“Is your husband here?” Ceepak asks.
“Negative,” says Santucci. “Apparently, Dr. Winston took off before we arrived on scene.”
“These jerks,” she laughs, spitting out a couple puffs of smoke. “They race up the street, sirens wailing. Teddy's downstairs in the tearoom. Hitting on the college girl who hands out the cookies and crumpets. I saw them. Saw them from the top of the staircase. Bastard.”
“Why did he run when he heard the police?” asks Ceepak.
“Who knows? Perhaps he assumed one of these gentlemen was the young girl's father.”
She reaches for a brown prescription bottle on the table near her ash glass.
“Fucking childproof caps.”
She works the bottle open by biting at it sideways with her teeth. She pries off the lid, palm-chucks a little blue pill into her mouth. I figure it's not the day's first. I also figure it's some kind of antidepressant. The kind that almost make you sleepy enough to forget how sad you feel.
“You and Boyle stay here,” Santucci says to Ceepak. “Take her statement. We'll nab Winston. He can't have run too far.”
“What about the girl in the photograph?” asks Ceepak.
“Don't worry. We got other people on the street looking for her. Jesus, Ceepak-you think you're the only one who knows how to do this job?”
Ceepak turns to the couch. “Does your husband carry a weapon, Mrs. Winston?”
She shoots us a smoky spurt of a laugh. “Just the thing in his pants. He pulls that one out constantly.”
Ceepak turns back to Santucci. “I don't think your pursuit of this suspect warrants armed intrusions into….”
“Ceepak?”
“Yes?”
“Don't you even try to tell me how to do my job, okay?”
I see Ceepak's jaw popping in and out near his ear. Guess that stops him from telling Santucci to fuck off, which is what I'd do.
“Malloy?” says Santucci. “Let's roll.”
They saunter out, leaving the sour smell of testosterone in their wake. Sea Haven's Finest.
On the couch, Mrs. Winston turns toward the bay window. The vinyl blinds have been rolled all the way down to keep the sun out, the darkness in.
Ceepak takes a step toward the sofa. The floorboards squeak.
“Can you believe I'm the one who suggested this vacation?” she says to the window. She gives a snort. Laughing at herself. “Beautiful, sunny Sea Haven. Historic home of my husband's infamous frat-boy conquests. His glory days.”
Oh, man-if she starts quoting Springsteen, I might need to borrow some of those antidepressants.
“Now Teddy's picking up girls in the same house where he keeps his tired old hag of a wife locked up in her room. Typically he has the decency to carry out his vacation liaisons in some remote motel. I often find odd keys in the laundry bag when we unpack. Twisted up in his pants pockets.”
“Did he recently lose his key to this room?”
She turns to Ceepak. Smiles.
“Oh. You know about that?”
Ceepak shows her the key we found at the Palace pier. It's in a sealed plastic bag.
“Where'd he lose this one?”
“Ma'am?”
“He drops his drawers so often, he's forever dropping his keys as well. Two-no three-so far this week. He just pays the fee at the front desk and asks for a new one. He loses cash, too. Or so he says. In truth, I suspect he sometimes pays the young ladies for services rendered. That's why he never carries his wallet.” She cocks her head toward a bedside table. “Doesn't want his ‘dates’ taking his credit cards, too.”
Ceepak slips on a pair of evidence gloves and flips the wallet open. Flashes me the driver's license. I see Dr. Ted's DMV portrait. That'll help.
“Mrs. Winston, we noted your name in the guest book of The Howland House Whaling Museum.”
“So?”
“Were you there yesterday?”
“What can I say, Officer? I was bored out of my fucking gourd.”
“Did your husband go with you?”
She almost gags on a smoky chuckle. “Teddy?”
“Yes, ma'am. Was he with you at the museum?”
“Of course not. All he wants to do on our one vacation together all year is fish. First, he drags me on this charter boat with an imbecilic clown of a captain … “
That would be Pete.
“ … then, when I tell him how much I hate it, he drops me off at the dock and rents a dinghy for the day. Probably rented a first mate, too. In a bikini.”
Ceepak folds up the wallet, tucks it into a plastic bag.
“We need to take this with us,” he says. “We will return it as soon as possible.”
Mrs. Winston waves her cigarette around in the air. She could care less.
“What make and model of car does your husband drive?” asks Ceepak.
“Down here?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Porsche Boxster. The girls love his little hot rod. Until later, of course-when they discover what it is he's compensating for.”
The woman could write an antimarriage manual. It's like Springsteen says in that “Tunnel of Love” song: “Man meets woman and they fall in love. But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough.” I figure the Winstons’ ride ran off the rails ages ago.
“He collects their panties,” she says out of the blue. “Sometimes earrings. I found them. At home. In the basement. He has all his souvenirs lined up in a footlocker, sorted and stored in little plastic bags. He even labels them. Name. Date. Score. I believe five stars is his highest rating.”
“These labels,” says Ceepak. “Does he type them?”
“I don't recall. As you might suspect, I didn't spend all that much time admiring his collection. One fleeting glance was enough.” She grinds her cigarette out in the juice glass. I hear it sizzle when it finds liquid. She pulls a fresh smoke out of the pack.
“Do you have any idea where your husband has gone?”
“You mean now?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
She sends a jet of butane flame up to the tip of her cigarette. Sucks in to get it going. Blows out.
“Well, let's see. Your fellow police officers probably scared off his tea-cart tart downstairs. Therefore, I can only assume Teddy is once again on the prowl, hunting for fresh, young meat.”
Unexpectedly, she focuses on me. Gives me this lewd leer. Ceepak is watching her but she's zeroed in on the sidekick. So now he's watching her watch me. Meanwhile, I'm wishing I were somewhere- or someone-else.
“How about you, young man?” she says almost flirtatiously, flicking her tongue at the white stuff caked in the corner of her dry lips. “Where do you go to meet eager and willing young girls?”
I don't answer.
Suddenly, the idea of ever meeting another girl, for any reason whatsoever, is totally grossing me out.
In fact, it's downright frightening.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We swing by the station house to drop off Dr. Winston's driver's license.
Denise Diego scans it into her computer and in ten seconds flat, Dr. Theodore A. Winston's headshot is displayed on Mobile Data Terminals inside cop cars up and down the island and over on the mainland.
“Handsome dude,” Diego says, wiping Dorito grease off her fingers and onto her pants.
“Stay away from this one, Dee,” I say. “He's trouble.”
“Roger that,” says Ceepak.
“A bad boy, hunh?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Sometimes those are the most fun.”
We leave our colleague to her dirty daydreams and head out of the computer room, into the open bullpen around the front desk.
“Ceepak? Boyle?”
It's Chief Baines, lurking in the doorway to his office.
“Sir?”
“Santucci's back on task,” he says. “I told him to concentrate on finding the girl.”
Ceepak nods. It's not what he wants to hear, but he has to live with it for the moment.
“Did the wife know where Dr. Winston went?”
“Negative,” says Ceepak.