Rolling Thunder (John Ceepak Mystery) Read online

  “T.J. and his buddies are coming here tomorrow morning,” says Ceepak. “A farewell to Sea Haven party. Rita’s organizing it. I hope we don’t have to miss the entire affair. I imagine we will be rather busy.”

  Hi diddly dee. The cop’s life for me. Duty calls, the family suffers.

  Ceepak’s stepson will be shipping off to Annapolis in a couple of weeks to start what they call “Plebe Summer.” Apparently, it’s the naval academy’s version of boot camp. T.J. will not get to see any family or have any liberty or shore leave (or whatever they call hanging out with your buddies) until Plebe Parents’ Weekend in August.

  “Is Dave Tranotti gonna be at the big send-off?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Cool.”

  Tranotti is a little older than T.J. and is already a midshipman at Canoe U., which is what some people call the naval academy. Tranotti, another local, is the one who put the bug in T.J.’s ear about applying for an appointment to Annapolis. Some guys grow up this close to the ocean, they want to play with boats for the rest of their lives. BIG boats.

  Ceepak taps his top shirt pocket. “I need to pay for the boys.” He pulls out a folded-over check to make sure it’s there, stuffs it back in.

  Skippy comes out of the office pyramid in a windbreaker that covers the top half of his pleated Egyptian chariot driver skirt. I see the Pharaoh hat stuffed in the pocket.

  “Thanks for coming over, you guys,” he says, sounding kind of nervous. “I have a fifteen-minute break. Maybe we could talk across the street? One of those benches?”

  He points to the Pig’s Commitment, a restaurant where pork and pancakes are the main attractions. There are a couple of benches out front for people waiting for tables during the morning rush. It’s six P.M., so they’re empty.

  That means I get to see Mrs. Starky’s horse-tooth smile again.

  There’s an ad for All-A-Shore Realty on the back of the bench.

  “Uh, Mr. O’Malley?” someone calls behind us.

  It’s a guy in green coveralls holding a Weed Whacker.

  “What is it, Fred?”

  Fred lifts the Weed Whacker a little higher. “I ran out of gas.”

  “Then refill it.”

  “Okay.” We can see Fred thinking. It appears to be hard work. “Should I, like, go down to the gas station?”

  Skippy gives us a perturbed “do-you-see-what-I-have-to-work-with” sigh.

  “There’s a gas can in the shed!” He gestures toward another pyramid, about fifteen feet tall, situated behind some fake palm trees on the far side of the bright blue River Nile snaking through the course. I see there are two handles on the front of the triangular structure. Clever. A hidden tool shed.

  “Okay. Thanks, boss. When I refill the gas, should I keep whacking the weeds?”

  “Yes—but only in the parking lot and around the fences. Not where people are playing!”

  “You got it, Skipper!”

  Fred salutes and bops off to gas up.

  Skipper shakes his head. Sighs again. We go across the street.

  “I found this when I was taking out the trash this morning. I try to pull out any recyclable paper. My dad just stuffs everything into one big can.”

  He shows us a sheet of paper with something printed on it. It’s stained brown and dripping at the bottom.

  “Sorry,” says Skip. “Dad wadded it up and crammed it into an almost empty cup of coffee.”

  Ceepak reaches into his cargo pants pockets, pulls out a pair of forceps so he can examine what appears to be a digital photo printout.

  It’s a picture of Skippy’s father, his arm draped around Gail Baker’s bikini’d waist at the Rusty Scupper. I recognize the red-and-white-checked tablecloths in the background. He’s holding a bottle of beer. She’s got her waitress pad. Both Gail and Mr. O’Malley are laughing, like they just shared a joke with whoever is behind the camera.

  “He was trying to get rid of it,” says Skippy. “When I heard Gail had been killed …” He chokes up for second. “Twice in one week. The bastard …”

  “Come again?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ceepak takes a small paper bag out of the below-the-knee pocket on the left leg of his cargo pants. Slips the crinkled picture into the evidence bag.

  “Is this your only evidence of a relationship between your father and Ms. Baker?”

