Hell Hole Read online

  “My mom says the family that usually rents that house every July for like twenty years all of a sudden at the last minute decided to go to Europe or Disney World.”

  Maybe they’ll just hit Epcot Center and see’em both.

  “You say the owner isn’t Sergeant Dixon’s uncle?” asks Ceepak.

  “No, sir. Mr. Ryan O’Malley owns it. Skip’s dad.”

  Apparently, the O’Malley family took some of their hard-earned King Putt profits and plowed them into real estate ventures.

  “And you know what else?” says Starky. “Sergeant Dixon isn’t even the one who rented it! Somebody down in Washington did. Called in the middle of last week.”

  Ceepak’s extremely interested now. Me too.

  “Is your mother at liberty to divulge the renter’s identity?”

  Starky shrugs. “I guess so. Even if she isn’t, she already told me it was some guy from Senator Worthington’s office! I thought that was pretty cool—the senator personally paying for the house so his son and the other soldiers could come up here for a little R and R.”

  Rest and relaxation.

  Or, perhaps, rendezvous and rubout.

  “Do you think that’s why he rented it?” Starky asks Ceepak. “To say ‘thanks’ to his son and the other soldiers?”

  “I won’t speculate on Senator’s Worthington’s motives at this juncture,” says Ceepak.

  Me? I speculate that the senator rented the house to lure Smith into uncharted waters so his goon squad—the musclemen with the nice suits, sunglasses, and knockwurst necks—could eliminate a threat to his ambitions for higher elective office. I’m guessing Special Forces Operatives stage suicides all the time. They probably even have a training manual for it.

  “What day did the phone call come in?” asks Ceepak.

  “Wednesday.”

  Ceepak marches over to the reception desk, picks up a phone, and presses in a number.

  While he waits for someone to answer, I try to remember what movie I saw where the presidential candidate and his mother killed anybody who got their way. It was either The Manchurian Candidate or Big Momma’s White House.

  “Room three-fourteen,” Ceepak says into the phone.

  I figure he’s calling that Holiday Inn.

  “Tonya? John Ceepak. No, ma’am, but I think we’re getting closer. Question: when did Shareef first ask to borrow your car?” Ceepak jots something on a pad of paper. “And he left on Friday?” Another note. “Thank you. No. I think it would be best if you remained at the hotel for the time being.” He looks at Starky. “I’m sending Samantha Starky back out to join you.”

  Starky snaps to attention. Nods an “aye-aye, sir” over to Ceepak. Attempts to make her cute face severely serious. It almost works.

  “No,” Ceepak says over the phone to Tonya Smith. “I don’t anticipate any trouble. I’d just like to have Officer Starky act as my eyes and ears out there since my wife will soon be vacating the premises. Right. Stay inside your room. Stay safe. Thank you.”

  He hangs up.

  “I’m on my way, sir,” Starky says to Ceepak.

  “Use channel five on your radio if you need to contact us,” he says. “Danny? Go to five.”

  I twist the knob on the walkie-talkie anchored on my belt.

  “In case of emergency, also contact the house and request backup. I’ll keep my portable tuned to the main frequency.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “Thank you,” says Ceepak.

  “My pleasure.” She turns on her heel, slaps on her sunglasses, and dashes out the door.

  “Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s go look at the tape.”

  “Right.”

  We concentrate on the time period between 9:30 and 10:30 because we know that Smith and Worthington meet at 10:09 PM., head into the rest area at 10:16, and the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen goes black at 10:20 when someone snips the surveillance camera cable.

  We focus on the upper left-hand frame first, the other camera mounted in the parking lot on the northbound side of the rest area.

  We see nothing. A couple SUVs, sure. But no Denalis like the senator’s bodyguards tool around in.

  “Maybe Worthington pulled in on the other side,” I suggest.

  “Good point, Danny. He was coming down to exit fifty-two from Sea Haven, transporting the locally distributed drugs. Therefore, he would have entered the lot on the southbound side.”

  “We don’t know what kind of car Worthington drives.”

  “Inconsequential. We already know he was there. We are most interested in determining if anybody followed him.”

