Whack A Mole: A John Ceepak Mystery (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

by Chris Grabenstein

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kitsch.

  That's what my mom would call the souvenirs and stuff they sell at The Treasure Chest. Crappy kitsch.

  Spoon rests, jumping dolphin paper weights, rubber sharks, salt and pepper shakers shaped like lighthouses, ceramic coffee mugs where the coffee comes out of a fish mouth so you're basically kissing a fish first thing every morning.

  I think people's brains must go on vacation when their bodies do. It's the only answer. Vacationers buy things they wouldn't normally buy. If they'll pay thirty dollars for a sand-dollar wall clock to hang in the rumpus room, it must be because their mental faculties have taken the week off.

  I think the main purpose of the Sea Haven souvenir shops is to keep New Jersey's Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores stocked for the remainder of the year. And garage sales. Jersey is the capital of Garage Sale Nation.

  The Treasure Chest is right across the street from The Bagel Lagoon and Ceepak's apartment on Ocean Avenue. It's a squat, block-long building with pirate flags fluttering every ten feet along the mansard roof. With curb-to-ceiling plate-glass windows painted with slogans like DOCK HERE FOR BIG $AVING$, it kind of looks like a giant furniture showroom, only the floors are cluttered with T-shirt racks and beach ball bins instead of Barcaloungers.

  We arrive without lights or siren, since Officers Adam Kiger and Dylan Murray had radioed in to say they'd already secured the scene. The parking lot is empty except for their cruiser and a small Honda.

  Our headlights sweep across the two cops as we pull in. I notice they're with a young woman in a purple polo shirt. I look closer and see that it's my old friend from high school, Amy Decosimo. She used to work over at Pudgy's Fudgery, where she was in charge of slicing quarter-pound slabs off the big bricks and making up the assorted-flavor two-pound boxes for people to take home to cat-sitters.

  I now recall hearing that Amy has moved up to a management position here at The Treasure Chest. I have a hunch she's the one who found the item that wasn't listed in the store's inventory: one souvenir nose. She looks terrified.

  “What've we got?” Ceepak asks Kiger.

  “You talk to the chief?”

  “Roger that.”

  “This is Ms. Decosimo,” says Kiger. “She's the one who found the object in question.”

  Amy looks at me. “Hey, Danny.”

  I remember the last time I saw her—at the start of the whole Tilt-A-Whirl thing. She helped me clean up the bloody little girl I hauled inside the fudge shop.

  Don't get me started. It's a long story.

  “How you doin’, Amy?” I ask.

  “I … I'm….”

  I forgot: Amy Decosimo doesn't deal with crisis situations all that well. Her first instinct is to panic and say, “Ohmygod”—a lot.

  “Ohmygod, Danny! It's horrible….”

  There she goes.

  “Ohmygod!”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Her frozen doe eyes become gigantic.

  “Have you locked down the area?” Ceepak asks Kiger.

  “We left everything just the way Ms. Decosimo found it.”

  “I … I … “ Amy sputters a little more.

  “Ms. Decosimo?” says Ceepak.

  “Hmmm?”

  “Were you alone in the store when you made your discovery?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Were you alone?”

  “When?”

  “When you found the jar.”

  “Oh. Yes. Ohmygod. I was all alone!”

  “Was the front door locked?”

  “Yes. I always lock it at eight. Maybe five past, if we have a straggler … none tonight … no stragglers.”

  “Did you notice any unusual customers?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have security cameras in the store?”

  “Uhm-hmmm. Yeah.”

  “Good. That might help us find whoever….”

  “They don't work.”

  “Come again?”

  “The video cameras don't work. Mr. Mazzilli just put up these fake ones to scare off shoplifters. The actual cameras and recorders and stuff cost way too much money….”

  Mr. Mazzilli is Bruno “The Boardwalk King” Mazzilli. He owns The Treasure Chest and half the junk shops and lemonade stands up and down the boardwalk. He is also notoriously cheap, even though he charges six bucks for a twenty-cent corked glass bottle filled with free seashells and equally free sand.

