by Tom Turner
Crawford smiled and shook his head as his landline rang. He picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Charlie,” it was the receptionist, “there’s a guy here, a lawyer, says he represents a man named Lonnie Bates. Wants to have a word with you.”
“I’ll be right out,” Crawford said, hanging up. Then to Ott. “A lawyer for that guy Lonnie who put the wood to us. Wants to have a word.”
Ott stood. “Get ready for some serious horse-trading.”
Crawford nodded and smiled. “I’m ready.”
The lawyer was tall, fat and had a lame handlebar mustache. The kind you have to fiddle with every fifteen minutes in front of a mirror to make sure it doesn’t droop. He also had a wardrobe that made Ott look like a GQ model. It consisted of a mossy green Dacron suit, a too-wide off-white tie, and suspenders with faded dollar signs on them.
Crawford struggled to keep a straight face as he walked up to the lawyer.
“Charlie Crawford,” he said to the man, “and this is my partner, Mort Ott. What can we do for you?”
“I’m Leonard Burton,” the lawyer said. “I want to talk to you about my client, Lonnie Bates.”
“Sure, come on over here,” Crawford said, walking toward some chairs off to the side of the reception area.
Burton and Ott followed and they all sat down and faced each other
“Floor’s all yours, Mr. Burton,” Crawford said, leaning forward.
“Lonnie thinks he can be helpful in a case of yours,” Burton said.
“You’re referring to the Amir Al-Jabbah murder, right?” Crawford asked.
“That’s the one,” said Burton. “He knows a guy who knows a guy who might be able to help you solve it.”
Neither Crawford nor Ott chose to point out that all they had been hearing from Lonnie Bates and his brother was the word “might.”
“And what are we talking about in return for this?” Crawford asked.
“Dismissal on both assault and possession,” Burton said.
Crawford shook his head. “Mr. Burton, let me point out something to you: that was not possession, it was dealing.”
“Still, bupkis compared to clearing a homicide case,” Burton said. “My client can deliver the trigger right on your door step.”
Crawford chuckled. Seemed like Burton had picked up some bad dialogue from “Law & Order” or some other cop show.
“Here’s the thing,” Crawford said. “It’s not really our call. It’s the DA’s. And I can pretty much guarantee you what he’s gonna say—”
“What’s that?”
“That it all depends on how it plays out,” Crawford said. “How the trial goes. Like, say, your client does implicate the guy, but somehow the guy gets off. How do we know how solid the case is gonna be? And, say, we don’t get a conviction? Now Lonnie’s in the wind ‘cause we gave him a pass. So now he can go whack someone else with a two-by-four or peddle his coke somewhere else. Get what I’m sayin,’ Mr. Burton?”
“We’ll take a suspended sentence,” Burton asked.
Crawford glanced over at Ott. “How ‘bout Lonnie gives up the guy, then we see what we can do for him?”
“Not much meat on that bone,” Burton said.
“Hey, look, Lonnie’s got no priors,” Crawford said. “He gives us something valuable, we do our best. Go to bat for him, you know the drill.”
Burton looked down and wrapped his white tie around his finger. Finally, he spoke. “I came here looking for something specific. No offense, but all you’re givin’ me is general. ‘Try to take care of him,’ ain’t much to hang your hat on.”
Crawford shrugged. “Sorry, that’s the best we can do.”
Burton stood. “I’ll talk to Lonnie.”
Crawford nodded and stood. “We need to hear back from you by five today.”
Burton groaned. “Don’t be such a ballbuster, detective.”
“I’m not,” Crawford said. “We need to take the killer off the street right away.”
Ott spent four straight hours looking at cars. They had been captured by security cameras outside of shops and restaurants along Lake Way between Royal Poinciana and Dunbar. He also looked at a parade of cars caught by a device called a tag reader while they crossed the north bridge from Palm Beach to West Palm. He had targeted a total of five BMWs that looked like the one he and Crawford had seen leaving the cocktail party at Jimmy Pappas’s house on Dunbar Street. On only three of them was he able to read the license plates—which meant he had a 60% percent chance—if, in fact, the car he and Ott had seen leaving the party was being driven by the man in the double-breasted blue blazer.