  So we focus on the bottom right and bottom left boxes.

  “No Denalis,” I announce when the time code rolls past 10:10. If they were following Worthington, the bodyguards should’ve shown by now.

  “This pickup truck,” says Ceepak as he taps the bottom right square. “Why does it look so familiar?”

  “It’s the pirates’! Remember? They were working on it up in Feenyville when we paid them that visit! What time did it show up?”

  Ceepak rocks the video back a minute or two. Tracks the truck’s entrance. “Twenty-two-twenty-one.”

  Ten twenty-one PM.

  I glance up at the upper right-hand box. It’s already black.

  “So the pirates didn’t cut the cable.”

  “Unless,” says Ceepak, “they asked Osvaldo Vargas to do that particular job.”

  “Nope,” I say. “Not unless he’s the Flash.” I tap the screen. “That looks like him right there!”

  We watch a short man come out of the rest area building. The lighting is good. Ceepak manipulates the zoom and we get a pretty good look at the janitor as he hops into the back of the pirates’ pickup truck. It sure looks like Osvaldo Vargas.

  “Apparently,” says Ceepak, “Mr. Vargas left work early Friday night.” His eyes stay glued on the spinning digital clock. I’m not sure why. It hits 22:22. Twenty-two minutes after ten. The truck starts to move. Vargas is seated in the cargo bay. The vehicle disappears from the lower right square and enters the box on the lower left-hand side as it moves through the southbound-side parking lots. Finally, it crosses that frame and, about thirty seconds later, reappears in the upper left-hand quadrant.

  “There they go,” I say. “Swinging around to the northbound side.”

  Ceepak picks up my train of thought as the pickup truck disappears. “Where they will discover Smith’s car and remove his air bags and CD changer.”

  Which they will do unseen in the blacked-out box in the top right corner.

  “We need to head back to the hospital,” says Ceepak.

  “You still want to interrogate Lieutenant Worthington?”

  He shakes his head. “No, Danny. His father.”

  33

  We’re moving at a good clip up Ocean Avenue headed, once again, for the causeway that’ll take us back to the mainland and the medical center.

  “Danny? That vehicle …”

  Ceepak does a three-finger chop dead ahead.

  In front of us, barreling down Ocean Avenue, I see a pickup truck. It makes a tire-squealing, axle-tilting, right-hand turn through the currently red traffic light.

  “Initiate pursuit,” says Ceepak.

  “Ten-four.”

  Here we go again. I just hope nobody jammed a Ginzu knife into our tire treads while we were inside watching videos of—

  “The Feenyville Pirates!” I say as I match their speed-demon right turn with a rubber-burning left of my own. “That’s their pickup truck!”

  “Ten-four,” says Ceepak.

  I flip on the lights and siren. It’s a three-block straight shot to the bridge and I’m hoping I don’t set a new Sea Haven PD record by totaling two cop cars in a single day.

  “Brakes!” shouts Ceepak.

  Good point. The pirates are slamming on their brakes so I better jam on mine—now! Red taillights zoom into full view,
my nose nears their cargo bed, and I pray we come to a full and complete stop before their rear bumper offers unwanted assistance.

  Missed them by an inch.

  This new car? Good antilock brakes.

  The three pirates come tumbling out of the pickup cab: Nicky Nichols, Mr. Shrimp, and Osvaldo Vargas.

  “We surrender!” shouts Mr. Shrimp. “Arrest us!”

  All three of them shoot their hands straight up into the air. The pintsized Shrimp and the half-pint Vargas flank the big galoot Nichols on the shoulder of the road so he looks like the twelve-year-old second-grader, the slow one who’s been held back five or six times.

  “It’s in the back of the truck,” says Mr. Shrimp. “Everything!”

  Ceepak and I move closer. Traffic slows down to see what kind of criminals we collar by the side of the road in Sea Haven. We’re creating major rubbernecking delays.

  “It’s all in the box! Everything we ripped off that piece-of-crap Ford.” I go up on my toes to take a peek inside the truck bed. I see a corrugated booze box (Captain Morgan rum, of course) loaded with wires and crap. “Lock us up! We did the crime, we’re ready to do the time!”

