The Dollar-a-Year Detective Read online

  So the question of the moment remains: Was it their opposition that got the Hendersons and Tolliver killed? Is there some faction of the Big Oil industry that nefarious? Does the American Industry Independence Coalition have a hit man on the payroll?

  Pondering all that during my morning beach run, I decide that I need to talk to Rep. Arthur Wainwright. The Florida State Legislature is in session, but when I call his office, his admin assistant tells me he’s at home in Palm Beach. Not surprising because, in Florida, being a state legislator is not a full-time job. So it will be off to Palm Beach for me.

  Back at my houseboat, I shower, power up my laptop and Google Wainwright’s name. I click on a link to his website. His photo is on the home page. He’s seated behind a desk, his hands folded, with US and State of Florida flags on staffs behind him. He is a patrician-looking fellow in his fifties, with a full mane of silver hair, an aquiline nose, and a cleft chin.

  I click on a tab marked “résumé.” The man has impressive credentials—that is, if he hasn’t made them up, as some people do. It’s amazing how many Navy SEALs, Harvard graduates, Purple Heart recipients, karate black belts, and Eagle Scouts are out there, if résumés are to be believed.

  It was my boyhood dream to be a starting pitcher for the Cubs. I got as far as American Legion ball when I hurt my arm and my dad couldn’t see the point of paying for Tommy John surgery to keep my baseball career going. Maybe I should pad my curriculum vitae to say I was a Cy Young Award winner for the Cubs before becoming a Chicago cop.

  If Wainwright’s résumé is accurate, he graduated from Harvard and then from Yale Law School, served as a naval officer, and is CEO of Wainwright Industries, a company started by his father that owns orange groves, builds custom homes, manufactures medical devices, and operates a chain of urgent care centers.

  I’m about to dial the home number the assistant gave me when my phone rings. The caller ID says it’s Claire, my ex-wife.

  I met Claire when I was a rookie patrolman and chased down a perp who’d grabbed her purse while she was walking in Old Town. We had a great marriage until I screwed it up by trying to deal with the stress of the job by stopping off at the Baby Doll Polka Lounge on the way home to tell my troubles to a pal named Jack Daniels.

  The drinking made me “emotionally unavailable” to her and to our daughter, Jenny, Claire said. No question that she was right. After our divorce, she got an MBA from Northwestern. She’s a senior vice president with a bank and has been dating an orthopedic surgeon, a big step up from an alcoholic homicide detective.

  Obviously, “dating” is too mild a term.

  When I answer the phone, Claire says, “Jack, I’m calling so that you won’t be surprised when the invitation arrives in the mail.”

  “Okay,” I say. “What am I being invited to?”

  “To my wedding.”

  16.

  The Island

  I take I-75 south and east across the southern tip of Florida. The stretch of the highway that runs through the Everglades is called Alligator Alley because many of the reptiles can be seen sunning themselves along the banks of drainage ditches paralleling the road. Accidents happen when drivers are scanning the ditches to see the prehistoric creatures.

  I merge from Alligator Alley onto I-595 east, connect to I-95 north, exit onto South Dixie Highway north, leading into West Palm Beach, and then turn onto a bridge connecting the mainland to the island of Palm Beach.

  There is no guard gate to prevent the hoi polloi from crossing onto the treasured island, but sometimes a Palm Beach police cruiser is waiting to follow any car that looks suspicious, meaning any vehicle costing less than the gross national product of Luxembourg. I wave at the young officer in the cruiser. He doesn’t wave back or follow me. I guess a classic Corvette passes muster.

  Locals call Palm Beach “The Island” in the way that New Yorkers call their berg “The City,” as if you’re supposed to know what they mean. As far as they’re concerned, all the right sort of people do.

  More than ten thousand Palm Beach residents occupy ten square miles of some of the most prime real estate in the nation. Funny thing is, you rarely see them. The shoppers on Worth Avenue, which I think of as Net Worth Avenue, are mainly tourists; Palm Beachers have personal shoppers. When you drive through the neighborhoods, with or without a police tail, you only see landscape crews perpetually manicuring the lush lawns and gardens, as well as delivery trucks and city utility crews.

