Palm Beach Perfidious, page 17
“So, the point is, my mother told us when we were visiting that she was going to leave whatever she had to that little girl—”
“Esmeralda?”
“Yes, Esmeralda, Lauren, whatever you call her, because she had given Frank and us over three million dollars each.”
“Betcha Frank was closer to five million,” Steve said.
“Whatever. Mom wasn’t keeping track of everything so it wasn’t exactly a penny for Frank and a penny for us.”
“But, so what you’re saying, in your opinion, is that the real will is the one in which Esmeralda is named beneficiary—”
“— and Frank’s is a total phony,” Steve said, “which is why I’d maybe look into Frank a little harder. As a suspect, I mean.”
Ott was nodding. “So, knowing what you know, Mr. Swain,” he said, “Frank Lincoln would get your vote for the one who did it?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Steve said, turning to his wife. “What about you?”
Abby shrugged. “I don’t really know. Tell you the truth, I haven’t spent a lot of time sitting around thinking about it.”
Crawford shot Ott his “got anything else?” glance. Ott gave him a quick head shake.
Crawford started to get to his feet. “Well, thank you both very much, you obviously have a bulletproof alibi, which your wife explained to us,” he said to Steve. “You have our cards. If you think of anything that you think might be helpful, please give us a call.”
“Will do,” Steve said, as he shook Crawford’s and Ott’s hands and his wife nodded.
They walked out of the house, got in their car and headed down Prospect Hill Road to Ken Burns’s restaurant Burdick’s.
Ott was reading something on his iPhone as they walked in.
“Says, of this place: ‘a little piece of the big city in an historically well-heeled tiny country town,’” Ott read to Crawford, then looked up as they approached a stylish, white-haired woman who was clearly the hostess.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “you must be Mr. Crawford and Mr. Orr.”
“Ott,” said Ott, “Ts not Rs”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “May I show you to your table?”
“Please,” Crawford said.
They followed her to a corner table and sat.
“Nice place,” Ott said, looking around.
“Yeah,” Crawford said, glancing at the menu, “with prices to match.”
“I don’t even have to look,” Ott said. “That fourteen-ounce steak for thirty-three bucks has my name all over it. What about you?”
“Well, I’m thinking that when at Ken’s, maybe do a Ken’s Salad.”
“The salmon one, right?”
Crawford nodded.
“Where does Bettina have us staying up in Hanover?” Ott asked, just as Crawford’s cell phone rang.
Crawford looked at the display and picked up. “All Ott has to do is mention your name and you call… Hey Bettina, what’s up?”
“I finally got to speak to Janny Hasleiter, and she is in L.A. We had about a twenty-second conversation. Guess she’s got no time for the little people. Bottom line is she’ll be back in Palm Beach day after tomorrow and said she can talk to you then.”
“Good work,” Crawford said. “See you day after tomorrow.”
“Bye, Charlie.”
Crawford turned back to Ott. “What’d you ask me?”
“Where are we staying in Hanover?”
“Place called the Hanover Inn. My parents used to stay there.”
“You mean, when they came up to watch junior perform his heroics on the Dartmouth athletic fields?”
Crawford laughed. “Or lose to other teams, which happened a lot of the time.”
“You, Charlie? You actually lost? Can’t believe it,” Ott said, as a waiter approached their table and took their drink and dinner orders.
“So what was your favorite sport?” Ott asked, as he handed the waiter the menu.
“Lacrosse. I loved it.”
“Old Indian sport, right?” Ott asked.
“Yeah, the Hurons and the Mohawks started it up in Canada somewhere.”
“I think they had club lacrosse at Cuyahoga Community College, but there was too much running for a lard-ass like me.”
“I saw a picture of you back in the day. You weren’t a lard-ass.”
Ott laughed. “Well, I sure as hell wasn’t a hard-ass.”
“Okay, how ’bout a pudgy-ass or maybe a… roly-poly-ass?”
“Yeah, that’s about right,” Ott said. “So you liked lacrosse better than football?”
