Mad Mouse: A John Ceepak Mystery (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Or”—Ceepak ignores me—“he could just be a kid with too many trading cards he can't sell on eBay. It's too early to connect all the dots.”

  “So, what are we looking for down on the beach?”

  “More dots.”

  I park at the end of Tangerine where it dead-ends against the dunes. We walk up the sandy slope, past the bench, down to where we had our little bonfire Wednesday night. I carry our digital camera and the aluminum attaché case. Ceepak has his metal detector, the kite string, and whatever else he tucked into his multiple pockets tonight.

  “Are we looking for anything in particular?” I ask.

  “Thus far, we have three paintball incidents. Here, The Pig's Commitment, Morgan's. Crime scenes one and three are linked by the shooter's calling cards. Hits one and three took place at night and involved glow-in-the-dark paintballs.”

  “You think there might be more links? Between one and three?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Ceepak slips on these earmuff-style headphones and flicks on his metal detector. He walks in an expanding circle around the small pit where my crew toasted marshmallows Wednesday night. He widens out with every sweep. I get a little dizzy, watching him march around and around, increasing his circle's diameter in measured increments each time he repeats the sweep. Then, on the thirteenth or fourteenth circle, he finds something. Ceepak switches off the metal detector, kneels on the sand.

  “Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “In my attaché case, you'll find a photographer's squeeze-bulb brush. Could you please bring it over here?”

  “Sure.” I open the case. I quickly see what I think he's looking for. I pull it out of its little foam nook and hustle over to Ceepak.

  “Careful,” he cautions me.

  “Sorry.” He's digging a hole in the sand like a kid starting the moat for his castle.

  “Do you have your Maglite?”

  In fact, no. But I pull out my keyring. I have this tiny Bud Light flashlight hanging off it. I squeeze it and aim its dim beam into Ceepak's pit while he brushes and blows away some sand.

  “There it is,” he says.

  I see the glint of metal. Gold. Copper. The butt end of a bullet.

  Ceepak takes the digital camera and snaps some photos. Then, reaching into his hip pocket, he pulls out a pair of tweezers and a paper evidence envelope.

  “Seven-six-two millimeter special ball,” Ceepak says after examining the bullet. Because it landed in the sand, the tip isn't bent or crushed. It's pointy. Like a pencil or maybe a lipstick. “Note the gliding metal jacket. It is, as you see, boat-tailed.”

  Okay. Fine. If he says so. I have no idea what boat-tailed means. But I'm sure I'll find out.

  “See how the rear is tapered for a tight, targeted flight? This is the preferred cartridge for the army-issue M-14 series as well as the M-21 and M-24 SWS's.”

  Sniper Weapon Systems.

  “You think our shooter's an army guy?”

  “It's one possibility.” Ceepak marks the spot where he extracted the bullet with this little plastic putt-marker he had stowed in his knee pocket. He looks up toward the road.

  “Interesting.” Ceepak moves toward the oil drum trash barrel. He leans over and looks inside it.

  “Danny? Your flashlight.”

  I hand him my keyring.

  “You squeeze it to make it glow,” I explain.

  He gets it working and shines it around inside the trash can. Thankfully, there's not much in it besides some empty soda bottles and one disposable diaper.

  “Obviously it's been emptied and moved since Wednesday night.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I think they empty it every day.”

  “They should. They should also recycle these plastic bottles.”

  I'm sure Ceepak recycles. I'm sure he separates his number ones and number twos—doesn't let his liquid detergent bottles mingle with his milk jugs.

  He flashes my little keychain gizmo against the inside of the barrel. From the outside, I see a pinprick of white. He swings it to the other side; I see another light hole, a little lower.

  “Help me here, Danny.” Ceepak pulls out the kite string. “Rotate the barrel.”

  We twist the can so the side with the lower hole is facing Ceepak's putt-marker. Then, he threads the kite string through that hole and out the other.

