by Tom Turner
“Yup. Can you look up the owner?”
Rose had a database that listed all houses in Palm Beach County and their owners’ names.
“Sure, hang on a second.”
A few moments later, she said, “Alton and Cynthia Kirkwood.”
Damn.
“Is that helpful?” Rose asked.
“No… but I still love you,” Crawford said. “Well, thanks, I appreciate it.”
“Oh, by the way, sometimes it takes a while for a new owner to show up on my database.”
“Gotcha. Well, thanks again,” Crawford said. “Hey, want to come over to my place and share a can of Hormel corn beef hash?”
She laughed. “The my place was tempting. The corned beef hash… umm, not so much.”
“Got succotash, too.”
“You’re on your own, Charlie.”
Twenty-Two
Before Crawford left for home, he looked a little deeper into Torrance Grey. What he found did not eliminate the man as a murder suspect, but he still remained a long shot. What conceivable motive could there be?
Reading between the lines in one incident, Grey had been harassed in a Palm Beach restaurant, though it was unclear what the issue was, then had gotten in a fistfight with a man one table away. The man he fought with had pressed charges and—apparently seeing a big payday from the former A-list actor— followed it up with a ten-million-dollar lawsuit, which evidently went nowhere. Grey and the other man ended up getting wrist-slaps.
Then, two years ago, Grey was arrested for shoplifting. How the Mighty Have Fallen screamed the headline in The Glossy as it recounted the story: He had apparently gone to the Costco in Palm Beach Gardens, and as he was going through the check-out line, a Costco manager had approached him and asked him what he was palming in his left hand. Reluctantly, Grey turned his hand over, opened it up and there was a fifteen- hundred-dollar Raymond Weil Freelancer watch. He was ignominiously arrested as shoppers around him pointed and whispered, “That’s the guy who was in…” and “Isn’t that the actor…” He claimed he had just forgotten it was there and fully intended to put it on the conveyor belt and pay for it.
Two months of community service this time, and he was told by the judge that next time he was arrested he would do time.
Crawford got home at 9:50 and sat down in front of the TV at 10:40 with a plateful of corned beef hash and succotash on a tray table. He remembered the words from his mother that eating dinner a short time before going to bed was bad for you. He couldn’t remember the reason why, though.
Crux was wearing blue silk pajamas as he slid into the Pizuna satin sheets in his colossally oversized bed. For a change, no one would be joining him. He had made a few overtures—Lena in Callisto, hinting that her presence in his bed might lead to relocation to Elysium, and an oldie-but-goodie, Vega—who had had turned him down without an excuse or explanation.
His mind bounced from one subject to the next, which usually made falling asleep at least a one-hour process. He couldn’t get the two homicide cops out of his mind. All he could think of was the cliché, dogs with a bone, how they were fixated on the incident involving Holmes Whitmore and the two boys. Jesus, give it a rest. Okay, so what if he had orchestrated the whole thing…? No one had died and Whitmore was a piece of shit anyway. Ruined his old man’s life, and his mother’s. The guy deserved to be drummed out of town in disgrace. Then, as his head flopped from one pillow to another, he thought about Xi Kiang. The man—even in his late sixties—seemed quite effective at teaching that exercise regimen, whatever it was called, but the jury was still out whether he could deliver the big numbers for SOAR as he had done for Falun Gong.
Crux heard a barely audible noise but didn’t think anything of it. His mind shifted to Fannie Melhado. The woman’s ambitions seemed limitless. He couldn’t figure out if that was a good or a bad thing. A good thing, he concluded, as long as she didn’t forget who was the boss. He considered all the money she and her brother had committed to SOAR. But he wasn’t in it for the money, rather what it could achieve for SOAR. He had no interest in being like that Indian religious leader who had twenty-three Rolls Royces or the scam man in Albany who had taken the Bronfman sister for a hundred-million-dollar ride. Those men were clearly in it for the sex and money.
