Katie shook her head. I think she was disappointed in all of us.
We didn't care. We swayed back and forth and sang a quick chorus of that stupid one-hit wonder: “It was a one-eyed, onehorned, flyin purple people eater…”
Weese shuffled away. Everybody he passed pointed at his pants and hooted. Some guys shook cans of whatever they had in their mitts and made like they might spray that at Weese, too. Others yelled, “What'd you do? Piss your pants purple?” Girls shook their heads, disgusted by the scrawny doofus with the splotchy crotch who they thought should find some other piece of beach to go geek around on.
The whole deal lasted maybe five minutes. Ten tops.
Even Katie got over it.
We moved on to whatever was next. Chasing each other with squirt guns. Playing paddleball. Meeting some girls from the city who were in town for the week and looking to party. Maybe we plotted that night's beer run. Maybe we ran out of snack food items and argued about whose turn it was to hike up to the Qwick Pick and grab another bag of something to munch on.
The same old same old.
We moved on.
We forgot.
I guess George Weese never did.
• • •
I have to wonder if maybe Mook got hot waiting in his car for Wheezer. Maybe he took a couple of swigs from that twenty-ounce grape soda we found in the cup holder. Maybe Weese saw Mook knock back a few gulps and a certain purple-stained day came rushing back to him in Digital High Def and Surround Sound.
I guess we'll have to ask him.
I unclip my cell phone and punch in Ceepak's number.
He answers on the first ring.
“This is Ceepak.”
“Hey,” I say. “We need to find George Weese.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 75 in Avondale, New Jersey, usually does stuff like teach boating safety to weekend sailors.
But they also have this really fast boat. A forty-four-foot, aluminum-hulled number that can do thirty-five knots. That's like forty mph. I know because Rosie, my skipper, a Coast Guard Reservist, told me so. Actually, she had to scream it because we were flying across the bay so fast-about forty mph.
When I called Ceepak, he called his Coast Guard buddies. Apparently, they were delighted to help him out by seeing how fast their new boat could go. So now I'm wearing a bright orange life jacket over my bulletproof vest, holding on to a handrail with sea spray needling my face and skimming like a flicked stone across the bay back to the island. This sea puppy's fast.
Christine will keep an eye on Katie at the hospital. So, of course, will the doctors. Ceepak said he'd meet me at the marina off Bayside Boulevard, over near Schooner's Landing-back where we think George Weese parked his white minivan, stepped out, and took two shots. One at me, one at Katie.
Rosie pulls back on the throttle. We churn up backwash, lose speed, and drift toward the dock. Ceepak is standing there to salute us on our final approach.
Rosie snaps one back.
“Throw him the line,” she barks. It takes me a second to figure out she's barking at me, that I'm all of a sudden her first mate. “Throw him the dock line!”
I hoist this big coil of rope and heave it toward Ceepak. I almost fling myself onto the dock after it. Ceepak catches the line and wraps it around a cleat.
“Here's your cargo,” Rosie says when I stumble off the boat.
“Thank you, Rosie,” Ceepak says. “I owe you one.”
“So buy me a beer.”
“Will do. But not when you're on duty.”
“Roger that,” she says. “Hurry up. Go catch the bastard.”
“Come on, Danny.” Ceepak motions for me to keep up with him. “We need to join everybody over at the Weese residence.”
“Did the guys find George?”
“Not yet.”
I check my watch. It's 10:52 A.M. We walk faster, heading off the dock into the parking lot.
“Did they, you know, find any evidence?”
“Roger that. They tell me there's a white minivan parked in the garage.”
“Green beach sticker?”
“On the front bumper not far from the lighthouse license plate.”
“I thought George Weese lived out of town.”
“He does.”
“So what's he doing with a resident beach sticker?”
“His father cheated. Bought an extra tag, sent it to his son hoping it might encourage George to …” Ceepak checks his notebook. “‘Bring the grandchildren down more often.’ Mrs. Weese bought George the minivan. Apparently, the Weeses are quite wealthy.”
But they cheat.
To Ceepak, that's all that matters.
• • •
We pull up in front of the Weese house.
Ceepak's right: these people are loaded.
They have a humongous house, two in from the ocean at the corner of Beach Lane and Walnut Street. It's three stories tall, with all sorts of angles and extensions and different-shaped windows and jutting decks and this big sweeping staircase up to double front doors with gold-trimmed glass windows like something Tony Soprano might buy at Home Depot. I'm surprised the Weeses don't just hang a sign off one of their roofs: “Got money? We sure as shit do.”
I see Kiger and Malloy's patrol car parked out front near the two-car garage at the left side of the house. I see the CSI team's Taurus, too.
Ceepak pulls in but doesn't park very well. He just sort of angles our Ford against the concrete curb with the butt sticking out into the street. Kiger is in the driveway looking like he's eager to tell him something, so Ceepak yanks up the emergency brake and basically jumps out of the Explorer. I follow along.
“What've you got, Adam?”
“Weapon and ammunition in the minivan. Rear cargo hold.”
“The M-24?” Ceepak asks.
Kiger shakes his head. “Negative. Looks like a paintball shooter. You know-a big toy gun. Black plastic. Molded to look like an army rifle.”
“Most likely a Tripman A-5 with reactive trigger,” Ceepak says. Then he turns to me because he knows I'm totally confused. “Same as rifle number three at Paintball Blasters on the boardwalk. I checked last night. Weese wanted to practice on the same type of gun, see if he could manipulate the trigger action while gloved.”
While I was passed out on that sofa outside the ICU, Ceepak was back here working the case.
A Ford Expedition crunches up the street. Chief Baines.
“What've we got, Ceepak?”
“Potential suspect, sir.”
“Weese? From the Chamber?”
“His son. George.”
“Do we know where this George Weese is presently located?” The chief reaches for the shoulder microphone to his radio, ready to call in strike coordinates on our sniper.
“No, sir. We've posted an APB based on witness descriptions.”
“And,” Kiger says, “we have his father and mother inside. Also the suspect's wife and children. Malloy's in there with them, making sure nobody tells Georgie Porgie the cavalry's coming.”
“What's the prevailing mood?” Baines is curious. “Inside?”
Kiger smiles. “Pissed off, sir.”
The chief nods, turns to Ceepak.
“John?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You sure about this? You sure George Weese is your guy?”
“It's where all the evidence leads, sir.”
The chief checks his watch, nods his head.
“Let's go nail the bastard.”
Looks like we might beat that noon deadline after all.
“This is preposterous. George would never do such a thing.” This is his mother talking, naturally. She's short and chubby and chain smokes.
Two little kids bawl and screech in a playpen in the middle of the living room. One, a boy, looks to be almost two years old. The other? I don't know. I'm no good at guessing how old babies are supposed to be. I wish they had rings I could count like with trees. Maybe the little one's nine or ten months. The way it screams? Got the lungs of a twelve-year-old. Both kids have tears streaming down their cheeks and snot dripping out their noses, and it all ends up as crusty green stuff on top of their lips. There's reason to suspect the small one has a load in its pants, too. Either that, or Mrs. Weese is cooking something foul for brunch.