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

by Chris Grabenstein

  I glance at Ceepak. He nods. He sees it too.

  “That your tackle box?” Ceepak asks.

  “Yep. Kind of dinged up, hunh?”

  “I'm sure it's seen a great deal of use.”

  “Ain't that the truth? Used to keep it in my trunk, in case I ever caught a minute or two to hit the pier after my shift. Now, all I got is time, you know what I'm saying?”

  “You earned it, Gus,” says Ceepak.

  Gus adjusts his hat again. He gazes out at all the boats lined up along the pier. It's a little after two and the sun is starting its slow slink toward the west.

  “You know,” he says, “you have too much free time, you maybe think too much, too.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “That's what I've been doing. Thinking. Ruminating, so to speak. Ever since you two mamelukes came by my boat and started giving me the third degree….”

  “What's on your mind?” Ceepak steps sort of sideways so he's blocking the slanting sun and Gus's view of our muddy box.

  “That girl you were hassling me about. The runaway. What was her name again?”

  “Mary Guarneri.”

  “Yeah. I've been thinking that if this Mary Guarneri got herself in trouble or whatever, maybe it was her own fault.”

  “How so?”

  “You've been here, what? A year?”

  Ceepak nods.

  “You meet any of these girls? These runaways?”

  “A few.”

  “Then you know what I know. They're tramps. Whores. There. I said it. These girls come down here looking for a good time. You gotta figure one or two of 'em are gonna wind up partying with the wrong type of individual.”

  Ceepak's eyes narrow.

  Gus doesn't notice. “So all I'm saying is—don't come around here blaming me. This girl got in trouble? Chances are, trouble is exactly what she came looking for in the first place.”

  Ceepak stays silent.

  “Nice bumping into you guys,” says Gus. “See you 'round. I got fish to catch.”

  He shuffles up the dock, raises his fishing rod hand to signal goodbye.

  “Do you think?” I whisper.

  “It's a possibility,” says Ceepak. “Hopefully remote.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let's take this box back to the car. Catalog the evidence.”

  “Yeah.”

  We don't want to scare the people on the dining deck outside The Rusty Scupper. The food the Scupper serves is already scary enough.

  Secure behind the tinted windows of our patrol car, we re-open the box.

  It's Lisa DeFranco. Killed in the summer of 1983. When I look at her Before Polaroid, I can see the LISA earring sparkling in her left ear lobe.

  “It's the end of our line,” says Ceepak. He's been studying the map. “It leads us back to Oak Beach and the spot where the backhoe unearthed Mary Guarneri.”

  “So now where do we go?”

  “The Sonny Days Inn. We need to talk to Reverend Trumble again. ASAP.”

  The Ezekiel quote. The biblical names. The Polaroids of girls with a placard draped around their necks proclaiming their sin of whoredom. The kindly preacher man they might have confessed their sins to has to be a prime suspect.

  “What about the surgeon? The jerk from Princeton. He used to come here back in the 1980s.”

  “He's on the list, too. As is your bartender friend. I believe he was in town during the 1980s as well.”

  “Yeah.”

  In my mind, I see Ralph slicing and dicing lime wedges like the guy in the Ginzu commercials. He does it with a couple quick flicks of his wrist.

  “Let's roll,” I say, juiced to be doing something besides digging up buried skulls all over the island. As soon as I slap the transmission into drive, the radio crackles with static.

  “Ceepak? Come in. Over.”

  It's the chief.

  Ceepak reaches for the radio mike mounted on the dash.

  “This is Ceepak. Over.”

  “We need you on the North End. Now. Meet me at the pier behind the former location of The Palace Hotel. Copy?”

  “10-4.” Ceepak gestures for me to make the appropriate course correction. I hang a U-turn in the middle of Bayside Boulevard. Burn a little rubber.

  Ceepak grabs an overhead grip and steadies himself so he can continue his chat with the chief.

  “What's the situation, sir?”

