“I heard him tell his friends he was, and I quote, ‘late for a blow job.’”
Ceepak winces.
“That was Ashley! Why do you think I left my boys at the bar and raced all the way down to her place? I thought I was finally gonna get me a little somethin'-somethin’. She's a real chicken-head, braw.”
Ceepak looks to me to translate one more time.
I wish I didn't know what the kid was saying.
“He's suggesting that Ashley enjoys performing oral sex acts.”
The chief was right.
Sometimes the truth really can ruin your day.
CHAPTER FORTY
Ceepak radios for Jane Bright to join us at The Playland Arcade.
Jane spent a good deal of time with Ashley on Saturday morning. Ceepak wants Jane to ride into the city with us. He thinks when we get there, Ashley may need to talk to someone like Jane.
“Bring the photos,” he tells her. “Right. Ashley in the sundress. From when we found her in the street. Thank you.”
Ben Sinclair is nursing another Sprite, replenishing his fluids in an attempt to stop his brain from banging against the insides of his skull. I hope it doesn't work.
Mayor Sinclair is on his way over to, once again, rescue his son from the long arm of the law.
Ceepak looks at Sinclair and shakes his head.
“Wha-?” Ben asks, seeing the headshake.
I can tell he's had enough Ben Sinclair to last months. The kid disgusts him.
“Come on, Danny.”
We head for the door.
“Hey, she's laughing at you too, you know.” All of a sudden, Ben's dropped the whole gangsta act. He's just a whining, spoiled brat.
“Excuse me?” Ceepak says, one hand on the doorknob.
“This morning? On the phone? When she dumped me? She was all giggly and goofy and did like this nursery rhyme making fun of you guys, you pigs.”
“You mean us ‘bacon'?” Ceepak's a quick study. “What'd she say?”
“I dunno.”
“Tell me. I'm extremely interested.”
“Tough titty, po-po.”
Ceepak slams the door shut, rattling the glass in all the windows- and this office has a whole wall of windows.
“ What the hell did she say?’
I think he'll probably tell us what Ashley said now.
He probably won't call us pigs or po-po again, either.
“It was that Gingerbread Man deal … you know: ‘run, run, fast as you can,’ this is so lame….”
“Finish it.”
Ben shrugs.
“‘Cops can't catch me, I'm with the I–I-A, man!’”
“What's the IIA?” Ceepak asks.
“I dunno.” Ben sips his drink. “She's just wack.”
“Think harder,” Ceepak says. Ben looks at me.
“Time Crisis Three,” I say. “The International Intelligence Agency. IIA.”
“What's that?”
“It's a video game. I play it all the time. They have one here.”
“Show me.”
The first time I played Time Crisis Three was in the lobby of a multiplex movie theater while we were waiting for The Stupid Lame Comedy of the Week to start.
The game is huge. It has two video screens, both about as wide as a car door, set up inside these hulking black boxes. Two people can play at once. You get to pretend you're these good-guy super agents with the IIA, the International Intelligence Agency, and your job is to basically shoot as many of the bad guys as you can. The bad guys are these thugs who pop up all over the place-behind rocks and cargo crates, out of gopher holes and jeeps and this helicopter-type air-plane-and you have to make them go boom before they do the same to you.
It's extremely cool.
And extremely violent.
We leave the manager's office and go to where two kids are blasting away at the doublewide screens. They're knocking down the enemy, racing through a clip of ammo strung across the screen in a bar graph of bullets.
Their time runs out.
The one on the left must've done pretty good. He gets to enter his initials in the game's flashing list of top scorers.
He'll be number ten.
Another high scorer occupies spots one through nine: H-A-H.
“Harriet,” Ceepak says. “Ashley is her middle name. Harriet Ashley Hart.”
Seeing the letters stacked on top of each other, running down the screen in a list (HAH, HAH, HAH), I can hear Ashley laughing at us.
Ceepak turns his back on the machine.
“This must be where they sent her for target practice.”
