by Scott, D. D.
“Yeah…well…Palm Beach doesn’t sound like it’s gonna be much fun,” I said, hearing the airport’s speaker system announce our flight would soon be boarding.
“Nothing about Cozy Cash is fun,” Roman said, returning his laptop to his carry-on bag. “Bernie McCall duped not just large investors, hedge funds and banking institutions around the world, he also duped his closest friends, tycoons like your friend Zicower, who were like surrogate fathers to him. Tycoons who appear to now be paying for their association with him and his Ponzi-scheme with much more than their checkbooks.”
I took a deep breath then let it out, trying to make the discomfort in my chest dissipate with the extra carbon dioxide. No such luck.
I’d talked to Emily, Fred’s Zicower’s dear wife, just a bit ago and told her I was on my way. ‘Course I hadn’t told her I was coming along with Roman’s team of Marshal Monkeys.
I could still hear her sobs, and stoic curses too, as she told me tiny bits of McCall’s intimate betrayal of both her and her husband and their massive fortune.
“Do you and your monkeys know how Emily found out about McCall’s scheme?” I asked while lifting the handle of my laptop bag.
“Let me guess. By cell phone?” Roman ventured, never missing a beat or having to think about his answer at all.
“How did you know?”
“I’ll let you figure that out on your own while we’re in Palm Beach. But let me warn you a bit. You’re about to fly into very dangerous territory,” Roman said, his Dark Warrior façade once again firmly in place as we walked to our boarding gate.
“Palm Beach? Dangerous? It’s like the Garden of Eden,” I said, and I knew that, I’d been there many, many times with the McCalls. In fact, I’d had to give Roman the keys I had to the McCall’s former home there.
“It may look like the Garden of Eden, but an Eden where a whole new kind of snake slithers and preys. Let’s just say, that in Palm Beach’s beyond affluent Jewish Society, the new motto is ‘What Hitler didn’t finish, McCall did.’”
I boarded the plane to Palm Beach, Roman seated next to me.
And while I typed out my next post for my online fashion, daily blog report—today’s topic covering my best animal instincts guide to wild print accessories, featuring cheetah floppy hats, cat-like cuffs, and leopard-print lingerie—my new, Praetorian Guard flipped through Guns & Ammo, a special edition of the magazine just for law enforcement.
He studied duty-ready firepower, while I was wrapped in a turban that looked as if it came right off the set of Sex and The City Two.
Although, judging by Roman’s comments, Palm Beach wasn’t gonna be anything like Carrie Bradshaw and Company visiting Abu Dhabi. To my best recollection, there weren’t any dead bodies in that film’s gorgeous swimming pools, nor Hitler references.
Talk about wild animal instincts. My guts were on super-poacher alert.
Maybe I should have taken the cheap metal of my new, P.I. badge as some sort of talisman that in this new career field, I was in way over my turban-topped head.
What had I gotten myself into?
Well…according to the captain’s ‘please be seated and fasten your seatbelts for landing’, I was about to find out.
Thank God for my very own RG, who I’d noticed had folded down the corner of one particular page in his Guns & Ammo before replacing his tray to the upright position.
I wonder if I should learn to shoot?
“You realize it’s not the gun that’s dangerous, it’s the person using it,” he remarked, totally pissing me off how he seemed to be able to read my mind.
Hell, I couldn’t even make sense of my own mind at times. So how could he?
“And your point?”
“Trust me. Leave the shooting to me.”
“Wait a minute…are you saying there will be shooting?”
Certainly I’d misunderstood something.
“I hope not,” he said, acting as if that was just a normal part of every person’s day job, “but you never know ‘til you’re on the ground.”
Apparently, according to our pilot, we were just about to touch down on said ground.
Suddenly, being a P.I. didn’t have quite the same magical aura.
And I sure as hell made a mental note to buy a copy of Guns & Ammo in the airport’s newsstand.
