Palm Beach Nasty

by Tom Turner

  “How’s it going there, big guy?” he said to the old man.

  His bewildered grandfather stared back.

  “Happy New Year,” Spencer said.

  Dickie and Gigi howled.

  “So what’s happenin’, dude? Been down to the club lately? Teeing it up with the boys?”

  The old man squinted.

  Then Dickie looked over at Nick and smiled his, “aren’t I amusing” smile.

  Nick felt a rush of protectiveness. He wanted to tell Dickie what a repellent slug he was.

  Instead, he flicked his head in Alcie’s direction. Alcie got the message and wheeled the old man back inside. He had had enough fresh air, sun and Dickie.

  Gigi finally got her fill, too. Nick was wondering how many days in a row a woman—even one with obvious self-esteem issues—could sleep until noon, knock back Bloody Marys at two, blow lines on the backgammon board at four and pass out halfway through dinner.

  In Gigi’s case, the answer was four days.

  She just vanished without a word. No explanation from Dickie. Nothing. And Nick didn’t care enough to ask. Gigi was barely out the door when Dickie started clicking away on the Internet. A half hour later, he made a call. He had been on Craigslist trolling for companionship. An hour later, Gigi’s perfume still heavy in the air, two skimpily clad white trash bimbos in their early twenties showed up. Facial and body piercings punctuated their emaciated torsos.

  Shortly after their arrival, Estelle, the nurse who prided herself on working in an orderly household, informed Nick she had had enough, she was giving her two-week notice. Nick—delighted to have one less body in the house—told her he was sorry to see her go.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dickie and the two women were in the hot tub by the pool quaffing Spencer’s vintage Dom Pérignon. An hour later, they were upstairs thrashing around in a pile.

  Sometime during the night, the two women snuck out after boosting Nick’s new iPod touch in the kitchen.

  Nick decided it was time Dickie followed them out the door.

  Nick could be very direct when he had to be.

  He was waiting when Dickie stumbled down just before twelve the next day.

  “Sorry, man, you gotta go.”

  “What do you mean?” Dickie asked, looking stunned.

  “One of your . . . girlfriends stole my touch and an Albaran painting from the powder room,” he said. “You turned this place into a goddamned crack house.”

  Embarrassed, Dickie looked down at his scuffed-up Testonis.

  “They got my wallet, too,” he admitted, the air completely out of him. “Give me another chance, huh Ave?”

  But Nick was firm and, without a further whimper or protest, Dickie caved. Like maybe he felt he was on borrowed time anyway. Probably because he had been kicked out of so many places, he figured it was just a matter of time.

  Ultimately, Nick felt sorry for the guy and peeled off five crisp hundred-dollar bills from the Albaran sale. Dickie was appreciative.

  An hour later he was gone.

  So with Dickie out of there, Nick was ready to embark on a bold new phase of his plan. It was an experiment, really. He had decided to see if he could actually pass as the grandson of Spencer Robertson. He didn’t see how it would be a problem, since the real Avery hadn’t been to Palm Beach in twelve years.

  His test run was going to be lunch at the Poinciana Club. It would be his society debut. His coming-out party. A little brazen, but not reckless, because he was absolutely certain he could pull it off.

  He had thought a lot about what he would do after he sold his Hoppers, Bacons and Freuds. That was how he thought of the paintings now. As his.

  He fantasized about where he would go after he cashed in and sold them. His first thought was the south of France. Where else? That was where his heroes, the Fitzgeralds, the Murphys and their high-minded literary group had spent so much time. Their pitchers of gin and bon mots . . . sur la plage. But he wondered—as romantic as it all sounded, stretched out on the same sand as they had done before him—what would he actually do there? He couldn’t speak more than a handful of words in French.

  Besides, he had really warmed up to Palm Beach. He couldn’t wait to spiff up and swagger around like a PB blade. He felt confident he could walk the walk, talk the talk, and do the pink and green shuffle with the best of them.

  TWENTY

  Crawford and a cop, John Porter, got to the building at the same time. Ott was on his way, be there in five, he told Crawford.

