Palm Beach Nasty

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Palm Beach Nasty Page 23

by Tom Turner


  Through the blown-out back window, Crawford could see the bloody, unmoving head of the man in the passenger seat. He didn’t see the driver and thought maybe he was hit, slumped down on the seat.

  Ott reached in his pocket for another clip for his Glock, when suddenly the driver’s side door swung open and a skinny guy staggered out. An RPG Stinger was pressed up against his shoulder.

  Crawford had counted three bullets left in his clip. He sighted the guy in and fired three times.

  Two in the chest, one in his forehead. The man stumbled, then fell forward.

  Crawford looked over and saw the other guy’s head, wire rim glasses dangling from one ear. He was behind an inflated air bag, white powder splotched all over his clothes.

  He heard the dispatcher say in his earpiece that they’d have a roadblock set up on the Southern bridge in five minutes.

  “We won’t be needing it,” Crawford said. “Just send a couple body bags.”

  Crawford jumped out of the car and ran back toward Dominica’s Caprice.

  He got to within ten feet of the Caprice and bent down to see if she was under the car. But all he saw was shattered glass.

  He heard sirens in the distance and smelled burnt rubber and gas. He walked up to the Caprice and looked inside. Dominica was facedown in the backseat.

  He yanked the door open and crouched over her, not sure he should touch her. He didn’t see any sign of a wound.

  Then he saw her move imperceptibly, like she was exhaling.

  “Dominica? You okay?”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, turning to him and sitting up. She hugged him. “I thought you were one of the bad guys.”

  He stroked the back of her head gently.

  “You mean . . . the former bad guys.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  Ott had a grin as wide as the Crown Vic as he and Crawford walked up to Ward Jaynes’s house. It was five forty-five on the damp, humid morning and the sun had just poked up over the ocean. He and Crawford had covered a lot of ground since the shoot-out. Crawford was on his cell phone.

  “—tell you what, Barrett, old buddy, if you make the headline big enough, maybe the lawsuit’ll just go away,” Crawford said, then clicked off.

  “Jesus, Charlie, how many reporters you got comin’?” Ott asked.

  “As many as I could scare up,” Crawford said, walking up the steps. “Wonder who gets this place after Jaynes moves his operation to a cell at Starke?”

  Ott thought for a second.

  “One of those poor girls in Bangkok, maybe?”

  They hadn’t been to sleep yet and were in that zone somewhere between punchy and wired, partly because of the Box O’ Joe they had shared with a man named Dan Rumbough. Rumbough was Jaynes’s subcontractor, meaning the guy who had hired Fulbright and Donnie. They had gotten his number from Fulbright’s cell phone, looked up his address, and had gone there to take him in. They found him zonked out and wild-eyed, leaning over a small mountain of crystal meth. He was sharing it with a woman who claimed she didn’t know him and had no recollection of how she got there. They turned her loose, pumped a quart of Dunkin’ Donuts into Rumbough and sobered him up. Last thing they wanted was the charge overturned because Rumbough was too high to know what he was saying.

  After they double-teamed him for over an hour, telling Rumbough about the various bad options available to him, the assistant district attorney, who they had rousted out of bed, offered Rumbough a deal. Faced with a long prison stretch, Rumbough agreed to cop to an accessory charge and, promptly, gave up a guy he called “the lawyer.” Turned out the lawyer, a man named John Rhodes, was an old friend of Ward Jaynes’s.

  When they brought him in, Rhodes acted all innocent and told them all he had done was make a few phone calls. The ADA informed him that those phone calls—conspiring to commission two murders—were going to cost him twenty years unless he fingered his “client.” After weighing that option for about ten seconds, Rhodes suddenly got very loquacious. Said how he used to be a lawyer, but was disbarred for life eight years before. Something to do with a major insider trading charge and—as Rhodes explained it—him “taking a bullet” for Ward Jaynes. Ended up losing his license but said Jaynes owed him big time. Not only that, trusted him, too. So much so that Rhodes became Jaynes’s confidant. The ADA said, “That’s a very nice story, John, but you’re still looking at twenty years at Marion County, unless you give us something big.”

