Detective Fiction

by William Wells

  A curious thing happened during halftime, when the riders headed for a large red wooden barn, which I took to be a horse locker room. Everyone walked onto the field and began stepping on divots kicked up by the horses’ hooves, like golfers repairing divots on a course. So as not to be judged a gluttonous lout, I tore myself away from the buffet table and joined them. I almost stomped on the dainty foot of a woman going for the same divot. I begged her pardon and, just for something to say, remarked, “These horses sure can mess up a field.”

  She was a handsome woman with blonde hair tied into a bun and a dark suntan. Her age suggested that she was someone’s first, and not second or third, wife. A keeper.

  “They’re called ponies,” she informed me with a smile.

  “When I was a kid, a man came around our neighborhood taking pictures of children mounted on his Shetland pony for five bucks,” I said. “These animals look much bigger.”

  “These are mostly Arabians and quarter horses,” she told me as we walked together from divot to divot, taking turns stepping on them. “Originally no horse bigger than thirteen hands and two inches was allowed to participate in a polo match. That restriction has been removed, but, by tradition, all the horses are still called ponies.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever use my growing knowledge about polo, but, as Brother Timothy used to say, knowledge is an end unto itself.

  The match resumed. When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard said that the visiting team had bested the homies, eight to seven. As far as I could tell, Palm Beach seemed to have the better riders, or better-trained ponies, but maybe it would have been considered ungentlemanly for them to run up the score. That was not an issue in the Chicago PD slow-pitch softball league. My team once beat a team from another precinct, twenty-two to zip. We would have happily scored more, but it got dark.

  Everyone went back into the clubhouse for more drinks. Vasily found me and said, “That was Roland Cox with Arthur Bradenton over by the bar when we first went into the tent. I suspect that he is the third member of The Gang Of Three. They play golf together, go quail hunting, and recently went fishing for salmon in Alaska.”

  “Who did Cox used to be?”

  “He was the managing partner of the largest law firm in Washington, DC. The first President Bush appointed him ambassador to France.”

  Remembering my divorce, I said, “It wouldn’t surprise me if a lawyer is one of the men behind all this.”

  30.

  WHAT WOULD JACK STONEY DO?

  Marisa and I were strolling along the beach in front of Ash’s house. There was a moderate wind; the waves were washing up around our bare feet as sandpipers skittered about in the frothy surf. It was late afternoon, and the sun was a red-orange disc low on the horizon, getting ready for its plunge into the gulf. This daily event always attracted tourists to the beach with folding chairs, bottles of wine, and cameras. Sunsets are very picturesque in this part of the country, but my attitude is, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.

  However, there is one bit of scenery that can always attract me to the beach: Marisa, wearing a diaphanous white cover-up over her black bikini, accessorized by a big floppy hat, and Dior sunglasses.

  I was attired in a tan Tommy Hilfiger tee shirt and a green Ralph Lauren boxer-style bathing suit (the polo player logo now seemed most appropriate), both birthday gifts from Marisa. I hoped no one would notice that my designers didn’t match. Marisa was trying to wean me off my usual beachwear consisting of . . . Never mind, you know me well enough by now to figure that out. Hint: Chicago sports teams are involved.

  An older man with a hairy chest and a protruding belly that blocked his view of his feet was walking toward us. He was wearing a tiny red Speedo-type bathing suit that showed more of his family jewels than anyone other than his urologist should ever have to see.

  “European tourist,” Marisa commented. “Maybe you should get a suit like that.”

  “If I did, you’d be the envy of all the ladies on the beach.”

  She giggled. “Got that right.”

  “But enough about my superior anatomy,” I told her. I briefed her on the latest developments in the investigation, including the polo match.

  Then we came abreast, and I do mean abreast, of a young woman wearing a bikini seemingly made of strands of dental floss.

  “Have you heard that a world-record tarpon was caught in Boca Grande Pass?” I asked Marisa, just in case my staring was too obvious.

