Palm Beach Taboo (Charlie Crawford Palm Beach Mysteries Book 10)

by Tom Turner

  “Jesus, do you guys really think I skulk around at night with a knife in my hand? I mean, look at me. Do I look like a killer?” He pointed a finger at himself. “I’m in bed every night at ten with a book in my hands, not a goddamn knife.”

  “Okay, so back to Lalley,” Ott said. “As my partner asked, you must have speculated about who might have had a reason to kill him?”

  Peavy tapped on the arm of his chair for a full ten seconds. “You ever talk to his wife?”

  “Matter of fact, I did,” said Crawford. “Pretty recently.”

  Peavy, his eyes lowered, patted the arm of the chair again. Then he looked up. “And, my guess is, she didn’t tell you why they got divorced.”

  Eighteen

  Crawford shook his head. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Well, put your seatbelt on,” Peavy said. “In your investigation of this whole thing, you never heard about him and Marie-Claire Fournier?”

  Both Crawford and Ott shook their heads.

  “Do you know anything about Ted Turner?” The question not only came out of left field, but deep, deep, deep left field.

  “What?” Crawford said. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Bear with me, I’ll explain: Ted Turner, according to a reliable source, has four girlfriends…”

  Crawford nodded. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.”

  He had sort of lost track of Turner since Jane Fonda cut him loose. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  “He spends a week with one, a week with another, a week with a third, then a week with the fourth, then does the same thing all over again the next month.”

  Ott laughed and shook his head. “You’re making this shit up.”

  Peavy held up his hands. “It’s a fact. Now, does he occasionally spend two weeks with one and no time with another? I don’t know. Probably.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been reading National Enquirer,” Ott muttered.

  Peavy ignored him. “So, one of the tenets of SOAR is what we call relationships without walls.” Crawford could see what was coming. “We believe in relationships with anyone, anytime… as opposed to restrictive, antiquated relationships with just one partner.”

  “So, we’re talkin’ free love?” Ott said.

  Peavy laughed. “You can call it that, Detective, and I won’t fight you on it. But your tone seems kind of judgmental and derogatory.”

  “It was just meant to be factual,” Ott said.

  “Tell us about Christian Lalley and Marie-Claire Fournier,” Crawford said, having heard enough about Ted Turner and his four-pack.

  Peavy nodded. “First, would you agree with me, all systems are imperfect?”

  “What do you mean?” Crawford asked.

  “Well, let’s take the police force. There’s a code that, for example, you’re never meant to use excessive force… or you’re never supposed to accept a bribe…bu-ut…cops do sometimes.”

  “Where you going with this?” Ott asked impatiently.

  Peavy held up a hand. “I’ll illustrate it with an example: Marie-Claire and Crux had a very close relationship… in every sense. Yet Crux, in keeping with the relationship without walls tenet also had relationships with other women—”

  “Sex, you mean?” Ott said.

  Peavy nodded. “But Marie-Claire did not. She seemed to embrace the outmoded tenet—”

  “—of being faithful?”

  “Detective Ott, if you would stop interrupting me, please.”

  “Sorry, go on.”

  Peavy nodded. “So—and I think it was in a misguided attempt to make Crux jealous—one day, Marie-Claire started a very conspicuous affair with Christian. Christian tried to keep it low-key but that wasn’t what Marie-Claire wanted. So, one time—and this is secondhand and I can’t swear to all of it—but Marie-Claire and Christian ended up somewhere for drinks and they both had a lot of ’em”—Crawford recalled Vega telling him about Christian’s fondness for ‘blabbermouth soup’ at Ta-boo—“then went back to her bedroom at Elysium.” Peavy stopped to take a sip from his water bottle. “Only thing is they didn’t end up in her bedroom.”

  Ott raised his hands. “So where did they end up?”

  “Marie-Claire’s bedroom, which is now Fannie Melhados’s, has a connecting door to Crux’s bedroom and she… she coaxed Christian into it. Crux’s bed, that is. So, she and Christian were, ah, going at it, let’s say, when—”

  “—Crux walked in on them,” Crawford said.

