Palm Beach Blues Read online

  Palm Beach Blues

  Tom Turner

  Copyright

  “This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  PALM BEACH BLUES

  Copyright © 2020 Tom Turner

  Written by Tom Turner

  Contents

  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

  Author’s Note

  Broken House

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Is today your lucky day or what?

  The Savannah Madam Series Sneak Peak

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Tom Turner

  1

  Sunny Hedstrom was on her way back from the gym.The gym was her new favorite place—more so than any bar, restaurant, or Worth Avenue clothing or jewelry shop. That was because, as of last Thursday night, her trainer had become her lover. She hadn’t seen it heading in that direction during their first workout, a month back, but as a great philosopher once said, Shit happens. Anthony had a gentle soul and spoke softly and patiently as he guided her through her forty-five-minute workout. But in bed… watch out. The guy was an acrobatic maniac, a Flying Wallenda of the boudoir.

  Sunny’s only concern was that Wayne had found out about Anthony. Or maybe not found out, but at least suspected.

  “I called you for three straight hours,” Wayne told her the day before. “Where the hell were you?”

  Fortunately, she’d thought up an excuse in advance, knowing how possessive Wayne could be. “Didn’t I tell you before? At my nephew’s basketball game. I left my phone behind.”

  “No, you never told me,” Wayne said. “How was it?”

  “The basketball game?”

  “Yeah.”

  Like he cared. “It was okay. Not that I’m a big basketball fan or anything. My sister and I just yakked a lot.”

  “Where was it?” Wayne asked.

  “Worthington High. The gym there.”

  Wayne snickered. “Well, yeah, I didn’t figure they played in the library.”

  Another annoying thing about Wayne… he had a lame sense of humor.

  “How’d he do? Your nephew?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Score many points?”

  “I think so. I wasn’t really keeping track.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Danny.”

  “Danny who?”

  “Harris.”

  Sunny knew Wayne was asking her about facts he could check. He couldn’t have cared less about her nephew or his basketball prowess.

  She headed north on South Olive and hit her blinker for her house on Granada Road in the El Cid neighborhood of West Palm Beach. Well, not her house; it was Wayne’s. Wayne, she knew, had a number of houses sprinkled around the area. She’d guessed, not inaccurately, that they were for Wayne’s gal pals, and for the last ten months, which was as long as she had been living there, he hadn’t charged her rent. But, of course, she did pay a price.

  As she turned onto Granada, she hit her garage-door opener the way she always did. Her house was the fourth on the left. She was thinking about Anthony and the grueling abductor-muscle exercises he’d put her through as she turned into her driveway.

  That was when she saw her beloved Westie puppy, Winston, with his leash around his neck, dangling from the handle of the opened garage door.

  2

  It took Sunny a moment to comprehend what she was seeing, that she’d accidentally hanged her own dog.

  She quickly hit the button again to close the garage door, and slowly—too slowly—it descended. Like it was in slow motion. Winston was writhing on the cement as she braked, jammed the car into park, and started running.

  She heard the hysteria in her own voice as she screamed, “Help!” Then, “Oh my God, Winston…” She reached down and loosened the leash, but she could see it was too late. The little guy was a goner.

  * * *

  Wayne Crabb described himself as a real estate developer, but others called him a grave dancer. By that they meant someone on the lookout for projects that were either financially shaky or in default. Overleveraged, under-financed, or poorly managed—better yet, all three. He’d swoop in and buy the property at a discount, then nurse it back to good health. His biggest coup was buying a casino in the Bahamas for thirty-seven million dollars, then flipping it two years later for sixty-three million while spending only a few million to renovate it. The profit from that deal had helped pay for a lot of smaller projects, one of which was located in the heart of Palm Beach.

  Crabb was in his office with his assistant, Mary Beth Hudson, whom he kept very busy. Unlike most Florida real estate offices, whose walls were decorated with photos and architectural renderings of tall buildings, apartment complexes, or luxurious resorts, Wayne Crabb’s office on South County Road was dominated by blown-up posters of surfers cutting through the water, arms extended for balance, mountainous waves behind them. If a visitor looked closely, they would see that the primary surfer in the photos was Wayne himself. Tanned and, if not chiseled, at least in good shape for a sixty-one-year-old. Whenever Wayne took a vacation, often with a woman less than half his age, sometimes two, he would go to places famous for towering waves and exotic beauty. Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Peru had become his favorite destinations.