  “That diversionary attempt would be more convincing if you weren’t drooling.”

  “Anyway,” I continued, “I need to find a way to provoke at least one member of The Gang Of Three, if that’s who they really are, into ordering a hit on me.”

  “A hit? You mean, like, a contract killer?”

  “No way those old guys could murder someone themselves. They wouldn’t have the guts, or the ability to cover up the killings as skillfully as was done. Unless one of them was a Navy SEAL, they’re paying someone to handle their wet work.”

  Marisa stopped walking and gave me a serious look. “Please don’t go up against a professional assassin, Jack. I don’t want to have to reenter the singles scene.”

  “Not to worry, hon,” I said. “I’m a pro too.”

  Or used to be.

  INSTEAD OF art imitating life, I decided to see what would happen in the reverse. When I returned to Ash’s house after our beach walk, and Marisa went back to Fort Myers Beach for a house showing, I called Bill Stevens at the Tribune. I needed help so I decided to violate my confidentiality agreement and tell him about the situation in Naples on the condition that he not use it in a book or in a newspaper story without my permission. Then, because the real detective wasn’t doing so well, I asked him to imagine how Detective Lieutenant Jack Stoney would handle my case.

  Telling Bill was the second time I’d violated my confidentiality agreement with the City of Naples. I’d gotten a pass from my bosses for telling Marisa because of her valuable contribution, and her nice smile. I’d have a harder time explaining why I’d blabbed to a writer.

  “You’re asking a fictional character to assist in your investigation?” Bill asked, with great amusement in his voice.

  “Correct,” I told him. “I’m not saying I’ll follow his lead, but, at minimum, I’ll be informed by it.”

  “You’re on, with one condition of my own.”

  “Which is?”

  “When the smoke clears, you’ll ask your handlers if I can use the story for a future book, cleverly disguising the people and places, of course.”

  “I can do that.”

  “All right. I’ll e-mail you some pages in a few days. Try not to get shot before then.”

  “I always try not to get shot,” I said. “With mixed results.”

  BILL MUST have really gotten into it because, late the following afternoon, I had his e-mail with a Word doc attached. I went into Sir Reggie’s office and printed the attachment. The title of the novel fragment was Jack Stoney: Undercover In Paradise. It began:

  Jack Stoney and Maryanne, his realtor girlfriend, had passionate sex under the soft glow of moonlight on the beach in front of the palatial Palm Beach oceanfront estate . . .

  A good beginning. I can do that.

  . . . where he was living undercover as the nephew of the home’s owner, Lady Jane Ashcroft, widow of the late Sir John Ashcroft, who’d made his fortune in the Australian sheep business.

  When they were fully satiated and lying on their backs, looking up at the twinkling starlight of the constellation Ursa Major, Maryanne said, “Don’t you ever die. You’ve spoiled me. No other man could come close to taking your place.”

  I FELT a wave of jealousy. Marisa had never said anything quite that definitive about my sexual performance. She’d never complained, but she’d never indicated that, if I croaked, she’d enter a nunnery. Once again, Jack Stoney had bested me. I read on:

  Stoney drove Maryanne back to her house in Boca Raton,
and then stopped by to check on his own home, a forty-two-foot sailboat named The Busted Flush, which was moored at a marina in West Palm Beach. The boat was fine; he got back into Sir John’s silver Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse and drove over the causeway, back to Lady Jane’s digs.

  Gag me with a spoon. Jack Stoney lived on a forty-two-foot yacht named for the boat that was the residence of John D. Mac-Donald’s fictional detective, Travis McGee. His ride was a $2.4 million supercar with a top speed of 258 mph. Even Uncle Reggie didn’t have a car like that. I continued to read:

  The plan was for Stoney, in his undercover identity as a rich trust-fund slacker, to lure Benson Hurst into that most heady and lucrative of all business deals in the Sunshine State: a real estate development project. To lure him in with the promise of easy money, and then to have him “accidentally” discover that his investment had disappeared into a secret account in an offshore bank, and not into real estate at all.

