Whack A Mole: A John Ceepak Mystery (The John Ceepak Mysteries)
PRAISE FOR CHRIS GRABENSTEIN
“Chris Grabenstein's Tilt-a-Whirl is a fast-paced thrill ride with lots of twists and turns and good writing from start to finish!”
—James Patterson
“From page one, this debut stands out as refreshingly different … an absolute triumph.”
—Booklist on Tilt-A-Whirl (starred review)
“A first-rate whodunit. The action comes out of the gate like a shot and doesn't stop until it hits the surprising finish. A wonderfully written mix of mirth, murder, and mendacity.”
—Grace Edwards on Tilt-A-Whirl
“Chris Grabenstein has written a wild ride. It's by turns fun, funny, and scary. The man can write.”
—Ted Bell on Tilt-A-Whirl
“Likable good guys, plausible bad guys, a sensible plot and a supple prose style that moves from breezy to poignant.”
—Kirkus on Mad Mouse (starred review)
“Mad Mouse is a wild zinger of a ride, with characters so vivid they practically splash the pages with Technicolor. Climb aboard!”
—Tess Gerritsen
“Grabenstein is a terrific writer and you can't afford to miss this great new series from a great talent.”
—Crimespree Magazine on Mad Mouse
“[A] worthy sequel… . quick, sharp, and funny.”
—Library Journal on Mad Mouse
“Mad Mouse moves briskly, slowing down occasionally to allow readers to catch their breath before speeding up again with heart-stopping action. We hope there's an endless supply of amusement rides that Grabenstein can draw on for his titles.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“With Mad Mouse Grabenstein has repeated the artistic success of Tilt-A-Whirl while simultaneously raising expectations for his future work—expectations that no doubt will not only be met but exceeded.”
—Bookreporter.com
CHRIS GRABENSTEIN
Chris Grabenstein
P.O. Box 192
New York, NY 10024
Copyright © 2006 by Chris Grabenstein
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.
“The Promised Land” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1978 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Downbound Train” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1984 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Darkness on the Edge of Town” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1978 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1975 Bruce Springsteen, renewed © 2003 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. •“Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1984 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Tunnel of Love” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1987 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Streets of Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1978 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Prove It All Night” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1978 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. • “Badlands” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1978 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0-78671-818-4
ISBN-10: 0-7867-1818-8
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by: Kimberly A. Hitchens, hitch@booknook.biz
For Buster and Fred.
One man's best four-legged writing partners.
The dogs on Main Street howl
'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land
—Bruce Springsteen
“The Promised Land”
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BONUS CHAPTER: ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
I've never been what you might call an “overachiever” but at age twenty-five I've already done the worst thing any human being can possibly do.
John Ceepak, my partner, tells me I should let it all out. Get it off my chest. Make what the priests used to call a full and complete confession.
Fine.
I'll do like Ceepak suggests.
It all starts with this stupid ring he found.
CHAPTER TWO
Last Sunday. Six fifty-five A.M. Bruce Springsteen is on the radio reciting my most recent résumé: “I had a job, I had a girl, I had something going, mister, in this world….”
I'm sitting in The Bagel Lagoon waiting for Ceepak. He lives here. Not in the restaurant with the bagels—upstairs in the apartment on the second floor.
“She said Joe, I gotta go, we had it once, we ain't got it any more. She packed her bags, left me behind….”
The Boss is laying it on thicker than a slab of walnut cream cheese. Says he feels like he's “a rider on a down-bound train.”
I can relate.
Katie's gone.
She said, “Danny, I gotta go.” Okay, it doesn't rhyme as good
as it might've if my name was Joe like the guy in Bruce's song. Katie, my ex-girlfriend, moved to California. Grad school. Left town in March.
I hope California is as nice as Sea Haven—this eighteen-mile-long strip of sand-in-your-shoes paradise down the Jersey Shore. I hope it has boardwalks and miniature golf and fresh-cut fries and a fudge forecast that's always smooth and creamy like it has been at Pudgy's Fudgery for the past seventy-five years, at least according to the sign flapping out on their sidewalk near the Quick Pick Fudge Cart.
On the radio, Bruce is done singing the blues.
Me, too.
At exactly seven A.M. every Sunday, the Reverend Billy Trumble shoves all rock ‘n’ roll off the air. He's been doing seven A.M. Sundays on WAVY for nearly thirty years.
