Palm Beach Nasty (34 page)

T
HE
C
RISTAL
had been a nice touch, but that was not all. Nick had ordered caviar to go with it. Lil checked her watch as she polished off the champagne.

He refilled her glass and poured one for himself. Nick raised his glass and clinked hers.

“To the options,” he said.

“To the options,” she said.

“You leaving the Bentley here?”

“Rolls,” he said and smiled. “Alcie’s picking it up.”

He reached for a cracker, dragged it through the caviar like it was salsa dip, then wolfed it down. He chased it with Cristal.

Lil grimaced at the sight then checked her watch again.

“Well, I’ve got a flight to catch,” she said.

She stood up and walked over to Nick.

Lil was going to reward him with a kiss for having given her the opportunity to become a very rich woman, but changed her mind when she saw globs of sturgeon eggs on both corners of his mouth.

“Well, Avery, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Lil,” he said, raising his champagne glass, “you are truly one of a kind.”

He leaned toward her to give her a kiss but she turned her cheek and he grazed her diamond ear stud.

“Well,” she said, with an extravagant sweep of her hand, “good-bye, Avery . . . my G-5 awaits.”

She walked toward the door and went out on the tarmac. Within minutes, her jet was streaking down the runway going 200 miles an hour, then the shimmering G-5 split the sky at a sixty-degree angle.

N
ICK DIDN
’
T
notice Crawford and Ott come in. He was too busy pigging out on caviar.

“Nick Greenleaf,” Crawford said, looming over him, “you’re under arrest for first-degree murder.”

Greenleaf’s head jerked up, caviar glopped on his chin and upper lip.

The two employees at the counter looked over, bewildered.

“Where’s Lil Fonseca?” Crawford demanded, as Ott went for his handcuffs.

“Her plane . . . just left,” Nick said.

His lip quivered as he eyed the cuffs.

Crawford ran up to the counter and flashed ID to the two employees.

“Blonde woman, Lil Fonseca,” he said to the older woman at the counter, “her plane took off?”

The woman nodded.

“Five minutes ago,” she said.

“What’s her destination?”

“San Francisco.”

“Thanks,” he said and walked back to Ott and Greenleaf.

Greenleaf, cuffed now, looked scared enough to have had an accident in his pants.

“If you want to look at something less than 2,000 volts,” Crawford said, getting in Nick’s face, “better figure out a way to get her back on dry land.”

FIFTY-SIX

T
he copilot asked Lil to come up to the cockpit. She had an “urgent call” from the terminal.

“Hello.”

“You left so fast,” Nick said, “I forgot to give you your ‘going away’ present.”

“ ‘Going away’ present?” she asked.

“Rabbit is the clue,” Nick said, struggling to sound casual.

She was so done with him and his fake blue eyes.

“Thanks, but I’m halfway—”

“Lil,” Nick said, his heart racing, “Ed-ward fuck-ing Hop-per?”

“What about him?”

“I’m looking at a twelve-by-eighteen oil, one of his houses on the Maine coast. There’s no provenance problem ’cause there’s no record of him painting it.”

A small one . . . but still
,
$2–$3 million easily
, she figured. She pulled the phone almost into her ear.

It was definitely worth a U-turn.

“That’s my present?”

“Yes, if you hadn’t run off so fast. With the champagne and everything . . . I just forgot all about it.”

Lil turned to the pilot and gestured.

“Meet me on the tarmac in fifteen minutes.”

FIFTY-SEVEN

O
ne thing sure, Dominica cleaned up nice.

She had traded in her blue Ripstop pants and polyester gray shirt with the official Palm Beach town emblem logo for a short skirt and a robin’s egg blue T-shirt. Her long, athletic legs and full physique were nicely displayed. She looked more like a woman who hung out on South Beach than one who analyzed blood splatters at South County Road.

