The Palm Beach Murders Read online

  My target is the lifeguard—one Paolo Salese. The first one to dance with Paige Ryerson.

  I’m looking forward to a spin around the dance floor with him, too.

  A private car takes me to one of those sprawling resorts north of Grace Bay Road. This is where Paige Ryerson and her girlfriends stayed, and this is where Paolo works during the day, guarding the Olympic-sized pool. Usually, I’d expect him to be on the prowl at one of the five bars on the property. Most likely, the watering hole with the greatest percentage of underage ladies.

  But not tonight.

  Tonight there’s some serious global heat on Paolo the Playboy, so he’s probably going to fade into the background like a local. Takes me a few drives (and a few fat tips), but somewhere around 9:00 p.m., I find his location: a glorified shack bar not far from the beach, but far from the path that tourists care to wander. It’s the kind of place where the bar top can be lifted off its moorings and hidden away come daylight. The kind of place where guys like me (in a suit) aren’t usually welcome.

  Like I give a damn.

  Paolo’s hunkered over a shot of something brown and a cheap island beer. Guessing by the sticky rings on the wood beneath his arms, he’s had more than a few.

  “Hey there, Paolo.”

  Paolo spins, takes one glance at me, and tags me immediately. I’m wearing a suit and carrying an expensive leather valise, which means I’m one of Them. The Establishment.

  “No comment,” he says, waving me away. As if he’d been harassed by Anderson Cooper all day. Then again, maybe he has. Paolo Salese is the prime suspect in the murder of Paige Ryerson, featured in media reports all around the world.

  “Look, buddy, I’m not a journalist. It’s even worse—I’m a lawyer! Let me buy you a drink.”

  Paolo shakes his head. “Piss off.”

  I sit down next to him anyway and give him my best lawyerly pitch. (I actually am a lawyer, so I’m pretty good at this.)

  “I’ve got a client who will pay half a million dollars for closure in the disappearance of Paige Ryerson.”

  The look on Paolo’s face tells me that he may not know the definition of the word “closure.” So I try again.

  “My client wants to know what happened. No strings attached. No blame, no fault…and certainly no cops or courthouses, you understand? Completely off the books.”

  Paolo says nothing. Takes another shot of whatever amber fluid is in those glasses. I gesture to the bartender to give him another round.

  “All I need,” I say, leaning in close, “is a body.”

  The playboy lifeguard freezes in his tracks momentarily, then quickly recovers. Ah, body, that magical word. Makes everybody feel uncomfortable. I love deploying it at just the right moment.

  “I don’t even need that much,” I continue. “Point me in the right direction, and it ends here. You walk away from this bar half a millionaire.”

  Finally, he turns to look me in the eyes.

  “Not interested. Now seriously…piss off.”

  He almost spits the last two words in my face. Classy.

  Paolo goes skulking away from the bar-shack (don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s Zagat-rated), and I take my bag and follow him. He walks faster. I match his pace. If this is going to escalate into a chase sequence, it’ll be one of the more absurd ones I’ve been involved in. Lawyer in a Suit vs. Tanned Lifeguard Dude, kicking up sand all the way to the ocean.

  “Forgive me, Paolo, but I find it hard to believe you’d turn down this offer. How many friends have you got on your side? I’m willing to bet you don’t have five hundred thousand of them.”

  The lifeguard continues walking, but his pace slows a little. Maybe my words are sinking in to that handsome skull of his.

  “I’m telling you, Paolo—I don’t give a damn what you did, or didn’t do, or any of that. I’m not a priest. I’m just a guy hired to ascertain a simple answer to a simple question. No matter what it takes.”

  Paolo stops, turns in his tracks, then sneers at me. “You’re not a priest. But you’re definitely a cop or a reporter.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  I smile, then gently toss my valise at Paolo’s feet. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  Chapter 4

  THEO (continued)

  Paolo glances down at the leather case as if there might be a metal bear trap inside.