  Peavy nodded. “Exactly. Which was very uncharacteristic of Marie-Claire, because for the most part, as I said, she was kind of old-fashioned and really kind of proper.”

  “But she wanted to get Crux jealous, and I’m guessing this is what got Christian exiled to fourteen-fifty?”

  Peavy shook his head. “No, not at all. Crux was a little irritated that they were using his bed, but he had no problem with them making love. After all, relationships without walls was his concept.”

  Ott looked over at Crawford and tried to hide a smirk.

  “So, an obvious question,” Crawford said, “what was Lorinda Lalley’s reaction to all this?”

  “Well, that’s the whole point. In a phrase… she was really pissed off. That her drunken lout of a husband had the gall to fu— make love with—a woman in the boss’s bed. I mean, poor Christian was kind of a laughingstock for a while. And besides, Lorinda was never a full-fledged SOAR believer. She lived with Christian on SOAR property but had a regular job elsewhere.”

  “Not a SOAR job, you mean?”

  Peavy nodded. “Correct. And about six months later, she filed for divorce and moved out.”

  “So, are you suggesting Lorinda Lalley killed her husband?” Ott asked.

  “I’ll let you be the judge,” Peavy said. “She was overheard saying something pretty incriminating when she confronted him after the whole incident in Crux’s bed.”

  “Which was?”

  “‘I could kill you, you stupid son of a bitch.’”

  “I dunno,” said Ott, scratching his head. “Sounds like the normal reaction of someone who just got cheated on.”

  Nineteen

  Back at the station, Crawford saw he’d missed two calls while interviewing Leo Peavy. The first one was from Rose Clarke. He dialed her number and she picked up right away.

  “Got a scoop for you, Charlie,” she said.

  No ‘hi,’ ‘hello’, or ‘how are you.’ Rose was too busy for that.

  “Please be about my case, which is going nowhere fast,” Crawford said.

  “Well, it is… and it isn’t. I’ll let you decide,” Rose said. “Guess who lives in one of those SOAR houses?”

  “Who?”

  “Torrance Grey.”

  “No kidding—” Then he snapped his fingers, remembering “I knew he looked familiar. Ott interviewed him. Now, what exactly was the story with him? I kind of forget.”

  Torrance Grey, the actor, had totally vanished from sight about ten years ago and that was about all Crawford remembered. Except there had been a major scandal of some sort.

  “Don’t you remember? His wife was killed in Beverly Hills. It was—depending on who you listen to—either a burglar or Grey did it himself.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. He was there when it happened. Claimed he was out by the pool or something.”

  “Yeah, at two in the morning,” Rose said, dubiously.

  “Right, but no charges were ever filed, correct?”

  “True, but it turned out to be a career-killer for ol’ Torrance. Don’t you remember how brutal the murder was? They compared it to O.J.”

  “Yeah, I do now. Really vicious and they suspect it took place over a long period of time. Almost like she was tortured. I remember thinking after I read about it, why would a burglar take all that time? Wouldn’t he want to get out of there as quick as possible?”

  “I had the same reaction. Speaking of murders, you’re not getting anywhere with Christian Lalley?”<
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  “You didn’t hear this from me, but no, not really.”

  “Your secrets are always safe with me.”

  “Thank you,” Crawford said. “The people at SOAR, they’re a pretty strange cast of characters.”

  “Like who are you referring to?”

  “Well, there’s the billionaire heiress and her brother, a guy who defrauded his company and the government for millions, a construction worker turned SOAR’s assistant CFO, a mysterious and inscrutable Chinese guy, and now a movie star who may have killed his wife but certainly killed his career… and, of course, a partridge in a pear tree.”

  Rose laughed. “What a line-up. Who’s the construction worker?”

  “His name is Larry Swain. Lives with that guy, Bemmert, you told me about who ripped off his company and now—lo and behold— turns out to be SOAR’S CFO.”