DMV records showed that the first BMW was owned by Katherine Downey of West Palm Beach, the second one by Wallace Henderson of Delray Beach and the third by William Oglethorpe of Boca Raton. Ott went to an internet website called Switchboard and got phone numbers for all three. Katherine Downey was a single woman and uncommonly cranky (which quite possibly had something to do with her being single.) She said she had gone to Palm Beach to listen to a noted landscape architect from New York, Constance Haydock, speak at the Four Arts Society. Downey added that she avoided Palm Beach whenever possible because it was just a place where “rich, good-for-nothing snobs” lived and then added that everything there was overpriced and all the people were pretentious. Ott thanked her and hit the red button fast.
Wallace Henderson didn’t answer so Ott left a message on his answering machine asking him to call back.
William Oglethorpe paused for a few seconds, then hemmed and hawed, and finally said he had gone to see an exhibition at the Flagler Museum. The man sounded nervous and Ott’s bullshitometer started yowling. Then Oglethorpe asked him why he wanted to know.
Ott said a fender bender had occurred the night before and an eyewitness had described one of the cars as being a black BMW-5 series. The eyewitness was certain of the car’s make because he had just been at the BMW dealer the day before looking to buy a 740e. It was a little overly-elaborate for a cover story, but it rolled off Ott’s tongue. Ott then said he wanted to take a look at Oglethorpe’s car to confirm it wasn’t the vehicle involved. Oglethorpe said it definitely wasn’t him, and it would be a big waste of time, but agreed to meet Ott. They set a time to meet in Boca Raton later that afternoon.
A few minutes later, Wallace Henderson called back. When Ott questioned him, he said he and his wife had been visiting his daughter and their new grandchild in Palm Beach. Ott thanked him and said he’d call him back if he needed to know anything more. Then he went down to where the tag reader was and looked again at the shots of the three black BMW’s. He saw in one that the driver was a white-haired male and made out the shape of a woman passenger beside him. Wallace Henderson was off the hook as the man in the double-breasted blue blazer.
William Oglethorpe…it remained to be seen.
Thirty-Three
It looked like Crawford had been stood up. It was 4:45 and no Willow. He had just called her for a second time and he had gone straight to voicemail both times.
He dialed David Balfour. “Hey, it’s Charlie,” he said. “I was supposed to meet your friend, Willow, but she was a no-show. Any idea where she lives or where I can find her?”
“Sorry, man,” said Balfour, “all I have is the phone number I gave you.”
“Okay, well, if you talk to her, have her call me, please,” Crawford said. “Explain that she really doesn’t want to have a bunch of cops on her ass.”
“If she calls, I’ll tell her,” Balfour said.
“Thanks,” Crawford said and hung up.
Then he started to call Paul Mulcahy’s number, but hung up. He figured Paul had nothing to gain by helping him find Willow and, quite possibly, something to lose. If Willow was the woman with his father in the pool house, that made him a pawn at best, a pimp at worst.
So instead he went to his go-to.
“Hi, Rose,” he said after she answered. “I need your help.”
> “Ah, let me guess, John?”
“John?”
“The cocktail party crasher.”
“No, Willow, the party girl.”
“Is that a cop expression?”
“One of them. The more common one, though, is working girl.”
“Really?” Rose said. “I take umbrage at that. I’m a working girl. A very hard working girl.”
“I know you are,” Crawford said. “And the last thing I want is you taking umbrage. Any idea where I can find her?”
Rose was silent for a few moments. “I think I remember hearing that she stays at one of the hotels.”
“In Palm Beach?”
“Ah-huh.” Rose said. “I’d try the Colony or the Chesterfield.”
“But don’t they charge like four hundred a night?”
