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

by Chris Grabenstein

  Our old desk sergeant, Gus Davis, shakes his head, pulls on his I’M RETIRED, DO IT YOURSELF baseball cap.

  “Let's roll,” he says.

  The three of us hustle down the front steps of Gus's tidy little house and hit the concrete pathway out to the driveway and our car. Our light bar's still spinning, streaking the front of Gus's house with flares of red light.

  “You guys woke up my wife with your freaking cherry top.”

  “Sorry about that,” I say.

  “Yeah, well. Whatever.” Gus turns to Ceepak. “I take it I'm no longer a suspect?”

  Ceepak stands near the Ford's rear door.

  “Gus. I'm sorry. I truly am. I made a mistake….”

  “Yeah, yeah. Isn't that why your pencil has that freaking eraser sticking out its ass?”

  For the first time in about an hour, I see Ceepak almost smile.

  “Roger that,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, don't worry about it,” says Gus, pulling open a passenger door and sliding in. “I would've done the same thing. Hell, Ceepak—I probably would've arrested me. Come on, you two. Enough with the yakking. Let's go nail this nut.”

  Gus Davis keeps his boat, Lady Fran, docked at the public pier.

  I help him haul in the lines, run the pumps, get the engines going. Ceepak hails from Ohio. They don't have oceans in Ohio. Just that river. Maybe a lake. He's not much help on deck, so he's up in what we sometimes call the “tuna tower”—the canopied cockpit situated atop the main cabin. He's up there in the command and control center, working the ship's radio, checking up on the air and sea assets currently being deployed up and down the Jersey coastline. Off in the distance, over the ocean, I hear a helicopter. I hope it's one of ours.

  “When did Cap'n Pete shove off?” Gus yells up to Ceepak as the motors start to thrum under our feet.

  Ceepak leans over the bridge's aft safety rail to answer.

  “Uncertain. However, we know he abducted the girl on the boardwalk soon after our own encounter with her in the same general vicinity.”

  “Okay. So when were you two knuckleheads chasing after this girl?”

  “Right before you dropped by the house.”

  Ceepak omits the detail about Gus telling us both to go fuck ourselves.

  “Jesus,” says Gus. “That was what? Seven? Maybe seven-thirty?”

  Ceepak nods. “Giving him a three-hour head start.”

  Gus hauls in the last line.

  “He could be anywhere. It's a huge freaking ocean. Come on, Danny. Take us out.”

  “Right.”

  I scale the ladder up to the flying bridge and take the helm. Gus climbs behind me.

  “The Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla over in Avalon is sending out their swiftest boat,” says Ceepak. “It can do thirty-five knots.”

  “That'll work,” I say, and start manipulating the port and starboard throttles, working the wheel.

  “Cap'n Pete can only do about twenty-five knots in the Reel Fun,” says Gus.

  “That's like thirty miles per hour,” I say as we back out of the berth, reverse engines, and make for the channel.

  “Given his head start,” says Ceepak, “our search area therefore becomes a one-hundred-mile circle radiating out from this point.”

  One hundred miles. He could be far enough out to open a casino. Maybe start up his own country.

  We come out of the inlet, parallel to the jetty, and head out of the bay into the ocean. Waves crash against the seawall rocks, the white foam visible in the moonlight. We're in a narrow lane marked by blinking buoys to the right and left. The Lady Fran is in fine shape. I figure this is because Gus spends his days tweaking the engine, lubing and oiling the shafts—having himself a whale of a time.

  “You're familiar with Mullen's vessel?” Ceepak asks Gus over the roar of the engines.

  “Yeah. We're old fishing buddies.”

  “How so?”

  “We share information. Good fishing spots. Dead zones. We swap coordinates.”

  Gus flicks a switch on a screen mounted atop the control console. The color pixels zip to life, revealing a split image. On one side is a real-time ocean chart showing our current position with a blinking triangle. On the other side is a sonar image detailing ocean floor depth and filling with colorful streaks whenever fish pass under our hull.

  “That's the Matrix 97 Fish Finder GPS Combo,” says Gus. “Gave it to myself for Christmas last year.”

