Tilt-a-Whirl (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

She looks good when she swears like that. She puts her hands on her hips and sticks out her chest, all huffy. She has a big chest and one of those miraculous bras that pushes everything up and makes it all look even bigger.

  “I can't believe this shit. We were down here on business—”

  “You and Mr. Hart?”

  “Yes. Real estate transaction.”

  The way she says it? She's warning me not to even think impure thoughts about the nature of her relationship with her boss, a guy at least thirty or forty years older than her. But then again, Mr. Hart was a billionaire and, hey, what's thirty or forty years between friends when one of them's worth thirty or forty billion dollars?

  “Why the hell didn't they call me? I was at the beach house.”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “I'm using the guest cottage.”

  “Sure.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Can't really say.”

  “Because you don't really know?”

  “Something like that.”

  Ms. Stone sits down and crosses her legs, obscuring my view of them. She's shifted her attention to Ashley and Jane and Ceepak on the other side of our window.

  I take in a deep breath. It's been a tough morning.

  Vanilla, patchouli, sandalwood.

  I only know that's what I'm smelling because that's what Ceepak said it was back at the Tilt-A-Whirl when he wondered whether young Ashley purchased perfume at Victoria's Secret.

  Maybe Ashley doesn't.

  But I bet Ms. Stone does.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Malloy's roadblock, we hear, is moving more smoothly.

  Now that they kind of know who they're looking for, they don't need to stop every car on the causeway, just the ones with hippie burnouts riding inside. I figure all VW bugs and microbuses are considered totally suspicious.

  So far, the guys canvassing the beach and streets around Playland have come up with diddly-squat. No witnesses, no one who heard the nine pops go off. Seven bullets hit Hart, two hit the turtle shell behind him. Ceepak told me he got a good look at all nine holes before the State boys showed up. He sounded like he was describing the front end of a golf course.

  The only jogger on the beach at 7:15 A.M. was this guy with his iPod earbuds stuffed in so deep, the music was melting his earwax. He didn't hear a thing. Neither did my buddy Joey T., the beach sweeper. His tractor makes all kinds of noise when he's out there waking up the gulls.

  Here at the house, Ashley's mother showed up and that means our eyewitness stopped talking.

  “My poor baby!” she said, understandably upset. “I think it might be best for all concerned if I took Ashley home.”

  My visitor, the lawyer, decided— “Hey, if the ex can barge in, so can I.” She just about knocked the IR door off its hinges when she sent it swinging.

  Ashley's mother smiled frostily when Ms. Stone made her entrance.

  “Betty,” the lawyer said, clipping the two syllables with a sharp bite.

  “Ladies?” Ceepak stood up. “We need to ask Ashley a few more questions….”

  “They're just doing their jobs, mommy,” Ashley said.

  “Of course they are, dear,” her mother agreed. “I just think it might be better if we did this at home….”

  “With a lawyer present.” Ms. Stone tossed in her two cents.

  “A lawyer? Heavens. Do you officers think Ashley needs a lawyer?” She smiled again. I'll bet she uses a lot of those Crest whitening strips.

  “It's up to you, ma'am.” Ceepak turned to Ashley. “Would you be more comfortable at home?”

  “Yes, sir. If that's all right with you.” The way the kid said it? Broke my heart.

  Ceepak's too.

  So the ex-Mrs. Hart took her daughter's hand and led her outside to their Mercedes. Two state police cars escorted them home. Ms. Stone told us she was checking into a B&B and would be remaining in Sea Haven “for the rest of the weekend.”

  Ceepak said that was swell, or words to that effect.

  Then he and I climbed back into the Ford Explorer and headed south to Ashley's house.

  We still had diddly-squat.

  “Mrs. Hart doesn't seem too upset by the murder,” Ceepak says.

  “Because she hated his guts.”

  A few years back, “The Broken Harts” bumped the Martians and Elvis off the front covers of all the supermarket tabloids. I never buy the gossip rags, I just read them while I wait in the express line behind people who can't count to fifteen.

