Mind Scrambler

by Chris Grabenstein

  For that role, I’m nominating Kenny Krabitz.

  Richard Rock’s PI is seated directly across from the bed at a shiny table in what the Royal Lodge brochures probably claim is a kitchenette. I see a waist-high, dorm-style fridge, a microwave with Chef Boyardee splatter patterns on its window, and a rack of uneven wire shelves lined with coffee mugs, picnic basket salt-and-pepper shakers, and a half-empty roll of paper towels.

  Kenny Krabitz, P.I. is casually smoking a cigarette. There’s a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Dick Tracy-type pistol sitting on the table in front of him, right next to the paper deli cup of coffee that doubles as his ashtray. It is, of course, the five-shot .38-caliber pistol reported missing from the “Rock ’n Wow!” prop room last night. There’s also a small pocket-sized notebook on the table, between the cup and the magician’s pistol.

  Krabitz locks the soles of his scuffed shoes on a chair rung, leans back, and props himself against the maple-paneled wall.

  “Douse the smoke,” orders this tall guy wearing a faded navy blue raincoat even though there’s not a cloud in the sky. From the sound of his voice, his snowy white hair, and the way he carries himself, I’m figuring he’s the chief.

  “My nerves are jumpy,” claims Krabitz, sucking down a few more milligrams of tar and nicotine with a wet smack.

  “Douse it.”

  “I believe that’s Chief Maroney,” whispers Ceepak. He must’ve gone to the ACPD Web site and memorized the chain of command after we were deputized by Flynn.

  “Okay, Mr. Krabitz,” says Chief Maroney. “Tell me again. What the hell happened here?”

  “Jesus, Chief, I already told you. Six fucking times.”

  “So tell me again!” he screams. Then—and I’d give him a medal for this, even though he’s contaminating a crime scene—he rips that ash-dripping cigarette right out of Krabitz’s smug mouth and grinds it out on the floor in the threadbare quarter-inch carpet. “Tell me how the hell two of my best cops waltz in here, sidearms holstered, and get themselves blown away by a goddamn chorus boy!”

  “The kid had the Beretta,” Krabitz says with a shrug. “Maybe he’s ex-military. The M-nine is a military sidearm.”

  “So why didn’t this ballerina take target practice on your chest, too?”

  “Like I said, we were negotiating. He had Mr. Rock’s notebooks there.” He gestures toward some Mead composition books stacked on the edge of the bed. “Even had the one for the Lucky Numbers trick, which he knew was worth a fucking fortune. We were working out his asking price when your boys showed up.”

  “That when Pratt handed you the snub-nose thirty-eight?”

  “He didn’t ‘hand’ it to me. Like I told you, your two boys knock on the door, announce their presence. Pratt whips out his Beretta and tells them to come on in.”

  “And you don’t contradict him? You don’t warn my officers to stay out of harm’s way?”

  Krabitz flicks his head toward the bed. “Did I mention the putz had a fucking pistol?”

  “Go on.”

  “He starts blasting away at your guys. They do not return fire. So, I dive for the thirty-eight I see sitting on the bedside table there and proceed to take Pratt down with a single shot to the chest. Guess I hit the bull’s-eye, hunh?”

  The chief jams his hands deep into the pockets of that trench coat—I guess so he doesn’t strangle Krabitz.

  “You’re telling me, this kid, Jake Pratt, is sitting on the bed, squeezing off a full magazine of fifteen rounds from an M-nine. Meanwhile, you’re tiptoeing around the bed to the night table, grabbing his other gun. Then you nonchalantly stroll back here to the front of the bed, position yourself directly in his line of fire, and take him down with one shot to the heart? What’d you do, count the bullets? Jump in and fire between his trigger squeezes?”

  Krabitz shrugs again. “What can I say, Chief? I’m nimble.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you just shoot the punk as soon as you got your hands on his other gun?”

  “Come on—I can’t shoot a man in the back. That’s what cowards do.”

  The chief shakes his head. “Where’s Dr. McDaniels?” he shouts to one of his men.

  “On her way.”

