Whack A Mole: A John Ceepak Mystery (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

by Chris Grabenstein

  Today I wonder if any place on this particular beach is safe. There are dangerous, hidden spots nobody can see. Deep black holes where young girls disappear. Young girls nobody was watching out for. The invisible dead. What Ceepak, only yesterday, called the “less dead.”

  You dig up four skulls in under an hour, you start thinking creepy stuff like that.

  Ceepak decides we should stop digging even though we are in possession of Map Number Four, which indicates that if we venture seven paces to the east we will unearth Skull Number Five.

  The four female skulls already excavated sit in grocery bags over near Hole Number One. From a distance, it looks like Ceepak, me, and two extremely hungry lumberjacks brought huge sack lunches with us to work today.

  About ten feet down from the brown bags, I see the recently erected FIRST ANNUAL SEA HAVEN SAND CASTLE KINGDOM banner snapping in the breeze near the entrance to a rolled-out rectangle of bright orange construction fencing. The banner's got half-moon wind vents cut into it, so it won't roll up on itself. Behind the fence, I see guys climbing aboard backhoes, finishing their coffee and rolls and Little Debbie Honey Buns.

  “We need to wait for backup,” says Ceepak. “Lock down this primary area of interest. Set up a secure perimeter. We may need to seal off the Sand Castle site as well.”

  I nod because I know we can't have tourists and backhoes traipsing all over what might be the east wing of Sea Haven's beach-front boneyard.

  When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me it was a sin to walk across somebody's grave. Sacrilegious. You don't want to step on their souls, she'd say. Made me wonder how cemetery groundskeepers mowed their lawns if it's against the rules to walk on top of anybody's coffin.

  Who knew that the unintentionally irreverent have been playing hacky-sack for years on top of our secret cemetery: Oak Beach.

  “So far,” Ceepak says, “it seems the killer only struck in the summer.”

  “Yeah.”

  He rattles off the facts. “One victim in the summer of 1979. Two in the summer of 1980….”

  “And one in 1981.”

  “So far.”

  “Yeah. So far.”

  “He also seems to kill early in the week. Monday. Tuesday.”

  I nod. “And he always uses the Friday newspaper.”

  “Indeed. However, the Sandpaper is a weekly. I believe it is only published on Fridays.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Still, you make a cogent observation, Danny. In all instances, the killer waits three or more days before wrapping up the skull, sealing it inside the plastic storage container.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “The kill date always comes before the paper date….”

  “Precisely. The perpetrator also premeditates his next kill—at least where he plans on burying the next skull. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to put the maps in the bag with the note card. Each kill is a prequel to the next.”

  I nod again, then restate the most obvious fact we've uncovered thus far: “He also cuts off their ears and noses.”

  We examined all four skulls. There were cut marks.

  Ceepak checks his watch.

  “What's keeping Diego?”

  He's eager to pinpoint the lewdness quote, hoping it might give us a clue as to the perp's twisted motivation.

  Unfortunately, Denise wasn't home when Dispatch called. They finally tagged her on her cell. She was at the 7-Eleven picking up breakfast. Cool Ranch Doritos and a Diet Pepsi would be my guess.

  “Hey, Danny Boy!”

  I squint. Some guy smoking a cigarette is waving at me from the wooden plank walkway cutting through the dunes.

  “Friend of yours?” asks Ceepak.

  “I'm not sure,” I say, because I don't recognize him. He saunters over toward us, takes one last drag, flicks his butt in the sand.

  “Sir?” Ceepak calls out. “Kindly retrieve your refuse.”

  The guy stops. Seems surprised.

  Ceepak points to where the man tossed his cigarette.

  “Please deposit your trash in a proper receptacle.”

  Now the guy shrugs, bends down, searches in the sand. He finds his cigarette butt and picks it up.

  “Sorry, man.” He coughs, rolls the stubbed-out filter between his finger and thumb. Tucks it in his shorts. He shambles over toward us.

