by Tom Turner
He was not altogether wrong about that.
Truax turned and walked toward the door. Just as he got to it, he turned back to Crawford and Ott. “So quit wasting my time harassing me. Go find the sombitch who killed my wife. Talk to that guy Duke, why dontcha?”
“Wait a minute,” Crawford said, taking a step toward Truax. “Talk to him about what?”
“I don’t know. Carla said he was trying to hold her up or some shit.” He turned and put his hand on the door.
“Whoa, wait,” Crawford said as he and Ott moved closer. “What do you mean, ‘hold her up?’”
Truax shrugged. “That’s all she said. Ask him.”
He pushed open the door and walked out.
Crawford and Ott watched Truax walk out the door and, through the window, saw him get into his Dodge Viper.
“So now he’s all concerned about his wife, after hitting the town with one of her sister’s bridesmaids?”
Ott shook his head, watching Truax drive away. “That license plate worked back in 2005, not now that he’s thirty-seven.”
Thirteen
They were in Crawford’s office.
Ott suggested Crawford be the one to call Jaclyn Puckett and set up a second interview, since—as Ott claimed—‘she’s got a sneaker for you.’
Crawford groaned in protest at Ott’s charge but nodded.
Ott said he’d look into Joey Decker while Crawford talked to Jaclyn.
Crawford called her as Ott headed to his cubicle.
She answered. “Hello, Detective.”
“Hi, Ms. Puckett, how are the arrangements going with Ms. Carton’s funeral?”
“Oh, God, it’s a bitch,” Jaclyn said. “How’s it going finding her killer?”
“Same,” Crawford said. “So, I’m hoping you can give me some information about Janice and George Figueroa?”
“That glam duo?” Jaclyn chuckled. “All I really know about them is what I overheard when Carla talked to Addison. Like the day before the wedding Addison was telling her all about Janice’s extravagant trips.”
“How’d she know about them?”
“Rich always got an earful about big sis, then he told Addison. How Janice went to London all the time, stayed at Claridge’s and the Connaught, supposedly for her business.”
“Those are hotels, I’m guessing?”
Jaclyn nodded. “Very expensive hotels.”
“And Janice is an interior decorator?”
“Yes, well, about the only interior she decorates is her own house. And to the nines, I heard. Again, this is from Addison by way of Rich.”
Crawford flashed to all the jewelry dangling off of Janice’s various body parts. “And what do you know about George? Does he go with her on her trips?”
“That was my impression. But to tell you the truth, I don’t really know.”
Crawford heard a phone ring. “Do you need to get that?”
“Nah, that’s my land line. I can get back to them,” Jaclyn said. “So, are you married, Charlie? I don’t recall seeing a ring.”
So now she’s calling me Charlie? He was just glad Ott didn’t hear that.
“No, but I’m seeing someone.”
“I figured,” Jaclyn said. “All the good guys are taken.”
“I don’t know about that.” Back to business. “Well, I really appreciate your feedback on the Figueroas. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Call me anytime.”
* * *
Ott had finally tracked down Joey Decker.
Online, he found a number of newspaper stories detailing Joey’s troubled life off of the football field. The most creative headline was, Joey Decked-Her. Apparently, Decker had beaten up his girlfriend at a frat party in college. The article had mentioned that Decker had graduated from Boca Raton High School. Ott had called the six Deckers in the Boca Raton phone directory until he located Joey.
Now he was sitting in Decker’s parents’ living room while both his parents were at work. It was a nice, middle-class split level that had plastic on all the furniture, a look Ott had seen before but never in the pages of a magazine.
Ott was warming up with a little football talk.
Joey had just told him that he was going to get a try-out with Oakland and that the Atlanta Falcons and the Green Bay Packers were also interested.
“Well, I wish you luck,” said Ott. “I’m sure you’ll land somewhere good. My 0 and 16 Cleveland Browns could sure as hell use you.”
Decker, who was taking up the better part of a 2-person loveseat, smiled, nodded and said thanks.
“As much as I’d like to talk football all day, you know why I’m here, right?”
