Rolling Thunder (John Ceepak Mystery) Page 15

  I’m on my cell phone. Marny’s still in the bathroom. I hear the shower running.

  “Thanks,” I say. “She’s extremely creeped out by Santucci and, well, other cops.”

  “To be expected.”

  “But, we knew each other in high school … so she …”

  “As I stated Danny, you made a very prudent decision. FYI, Chief Baines will soon request that Officer Santucci resign his position with the force. If he refuses, the chief will file the necessary paperwork to initiate the termination process.”

  “Cool. So, what should I do with Marny?”

  “Talk to her if she feels like talking tonight. Let her sleep. Then transport her to the Bagel Lagoon at six hundred hours.”

  Ceepak lives in an apartment above the bagel restaurant.

  “Rita and T.J. will look after her until you and I bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”

  Great. I wonder when that might happen.

  “How go the warrants?” I ask.

  “Officer Diego and I are going through Mr. O’Malley’s phone records now …”

  I glance at the Sony Dream Machine on my bedside table, a holdover from the apartment’s days as a motel room, and only fifty cents at the yard sale. It’s after midnight.

  “… Judge Rasmussen assures us we’ll have what we need to search inside the Tangerine Street home by nine thirty A.M.”

  “You might tell Rita that Marny needs clothes.”

  There is a moment of silence. “Come again?”

  Great. Now Ceepak thinks I have a naked female witness in my bedroom.

  “I mean, she has clothes, but, well, they’re kind of grungy and, uh, not enough.”

  “I see. Any idea as to size?”

  “Petite. Except … you know … up top.”

  “Roger that,” says Ceepak without a hint of adolescent mammary fascination. That’s my department. “Rita will know how to handle it.”

  “Thanks. Oh—I saw your dad again tonight. At the club.”

  “Did he ask after me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How thoughtful.” And that, my friends, is Ceepak being sarcastic.

  The bathroom door pops open with a push and a warble. It always does that after a shower; the steam warps the wood. Marny comes out in my bathrobe, which goes down to her toes; her hair is wrapped up in my Mussel Beach Motel towel, which I borrowed from my friend Becca’s place and mean to take back. Tomorrow.

  She’s carrying her shorts and shirt, not to mention her bra and panties.

  All she has on under my robe are her flip-flops.

  “See you in six hours,” I say to Ceepak.

  I close up my cell.

  “Who was that?” Marny asks.

  “John Ceepak. My partner.”

  “Hey—is he the guy who was with you when you ran me and that doctor dude off the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was hysterical! When we wrecked into all those bikes.”

  Yeah. A regular laugh riot. If you forget the part about how I thought I was going to die.

  “That’s kind of when it started,” she mumbles.

  She goes to bed, sits on the edge. I take the recliner.

  “He was my first, you know, older married guy.”

  I nod. Let her talk.

  “I got Gail into it.”

  “How?”

  “I told her about this great group of rich guys I’d been hanging with. One of them bought me the Miata and it wasn’t even my birthday.”

  “Mr. Mazzilli?”

  Marny shakes her head. “Mr. Johnson. He was my first. The first one to take me to the house on Tangerine Street.”

  “What goes on there?”

  She gives me a look. “You know …”

  “Yeah. So, Gail Baker was with Mr. O’Malley?”

  “For about three months.”

  “When Mrs. O’Malley died, did she want to marry him?”

  “I hope not. He’s, you know … old.”

  “And rich.”

  “True. But we didn’t need to marry them for their money. They had wives for that.”

  Okay. It makes sense. Sort of.

  “But,” says Marny, “I think Gail told too many people about what was going on. She even wore that silly T-shirt.”

  “The one with ‘Sugar Babies’ on it?”

  “Yeah. We were supposed to be, you know, discreet. Classy. She was kind of broadcasting it. I know she told her personal trainer. That is so against the rules.”

  “There are rules?”

  “Sure. Like, we can never call our guy. Text messages only. And we never went anywhere our man might be with his wife and family. We weren’t supposed to rub any noses the wrong way in it, you know?”