“Yeah, liked the fact that lacrosse was pretty much constant action; football was start, stop, time out, injury, half-time…”
*****
The steak and salmon did not disappoint. Crawford was paying the bill as Ott talked to the waiter. He had just asked him what Ken Burns was like.
The waiter lowered his voice. “We’re s’posed to pretend we never met him if people ask, but he comes in here like three, four times a week.”
“Nice guy?” Ott asked.
“Very nice guy,” the waiter said. “Good tipper, too.”
“Well, next time you see him, tell him Bettina from Palm Beach, Florida, is a big fan,” Ott said.
“I’ll pass that along,” the waiter said as he handed Crawford his Visa card back. “Thank you, gentlemen, have a nice evening.”
It was only seven fifteen when Crawford and Ott got back to their rental car.
“How far to Hanover?” Ott asked, as he opened the driver’s side door.
“Um, I guessing fifty minutes if we get on 91 and maybe an hour, ten if we go the slow, scenic route.”
“I vote for the slow, scenic route.”
Crawford nodded. “You’re driving. Your call.”
*****
They were pulling into the Hanover Inn at just past nine fifteen. They had an unexpected adventure on the “slow, scenic route” just south of Lebanon, New Hampshire: a flat tire. Ott tried to claim that as driver, he couldn’t both drive and change a flat, that job always fell to the man riding shotgun. He added, “Besides, if I ever got down near the ground to change it, I’d never get back up. Bad knees and all.”
Crawford shook his head and chuckled.“ That is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.” But he ended up putting the donut spare on the right rear anyway. Then, after that, they had a ten-minute wait for a very slow moving train.
“You know,” Ott said as they waited, “I was just thinking… did it ever occur to you that waiter was never gonna tell us that Ken Burns was the biggest dipshit in the world, even if he was?”
Crawford watched the last few train cars rumble by slowly. “What?”
“That waiter was never gonna tell us… never mind.”
“Were you about to make a profound observation?”
“No, just making conversation while we watch this train hump along at ten miles an hour.”
After they checked in to the Hanover Inn, they went to the bar. It was nine thirty.
It was half-full with mainly couples who seemed to be in their forties and early fifties. Crawford guessed they were mostly parents there to visit their sons and daughters and make sure they were going to classes instead of nights full of keggers followed by hungover days.
They were going to have a nightcap, then lights out by ten o’clock when Ott’s cell phone rang.
*****
“Hey, DeeDee,” Ott answered.
Crawford shot him the thumbs-up.
“I’ve missed your visits,” DeeDee told him. “I also called cause I heard something you might be interested in if you haven’t heard already.”
“What’s that?” Ott said, tapping on the speakerphone.
“A girlfriend told me Luther King got arrested for assaulting a woman.”
“You’re kidding. Do you know anything more about it?”
“Just that it happened in his car.”
“He got arrested by the Palm Beach Police?”
“No, my girlfriend said it happened in West Palm.”
Crawford pulled out his iPhone.
“Okay, well thanks, we’ll look into it. How you feeling anyway?”
“Better. You know, every day a little better.”
“Good to hear. Well, I’ll come see you tomorrow.”
“I missed seeing you today.”
“I would have been there today, but I’m up in New Hampshire.”
“New Hampshire? What are you doing there?”
“It’s the leaf-peeping season, I never miss it.”
DeeDee laughed. “No, seriously?”
“The Antonia case.”
“Well, good luck.”
“We need some. See you tomorrow.”
*****
Crawford dialed his phone the second he overheard about Luther King. He knew a homicide guy in the West Palm Police Department.
“Hey, Ronnie, sorry to call so late, it’s Charlie Crawford.”
“Hey, Charlie, what’s up?”
“You know anything about an assault somewhere in West Palm. Perp’s name is Luther King from Palm Beach.”
“Matter of fact, I do. One of my guys investigated. He slapped around a woman ’cause it seemed like she wouldn’t put out for him in the back of his limo. Class acts you got in Palm Beach.”
