Ceepak starts to trot. So do I.
The Asian guy falls backward like a tight end just chop-blocked his shins. I see a flash of green hair as Stacey bobs up and heads for the rear wall. She pushes and shoves against the stuffed purple bears hanging there. Only it's not a wall. It's a door-a swinging panel. She knocks it open and, once again, flees.
We dart up the boardwalk. Now she's the one working the narrow alley behind the booths.
I see flashes of green hair every time we cross a crack where one booth stops and another starts. Past Splash Down. Skee Ball Bob's. Rat-A-Tat Tattoo. Past this place that sells really good water ices.
“There she is,” yells Ceepak as we near the blinking lights of another zeppole stand. We race to the end of what is basically a parked food trailer and come upon a cluster of picnic tables, where people sit stuffing clumps of sugar-powdered, deep-fried dough into their faces. I wish I could join them.
We stop. Wait. No girl pops out from behind the food cart.
“She must've doubled back!” I yell. “We should….”
Ceepak holds up his left hand. Gives me the halt sign.
He sees something.
“Is your sidearm loaded?” he whispers.
I swallow hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Cover me.”
My hand is shaking, but it finds my holster and unfastens the strap that cradles the Glock in place. My thumb finds the trigger. Caresses it.
Ceepak makes an almost imperceptible tilt of his head to the right.
To one of the picnic tables.
To where Dr. Theodore Winston sits biting into the butt end of his hot dog.
“I'm on point.” Ceepak moves toward the table.
My hand hovers over my Glock.
Ceepak is the one who suggested I go with the.40 caliber Glock 27 instead of the 23; he said with the 23 my hand would be bigger than the gun. All I know is, right now my hand is sweaty. The pistol might be the right size, but it could slip out of my wet grip.
Teddy Winston is alone. He crumples up the tissue paper from his hot dog, wads it into a ball, and tosses it toward an overflowing trash barrel. He misses by a mile.
“Dr. Theodore Winston?” Ceepak says in his most heart-stopping cop voice.
“Yes?” He squints. He has to. The sun's behind Ceepak's head. I'm certain my partner planned it that way. Gives him the tactical advantage.
“Sir, please stand up and place your hands behind your back.”
Ceepak finds a pair of plastic FlexiCuffs on his utility belt. He does so without breaking eye contact with Dr. Winston.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That's preposterous. What, pray tell, is the charge?”
Ceepak nods toward the crumpled hot dog wrapper lying on the boardwalk.
“First-degree littering.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Dr. Teddy Winston doesn't like it when his fingers get rolled across the inkpad back in the booking room.
The surgeon doesn't seem to think the big man in charge, Sergeant Pender, is treating his delicate digits with the proper respect.
“These hands are insured, you know,” he says.
“Who you with?” asks Pender. “Chubb? I signed up with Chubb to insure my feet. I'm on my feet all day so I figured, you know, I better make sure they're covered. They gave me a bunion rider.”
“I want to call my wife.”
Pender cocks a sly smile. “You sure about that, Doc? From what I hear, Mrs. Winston isn't all that thrilled with your recent choice of recreational activities.”
“She'll call my lawyer.”
“She'll call her divorce lawyer is my guess.”
Ceepak tilts his head to suggest that he and I leave Winston and Pender alone in the tiny fingerprinting room. That way, we can pull the ol’ bad cop, good cop routine. We'll let Pender continue to piss the doctor off. Later, Ceepak and I can waltz into the interrogation room, offer Teddy a cup of coffee, maybe a nice cold Coke, and become his best buddies in the whole wide world.
We close the door and head up the hall leading to the bullpen. We pass the framed pictures of former chiefs and retired cops lining the walls. Years ago, a couple of these guys busted me and my buddies for drinking beer on the beach.
When we reach the lobby, our most recent retiree is waiting for us. Gus Davis. He's out in front of the short railing that separates Us from Them: the public servants from the public.
