Tilt-a-Whirl (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

  “Officer Ceepak?” Grumpy is yelling now. “What the fuck are you doing in the bushes? Taking a fucking dump?”

  “On my way,” Ceepak says. He gestures for me to take one more digital photograph of the drug den. I do.

  “Good work, Danny,” he whispers. I can tell he means it. He'd probably rub my hair like a proud papa if I wasn't wearing my cap.

  We walk out from behind the big plywood Clyde.

  There's this fat guy with a droopy moustache sitting up in a Tilt-A-Whirl car, the one next to the one with Hart's body in it. He's chowing down on some kind of breakfast sandwich wrapped in bright yellow tissue paper—our first clue about what made him an overweight walrus.

  “You Ceepak?” he says to me.

  “No.”

  “I'm Ceepak. John Ceepak.”

  “Lieutenant Saul Slominsky, Major Crime Unit. Can you believe my shitty luck? I just pulled into Burger King when I caught this call.”

  He takes another jumbo bite and orange stuff squishes out both sides of the bread. I think it's a sausage, egg and cheese Croissan'wich, because he keeps wiping his greasy paws on his belly and there's some spongy egg stuff snagged in the whiskers under his nose.

  “I can't sit down inside and eat a civilized breakfast, I gotta hit the goddam drive-thru and there's this total asshole in front of me who acts like he doesn't know what the fuck Burger King serves for breakfast. Like it's some kind of complicated menu and he needs to study it and take his fucking time. So I hop out of my car, show him my shield, and tell him to make up his fucking mind and move along. Asshole.”

  Slominsky takes a triumphant whopper of a bite, snaring half of what's left of the sandwich.

  He gestures over his shoulder with the thumb that's not busy with breakfast.

  “The rest of my crew is hauling their shit out of their vans.” I guess Saul Slominsky's mother never told him not to swear with a mouth full of food. “Thanks for hanging the tape. We'll take it from here.”

  Slominsky. The name finally rings a bell.

  I've heard stories about this guy.

  Ceepak hasn't, because he's new on the job and Slominsky never wrote a book.

  In fact, Slobbinsky (which is what everybody calls him when he's not around) had the book thrown at him a few years back on account of his bad table manners. He blew the State's whole case in a major murder trial by dribbling sauerkraut from a Reuben sandwich all over a fingerprint card.

  “Hey, you're the guys who made me work on my fucking lunch hour,” was his defense. But his uncle or cousin or best friend from grade school or something was a big shot in the governor's office so, instead of canning him, they gave Slobbinsky a slap on the wrist and an air-conditioned job pushing papers around his desk. Judging by his gut, the papers don't weigh enough to give him much of a workout.

  The state police only let Slobbinsky loose in the field when everybody else is on vacation and things should be slow.

  Like the second week of July.

  “Lieutenant,” Ceepak says, “you might want to finish your meal outside the primary area of evidentiary value.”

  Slominsky snorts at Ceepak.

  “What?”

  “Maybe you should finish your sandwich somewhere else?”

  “You're the new guy, hunh?”

  He wipes his hands on his pant legs. Burger King must've been short on napkins this morning.

  “They call you Dudley Do-Right. You're the fucking Boy Scout … just back from Iraq? Dudley Fucking Do-Right?”

  “I wouldn't know what people call me, sir.”

  “Well, what kind of fucking cop are you? You need to keep your ear to the ground, son—cultivate your snitches, know what's going down, who's saying what behind your back.”

  Slominsky crumbles up his BK wrapper and tosses it at one of those sun-faced garbage cans a few feet from the Tilt-A-Whirl ticket booth. It's a long shot and, of course, he misses. He stands up and flicks the crumbs off the front of his shirt. I swear to God, one flake flies off his chest and lands on Reginald Hart's face—right on the tip of the dead guy's nose. It gets stuck there in the drying blood.

  Ceepak is seething. I can see his ear tips turning red.

  “Lieutenant, I must protest …”

  “No. The only thing you must do is get your ass off my crime scene.”

