“Leave her alone!”
Jane reaches for Ashley.
“Come on, honey!” she repeats.
“No!” Ashley screams like I hope I never hear anybody ever scream again. “No! I want my mommy! I want her now!” Ashley is kicking and blubbering, her whole body shaking.
Ceepak loosens his grip. Betty loses her balance and falls to the bed. Ashley immediately curls up against her, her thumb in her mouth.
Betty is wailing into the bedspread.
Ashley twists her head back to face us, just as Morgan and his men enter from the hallway.
“Leave my mother alone,” she hisses at Ceepak, “or I'll kill you, you son of a bitch! I'll kill you!”
He steps back.
Ashley grabs a stuffed animal. A pink lamb. She squeezes her hand tight around its neck and glares at Ceepak, then Jane, then Morgan, then me.
“I'll kill you all, you goddamn bastards!”
I think we just lost another child.
EPILOGUE
I'm not a lawyer, but I hope Ashley gets a good one. She needs to be locked up in a loony bin, not a juvenile detention center or whatever. But like I said, I'm not a lawyer.
The chief and Miss Betty Bell?
They're in custody and need very good lawyers.
Me? I'm thinking about becoming a cop full-time. Not that I'll ever be as good as Ceepak, but I think the world could use a few more guys trying to be half that decent.
Ceepak?
They rocked his world. Rocked it hard.
Defend the defenseless, do your sworn duty, look for the good in everything, and then boom-he turns over this rock and sees nothing underneath but worms.
But he's still on the job.
At least today.
We meet at The Pancake Palace at 8 A.M. Tuesday. Ceepak decided we've both earned an extra half hour of sleep.
Everybody in the place is pretty glum, barely pushing their pancakes around their plates, glued to their newspapers, reading how a little girl and her mother and the Sea Haven chief of police tried to dupe us all. Sent us for a ride on our own little Tilt-A-Whirl. You can hear a lot of stainless steel scraping against plates this morning. Not much else.
Ceepak's back to fruit and cereal.
I order the same thing. Figure I should at least try it. At least this once.
We eat in silence.
Every now and then, the waitress comes over to pour us more coffee and that sloshing is the loudest sound in the dining room.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
Maybe Springsteen is right.
Maybe faith will be rewarded.
Maybe tomorrow.
“You ready to roll?” Ceepak says when half his cereal is gone. Guess he's not so hungry this morning. Me neither.
“Yeah. Where to?”
“Wherever.”
He's right. We are currently without a boss, since there's no chief of police on the job in Sea Haven. We can make up our own duty roster.
“How about we cruise up Beach Lane? It's busy this time of day….”
“That'll work.”
We pay and head to the parking lot.
I wonder if Ceepak will stay in Sea Haven.
After all, he was sort of lured down here under false pretenses. It's not like he grew up here or has family here. His one friend? His old Army buddy? You know what they say about friends like that- they're total assholes.
We cruise up the road fronting the beach. I see people lugging all sorts of gear across the street and down to the sand.
“Pull ‘em over.”
I don't know who Ceepak is talking about.
“Pull ‘em over.”
He points to these two kids riding bicycles behind their father in the bike lane with the other bikers and joggers and early morning fast-walkers. The kids don't appear to be doing anything terribly illegal.
But I do as I'm told.
I whoop the siren once and give the lights up top a twirl.
The father looks over his shoulder and motions to his kids to stop.
I pull the Ford over to the curb.
The family straddles their bikes. Other people stop what they're doing to rubberneck. Ceepak and I climb out of the Explorer.
“Good morning,” Ceepak says.
“Morning,” the father says. “Is there some problem?”
“No, sir. It's all good.”
He bends down to talk to a boy on a blue bike.
“What's your name?”
“Sam. Sam Morkal-Williams.”
“And who are you, young lady?”
“Meghan Morkal-Williams.”
“Do you like riding your bikes?”
“Yes …” the boy says, kind of quietly.
“How about you Meghan?”
“I love it!” She sort of shouts.
“Good,” says Ceepak. “That's awesome. I see you're both wearing your helmets.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy says.
“We always wear them when we ride our bikes,” the girl adds.
The father just sort of smiles, leans back on his bike seat, and raises up both hands as if to say, “Hey, they're my kids, of course they're perfect.” He has on his helmet, too.
“Does your daddy wear his helmet all the time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Awesome. Well, then. Here you go.”
Ceepak reaches into one of his many pockets and pulls out two slips of paper.
“These are for free ice cream cones. Because you know the law and you chose to obey it and that makes my job a whole lot easier. So this morning? I just wanted to say ‘Thank you.’”
He hands them the ice-cream coupons. I wonder when he had time to buy them.
“Mister?”
“Yes, Sam?”
“Does dad get one? He‘s wearing his helmet, too.”
“You're absolutely right. Fair's fair. Here you go, sir.”
“That's okay,” the father says.
“Sir, it is my pleasure.”
The dad smiles and takes the ice-cream coupon. The people watching? They applaud.
“Danny?”
“Yes, sir.”
We head back to the car.
“Know any good sandwich shops?” Ceepak asks when we open our doors.
“We just ate breakfast.”
“Roger that. But I promised Mr. Jerry Shapiro I would bring him and Gladys a tomato, mozzarella, and basil on a baguette. One for each of them. And chips. He requested taro chips. Know any good vegetarian establishments?”
“There's The Good Earth, this veggie place on Ocean Avenue.”
“Sounds like it'll work.” He checks his watch. “Let's roll. I gave him my word.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“If you don't mind-let's switch sides. I feel like driving today.”
“Roger that.”
We do a quick Chinese Fire Drill routine around the Ford and change seats.
Ceepak drives okay. A little slow, but okay.
Watching him behind the wheel, I'm reminded of that song Springsteen wrote for the New York City Fire Fighters after 9/11, the guys who went “Into the Fire” because they knew it was the right thing to do.
May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love
Like I said, some guys have a code they live by, some guys don't.
John Ceepak? He has a code.
Me?
I'm working on it.