Chapter Four
Face down in the bottom of his pool. So not the way I wanted to remember my friend Fred Zicower. Not like I had a choice, though, ‘cause that’s what I was looking at.
While Roman’s forensic team moved-in like vultures, their cameras flashing away, pushed to action by their eerie, rubber-gloved hands, I coached my innards to stop wreaking havoc on my stomach lining.
That’s all I needed was to lose it at my first—hell, second, I guess—crime scene.
What a way to mark the end of the first week of my new career as a badge-toting P.I. Two dead bodies. Two vics I knew. Too overwhelmed to process it all.
Fred, once a prominent Palm Beach philanthropist, accused by the Feds of netting in the ballpark of seven billion dollars—yes, billion—from the McCall Ponzi-scheme was now nothing more than bloated fish bait.
Word was circulating around the pool that perhaps he’d had a heart attack then drowned. Not that I thought anyone saying so actually believed that…or we wouldn’t be here.
“You okay with all this?” My Roman Guard asked, his eyes indicating he might actually care.
“Yeah. I think so,” I answered, as if I’d tell him I was about to lose my nerve for this biz along with my lunch.
And I sort of was okay…until…
“Oh my God! What the fuck?!” I screamed then pulled Roman in front of me to put something or someone in place to block my vision from what was now happening.
“Jesus, Plum Puddin’,” Roman hissed then looked toward the pool where my trembling hands and fingers were pointing. “You damn near made me draw my weapon.”
And the next thing I heard outta him was nothing weapons-related, but rather laughter. At my expense. Just like the entire crime scene gang now laughed their asses off and focused on me, instead of the evidence they were supposed to be collecting.
“What, Witherspoon? They didn’t teach you that in P.I. School?” Roman asked, trying his best not to laugh again.
“Teach me that a dead body at the bottom of a pool suddenly rises to the top of said pool? No, I guess they forgot that chapter,” I snapped, feeling damn foolish for freaking out the way I had, but still pretty certain most people would have reacted the same way I had unless they were seasoned professionals like Roman’s monkeys.
“Once enough gases build up in a body, it will rise to the water’s surface, then float face down as you’re seeing now, because the body’s arms and neck naturally go forward instead of back,” Roman explained, his voice now calm and instructional, no longer taunting me for what there’s no way I could possibly have known.
“Maybe I should leave this stuff to your people, and check on Emily. You know, see what she knows and might be willing to tell me and not all you.”
I now realized that discovering Ludwig’s dead body this morning was really no big deal. But I’d mistakenly thought I’d handle this one the same way.
So lesson number one of P.I.-ville had just presented itself to me in a rather nasty, pool-lit and super creepy ambiance.
When the dead body is someone you know and really liked, the professional, whodunit mystique of this career field loses all its damn allure.
Roman ran his about-to-be-latex-gloved fingers through his thick black hair, making my stomach twirl for an entirely different reason than it had been twirling due to dead body of the day number two.
Probably not so unusual.
I knew my Evanovich-created, Stephanie Plum world, and these kinds of scenes always heated-up the passion between Plum and her men. So yeah. That’s probably why I wanted nothing more than to dive naked into that pool with Roman.
Well…after
Fred’s body had been removed and the pool guy had done whatever he does to the water to keep it clean.
“You’ll need a pair of these too,” Roman said, taking another pair of those hideous gloves out of his jacket pocket and handing ‘em to me.
“You’re kidding?”
“Does it look like I’m kidding? Do you see anyone around this crime scene without ‘em?”
I did another poolside survey, and sure enough, not one monkey was gloveless.
“So you always have gloves in your pocket? Kind of a morbid premonition thing, don’t ya think?”
That just pretty much freaked me out. People in this business just assumed they’d be finding another crime scene or dead body so were always prepared just in case?
“Just put ‘em on, would you? I realize they’re not Fendi or Chanel, but they’ll have to do,” he said, the slightest, and ultra hot uplift to the corner of his mouth.