  “Yeah. I mean, so far. I could, you know, look around. Check his phone records.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” says Ceepak. “And thank you for bringing this evidence to our attention.”

  “Is my father a suspect in Gail’s murder, now?”

  “He will be on our radar.”

  “You guys might want to talk to Aunt Frances. My mom’s sister. Frances Ryan. She’s still in town. I bet she’d know if my mom thought Dad was cheating on her with Gail or some other girl. They talked about everything.”

  I remember Aunt Frances from the funeral, snapping at the white-haired woman in the pew behind her, “She was our sister before she was his goddamn wife!”

  Why do I have a feeling that Aunt Frances thinks about as much of Paddy O’Malley as Mrs. Starky thinks of me?

  “Do you know where she is staying?” asks Ceepak.

  “Over at the Atkinsons’ motel. The Mussel Beach.”

  “And she’ll be there tomorrow?”

  Skip nods. “Yeah. All day. I’m taking her up to Newark Airport first thing Sunday morning.”

  “Thank you, Skip.”

  “I guess I still have a little detective in me.”

  “Indeed,” says Ceepak. “I’m just sorry that your private investigation has, perhaps, exposed some ugly truths about your family.”

  “That’s okay. My dad and I aren’t that close. But I guess you know what that’s like.”

  Ceepak gives Skip one of his confused-bird looks. His big jarhead tilts ever so slightly to the right. He does this when somebody says something he wasn’t expecting—or something extremely rude.

  “Well, I better get back to work,” says Skippy.

  “Us, too,” says Ceepak.

  “Right. Okay. Thanks for swinging by.”

  “Thanks for sharing your evidence with us.”

  Skippy thrusts out his hand. Ceepak takes it. Gives it a good shake.

  Skippy beams.

  Man—he so wants to prove to us that he could be a good cop. Well, he wants to prove it to Ceepak. I’m just always standing next to the big man in blue.

  “Oh, one more thing, Skip,” says Ceepak, reaching into his shirt pocket, pulling out that folded-over check. “My stepson and his friends will be visiting your golf course tomorrow morning. I believe they will be a party of six.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” says Skippy. “It’s on the house.”

  “No. I insist on paying.”

  “And I insist on not taking your money.”

  “Skippy?”

  “Sir?”

  “I believe the Chiefs of Police Code of Ethics says it best: ‘I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and … never accepting gratuities.’”

  Skippy nods.

  “It’s forty-eight bucks for six of them,” he says, sounding like one of the nuns back in grade school just read him the riot act, only this time it was Sister Ceepak.

  Ceepak writes him a check. Skippy takes it, heads back to his pyramid to hand kids their balls. Sorry. Whenever I think about Skippy’s job, I can’t not go there.

  The radios squeal on our belts.

  “Unit A-twelve? Unit A-twelve?

  “I got it,” I say, grabbing my mobile unit off my belt. “This is Officer Boyle.”

  “Be advised, Lieutenant William Botzong, the acting unit supervisor of the MCU detectives, would like to talk to youse two.”

  Our new dispatcher. Dorian Rence. She tries to talk like an episode of Law and Order, but every now and then, a Joiseyis
m slips in.

  “Be best to field the call on a land line,” says Ceepak.

  “We’ll head back to the house,” I say into my radio and get a head nod from Ceepak for saying the right thing. “We can be there in five.”

  “Ten–four,” says Dorian. “I will advise Detective Botzong as to your disposition and whereabouts.”

  “Thanks.” I clip the radio back to my belt.

  “Let’s roll,” says Ceepak. “Sounds like Detective Botzong has new information to share.”

  Yeah. With “us twose.”

  18

  “I’M GOING THROUGH THE CALL DATA NOW,” SAYS DENISE Diego when Ceepak and I hit the house. “Should have something to show you guys in ten, twenty minutes.”

  She’s at the vending machine. Refilling her Doritos stash. Fueling up on Red Bull.

  “Thanks,” says Ceepak. “Would you like a soft drink, Danny?”

  “Sure.”

  We grab a couple of cold Cokes.

  “So what do you think of Skippy’s evidence?” I ask.

