Rolling Thunder (14 page)

“Negative,” says Ceepak. “So far, we have talked to Dr. Marvin Hausler, a local dentist, who had been overheard on several occasions making derogatory remarks about Ms. Baker. He and she had been romantically involved for a brief period of time. The dentist, while harboring deep-seated resentment toward the victim, has an alibi.”

“You buy it?”

“Yes. It is a rather embarrassing admission, one I do not think he would offer were it not true. He told us he was with a hired call girl from an escort service on Thursday night into Friday morning.”

“Yeah,” says Botzong. “They don't usually go with that one unless it's true.”

“We have some other leads,” I toss in, just because I feel like we're letting the team down. They've got a time-of-death estimate and Carolyn Miller on the tires; we've got nothing except a yippy dog, a disgruntled dentist who drills hookers for free, and a digital cheesecake photo of Mr. O'Malley posing with Gail “Bikini Babe” Baker.

“We are also attempting to contact Officer Santucci, one of the initial responders to the crime scene,” says Ceepak. “He is currently off the clock. We'll talk to him about the missing T-shirt.”

“Good,” says Botzong. “But it may not have been in the bag when he went rummaging through it searching for ID. Analysis of her jeans and undergarments suggest Ms. Baker was naked when she was dismembered. The bloodstains on the fabric are passive transfers. Pool pattern. The clothes were most likely placed into the suitcases on top of the severed limbs. They soaked up blood like a sponge would.”

“They were not spattered?”

“Correct. Therefore, the clothes were not present during the dismemberment process, which …”

There's a pause as Detective Botzong shuffles through some papers.

“… was most likely done with a Lenox twelve-inch, thirty-two-teeth-per-inch, bi-metal hacksaw blade with their Tuff Tooth design. Virtually unbreakable. A ten-pack costs fifteen dollars and twenty cents at Home Depot.”

“So,” says Ceepak, “the missing T-shirt may still be at the scene of the crime.”

“Right. Or in the doer's memory box. He might be one of these psycho souvenir takers.”

Ceepak and I give each other a quick glance. We've dealt with one of those before; he was playing Whack A Mole up and down the island with buried body parts.

“We're also talking to Continental Airlines,” says Botzong.”

“About the partial baggage tags?” asks Ceepak.

“You saw those, huh?”

“Yes. During our initial survey of the crime scene.”

“You're good, Ceepak. Anyway, we have half a bar code and half a number. Not much to work with, but the airline's seeing what they can dig out of their computers.”

That might be our lucky break. The tags could tell us whose suitcases we're dealing with. We know they're not brand-new; somebody used them on a trip. Most likely, our killer checked them on a Continental flight because you only have suitcases with remnants of baggage stickers if the bags belong to you.

“Cause of death?” asks Ceepak.

“Blunt force impact. Somebody clobbered her in the back of her head repeatedly. Something hard and small. Maybe a hammer.”

I sip my Coke. Hope it will settle my stomach.

“There's some good news,” says Botzong. “Dr. Kurth assures us Ms. Baker was not sexually molested.”

Ceepak nods. “Good to know. Any trace of the killer on her body?”

“Nothing. No hair, no lint, no prints. I'm thinking he was wearing Saran Wrap. Knew what he was doing. However, we did find some interesting evidence in Miss Baker's hair and under her nails.”

Ceepak flips over a page in his notebook. “Go on.”

“Shampoo and soap. My team tells me the shampoo is Johnson's No More Tears No More Tangles Plus Conditioner for Straight Hair.”

The whole name goes into Ceepak's book.

“Doesn't help us much,” says Botzong. “They sell the stuff everywhere. Likewise with the soap. Irish Spring Original, what they call their Ulster Fragrance.”

That seems strange. Irish Spring is typically a guy soap, although the ads used to have this lovely Irish lass saying,
“Manly yes, but I like it, too.”
I never met a real woman who did.

“She was probably holding the soap when our doer came at her from behind,” Botzong continues.

“How so?” says Ceepak.

“She really dug her nails into it. Gouged the bar. We found the soap burrowed up under all four fingernails on her right hand.”