Decker nodded listlessly. “That thing with Coach.”
“Yeah, ‘that thing with Coach,’” Ott said. “Joey, you can’t show up drunk at Paul Pawlichuk’s son’s wedding and take a swing at him.”
“Take a swing at him? Where the hell did you get that? I just got in his face. I mean, I busted my ass for four years for that guy and that’s how he rewards me? Come on, man. How ‘bout telling those teams how good a player I was, not the couple times I messed up.”
“From what I could tell, it was more than a couple of times.”
“Three, maybe.”
“So after they told you to leave the wedding,” Ott asked, “where’d you go?”
Decker sighed. “To a bar somewhere. In West Palm, I think.”
“What was the name of the place?” Ott had a pretty good working knowledge of West Palm Beach bars.
“I don’t know. It was on Clematis, I think.”
“Well, there’s the Grease Burger Bar?”
Decker shook his head.
“Roxy’s?”
“No, an Irish place, I think.”
“Oh, you mean, O’Shea’s.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“When did you get there?”
“Eight, maybe?”
“That early?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I want you to think real hard, Joey. You sure it wasn’t closer to ten?”
“No way,” Decker said. “I was headed home before ten.”
“Drunk, I assume.”
Decker looked guilty. “Hey, man, it was better than what you thought I mighta did.”
He was referring to killing Pawlichuk.
Ott nodded. “You got a point there, Joey.”
Fourteen
Xavier Duke seemed to have a preconceived notion of how a famous director should dress. At best, his notion was antiquated. As antiquated as Hugh Hefner in silk pajamas, or Tom Wolfe in a white suit and spats or George Hamilton in Savile Row suits, pocket square and perpetual tan.
Xavier Duke wore Calvin Klein jeans, a loud Turnbull & Asser shirt complemented—he seemed to think anyway—with a dark silk ascot and a blue blazer with gold monogrammed buttons. The dandy look was topped off with a black cane with a silver knob which Duke was tapping on the black and white checkerboard marble floor in the large foyer of his Georgian white brick colonial on North Lake Way at the north end of Palm Beach.
He was talking to a man in his twenties who had just walked in with two women—girls, was probably more accurate, as they looked to be in their late teens. The young man, Jared, had introduced the girls to Xavier as Grace and Avery.
“So where are you ladies from?” Xavier asked.
Grace, tall, willowy, and drunk, answered. “Greenwich, Connecticut,” which came out more like Gren-ish, Connesh-icut.
“Oh, are you?” Xavier said. “And your parents have a house down here?”
“Yes, on Clarke,” Grace said.
Xavier turned to Avery. “And what about you, my dear?”
Avery, cute, short and high on MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, said, “Lake Forest,” then giggled. “Illinois.”
“Oh, I know where it is,” Xavier said. “I grew up in Winnetka.” The wrong side of the tracks, he chose not to add.
“The girls are down here on spring break,” Jared added to the conversation.
Xavier pointed in the direction of the bar and the rear of the house. “Well, hell, Jared, what are you waiting for? Go show the ladies a good time.”
“You got it, dude,” Jared said, then to Grace and Avery. “Come on, you guys aren’t gonna believe this place. It’s sick.”
Xavier had bought the house from the estate of Vasily and Aleksandr Zinoviev, two Russian businessmen/thugs who had died violently the year before. The brothers had somehow gotten their hands on the plans of the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles and copied it inch for inch.
First, Jared took Grace and Avery to a bar manned by a black man with a shaved head and two gold-hooped earrings. There were two other men and four women sitting at the bar, all of them in their early twenties. Jared said hello to two of the women, then turned to the bartender.
“This is my man Marsh,” Jared said to Grace and Avery. “Makes the best drinks in Palm Beach. Possibly the whole Sunshine State.”
Marsh shot Jared a look, like he didn’t need compliments from this ofay honkey.
The girls ordered drinks. As he had been instructed, Marsh went extra heavy on the pour.