  “Sure,” I say, because I’ve known Marny long enough to know what she’s trying to say even when she says it wrong.

  “That’s why they killed her like that, left her in a public place. To warn the rest of us.” She shivers. “I think I need to leave town, Danny. They’ll come after me next.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Gail and I were close and Mr. Mazzilli wanted us to do this, you know, thing with him and Gail said no and that really torqued Bruno off so if he had them do that to her they’ll do something worse to me because I laughed.”

  “What?”

  “He wanted a three-way. Grabbed Gail. Squeezed her ass. Sucked on her neck. She pushed away and said, ‘Sorry, there’s no way two girls can share three inches.’”

  I smile.

  “Yeah,” says Marny. “That’s what I did, too. Only I laughed. And Mr. Mazzilli heard me.”

  “He can’t get you here,” I say. “Grab some sleep. First thing in the morning, I’m taking you to my partner’s place. You’re in protective custody now, okay?”

  “Okay.” She pulls back my blankets. Fluffs up a pillow. Turns to me and says, very shyly, like we’re cousins on a camp-out, “You want half the bed?”

  “Nah. I’m not really sleeping tonight. I’m on guard duty. Gotta keep one eye open at all times.”

  I give her a wink and sit in my chair.

  She pulls up the covers. Yawns.

  “Remember Ms. Fabricius’s math class?”

  “Marny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go to sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  She yawns one more time, flops sideways, and, I swear, conks out on command.

  I take off my holster. Lay the Glock in my lap.

  I’ll wake it up if I need it.

  25

  “WOULD YOU LIKE MORE WATER?” ASKS CEEPAK.

  Marny shakes her head. The blonde coils bounce. “No, thank you.”

  It’s a little after six in the morning and we’re sitting in a booth as far from the windows as we can get at the Bagel Lagoon. The Coglianese brothers open their place early every day; bakers always do. Marny has barely touched her cinnamon-raisin with a schmear of cream cheese. She is wearing my navy blue POLICE windbreaker like a vinyl sack but is still shivering, and not because she’s cold.

  Rita’s at the counter talking to Joe and Jim about Marny and how important it is for them to forget they ever saw her.

  The brothers nod. They dig Ceepak and Rita, their upstairs neighbors. They also look juiced about keeping a secret, playing cops with us.

  Me? I’m a little tired from snoozing in the chair with one eye open all night, but I’m happy Marny is safe. She looks more wiped out than me. Pooped. Still, Ceepak needs to ask her a few questions.

  “Was Mayor Sinclair ever present at the house?”

  “Yeah. A couple times. He liked the hot tub. I was with him one night. Bruno asked me to, you know, show him a good time. This was back when Bruno, Mr. Mazzilli, wanted to buy that burned-down pier for the roller coaster him and Mr. O’Malley wanted to build.”

  Ceepak nods. Guess he understands New Jersey politics. Guess we all do. You grease the wheel. Let people dip their beaks. That’s why you see so m
any of our elected officials perp-walking into court with handcuffs on their wrists and raincoats over their heads.

  “Tell us about Mr. O’Malley.”

  “He was kind of bossy at the house,” says Marny. “Told me I was getting chubby this one time when my face was bloated after a heavy night of partying. He could also be very generous. Gave Gail a ton of money to buy better clothes. He had a thing for lingerie, too. I think he runs a tab at Victoria’s Secret. And, he bought her, like, a ten-pack of personal training sessions she couldn’t afford so she wouldn’t get fat.”

  “Were Mr. O’Malley and the mayor close?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When the mayor dropped by the house on Tangerine Street, was Mr. O’Malley with him?”

  “I don’t think so. No. It was Bruno and Mr. Johnson and the guy who owns the newspaper. He was there. Said I could make a ton of money modeling swimsuits for local stores like Teeny’s Bikinis and offered to give me an audition.”

  Yeah. Right. A private audition, I’m sure.

  “Did you ever see the mayor with Mr. O’Malley?”

  “No. But Gail might’ve. You could ask—”

  She realizes what she almost said.

  Her eyes tear up.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ceepak reaches across the table. Gently puts his gigantic hand on top of Marny’s tiny one. “Ms. Minsky—what happened is not your fault.”