  “Extremely circumstantial,” says Ceepak. “I would imagine that many of the male patrons of The Rusty Scupper have asked Ms. Baker to pose with them. I am given to understand that the same sort of snapshots are often taken at Hooters.”

  True. I have two of those and one of Gail. I keep them hidden in a shoebox up in my closet.

  “Skippy used to date Gail,” I say.

  “Indeed. I recall he was quite infatuated with her.”

  Yeah. That’s who he was gabbing with when he was a summer cop and Ceepak yanked the phone out of his ear.

  “So, why does he want us to think his father was having an affair with Gail Baker?” I ask.

  “Because he and his father have ‘issues.’ I fear he is attempting to take advantage of Ms. Baker’s death for his own purposes.”

  Wow. Not cool, Skip. Not cool.

  I follow Ceepak into the dispatcher room where Mrs. Rence sits at a wraparound desk cluttered with computer monitors, punch-button consoles, and three-ring binders filled with police codes and emergency protocols.

  “Welcome back, boys,” she says when she sees us. “Detective Botzong will call at eighteen fifteen hours.”

  I smile. Mrs. Rence, who is what they call an empty nester, took this civilian job when her last kid shipped off to college. She’s only been with us a couple of months but has already learned how to use the military time clock. I think Ceepak gave her lessons.

  “Shall I put the call in the conference room when it comes through?” she asks.

  “Roger that,” says Ceepak. “And Dorian?”

  “Yes, John?”

  “We call it the interview room.”

  “Really?”

  “Ten–four.”

  “Sorry. Too many years working for the electric company.”

  “It’s all good,” says Ceepak.

  Mrs. Rence (we all call her that because, well, she looks like someone’s mom) opens a little wire-bound notebook. Jots down “Interview Room” under a list of other terms: Dee Wee (driving while intoxicated), the house (the stationhouse, where we are now), Loo (slang for “Lieutenant” that cops actually like).

  “Dorian,” says Ceepak, “do you know how we can get in touch with Sergeant Dominic Santucci?”

  “He clocked out at fifteen hundred hours,” she reports. “He’ll probably be working his side job tonight.”

  Side job? I thought he was going home to catch the Yankees.

  Mrs. Rence flips through a purple binder where she has everything organized inside plastic flaps. I think she might be a scrapbooker on weekends.

  “Here’s his card. ‘Italian Stallion Security.’ This business number here is really just his cell phone.”

  Ceepak jots the number down.

  “Thank you, Dorian. And thank you for not only learning your job so quickly but for doing it so well.”

  “You trying to butter me up so I’ll bring in another loaf of pumpkin bread?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She laughs. “I’ve got work to do here. So ten-whatever, youse two.”

  We set up shop in the interview room, which is really just a room with a long table, a one-way mirror, a couple of chairs and a speakerphone. It’s also where we store the Christmas lights in the off-season, which, in certain parts of New Jersey, means you take ’em down at Easter, put ’em back up after Halloween.

  The phone burps. Ceepak punches the speaker button.

  “This is Ceepak.”

  “I have Detective Botzong for you. Please hold.”

  We do. We sit and stare at the phone like it’s a dog we expect to roll over or something.

  “Ceepak?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bill Botzong. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “No problem.”

  “We have a lot to talk about. My team’s moving fast. You guys pick up anything at your end?”

  “We’ve talked to the few neighbors currently in residence on Tangerine Street.”

  “And?”

  “All we have so far is a dog barking at three A.M.”

  “Could coincide with the body dump,” says Botzong. “The M.E.’s initial time-of-death estimate is one A.M. Friday. Our guy kills Ms. Baker, cuts her up, stuffs her into the suitcases, goes looking for a spot to drop the bags. He picks, for whatever reason, Tangerine Street. Gets there about three in the morning. The dog hears the pickup truck—”

  “Your sure it was a pickup?”

  “Carolyn Miller is. Probably a Dodge Ram, she says. See, a guy working a rake, he has to stop raking at some point. This guy, he did it all the way back to the running board on the side of his truck, or so we suppose. Carolyn found tire tracks in the sandy edge of the street where he couldn’t rake because he was too busy driving away.”

  “Do you have a model number?”