“What do you guys feel like doing first?” Jared said. “There’s the game room with these cool, old pinball machines, arcade games, and a pool table. Or we could take a swim in the grotto. Or shoot hoops or play tennis. Bu-ut, that might be dangerous, considering our present conditions.”
Grace laughed, glanced at Avery. “Yeah, I don’t know ‘bout you, but I’m way too messed up for anything that requires coordination.” She struggled mightily with the last word.
Avery gave her a nod. “Yeah, but a swim would be awesome. Never swum in a grotto before,” she said. “Is it swum or swam?”
“Swimmed,” Grace chuckled.
“Whatev. Come on,” Jared said, grabbing the girls’ hands. “Only thing is, bathing suits aren’t allowed.”
Avery smiled and looked at Grace. “I don’t have a problem with that. Do you?”
“Nah,” Grace said. “Not the first time I ever skinny-dipped.”
* * *
Jared, Grace and Avery were treading water in the pool, each with a glass of champagne in their hand. Another man named Ned, who kept unabashedly sneaking peeks at the girls naked bodies, had joined them. Jared was telling them about the aviary in back of the house.
“It’s got cockatoos, peacocks, parrots…what else, Ned?”
Ned glanced away from Grace’s breasts. “Like toucans and pelicans and shit.”
Jared nodded. “Yeah, toucans and pelicans and lots of shit.”
It was Jared’s little joke, but the girls missed it.
The girls were increasingly becoming more drunk, stoned, and dysfunctional.
“I don’t even know what a cockatoo is,” Grace said. “Or a toucan.”
Avery laughed and attempted the equivalent of patting her head and rubbing her belly: treading water, holding her champagne glass, and talking. “I think a toucan is the one with a big yellow and orange beak.”
“‘Zactly,” Ned said.
“And what about the other,” said Grace, laughing. “The cock-a-doodle-doo?”
Jared laughed so hard he spit out a mouthful of champagne.
* * *
Ned was passed out in the screening room as the four watched a Jessica Chastain movie that hadn’t been released to theaters yet. He was sprawled on a couple of big suede cushions while Jared sat between Grace and Avery on a massive black leather couch. Jared had been necking, first with Grace, then Avery. The girls didn’t seem to mind that after a long tongue session with one, he’d turn to the other and start in on her.
There were two other couples in the expansive room, but they seemed to be there to actually watch the movie rather than use the space for a pre-coital warm-up.
After their swim, Jared had told the girls that there was really no need to go to the bother of putting their clothes back on, but Grace and Avery, in a quasi-modest gesture, had both put their panties and bras on. Grace was in a black thong, Avery a not-so-shocking pink one.
About halfway through the movie and another bottle of bubbly, Jared suggested that the girls follow him to an adjacent bedroom and, without much hesitation, they agreed.
They walked in, not bothering to turn on the light. Jared put his arms around the two girls and led them to the bed. As he took the few steps to the big king, he looked up to a corner of the room above the elaborate molding and saw the tiny red flashing light he had seen many times before.
The three got into bed, and Jared turned to the girl on his right.
“Avery?” he asked.
“No, Grace.”
Jared leaned toward her and kissed her passionately as he took off her panties, then climbed on top of her.
He felt a hand on his back. “And what am I supposed to do?” Avery asked.
“Here,” said Jared. “I’ll show you.”
Fifteen
Rose Clark called Crawford as he was walking into the station at eight the next morning.
“Morning, Rose,” he said into his cell.
“Hey, Charlie,” she said. “So, I was looking at that guest list you gave me of the Pawlichuk wedding again and another name popped out at me.”
“Who was that?”
“Her name is Taylor Whitcomb, and she’s the daughter of these big socialites, Rennie and Wendy Whitcomb. I remember reading in the Glossy last summer that she just came out in New York.”
Pause. “Of what?” Crawford asked, writing the Whitcombs’ names in his notebook.
Rose howled. “Come on, Charlie, it was her debutante party. As in, she ‘came out…in society.” A brief pause. “Don’t play dumb with me, you grew up in that world.”
“It’s all a distant memory,” Crawford said.