  In my peripheral vision, I notice Ceepak nodding. He’s relieved to hear that Dr. Sandra McDaniels, the top CSI in the state, is on the way. Since Detective Flynn helped her write her most recent field manual, you know Dr. McD’s going to have a personal stake in nailing down the truth about what the hell really happened here because I’m with Chief Maroney: Krabitz’s story sounds like total horse crap.

  “Make sure Sandy does the trajectory work. See if it matches up with the bullshit Jack-be-nimble here is trying to sell us.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  “And show her those two shopping bags. Could be connected to the other thing over at the Xanadu.”

  “Could be?” snorts Krabitz. “Come on! The Pink Pussycat Boutique is where Pratt bought that S and M underwear for the nanny. Hell, the credit card slip is still in the bag! His credit card! Got his name engraved on it and everything.”

  “You looked, hunh?” Maroney asks Krabitz.

  “Yeah. While I waited for you boys to show up. It helped pass the time.”

  Ceepak, of course, was right once again: Katie’s death and the theft of Richard Rock’s notebooks are linked.

  “And don’t forget this,” says Krabitz, tapping his finger near that small spiral notebook on the dinette table. “It’s practically a confession. Love notes to the Landry girl. Detailed running time of the show, each bit’s start and finish time. He knew exactly when everybody would be too busy to give a shit about how he was diddling the nanny back in that suite.”

  Now I wish I had my weapon to make Krabitz shut up.

  “This bastard Pratt knew exactly how much time he had to dress her up, do the whole ‘strangle me when I come’ bit.”

  “Mr. Krabitz?” says the chief.

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Amen, Chief.

  “Jesus,” moans Krabitz, “why you being such a hard-ass here? I solved the fucking burglary and the murder. I did your whole fucking job for you.”

  “You got two cops killed!”

  “Well, maybe if these two numb nuts hadn’t been illegally surveiling me, hadn’t busted in here like Rambo and Schwarzenegger.”

  “Enough! Lock this schmuck up. Put Mr. Krabitz in our smallest cell until Dr. McDaniels tells me what I already know: This slimeball is lying through his teeth.”

  Krabitz leans back and laughs. “You can’t arrest me, Chief.”

  “Really? Watch me.”

  “What’s the fucking charge?”

  “Violating municipal ordinance twenty-three nineteen of the Atlantic City hotel-motel code. This is a nonsmoking room.”

  “Let’s go,” says a uniform who grabs hold of Krabitz’s arm and helps him up out of his padded seat.

  “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

  The chief is the one who shrugs this time. “So call him.”

  “I want to talk to David Zuckerman. Now! Right now!”

  “We’ll see what we can do about that,” says the uniform as he escorts Krabitz around the two dead bodies blocking their path to the door.

  “Hold on, hot shit,” Krabitz says to the cop, which, by the way, is never a wise thing to call a person who has a loaded weapon strapped to his hip when you don’t. “I can call him right here.”

  “Confiscate Mr. Krabitz’s phone,” barks the chief. “Now! It’s evidence.”

  “Of what?” snaps Krabitz.

  “Whatever the hell really happened here! Give me his goddamn phone and get him the hell out of my sight. He’s contaminating my crime scene!”

  The uniform tosses Krabitz’s cell to another cop, who drops it into a paper sack. We spectators step back an inch or two from the doorway so the cop can shove Krabitz out of room 212 and onto our terrace.

  Krabitz sees us. “Offi
cers,” he says with a grin. “I told you I’d find Pratt.”

  Yeah. He just didn’t mention anything about killing him, too.

  26

  “You the two cops Brady deputized?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chief Maroney came out to the second-floor motel terrace to catch a breath of fresh air. He unwraps a HALLS Mentho-Lyptus, pops it in his mouth. Nothing like that vapor action to jolt the stench of death right out of your nostrils.

  “I’m John Ceepak. This is my partner, Danny Boyle. We’re with the Sea Haven police department.”

  “What are you doing down here in Atlantic City? R and R?”

  “No, sir. Our original objective was to take a deposition from a witness for an upcoming murder trial.”