  Now Ceepak turns to me.

  “Danny?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you have the digital camera?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We're going in.”

  We make our way up the center aisle of the store. Usually, the place is packed with families in flip-flops and shorts milling about, mesmerized by brightly colored plastic bathed in fluorescent light. Usually, this place gives me a splitting headache.

  We pass the cardboard displays for Party Poppers and Pinwheels.

  We squeeze through a maze of circular clothes racks jammed with Sea Haven sweatshirts, most of which have the same SH logo silk-screened on the front. It's like we're telling the rest of the world to be quiet.

  “There it is.” Ceepak uses his Maglite flashlight like a laser pointer. “Next to the snow globes.”

  I see it, too.

  Another small jar. Glass with a metal screw-on lid.

  It's on the top shelf. On either side of it are dozens of “snow” globes all depicting the same diorama: an open pirate chest, a skull, and two palm trees stranded on a plastic desert island. If you grab one and give it a good shake, the water becomes filled with a swirling flurry of gold sparkle flakes and the skull's jawbone yaps up and down. I know this because The Treasure Chest has been selling their signature Pirate Globe to boys like me for nearly twenty years.

  “Danny? Focus.”

  Ceepak can usually tell when my mind is drifting off to someplace other than where it should be.

  “Take a picture before I spray the jar.”

  “Right.”

  I power up the Canon and press off a few images. The one with the flash is a mistake: the jar's glass reflects back and my picture looks like a big white blob. I trash that one. Check the others.

  “We're good.”

  “Zoom in tight. Use the macro lens.”

  “Okay.”

  I do. I also make the mistake of checking out the viewfinder as the lens pushes in.

  First I see a pinkish triangle suspended in somewhat murky fluid. As the image becomes sharper, I know it's a nose. I can see the two smooth nostrils devoid of any nasal hair. A strand of flesh flops out of one naked hole and just hangs there. Poor girl. I know for certain it belonged to a girl because it's one of those cute buttons of a nose—the kind that would look ridiculously out of place on any guy unless he was a pixie.

  “Note the cut marks. Along the edges,” says Ceepak.

  I do. I also take another picture—close along the sides of the nose. I sidle around to frame up a reverse angle. I've never been behind the inside of a nose before. I hope I never am again.

  “Very clean incisions,” says Ceepak. “Whoever did this was quite skillful, their blade quite sharp.”

  “You think they did this with a knife?”

  “Or a scalpel,” says Ceepak. “Perhaps a razor—although that would present a problem once they reached the cartilage—the tough elastic tissue connecting the flesh of the nose to the nasal bone of the skull. One would need a saw of some sort to cut through that.”

  I feel all those free crackers from the Morgan's basket creeping up my windpipe to protest.

  “Photograph the label,” he says.

  “Right.”

  I move a step to the left and zoom in again.

  MIRIAM. 1980.

  “Odd name,” says Ceepak.

  “Even for 1980?” I ask—making the ’80s sound like prehistoric times, which, to me, they are. That's when Springsteen used to wear a
sweatband on his head and people drank Crystal Light while they did aerobics with the blonde from Dynasty named Krystle, who also wore a sweatband. Lot of sweatbands back then. Sweatbands and break dancing. I've seen history books.

  “I don't believe Miriam has ever been one of the most popular names for girls in America, except, of course, in Jewish families.” Ceepak now produces a spray can. “This is ninhydrin,” he says. “A chemical substance that reveals latent fingerprints in porous surfaces such as paper.”

  He aims the spray nozzle toward the paper label affixed to the jar and spritzes it.

  I snap my head back. “Oh, man.” It stinks.

  Ceepak starts fanning his hand near the jar. “It's best to do this in a well-ventilated area….”

  Now he tells me. I think they shut down the A/C inside The Treasure Chest when they lock the front door. The air in aisle four isn't ventilating at all except for Ceepak fanning it in my face. It smells like the Turnpike up near Rahway.

  “We need to wait for the ninhydrin to dry,” he says. “I wish I had my steam iron….”

  I cough. “Maybe they sell them here.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “I could go look….”