Gus looks upset.
“Good evening, Gus,” says Ceepak.
“Can it, Ceepak.”
His face is red. Retirement doesn't seem to be agreeing with him at the moment. Any second now, he could go postal on us.
“Why the hell did you send Santucci over to bust my chops?”
“Come again?”
“Don't play dumb with me, smart ass. He says you gave a list of names to Jane Bright. Wanted to see if I went to some kind of freaking whale museum.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Gus?” Ceepak asks. “It's still as bad as….”
“No, I don't want a goddamn cup of coffee!”
Several night-shift guys are strolling in the front door, ready to do the seven-thirty P.M. roll call and pass-on. They take their time heading to the locker room. Seems they prefer to hang out here and catch the floor show.
“Let's step into an office,” says Ceepak.
“Forget it, you prick. Santucci said you're trying to make me for a string of murders that went down in the 1980s.”
Ceepak doesn't reply.
Gus moves a step forward, braces the bar, and gets in Ceepak's face.
“Just because I didn't track down that tramp when her mother called. Screw that noise. We were busy! I didn't have time to go search under every bed in town for some two-bit slut!”
Ceepak holds up his hand.
“You don't want to say these things to me, Gus. Not now. Not without your lawyer present.”
Gus backpedals a step or two.
“My lawyer? I don't have a freaking lawyer. Never needed one until you sent Santucci over to bust my hump.”
“Perhaps you should retain one now.”
“What? You think you can arrest me? I still got friends in this town. More friends than you, that's for damn sure. You know why? Because you annoy people, Ceepak. You act all superior and sanctimonious. Like you're some kind of freaking Boy Scout altar boy. Well, who the hell died and made you pope?”
“No one.”
“You got that right. No one! And don't you ever forget it!”
“Go home, Gus. We'll talk about this tomorrow.”
By tossing in the “tomorrow,” I'm pretty sure Ceepak just handed our old friend a huge hint: he is not really a prime suspect. If he were, we'd be talking to him tonight. We'd be talking to him right now.
“Fuck you,” says Gus, flipping Ceepak the finger. Way mature. In fact, the bird never looks all that menacing when extended upward on a sixty-five-year-old hand. Too many liver spots. Wrinkles. Bony knuckles.
“Fuck you, too, Boyle!”
Guess he read my mind.
“Go home to Fran, Gus.” Helen, the dispatcher has come out of her cubicle to join the audience.
“Fuck you, Helen!” Now Gus sees the crowd of cops staring at him. Knows he's made a fool of himself. “Fuck you all,” he mutters. “Every blue bastard one of you!”
His hands tremble into his pockets and his shoulders sag.
No one says a word. Heads drop all around the room. Nobody wants to watch the show anymore. This thing stopped being funny a while ago.
Gus turns, the crowd parts, and he makes his way out the door.
“I only spent one night with the girl.”
All of a sudden, Dr. Teddy Winston doesn't want to wait for his lawyer. He wants to talk. It's almost seven-thirty P.M. I figure he must have another hot date lined up for later tonight.
“You were there,” he says, fluttering his fingers in my general direction.
“Remember? You were at The Sand Bar and told me where I might procure a six-pack to go.”
I sink down in my chair an inch or two.
We're in the interrogation room. Like most such spaces, it's got one of those one-way-mirror window deals. Chief Baines is currently on the other side watching us, and now the suspect is describing how I aided and abetted his bedding of the underage girl we've all been hunting for by pointing him toward Fritzie's Package Store.
I figure I could crawl under the table but that might make me look even worse.
“She's the one you ought to arrest,” says Winston. “The girl.”
“Why's that?” asks Ceepak.
“For prostitution.”
“Did you pay her?”
“No. She robbed me.”
“When?”
“You know. After. She took one hundred dollars. Cash.”
“Did she take the key to your room at Chesterfield's as well?”
“No. I simply lost it.”
“When?”