  “And how fast can we travel?” asks Ceepak.

  “If you push her?” Gus affectionately pats the compass globe bumping up on the control panel. “She'll give you thirty knots before she starts rocking and rolling.”

  “Should I push her?” I ask.

  “Hell yeah, Danny. See if she can do thirty-five. See if she can join the freaking Coast Guard.”

  I jam both throttles all the way up. The good lady responds nicely. Sure, there's some shudder, but we're speeding up, bumping across waves, bobbing over swells and moguls, churning up a foamy wake. We're out of the channel. Heading due east.

  I look out toward the horizon. The ocean is jet black. So's the sky. It's hard to find the line where one begins and the other ends. Higher up, the night sky is filled with stars and just enough moon to give a sheen to the rippling water, to make it look like an ocean of rolling trash bags, the black ones they use on construction sites.

  “You think Pete took Rita with him?” Gus asks Ceepak.

  Ceepak stares out at the black ocean.

  “It's a possibility,” he says. “Perhaps as a hostage to facilitate his escape.”

  And that's the best-case scenario.

  I press the heel of my hand against the two throttles, try to nudge the levers a little higher in their slots even though I know it's physically impossible. I glance down at the digital speedometer. Thirty-one knots and climbing. Lady Fran must be reading my mind.

  “What heading should I make for?” I ask, figuring it's time we decided in which part of the haystack known as the Atlantic Ocean we're going to go search for our needle named Rita.

  “Fire up the radar, Danny,” says Gus. He points to another instrument box. “Gave that gizmo to myself for Chanukah. It displays close-and long-range views. The more metal in a boat, the bigger the ping.”

  I push the appropriate buttons. Another split image. I watch the green arm circle around, pick up dots and blots. I feel like I should do the five-day forecast.

  “See anything?”

  “There's a line of boats heading out to the ridge,” I say.

  Gus nods. “Night fishing for blues. The commercial guys go out even farther, off the continental shelf, for the scallops … stay out all night.” He taps the long-range screen. “Most of the captains head out this way.”

  “What if he's heading to Bermuda?” Ceepak asks. “Maybe the Caribbean?”

  “Jeez. He could be heading up to Canada, too. Nova Scotia. You're gonna need a freaking airplane.”

  “We have two,” says Ceepak as he reaches for the ship's radio to check in with the other assets. See if the Coast Guard search planes have spotted anything suspicious.

  Then he pauses.

  “Gus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you ever communicate with Mullen?”

  “Whoa. Hold on, hot shot. I'm not going back on your freaking list again, am I? You making me for some kind of accomplice or something?”

  Ceepak shakes his head. “Negative. But, as a fellow fisherman, do you ever chat over your radio with Captain Pete?”

  “Sure. We all do it. Pass on tips. Hot spots. Plenty of fish out here for everybody. This, of course, was back before I knew Pete was some kind of freaking whack job.”

  “But you know how to contact him?”

  “Sure. I have his frequency programmed into a preset … hey!”

  Ceepak holds out the microphone. Its coiled cord goes taut.

  “Let's contact him now.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

>   This is Lady Fran for Reel Fun. Come in Reel Fun. This is Lady Fran.” Gus lets go of the thumb switch on the radio's microphone.

  Shakes his head. Nothing.

  Ceepak nods. “Keep heading due east, Danny.”

  “You got it.”

  I maintain my bearing of 90 degrees. Heading straight across the Atlantic Ocean for Europe. Maybe Spain. Probably Portugal. It's still Tuesday. We might make it to Lisbon by the weekend.

  I check the radar. We're about an hour out. Thirty-some miles. On the long-range screen, to the north and further east, I see clusters of commercial fishing vessels working the Hudson Canyon and the scallop beds. To the south, I'm picking up even bigger ships. Probably oil tankers heading up to Newark to dump their loads and keep the air near the Turnpike smelling like rotten eggs. Here and there I see smaller dots. Fishing boats. Sailboats. Pleasure craft.

  I look to my right and see Ceepak checking his cell phones. Both of them.

  “No signal,” he says.

