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

by Tom Turner

  Ott frowned. “Huh?”

  “We’ve dicked around with this thing long enough. Gone down a bunch of roads that went nowhere. Had a bunch of suspects that were dead ends. It’s time to wrap this damn thing up.”

  Ott didn’t react at first. Then, “That’s easy for you to say, but aside from this guy Leo Peavy who’s seems to have experience at killing people, who we really got?”

  Crawford pointed at the whiteboard behind Ott. “Let’s look at the board again.”

  Ott turned around and looked at it. “Okay, so I think we can rule out Lorinda Lalley, Gerster and the movie star. And the caddy, too, though he never made the whiteboard.”

  “Yeah, so do I,” Crawford said. “You think everyone else is still live.”

  “Yeah, but nobody’s popping out except for Peavy and we don’t have a clue what his motive is.”

  “Think we should add Vega?”

  “Sure. Why not? Make it an even seven. But why her? Got any more theories?”

  “I’m fresh out.”

  “What do you think, should we bring in Norm again?” Ott said. “Remember last time around… what was it… ‘even a busted clock is right twice a day.’”

  Crawford laughed. “Close.”

  Ott shrugged. “What was it again?”

  “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  Crawford picked up his landline phone and punched in three numbers.

  As he often did, Chief Rutledge answered with a question, his voice testy. “Solved the sucker yet?”

  “Not yet. But with your brilliant insights we probably will.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Rutledge said, then, as an afterthought, “And how ’bout losing the sarcasm.”

  “Yes, boss,” Crawford said sarcastically.

  A few minutes later they heard they heavy, thudding footsteps spaced far apart. Ott referred to it as the ‘caveman walk.’

  Rutledge’s face appeared at the door.

  “Hey, Norm,” Ott said.

  Rutledge grunted and sat in the chair next to Ott, across from Crawford.

  “We’ve talked to every suspect who could possibly have done it,” Crawford said, pointing to the whiteboard, “and these are the finalists.”

  For the next twenty minutes, Crawford summarized what they had discovered about SOAR and its members in the last few days.

  “I’m going with Fannie Melhado,” Rutledge said at the end, without hesitation.

  “Why?” Crawford asked.

  “I don’t know, I just have a hunch.”

  Crawford glanced at Ott, who fought mightily not to roll his eyes.

  “Or that guy Peavy… but he seems too obvious. Who you guys going with?”

  Crawford looked at Ott. “I don’t know.”

  Ott shrugged.

  “Well, that’s just fuckin’ swell,” Rutledge said, raising his arms. “By the way, why the hell do we have people like that living in our peaceful, little town?”

  “Well, actually, Bemmert and Swain live in Boca.”

  “Good,” Rutledge said. “Keep ’em there… but that Blackwater guy, Peavy, lives here, right?”

  Crawford nodded.

  “By the way, Norm,” Ott said, “Did we ever tell you that SOAR tried to buy Bethesda-by-the-Sea?”

  Rutledge threw up his arms. “You’re making this shit up.”

  “Nope.”

  Rutledge shook his head. “This is turning into a bad science fiction movie.”

  “Or something you’d see in the West Palm library,” Ott said.

  “What?” Rutledge said.

  “Nothin’,” Ott mumbled.

  Crawford got a call on his cell. Patrice Lord, it said on the display. He held up his hand and took the call, telling Patrice that he had questions about the death of her mother. She seemed a little surprised but agreed to see him later that afternoon.

  “So, you’re saying you’ve definitely ruled out family members, relatives, business associates, all the usual?” Rutledge asked.

  “Yeah, definitely. Nothin’ there,” Crawford said, and laid it all out for Rutledge.

  Rutledge nodded. “Gotta be Peavy.”

  “What happened to Fannie Melhado?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “And his motive?” Crawford asked.

  “You figure it out,” Rutledge said, getting to his feet. “But just make it happen, will ya? I don’t much care how you do it. But, come on, this is taking forever.”

  “Got news for you, Norm: the only place they catch guys fast is on Law and Order,” Crawford said.

