Tilt-a-Whirl jc-1 Read online

  “Did you promise Squeegee he could have his fun with Ashley? Is that how you got him interested in the trigger job?”

  “I told you I don't know this Squeegee. Maybe I run into him once or twice up at The Palace Hotel, but….”

  “Where is Ashley Hart? Where did your gang take her, Mr. Mendez?”

  “Hey! I don't do no kidnappin’-”

  “Where the hell did you take her?”

  “I don't do that kind of shit!”

  And they keep going around and around-just like those kiddiecar rides over at Playland.

  In the back room, Morgan turns from the window when Mendez says he “ain't no kidnapper” for the umpteenth time.

  “Neither is our ransom note writer,” the FBI guy says.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, there's some indication he may want us to think he's more experienced at this than he actually is.”

  Ceepak twists down the volume knob in the wall so the ranting in the other room becomes soft Muzak in ours.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ransom note?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Something about it. It sounded familiar. So I had my guys do a quick check.”

  “And?”

  “Jon Benet Ramsey.”

  “Colorado? The six-year-old beauty queen?”

  “Right. After she disappeared, the Ramsey family received a ransom note. Lot of people think it was a fake. Just a way for the killer to cover some tracks, misdirect the investigation.”

  Ceepak nods. He's obviously familiar with the case.

  “Anyhow, I always remembered the phrasing. Sort of stuck in my head because I thought some of it sounded odd, you know? Ridiculous, even.”

  “And?”

  “I think our kidnapper cribbed it.”

  “Our ransom note is a copy?”

  Morgan nods.

  “I think so. Some key phrases are lifted verbatim. ‘Listen carefully!’ ‘You stand a 99 per cent chance of killing your daughter.’ And that corny thing at the end? ‘Victory!’ Give me a break.”

  “So whoever wrote the ransom note….”

  “They cheated,” Morgan says. “Had their eyes on their neighbor's paper, like teacher always told us not to. They wanted to make sure they sounded like they knew what they were doing, even though they did not.”

  “I never did no damn kidnapping, man!”

  I can hear Mendez up in the ceiling speaker, faintly repeating himself.

  “Check my sheet,” he says. “My record's clean on that one. I never did no damn kidnappin’ before!”

  Apparently, neither did the guy who grabbed Ashley.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I want this over! Tonight!”

  Ten minutes after the interrogation of Mendez and Ms. Stone, the chief's mood hasn't improved much. Ceepak and I are in his office.

  “You guys hear me? Fucking FBI … looking over my fucking shoulder….”

  The chief hasn't enjoyed working with Mr. Morgan as much as Ceepak and I, even though the ransom note being a rip-off sort of supports the chief's whole “Mendez Did It” theory.

  “I want this thing over … the mayor wants it over….”

  “Yes, sir,” Ceepak says. “Couple things.”

  “What now?”

  The chief is downright testy.

  “I'd like to search the mother's car.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To see if we can find anything that might indicate that she frequents Cap'n Scrubby's Car Wash.”

  “What? Now you think she hired Squeegee?”

  “It's a-”

  Before he can say “possibility,” the chief is punching numbers on his telephone.

  “Goddammit. You should've asked her your goddamn questions while we were down there.”

  “Didn't think of it until-”

  “Hello? This is Chief Cosgrove. I want you to answer a question and I want you to tell me the goddamn truth because we can search your car and you know it!”

  Ceepak raises his palm to make a “wait-whoa-slow-down” gesture.

  The chief does none of the above.

  “Where the hell do you get your car washed? Where? Sharky's Suds?”

  Ceepak reaches across the desk and pushes down the speaker-phone button so we can listen in.

  “They're on the other side of the causeway,” Betty says in her smooth, honey-dipped voice. “In that mall with the Home Depot? I usually stop on my way back to the city, before I get on the parkway. I like to be away from the beach and all the sand before I pay to have my car cleaned. So I usually stop at Sharky's.”

  Ceepak sits down.

