Rolling Thunder (John Ceepak Mystery) Read online

  I don’t think he’ll be getting many visitors. The O’Malley clan is conveniently forgetting they ever had a boy named Skipper. Maybe Mary will drop by. Maybe they’ll end up in the same psych ward after the trial.

  I called Samantha like I promised I would. She was at her mother’s house. After Sam thanked me for saving Richard Heimsack’s life, her mom got on the phone and told me what a hero I was and how she always knew I’d do something heroic because I was such a hero and blah, blah, blah. Then she asked me whether I wanted to come by for Sunday dinner because she wanted to bake me a cake and introduce me to some of her friends who she’d already told what a hero I was.

  I said thanks but no thanks, as I had prior commitments for Sunday afternoon.

  First, Ceepak and I are going to his father’s apartment and toss his things into a U-Haul so he’s ready to head back to Ohio or wherever he wants to call home when he’s released from the hospital. In grudging gratitude for his son’s lifesaving administration of CPR and expert use of the AED, Joseph Ceepak has promised never to darken his son’s door or life again. He has also taken a solemn vow to leave Ceepak’s mom the hell alone.

  After we pack up the old man, we promise Marny Minsky we’d check out her apartment. Make sure none of the sugar daddies booby-trapped it or planted miniature video cameras in her ferns. What can I say? She’s still a little paranoid. But starting Monday, she’s turning over a new leaf. Rita made a few phone calls, got her a job at Santa’s Sea Shanty. Less bling. More jingle bells.

  When Marny’s settled, we’ll head back to Ceepak’s place and the little patio behind the Bagel Lagoon.

  We’re going to give his stepson T.J. the Farewell to Sea Haven/Hello, Annapolis party he truly deserves. There will be no putt-putt. No roller coaster rides. We’ll simply crack open a couple of beers, toss some meat on the grill, eat some of Rita’s potato salad, and tease T.J. mercilessly. Then we’ll let him know how proud we all are of him.

  You see, when Ceepak and I first met T.J. Lapscynski, he was a punk kid with a paintball rifle and a bad attitude causing trouble up and down Ocean Avenue just for the hell of it. But Ceepak saw something in him that maybe nobody else ever did. Talent. Character. The way he looked out for his mom, Rita. Over the years, Ceepak helped turn the kid around, saved his life, probably, the same way he saved his father’s today.

  My partner’s pretty good at that.

  Hey—look how far he’s come with me.

  Oh, by the way, Layla will be at the cookout. We bumped into each other again at the house when I went there to put on some warmer clothes after the medics checked me out. I thanked her for the assist. She said I looked cute in my swim trunks.

  Layla Shapiro is her name.

  Jen Forbus, the officer who’d been debriefing Layla, said the two of us made a good team.

  Who knows. Maybe we do.

  Maybe we will.

  Acknowledgments

  FIRST AND FOREMOST TO ALL THE READERS AND FANS, especially the mystery mavens on DorothyL, who would not let Danny and Ceepak die.

  To Claiborne Hancock, Jessica Case, Michael Fusco, Ann Kirschner, and everyone at Pegasus Books for offering the Jersey Boys a fantastic new home. It’s particularly great to have Michael designing the covers again! This one makes me think of orange-and-white swirl cones down the shore.

  To Otto Penzler for his help in finding Ceepak a new home.

  To my fantastic agent (and roller coaster aficionado) Eric R. Myers, who keeps finding Ceepak and Danny nice places to live.

  To Chief Michael Bradley of the Long Beach Island Police Department and Lee Lofland (author of Police Procedure & Investigation) for helping me get the cop details right.

  To Kathy Williams, Capt. Dave Morkal, John Broadwater, Nikki Bonanni, Karen Corum, Jen Forbus, and Lynne & Rhys Fraser—my terrific early readers.

  To Lisa Knauf and Steven Smith, who made generous contributions to the Artemis Project animal rescue group in New York City so they could name Gizmo (a.k.a. Hideous Gizmideus) and Puck.

  And, most especially, to my beautiful and extremely talented wife J. J. She is the first editor of every writer’s dreams.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 2011 by Chris Grabenstein

  interior design by Maria Fernandez

  Pegasus Books LLC

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  New York, NY 10004

  This 2012 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media

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  New York, NY 10014

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