Palm Beach Poison Read online

  Palm Beach Poison

  A Charlie Crawford Mystery (Book 2)

  Tom Turner

  Tribeca Press

  Copyright © 2016 Tom Turner. All rights reserved.

  Published by Tribeca Press.

  This book is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual events, places, persons or other entities are coincidental.

  www.tomturnerbooks.com

  Palm Beach Poison/Tom Turner – 1st ed.

  Contents

  Also by Tom Turner

  Join Tom’s Author Newsletter

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Palm Beach Deadly (Excerpt)

  About the Author

  Also by Tom Turner

  CHARLIE CRAWFORD MYSTERIES

  Palm Beach Nasty

  Palm Beach Poison

  Palm Beach Deadly

  Palm Beach Bones

  Palm Beach Pretenders

  STANDALONES

  Broken House

  Join Tom’s Author Newsletter

  Get the latest news on Tom’s upcoming novels when you sign up for his free author newsletter at tomturnerbooks.com/news.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the usual suspects—Susan, Serena, Georgie, John and Cece. And also to the boys in LV, whose distinguished names I sprinkled throughout the pages of Poison. Also to loyal readers: Jennifer LePage, Natalie Saitta, Larry Libater and Peter Schiff. Finally, to Ed Stackler, best editor in the business.

  One

  Vasily and Aleksandr Zinoviev were having lunch with Churchill Ames at Delbasso’s in Palm Beach. Since the Russians were picking up the tab, Ames ordered the twenty-dollar ahi tuna appetizer to start.

  Rush Limbaugh, a Palm Beach resident who Ames had met at a golf outing, had called him out of the blue and asked if it would be okay if a Russian named Vasily contacted him. Before Ames could ask him what he’d be calling about, Limbaugh started blathering on about how he had shot a seventy-four the day before. Ames had seen the guy’s swing and knew that had to be with ten-foot gimmes and a mulligan on every hole.

  Ames and the Russians had arrived at the restaurant fifteen minutes ago. Vasily—short, stocky, shaved head—wasted no time ordering a bottle of their national beverage, which was now chilling in a silver wine cooler between the brothers. Ames didn’t recognize the vodka’s name when the waiter brought it over, but saw a lot of backward E’s and upside-down K’s on the label and figured it had to be the real deal. Delbasso’s was the kind of place that stocked a customer’s favorite caviar and even had—so the story went, anyway—its own pig in France with a finely tuned snout that rooted out specimen truffles.

  That sounded like a bullshit story to Ames, but stories like that were a dime a dozen in Palm Beach.

  Ames said “no thanks” to the vodka when Vasily offered it, and ordered iced tea with a slice of lime. The waiter brought iced tea with a lemon wedge instead. Ames shook his head imperiously and pointed a long, skinny finger at the offending lemon. The waiter scurried off and fetched a lime.

  Churchill Ames was a fastidious man who had thin, bloodless lips, perfectly parted short, straight hair, erect military posture, and no discernible laugh lines. A canary-yellow pocket square bloomed forth from the breast pocket of his blue blazer, and was neatly complemented by pleated, tan gabardine pants and a blue-striped shirt—everything extra-crisp. He was kicking himself, though, for wasting fresh linen on the Russian mutts.

  Vasily looked up from his menu and smiled at Ames. “So what do they call you?” he asked.

  Ames looked puzzled.

  “He means, your nickname,” Aleksandr said. It came out “knicht-nem.”

  “Churchill,” Ames said, not looking up from his menu.

  “Not…Church or something?” Aleksandr smiled, displaying a set of straight white teeth.

  Ames looked up and shot him a patronizing glance. “No, just Churchill,” he said. Then, looking back down at his menu, “or sir.”

  The Russians ordered something heavy on carbs and cholesterol. Ames chose the salade Niçoise.

  “So, Churchill,” Vasily said after a long pull on his vodka, “we would like to talk to you about what Mr. Limbaugh mentioned.”

  The name came out limbo, like the dance under the pole.

  “Mr. ‘Limbo’ didn’t mention anything,” Ames said, putting the menu down. “He just said you’d be calling.”

  The brothers were a study in contrast. Muttsky ‘n Jeffov, Ames thought, amusing himself. Vasily’s huge, shaved head highlighted his cauliflower ears and fleshy lobes. He was wearing dark pants and a long-sleeved, black mesh shirt, possibly a fashion statement somewhere in lower Novosibirsk. He looked as if he’d been in his share of fights. Ames guessed he’d probably won them all because he could just tell the man fought dirty. Used his sharp, pit-bull teeth, no doubt, for more than just eating dead animals.

