Palm Beach Nasty (26 page)

A routine investigation followed the Guittierez incident that didn’t amount to much more than a quick conversation with Crawford’s partner at the time.

Crawford was seething now. He had read plenty of articles about his cases where the reporter didn’t quite get it right—a detail here, a name or date there—but this was all dubious inference and flat-out fabrication.

He finished the first page and stopped. He slammed the paper down on the table.

He dialed his cell phone, got the number for the
Palm Beach Press
and hit the seven numbers.

He asked for Barrett Seabrook.

“Sorry, Barry’s not in yet,” the voice said. “Would you like his voice mail?”

“Yes, give it to me.”

“Hi,” the recording said, “this is Barry . . . talk to me . . . later.”
Beep
.

Seabrook was apparently playing a hip, hard-boiled reporter he had seen in some forties film noir.

“Barry, you lying sack of shit,” he said at the beep. “It’s Charlie Crawford. Call me. I want to know how much Jaynes paid you.”

Crawford took a sip of his extra dark and a bite of his blueberry donut, his concession to eating healthy. Then he picked up the
Press
and read the rest of the article. It got worse. It recounted another completely fictitious incident of police brutality he reportedly committed. Then he got to the last paragraph.

He read it over three times.

“According to a longtime partner of Detective Crawford’s, his father, a managing director of the prestigious Wall Street investment banking firm, Morgan Guaranty, was found dead inside his car in his New Canaan, Connecticut, garage. According to the partner, Crawford’s father, a highly respected and successful banker, ‘snapped’ after the public humiliation and disgrace he felt over his son’s conduct. The intense and vocal backlash over the repeated allegations was apparently too much for the father, Charles V. Crawford, to bear.”

FORTY-TWO

C
rawford looked up, and in slow motion put the paper down on the bright orange tabletop. His head slumped forward, then he put his hands up to cover his eyes. He stayed that way until an older woman came over from another table. She put her hand on his shoulder, asked him if he was okay and handed him a few napkins.

C
RAWFORD WAITED
for Barrett Seabrook for over an hour at the
Palm Beach Press
building. He was glad he had time to cool down. He wanted to kill the guy . . . slowly . . . with his bare hands. He sat in a lobby which Seabrook would have to pass through, and made calls on his cell, trying to take his mind off his father. But he couldn’t. The whole gut-wrenching incident had been ripped wide open again, bringing back the most searing pain of his life.

His father
had
committed suicide. He was a managing director, but at J.P. Morgan not Morgan Guaranty. His father was a manic-depressive—the “Crawford family curse,” as one shrink called it—and back when he killed himself, antidepressant medications weren’t what they are today. Crawford was the one who found him. He was just sixteen, back home on vacation from boarding school. He had gone to get his lacrosse stick in the garage and pushed the garage door opener. As the door came up, a thick cloud of car exhaust poured out.

His grandfather had killed himself, too. Depression, as well. They had a quaint name for it back then. Melancholia. There was nothing quaint, though, about the .45 service revolver he stuck in his mouth.

Crawford called Rutledge and got his voice mail: “Norm, you either already read or heard about the
Press
article. It’s all bullshit.”

Then he got the mayor’s answering machine: “Mal, it’s Charlie Crawford. There’s an article in today’s
Palm Beach Press
about me. It’s a complete fabrication. I’m going to force them to print a retraction.”

He realized the damage was done, though. Ward Jaynes was a pro. He’d done to Crawford what Crawford had done to Rafael Guittierez: taken him out at the knees. Tomorrow, or the next day, there might be some microscopic retraction at the bottom of the editorial page, apologizing for an inaccuracy or two.

Eleven people would read it.

Ott picked up on the second ring.

“You see that thing?” Crawford asked.

“Yeah.”

“Guy didn’t even get the place where my old man worked right.”

“I knew it was a crock of shit, I’m sorry, man. Anything I can do, give me the word. Why would that shitbag reporter come up with that?”

“Jaynes owns the paper. For all I know he wrote the damn thing.”

“Jesus, you’re kidding, where are you now?”

“At the
Press
, waiting for the guy,” said Crawford. “I just spoke to some NYPD guys. They’re calling the publisher to tell him that, ’cept for the spelling of my name, it’s all bullshit. I talked to a lawyer, too. He called the paper, told them they’re defendants in a defamation of character lawsuit.”

“Beautiful, how much you going after ’em for?”

“A hundred million.”

If Jaynes could, why couldn’t he?

Ott laughed. “That’s a nice round number.”

Crawford saw Barrett Seabrook walk through the front door.

“Gotta go, my buddy’s here.”

“Who?”

“The reporter.”

“Give him a kick in the nuts for me.”

Seabrook saw Crawford coming toward him and almost started to run.

“Whoa there, Barry.” He would have tackled him if he had to.

Seabrook stopped, his eyes got huge, like he was scared Crawford might pull his gun.

“What do you want?” Seabrook said, his voice up an octave.