  “I got her into this.…”

  “Perhaps. But you did not kill her.”

  “Who did?”

  “We can’t say for certain. Not yet. However, Danny and I intend to find out.”

  “We better get busy,” I say, standing up. It’s time for us to hit the house, put on our uniforms, climb into a police car, and go nab the bad guys. Once we, of course, figure out who that might be.

  Rita comes to the table with a white paper bag.

  “I got us some cold cuts,” she says to Marny. “We can make sandwiches later—after you wake up from your nap. I put fresh sheets on our bed. Oh, and I found a pair of jeans that’ll probably fit. Plus, I’ve got all sorts of blouses and shirts and stuff. If you need anything else, T.J., that’s our son, he’ll run out and buy it before he heads off to this going-away party a couple of his buddies are throwing for him.”

  “Where’s he going?” asks Marny, sounding like the twenty-four year old kid she actually is.

  “Annapolis!” says Rita, beaming over at Ceepak who beams back. “He’s going to be an officer.”

  “And a gentleman,” I add because I like that movie.

  “Awesome,” says Marny, momentarily brightening.

  “You’ll be safe upstairs in our home,” says Ceepak.

  “You sure will,” says Rita. “So relax. Finish your breakfast. Oh, I got you some chocolate milk.”

  “Danny?” Ceepak gestures that it’s time for us to go.

  I toss my once-bitten bagel in the trash, follow him to the counter.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he says to the Coglianese brothers.

  “Fuhgeddaboutit,” says Joe, the one in charge of stirring the bobbing bagels in a boiling vat with a giant wooden canoe paddle. “Anybody tries to go upstairs what shouldn’t, they got to get past me and my paddle!”

  Ceepak and I head out to the parking lot and hop into my Jeep.

  “How come you had so many questions for Marny about the mayor?” I ask when we’re both seatbelted in.

  “In examining Mr. O’Malley’s phone records, Denise Diego ID’ed a phone call to Mayor Sinclair’s home phone number at three fifteen yesterday morning.”

  “Right after the dog barked?”

  “Affirmative. And, using GPS coordinates triangulated from cell towers, we were able to pinpoint the location where Mr. O’Malley made the phone call.”

  “Where?” I ask even though I don’t really have to.

  “One forty-five Tangerine Street. The house where we found the two suitcases.”

  Seven o’clock on the dot, we enter the King Putt pyramid.

  Skippy, looking very sleepy, is already on the job and has to undo the lock at the bottom of the front door to let us in. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wear his chariot skirt and breastplate until the miniature golf course opens around ten.

  “Hi, you guys,” he says, sounding kind of glum. “Dad and Kevin are upstairs with the lawyer.”

  That would be their oily shyster Louis “I Never Lose” Rambowski. I wondered why the floor felt so slippery.

  Skippy trudges back behind the counter to buff the shiny heads of a hundred putters and inventory his balls.

  There I go again.

  “They brought you guys doughnuts,” says Skippy.

  “Very considerate,” says Ceepak.

  We climb the spiral staircase to the office.

  When we hit the top of the steps, I see Mr. O’Malley seated in a plush rolling chair, feet up on his desk a dozen box of “Donut Connection” glazed and sprinkled treats near his shoes.

  Bad idea.

  Not the donuts, the shoes.

  He’s wearing those white bucks again, and I’m thinking he buys Shine Rite Shoe Polish in bottles the size of milk jugs. He sees us come in, pulls down his dogs, sits up straight.

  “Officers,” he says. “Good morning.” He gestures toward the open pastry box. “Hungry?”

  “Not really,” says Ceepak.

  “I ate a late dinner,” I add.

  We sit down in the two visitor chairs fronting the desk.

  “This is my father’s lawyer,” says Kevin O’Malley, pacing around the back of the desk, pointing to a bald man in a very natty suit leaning against a credenza, both arms crossed over his barrel chest. “Louis Rambowski.”

  The lawyer looks like he has his bald head buffed on a regular basis. Maybe Skippy lent him a putter rag. Or maybe Mr. O’Malley has one of those stand-up shoe polishers for his white bucks and Rambowski bent over to use it this morning.

