by Tom Turner
Moulton sat down and let Crawford and Ott decide where they wanted to light. Crawford ended up on an orange couch, the kind with big black buttons, though this one was missing a few. Ott sat in a white leather chair from the 1950s that could have used a scrub with some Comet and a hot sponge.
Moulton leaned closer to Crawford as something seemed to register. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”
Crawford didn’t hesitate. “No, we haven’t. Mr. Moulton, we have reason to believe that you went to 1500 North Lake Way earlier tonight and assaulted a man there.”
His blue eyes seemed to darken. “What in God’s name—”
“The same house you went to earlier today to see Fannie Melhado,” Ott said.
“When you brought her a pillow that said, Miss you, babe,” Crawford added.
Moulton sighed and looked away.
“Mr. Moulton, would you mind emptying your pockets?” Crawford asked.
“Why? What the hell for?”
“To prove we got the wrong guy.”
Moulton groaned, reached into his pockets, and pulled out a checked handkerchief, some change, and a several keys on a chain that had an embroidered Irish setter dog.
“What do those keys go to, Mr. Moulton?” Crawford asked, pointing.
Moulton looked at them like he’d never seen them. “Ah, a friend’s house.”
“And why do you have them?”
His brow furrowed as if he was concentrating on a very difficult question. “Because she’s out of town and asked me to water her plants and, ah, feed her cat.”
“What’s the address?” Crawford asked.
“In West Palm.”
“Street and number?”
“Murray Street, um, 61 Murray Street.”
“Okay, let’s go there now,” Crawford said.
There was a look of panic in Moulton’s eyes. “Why in God’s name—”
“Those are Freddie Melhado’s keys to 1500 North Lake Way, aren’t they?”
Moulton didn’t answer.
“Where were you earlier tonight between midnight and 12:30, Mr. Moulton?” Crawford asked, getting to his feet.
Moulton still didn’t answer.
“There are cameras up and down North Lake Way, including several right around 1500,” Ott exaggerated, as he stood.
“We’re arresting you for assaulting Lucian Neville earlier tonight,” Crawford said. “Please stand up. My partner’s going to read you your rights.”
Shakily, Moulton got to his feet and finally spoke, addressing Crawford. “That bastard was sleeping with my girlfriend. How would you feel?”
“You’re wrong on both counts,” Crawford said.
“What are you talking about?”
“One, she’s not your girlfriend, and two, I don’t think she’s sleeping with him these days.”
“Yeah, you got the wrong guy,” Ott chimed in, then read Moulton his Miranda.
“Put your hands behind your back, please, Mr. Moulton,” Crawford said. “I’m going to handcuff you.”
Moulton, just a few feet away, eyed Crawford like he was trying to place him. “Are you sure we don’t know each other? From Greenwich, I’m thinking?”
“Greenwich where?”
“Connecticut.”
“Never heard of it.”
Twenty-Five
The arrest of Bartholomew Moulton didn’t stop there. Crawford and Ott drove to the station and had a nice, long talk with him in a not-so-nice, small interrogation room. When it became clear to Moulton that they had a mountain of circumstantial evidence as well as the strong possibility of catching him on a security camera, he confessed, going from a small room to an even smaller one…with bars.
It was five o’clock when they put Moulton in the cell. Ott decided to go home and get a few hours of sleep, Crawford elected to stay at the station, mainly because he had an appointment with Ray Gerster up at Riviera Beach at eight o’clock. He also was eager to interview Phoebe, whose last name he still didn’t yet know, the apparent creator of the Palm Beach Prayer Group. He figured she might be able to give him some insights into Fannie Melhado, as it seemed obvious Fannie had tried to hijack Phoebe’s group and make it her baby.
