“Mendez told us what he and his team had worked up at a luncheon meeting on Friday.”
“Where?”
She flips open her daybook. I notice the pages are filled with tiny writing, like she records what she does every day in fifteen-minute intervals-probably so she can charge people all the billable hours she's due.
“The Lobster Trap.”
“Danny?”
“It's up near Locust Street.”
“We'll check it out.”
“Please do. It's the same meeting you found listed in Mr. Hart's computer diary.”
“The one you told us was cancelled?”
“Yes. Sorry. My mistake.”
“Don't worry,” I say and gesture toward Ceepak. “His pencil has an eraser.”
Ms. Stone stares at me. She doesn't get it. I grab another chunk of raisin roll.
“Why were the timers set for Sunday night?”
“Mr. Hart planned to leave town Sunday morning, after our final breakfast meeting concerning the implosion plan. Mendez, himself, was scheduled to depart Sunday afternoon, after one last check of the wiring.”
“So you'd all be long gone when the deed went down?”
“Yes.” Ms. Stone sounds ashamed. “When Mr. Hart was … murdered … I contacted Mr. Mendez. Offered to sell him the hotel property.”
“Why?”
“Pending probate, I had Mr. Hart's irrevocable power of attorney. I hoped to persuade Mr. Mendez to remove his incendiary devices. Thought if he owned it, he wouldn't be so quick to knock it down. I gave him some brochure mock-ups I had commissioned in a final attempt to convince Mr. Hart to develop the hotel into time-share units, not destroy it. Mendez agreed to meet with me here Sunday morning to discuss my ideas further….”
“Really?” Ceepak finds Ms. Stone's love of the grand old structure a little hard to swallow. Me too. I heard those rats scampering around in the walls. I might have been in the Hart-Mendez camp. Knock the sucker down!
“Why are you so interested in this particular building?” Ceepak asks.
“Stone, McCain and Whitby.”
“Excuse me?”
“My great-grandfather. Josiah Stone. He and his architectural partners designed the original hotel. It was their grandest achievement. When I first went to work for Mr. Hart, I encouraged him to pursue the property. I convinced him that we could restore it to its former glory. Mr. Hart was more impressed by the business possibilities. As you know, the hotel is situated on a prime piece of shoreline real estate. The whole north end of the island is a gold mine, waiting for the right person to come along and rescue it from decades of neglect. But refurbishing the landmarked hotel would prove prohibitively expensive to most….”
“But not Reginald Hart.”
“It would have been stupendous! We were going to put trendy shops in the lobby, gourmet restaurants and wine bars along a restored pier….”
“Mr. Hart became impatient?”
“He wanted a clean slate. An empty patch of ground where he could build something new and flashy. Maybe even a casino. He was confident he could push an ‘urban renewal’ gambling referendum through the local legislature. So he hired Mendez to bring the old building down. But when Mr. Hart died….”
“You went to work on Mendez?”
“Yes. Mendez could pull the plug, stop the demolition.”
“Until we locked him up in jail.”
“Yes. By then, I was afraid to tell you what I knew….”
“Understandable.”
“I wish now I had behaved differently. My silence destroyed my great-grandfather's legacy. I will always regret my inaction….”
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Hart alive?” Ceepak asks.
“Saturday morning. I drove him and Ashley into town.”
Ah-hah. So that's how they got all the way from Beach Crest Heights to Sunnyside Playland.
“What time?”
“We left the house before 6:30.”
“Mr. Hart was an early riser?”
“No. He said Ashley ‘dragged him out of bed.’ He was very sleepy when we climbed into the car.”
“Why did you want Mr. Hart to change his will?”
“It made no sense. How is a thirteen-year-old child going to run a multinational corporation? I suggested we set up a trust fund for Ashley but cede corporate control to the board….”
“And?”
“He told me, in no uncertain terms, to ‘mind my own business.’”
“Why?”
“He never said.”
“Any theories?”
“None I wish to discuss. It would only be conjecture on my part, and I refuse to engage in idle speculation.”