  I know Hart's ex-wife (she was his third) scored the Sea Haven beach house in the divorce settlement but she didn't score much else. She had signed an “ironclad pre-nup” and all she got as a parting gift was the house and a small monthly allowance (which I'm sure is more money than Ceepak and me make all year—combined).

  The house is about six miles south of town in Beach Crest Heights, a gated community on the golden tip of the island, where even the sea shanties cost two or three million dollars and come with private pristine beaches.

  We pass the Beach Crest gatehouse and drive down to 1500 Rodeo Drive. The guy who developed Beach Crest? He named all his streets after the ones in Beverly Hills.

  There's a state police car parked out front of the mansion and two troopers standing guard. They wave us into the big circular driveway.

  Flowers that shouldn't grow anywhere near the beach blossom alongside the paved walkway to the front door. The shrubs are trimmed to look like pompons on a stick or a frou-frou poodle's tail.

  The house could be a modern art museum or something, all sharp angles and stone and glass. It almost disappears into the dunes, except, of course, that it's huge and there's no way not to see it.

  I see six matching suitcases of various sizes and shapes sitting near the manicured flowerbeds. I figure they belong to Ms. Stone and came from the guesthouse. If that was where she was really bunking. I see her legs, I have my doubts.

  “Mrs. Hart is in the solarium,” this old guy at the front door tells us. I guess he's the butler, like that guy with the accent who used to be on Joe Millionaire. I bet there's a scullery maid, too. I don't know what a scullery is, but rich people always have a maid for it.

  “This way, if you please.”

  He sounds like he studied Snooty Attitude 101 at the Butler Institute of Technology.

  “Thank you,” Ceepak says and we scuff our heels across this gigantic marble-and-glass foyer. You can see the sea and sand dunes through the three-story windows in front of us, and all the furniture is either white or tan so it looks like it's made out of sand, like the beach rolls in, right through the windows.

  “We're in here!”

  She sounds even friendlier and bubblier than she did at the station, and the sun pouring into the solarium makes her dazzling smile seem brighter too.

  Now I remember. Years ago, when I was kid, she used to be a weather girl on TV. Betty Something. Betty Bell. She met Reginald Hart at a charity bazaar where she was the emcee and he was the highest bidder, so to speak. I know—I spend far too much time reading in the checkout lane.

  I remember watching Betty Bell “Your Friendly Weather Gal” when she was on TV. She had this sweet and sexy way of pointing at her weather map or rolling her arms to let you know a cold front was tumbling into town. She was chipper and perky and her suns always had smiley faces drawn on them and she wore these really tight pink sweaters all winter long. Fuzzy, soft sweaters that hugged her up top, which is all you can really see on TV anyhow. I was only nine or ten at the time, but seeing her in those cuddly pink sweaters, rolling her arms, pointing at cold fronts, kind of made me wish winter could last all year.

  “Please, officers, have a seat.”

  Betty Bell Hart hasn't been on TV in years, but she could be. She's blonde, poised, and gorgeous. I'm sure she's had “work” done, but her workers did a very good job.

  “I apologize for making you gentlemen drive all the way down here,” she says.

&
nbsp; “No problem,” Ceepak says. “We understand.”

  I nod, glad to be included among the understanding.

  “When they called, I—”

  “You were up in the city?”

  “That's right. Usually Ashley and I come down here together on summer weekends.”

  We listen intently.

  “But Ashley's father requested one summer weekend with his daughter, so I let him borrow my beach house. I stayed in the city.”

  “That's where you and Ashley live?”

  “It's our primary residence. I was granted sole custody. Mr. Hart, however, retained certain visitation rights.”

  Much to my surprise, she opens a box on the coffee table and takes out a cigarette. She lights it with this big clunky thing that I thought was a decorative rock. It stinks. Real bad—worse than cigarettes usually do. Clove has never been one of my favorite odors, not since second grade when I punctured my thumb on one pressing it into an apple for my mom to hang in her closet.