  Because the venture was . . .

  A Ponzi scheme! Brilliant!

  The story went on for a few more pages, with Jack Stoney kicking ass and taking names, but I had what I needed. Frank Chance would set up the same kind of scam I had suspected Vasily of running—and maybe still did.

  Christopher Knowland, the homebuilder from Canton, Ohio, would be my target because he’d be especially angered at being taken in by a fraudulent real estate deal. When the scheme was revealed (on purpose), I’d have to be punished. And who better to help me set up this sting than Boris Ivanovich, the ex-Brighton Beach financial wiz? Surely there was a Ponzi scheme or two in his past.

  Bill included a note at the bottom of the last page saying, “You can take it from there, Sherlock. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll take good care of our bar and your Corvette.”

  I guess he understood that Marisa could take care of herself.

  31.

  PONZI SCHEME

  I called Vasily on his cell phone that afternoon to tell him I had an idea involving Christopher Knowland. He said he was in New York, returning to Naples late that night. Maybe there was a family wedding or birthday in Brighton Beach, or a retirement party; what do you get after thirty years service to a Mafia family, a gold semi-automatic revolver?

  Vasily invited me to come to his house the next morning for breakfast. His house is on Keewaydin Island, a private barrier island just off the Naples coast, he told me. He instructed me to go to the south end of Gordon Drive and park near a boathouse at seven thirty, where a launch would be waiting.

  When I arrived at the boathouse, Elena from Vasily’s boat crew was at the helm of a classic mahogany Chris-Craft speedboat moored at a small wooden dock. A lovely sight. And so was the boat.

  The name Osetra was painted on the stern. A kind of Russian caviar, I knew, because Marisa liked the stuff. In my opinion, fish eggs are only good for making baby fish.

  Elena smiled. “Do you remember me, Mr. Chance?” she asked. “I am Elena. We met aboard Count Petrovich’s yacht.”

  It would have been easier to forget the Sears Tower. She was wearing a blue denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the shirttails knotted above her navel, tan shorts, and pink canvas boat shoes. Apparently the shirt was missing its top buttons. How careless to not get that fixed.

  “Yes, of course I remember you,” I assured her.

  “Come aboard please. It is just a fifteen-minute ride to the island.”

  “Do you have enough gas to make it to Cuba?” I inquired.

  “How well can you swim?” she asked, with a grin. Finally, a young lady who appreciated my sense of humor. It was something we could build on.

  She cast off the bowline. I took care of the stern and pushed the boat away from the dock. She took the captain’s chair, eased the throttle forward, and we were off—toward Keewaydin, not Cuba.

  It was another perfect Southwest Florida day, with a bright yellow sun hung in an azure sky. Elena went to full throttle and a pair of dolphins began to frolic in our bow waves.

  Detective work does have its moments, as I may have mentioned. When you’re not getting shot at or hit on the head, it can be downright enjoyable.

  As advertised, we arrived at Keewaydin in fifteen minutes. Elena eased the boat alongside a wooden dock. Stefan, Vasily’s chauffeur, handled the mooring lines and then drove Elena and me in a golf cart along a brick path leading up a hill to Vasily’s house.

  The word “house” didn’t do justice to the structure. I wanted to take a cell phone photo of it to show Marisa, but I didn’t want to look like a tourist. It resembled one of those Victorian bed-and-breakfasts on steroids. It was maybe 30,000 square feet of gables and spires and porches, painted in bright rainbow colors. So Vasily had a fun side.

  As Elena went off somewhere, maybe to pose in an itsy bitsy bikini for the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, Stefan led me up the stairs and through the front door of the house into the foyer. It was tricked out with oil paintings, a large grandfather clock, Oriental rugs over a hardwood floor (of course), and a sweeping wooden stairway, down which came Vasily, making a grand entrance. He was carrying Sasha, the killer Maltese.