  For many, if not most, Palm Beach homeowners, those multi-multimillion-dollar estates are second, third, or fourth homes, rarely occupied, and then only during The Season—winter, to the rest of us. I’ve been there then, and still saw very few homeowners in the neighborhoods. Maybe they have helipads on the roofs. You can find them in the private clubs and fancy restaurants, but I wouldn’t be admitted to the former and can’t afford the latter. Actually I can afford to eat in those restaurants, but I don’t want to pay exorbitant prices for small portions.

  I make my way to South Ocean Drive, which runs north and south along the Atlantic coast. The houses are fenced, gated, and hotel-sized. “Behind every great fortune there is a crime,” Balzac wrote. I remember that quotation from a college class in comparative literature. It’s a clever phrase and was perhaps true in post-Napoleonic France. But, here on South Ocean Boulevard, I get the feeling that I’ve been transported back to that time and place. Can someone really earn all the wealth that these estates represent, by honest means? Of course they can, but not me, or anyone I know.

  The wind is up, creating whitecaps on the Atlantic. A few surfers are riding boards on cresting waves, ignoring the possibility that they could become lunch for a great white shark (that has happened in recent years along this stretch of coastline).

  The GPS on my cell phone directs me to a large, two-story, yellow-stucco palazzo with a green slate roof and a six-car garage. A large wrought-iron gate swings open as I approach it. I notice a security camera mounted on a tall metal post. I drive through the gate, onto a circular driveway, and park near the front door of the house.

  The door opens as I’m getting out of my car. A Man Mountain, in his thirties, with a bald head, wearing a well-tailored black suit and a don’t-fuck-with-me expression, greets me by asking, “Are you Detective Starkey?”

  I think about saying, “No, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” but I figure he isn’t in the mood to hear that joke, is armed, and might be ordered to shoot unwelcome visitors on sight, so I tell him that I am the man he named.

  “Are you carrying a weapon?” he asks.

  “It’s in my car.”

  He pats me down anyway. If he’s pleased to not find any guns, or knives, or hypodermic needles, or that I’m not wearing a suicide vest under my white polo shirt with The Drunken Parrot logo, he doesn’t show it.

  “Mr. Wainwright is out by the pool,” he says, giving his name as Alexi. “Follow me.”

  Just like Lance Porter. I guess that self-styled VIPs always wait for their guests out by the pool. I follow him through the foyer, living room, and kitchen to a sliding glass door leading to the backyard. The inside of the house is all antique furniture, marble floors, oriental rugs, and oil paintings hung in elaborate wooden frames on the walls. The kitchen is professional grade. I bet that Arthur Wainwright doesn’t make his own meat loaf.

  Man Mountain slides the door open and remains inside as I walk onto a back patio with a marble floor and lawn furniture, an outdoor kitchen with a gas grill, a sink, a refrigerator, and a round, wrought-iron dining table and chairs. Just beyond the patio is a swimming pool large enough to host Olympic races.

  A man wearing a white bathrobe rises from a lounge chair beside the pool. He looks just like the photo of Arthur Wainwright from his website, but about ten to fifteen years older. Ah, vanity, thy name is Arthur.

  He smiles warmly, offers his hand, and says, “Detective Starkey, I’m Art Wainwright. Let’s have a drink and you can tell me how I can help you with your
investigation.”

  We take seats at a round white wooden poolside table under a blue-and-white striped umbrella. A heavyset middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a crisp white-and-grey maid’s uniform appears beside us. I hadn’t seen her come out of the house. Maybe she is permanently posted behind one of the nearby Calusa hedges, awaiting a signal from her boss that he needs something.

  Art looks at his gold Rolex, says, “It’s cocktail hour somewhere” (it’s 11 A.M., so they’re pulling out the wine corks in Rome), tells the maid he’ll have a mimosa, and asks me what I’d like.

  I assume the Wainwright household doesn’t stock Berghoff Root Beer, so I ask for a Diet Coke. My host raises his eyebrows and says, “Well, Detective, whatever floats your boat.” Not original, but I get the point. He is a player, and I’m not. The interview has not yet begun, and I’m already behind on points.

  As the maid walks toward the house, Artie boy says, “You told my assistant in Tallahassee that you’re looking into the deaths of Russell Tolliver and that couple from Fort Myers …”

  “Lawrence and Marion Henderson.”

