“You really think this will help you locate Ashley?”
“Like I said, it could.”
The chief now marches back to her side, looking every bit the big-hearted commander.
“We think the murder and the disappearance are linked,” he says, using his confident coach voice-the one that tells you he knows exactly what play to call to win the game in the final five seconds. “So we really need your help.”
“Of course.” She gives him a tense smile.
“Any idea what his security code might be?” the crime scene guy asks. “It might help us crack into his database faster….”
“BUSTER,” she says.
“Ma'am?”
“Buster was his dog when he was a boy. B-U-S-T-E-R is his security code for everything. ATM card, E-mail … everything.”
“Thanks.” The guy with the laptop plops down on a sofa and starts tapping keys.
“Thank you,” the chief echoes softly.
“You're welcome. I think I'm going to lie down now. The doctor gave me some pills … I'm starting to feel a little groggy….”
“Good. Sleep is good.”
“Officer Ceepak?”
“Yes, ma'am?”
She steadies herself, wanting to say whatever it is she needs to say before her brain closes up shop for the day.
“You made a very special connection with my daughter today. Somehow, I think she needs you more than all these others. She put her trust in you … told me you were her protector, her special champion.”
Poor Ceepak. He's being pegged as Ashley's only hope, her knight in shining armor.
He nods. I guess he sees himself the same way. The Code? It'll do that to you.
“I'll find her,” Ceepak whispers. No “we” any more. This is personal. “I give you my word.”
“Thank you.”
Betty leaves the room, her five-day forecast looking extremely gloomy, indeed.
“Ceepak?” It's the chief.
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you and Danny on the morning shift.”
“Fine. We'll work straight through….”
“No. You need to go home and grab some sleep. Now. Both of you. I want you fresh and at your best tomorrow morning when we'll probably have more substantial leads.”
“Roger.” Ceepak, as always, recognizes an order when he's given one.
“Anybody know a Virgilio Mendez?” the guy working with the laptop asks the room.
“Mendez?” The chief moves to the couch to look over the guy's shoulder.
I think I've heard of him. Isn't that the guy Becca mentioned back at The Sand Bar? The Latino Soprano with the tattoos. But I'm sort of out of my league in this room so I stay quiet, let the big dogs bark first.
“Hart met with Mendez on Friday. Noon. Place called The Lobster Trap. He had another meeting scheduled with him tomorrow. 10 A.M. Chesterfield's.”
“Swankiest dining room in town,” the chief says.
I nod. I've never actually been inside Chesterfield's. It's this three-story gingerbread Victorian painted purple and pink that hired a fancy chef from the city for its kitchen. That's why the scrambled eggs cost like twenty bucks.
“So who is this Mendez?” Ceepak asks.
The chief's on top of it. “Dominican. Works for the top boys in Ocean Town. Connected to the casinos….”
“What's his relationship to Mr. Hart?” Ceepak asks.
“I don't know,” the chief says.
“I do.”
When nobody was looking, our New York lady lawyer had slipped into the room.
Cynthia Stone is standing there, doing that thing with her hands on her hips and her chest all pushed forward. She reminds me of this bird I saw once on a National Geographic special, always puffing up its breast, trying to scare everyone else away from the worm it wants.
“Mr. Mendez has, in the past, done some work for Hart Enterprises as a real estate expediter,” she says.
“Expediter?” the chief groans. He doesn't like words like expediter.
“He handled certain matters for us. However, that calendar is incorrect. All scheduled meetings with Mr. Mendez were subsequently cancelled.”
“Ms. Stone?” the chief says. “That's your name, right?”
“Correct.”
The chief moves real slow so she can see what a big, scary man he is. But she isn't buying into it. She stands there just like her name: rock solid-a concrete saint in a cement birdbath.
“Thank you for the information,” the chief says, leaning in so he's about six inches from her face. If she wanted to, she could count the pores on his nose. “Now, I must ask you to leave. As you may know, Ashley Hart is missing….”
The woman doesn't flinch.
“Yes.”
“We are very goddamn busy here and I don't see how any of this is any of your business-”
“That's where you are wrong. It is my business. In fact, as a corporate officer, I have a fiduciary responsibility to-”
“You have a what?”
“Fiduciary responsibility.”
“Oh? Really? Paint me a picture.”
“Certainly,” she says. “Reginald Hart's will specifies a single beneficiary. His daughter.”
“So?”
“So as of 7:15 A.M., the time of death pronounced by the Ocean County Medical Examiner, Harriet Ashley Hart inherited everything her father owned. Your missing person? She is also my new chairman and CEO. Ashley owns Hart Enterprises.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Suddenly, Squeegee-or whoever grabbed Harriet Ashley Hart-looks like a genius. He's nabbed himself a kid who just inherited several billion bucks.
I know what Ceepak is thinking: Squeegee isn't the only one who'd be interested in that kind of dough. Anybody who knew about the will is suddenly one of his “distinct possibilities.”
We're out the front door and heading up the road to where I parked. All the good spots were already taken when I got here.
When we're about two hundred yards away from the house I let Ceepak know what I think I know.
“Ceepak?”
“Yes, Danny?”
“I think this Mendez guy is still in town.”
“How so? Gut feeling?”
“No. This friend of mine? Becca Adkinson? She works the front desk at her family's motel … The Mussel Beach Motel.”
“Mussel Beach?”
“Like, you know-the seafood?”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Becca said she saw these tough guys hanging around the pool all day.”
“Tough guys?”
“Yeah. You know-tats everywhere. Muscles. Scars.” I add the scars part because I think it makes the story a little better and besides I bet at least one of them had a scar-somewhere. “She thought they were a gang or something.”
“I see. And what makes you think one of these gentlemen is our Virgilio Mendez?”
“He was her favorite.”
“Excuse me?”
“Becca liked Mendez's tattoos best. I think they, you know, talked about them. Anyhow, she mentioned his name….”
Ceepak stops walking.
“Good work,” he says, sounding proud.
“Thanks. So why would Ms. Stone insist Hart's calendar was wrong? That all meetings with Mendez had been cancelled? We know he's in town….”
“Perhaps Mr. Mendez knows some things Ms. Stone would rather we did not.”
“You think?”
“It's a possibility.” He winks, letting me know he's saying it for the ten millionth time on purpose. “Excellent work, Danny. Awesome intelligence.”
“So-what do we do? Go back in and bust Ms. Stone?”
“This motel? The Mussel Beach? Do you know where it is?”
“Sure.”
“I'd like to head over there right now. However, the chief ordered us to stand down for the evening.”
“So?”
“We'll contact your friend.”
“Becca.”
“Ask her to ascertain whether Mr. Mendez is still a registered guest.”
“Then what? She can't bust him or anything. Not unless he pulls a tag off a mattress or something….”
“We'll ask Officer Kiger to keep an eye on the motel during his overnight shift. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we'll swing by the motel ourselves, have an early-morning chat with Mr. Mendez.”