  “Santucci and Malloy worked the North End. Dug up six more boxes. Followed the trail. Found the final hole.”

  “Come again?”

  “We found the final hole. It was empty. Except for a photograph tucked inside a plastic sheet protector.”

  “A photograph?”

  “Yeah. The Before shot. You were right, Ceepak. This guy's getting ready to kill again. He's already picked out his next victim.”

  “Do you recognize her?”

  “No. Doesn't look to be a local.”

  Ceepak waits a beat, stares out the front window. Then he brings the microphone back up to his mouth.

  “Is the photograph dated, sir?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “It's today.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  We're speeding up Ocean Avenue, flashers topside twirling.

  I'm not using the siren. Don't really need to. Folks see all those police lights in their rearview mirror, they usually move out of my way.

  One of Ceepak's cell phones blurts out an odd ring tone. A synthesized samba. Ceepak pulls the phone from its plastic holster, checks the caller ID, flips it open.

  “Hello?”

  Must be his personal line. He never says “Hello” when fielding official calls. He says “Ceepak” or “Go.” Brusque walkie-talkie stuff like that.

  “We're just running around the island,” he says. “Looks like it could be another long night.”

  He's right. If the killer really wants to slay his next victim today, he's only got ten hours left to do it. Coincidentally, we've only got ten hours left to stop him. Even if the chief decides it's finally okay to call in the FBI, no way will they get here in time to do us much good.

  “I'd appreciate it,” says Ceepak. “So would he. Thank you.”

  I figure it's Rita.

  “You know where I keep his dry food? Right. That's under the sink, too.”

  Yeah. It's Rita. She'll be taking care of Barkley again tonight. Ceepak and I will, most likely, be busy—trying to save some young girl's life. Trying to stop Ezekiel from playing another round of Mrs. Potato Head.

  “Enjoy your night off.” His expression softens. “Me, too,” he whispers into the phone.

  I figure Rita just told the big lug that she loves him, but he's way too macho to let me hear him say it back so he goes with the ol’ “me, too.”

  “Thanks again,” he says. “Right. Don't worry.”

  Telling her not to worry isn't exactly a lie; more like wishful thinking.

  Ceepak presses a button to power down his phone. He's officially switching off his personal life until we collar Ezekiel and stop him from causing another young girl's lewdness to cease.

  There's nothing left of the old Palace Hotel on the north end of the island but a flat field of charred bricks. It burned down last summer. I know because I was here when it caught fire. So was Ceepak.

  Beyond the rubble and burnt brick, I see the chief's black Expedition and Santucci's cruiser. They're both parked near the dilapidated old pier that used to be the hotel's private marina.

  I drive over that way, parking our cruiser alongside Santucci's.

  Ceepak and I climb out.

  The chief is standing next to a three-foot-deep hole in the sand, hands on hips, head swinging back and forth like he can't believe how beyond-bad this situation has become.

  “John,” he says to Ceepak, “fill me in.”

  “Sir?”

  “We need to know everything you know. We need to know it now.”

  Santucci and
Malloy flank the chief. The three of them look like all of this is Ceepak's fault.

  Ceepak tilts his head toward the sand hole. “Might I see the evidence you uncovered?”

  “Later,” says the chief.

  “Time is of the essence.”

  “Tell me something I don't know!”

  Santucci smiles smugly—a quick change from the scowl on his puss when he greeted us.

  “I need all available units working the case,” the chief continues. “I can't afford any Lone Rangers on this one, John. We all need to know everything you know. Immediately.”

  Ceepak keeps his cool.

  “Might I suggest, once again, that we contact the FBI?” he says. “We should have the NCAVC enter it into the Profiler computer.”

  “There's no time to call in NCAVC!”

  Santucci looks confused. So does Malloy. They stand on either side of the chief, squinching up their faces.

  Ceepak helps them out. “National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. The FBI Profiler computer could help us ID the perp.”

  Santucci snorts. “Yeah? Well, you heard the chief. We don't have time for all that FBI crap. Not on this one, Ceepak.”

