Around six-thirty, we pick up another piece of evidence.
Gladys has found a motorcycle parked behind her restaurant when she dragged a bushel of rotting bok choy out the back door: a Harley, up on its kickstand and blocking the sliding door to her compost bin.
When nobody in her dining room claimed the motorcycle, Gladys called 9-1-1 so we’d come tow it away. Bill Botzong and his CSI crew borrowed a flatbed wrecker from my buddy George Hansen over at Undertow Towing and hauled the hog back to the municipal garage.
Every VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) on it has been filed down, even the hidden ones.
“We are dealing with dedicated professionals,” says Ceepak. “They, obviously, tracked Mr. Mandrake’s movements. Knew he frequented Veggin’ On The Beach. It would not surprise me if the shooter-tipped off by his accomplice surveilling activity up at the boardwalk-knew that Mandrake had exited the Green Zone. The gunman then parked behind the restaurant. While Mandrake was inside eating, the shooter strolled over to Shore Drive and took up his position at the intersection with the stop sign.”
“He went for a walk in his helmet and flight suit?” I say.
“Doubtful. However, I suspect, if we search the homes near the intersection, several will have backyard shower stalls.”
“No,” I say. “A Port-A-Potty.”
“Come again?”
“All summer they’ve been doing major renovations at that mansion on Shore Drive between Hickory and Gardenia. But they must’ve had problems with the permits, because I haven’t seen any workers there for weeks. Just their Port-A-Potty in the carport.”
“Which our shooter borrowed and used as a changing booth. Well done, Danny.”
Hey, if your routine patrol includes cruising up and down that street at 15 MPH after guzzling a gallon of coffee, you’re always looking for a potential pit stop.
At 7:30, the lawyer finally arrives.
“I need a minute with my client,” Rambowski brusquely announces. Ceepak and I usher him and his three-thousand-dollar suit into the interview room.
“We’ll be back in fifteen,” Ceepak announces before relocking the door.
We head into the chief’s office. Hey, it’s close and it’s empty. The rest of the station is crawling with Fibbies and U.S. Attorneys and who knows who else.
“Nice office,” I say, and gesture at the chief’s very comfy, very padded, high-back rolling chair. “Nice chair.”
“You can take it, Danny. I prefer to stand.”
“Nah. Come on. You could lean back, prop your feet up on the desk-”
Ceepak’s personal cell phone interrupts me. I recognize the ringtone.
“Hello? No, Mom. We are not watching TV.”
Hey, the chief has a flat-screen TV in his bookcase. It’s tucked between a few Kiwanis Club plaques and a Hummel figurine of a cop shadowed by a guardian angel, the two of them helping a schoolkid cross a street. I snap on the TV. It’s tuned to the network that runs Fun House. At 7:30, they run some kind of Entertainment News show.
“Danny has found the program,” Ceepak says to his mom. “Yes, that’s Sea Haven. Our beach.”
The show is running a feature about “Brave Soozy K.” They show her strolling along the pristine sandy beach at daybreak, looking very thoughtful in her dove-gray tracksuit as a pink dawn breaks in the east and foamy waves crash hypnotically behind her.
“I know there’s a target on my back,” Soozy says, “but I won’t back down. I’ve come too far on this journey.…”
“Are you sure?” Ceepak says. “No, Mom, it’s just that Rita and I-”
His mom talks some more.
“Well, then, it’s all good. I’ll tell Rita. She’ll be thrilled to hear your decision. Don’t worry, Mom. We will. Love you, too.”
He folds up his phone.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“My mother tells me she is tired of eating walleye and shoveling snow.” He indicates the TV screen. “She has been watching the show ever since a few of her church friends told her I was the star.”
Now I’m grinning.
“Anyway, having seen Sea Haven in all its ‘sunny, funderful’ glory, she wants to move here. Provided, of course, I remain on the police force. She doesn’t like all the killings that seem to happen here.”
“She’s moving here? You’re kidding!”
He holds his hand up like he’s taking an oath. “Scout’s honor.”
“Awesome.”
“My mother also instructed me not to let anything bad happen to that nice young girl tonight.”
“Soozy?”
“Roger that. According to Mom, Ms. Kemppainen is, and I quote, ‘quite a pistol.’”
Christopher Miller pokes his head in the door.
“What’s up?” I say.
“Mandrake. The lawyer says they’re ready to talk.”
43
We should have sold tickets to this interview.
Every chair at the long table is filled: Ceepak, me, Chris Miller, Lisa Bonner, some guy from Washington who never takes off his sunglasses, three other extremely serious scowlers. Martin Mandrake sits at the head of the table. Ceepak is on his left; attorney Louis Rambowski is on his right.
The overflow crowd is in the observation room, watching us through the one-way mirror. Marty, the producer, is beaming, basking in his newfound role as The Government’s Star Witness.
Ceepak depresses a button on our digital recorder.
“This is Officer John Ceepak. It is Friday, August 27th, 20-hundred hours.”
Mandrake looks up at the ceiling, does the math in his head.
“It’s eight?”
“Affirmative,” says Ceepak.
“Jesus. I need to make a phone call.”
“Excuse me?”
“The show. It goes live in an hour. I need to talk to my associates. Make some last-minute adjustments.”
Ceepak purses his lips. “Mr. Mandrake, we have been quite accommodating-”
“No. All you’ve done is grant me my constitutional rights. But now I really do need a favor. It’s for the good of the show, which means it’s for the good of Sea Haven. I was supposed to do this bit at the open and close tonight. Show off the fifty-thousand-dollar cardboard check when Chip does the opening; hand the money to the winner’s charity in wrap-up at the end. Now somebody else has to go on camera in my place. They’ve only got an hour for hair and makeup. Help me out here, fellas, or do I need to call Mayor Sinclair? I have his cell number.”
The lawyer touches Mandrake on the sleeve. That’s how lawyers tell clients to shut up.
“My client intends to be extremely cooperative with all of you this evening,” says Rambowski, “should we, of course, come to terms on a quid pro quo agreement for his testimony against Roberto Lombardo, including a witness protection plan that might allow him to continue his creative efforts in the entertainment industry. We, therefore, request that you extend us the courtesy of making one last phone call before initiating our deliberations and discussion.”
Ceepak glances over at Christopher Miller. Miller gives him the slow “go ahead, we’ve got all night” nod.
“Very well,” says Ceepak. “Make your call, Mr. Mandrake, and please make it quick.”
“I have to!” Mandrake says, stabbing his stubby finger into a poor defenseless cell phone button. “We go live in just over fifty minutes.…”
While he waits for somebody to answer, it hits me: Martin Mandrake could walk away from this whole deal with a free pass and a cabin in Utah. I check out the law enforcement agents seated around the table. Most of them could care less about Mandrake orchestrating the murders of Paul Braciole and Thomas Hess. They want the big walleye: mob boss Roberto Lombardo. Ceepak and me, the two local-yokel beat cops, are the only ones who care about avenging the deaths of those caught up in Mandrake’s sick scheme to boost his show’s ratings.
And maybe Chris Miller. He’s seated across from me, eyes closed so he can massage them the way Ceepak massages his when life isn’t quite as good as the T-shirts proclaim.