  John Rhodes apparently had heard of Marion County correctional, because it took him about three seconds to flip. He ID’ed Jaynes as the man who not only ordered the murder of “the sisters,” but then, he gave them the really big prize: how Ward Jaynes had boasted to him on several occasions about strangling the “greedy little redneck bastard,” Darryl Bill.

  Confession signed, Ott and Crawford had gone straight to Jaynes’s house down on South Ocean.

  Ott was leaning hard on the doorbell.

  A few minutes later a man in his sixties and a bathrobe opened the door. He looked bewildered at the sight of two seemingly sober, but disheveled, men standing there. Crawford had a rip on the left sleeve of his shirt and Ott was a particularly sorry sight. His hair, which normally had a neat swept-back wave in front, was matted down and looked like a deflated mole. His big Windsor tie knot had slipped down to his upper sternum.

  “Yes?” the man asked.

  “We need to see your boss,” Crawford said.

  “Is he expecting you?” the man asked.

  “Not exactly.” Crawford flashed him his badge. “Just get him. We got a warrant for his arrest. Might want to tell him it’s Murder One.”

  The man reeled back a few steps.

  Crawford stuck his foot between the door and the jamb.

  The man glared at him.

  “I was just going to awaken him,” he said.

  “So what are you waiting for, Pops,” Ott said, stepping inside, “ ‘awaken him.’ ”

  The man shuffled off toward a circular staircase.

  Crawford heard the thumping of a helicopter and shot Ott a smile.

  “Here they come,” Crawford said, looking up. “I just love the press.”

  Ott flashed him a thumbs-up. “Yeah, me too.”

  After a few moments of waiting for the old man, Crawford got twitchy.

  “Come on.” He went in and headed toward the staircase, jerking his Maglite out of his pocket.

  He shined it upstairs and pulled his Sig Sauer out of his shoulder holster. Ott had his Glock out and his Maglite, too. Their beams of light crisscrossed.

  “Jaynes, we got a murder warrant for you,” Crawford yelled up the stairs. “Come on down now.”

  But there was no response.

  Crawford ran upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. He saw the old man coming out of a bedroom. He ran toward it.

  “Where the hell is he?” he asked, hearing Ott a step behind him.

  “He wasn’t in his bedroom,” the old man said with a shrug.

  “Bullshit,” Crawford said, shoving the old man aside, and running into the bedroom. It was twice the size of Crawford’s whole apartment. The covers on the bed were pulled down. There was a huge semicircular porch off the master and the french doors were open.

  Crawford ran through the doors out onto the porch, Ott right behind him. He heard two helicopters now.

  Crawford looked down to the ground below. It would have been a twenty-foot jump. No way Jaynes was going to make the leap.

  He motioned with his Sig to Ott.

  “Back inside, Mort,” he said.

  Ott nodded and turned.

  Crawford ran back in and opened the first door he came to. It was a Gatsby-size walk-in. Ott opened another door. It was the master bath. Crawford opened a third. It was an empty closet, but with steps going down from it.

  “Bingo,” Crawford said, charging in and running down the steps.

  “This is where he went,” Crawford yelled back to Ott.

  At the
bottom was a long, straight, dimly lit tunnel about five feet wide. Crawford started running at full speed and heard Ott’s footsteps close behind. A dank smell was suddenly replaced by a salty ocean scent as Crawford saw light fifty feet ahead.

  He got to the end and saw a six-inch-thick steel door with a large slide bolt on it. He ran out through the door, onto the beach and stopped. It was as bright as if a bank of Klieg lights was shining down from above. The tunnel was built into a dune. Crawford looked down the beach in one direction and saw nothing. He looked the other way and saw a man.

  It was Jaynes, in bright red pajamas.

  Crawford looked up and saw three helicopters now.

  “Okay, Mort,” Crawford shouted at Ott, “pretend he’s O.J. and we gotta stop him from making a touchdown.”

  Crawford started sprinting, though loafers were hardly ideal footwear. He heard Ott right behind him. The helicopters were louder as they got lower.

  Then, suddenly, Ott passed him. He was breathing heavily but Crawford spotted a faint smile on his face.