  Crawford and Porter rode up the elevator together with the building manager, who was waiting for them. David Ponton, manager of the Poinciana Club, had called the Palm Beach police. Said he was worried about an employee. Explained that in seventeen years Cynthia Dexter had never missed a day of work and she definitely wouldn’t miss this morning’s budget meeting. Said he called her several times before the meeting. Tried her again after, on both her home and cell phones. Both went straight to voice mail. He repeated his concern and said it was “very un-Cynthia.”

  Normally, just a cop would go out on a call like this. But the dispatcher had a hunch and told Crawford about it. Crawford decided it was worth the trip.

  The building manager pushed the buzzer. He waited. Then knocked. Waited again. Then hit the buzzer once more.

  “Better try the key,” Crawford said.

  The manager put the key in the lock, turned it, then pushed open the door.

  “Ms. Dexter,” Crawford called.

  Crawford walked past him.

  “Don’t touch anything, John,” Crawford said; then to the manager, “Stay right here, please.”

  The manager nodded.

  The place smelled good and looked immaculate.

  “Ms. Dexter?” Crawford said.

  He went down a narrow hallway, then into the first room he came to. The den. Very cozy and feminine. A nice perfume smell. She obviously spent a lot of time in there.

  “Jes-sus fuck-ing Christ,” Crawford heard Porter say, “in here, Charlie, the bedroom.”

  Turning, Crawford ran back into the hallway. He practically collided with Ott, who had just come in, and motioned with his head for him to follow.

  Porter was crouched down next to a woman’s naked body, spread-eagled on a king-sized bed. Her back was propped up against three pillows. Her head, swollen and purple, was tilted up at the ceiling, an alligator belt cinched around her neck, tied to a bedpost.

  “Holy Christ,” Ott said.

  Crawford fought the urge to cut her down. Slice the belt and ease her down on a pillow.

  Twenty minutes later, the place was crawling with people. Four uniforms, the ME and the head tech, Mel Carnahan. Five minutes later, Dominica McCarthy entered the room. Crawford hadn’t seen her since the Darryl Bill hanging. Rutledge was on his way, too, Ott said, in a tone distinctly lacking in enthusiasm.

  The reactions to the dead body were seared into the faces of everyone there. Crawford saw the two young uniforms cast furtive glances at the woman’s face. He could see they were virgins. Trying, unconvincingly, to look like it was just another day at the office, no big deal. Even Carnahan, early fifties and twenty years on the job, looked shaken.

  Maybe it was the contrast of the cozy apartment, all baby blues and pinks, so clean and neat, with the horrifying, contorted face of the woman.

  Ott, having stared down at hundreds of corpses, was on automatic pilot. Hunched down close to the body taking notes, he had walked around and observed the vic from different angles. It was like he was taking snapshots in his head. He stayed out of people’s way, while at the same time, staked claim to his territory.

  Conversations weren’t much more than murmurs. None of the usual tension-breaking wisecracks Crawford was used to. A certain tentativeness, too, a fear of stepping on evidence or other people’s toes.

  Crawford had just had a brief conversation with the ME and Ott when he noticed Dominica McCarthy, with tweezers and plastic evidence bags, work her
way around the bed. He walked up to her.

  “How’s it going?”

  She looked up and pushed her glasses down.

  “Hello, Detective,” she said, much less cool than last time.

  “Charlie Crawford,” Crawford said.

  “I know.” She smiled. “Dominica McCarthy.”

  “I know,” he said. “Anything interesting?”

  “Petechiae,” she said. “No surprise there.”

  A petechial hemorrhage. The symptom was burst blood vessels on the eyelids caused by asphyxiation.

  Crawford nodded. “Same as the kid who got hung?”

  She nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  She pointed to her sample bags. “Hairs, fibers . . . take your pick.”

  “A smoking gun would be nice,” he said, shifting from one leg to the other.

  “Yeah, dream on. I’m pretty sure she had a male caller or callers . . . at some point fairly recently.”

  “How do you know?”

  Dominica reached for one of her bags and held it up to Crawford.

  Inside the bag was a big, flat, silver metal button with a Z on it.

  Crawford moved his head closer to the button and smelled Dominica’s perfume.

