Tilt-a-Whirl (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

  “Yes.”

  “Especially when the child has so much money.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Ashley now owns everything Mr. Hart used to own. His houses. His corporation. His casinos. She inherited it all. She's probably one of the wealthiest little girls in the whole world.”

  The butler actually smiles. Maybe he thinks Ashley's a soft touch. Maybe he thinks he's overdue for a raise. Maybe a promotion. Maybe he always wanted to be a casino manager when he grew up.

  “Oh, drat,” Ceepak says.

  “Problem?”

  “Well, I wanted to call Ashley … talk to her about all this … but I don't have her cell phone number.”

  “Allow me….”

  I guess the butler figures Ceepak is going to put in a good word for him. Tell Ashley how helpful the guy's been. He writes down a cell phone number on the back of a cream-colored note card and hands it to Ceepak.

  “That is the number.”

  “Thanks.” Ceepak tucks the card into his shirt pocket. “Hey, Danny? You got a cigarette?”

  I look at Ceepak like he's nuts. I don't smoke. Neither does he.

  “Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “Fresh out.”

  Ceepak eyes the sandstone box on the glass coffee table.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Please,” the butler says. “Help yourself.”

  Ceepak lifts the lid and grabs a cigarette.

  The butler reaches for the clunky lighter but Ceepak waves him off.

  “I'll save it. For later.”

  He sniffs the cigarette.

  “Clove?”

  “Yes. Actually, they're called kretek. Djarum Black. Imported from Jakarta. Indonesia? Very hard to find. I have to special-order them over the Internet.”

  “Wow. You don't see many cigarettes wrapped in black paper like this, do you? I guess you can't just run down to the 7-Eleven for a pack?”

  “Hardly.”

  “You sure you don't mind me taking one?”

  “Not at all. Enjoy.”

  “Thanks. Well, we need to be going. Thank you again for your time and assistance.”

  “My pleasure. Have a pleasant day, gentlemen.” The butler ushers us to the front door. “Give my best to young Miss Ashley.”

  “Will do.”

  When we're back inside the Ford, Ceepak pulls out one of his evidence bags and places the fresh cigarette carefully inside it.

  “I suspect it will match,” he says.

  “Match what?”

  Ceepak unsnaps a pants pocket and pulls out a rolled-up bag. He opens the top so I can see the evidence inside.

  A stubbed-out black cigarette butt covered with gray, gritty sand. There's a thin gold band wrapping around the filter, just like on the one he snagged off the coffee table.

  When the bag is under my nose, I get a good whiff.

  Burnt clove.

  He smiles.

  “Don't you just hate it when smokers treat the beach like it's their ashtray?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  We're driving back to town.

  Ceepak is on his phone with Morgan from the FBI. He rattles off Ashley's cell number from the cream-colored card. “It syncs up with what you said earlier,” he tells Morgan. “Your theory on the note….”

  I'm trying to remember what Morgan said. Something about how our ransom note was a copy of the Jon Benet Ramsey note. That our kidnapper had never kidnapped before, so he had to cheat to make it sound like he knew what he was doing.

  I still don't know what Ceepak's doing. I thought this thing ended last night.

  And why aren't we telling the chief where we are?

  Ceepak shuts his flip phone.

  “Let's go visit Ms. Stone.”

  “At Chesterfield's?”

  “Roger that.”

  I hope she's in a better mood than the last time we all got together there. Like yesterday, when we tried to bust her.

  * * *

  “I was attempting to rescind Mr. Hart's order,” Ms. Stone explains.

  We're in the dining room at Chesterfield's. Ceepak's nibbling on a blueberry muffin. She has a scone going, which is like a sideways biscuit you eat with jam instead of jelly. I'm helping myself to the breadbasket and lots of expensive butter—it's cut into patties shaped like seashells.

  “Mendez had been hired to bring down The Palace Hotel?” Ceepak asks.

  “Yes. I'm afraid so. Mr. Hart was reverting to the tactics he employed earlier in his career. The hotel had been declared an historic landmark and there was no economical way he could complete the modifications deemed necessary to make it commercially viable.”

  “So Hart decided to destroy it instead?”

  “Yes. It was certainly one way to skirt the restrictions imposed by the landmark laws.”

  “You advised against it?”

  “Strongly. It was a lovely old building. Almost like a castle. I believe we could have restored it.”

  “But Mendez and his crew—they had it wired?”

  “They'd been in town for about a week. Setting things up, placing charges in strategic positions. Timers. Their implosion plan was quite impressive.”

  “You saw it?”

  “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 & 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 someth
ing. ‘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.”