Palm Beach Perfidious, page 11
“Hello, Mr. Hiller, thanks for coming.”
“Can we make this quick?” No handshake, no nice ta meet ya, no nothing… except a colossal scowl.
“Sure. I think we can.” Crawford dived right in. “Did Antonia von Habsburg blackmail you?”
Hiller, on his feet, looked suddenly a little wobbly. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Exactly what I asked. Did she blackmail you? I’m told by a reliable source you made a large withdrawal from a bank account. Maybe to pay von Habsburg to keep quiet about a woman you were… let’s just say, on intimate terms with.”
Crawford, who prided himself on double-checking things before he made an assertion, had decided, pretty much spur-of-the-moment, that he would simply wing this one. See what came out of it.
Hiller folded his arms and stood up as straight as he could. “That, it just so happens, is patently untrue. Every word of it.”
“So you didn’t withdraw a large sum of money from a bank account of yours?”
Hiller glanced down at his loafers.
“Because I can get a judge to issue a court order to check your bank accounts.” That was a bit of a long shot, Crawford knew.
“What the hell does my banking have to do with you?”
“A lot, if it has to do with my murder investigation.”
Hiller sighed, exhibiting all the classic signs of a man who had little or no time for dealing with an inquiring, pain-in-the-ass cop. “All right. I’m going to come clean with you.”
“Please do.”
“So you’ll leave me alone in the future.”
Crawford just nodded.
“I have a gambling… issue.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Crawford said, “but to the tune of a million dollars?”
Hiller started scratching his chest like he wanted to rub the Vineyard Vines logo right off his shirt. “More.”
“Do you mind if I ask… gambling as in going to Las Vegas or Monte Carlo, gambling as in betting on sports—”
“The latter. Horses, football games, baseball, soccer, hockey, tennis, you name it. But I finally did something about it. Haven’t bet anything in almost a month.”
“Gamblers Anonymous?”
“Something like it. I don’t really want to go into it.”
“I understand.”
The man was either very quick on his feet or telling the truth. Crawford’s guess was the latter.
“So, just to make sure I’m totally clear, you never gave any money to Antonia von Habsburg—”
“Not one red cent.”
“Okay,” Crawford said, pretty certain he could double check Hiller’s gambling story somehow.
In any case, the interview was over. Crawford had heard enough. “Well, I appreciate you coming by, Mr. Hiller. I don’t have any more questions.”
Hiller nodded. “Okay. So, I trust everything we’ve just discussed—”
“—is between you and me… and my partner.”
“That’s what I was worried about, your partner.”
“Don’t be. We need to be very discreet in this business. And we are.”
*****
Crawford went back to his office and placed a call to his friend David Balfour, considered to be one of Palm Beach’s most eligible bachelors, though Crawford knew that he had been seeing one woman for a while.
“Hey, Charlie,” Balfour answered, “what’s new with you?”
“Not much. Work more, golf less. If you got a few minutes, I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”
“Sure. Fire away.”
“You told me once you have a guy you go to when you want to place a bet. Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, World Series, whatever.”
“Sure do. You want to bet on something?”
“Nah. Whenever I do, I always lose my shirt.”
“I hear ya. The guy’s name is Albie. You want his number?”
“Yeah, please.”
“Just so happens, I got it memorized.” And he reeled it off.
“Second thing is—I don’t know why I didn’t ask you this before—but what do you know about Antonia von Habsburg?”
“The countess? I always called her that when I ran into her, and she kinda liked it. So, Antonia… Antonia was one-of-a-kind. I liked her. She was a no-bullshit woman. Well, actually she was all bullshit, the whole von Habsburg thing, I mean. But no bullshit in speaking her mind. Always did what she said she was going to do, too.”
“My kind of woman. So, my standard question: is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to kill her?”
“You know, I’ve thought about that a fair amount after it happened. I haven’t really come up with anybody. I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that the von Habsburg empire—hers, that is—was a lot more than her being a headhunter and a matchmaker, I forget what it was called—”
“Distinguished Consorts.”
Balfour chuckled. “Yeah, gal had a way with words, too.”
“What more was there?” Crawford asked.
“Well, let’s see, there was ‘the oldest profession in the world,’ which I’m sure you know all about.”
“A very, very high-end ‘oldest profession in the world.’”
“Well, it is Palm Beach.” Balfour said. “You know about the young bucks, too, right?”
“Young bucks?”
“Yes, Charlie. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of rich older women in Palm Beach, who either made it on their own or, in most cases, had rich husbands who died.”
“Matter of fact, I had noticed that. Keep going.”
“Yeah, they hang out at the Leopard Lounge at the Chesterfield. Sometimes on the early shift at Taboo. I see a lot of them at the Poinciana… So anyway, here’s a real shocker, they get horny, too. And Antonia, who was never asleep at the wheel, saw an opportunity there.”
“Young dudes for old babes.”
“Exactly.”
“So what more do you know about it?”
