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

by Tom Turner

  Crawford led the way into his office. Ott lifted the whiteboard from where it was resting up against the back wall and hung it on a hook. He picked up the black dry-erase pen and wrote ‘Suspects.’ Then: ‘1. Crux.’

  “Too big,” Crawford said. “You better make ‘em smaller.”

  Ott nodded and erased ‘1. Crux’ and rewrote it half the size. He turned to Crawford. “Okay?”

  “Perfect. So, he’s your first choice?”

  “I don’t really have one at this point,” Ott said. “Just that he’s first one that came to mind.”

  Leaving room below ‘1. Crux’ he wrote ‘2. Bemmert’, then ‘3. Swain’, ‘4. Peavy’, and then thought for a second.

  “5. Lorinda Lalley,” Crawford said. “Though I’m thinking she’s a long shot.”

  Ott nodded and wrote it down.

  “6. Gerster,” said Crawford.

  Ott looked over at him.

  “He was Lalley’s crooked client who went to jail and blamed him.”

  Ott nodded and wrote it down, then wrote, ‘7. Torrance Grey.’

  “Why him?” Crawford asked.

  “‘Because I want to go back and get his autograph. No, ’cause if he killed once, he might have killed again. You never know.”

  Crawford shrugged. “If, in fact, he killed once. And I’d say he’s about a hundred to one. Can’t imagine what motive he’d possibly have.”

  “Yeah, I know. So, we’re ruling out the Gong Show guy?”

  Crawford laughed. “Yeah, I think so. I might just take one last look at him.”

  “Okay, anybody else?”

  “Oh, yeah, the Melhados.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Crawford shrugged. “Just something about her.”

  “That’s not a real good reason, but I’ll put ‘em down.” Which he did. “I’m still leaving room for late arrivals.”

  “I noticed.”

  Next, they put a short phrase or two for their suspects motives besides their names. For Crux, Ott wrote simply, ‘Whitmore thing.’ For Bemmert, they had a discussion:

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of like a fox in the henhouse thing,” Crawford said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he goes from some big money grab at that mortgage company to running the money at SOAR.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” said Ott. “But don’t take this the wrong way, okay… we don’t know for a fact that ever happened. That mortgage company thing. I mean, it was just a rumor that Rose heard somewhere.”

  “True. But she’s got about a ninety percent record for accuracy.”

  “I know. She’s pretty reliable.”

  “And being treasurer, CFO, whatever, of what seems like a pretty loosely-run billion-dollar organization presents a big opportunity.”

  “Yeah, except Bemmert and his friend are living in that dinky apartment. Driving around in that Sentra or whatever the hell it was. Worse than your Camry.”

  “Hey, that car has served me long and loyally.”

  Ott shrugged and wrote $??? next to Bemmert’s name.

  Next to Swain, he wrote: ‘Beats me.’

  Crawford just chuckled.

  They went through the rest of the list, ending with, ‘9. Freddie Melhado’ and ‘10. Fannie Melhado,” both of whom received question marks next to their names.

  “I found out that guy Gerster got out of jail a month ago,” Crawford said.

  Ott turned. “Hmm. Perfect timing.” He sat in his chair facing Crawford. “You gonna talk to him?”

  Crawford nodded. “If he ever gets back to me.”

  At 7 o’clock p.m., Crawford drove to Elysium on North Lake Way to pick up Vega and take her to Mookie’s Tap-A-Keg. He had a lot to pick her brain about, but he didn’t want to start right in on it. When he picked her up, he noticed way up on the third floor a man looking down through a window. He thought it might have been Crux and was pretty sure he had a frown on his face.

  Crawford warned her that she might have to step over a body lying on the beer-stained floor at Mookie’s, but turned out the coast was clear.

  “Table or bar?” he asked her as they walked in.

  “Bar, please,” she said looking around, “That’s where the colorful types hang out, right?”

  “Some call ’em colorful, some call ’em strange.”

  Vega sat down and Crawford slid onto the barstool next to her.