“How would a Roman Guard such as yourself know about Fendi and Chanel anything?” I asked, truly most interested in his very out of character comment.
“It’s my job to know everything about you and your world. That’s how,” he said, without so much as missing a beat.
Although his apparent confidence in his knowledge base was attractive, it was highly disturbing that he’d been digging dirt on me. But now wasn’t the time to delve into that issue.
I had a dead friend now floating in his pool instead of skimming the bottom like a sucker fish, and I needed to see if I could be of comfort to his wife, as well as help her figure out the truth behind her husband’s death.
“I’m gonna let your statement slide for now, RG. But for the record, I don’t like your approach. And I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if I used the same method on you.”
Noting the darkness once more slip into his pupils told me exactly what I needed to know.
There was dirt to dig regarding Roman Bellesconi’s life too.
And I sooo wasn’t afraid to use a damn big shovel.
I left the Marshal Monkeys at the pool and went into the oceanfront mansion the Zicowers called home to look for Emily.
Finding her in her private living room, just where I knew she’d be, I knocked on the gilded gold frame of the open door.
Upon seeing Emily’s I’m-so-glad-you’re-here smile, I entered the grandly ornate, Louis XIV salon she called her casual sitting room.
Even though I’d met with Emily Zicower in this very room several times to style her for one event or another, I never quite felt comfortable or wanted to touch anything for fear I’d break something worth millions to some Sotheby’s-style auction house.
Sitting next to Emily on a fanciful French chaise, I said nothing. Instead, I simply reached for her hand, waiting patiently for her to find the words to speak.
“You know, my poor Fred had been under pressure for months as we faced all this litigation over his supposed role in McCall’s schemes,” she said, wiping fresh tears as they cascaded her not-well-done-at-all, latest round of cosmetically altered cheek bones.
Dammit. Why couldn’t these women just stick with the beauty God gave them? Surely, when they looked in a mirror and at all their friends’ faces too, they had to see what we all saw. Right?
But evidently not, I thought, afraid to touch her skin just as I was afraid to touch anything in her salon, afraid it would crack with the slightest pressure.
“I can’t imagine that kind of stress,” I said, although I sure as hell could, I’d just lived through that with my best friend and client Alexandra McCall, Bernard’s only daughter, but Emily didn’t need to be reminded of that now. She just needed my support, and I needed any information she was willing to give me.
“The Palm Beach Police are saying he likely had a heart attack then drowned,” Emily continued, “but they also said I’d have to wait for the official cause of death once the County Medical Examiner did an autopsy.”
I simply nodded my head in agreement, not having the heart to interrupt her. Also, I’ll admit it, I was keeping in mind my training for my new career, where I’d been told it was often more fruitful to just let your witnesses keep talking. I needed her to take me wherever she wanted to, hoping I’d find there some fabulous clues.
“I found him, you know,” she said, taking in a huge, chest-rattling breath then fidgeting with one of Fred’s monogrammed hankies.
“Bernard didn’t just have a great deal of our personal assets, Fred had entrusted him with a ton of money from our foundation as well. I’m not sure what I have left to keep them operating,” Emily said, the heartbreak in her voice, I knew, coming from much more than her beloved husband’s loss.
She and Fred were good, good, pay it forward kind of people, who gave away billions, not millions, of their cash. With their fortune made from primarily medical technology, they’d built entire hospitals and community centers.
“People thought because Fred was such a successful and sophisticated investor that he must have known about McCall’s schemes and fraud,” she said, again dabbing at the tears that continued a steady stream down her hollow and withdrawn cheeks. “But he didn’t, Zoey. He just didn’t. After going through this litigation with him, and after being married to him for over forty years, I am absolutely confident he was in no way complicit in McCall’s fraud. Precisely the reason, neither the Trustee nor any U.S. Attorney charged him with any illegal conduct of any kind.”