Sure, he’d take those things, but what he really was after was at least a chapter or two in the history books. ‘Religious visionary’… now that was something that had a really nice ring to it. Or for that matter, anything with the word ‘visionary’ in it.
He heard another noise. It seemed to come from across his bedroom. Like a creaking floorboard.
And then, suddenly, he felt two hands around his neck.
Twenty-Three
He tried to yell but nothing came out. The man—there was no question it was a man because of the body mass and the sound of his grunting—was on top of Crux, trying to strangle him. Crux swung his elbow up at the man’s head but missed. He was starting to panic because the man had tightened his two-handed grip to the point where Crux could hardly breathe. He tried to scream again but it came out as a flat hiss. He guessed the man weighed fifty pounds more than him.
Do something quick or you’re a dead man.
He suddenly rolled hard to his left, hoping he could buck the man off. The man’s body shifted but he still maintained the chokehold and stayed on top. Crux rolled with all he had in the opposite direction and this time he slipped out of the grasp of the larger man. The man’s hands loosened and Crux started to scream. But then, out of nowhere, the man smashed him hard in the left cheek. That was surprising, since it was pitch-black in the room. How could his assailant have targeted him? A lucky punch? Whatever it was, Crux saw something that looked like the flash of fireworks, then fade to black.
“Those fuckers are at it again!”
It was Ott, calling on his cell.
Crawford just knew it was somewhere between 11:35 p.m.—when he’d turned off the TV—and daybreak.
“What’s up, Mort?” he rasped.
“Someone tried to kill Crux, the SOAR guy.”
“Jesus, is he okay?”
“He’s gonna live.”
Crawford looked at his white-faced alarm clock. 12:30.
“Any suspect?”
“Nope.”
“All right, I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.”
“Very inconsiderate. These cultist douchebags.”
Crux had angry red marks all around his neck, a swollen left cheek, and a blackened right eye. He was still wearing blue silk pajamas that had splotches of blood above his chest from a bloody nose. He, Ott, and Crawford were sitting in a sun porch on the first floor. It was just past one in the morning.
“Guy reeked of booze,” Crux said. “Like he had just taken a bath in a vat of bourbon or something.”
“So, you couldn’t make out any of his features,” Ott said, “except he weighed a lot more than you.”
Crux nodded. “Yeah, he was straddling me, and I couldn’t get him off me.”
“You were asleep when it happened?” Crawford asked.
“On the verge,” Crux said. “I remember hearing something in the room but didn’t really think anything of it.”
Crawford was not looking forward to another night of interviewing Elysium residents. As before, they had all been woken up and ushered into the living room by two uniform cops who had gotten to the scene first.
“What kind of a sound was it you heard?” Ott asked.
“Ah, like a creak in the floor.”
Ott eyes shot to Crawford, then back to Crux. “Do you have mice here?”
“Is that a joke?”
“Not at all. Just if I heard my floor creak, I’d want to know what it was.”
Crux eyed him with mild spite but said nothing.
“So, you have absolutely no idea who it could have been?” Crawford asked.
“Absolutely none.”
Crawford’s eyes shifted to Ott. “Let’s
talk to the others.”
Ott nodded.
“Okay,” Crawford said to Crux. “You sure you don’t want to go to Good Sam?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Well, not fine,” he said, gingerly touching his cheek, “but nothing’s broken or anything.”
“That’s good,” Crawford said, standing up.
The three of them walked into the living room where the others were.
Crawford saw Fannie Melhado across the room. She stood and walked up to them.
“I think I know who may have done this,” she said matter-of-factly to Crawford.
“Can you follow us, please?” Crawford said, turning to walk out of the living room.
Ott, Crux, and Fannie Melhado followed him back to the porch and they all sat down.
“So, who do you think it was?” Crawford asked.
“A man named Bartholomew Moulton.”
The strange thing was the name was familiar to Crawford but from way back. From where he grew up in Connecticut. How many Bartholomew Moultons could there be?