  Clearly, Aleksandr had gotten the looks. He was around six-feet-two and had a thick head of blonde, wavy hair. He was handsome and soft-looking, compared to his brother. But they both had the same eyes, emerald green and striking. Ames hadn’t seen Vasily blink once since they’d sat down.

  “Mr. Ames, our proposition is a real-estate venture,” Vasily said. “Specifically, we would like to buy the Poinciana Club.”

  Ames was impressed: the man skipped the foreplay and got right to it. His proposition, on the other hand, was totally absurd. It was like offering to buy the Washington Monument.

  “You can’t be serious,” Ames said.

  “Sure I am,” said Vasily. It came out as “chewer.” “I would think as CEO of the Poinciana Club—”

  “The Poinciana is not a corporation,” Ames snapped. “I am its president.”

  “Okay, I would think as president of the Poinciana Club,” Vasily said, “you could convince the other members to sell if we make you an offer you—”

  “—can’t refuse?”

  Vasily nodded and raised his glass of vodka. “Exactly.”

  “Let me explain something,” Ames said, making no effort now to disguise his condescension. “Any offer you make, I assure you, I will refuse. The Poinciana Club is owned by three hundred and eight members. It is a highly excl
usive club distinguished by some of the most magnificent, historically significant buildings in the country. It will never be the object of some tacky real-estate play.”

  Vasily ignored Ames’s fusillade of withering disdain.

  “We know,” Vasily said simply. “We have been there. It is magnisifent—”

  Aleksandr winced at his brother’s butchery of the word, while Ames was horrified that the scruffy little mongrel had actually stepped foot into the hallowed halls of the Poinciana. Ames made a mental note to talk to the club manager about how this egregious trespass had been allowed to take place. How these miscreants had been able to cross the threshold into the WASP bastion reserved for men of distinction and social status, not to mention rock-solid, unimpeachable character. Men like Atkinson Bailey, Webster Mills, Townsend Applegate and, in keeping with the two-last-name tradition, Churchill Ames himself.

  Vasily drained his vodka, then looked up at Ames. “My friend, the fact is buildings are buildings. What is important is that it is two hundred and eleven acres in the middle of Palm Beach.”

  Again, Ames was impressed with the crude vulgarian’s ability to cut straight to the heart of the matter.

  “Correct,” Ames said. “Two hundred eleven acres in the middle of Palm Beach, which you, my friend”—he started to say “comrade”—“will never own. There aren’t enough rubles in the Motherland.”

  “How can you say that,” Vasily said, “if you don’t even know what our offer is?”

  “Because it’s not for sale, under any circum—”

  “Three-hundred-twelve million dollars’ worth of circumstances,” Vasily said.

  Ames was stunned. “How in God’s name did you come up with a figure like that?”

  “Very simple: There are three hundred and eight members of the Poinciana. We will make three hundred and seven of them millionaires and you…a millionaire five times over. The extra four million to you would be in a separate, private agreement. A finder’s fee, let’s call it,” said Vasily.

  Suddenly the vodka bottle with the upside-down K’s and backward E’s looked very inviting to Ames.

  “Mr. Zinoviev,” Ames said wearily, “my fellow members and I are already millionaires. Every single one of us. Not to mention our five billionaires.”

  Ames had, in fact, once been a millionaire, but not anymore. His three divorces had taken their toll. The second one had almost cleaned him out. The last one, with Celia, well, to her infinite disappointment, there hadn’t been that much left to clean out. Nevertheless, Ames had gone to a great deal of effort to make sure that word of his dire financial circumstances hadn’t gotten out. That he was, literally, down to his last seven hundred thousand dollars. If people knew, he would be banished from Palm Beach society. He’d have all the allure of a homeless guy bunking in a refrigerator box in some desolate back alley.

  To conceal the truth, Ames had come up with an ingenious story. He’d put the word out at the men’s bar that when things starting going south with Celia, he started going offshore with his cash. Squirreling away a million here, a million there. Switzerland. The Caymans. All his friends shook their heads and said, “that Church, what a prick,” but made a note to do the exact same thing if they were ever in that position. They all assumed he had ten, fifteen mill stashed away.

  But the reality was, all he had was a lousy seven hundred thousand dollars in Fidelity mutual funds. Actually, come to think of it, no, it was only five hundred and fifty thousand. He had forgotten about losing a hundred and fifty thousand dollars during a disastrous binge of day trading.

  Still, as tempting as the Russians’ offer might be to him, it stood no chance of flying with the other members. The rest of the membership, except for him and Buzz Cox, really were all millionaires. And yes, there were five billionaires.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Ames said, “this ‘real-estate venture’ of yours, what exactly did you plan to do with the property?”