“How bad was she beat up?”
“Not real bad. Her name is, ah, Justine Burroughs. Sustained some cuts and a black eye. We got King in the jug.”
“Do me a favor, see if you can get the vic’s number. I want to talk to her.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Charlie. That’s all you need?”
“Yeah, for now. Thanks, Ronnie.”
“You got it. I’ll get back to you.”
Crawford clicked off and looked up at Ott. “You got the gist of that?”
Ott nodded. “Guy likes to beat up women.”
“Question is, does he like to kill ’em,” Crawford said, taking a sip of his bourbon.
Then out of nowhere, he heard a voice behind him. “Charlie? Charlie Crawford, is that you?”
Crawford turned and saw an older man with a blond crewcut and military posture smiling at him.
“Holy shit,” the man said, “it is you. Greg Bork, your old lax coach.”
“I’ll be damned,” Crawford said, shaking his hand. “How the hell are you, Coach? Nice to see you again, man.”
“Same,” Bork said, then pointed to a man next to him. “And this is Miles Crennfield. I’m trying to recruit his son. He’s a big star at Manhasset High on Long Island.”
“Hey, Miles,” Crawford shook his hand, then turning to Ott. “And this is my partner, Mort Ott.”
“Wow, Charlie, I would never have guessed—” Bork shook Ott’s hand.
Crawford burst out laughing. “No, no, not that kind of partner. We’re detectives, down in Florida.”
“No shit, really,” Bork said. “I figured you were headed to Wall Street.”
“I was, but… Anyway, back when I was playing, you were assistant. I heard you got the head coach job… what, like ten years ago?”
“Twelve actually, we’ve had a hell of a lot of good teams. Won the Ivies three years in a row.”
“Nice going,” Crawford said. “So where’s your son, Miles?”
“That’s a good question,” Crennfield said. “I think some of Greg’s players might be leading him astray at one of the frat houses.”
“Oh God, which one?” Crawford asked.
“Theta Delta Chi,” Bork said.
He turned to Ott. “That’s my old house,”—then to Crennfield—“a bunch of notorious badasses.”
Crennfield nodded. “Then Connor will fit right in.”
Crawford laughed. “Hey, if it’s any consolation, I survived.”
Ott patted Crawford on the shoulder. “We might have to check out your old stomping grounds, Charlie. The Theta Delta Chi house.”
“It’s your kind of place,” Crawford said. “You’re never gonna want to leave.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Greg Bork bought Crawford, Ott, and Miles Crennfield a round of drinks while the four—excluding Ott, who was clueless on the subject—talked about lacrosse. They talked about some of the great players in lacrosse history—Jim Brown, the star football player, among them— and some of the great games, then Bork reminisced about a few of Crawford’s glory moments, which Crawford had long since forgotten.
“I remember when you had a fight with a Harvard player, knocked the bastard out. Your senior year, I think it was,” Bork said.
Ott cuffed Crawford on the shoulder. “Lucky punch, huh Charlie?”
Crawford cringed. “You must have me confused with someone else, Greg.”
Greg Bork laughed. “No, it was you.”
“What position does Connor play?” Crawford quickly changed the subject.
“Attack,” said Crennfield.
“Kid’s fast as hell,” Bork said.
Crawford nodded and snuck a peek at this watch. It was 11:05.
Greg Bork clapped his hands. “All right, you boys ready?”
“Ready for what?” Crawford asked.
“Go have a pop at Theta?”
Crawford shook his head. “I’m ready for bed.”
“Come on, Charlie, I gotta see your old hangout,” Ott said.
Crawford groaned. “All right, but just one drink.”
“Come on,” Greg said, “when was the last time you hung at Theta and had just one drink?”
“Never, but this is the new me. The grown-up Charlie.”
Ott glanced at Bork, smiled and lowered his voice. “The boring Charlie.”
*****
“There you are,” Greg Bork said, pointing at Crawford’s name in gold letters on a brown wooden plaque. The four men were in a hallway of Theta Delta Chi house. Crawford’s name was next to the year he graduated—1999—on a plaque that read, in larger, raised gold letters, “Athlete of the Year.”
