Fun House (John Ceepak Mystery)

Lissa ignores Jenny and breezes past Ceepak and me. I realize she still smells like patchouli oil and pot. I hear a locker bang open and shut in the storeroom. Probably where she stashes her bong or bowl. I guess she wants to stash her weed some place better so we don’t find it.

  “Hey—I’m fucking hungry, here, Jimbo,” says Jenny, painting lip-gloss on her puckered puss.

  “New Guy?” Jimbo says to one of the crew guys in khaki shorts and hipster ski cap.

  “Yeah?”

  “Fix Miss Mortadella a plate at the craft services table.”

  The new guy nods. Poor kid. He looks to be my age. Probably what they call a P.A., or production assistant. Lowest man on the TV-crew totem pole. Layla told me that was how she got started in the business.

  “And grab me a half-apple,” says Jimbo.

  New Guy looks confused. “You don’t want the whole thing?”

  Jimbo rolls his eyes. “Where’d Marty find you, kid? The New Jersey Film School For Idiots?”

  The other crew guys kind of drop their eyes. I get the sense that Jimbo, despite his peace-loving hippy hairdo, is a first-class buttwipe.

  But nobody says anything.

  New Guy stands there. Stoic. No emotion at all. But inside, I’ll bet he’s wondering about that fifty thousand dollars he still owes on his college loan so he could attend NYU film school and get a job stepping and fetching.

  Ceepak steps forward.

  “Apple boxes,” he states with great confidence, because I’m sure that, as soon as Fun House landed on our beaches, he spent several nights researching production lingo, “are wooden boxes of varying sizes with holes on each end that are chiefly used in film production. The ‘half-apple’ is typically four inches tall, whereas the ‘full apple’ is eight inches.”

  “Well done, Officer,” says Jimbo. “You want a job on my crew?”

  “No, thank you.”

  New Guy nods thanks to Ceepak, tugs down on his knit cap, heads for the door.

  “Half-apples are on the grip truck,” says the man holding the microphone boom like a broomstick. “Round back.”

  “Craft services table is back there, too,” adds the spotlight toter.

  Guess these two both remember their first days on the job, working for a jerk like Jimbo.

  “And, New Guy?” shouts the big man, Jimbo, so his crew will remember who’s the boss.

  The kid turns around.

  “Hustle, baby. Hustle.”

  Out he goes.

  Jimbo struts over to Ceepak. “We need to have Jenny stand on something. She’s disappearing, ruining my shot.”

  “I heard that,” snaps Jenny as she jabs out her hip, anchors her hand on it.

  “I’m just trying to make you look good, babe.”

  “Why do I need to wear fucking black?”

  “’Cause it’s a fucking funeral,” Jimbo answers. “We’re back in five. Everybody chill. I need to chat with the police officers here.”

  “Back in five,” yells the clipboard man.

  Ceepak holds open the door. “Bring your camera,” he says.

  Jimbo does as he’s told.

  The three of us cluster around the front of our parked vehicle.

  “What’s up, bro?” Jimbo asks, giving his ponytail an artful flick.

  “Last night,” says Ceepak, “you followed Paul Braciole out of the Big Kahuna dance club?”

  “That’s right. Me, Chuck, and Rich. We peeled off from the pack. Rutger sent us after Paulie and his hot date. Very attractive local lady in an extremely tight skirt. Her butt shimmered, man. I wish we could’ve hosed down the streets, got that slick surface going, like we do in car commercials. But this is reality TV. No time to light right.”

  “Chuck and Rich?” says Ceepak.

  Jimbo jabs his thumb toward the dress shop. “My sound and light guys.”

  “Where did Mr. Braciole and his date go?”

  “A couple blocks north. 136 Red Snapper Street.”

  Ceepak makes a face to let Jimbo know he’s impressed. “You’re certain about the address?”

  “Yeah. We were camped out in the front yard till like three in the morning.”

  Ceepak has his notepad and pencil out. “How so?”

  Jimbo flicks his ponytail again. Maybe he’s like a horse, uses it to swat flies. “Like I said, me and my boys, we tailed Paulie and his hot little honey out of the dance club, hoping to catch some hot and heavy action. Now, if they had headed back to the Fun House, we would have, you know, been able to follow them inside, tailed ’em all the way into the bedroom, might have even hung around to catch a little nookie action.”