  Jack Scarsiola, the owner and barkeep, approached them. “Hey, Charlie, what’s it gonna be?” Then nodding at Vega. “Ma’am?”

  “Vega, I’d like to introduce you to the proprietor, Jack Scarsiola… but you can call him Scar.”

  “Hey, Scar. Could I have a pinot grigio, please?”

  “Sorry, how about chardonnay?”

  “That’ll be good. Thank you.”

  “I’ll take a Yuengling,” Crawford said

  “Coming right up.”

  A few moments later Scarsiola showed up with the drinks.

  Vega took a sip of her wine and glanced behind the bar. “I see what you mean. Those eggs,” she said, pointing. “Does the health commissioner know about those?”

  Crawford laughed as he spotted someone at the end of the bar. “Don’t look now, but remember me telling you about Slim Jims?”

  “Yeah, made from ‘mechanically separated chicken’ and ‘extractives of paprika.’”

  “Good memory. Well, a guy down at the end is eating a Slim Jim sandwich.”

  Vega looked anyway. “How do you know it’s a Slim Jim sandwich?”

  “Because that’s what he always has. Joe Wright’s his name. I think he invented it. Scar lets him go behind the bar and make them. Wonder bread, Gulden’s mustard, and Slim Jims.”

  Vega frowned. “Ew, that’s really gross.”

  “No argument from me. So, you okay changing the subject?”

  “Please do.”

  “Thank you. I’m curious about the SOAR hierarchy.”

  Vega took another sip of her wine and set it down. “Well, despite what you may have heard, it’s pretty corporate.”

  “Corporate? What do you mean?”

  “Okay, so Crux is the CEO. Guy Bemmert is the CFO, Frannie Melhado is the COO—chief operating officer—Leo Peavy is the CIO and CMO—”

  “Wait, what do the last two stand for?”

  “Umm, Chief Information Officer and Chief Marketing Officer,” Vega said with a chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders. “And me, I’m nothing.”

  “Those are actual titles?”

  Vega nodded, then something caught her attention at the other end of the bar. “You can smoke here?” she asked, noticing an older man puffing away on a cigarette.

  Crawford glanced down to where she was looking. “Oh, no, that’s just Scarpa. He’s what you might call our local scofflaw.”

  “Is he a cop?”

  “Was a cop. A damn good one.”

  “But he smokes in defiance of the law.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. Scarsiola kind of gave up on him.”

  Vega shrugged. “O-kay.”

  “So back to SOAR. Frannie Melhado is Chief Operating Officer?”

  “Yup. My take is that getting that job was a little like buying an ambassadorship. All it takes is money.”

  Crawford nodded. “Because she’s only been around about a year?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is there a lot of jockeying for power? Like in a corporation?”

  “Oh, yeah, you bet there is. Maybe it’s a little more subtle—” she paused and cocked her head “—actually, now that I think about it, it’s not subtle at all. Then there’s ascendancy and descendency.”

  “What’s that again?”

  “I forget who came up with it, but it’s pretty much what it sounds like. No matter who you are, you’re either ascendant or descendent.”

  “You mean, going up or going down the SOAR totem pole?”

  “Right. And if you’re descendent for long enough
, you’re out.”

  “Really? You can get kicked out of SOAR?”

  Vega nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yeah, except they call it, ‘failing to maintain standing.’”

  “And has anyone ‘failed to maintain standing’ recently?”

  “Not that recently. But Charlie Blackwell got the boot about six months back. And Simon Petrie before him. By the way, did you hear about what happened to him?”

  Crawford nodded.

  “Of course, you did,” Vega said. “And a lot of people thought Christian Lalley was headed for the door.”

  “What for, specifically?” Crawford asked though he had a few good guesses.

  “Well, he was caught with Marie-Claire Fournier in Crux’s bed. Did you hear about that?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  Vega smiled. “Plus, he was the failed treasurer. That’s what they called the job before Guy Bemmert came along and they gave it a fancy name. Chief Financial Officer.”

  “There’s also hierarchy in the houses, right?” Crawford asked.