  Palm Beach, while a long way from any of the surf capitals of the world, did have a dedicated group of surfers who rode the waves up on the north end of the island. Crabb surfed there four or five times a week with a revolving cast of twenty- and thirty-somethings—mostly men, but with a few women thrown in. Wayne, known as “the geez” or just plain “geez” to the young surfers, was universally reviled as a wave-hog. That is, he’d paddle after every wave that had potential, often blocking others from having their shots at the rollers. Sometimes he’d ride his board perilously close to another surfer; other times, he’d cut them off altogether. The younger guys got silent satisfaction when Wayne would end up in a body-churning wipeout, and it annoyed them when he’d bob to the surface with a far out, that was fun! smile on his face.

  Having read through all his emails, Wayne looked up at Mary Beth. “I want you to evict Sunny Hedstrom from the house on Granada.”

  Mary Beth nodded. “Okay, on what grounds?”

  “Since when do I need grounds?”

  “I just—”

  “That she’s ten months late on her rent.”

  “But she never had a lease.”

  “Well, back-date one and forge her signature,” Wayne said, like that was a normal business practice. “We’ve got her signature somewhere.”

  Long ago, Mary Beth had accepted the fact that forging signatures was a normal part of her job. Wayne Crabb, after all, tended to be quite generous with Christmas bonuses. Evictions like this were typical operating procedure for Wayne, who seemed to be subsidizing anywhere between four and seven women at any given time. He expected those women to be on call whenever the spirit moved him, and it moved him a lot. He also expected them to be exclusive to him. That meant no boyfriends, lovers, or even one-night stands.

  Mary Beth assumed that Sunny Hedstrom had violated Wayne’s code. Her boss was an unforgiving man.

  “Process server?” Mary Beth asked.

  “Yeah, get that weasel from Collectron on it.”

  “Chris Carter?”

  “Yeah, tell him I want her out by the end of the week.”

  Mary Beth nodded. “I’m on it,” she said. “You want me to do anything on the Sabal House today?”

  Wayne thrummed his desktop and emitted a long, slow sigh. “You know what’s bothering the hell out of me about that place?”

  “What’s that?” She had a pretty good guess.

  “That Platt’s out there tooling around in that shiny new yacht he bought with Sabal House money.”

  He was referring to Preston Platt, his partner in the now-notorious Sabal House on Royal Palm Way in Palm Beach. They had bought the former hotel together to convert into high-end condomi
niums. The deal soon went sideways, however, taking down some twenty-odd investors in the process.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Mary Beth asked.

  “What I always do, sue the bastard,” Wayne said with a throaty rumble of a laugh.

  “You think that will do any good?”

  Crabb sighed and thought for a moment. “Not if I can’t track down the money.”

  They heard footsteps in the reception area, then a shout. “You sadistic son-of-a-bitch!” a woman’s voice rang out, and Sunny Hedstrom burst into Wayne’s office.

  Mary Beth shot from her chair to intercept Sunny as she charged at Wayne.

  “You evil, evil pig,” Sunny said, jabbing a finger at the seated Wayne. “How could you do such a cruel thing?”

  “What are you talking about?” Wayne asked. “I have no idea what—”

  “Bullshit. It had to be you. You killed my dog. You’re the only one who has the key to the house.”

  Wayne held up his hands. “Think what you want, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He glanced at Mary Beth standing between him and Sunny. “By the way, I’m afraid you’re going to have to vacate the Granada Road house.”

  Sunny put her hands on her hips. “What? Why?”

  “Well, for one thing, this unrestrained outburst of yours accusing me of such a barbaric thing. I can’t have someone living in one of my houses calling me a son-of-a-bitch and a pig. And for another, because you haven’t paid rent for the past ten months.”

  “Are you crazy? That was never the deal, paying rent.”

  “Sorry, Sunny. You’re going to have to pack up and go.”

  Sunny took a step toward Crabb, but Mary Beth blocked her. “You’ll have to leave now, Ms. Hedstrom.”

  Sunny shook her head. “You are the sleaziest, creepiest low-life I’ve ever met.”

  Wayne made a shooing motion with one hand. “Good-bye, Sunny,” he said. “Have a nice life.”

  3

  With Mary Beth still in his office, Wayne slipped off his khaki pants, revealing long, flowery-patterned swim trunks underneath. Then he shed his white button-down shirt, under which he wore a vintage yellow T-shirt that read Hobie Surfboards. He hung up his khakis and the button-down in a closet and slipped into a pair of flip-flops.