“Which time are you talking about? I've lost it a few times this week.”
“Tell me about them all.”
“Heavens-I don't know. I don't really pay much attention to such things. Fine. I confess to being absentminded, but the folks at the front desk don't seem to care. In fact, they have been quite accommodating. Surely it's no crime to lose one's room key. And this ridiculous littering charge….”
Ceepak flashes open the wallet we retrieved from the B amp;B.
“Is this your driver's license?”
“Yes.”
“Is 08540 your current ZIP code?”
“Yes.”
Ceepak's watching his eyeballs. Now he knows which way Teddy's eyes will swing when he flings us a fib.
“Do you come to Sea Haven often?”
“Not recently. Not in ten, maybe fifteen years.”
“What about in the past-specifically the 1980s?”
“Yes. When I was in college. I came down here quite a bit. So did a lot of people. The beaches, as I recall, were always quite crowded.”
I think he's trying to be sarcastic.
Ceepak keeps going. “During these visits, did you ever attend religious services at Life Under the Son?”
“Church services?” The doctor is indignant. “Do you seriously imagine attending worship services was ever my idea of a fun weekend?”
Ceepak arches an eyebrow. I think Teddy just looked the wrong way.
“Are you certain?”
Teddy leans back in his chair. Ruminates.
“Life Under the Son?” He's acting up a storm. Scrunching up his face. Thinking. He'll probably rub his chin pretty soon. Yup, there he goes. “Is that down by the boardwalk?”
Ceepak nods.
“They used to put on some sort of show out in the surf. Baptisms, I believe.”
Ceepak gives him another nod.
“Okay. Yes. Now that you mention it … once or twice I may have stopped by. This was decades ago….”
“I know.”
“I remember the girls involved were always quite attractive. College girls. Sexy. All lined up along the shore in their bathing suits. Several of the young ladies weren't quite ready for heaven, as I recall. They were still eager to raise a little hell.”
“Did you spend time with any of these girls?”
“Perhaps.”
“It's a simple question. I'm looking for just a yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“One or two. Maybe more. After all, they'd already displayed their willingness to … uh … sin.”
“Did you hurt any of them?”
“The girls?”
“The girls you picked up at the church.”
Teddy smiles. “Not that I recall. However, I am rather, how shall I put this, rather well endowed.”
Left. That's the liar side. That's where he just looked.
“Did you kill any of them?”
“Excuse me?”
“How many of these girls did you kill?”
“What?”
“It's a simple question, sir.”
“I … I….”
The eyeballs are staring straight ahead now.
“Did you cut off their heads?”
Ceepak flops one of the After shots down on the table. Teddy looks down and his face loses all its tan.
There's a knock at the door. The chief swings it open.
“Ceepak?”
“Sir?”
“Need you out front. You too, Boyle.”
“What is it?” Ceepak asks the chief when the three of us are in his office.
The chief holds up a plastic bag.
Inside I can see a THANK YOU note-the kind my mother used to make me send to all my aunts and uncles before I could spend any of my Christmas money. The front flap is decorated with a sketch of a watering can stuffed with flowers. Ceepak and I screw up our eyes, trying to decipher the snatch of verse printed in blue ink against the blue sky.
Chief Baines reads it to us: “‘Just at the right time, the Lord will send showers of blessings. Ezekiel 34:26.’”
Ezekiel.
Now he holds up another baggie. Inside, there's a hot-pink envelope.
“I think it's addressed to you, John.”
There are two initials typed on the front flap: J. C.
“Your serial killer is sending you fan mail.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Helen found it when she stepped outside for a smoke.”
The chief sets the two bags down on his desk.
“Where was it?” asks Ceepak.
“Stuck in the gravel. Poking up near the curb.”
The grounds around police headquarters are landscaped with pea pebbles instead of grass. Crushed rock requires little in the way of maintenance, irrigation, or a green thumb.