  “Do you mind?” She, of course, only asks after her stink bomb is burning like a wet pile of leaves and the solarium goes partly cloudy.

  Ceepak shrugs. He could care less.

  “So this was your ex-husband's weekend with Ashley?”

  “That's right. From time to time he might arrange to take a weekend off and spend it with his daughter.” Betty exhales slowly to give us time to realize what kind of father Reginald Hart must have been.

  “Then he would typically hire some bright young computer person to play video games with her, as he himself would be busy with all the work he brought along in his briefcase….” She made a quick grimace. “Of course, Reginald also remained very proud of Ashley's many accomplishments. Even if he was rarely able to attend any functions at school.”

  “I was Emily in Our Town.” This from Ashley now.

  “Grover's Corners,” Ceepak offers. “Thorton Wilder.”

  This display of dramatic trivia is impressive and the two blondes beam. Here's a manly man who knows his Broadway and isn't afraid to admit it.

  “I only wish her father could have seen the play. Unfortunately, he was otherwise engaged. Hong Kong, opening another new hotel.”

  “So, the two of you spent time together out here?” Ceepak says encouragingly. “You and your dad?”

  Ashley nods.

  “Did he do any work this weekend?”

  “Yes. Some. He and Ms. Stone were pretty busy most of Friday. So I swam in the pool and read and stuff. He worked on his laptop.”

  “We'd like to look at that,” Ceepak says to Ashley's mom. “His computer?”

  “Certainly. I'll ask James to find it for you.”

  James. The butler's name is James. Figures. I wonder if it's his real name or one he just uses for work. You know—like The Rock. I'm sure The Rock's parents didn't put “The Rock” on his birth certificate.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” Ceepak says to Ashley. “This morning? At the Tilt-A-Whirl?”

  “He's still out there, isn't he?” Ashley's eyes swing around the glass-walled sunroom. “The man who shot my father. He could be right outside these windows right now….”

  “Don't worry,” Ceepak tells her. “I won't let him hurt you. I won't let anybody hurt you.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, Ashley. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I always keep my word.”

  Ceepak actually raises his right hand, like he's making some kind of sacred vow, which, I guess, he is.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ashley takes a deep breath.

  “I woke up around six ’cause I heard Miss Stone giggling in the kitchen. I went in and Daddy said, ‘Today's our day.’ Usually, once every summer, we like to sneak into Playland before it's open.”

  “Can I ask why?” Ceepak is curious. So am I.

  “I dunno. It's just kind of fun.”

  “But the rides aren't running, the arcade's closed….”

  “I know. It's sort of stupid, but it's just something we like to do.”

  “If someone else writes the rules,” Betty explains, “Reggie likes to break them.”

  I figure that means wedding vows, too.

  “We liked to be there while it's still quiet,” Ashley continues, “before the beach fills up and gets all crowded.”

  “What do you two talk about when you're together, like this morning?”

  “I dunno. Stuff. Like how he thinks I'm too young to have a boyfriend … even though I do….”

  “But why the Tilt-A-Whirl?”

  “He bought her a turtle once,” mom offers.

  “Excuse me?”

  “When I was like four or five? Daddy bought me this little turtle. I called him Stinky because he pooped all the time.”

  “You should see her room in the city. Stuffed turtles everywhere. Turtle wallpaper … custom-made in Milan….”

  “I see,” Ceepak says. “I think that's kind of neat. But, tell me—how exactly did you sneak in?”

  You gotta admire how Ceepak can push a runaway train of thought back on track.

  “There's this tunnel under the fence,” Ashley says.

  “Under the board?” I say, remembering the square of plywood that looked like it was used for a lid to cover the hole under the fence.

  Ceepak turns to look at me.

  I never did tell him what I saw. Never told him about the trapdoor.

  Oops.

  Ashley nods. “Yeah. Other people can get in that way, too, I guess.”