Wow. Guess Ms. Stone has a Code, too.
Wonder if she's ever broken it.
“Why didn't Hart just drive himself into town Saturday morning?”
“I'm not sure. I think Ashley had him flustered. He told me to hurry and fetch the car. I felt like a chauffeur. I was up front, driving. They were in the back seat. Giggling. In truth, I was rather embarrassed to see this man I've always admired acting so childishly. I dropped them off and went looking for a cup of coffee.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Depends.”
“Your perfume. Do you purchase it at Victoria's Secret?”
“No.”
“It's not a Victoria's Secret fragrance?”
“That wasn't your question.”
Oh, boy. She's being a lawyer. Only answering the exact question asked.
“You asked me if I purchased it at Victoria’s Secret. I did not. It was gift. From Mr. Hart. I don't particularly like the scent. He, however, does. I'm no fool, nor am I averse to a little brown-nosing to advance my cause, so I wore it this weekend.”
“Clever.”
“Didn't work. He still wanted to knock down the hotel.”
“One last thing,” Ceepak says. “How did Mr. Hart and his ex-wife get along?”
“Which ex-wife?”
He smiles. I think he kind of likes her today.
“Number three. Ashley's mother.”
“Well,” she pauses to think how to best phrase what's coming next, “she was the mother of his only child….”
“But?”
“I don't think he trusted her.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He asked me to make inquiries regarding a private investigator.”
“Why?”
“The usual. He suspected she had a new lover. Someone who might prove a bad influence on Ashley. Someone who could cause trouble.”
Ms. Stone pauses again, like she heard what she just said.
“Perhaps,” she says, “Mr. Hart was correct.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Let's take a walk.”
We're on the sandy concrete sidewalk outside Chesterfield's. The sun is already so hot and bright that the pavement sizzles and any gum you step on is going to be gooey and stretchy like pizza cheese.
Ceepak heads toward the end of the street where pressure-treated planks lead up to the boardwalk paralleling the beach.
“Where we going?” I ask, trying to catch up. The man does not walk at a leisurely pace
“Tilt-A-Whirl.”
“Are you planning on telling me what the hell is going on sometime today?”
“I did. We're walking over to the Tilt-A-Whirl.”
Ceepak is acting like the asshole big brother I never actually had. The one who thinks he's so clever, doing some kind of Three Stooges “nyuck-nyuck-nyuck” hand wave in your face. Some seagulls caw and chitter. They think Ceepak is fucking hilarious.
“That's not what I mean,” I say as we hustle down the boardwalk. All sorts of interesting walkers and joggers come at us, pass us, move up and down the wonderfully level span overlooking the sand and surf. I feel totally out of shape. First, Ceepak walks too damn fast. Second, all these other people look healthy and fit as they speed-
walk or run past in their color-coordinated exercise outfits. Third, I drank six beers in sixty minutes flat only about seven hours ago and, like I said, the sun is bright and hot and my armpits bring to mind a cheap brewery.
Ceepak dashes down a short set of stairs and onto the sand. He takes the steps two at a time, swinging from the handrails like a giddy kid. I follow him, trying not to trip, stumble, or fall.
“‘This train?’” Ceepak shouts over his shoulder. “‘Faith will be rewarded!’”
He's quoting another Springsteen song. “Land of Hope and Dreams.” It's not really on any studio album, but Bruce sings it live all the time.
I still have no idea where the hell any of this is leading except, of course, to the chain-link fence surrounding the Tilt-A-Whirl.
Ceepak points to the bushes where I first found the needles and other drug paraphernalia.
“Maybe Squeegee was here. Maybe he came here all the time, especially when it was raining, to shoot up his drugs. Heroin, mostly. He could have been in those bushes, sleeping it off. Then, all of a sudden, he hears a gun go off. Seven, eight, nine shots. Lot of noise. Only Squeegee doesn't pop up right away. He's groggy. Did some heavy-duty smack the night before. He's half-awake, half-asleep when he hears the fence rattling.”