  “Well, Detective, I’m afraid that, after your long drive, I can’t shed any light on that. Russ was a good man and I was shocked by his death. I’ve never heard of those other people.”

  I notice that he is avoiding using the word “murder.” In my experience as a homicide detective, that either means something, or not. If detecting was easy, everyone could do it.

  “I’m talking to people who knew the victims to see if there’s a connection between them,” I tell him.

  He spreads his hands and says, “As I told you, I knew Russ, but not, uh …”

  “Lawrence and Marion Henderson.”

  “Yes, them.”

  I’m finding his supposed inability to remember the names of two of the murder victims to be annoying, to the point where I’d like to punch him in his aquiline nose. But that might end the interview, so instead I ask, “Do you know any reason why someone would want to harm Mr. Tolliver?”

  He leans back in his chair and looks at the sky, as if the answer is up there somewhere among the fluffy white clouds, then says, “Absolutely not.” He shrugs, spreads his hands, and adds, “He owned car dealerships, you know. Maybe a dissatisfied customer?”

  When I was an unmarried patrolman, I bought a used Chevy Caprice that threw a rod as I was driving it home. The salesman and the owner of the dealership were reluctant to do anything about that. I didn’t consider killing them, that would have generated a lot of paperwork, so I mentioned my cousin, who worked for the city department in charge of licensing car lots. That did the trick.

  Just as the maid arrives with our drinks, the door to the house slides open. A tall young woman with short blonde hair, wearing a robe similar to Art’s, barefoot, comes out and walks toward us.

  Without standing, Art says, “Detective Starkey, this is my wife, Jennifer.”

  Granddaughter is more like it. Always the gentleman, I stand and say, “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wainwright.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” she says as she shrugs off her robe and drapes it over one of the chairs. She’s wearing a black, two-piece bikini the width of dental floss. Killer bod. She stands on the edge of the pool, dives in, and begins swimming laps with a front crawl worthy of Michael Phelps.

  “Jennifer was an All-America swimmer at the University of Florida in Gainesville,” Art tells me. “I was the commencement speaker one year, and she was my student guide.”

  When I was working a serial-killer case in Naples, a town as wealthy as Palm Beach, but lower-key, I observed quite a few of these May-December relationships. The May was always young and pretty and the December was always old and rich. Whatever floats your boat.

  After being distracted by Miss May, it’s time to get to the point of my visit: “I understand you’re sponsoring a piece of legislation in the House relating to offshore oil and gas drilling in the gulf, and that Mr. Tolliver was opposing the bill.”

  He sips his mimosa, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and says, “That’s correct. But, while it’s true that partisan politics have gotten quite nasty in recent years, we haven’t resorted to hiring a hit man to eliminate the opposition.” He smiles and adds, “At least not yet.”

  Interesting. I hadn’t mentioned a hit man. Maybe that was significant, maybe it wasn’t. Obviously detective work is not an exact science. More of a coin toss, sometimes. It doesn’t seem like Art is going to confess, and thus lose this house, whatever cars are in that garage, his household staff, and, of course, his child bride.

  He checks his Rolex again and tells me, “Unless there’s something more I can help you with (as if he’d helped me) I need to get dressed for a lunch appointment.”

  Jennifer finishes her laps, climbs the ladder out of the pool, and slips on her robe.

  “Jennifer will show you out,” Art tells me.

  I could find my own way, but I recalled that she’d guided Art around the UF campus, with an interesting result.

  “I’d appreciate that,” I say.

  Impure thoughts appear unbidden along the way.

  17.

  Capital Crimes

  The next morning, I face one of those difficult choices life presents from time to time: Pancakes, or a Belgian waffle?

  Cubby and I are having breakfast at Stan’s Diner so I can update him on my investigation. I go for the pancakes and he orders the waffle. The pancakes at Stan’s are thick, big as a Frisbee, and chock-full of blueberries. The waffle comes with pecans and has those little square indentations that hold butter and warm maple syrup so well.