  “Sure is. Ties in with ascendancy and descendency. Obviously, Elysium is the top of the food chain. Then in order of clout: Seraphim, Vangelis, Callisto, and the place you don’t want to end up, Ganymede.”

  “I’ve heard some of those names before. But can you repeat them, please?”

  And she did. Crawford wrote the names down on a cocktail napkin that had ascendency and descendency already scribbled on it, along with CEO-Crux, CFO- Bemmert, COO- Fannie and CIO + CMO- Peavy.

  “So is it possible to go from, say, Ganymede”—he looked down at the names—“to Callisto, to Vangelis, to Seraphim, then to Elysium.”

  Vega nodded. “Yes, you can work your way up like that, but it’s more common to go the other way.”

  “Meaning Elysium, Seraphim, Vangelis, Callisto, Ganymede, then out the door.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, I’m guessing that if you’re ascendant you’re doing your job right. If you’re descendent you’re—”

  “Screwing up. Or not playing politics very well.”

  “Or didn’t give enough money.”

  Vega nodded. “Yes, that, too. And then there are the report cards.”

  “The what?”

  “They’re actually called evaluations, but everyone calls them report cards. You know, how well, or badly, the board thinks you’re doing.”

  “Who’s on the board?”

  “Top secret, but it’s some mix of the Chiefs.”

  “Meaning what you said. Executive, Operating, Financial, et cetera—”

  “Yeah, what’s that old expression? Too many chiefs, not enough Indians?”

  He moved a little closer to Vega. “I’m curious about you. Why you decided to join SOAR?”

  Vega sighed and looked down at her wine glass. “That’s a good question. I was coming out of a bad relationship and a job that sucked. Crux seemed so damn earnest about helping people and I was kind of sick of my life being all about me. Maybe I was just sick of…me.”

  “Understand. So, are you pretty involved in the day-to-day at SOAR?”

  “Yes, in kind of a behind-the-scenes way. People there solicit my opinion. I feel they value my slant on things—” she looked down the bar and frowned “Oh God, that Scarfa man is coming this way.”

  “Scarpa,” Crawford said, turning to see Don Scarpa, a Winston dangling out of the side of his mouth, approaching them.

  “Hey, Don,” Crawford said.

  “Charlie,” said Scarpa, then with a nod at Vega. “Ma’am.”

  Vega started batting her hands, shooing away the smoke.

  “Smoke bother you?” Scarpa asked.

  “Matter of fact, it does. Smoking’s illegal, you know.”

  “It is?” Scarpa said, feigning ignorance. “When did that happen?”

  “Oh, about twenty years ago.”

  Scarpa reached for his cigarette. “Really? Jeez, Charlie, why didn’t you tell me about that?”

  He proceeded to stub the cigarette out on his left thumbnail.

  Twenty-One

  Right after Crawford dropped Vega off at Elysium, he got a call on his cell phone.

  “Ray Gerster,” the display said.

  He answered, “Charlie Crawford.”

  “Yeah, Detective, it’s Ray Gerster; you called me a few times.”

  “Thanks for getting back to me. As I said in my first message, I’m one of the lead detectives on the murder of Christian Lalley and I’d like to meet with you, ask you some questions.”

  “Why don’t you just ask them now?”

  “’Cause I’d like to be face-to-face with you.”

  A long pause. “Well, I guess that’s okay if you don’t mind coming up to the slums of Riviera Beach.

  Parts of Riviera Beach could be a little dicey. “How is eight tomorrow morning?”

  “That’s fine. I’m an early riser.”

  “And the address, please?”

  Gerster gave it to him and clicked off.

  Crawford headed to the station on South County Road. It was 8:15 p.m. and the place would be quiet. It was time to do some research on a number of subjects.

  First and foremost, and long overdue, was Vega. His source on all things SOAR. Its history, its people, its scandals, its… everything. Of course, everything she told him was subjective, colored by the way she saw things. Or maybe the way she wanted him to see things. She could spin the facts exactly how she wanted to.

