Whack A Mole jc-3

by Chris Grabenstein

  “What're you boys doing over here?” Rita asks. “I thought you were supposed to sit on the beach all day.”

  “Duty called,” says Ceepak. It's good to see him smile again. I think the silver-haired and — tongued preacher man hit too close to home with that pious little lecture about obeying your father and mother. Depends on the father and mother, if you ask me. I can tell Ceepak wants to kiss Rita but he won't-not while he's in uniform, not while he's on the job.

  “What happened?” Rita asks. “Nothing serious I hope.”

  “Routine run. Possible 10–92.”

  “That's a robbery, right?”

  “Roger that.”

  My god: Ceepak has his girlfriend memorizing police 10-codes. They are definitely getting serious.

  “Male or female?” she asks.

  “Female,” he answers. “We suspect she had breakfast here.”

  “Poor kid,” says Rita.

  That's Ceepak's lady in a nutshell. She's more worried about what drove a young girl to steal than what was stolen from somebody's beach bag. Rita hauls a pile of clothes out of the back seat of her car, clutches the bundle against her chest.

  Ceepak springs into action. “Need a hand?”

  “No, thanks. It's not heavy. I'm just dropping off some of T. J.'s old T-shirts and jeans. Stuff he's grown out of.”

  Clever move. Clean out the kid's closet while he's on vacation up in the city. I think that's how I lost my baseball card collection.

  “I thought maybe some of the boys here could use them.”

  “They have boys?” I wonder aloud. Thus far, all I've seen here are upright and courteous young girls. From the look of things, Reverend Billy could be running a mission for reformed cheerleaders.

  “Of course,” Rita laughs. “The food's free.”

  “How long have you known Reverend Trumble?” Ceepak now asks.

  Rita hesitates. “A long time.”

  Ceepak doesn't push it-not in public.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Don't call me ma'am, John. Makes me sound old.”

  “Roger.”

  Her face warms. “Do you even know how to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

  “Negative.”

  She shakes her head. Laughs again. “I'll see you later.”

  We watch her carry her bundle up to the second floor.

  “She's a good lady,” says Ceepak as we head off. “An inspiration.”

  “Yeah.”

  With Ceepak and Rita, it's a case of likes, not opposites, attracting. If he's a goody-goody, she's a better-better. Last spring, she rescued this sea gull she found lying in the middle of Ocean Avenue. First, she had to dodge traffic to reach it. Then, she took it home, mended its broken wing, fed it with an eyedropper, and nursed it back to health. She even gave the gull a name: Jonathan Livingston-I forget why. In June, she set the bird free. She and T. J. and Ceepak went down to the beach and made sure the gimpy gull was able to swoop with its own kind. They took pictures.

  “Rita does enough good for both of us,” Ceepak once told me.

  The thing is, his own choices haven't always been easy ones. I've never asked him if he's killed anybody, but I've seen how he looks when other idiots do.

  “Did you kill anybody over there in Iraq?”

  They always whisper when they ask it.

  “What's it feel like?”

  Ceepak never answers. He usually just walks away.

  We're in the car, driving toward headquarters, when the radio squawks.

  “Unit Twelve, this is base.”

  Ceepak snatches up the microphone.

  “This is Twelve.”

  “That you, Ceepak?”

  “Yes, Sergeant Pender. Over.”

  “Chief Baines said to bounce this one out to you, seeing how you're in the neighborhood.”

  There's this long pause.

  “Go ahead,” says Ceepak.

  “Yeah. Sorry. Don't know what to call this one. Tempted to say it's a 10–37.”

  That's a mental case.

  “What's the situation?”

  “You know that tiny museum up on Oyster Street?”

  “The Howland House?”

  “10-4. Woman just called, said she's the curator, sounded hysterical. Says some children found something ‘horrible’ but she wouldn't tell me what it was.”

  “We are 10–17. Out.”

  10-17 means we're en route.

  Ceepak hangs up and does a three-finger hand chop toward the horizon. “Oyster and Bayside. The Howland House Whaling Museum.”

