Palm Beach Predator

by Tom Turner

  Crawford sat on a brown leather couch in the reception area and picked up a Town & Country magazine. He started leafing through it and stopped at an article featuring the town of Lake Forest, Illinois. Somewhere back in his previous life he remembered that Lake Forest was to Chicago what Greenwich, Connecticut, was to New York City. An expensive suburb where successful financiers, $1,000-an-hour lawyers, and captains of industry lived. Then he saw the name Roger Fentress in the caption of one photo. The shot was of a preppy-looking man in his mid-to-late thirties, brown hair with a little grey on the side, horn-rimmed glasses, and a tweed jacket. Next to him—and in front of a classic white-brick colonial—stood a tall, slender woman with dirty-blonde hair and high cheekbones. To her right were two boys, early teens and both chips off the old block.

  The woman—Diana Jennings was her name twenty years back—had been Crawford’s first love in college. Diana was from a small town in Colorado and was a competitive skier who’d been .034 seconds from making the Olympics. They were freshmen together, class of 2001, and had dated from halfway through their freshman year until the end of sophomore year. Then, in the fall of 1999, Crawford, twenty at the time, had taken a year abroad in Florence, Italy, and had met and fallen madly in love with a twenty-six-year-old Italian newspaper reporter he met in a bar. To his credit, Crawford had written Diana and told her what had happened. Diana, apparently confident it was a romance that would run out of steam, waited months expecting to hear that it was a flash-in-the-pan romance.

  But four months later, Crawford was still going strong with Ginevra, so Diana finally accepted an invitation to go to a fraternity party with Crawford’s former roommate Roger Fentress.

  The Town & Country article described Roger Fentress as a “wunderkind fund manager” not to mention a “scratch golfer” and a man with “reputedly the largest wine collection in Illinois.” When he and Crawford were roommates, the only wine they’d known about was Charles Shaw Napa, also known as Two-Buck Chuck.

  “Yo,” said the voice to Crawford’s side, “you the detective?”

  Crawford had been a thousand miles away. He snapped out of his reverie. “You Mr. Price?”

  The man was short, had a shaved head, light blue eyes and a considerable paunch. Crawford was thinking small-town CPA, not perfidious studio head.

  “Yeah, Troy Price,” he said. “The man over there said you’re looking for me.”

  Crawford saw an attractive woman in a short skirt and blue polo shirt with a popped collar behind Price.

  Crawford got to his feet. “I’m a homicide detective with the Palm Beach Police Department.” His instinct was to shake Price’s hand, but he didn’t feel like it.

  “This is my wife, Ann,” Price said. She merely nodded suspiciously. “What’s this about?”

  Crawford put his hand on his chin. “I understand you both had an appointment with Mattie Priest this morning. Was it to see a house at 217 Dunbar?”

  “Yeah, but only I went,” Price said.

  He had Crawford’s full attention now. “Why was that?”

  Ann Price took a step forward. “I felt sort of crappy,” she said. “We figured if Troy liked it, we’d go back together.”

  Crawford nodded and turned to Price. “Mattie Priest was murdered this morning. Her body was found at the house on Dunbar Road.”

  “Jesus, you’re kidding,” Price said as his wife covered her mouth with both hands and her eyes widened.

  “That is so horrible,” Ann Price said. “Oh my God.”

  Crawford nodded again. “How long were you at the house, Mr. Price?”

  “Um, not long. I knew right away it wasn’t for us. We want the master on the ground floor. Tell you the truth, I was kind of pissed at Mattie.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we had made it really clear to her that we wanted the master on the first floor.” He shook his head and glanced down. “I’m just so shocked…the poor woman.”

  Though the man’s priorities were clearly out of whack, his reaction to Mattie’s death struck Crawford as genuine. “When you say, ‘not long,’ how long? Ten, fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes, that’s about right.”

  “Then where did you go?”

