We reach room 202.
Connie opens the door.
“Yo,” says the young guy jiggling air conditioner controls inside the room, over near the thick drapes. “This thing is like still making noises. This hotel sucks.” He’s dressed in flip-flops, baggy shorts and no shirt so he can show off his chiseled chest and gold chain collection. He kicks the thru-wall a-c unit. Sheet metal shakes. The condenser thrums awake. “Hey, Connie — what was all the hollerin’ about?”
“Mom gave me the freaking diamond! The Galuppi!”
“For real?”
She struts over, jiggles her hand in front of his face.
“Whoa. Awesome.”
“Totally.”
Now the droopy-eyed dude spies the two cops and one hotel manager clustered in the doorway.
“Wazzup, dudes?”
“Oh,” says Connie. “Somebody called the cops. Said we were making too much noise.”
“For real?”
Ceepak steps forward. “Sir?”
“Yo?”
“Are you Miss DePinna’s fiancée?”
“Yeah,” says Connie. “This is Billy. He gave me this other ring!”
Now she shows us her left hand.
Geezo man.
Looks like Billy needs to land a better job. Experts on these things say you should drop two months salary when purchasing your beloved’s engagement ring. Judging by the tiny chip of glass on Connie’s ring finger, Billy clears maybe a buck fifty every four weeks.
“Perhaps,” Ceepak continues, “you can convince Miss DePinna to safeguard her valuables downstairs in the hotel safe.”
Connie giggles. “I already told you, officer….”
Billy wraps his arm around Connie, clutches her at the hip. “Don’t worry. I won’t let the DePinna family jewels out of my sight.”
“It’s the Galuppi diamond,” says Connie. “From my mother’s mother.”
Billy shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Will you be staying in this room with Miss DePinna?” asks Ceepak.
Billy laughs. “I wish.”
“My parents are soooo Catholic,” says Connie, lowering her eyes, hoping none of us are nuns. “They don’t believe in, you know, pre-marital relationships.”
“So they stuck me all the way down in Room 211. Right next to their freaking room!”
Which means Billy will have to sneak past the parental units if he intends on violating their blessed virgin daughter during the family reunion.
“I can look after my own valuables,” says Connie. “I don’t need Billy or the Sea Haven Police Department or the motel safe. I’m not a baby.”
“No,” says Billy, “but you’re my baby, baby.” He tugs her closer. She giggles again. I’m ready to hurl.
“Very well,” says Ceepak, checking his wristwatch. “Come on, Danny. We have a summons to serve.”
“Roger that,” I say, because it’s what Ceepak always says so I decide I might as well say it, too.
Ceepak gives Miss DePinna a two-finger salute off the brim of his cap. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss DePinna. However, I hope we are not called back to meet you or your family again.”
“Don’t worry, officer. My sisters are just upset. They’ll get over it. Blood is thicker than water. At the end of the day, we’re family.”
Ceepak just nods.
Then he, Becca and I head for the staircase.
“Thanks you guys,” says Becca.
“If there is a further disturbance….”
“There won’t be. I promise. I told my parents I could handle running the motel on my own and I can! Oh, is, uh, Jim working tonight?”
“Officer James Riggs?” says Ceepak.
“Yeah.”
Big Jim Riggs is the resident body builder on the Sea Haven police force. I don’t think he does steroids, but he sure has the kind of muscles you usually only see popping up on the cop stripper at a bachelorette party, the guy who does the lewd limbo with his nightstick. Becca, long a fan of the muscular male physique, and Big Jim have been “dating” on and off for a couple months.
“He, uh, stopped by for coffee this morning.”
Right. Coffee.
“He, you know, forgot his baseball hat.”
Ceepak nods. “We’ll be happy to run it by the house as Officer Riggs will need the regulation cap to maintain his professional appearance and to be in full compliance with Chief Baines’ all-officer dress code.”
“Right,” Becca mumbles. “It’s in the office.”
“Roger that.”
We clomp down the metal steps, squeeze past a few bumpers in the parking lot, and step into the motel office. The walls are decorated with a stuffed fish, a couple paint-by-number oil paintings of lighthouses, and a window air conditioner jammed through the wall because Mr. Adkinson didn’t want to buy a three-prong extension cord and put it in a window.
“Are they leaving?” This from Mr. Sean Ryan, who is standing in front of the swirled-blue fake marble counter. Apparently, he didn’t stay in his room like Ceepak suggested. “Did you evict them?”
“No, sir,” says Ceepak.
“I told you, Mr. Ryan,” says Becca, “the DePinnas booked my whole second floor for a full two weeks. It’s why I needed your room.”
“Rest assured, however,” says Ceepak, “that we have asked the DePinna family to keep any future ‘family discussions’ down to a dull roar.”
“But….” Ryan sputters. “I read the rules!”
Ceepak cocks an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“In the frame on the back of the door. It says loud and abusive noises are prohibited. Boisterous activities too! It’s right there with public urination….”
“Look, Mr. Ryan,” says Becca, kind of steamed up at her guest because I think she still needs to take a few Hospitality classes at the community college, “we cut all our guests a little slack in the summer. Everybody’s here on vacation, right? Didn’t I accommodate you, even though you didn’t have a reservation? You were a walk in….”
Ryan exhales loudly. “Fine. But, if those people….”
“If they cause another public disturbance,” says Ceepak, “we will be back.”
Ryan nods. Shoves his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants. “Okay. Thanks.” And he shuffles out the door.
Becca hands me Big Jim Riggs’ cop cap (totally avoiding making eye contact on the pass-off).
“Thanks, Danny boy,” she mumbles.
“No problem,” I mutter back.
Then Ceepak and I head back to our Crown Vic cruiser.
We need to go ruin the ring toss boss’s night.
The week clicks by like normal.
We write up people doing 45 in a 20. That’s shorthand for speeding like a maniac through a residential street clogged with kids lining up behind the Skipper Dipper ice cream truck, the one with the annoying dinky-donka-ding-ding music.
We clean up a few fender benders and issue a ticket for defiant trespass (without laughing) to this guy at the Schooner’s Landing shopping complex who was wearing inappropriate attire: a woman’s bikini top, a pair of extremely short jogging shorts, and a very snazzy feathered pillbox hat. Kids were pointing. Grannies were having heart attacks.
At roll call on Wednesday, Chief Baines passes out an FBI JAG (Jewelry and Gem) bulletin about a YACS (Yugoslavia, Albania, Croatia, and Serbia) gang that’s been running “smash and grab” operations in the Philadelphia area, smashing out jewelry store windows, grabbing thousands of dollars worth of gold and gemstones.
Half our visitors every summer hail from Philly, so it’s conceivable a herd of YACS could head down the shore. Conceivable but not very likely. Which is good news for Connie DePinna: A couple YACS see that Galuppi Family rock, they might haul her home in a sack to Sarajevo (I only memorize the names of foreign cities where they’ve had Olympics).
Thursday, we have a day off. But that doesn’t stop Ceepak from ticketing a car he sees parked in front of a fire hydrant on his walk home from the gym.
I call Becca to see if she wants to grab a burger over at the Rusty Scupper.
“I can’t,” she says. “These DePinnas are driving me crazy, Danny!”