  I tell Cubby about Marion Henderson’s group, Citizens for a Sane Environment, about the oil and gas drilling bill, and the American Energy Independence Coalition. I cover my visit with Lance Porter at Russell Tolliver’s house, my conversation with Sergeant Mikanopy of the Capitol Police in Tallahassee, and my trip to Palm Beach to meet with Arthur Wainwright. I describe Wainwright’s bodyguard. I don’t mention Wainwright’s wife, Jennifer, because she doesn’t seem connected to the investigation. She is a person of interest only to me.

  “You’ve been a busy boy,” Cubby says as he has a bite of waffle. Syrup drips down his chin and onto his uniform shirt. He doesn’t seem to notice as he continues: “From what you’ve said, it looks like the drilling bill is the precipitating factor in the murders.”

  “It’s what I’ve got at this point. I need to look into the American Energy Independence Coalition. They’re headquartered in DC.”

  “That’s fine, as long as you fly coach and pay to check your suitcase,” Cubby tells me.

  Two days later, I’m on American flight 400 from Fort Myers to Dulles International. I paid for an upgrade to a wider coach seat. Either regular airplane seats have gotten smaller or I’ve gotten larger. I prefer to think it’s the seats. In fact I read a story reporting that the airlines, to increase revenues, are jamming more seats into the cabins. So what the hell, pass the doughnuts.

  I’ve never bothered to get a TSA Known Traveler Number (KTN), which allows faster passage through security sans a body cavity search, but I identified myself to the airline as a detective, putting me in the prescreened line anyway and allowing me to pack my Colt and ammo in my suitcase. If I’d taken a federal training program called Law Enforcement Officers Flying Armed I could have carried my weapon in the cabin. But I hadn’t, so if trouble occurs during the flight, I’ll have to rely on the plastic utensils that come with the meal, if there is a meal, which there probably isn’t. Maybe I can turn a bag of peanuts into a lethal weapon.

  I have a window seat in the first row of the main cabin. An elderly woman, who boarded using a walker, is on the aisle of my row. In a crisis, she’ll be no help at all, unless she’s taken a course called Using a Walker as a Bludgeon. Or maybe she’s an armed air marshal in deep cover.

  The mind wanders when bored.

  I’d called the American Energy Independence Coalition
and made an appointment with Theodore Tomlinson, the executive director. Lance Porter told me that Tomlinson has headed the group for eight years. Before that, he was executive vice president of global communications for International Oil Patch Partners. Maybe that’s significant, maybe it isn’t.

  We land at Dulles without incident. I’m staying overnight because the only return flight to Fort Myers is at 11 P.M., not very convenient. I have two hours before my meeting. I cab it to my hotel, the Hay-Adams, a DC institution. I’ll pay the difference between that and the airport Hilton, which is more compatible with my police expense account.

  I haven’t been to DC since my Marine Corps days when I was stationed for six months at the marine barracks at Eighth and I Streets. The marines there perform ceremonial and presidential support duties and don’t have to sleep in tents, take long hikes carrying fifty-pound packs, eat canned meals, or get shot at. If I could have been stationed there permanently, I might still be in the Green and Grueling. I thought I looked pretty spiffy in my dress blues, and some of the young ladies I met in the after-work bars did too. I’d have worn my sword, but it would have gotten in the way while dancing.

  It’s a nice cab ride into the city from the airport, passing the historic, impressive government buildings and monuments in the bustling capital. If you didn’t know better, you might believe that the federal government is working hard on behalf of the taxpayers. But, given the opinion polls, hardly anyone believes that anymore. Surely there are a great many career government workers diligently performing their duties, as well as honest politicians in the mold of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the 1939 movie starring James Stewart about an appointed senator who fought the corrupt system. But the citizenry clearly believes that those good people are in the minority.

  The taxi deposits me under the front portico of the Hay-Adams on Sixteenth Street Northwest. A uniformed bellman lifts my suitcase from the cab’s trunk and assures me it will be waiting in my room.

  I enter a lobby of dark woods and marble floors with oriental rugs, not unlike the interior of Arthur Wainwright’s house, but on a larger scale. There is a cross section of people of various ethnicities and regional garbs, presumably there to do business with the federal government. According to Sam Long Tree, Native Americans long ago gave up on the federal government. Tribes are nations unto themselves and, at least in some ways, including the ability to own casinos, better off for it.