On his way to pick her up, Crawford reflected on the lame expression, “don’t dip your pen in company ink.” That widely unheeded warning about not dating someone you work with. He found he could rationalize his way around it pretty easily, even better, ignore it altogether. Hell, it wasn’t like he was going to go and flaunt it—skip past Rutledge’s office hand in hand with her.

But, if people found out—and they always did—well, then, screw it.

Dominica had chosen the restaurant. It was up in the Northwood section of West Palm, on the corner of Dixie and Twenty-Second Street. It was an area that had struggled to gain respectability back when gentrification came to the area in 2004, but fell off a cliff in the crash. Café Grappolo was still hanging on, though, getting four-star reviews in the
Press
’s TGIF section.

Crawford had taken Nick Greenleaf to Gun Club Road and decided not to stick around when Lil came back to get her Harper, or whatever the painter’s name was. He just thought it would be too damn painful seeing her, reading her her rights. They did have a thing, after all. Ott told him about arresting her—how she went crazy, pleading, raging, screaming all at once. Crawford called her later, said he was sorry about all that happened. It didn’t calm her down much.

He and Dominica were seated in wicker chairs. He studied Dominica across the table and suddenly it hit him like a mule kick: what could have happened to her if things had gone off the tracks even just a little. The whole Jaynes setup was not one of his all-time great plans. Even though it got the job done, he wouldn’t be trying it again anytime soon. Rutledge found out about it and started to go ballistic, but what could he say? The bad guys were dead or behind bars.

He put his hand on Dominica’s and remembered the terrified look in her eyes the night before on the Southern bridge.

“You know, with everything going on, I never asked . . . are you okay?”

She leaned back in her chair.

“You mean . . . after my little breakdown in the back of the car.”

“Are you kidding . . . you’re gonna get decorated for what you did.”

“Chest full of medals, huh?”

“Yeah, probably offer you my job.”

She laughed. “Ah, no thanks.”

“I’m serious,” he said, leaning forward and taking her hand again, “how many times you think I’ve been there? Come off this huge adrenaline rush, then it smacks you in the face, ‘Christ, I coulda been dead ten different ways . . . blown up, shot, hit by a car, you name it.’ ”

Dominica leaned across the table and kissed Crawford.

“Thank you, Charlie,” she said and took a sip of wine. “So come on, fill in the blanks.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Start with the art scam.”

He was a little sheepish describing it, seeing how it involved his old girlfriend.

“Well, my . . . ah, friend got herself in a little jam. This guy Greenleaf killed Cynthia Dexter—then he sold my friend a few stolen paintings, then they came up with a plan to make a pile of money. I talked to her a little while ago, recommended she get herself a really good lawyer.”

He went on to explain how the option thing worked, how—he theorized—Lil and Nick split the money fifty-fifty.

Dominica nodded. “But I still don’t get why Greenleaf killed that woman.”

Crawford leaned back and put his arms behind his head.

“Neither did I at first. All we had was that he knew her. Greenleaf stonewalled for a while, completely denied killing her. Until I told him you found his DNA all over Dexter’s condo. I could see the wheels turning. ‘Did I touch anything? Was anything on the belt? My clothes?’ I finally said it was his call—life if he cooperated; the chair, if he didn’t.”

“But I still don’t get his motive, why he killed her.”

“See, the guy was looking to make a major lifestyle change, start climbing the social ladder, the Poinciana Club being the highest peak. But Cynthia Dexter knew him back in his humble bartender days. And unlucky for her—”

“—that’s where she worked.”

“Exactly, but the big thing was she found out he had wormed his way into Robertson’s house, knew whatever he was doing there had a real bad whiff to it.”

Dominica just shook her head and pushed a strand of hair over her ear.

“Then his plan was to kill the real Avery,” Crawford said.

Dominica’s mouth dropped.

“See, what happened was . . . the real Avery called, told Greenleaf he was coming to Palm Beach. Like he could smell his inheritance. So first Nick figures the jig was up. Then he goes, ‘Wait a minute. I’d be leaving a ton of money on the table if I let this guy just waltz into town.’ ”

“Wow, so he figured if he got rid of Avery, he could get the whole shootin’ match when the old man died?”