  “You ever go to Cap'n Scrubby's?” the chief asks.

  “No. Like I said …”

  “… you like to do it off the island.”

  “That's right. Why? Is where I wash my car important? Will it help us find Ashley?”

  Ceepak shakes his head “no.”

  “We'll be in touch,” the chief says and hangs up.

  Ceepak sighs and rubs his eyes.

  The chief, in his sleep-deprived, agitated, I-hate-the-FBI state, has blown any element of surprise.

  If there was any evidence linking Bell to Cap'n Scrubby, clever Betty probably just flushed it down the toilet. We might need to get a search warrant for her septic tank.

  “What the hell makes you think Betty Bell Hart is involved in this thing? Jesus, Ceepak….”

  “We need to consider all possibilities in the investigation of suspicious deaths. Especially the less obvious lines of inquiry.”

  “What? Why?” The chief is none too interested in Advanced Theories of Criminology right now. “Mendez had the goddamn gun. In his car. He had the murder weapon!”

  “Correction,” Ceepak says. “Officer Kiger found the gun in Mendez's trunk.”

  “Same difference.”

  No, it's not. Even I know that. The shooter could have planted it there, just like Mendez claimed.

  Ceepak doesn't press the issue.

  I have a hunch he won't be telling the chief about our bank-to-beach time trials this morning, either. His old Army buddy seems to have a serious case of Mental Overload bordering on Brain Burnout.

  The chief slumps down in his big rolling chair.

  “So,” Ceepak says, “how can you have a file on Squeegee? We don't even know his real name.”

  The chief cracks a smile, the first I've seen on his face in about forty-eight hours.

  “I lied a little,” he says.

  Oh, boy.

  People keep saying the wrong things in front of Ceepak today.

  “I stretched the truth.” The chief opens the folder. “This is an unsolved case from two years back. We kept it quiet at the time. Didn't want to panic the tourists. Fourth of July weekend. Young girl by the name of Jennifer D'Angelo is lured off the beach and under the boardwalk by a quote skinny homeless man with big, buggy eyes end quote.”

  “May I see that?”

  The chief hands the folder to Ceepak.

  “I put two and two together. Sounds like our same guy. Sounds like Squeegee. So I just used it for leverage.”

  Ceepak is studying the file.

  “He raped her,” the chief says quietly.

  Ceepak nods. I guess he just got to that part.

  “Case is still open. Of course, two years ago, we didn't know from Squeegee. The doer didn't leave many clues.”

  “Except this,” Ceepak says, holding up a copy of a crime-scene boot print.

  Another Timberland.

  “The girl was twelve, almost thirteen,” the chief says, standing up and looking out his window.

  “Same age as Ashley.” Ceepak neatly tucks all the paper back inside the manila folder. He's seen enough. A cold look frosts his face.

  The chief's door opens.

  “Chief?”

  It's Jane Bright.

  “What you got?”

  “E-Z Pass. It checks out. Her tra
nsponder left the city via the tunnel at 10:43 A.M. Friday. She got off at exit 15 of the parkway at 2:12 P.M.”

  Two and a half hours from the city to the shore? She made pretty good time. Must not be too much traffic that early on a summer Friday. The people playing half-day hooky usually don't hop in their cars until one or two in the afternoon, after, they figure, they've put in enough work so the Friday doesn't have to count as a vacation day.

  “What about the ATM?” the chief asks Jane.

  She places a sheet of paper on his desk. It's a grainy, black-and-white image of Betty tapping the First Atlantic Bank ATM keypad. She's wearing a dark scarf and sunglasses, but I can tell it's her. So can Ceepak.

  “What's the time stamp read?” Ceepak asks.

  “7:03 A.M. Saturday.”

  “Her story holds up,” the chief sighs.

  “So it seems,” Ceepak says.

  “Thanks, Jane,” the chief says.

  “Where do you need me next?”

  “Run with the FBI down to this Mussel Beach Motel. The girl who works there….”

  “Becca Adkinson,” I say.

