He, of course, is right.
It's why the side panels next to the urinals in The Pancake Palace show rust marks spreading out like a cheese wedge. The pee hits the pot, some splashes out sideways, hits the metal wall like radiating sunbeams. If everyone turned around and peed directly against the divider, the floor would be wet and the whole wall would be rusty.
“And the time frame….” Ceepak is shaking his head in the way that means he's kicking himself for not seeing something sooner. I'm starting to know his headshakes.
“I concentrated on how her mother was able to walk from the bank to the Tilt-A-Whirl so quickly. The question I should have asked? What took so long? Why did it take over half an hour for Ashley to run into the road seeking assistance?”
“She was waiting for something,” Jane says from the back seat. “Or someone. Someone to tell her what to do next.”
“It's a possibility,” Ceepak says, tucking the photos back into their envelope. “She was also waiting for us. To be in position at The Pancake Palace. And then, we helped her destroy the most incriminating evidence.”
“I cleaned up her face and hands,” I say. “In the fudge shop. I grabbed towels and wiped away any trace of gunpowder with all that hydrogen peroxide.”
“I bought her a new dress,” Jane adds. “Threw the bloody one away. Helped her in the shower….”
“I fell for it,” Ceepak says, summing up the offense I guess we're all most guilty of.
399 Third Avenue. Pretty swanky address. Not the nicest apartment building in the city, but none too shabby. It looks sort of new, so it's probably wired for high-speed Internet, but the apartments will be cramped white boxes with tiny bedrooms and very few closets.
I see a plumbing van parked across the street. I figure that's the FBI. They just radioed us: Betty and Ashley are upstairs. The feds have been extremely decent about jurisdiction and turf wars. I think Morgan wants Ceepak to bust the bad guys because he saw how the bad guys tried to bust Ceepak.
We enter the lobby of the high-rise and show the doorman our badges. He lets us in without buzzing the tenants upstairs first, because that's what Ceepak tells him to do.
We take the elevator. My ears pop.
Usually I'm totally psyched when I visit the city. Usually we come to have some fun.
Not today.
“Officer Ceepak. What a pleasant surprise.”
Betty Bell Hart greets us at the front door. I forgot what a good actress she is. She's dressed in a soft, bright yellow jogging suit-the kind nobody ever sweats in.
“We need to talk to you,” Ceepak says. “You and Ashley.”
“I really wish you would've telephoned first. We're rather busy at the moment….”
“Packing?”
“No. We're planning a funeral. Reginald's family is flying in on Wednesday.”
Ceepak moves into the living room.
“Let me call Chief Cosgrove,” says Betty.
“You can't. He's been detained.”
“Really? This wrongful death business? Isn't that your problem, Officer Ceepak?”
“The chief's caught up in it too.”
“I see.”
The apartment feels sunny. Betty, the retired meteorologist, has happy-face suns-clay, plastic, porcelain, Mexican-sitting on top of everything. The walls are cluttered with framed photos of her shaking hands with all the celebrities who waltzed through the Channel Five newsroom while she was Queen of the Small Screen, which is what the local TV Times magazine called her on its cover once. It's framed, hanging right next to the one of Betty hugging an astronaut-or somebody famous with really short hair.
There are no pictures of Ashley anywhere.
“Where's Ashley?” Ceepak asks. He's not looking for photos. He wants to see the girl he now knows shot Reginald Hart.
“In her room.”
“This way?” Ceepak starts down the central hall.
“Yes, but Mr. Ceepak….”
“I want to see her collection,” Ceepak says.
“What collection?”
“The turtles? Remember?”
Betty looks like a newscaster who can't read her cue cards in the middle of a live broadcast. I see her mental wheels spinning, the gears grinding.
“Oh,” she says, “we got rid of those.”
“Really?” Ceepak is sticking his head into doors, looking at orange towels on the bathroom floor and dirty yellow dishes in the kitchen sink. “When'd you do that?”
“Last month.”
“Who'd you give them to?”
“I'm not certain. Some charitable organization. Salvation Army. Goodwill. One of those. The doorman arranged it….”
Ceepak digs his notebook out of his front pants pocket. “How about that turtle wallpaper?”
“Excuse me?”
“The wallpaper you had ‘custom-made in Milan’?” he says, reading from his notes. “Did you rip that down and donate it, too?”
“No, of course not,” she says, cool as a cucumber somebody popped in the freezer. “We painted over the wallpaper last fall.”
“Uhm-hmmm.”
Ceepak sees a door with a sparkly gold star surrounded by stickers of unicorns and cats and Disney princesses.
No turtles.
“She really isn't feeling well,” Betty says. “This whole ordeal has finally taken its toll….”
Ceepak knocks.
“Really, Officer Ceepak….”
Ashley opens the door.
She's wearing the same bright yellow jogging suit her mother has on, only smaller.
She smiles, like she's delighted to see an old friend.
“Hello, Mr. Ceepak.”
“Hello, Ashley.”
“Thank you for doing your duty. Thank you for shooting Squeegee for us.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Ashley? Be still!”
“Yes, Mother.”
Ashley's hands instinctively go up to her head to block the blows that don't come. Not this time.
Ashley retreats to her bed, afraid to look anybody in the eye.
“I'm sorry, Mommy.”
“Be quiet.”
Ceepak pivots so he's facing Betty Bell Hart.
“I wonder if you'd leave us alone for a few minutes.”
The woman rubs her hands together nervously like she's washing them with air.
“Chief Cosgrove told me you shot the homeless man. That you killed him.”
When Ceepak does not reply, she takes this as an admission of guilt.
“Shall I call Robert? See how that's going for you? I'm sure you acted in self-defense….”
“As I stated earlier, the chief has been unexpectedly detained.”
“Is it the FBI? Are they involved?”
“Yes, ma'am. I guess you could say they are.”
“I'm so sorry. For you. Your reputation. Your family….” She shakes her head, as if in sad sympathy.
“I need to speak with Ashley,” Ceepak says. “Alone.”
This seems to irritate Betty.
“I don't mind, Mommy….”
Betty puts a rigid finger to her lips. A silent warning.
“But I like Mr. Ceepak.”
“No!” Betty's neck tightens. She glares at her daughter.
“He's nice, Mommy….”
And Betty's nice and mad. In fact, all of a sudden, she's trembling mad. Her pancake makeup is cracking. Near her eyes I can see jagged lines that look like those high-pressure systems she used to draw on weather maps.
“Ma’ am….” Ceepak begins.
Betty cuts him off.
“What do you want? No. Don't tell me. I see it in your eyes. You men all want the same thing. You can't wait to be alone with my beautiful little girl, can you? Alone in her bedroom.”
“Miss Bell, I assure you….”
“Well, I won't let you. I am Ashley's guardian!”
“I know that, ma'am.”
“But do you know what that means? I have to protect her. From men. Men like you!” Her voice is shrill, like steel wheels screeching to a stop.
Ceepak moves a step closer. He practically whispers.
“Ma’am-is someone molesting your daughter?”
She stares into Ceepak's eyes.
Then she smiles.