Palm Beach Pretenders

by Tom Turner

  “I’m serious,” Rutledge said, opening up his MacBook Air. “Take a look at this. It’s the Darlington 500 last year.”

  Crawford and Ott walked over and leaned over his computer. It was at the Darlington Raceway in North Carolina and showed Duane Truax climbing out of his race car, ripping off his white helmet, running up to another car and slamming his helmet on the car’s front windshield repeatedly. Then it cut to another clip of a man in a racing uniform, whose pit crew seemed to be spraying him with bottles of champagne. Then Duane Truax came charging into the picture, again holding his white helmet and shouting:

  “I’ll kill you, you mother-fucking—”

  At that point the sound cut out and several burly men quickly surrounded Truax, subduing him.

  Rutledge looked up at Crawford and Ott with a proud grin. “Is it so hard to believe that this guy would go down to a pool and kill his cheating wife and the guy who was bangin’ her?”

  There it was again. Ott glanced at Crawford, then Rutledge, quizzically. “Wait a minute, Norm, what about the football guys—the owner and the coach?”

  “They’re off the hook,” Rutledge said.

  “Jesus, but you were so damned sure. Had me buyin’ it,” Ott said.

  Rutledge tapped his desk a few times. “A murder case, Mort, is a fluid thing.”

  Ott shook his head. “And so I guess…the fluid leaked out of your football thing.”

  Rutledge eyed him funny. “I have no idea what that even means.”’

  “You’re saying they’re no longer on your radar screen?” Crawford asked.

  “I’m saying I dug a little deeper and got a better suspect,” Rutledge said with an off-kilter smile. “Isn’t that how you work, Crawford? New suspects replace old suspects? You find out shit and things change.”

  “We’ve talked to Truax,” Crawford said. “He may have a solid alibi. We’re still checking it out.”

  “I bet it’s not as solid as you think.”

  “We’ll see,” Crawford said. “The alibi was one of the bridesmaids. Mort’s trying to track her down.”

  Rutledge snickered. “This wedding was a real three-ring circus, wasn’t it?”

  Crawford nodded. “On that point, we agree.”

  “I’ve been playing telephone tag with the bridesmaid,” Ott said. “She’s already flown back to where she lives. Up in New York.”

  “Here’s the thing, Norm, I definitely don’t have the sense Truax was a jealous husband anymore,” Crawford turned to Ott. “What about you?”

  Ott nodded. “I agree.”

  “So that leaves the financial motive,” Crawford said. “Him getting Carla Carton’s money if she’s dead. Not getting it if she’s alive.”

  “See, there you go,” Rutledge said. “That’s why he’s my suspect.”

  “Did you even know that?” Crawford asked.

  “Well, not exactly, but I could have guessed.”

  Crawford glanced over at Ott, who shrugged.

  “All right,” Crawford said. “So the football players are out and Truax is in. You got anything else, Norm?”

  “I’ll tell you what I got”—Crawford knew he was about to be sorry he’d asked the question—“I got pressure coming at me from every direction to get this damn thing solved. The mayor, president of the town council, you name it, they’ve called me.”

  Crawford shrugged. “What’s new? They’re on your case, you’re on ours.”

  “Yeah,” Ott said. “Same old, same old.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, but not with the whole world watching,” Rutledge said. “It is fucking Mar-a-Lago, you know. Illicit sex and murder aren’t really the images we’re trying to project in our little town.”

  Crawford nodded. “We’ve still got three guys we’re eager to talk to,” he said. “All of them were at the wedding. Pawlichuk’s money-man, a guy supposedly in the porn business, and one of the Polk brothers.”

  Rutledge jerked his head back. “One of the Polk brothers? Which one?”

  “Robert,” Crawford said. “Word is he may have, or did have, something going with Carla Carton.”

  Rutledge nervously pulled on his tie. “That’s a total waste of time,” he said. “Robert Polk is worth twenty billion dollars, belongs to the Poinciana, and is a generous contributor to many worthwhile charities, including the Police Foundation.”

  Ott turned to Crawford and mumbled, “We’ve seen this movie before.”