Finding Phoebe’s last name was easy. All he did was Google “Palm Beach Prayer Group.” The first thing that came up was a short article in The Glossy from twelve years ago. “Phoebe Lilly,” the article started out, “who you see tooling around town in her ‘sensible car,’ a Prius, is the primary force, and founder, behind the Palm Beach Prayer Group. Phoebe—worth hundreds of millions—has no problem being referred to as a ‘born again Christian’ and professes to have a ‘special relationship with Jesus.’ Her group presently has more than thirty members and her immediate objective is to establish other chapters throughout Florida (Vero Beach, Boca Raton and Naples are only a few.) So, if you see a car decal with a subtle cross or a not-so-subtle Born2, chances are it’s either Phoebe or one of her fellow Prayer Group members.”
Crawford looked at his watch. 5:45. It was too early to be calling Phoebe Lilly but not too early for the Starbucks on Worth Avenue. Or so he thought. He needed a shot of caffeine and drove there. He double-parked and walked to the Starbucks inside. It was closed and didn’t open until 7:00.
Bummer.
Just another reason to patronize Dunkin’ Donuts, or Dunkin’ as they were trying to call it these days. It was always open, or at least the one on Okeechobee always was. Why wasn’t there one in Palm Beach? he wondered. He knew the answer: too downscale, not in keeping with the highfalutin’ Palm Beach image. Same reason there wasn’t a McDonald’s or Burger King.
He drove over the bridge to the Dunkin’ Donuts—which he was never going to call just Dunkin’—on Okeechobee. He ordered his standard go-to, a medium extra-dark and two blueberry donuts.
He took his first sip. Ah, heaven. No comparison. In his opinion, it was way better than the Seattle alternative, plus he didn’t have to listen to their schmaltzy music. Michael Bublé and that skinny guy who played the sax…He walked back to his car with his breakfast. He chuckled to himself about the time he had tried to convince Dominica that the two blueberry donuts were health food.
She’d rolled her eyes and replied, “You mean because each one has three blueberry specks which you can’t even see unless you use a microscope?”
But Crawford wasn’t going to give up without a fight. “Well,” he said, examining one of the donuts, “I’m counting at least six specks in this one alone.”
“Jesus, Charlie, you’re right. It’s practically a salad.”
He’d laughed at that. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
He turned the ignition key and backed up. It was still dark, but there was the faint light of the sun coming up. He decided to go to one of his favorites spots and watch the sun rise. It was down near the town docks, where some of the biggest boats were docked. There was a bench on a lawn where people walked their dogs—and very scrupulously cleaned up after them—that Crawford had discovered and found to be a good place to simply sit and think. Or, in this case, watch the sun come up over the Intracoastal. It was six-fifteen when he plopped onto the empty metal bench and turned his mind to the case.
Then he flashed back to Bartholomew Moulton in his boxers a few hours before. One would never guess he was the high-scoring wing on the Greenwich Country Day School hockey team who went on to become the MVP on the Choate team. Crawford was pretty sure he had gone on to Williams or Wesleyan from there, one of those small but academically rigorous New England colleges. Then… who knew, exactly? Crawford had heard that he had been in a bar, or maybe it was a party, when a scout for a modeling agency had approached him about becoming a model. Crawford even remembered seeing Moulton’s handsome visage in a beer or liquor ad. Fitting, he’d thought. Moulton had also become the spokesman for some hotel chain in TV commercials, but Crawford couldn’t remember which.
He’d also heard rumors about Moulton’s drinking. How he
ended up at one of those rehab places out in Minnesota, where they all go. Or maybe it was Silverhill in Connecticut, with their all-star line-up of celebrity graduates. Then he’d lost track of the man.
As he watched the gold glimmer peek out over the horizon, he thought about others he had gone to school with. The really smart guys who seemed to have stalled out in the corporate world. Or the really, really smart ones who had their own jets and yachts. The so-so students who became Silicon Valley dynamos. The many who took the train every day to jobs they hated. The few who didn’t give a damn about money and were either selfless teachers or working for a cause they were dedicated to.
Then there was him: Charles J. Crawford.