  “We have a deadline, John,” the chief starts in again. “According to the evidence Santucci and Malloy uncovered, your killer has selected his next victim and is poised to strike before midnight tonight!”

  Your killer?

  All of a sudden this serial sicko works for Ceepak?

  “So tell us what you know! Now!”

  Ceepak pulls out his spiral notebook.

  “We are dealing with an organized serial killer who plans his murders and escapes with utmost care. As Vronsky states in Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters….”

  I see Santucci grimace. He's probably only read one book since high school: The Sergeant's Test Study Guide for Dummies. I'll bet he moves his lips when he reads the phone book.

  Ceepak continues. “Our killer scrupulously targets his victims and stalks them for as long as necessary. This is often referred to as the ‘trolling phase’….”

  “You troll when you fish,” says Santucci, like he knows everything Ceepak knows. “You spread out your net where you figure there's a whole bunch of fish to catch. That's what we call ‘trolling,’ Chief.”

  “After he's seized his victim,” says Ceepak, “the killer typically takes her to another, more secure location. There he disposes of the body in a manner meant to insure it will never be found.”

  “We found the skulls!” says Malloy.

  “Only because he wanted us to. In fact, he literally drew us a map. It's what led you here.”

  “Go on,” says the chief.

  Ceepak closes up his notebook. He has it all memorized.

  “The organized serial killer is difficult to track. He is, typically, socially competent and gainfully employed. He is often married. He follows reports of his crimes in the media. He is intelligent, cunning, and controlled. He brings his own weapons and restraints….”

  The chief holds up his hand.

  “Okay. Enough. What do you know about our guy?”

  “I suspect he is a local.”

  “On account of the newspapers,” says Santucci. “He uses a local newspaper.”

  “Which a tourist could easily purchase from numerous curbside vending machines,” says Ceepak. “No, I suspect he is local because of his intimate knowledge of the island's topography. He knows where he can safely bury his treasures and not be detected doing so.”

  “What else?”

  “Our killer is also something of a missionary who, most likely, thinks he is doing society a favor. If he is offended by the young women he stalks, if he considers them to be ‘whores,’ then in his mind the people around him must feel the same way. That they don't act on their disgust simply means that he is more powerful, more righteous than any one else in his community.”

  The chief nods agreement. “Understandable. He's going after runaways. Maybe hookers. His vics are society's losers and leeches.”

  Ceepak grimaces.

  I figure he's seeing Antwoine James's face again. The poor black kid who got blown up over in Iraq and nobody back home seemed to give a damn. The kid who was somehow less dead because he was one of civilized society's so-called losers and leeches.

  Ceepak narrows his eyes. He's not happy. When he speaks again, it's in that tone he uses when he's pissed. “Our killer clings rigidly to religious doctrine as spelled out by Ezekiel in the Old Testament. I further suspect he is familiar with, or was at one time a member of, Reverend Billy Trumble's congregation. It appears that the majority of our victims passed through the boardwalk ministry and the community it feeds.”

  “So you think Reverend Trumble knows who did this?” asks the chief.

  “I believe he and the killer may have met. That's all I can surmise at this juncture.”

  The chief checks the time.

  “Okay. It's two forty-five. Ceepak, you and Boyle talk to Trumble. Santucci?”

  “Sir?”

  “You and Malloy scour the island, find the girl in the picture.”

  “We're on it, sir.”

  “May I ask a question?” says Ceepak.

  The chief checks his watch to see if it's changed any since he checked it ten seconds ago.

  “What?”

  “The penultimate hole,” says Ceepak. “The one before this, the clues that led you here. Who was the victim? What was the date?”

  The chief shoots a look to Santucci.

  “Girl named Orpah,” Santucci says reluctantly. “You know like Oprah, only spelled wrong.”

  “Actually,” says Ceepak, “Oprah's name is the misspelled one. Orpah is a biblical character who….”