“Yeah, maybe even more,” Rose said. “But I got a feeling she makes a lot more than that.”
“Really?” Crawford said. “Like how much?”
Rose laughed. “I can’t believe we’re having a conversation about what hookers make in Palm Beach, but I bet she might pull down a thousand dollars on an active day.”
“Or night,” Crawford said. “All right, well thanks, I’ll give them a try. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome, Charlie.”
Neither the Chesterfield nor the Colony had anyone named Willow staying there. Crawford was thinking of giving the Bradley Park Hotel on Sunset a call. Instead he had a thought and called back the manager of the Colony, physically identified Willow—using the photo he had—and explained that the person he was trying to contact had an accent—possibly Polish and was staying there for the season. No one fit the bill, so he tried the Chesterfield again. This time he was in luck.
Wieslawa Nowicki was staying there for her third season in a row, the manager said, and volunteered that she was a very nice, quiet, gracious guest of the hotel. Which, to Crawford, sounded as though she was good and discreet and didn’t conduct business on the premises.
Crawford got up, grabbed his jacket from the hook on the back of his office door and walked to his car.
Ten minutes later, he was at the front desk of the Chesterfield hotel, badging the receptionist. “Is Wieslawa Nowicki here?”
“Ah, no, sir, Ms. Nowicki left a little while ago,” said the receptionist. “Was she expecting—”
“Yes, we had a little mix-up,” Crawford said, doing his best, ‘charmin’Charlie’, as Rose called it. “I’ll just wait here in the lobby for a while. If she doesn’t come back, I’ll leave her a message.”
He had read the New York Times, the Robb Report, looked at the pretty pictures of expensive houses in Architectural Digest, and had just picked up Town & Country when Wieslawa Nowicki walked through the front door of the Chesterfield.
He got to his feet and walked toward her. She was wearing an expensive silk skirt, a tight-fitting black blouse, and, by the time Crawford got face-to-face with her, a frown.
“I’m Charlie Crawford, Willow,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Thirty-Four
Crawford and Willow walked out of the Chesterfield and down Cocoanut Row.
“I am very sorry, Detective,” Willow said in her Polish accent. “I had an appointment that ran very late.”
“Call me and tell me that next time,” Crawford said sternly.
Willow nodded.
Crawford decided—what the hell, why not go all in with a big bluff. Because about three in twenty times, it worked. “Ms. Nowicki, you were seen at Knight Mulcahy’s party—the night he was killed—walking down to his guest house.”
Willow stopped dead in her tracks and turned toward Crawford. “Who told you this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Crawford said, his eyes boring into hers. “Look, I have no reason to suspect you did anything wrong, I just need you to tell me what happened. What you saw.”
She looked away and bit her lip.
“It does make me a little suspicious, though,” Crawford said. “When you’re a no-show at our appointment. About what you might be hiding.”
She turned back to him. “I have absolutely nothing to hide,” she said, then started to say something, but stopped.
“What were you about to say?” Crawford asked.
She exhaled and looked away.
“It’ll be so much better for you,” he said, “if you just tell me the truth.”
She exhaled again, but her eyes came back to him. “We had sex.”
Crawford started nodding. “Okay, then afterwards?”
She exhaled again. “Then afterwards I went back up to the party, but didn’t stay long.”
“And what about Mulcahy,” Crawford said. “What did he do?”
“I really don’t know,” Willow said, “I just got dressed and left.”
She looked down for a second. Then she made eye contact, but blinked a few times.
“You’re not telling me everything,” he said.
She nodded earnestly, but blinked some more. “Yes, I am.”
“You saw someone there, didn’t you?” he asked.
“No, I—”
“Yes, you did,” Crawford. “Who did you see?”
She turned away.
Crawford grabbed her shoulders and turned her back so she was facing him. “Who did you see, Ms. Nowicki?”
“A man,” she said.
“Where was he?” Crawford asked.
“Looking in,” Willow said. “Through a window on the side.”
