Palm Beach Pretenders

by Tom Turner

  “Yeah, except maybe they spent a half hour on Drummond’s. It was a little more detailed,” Ott said.

  Drummond had told Ott that his million-dollar check to Xavier Duke was to finance a travel movie set in the Galapagos Islands. Duke had told Drummond—so Drummond said, anyway—that he was going in a whole new creative direction and that he and the National Geographic channel were combining to do a joint venture about exotic birds, mammals and fish indigenous to the Galapagos.

  “It was pretty convincing and I was buying it at first,” Ott said. “The guy was telling me all about Galapagos fur seals, marine iguanas and blue-footed boobies, not to be confused with red-footed boobies.” Ott paused. “Nothing he said sounded suspicious except when I asked him where the Galapagos Islands were. He looked kind of blank for a second, then said off of Chile somewhere. Well, the only thing I was good at in high school was geography, so I knew they were off of Ecuador, which is like two thousand miles away.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe that the porn king suddenly changed his stripes and hooked up with the National Geographic channel.” Crawford said. “National Enquirer channel, now that I might believe.”

  “Like I said, I was buying it for a while with all his goddamn boobies.”

  “Did you ask him about his kids?”

  “Oh, yeah, I was just getting to that,” Ott said. “Gotta hand it to you, Charlie, that was a good idea. So, turns out, he’s got a daughter—” Ott checked his notes— “at some place called the College of Charleston. She’s a junior there.”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” Crawford said. “So that’s what they have in common. Daughters in their late teens or early twenties. Investing in the movies is just one elaborate smokescreen. But to make sure, we need to go through every inch of Duke’s boat. See if we find any DVDs.”

  Ott nodded. “I’ve got a meeting with the judge at 2:00 to get that court order. I’ll get a search warrant like we talked about.”

  “Perfect,” Crawford said. “We gotta get this thing wrapped up before Norm weighs in with another one of his half-assed theories.”

  * * *

  Ott was back at the station at 2:30 with a look in his eye that Crawford hadn’t seen much lately. The most recent time he remembered seeing the look was after Ott had his first date with Rebecca, a woman on match.com who he was still going strong with. The first time Crawford remembered noticing it was right after Ott tackled hedge-fund billionaire/murderer Wardwell Jaynes on the beach behind Jaynes’s house as a camera from CBS Action News 12 was capturing the momentous event live.

  “So, I see you got something,” Crawford said.

  “Yeah, I do, I’m just not totally sure what it’s worth,” he said. “The identity of EG LLC, the owner of that P.O. Box.”

  “Good going. The two-cent-check guy?”

  Ott nodded

  “Who is it?

  “A guy named Ellis Gorman.”

  Crawford shot up straight in his chair. “No shit!”

  Ott nodded. “You know who that is?”

  Crawford nodded. “I’m guessing there aren’t a whole lot of Ellis Gormans in the world, but the one I know is from up in New York. The Bronx, or one of the boroughs anyway. He’s a guy who, I’m guessing, started out with nothing but ended up a U.S. congressman. A congressman who was for sale. Like, if you were in the real estate business and wanted to build a skyscraper that exceeded the number of stories the building code allowed, you’d go to Ellis. If you were a company and wanted to do a merger with another company which violated anti-trust laws, you’d go to Ellis. So let me try to fill in some blanks here—”

  Ott spread his hands. “Be my guest.”

  “So, Xavier Duke, not knowing a lot about Ellis Gorman except he’s rich, finds out his daughter is hanging out at Windsong.” Ott nodded. “Duke gets Jared to put the moves on her and, fast-forward, they end up in bed and on film together. Then Xavier calls up Ellis and tries to put the bite on him. But Ellis, who’s used to having his hand out—not the other way around—basically tells Duke to go fuck himself and, just to make sure Duke got the message, literally gives him his two cents’ worth.”

  “That makes sense,” Ott said, patting his jacket pocket. “Oh, I also got the search warrant for Duke’s boat.”

  Crawford stood up. “Well, shit, what are we waiting for?” he said. “Let’s go. I’ll start at the stem, you start at the stern, meet in the middle.”