Crawford nodded.

“Exactly. Not to mention the old man’s impressive collection of blazers, ties, belts, you name it. Speaking of which, Nick had a really nice belt picked out for Avery.”

“You mean . . . to cinch around his neck?”

“Yeah, this beautiful black croc.”

Crawford signaled the waitress. She came over and they ordered.

“So before I picked you up tonight,” Crawford said, “I went over to Spencer Robertson’s house, met the real Avery—”

“What was he like?”

“A jerk,” Crawford said. “Wanted me to drop everything and go find the two paintings that Greenleaf sold Lil Fonseca.”

Dominica just shook her head.

“I hope the old man lives forever,” she said. “Did you tell Avery you saved his life, taking in Greenleaf?”

“Nah. Why bother? Guys like him . . . not real big on ‘thank yous.’ ”

Dominica nodded. Then she broke into a wide smile.

“What?” Crawford asked.

“I was just thinking about Ward Jaynes.”

Crawford moved closer to her.

“Yeah, what was it about Jaynes anyway?”

She looked down at her dessert for a while, not saying anything.

“I used to go out with a poor version of him,” she said, then looked up at Crawford. “Took me awhile to figure out he had serious . . .
issues
. Some warped mommy thing, but first in his class at charm school. Beat me up so bad once I spent three days in the ICU. A lot of guys like him get away with it.”

Crawford decided to leave it at that, not pepper her with his usual twenty questions. They finished dessert and Crawford suggested a nightcap at the Hard Case.

On their way over, Dominica got a call on her cell phone. She looked down at the number.

“It’s my sister,” she said, then pushed the green button. “Hey, Misty, what’s up?”

Dominica just listened and nodded for a solid minute.

“Like I told you at the station,” she said finally, “I think you’d be really good. Gotta get your GED first . . . and, yeah, a little college wouldn’t hurt.”

She listened for about ten seconds.

“Yeah, you definitely gotta clean up your act, though,” she said and laughed. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. No more cigarettes, you got a curfew . . . the whole deal.”

Crawford heard Misty’s voice through the phone.

“Yeah, I’m
dead
serious,” Dominica said. “Come on down tomorrow, I’ll give you a little tour. Let you wear my

‘Crime Scene’ jacket.”

Crawford pulled into the parking lot at the Hard Case and turned to Dominica.

“So you recruiting now?” Crawford asked.

“Yeah, well . . . she’s basically a good kid,” Dominica said. “How do you think you’d end up if your role models were a guy in prison, an alcoholic mother who bailed on you and a brother . . . well, you know.”

Crawford held up his hands.

“Hey, I totally agree. I can see it. She ever wants to be a detective, I’ll be her rabbi.”

He put his arm around Dominica and kissed her.

They got out of the car, walked into the smoky dive and Sonny Johnson was the first person Crawford saw.

He gave Crawford a sheepish grin. Crawford thought he saw Do-rag at a table, his back to them. He could tell from the looks that everybody knew about what happened. Then he realized, most of the looks were just guys checking out Dominica.

They went to a table, Dominica sat down and Crawford walked up to the bar.

“Nice goin’, man,” Jack Scarsiola said.

“Thanks,” Crawford said.

Crawford took a beer and glass of wine back to the table and sat down.

A few minutes later he heard someone shuffle up behind him.

“I gotta hand it to you,” said the voice.

Crawford turned. It was Johnson.

“Nice work,” Johnson said, then nodded to Dominica.

“Thanks,” Crawford said, gesturing, “Dominica this is Sonny Johnson, one of West Palm’s finest.”

Johnson nodded and shot her a smile that was missing a tooth.

“Hi,” she said.

“You’re the . . . CSEU chick?”

Dominica nodded.

He raised his glass.

She nodded and smiled her dazzler.

“Well . . .” Johnson turned to go.

“Appreciate you stoppin’ over, Sonny,” Crawford said.