  “BFGoodrich G-Force T/A KDW 205/50ZR 15s. They got this unidirectional racing stripe–style tread design and an increased interior groove offset for snow and sand traction.”

  Wow. Ms. Miller is good.

  “Any of Ms. Baker’s known acquaintances pickup truck jockeys?”

  “Negative,” says Ceepak. “So far, we have talked to Dr. Marvin Hausler, a local dentist, who had been overheard on several occasions making derogatory remarks about Ms. Baker. He and she had been romantically involved for a brief period of time. The dentist, while harboring deep-seated resentment toward the victim, has an alibi.”

  “You buy it?”

  “Yes. It is a rather embarrassing admission, one I do not think he would offer were it not true. He told us he was with a hired call girl from an escort service on Thursday night into Friday morning.”

  “Yeah,” says Botzong. “They don’t usually go with that one unless it’s true.”

  “We have some other leads,” I toss in, just because I feel like we’re letting the team down. They’ve got a time-of-death estimate and Carolyn Miller on the tires; we’ve got nothing except a yippy dog, a disgruntled dentist who drills hookers for free, and a digital cheesecake photo of Mr. O’Malley posing with Gail “Bikini Babe” Baker.

  “We are also attempting to contact Officer Santucci, one of the initial responders to the crime scene,” says Ceepak. “He is currently off the clock. We’ll talk to him about the missing T-shirt.”

  “Good,” says Botzong. “But it may not have been in the bag when he went rummaging through it searching for ID. Analysis of her jeans and undergarments suggest Ms. Baker was naked when she was dismembered. The bloodstains on the fabric are passive transfers. Pool pattern. The clothes were most likely placed into the suitcases on top of the severed limbs. They soaked up blood like a sponge would.”

  “They were not spattered?”

  “Correct. Therefore, the clothes were not present during the dismemberment process, which …”

  There’s a pause as Detective Botzong shuffles through some papers.

  “… was most likely done with a Lenox
twelve-inch, thirty-two-teeth-per-inch, bi-metal hacksaw blade with their Tuff Tooth design. Virtually unbreakable. A ten-pack costs fifteen dollars and twenty cents at Home Depot.”

  “So,” says Ceepak, “the missing T-shirt may still be at the scene of the crime.”

  “Right. Or in the doer’s memory box. He might be one of these psycho souvenir takers.”

  Ceepak and I give each other a quick glance. We’ve dealt with one of those before; he was playing Whack A Mole up and down the island with buried body parts.

  “We’re also talking to Continental Airlines,” says Botzong.”

  “About the partial baggage tags?” asks Ceepak.

  “You saw those, huh?”

  “Yes. During our initial survey of the crime scene.”

  “You’re good, Ceepak. Anyway, we have half a bar code and half a number. Not much to work with, but the airline’s seeing what they can dig out of their computers.”

  That might be our lucky break. The tags could tell us whose suitcases we’re dealing with. We know they’re not brand-new; somebody used them on a trip. Most likely, our killer checked them on a Continental flight because you only have suitcases with remnants of baggage stickers if the bags belong to you.

  “Cause of death?” asks Ceepak.

  “Blunt force impact. Somebody clobbered her in the back of her head repeatedly. Something hard and small. Maybe a hammer.”

  I sip my Coke. Hope it will settle my stomach.

  “There’s some good news,” says Botzong. “Dr. Kurth assures us Ms. Baker was not sexually molested.”

  Ceepak nods. “Good to know. Any trace of the killer on her body?”

  “Nothing. No hair, no lint, no prints. I’m thinking he was wearing Saran Wrap. Knew what he was doing. However, we did find some interesting evidence in Miss Baker’s hair and under her nails.”

  Ceepak flips over a page in his notebook. “Go on.”

  “Shampoo and soap. My team tells me the shampoo is Johnson’s No More Tears No More Tangles Plus Conditioner for Straight Hair.”

  The whole name goes into Ceepak’s book.

  “Doesn’t help us much,” says Botzong. “They sell the stuff everywhere. Likewise with the soap. Irish Spring Original, what they call their Ulster Fragrance.”