  The rest of the Crime Scene Investigation team is proceeding single-file down the Tilt-A-Whirl pathway, trying to step where the guy in front of them stepped, just like Ceepak told me to do. There's about six of them. They all have on gloves (like Ceepak's) and hairnets and surgical masks and white Tyvek jumpsuits that make them look like walking FedEx envelopes. You can tell the State Boys are pros, even if their boss for the day isn't. They shoot looks to Ceepak and me that say they have to work with this bozo if they want to pick up their paychecks come Friday.

  “What the fuck are you guys doing? Single file, Indian-style? Jesus, we'll be here all fucking day. Spread out. Get to work. I told Fox I'd have something for them by noon.”

  Great. Slominsky alerted the media. The circus is coming to town.

  Ceepak pulls on a fresh pair of gloves.

  “If you don't mind, Lieutenant, I'd like to examine a few more—”

  “Buzz off, Boy Scout. This is the State's crime scene now.”

  “I understand, but—”

  “You were in the Army, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You know about obeying orders? Chain of command? Shit like that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Return to fucking base, soldier.”

  Slominsky wipes the last bit of egg off his chin with his sleeve. He sees the wallet lying open on the platform and bends over to pick it up.

  “Somebody drop this?”

  His greasy paw prints smear all over the leather, covering up any fingerprints that might be on the dead man's wallet—like, oh, I don't know, the shooter's?

  Ceepak looks like somebody just kneed him in the nuts.

  “You might want to put that down, sir,” says one of the CSI guys from behind his white mask. “Could be evidence.”

  “Jesus, fellas—relax. We've got an eyewitness! The little girl saw everything. All we need to crack this case is a halfway decent sketch artist.”

  “Shelly's with the girl now,” says another techie, a guy on his hands and knees studying the same boot prints Ceepak studied earlier.

  “See?” Slominsky smiles at Ceepak and me. “The big boys are in town. This case is almost closed. We'll flash the sketch all over TV and have this thing wrapped up before lunch. Hey, goody-two-shoes?”

  I think he's talking to Ceepak.

  “Is there any decent clam chowder down here? I like the Manhattan stuff better than the white stuff….”

  “Yes,” Ceepak says calmly. I can see he's mastering his emotions like he's taught himself to do instead of telling the blowhard to go fuck himself, which is, basically, what I've taught myself to do. “I am given to understand there are numerous chowder options available on the island.”

  “Good. Because two fucking Croissan'wiches won't hold me for long.”

  Slominsky struts over to the dead body.

  “So this is Reginald Hart, hunh? Stayed at one of his casinos down in Ocean Town once. The Fantasia? Place had class. Real class. Marble tile in the toilets. Shit like that.”

  Slominsky raises Hart's left arm, and lets it drop.

  “Yep,” he says, “I'd say this guy is officially, one-hundred-percent dead. Where's the goddamn Medical Examiner?”

  “On his way,” somebody says.

  “Guess we better figure out a time of death. I'd say it was sometime this morning. How about you guys?”

  None of the CSI team says anything. They're busy, trying to do their jobs fast—before Slominsky screws things up even worse.

  “Okay. Good. This morning. That's what I'll say until we come up with something better.”

  He sees Ceepak staring at him.

&
nbsp; “You still here? Jesus—go home. You did your good deed for the day. You told me about the chowder.”

  Ceepak is quiet for a second. Then he starts unsnapping his cargo-pants pockets.

  “We found some items earlier,” he says, handing his paper evidence envelopes over to one of the white suits. “Wind started blowing….”

  “Recalibrating the crime scene,” the CSI guy says, letting Ceepak know he did the right thing.

  “You picked shit up?” Slominsky yells. “Jesus H. Christ! Fucking local yokels….”

  “We recorded original conditions and positions,” Ceepak says. He slips the data card out of our digital camera and hands that over, too.

  “You might want to check back there,” Ceepak points to the big Sunnyside Clyde sign. “Danny?”

  He snaps his head to the side to let me know it's time to go. We walk out, watching where we step, as if it still matters.

  Like I said, John Ceepak plays by the rules.

  Even when the rules suck.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I finally get to hit the head when we hike back to The Pancake Palace to pick up the Ford Explorer.