  “Roger. Should I 10–39 it?”

  Ceepak looks at me. Hey, I memorized all these 10-codes for the final exam at the academy. I figure I need to use them or I might lose them like I've lost everything I memorized back in high school: atomic weights, the metric system, who did what to whom in 1066. It's all gone.

  “No need for lights or siren, Danny. Let's keep it 10–40.”

  “10-4.”

  He means keep it quiet.

  I mean okay.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Howland House is this two-story brick building that used to belong to a whaling ship captain named Jebediah Howland.

  About fifty years ago, a bunch of ladies, the “Daughters of the Sea,” got together and raised enough cash to buy the place before it was torn down to make room for another miniature golf course. Now it's a museum nobody goes to.

  I guess few vacationers want to walk around a dank house looking at dusty furniture during their week off from work. Sure, there are a couple of ship models in glass cases mounted on the walls. There are even three or four model ships in glass bottles. But mostly, it's moldy furniture and velvet drapes.

  The museum doesn't give tours or anything. In fact, nobody is ever there. Somebody comes by in the morning and unlocks the front door. They come back in the afternoon to lock up. There's a plexiglass box on a desk in the front hall with a hand-written sign: SUGGESTED DONATION $2.

  “Is that Norma?” Ceepak asks as we pull up to the curb on Oyster Street and see a figure on the porch.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Norma Risley, a dignified Daughter of the Sea, is seventy-five years old and works part-time as a hostess at Morgan's Surf and Turf, the restaurant where Rita waitresses. When Norma leads you to your table, you have plenty of time to contemplate the daily specials. In fact, you have time to do your laundry.

  “Officer Ceepak!” She is waving hysterically. “Hurry! Please!”

  Ceepak speeds up the brick pathway. I'm right behind him.

  “Norma? Are you injured?”

  “No. No.” Her hand flutters near her chest.

  Ceepak reaches her in time to catch her when she faints.

  “Danny?”

  I grab an arm. We haul Norma inside, find a velvety chair in the foyer, and sit her down.

  About fifteen seconds later, she comes to.

  “Oh, my.”

  “Norma, do you need an ambulance?” Ceepak asks.

  She shakes her head. Lifts up an arm. Points down the hall.

  “What is it? Was something stolen?”

  Another head shake.

  “Take it slow. Tell us what happened.”

  She swallows. Nods. “I came by during the thunderstorm. Figured I might as well lock up early today. When I got here, I found a family inside, waiting for the rain to let up. The mother started screaming at me. ‘How dare you!’ she said. ‘How dare you put something like that on display in a museum?’ Her youngest, a little girl-oh, she was bawling her eyes out. Something had scared her, that's for sure.”

  “What was it?”

  She shakes her head. It's so atrocious, she can't even tell us. So, once again, she points up the hall. Her arm trembles.

  “The Scrimshaw Room.” She chokes out the words.”Bookcase. Top shelf. Two jars.”

  “Jars?”

  Norma nods. Breathes in deep.

  “Plastic jars with screw-on lids. Smal
l.” She curls her knotted fingers to make a tiny fist.

  “Okay, Norma. You stay here. My partner and I will investigate….”

  Her hands fly up to her chest again. If she doesn't have a heart attack, she might give me one.

  “Danny?” Ceepak says. “Secure the front door. Use your evidence gloves.”

  I put on these lint-free gloves Ceepak insists I always carry so I won't contaminate potential evidence, such as fingerprints on a doorknob. Ceepak pulls on a pair, too.

  I close the front door.

  “We'll be right back, Norma,” says Ceepak.

  We head up the carpeted hallway.

  We reach the door to the Scrimshaw Room and Ceepak does this series of hand signals to indicate how we will enter.

  He'll lead. I'll follow.

  The room looks like it always looks. Dark bookcases. Overstuffed furniture. Framed oil painting of men in a boat harpooning a gigantic whale on one wall, carved figurehead of an Indian lady in a red headdress on another.

  We see them at the same time.

  On the top shelf of the bookcase on the far side of the room.