  “I’ll be back later,” he told Mary Beth, who was accustomed to her boss interrupting work with his favorite activity. Well, second-favorite actually… his favorite being to drop in on nubile tenants.

  * * *

  There were four surfers up on the north end—three guys, appropriately blond-streaked and hard-bodied, and a raven-haired woman whom Wayne had never seen before.

  Needless to say, he tried to hit on her. The way he looked at it, with Sunny Hedstrom having been cut from the team, he had a vacancy.

  The woman acted friendly enough but didn’t encourage anything more than a quick conversation. The surfers always shook their heads—half in disbelief, half in grudging admiration—whenever Wayne tried to put his well-worn moves on women forty years younger than he.

  A few minutes later, Wayne and one of the young surfers were sitting on their boards on the lookout for a wave.

  “Who’s the babe, anyway?” Wayne asked, flipping his head in the direction of the woman, board in hand, leaving the beach.

  The surfer shook his head. “You’re relentless, man. Don’t you have a wife or something?”

  Wayne nodded. “I do, but she’s really old.”

  The surfer chuckled. “Got news for you, dude. So are you.”

  Wayne shrugged. “You’re as young as you feel,” he said, then pointed. “Hey, what’s that?”

  The surfer looked off into the distance. “I don’t know, man, kinda looks like a drone.”

  A silver-colored drone was flying fifty feet above the ocean and coming toward them.

  Wayne huffed. “I thought Palm Beach outlawed those things.”

  The surfer shrugged. As he watched the drone approach, it suddenly stopped in midair, steadied, and made a loud crackling sound, followed by a sharp groan from Wayne. The surfer turned to see the older man’s chest bleeding profusely. Another crackling sound emitted from the drone, and Wayne’s forehead became a patch of red. Without a word, he tumbled headfirst into the ocean.

  “Holy shit!” said the surfer, leaning low on his board and paddling furiously for shore.

  As the other surfers watched from the beach, the silver drone exploded, sending shards of metal in all directions.

  As several beachgoers grabbed their cellphones to dial 911, Wayne’s body sank beneath the surface of the sea. His surfboard, though, was caught by a big wave and flipped high up in the air, a ribbon of blood near its tip.

  The sexagenarian surfer, Wayne Crabb, had ridden his last wave.

  4

  Palm Beach Police Detectives Charlie Crawford and Mort Ott reached the beach ten minutes after the first 911 call came in.

  Turned out their vic had died not far from the site of a murder they’d investigated the year before: a man had been left buried in the sand up to his neck and the rising tide, along with a clattering pack of crabs, had done the rest.

  “Popular spot for murder,” Ott said to his partner as they approached the body.

  Crawford looked down the beach. “Yeah, only about a hundred yards apart.”

  A cluster of onlookeers had gathered around the victim. Mostly young men and women in bathing suits, but a few older beach-strollers, too. Two uniformed cops, Jake Needham and Mel Mennino, had arrived five minutes before Crawford and Ott.

  “Hey,” Crawford said, nodding to the officers. “Know who he is?”

  “Name’s Wayne Crabb,” Mennino said. “A local businessman. Comes up here to surf couple times a week.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ott said, nodding. “I know all about the guy.”

  Crawford knew the name from somewhere but couldn’t place it. He figured Ott would fill him in later. He looked around at the crowd and raised his voice. “So, who saw what happened?”

  Three of the surfers raised their hands.

  Crawford nodded to one and walked over to him. “Tell us what you saw, please.”

  Ott took out his old leather pad and got ready to write.

  “Well, I was out there with Wayne, waiting for a wave,” the surfer said. “All of a sudden I heard this noise and saw this drone off in the distance. Coming at us. Then these pops. Gunshots, I guess. One hits Wayne in the chest, the other—” he pointed down at Crabb’s body “—in the forehead.”

  Crawford nodded.

  The surfer next to him stepped forward. “Couple seconds later the drone blew up. Like it had been hit by a missile or something. It was crazy.”

  “Did you see something actually hit the drone?” Ott asked.

  The second guy shook his head. “Nah, it just, like, exploded.”

  “One of the pieces hit me,” said the surfer who had been out with Crabb. He pointed to a cut on his shoulder.

  “How long did all this take?” Crawford asked the surfer with the cut.

  “No more than, like, fifteen seconds from when I heard the thing ‘til it blew up,” he said.

  “So, did any of you see anyone with a remote control device or anything like that?” Ott asked and pointed away from the beach. “Maybe up at one of those houses or something?”