Greenwich Country Day School. Taft School. Dartmouth College. A homicide detective. Of everyone he knew, he had probably started more tongues wagging than anyone else. How could a guy who went to twelve years of exclusive private schools, then an Ivy League college, end up a cop? Especially one who’d had three generations of prominent Wall Street bankers precede him and a nice job waiting at Morgan Stanley when he graduated.
He had told a few friends about the single incident that had re-routed his career but most of them didn’t really get it.
One of his friends told another one:
“Charlie told me how a buddy of his from the Dartmouth football team got killed the night before graduation. This black dude. And how the cops knew who did it but couldn’t get enough on the guy to arrest him. Something like that. So, Charlie hung around that summer in Hanover, New Hampshire, playing amateur detective, trying to get the guy. Never did, though.”
“That’s it? That’s why he bailed on Wall Street? Gave up his future?” the listener asked.
“Yeah, plus his father’s suicide. I guess his father told him once how he’d spent thirty-five years at a job he basically couldn’t stand.”
“Yeah, but still… a cop?”
“Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard.”
There were times when it didn’t make sense to Crawford himself. His lame apartment overlooking a grocery-store parking lot. The fact that he hadn’t taken a vacation in forever. His Camry beater… okay, he wasn’t a BMW kind of guy, anyway, but come on.…
But there were also the times when he knew he had done the right thing. Like when he put really bad people—murderers—away for life. It resonated with him when Rose described the rush she got making a colossal real-estate deal. The amazing high. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly a high he got, but something pretty close. An exhilarating feeling that lasted a while. A feeling of accomplishment. Of doing something that maybe no other person could do as well or as consistently.
Because, like Rose Clarke, he was damn good at his job. And fuck ’em if they didn’t get it.
But still, he thought, maybe it was finally time for a housing upgrade.
Twenty-Six
The sunrise was spectacular and so were the blueberry donuts.
He went back to the station and found Ott there.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Ott explained.
Crawford told him what he had found out about Phoebe Lilly and the prayer group she started.
Ott smiled and put down his coffee. “I saw this bumper sticker the other day. Know what it said?”
“What?” Crawford asked, apprehensively.
“Jesus Loves You….”
“Yeah?”
Long, dramatic pause. “‘But Everyone Else Thinks You’re An Asshole,’” Ott said. “Oh hey, that reminds me, I was supposed to ask you what you found out about Vega.”
“Oh yeah, so get this, she went to Yale and… get ready for it… belonged to Skull and Bones there.”
Ott’s eyes got big. “No shit, that secret group of… wannabe spooks?”
Crawford laughed. “That pretty much nails it,” he said. “So ever since I found that out, I’ve been thinking about her.”
“What do you mean? What about her?”
“Like the fact that she’s about the only member at Elysium who doesn’t have a big job. Or a title. You know, just about everyone else there is either a COO, a CEO, a CIO, or some damn thing. Or at least very involved with SOAR. Vega is just kind of a … I don’t know, resident. She knows everything that goes on in SOAR but isn’t like a… participant. Kind of detached.”
“So, you mean, like… passive?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Crawford said, then after a few moments. “I’ve got a theory I’m working on.”
“Okay, let’s hear it, bro.”
“Came up with it after I found out about the Skull and Bones thing.”
“Okay, okay,” Ott said, motioning with his hand, “come on, out with it.”
“I think she might be Crux’s spy. That he’s a little paranoid, maybe it goes back to that Holmes Whitmore thing with his mother and father, or maybe he was just born that way.”
“Yeah, keep going.”
“So, Vega… she seems to get along with everyone and because she’s not threatening and because she clearly doesn’t miss a trick, Crux saw her as the perfect spy. She can keep him informed about everything, be his eyes and ears. Like if Fannie Melhado’s planning to try to take over, or, I don’t know, Christian Lalley’s talking to that reporter…”
“Shit, Charlie, I like it. It’s a damn good theory.”
“And to take it a little further, she might also be spying on me. Trying to find out what we’ve got, or steering me in a certain direction, or away from another one.”