  “Back here.” Price shrugged and smiled. “I had a sick wife to attend to.”

  “So, you were back here by nine thirty?”

  “At the latest.” Price’s expression changed. “Wait a minute, you’re not—”

  “Just routine questions, Mr. Price. Did you notice anything unusual when you went through the house?”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, the house was pretty immaculate…maybe something that was out of place?”

  “I don’t know exactly what that means, but no.”

  Crawford ran his hand through his hair. “What about…did you see anyone on the property when you were there? A pool man, a gardener, anyone at all?”

  “You know what, I did see a guy there. Out of a side window. Looked like a workman, and I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Dressed in dark clothes. Brownish hair, maybe around forty to forty-five. My age.”

  “Did you see him doing anything? Some kind of work, I mean?”

  “No, he just walked by a side window. I saw him for, literally, three seconds.”

  Crawford made a mental note to call Mattie Priest’s partner, Sylvia.

  “Okay, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.” He handed Price a card. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please give a call.”

  Price took out his wallet and put Crawford’s card in it. Then he took out some money. They looked to be hundred-dollar bills.

  “Detective,” Price said, taking a step closer to Crawford and dropping his voice, “I really don’t need to read in the paper that I was at that house. I have a few…issues at the moment.” He handed Crawford five crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Crawford held up his hand. “Mr. Price, I don’t take money…except from my ATM machine.” He gave him a curt nod and walked out of the Chesterfield.

  Twenty-One

  Back in his car on Cocoanut Row, Crawford dialed Mattie Priest’s partner.

  “Hi, Ms. McInerny, it’s Detective Crawford again. I just have a quick question. Did you or Ms. Priest happen to have a man come wash the windows at the Dunbar house yesterday morning?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “No, neither of us did.”

  So much for Crawford’s Diego Andujar theory. “Okay, thanks, that’s all I wanted to know.” Then he had a thought. “Would you email me a list of all the people that worked at the Dunbar house. Pool men, landscapers, cleaning people, a caretaker, if there is one.”

  “Sure,” McInerny said. “Your email is on your card?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” He clicked off.

  He drove back to the station and went to Ott’s cubicle.

  Ott, on his computer, looked up when he heard the familiar footsteps. “S’up, bro?”

  “How’d it go with Priest’s husband?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual.”

  “He have any idea who could have done it?”

  “Nah, not a clue. I kept the questions to a minimum. Figured I’d circle back tomorrow or Tuesday.”

  Crawford nodded. “Let’s go back to the board, figure out where to go next.” He was referring to the dry-erase board opposite his desk in his office.

  They walked back there together and assumed their positions: Ott with the orange marker in hand since Crawford’s handwriting was close to illegible and Crawford in his chair looking on.

  On the board, it said Art Nunan, Johnny Cotton, Stark Stabler, and Lowell Grey under the word Suspects.

  “Add Troy Price,” Crawford said.

  “You met up with him?”

  Crawford nodded. “Yup.”

  “And is he an all-world—”

  “He tried to bribe me to keep his name out of
the paper.”

  “So that would be affirmative.”

  Crawford nodded again. “He was all right, up to that point.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “That would have been enough for me.”

  Crawford laughed. “So, who do you want to talk to? To check alibis for Priest?”

  “I’m sick of Lowell Grey. How ’bout I do Stabler and Johnny Rotten.”

  Crawford laughed again. “All right. I’ll do the other two.”

  “How ’bout Troy Price’s timeline?” Ott asked, orange marker at the ready.

  “Well, first off, he went there without his wife.”

  Ott got a hungry look in his eyes.

  “She said she wasn’t feeling well, and he says he was only there for ten minutes. So, to answer your question, Price was at 217 Dunbar from nine to nine ten or so, then back to the Chesterfield, where they’re staying, by nine thirty. He also said he saw a guy there. Through a window. Dressed in dark clothes, brown hair, around forty. Said he looked like a workman. My first thought was Diego Andujar, but I checked and they hadn’t hired him—or anyone—to do the windows. My second thought was Cotton, but his hair’s not exactly dark. I’m thinking of getting Price to describe the guy he saw to the sketch artist.”