I'm a little slow to follow, and my face shows it. He explains.
“Ashley is our shooter. This was her pistol range.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
We're driving up to the city.
Ceepak's riding shotgun, studying the Polaroids of Ashley in her blood-spattered sundress.
Jane Bright is in the back seat, gazing out the window.
I'm up front, wondering what kind of kid kills her own father.
We're on cruise control, doing 85 up the parkway. No sirens or lights, but no state trooper's going to pull over a speeding cop car, even if it is painted turquoise and pink.
I have plenty of time to wonder about the old guy messing around with Ashley. Who was it? Who would do that kind of stuff with a girl her age? I mean, is she even thirteen? Was it the chief? Did he have some kind of mommy-daughter three-way deal going on?
I look up into the rearview mirror and catch Jane's gaze.
“Officer Bright? Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“If some old man was really forcing himself on Ashley, would she even be interested in doing anything with boys like Ben?”
“You mean would she be ‘loose’ like he claims? A hoochie-mama?”
“Yeah. Wouldn't she be sick of sex? Or even anybody, you know- touching her?”
“Many sexually abused children become promiscuous. It's how they've been taught to seek attention. If the abuse has been ongoing, it might be the only way the child knows to earn someone's love.”
Anybody who does this kind of sick stuff to children? I'm starting to think Ceepak should be allowed to shoot them in dark hotel rooms with his sniper weapon system.
“It's why there were no palm prints on her side of the safety bar,” Ceepak says to the stack of photos in his lap.
“Hunh?”
“At the Tilt-A-Whirl. There were no bloody prints on the safety bar. Remember the splatter pattern?”
“No” is probably the wrong answer, so I choose to remain silent.
“Like a flicked paint brush? But only on the bar in front of Mr. Hart. Nothing on Ashley's side.”
Oh, yeah. That. Forgot about that.
All I really remember is the bucket of blood dripping down Ashley's face and dress.
“It's why she was so soaked,” Ceepak says, reading my mind.
I glance over and see that he is re-enacting the shooting as best he can while riding in the front seat of a car. He puts his hands together and aims an imaginary pistol at the windshield.
“She was covered with blood because she stood in front of her father and fired a full clip. If she had been sitting next to him, as we initially chose to believe, only one side of her dress would have picked up the spray. The other side? It would have remained relatively clean.”
He, of course, is right.
It's why the side panels next to the urinals in The Pancake Palace show rust marks spreading out like a cheese wedge. The pee hits the pot, some splashes out sideways, hits the metal wall like radiating sunbeams. If everyone turned around and peed directly against the divider, the floor would be wet and the whole wall would be rusty.
“And the time frame….” Ceepak is shaking his head in the way that means he's kicking himself for not seeing something sooner. I'm starting to know his headshakes.
“I concentrated on how her mother was a
ble to walk from the bank to the Tilt-A-Whirl so quickly. The question I should have asked? What took so long? Why did it take over half an hour for Ashley to run into the road seeking assistance?”
“She was waiting for something,” Jane says from the back seat. “Or someone. Someone to tell her what to do next.”
“It's a possibility,” Ceepak says, tucking the photos back into their envelope. “She was also waiting for us. To be in position at The Pancake Palace. And then, we helped her destroy the most incriminating evidence.”
“I cleaned up her face and hands,” I say. “In the fudge shop. I grabbed towels and wiped away any trace of gunpowder with all that hydrogen peroxide.”
“I bought her a new dress,” Jane adds. “Threw the bloody one away. Helped her in the shower….”
“I fell for it,” Ceepak says, summing up the offense I guess we're all most guilty of.
399 Third Avenue. Pretty swanky address. Not the nicest apartment building in the city, but none too shabby. It looks sort of new, so it's probably wired for high-speed Internet, but the apartments will be cramped white boxes with tiny bedrooms and very few closets.