  “How do you know it’s a guy’s?” he said, his eyes shifting from the button to her.

  “I don’t for sure, just . . . it looks too big to be a woman’s. Could have been there before she was killed, too. But I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause she kept such a clean house. My guess, she probably vacuumed twice a week.”

  Crawford flashed to Ward Jaynes. How he’d love to find a missing Z button on a jacket of his. But that wasn’t going to happen. Best he could hope for was a missing button on a jacket of someone who did Jaynes’s dirty work.

  “Found anything that matches up to the Bill scene? Any similarities?”

  She looked over her evidence, scratched the back of her head and thought for a second.

  “Not really, it was like they took a Shop-Vac to the Bill scene, real pros, knew exactly what they were doing. This one . . . whoever it was, left a lot behind. Either an amateur or someone who got spooked. Took off in a hurry maybe.”

  Crawford nodded, looked up and saw Norm Rutledge walk in through the bedroom door on the other side of the room.

  “Thanks a lot,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” Dominica said.

  Rutledge beelined over to Crawford, ignoring Dominica.

  “What have we got?”

  “Dead woman’s name is Cynthia Dexter. Single, age forty-eight, worked at the Poinciana Club.”

  “We sure as hell don’t need this,” Rutledge said, his rank breath hitting Crawford like a stiff wind off a landfill.

  Rutledge’s eyes followed Ott who was walking over to them.

  “So it’s the same guy?” Rutledge asked.

  “They’re some obvious similarities,” Crawford said, “but I don’t know.”

  “Jesus, Crawford,” Rutledge said, shaking his head, “give me something.”

  “Easy, Norm, I’m just saying I’ve seen a lot of copycats before.”

  “What are you talking about? How could it be a copycat? We kept the Bill scene under tight wraps.”

  Ott stifled a laugh.

  “Is that right?” Crawford asked. “Then how come the doorman at my building knew every detail the morning after?”

  Rutledge just glared at him.

  His eyes finally shifted over to the body. Crossing the room quickly, he almost mowed down a uniform.

  Crawford and Ott followed him.

  “There’s another possibility, you know,” Rutledge said, looking down at the body. “Sexual asphyxia ever occur to you?”

  Crawford had already talked over that possibility with Ott and the ME.

  “ME’s prelim says there was no penetration, Norm.”

  “So? Since when is there always penetration?”

  “Since 98 percent of the time,” Crawford said.

  “Maybe this is the 2 percent.”

  “So you saying this was an accident, Norm?” Ott asked, not disguising his skepticism. “Two consenting adults taking it right up to the edge—”

  “And going over,” said Rutledge. “I got news for you, Ott, there’s a lot of kinky shit in Palm Beach. You got a problem with that?”

  “Ah, yeah,” Ott said, “actually, I do.”

  “Anything but another murder, right, Norm?” Crawford asked, giving Rutledge a cold stare.

  “Hey, if it’s another murder, I can deal with it. All I’m doing is examining all the possibilities, and I’m telling you . . . sexual asphyxia is one.”

  Ott snuck a skeptical look at Crawford.

  “Good news is,” Rutledge said with a sneer, “if it’s a murder, at least I got Florida’s top homicide team on it. Already got one you ain’t got shit on . . . think you can handle another?”

  “It’s been only six days, for Chrissakes,” Ott said.

  “Yeah, and you got squat. People gonna start sayin’, ‘guys may have been big homicide cops up north, couldn’t catch a fuckin’ cold down here.’ ”

  Crawford looked over at Dominica. She had edged away from Rutledge.

  “So, we getting it Norm or not?” Crawford asked.

  “You already got one.”

  Crawford knew Rutledge had no other choice. Everyone else in the department was clueless when it came to homicide.

  “So . . . is that a ‘no’?” Ott asked.

  Rutledge’s eyes got twitchy, his tics were kicking in.

  “You got it for now.”

  “Don’t go doin’ us any favors, Norm,” Crawford said.

  “I said, ‘you got it for now.’ ”

  “Big whoop,” Ott said, rolling his eyes.