  “Geez, Paolo,” I say. “You pull kids out of shark-infested waters for a living. You can’t possibly be afraid of my carry-on.”

  But Paolo doesn’t trust me. Not. One. Bit. He’s made it this far by keeping his head down and not talking to anyone. The media has given him the usual promises about “protecting his identity” and “being on his side.” But what they haven’t given him is what’s in my leather case.

  “Go on.”

  Paolo opens it. His eyes widen when he sees what’s inside.

  “Take it,” I tell him. “It’s yours.”

  He reaches in and pulls out the modest stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills bound with a paper wrapper.

  “That’s twenty-five grand,” I say. “Consider it good faith money.”

  Paolo looks at the stack in his hand, feeling the weight of it. “You said half a million, Mr. Lawyer.”

  “What part of good faith don’t you get? You point me in the direction of Ms. Ryerson’s body, and the next time you’ll need a bag to carry all of your money away. Unless you prefer a check?”

  “No, cash is good.”

  Of course it’s good. Money is an abstract thing until the moment it’s sitting in your hand.

  “So we have a deal, Paolo?”

  Finally, the spell of the greenbacks dissipates. Paolo looks at me as if he’s still trying to figure me out.

  “You can’t be a cop, because giving me this money would be entrapment or something like that, right?”

  I squelch my inner lawyer, who wants to shout, You idiot, that’s not how it works! But I’m here to find the truth—not give this playboy free legal advice.

  “You know how little cops make in a year? They aren’t usually in the habit of bribing their way to a murder confession, Paolo.”

  “I’m not confessing to anything,” he says, suddenly defensive.

  “I told you, all I want to buy is some information. Do you have anything you want to share right now?”

  “I know what good faith means, Mr. Lawyer Man. It means you have to give me some time to think it over.”

  This is wonderful. I can practically see him doing the mental calculations as he speaks.

  “You’re absolutely right, Paolo.” I hand him a fake business card (eggshell, Romalian type) with a real cell phone number on it. “Call me when you’re ready. But my client would like closure as quickly as possible.”

  Again, Paolo looks down at the stack of cash in his hand, already lost in his plans for the next few hours. “Yeah, I get it.”

  And so do I. A few minutes later I’m calling Quinn in Boston. “I’m really liking Paolo for this.”

  “That’s promising to hear. But can you prove it?”

  “It’s only a matter of time, my friend.”

  “Then…have at it.”

  “Of course, but what do you think? You suspected him all along, right?”

  “I think you should go with your gut, and I’ll go with mine.”

  I’ve known Quinn for two decades now and he hasn’t gotten any easier to read.

  Chapter 5

  JANA (THE ACTOR)

  Oh, my dear Matthew.

  You send other Stingrays to the sunny tropics, yet somehow I end up here, in snowy New Hampshire. Sometimes I think you have it in for me.

  (Or is it that you wanted to keep me close at hand?)

  Even worse: I’m at an elite New England prep school. I didn’t much enjoy school back when I was required to attend, and I’m certainly not in the mood to be here now.

  But the two young ladies who invited Paige Ryerson to spring break have returned to St. Paul’s Pr
ep, home to the high-school-age children of the international elite. Hannah and Brooke Clee have resumed their classes and are presumably showing off their tans and resuming their ordinary lives.

  Unlike Paige Ryerson.

  Today I’m playing the role of a midlevel federal agent pulling down $68,933 a year, so I have to dress the part. I want the Clee girls to feel superior to me but also fear me, because I could be one of those idealistic, low-paid FBI agents who can’t be bought. All of which means I have to pull a slightly hideous pantsuit out of my wardrobe—one I last wore in an off-Broadway production of Catch Me If You Can.

  The things I do for this team!