  “Right. She's working with an artist on some sketches. Ramirez. Echaverra. See if you can help her remember stuff.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jane hustles toward the door.

  “And Jane? Tell Santucci to swing by Chesterfield's and keep an eye on the lawyer.”

  “You didn't arrest her?”

  “No. The gun was enough to make Mr. Mendez our guest for another night but we've got nothing solid on Ms. Stone.”

  “Will do.”

  Jane is gone. The door is once again closed.

  “Can I be honest with you, Ceepak?”

  Ceepak nods.

  “Ms. Stone's probably clean. I was just using her in there to get at Mendez.”

  “You lied a little more?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What's your theory?”

  “Mendez is playing both sides against the middle. He orchestrated the Hart hit, the kidnapping. And he doesn't mind cashing in on Ms. Stone's penny-ante real-estate rip off either. I think that's all she's got the balls to do. Steal a lousy piece of beachfront property when nobody's looking. But Mendez? He sees himself taking Hart's place. Becoming the new-crowned king….”

  “But first he had to kill the old king….”

  “And steal the princess.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ceepak has that look again.

  Like he's the judge, jury, and executioner in the matter of the People vs. Squeegee.

  “John,” the chief says, “you know these guys … these pedophiles … even when they're caught … they don't stop. They just go somewhere new and do the same old stuff. Hurt more kids … ruin lives … like that Baptist minister who turned up on the base in Germany….”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hell, you know this stuff better than anybody.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So you know what I'm saying, right? What we need to do?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Somehow, I don't think this fairy tale, this story of kings and princesses, is going to have the usual happy ending.

  I don't think everybody involved is going to live happily ever after.

  I don't think some of them will be allowed to live at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Ithought we'd swing by Cap'n Scrubby's first. Maybe have another chat with Red and draw up a map of The Palace Hotel, get the lay of the land before we launch our reconnaissance mission.

  Instead, we drive straight north.

  I guess Ceepak doesn't want word getting back to Squeegee that The Man's coming after him.

  About the only thing we did back at headquarters before hopping in the car was check the cargo bay of the Ford.

  Ceepak wanted to make sure his Sniper Weapon System was locked and loaded, ready to go. He raised the tailgate and used it to hide what he was doing while he twisted all the pieces together, snapped the telescopic sight into place, screwed on the silencer.

  We take the back streets. Ceepak wants to avoid the reporters, the vigil crowds outside Playland, the traffic streaming off the island in fear.

  It takes about twenty minutes to reach the tip of the island.

  We pass the Ship John Lighthouse with its white-red-white striping that makes it look like a stubby candy cane. Ceepak wants the Explorer on stealth mode. I try to avoid potholes, skirt around gravel patches.

  I see the profile of what's left of the old Palace silhouetted on the horizon. As the sun sets, the faded red turrets, all six of them, look like Santa Claus caps on top of sugar-cube towers.

  “Coast.”

  I jam the transmission into neutral, shut down the engine, and drift downhill across the rutted asphalt field that used to be the hotel's parking lot.

  “There.” Ceepak is pointing.

  There's still some remnant of a covered entryway, a crumbling canopy hanging off the second story. If we park under what's left of that, fewer folks upstairs will be able to see us.

  Stopping the car takes my whole leg-the power brakes went out when I cut the engine. I practically pull a thigh muscle.

  It's about 7:30. The setting sun makes the craggy stucco walls look kind of pinkish, like an Easter egg somebody already tapped and cracked.

  I remember years ago when some local ladies in a club, The Very Rich Daughters of the American Revolution or something, formed a Preservation Society to save The Palace, what they called “The Dowager Queen” of seaside hotels. They made the governor declare this dump a Cherished State Landmark, and that means nobody can tear it down without jumping through all sorts of hoops and red tape.

  There are hundreds of rooms, but only about a dozen look like they still have windows with any glass. I can see water stains and mold on the peeling wallpaper in the lobby. I suspect anything worth money-all the fixtures and oriental rugs and stained glass and carved furniture-was hauled out years ago.