“So, your hypothesis is that the assailant broke into her home and surprised her while she was showering?”

“No,” says Botzong. “We inventoried her home when we went through it. She used Pantene and Dove. I'm figuring she knew the guy who did this. Went to his place. Maybe she wanted to clean up before or after they did what they went there to do.”

“He probably dismembered her in the shower as well,” says Ceepak. “He would be able to wash away the evidence.”

“Right. We find the shower, we'll find blood, I guarantee it,” says Botzong. “You can't scrub it away completely. We get in there with Luminol and a UV light, we'll find residue.” He pauses. “Of course, the scenario doesn't make much sense.”

“Because Dr. Kurth estimates the time of death to be one
A.M.
Friday?” says Ceepak.

“Exactly. Maybe she'd take a shower that late, but shampoo? I don't know. Her hair was long, down past her shoulders. Wouldn't dry right away. And who hits the sack with sopping wet hair, especially if it's not your own bed or pillow?”

“Good question,” says Ceepak.

There's a knock at the door. Denise Diego. She waves a sheaf of papers to let us know she's found something.

“Detective Botzong?” says Ceepak.

“Yeah?”

“We have just been joined on this end by Officer Denise Diego, who has been running down Gail Baker's cell phone records. We, of course, have not had time to analyze or filter her findings.”

“That's okay. Give it to me raw.”

Ceepak motions for Diego to come into the room. Gestures toward the speakerphone. The floor is hers.

“Okay. There's a lot of data in the dump. Ms. Baker worked her cell to the max. Calls. Texts. E-mails. On my first pass, I concentrated on her final twenty-four hours.”

“Good call,” says Botzong on the voice box.

“Thank you, sir.”

“What'd you find?”

“Couple things. First—she made dozens of calls to the same number, an M. Minsky, here in Sea Haven.”

“That's Marny,” I say. “One of her best friends.”

Another item goes on the To Do list.

“What else, Officer Diego?” says Ceepak.

“A couple of calls to Mike Charzuk.”

“The trainer at the gym,” I say.

“What time?” Botzong asks.

“The last one was eleven forty-five
P.M.
Thursday.”

“When did we issue Ms. Baker the warning ticket, Danny?” asks Ceepak.

I try to remember what I wrote down. “Like, eleven.”

“So, she most likely contacted the personal trainer immediately afterward.”

“Why would she do that?” asks Botzong. “Why call her calisthenics coach?

“They were, you know, talking about hooking up,” I say. “Maybe they finally did.”

“Someone else for you guys to talk to.”

“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “He is definitely on the list.”

And moving up. If he talked to her that late, the hookup may have ended with a hammer and hacksaw in the shower.

“Anything else?” asks Ceepak.

“That's it until right after midnight. Twelve-oh-five
A.M.
she sent a short text message.”

“Short?”

“Not much data in the transfer. That was the last time she used her phone.”

“To whom did she text?”

Diego runs her finger down two different sheets of paper, looking for a match.

“Area code 609. Another local number. Mr. Patrick O'Malley.”

19

O
KAY
.

Maybe Skippy is a better detective than we gave him credit for.

“Does that last number appear elsewhere in the phone records?” Ceepak asks.

“Yeah,” says Officer Diego. “Several times. Earlier in the month. Almost once a day through last Saturday morning, then nothing until last night.”

“You know this Patrick O'Malley?” asks Botzong.

“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “One of Sea Haven's most prominent businessmen. His wife died last Saturday from a heart attack during the inaugural ride of Mr. O'Malley's new roller coaster.”

“Yeah, I read about that. You think maybe the heart attack might've been caused by something besides an adrenaline rush?”

“We had no reason to think so previously.”

Yeah. But maybe now we do. Maybe the wife was giving Mr. O'Malley too much grief about his girlfriend Gail.

“Twice in one week …” I mumble.

“What's that?” says Botzong on the speakerphone.

“Danny?” This from Ceepak.

“It's what Mr. O'Malley's son said. ‘Twice in one week.'”

“Implying,” says Ceepak, “that his father was implicated in Ms. Baker's death as well as that of his wife.”

“Guess you guys better go have a chat with this Mr. O'Malley. See if he has any receipts from Home Depot for hacksaw blades.”

