Palm Beach Bedlam

by Tom Turner

  “Not quite, but thanks,” Rose said as Crawford raised his beer bottle and John his near-empty glass of scotch.

  Then Rose raised her glass and looked up at Crawford. “And to you, Charlie, for taking yet another miscreant off the streets of Palm Beach.”

  “Couldn’t’ve done it without Dominica,” Crawford said.

  “That’s an exaggeration,” Dominica said, “but I’ll take it.”

  Rose turned her head to John. “And to you …”

  “Yes?” said John.

  “To you … for sorting out the various neuroses of the head cases of Palm Beach and making their twisted lives a little more tolerable.”

  A bemused look appeared on John’s face. “I guess that’s a good thing.”

  An hour and a half and several drinks later, the four of them were finishing off an ice cream cake that Dominica had picked up at the Carvel store on South Dixie in West Palm Beach. It was called “Fudgie the Whale” and was a Crawford favorite from having grown up in the heart of Carvel-land in the New York metro region.

  “This is really good,” John said. “I’ve never had it before.”

  A slur had snuck into John’s speech, which was to be expected after having downed four Macallans. Everyone else had slowed down, but John remained full speed ahead, pedal to the metal, having just poured his fifth. Crawford was already making plans to drive him home or call an Uber. But then he thought maybe John was going to spend the night with Rose.

  The thought bothered him.

  John turned to him. “So, Charlie”—which came out Shaw-lee—“do you have any regrets about taking down—that’s the lingo you use, right—that guy, Quinn Casey?”

  “‘Regrets?’ What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Casey’s reporting has resulted in a lot of good things over the years.”

  “Like what?” Crawford asked, finishing off the last of Fudgie the Whale.

  “Oh, you must know?” His tone was almost, You must know, you moron. “His reporting about the Russian mafia in Little Odessa put away about twenty of the ringleaders, then that series of reports about the corrupt president of Nicaragua, or maybe it was Panama, which caused that coup that got him voted out of office. That’s just for starters.”

  “Quinn Casey killed two people … just for starters,” Crawford said matter-of-factly.

  “I’m well aware of that,” John said. “But what if I were to prove Quinn Casey’s actions and reporting saved—oh, I don’t know—a hundred lives over the years, and if he kept on doing what he was doing, maybe the world would be a better place because of it? Would you maybe consider not arresting him for those two murders?”

  Crawford was dumbstruck. He glanced at Dominica and Rose to see if it was just him. He could tell from their looks, it wasn’t.

  Rose leaned close to John. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Whaddaya mean?” John slurred.

  “I mean, are you out of your mind? A guy murders two people in cold blood, and you think, ‘Hey, that’s okay, because he saved a bunch of people from a ruthless dictator in … Panama or Nicaragua.’ You don’t even know which.”

  Crawford glanced at Dominica. She gave him a quick eye roll.

  “Pretty sure it was Nicaragua,” John said. He had more. “So, let me posit this: if a man kills two people but saves the lives of hundreds—”

  “Oh, for Chrissake, John.” Rose raised the decibel level. “Enough. You’re not going to wear us down into saying Charlie should have let Quinn Casey go. No matter how eloquent you are … and at the moment, you’re not at all eloquent.”

  “Well, that’s kind of hurtful.”

  “You know what they say. ‘The truth hurts.’”

  John lifted his glass toward his lips. Rose reached out and caught it halfway up. “You are hereby cut off.”

  John looked like a little boy whose favorite toy was snatched away from him. “C’mon, Rose.”

  Rose looked at her watch. “Jesus, it’s eleven fifteen. Time we wrapped up this little shindig.” Then, dropping her voice, she turned to Crawford. “You mind taking him home?”

  Crawford shook his head. “No problem. Where’s he live?”

  Rose chuckled. “He probably has no clue. 300 Valencia Road in El Cid.” Which was just over the bridge in West Palm Beach.

  Crawford turned to John, who had begun babbling to Dominica. “Okay, John, I’m giving you a lift home.”

  “No way. I’m staying here with the hostess with the mostest,” he said, beaming at Rose.

  “Ain’t happening, my friend,” Rose said. “Cuff him, Charlie.”