  “Hold that. Right against the hole.”

  “Okay.”

  Ceepak lets out a little more kite string and walks backwards. Kneeling down, he pulls the string taut and places it on top of the putt-marker.

  “Rotate the can. Two degrees north.”

  I do.

  “A little more.”

  I comply.

  “Excellent. Slide the can toward the street two inches.”

  “Right.”

  “Hold the string.”

  Ceepak tugs. The kite string goes taut. We have a straight line.

  “Now, step aside. Good.” Ceepak pulls out some kind of chubby ballpoint pen. He lies down on the sand. “Look toward the street, Danny.” I turn. “See it?”

  There's a small red dot on the back of the bench, right near the edge of the top board. Ceepak's using a laser pointer to recreate the bullet's trajectory. It shoots up from the sand, through the two holes in the trashcan, hits the back of the bench. I'll bet he learned how to do this on one of his TV shows. Anyway, we just more or less confirmed where the sniper was Wednesday night.

  “Of course, we can't be certain as to the exact location,” Ceepak says. “A lot depends on where the trash can was previously positioned.”

  “That's pretty close to where it was Wednesday,” I say.

  “Danny?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Pretty close is never very precise.”

  “Yeah.”

  “However, we can confirm the approximate positioning of our shooter.”

  We have also confirmed that a bullet was fired here Wednesday night. A seven-six-two millimeter special ball cartridge. The same pointy little number I heard whiz past my ear tonight.

  “Pop, snap, pop,” I mumble.

  “Come again?”

  “Wednesday night. There were all these pops and then a different sound. More like a snap.”

  “Was there a long pause between the pops and the snap?”

  I feel like a Rice Krispies commercial.

  “Maybe. Yeah.” I say it mainly because I think that's the answer Ceepak wants to hear. “Yeah, a pause. A slight one. And then the pops started up again.”

  Ceepak nods.

  “The pops and the pause present a new puzzle. Are we dealing with two shooters or a single sniper switching weapon systems?”

  “Is that possible? To change rifles that fast?”

  “If you're set up to do so. If you're good.”

  “You could do it? Couldn't you?”

  He nods.

  I look at the tiny hole the bullet ripped through the trash can, see how it splayed jagged sheet metal edges inward. It's no wonder we didn't see it before. You could fit six on top of a quarter. I can only imagine what would have happened if that same small hole was in my chest. My ribs would probably hurt even worse, but I wouldn't need Extra Strength Advil because I'd also be dead.

  “Now what?”

  “Tomorrow, we'll have Dr. McDaniels work her magic, confirm the two bullets were fired from the same weapon. I need to call some old friends. Request all potentially useful information regarding sniper training—including known sharpshooters discharged in this area, with a special focus on those who washed out.”

  That's pretty heavy-duty, I think, but I don't say anything.

  “We also need to talk to young T. J. See if he'll confess to the incident at The Pig.”

  “You don't think he did this?”

  “No. I think the paintballing of Grace Porter's sign was a random act of juvenile vandalism.”

  I just listen. He's not done yet.

  “Here and
at the restaurant we see a pattern.” Ceepak starts enumerating: “Night attacks. Glow-in-the-dark paint balls, the sniper bullets.”

  “Yeah.” I scrape up a chuckle. It's one of those nervous little ones you only produce when you're starting to get totally freaked out with fear. Why do I have a hunch I know where Ceepak's going? I'm not in any hurry to go there with him.

  “I believe our shooter fired the glow balls to light up his targets. Make them easier to spot. Then he switched weapons or his accomplice opened fire.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ceepak looks at me. His lips are a straight line, his eyes narrow. I'm pretty sure I know what he's going to say next.

  “There's one more thing,” he says.

  “Yeah?” I try to sound like I'm surprised even though I'm not. “Another link? Besides the trading cards?”

  “Yes, Danny.” He pauses again.

  Oh, let's get it over with.