  After the usual bureaucratic nonsense (ID checks, phone calls), I make my way to the dorms, where I’m told the girls will be studying. The Clee girls share a room in Brewster, a girls’ dormitory known for the rooster perched over the entrance. This fowl theme is carried into the hallways, where each door is marked with paper roosters—made from the handprints of the students—that are adorned with the names of the residents. It doesn’t take long to find Hannah and Brooke’s door birds.

  I knock, but there is no reply.

  So much for studying, eh?

  Five minutes later, I find the Clee girls perched on a short stone wall behind their dormitory, smoking pungent clove cigarettes that they quickly begin to hide when I approach.

  “Feel free to keep them out, ladies,” I tell them. “I’m not ATF.”

  One of the twins, whom I recognize as Brooke from her many social media accounts, smiles at me.

  “You want one?” she says, offering up a square, elegant package of some hipster brand. Brooke Clee is shorter and stockier than her sister, and she’s far more social, based on her thousands of followers, friends, and fans. She is fond of late-night confessions and revealing selfies.

  Hannah, meanwhile, eyes me warily. She holds up her cell phone like it’s a stun gun. “So where are you from? Who let you onto school grounds?”

  I tell them my fake name, show them my fake credentials. “The Bureau sent me here for some follow-up questions. We’re all very concerned about Paige, and would like to find her as quickly as possible.”

  “We spent hours with you guys already,” Brooke says. “What more is there to ask?”

  “You should be going through our father’s attorney,” Hannah adds.

  “Relax, ladies,” I say. “This isn’t formal. I came up here to get a better sense of Paige’s school life. Who her friends are, the kinds of things she enjoys…”

  Brooke loosens up, but it’s clear her sister isn’t having any of this. “You should be down on the island looking for her, not up here,” Hannah says. “I’d still be down there if my father didn’t insist I return for classes.”

  “And where would you be looking?”

  Brooke leans forward, wispy smoke curling out of her petite nostrils. “Think about it. She didn’t fly home, and she didn’t walk. The only other way off that island is by boat.”

  Hannah turns to shush her sister, but Brooke flashes eye daggers in return. “What? Are we supposed to protect that trust fund jerk? For what?”

  “Does this jerk have a name?” I ask.

  “Brooke, stop being a moron. This is what they do—ask the same questions over and over again and hope you say something different. I’m calling Daddy’s lawyer.”

  Of course we know the trust fund jerk’s name already. And, my dear Matthew, I know you didn’t send me here to squeeze information out of these two. You sent me trekking up here in the cold snow to push their buttons and see what happens.

  So I push.

  “Before you call your father’s attorney,” I say, “you guys should know something.”

  Hannah’s eyes narrow. “What’s that?”

  “We’re fairly certain Paige is dead. And there’s been a huge reward offered for closure on the case.”

  The look on their entitled little faces tells me that indeed I’ve pushed the right buttons.

  “How…” Brooke stammers. “How can you say that?”

  Chapter 6

  JANA (continued)

  Now here’s where I get to turn my “friendly FBI agent” persona into something more sinister. It’s not as much fun playing the good girl, the straight woman, the high-cheekboned representative of law and order.

  I much prefer the role of the woman who wears a professional face for all the world to see…until the mask slips slightly, and what’s underneath is someone you’d never want to meet.

  “The only way she left that island on a boat,” I tell them, “is if someone wrapped her body in a tarp and gave her a burial at sea. No…I think she’s buried in the sand somewhere. Close your eyes and picture it, ladies. Your best friend, at the bottom of some dank hole, while somebody shovels sand over her body. Her arms. Her legs. Her face. Until there’s no trace of her.”

  “Stop saying she’s dead!” Brooke cries.

  But I’m more interested in Hannah’s reaction to my little rant. She’s not a bad actor herself, and she looks like she’s trying really hard to keep a firm grip on the wild thoughts running through her mind.

  “Fine,” I say. “Maybe she’s not dead. Maybe she’s alive and well. Maybe you two know her disappearance is a hoax. Maybe you’re even in on it. Maybe the whole trip to the island was just a convenient way to help your friend disappear.”