  John had passed out on the short drive to El Cid, so Crawford and Dominica had to lift him out of the back seat, stand him up between them, put their arms around his waist, and walk him into his one-story, Spanish-style stucco house. They got him into the master bedroom as he sort of came to.

  He turned to Dominica. “Hey, honey,” he said. “Do you wanna spend the night with me?”

  Dominica laughed. “Sorry. Case you didn’t notice, I’m not Rose.”

  “I don’t care,” John said, leaning toward her for a kiss.

  “Okay, lover boy,” Crawford said, guiding John down into his king-size bed. “Time for beddy-bye.”

  Dominica and Crawford were back in his car after turning off the lights in John’s house.

  “So, what did you think?” Dominica asked.

  “Of John?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. He got a little weird at the end.”

  “At the beginning, middle, and end, I thought.”

  “So, is that a thumbs-down?”

  Dominica nodded. “Rose can do better.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You’re always so nonjudgmental.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Pretty much, though.”

  “You ever hear me talk about Rutledge?”

  “Yeah, well, you and everybody else.”

  They both fell silent for a while, just sitting there in the car. Crawford didn’t start the engine.

  Finally, Dominica turned to him. “My guess is Rose is going to come back onto the market.”

  “Meaning dump John the shrink?”

  “Yup. That would be my guess.”

  “And you’re telling me this because … ?”

  “You know why. Because you’ve got a choice to make … again.”

  Crawford leaned into Dominica and gave her a long kiss. “Too late. Choice’s already been made.”

  THE END

  To find out when the next Charlie Crawford Mystery is available, sign up for Tom’s free newsletter at tomturnerbooks.com/news.

  Killing Time in Charleston (Exclusive Preview)

  I am pleased to bring you two chapters from the first book in a new series set in one of my favorite cities: Charleston, South Carolina. It’s entitled Killing Time in Charleston.

  Killing Time introduces Nick Janzek, a hero/anti-hero—you be the judge. He’s a man with a tragic past and an uncertain future in a town that doesn’t always throw out the welcome mat for Yankees. Nick, a homicide cop, hooks up with new partner, Delvin Rhett, who’s fresh out of the ghetto and a recent graduate of hard knocks university. Right off the bat they have a murder, and while that body is still warm, another stiff turns up. Never a dull moment for Nick and Delvin…and you as well!

  Killing Time in Charleston will be released in 2019. To find out when it’s available, sign up for my free newsletter at tomturnerbooks.com/news.

  1

  A year after what happened in Boston, Janzek flew down to Charleston, South Carolina, for his college roommate’s wedding. It took him about five minutes to fall in love with the place. Beautiful old houses, five-star restaurants on every block, streets crawling with killer women and, best of all, no snow in the forecast. What was not to love?

  He had wandered off from his friend’s wedding reception with Cameron, the twenty-eight-year-old sister of the bride. Tog
ether they discovered the culinary gusto of an out-of-the-way spot called Trattoria Lucca then followed it up with some jamming music at a quasi-dive he figured he’d never be able to find again. Last thing he remembered was teetering down a cobblestone street, arm around Cameron’s shoulder, looking for a place that had either Lion or Tiger in its name. That Cameron, what a handful she turned out to be.

  The day after the wedding he canceled his return flight to Logan Airport, then on Monday morning walked into the Charleston Police Department on Lockwood Street. The résumé he had knocked out in his hotel room that morning had a typo or two in it, but that didn’t seem to bother the chief of detectives, who hired him on the spot.

  Now, three months later, he was coming down the home stretch: Interstate 26, just north of Charleston. The first half of the trip down had been a little dicey, since the day he had picked for the move had turned out to be especially cold and windy. He was driving a U-Haul, his car on a hitch behind it, and had been wrestling the steering wheel of the orange-and-white cube the whole way down. A few miles before Wilmington, Delaware a gusty blast blew him into the path of a rampaging sixteen-wheeler, which roared up on his bumper like an Amtrak car that had jumped the tracks. It was a close call, but things quieted down after he hit the Maryland border.