  Two small jars filled with clear liquid and something else-something pinkish and blobby with stringy bits floating in the fluid. It could be somebody's jellyfish collection or one of those pig fetuses in formaldehyde they give you to dissect in junior high biology class. There's writing on both jars. Labels. We move closer.

  Ceepak sucks in a deep chestful of oxygen.

  “They're ears,” he says. “Severed human ears.”

  I feel the sausage-and-pepper sandwich I had for lunch move an inch up my esophagus. I choke it back down and lean in for a closer look.

  The label on one jar reads: RUTH. SUMMER. 1985.

  The other jar doesn't have a name, just a date: SUMMER. 1983.

  No name because it doesn't need one.

  The ear lobe suspended in the specimen jar has an earring stuck through its pale flesh. It spells out a girl's name in sparkly letters.

  “Lisa,” Ceepak whispers.

  I guess he's thinking what I'm thinking: Lisa DeFranco might've lost more than a class ring that summer she visited Sea Haven.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ceepak called Rita on her cell phone.

  She swung by the museum and gave Norma a ride to the restaurant. Norma isn't supposed to be working the door there tonight, but she agreed with Ceepak and Rita: after all she'd seen today, better not to be home alone. Besides, Morgan's has a fully stocked bar and Norma could use a hot toddy or two, heavy on the rum.

  “Be sure you lock up, Officer Ceepak,” Norma called out as she and Rita drove away.

  “Will do,” Ceepak said. I think one day he may find himself an honorary Daughter of the Sea.

  “Danny? We need to investigate this crime scene.”

  “Right.”

  I knew that's what we'd be doing as soon as Norma was safe, secure, and gone. Ceepak loves a good Crime Scene Investigation- on the job or off. When he isn't working, he's usually at home watching all twenty different versions of CSI on CBS. Sometimes, he's told me, he watches with the sound switched off so the actors’ banter doesn't distract him from the clues.

  We've already radioed in and alerted the house as to what we found. Chief Baines agreed with Ceepak: we should gather what evidence we can and bring it in for further analysis. I suspect Chief Baines is most interested in removing the specimen jars from public view. Floating body parts are not the kind of attractions you want on display when you're running a resort town big on family fun in the sun. Pickled ears belong in a sideshow up in Seaside Heights, in the freak show tent with the bearded lady and the fire-eater-who, I think, are married to each other.

  Ceepak uses his forceps to remove the jars from the bookcase and place them in the evidence bag.

  “Doubtful that we'll find any fingerprints on either jar,” he says while placing them gingerly into the sack. “But it remains a remote possibility, and therefore, we must treat the evidence accordingly.”

  “Right,” I say, and experience another acid reflux episode as I watch the ears slosh around in slow motion.

  “Unfortunately,” he grouses, “this museum's too small to utilize security cameras or guards. If someone broke in when no one was here, we'd see it on the tape.”

  I could point out that no one is ever here, but I don't.

  “Be that as it may,” Ceepak says, “we can still check the guest registry up front.”

  “You think whoever did this signed in?”

  “Doubtful. Unless they did so as a prank. But even that could prove fruitful. If they wrote down a false name we can still use it to work up a handwriting analysis.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe they signed in as Vincent van Gogh. I think he lopped off his own ear….”

  “Indeed so,” says Ceepak. “And, legend has it, he then delivered it to a prostitute he knew at a nearby brothel.”

  I remind myself never to play Trivial Pursuit with John Ceepak- unless, of course, we're on the same team.

  He drops to his knees and examines the worn-down Oriental rug in front of the bookcase. He reaches into his right hip pocket and pulls out his magnifying glass.

  “Hmmm.”

  The glass goes back in and out comes a small roll of Scotch tape. Ceepak snaps off a piece, presses it down into the carpet, pulls it up, and stores the tape strip in a small envelope retrieved from his knee pocket.

  “What was that?” I ask. “What'd you find?”

  “Sand particles.”

  “Cool! That should help. Right?”