  Rutledge frowned. “What’s that, Ott?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t gimme that shit. What did you say?”

  “He said we’ve seen this movie before,” Crawford said. “It’s called, ‘Same thing, different day.’ Remember Ward Jaynes? How ‘bout Sam Pratt? What did they have in common? I’ll tell you. One, they were rich guys who belonged to the Poinciana. Two, they were generous contributors to charities, including the police foundation, and three, they killed people. And if I thought for a while, I might come up with a few more.”

  “All right, all right,” Rutledge said. “But Robert Polk? That’s like saying Bill Gates and Warren Buffett might be serial killers.”

  Crawford really didn’t want to get sucked into a no-win debate like this. “Tell you what, Norm, we will be very gentle with your friend, Mr. Polk. If we can ever find the guy.”

  “He’s not my friend and, in fact, I’ve never even met the man. As I’ve told you a million times, you just need to know where the bread’s buttered in this town.”

  It was officially time to move on, so Crawford stood. “Well, thanks for your time, Norm. We’ll keep you up to speed.”

  Ott got up and shot Crawford a quick smile—his, Yeah, sure we will, Charlie, you betcha smile.

  Eight

  Before leaving the office for the night, Crawford got in touch with Paul Pawlichuk’s money man Arnie Stoller and set up a meeting with him for the following morning at nine. It was nice to find a man who was immediately cooperative, as opposed to Robert Polk, whom Crawford had now called six times.

  Driving down 95 at morning rush hour was the expected drive from hell and Crawford and Ott would have been late if Ott hadn’t hit the car’s siren and light at Pompano Beach. From that point on, it was pretty much clear sailing.

  They parked and walked into the glass-clad, high-rise office building on Biscayne Boulevard a few minutes after nine. Stoller Financial occupied an entire floor. Crawford and Ott were directed into Stoller’s glass-encased office by an assistant.

  On seeing Stoller himself, Crawford guessed his wardrobe might have been influenced by Bobby Axelrod, the hedge-fund heavy and a main character on the TV show Billions. He was wearing tight black jeans and an equally tight black shirt, which had 3-buttons and no collar. Unlike Bobby Axelrod, though, Arnie Stoller had a substantial gut and a skimpy soul knob, which, together, killed the whole look.

  “Thanks for seeing us, Mr. Stoller,” Crawford said shaking his hand.

  “Yes, we appreciate it,” Ott said.

  “No problem,” Stoller said, directing Crawford and Ott to a conference table overlooking the ocean. “Nice of you to come all this way.”

  The three sat down and Stoller spoke first. “I’m going to really miss Paul,” he said. “One of the best clients I ever had. Never called me in a panic, never second-guessed me. Even back in 2008, when the shit hit the fan. You getting anywhere on the case?”

  Crawford shrugged. “Just a lot of interviews at this point.”

  Stoller nodded. “Don’t they say that if a murder’s not solved in the first forty-eight hours, there’s only a ten-percent chance it will ever get solved?”

  Crawford cocked his head to one side. “I don’t really know where they come up with statistics like that.” He refrained from telling Stoller that Ott and he were five for five with homicides and to this day had never solved one in the first forty-eight. “Because you were at Paul’s son’s wedding, I assume you were more than just a financial advisor to him?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, we were friends,” Stoller said. “We’d shoot the breeze once a week or so. Start out talking about his investments, then about what was going on in our lives. Football, family stuff, politics, you name it.”

  Ott leaned forward. “In those conversations, did he ever talk about anyone who he had a problem with, maybe someone who threatened him or who he’d had a fight with?”

  Stoller looked out at the ocean. “No, there really wasn’t anybody he ever told me about like that,” he said. “When I first heard about the murders, I was thinking the obvious…crime of passion. Someone who followed the two of ‘em down to that pool. But the first ones I ruled out were the obvious suspects, Duane Truax and Mindy.”

  “Why?” Crawford asked.

  “I’m sure you know by now,” Stoller said.

  “Tell us,” Ott said.