  Now he stands up from his casual leaning pose. Smoothes out his lapels.

  “Officers,” he starts in, using his silky smooth courtroom voice, “let me just say that my client has every intention of cooperating with your investigation.” He smiles. The way crocodiles do. “In fact, it is in Mr. O’Malley’s best interest to help you in any way possible because, when you locate and apprehend the true perpetrator, he will be completely exonerated.”

  He gestures that we may proceed.

  So Ceepak does.

  “Mr. O’Malley, why would the deceased, Ms. Gail Brewer make …” He glances at his notepad. “Fifteen separate phone calls to you in the week prior to her death?”

  “Who says she did?” asks barrister Rambowski.

  “Verizon,” I say as snottily as I can and still be a cop.

  “I’ll answer that,” says Mr. O’Malley, smiling magnanimously. “She needed business advice. Ms. Baker, who was employed as a low-paid waitress at a restaurant called The Rusty Scupper, had bigger ambitions. In fact, she dreamed of opening her own restaurant some day.”

  “She came to Dad seeking business advice,” says Kevin.

  “And,” says the lawyer, “a business loan.”

  All three of them are smiling like first graders in the Christmas pageant who memorized all their lines and recited them without making one single mistake or pooping their pants.

  “As you may know,” Rambowski continues, “Mr. O’Malley is quite active with the Junior Achievement Program at the local high school, a program that teaches economics and entrepreneurship and that nurtures the business leaders of tomorrow.”

  “That’s where Dad first met Ms. Baker,” says Kevin, who, I have a feeling, is the one who concocted this lame script. “When she was in high school.”

  Ceepak does not seem impressed. “Why did Ms. Baker send you a text message just after midnight on the day of her death?”

  The lawyer raises a hand to object. “Is that what your phone records indicate?”

  Well, duh.<
br />
  “Twelve-oh-five A.M.,” says Ceepak. “What did she text you about?”

  “I don’t recall,” Mr. O’Malley says with just the hint of a smug smile.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Perhaps you should check your phone. Reread her message.”

  “Excuse me,” says the lawyer, “do you have a warrant to search my client’s cell phone or just his usage records?”

  “The records.”

  “Then why are you badgering him about showing you the actual phone?” Louis looks like he knows he’s going to win again.

  “I’m sorry,” says Mr. O’Malley. “I get a million texts every day. I can’t recall the content of each and every one.”

  “That is why,” says Ceepak, “I’m suggesting that you open your phone and reread the text at this time.”

  “When you get a warrant, perhaps he will,” says the lawyer, puffing out his bulldog chest. “Next question.”

  Ceepak flips forward in his notebook.

  “Why, Mr. O’Malley, did you call Mayor Sinclair at three fifteen A.M. yesterday?”

  “What?” Kevin and his dad say it at the same time. Looks like they don’t have a prerecorded answer for this one.

  “I’m sorry,” says Ceepak, “perhaps my question was unclear.”

  So he repeats it. Using the exact same words.

  “I did no such thing!” says Mr. O’Malley.

  “The phone company’s records indicate otherwise.”

  “Impossible.”

  “The same phone that received the text message from Ms. Baker at twelve-oh-five A.M. was also used to call Mayor Hugh Sinclair’s home phone number at three-fifteen A.M. NOW, according to the medical examiner, Ms. Baker was killed at approximately one A.M. That would give you plenty of time to receive her text, arrange a meeting, kill her, dispose of the body, and then call the mayor.”

  “Is that an accusation, officer?” asks Rambowski.

  “It is, currently, a hypothesis.”

  Mr. O’Malley turns to Kevin. “Look into this. The phone thing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ceepak flips forward another page.

  “Why did you take Ms. Baker to the house on Tangerine Street?”

  “I’m sorry,” says Rambowski with a chuckle. “You’ll need to be more specific.…”

  “Number One Tangerine. A home owned by Stromboli Enterprises, a holding company headed, Mr. O’Malley, by your business partner Bruno Mazzilli.”