“Well, let’s see,” he said, using every bit of self-restraint he could conjure up not to go postal, “your job . . . a retraction . . . an apology . . . but I’ll settle for just one thing. You telling me Ward Jaynes put you up to this.”

“Who?” asked Seabrook, lamely.

Crawford had a strong urge to throw him through a wall.

“Cut the shit, asshole. You want to end up in Yeehaw Junction doing obits and girls softball?”

Seabrook sighed and looked around. “Can we go somewhere?”

They walked out of the building. Crawford pointed to a bench, like Seabrook was a dog he was ordering to sit. Seabrook sat down, Crawford stayed on his feet facing him.

Seabrook’s eyes were fixed on an areca palm twenty feet away.

“Talk to me,” Crawford said.

Seabrook cleared his throat.

“He said he’d—” Seabrook’s voice trailed off.

Crawford leaned forward and got within six inches of Seabrook’s face.

“He said he’d what?”

Seabrook’s eyes were jumping all over the place.

“Get me fired.”

“Jaynes did?”

“No, a lawyer. Said he represented ‘one of the owners.’ ”

“Didn’t say Jaynes?”

“No.”

Crawford’s face stayed in Seabrook’s.

“What’s your home address, Barry?”

“Why?”

“What is it?”

“243 Gregory Road, West Palm.”

Crawford wrote it down on a pad, then looked back down at Seabrook.

“Thank you, Barry, a process server will be waiting for you when you get off. He’ll drop by your office, too.”

“What for?”

“Serve you personally with a libel and defamation of character lawsuit. The
Palm Beach Press
, too. A hundred million.”

“But you said—”

“I said I’d settle for you telling me Ward Jaynes put you up to it. You didn’t. Said some lawyer did.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Give Ward a call. Maybe he’ll float you a loan, it’s only a hundred mill,” said Crawford, walking away. “If not, place around the corner sells lotto tickets.”

FORTY-THREE

C
rawford was in his car, headed to the station. His cell rang.

“How you doing, Charlie?” It was Dominica.

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, not a word of that was true.”

“I knew that.”

He wished she was right there, so he could wrap his arms around her.

“Thanks for calling.”

“You’re welcome; sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Well, you take it easy, ’kay Charlie?”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

“You will,” Crawford said, stopping at the bridge to Palm Beach.

He watched a massive yacht go through the drawbridge between Palm Beach and West Palm. There wasn’t much room to spare on either side. He saw a tanned, white-haired man standing erect on the rear deck, like he wanted to be seen and envied.

H
E FLASHED
back to his roommate’s 330-foot Feadship. Tim Hall had asked Crawford and twelve other Dartmouth classmates to go on a cruise out of Newport. The second night, when they were having dinner at a Nantucket restaurant, Crawford felt completely out of place. All his old buddies were talking a strange language. He understood every third word. Most of them were Wall Street guys, or guys who were pretty high up at big companies. Their conversations seemed to be mostly about money. Money, fancy trips to Saint Bart’s, NetJets shares, Berlinettas—he thought that was a car but it could have been a boat.

Crawford didn’t have much to contribute. The next morning he told Hall that he had gotten a call and had to get back down to Palm Beach. Something big had just happened.

Hall, of course, had offered to fly him down on his private jet.

H
IS PHONE
rang again.

“Hey, just wanted to tell you something, cheer you up maybe, take your mind off that shit,” Ott said. “Turns out our guy, Nick Greenleaf, has a sense of humor.”

“Why? What happened?” Crawford asked, crossing the middle bridge.

“I saw Mayo at the station, asked him how his stakeout at the Princess was going.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and the guy started hemming and hawing.”

“And?”

“Finally tells me . . . he fell asleep last night, wakes up and sees this note on his windshield. It says, ‘Sorry I missed you. Nick G.’ ”

“That was pretty ballsy,” Crawford said, with a laugh. “Hey, Jaynes got his envelope a little while ago.”

“I know. I talked to McCarthy; she’s real excited about her new starring role. Chick’s way into it.”

“Yeah, Jaynes’s guys will be all over her after she meets with him, you know.”

“Tailing her, you mean?”

“Yeah, but they’re gonna know they can’t do it for long without getting made. So they’ll plant a bug, I figure.”

“So she’ll lead ’em up to Misty’s doorstep?”

“Exactly,” said Crawford, going up the station’s elevator.

“Probably bug her car while she’s meeting with Jaynes, right?”

“Yeah, that’s their best shot,” Crawford said, getting off the elevator.

He saw Ott in his cubicle thirty feet away.

Ott switched the phone from one ear to the other. Crawford saw a grin spread across his partner’s face.

“You got this all scripted out, don’t ya, Charlie? Just like Steven fucking Spielberg. Like you’re inside of Jaynes’s fucked-up head.”

Crawford watched Ott put his feet up on his desk as he approached him.

Ott looked up and saw Crawford.

He clicked off his cell. “Oh, hey, Charlie.”

Crawford sat down in the chair next to Ott.

“So then the pros show up to take out the sisters—”