  “Don’t give me your sarcastic bullshit, Ott,” Rutledge said, saliva in the corners of his mouth. “Hey, by the way, heard about your little brawl at the Hard Case . . . out there making us proud again.”

  A uniform looked over, like he might have to jump in between them.

  “Whoa,” Ott said, raising his hands, “we were just sitting there when this asshole sucker punched Charlie.”

  “Just minding your own business, huh?”

  “Talking over the Bill case, as a matter of fact,” said Ott.

  Rutledge just shook his head in disgust and walked off.

  Crawford shot Ott a glance.

  “I know,” Ott said, “upper one percentile of world-class assholes.”

  “No kiddin’. First, the guy’s dead sure it’s the same perp as Bill,” Crawford said, “then he’s sure it’s asphyxia . . . make up your mind, jackoff.”

  They watched Rutledge go into a huddle with Carnahan. It lasted about ten minutes and at the end Rutledge slapped Carnahan on the back, gave him a big smile and walked out. Trying to sell his sexual asphyxia theory, Crawford figured.

  Crawford and Ott spent the next two hours going over every square inch of Cynthia Dexter’s apartment. They watched McCarthy bag eight personal items and tag the alligator belt. Their most interesting discovery was Dexter’s address book. As far as names and numbers went, the book was pretty sparse. Pages C through F were blank. Seemed to be more people in it who fixed or sold things than friends or relatives.

  They were in her kitchen looking at it, their gloves on.

  “Check this out,” Ott said, pointing to a wall calendar. On it notes were written: “Mom dinner seven thirty,” on one day. “Dr. Martin three,” on another. Ott was pointing at one from ten days ago. It read, “Nick G., movies.” It had a heart in red ink around it. But, slashed into it was a big black X, etched so deep it cut through the paper.

  “This guy, Nick G.,” Crawford said, “maybe we should have a little chat with him.”

  Ott leafed through the address book.

  “That guy made her book,” he said.

  Crawford looked down at the page Ott was holding open.


  “Greenleaf, Nick (Viggo’s) 855-3033,” it said in flowery handwriting.

  “I’ll call him,” Ott said.

  He dialed and waited.

  “Voice mail.”

  “Hang up. Ever been to Viggo’s?”

  “No, what is it?” Ott asked.

  “This restaurant in Citiplace. I went there once,” Crawford said, like he hadn’t relished the experience. “Nouvelle cuisine, meaning three asparagus and a four-ounce piece of meat . . . artfully arranged, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “How about you wrap it up here,” Crawford said, looking around for Dominica McCarthy. “I’m gonna get a bite, then head over to Viggo’s. Find this Nick guy and ask him what the big, black X is all about.”

  He detoured over to Dominica. She was standing on the right side of the bed, writing on a pad.

  “So, Mac, check you later, okay?”

  She looked up and smiled.

  “Mac?”

  “Yeah, your first name’s got too damn many syllables. Let me know what you come up with, that button and stuff?”

  “Sure, I’m about ready to get out of here, too. Give me twenty-four hours to get back to you.”

  He nodded and walked over to Carnahan.

  “So?”

  Carnahan looked up at him. “Norm was pitching a sexual-hijinx-that-went-bad theory.”

  “Figured . . . and you weren’t buying?”

  “Nah, I’ve heard his theories before. He’s right about one in ten. Not this time.”

  Crawford walked out to the elevator and pressed the button. He waited, but nothing happened. He pressed it again, but it seemed stuck on a floor below.

  He heard a door close behind him and looked around. It was Dominica.

  “So you done?”

  “It’s a wrap,” she said.

  He pushed the elevator button again. Nothing.

  “Little problem here, let’s take the service elevator.”

  It came up fast. Crawford looked at his watch as the door opened. It was one fifteen.

  “How ’bout I buy you lunch? I was headed over to Green’s.”

  “Sure, but I’m warning you . . . I’m no cheap date. I got a big appetite.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Nick had just spent two and a half hours at the Poinciana. He had pulled it off. Brilliantly, in fact. That was one of his new, favorite words. Brilliant. A Brit thing. He noticed the chic young things said it all the time and he had added it to his daily vocabulary.