  Gus points to his own cell phone, the one he keeps wrapped up in a tight leather case that reminds me of a steering-wheel cover. His phone is clipped to the control console so it won't fly overboard when the boat bangs across a six-foot swell.

  “Cell phones only work about ten miles out,” he explains. “After that, no freaking towers. They're not putting 'em on buoys—not yet, anyhow. You know, I thought about getting one of those satellite phones. Maybe next Easter.”

  “If we were in cell range,” says Ceepak, “we might be able to triangulate his location—provided, of course, he or Rita are currently carrying their phones.”

  “Look, I hate to tell you this,” Gus says, “but he probably tossed her phone into the drink as soon as he brought his boat out of the bay.”

  “Agreed.”

  “The key,” I say. Sometimes the hypnotic drone of a boat's motor makes my mind drift.

  “Come again?” says Ceepak.

  “Dr. Winston's room key. The one we found near the dock on the north shore. He probably lost it on Cap'n Pete's boat when he and his wife went out on that fishing charter … probably just slipped out of his pocket while he was working his rod.”

  Ceepak nods. “Indeed. Mullen then planted the key when he buried the snapshot of the redhead. Both clues were purposely left there to mislead us.”

  Gus snatches up the radio microphone again.

  “This is Lady Fran for Reel Fun. Come in Reel Fun. This is Lady Fran. You out there tonight, good buddy? Come back.”

  We stay silent. Wait for a response. None comes.

  I hear the propeller screws churning up water behind us: the constant washing-machine whoosh of waves and wake, the flap-slap sound of antenna poles and jacket fabric buffeted by the sea breeze. Thirty miles out to sea, the world is one gigantic Sharper Image sleep machine, but I'm wide awake.

  I look up and make out an airplane's belly lights blinking across the sky.

  “Think that's one of ours?” I ask.

  “Negative,” says Ceepak. “Too high up for Search and Rescue.”

  He's probably right. Maybe we should've called in more air support. Planes and helicopters cover square miles of water faster than we can. Maybe we should've called up some of those pilots who buzz the beach dragging ad banners. Frankly, I don't think the captain and crew of the S.S. Lady Fran have a chance in hell of finding Cap'n Pete. The ocean is too big, our boat too small.

  “I suspect this was his modus operandi with the other girls,” says Ceepak.

  I figure he's been ruminating on the case. Probably helps him forget that his girlfriend Rita is apparently an unwilling stowaway on a ship skippered by Admiral Whackjob.

  “He didn't kill the girls at his place,” Ceepak continues. “He came out here, out to his secret fishing spot. Some place where he could drop anchor undetected, where no one could hear the girls scream. His boat became his floating torture chamber.”

  We all let that one soak in for a second.

  “The girls would be tied up,” Ceepak says in a way that makes you see it. “Probably down below. In the cabin. He would bring along provisions, enough for several days. He'd also pack his death kit. Torture tools neatly organized and arranged with excruciating care. He would derive tremendous pleasure from seeing the girls suffer and would, therefore, make efforts to prolong their pain. Death would most likely come at the climax of a final sex act. When he was finished, when he found his release and his fantasy was fulfilled, this would become his convenient burial ground.”

  Ceepak waves his hand out at the ocean.

  “He'd have his cutting tools on board, of course; the same tools he'd use on deep-sea fishing expeditions. Knives. Saws. Power equipment. He would slice up the girls’ bodies in the same manner he might a bucket of bait and chum the water with their flesh, blood, and bones.”

  Gus and I wince. Like I said, Ceepak has a way of making you see these things. These awful, awful things.

  “Sharks. Carrion birds. They'd help him destroy any forensic evidence. He'd keep the girls’ heads. He'd saw them off the spine with the same saw he might use on a ninety-pound swordfish. Then he would take his filleting blade and slice off the noses and ears. He would return to the cabin and preserve his trophies in jars of formaldehyde. His compulsions satisfied, he would chart a course for home, knowing he could safely return to society whenever he chose. No questions would be asked. No suspicions aroused. His profession gave him permission to be out at sea for days at a time, to be bloodstained, and to carry with him at all times the stench of death.”