I see a plumbing van parked across the street. I figure that's the FBI. They just radioed us: Betty and Ashley are upstairs. The feds have been extremely decent about jurisdiction and turf wars. I think Morgan wants Ceepak to bust the bad guys because he saw how the bad guys tried to bust Ceepak.
We enter the lobby of the high-rise and show the doorman our badges. He lets us in without buzzing the tenants upstairs first, because that's what Ceepak tells him to do.
We take the elevator. My ears pop.
Usually I'm totally psyched when I visit the city. Usually we come to have some fun.
Not today.
“Officer Ceepak. What a pleasant surprise.”
Betty Bell Hart greets us at the front door. I forgot what a good actress she is. She's dressed in a soft, bright yellow jogging suit-the kind nobody ever sweats in.
“We need to talk to you,” Ceepak says. “You and Ashley.”
“I really wish you would've telephoned first. We're rather busy at the moment….”
“Packing?”
“No. We're planning a funeral. Reginald's family is flying in on Wednesday.”
Ceepak moves into the living room.
“Let me call Chief Cosgrove,” says Betty.
“You can't. He's been detained.”
“Really? This wrongful death business? Isn't that your problem, Officer Ceepak?”
“The chief's caught up in it too.”
“I see.”
The apartment feels sunny. Betty, the retired meteorologist, has happy-face suns-clay, plastic, porcelain, Mexican-sitting on top of everything. The walls are cluttered with framed photos of her shaking hands with all the celebrities who waltzed through the Channel Five newsroom while she was Queen of the Small Screen, which is what the local TV Times magazine called her on its cover once. It's framed, hanging right next to the one of Betty hugging an astronaut-or somebody famous with really short hair.
There are no pictures of Ashley anywhere.
“Where's Ashley?” Ceepak asks. He's not looking for photos. He wants to see the girl he now knows shot Reginald Hart.
“In her room.”
“This way?” Ceepak starts down the central hall.
“Yes, but Mr. Ceepak….”
“I want to see her collection,” Ceepak says.
“What collection?”
“The turtles? Remember?”
Betty looks like a newscaster who can't read her cue cards in the middle of a live broadcast. I see her mental wheels spinning, the gears grinding.
“Oh,” she says, “we got rid of those.”
“Really?” Ceepak is sticking his head into doors, looking at orange towels on the bathroom floor and dirty yellow dishes in the kitchen sink. “When'd you do that?”
“Last month.”
“Who'd you give them to?”
“I'm not certain. Some charitable organization. Salvation Army. Goodwill. One of those. The doorman arranged it….”
Ceepak digs his notebook out of his front pants pocket. “How about that turtle wallpaper?”
“Excuse me?”
“The wallpaper you had ‘custom-made in Milan’?” he says, reading from his notes. “Did you rip that down and donate it, too?”
“No, of course not,” she says, cool as a cucumber somebody popped in the freezer. “We painted over the wallpaper last fall.”
“Uhm-hmmm.”
Ceepak sees a door with a sparkly gold star surrounded by stickers of unicorns and cats and Disney princesses.
No turtles.
“She really isn't feeling well,” Betty says. “This whole ordeal has finally taken its toll….”
Ceepak knocks.
“Really, Officer Ceepak….”
Ashley opens the door.
She's wearing the same bright yellow jogging suit her mother has on, only smaller.
She smiles, like she's delighted to see an old friend.
“Hello, Mr. Ceepak.”
“Hello, Ashley.”
“Thank you for doing your duty. Thank you for shooting Squeegee for us.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Ashley? Be still!”
“Yes, Mother.”
Ashley's hands instinctively go up to her head to block the blows that don't come. Not this time.
Ashley retreats to her bed, afraid to look anybody in the eye.
“I'm sorry, Mommy.”
“Be quiet.”
Ceepak pivots so he's facing Betty Bell Hart.
“I wonder if you'd leave us alone for a few minutes.”
The woman rubs her hands together nervously like she's washing them with air.
“Chief Cosgrove told me you shot the homeless man. That you killed him.”