  “Make it into the most spectacular luxury-housing development in the world,” Vasily said with pride.

  That’s when Ames noticed Vasily’s long pinkie fingernails for the first time. He wondered whether they were used to gouge people’s eyes out. Then he remembered when long nails used to be a fashionable cocaine-snorting accessory way back when.

  Ames sighed loudly, to convey that he was now officially bored to death with the whole harebrained conversation. It was time to wrap it up. He had a tee time in forty-five minutes and wanted to hit some balls on the range before playing. And, as much as five million dollars could help solve his personal financial problem, there was just no way it was in the cards.

  “So, gentlemen”—the word almost made him gag—“the Poinciana is not for sale. Not now, not ever.”

  “But why?” Vasily asked.

  Jesus Christ, what was the guy not getting?

  Ames dialed up his haughty look again and bore down on Vasily.

  “I’ve told you why,” he said, pausing. “But if you need another reason, I’ll give you one: Because it’s where I play golf.”

  Vasily glared back at Ames. “Let me point out a few things to you, Church. One, everything’s for sale; and two, there are seven hundred and fourteen other golf courses in Florida where you can play your silly little game.”

  “But only one Poinciana,” Ames said.

  “Which is why we just offered you almost half a billion dollars for it,” said Vasily.

  Thinking that was a pretty generous roundup, Ames got to his feet.

  “For once and for all, forget it,” Ames said, wiping his mouth with the cloth napkin. “Just forget it.”

  But Vasily Zinoviev was still not done. “So, Mr. Ames, you have no intention of speaking to the other members?”

  Ames shook his head. “Absolutely none.”

  “Five million dollars,” Aleksandr dangled it again.

  “I heard you the first, second, and third times,” Ames said, getting to his feet and flinging his napkin on the table.

  “Sit down, please, Mr. Ames,” Aleksandr said, politely.

  “I have to go,” Ames said. He barely had time to hit even a small bucket of balls now.

  Vasily stood and leaned to within six inches of Ames’s face. “Mr. Ames, you really should reconsider your decision.” Then, with astonishing quickness, he shot out his hand.

  Reluctantly, Ames shook it. It felt like a moray eel had clamped onto his hand.

  Ames tried to yank it away, but Vasily dug in with his nails. “You have twenty-four hours to reconsider,” he said.

  Vasily finally released Ames’s hand as his brother tossed a wad of cash down on the table. Then, the pair turned and walked out.

  As Ames watched them go through the door, he looked down at his wrist. Blood was streaming onto his starched, white cloth napkin.

  Two

  Ames was buck naked, unless you counted the white butterfly bandage on his wrist. The twenty-five-year-old woman in the chaise longue next to him was naked too. It was 10:00 on a warm Saturday night in May, and they had been skinny-dipping in his pool.

  She was stretched out, looking up at the stars, and Ames was admiring her full, sag-free breasts, no visible tan line above or below them.

  “You sunbathe naked?” he asked, imagining her spending her days at a nude beach, lying out on a fluffy white towel.

  She nodded and flashed her coquettish smile.

  “Would you like another cocktail?” Ames asked.

  She reached down, picked up her glass, and finished off the last of the Myers’s rum and orange juice.

  “Thank you,” she said, handing him the glass.

  He got up, sucked in his gut, and tried to stretch out his five-foot-nine-inch frame. For fifty-five he wasn’t in bad shape, but who was he kidding? She wasn’t there for his body. Jessie, which might or might not have been her real name, came discreetly recommended by a friend, David Balfour. Balfour didn’t usually have to pay, but for top-quality “strange,” as he liked to call it,
he’d make an exception.

  Churchill Ames went around to his pool-house bar and reached for the bottle of Myers’s. He flashed back to his bizarre lunch the day before with the Russian buffoons and thought about the five million they had offered him. He had no regrets about his decision. Not because he wouldn’t have grabbed the money and run—because he would have—but because there was no way in hell that the rest of the membership would go along with it. In fact, they’d laugh it off: A million bucks per member wasn’t going to catch anyone’s attention. With the exception of him and Buzz Cox, who’d had a few reversals of his own lately, a million dollars was chump change to Poinciana members.

  Nevertheless, he had called up David Balfour, who was on the Poinciana Executive Committee with him. “You gotta hear this,” Ames said, “I had lunch with these two Russian guys who Rush Limbaugh told to call me. Clowns wanted to buy the Poinciana.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Balfour said. “Did they actually make an offer?”

  “Sure did. Three-hundred-twelve million, to be exact. Works out to a million a member, but they were going to slide me an extra four mill under the table,” Ames said, taking the opportunity to show how incorruptible he was.