We will, too. I know it. We have this stuff called dental stone in the car. You pour it on a footprint and when it hardens, you can take the shoe impression home with you. We could also use it to make Christmas tree ornaments out of seashells or Barkley's paw prints if we weren't so busy chasing a serial killer.
Now Ceepak crouches. Pulls the tweezers out of his left thigh pocket.
“It's a key. Appears to be an antique or an imitation thereof.”
He pincers the key and shows it to me. It's one of those old-fashioned ones with a big, ornate handle. Like a scrolled skeleton key from a haunted house, the kind that slides into a black metal keyhole.
Ceepak rotates the key so I can read its curlicue engraving.
“C.”
“Could be the unit in a motel,” says Ceepak. “Room C. Most likely from one of the local bed-and-breakfast establishments. Hence the antique effect.”
“Winston was staying at Chesterfield's!” I say. “Kept moaning about B amp;Bs and how much he hated them.”
“C. Chesterfield's. Good work, Danny. We need to radio this in. Put out an APB for Dr. Theodore Winston.”
“You think he's our guy?”
“I'm not certain. However, I'll feel better knowing he's off the streets for the remainder of the day.”
“Yeah.”
It's almost three-thirty P.M. and July 17 has less than nine hours left. That may be all the time Stacey, the serial killer's next intended victim, has left, too.
Ceepak's cell phone rings. The black one. The one he uses on the job.
“Ceepak,” he says when he flips it open. “Right. I see. Okay. Thanks, Jane.”
He closes the phone calmly.
“The plaster casts will have to wait.”
“Did Jane find a name in the guest book?”
“Roger that.”
“Dr. Teddy Winston?”
“No. His wife. Mrs. T. A. Winston.”
I drive. Ceepak works the radio.
“This is Unit Twelve. We are en route to Chesterfield's. Elm Street off Ocean. We will 10–31 Dr. Theodore Winston and bring him in for questioning.”
We're 10-40ing it.
That means we're on a silent run, no lights or siren, just plenty of speed. I'm pegging ninety just like Ceepak did. I think the Ford is going to need a crankcase worth of fresh oil tomorrow. Maybe a new crankcase.
10-31 means we plan to pick up Dr. Teddy Winston and haul him into headquarters for a little one-on-one conversation. Ceepak will handle the interrogation. He's a pro. He can tell if you're lying by which way you look when you answer a question-whether your eyes dart right or flash left. It's called the DEA eye test.
It seems everybody has a logical side and a creative side. So first you ask a question your suspect shouldn't have to think about-maybe you ask him to confirm the ZIP code on his driver's license or something. Then you watch his eye movement. He glances to whichever side and offers an answer without any creative embellishment. Now you know which way he looks when he's telling you the truth. Left or right. You've established his pattern. When you ask your next question, maybe the one to do with the crime, if he glances the other way, you know he's fibbing.
Ceepak can actually do this.
Me? I think I lack the necessary powers of concentration.
I tried it once on my buddy Jess. We were at The Sand Bar and I did the ZIP code bit but forgot to look at his eyeballs. Then I asked him about this ten bucks I think he borrowed from me back when we were in high school. I studied his eyeballs in the mirror behind all the whiskey bottles. Since it was a reflection, the eyes were, you know, backward.
Ceepak is tapping the Mobile Data Terminal.
“No wants or warrants,” he says. “Except for several outstanding parking tickets, Dr. Winston's slate is clean.”
“But you said these serial killers are smart. Know how to avoid police detection.”
Ceepak nods. “Indeed. They typically study police investigative techniques. In fact, in twenty percent of cases, the killer participates to some degree in the police investigation of his own crime.”
“No way.”
Before Ceepak can say, “Way,” the radio crackles back at us.
“This is Unit Six.” The voice gasping out of the tinny speaker sounds agitated. Winded. “We caught Ceepak's call. We are already at Ocean and Elm.”
It's Santucci.
“We will apprehend suspect. Request backup. Consider suspect armed and dangerous.”
“Danny?”
I jam down on the gas pedal.
We need to be at Chesterfield's like ten minutes ago.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
We scream up to the curb in front of the old-fashioned gingerbread house that's now doing duty as a boarding house for romantic yuppies.
It's a little before four P.M.: high-tea time at Chesterfield's B amp;B.
That's why, when we hop out of the car, we're surrounded by about a dozen smartly-dressed but panicky people milling around on the sidewalk, nervously clattering cups and saucers-the kind of china my mom keeps locked in the hutch so nobody will use it.
“Don't shoot!” shouts one guest. He has a pencil-thin mustache and it's twitching like an over-caffeinated caterpillar. “Those other two police officers! They waved their weapons at us! They're inside!”
“The responding officers drew their sidearms?” Ceepak asks.
“Yes!” This from an angry-looking woman in a long blue dress and lacy black gloves up to her elbows. I think it's a costume. Either that or she stopped shopping for new clothes sometime after the Civil War.
“Are you the owner here?”
“I am.” She looks at Ceepak warily.
“Were any shots fired?”
“No,” she admits. “However, I still consider this an open-and-shut case of police harassment! I intend on speaking to my lawyers.”
“Please remain here on the sidewalk. We are attempting to apprehend a suspect in connection with an ongoing investigation. Danny?”
We march up the steps, past the wicker furniture and potted ferns, and enter the foyer.
Knocked-over knickknacks lie scattered across the oriental carpet. Even the silver tea-service stuff is lying on its side, staining the rug brown.
“Santucci,” mutters Ceepak.
The bull in the china shop. Who got here just in time for the Lipton.
Now he shouts it: “Santucci?”
“We're clear!” Santucci screams from a room upstairs.
“Clear!” Malloy seconds him.
Ceepak shakes his head and we pound up the steps to the second floor.
“We're in here,” says Santucci. “Rose Room.”
We hike down the hall.
Santucci and Malloy are hovering over a woman hunched up in the corner of a wingback sofa. She's rocking slightly and has wrapped a bed quilt around her shoulders to keep warm-even though it's still 90-some degrees outside and the A/C unit in the window is shut off. Her eyes are sad. Her chin rests heavy in her hand.
She looks worse than when I saw her in The Bagel Lagoon on Sunday morning.
“Meet Mrs. Winston,” says Santucci as he snaps his holster shut. Guess he's done waving his Glock in people's faces. Ceepak and I never pulled ours out.
“Are you all right?” Ceepak asks.
Mrs. Winston stops staring off into space long enough to glare up at Ceepak through sad, sleepy eyes.
“Peachy,” she says. Now she reaches under the quilt and pulls out a cigarette and a Bic lighter.
“Douse it, lady,” says Santucci. “This is a non-smoking room.”
“So?” she answers once she's all stoked up. “Arrest me.” She reaches over to a coffee table and grabs the crystal OJ goblet she's been using since breakfast for her ashtray. “I didn't ask for a nonsmoking room. These fuckers just put me in one.”
“I believe they permit smoking on the front porch,” says Ceepak. “I noted decorative ash urns.”
Mrs. Winston blows out a stream of tar and nicotine. “You think I want to go sit on the fucking porch? Down where everybody can laugh at me? They all know about Teddy.”