  “The target in both episodes,” he says. “That's what we're talking about.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  Me and my friends.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Remember how I said the Mad Mouse roller coaster on the boardwalk is so much fun because it makes you feel like you're gonna die every time the little car zips around one of those tight curves?

  I take that back.

  Thinking you're going to die, thinking it could happen any second, having your life become an out-of-control Mad Mouse isn't that much fun, especially when some of your best friends are crammed into the roller-coaster car with you and you don't know who's manning the controls.

  The shooter wants me. Or my friends. Or both.

  Why?

  You tell me.

  “We need to discern motive,” Ceepak says as we trudge through the sand and make our way back to Tangerine Street.

  “We sure as hell do,” I say, not sounding nearly as professional as maybe I should.

  “You know, Danny …” Ceepak stops walking and looks at me with sincere concern. “I'd understand if you asked to be relieved of this duty. To be temporarily reassigned. Even if you went out on disability with PTSD. Posttraumatic stress disorder.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You wouldn't think I was a coward if I went home and hid under my bed?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Would you do it?”

  He doesn't need to answer. I know he wouldn't run away from danger because he didn't, especially not when his buddies needed him most.

  I've heard stories about some of the stuff Ceepak did over in Iraq. How he risked his own life to run up an alley under heavy fire and drag a guy to safety—some artillery gunner he didn't even know. That was back in Sadr City, the slummy section of Baghdad where they still liked Saddam. Ceepak saved that soldier's life because to him his duty is about doing more than his duty, if you catch my drift. The army gave Ceepak one of its biggest medals for that one. The Bronze Star, awarded for “heroic service” in combat.

  Ceepak never wears any of his medals, of course. He never even talks about them. When he first joined the force here back in the spring, the guys all thought he was kind of a joke on account of his Code. I heard Sergeant Santucci even called Ceepak a special kind of MP—not Military Police, but a “Missy Prissy.”

  Then some of the guys called their buddies in the army and National Guard. Asked around. They heard the stories. About that rescue in the alley. And the time Ceepak single-handedly held off this ambush outside Fallujah. Or the one about the unconscious, dehydrated Iraqi kid on a stretcher Ceepak saved with IV fluids because he was the only one who could tell the boy was suffering from heat stroke.

  When the guys at the house heard all this stuff, they quit calling Ceepak “Dudley Do-Right” and “Goody Two-Shoes,” which is one of those expressions I never understood, since everybody I know, good or bad, usually wears two shoes.

  Anyhow, I know what Ceepak does when his buddies are in danger. He does not run away. He does not hide under his bed.

  “What I might do in your situation is irrelevant, Danny,” Ceepak now says, offering me some wiggle room.

  As you may have already guessed, I've never won any medals. Not even at camp. Not even for Popsicle-stick hot-plate making—and I was pretty good at it. I don't have much practice being heroic, acting brave. Bravery for me used to mean chugging a yard of beer on a stomach full of chicken wings while my buddies chanted, “Go, go, go!”

  I have to admit, the thought of someone out there who has my pals and me in his sights makes me think maybe I was too quick to dismiss that telemarketing gig with the mortgage broker. But then I'd have to call people during dinnertime, and I guess you have to be pretty brave to do that, too.

  I look at Ceepak.

  “I might know something that'll help us catch this guy,” I say. “And I might be the only one who could possibly know it.”

  “You might also get yourself killed.” He says it grimly. “You're putting yourself in harm's way.”

  “Hey, that kind of comes with the job, right?”

  Ceepak nods.

  “Do I get a little sermon about my life being on the line Tuesday during orientation?”

  Ceepak smiles.

  “Probably not,” he says. “Mostly, it's W-2s and medical forms.”

  “Does our insurance cover bullet wounds?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then, I'm good to go. Besides, I can't hide under my bed. It's a mess down there. Dust bunnies. Dirty underwear. Dirty magazines.”

  Ceepak doesn't blink. So I do.