  This is a family place, but the bathroom? Whoo. It's all kinds of stinky. Not dirty, just kind of grungy, like it's uncleanable and always damp on account of all the humidity. There's these metal half-walls between urinals (so guys won't look at each other's willies, I guess) and they're splashed with rust.

  “Gross,” I say to myself, imagining the worst possible rust-creation scenario. I shudder because I realize: I'm starting to see the world like Ceepak sees it, analyzing splatter patterns while I pee.

  Ceepak is in the restaurant, settling up with the cashier.

  “Sorry we had to run out like that,” he says as he pays six bucks for the breakfast we skipped out on so we could rescue the bloody kid out in the street.

  Next, Ceepak flags down the waitress who brought him his cereal and me my coffee. He hands her a three-buck tip on our six-buck tab. And he apologizes for “any inconvenience we caused by making her wait.”

  I'm sure this is all part of The Code.

  “We're good to go,” he says when he's paid off all his debts. “Let's roll.”

  We head out into the parking lot. It's still only 9 A.M. but the sun's already starting to steam things up. Ceepak is lugging his aluminum crime-scene attaché case. I've got the camera and what's left of the “Police” tape rolls. We head to the rear of the Explorer to pop open the cargo door.

  All of a sudden, there's this loud “ka-boom!”

  “Get down!”

  Ceepak shoves me to the ground.

  “Grenade!” he yells. “Down!”

  I'm covering my head and thinking: No way! Maybe an M-80 left over from the Fourth of July….

  “Stay down!” Ceepak screams.

  I look up and Ceepak's running, crouched low, using parked cars for cover like he's expecting incoming rounds from a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. There's this stockade fence behind the restaurant's kitchen and I can see a puff of smoke come out from behind it.

  The dumpster.

  I see three boys, about ten years old. They look scared shitless and start high-tailing it out of the parking lot, into the trees. They'll probably run all the way across the bay to the mainland.

  I was right. Leftover firecrackers. An M-80, which is basically a quarter stick of dynamite, tossed by some kids into an open dumpster. Ka-boom. Ka-bang. Happy 10th of July!

  Ceepak stands, watching the boys flee.

  All I can see is his back. But I have a funny feeling he might have been momentarily blown back to Bagh-nasty-dad, where his buddies probably got blown up more times than he'd care to remember.

  I grab hold of the rear bumper on the Ford and haul my ass off the asphalt, brushing stones and pebbles out of my naked knees. Maybe tomorrow I'll go with the cargo pants instead of the shorts. I see Ceepak's shoulders heave up and down like he's taking in a long, deep breath.

  He turns to face me, smiling.

  “Kids.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Fourth of July fireworks.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let's hit the house.”

  “Right.”

  The house, the Sea Haven Police Station, is only five blocks up Ocean Avenue, but traffic is all kinds of backed up. We may never make it.

  “From the roadblock,” I guess.

  “Yeah,” Ceepak says. He's looking out his window like he's still thinking about grenades, still seeing stuff in the rearview mirror of his mind, so to speak. I have a feeling those objects might appear closer than they actually are.

  I see a TV satellite truck rumbling down the avenue, heading back to where we came from. Word spreads fast.

  We're still not moving. In fact, we're stuck behind an ice-cream truck. Not the cute, ringy-dingy kind that cruises up and down the side streets selling Good Humor bars. This is a Ben and Jerry's delivery truck with black cows painted on the back panel and it's crawling its way up to the supermarket, hoping to get there before all the Chubby Hubby and Cherry Garcia melts. I can't see what's in front of it. Probably a beer truck. Or a Frito-Lay step van. Ice cream, beer, and potato chips. Come summer, these are the three basic food groups in my hometown.

  In the lane to the right of us is a convertible with the top down. They want to turn left, crawl in front of me and the trucks, hit the causeway, and leave the island behind. Their vacation is obviously over.