“Did she see who placed it there?” asks Ceepak.
“No,” says the chief.
“Were any vehicles in the vicinity?”
“I don't think so.”
“Pedestrians?”
“No. She just saw the envelope.”
“Was it Gus?” I ask. “You think he put it there before he came in?”
“It's a possibility,” says Ceepak.
Our old pal just worked his way back onto the suspect list. Ceepak finds another sterile pair of gloves in his cargo pants.
“This message,” he says, “as well as the initials J. C. typed on the front of the envelope, was done on an IBM Selectric typewriter.”
The chief nods. “Just like the cards we found buried in all the holes. We should check the office supply stores in town. Office Depot over on the mainland. Staples. See who's been buying ribbons for antique typewriters.”
Ceepak stops his study of the card long enough to shoot me the slightest little look, because the chief just said exactly what he had said earlier. Back then, our boy Baines told us there wasn't enough time for such niceties.
Ceepak goes back to work. Guess we'll gloat or scream later. It seems our serial killer has climbed out of his mole hole and, after years of silence, wants to communicate with the police.
“‘Thank you for arresting the doctor,’” Ceepak reads. “‘He is an odious fornicator.’”
“See?” says the chief. “He's been following us! Knows what we've been doing, knows we brought in Dr. Winston.”
Ceepak is unsurprised. “Fits the profile.”
“We might as well cut Dr. Winston loose,” the chief says.
“Agreed,” says Ceepak. “Perhaps we can prevail upon him to show us where he met the girl. It might be a location she frequents.”
“That's what I was thinking,” says the chief even though I doubt he was thinking anything like that.
“I'll put Kiger on it,” he announces. “Have him drive Dr. Winston around town.”
Ceepak reads on.
“‘I have come forth to complete God's work. To finish the task he hath placed in my han
ds. She is a whoring harlot defiling all good men who cross her path. Therefore, her lewdness shalt be made to cease as I continue to live my life under the Son. Do not dare judge me for, in the end, He, the Son, the true J. C., shalt find me steadfast, loyal, and true. Thou shalt not stay my hand nor prevent His will from being done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.’”
Ceepak puts the card back into its plastic bag. Similarly, he places the pink envelope back in its bag. With the evidence secured, he takes off his gloves.
“I need to talk to Rita,” he says.
The chief looks confused. “Your lady friend?” He twists his wrist to check his watch. “Jesus, John-I was sort of hoping you guys would stick with this thing … see it through.”
“Rita Lapczynski knows someone who was part of Reverend Trumble's community during the time period when the serial killer was most active. Perhaps her contact will remember something that everyone else has forgotten.”
The chief shakes his head. “You still worked up about Reverend Billy? Do me a favor, John-give it a rest. The guy's already called the mayor who, of course, called me. Trumble claims you're harassing him, infringing on his freedom of religion, yadda-yadda-yadda.”
“Be that as it may, I sense Life Under the Son is the key to all of this.”
“Why? Because the nut job's mash note had a few ‘shalts’ and ‘thous’ in it?”
Chief, were you even listening? I want to say. He spelled it out, right there in the middle of his THANK YOU card! He lives his life under the Son? Duh. Buy a vowel, big guy.
But I don't say any of this because I've become sort of accustomed to receiving a paycheck on a regular basis. Besides, Ceepak will say it better than I ever could. He knows how to remain professional in all circumstances. Even on days when the boss forgets to pack his brains.
“Sir-were you listening to what I just read?”
Okay. Maybe Ceepak's had enough, too. Who could blame him?
The chief slants down one eyebrow, squints up the eye underneath it.
“Come again, John?” Hey, I think he's miffed.
“Sir, the note writer clearly states, ‘I continue to live my life under the Son.’ An odd choice of words unless, of course, he is referring to Reverend Trumble's ministry. A group that, as I have said, I believe our killer has had some prior association with.”
“Maybe,” says Baines. “However, you might also consider….”
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