  “An hour, to be exact,” Ott added.

  “Well, minus the commercials, it’s more like forty-five minutes,” said Crawford.

  Crawford had just scheduled back-to-backers. First, Leo Peavy, then he’d wedged in Marie-Claire Fournier’s daughter, Patrice Lord.

  When Crawford called him, Leo Peavy asked to come into the station. Said he’d “never been to a police station and was dyin’ to scope one out.”

  Crawford obliged him and met him at the front desk, then led Peavy back to his office. He’d buzzed Ott ahead of time to alert him that Peavy’d arrived. Ott had wisely reminded Crawford to hide the whiteboard before he brought their suspect back.

  When Crawford and Peavy stepped into his office, Ott was already sitting in his designated chair. He didn’t bother to get up but shook Peavy’s hand. “Mr. Peavy,” he said. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Backatcha, Detective,” Peavy said, sitting down. “So, what are we going to talk about this time, fellas? Pretty much exhausted every subject, haven’t we?” He rubbed his hands together like he was prepared to enjoy himself. His muttonchop sideburns looked even thicker than they had last time. Dense as a ficus hedge. As Crawford studied him, the man’s eyes seemed even more yellow and rheumy. The last thing he looked like was a mercenary who had helped mow down seventeen defenseless people on a street in Iraq.

  “So, we understand you were in Blackwater?” Ott started right in.

  Suddenly, Peavy looked as though he wasn’t enjoying himself quite so much. Like he’d been gut-punched. His skin pallor went from yolk white to ghostly pale.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “And that you were there when those seventeen people got killed in Bagdad?” Ott said.

  Peavy rolled his eyes and coaxed out a dramatic sigh. “You ever been to war, detective?”

  “No.”

  “You should try it sometime.” It was a decent comeback and he added, “If that’s what you got me here to talk about then I’m out of here.”

  Crawford raised a hand. “Relax, Mr. Peavy. We were just curious,” he said. “Since we last met with you, have you heard anything that might be helpful to our investigation? I mean, people talk, people theorize, people confide in other people…. Have you heard anything at all?”

  Peavy gazed first at Crawford, then Ott next to him, then at the wall over Ott’s shoulder, then back at Crawford. “You guys have a funny way of doing things. Your partner insults me, then you ask me for help. So, I’m guessing today you’re playing the good cop”—then turning to Ott—“and Smiley here, the bad cop.”

  Ott gave him a look, clearly not loving his new nickname.

  Crawford put up his hands. “Hey, I just asked you if you heard anything. Presumably, you don’t want a killer wandering around in one of your houses.”

  “Have you checked into Fannie Melhado? Or are you just wasting all your time on me?”

  “What specifically would we have found if we had looked into her?” Crawford asked.

  “Well, the fact that Christian Lalley had something on her, for starters.”

  “Okay, and what was that? If you could be a little more specific… since Lalley’s not around to tell us.”

  “Something so kinky it would make the Marquis de Sade blush,” Peavy said. “Lalley had a guy look into her private life.”


  “Oh, really. You know the identity of the guy?”

  “All I got is general info,” Peavy said with a smirk. “It’s up to you guys to do your job and get the specifics.”

  “Just thought you’d want to help,” Crawford said. “You know, clean up your house.”

  “My house is lily-white. Fannie Melhado’s… ah, not so much.”

  Ott leaned toward Peavy. “You know, Mr. Peavy, you might have a little credibility if your past was lily-white, but I just don’t remember reading about your Eagle Scout days.”

  Peavy got up and headed for the door. “I’ve had enough of your bullshit. I didn’t come here to get insulted.”

  And he was gone.

  Crawford eyed Ott. “You gotta think about biting your tongue every once in a while, Mort.”

  “Sorry, I just—”

  Crawford raised a hand. “Don’t worry about it, we weren’t gonna get anything out of the guy anyway. He was making shit up on the fly.”

