“Keep the change.” The guy tips his frothy glass toward Ralph.
Since Ralph knows the guy expects him to smile over a fifteen-dollar tip, he doesn't. He just swabs at the bar with a tattered rag and glowers.
“Excuse me.” Mr. Princeton taps me on the shoulder. “Sorry to be a bother but where might one purchase beer to go at this hour?”
“Your best bet is Fritzie's. It's a package store.”
“Fritzie's? They're still here?”
“Yeah. They're open till ten.”
“Fantastic.” He checks his watch. “I'm meeting a young lady friend out front at nine-thirty.”
He winks. I nod. Why do I suspect the “lady friend” is not his wife?
“Fritzie's is still the spot, then, eh?”
“Yeah. It's a couple blocks down Jacaranda Street….”
He holds up his hand. Nods. “I know: where it hits Ocean Avenue. The corner there. Correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Fantastic. Good to know some things never change. Thank you.”
“No problem. But do me a favor,” I say. “Don't even think about drinking and driving.”
Mr. Princeton drains about half of his mug.
“And who, pray tell, are you? My mother?”
“No. I'm a cop. Sea Haven Police Department.”
“Really? You seem awfully young.”
I shrug. “Me being young only means I can run fast and catch the bad guys. Especially the older, slower ones.”
“I see. Well, not to worry. My friend and I simply intend to grab a cold six-pack and head over to an establishment three or four blocks up the street. We'll walk. Smuggler's Cove. Another oldie but goodie.” He chuckles.
He checks his watch again.
“Well then….” He polishes off his beer. “Early day tomorrow. Taking a charter out. Maybe catch a few bluefish.”
“Have fun,” I say, since it's our civic duty to say that kind of stuff to tourists.
He heads toward the door, checking out every midriff-baring babe he passes along the way. A few of the girls check out Mr. Princeton, too-the ones in the naughtier T-shirts.
As I said, I don't like this guy.
I don't like his spiky hair or creased jeans. I don't like him trying to buy Ralph's love for fifteen bucks. And I absolutely hate the fact that his plans for the evening include grabbing a six-pack and heading over to Smuggler's Cove, our local Hotel No Tell, for his own private version of Girls Gone Wild.
“He was in here last night, too,” Ralph now says to me.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That bit with the twenty? He pulled the same shit. Then he waltzed out with this totally tanked chick young enough to be his daughter, you know what I'm saying?”
“Yeah.”
I think it's pretty clear why Mrs. Princeton was so pissed this morning. Hubby probably crawled home ten minutes before I saw them. And maybe when she'd last seen him, he was wearing his socks.
I put my five-dollar bill back on the bar.
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I told you-it's on the house.”
“If he can tip you, so can I.”
Ralph cracks a grin and slides my money into his tip jar. “It's really not a club you want to join.”
Yeah. And I probably couldn't afford the membership fees.
Both doors of my Jeep are closed and locked. The top is zipped into place. No one has broken in to steal my loose change again, but it doesn't really matter since I was totally hoovered out the first time.
At the far end of the lot, underneath a streetlamp, I see Mr. Princeton. He's looking at his watch again. Guess his lady friend stood him up.
Good. Serves him right. Maybe he'll have better luck tomorrow, hooking up with some striped bass.
Time to head home. Roll call comes early: seven-thirty A.M.
“Hey, Teddy!” I hear this female voice from the darkness. It sounds familiar. Husky. “Am I like totally late?”
“Well, my dear, we did say nine-thirty.”
“Sorry….”
Okay. I'm at least thirty feet away but now I can hear all sorts of slurpy lip-smacking.
When the streetlamp catches the orange glints in her hair, I realize: Stacey has returned to the scene of the crime. She's not currently robbing her new guy-unless, of course, she's simultaneously picking Mr. Princeton's pockets while kneading his butt cheeks with both hands.
Finally, they break out of their lip-lock.
“Come on!” he says.
They race up the sidewalk.
She's wearing the Hello Kitty backpack.
Somehow, I don't think my twenty's still in it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
You have a good weekend, Danny?”
“Not bad,” I lie. “How about you?”
“Excellent, my friend. Absolutely excellent.”
“Awesome.”
“Oh, yeah.”
It's 7:25 on a Monday morning but behind the front desk, Sergeant Reginald Pender is already feeling frisky, despite the fact that the big man never drinks coffee-says it only serves to dehydrate an individual. He's our new desk sergeant, having taken over from grumpy Gus Davis who retired last winter after almost thirty years on the job.
Reggie couldn't look more different than his predecessor, who was old and white and hipbone scrawny; Reggie is young and black and carries a small paunch above his belt buckle. He looks like a football player who doesn't run his wind sprints anymore but still eats everything on the training table. A lineman.
“You better hustle, Officer Boyle,” he says with a jerk of his head toward the wall clock.
I check it out: 7:27.
I head for the duty room.
Ceepak, of course, is already seated in the back row. He likes to say, “If you're not five minutes early, you're ten minutes late.”I still don't really understand what that means-guess that's why I'm always the last cop in the room.
Ceepak has his notebook open on his desk. His pencil looks freshly sharpened. Every hair on his head is neatly combed and plastered into its pre-assigned position.
Ceepak likes to be prepared.
I know thinking ahead helped save his ass a couple times over in Iraq. Once, he saw a dead dog lying by the side of the road and, since he'd done his homework, he knew that canine carcasses were often used by the insurgents to hide their improvised explosive devices. He saved everybody in his Humvee that day because he saw the wires sticking out of the animal's jaws before its belly blew.
All the other cops in the room are busy finishing their coffee and doughnuts, scanning the Sandpaper to see if they made the Crime Blotter, waiting for Chief Baines to make his 7:30-sharp entrance. Old Buzz likes to do the early Monday roll call himself. The rest of the week, he lets Pender handle it.
“Find a seat, Boyle,” snarls Dominic Santucci. He has his sunglasses on-indoors. He likes the way they make him look menacing and mysterious. He also doesn't like me so much.
“Danny?” Ceepak motions to the chair next to him, which he has saved for me like kids used to do for their friends on the school bus.
“Thanks.”
When I sit down, my holster squeaks. The leather is that new. Last summer, I was a part-timer without a gun. This summer, I wish I didn't have to carry one. Unfortunately, last summer, I also saw what bullets could do.
Now Ceepak checks off an item on a list he has inside his spiral notebook.
“I ran the milk carton data by Officer Diego,” he says. “She's going to run some searches on Mary Guarneri.”
“Cool.”
“She'll also do a data sweep on Lisa DeFranco. See what she comes up with.”
Special Operations Officer Denise Diego works in the computer room here at Police Headquaters, what we all the station house. She's a self-proclaimed techno-geek. I think that's how come she can recite every line from The Lord of the Rings. All three movies.
“Of course,” Ceepak continues, “Officer Diego will only work on this project during downtime and lunch hours.”