Ceepak kicks the bottom of the fence. It shimmies and rattles and pings against its poles. It'd get me out of bed.
“Maybe he finally sits up. He looks toward the beach, expecting to see the cop who gives him his wake-up call most mornings. Only this particular morning, he sees a lady wearing sunglasses and a scarf and smoking a cigarette. A sweet-smelling cigarette. The sea breeze? It blows that fragrant smoke right up at him and he thinks it smells like something he made for his mother once, for her to hang in the closet. A clove pomander.”
What do you know-Squeegee and I have at least one thing in common-we both made stinky gifts for our moms.
Ceepak points to people and things that aren't there, but I start to see them. He walks over to the trapdoor buried in the sand.
“Maybe he sees this same lady bend down and pull a pistol out of this hole. A pistol just like this one.”
Ceepak pulls out his Smith amp; Wesson.
“Maybe the next time Mr. Jerry Shapiro, a.k.a. Squeegee, is shown such a weapon he says, ‘Yeah, that's like what she had.’ And, he says the lady was wearing white gloves.”
Ceepak snaps open his pants pocket and pulls out a pair of those lint-free evidence gloves.
“‘Like these?’ I ask. ‘Yeah. Like those,’ he says.”
No wonder he was up in Room 215 so long last night. He and Squeegee had quite the conversation.
“The lady's smart. She's not leaving any fingerprints on the murder weapon. Then our witness? He hears the lady whisper something. ‘We need to talk!’”
“Is the lady whispering this to Squeegee?”
“No. He thought so at first. Apparently, some of his recreational drugs increase his sense of paranoia. However, he soon realizes-the lady tucking the gun into her beach bag is talking to somebody else. Somebody up in the Tilt-A-Whirl.”
“Okay.” This is getting creepy.
“Now, let's pretend you're a heroin addict. A junkie. You've just been rudely awoken. You've seen a woman with a gun, whispering to someone you can't see. What do you do?”
“Freak out?”
“Good answer. You see the gun lady run away. Maybe you get up and run through the mud over there where that broken sprinkler head soaked the ground. You run out from behind the Sunnyside Clyde sign and see a bloody body slumped in one of the Turtles. You freak out even more, pace around and leave your bootprints all over the platform. Then you realize, if you stick around? Everybody is going to say you did it, they'll say the murder was a robbery gone bad. So you decide to get the hell out of there before … before? Danny? Before what?”
“Uhm … uh….” I didn't know this was going to be one of those audience-participation game shows.
“Focus, Danny. You're the junkie. You're a tramp who gets busted for sleeping on the beach or in the bushes or under the boardwalk or up in the Tilt-A-Whirl all the time.”
“So you know everybody's schedule?”
“Awesome! So what do you do?”
“Get the hell out of here before the cop on the scooter shows up?”
“Good answer. But-you realize. That cop usually comes here earlier. Adam Kiger typically swings by when the sun's barely up. In fact, you realize, even though you don't have a watch or an alarm clock, you got to sleep in a little later than usual this Saturday morning. You can tell by how high the sun is over the ocean. But you hear noise. In the distance. A tractor.”
“Joey T.?”
“The Sand Rake sweeps this sector of the beach between 0725 and 0730. As I indicated earlier, your friend keeps a very rigid schedule. Squeegee can hear him coming.”
“So the junkie … he crawls out of the hole and high-tails it … wherever.”
Ceepak nods.
“Did Joey see him?”
“No,” Ceepak says. “He was up the beach, facing north, about to double back and rake south. Like mowing a lawn-he does the beach in overlapping lines.”
“I see.”
“So our junkie friend? He gets extremely lucky. He scurries through the hole and runs up the beach. A few minutes later, Joey T. comes along and covers up his tracks for him. The lady's too. But Jerry saw the lady stub out her cigarette….”
“Which Joey swept up?”
“Check.”
“Which ended up in the Sand Rake's hopper?”
“Double check.”