  Thirty-Three

  On the way to Patrice Lord’s house on Jungle Road, Crawford told Ott that the PI Maxwell had said Fannie Melhado was “clean as a whistle.” And that whatever it was that was reputedly ‘kinky,” as Leo Peavy described it, hadn’t showed up on Maxwell’s radar screen.

  “Maybe he was only giving you half of what he knew?” Ott observed.

  “Or maybe trying to throw me off the scent.”

  “Also, possible.”

  51 Jungle was just off of South County Road and merged with South Ocean boulevard to the south a few blocks. As with many of the houses in the so-called estate section, Patrice’s house was Mediterranean in style, beautifully landscaped, and huge. It was dark brown stucco with hedges that rose up the full height of the two-story house.

  One time when Crawford was riding around with Rose in her white Jag convertible—doing his damnedest to pick her brain on a case—Rose had launched into a tutorial about celebrated Palm Beach architects. She told him her favorites were John Volk, Maurice Fatio, and Marion Sims Wyeth. Based on the Fatio houses she had pointed out during their drive, he was pretty sure the Lord house was one of his. As he remembered it, Fatio had designed more than two hundred Palm Beach homes.

  “Nice pad,” Ott said, as they drove in over the Chattahoochee pebble driveway.

  Not exactly how Rose would have described it, but certainly accurate.

  They got out of the Vic, walked up to the front door, and Ott pressed the doorbell.

  A few moment later the door opened and a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties greeted them with a wide smile. “Hello detectives, come on in. I’m Patrice.”

  “Detective Crawford,” Crawford said, shaking her hand.

  “I’m Detective Ott,” Mort said, stepping into the foyer.

  “Can I offer you a drink? Water, Coke, lemonade, anything?”

  “No, thanks,” Crawford said.

  “I’m good,” Ott said.

  “Well, come on into the living room,” Patrice said, leading the way.

  As he followed her, Crawford wondered what a woman in her mid-twenties was doing in what he figured was easily a fifteen-million-dollar house. But the answer was obvious: a simple thing called inheritance. A rich relative dies, you get money. In this case, her mother, Marie-Claire Fournier. Crawford took secret solace in the fact that the $300,000 condos he’d looked at had way better views.

  He and Ott sat in an overstuffed chintz sofa, facing Patrice. Not that Crawford had ever sat on a cloud, but this would be what he’d expect one would feel like. His most comfortable sit in a long time, Maxwell’s faux Aeron notwithstanding.

  “Mrs. Lord, as I mentioned,” Crawford said, “we’d like to ask you some questions about your mother.”

  “Yes, sure,” Patrice said. “When I got your call, I just wondered what took you so long.”

  Crawford shot Ott a quick quizzical glance, then back to Patrice. “Sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean?”

  “Well, when mother died, I expected there to be at least some kind of investigation. I mean, she was the picture of health one day and the poor thing died the next.”

  “So, it sounds like you were suspicious… about your mother’s cause of death? Is that accurate?”

  “Not so much suspicious, just surprised that nobody seemed eager to look into it. I mean, Lucian Neville’s biggest concern seemed to be where her money was going. You know him, right? Calls himself Crux?”

  “Yes, sure, the head of SOAR, where your mother was a… congregant?”

  Patrice laughed. “Congregant? I always hated that word.”

  “What would you prefer?”

  “A cultist.”

  Crawford didn’t need to look at Ott to know a big grin had just surfaced on his leathery face.

  “Neville manipulated my mother for twenty years, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t change her way of thinking. ’Course I was pretty young.”

  “Mrs. Lord, was there anyone else who you felt should have looked into your mother’s death who didn’t?”

  “Yes, the coroner, or medical examiner…whatever he’s called.”

  Ott caught Crawford’s eye, then looked back at Patrice. “Was his name Hawes? Robert Hawes?”

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “So, he examined your mother at the time of her death?” Crawford asked.

  “Yeah, and it took all of about ten minutes.”

  Crawford leaned forward. “Are you saying that you think your mother died of something other than a brain aneurism?”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m just saying that when I went to Neville right after she died, he told me that she had been complaining about how bad she had been feeling. Well, that was news to me ’cause she never said a word about it, and I had talked to her at least three times in the week before she died.”