  * * *

  Duke’s boat was a 110-foot Mangusta, Italian-made and built in 2000, though a man at the marina said it had undergone a major refit in 2015. It was sleek and elegant both outside and inside, with polished mahogany interiors in all five cabins. Similar to Duke’s house, it featured an office abutting the ample master stateroom. Crawford guessed that it had once been another cabin, as it had a small bathroom off of it. The centerpiece of the office was a built-in desk that looked like it was the product of a master woodworker. On either side were thin drawers and, above it, three rows of built-in bookshelves.

  Crawford found a Day-Timer in the top drawer on the left, along with a passport and a birth certificate. He skimmed through the calendar and, based on the entries, concluded that Xavier Duke behaved like many other rich, retired men in Palm Beach. He played tennis and croquet almost every day at the Royal & Alien club, just down the street from his house. Those activities alone seemed to consume between two and three hours per day.

  It appeared that he used the boat quite frequently, hosting dinners and lunches for friends.

  His calendar also made regular mentions of meetings with a man named Danny. However, there was absolutely no mention of any movie-making endeavors, whether they featured naked sex partners, red-footed boobies, or others.

  Crawford put the Day-Timer down and looked at the bookshelves above the desk. On the top shelf to the far left was a book entitled, 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, then to right, Pride and Prejudice, 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye…Crawford scanned to the end of the shelf, then down to the two shelves below and, sure enough, it looked as if Duke had bought and shelved all 100 of the recommended books.

  Crawford sighed, realizing he had a fair amount of reading to do before he even got halfway through the list.

  He started to look away, but then noticed a space between Ulysesses and Of Mice and Men. Something metallic and silver in color was behind the tomes. He pulled the two books out to get a better look and saw that it was a wall safe with an electronic keypad.

  “Mort,” he said to Ott, who was going through built-in drawers on the other side of the master stateroom. “Check this out.”

  Ott walked over. “Well, well,” was all he said.

  The safe looked much like the ones you’d find in certain hotels to keep your valuables in.

  “You any good at safe-cracking?” Crawford asked.

  “One skill I never acquired.” Ott shrugged. “We just need four numbers.”

  Crawford reached back into the drawer and took out Duke’s birth certificate.

  “Why don’t you do the honors,” Crawford said, and Ott moved closer to the safe. “Try 1-0-1-4.”

  “What’s that?” Ott asked, punching in the numbers into the safe.

  “October fourteenth. His birthday.”

  Ott shook his head.

  Crawford put the birth certificate back in the drawer, picked up the Day-Timer and started turning its pages. “Try 1-2-2-1,” he said to Ott.

  Ott tried the numbers and shook his head. “What was that?”

  “A guy named Danny’s birthday. Who I’m guessing might have been his significant other.”

  Crawford turned several pages of the Day-Timer. “How about this one: 0-3-1-0?”

  Ott tried the number on the safe and it opened. “Bingo. What was that?”

  “His mother’s birthday.”

  “Of course.”

  Crawford leaned down to the open safe. “So what’s he got in there?”


  Ott slipped on his vinyl gloves and pulled out the only thing that was in the safe: a dark, wooden box that looked to be about ten inches long and half that wide and high.

  “Open it,” Crawford said eagerly.

  Ott opened it and saw five DVDs.

  He took one out. It had a simple white label on the side that said, “Samantha Kramer.”

  “No shit,” Ott said with a smile.

  Then he picked up the next one, which read. “Jennifer Sullivan.”

  The third one read, “Natalie Drummond.”

  “Olivia Gorman” was the fourth.

  The fifth one read simply: “AC.”

  Twenty-Eight

  The first four DVDs were between fifteen and twenty minutes long. Crawford and Ott didn’t feel it necessary to watch them all the way through. They got the idea in the first minute or two after playing one in a DVD player on Xavier Duke’s boat. Jared was the male lead in all four. Crawford wondered whether the man knew he was being filmed. He guessed he did but made a mental note to ask Dominica what she thought.