  It's Ralph. The angry bartender. I didn't recognize him at first because I've never seen the guy in direct sunlight—just under dim neons in the dark bar. He's also wearing a Phillies baseball cap pulled down tight to shade his bleary eyes.

  “Hey, Ralph,” I say. “You're up early.”

  “Yeah.” He hacks to clear out his lungs a little. “Excuse me. Think I'm catching a summer cold.” He catches sight of our grocery sacks. “What's in the bags?”

  I answer because I don't want Ceepak blurting out the truth.

  “Stuff.”

  “Police stuff?”

  “Roger that,” I say, sounding way official.

  Ralph sticks a fresh smoke between his lips. But he doesn't light up. Something distracts him.

  “Jesus, look at them, would ya,” he says, the cigarette bobbing up and down in the corner of his mouth. He motions toward a group of young girls giggling up the beach in their bikinis. I figure it's the first of many such trios that will strut their stuff on this particular stretch of sand today.

  “Would you let your daughter dress that way in public?”

  He shoots this one to Ceepak.

  “I'm not married,” says Ceepak. “I have no children.”

  “Yeah, well me neither, but fucking-a. Look at that. What are they? Fourteen? Fifteen? Why don't they just walk around naked?”

  I have often asked myself the same question—but not in the same hypercritical tone Ralph's using. With me, it's more of a dream-cometrue type thing.

  “What're you doing out of bed so early?” I ask Ralph, hoping to nudge him off his rant.

  “It's Tuesday morning.”

  “Unh-hunh.” I have no idea what he means.

  “My last morning to wake up undisgusted. Tonight's Ladies’ Night. Means the so-called ladies will be packed in cheek to jowl, all boozed up on half-price drinks, throwing themselves at anything in pants. They ought to call it Whores’ Night.” He makes the word sound like the beer: “Hoors.”

  I wonder once again why Ralph works a job he hates so much. Why he's so annoyed with the mating dance that plays out nightly on the other side of his beer-stained bar or why he's stuck with it for close to thirty years.

  Ralph shakes his head as another group of tanned babes appears on the beach, their little navel rings flashing in the sun.

  “Shit, remember when there wasn't even a beach here?”

  “When was that?” asks Ceepak.

  “In the early ’80s. It was deserted over this way. Then they put in the fucking jetties. Stopped the erosion. Built the beach back up. That's when the sluts returned, too.”

  “Were you here then, sir?”

  “Fucking-a. Stuck behind that goddamn bar. Every goddamn summer since 1977. Maybe I shoulda gone back to college….”

  I hear sirens approaching. Our backup has finally arrived.

  “What's going down?” Ralph asks, using the lingo he's heard on too many cop shows.

  “Sand Castle Competition,” I say. “We're bringing in extra security. For the backhoes.”

  “Fucking sand castles. Whose fucking idea was that? Means we'll be super fucking crowded tonight.” He mutters while he works his way through five paper matches that sputter out before he can light up. “Fucking wind.” He slaps at the greenhead nipping at his neck. “Shit. Fucking flies. Catch you later, Danny Boy.”

  “Yeah. Later, Ralph.”

  Finally, he walks away. Up and over the dune, down to where the wind won't blow out the last of his paper matches.

  “Bitter man,” says Ceepak when Ralph is gone.

  “Yeah.”

  Ceepak pulls out his notebook and jots somethi
ng down.

  I believe the belligerent bartender just made Ceepak's suspect list.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We need to put up some screens. I want this whole area sealed off.”

  The first unit responding to our backup request?

  Santucci and Malloy.

  Santucci is all of a sudden acting like he's in charge because he has extra stripes on his sleeve. Ceepak, you have to understand, never bothered to take the sergeant's exam last winter. Santucci took it five years ago. Passed it two years later.

  “Where's Tray?” Santucci snaps.

  “Tray?” Malloy screams at this young kid in navy blue shorts and a baseball cap.

  “Here, sir.”

  Tray is Keith Barent Johnson III, the son of a local hotel owner. It's a nickname, something to with his being KBJ Number Three. Either that or he used to work in a cafeteria. Anyhow, Tray is a summer cop like I used to be. Only I worked with Ceepak. He's been dealt Santucci and Malloy.