  Her mother grips Ashley's hand tight now.

  Ceepak waits patiently.

  “We were sitting there talking and stuff and this man … he came out of the bushes.”

  “Which bushes?” Ceepak asks.

  “Behind this big picture of, you know, the sun-faced guy? Clyde, I think they call him. The cartoon surfer?”

  “Unh-hunh.”

  “We weren't looking that way because, well, it kind of blocks the view so we were looking the other way … out to the ocean and all.”

  “Right.”

  “He looked crazy and then he started waving this gun at us. A pistol. He looked all dirty and I could smell him … even when he was, like, ten feet away. I think he was on drugs, like the homeless people on TV. He told my father to hand over his wallet and my father told the man to ‘calm down and not do anything stupid….’”

  “Then what?”

  “Dad gave the guy his wallet. The crazy man opened it and pulled out all the money. Then he looked at the credit cards and stuff like he was going to steal them but he didn't, he just, you know, read them. ‘You're Reginald Hart?’ the guy said ‘The Reginald Hart?’ My father said, ‘Yes, let's talk about this….’”

  “Typical Reggie,” Betty interjects. “Trying to work a deal.”

  “What'd the man say, Ashley? When your father said they should talk?”

  “Nothing. He just laughed and looked at me. Then, he raised his gun up and pointed it at Daddy's chest and started squeezing the trigger and shooting. He squeezed and fired and squeezed and fired … over and over … until all the bullets were gone. The gun started clicking and I started screaming ’cause I thought he was going to start shooting at me next, but he didn't. Like I said—I think he ran out of bullets because he fired so many at my father … there was so much blood….”

  I figure she's seeing it all again on the instant replay of her mind. Poor kid, billionaire's daughter or not.

  Ceepak waits. Then he speaks, real soft—a gentle nudge.

  “And then?”

  “He just sort of smiled this freaky smile at me and told me to count to like a thousand or whatever, like we were playing hide and seek. I tried to count but I couldn't because I was crying and I knew he didn't really care how high I counted ’cause he just ran back to the hole and crawled under the fence and ran away.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “I'm not sure. I ran behind the turtle to hide. I'm so
rry….”

  “That's okay. You were smart to hide.”

  “I was scared.”

  “Did you see him drop the gun?”

  “No. Before he crawled back under the fence, he tucked it back into his pants. Those dirty blue jeans I told you about?”

  “Right.”

  “He put it in, like, the waistband. He didn't have on a belt. He had a string. Twine? Like you wrap up boxes and stuff with? He had twine for a belt, I forgot that part until just now….”

  Ceepak makes a note.

  “Did he say or do anything else?”

  “No. I don't think so. No. Wait….”

  Ashley looks at her mother.

  “He used the F-word,” Ashley says.

  “How so?” Ceepak asks.

  “Go on, sweetie.” Her mother gives her permission to swear. “Tell them what he said.”

  “He said to me, he said, ‘You should know—your father was a fucking slumlord.’”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ifigure Ceepak is totally pissed at me.

  We're sitting in the car in the driveway with the engine shut off, so that means the AC is off too and the temperature is 110 inside the Explorer thanks to the sun everybody comes down here to worship.

  Ceepak's not saying anything. Not telling me where to drive next. He's just sitting there, staring out the windshield at those ugly pompon poodle bushes.

  “Tell me what you saw,” he says after what feels like four hours of slow roasting in the Ford E-Z Bake Oven.

  “Inside? With them?”

  “At the fence.”

  “You mean the hole?”

  “This lid. This plywood lid you say you saw.”

  “Oh. Okay. Sure. It was, you know, a square. Probably two feet by two feet. It was covered with sand, from where the sweeper raked over it….”

  “What was the condition of said tunnel?”

  “It was only like three feet long. Enough to scoot under the fence.”

  “How deep?”

  “Foot or two.”

  “And the bottom?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it loose? Packed down?”

  “Packed down.”

  “Like people had been crawling in and out every day?”