  He had the window down now and was taking in the warm salt air, which reminded him of the Cape when he was a kid and life was easy. He was looking forward to the slow Southern pace of Charleston. Kicking back with a plate full of shrimp and grits, barbeque and collards or whatever it was they were so famous for, then washing it all down with a couple of Blood Hounds, a bare-knuckled rum drink bad girl Cameron had introduced him to.

  He was thinking about how he might get his lame golf game out of mothballs, psyched about being able to play year-round. One thing he’d miss would be opening day at Fenway, but he’d heard about Charleston’s minor league baseball team and figured it would be good for a few grins. One thing he’d never miss would be staring down at stiffs on the mean streets of Beantown.

  The ring of his cell phone broke the reverie. He picked it up, looked at the number, and didn’t recognize it.

  “Hello.”

  “Nick, it’s Ernie Brindle. Where y’at?” Brindle was the Charleston chief of detectives, the man who had hired him.

  “Matter of fact, Ernie, I’m just pulling into Charleston. A few miles north. Why, what’s up?”

  Brindle sighed. “Looks like it’s gonna be trial by fire for you, bro. I’m looking down at a dead body on Broad Street... it’s the mayor. The ex-mayor, guess that would be. How fast can you get here?”

  Janzek had figured he’d at least get a chance to unload his stuff from the U-Haul before his first-day punch-in.

  “Thing is, Ernie, I’m driving this big old U-Haul with all my junk in it. Can’t I just drop it—”

  “No, I need you right now. Corner of Broad and Church.”

  Janzek stifled a groan. “Is Church before or after King Street?”

  “Two blocks east. Just look for a guy under a sheet and every squad car in the city. Not every day the mayor gets smoked.”

  “Okay, I’m getting off I-26. I see a sign for King Street.”

  “You’re just five minutes away,” Brindle said. “Welcome to the Holy City.”

  “Thanks,” Janzek said. “Kinda wish it were under different circumstances.”

  Janzek rumbled down Meeting Street, breathing in the fragrant scent of tea olive trees. He got stuck behind a garbage truck and his first instinct was to lay on the horn, but something told him you didn’t do that in Charleston. Up ahead he saw a horse-drawn carriage jammed with gawkers. The garbage truck and the carriage were side by side—like blockers—creeping along at ten miles an hour. The smell of horse manure wafted through his open windows and replaced the sweet tea olive smell.

  Janzek finally saw an opening, hit the accelerator, and slipped between the truck and the carriage. Broad Street was just ahead. He had never seen that many squad cars except at an Irish captain’s funeral up in Southie. Ernie Brindle was keeping an eye out for him, and when he saw the U-Haul pull up he directed Janzek past the long line of black-and-whites to a spot in front of a fire hydrant. Janzek got out and walked over.

  Brindle, a short, intense guy with hair he didn’t spend much time on, eyeballed Janzek’s transportation. “Jesus, Nick, not just a U-Haul, but dragging a sorry-ass Honda behind it?” Brindle shook his head. “Thought you were s’posed to be a big-time homicide cop.”

  Janzek glanced back at the car that had served him long and loyally. “I’m not much of a car guy, Ernie.”

  Janzek looked down at the body sprawled half on and half off the sidewalk. Brindle pulled the sheet back. The late mayor was dressed in an expensive-looking blue suit, which was shredded and splattered with blood. A crushed gold watch dangled loosely from his wrist.

  “So, what exactly happened?” Janzek asked, looking around at the cluster of cops, crime scene techs, and a man he assumed was the ME.

  “According to a witness,” Brindle said, “he was crossing the street when a black Mercedes 500, goin’ like a bat out of hell, launched him twenty feet in the air.”

  “So... intentional then?” Janzek said.

  “Yeah, for sure. Guy said he saw the driver aiming a gun.”

  “In case he couldn’t take him out with the car?”

  Brindle nodded. “I guess.”

  “Pointing it out the window?”

  “Uh-huh,” Brindle said.

  “So he was a lefty,” Janzek said. “Guy say whether he fired it or not?”

  “He didn’t think so. Didn’t hear anything, anyway.”

  “How’d he know it was a 500?”

  “He’s a car salesman,” Brindle said. “On his way to the bank.”