  “Typically,” says Ceepak, “there’s a trial prior to any imposition of a prison sentence.”

  “Hunh?” Confused, Nichols’s SpaghettiO mouth widens.

  “You have to hold us in a cell until we post bail,” snaps Mr. Shrimp, the crew’s legal scholar. “Which we can’t do for a couple days. Cashflow issues.”

  “Danny?” says Ceepak. “Let’s take a look at what’s in the box.”

  I haul myself up and over the sidewalls.

  “Gloves,” Ceepak reminds me.

  So I slip them on and start rummaging around inside the pirates’ treasure chest.

  “One Kenwood six-CD changer loaded with six CDs,” I call down to Ceepak. “A tangle of cables, two speakers with holes punched through the paper cones, the cardboard bottom from a twenty-four-can case of Sprite, plus a bottle of Quaker State five w-twenty motor oil.” My evidence gloves are a mess. The oil bottle has brown sludge droplets decorating its neck.

  “That’s all we took,” says Nichols. He sounds like Lurch from the Addams Family movies. Harmless.

  “What about the air bags?” asks Ceepak.

  “They weren’t in the trunk,” says Shrimp, “so we didn’t take them!”

  “Somebody did,” says Ceepak. He gestures to the three pirates to let them know they don’t need to keep their hands raised over their heads.

  “It wasn’t us!” says Shrimp. “All we got was the crappy CD collection and a half-empty bottle of motor oil before this dude came walking straight at us and we tore the hell out of there!”

  “Who was it?”

  Nichols squints. Tries to comprehend Ceepak’s question. “Who was who?”

  “The man approaching the vehicle you were burglarizing?”

  “Some dude,” says Mr. Shrimp.

  “Black, white, Hispanic?”

  “Couldn’t see. Too dark. We thought he might be the owner so, like I said, we took off.”

  Ceepak nods. “Taking the contents of Shareef Smith’s trunk with you.”

  “That’s right,” says Mr. Shrimp. “But I swear on my mother’s grave—that’s all we took. We didn’t even see the damn digital camera, so how could we steal it?”

  “Who said anything about a camera?”

  “The soldier.” Shrimp gestures toward Ceepak. “He sort of looks like you. Only this dude is one mean sonofabitch who says he’ll rip off our heads and shove’em up our butts if we don’t give him back the god-damn digital camera he thinks we stole out of his dead buddy’s car only like I just told you there weren’t no camera in that trunk! Sweet Jesus, how many times do we have to tell you people?” He holds out both wrists, practically begging to be cuffed. “Come on, man. Lock us up!”

  “This soldier—does he have a name?”

  “Dixon.”

  I guess Lieutenant Worthington told his buddies about Shareef’s camera too.

  “Sergeant Dale Dixon visited Feenyville?” Ceepak asks.

  “Yeah. Him and his badass Mexican backup. Short little gangbanger in a do-rag. Said they’d be back later tonight. So we took off. Hey, if you want, you can arrest us for speeding and running a red light too!”

  “When did you talk to these gentlemen?” asks Ceepak.

  “Half-hour ago.”

  “Did Sergeant Dixon accuse you of being involved in Shareef Smith’s death?”

  “No. He just wanted the camera and I told him what I’m telling you: there weren’t no damn camera in the damn trunk!”

  “I understand.”

  “You believe me?”

  “In this instance, yes. Lying would be of no benefit to you. Tell me—the man who came walking toward the car as you were burglarizing it—did he also look like he might be a soldier?”

  “Like I said, we couldn’t see much on account of it was night and all but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this same asshole Dixon. Wasn’t that tall.”

  “Did the man in the parking lot look like he might be a former soldier?” asks Ceepak.

  Now Mr. Shrimp looks confused. “I don’t know, man. What the hell does a former soldier look like?”

  “A little older but still muscular.”

  And maybe wearing a dark blue suit and sunglasses. Ceepak is describing Senator Worthington’s bodyguards.