  Rose shook her head slowly. “Well, I just thought I’d let you know about Grey. A bunch of us were talking about a movie of his and someone mentioned he was living there.”

  “Thank you, Rose, I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome. Just trying to do my bit to take criminals off the streets of our fair town.”

  “I’ll tell Mort he spent fifteen minutes interviewing the star of Seven Suspects and didn’t even realize it.”

  “And don’t forget, Harpers Bizarre.”

  That movie was one of Crawford’s all-time favorites.

  “Later, Rose.”

  “Bye, Charlie.”

  His other call-back had been from Vega. He dialed her number and she picked up right away.

  “Hi, Charlie.”

  “Hello, Vega, how are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Your message said you wanted to ask me about Xi Kiang?”

  Crawford chuckled. “Yeah, I thought I’d ask you about him now, so we don’t clutter up dinner with a bunch of shop talk.”

  “How very thoughtful of you. So, what do you want to know about Xi and his yellow shirts?”

  He already knew a fair amount about the man.

  Xi Kiang was in his mid-50’s and Crawford had interviewed him briefly at Elysium. At that time Kiang was either very circumspect or didn’t speak English very well. Crawford suspected it was the former. One thing he said, however, had gotten Crawford curious. It was in answer to a question Crawford had asked him. The question was, “What do you do in SOAR?” He couldn’t tell if Xi either didn’t understand or didn’t want to answer the question. But Crawford persisted, asking it a little differently. “Most people have a function in SOAR, something they’re particularly good at. What is it that you contribute?”

  His answer had been terse. “I help with organization part.”

  “Organization part… were you involved in something like that in China?”

  Xi nodded.

  Crawford pressed harder. “What exactly?”

  “A religion.”

  “What is it called?”

  “Falun Gong.”

  Crawford asked him to spell it. It sounded vaguely familiar. From there, the interview sputtered badly, with Xi not volunteering anything further and answering most of Crawford’s question with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses.

  Back at his office, Crawford had then Googled Xi Kiang. There were five long paragraphs about him on Wikipedia. He and two others had started a religion call Falun Gong back in 1992 and it had grown to an astonishing seventy million in number. But apparently it got so big that the Communist Party viewed it as a threat exactly because of its size. Seemed like the proverbial elephant in the room, its independence from the Communist party and anti-establishment teachings anathema to them. What followed was that the state-run press ran negative articles about the Falun Gong. Then, in July of 1999, the Communist government made it clear that they wanted to eradicate the “practice,” as they called it, and went on to denounce it as a “heretical organization.”

  What followed was years of human rights abuses on a massive scale, including torture, forced labor, and psychiatric mistreatment. Worse of all, though, was an estimated ten thousand people who were killed to, allegedly, supply China’s widespread organ-transplant industry.

  Crawford shifted his cell phone to his other ear. “So, I looked into the Falun Gong,” he told Vega, “and Xi’s involvement in it—”

  She interrupted. “More than involvement, he was one of its major architects.”

  Crawford put his feet up on his desk. “So, I’m trying to put two and two together and I think it adds up to Crux recruiting him to help do for SOAR what he did for Falun Gong.”

  “I am impressed,” Vega said, “just that you even know about Falun Gong.”

  “I just know that they got on the wrong side of the Communists. Never a good move.”

  “You probably know more about it than me.”

  “I’m just amazed at SOAR’s membership. I mean, it’s an international line-up of peculiar characters.”

  “I’m not quite sure Xi is peculiar. More like a man who was persecuted for having an idea that got too big.”

  Crawford churned through the line-up of SOAR members and did a quick count in his head. Indeed, a good portion of the SOAR membership could definitely be described as peculiar. Or maybe just extremely diverse.

  “But, as far as you know, did Crux recruit Xi to ramp up your membership? To put it on the map as quick as possible? Maybe even pattern it on the Falun Gong model?”

  Vega didn’t respond right away. “I’d answer that this way. Yes, yes and I’m not sure.”