  Ceepak stops fanning the fumes. “No need. Whoever placed the jar on this shelf was most likely wearing gloves.”

  “We need those security cameras,” I say. “If they were real … if they were working….”

  “Indeed. An individual wearing gloves, if only for a moment, would certainly stand out in a sea of summertime shoppers.”

  “Yeah.”

  The smell of the stink-spray is still strong. I'm thinking about heading over to the next aisle where I see scented candles sculpted in the shape of pink flamingoes.

  “Two ears. One nose,” says Ceepak. “Why? Why isn't this another ear?”

  “Maybe he got bored with ears. Maybe we're dealing with two different killers.”

  “Who both store their trophies in labeled jars of formaldehyde? Doubtful, my friend. Doubtful.”

  “Okay, so what's next?”

  “I'll examine this evidence more closely this evening. Put it under my microscope. Discuss this new development with the chief. He'll undoubtedly initiate calls to the press. Ask them to sit on the story. He'll likewise ask the Pepper family to do the same thing….”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  “Get a good night's rest. First thing tomorrow morning, we need to go talk to the Reverend Billy Trumble.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I drop Ceepak off at headquarters.

  He has a little high-school chemistry lab set up on the second floor. The chief arranged for it after Ceepak saved his butt on the Mad Mouse case. It's not a huge deal, but he's got a microscope plus a computer that can do automated fingerprint searches or match tire tracks to a database of known tread patterns. He even has this program called SLIP for “Shoewear Linking and Identification Program.” He's all geared up for the first season of CSI: Sea Haven if, you know, CBS decides to do that instead of, say, CSI: Des Moines.

  I head back over to Ocean Avenue. When I cruise past The Treasure Chest and The Bagel Lagoon, I check my rearview mirror and see Rita coming down the staircase from Ceepak's apartment with Barkley the dog. It's a slow go. Barkley needs to contemplate each step before taking it.

  By my watch, it's nine forty-five P.M. I figure Aubrey Hamilton might still be waiting for me over at The Sand Bar. I figure this because I forgot to let her know I wasn't coming at nine-thirty as planned.

  Oops.

  I hang a right and head back to the bay side of the island. I know I'm supposed to head home and get a good night's sleep, but I need a beer. Something to wash the stink of Ceepak's fingerprint spray out of my nostrils. Something to wipe the image of Miriam's severed nose out of my memory bank.

  She's gone.

  Long gone, according to Ralph the bartender.

  “She's the blonde with the long legs, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Always dresses in white, to show off her tan?”

  “Yeah. That's Aubrey.”

  “She's a tramp, my man.” He stares at an empty stool two down from mine at the bar. “Had most of the buttons undone on her blouse … everything all hanging out.”

  “Unh-hunh….”

  “Keep away from that one. Skanks like her are nothin’ but trouble. Trust me. You want a beer?”

  No, I want somebody to put me out of my misery. But a beer will have to do.

  “Yeah. A Bud would be great. Thanks.”

  Ralph plops a cold longneck down in front of me.

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “Dorkface.”

  He sees somebody I don't.

  “Why does this fucking asshole have to come into my bar every night?”

  I turn around. It's Princeton. The fiftysomething tourist who was heading off to Smuggler's Cove last night with my sweet little hitchhiker.

  He sees me. Waves like we're old pals, fraternity brothers. Acts like I have a tiger tattooed on my butt, which, I'm told, is what all the guys who go to Princeton do—even the ones who eventually grow up to become Secretary of State and whatnot.

  “Good evening, gents,” he says as he straddles the stool next to mine, even though there are about a dozen empty seats up and down the long bar. This is Monday night. The bar scene in Sea Haven doesn't really start cooking until Wednesday or Thursday. Sometimes Tuesday. Tuesday is Ladies’ Night. Mondays, however, are nothing. Mondays are for drinking Busch at home.

  Ralph swabs at the bar with his damp cloth. “What're you drinking?”

  Princeton rubs his palms together like he's warming 'em up. “What's good tonight?”

  “Beer.”

  “Ah-ha. Do you have Stella?”