  “What do you think?” Ott asked. “Jared along with a buddy or two got them up to the house, then Duke figured out who they were—”

  “More importantly who their fathers were—”

  Ott nodded. “Then Duke told Jared to go put the moves on ‘em.”

  “Yeah,” Crawford said. “Sic loverboy on ‘em, then press record. They tried it on Taylor Whitcomb, but no sale.”

  “But Duke thought she was worth another shot,” Ott said. “So after she blew off Jared at Christmas, Duke invited her as his plus-one to the wedding so he could lure her up to his house a second time. I’m guessing it was another time, another guy, same outcome.”

  Crawford shook his head long and slow. “I’ve got two observations. One, Taylor’s got a good head on her shoulders. And two, this whole set-up is really sick.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” Ott said, loading the fifth DVD in the machine. “Wonder why Duke just put initials on this one instead of the whole name?”

  Crawford shrugged. “No clue.”

  The film started out with a young guy—not Jared—taking his clothes off, then panned to a girl under the covers of a bed.

  “Holy shit,” Ott said, his eyes wide. “She looks about fifteen.”

  Crawford was thinking even younger. “Turn that thing off.”

  Ott hit the DVD switch and looked at Crawford. “Like you said: sick, man.”

  Neither said anything for a few moments.

  “We’ve gotta track down Jared,” Crawford said finally. “Find out who that couple is.”

  Ott nodded. “This thing’s really ugly, Charlie.”

  Crawford nodded.

  Ott turned the DVD player back on and took out his iPhone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Gotta get some screenshots of those two.”

  Crawford nodded, looking away from the images.

  Ott took a few quick shots then turned off the DVD player again.

  “There’s another reason to track down Jared,” Crawford said.

  “What’s that?”

  “As a potential murder suspect.”

  Ott turned and met Crawford’s eyes. “How do you figure that?”

  “So, imagine Jared finds out Duke is making millions. And he thinks, ‘Wait a minute, I’m the star of the show.’”

  “You mean, getting the girls on tape so Duke can shake down their fathers?”

  “Yeah, and just assume Duke’s paying his star actor peanuts, so Jared starts thinking he deserves a bigger slice of the pie.”

  “So he goes to Duke and hits him up?”

  “Exactly, like, ‘Come on, Xavier, for all I’m doin’ for you,’” Crawford said. “But Xavier goes, ‘Sorry, there’re a million pretty faces out there,’ and one thing leads to another and Jared gets pissed off and kills him.”

  Ott thought for a few moments. “I ain’t buyin’ it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mainly ‘cause Jared doesn’t strike me as the type. Kind of passive.”

  Crawford nodded and thought for a second. “I think you’re probably right. But we gotta check it out anyway.”

  “Agreed,” said Ott. “So, who else we need to find?”

  “First, AC, whoever he may be. And I keep going back to Ellis Gorman.”

  “Why?”

  “‘Cause basically that two-cent check, as I said, was his way of telling Duke to go fuck himself,” Crawford said. “But what if he thinks about it a little more? Decides the tape of his daughter could really be damaging. He’s a guy who’s played rough all his life so he says to Xavier, ‘Hey, I don’t want anyone seeing us together, so let’s meet and I’ll give you a check in person.’ They meet at Reef Road and, pop, pop, pop. Xavier’s lying there tits-up, in the immortal words of Bob Hawes.”

  “That could have happened with any of the fathers.”

  “True,” Crawford said. “I just get the sense Gorman is more capable of it than the others.”

  “But when you think about it,” Ott said. “It could be someone we don’t even know about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, let’s say that Duke started doing these scams right after he retired from the porn business—”

  “Five years ago, you mean?”

  “Yeah, whenever it was. And for all we know he’s had people wire money into the Grand Cayman or Swiss bank accounts. Or God-knows where else.”

  “Yeah, except my sense is Duke wasn’t all that sophisticated with financial stuff.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he had a money market at PNC paying him one percent, for starters.”

  “Yeah, good point, and also who uses a Day-Timer anymore?” Ott said. “So we’re back to the five in the DVDs.”

