“The Sea Palace?”
“Yeah. Old hotel up on the North Shore we be renovating. Gonna turn the rooms into condos, vacation-type time-share units and all.”
Ceepak flips the brochure over and studies its back.
“Awesome location. Nice beach.”
“Yeah, yeah. Check it out.”
I can't believe this guy. He's talking about a disaster zone. There's nothing up at the north end of the island except an abandoned lighthouse and a rundown resort hotel no one (except rodents and sea gulls) has stayed in for sixty years.
Now, once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and railroads hauled bathing beauties in wool swim trunks over from the mainland, The Palace was a hot spot because the North Shore was where the train tracks terminated. The Palace was one of those huge hotels built around 1912, when people spent a month or two at the shore because the cities were sweltering and air conditioning hadn't been invented. William Howard Taft was president. I only remember this stuff because Taft was the fattest president ever elected, weighing in at 350 pounds, and he stayed at The Palace when it first opened. In fact, you can still buy black-and-white post cards of Taft squeezed into his bathing suit, one of those numbers with a top and a bottom and lots of horizontal stripes. The guy might've been president, but he sure looked like a fully inflated beach ball.
There's nothing left of The Palace Hotel now but three hundred ratty rooms nobody's known what to do with since 1942. The last I heard….
“Hart bought The Palace.”
“Come again?” Ceepak says.
“It was in The Sandpaper,” I say. “Couple years back. Front-page story. Reggie Hart was going to turn the old hotel into a luxury condo complex….”
Ceepak casually flips the brochure over and studies a small logo near the bottom of the back panel.
“Hart Enterprises….”
“Yo-them's the former brochures. Old man Hart couldn't cut it, you know what I'm saying? He sold that sucker to me. Ten cents on the dollar. I'm the one be putting in jacuzzis, whirlpools, fitness center, sushi bar….”
“All that's what Hart was going to do,” I say.
Mendez glowers at me.
Ceepak tucks the brochure into his back pocket.
“You know,” he says, “I once toured a time-share unit in North Carolina.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Your project intrigues me.”
“Smart man.”
“So when will your condos be offered for sale?”
“We be working out the final details and all right now. Soon.”
“Good. Ms. Stone certainly knows her way around a real estate deal.”
“Yeah. She's worth the big bucks I'm paying her.”
Ceepak is good. He just linked Mendez to Ms. Stone in two seconds flat.
“Well, we don't mean to delay you any further, but”-Ceepak unfolds his sketch of Squeegee-“can I ask you one more question?” Mendez waits.
“We're asking all the leading businessmen in town the same thing….”
“Yeah,” Mendez nods, happy to be included.
“Do you recognize this man?”
“Nah-uh.”
“You’re certain?”
“Don't know him.”
“Perhaps he's applied for a position with your firm?”
“Nah-uh.”
“Maybe he's done some day labor for you or your associates?”
“Nah-uh.”
“Have you ever seen him around town?” This could take hours.
“Car wash.”
“The car wash?”
“Yeah.”
“Which one?”
“Off Ocean Avenue there. Cap'n Crunch's?”
“Cap'n Scrubby's?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you,” Ceepak says and folds up the sketch.
Mendez checks his watch. It looks like a huge chrome-rimmed hubcap.
“Damn. Got me a breakfast meeting with my lawyer….”
“Chesterfield's?” I say, employing the ol’ Ceepak “slip it in” move.
“Yeah-you ever eat breakfast there, son?”
“No.”
“Didn't figure you did.” He goes to his clothes pile and reaches for his shirt and his jeans.
That's when we see them.
Buried under everything else.
His Timberland boots.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You saw those boots, right?”
“Affirmative,” Ceepak says. “Remember, Timberland is a very popular brand.”
We're sitting in the Ford out front of The Mussel Beach Motel, sipping coffee Becca was kind enough to pour in go-cups for us when we said our good-byes.
“Do you think?”
“That Virgilio Mendez killed Reginald Hart to get his hands on the Palace Hotel and who knows what other real-estate assets?”
I nod.
“It's a possibility.”
“But Ashley described Squeegee. Maybe Mendez and Squeegee worked together….”
“Another possibility.”
“So how do we dump some of these goddamn possibilities?” I usually don't swear in front of Ceepak, but my brain was hurting trying to make sense of all this stuff.
“We keep working the puzzle. Picking up pieces, fitting them into place.”
“Okay-Ms. Stone. What's she up to? Double-crossing her boss? It sure looked like she and Hart might have been, you know, romantic. So how come she's suddenly got Mendez as a client?”
Ceepak doesn't answer.
“What time does the car wash open?”
“Ten. Maybe eleven.”
“Drat.” Now even Ceepak's swearing-or as close as he ever gets. It's not even nine A.M. yet. The puzzle pieces aren't cooperating. “We need to talk to people at Captain Bubbles. ASAP.”
“Cap'n Scrubby's.”
He nods.
The car wash is where two people place Squeegee. First, Officer Adam Kiger. Now, respected real-estate tycoon Virgilio Mendez.
“Some of the other employees, particularly the other transients, these towel men, they might know where Squeegee lives or where he goes when he means to disappear….”
“We could grab some breakfast or something … kill a half an hour.”
Ceepak looks at me like I'm crazy. Breakfast? What's that? I don't think we'll be eating again until Ashley Hart is safe.
Our radio squelches.
“Ceepak? Goddammit, Ceepak?” It's the chief.
Ceepak picks up the mike.
“Yes, sir?”
“We just heard from the State Ballistics Team.”
“And?”
“They made a match.”
“Nine-millimeter?”
“Yeah.”
Ceepak nods. It's what he figured.
“So now we know what we're looking for?”
“Yeah,” the chief grumbles. “Goddamn Smith amp; Wesson. Semiautomatic. One of ours.”
“Come again?”
“It's one of ours! Goddammit-it's Gus's goddamn gun. Get your asses over here! Now. Move it!” Cap'n Scrubby will have to wait.
“He lost it,” the chief says.
“He lost it?” Ceepak's jaw is halfway down his neck.
We're in the chief's office. Gus is outside in the hall, waiting. When we passed him, he looked whiter than a fish belly, like he'd just seen his own ghost-probably because he knows the chief is about to kill him.
I always thought they took Gus's gun away from him when he went on desk duty. Now it looks like he went on desk duty because he was careless with his sidearm. They demoted him for being a fuckup.
“How does an officer lose his lethal weapon?” Ceepak refuses to believe such things are possible.
“Last winter? Gus was sitting in his squad car and his belt was hanging so loose on his bony butt, the gun kept sliding up, pinching him in the side….”
Ceepak closes his eyes. I don't think he wants to live in a world where cops take off their pistols because they rub them the wrong way.
“Gus?” The chief screams at the door. “Get your ass in here!”
Gus sort of shuffles into the room, afraid to look the chief, Ceepak, or even lowly me in the eye.
“Yes, sir?” I've never heard Gus sound so meek, like a kid in the principal's office. Usually he's ready to bust your chops the minute you waltz through the front doors.