“Make out,” says Olivia. “A lot of cute boys drift through town during the summer.”
Becca sighs. “Every week was like a new summer camp full of ’em.”
“Other people would join us,” Olivia adds. “Kids we knew from school or people we met at our jobs. Kids on vacation with their folks. And Mook? He was always our evening's entertainment. The cruise director. He always had something stupid up his sleeve. Some joke or wild idea.”
The room gets quiet again. Everybody remembers Harley Mook. Before we grew up and began to change. Before he was murdered.
“I miss Mook,” Becca says. A tear trickles out from behind the sunglasses. “He was funny back then, you know?”
Olivia sinks deeper into the sofa. “Yeah. He was.”
“Wheezer.” Jess hisses the name. “Wheezer.” He's trying hard to remember. Me, too. Was Wheezer one of those guys who used to join us sometimes? Maybe just a summer renter's kid? Somebody from the Pancake Palace? Maybe a lifeguard?
“What's his real name?” Olivia asks.
“We don't know,” answers Ceepak.
“Well, Mook was always giving everybody names. He called me Liver Oil.”
Becca grins. “I was Betcha-Can't-Eat-Just-One. Like the potato chips. I think it was supposed to be dirty.”
“I was Jess. Dude never hung a handle on me.”
“Whom might he have called Wheezer?” Ceepak paces around the room. “A schoolmate? Someone he worked with? Someone he met that summer? We suspect Wheezer is a local.”
On account of the bumper sticker.
“But someone who has probably since moved away.”
How'd he come up with that?
“We know his complexion is currently pale. Even a local using SPF 50 would show a slight skin coloration.”
Okay. I'm with him again.
“We also know Wheezer felt insignificant in your presence. In his last communication, the shooter suggested that you'd never remember him. I suspect he was something of a loner, not one of the ‘cool kids.’ In fact, Mook told Danny that Wheezer was a loser.”
“A loser?” Becca seems surprised.
“I always thought we were the losers,” jokes Olivia.
“We were,” Becca says. “Except Jess. Jess was always cool.”
“I was not.”
“Dude, you were a lifeguard.”
Jess shrugs, and we all rack our brains trying to remember ten summers ago and some loner or loser who drifted into our lives.
I've got nothing. I look around the room.
Nobody has anything except lost and unhappy expressions on their faces.
“Keep thinking about it,” Ceepak says. He checks the time. Four thirty. I don't think he's concerned about the chief's deadline. I think he's worried about the forty-eight-hour rule. Ceepak once told me that if you don't solve your case in the first two days, chances are you never will.
The clock is ticking.
“I think it would be wise for all of you to remain in protective custody for the remainder of the weekend,” Ceepak says. “We'll post police officers outside your residences. It would be best if you stayed indoors.”
“Me, too?”
“Yes, Danny. I'm pulling you out of the field. I need you to focus on Wheezer. It's how you can best aid the investigation.”
I nod. He's right.
A speaker up in the ceiling bongs a series of chimes.
“Code Blue. ICU. Code Blue.”
The voice is incredibly calm, but I know Code Blue means there's some kind of medical emergency in the ICU. I hear people run up the hall outside our door.
They're running to the ICU.
Where Katie is.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Isit on a couch and stare at a curtain.
The couch is another one of those teal and speckle jobs that are supposed to calm people down. The curtain is a thin cotton sheet pulled across the glass window into Katie's ICU room. The nurses let Ceepak and me come this far only because we have badges. The other guys had to hang back in the visitors’ room.
The doctor rolled the curtain across the window because he didn't want us to see them in there pounding on Katie's chest.
Ceepak is sitting next to me on the couch. When the radio clipped to his belt squeals he turns it off. He has about five billion other things he should be doing right now. Instead, he sits with me. I have my head in my hands.
“She's strong,” he says. “She'll make it. This is not her time. Today is not her day.”
I know it's a string of clichés, the kind of things people say in made-for-TV movies or something. But Ceepak's seen stuff, watched his buddies being blown to bits in Iraq, seen others who pulled through. Maybe he knows what he's talking about. Maybe he can tell who'll make it, who won't.
A doctor comes into the hallway and lifts his mask.
“She's stabilizing,” he says. “She lost a tremendous amount of blood and her BP became dangerously low.”
“But she's gonna make it?” I ask.
“She's stabilizing.” That's the best the doctor can do right now. He slides his mask back up and goes into Katie's room.
“Danny?”
It's a nurse. Someone I know (of course). Christine Lemonopoulos.
“Hey.”
“How you doing?” she asks, genuinely concerned. Christine and Katie are friends. I think they go to chick flicks together, and one of them is always in charge of the Kleenex.
“I'm hanging in there,” I say.
“Ma’am?” Ceepak says to Christine.
“Yes?”
“Will it be all right for Officer Boyle to remain here in the hallway?”
“No problem. Just, you know-don't get in anybody's way, okay, Danny?”
“Sure. I'll just, you know, hang here.”
“Cool. Can I get you guys anything? A Coke or something?”
“No thanks,” I say.
“We're good.” Ceepak isn't thirsty either.
“Hang in there, Danny.”
“Yeah. You, too, Christine.”
“Thanks.”
We're both going to try.
Five P.M. Ceepak is still on the couch next to me. The doctors pulled open the curtains when they had Katie's Code Blue situation under control. She's still unconscious but I guess she's Code Green or whatever color it is when you're doing better.
“Shouldn't you be out there looking for that minivan?” I ask. “Tracking down the surfer gloves?”
“Soon,” he says. “Don't worry. Our guys are on it.”
“I'm okay here,” I say, trying to give him permission to hit the streets.
“Danny, did I ever tell you about the Christmas choir when I was a kid? Midnight mass?”
Okay. Now he's being totally random.
“No. I don't think … no.”
I've only heard maybe one or two stories about Ceepak's childhood, which I know is more than he's told most people. His past is basically unavailable for public viewing because he didn't have a very good one. His dad was a drunk who used to beat up his mom and drove Ceepak's little brother to suicide. Somehow, I doubt his Christmas tale is going to be one of those Hallmark Hall of Fame numbers where somebody discovers the true meaning of the season and saves the day for all the crippled orphans in town.
Ceepak sinks back on the couch.
“My father used to play the drums,” he says.
“You're kidding? Drums?”
“He was in a rock band in high school. Played some in college. Nightclubs. Bars. Places that paid with free beer. Anyhow, my father kept his drum kit stowed in our basement. Every now and then, he'd go down there and make a racket. I could tell how much he'd been drinking by how badly he kept time, his lack of any discernible rhythm.”
I can just imagine it: Old Man Ceepak, toasted out of his gourd, drumming away, smashing and crashing cymbals. I'll bet it sounded like all hell broke loose in that basement, like when a two-year-old gets a toy drum for his birthday and gives everybody a free concert and a migraine.
“Was he any good?” I ask.
“Not really. But this one Christmas, when he swore to God he was sober, when he promised my mother his drinking days were behind him, he decided he'd show her what a good man he had become by volunteering to play drums for our church's Christmas choir.”