  Mom and Pops are up front, fuming, craning their necks, trying to see what the heck the holdup is, looking like their whole week of rest and relaxation evaporated the second they hit this gridlock. Two boys, about six and seven, are sitting in the back seat, all buckled in. They're bored stiff and start waving at us like kids will do when they see cops. One's wearing a diving mask. The other has on some kind of pirate hat. I'm not driving anywhere any time soon, so, when the kids catch my eye, I wave back. The scuba-faced boy gives me a big military salute and I salute back.

  Ceepak is still staring out his window. He sees the convertible, too.

  “Danny?” he says. “We need to expedite our exit.”

  “10-4.”

  I hit the lights and siren, pull around the ice-cream truck, and scream up the avenue in the wrong lane.

  “That'll work,” Ceepak mumbles.

  He never did salute the cute kids.

  Guess he's done playing Army for today.

  Police headquarters kind of looks like a house. We've got a nice wraparound porch, a white picket fence, and a tidy little lawn. This being the beach, our lawn is made out of marble chips and red pea-pebbles instead of grass, but we keep it raked and weeded.

  We're on Cherry Lane, a street that cuts across Ocean Avenue, and heads from the bay on one side of the island to the beach on the other. In this part of town, the east–west streets are named after trees and are arranged in alphabetical order, north to south. Beech Street is north of us. Dogwood is south.

  Ocean Avenue is to the west of us, Shore drive to the east. One block past Shore is Beach Lane, not to be confused with Beech Street, but, as you might guess, it often is, especially by out-of-towners looking for the beach, which is on Beach. Not Beech.

  State police cars and vans are parked in our lot and up and down the street out front. Two hours after it went down, the Hart homicide is already big. By noon, it'll be huge.

  “Let's see where the CO needs us,” Ceepak says, climbing out of the car. He's talking military talk again, saying “CO” for Commanding Officer, sounding more like the old Ceepak.

  We move inside and feel the 68-degree AC smack us in the face. It feels good.

  “What a freaking day, hunh?”

  It's Gus Davis, the desk sergeant. He's about sixty years old and completely out of shape. His regulation police pants don't fit any more and sort of droop off his bony hips. Gus is about two months away from retirement and has been a Sea Haven cop for close to thirty years. He used to ride up and down Ocean Aven
ue in a pink-and-turquoise cruiser, but now he works behind the front desk answering phones, taking messages, dealing with walk-in civilians.

  I think Ceepak took Gus's street job, but Gus isn't bitter. Not about that, anyway—just everything else. Life in general.

  “This freaking day!”

  “What's up?” Ceepak asks. He and Gus get along. Maybe because Gus did time in the Army, too. Korea. Vietnam. One of those. “Switchboard busy?”

  “Busy? It's a freaking funhouse in here. First, we get a call at 6:28.”

  “The tricycle?”

  “You heard?”

  “I was up anyhow….”

  “Normally, I'd blow the caller off. You know, tell her to come in at a decent hour and file a report. I mean, come on—it's a freaking tricycle! Who spends three hundred and fifty bucks on a tricycle? But guess who the caller is?”

  “Who?”

  “The mayor's sister. You ever meet her?”

  “No. Not that I'm aware of.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.” Gus shivers to help paint the picture. “She's like a piranha that's had plastic surgery. A real man-eater.”

  “Check.”

  “So I radio Kiger. Pull him off beach sweep, send him over to write up the missing bike.”

  “Who's Kiger?”

  “Adam Kiger. Young kid. Works the graveyard shift. Rides his scooter up and down the beach, looking for riff-raff.”

  “Scooter?”

  “ATV,” I say. “All Terrain Vehicle? Good on the beach….”

  “It's a freaking scooter! He looks like a mailman!”

  I can tell Ceepak's gonna want to talk to Kiger. Find out what kind of riff-raff's been spotted near the Tilt-A-Whirl playing with hypodermic needles.

  “Then you two …” Gus gestures at Ceepak and me like he's disgusted. “Seven something—you get a body! Now, I got the press calling. The mayor? He's bitching about the roadblock, how it's ticking off the tourists. I gotta track down the kid's mom, find Hart's lawyer, his corporate people, the works. I'm never freaking going home.”

  “What's the problem? You don't like it here, Gus?”

  It's the chief.