  The chief nods. Clacks the lozenge against his teeth. “And then all hell broke loose.”

  “Yes, sir. Detective Flynn indicated that his investigative department was somewhat short-staffed. He asked that we assist him.”

  “Sea Haven let you do that?” the chief asks.

  “We are on administrative leave from our duties for the remainder of the week.”

  The chief steps toward the edge of the terrace and rests his hands on the railing, leans out so he can squint up at the bright blue sky. “Flynn told me you guys knew the nanny.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, at least we know who killed her.”

  “Do we?”

  The chief turns around so he can eyeball Ceepak. “Jake Pratt. The kid in there dead on the bed. He did it. Dropped a whole clump of pubic hairs on the carpet.”

  “You made the match?”

  “Last night. We also ran a fingerprint check on that love note smeared across the bathroom mirror. Again, it comes up Pratt. Inside here”—he jabs a thumb toward room 212—“we find Pink Pussycat shopping bags with an itemized credit card receipt, listing the, you know, the merchandise Ms. Landry was wearing.”

  “The bondage costume that did not fit,” says Ceepak.

  “Yeah—because Pratt was the one who purchased the garter belt and what have you. Yesterday. Paid for it with his Visa card. It’s all on the charge card. I figure Ms. Landry forgot to tell him her size. Women do that. Act like we should know.”

  “That’s one possibility,” says Ceepak, who’s not as willing as Chief Maroney to wrap up the Katie killing and pin it on Jake Pratt.

  Chief Maroney sighs. “You also got Jake Pratt’s bolo tie as the murder weapon.”

  “There’s no way of knowing whether—”

  “Also, you got the fact that Mr. Pratt missed the show last night, the fact that he gave the two Rock children fifty bucks to go buy ice cream, the fact that he’s holed up here in the Royal Lodge instead of down at the Holiday Inn where he’s supposed to be. And then there’s his diary.”

  “Diary?”

  “That little spiral notebook we found.”

  “Have you analyzed and authenticated the handwriting? Is it Pratt’s?”

  “Matches a postcard we found on the nightstand. He was writing his mother. Telling her not to worry. Letting her know he was okay.”

  Guess he was—when he wrote it.

  “Might I inquire as to the diary’s contents?” says Ceepak.

  Maroney reaches into his raincoat, pulls out his own memo pad. “First couple pages it’s more or less his daybook. Rehearsal dates. Call times. Breakdown of the show.” He flips forward a few pages. “He also scribbled a couple to-dos in a list. Tell wardrobe he needs a new dance belt. Get his tap shoes repaired.”

  Ceepak pulls out his own spiral book and starts jotting down notes.

  “Things get extremely interesting on page six,” says the chief. “I wrote it down verbatim.”

  Ceepak leans in so he can write it down verbatim, too.

  “ ‘Katie. I am moving into the Royal Lodge as suggested. Being closer is better. I love you. I can’t wait to be so close we melt into each other.’ ”

  I must’ve flinched. Maroney is giving me the once-over.

  “You okay hearing this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chief Maroney starts reading again: “ ‘I will get what we need. Ball gag. Hood. Harness. Handcuffs. I love you. The danger excites me. We were meant to be together forever.’ ”

  Ceepak finishes writing, closes up his notebook. “If Jake Pratt loved Ms. Landry so much, why would he kill her?”

  “How many times do you guys need to hear this? It was an accident. Erotic asphyxiation. Kinky sex that got out of hand.”

  Okay. My turn to speak up: “No way, sir.”

  “Excuse me?” This from the chief.

  “No way did Katie Landry willingly allow Jake Pratt to strangle her with a bolo tie so she could, you know, have a heightened orgasm.”

  “Says who?”

  “Me. And Detective Flynn. He figured that Pratt surprised Katie while she was drawing a bath for the boy. Then he kicked out the kids, forced her to put on that getup. Come on, if Katie Landry was really into breath-control games, she would’ve told Pratt what size S and M gear to buy. Katie was a kindergarten teacher! She knows how to order supplies!”

  Okay, that didn’t come out exactly the way I wanted it to, but I think I made my point.

