“Interesting,” he says.
The coarse grass is spread open, matted flat, and reaches a V-shaped point like a wedge was dragged across the weeds. A wedge or an aluminum fishing boat.
Ceepak hunkers down and holds his flashlight near his head. He looks like a coal miner digging for sand crabs. I see him snap open a pants pocket and pull out his magnifying glass.
“Danny, do you have the digital camera?”
“Sorry. It's in the Ford and I drove my own vehicle, because….”
“Roger.”
Ceepak examines something caught in the grass.
“Surfer bracelet,” he says.
“Purple and green?”
“Check.”
I remember it. “It's Ashley's.”
“You had no one back here?”
The chief is yelling at the state police, but Ceepak is the one hanging his head and staring at his shoes. He's taking this hard, like it's entirely his fault. Like he broke his promise and let Ashley down because he should have anticipated a sea-based attack.
I wouldn't have thought about it.
Who'd ever expect an angry junkie to be smart (and sober) enough to launch some kind of amphibious assault?
And why didn't Squeegee just kill the girl?
Or maybe he did and we just don't know it yet. Maybe he hid her body somewhere, buried it in the sand, dumped it in the ocean.
But if he was trying to get rid of the one witness who could place him at the scene of his earlier murder, why didn't he just shoot her the minute she dropped into the back yard? We know she was alone. The boyfriend didn't show until she was already gone.
So why aren't we doing another crime-scene analysis of Ashley Hart's bullet-riddled body?
Maybe somebody else grabbed the girl, not Squeegee. Somebody else wearing Timberland boots in July? Doubtful. But like Ceepak says, “it's a possibility.”
“We need to contact the FBI,” the chief says. “This guy's going to ask for money. It's a goddamn kidnapping.”
“That's one possibility.”
“You got a better theory?” the chief snaps.
“No, sir. Not yet.”
The chief sounds and looks pissed because, basically, he is. The last two things a tourist town like Sea Haven needs is a murderer and a child-snatcher running up and down the beach, because that sort of thing can really scare folks away, make them want to stay at home in their crime-stricken cities where they feel safe.
“I suspect,” the chief says, “that once our guy realized whom he shot this morning, he also realized he could ring the cash register a second time by grabbing the girl and scoring an even bigger payday.”
“That would explain why he didn't shoot Ashley this morning,” Ceepak says, helping the chief flesh out his theory.
“Right. Exactly. Good.” The chief seems happy that Ceepak is back on board. “He figured the girl was more valuable to him as a hostage held for ransom.”
“It's a possibility,” Ceepak says again, and the chief flashes him a look that makes my shoulders hunch up, like somebody's going to smack me. “A very distinct possibility.”
“Yeah.” The chief stares out at the sea. “Okay. Makes sense. I tell you one thing-this guy, Squeegee? He must be doing some very serious drugs. The kind that make you smart. Real smart.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It's all over the eleven-o'clock news.
“Authorities in Sea Haven have issued an Amber Alert for Harriet Ashley Hart, the twelve-year-old daughter of murdered billionaire Reginald Hart….”
They flash her picture. And her first name is Harriet? No wonder she calls herself Ashley.
“The young girl apparently witnessed her father's brutal murder earlier today. Now it appears she may have become the victim of foul play herself….”
Yep, folks-been a busy day down in beautiful Sea Haven. Murder. Abduction. Foul play aplenty. And you thought people came here to relax.
Up pops the police sketch of Squeegee. He looks plenty scary, with big blank eyes that don't give you any clue what the hell his whacked mind might be thinking. He looks like a skinnier version of Charles Manson, only without the swastika scratched into his forehead with a safety pin. Squeegee's scowl will probably give the folks watching at home all sorts of raw material for their nightmares tonight.
Now they're showing video footage taped earlier in the day. We see the mob of people in T-shirts and shorts, some licking ice-cream cones, outside the fence at Sunnyside Playland. Guess this was the thing to do on vacation today: Grab the kids, head on down to the closed-off crime scene, prop your boy up on your shoulders, and see if he can sneak a peek at the Tilt-A-Whirl where, as the TV reporter on the scene so colorfully puts it, “Reginald Hart's whirlwind life came spinning to a stop.”
“Danny?”
Ceepak motions for me to join him at what I guess is the wet bar.
We've set up a mobile command center inside the rec room, a big space right off the pool through sliding glass doors about twenty feet tall.
“Yes, sir?”
“Does this look like the bootprint we found behind the bushes this A.M.?” Ceepak shows me what looks like a smooshed dinner plate somebody stomped on while the clay was still wet, like the plaster handprint I made for my mom one Christmas that still hangs above the cabinets in her kitchen.
“Did this come from the beach?”
“Check. The State boys took a plaster cast of the bootprints we found in the sand.”
“It's a Timberland,” I try out. “Just like we found this morning.”
“Check. But remember-it's a very popular, very fashionable brand of boot. Lots of people wear them.”
Ceepak refuses to eliminate too many possibilities.
“Still,” he admits, “it's a link. A strong connector….”
Ashley's mother comes into the room. She looks like hell on toast. She sees all the police putting pins in maps and talking into hand-held radios. Then she sees Ceepak.
“Why aren't you out searching for her?”
Ceepak puts down the bootprint plaster. I hope Betty doesn't use it for an ashtray. She's smoking again and there are gray ash flecks dusting the front of her black sweater. Her face looks ashen too, like it's been gray and drizzling all day and there's more precipitation in the forecast for tomorrow.
“You said you'd protect her. When you raised your hand and made that vow? Ashley believed you. So did I.”
The chief comes up behind her and places his big beefy hand on her shoulder. She turns to look up at him. He towers about two feet above her blond head, but he's a gentle giant and his touch seems to comfort her.
“Ma’am, believe me-Officer Ceepak and all the other officers, in here and out in the field, will do everything they can to find your daughter. We're sorting through clues and organizing a massive search-and-rescue operation. We've called in the Coast Guard, the Rescue Dogs. We're setting up roadblocks, sending out a call for volunteers to assist in the search….”
The woman nods her head. She understands.
“Thank you. It's just that….” She takes a deep breath. “I'm afraid.”
“Just let us do our jobs? Please?”
She hesitates, then pulls herself together. “Of course, Chief. Of course.”
They both nod their heads. The chief steps away. She turns to Ceepak.
“Ashley really liked you.”
“Don't worry. We'll find her.”
She turns to go back to her bedroom and cry some more, when one of the State Crime Scene Investigators comes over carrying a small Dell computer.
“Excuse me, ma'am?”
She slowly turns around.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to bother you with this….”
“Will it find my daughter?”
“It could.”
“All right.”
“We've been working on your ex-husband's laptop. Trying to access his calendar, address book. See who he might have had recent contact with….”
Betty closes her eyes for a second, like she needs to collect her thoughts to keep from screaming at this cop for worrying about a computer when he should be outside, finding her little girl.