  “Because those two didn’t much give a damn who their spouses were screwing anymore,” Stoller said. “Truax was too busy chasing after a bridesmaid half his age, and Mindy, I think she had a drink or two at the reception, then headed up to her room. She was never very social. Besides, the idea of Mindy taking a gun down to the pool and killing her husband and Carla Carton is absurd.”

  “You can hire people to do that,” Ott said.

  “I know, but no way Mindy—”

  “Yeah, we agree.” Crawford leaned back in his chair. “Sounds like you’re a good observer. So, if you had to pick someone who was there, who did do it, who do you think that might have been?”

  Stoller shrugged. “I don’t know. One thing that struck me was Robert Polk trailing along behind Carla like a little puppy dog. She’d be talking to someone, then he’d come up and insert himself into their conversation. Then she’d move on to someone else, almost like she was trying to ditch him. But he’d come up and be right there at her elbow again.”

  “So he’d be your pick?” Ott asked, taking notes in his old leather notebook.

  Stoller shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “You don’t really think of anyone that rich killing someone—” then he cocked his head— “but I did hear something about them having a history.”

  “Polk and Carla?”

  Stoller nodded.

  “What do you mean, a history?” Ott asked.

  “Sorry, I don’t remember anything more specific than that,” Stoller said.

  Ott scratched a few words on his notepad.

  “Anybody else, Mr. Stoller?” Crawford asked,

  “Well, there was that skeeve Xavier Duke,” Stoller said. “He was sniffing around Carla, too.”

  “‘Sniffing around?’” Crawford said. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  Stoller shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I know what the guy does for a living. Plus, people say he’s hooked up with the mafia. He was talking to Carla and there was this young woman—a girl, really—with them. It just looked a little suspicious.”

  Crawford had told Ott what Rose had said about Xavier Duke on the way down.

  “But do you have any reason to think Duke could have been the murderer?” Crawford asked.

  Stoller shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  Ott looked up. “Did you see Carla leave, Mr. Stoller? And, if so, did you see her leave with Pawlichuk?”

  Stoller shook his head. “No, I didn’t see her leave. Actually, I never even saw her talking to Paul.”

  “When did you leave the reception?” Crawford asked.

  “Ah, around nine-thirty, I think it was,” Stoller said. “Me and my wife went up to our room then.”

  “And about how many people—out of the three hundred and six people at the wedding—would you say were still there then?” Crawford asked.

  “Maybe a third. Or less. A hundred or so?”

  “Do you remember if Robert Polk was one of them?”

  Stoller thought for a second. “I’m almost certain he wasn’t there then.”

  “Is there anyone else who you think might have had a possible motive?” Ott asked. “Based on how well you knew Paul and what he may have said to you?”

  Stoller scratched the back of his head. “No, but I’d talk to Jaclyn Puckett,” he said. “She knows where the bodies are buried…well, maybe that’s not the right way to phrase it.”

  Ott wrote down the name, then looked up. “Who’s she? We haven’t heard that name before.”

  “Nobody’s mentioned her?”

  Crawford and Ott both shook their heads.

  “She was Carla’s…personal assistant,” Stoller said. “Basically, organized her life. Made appointments for the nail girl, the masseuse, the personal trainer, the boyfriends, you know the drill.”

  Crawford and Ott actually didn’t know the drill, but they nodded anyway.

  “And she was at the wedding?” Ott asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Stoller said. “I remember her going to get a plate of food for Carla at the reception. It had to be gluten-free. And a special kind of water, too. I mean, God forbid it be something so ordinary as Pellegrino or Perrier. I think she’d been with Carla for forever.”

  “How do you know so much about her?” Crawford asked.

  “Because Rich Pawlichuk also had his money with me. And he’d tell me stuff,” Stoller said. “I guess he heard about Jaclyn from Addison. Addison couldn’t believe some of the stuff her sister had Jaclyn do.”

  “Like what else?”

  “Like make her a Bloody Mary every morning at exactly eight o’clock,” Stoller said. “And it had to be with V-8 juice, not tomato juice, and a lime, not a lemon.”