  “Yeah.”

  “On tap?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stella Artois is this Belgian beer all the college kids go nuts about.

  Princeton holds up two fingers. “One Stella. Two fingers of foam if you please.”

  “Oh, shit,” says Ralph. “I forgot. Tap just broke. You want a bottle? That way you can pour as many fucking fingers of foam as you want.”

  Princeton blinks and smiles, and Ralph stomps off to fetch his beer. “Excellent suggestion.” His stool squeaks as he swivels in my direction.

  “What a foul-tempered cretin,” he confides.

  I shrug. Sip my Bud.

  “You're with the police, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I'm not driving this evening.”

  “Then I'm not having a problem.”

  “Excellent. I'm Teddy Winston.”

  “Danny Boyle.”

  “Here's your beer.” Ralph delivers Teddy's bottle with a hard thump that sends some of his precious foam sloshing up the top and down the sides.

  Teddy whips out a hanky and dabs at the puddle.

  “Do you happen to have a coaster?”

  Ralph plops a paper one down.

  “And a glass?”

  Ralph reaches for a mug.

  “The classic chalice?” Teddy asks.

  “Nope. Just mugs.”

  Princeton blinks again. “Sorry. I don't mean to be intractable. I'm just something of a perfectionist. I suppose most surgeons are….”

  Ralph wipes his way up the bar away from us. He wants nothing more to do with Dr. Teddy Winston.

  I, however, need to ask a few questions.

  A perfectionist and a surgeon? Welcome to my suspect list.

  Most surgeons know how to use a scalpel, and Ceepak says serial killers are usually perfectionists. All of a sudden, I'm wondering whether Teddy Winston, MD, is an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist.

  “You're a surgeon?”

  “Indeed I am.”

  “And you used to come down here, back in the ’80s?” I ask.

  “That's right. When I was in college and med school. Sea Haven offered a welcome respite. I'd put down the books, pick up my
fishing pole….”

  “Right. Cool. You ever hang with a girl named Miriam?”

  “Miriam?”

  “Yeah. She could've been a Jewish girl.”

  He thinks. Pouts out his lower lip.

  “No. Not that I recall. I don't remember any chicks named Miriam….”

  Chicks? This guy is totally stuck in the ’80s. Maybe the ’70s.

  “How about a Ruth?” I ask.

  “Another Jewish chick?”

  “I don't know. I think she was from Pennsylvania. Up near Erie.”

  Teddy tilts his mug and pours a perfect foamy head. He takes a sip, smacks his lips obnoxiously to show his appreciation for the Belgian brewmeister's skill.

  “Ah. There's nothing quite as refreshing as a crisp, hoppy, pilsner, is there?”

  “Yeah. So—did you know a Ruth back then?”

  “Maybe. There were so many scrumptious young things roaming the beaches back in the day. But tell me, since we're discussing fine female flesh—do you know a young redhead who calls herself Stacey?” He looks wistful. “Enormous breasts. Quite fetching.”

  “No,” I say. “I don't know any Stacey.”

  Except, of course, the one I picked up hitchhiking. The same one I saw in the parking lot with this doofus last night. Sure I'm lying, but frankly, I don't care if Princeton has a Code.

  He sighs. Way too dramatic. “Too bad. Amazing young woman. I need to find her.”

  “How come?”

  “She slipped away before I could jot down her phone number.”

  “I see.”

  “She also pilfered about a hundred dollars.”

  “She robbed you?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “You want to fill out a complaint? Press charges?”

  “No. No need. She earned it. Every penny. In fact, I was hoping we might hook up again later this week.”

  “Is she a prostitute?”

  “Heavens, no. The money she took was a gift. An honorarium, if you will.”

  “Sure,” I say, because I want him to keep talking.

  “However, that motel, Smuggler's Cove, it's even worse than I remembered. You're lucky you have your own pad.”

  I think a pad is where you take chicks. I should watch That ’70s Show more often.

  I gesture toward Ralph, who's down at the far end of the bar reading a wrinkled copy of Salt Water Sportsman.