“On the house side or the ocean side?” Crawford asked.
“The house side.”
Willow tried to turn away again, but Crawford still had his hands firmly on her shoulders. “Who was he, Ms. Nowicki?”
She fixed him square in the eyes and didn’t blink. “I have no idea.”
“But you saw him inside at the party, right?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t see him very clearly through the window,” she said. “I just remember he had brown hair.”
“What else?” Crawford asked.
Willow shrugged. “He stepped back when I looked out, so I just saw him for a second.”
“What about…do you remember what he was wearing?” Crawford asked.
“A blue jacket was all I saw.”
Crawford took his hands off of her shoulders. “Was it a double-breasted blue jacket?” He motioned to his chest to indicate twin rows of buttons.
“I’m not sure, I’m really not.”
While Crawford was interrogating Willow, Ott was on his way down to Boca Raton. He and Crawford had talked and they had agreed that Ott’s objective—at this stage anyway—was just to determine whether Oglethorpe was the cocktail party crasher or not.
Ott got off of 95 and GPS’ed his way to 5 Broomsedge Lane. The house was a small brick ranch with a connected two-car garage. He parked on the street, got out, walked up to the front door and pushed the doorbell. A few moments later a man with light brown hair and a gaunt but handsome face answered the door.
“Mr. Oglethorpe?” Ott asked, flashing ID. “I’m Detective Ott.”
“Yes. Can we make this fast, Detective?” Oglethorpe said, walking past Ott with a garage door clicker in his left hand. “I’m on my break from work.”
“Sure,” Ott said, following him. “Let me just have a quick look at your car. I need to take a few photos of the front right bumper.”
Oglethorpe shook his head. “Okay,” he said, “but you’re not gonna find anything. No bumps, no dings, no nothing. I am a very safe driver.”
“I’m sure,” Ott said. “Won’t take more than a few minutes.”
Oglethorpe pushed a button on the clicker and the garage door started to roll up.
Ott looked into the garage. There was the black BMW on one side and a small motorboat on a trailer on the other side.
Ott pulled his iPhone out of his pocket as Oglethorpe walked around to the front of the BMW.
Ott snapped off a shot, a profile of Oglethorpe�
��s face. Then another.
Ott walked around and inspected the bumper. Then he pulled back and clicked off another three shots, all of which had Oglethorpe in them.
Then he took two steps closer to Oglethorpe and smiled. “Just like you said, no dings, no nicks, no nothing,” he said. “Thank you, I appreciate your cooperation.”
“No problem.”
“You can go back to work now,” Ott said.
Oglethorpe nodded. “Hope you catch the guy.”
Thirty-Five
Leonard Burton, Lonnie Bates’s lawyer, called Crawford as he was returning to the station after meeting with Wieslawa Nowicki.
“Just wanted to know what you decided, Detective.”
“What I decided?” Crawford said. “The ball’s in your court, Mr. Burton. You been doing this long enough to know I can’t guarantee your client can skate free. But it sure helps if he gives us something we can use.”
“Tell you what,” Burton said. “What if I bring Lonnie down to your station and you two talk it over?”
Crawford looked at his watch. “You’re workin’ pretty late,” he said. “Yeah, sure, I’m at the station now.”
“We’ll be right over,” Burton said, as Ott walked into Crawford’s office.
“Okay,” Crawford said, clicking off and looking up at Ott who was holding up his iPhone. It was a photo of William Oglethorpe.
“This is the man in the double-breasted blue blazer,” Ott said. “I just went by Rose’s office and she ID’ed him.”
“Good job. Email it to me, so I have it,” Crawford said, looking as Ott clicked the other photos of Oglethorpe. “I have a certain Wieslawa Nowicki, aka Willow, who I want to show them to.”
Then Crawford filled Ott in on his conversation with her.
“So he could be our guy,” Ott said, more a question than a statement.
“It would be really good to have one down, one to go,” Crawford said, as his landline rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Len Burton. Me and my client are walking in right now.”