“Wow, my hero,” Ott said.
The other men laughed as Greg Bork led them to a stairway that led downstairs.
“This is what’s known as the descent to hell,” Crawford warned Ott, as they went down the stairs.
The frat party room had three distinct areas: a bar area, a dance floor, and a game room. All of which were occupied by drinking, laughing, sweating, smiling, dancing, flirting boys and girls—they all looked so young to Crawford, there was no way he could think of them as men and women. The game room had a beat-up foosball game, a pool table, several console games, and an area where a group of kids were playing a game which Crawford recognized as beer pong, aka Beirut.
“Hey, Dad,” one of the kids yelled as the four men got close to the pong game in progress.
“Hey, Connor,” Miles shouted back to his glassy-eyed son, who had a big red plastic cup of beer in hand. “That your first beer of the night?”
“Yeah, if you don’t count his first six,” said another boy, who Crawford guessed was one of his lacrosse-playing hosts.
*****
It was an hour later and somehow Ott had wangled Crawford into playing a game of pong with the losers of the previous game, two girls by the name of Cynthia and Fiona.
“You’re the first Fiona I’ve ever met,” Ott said giving her a gentle fist bump.
“And I think you’re my first Mort,” she said.
“So, this is my first time playing,” Ott said to her. “Since it wasn’t around in my college days, but, look out, my partner’s a ringer.”
“In different sports,” Greg Bork, now a spectator, added.
“All right, ladies first,” said Crawford, handing Cynthia a ping-pong ball.
Cynthia, who looked a little wobbly, tossed the ball at the sixteen-ounce Dixie cups full of beer. It bounced on the rim of one of the cups and dropped in.
“Nice shot,” Ott said, glancing up at Crawford. “So now we have to drink what’s in this cup?”
Crawford nodded. “Yup, eight ounces for you, eight for me.”
Ott took the ping-pong ball out of the cup and drank half of the beer in it. Then he handed the cup to Crawford.
“Wow,” Ott said to Crawford. “I just did the math. So, there are ten cups times sixteen ounces, that’s 160 ounces or… Jesus, that’s over two whole six-packs.”
Crawford nodded. “Yeah, let’s just hope the girls aren’t so accurate next time.”
“No kiddin’ or we’ll be crawling back to the Hanover Inn.”
“I’ve done that before,” Crawford said, then downed his half.
“Okay, boys,” said Fiona, “less talking, more tossing.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Ott said, flipping the ping-pong ball at the ten cups in a triangular formation in front of the girls. It, too, bounced off a rim but fell to the floor.
Then Cynthia lined up her toss.
It landed squarely in a cup. “Yes!” said Cynthia with a fist pump. “Down the hatch, boys.”
Crawford groaned, took the ping-pong ball out of the cup, took a long pull, and handed the cup to Ott.
“You only drank a third.”
“Close enough,” Crawford said, then he tossed the ping-pong ball. It went in a cup.
“Okay, girls, your turn. Drink up,” he said.
“Nice toss,” Ott said, then lowering his voice. “You know, Chuck, I haven’t added it all up yet, but between Burdick’s and the Hanover Inn bar and now here, this is more than I typically drink in a… month.”
“Yeah, and you got a nice little slur I’ve never heard before, except maybe at Mookie’s,” Crawford said, looking over at the two girls. “Okay, Cynthia, you’re up.”
Cynthia did a couple practice motions, then dunked the ball into another cup.
“Who’s the ringer?” she said, rubbing it in.
Crawford looked over at Greg Bork. “Will you drink some of this for me, Greg?”
“Sorry, Charlie, you know the rules.”
Crawford and Ott downed their halves of the Dixie cup.
This time Crawford did the math: two bourbons at Burdick’s, three at the Hanover Inn, twenty-four ounces of beer at Theta Delt… He stifled a burp. “Hey, Mort, I think we better concede.”