  “Pretty particular, huh?” Ott said.

  “Ya think?” Stoller said.

  “One last question,” Crawford said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “If you don’t mind telling us, how much money did Paul have with you?” Crawford asked.

  Stoller thought for a moment. “If Paul was alive, I would never disclose this…but let’s just say, north of seventy-five million. Started out around fifty.”

  “We ballparked that he’s made about a hundred million in his career as a coach,” Crawford said.

  “I didn’t keep track of Paul’s income,” Stoller said. “I just invested what he gave me.”

  “Understand,” Crawford said, “but assume we’re right about that. That he’s made a hundred million dollars. Do you know where Paul invested the rest of the money?”

  “Yeah, sure. With his son-in-law George Figueroa,” Stoller said. “He’s a CPA. Paul had half with me, half with George—” Stoller looked around like someone was going to overhear and dropped his voice— “Off the record, Paul told me that he wanted to have it all with me, but his daughter Janice wore him out insisting that half be with her husband.”

  “Do you know why he wasn’t happy with George?” Crawford asked.

  “It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t happy,” Stoller said. “Just that George put him into really conservative stuff. You know, where he’d make two percent a year.”

  “Well, thanks,” Crawford said. “We’ll put George and Janice on our interrogation list.”

  Ott looked up from taking notes. “You spell that F-i-g-u-e-r-o-a?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Stoller said. “Figueroa & Associates. But he’s got no associates that I know of. And, from what I hear, Paul is basically his only account. His office is just north of you. Up in Jupiter.”

  “Anything else you can think of?” Ott asked.

  Stoller glanced out his window. “For what it’s worth, in the last couple of years, Paul got pretty extravagant.”

  “How so?” Crawford asked.

  “You know, the usual. Cars, boats—”

  “Women,” Ott added.

  “Oh, yeah, definitely women. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  Ott nodded. “How ‘bout drugs or gambling maybe?”

  Stoller shook his head. “Oh, no, Paul was one of those ‘my body is my temple’ kind of guys. A few drinks and that was it. Gambling? Maybe he’
d bet a few bucks on a game, but that’s all.”

  Crawford got to his feet. “Well, thank you very much, Mr. Stoller. This has been worth the drive down.”

  Ott shook Stoller’s hand and handed him a card. “If you think of anything else that might he helpful, please give us a call.”

  “I’m glad I could help,” Stoller said. “I hope you catch the guy. Paul was a good man. Carla…I didn’t know anything about her.”

  Nine

  “What Stoller said, about Pawlichuk being a good man,” Ott said, pulling out of the parking lot across from Arnie Stoller’s building, “I ain’t buyin’ it. I mean, hosing everything in sight. Cheating on his wife on a daily basis.”

  “You know how it is,” Crawford says. “Guys can overlook a lot that other guys do.”

  Ott chewed on that a while. “That Jaclyn Puckett could be a goldmine,” he said, getting on to 95 north. “Wish I had someone to make me a Bloody Mary every morning at eight.”

  “Instead of that rotgut coffee at the station?” Crawford said.

  “Exactly,” Ott said as he glanced over and saw Crawford dialing his phone. “Who you calling?”

  “Robert Polk.”

  This time someone answered.

  “Mr. Polk?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Detective Crawford, Palm Beach Police,” he said. “I’ve left you several messages.”

  “Yes, what do you want?” Polk said curtly.

  “To come talk to you,” Crawford said as they waited at a stop sign. “About the murder of Carla Carton and Paul Pawlichuk.”

  A long pause. Finally. “I’ll give you ten minutes,” he said. “My office is at Phillips Point. Make it tomorrow morning at nine.” He clicked off.

  “What a dick,” Crawford said.

  “What did he say?” Ott asked.

  “He’s allowing us ten minutes of his precious time tomorrow morning at nine,” Crawford said.

  “What if we had something else scheduled for then?” Ott asked.

  “Then we’d just have to change our schedule to fit his.”

  “What a dick.”

  Crawford smiled and nodded.

  “I guess it’s only fair to look at it from his point of view,” Ott said.