  Crawford tried to see if Jaynes had a gun, then saw Ott throw it into another gear up ahead. Ott was just thirty yards behind Jaynes now. Jaynes looked back, the panicked look of a cornered animal on his face.

  One of the helicopters had landed and was ahead of Jaynes. Crawford saw a man with a TV camera and the letters of the local CBS station on the side of the helicopter.

  Then he saw Jaynes swing around again and—just as he did—Ott dove.

  It was a tackle worthy of the NFL.

  The two went down in a heap. Ott reached back for his cuffs and slapped them on Jaynes’s wrist. It reminded Crawford of a cowboy tying up a steer.

  Crawford was standing above Ott and Jaynes now. He saw four men and a woman running toward them a hundred yards down the beach. He recognized one of the men.

  “Nice goin’, Mort,” he said. “You made the six o’clock news.”

  Ott was gasping for air, breathing too heavily to say anything.

  Crawford went over to one of the helicopters that had landed twenty feet away.

  “Okay, you got your shot, this is a crime scene,” he said. “Now don’t get any closer. No interviews, no nothing.”

  “What are your names?” a reporter with a mike shouted.

  “That’s Detective Mort Ott,” Crawford said, pointing. “And Wardwell A. Jaynes, III, is the one with the sand all over his face.”

  “And you are?” the reporter asked.

  “Irrelevant,” Crawford said.

  He walked over to Jaynes and Ott. The reporter with the mike followed him. Crawford swung around.

  “What the hell did I just tell you? Back off.”

  The reporter did as he was told.

  The four men and the one woman were in a huddle ten feet away from Jaynes and Ott now. They all had their recorders out.

  “Okay, people, back up, there will be no interviews with me, my partner or Mr. Wardwell A. Jaynes, III. Thank you . . . oh, and you in the bad shirt,” Crawford pointed to one of the men, “can I have a word with you?”

  The man walked up to Crawford.

  “Like I said, Barrett, the whole lawsuit thing goes away if you get a front-page picture of your boss . . . along with a big headline that says something like, WARD JAYNES, BILLIONAIRE PEDOPHILE, ARRESTED FOR MURDER . . .”

  Barrett Seabrook seemed at a loss for words.

  “What the hell you waiting for?” Crawford asked. “Go write the damn story.”

  Crawford walked back to Ott and Jaynes, both on their feet now. Even in handcuffs and with sand coating his face, Jaynes’s arrogance was undiminished.

  “You’re going to sorely regret this travesty, Crawford,” Jaynes said.

  “Not this time, Rainmaker,” Crawford said. “All your rats jumped ship. By the way, those red PJs . . . very photogenic.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  The afternoon before, Alcie had walked in on Nick packing his bags.

  “Goin’ somewhere, partner?”

  “How ’bout knocking next time,” Nick said, then all buddy-buddy, “don’t worry I was going to settle up with you before I left.”

  Sure you were, Alcie thought.

  “I never had any doubt of that,” he said.

  “Hold on, I’ll write you a check,” Nick said.

  “I gotta better idea,” Alcie said. “How about us going down to the bank, you do a nice little wire transfer. That way you don’t need to waste a check.”

  After the money was in his account, Alcie shook Nick’s hand, thanked him and told him it was a pleasure doing business with him. It was the end of a short-lived, but highly profitable, relationship.

  EARLY THE next morning, Alcie called the Palm Beach Police Department and asked for Mort Ott, the detective who had given him the sketch with Nick’s likeness. He figured he’d just leave Ott a message, but to his surprise, Ott picked up. They had patched him through to Ott’s cell.

  “Ott here,” he answered, sounding way more chipper than most people did at that hour of the morning.

  “Yes, hello, Officer, I am calling you to inform you that the man in that flyer you’re looking for currently resides at 101 El Vedato.”

  Ott motioned frantically to Crawford next to him as he hit the speaker button on his cell. They had just booked Ward Jaynes and put him in a six-by-nine cell.

  “Who is this?” Ott said into his cell. “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Just a concerned citizen, Officer,” Alcie said, “trying to make sure Palm Beach is a safe place again. That address—in case you neglected to jot it down—is 101 El Vedato.”