  And then there it is…the tell.

  You know how when you cut yourself deeply there’s a thrill of panic throughout your body, even before the pain begins or the first drop of blood is spilled?

  I see that thrill on their faces now. They know something. They quickly recover and do their best to hide it from me, but it’s too late.

  So I build on it.

  “Closure will happen, ladies. When the reward is large enough, nothing is kept secret for long. So I’d like you to think about that. For all I know, your time is already up.”

  Hannah now holds the phone to her ear. “You’re not FBI. I’m calling campus security.”

  Chapter 7

  SECURITY

  The guard appears within seconds—which is what they’re paid to do. When you have a campus full of the offspring of the world’s elite, you’d better be sure that your security is top-notch and ready for action at a millisecond’s notice.

  Hannah and Brooke Clee relax the moment they see the familiar uniform round the corner of the dormitory. To most students, the guards here at St. Paul’s are like glorified babysitters with badges whom you can easily bribe to do your bidding. Did your car break down when you’re trying to sneak beer on campus? Heck, they’ll have it towed to a garage and store the cans in your minifridge for you. The guards aren’t here to tell the students what to do; they’re here to keep the scumbags out.

  Like this fake scumbag FBI agent, who Hannah probably assumes is just another tabloid reporter looking for a scoop. Absolutely shameless.

  “My daddy is going to destroy you,” she hisses at Jana. “There won’t be anything of you left.”

  Jana Rose, meanwhile, says nothing. She simply slips the bland professional mask back over her face as the burly guard approaches.

  “You’re going to have to come with me, ma’am,” the guard says.

  Jana blinks. “Ma’am? Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

  “Please, you’re not welcome here.”

  “Clearly,” Jana says. Then, to the girls: “This isn’t over. You’ll be seeing me again very soon.”

  “No,” Hannah says, with the certainty of an umpire calling a strike, “we won’t.”

  Jana doesn’t reply. Instead she allows the guard to guide her by the arm back around the dormitory building. Once they’re out of eyesight and earshot, Jana and the guard relax.

  “They definitely know something,” Jana says. “I could see it on their faces.”

  The guard, who is actually Otto Hazard dressed in a stolen uniform, shakes his head and smiles. “You think everybody knows something. You’re suspic
ious of the whole damn world.”

  “That’s because almost everyone is guilty of something,” Jana says.

  “Oh yeah? What am I guilty of?”

  “Calling me ma’am.”

  “To these kids, we all look ancient.”

  “Maybe you do. My lifestyle choices ensure that I will always look younger than the age that can be ascertained from my birth certificate.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why mine is forged,” Otto says, as he leads her back past the entrance of Brewster. “Anyway, what makes you so certain the Clee girls are hiding something?”

  “I floated all possibilities by them, one by one, to see which would strike a nerve. They were good actresses when it came to Paige’s possible death. They were shaken a bit when I told them about the huge reward offered for information about their friend, explaining that it would drive out the truth soon enough. But the mention of the possibility of a conspiracy—one that would point a finger directly at them? Well, that pushed the Clee girls right over the edge. So much so that they called you.”

  “Speaking of, I need to dump this uniform somewhere.”

  “Not yet,” Jana says, stopping in her tracks and forcing Otto to stop, too. “I want to push one more button.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You stole a pair of keys along with that uniform, right?”

  Chapter 8

  JANA (THE ACTOR)

  Oh, the look on their faces, my dear Matthew.

  I’m not sure what shocked them more—the fact that I was sitting in their dorm room, their precious inner sanctum, or that a campus security guard was lounging on Hannah’s bed, feet up, lazily thumbing through a copy of Vogue.

  “You…” Hannah shouts, as if she’s about to have a seizure, “you can’t be in here!”

  Poor Brooke, meanwhile, has turned as pale as nonfat milk. She stands behind her sister, hoping that her sibling’s sheer rage will act as a force field.