“No, no, he’s fine,” Crawford said. “We just need to know where the Revenge went. What its destination is? We need to get in touch with the owner, Beth Jastrow, about something.”
Archie cleared his throat. “No, sorry, I don’t know, just that they left here earlier today,” Archie said. “Seemed like maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“What made you think that?” Crawford asked.
“Well, Jerry and me planned to go fishing this morning and next thing I know the boat’s gone,” Archie said. “Never called me or anything.”
“What is his cell number?” Ott asked. “And what’s Jerry’s last name?”
“Remar,” Archie said and gave Ott the number. “What do you need Beth Jastrow for?”
“Oh, it’s not a big deal,” Crawford said. “About the state boat tax.”
Archie looked away, then back. “I bet she’s exempt ‘cause she’s not a Florida resident.”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Crawford said. “Anyway, thanks for your help.”
“Yeah, appreciate it,” Ott said.
“No problem,” Archie said and he pushed the booze up the gangway.
As soon as he got inside the boat, Archie took out his cell phone and dialed.
“Hey, Jer, it’s Archie,” he said. “Just thought you might want to know, a couple Palm Beach cops are looking for Beth.”
“What did they want?” Jerry asked.
“Gu
y said something about the boat tax,” Archie said. “Just not sure I’m buying it.”
“What were their names?” Jerry asked.
“Crawford and Ott. Detectives,” Archie said. “You in Charleston yet?”
“Not quite,” Jerry said. “Couple hours away.”
“Okay, so I’d be expecting a call from this guy,” Archie said. “You don’t want to talk to him, don’t answer.”
“Thanks, man,” Jerry said.
Crawford was on his way back to the station when his cell phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Hi, is this Detective Crawford?” the woman’s voice asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Hi, Detective, my name is Diana Quarle,” the woman said. “You left a message wanting to know about my friend, Beth Jastrow?”
“Yes, Ms. Quarle,” he said. “Thanks for getting back to me. Ms. Jastrow left Palm Beach on her boat and I wondered if you knew where she was going?”
“Sure do,” Diana said. “To Spoleto.”
Crawford had a vague recollection that was in Italy. “Where is that?”
“It’s in Charleston. South Carolina,” Diana said. “It’s this festival they have every year. Music, theatre, dancing, you name it.”
“So she docks her boat there?” Crawford asked.
“Yes,” Diana said. “I think she’s meeting a friend.”
“Oh, really. Do you know the name?”
“No, sorry,” Diana said. “From up north, I think.”
“Well, thank you, Ms. Quarle, I really appreciate it,” Crawford said.
“You’re welcome,” Diana said. “I saw you the other day at Madeline’s. Rose Clarke pointed you out.”
“Yeah, Rose is a friend of mine,” Crawford said.
“Lucky girl.”
Jerry Remar found Beth Jastrow in a bikini on the foredeck of the Revenge. She was lying on a mahogany deck chaise that had a full-length blue and white pillow cushion. On either side of her were teak tables. On top of the one to her right was a Diet Coke in a plastic glass and several magazines. On the table to her left was suntan lotion, two paperbacks, and a MacBook Air computer.