“Nothing firsthand. This is all via the Palm Beach rumor mill.”
“Which is always cranking twenty-four/seven.”
“Including Sundays and holidays,” Balfour said.
“That’s good info,” Crawford told him. “I don’t exactly know where it takes me, but there’s probably something there. You wouldn’t happen to know who any of these ‘young bucks’ are, by any chance?”
“Can’t help you with that, Charlie. But I can ask around… discreetly, of course. See if I come up with some names.”
“I would really appreciate that,” Crawford said. “So, my last question is about you: are you still going out with…”
“Hadley? Nah, she cut me loose. Didn’t really give me a good reason why,”—a long sigh—“I don’t know, Charlie, sometimes I wonder about myself.”
“Don’t. She just wasn’t the right one. Maybe you should try Rose again. You guys had a pretty good run, as I remember.”
“Nah, she called me ‘vacuous’ once. A ‘libertine’ another time. I had to look that one up.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Come on, Charlie, you went to Dartmouth.”
“I have no clue.”
“It means a playboy, a roué. Another one I had to look up.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It was the word she used with it that hurt.”
“Which was?”
“She called me a ‘self-indulgent libertine.’”
Crawford laughed. “Well, I guess you’re right. Maybe she’s not the one.”
TWENTY-TWO
Crawford clicked off with Balfour and dialed the number of his bookie, Albie.
“Prudent Wagers, Albie speaking.”
“Yes, hi, Albie, my name’s Charlie Crawford. I’m a friend of David Balfour. He gave me your number.”
“Any friend of David’s is a friend of mine.”
“That’s good to know. I’m a Palm Beach Police detective, just so you know.”
Pause. “Oh.”
“A very discreet Palm Beach detective. I just have one quick question for you.”
“Is it going to get me in trouble?”
“No. I just want to know if you know the name Courtie Hiller?”
“Courtie the Whale? You bet I know him.”
“So, he’s like a big bettor?”
“Yeah, with me and a couple other guys around town. Dude’ll bet on a tiddlywinks game.”
Crawford laughed. “That’s all I need to know. Oh, one more question: since when is wagering ‘prudent’?”
Another pause. “I don’t know, I just liked the sound of it.”
*****
Ott was back at DeeDee Dunwoody’s room at Good Samaritan Hospital.
“How you feelin’?” he asked. He almost added honey, but decided not to after only one date.
“It’s only been a couple of hours since I saw you last, Mort,” she said. “I’m not that quick a healer.”
He chuckled. “But, it’s not any worse, right?”
“No, they’ve been keeping me pretty doped up,” she murmured.
“You look like a mummy, you know. A mummy with beautiful eyes.”
And a sexy mouth, he started to say, but bit his tongue.
“Thank you, Mort. That’s very sweet of you,” she said. “Have you guys found out anything?”
“I went to Nomad, where we were last night. What can you tell me about Luther King?”
Her eyes closed for a moment. “Oh God, what about him?”
“He was there last night. At Nomad.”
“He was? I never saw him. He must have been… lurking in the shadows. Like Dracula.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He asked me out once. Said Antonia gave him my number. He sounded nice on the phone, like a gentleman.”
“But?”
“He took me out to a nice place, Bricktops. We had a drink, then a glass of wine and next thing I know, I feel his hand on my leg. I got up and bolted. That was enough Luther King for one lifetime.”
“That was a little aggressive.”
“Aggressive? Oh my God. Then I found out later that he and Antonia had gone out. But after a while, Antonia dumped him. I guess she gave him my number, maybe to get him off her back… so to speak.”
Ott laughed, and so did DeeDee.
“Oh God, that was painful,” she said.
“You okay?”
“Yup. It’s just I’ve got these cuts on my stomach.”
“No more jokes. So that’s the whole story on Luther King?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Except he called me again after what happened and apologized. But no way was I ever going out with that horny old bastard again. No matter how rich he is.”
“Was that something he told you about? Being rich, I mean.”
“Oh, boy, did he ever. Before he finished off his first drink, he told me he was a billionaire. About how he should have been included in some article in the Glossy about all the billionaires in Palm Beach, but there was a misprint or something.”
“Between that and the hand on your thigh, I get why you beat it out of there.”
“Leg, not thigh. If it was my thigh, I would have kicked the wrinkly, old bastard in the… you know where.”
Ott thought for a second. “Well, guess I’ll never try that.”
“Ha. You’re different, Mort.”
He smiled. “Anyway, I was just thinking maybe there was some connection between him like… almost stalking you at Nomad and what happened to you later.”
She gently shook her head. “My guess is no connection at all. I mean, doing that to me would be a pretty extreme reaction to one bad date, don’t you think?”
“I tend to agree with you,” Ott said. “But I intend to have a nice long conversation with the man nevertheless.”
TWENTY-THREE
Ott found out where Luther King lived and just went straight to his house.
A short man—Filipino was Ott’s guess—opened the front door.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked.