  “Tray,” Santucci says, sounding a lot like one of those mean drill sergeants in military movies, “I want you working with the guys from the municipal garage.”

  “You got that, son?” echoes Malloy.

  “Yes, sir,” says Tray. He salutes, too. Either that or he can't see because the sun is in his eyes and he's using his hand as a makeshift visor.

  I see Ceepak checking his watch. Again. Still no word from Diego.

  Santucci points toward the competition site. “I want crash curtains everywhere. Establish the perimeter, then seal it off. Understood?”

  Malloy leans in, shouts in the kid's ear. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tray looks confused. “I mean, no. What are crash curtains, sir?’

  “Jesus,” growls Santucci. “Just how stupid are you?”

  “Answer the sergeant's question,” adds Malloy. “How stupid are you, son?”

  Now Tray looks like he might cry, which is never a good choice when you're on the job. Trust me. Nobody wants to see their law enforcement personnel being that sensitive. Kind of ruins the whole cop image if you're dressed in blue but boo-hooing like most guys only weep when they watch Brian's Song, or maybe Dead Poets Society (even though they'd never admit it).

  Ceepak steps forward, tries to get between the kid and his two tormentors.

  “Crash curtains are seven-foot-tall green tarpaulins that the State Police use to shield accident scenes from motorists in an attempt to reduce rubbernecking delays.”

  Tray straightens up. “I see. Thank you, Mr. Ceepak. I didn't know.”

  “Take it easy son,” says Ceepak. “It's all good.”

  Santucci turns to face Ceepak.

  “All good? All good? No, it is not. It isn't good at all. You're interfering here, Ceepak. Subverting the chain of command. Auxiliary Officer Johnson reports to me, not you. Is that clear?” Santucci's wearing his mirrored sunglasses, looking like Smoky or the Bandit— I forget which one of those two dorks wore the silver shades. “Do we understand each other?”

  Ceepak grins. “Completely, Sergeant.”

  Santucci works his gum. Snaps an air pocket between his molars. He leans in close so Ceepak can smell his fresh, minty breath.

  “You know, this used to be a quiet little town until you showed up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Santucci points at the holes in the sand.

  “This skull crap. We didn't have problems like this until you joined the force.”

  “Actually,” says Ceepak, “according to the evidence recovered thus far, these particular incidents took place in the early 1980s. I was in junior high school at the time. In Ohio.”

  “Yeah? Well this is Jersey, okay? You got a problem with that?”

  I have no idea what Santucci's talking about. Maybe he's trying to invent his own Code. Either that or he's working on a new state slogan, something to put on the license plates, since nobody ever bought that whole “Garden State” deal.

  Santucci's partner, Malloy, is staring at the four holes Ceepak and I dug in the sand. He moves his head. Back and forth, back and forth. Real slow. It's hard for Malloy to shake his head because his neck muscles are so thick his noggin is basically a golf ball teed up on a stump.

  “Look at all these holes,” he says. “It looks like that Disney movie. You know—the one with all the holes in it. What was that one called?”

  “Holes?” I say.

  Santucci turns. I see my smiling face reflected back in his mirrored glasses. Yeah. He's right. I definitely look like a smart ass.

  The radio on Santucci's utility belt squawks. He whips down the hand mike clipped to the top of his left shoulder.

  “This is Sergeant Santucci. Go.”

  “Dom. Chief Baines. What's your 10-38?”

  “We are on-site, sir. Oak Beach. Situation is well in hand.”

  “Is Ceepak there?”

  “10-4.”

  “Good. I want you and Malloy to take over Sand Castle security. Ceepak should continue to gather evidence but should do so without drawing unwanted attention to his activities. Copy?”

  Ceepak nods. This means two things. The chief's still not calling the FBI or the State Police, and Ceepak and I are still in charge of excavating the treasure chests—but we have to do it in a way that doesn't let anybody on the beach know what we're digging up.