  “Unlikely. As you know, Danny, sand is quite common here in Sea Haven. Most people carry it around on their shoes, their socks, inside their pant cuffs. Difficult to distinguish one grain from another or to determine where it came from. There is, however, always the remote chance that it might offer us a clue, and so we collect it. Remind me to ask the museum staff when this rug was last vacuumed.”

  I jot down a memo to myself. Ever since I put on the badge, I've been carrying my own small spiral notepad around. Usually, I use it to remind me of stuff. You know-pick up bologna, buy a new toothbrush, question career choice. Stuff like that.

  “So, what've we got?” I ask. “Diddly or squat?”

  “We've got the ears, Danny. I suspect they have been preserved in formaldehyde or a similar embalming fluid. Their DNA signatures, therefore, remain intact and could help us identify the two girls.”

  “Do you think the ‘Lisa’ is our Lisa? Lisa DeFranco?”

  “It's certainly one possibility. We should contact the girl's mother.”

  I can just imagine how delighted the wicked witch of the A amp;P is going to be to hear from us again.

  “Even if she can't provide us with a sample of her daughter's DNA, we could test hers. There would be a definite familial pattern.”

  “Are those ears even real? Maybe they're just, you know, made out of rubber like the ones you can buy for Halloween. George W. Bush ears or Spock ears….”

  “I'm quite certain they're real. I also fear they may point to picquerism.”

  I'm afraid to ask but I do: “What's that?”

  “The act of mutilating a victim beyond what is necessary to kill her. It is a common trait among serial killers.”

  Jesus. Serial killers?

  “So all of a sudden there's a serial killer on the loose in Sea Haven?” I ask.

  “We cannot yet call our perpetrator a serial killer, Danny.”

  “Good.”

  “The FBI defines a serial killer as someone who has killed at least three victims.”

  Oh. I see. Two down, one to go.

  “And whether he is on the loose, as you say, is questionable. We can surmise from the dates on the jars that these mutilations took place in the 1980s.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “We don't even know if these two girls are dead. What if, I don't know, what if both Ruth and Lisa were caught up in some kind of big kidnapping scheme
where the kidnapper sends an ear with his ransom demands to prove he means business.”

  “Then the ears wouldn't be here, would they? They'd be wherever the kidnapper sent them. And, again, remember the dates written so meticulously on the jar labels: Summer 1983. Summer 1985. Two kidnappings, two years apart? Both involving severed ears as proof of life? Again, highly unlikely.”

  He's right. I'm clutching at straws. Rehashing plots from DVDs I've rented.

  Ceepak frowns. “I suspect that what we've discovered here is evidence of the sixth phase of the typical serial killer cycle. The totem or trophy stage: the taking and keeping of souvenirs. It's an essential act for the serial killer because the souvenirs create the link between his fantasies and the reality of what he has actually accomplished.”

  “So,” I say, “the ears in the jar are his version of the snow globe you bring home to remind you of all the good times you had on vacation?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then why's he getting rid of his souvenirs? I mean he's had them for, what? Over twenty years? Why's he all of a sudden donating his stuff to a whaling museum?”

  “That, Danny, is the question we must strive to answer. The sooner the better.”

  The way he says it, I know he thinks something bad is about to happen.

  “Maybe we should check that visitors book in the now,” I suggest. “Maybe we can find the family that was in here during the thunderstorm. They might have seen somebody or something….”

  Ceepak nods. “Good idea.”

  Feeling like I'm on a roll, I come up with what I think is another good one. “But first-we should check that glass for prints.” I point to the bookcase, which is one of those old-fashioned oak jobs where every shelf has its own window to keep out the dust.

  “No need,” says Ceepak. “Whoever dropped off the jars wore gloves. See here? And here?”

  He points to two smudged sections. The only two clean spots on the otherwise grimy glass. Even though it's the middle of July, I don't think the Daughters of the Sea have gotten around to their spring cleaning. The two areas, about eighteen inches apart, were wiped clean when our guy pressed his gloved hands against the glass.

  Ceepak re-pockets his gear. “Let's go check out that guest book.”