  Crawford tapped his foot on the hardwood floor. “When you talked to her, did she bring up anything… I don’t know… different from what she usually talked about?”

  Patrice thought for a second. “No, not that I can think of—” she snapped her fingers “—wait, she did mention meeting with a man who wanted to join SOAR. This was two days before she died.”

  Crawford leaned closer. “What exactly did she say about him?”

  “Mostly how she really didn’t like the man.”

  “Do you remember his name?” Ott asked.

  “No, I just remember her telling me that Neville wanted her to interview him. Tell him what she thought.”

  “Did she tell Neville?”

  “My guess is she never got the chance,” Patrice said. “She told me the man was a crook. Ran a company he got fired from for embezzling or something like that.”

  Crawford’s eyes met Ott’s. “How’d she know that?”

  Patrice smiled. “My mother may have belonged to a cult, but she was a smart woman and always did her homework.”

  “Can you explain, please?”

  “Well, she felt Neville was a little slapdash about letting people into SOAR. She told him a while back that if she was going to keep funding SOAR, he had to be more careful about who he let in. I think that’s why Neville had her interview this guy right before she died.”

  Crawford exhaled deeply. “This is very helpful, Mrs. Lord,” he said, looking over at Ott, who nodded his agreement.

  “It sure is,” Ott said. “Do you happen to remember what this man your mother interviewed was going to do at SOAR? I’m assuming he was bringing some skill, or money, to the table, right?”

  “Probably, but I don’t recall anything specific. I just remember he’d be pretty high up.”

  “No particular specialty, then, that you remember?” Crawford asked.

  “Sorry.”

  Crawford sat back in the plush sofa. “When your mother looked into people— investigated them, I mean— how would she do it?”

  Patrice rubbed her chin and thought for a second. “I guess the way most people
do. You know, start with Google, Wikipedia, or one of those. If you’re anyone of any consequence—you know, good or bad—your whole life story’s right there. Then she’d make some calls to people, find out even more.”

  Crawford nodded. Yup, couldn’t beat good ol’ Google and Wikipedia—unless it was giving Rose Clarke a call.

  “Holy shit,” Ott said, exuberantly, as they walked across the Chattahoochee pebbles to the Crown Vic. “Sure sounds like Guy Bemmert.”

  Crawford already had his cell phone out.

  “Yup. Timeline coincides. Bemmert joins SOAR right after Fournier dies. Only thing that doesn’t jibe is that the PI, Maxwell, said Bemmert and Swain were clean. I gotta go brace that guy again.”

  “But it could have been someone else altogether… who Fournier spoke to. Someone who never got into SOAR.”

  “Yeah, true. But, if it was Bemmert who Fournier interviewed she, obviously, never got around to telling Crux what she thought of him. And we can assume Bemmert knew a negative review from Fournier was gonna kill his chances of getting in.”

  Crawford dialed a number, held up his hand to Ott, and waited.

  “Mr. Bemmert… hey, it’s Charlie Crawford… so my partner and I are in the Boca area and just wondered if we could stop by with a question or two… great, oh I don’t know, how ’bout in an hour or so…? Perfect, see you then.”

  He clicked off. “So, we got an hour to figure out how we’re gonna play it.”

  “But it’s only a half hour to get there”

  “Yeah, I know. I want to check something out before.”

  As Ott said, they got to Coquina Drive in Boca in just over a half hour.

  “So now what?” Ott asked, as they turned onto Coquina.

  “Park the car a block from the front gate, then we’re gonna take a little walk.”

  Ott shrugged. “Okay, I have no clue what we’re doing.”

  “Just trust me.”

  A minute later Ott parked the car a block away from 702 Coquina and Bemmert and Swain’s garage apartment. They got out of the Vic and, as they neared the main house, Crawford held up his hand and stopped. Ott stopped just behind him.

  “Let’s get behind that banyan and just watch,” Crawford said, pointing to a tree to the left of the driveway to the main house and garage apartment.