  Janzek knelt down next to the body to get a closer look. It was clear the mayor had landed on his face. His nose was shoved off to one side, and his forehead and cheeks looked like a sheet of salmon.

  The guy he figured for the ME, who’d been talking to two men nearby, came up and eyeballed him with a who-the-hell-are-you? look.

  “Jack,” Brindle said to the man, “this is Nick Janzek, new homicide guy.” Then to Janzek, “Jack Martin is our esteemed, pain-in-the-ass ME.”

  “Good one,” Martin said, crouching down next to the body then looking up at Janzek. “So how come you caught this one, Nick?”

  Janzek didn’t know the answer.

  “’Cause I liked his sheet,” Brindle said.

  “Who you got him with?” Martin asked Brindle.

  “Delvin.”

  Martin shook his head and glanced over at Janzek. “Urkel? Good fuckin’ luck.” Then he noticed the blue parka Janzek was wearing. “You plannin’ on goin’ skiing or something, Nick?”

  Janzek glanced down at his coat. “Just drove down from Boston. Weather was a little different up there.”

  Martin nodded and kept looking Janzek over.

  “Hey, Jack,” Brindle said, “how ‘bout examining the mayor ’stead of Janzek?”

  Martin ignored him. “Boston, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Janzek said. “Massachusetts.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” Martin said, looking over Janzek’s shoulder at the U-Haul. He shook his head, shot Brindle a look, and muttered, “Just what we need down here.”

  “What’s that?” asked Brindle.

  “Another fuckin’ wiseass Yankee.”

  2

  Picture Twelve Oaks in Gone with the Wind, a two-story Greek Revival-style house with enough piazza and balcony space for a small platoon of soldiers to do marching drills. Leading up to it was a long, perfect allée of live oak trees and, in between, a smooth tabby driveway. A black butler in a dark suit, white shirt, and a tie with the logo and coat of arms of Pinckney Hall on it watched from the porch as Ned Carlino pulled up in his Tesla Roadster.

  Carlino got out, stretched, and looked around as Jeter, the butler, walked down the la
st few steps to greet him.

  “Hey, Mr. Carlino,” Jeter said, his bushy white eyebrows arching, “welcome back to Pinckney.”

  “Thanks, Jeter. Good to be back.”

  Ned Carlino, fifty-four years old and a stocky five eight, was not a man you’d ever mistake for Rhett Butler. Born in a socially unacceptable suburb of Philadelphia, he had gotten a scholarship to Villanova then another one to Harvard Law, and quickly became one of the best ambulance chasers around. Back then, his card read Personal Impairment Attorney, but everyone knew.

  His first big case came at age twenty-six when Hector Nunez, the hotheaded, power-hitting Philadelphia Phillies right fielder, lost it after a called third strike in the fifth game of the playoffs and flung his bat in disgust. It clanged off the metal railing in the boxes to the left of the Phillies dugout then bounced off the head of an out-of-work cleaning lady from across the river in Camden.

  Turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

  Carlino, who was watching the game in a bar because he hadn’t paid his cable bill, beat it over to Thomas Jefferson Hospital—where he figured they’d take her—in just twenty minutes. Practically beat the ambulance. He crept up to a woman at the nurses station in the ER and told her he was a cousin of the woman who had been hit by the bat, even though she was sixty and Hispanic. The nurse looked at him funny, but Ned was not about to be deterred.

  Long story short, the former cleaning lady, Ned’s new client, got four million dollars when his expert witness convinced the jury that she would have constant migraines, and possibly life-altering seizures, for the rest of her life. The expert witness was convincing, and Ned, even more so. Half of the four million went to the woman and the other half to Carlino’s firm, Suozzi and Scarpetta—or Sleazy and Sleazier as one TV news reporter dubbed it. Carlino managed to wangle nearly a million for himself. He immediately paid off his cable bill, bought a BMW, and moved to the Main Line. After five years of following his sensitive nose to massive settlements—including one where he represented the widow of a three-pack-a-day smoker and wangled twenty million dollars out of National Tobacco Company—he decided to seek legal respectability and become a trial lawyer.