  “Has Dr. McDaniels examined the forensic evidence from Ms. Landry’s murder scene?” Ceepak asks.

  “Look,” says the chief, sounding pretty annoyed with his newest deputies, “two of my best cops, two guys I play softball with, whose kids I know, two extremely good men were killed this morning. Figuring out what really happened inside that motel room is priority number one. For me. For Dr. Sandra McDaniels. For the entire ACPD. As far as we’re concerned, the thing across the street is closed. Mr. Jake Pratt accidentally killed Ms. Katie Landry, even if she wasn’t a willing participant in the sex games. Then Pratt stole Rock’s notebooks, the ones we found in his room here, so he could extort some cash and finance his getaway. End of story. It’s why that imbecile of a PI Krabitz knew where to find the kid. I figure Pratt contacted Rock’s people. Made his demands known. They were haggling over price when my guys busted up their confab. So, I’m sorry, Officers, but I do not have the time, the manpower, or, frankly, the inclination to investigate the Landry murder further.”

  “We do,” says Ceepak. “As I indicated, we’re free all week.”

  The chief exhales noisily. I smell eucalyptus.

  “You really think I’m missing something?”

  “I think,” says Ceepak, “that we owe it to Detective Flynn to ascertain the truth. It’s what he was attempting to do. It’s what made him follow Mr. Krabitz up here to this motel room.”

  That gets the chief sighing again. “Fine,” he says. “Do it.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But remember: resources get allocated my way first. Do not even think about dragging Dr. McDaniels away from what I need her to be doing.”

  “Of course not. You have our word.”

  “I can’t give you weapons. Liability issues.”

  “Understood.”

  “So why the hell are you still standing here? Go on. Get to work.”

  Ceepak straightens up. Stands at attention. “Yes, sir. Danny? Let’s roll.”

  “Where we going?” I ask as we clank down the steel steps toward the parking lot.

  “Motel office. If, as Mr. Pratt’s diary seems to imply, he and Katie were romantically involved, that he took this room across the street from the Xanadu at her suggestion, she would have undoubtedly spent some time over here with him.”

  True. You don’t ask your boyfriend to secure a love nest if you don’t intend to feather it with him from time to time.

  We hit the tarmac and head for the motel office. We push open the door and it smells like they use sour milk instead of Freon for air-conditioner coolant. There are two uniformed ACPD cops standing guard near the plate-glass windows.

  Ceepak and I nod at them; they nod at us and hike up their gun belts because they actually
have weapons even if we don’t.

  The desk clerk could care less about all the nodding and belt-hiking going on. He’s sitting on a stool behind the counter, eyes glued on the morning newspaper, studying the sports pages, probably trying to decide who to bet his life savings on today.

  “Sir?” says Ceepak.

  “Yeah?” The guy doesn’t look up. All we see are the three strands of oily hair straddling the fleshy summit of his bald dome.

  “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  “So ask.” He runs a finger across the box scores.

  “Are you familiar with the tenant in room two-twelve?”

  “Not really.” He flips over a sheet of newsprint. “He the dead guy up there?”

  “He’s one of them.”

  The helpful clerk flicks his hand sideways, still doesn’t look up from the paper. “These two showed me his picture.”

  “And?”

  Now, finally, he looks up. “And what?”

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Special ACPD Deputies Ceepak and Boyle.”

  “Deputies?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Like that Barney Fife character from Mayberry?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Just like Barney. So, what can you tell us about Jake Pratt?”

  The guy shrugs. “He checked in Sunday. Didn’t pay for the room.”

  “Come again?” says Ceepak, stepping closer to the counter.

  “He didn’t pay for the room.”

  “Who did?”

  “His girlfriend.” He winks at us. “Older chick. A real cougar.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know—an older woman who digs the young stuff. This Pratt kid looked to be right out of high school.”

  “How old was the woman?”

  “I dunno. Thirty. Forty. Hard to tell. She’s had some major work done. Boobs. Nose. Face. You can tell, you know? No wrinkles when they raise their eyebrows. Using that Boflex stuff.”

  “What color hair did she have?”