  Gus, like me, is disgusted. And angry. He grabs the radio microphone again. Jabs down the thumb button. Hard.

  “This is Lady Fran. Come in Reel Fun. Pete? You out there? This is Gus. What a freaking lousy night. Came out looking for yellowfins, ended up with nothing but a couple tangled lines. Come back.”

  Nothing.

  “Tell you what,” Gus practically shouts into the microphone cupped in his hand, “I'm thinking about calling it quits, heading home, saving my bait for another day.”

  Silence. Then a crackle.

  “This is the Reel Fun. Come in Lady Fran.”

  It's him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Hey, Pete. That you?”

  “Yes, Gus.”

  “About time. Thought you might not have your ears on tonight. Over.”

  “Sorry. I've been busy. Down on deck.” Cap'n Pete's voice sounds pinched coming out of the small radio speaker.

  “You running a charter tonight?” Gus asks.

  “No. Came out for a little R and R. Found a good spot.”

  “So what's hitting out that way?”

  “Mr. Mako took the close line.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Forty pound S-fin.”

  “What'd you use for bait?”

  “Mackerel.”

  “Really? I'll have to remember that one. Mackerel.”

  “Would you like another tip, Gus?”

  “Sure, Pete. What the hey. If you're givin’, I'm takin’.”

  “Stay out of the Hell Hole, my friend. It's deader than dead tonight.”

  Gus chuckles, even though I can tell it's searing his soul to pretend to be this maniac's buddy. “Ain't that the truth! Deadest spot in the seven freaking seas….”

  “Gus?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We've been friends a long time, right?”

  “Sure we have, Pete. We go way back.”

  “Twenty, thirty years.”

  “Something like that. Sure.”

  “You know my wife. Our sons.”

  “Of course I do….”

  “You were a pallbearer at my mother's funeral.”

  “Yeah. Sad day.”

  “That was fifteen years ago.”

  “Was it? Jeez, seems like yesterday.”

  “Gus?”

  “Yeah, Pete?”

  “In the coming days, you might hear things about me. Things I'd rather keep from Mary an
d the boys.”

  Gus looks to Ceepak.

  “What sort of things, Pete?”

  “Ugly things. Untruths. Lies. Falsehoods.”

  “What? Somebody gonna say you're a lousy fisherman? That you couldn't catch a cold running naked in the snow?”

  “Worse, Gus. All I ask is that you tell people the truth.”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “Tell people I made my mother proud. Tell them I finally finished my mission.”

  Gus raises his shoulders to tell us he doesn't know what the hell Pete's talking about. Or what to say next. He dabs some sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm.

  “Uh, what's your mission there, Pete? Over.”

  There's this pause.

  “Gus, I will not tolerate sinners. I cannot abide those who defile His laws.”

  “Hey, I know what you mean, pal. I used to be a cop, remember? Laws should be obeyed. I agree.”

  “And yet I, myself, did not fully fulfill all His Commandments. My mother told me so. She said I was being selfish.”

  “When'd she say all this? Before she passed on?”

  “About a month ago.”

  Gus shoots Ceepak a look that says he's hearing the cuckoo clock down in his den counting off midnight.

  “Mother told me I was a greedy tub of lard. Always choosing the young girls. Disobeying His Commandments. Violating Ezekiel's law just so I could caress their supple flesh. Flesh already sullied and stained by other men. This is why I never completed my task, Pete. Do you understand?”

  Ceepak nods. Suggests Gus continue to play along.

  “Sure, pal. Sometimes a pretty girl can turn your head, make you forget your own name.”

  “These girls were gorgeous on the outside, Gus, but their souls were wretched and ugly. Yet, repulsive as they were, I needed to fondle them. To feel them. And so, I never did all I was meant to do. Do you understand?”

  “Sure, pal. Sure.”

  “I fear, by being selfish, I may have allowed certain sinners to relapse. Is Ceepak with you, Gus?”

  Ceepak is about to speak. Gus holds up his hand.

  “Ceepak? Nah. He's from freaking Ohio. They don't do deep-sea fishing in Ohio.”

  “Are you lying to me, Gus?”