“Who’s he?” asked Crux.
Fannie slouched in her chair and didn’t answer right away. Then, barely audibly. “An old boyfriend of mine.”
“Why the hell is an old boyfriend of yours attacking me in my bed?” Crux asked, outraged.
“Let us ask the questions, please,” Crawford said.
Crux threw up his hands. “I just want—”
Crawford held up a hand. “Tell us why you think that,” he said to Fannie in an even tone.
And Fannie Melhado proceeded to lay it all out.
Bartholomew Moulton—she said he didn’t allow anyone to call him Bart—was a man from a so-called “good family,” who was handsome, athletic, formerly rich but no longer, and always held doors for ladies and wrote thank-you notes.
She had met him at a charity ball several years ago in Palm Beach, and shortly after that they had started dating, or “seeing each other,” as she said. He didn’t take long to propose to her.
“It was at a time when I was going through what my brother refers to as my… metamorphosis.”
“Your what?” Ott asked.
“Metamorphosis,” Fannie clarified. “Back when I met Bartholomew, I was still attracted to handsome, witty men”—she glanced at Crawford—“but over time realized that they were, for the most part, superficial and shallow. Not to mention, I had a strong sense Bartholomew was after my money.”
Crawford cocked his head. “So, after this, ah, metamorphosis—”
“I was more interested in brains and character, not pretty faces.”
Crawford nodded, but this information didn’t explain why Bartholomew Moulton had ended up in Crux’s bedroom. “Ms. Melhado, why—”
“All right, I know, I know,” she cut in. “I’m getting to it. So, about a year ago, I broke up with him. I think he was pretty crushed. He kept calling and emailing, but I never got back to him. I mean, it was over. So, he called my brother, who he kind of had become friends with, and talked Freddie into letting him in.”
“Let him inside Elysium, you mean?” asked Ott.
She nodded and her eyes dropped to the floor. Like she had suddenly decided she didn’t want to finish the story. Or there was a thorny detail or two she’d just as soon skip over. She looked up and caught Crux’s eye, then quickly looked back down. “You remember, right?”
Crux nodded, as if whatever she was referring to wasn’t a pleasant memory.
Crawford shrugged. “My partner and I are in the dark here. How ’bout filling us in?”
“Well, so… Freddie told Bartholomew downstairs that I didn’t want to see him, and Bartholomew just lost it and ran up to my room.” She glanced over at Crux again. “I wasn’t in my room… I, I was next door in—” She nodded at Crux. “In his room.”
“Son-of-bitch attacked both of us,” Crux cried out. “I had no idea who he was or what it was about.”
“But that was a year ago…why—" Crawford began.
“He started calling me again a few days ago,” Fannie said in a rush, then exhaled slowly, “asking me if we could give it another chance. I said no as emphatically as I could, but he didn’t give up. I said I didn’t want to see him under any circumstances and thought that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t?” Ott asked.
She shook her head. “He called Freddie—again—and told him he had a present for me.”
“When was this?”
“Today,” Fannie said. “My brother, who’s kind of a soft touch, let him in and went up and got me. I said, no way was I going to see him. Freddie said, ‘It’s all right, he just has a present for you.’ I said, ‘It’s not all right, the man scares the hell out of me.’ Anyway, I finally agreed to see him—Freddie was going to be there, so I figured it would be safe—and went downstairs. Bartholomew had a package in his hand and was giving me this off-kilter grin. I asked him what it was, and he said, ‘Why do people always ask that? Just open it.’ So, I did, and it was this needlepoint pillow that used to be on his bed that said, Miss you, babe. I looked at him and he still had that off-kilter grin, so I said, “Bartholomew, I don’t want to ever see you again. Just stop it; it’s been over for a long time.’ He said, ‘It’s that guy, isn’t it?’ I told him it didn’t matter, just please leave.”
“So, what happened?” Ott asked.
“He ran out. I think he was crying.”
“But you think he came back tonight,” Crawford said. “You think he was the one who assaulted Crux.”