As soon as we're off the conference call, Ceepak gives Diego a new assignment: Search the public real estate records and find out who owns number One Tangerine Street.

Good. Means we're not going back to All-A-Shore Realty to talk to Mrs. Starky. I won't be verbally castrated again until the next time Sam invites me over for Sunday dinner.

While Officer Diego clacks her keyboard and scours historical real estate transactions, Ceepak and I hit the road and head north on Beach Lane.

Time to talk to Skippy's poppa—if we can find him at the Rolling Thunder. Meanwhile, Dylan Murray, who stayed on the clock after Santucci punched out, is on the street with his partner, Ron Edison, tracking down Mike Charzuk, Gail's personal trainer and the second-to-last person she called. Mrs. Rence is also helping out, calling Santucci's cell phone. Repeatedly.

“He must have it off,” she reported in her last radio transmission. “No answer and no busy signal.”

“Keep trying.”

We're moving past the Sea Spray Hotel when Dylan Murray radios in.

“Unit A-twelve, this is Baker-six.”

Ceepak's at the wheel, so I take the call.

“This is A-twelve, go ahead.”

“We're with Mr. Charzuk at Beach Bods gym. He has one more client scheduled. How shall we proceed?”

I glance over to Ceepak.

“Have them ask Mr. Charzuk to join us at the house at twenty hundred hours.”

“Dylan,” I say into the mic, “we'd like to talk to him in an hour—at eight.”

“At the house?”

“Right.”

“We'll offer him a ride.”

“Thanks. Let us know if he turns down your invitation.”

“You got it. Out.”

It's nearly seven now. I sense Ceepak's plan. We spend the next hour with the last guy to communicate with Gail, then head back to the house to chat with the second-to-last guy. There's a pecking order to these things.

We pull into a municipal parking lot butting up to the boardwalk and have our pick of spaces, because, like I said, our seaside resort stays pretty sleepy until the end of June. We hike up a ramp that will have us hitting the boards pretty close to Pier Four, home to the brand-new Rolling Thunder. The tarry scent of creosote is almost strong enough to overpower the food odors sputtering out of the open-air concession stands. Almost. Italian sausage sandwiches with onions and peppers put up a pretty good stink fight.

“Looks like they are testing the electricals,” says Ceepak.

On the horizon, we're treated to a disco inferno of flashing colored lights. They must have all the bulbs on the Rolling Thunder synched up to a high-tech computer. They flicker, blink, strobe, and streak like chaser lights up and down the humps of the wooden scaffolding. Then they blast through a rainbow of color bursts. It's pretty awesome. Probably even more amazing when you're slightly buzzed. Trust me. My high school buddies and I could sit and stare at a blinking Ferris wheel for hours after chugging a few brewskis and smoking something I'd have to arrest myself for smoking these days.

“Hello, Samantha.” Ceepak sees her first.

“Hi, guys! You still on the clock?”

“Roger that.”

“Hey, Sam,” I say, kind of sheepishly, because a) her mother royally reamed me out a couple of hours ago, and b) she's with a group of six or seven other kids her own age. I say that because Samantha Starky is four years younger than me. The crowd looks like her college buddies.

“How's it going, Danny?”

I shrug. “We're, you know, following up on a couple things.”

“Cool.”

“Is this
the
Danny?” asks one of her girlfriends.

“Yep. Oh, shoot—I forgot. You've never met any of my friends from school, have you, Danny?”

Okay. I think that was a dig.

Three girls and two guys are clustered around Sam now, nibbling on fried candy bars, sizing me up. A third guy who just paid for his fried Twinkie joins them. He's wearing a Rutgers Law School sweatshirt and shorts. Go Scarlet Knights.

“You're Danny?” The way he says it, I think he was expecting someone bigger, more intimidating. “We've heard so much about you.”

“What is that thing, Richard?” Sam asks Sweatshirt Man with a flirty little giggle.

“Twinkie,” Richard says with a mouth full of sponge cake and cream. “I thinkie.”

The college kids laugh. They're into witty word play. Me and Ceepak? Fuhgeddaboutit.