  Ceepak’s left eye twitches. “Go on,” he says.

  While he talks, Jimbo monkeys with buttons on his camera, peers into the viewfinder.

  “This house on Red Snapper being the girl’s abode,” he says, while squinting into that little rubber-cupped box, “we can’t go in without an invitation, which, you know, wasn’t exactly forthcoming. In fact, yeah … here we go.” He holds up the camera so Ceepak can peek at the playback. “Check it out.”

  Ceepak does.

  “I see,” he says after a few seconds. He pulls back from the camera.

  “You see Paulie give me the finger?”

  Ceepak just nods.

  “I hope Marty cuts it into the show, seeing how I got the last fucking shot of Paulie before, you know, he got whacked by the stalker or whatever. But they probably won’t use it. Paulie flipping me off doesn’t fit in with this week’s narrative. That ‘Funeral for a Friend’ jive Marty pitched the network. Ratings will be through the roof. Just like Princess Diana.”

  Ceepak reaches for the radio clipped to his utility belt.

  “Excuse me,” he says to Jimbo. “We need to send a unit over to the house on Red Snapper. Interview the woman.”

  “Cool. Can we roll with you dudes? We’re pretty unobtrusive. We’d shoot you grilling the chick, catch it all guerilla gonzo style.”

  “Not gonna happen,” I say as Ceepak radios in a request for the first available unit to respond to 136 Red Snapper Street, to hold a “blonde female, approximately five feet, two inches tall, one hundred pounds, with a mole on her left cheek” for questioning.

  Ceepak. While watching a video of a drunken girl in a skimpy skirt bopping up a dark street, he keeps his eye on the distinguishing characteristics.

  “Hey, if it helps,” says Jimbo, “the chick’s name is Mandy.”

  Ceepak, gripping his radio mic in one hand, cocks an eyebrow.

  “She was wearing that T-shirt over her sausage dress,” Jimbo explains. “You know—the one that says ‘Remember my name. You’ll be screaming it later.’ So Paulie, he’s such a joker, he says ‘What am I gonna scream, baby?’ and the chick with the hooters says ‘Mandy.’”

  Ceepak adds the name “Mandy” to his bulletin then clips the radio back on his belt.

  “How long did you stay outside the house?” he asks.

  “Till Mandy came back out, pretty close to three A.M.”

  “I take it Paulie was not with her?”

  “That’s right. She came out in this skimpy bathrobe, even shorter than that skirt she’d been wearing at the club. Told us we were wasting our time: Paulie was gone. ‘I have a back door, numbnuts,’ were her exact words.” He holds up the camera. “You want me to find the clip?”

  “No, thank you,” says Ceepak. “We’ll talk to her ourselves. I’m curious as to why Paulie left.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he wanted to stay. But the Fun House kids have this curfew. They can, you know, hound-dog around town all they want, but they have to be back in the sack at the shack on Halibut Street by 3 A.M.—gives Marty more R-rated action to shoot with all those locked-off night-vision cameras bolted to the ceilings.”

  Except last night, when the generator died.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Green,” says Ceepak.

  “No problem. Hey, did Marty give you guys a bit for the funeral show?”

/>   “No,” says Ceepak.

  “Hey, dig this: you two could go on camera and ask for America’s help tracking down Paulie’s killer.”

  “No, thank you. We’ll leave any on-camera performing to the trained professionals.”

  That’s Ceepak cracking wise.

  Guess I’ve been a bad influence on the poor guy.

  16

  “YOUSE TWO MIGHT WANT TO HEAD BACK TO THE BOARDWALK, seeing how Officer McAlister says Mandy needs a few minutes to, you know, ‘freshen up.’”

  Yes, our dispatcher, Mrs. Dorian Rence, puts her motherly touch on all her official radio broadcasts.

  Ceepak is working the radio in the front seat of our Crown Vic. I’m behind the wheel.

  “10-4,” he says to the mic gripped in his hand.

  “Besides,” Mrs. Rence continues, “Detective Botzong, who’s still in the Knock ’Em Down booth, he says his people found something very interesting.”

  “Did he give you any indication as to what it is he discovered?”

  “A video. From a security camera. You think it shows the killer?”