“Yeah, innocent little Vega, who knows everything,” Ott said, then he started shaking his head. “That Skull and Bones outfit…another weird Ivy League thing.”
He relished opportunities to take potshots at Crawford’s alma mater.
Crawford raised his eyebrows. “Hell, us Dartmouth guys just guzzled grain alcohol and passed out naked in snowdrifts.”
“Good clean fun,” Ott said. “Seriously, what’s with that Skull and Bones shit?”
“How would I know? It’s secret.”
“Yeah, but you know about it.”
“Not really, I just know that some famous people were in it,” Crawford said, and he typed up Google on his MacBook Air.
“Like who?”
“Hang on a sec.” He started scanning the results. “Well, like both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, John Kerry, William F. Buckley… another president, William Howard Taft—”
“He was the really fat one, right?”
“Yet another un-politically correct comment.”
“Sorry, how ’bout morbidly obese?”
“Now this is interesting,” Crawford said, still reading about Yale’s most famous secret society. “These are other names Skull and Bones goes by… The Order… Order 322 and… The Brotherhood of Death.”
“No shit, so three presidents were members of a thing called The Brotherhood of Death,” Ott said. “Speaks well for the office.”
Crawford cocked his head to one side. “Well, doesn’t mean they actually killed people.”
Ott chucked. “Phew, that’s a load off my mind… so what are you gonna do about Vega?”
“I don’t really know. Just watch her closely. I change anything and she’ll pick up on it.”
Ott nodded.
Crawford glanced down at his watch. “All right, I’m gonna head up to Riviera Beach.”
“Sounds good,” said Ott. “Probably too early for the gangbangers to be making their rounds.”
Crawford churned through all his conversations with Vega on his way up to Riviera Beach. She had done most of the talking, but she also—in her own subtle way—had gotten information out of him. More importantly, she had masterfully directed conversation to where, it seemed in retrospect, she wanted it to go. And had made it easy for Crawford to reach conclusions. The conclusions she, no doubt, wanted him to make.
Crawford always thought Riviera Beach got a bad rap. Bimini Lane had a number of very nice houses and Ray Gerster’s was one of them.
Crawford was
looking out the back window of Gerster’s home. Behind, it had a small pool, next to a channel with a dock. Docked was what looked like a sportfishing boat.
“What kind is it?” he asked Gerster.
Gerster looked more like a middle-aged surfer than a tax-cheat. He had blonde hair and a perfect tan that Crawford suspected may have been bronzer enhanced.
“A Rampage 38.”
“Nice,” Crawford said, and sat in a white leather chair that bore a striking resemblance to the one he’d sat in at Bartholomew Moulton’s house only five hours before.
He’d expected a man who had spent two years in prison to be living a little more modestly and not have such a nice tan.
“So, as I said, I’m the lead detective on Christian Lalley’s murder and would appreciate whatever help you can give me.”
“Hey,” Gerster said with a shrug, “Christian was my friend and accountant. Whatever I can do to help, I will.”
“But he was a friend and accountant who testified against you. Correct?”
“Yeah, but I forgave him for that. He got squeezed by the IRS. I would have gotten convicted with or without his testimony.”
“You’re pretty forgiving.”
“I’ve had a long time to think about the whole thing.”
“But his wife said you threatened to kill him.”
“Did I?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Well, I didn’t mean it,” Gerster said. “Hey, that’s just not me.”
Crawford nodded. “So, as I understand it, he testified you ran a Ponzi—”
“Don’t call it that,” Gerster protested. “I got in a jam where investors were pulling their money out of my fund all at the same time. I needed new investors to make the old investors whole.”
Crawford cocked his head. “Isn’t that the definition of a Ponzi scheme?”
“A Ponzi scheme is when early investors are getting money that they think are profits and returns but it’s really just money from new investors coming into the fund.”
Crawford didn’t want to get into a debate about it. “Okay, whatever. I’m really more interested if you know of, or if Christian Lalley ever told you about, someone he may have feared, someone who may have threatened him; you know, someone who might’ve killed him.”
