Chris Grabenstein - Fun House

“That, of course, is your right,” says Ceepak. “However-”

“Don’t try to strongarm me! I need to consult with an attorney.”

“Would you like some privacy for your phone call?”

“What? You think I have a death wish? Suppose you two leave and this crazed killer bursts through that door to finish what he started? I’m unarmed here!”

He’s also extremely paranoid, but I guess Abraham Lincoln would’ve been paranoid too, if John Wilkes Booth had missed. So we babysit him while he calls his lawyer.

Ceepak and I both cringe when we hear his lawyer’s name: Louis “I Never Lose” Rambowski, the same creep hired by the O’Malleys earlier this summer when we were working the Rolling Thunder case. Every cop in the SHPD (and most of New Jersey) knows and despises Rambowski, ever since he helped a thug up in Newark waltz out the door by convincing the jury that it was a dead cop’s own fault he got shot in the back of his head.

Today, it turns out, Rambowski is working out of his New York City office and needs to finish up “a few things.” He’ll have his driver whisk him down to Sea Haven ASAP, probably around four. At the start of rush hour. When the Lincoln and Holland tunnels are so clogged with cars, they need Drāno.

This means we don’t expect to hear any more from Martin Mandrake until 7, maybe 7:30 P.M.

We leave him in the interview room. He asks for an armed guard. Ceepak promises he will lock the door and “take personal responsibility for the key.” That means he’s going to slip it into one of his cargo pants pockets.

“Is he talking?” this from Special Agent Christopher Miller, FBI, who’s hovering in the corridor outside the Interview Room. So are about six other serious-looking individuals-male and female-dressed in suits, sunglasses, and Secret Service-style earpieces with wires resembling see-through pigtails. All six plus Miller are sporting suspicious bulges beneath the breast pockets of their natty jackets.

They’ve all got sidearms in shoulder holsters.

“He wants his lawyer,” says Ceepak.

Miller nods. “Probably wants to cut a deal.”

“If he gives up Bobby Lombardo, he might just get one,” says a woman with a severe haircut (like she does it herself with a pair of orange-handled knitting scissors) and a serious scowl.

“John, Danny,” says Miller, “this is Lisa Bonner. Works with the New Jersey State Police Organized Crime Unit. These other folks are with me. And we’re expecting more guests any minute.”

“Such as?” asks Ceepak.

“Some friends of mine from our Organized Crime Task Force, as well as a few folks from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Everybody wants Bobby Lombardo to go away, big-time.”

And I thought all these nice people in suits were here to help us catch the hired killer on his motor scooter.

“I suggest you all make yourselves as comfortable as possible,” says Ceepak. “Coffee and soft drinks are available in the break room. We do not expect Mr. Mandrake’s lawyer to arrive for another three hours. Check back with me at 1900 hours for an update.”

Ceepak makes like he’s ready to leave. Ms. Bonner raises a hand.

“Maybe we could just go in there and have a friendly chat with Mr. Mandrake?” she says, cracking what I think she thinks is a smile.

“No, ma’am,” says Ceepak. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Officer, we suspect that Mr. Mandrake can directly link Bobby Lombardo to your two homicides. We need to talk to him. Sooner, not later.”

“I understand your frustration,” says Ceepak. “However, Mr. Mandrake has requested that an attorney be present during questioning. We must respect his rights.”

“Says who?”

“Let’s go grab a cup of that coffee,” says Special Agent Miller, putting his big hand at the small of Ms. Bonner’s back to guide her down the hall. “It still as bad as I remember, Boyle?”

“Worse,” I say. “Now we’re burning hazelnut-flavored beans.”

Miller chuckles a little and leads the disappointed suits away from the Interview Room.

Ceepak head-gestures to the left. We take a side door that opens into the parking lot.

“Let’s head over to the municipal garage,” says Ceepak, “check in with Bill Botzong and the CSI team.”

“They’re going to cut Mandrake a deal, aren’t they?”

“Perhaps, Danny. However, that does not give us permission to abandon our investigation before we have gathered all the evidence we can.”

And the MCU people have some for us.

Ceepak and I leave the sunshine for the darkness of the municipal garage where, once my eyes adjust, I see Marty Mandrake’s sporty convertible parked next to the Sanitation Department’s sand sweeper. Bill Botzong is with Detective Wilson over at a workbench, where they look like lab partners huddled around a microscope.

“What have we learned, Bill?” asks Ceepak.

“Plenty. Jeanne?”

The ballistics expert looks up from the microscope’s eyepiece. The rubber ring at the top of the tube has given her a red circle around her eye.

“We found a casing in the street and pulled a.45 ACP slug out of the interior panel,” she says, “right above the door handle, suggesting, as we said earlier, that our shooter took approximately the same downward firing angle as that used to take out your first victim, Mr. Braciole.”

“But wait,” says Botzong, in his best late-night TV voice, “there’s more.”

Detective Wilson nods toward her laptop. “I did a preliminary match with our ballistic fingerprinting database. Now, I can’t give you the serial number of the weapon we’re looking for …”

“But?” I say.

“… but it looks pretty consistent with what we’ve seen on ammunition fired from the Heckler amp; Koch USP Compact Tactical.”

Suddenly, Ceepak looks kind of green around the gills.

“As you know,” Botzong says to Ceepak, “H amp;K developed the Universale Selbstlade Pistole, or ‘universal self-loading pistol,’ as a semi-automatic sidearm for the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Offensive Handgun Weapon System program.”

Ceepak nods. “The hired hit man may be former military.”

“Yeah,” says Botzong. “Special Forces. Navy SEALS. Delta Force. Green Berets.”

Great. We’re up against every character ever played by Steven Seagal.

“Plus,” says Botzong, “the Compact Tactical gives the shooter the features of the full-size USP USP45.”

“Such as the mechanical recoil reduction system,” adds Wilson. “But in a smaller, more concealable package.”

“Facilitating the assassination technique you described to us earlier,” Ceepak says to Wilson.

“Yeah. Your bad guy could hide this thing in a zippered pocket of his racing suit.”

At four, Gus Davis and the SHPD officers running security up on Pier Two start letting lucky locals pass through the metal detectors to be the “live audience” for tonight’s “Fun House Finale.”

Around six-thirty, we pick up another piece of evidence.

Gladys has found a motorcycle parked behind her restaurant when she dragged a bushel of rotting bok choy out the back door: a Harley, up on its kickstand and blocking the sliding door to her compost bin.

When nobody in her dining room claimed the motorcycle, Gladys called 9-1-1 so we’d come tow it away. Bill Botzong and his CSI crew borrowed a flatbed wrecker from my buddy George Hansen over at Undertow Towing and hauled the hog back to the municipal garage.

Every VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) on it has been filed down, even the hidden ones.

“We are dealing with dedicated professionals,” says Ceepak. “They, obviously, tracked Mr. Mandrake’s movements. Knew he frequented Veggin’ On The Beach. It would not surprise me if the shooter-tipped off by his accomplice surveilling activity up at the boardwalk-knew that Mandrake had exited the Green Zone. The gunman then parked behind the restaurant. While Mandrake was inside eating, the shooter strolled over to Shore Drive and took up his position at the intersection with the stop sign.”