  “Let's take a little walk,” Ceepak says and points to a dilapidated dock out back behind the sagging hotel.

  We march through the lobby. I can hear water dripping somewhere. Must be why the whole place reeks of mildew.

  We reach the doorjambs on the far end of the lobby. No doors. Just some rusty hinges where, I guess, doors used to hang.

  We head toward The Palace's private pier.

  “You see it?” Ceepak whispers.

  Finally I do.

  There's a small aluminum fishing boat tied up to an ancient piling.

  The dock creaks as we walk.

  “Watch where you step.”

  “Right.”

  This time, I don't think Ceepak's worried about me stepping on evidence. I think there's a good chance one or both of us will step right through this rotting wood. I can see jagged holes where others already have.

  We reach the post where the boat is tied up.

  Ceepak lies down on his stomach on the deck.

  “Danny? Grab my ankles.”

  “Sure.”

  I hold his socks, like I'm spotting him for a quick set of upside-down situps.

  Ceepak leans down into the bobbing fishing boat. While he's hanging, he unsnaps a pocket, pulls out the Canon Sure Shot, and somehow snaps a digital photograph.

  “Danny?”

  He reaches back with the camera and I take it, using my knee to hold an ankle and temporarily free up a hand.

  Meanwhile, his hand feels around his cargo flaps, snaps open a different pocket, digs inside, and fishes out the tweezers.

  He lowers himself farther off the edge. If I let go now, he'll be head-banging the boat bottom and flipping into the drink for a dip.

  “Got it!” he says. “Rotating.”

  I have no idea what “rotating” means until I feel his very strong legs move around inside my grip so he's upside down and backwards and able to do this incredible abdominal crunch thing that brings him up to a sitting position on the dock.

  In his tweez
ers, he's snared another surfer bracelet.

  Another breadcrumb.

  We move along the back of the hotel, under what must have been the grand verandah back when William Howard Taft was here putting on the feedbag.

  We reach the remains of an in-ground pool. The water's all green and slimy and filled with crap. Stinks too, like it's been a bird toilet too long. Poolside, there's nothing but flaky chunks of concrete, bleached dry by the sun that used to shine so bright back here.

  It's like that Springsteen song about Atlantic City:

  “Everything dies

  Baby that's a fact

  But maybe everything that dies

  Some day comes back.”

  Then again, maybe not. Springsteen probably never saw The Palace Hotel's scummy pool.

  Man-I can't wait until I see what even-more-depressing stuff we find inside. I think knowing Ceepak's sniper rifle is in the cargo bay of our cop car has put me in some kind of glum, gloomy mood.

  I'm too young to think about death and dying. But I guess pretty much everybody thinks that way, no matter how old they happen to be.

  “Looks like a restaurant,” Ceepak says. “Or a nightclub.”

  We're standing in a big half-circle room surrounded by three tiered terraces for tables. I imagine this was the dance floor.

  “Hungry?” Ceepak asks.

  “Kind of.”

  Good. He wants to eat, not dance.

  Ceepak pulls two Power Bars out of his left pants leg.

  There are a couple of cocktail tables and rusting café chairs. We sit down to our foil-wrapped suppers.

  Having skipped both breakfast and lunch, I wolf down half my bar in one bite.

  Ceepak laughs.

  “Hungry?”

  “Starving.” When I say it, it sounds more like “snar-vink” because I've crammed so much food in my face.

  “You remind me of my little brother,” Ceepak says.

  My mouth is full of mashed protein powder and nuts, so I just make a “really?” kind of face.

  “Yeah. He was always hungry. Ate fast, too. Afraid somebody would steal his supper.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He would have been about your age now. Twenty-three. Twenty-four.”

  Would have been. Past tense.

  Jesus.

  More death.

  Ceepak puts down his Power Bar and stares out at the ocean framed by tall arched windows behind the dance floor. He balls the wrapper up in his right hand and fidgets with it.