“Friends, do you think it is early?” his smooth voice purrs. “Trust me—it is later than you think. Judgment Day is nigh….”
“Turn it off,” hollers Joe Coglianese from the back of the shop. He and his brother Jim run The Bagel Lagoon. Joe's in charge of stirring the pot where the bagels bob in boiling water. Jim mans the counter. It's the middle of July and already 80 degrees outside. It feels hotter if you factor in the humidity, plus the steam rising up from that humongous bagel vat. No wonder Joe is the grouchier of the two Coglianese brothers.
Jim snaps off the radio.
I tear another bite out of my bagel.
Ceepak should be joining me any minute. We're both cops with the Sea Haven P.D. and, even though it's our day off, today we are men on a mission.
Ceepak, who's like this 6 '2", thirty-six-year-old Eagle-Scout-slash-Jarhead, found something he thinks is valuable buried on the beach while he was sweeping the sand with his metal detector.
This is what Ceepak does for fun when there are no Forensic Files or CSI reruns on TV. He's even in this club: The Sea Haven Treasure Hunter Society. It's mostly geeks and geezers, guys who strap on headphones and walk the beach like the minesweeper soldier in every bag of green plastic Army men—who, come to think of it, are now chocolate-chip-camo-brown because they've been to Iraq and back, just like Ceepak. They hunt for Spanish doubloons, abandoned Rolexes, rusty subway tokens, discarded paper clips—anything that makes their detectors go beepity-beep.
Anyway, a week ago, Ceepak dug up a ring from P. J. Johnson High School up in Edison. Class of 1983. Inside the ring he found an inscription: B. Kladko. Ceepak being Ceepak, he investigated further and came up with a Brian Kladko who, indeed, graduated from PJJHS in 1983 and still lives somewhere nearby. We're going up there today to take his class ring back to him.
After Katie split, I fill my weekends as best I can.
While I wait, I check out the early-morning crowd. It's mostly tourists from New York and Philadelphia, making them experts on both bagels and cream cheese. They swarm into The Lagoon ordering their favorite combos, forgetting they came down here to try new stuff, like Jersey blueberries or Taylor Pork Roll.
The door opens and all of a sudden it's like somebody walked in with a load of last week's lox in their shorts. A lot of noses suddenly crinkle, mine included. Phew.
“Something's fishy around here,” says the big guy who's just come in. “Look no further. It's me!”
“Me” being Cap'n Pete Mullen. He runs one of the deep-sea fishing boats over by the public marina, and he's been taking tourists out after tuna and fluke for so long his clothes all smell like they've been washed with Low Tide-Scented Tide.
“Whataya need, Pete?” asks Jim, the bagel brother behind the counter.
“Baker's dozen. Got a charter going out this morning.”
Cap'n Pete has a walrus mustache that wiggles like a worm on a hook. He grins at a kid who's staring at him, watching the lip hair twitch. “I'm Cap'n Pete, laddie. But you can call me Stinky. Stinky Pete.”
The boy laughs. So do his folks.
“You run a fishing boat?” asks the dad.
“Sure do.”
Pete is good. He comes in to buy breakfast and ends up hooking and booking more clients. I'm sure before their week in Sea Haven is over this fine family of four will be strapping on life vests and heading out to sea on the Reel Fun—Cap'n Pete's forty-seven-foot Sportfish.
Jim scoops up an assortment of bagels from the bins and hands the bag to Cap'n Pete.
“Well, I best be shoving off.” He chops a salute off the brim of his admiral's cap to the little kid. He sort of looks like the Skipper from Gilligan's Island.
Now he shoots me a wave.
Grins.
“Hey, Danny—have Johnny give me a holler. I missed the last meeting.”
I'm in midchew so I nod and wave. To hear Ceepak tell it, Pete is the unluckiest of all his treasure-hunting buddies. The guy's never found anything under the sand, although occasionally he manages to reel in an interesting boot or tire on his fishing lines.
I chomp off another bite of bagel and eyeball the couple that just stormed in. Studying people is a habit I've picked up working with Ceepak. He's always sizing folks up, trying to decipher their real story, the one they're trying to hide.
The fiftysomething guy is wearing what I call preppy nautical: untucked polo shirt, khaki slacks, Docksiders without socks.