  Crawford nodded. “We know who the first four women are,” he said. “Question is, who’s the fifth? And who’s the boy with the girl? And another question, who’s the victim…the boy or the girl?”

  Ott exhaled. “I never thought of that. I just assumed it was the girl.”

  Crawford shrugged. “Could be,” Crawford said. “But what if Duke set it up so the boy could get charged with statutory rape if the DVD ever got out there?”

  Ott patted Crawford on the shoulder. “So, you mean, maybe the girl was working for Duke, not the boy?”

  Crawford shrugged. “I don’t know if either one was. But it looks like it’s not just a sex tape, but a crime too.”

  Ott nodded. “Duke could go after a hell of a lot of money for that.”

  “Sure could.”

  “I just hope Jared’s got some answers,” Ott said.

  “Ellis Gorman too,” Crawford said. “But he’s not going to be easy.”

  Crawford’s cell phone rang. He picked it up and looked at the display.

  “Rose,” Crawford told Ott, then clicked on. “Hey, Rose, what’s up?”

  “You know how I’m always trying to solve your murders for you, Charlie?”

  “Yes. Keep up the good work.”

  “And how I always put your livelihood ahead of my own?”

  “Ah, now, you’re stretching it a little.”

  “Okay, maybe a little,” Rose said. “So anyway, last night I was at a cocktail party—”

  “How unusual.”

  “I know, right,” Rose said. “And somebody was talking about your murder—”

  “Which one?”

  “Carla Carton and the football player whose name I can’t pronounce.”

  “Paul Pawlichuk, and he was a coach, not a player,” Crawford said. “You mind if I put this on speaker, Rose? I’m here with Mort.”

  “No, no, go ahead.”

  Crawford hit speaker.

  “Hi, Rose,” Ott said. “How’s tricks?”

  “Good, Mortie. I miss you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “So, what was I saying?”

  “About Paul Pawlichuk.”

 
“Well, I actually have two scoops for you,” Rose said. “But be forewarned: this is from a cocktail party, where people are typically well into their cups. So, what you’re about to hear hasn’t exactly been fact-checked.”

  “Understood,” Crawford said. “You still got us curious.”

  “Okay, so here goes,” Rose said. “The first one is about the skinflint and Carla.”

  “The skinflint? Oh, you mean Robert Polk.”

  “Yeah, exactly. Well, according to the rumor mill, five years ago Robert asked Carla to marry him.”

  “Really?”

  “Wait a sec,” Ott said. “He was married.”

  “Yes, Mort, but you don’t think that the laws that apply to us mere mortals apply to billionaires, do you?”

  Mort grunted his assent.

  “What happened was—and this is from a pretty reliable source—twenty years ago, Polk met Carla somewhere. They had this torrid affair and Polk was ready to marry her and ditch his wife but Carla said no. Fast-forward to like a year ago, when Carla felt she was going nowhere with that soap opera and her husband Duane and she said yes.”

  “So it was kind of like a standing offer with Polk, you mean?” Ott asked.

  “Strange, I know, but yes, something like that. My source told me Carla felt that since it wasn’t happening with the soap, she might as well get filthy rich. But then, out of the blue, she gets the part in the Netflix show and starts making big bucks and decides who needs Robert.”

  Ott caught Crawford’s eye and muttered, “Fucked-up rich people again.”

  “What’s that?” Rose asked.

  “Nah, nothin’.”

  “That’s a hell of a story,” Crawford said. “Who’s your source?”

  “Get this,” Rose said. “Robert’s wife’s best friend. She said Lorinda Polk was all set to bail and get half of Robert’s money. She was actually kind of disappointed it never happened.”

  “So, long story short,” Ott said, “Polk was a pretty good prospect in Carla’s soap-opera days, but not in her starlet ones?”

  “Exactly,” said Rose.

  “Thanks, Rose, that’s very helpful,” Crawford said. “And what’s your second scoop?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rose said. “Almost as good”—she caught her breath—“So, as I said, these people were gossiping about the Mar-a-Lago murders and someone mentioned the son-in-law of the football coach and how he has a gambling problem. Goes to casinos all over and loses a small fortune.”