  Click.

  Ott put his fist up and Crawford bumped it with his.

  “Guess we can forget about sleeping,” Crawford said. “That guy’s voice . . . what’d he sound like to you?”

  “Like a black guy trying to sound like Prince Charles.”

  “Exactly.”

  Ott spun the car wheel so hard Crawford almost slid into his lap.

  “The hell you doin’?”

  “Going to get the guy at El Vedato, whataya think?”

  Ott took a skidding left turn onto Congress.

  Crawford grabbed the dashboard for support.

  “Mort, for Chrissake, lose the Skip Barber driving school shit. It gonna matter we get there two minutes faster?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You do understand we got nothing on the guy?”

  Ott thought for a second.

  “I mean, not a damn thing,” Crawford said, shrugging. “We go to the house . . . then what? We got probable cause?”

  Ott scratched his head. No sleep in a long time wasn’t helping his thought processes.

  “I mean,” Crawford said, “charge him with what?”

  “Suspicion of murder. Cynthia Dexter,” Ott said, scratching his head harder.

  “Based on what?”

  Bloodhound creases sliced across Ott’s forehead.

  “Okay, well . . . what’s the guy doing living in a $10 million house?”

  Crawford shook his head. “That illegal, Mort?”

  “Sure as hell is suspicious. Bet we can nail him for art theft.”

  “And whataya got for proof?”

  “Fucking A, Charlie,” Ott said, tapping his fingers on the wheel, “work with me here, will ya.”

  “You’re too damn eager; we jump the gun, we hand some defense asshole a way to get him off.”

  “So what are you saying?” Ott asked.

  “We get a warrant,” Crawford said. “We’ll come up with a reason for it between now and when we see the judge.”

  “Okay,” Ott said, accelerating on the green light. “In the meantime, what if the guy flies?”

  “We’ll put guys on the house,” Crawford said punching seven numbers into his cell.

  “Who the hell you calling at this hour?”

  “The judge.”

  “Christ, it’s six fucking thirty in the morning.”

  Crawford
let it ring. He waited. Someone answered.

  “Sorry to bother you, judge, it’s Charlie Crawford. I got a murder suspect at a house on El Vedato. I need a warrant. Can—”

  Crawford listened for fifteen seconds, then clicked off his phone.

  “What’d he say?”

  “Same thing you did, but we’re meeting him at ten. He must have an afternoon golf game.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  Fifteen minutes later, Crawford and Ott were parked two doors down from 101 El Vedato.

  “How do you want to play it?” Ott asked, over the engine that idled too loud.

  “Two guys, front and back.” Crawford gestured toward the house.

  “I’ll call the station, get the guys. Then what?”

  Crawford looked at his watch.

  “Then . . . we go catch some Zs.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, if Greenleaf’s in there, he’s not going anywhere. Got three hours ’til we see the judge. What do you want to do? Sit around and drink coffee?”

  “Guess I could handle a nap.”

  Ott then lifted up his foot.

  “Hey, by the way, you never asked me about the secret of my speed.” He pointed at his shoe. “Right there, waffle soles.”

  “Is that what it was?” Crawford laughed. “I gotta hand it to you, you showed me some wheels. Helluva tackle, too.”

  “Just a little FYI, Charlie,” Ott said as he put his foot back on the floor, “you can’t catch anyone on a beach in Bass Weejuns.”

  Crawford raised his foot.

  “Never catch me dead in Bass Weejuns . . . Skechers, man.”

  THEY DROVE back to the station.

  Problem was, Crawford couldn’t get to sleep there. He kept thinking about Dominica. How he could’ve gotten her killed. She was probably back at her place now, he figured, having bad dreams about large cars hurtling toward her.

  His adrenaline was surging. His exhaustion no match for it. His mind jumped to Greenleaf. Leaning back in his chair, he watched the sun rise from his office window. He was churning through Greenleaf scenarios. Lil hadn’t given him much, but enough to get him speculating. He knew she was holding back. By the time the sun had cleared the four-story condominium building to the east, Crawford had a pretty good working theory. Why Nick Greenleaf had killed Cynthia Dexter.

 

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