“Which is now in your pants pocket?”
“Checkmate.”
“So-why didn't Squeegee see Ashley?”
“Firstly, he's, as you say, ‘freaking out’ so he's not seeing much of anything except Mr. Hart's bloody body. Secondly, Ashley was hiding behind the turtle. Remember her footprint path? How it went around to the back?”
Ceepak pulls out his little notebook.
“I asked her, ‘Which way did he go?’ She answered, ‘I'm not sure. I went behind the Turtle to hide.’ I believe she was telling the truth. About hearing Squeegee in the bushes, maybe even catching a glimpse of him stumble-bumming around. She was scared and hid until she was sure he was gone. Probably heard the fence rattle again when he crawled under it.”
“You think she lied about everything? To protect her mother?”
“They're very close. The butler said so. We've observed it ourselves.”
“And the kidnapping?”
“An excellent means of expediting the whole probate process. To ensure no one contested the will and Ashley immediately inherited everything-billions and billions of dollars. Surely, the richest girl in the world would share some of her newfound wealth with her mother. I believe Betty Bell Hart cooked up the kidnapping scheme early Saturday afternoon, when she realized Ms. Stone was in a position of power and able to dispose of assets….”
“So all of a sudden, you think she did it? Did everything all by herself?”
“Not all of a sudden, Danny.”
I'm remembering our walk from the bank.
“And,” Ceepak adds, “not all by herself.”
“But how would Ashley know to tell us about the crazy man with the buggy eyes?”
“I believe Ashley and Mom had a quick little chit-chat. After the murder, after the junkie was gone. Miss Bell most probably ran off the beach … around there … to the side … somewhere where they couldn't be seen. Maybe behind another Sunnyside Clyde sign. I suspect she coached her daughter on exactly what to say … and Ashley was scared … covered with blood … horrified … but mom calmed her down … talked her through it….”
“That would take some time….”
“Yes,” Ceepak says. “At least fifteen, twenty minutes. But Betty was very clever. She didn't overload her daughter with too much information. Just enough. About a crazy man with googly eyes. I suspect they talked and re
hearsed from 0725 to 0745.”
“Which is when we saw Ashley in the street!”
“A full half hour after her father died. I never stopped to ponder that lag in the timeline until I talked to Squeegee.”
“Squeegee gave you a lot of information.”
“He's our first eyewitness. His testimony, however, would be vigorously contested in any court of law, given his vagrant background and history of drug abuse….”
“So why'd you shoot him?”
“Who?”
“Squeegee.”
“Danny, did I ever say I shot anybody?”
“No but … I assumed….”
Oh, Jesus. My dad was right. I made an ass “out of u and me.” I drank all that beer last night without just cause.
“But….”
“Danny, I could not ask you to lie for me when the chief, as I knew he would, asked you what I did inside the hotel. Furthermore, telling everyone the suspected kidnapper was alive might have endangered Squeegee before I had a chance to see if he was telling me the truth.”
“But-you fired your rifle! I smelled it.”
“As I knew you would.”
“I see. So you sort of set me up?”
“I allowed you to jump to a conclusion. Yes. Sorry.”
“It's all good.” I actually say his catch phrase back at him because I am totally relieved. “So-who did you shoot at?”
“No one. I took a little target practice. You know that lighthouse? Where the red paint meets the white?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I nailed it. Right on the line. Split it down the middle. We should run by and check it out … later.”
“And the hotel burned down because?”
“I couldn't deactivate the timers.”
“But you knew when the building would blow?”
“I used the sniper rifle's telescopic sight to read the digital output on the timers secured high in the rafters of one of the turrets. It's why I encouraged evacuation of the premises in such a dramatic fashion.”
“You mean firing your pistol into the floor like that?”
“Affirmative.”
I feel all warm and fuzzy. The Code lives on. So apparently, does Squeegee.
Ceepak crouches down near the sand-covered trapdoor.
“Now then-we never actually checked the bottom of this fence for fibers. If Betty crawled out, perhaps….”
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