  “It’s a possibility, Mrs. Rence.”

  “Golly bum, I sure hope so. The phone here is ringing off the hook. I already talked to Billy Bush and Mark Steines!”

  Ceepak glances over to me.

  I fill in the blanks for him. “Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight.”

  He still looks confused.

  “They’re TV tabloid shows. Cover entertainment and celebrities.”

  Ceepak nods slowly like, oh, yeah, he’s heard that such things exist. I figure that at 7 P.M. on weeknights he’s usually watching Cold Case Files on A&E. He’s just not as interested in Jennifer Aniston, the Jonas Brothers, or Brangelina as the rest of America.

  “We had to dispatch six more auxiliary officers to the Fun House,” Mrs. Rence continues on the radio. “All the big shows are setting up camp to cover the story. I like that Billy Bush. He asks the questions I’d ask if, you know, I ever met Brad Pitt or that other one, Julia Roberts.”

  Ceepak likes Mrs. Rence. Heck, we all do. But judging from the grimace on his face, he has heard enough.

  “Dorian,” he says, “please advise Officer McAlister that we are detouring back to the boardwalk and will join him and the witness—”

  “Mandy Keenan.”

  “Come again?”

  “That’s her name, John. The girl who, you know, did whatever with Paulie Braciole last night.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rence. Tell Officer McAlister we’ll join him as soon as we take a look at Detective Botzong’s video.”

  “Roger that,” says Mrs. Rence. “10-4. Over and out.”

  Mrs. Rence has only been on the job a few months. She’s a fast learner, but, well, she kind of jumbles everything up into one big gumbo of police mumbo-jumbo.

  “We caught a break,” says Bill Botzong as he leads us up into the back of the State Police Major Crimes Unit’s brand-new Mobile Crime Scene Investigation Unit. It’s basically a one-hundred-thousand-dollar step-van with a ladder going up to the roof, where there’s this little deck, a couple antennae, and more ladders.

  I guess, in New Jersey, a lot of our forensic evidence is found in trees and other hard-to-reach places.

  Inside the back of the new van, Botzong and his techies have all sorts of gear, including—my favorite—a Cyanoacrylate Fuming Kit for finding fingerprints with superglue fuming.

  There is also digital video player.

  And a box of Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “You guys hungry?” asks Botzong, gesturing at the open-lid tray. I see a toasted coconut with my name on it.

  “No, thank you,” says Ceepak.

  “Danny?”

  “I’m good.”

  Okay. It’s a lie, but Ceepak doesn’t notice. He’s too eager to see what kind of lucky break Botzong has caught.

  “What’d you find, Bill?” he asks.

  “A quick clip of our killer bringing the body to the boardwalk. Seems there are security cameras in the parking lots of the three motels across Beach Lane from the boardwalk access point closest to the Knock ’Em Down booth,” Botzong explains as he thumbs the remote for the video player to advance the digits to the point he wants us to see. “P.S.—there’s a ramp at that entrance.”

  “For wheelchairs,” I say.

  “Or motorcycles,” adds Ceepak.

  “Exactly,” says Botzong. “Anyway, one of those cameras, in the parking lot of the Flamingo Motel, is aimed in such a way that it picks up a little bit of street traffic, too.”

  “Beach Lane?” says Ceepak.

  “Right.”

  “How fortuitous.”

  Yeah, I think. And lucky, too.

  “At 3:17 A.M.,” Botzong continues, “our killer putters through the frame.”

  “Motorcycle?”

  “Yep. Which, of course, explains that tire track you found out back, behind the booth. Carolyn Miller pegs the ride as a 2010 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 Low.”

  Carolyn Miller, who helped us on the Rolling Thunder case, is probably the State MCU’s top tire-tread analyst. I don’t know how you become one of those. Probably hang out with the Pep Boys; ask Manny, Moe, and Jack a bunch of questions.

  “Carolyn tells me she had to isolate the front tire pattern from the rear, even though they’re almost on top of each other, as they are slightly different. A Dunlop 100/90 R19 57H up front, Dunlop 150/80 R16 71H in the back.”

  Ceepak nods like, somehow, it all makes perfect sense to him. Me? I’m still checking out the tread pattern on that toasted-coconut donut.