His slightly younger wife has on a wide-brimmed straw hat anchored with a scarf strapped tight under her chin. Her coffee can-size sunglasses make her look like she has gigantic ant eyes. I figure she's trying to hide from the world. She also seems to be having trouble with the menu. Keeps staring up at the chalkboard, where things aren't all that complicated. The Bagel Lagoon? Basically, it's about bagels.
“Honey?” The husband is hoping to nudge his wife toward a decision.
“Do you have toast?” she asks.
“No,” says Jim. “Bagels.”
“Eggs?”
“She'll have a raisin bagel,” says the husband.
“I don't like raisins.”
“Fine. Make it a plain.”
“I don't like plain, either.”
“Well what do you like?”
Obviously, these folks came down the shore to put a little sizzle back in their marriage. I'm glad things are working out so well for them.
“If you paid more attention, you'd know what I like!” The wife steps closer to the counter, farther away from her husband.
“I'll have a poppy,” she finally says.
“Anything on it?” asks Jim.
Her eyes go back to the menu board. There are six different kinds of cream cheese and four kinds of butter, if you include peanut. This could go on for hours.
I turn and stare out the window.
Well, well, well.
Here comes Rita. Down the side-of-the-building staircase from Ceepak's apartment.
Over the past year, my partner has struck up a romance with a lovely local lady named Rita Lapczynski. She's a single mom, about thirty-five, who has this huge swoop of blonde hair, which, if my detective's instincts do not deceive me, currently features a pillow dent on the left.
Interesting.
Rita comes into the bagelry.
“Morning, Jim.”
“Rita! How you doin’?”
“Yo, Rita!” Joe in the back gives her a big wave of the wooden paddle.
“The usual?” asks Jim.
“Yes, thank you.”
“One Salty with a schmear. Coffee light.”
“Excuse me. My wife was next,” says the preppy husband.
“I'm sorry,” says Rita.
“Honey?” says the husband. His voice sounds patient. His eyes, however, are in a hurry. “We are on a schedule….”
“Do not rush me, Theodore!”
Jim goes ahead and fixes Rita her bagel.
Rita is humming to herself. A little smile crosses her face. I guess she spent the night upstairs because her son T. J. is on vacation—up in New York City, staying with an aunt who lives out in Queens. In fact, I know Ceepak paid for the bus tickets. My partner's running a reverse version of The Fresh Air Fund�
��sending a shore kid up to the polluted city.
Jim takes Rita's cash, keys the register, and hands her back her change, which she drops into the tip cup. Rita waitresses over at Morgan's Surf and Turf. Those who live by tips are always the best tippers.
Finally, she sees me.
“Hey, Danny.”
“Hey, Rita. How's it goin’?”
“Fantastic. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures up in Edison.”
“Okay.”
“Take care now. Have a great day!”
“Sure.”
I watch her head toward her car. Then I count to five.
Right on cue, Ceepak comes through the door. So that's how it works: she slips out first, he sneaks down a minute later. Clever.
Now an important thing to know about John Ceepak is that he lives by this very strict, very rigid moral code. It's easier to explain than to follow. Ceepak will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do. It's a holdover from his fourteen years in the Army. The West Point Honor Code. This morning, I plan to use it against him. Big time.
The wife in the insectoid sunglasses decides she doesn't really want anything for breakfast—except maybe a new husband—and hurries out the door fumbling with a pack of cigarettes. Hubby follows.
“Good morning, Danny,” Ceepak now greets me. He's as bright and chipper as usual. The dimples in his cheeks seem a little more animated this morning, but his hair reveals no pillow wrinkles. Then again, his buzz cut is way too short to dent.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asks.
I smirk. “Long enough.”
“You had breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome.”
Here comes the fun part. “So—did Rita spend the night?”
“Yes.”
I act amazed.
“Really?”
“Yes. Ready to roll?” Ceepak's still smiling. No guilt. No shame. No bullshit or cover-up. Just the simple, unvarnished truth.
Apparently, it really does set one free.
Two hours later we're at the food court of the Menlo Park Mall outside Edison, New Jersey. We're sitting in plastic chairs at a table near the Cinnabon counter. The scent of warm dough and cinnamon swirls through the air like invisible frosting—it smells even better than sticking your face inside a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. Trust me. I know. I've done this.