When Ceepak does not reply, she takes this as an admission of guilt.
“Shall I call Robert? See how that's going for you? I'm sure you acted in self-defense….”
“As I stated earlier, the chief has been unexpectedly detained.”
“Is it the FBI? Are they involved?”
“Yes, ma'am. I guess you could say they are.”
“I'm so sorry. For you. Your reputation. Your family….” She shakes her head, as if in sad sympathy.
“I need to speak with Ashley,” Ceepak says. “Alone.”
This seems to irritate Betty.
“I don't mind, Mommy….”
Betty puts a rigid finger to her lips. A silent warning.
“But I like Mr. Ceepak.”
“No!” Betty's neck tightens. She glares at her daughter.
“He's nice, Mommy….”
And Betty's nice and mad. In fact, all of a sudden, she's trembling mad. Her pancake makeup is cracking. Near her eyes I can see jagged lines that look like those high-pressure systems she used to draw on weather maps.
“Ma’ am….” Ceepak begins.
Betty cuts him off.
“What do you want? No. Don't tell me. I see it in your eyes. You men all want the same thing. You can't wait to be alone with my beautiful little girl, can you? Alone in her bedroom.”
“Miss Bell, I assure you….”
“Well, I won't let you. I am Ashley's guardian!”
“I know that, ma'am.”
“But do you know what that means? I have to protect her. From men. Men like you!” Her voice is shrill, like steel wheels screeching to a stop.
Ceepak moves a step closer. He practically whispers.
“Ma’am-is someone molesting your daughter?”
She stares into Ceepak's eyes.
Then she smiles.
“Not anymore. We took care of that. The same way you took care of Squeegee.”
Now she winks.
I'm not sure I follow but it looks like Ceepak does. I see sadness seeping into his eyes again.
Betty drifts toward the bed.
�
��I'm a good guardian, aren't I, Ashley?”
“Yes, Mommy. The best.”
“Tell them.”
“Mommy is my guardian angel.”
“When Ashley was little? She called me her ‘gardening’ angel. Didn't you, dear?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
Betty sits on the bed and lightly taps the mattress, commanding her daughter to come sit next to her. She hits us with her high beams. Her blazing weather girl smile.
“Isn't my daughter sweet? Pretty, too.”
Ashley squirms. Betty pats Ashley's knee.
“That's why her father would not be denied,” Betty says. “Oh no. There was absolutely no denying Mr. Reginald Hart. Not when he wanted something. But we could negotiate terms. Couldn't we, dear?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
Oh man. I should've seen it. The older guy? It's her father.
Betty takes Ashley's hand and squeezes it tight. Too tight.
“Mommy?”
“Quiet!”
“Let go of her hand, ma'am.”
“Of course, Officer Ceepak. Of course.” She sniffs the air. “Do you like Ashley's perfume? Reginald certainly did. Drove him wild. I picked it out myself. At Victoria's Secret? Are you familiar with the scent?”
“I've smelled it before,” says Ceepak.
“Smell triggers memory faster than any of our senses. Did you know that?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Then you know if that bag lady, I believe her name is Gladys, yes, if Gladys were to ever smell a recently discharged sniper rifle, perhaps in court, why she'd remember everything she saw and heard at that hotel, wouldn't she?”
“I'm sure she would.”
“So, Officer Ceepak-you and I are eternally linked. Tangled together in our twisted webs of vengeance.”
“I can understand why you might think that.”
“Would you like to know how and when when it started?”
“Mommy? We're never supposed to tell anybody.”
“Oh, we can tell Officer Ceepak. He's on our side, now. He has to be after what he did. And these others? They're in it with him.” Now she's smiling at Jane and me. “Destroying evidence? Helping Officer Ceepak hunt down an innocent man? Shame on you two. You're both part of a big, fat conspiracy and cover-up, aren't you? Well, you'll keep quiet. You have to. Don't they, Johnny?”
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