  “You’re not sure he wanted to make it similar to Falun Gong?”

  “I’d say similar in certain respects.”

  Crawford didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Wow,” he said at last.

  “Wow what?”

  “Wow, this is all a hell of lot to absorb.”

  “What is?”

  He went through the whole litany again of SOAR members and their unique histories and characteristics but left out the partridge in a pear tree.

  “It is quite a list, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It’s like you’re one of the few normal ones.”

  Vega laughed. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said. “Okay, my turn to ask you a question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “So, I’ve always wanted to go to a cop bar.”

  “Really? Somehow you don’t strike me as a cop bar kinda gal.”

  “But I’ve always been a curious kinda gal, and I’m dying to see what a cop bar looks like. I figured you probably hang your hat at a good one.”

  “Good one might be stretching it. But I do have one I go to. It’s called Mookie’s Tap-a-Keg.”

  “You had me at Mookie’s,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  “So, you want to bail on Grease Burger?”

  “Yeah, Mookie’s just sounds much more colorful.”

  “All right, consider it done. But let me just warn you, instead of the best burger in town Mookie’s specializes in those big jars of pickled eggs. You know, the kind that look as though they been sitting there festering for a couple of years. The other culinary delight it specializes in are Slim Jims.”

  “What’s a Slim Jim?”

  “Are you kidding? You don’t know what a Slim Jim is?”

  “Heard the name before, but sorry, don’t know what it is.”

  “Okay, well, let’s start with the ingredients—”

  “Is this going to make me gag?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The question is, how would you even know what ingredients are in a Slim Jim?”

  “That’s a very good question…let’s see… how do I explain it? Sometimes when you hang out in a cop bar too long, nursing your fifth beer, you got nothing better to do than read ingredients on things. Want to hear what’s in them?”

  “Why not?”

  “Okay, so their main ingredients are—and I quote—mechanically separated chicken, maltodextrin, and extractives of paprika.”

>   “That’s disgusting… except I love paprika.”

  “Then you’d love a Slim Jim.”

  Vega was silent for a few seconds. “I think I’ll just drink.”

  “That’s probably a wise decision.”

  Twenty

  Crawford got up and headed down to Ott’s cubicle.

  Ott had his cell phone up to his ear and was nodding a lot as Crawford waited to talk to him. Finally, he lowered his voice and said, “Gotta go, babe.”

  Crawford dialed up a big grin. “So, dude, not only do you call your friend Laura ‘hon’ but ‘babe’ too.”

  “How do you know her name’s Laura?”

  “Remember? Leo Peavy.”

  “Oh, yeah… so what’s up?”

  Crawford sat down in the chair next to Ott. “So, you’re a movie guy…how come you didn’t recognize Torrance Grey in the Elysium interviews?”

  Ott thought for a second, then it hit him. “Holy shit, that’s who that was. I knew he looked familiar. Said his name was Sidney something, though.”

  “Probably the name he was born with.”

  “Now there’s a guy who has not aged well.”

  Crawford tapped his fingers in Ott’s desk. “So, I looked into that guy Xi Kiang, who Simon Petrie mentioned?”

  Ott nodded for him to continue.

  “I pretty much came to the conclusion that Petrie was suspicious of him because he never smiles or says much. But, fact of the matter is, he hardly knew Lalley.”

  “So, you’re ruling him out?”

  “Pretty much. I just don’t think there’s anything there.”

  “It’s just weird.”

  “What is?

  “How you start out somewhere in China and end up in Palm Beach, Florida?”

  “I agree with that,” Crawford said, getting to his feet. “Come into my office. It’s time to get out the trusty whiteboard.”

  The whiteboard was a standard part of many of their investigations. They had probably used it in a little over half their cases. It was pretty straightforward. Under “Suspects,” Ott—who had the most legible handwriting— would write the names of potential perps. In one case, he’d run out of room on the whiteboard, but usually the number of suspects ranged from four to seven.