  “Come on,” I say, leading the way. “We need to get busy.”

  I figure there's no better way to start my new career. Someone wants to hurt my friends, they have to answer to me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When we reach the street, a guy is standing near our cop car.

  It's the same one who came out when the ambulance arrived Wednesday night—the potential witness we never interviewed because it was so late. Well, it's almost one A.M. now, here he is, up and walking around.

  “More trouble?” he asks.

  “No, sir,” Ceepak answers. “You live around here?”

  The guy gestures over his shoulder to the three-story house on the corner, the one closest to the beach and, therefore, probably the most expensive rental on the block.

  “We rent. Two weeks every summer. Always the same place. We have four kids. There's satellite TV.”

  I can't quite make the connection between the number of kids and the number of digital channels at his disposal.

  “I'm a night owl,” he says. “When the kids call it quits and the wife sacks out, I watch old movies.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ceepak says. “We didn't stop by Wednesday night because your house was dark.”

  “Blackout blinds.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The TV room has blackout blinds. Makes the picture sharper. Room's soundproof, too. Nice in there. Like a movie theater.”

  Our friend's probably late thirties, early forties. Short. Ferret-faced. He's wearing a T-shirt so I can see he has a wooly patch of hair growing up his back and extremely fuzzy forearms. In fact, he has hair everywhere except, of course, on the top of his head. Up there he's got only a few thin wisps trying desperately to crawl across a vast desert of shiny skin. I peg him to be an accountant.

  “Is this a good time to ask you a few questions?”

  He checks his watch.

  “Sure. Dirty Harry doesn't start till one thirty.”

  “Wednesday night.” Ceepak pulls out his notepad.

  “The Dirty Dozen.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It was on Turner Classic Movies. Wednesday. You like The Dirty Dozen?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, what guy doesn't, am I right?”

  “On Wednesday—”

  “Wednesday was Beach Blanket Bingo. Animal House.”

  “I thought you
said it was The Dirty Dozen.”

  “No. I mean those kids down on the beach having some kind of beer blast. I could hear them. Laughing. Listening to loud music.”

  “You heard them? I thought your television room was soundproof.”

  “Had to hit the head. Put the movie on pause. We have TiVo, too.”

  “So why don't you catch these late-night movies during the day?” I ask. I know TiVo. Wish I had it. Watch what you want when you want to watch it. For instance, I could watch The Simpsons all day long.

  The guy looks my way. “You don't have any kids, am I right?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Just wait. You'll see. They change everything. Kids show up. Your life is basically over. Anyhow, I was on my way to take a whiz and I heard all this rap music. That's illegal, isn't it?”

  Ceepak looks confused. “Rap music?”

  “No. Beer parties on the beach.”

  “Yes, sir. Consumption of alcoholic beverages is against posted beach regulations.” Ceepak says this without giving me a dirty look. But that doesn't mean he's forgotten it. He's already given me a ticket for that illegal left turn. He probably has a few blank citations left in his pad. Then again, I'm not the guy going around town shooting at people with two rifles. Maybe he'll let me off with a warning.

  “Did you notice anything else?” he asks the man.

  “You mean when the ambulance came?”

  “Or before.”

  “No. Just that the kids making all the noise parked over there.” He points to the spot right in front of the wooden walkway. “That's also illegal. See?” Now he points at the No Parking sign. “I wasn't going to make any big stink about it. It was late.”

  “When did you see this vehicle?”

  “When I went into the kitchen to make more popcorn.”

  “Did you notice the time?”

  “Around midnight.”

  “You sure about the time?”

  “Positive.”

  “You checked your watch?”

  “No. The microwave. It has one of those automatic popcorn buttons but I prefer to enter the time manually to insure proper poppage.”

  “Because microwave oven temperatures may vary.” Ceepak understands. Of course he does. He also follows the instructions—the rules—plainly written on the side of every Orville Redenbacher box.