  In some respects, she seemed like just a somewhat lonely person, happy to spend time with a man and have an audience, but in some ways… well, he just wondered.

  There wasn’t much about her on the Internet, but then finally he found something in an obscure corner of LinkedIn that, literally, made his jaw drop in astonishment.

  Then he took one last look at Xi Kiang just to be one hundred per cent sure he was not his man. After twenty minutes of research, he decided that Kiang was in the clear. Crawford went over to the white board and erased his name.

  A few minutes later, he heard footsteps and in walked Dominica McCarthy, looking—as she always did— like a million bucks.

  “Hey,” Crawford said. “What are you doing here so late?”

  “Oh, just catching up on a few things. What about you?”

  He motioned to a chair. “Working on Christian Lalley,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  “You getting anywhere?”

  He sighed. “Slowly.”

  She sat down then put one of her long, shapely legs up on Crawford’s desk. “Maybe you need me on the case. Like that one a year ago… Pawlichuk.”

  Dominica had gone undercover back then, posing, convincingly, as a hedonistic party girl. What she’d discovered helped crack the case.

  “You have any interest in joining SOAR?”

  “What’s SOAR?”

  He gave her a three-minute explanation

  She nodded. “So, I’d play an eager recruit. Get the inside scoop for you.”

  “I don’t know. It could be dangerous.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Danger’s my middle name.”

  “Thank you, Austin Powers,” he said and bumped her on the shoulder. “Hey, is your mother still in town?”

  She smiled. “Why? Are you getting—”

  “Yup,” he said with a smile. “Let me think a little bit more about you going undercover. I’m not quite ready to throw you into that den of weirdos yet. Maybe never.”

  “I like weirdos,” she said. “Mom leaves tomorrow.”

  “Dinner the day after?”

  “You’re on.”

  He hadn’t yet looked deeply into Fannie Melhado. He’d only had the one long and revealing interview with her.

  He Googled her. The first thing that caught his attention was that she had gone to Brown University and had been magna cum laude there. He guessed that’s what she meant when she told him she was “almost” a Mensa.

  Then he read about something called the Palm Be
ach Prayer Group. It was a group Fannie had apparently been a member of a few years ago. The Palm Beach Daily Reporter, aka, The Glossy, made a vague reference to a “friendly takeover” of the Prayer Group some time back, engineered by a “heiress and her minions.” Something told Crawford the heiress might be Fannie. Apparently, the evangelistic-leaning Prayer Group had started out with noble philanthropic aspirations but had evolved into a handful of gossipy dilettantes who had a few hours to kill in the afternoons. It seemed rosé and pinot grigio had crept into the picture, making benevolent deeds less of a priority.

  Fannie Melhado was quoted in The Glossy: “At the end of the day, all I’m trying to do is help give a little direction which Phoebe had once so capably provided.”

  A not-so-subtle slap in the face of Phoebe, whoever she might be. Reading between the lines, Phoebe, obviously the former leader, had, according to Fannie’s inference, lost her way. Once said it all. Crawford figured that the pinot grigio and rosé might have been a contributing factor in Phoebe’s loss of direction. What was interesting to Crawford was that Fannie Melhado seemed to now be repeating a similar pattern at SOAR, but on a much larger scale.

  Crawford decided to find out Phoebe’s last name and put her on his interview list. Try to get to her by early-afternoon before the pinot grigio bottle made its appearance.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost 9:45 and he hadn’t had dinner. It was looking like he’d be cracking open a can of scrumptious Hormel Corned Beef hash. Hey, it could be worse, he thought, remembering Joe Wright’s Slim Jim sandwich from a few hours earlier.

  He decided it wasn’t too late to call Rose Clarke. He knew from experience he could call her up to ten, but never before eight in the morning. He dialed her number.

  “Hey, Charlie. What’s up?”

  “I got a quick real-estate question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you know where Coquina Way is in Boca?”

  “Of course. I had a listing there once.”

  “Would you happen to know the house at 702 Coquina Way?”

  He heard her clicking her keyboard.

  “Oh, yeah, sure, the real modern one.”