She nodded. “’Cause my brother stopped by my room after Bartholomew was here and asked if I’d seen his keys. Thought he might have left them in my room when he came up to get me.”
Crawford nodded. “I get it, so you think Bartholomew ended up grabbing Freddie’s keys?”
“After I heard what happened to Crux, yes, that’s exactly what I thought.”
“The keys, what do they look like?”
“Just keys, but—oh wait—there was this embroidered Irish setter keychain. Freddie’s old dog.”
“So, Bartholomew figured Crux was the man you were seeing?”
Fannie nodded.
“But he wasn’t?” Crawford asked.
Fannie shook her head.
“So, who is?” Ott asked.
Fannie turned on him and gave him a dirty look. “It’s none of your damn business, but as of this moment… no one.”
Twenty-Four
Most of the other Elysium residents hadn’t heard a thing until they were awakened by the siren from the car of the first officer on scene, then the pounding on the front door when no one answered after the cop pressed the buzzer. Nothing in the interviews of the other seven Elysium residents made Crawford and Ott suspect that any of them had anything to do with the attack on Crux.
They walked out of Elysium at 3:35 a.m. They’d learned where Bartholomew Moulton lived from Fannie Melhado—in a little rental on Seabreeze—and were heading there now. Ott had suggested that it could wait until later that morning, after they got some sleep. Crawford had simply said, “It’s time to put someone in jail, even though this guy probably had nothing to do with Christian Lalley.”
Halfway down North Lake Way, Crawford turned to Ott: “I knew this guy in another life.”
“Moulton?”
“Yeah, we grew up in the same town in Connecticut. Greenwich. He was a year older than me—what they used to call a Big Man on Campus. Guy was a jock who always got the girls. One of those older guys you look up to.”
“Weren’t you kind of like that, Charlie?”
“Hell no, man. I was a fat-faced kid in high school. Didn’t start growing until I was a junior. But this guy Moulton had it all. I heard he ended up being a model when he was like twenty.”
Ott pulled into the driveway of the address Fannie Melhado had given them. There were no lights on.
“Hey, by the way, remind me to tell you about Vega when we get done with this.”
Ott tu
rned to Crawford. “Something good?”
“Maybe… I’ll let you be the judge.”
They got out of the Crown Vic and Crawford walked over to an older-model Mercedes parked in the driveway. He put his hand on the hood. “Warm.”
Ott nodded.
They walked up to the front door.
“Think we need weapons?” Ott asked, his voice lowered.
“I doubt it,” Crawford said. “Be ready, though.”
Ott put his hand on his holstered Glock as Crawford rang the doorbell.
After a minute or so they saw a light snap on. A few moments later a man came to the door. He was shirtless and wearing only boxer shorts. Crawford recognized him right away. Probably forty years old to Crawford’s thirty-nine, a little stoop-shouldered and with a slight case of early-stage jowliness. But still handsome. His eyes, which Crawford remembered as electric, azure blue, were still striking but somewhat dulled, as if a few cirrus clouds had drifted across a brilliant, bright blue sky.
“Mr. Moulton?” Crawford asked, even though he knew it was.
“Yeah, what the hell is this?” Moulton asked.
“I’m Detective Crawford, this is my partner, Detective Ott. May we come in?”
“What do you want?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s four o’clock in the goddamn morning.”
“Yes, we know,” Ott said. “May we come in?”
“Hold on,” Moulton said. “I gotta get my pants.”
He walked away.
Ott chuckled.
“What?”
“All you Connecticut boys wear boxers?”
Crawford smiled. “Just certain parts of Connecticut.”
“The non-tighty-whitey parts, huh?”
Moulton came back wearing khakis, a yellow sport shirt, and no shoes. He gestured at the pair. “Come on.”
They followed him back to a living room. The best you could say about it was that it was dated, but more accurately, the furniture in it was tired and shopworn. Everything about it was faded and dismal.