“Anyway, the reason I brought it up is the rest of the people on the list were a far cry from the socialite/deb party crowd. I mean football players, racecar drivers, porn kings, know what I mean?”
“I do know what you mean,” Crawford said. “And I appreciate you telling me about her.”
“You’re welcome and this time it’s not going to cost you.”
“A freebie?”
“Yeah, because I had such a good time with you the other night.”
“Me too.”
“Well, good,” Rose said. “See you, Charlie.”
“You will, Rose.”
Having no appointments until later in the morning, Crawford went straight to his internet-telephone listing site. It was pretty reliable for providing landline numbers and often cell phone numbers as well. He typed in “Rennie Whitcomb,” then wondered if that was a nickname for something like Renwick or Renchester or some fancy socialite name. But ‘Rennie Whitcomb’ came up, along with a number.
Crawford dialed it.
“Whitcomb residence,” said the woman’s voice.
“Hello,” said a male voice simultaneously. “I’ve got it, Iris.”
“Mr. Whitcomb?”
“Yes, who’s calling?”
“My name is Charlie Crawford, Mr. Whitcomb, I’m a detective with the Palm Beach Police Depart—”
“Oh, Christ, what did she do this time?” Whitcomb asked.
“Who?”
“My wild-child daughter.”
“Nothing that I know of,” Crawford said. “But that’s why I’m calling. I just wanted to ask her a few questions about the Pawlichuk wedding last Saturday.”
“Where those two people got murdered, you mean? At Mar-a-Lago?”
“Yes.”
Pause. “Well, why would she know anything about that?”
He apparently had no clue his daughter had gone to the wedding. “Because she was there, I think.”
Long pause. “She told us she was going to a party up on Jupiter Island.”
“All I know is she was on the guest list for the wedding,” Crawford said. “Would you m
ind if I ask your daughter a few questions?”
Whitcomb laughed. “Now? It’s 8:30 in the morning, detective. There’s not an eighteen-year-old kid in the world who’s awake at this hour. Especially one on spring break.”
It was a good point. “Well, how about if I stop by your house, maybe, say, one o’clock this afternoon?”
Whitcomb laughed again. “You mean, prime sunbathing time? That’s sacred. How about four o’clock? I’d like to find out about this, too.”
“Four o’clock is good,” Crawford said. “Where do you live, Mr. Whitcomb?”
Whitcomb gave him his address.
* * *
An hour later, Crawford grabbed his jacket and went out to Ott’s cubicle. Ott was clad in his favorite color: brown. Dacron pants with a perma-crease, a polyester shirt with a wide-splayed collar and a tie of indeterminate material.
“Ready?” Crawford asked.
Crawford had called Xavier Duke and set up a ten o’clock meeting with him up at 1753 North Lake Way.
“I’m ready,” Ott said.
Crawford and Ott went down the elevator, got in their car behind the station, and made the fifteen-minute ride.
On the way up, Ott told Crawford about meeting with Joey Decker. He had taken a picture of Decker on his iPhone, dropped by O’Shea’s bar on Clematis Street, and shown it to the bartender. The bartender said he’d been on duty when Decker came in at around eight the night of the murders. He said he couldn’t forget Decker because of his red hair and six-foot-six frame. So, although Decker had never really been in the running as the Mar-a-Lago killer, he’d now been officially eliminated.
Crawford dialed Rose Clarke.
“Hey, Charlie,” Rose said. “Twice in one day.”
“One morning, even.”
“Such an honor. What did you forget?”
“The Russians’ house on North Lake Way, now owned by Xavier Duke…do you know what Duke paid for it?”
“Fifteen point five million. Commission was a lousy four percent.”
“Wow, that sounds low for such a big place.”
“Yeah, it’s over twenty thousand square feet. But it had two big problems. No, actually three. One, it was hideously decorated. Tacky. Tacky. Tacky. Two, the whole place had a lot of deferred maintenance. And three, it was the scene of multiple murders. Tends to make people a little squeamish to know people were carted out in body bags from a house they’re thinking of buying.”