  “Welcome to my home,” he said. “We’ll have breakfast by the pool.”

  I followed him through the kitchen and outside to the backyard where there was a pool that could host a summer Olympics swimming event. We sat at a table beneath a green-and-white striped canvas awning. Sasha reclined on a lounge chair near the cabana. After a few minutes a woman pushing a cart served us breakfast. She also put a small bowl in front of Sasha, probably filled with caviar.

  “Thank you, Viola,” Vasily told her.

  She was short and stocky, with grey hair, and was wearing a white apron over a housedress, the kind of woman Russians call a babushka. For the important staff position of cook, Vasily apparently chose function over form. We had coffee, orange juice, eggs Benedict, sweet rolls, and cheese blintzes. Joe and I both would have to go to a health spa when I was finished with this case.

  As we ate, I told Vasily about Bill Stevens’s Ponzi scheme idea, without revealing its source. I didn’t want to admit that I’d told a newspaper reporter about our investigation or that I was following the lead of a fictional detective.

  Vasily pondered this, then exclaimed: “Perfect! A Ponzi scheme! There it was, right under my nose, and I didn’t see it. And you’re right. Christopher Knowland is the best of the three men to approach. As a real estate professional, he’ll be furious over being scammed. Perhaps murderously so, my friend.”

  “All I have is the basic idea,” I said, taking a bite of a cheese blintz that was to die for (not literally). “I’ll rely on you to flesh out the details and set it up so Knowland will be fooled.”

  Vasily was about to say something when Elena came out of the house. She shrugged off a white terry-cloth robe, dove into the pool, and began swimming laps, sleek as the dolphins on the voyage here.

  “She swims to stay in shape,” Vasily said.

  “It works,” I said, watching Elena do a flip turn with the skill of Mark Spitz, but easier on the eyes. As we ate, Vasily began talking through how our real estate investment project could be set up. He was a quick study. I didn’t understand most of it. What I did get was that he would assemble a small group of friends who would pose as investors in case Knowland wanted to do his due diligence by speaking with them. The project would involve development of a high-end, mixed-use shopping center complex consisting of boutique shops, restaurants, a movie theater, and condominiums. It would be located on a prime parcel of land south of downtown Naples that was for sale.

  Because he came up with the particulars so quickly, and with such instantaneous specificity, I wondered if he had such a project in mind for himself, legit or otherwise. I would approach Knowland, Vasily explained, and tell him that our partnership had an opening for one more investor. I’d say that I’d learned of his real estate development background, which would be of great value to our project. It was still a
secret because I had not yet acquired the land. If the scope of the project were public knowledge, the price would skyrocket.

  “So, Frank, what do you think?” Vasily asked.

  “I think it’ll work,” I told him.

  “I have a good way to get Christopher Knowland’s attention,” Vasily said as he led me to the driveway, where Stefan was waiting with the golf cart. “I will tell a few people in strictest confidence that you have decided to stay in Naples following your aunt’s death because you think this is a good town for a real estate project, and that you have completed successful projects in such places as New York, Hong Kong, and Dubai. That news will spread in the right circles and reach Christopher by cocktail hour tomorrow. Then I’ll figure out a way for you to be together with him.”

  “You da man,” I said.

  I hopped aboard the golf cart, rode back to the dock, and stepped aboard the Chris-Craft. Elena returned me to the Gordon Drive boathouse. Cuba would have to wait.

  32.

  POP-UP DINNER PARTY

  Back at Ash’s house, I changed into a Chicago Blackhawks tee shirt, shorts, and running shoes, and did five miles on the streets of Port Royal in an attempt to stay under 300 pounds during this high-calorie investigation.

  It was one more unusual thing about Naples. All of those stately, expensive homes, street after street of them, and you hardly ever saw any of the residents, just their lawn crews, or housekeepers, coming and going. Many of the owners had residences in other cities and countries, and only used their Naples mansions now and then, Marisa told me.