“My name is Ott, detective with the Palm Beach Police Department. Is Mr. King in?”
“Is he expecting you, Detective?”
“Tell him it’s important that I speak to him right away.”
The short man gave Ott a frown, apparently not pleased about not getting an answer to his question. “Give me a moment,” he said.
Ott nodded.
He stepped into the foyer, which was dark and had a funky smell. Before long he heard footsteps. The man following the short man was tall. Tall and frowning and around sixty-five years old. A little like Dracula in his dotage.
“I saw you last night,” Luther King said, “with DeeDee. You’re a detective?”
Ott nodded. “May I come in, Mr. King?”
“This is fine right here,” King said. “What is it you want?”
“Ms. Dunwoody said you two had dinner together a while back,” Ott said.
“I have dinner with a lot of women.”
And do your grope all of them under the table? Ott was dying to ask. “So, Mr. King, I know you were at Nomad last night. Would you mind telling me where you went after?”
“It’s a long list,” King said. “I was making my usual rounds. Couple spots on Clematis Street, then I went over to Palm Beach. Finally, just before I was about to call it a night, I got lucky at The Honor Bar.”
“Congratulations.”
“Yeah, and man was she ever a hottie. Blonde, big whombos—”
“That’s great. And can you get people at those places to say they saw you at specific times? Alibis are what I’m looking for.”
“I can if I need to, but what the hell do I need an alibi for.”
“Mr. King, did you know that DeeDee Dunwoody was seriously assaulted last night?”
King put his hand up to his mouth. “Oh my God, no. That’s terrible, how is she?”
“She’s in the hospital but she’s going to be all right… in time. You know nothing about it?”
“No, not a thing. Please give her my best if you see her.”
Ott stared down King for a few long moments.
He wanted so hard for King to be the guy.
But he wasn’t. He just knew. And, despite all the things Ott had heard about King, his wishes for DeeDee rang genuinely sincere. Not to mention that Ott had many years of watching and assessing people’s reactions to things he told them. King was genuinely surprised at his news about DeeDee, there was no question about it.
Seemed King was guilty of nothing more than unrelenting serial lechery.
Not pretty, but not against the law.
TWENTY-FOUR
For the third time in the past week, Crawford went to LV Wurfel’s house on Sunset Road, and for the first time LV wasn’t working on his Harley in the garage. So Crawford called him on his cell from his car, and Wurfel picked up right away.
“Hey, Charlie, I’ve missed our garage meetings,” Wurfel said.
“Where are you?”
“Just about to get on an airboat in the Everglades. A little swamp tour with my buddies.”
“When are you going to be back?”
“Tomorrow. Why?”
“We need to have another talk.”
“About what?”
“You having a bigger role in Distinguished Consorts than you led me to believe and picking up where Antonia left off after she died.”
“I told you I was a very minor partner at the time of her death.”
“Yeah, that is what you told me, but I heard otherwise.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Charlie.”
“I don’t. When you get back, I want you to stop by the Palm Beach station.”
“It would be my honor.”
“See you tomorrow,” Crawford said. “Watch out for hungry gators.”
*****
Five minutes later, Ott stopped by Crawford’s office. It was time to compare notes.
“So I had an interesting conversation with David Balfour,” Crawford said.
“Oh, yeah, what did he have to say?”
“Among other things, that Antonia had a stable of men—‘young bucks,’ he called them—working for her.”
“To service lonely women,” Ott said. “That makes sense. That guy Bob Jones told me about women and their ‘boy toys.’”
Crawford frowned. “Well, why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“’Cause what he told me had nothing to do with Antonia von Habsburg. He was talking about guys, in general—like tennis and golf pros—who’d meet older women and, you know, hook up for a nooner or something. Antonia’s name never came up in the conversation.”
“Well, with Balfour it did.”
“Which makes sense, because why just provide women for men? Why not the other way around, too?”
“Exactly. It was the first time I’d heard of it, though,” Crawford said. “Another thing Balfour told me was that LV was a lot more involved in the whole operation than he claims he was.”
“Well, when you think about it, why would he admit he was even involved at all?”
“Good question. I just bought it. What he said, I mean.”
“That’s unlike you, Charlie.”
“I know, I’m slipping. What about you? Anything new?”
Ott told him about going to Nomad and finding out about Luther King being there and how DeeDee totally discounted King as anything more than a charter member of the Low-life Lechers of America club.
“Jibes with my take of the guy,” Crawford said as his cell phone rang.
He looked at his display. It was a cop named Rob Shaw, who somehow had been blessed with the nickname Rude.
“Rude, what’s up?”
“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever come across, Charlie. You’re the first guy I thought of to run it by.”
“I guess I’m supposed to be honored?”
“I’ll let you be the judge. Can I come down to your office?”
“Sure, I’m here with Ott.”
“I’ll be right there,” Shaw said and clicked off.
“What’s that about?” Ott asked.