  “All we saw was like a silhouette, you know? On account of that lamppost near the car being so bright.”

  “He had on a pretty shirt,” says Nichols.

  “Come again?”

  “It had flowers on it. Like they wear in Hawaii.”

  Shrimp snaps back in disbelief. “You saw his shirt?”

  Nichols does a slow bobble-head nod. “It was pretty.”

  Ceepak turns to me. “Danny, let’s radio this in. Have Sergeant Pender send out the tow truck to impound their vehicle. Hand me the box, and I’ll stow it in our trunk.”

  “You’re going to arrest us, right?” Mr. Shrimp is begging.

  “Yes, sir,” Ceepak says as he slips on a pair of evidence gloves so I can hand off the cardboard box.

  “We’ll wait in your car!” says Shrimp. He and Nichols hurry up the side of the road and practically leap into the backseat of our cruiser. Vargas would probably do the same thing only he can’t, because Ceepak is currently blocking his path.

  “Mr. Vargas?” says Ceepak.

  “Yes?” Poor guy. He sounds scared stiff.

  “You left work early on Friday night, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You went outside, into the south side parking lot, met your two friends.”

  “Yes.”

  “You then climbed into the back of this pickup truck.”

  Vargas looks worried, thinks he’s dealing with some kind of psychic mind reader who can see every bad thing that he’s ever even thought about doing.

  “Yes.”

  “The last time you entered the men’s room was at ten-oh-five PM?”

  “I think so. Yes. I signed the clipboard. Left work.”

  “You didn’t clean the men’s room?”

  “No. I left it for the old man. Señor Delgado. He doesn’t think I clean so good so what difference does it make if I clean it at ten o’clock or not?”

  “Did you close off the right-hand side?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t pull the tape across to shut off access to the toilets on the right?”

  “No!”

  “How tall are you, Mr. Vargas?”

  The little janitor looks as startled by the new question as I am.

  “Five-two,” Vargas answers.

  “Five-one,” shouts Shrimp from the backseat. I guess he’s determined to be the taller of the two dwarfs.

  A look of grim comprehension crosses Ceepak’s face.

  “Of course,” he says, sort of to himself. “Thank you, Mr. Vargas. Please join the ot
hers.”

  The little janitor scurries up to our car. As soon as he’s in, Mr. Shrimp, who got the hump seat, reaches over and slams the door shut. I read his lips: “Lock it! Lock it!”

  I hand the box down to Ceepak. He takes it and I hop out of the truck bed.

  “Danny?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you remember when you received the ten-forty-three call on Friday night?” he asks.

  “A little before one AM.”

  “And do you remember who the complaint came from?”

  “A neighbor, I think.”

  “Were you advised which neighbor?”

  “No. We were on patrol. The call came across the radio. We took it. Headed over to Kipper and Beach Lane.”

  “Were the soldiers rowdy when you arrived?”

  “Oh, yeah. They were whooping it up. Chanting. Blasting heavy metal music.”

  “Was your one AM run in response to the first complaint of the evening?”

  “I think so. The dispatcher didn’t, you know, say, ‘It’s that house again, we warned them once,’ or anything like that.”

  “What time do you presume Sergeant Dixon and his men started drinking on Friday?”

  I try to remember my first encounter with Sergeant Dixon. “Can’t say for certain, but I remember he said Smith was late, that the party was slated to start at nineteen-hundred hours. Seven PM.”

  “But,” says Ceepak, “Dixon told us most of the men arrived earlier. Do you think they waited until nineteen-hundred to begin imbibing alcoholic beverages?”

  “No.” I remember our trips to the house yesterday and earlier today. “They seem to start the day with beer for breakfast. I’d say these guys probably get loud a little after lunch every day. So how come nobody complained about Dixon and his buddies’ party earlier in the day on Friday?”

  “I have a theory.”

  “Care to share it?”

  “Not yet, Danny. Soon.”

  This is classic Ceepak. He won’t offer up his opinion until he’s placed the last piece into his jigsaw puzzle. However, judging from the look in his eyes, I’d say he’s finished most of it—not just the straight-edged border my mom taught us to always do first.