  “Save it for Sunday School! We've got work to do.”

  “What was the date?”

  “July. 1992.”

  “Interesting,” says Ceepak. “The killer has been dormant for a full fifteen years.”

  “Well, he's awake now,” says the chief. “That's why we're in a hurry. There's not a minute to waste.”

  “He's got his next girl all picked out,” adds Malloy. “From the look of things, I figure she's a prostitute from down in Atlantic City bringing her act up here, you know what I mean?”

  “No,” says Ceepak. “May I see the photograph?”

  Baines looks at Santucci, who reluctantly pulls something from his back pocket.

  The suspense is killing me.

  What Ceepak takes from Dom isn't a Polaroid, like all the other photographs we found in all the other holes. It's a folded sheet of regular typing paper.

  “Computer printout,” says Ceepak.

  “Yeah. I guess,” says Santucci. “Probably. Off a printer.”

  Ceepak nods. “Inkjet, not laser. We need to check all local office supply stores. Track residents and visitors who may have purchased color ink cartridges. We should also ask if anyone has special-ordered ribbons for an antiquated IBM Selectric typewriter. I'm assuming the index card found in this hole had typography similar to that found on….”

  “John?” The chief rolls his eyes. “We don't have time for any of that.”

  “Understood.” Ceepak stares at the photo. “He's definitely gone digital. He's using a camera with an impressive zoom ratio.”

  The chief cuts him off. “And guess what? We also don't have time to go see who bought digital cameras at Best Buy and Circuit City!”

  “Agreed.”

  Ceepak studies the photo of the killer's next intended victim. The Bride of Ezekiel. How can this be happening in Sea Haven? The big event this week was supposed to be the Sand Castle Competition, not the beheading of a beach babe.

  Now he hands the paper to me.

  It's a snapshot of a girl hitchhiking near the causeway bridge.

  Stacey.

  The redhead who recently dyed her hair green.

  It's a good thing the photographer didn't zoom out, didn't capture more
of the scene.

  My Jeep might be in the picture.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Santucci, Malloy, and the chief take off.

  They're heading back to headquarters to work up anything they can on the redhead. See if she's on file in Atlantic City. Check with the State Police over in Trenton. See if Stacey is a “person of interest” to them, as Malloy so eloquently assumed when he called her a hooker. At the same time, they need to call in every off-duty cop on the SHPD roster and start a hard target search—the beach, the boardwalk, the motels, the works.

  I'm left wondering if Stacey is her real name. Maybe that's just what she tells suckers like me who can't stop staring at her cleavage when she climbs into their cars.

  “I'll drive,” says Ceepak.

  I have a feeling we're going to fly down to The Sonny Days Inn for our second interrogation of Reverend Billy, like avenging angels flapping wings at warp speed. Ceepak clutches the steering wheel with one hand, works the radio mike with the other.

  “Helen?” he says to the dispatcher. “Please ask Officer Bright to go into the evidence room and examine the guest book from The Howland House Whaling Museum. Tell her we're looking for the following male names on the guest list: Billy Trumble. Ralph….”

  He looks at me.

  “Uh….”

  I realize I don't know Ralph the bartender's last name. He's always just been “Hey, Ralph” or “Catch you later, Ralph,” so the only answer I can give is a shoulder shrug.

  “Any and all Ralphs,” Ceepak says. “The one we're interested in works as a bartender at The Sand Bar….”

  “Ralph. Bartender. Got it,” says Helen. “Who else?”

  Ceepak lets go of the button, slides us into the center lane so we can do ninety instead of just eighty.

  “Danny? That surgeon. Do you recall his name?”

  I rattle around some brain cells. Knock some useless stuff, like the meaning of the “33” on a Rolling Rock beer bottle, off my mental shelf. Strain to remember. Oh, right. He gave me a business card!

  “Teddy. Teddy Winston.”

  Ceepak depresses the red button again. “Dr. Theodore Winston.”

  “Theodore Winston. Got it. Keep going.”