  “Good idea,” Ott said. “Any chance he might have just dreamed him up on the spot?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What’s your gut on the guy?”

  Crawford shrugged. “My gut’s been a little off lately. But offhand I’d say it’s a long way from sexually harassing women to strangling them and throwing them down a staircase. By the way, Hawes said no rape again.”

  “He’s a hundred percent on that?”

  “Yup.”

  Ott started nodding slowly. “In my experience, Hawes’s hundred percent is another guy’s seventy-five percent.”

  “He can’t screw up a rape kit.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Ott said.

  “So, based on what Mattie Priest’s friend, Sylvia McInerny, told me about Troy Price propositioning Priest when his wife was in the next room, I’m wondering if that’s what he had in mind when he went to the house this morning.”

  Ott perked up. “You didn’t tell me McInerny told you that.”

  “Just found out a little while ago,” Crawford said. “Mattie was showing Price the master bedroom of some house when his wife was down in the kitchen, and Price lowers his voice and says something like, ‘Maybe you and me spend a little time here when Ann’s out on the golf course.’”

  “What a schmuck. He really said that?”

  “Yeah, you believe it? I think these Hollywood clowns think they can do whatever the hell they want. Hopefully, the Me Too Movement’ll change it.”

  “Hopefully,” Ott said. “But in the meantime, we got this jackass. So, play it out. You think he might have propositioned her, she said no, he got rough, ripped off her clothes?”

  “Thing is, that all takes time. If, in fact, he got back to the Chesterfield at nine thirty, I don’t see how he would have time to, one, take her clothes off, or get her to strip; two, strangle her; three, throw her down the stairs; and four, stage her body and write those words in French.”

  Ott shrugged. “I don’t know, as you went through the list, I could see it taking no more than ten minutes. I don’t see it as a time issue.”

  Crawford was silent for a moment. “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “The other problem I have is, if it was him, why didn’t he rape her? Sexual assault, what he got fired for, is not too far from rape. It just doesn’t really jibe, that he’d strip her, or get her to strip, then strangle her, with no sex act.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. So, what do we do about him?”

  “I think I saw a security camera at the Chesterfield,” Crawford said. “I’m going to go there and see if it shows exactly what time he came back.”

  “Good idea,” Ott said, holding up a list. “Going back to Noland’s suspect list, I think we’ve been through everyone on it.”

  “Yeah, and everyone but Nunan and Cotton are in the clear.”

  Ott nodded, then looked back at the board, capping and uncapping his marker. “You didn’t have any others who were possibles, did you?”

  “Nope, no one,” Crawford said. “So, first things first, let’s go find the four before they have a lotta time to work on their stories, then meet back here and go over what we’ve come up with.”

  Ott nodded. “I’m hoping it’s Price.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I hate ugly little guys who abuse women.”

  “Just ugly little guys?”

  Ott shook his head. “All guys who do.”

  Right after Ott walked out, Crawford dialed his phone. He called Red Noland and asked him if he could borrow his sketch artist. The Palm Beach Police Department was too small to have one on its payroll, so West Palm had generously provided the services of their guy, Ronnie Waite, several times in the past. Crawford’s problem with sketch artists’ renderings were that unless someone had really distinctive facial characteristics—like a tattoo or a wine-colored birthmark—then the sketches all tended to look generic. But, still, it was worth a shot.

  Red Noland said it would be fine if Crawford borrowed Waite, so Crawford called Waite directly and left a message asking him to call him back.

  Crawford’s second call was to Troy Price. He got his cheesy recording again. “Mr. Price, it’s Detective Crawford. Expect a call from a man name Ronnie Waite. He does police sketches, and I’d like to have you describe the man you saw on the Dunbar Road property to him. Thank you.”