I’ll admit I was a little taken aback by Emily’s words. The new P.I. in me mulled over what she’d said. I wasn’t sure why, or even if, she was trying to convince me of their innocence, but that’s certainly the way it sounded.
She coughed a very small, weak cough, making me worry that perhaps it wasn’t just Fred who had suffered greatly from this ordeal. His wife had taken big hits too.
“I’ve authorized a settlement, you know, for almost seven point two billion to go to the McCall victims’ compensation fund. In fact, I just got off the phone with Fred’s Austrian Banker.”
I couldn’t help but gasp, although I immediately tried to cover-up my shock with a small cough of my own.
Not only was I shocked at the amount of Emily’s settlement, but the fact she and Fred had used an Austrian Banker. I had to find out if it was “the” Austrian Banker of my biggest recurring nightmares.
Clearing my throat, buying some time trying to figure out how exactly to get the name of said banker, I decided to go the nice-and-easy into it, my-life-as-a-globe-trotting-stylist conversational route.
“I recently met an Austrian Banker on my last trip to the European runways. Oh what was her name, uhm, something Medici, I believe,” I said, tilting my head as if I were staring off into space trying to pick my brain, while all the while focusing on Emily’s face to see what kind of reaction the name brought.
Bingo. I’d struck gold.
“Why yes, Darling. Sonja Medici has been Fred and I’s European Banker for years now. A rather cold and distant woman, but very hands-on, and I must say always caters to all of her clients here in Palm Beach on a regular basis. In fact, Bernard actually introduced us to Sonja,” she said, her wispy nostalgia signaling she still hadn’t a clue how all these people were—or at least could be, if we could prove it—so well connected and the twisted reasons behind their affiliations.
I bet she caters to you, I thought, hardly able to contain myself from jumping up outta the room and racing to find Roman. I’d found another huge, huge puzzle piece in McCall’s Cozy Cash Operation.
Now we had a fit between Sonja Medici and the Zicowers…just like we’d had a fit between Sonja and her now dead henchman Ludwig.
“Sonja was just in town last week, attending the kick-off party for an International Relief Fund Ball. I hated to call her for such a large withdrawal, but I just wanted this all behind Fred and I, and he hadn’t been feeling well enough to make a trip to Europe, so I phoned-in the transfer.”
Emily pressed then repressed Fred’s hankie, her fingers trembling as she fol
lowed the outline of the monogrammed Z in the bottom corner of the fabulous fabric.
“You know, Zoey, McCall didn’t just steal from the Jewish Community of Palm Beach, he stole from all the wonderful things we’ve been able to do with our money,” Emily said, now clenching the Z between two of her fingers. “The community here will never be the same.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Zicower,” Roman’s voice suddenly broke the awkward silence descending following Emily’s statement. “But if you’ll please excuse me, I need to see Ms. Witherspoon.”
“Oh, Zoey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d brought a friend with you. Please. Please. Come in. Join us,” Emily offered, always a gracious host.
“No worries, Em,” I said, definitely fighting with options of how exactly I’d introduce Roman, not wanting her to know he was investigating her husband’s death and how it played-into this whole obscene money racket.
“This is…,” I cleared my throat again, wishing I could blame it on the change of weather between Music City and Palm Beach, knowing damn well it was nerves plain and simple. “I’d like you to meet…my boyfriend Roman Bellesconi.”
That got him. And suddenly, the change in air temperature must have taken a toll on his throat too.
Following a deep choke, Roman smiled and shook Emily’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Zicower. And I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”
Nice recovery, I thought, silently giving him an atta boy. Very professional.
“Please, Roman, call me Emily,” she said offering for him to sit beside us on the chaise.
“Thank you, Emily, but I do really need to talk to Zoey for a moment, if you’ll excuse us,” he said, giving me a look I knew meant business needed tending to…and now.
After excusing ourselves and seeing her off with hugs and promises to keep in touch, I followed Roman into the the hugely grand hallway leading to and from Emily’s salon.