  “If memory serves,” says Ceepak, “the Harley-Davidson Low models have what I would call a long, cushioned seat plus footpegs over staggered shorty exhaust pipes to accommodate a second passenger.”

  “Exactly,” says Botzong. “That’s where the biker chicks usually ride. It also explains the duct tape you guys found on the victim’s wrists and shoes, not to mention that ring of dried blood around his neck. Check it out.”

  He pushes the play button.

  The image is grainy, but, in the background, we can make out a Harley hog with a helmeted driver and a helmeted passenger with his arms wrapped around the driver’s waist.

  The passenger is not a biker chick. It’s Paulie Braciole. He’s wearing an aerodynamic helmet with a tinted visor, just like the driver, but I recognize his white muscle-man T-shirt.

  “Clever,” says Ceepak. “To transport the dead body, the killer propped the helmeted Mr. Braciole in the passenger seat.…”

  “And duct-taped his shoes to those rear footpegs,” adds Botzong.

  “Then the killer took their position in front of the dead body.…”

  “Which had to be pretty hard to do,” says Botzong. “Balancing the body to secure the feet. Then, I’m guessing, they had to brace Mr. Braciole by the helmet while they mounted the bike.”

  The motorcyclist in the video is wearing racing gear, a one-piece space suit deal that gives absolutely no hint as to who or what is inside; same with the aerodynamic helmet and padded gloves, which more or less blend right into the high-collared suit. Our killer could be a guy or a girl. He or she could be sixteen or sixty. Heck, he or she could be a very well-trained orangutan. The flight suit hides everything.

  “Once the killer had taken their place up front,” says Ceepak, “they reached around, grabbed hold of Mr. Braciole’s limp arms, binding them together in front of their waist with more duct tape.”

  “Yep,” says Botzong.

  Wow. I’m impressed. First, by Ceepak and Botzong, who figured it all out. Second, by the killer. He (or she) had to be pretty nimble and quick to pull it off. Third, by duct tape. Is there nothing that stuff can’t do?

  “The neck roll of the helmet being forced over Mr. Braciole’s head, of course, explains that ring of dried blood and the ‘up-drips’ around his neck,” adds Botzong. “It acted like a temporary dam, causing the blood to pool in a circle until
it was removed.”

  I nod because I figured it out maybe two seconds after Botzong said it.

  “So,” says the head of the State Police Major Crimes Unit, tapping the monitor screen, “do you guys recognize the motor scooter?”

  I’m guessing Detective Bill Botzong, when not rehearsing amateur theatricals, spends his Thursday nights watching Fun House, so he saw me and Ceepak chasing the Creed motorcycle crew around the parking lot of Morgan’s Surf and Turf.

  “Several of the motorcycle gang members we encountered were, indeed, riding similar Harleys,” says Ceepak. “However, I don’t recall any distinguishing characteristics on any of the bikes that allow me to I.D. the motorcycle.”

  “What about Skeletor? Is that his bike?” asks Botzong.

  “Sure looks like it,” I say.

  “It sure does, Danny,” says Ceepak.

  I’m waiting for the “But.”

  “But.…”

  There it is.

  “This low-slung Harley profile is quite common.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Plus, the rider, disguised in a helmet and leather jumpsuit, is hunched over so much, gripping onto the handlebars like a motocross racer, there’s no way to tell how tall and skinny he or she might be. It could be Skeletor on the bike. It could be anybody.

  “Well, Skeletor and his Creed brethren are definitely on my most-wanted list,” says Botzong.

  Now Ceepak nods. “Ours too.”

  “Any word on his whereabouts?”

  “Negative. We put out an APB immediately after our run-in at the restaurant.”

  “Which was almost a week ago,” I add.

  “We may need to cast a wider net,” says Botzong.

  Ceepak sighs. “Bill, as Chief Baines undoubtedly alerted you, the producers of Fun House want to go on air this week and devote a good deal of time to showing the drug dealer’s face to their viewers.”

  Botzong screws up his face like it pains him to say what he’s about to say. “Yeah. Buzz told me. I think it might help, John.”

  Ceepak reluctantly nods. “My wife, Rita, also agrees. This morning, she advised me that America’s Most Wanted with John Walsh, a long-running program on the Fox network, has aided authorities in the capture of well over eleven hundred fugitives.”