  Crawford’s third call was to Rose Clarke.

  “Hello, Charlie,” Rose said.

  “Hey, Rose,” Crawford said. “I’m sure you heard about Mattie Priest.”

  Rose exhaled. “I sure have. What’s going on, Charlie? It’s getting really scary around here, you know?”

  “I know. I just want you to be very careful. If you have to go show a house, go with another agent. And make sure none of the buyers you take around are sketchy.” He was remembering the trailer-park couple she had told him about.

  “I don’t really want to show at all. I mean, that was so brutal what happened to Mattie.”

  “What did you hear happened?”

  “That someone hanged her then threw her down the stairs.”

  Exaggerations was to be expected, Crawford knew. It was Palm Beach, hyperbole capital of the western hemisphere.

  “Just for the record, that’s only half true. She didn’t get hanged, but she was strangled.”

  “Still, who wants to go into a house when some psycho might be hiding in a closet. Know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I do. Have you heard anything at all that might be helpful?”

  “What haven’t I heard is more like it. It just happened, and the rumor mill is churning.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Home,” Rose said.

  “Can I come over? You can tell me about what you’ve heard.”

  “Sure. Join me for cocktail hour.”

  Rose lived in a house that could comfortably fit a family of six. Six bedrooms, seven baths, a half-million-dollar infinity-edge pool and a commodious pool house, where Crawford had let himself be seduced by Rose before, and one of the most spectacular views of the ocean in Palm Beach.

  She welcomed him at the door with a kiss and a Sierra Nevada Torpedo, his beer of choice.

  The kiss he received happily, but he held up his hand to the beer. “You trying to get me drunk or something?” he said, smiling. “Some other time.”

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot, Charlie the Boy Scout is on the job.” Rose raised a drink that looked like a Bloody Mary. “Me, I’m done for the day.”

  She walked toward her living room, and Crawford followed her.

  He smelled her perfume and watched her walk—more like her undulating sway—which was as sexy as always. Her back and
bare shoulders were hard and muscular, not an ounce of fat anywhere. She walked into the living room, sat down on one side of a snow-white couch and patted the seat next to her.

  It was a temptation he didn’t need to wrestle with at the moment. “I’m just going to sit here,” he said, indicating the love seat opposite her.

  “Aww,” Rose said, pouting her lips the way only she did.

  “So tell me about what you’ve heard.”

  “You know how it works. If it’s just a whisper, it gets blown up to a full-scale scandal. If an unmarried couple are dancing a little too close, they’re dry-humping on the dance floor.”

  “Dry-humping?”

  “You know.” She laughed. “Well, maybe you don’t.” She tittered. “Anyway, the first suspect is Boysie Johnson.”

  “That’s a name?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what his real name is, but he’s the heir to some fortune. I forget which. So, in his entire life Boysie has never had a job. Except riding around on his rusty old Schwinn bike picking up cans.”

  “Wait. What?”

  Rose shrugged. “He spends his whole day riding around picking up cans, then I guess he takes them somewhere and gets, whatever-it-is, a nickel for every can. On a good day, he maybe makes six or seven bucks, then he goes home to his parents’ twenty-million-dollar-house on the Intracoastal.”

  “I think I’ve seen this guy,” Crawford said. “Always wears like a blue T-shirt, dark hair, around my age or a little older.”

  “You’re a young thirty-eight, Charlie. He’s an old thirty.”

  “And still lives with his parents?”

  “Uh-huh, and what I heard was he couldn’t find enough cans in Palm Beach ’cause—well, you know—’cause the streets are so free of human refuse that he ended up going over to the greener pastures of down-market West Palm.”

  “Where the refuse is plentiful.”

  “You would know…” She winked and sipped her drink.

  The man was a match to Troy Price’s description of the man he had seen. “What are his parents’ names?”