  “10-4, Chief,” says Santucci. “I'll give Ceepak his marching orders.”

  “I think I just did,” the chief snaps back. “I also gave you yours.”

  We don't do any more digging.

  As soon as Santucci, Malloy and Tray traipsed down to the contest site and started setting up stanchions for their crash curtains, Denise Diego radioed us with the results of her search.

  “I found it,” she says. “The book of Ezekiel. Chapter twenty-three.”

  “Read it back,” says Ceepak.

  “It's kind of a weird passage.”

  “Hold on.”

  We move away from the crowds. Walk further up the sloping sand, up to the sea grass and fencing again. Ceepak depresses the button on his handy-talkie. “Go ahead, Officer Diego.”

  “Okay, I'll cut to the chase. These are verses twenty-five to twenty-seven….”

  We hear her clear her throat. Take a deep breath. She starts reading from the Bible: “‘And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword. They shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease.’”

  They shall take away thy nose and thine ears.

  Nothing too bizarre here.

  Just some freaky psycho going around town doing exactly what God and Ezekiel told him to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Sea Haven's Department of Municipal Maintenance must have a ton of tarps.

  Santucci and his team have completely fenced in about ten thousand square feet. The whole First Annual Sand Castle Competition area, plus the plot where Ceepak and I found the skulls. Everybody on the beach—and there's thousands of them now—thinks the giant green screens are part of some mysterious big unveiling to take place Thursday afternoon when the sand sculpture exhibition is officially opened to the public. The current buzz is that the drapes will be majestically pulled down during a big ribbon cutting ceremony.

  Chief Baines looks pleased.

  He's on-site inspecting the situation: hands on hips, chest swelling with salty sea air. The chief doesn't wear a uniform anymore. These days he prefers a natty tailored suit. I think he buys them in bulk from the Men's Wearhouse. His gold badge shines on his hip, clipped over his belt. I think he might also have strapped on one of those ankle holsters. Either that or he's retaining water something fierce. His right ankle looks humongous, like it's wrapped with an Ace bandage over a sheet of bubble wrap.

  The
chief and Santucci stare at the billowing sheets.

  “Excellent job, Dom.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Terrific response to the situation. Well done. I've talked to the mayor. The C of C. They're all on board. Think the tarps will help build suspense for the grand opening. Good job, guys.”

  “We're not postponing the event?” Ceepak asks.

  The chief gives him a tight, bright smile. “No way.”

  “But….”

  The chief walks away. Down to the beach to personally greet some of our “guests.” The paying visitors he doesn't want to scare off the island.

  Santucci stations himself in front of the entrance to the Sand Castle Kingdom. If any civilian sunbathers attempt to sneak a peak at what's going on behind the curtains, he'll most likely bayonet them away.

  Just kidding. But old Dom is standing tough. Looking fierce. Probably always wanted to be a bouncer when he grew up.

  The chief prowls the sand like a politician, moving among the sun umbrellas, stopping to greet families spread out on cheerful towels, surrounded by their brightly colored beach gear. He pumps hands and laughs and encourages everyone to “Have a Sunny, Funderful day.”

  That's the official slogan in Sea Haven, even though it officially sucks.

  Ceepak and I pull open a flap in the tarp surrounding our pockmarked section of sand. The fabric is hot and has that oily scent of a tent pitched in the sun too long. It's time to go back to work.

  Time to continue our treasure hunt.

  Ceepak goes to Hole Number Four. He takes a miniature compass out of his cargo pants and holds it flat in the palm of his hand.

  “Due east,” he says, and strides across the sand, heading toward the ocean. Only I can't see the sea—just the tarp wall separating our designated quadrant from the Sand Castle construction site. To my left, I see dancing shadows of kids flinging Frisbees. To my right, more shadows. A volleyball game. Ceepak and I are alone inside our walled-off little world. Alone except for whatever we find buried in Hole Number Five.

  Ceepak walks seven steps, kneels on the sand.

  “Danny?”

  I start digging.

  “Slow and steady,” says Ceepak.