Chris Grabenstein - Rolling Thunder

“Is my father a suspect in Gail’s murder, now?”

“He will be on our radar.”

“You guys might want to talk to Aunt Frances. My mom’s sister. Frances Ryan. She’s still in town. I bet she’d know if my mom thought Dad was cheating on her with Gail or some other girl. They talked about everything.”

I remember Aunt Frances from the funeral, snapping at the white-haired woman in the pew behind her, “She was our sister before she was his goddamn wife!”

Why do I have a feeling that Aunt Frances thinks about as much of Paddy O’Malley as Mrs. Starky thinks of me?

“Do you know where she is staying?” asks Ceepak.

“Over at the Atkinsons’ motel. The Mussel Beach.”

“And she’ll be there tomorrow?”

Skip nods. “Yeah. All day. I’m taking her up to Newark Airport first thing Sunday morning.”

“Thank you, Skip.”

“I guess I still have a little detective in me.”

“Indeed,” says Ceepak. “I’m just sorry that your private investigation has, perhaps, exposed some ugly truths about your family.”

“That’s okay. My dad and I aren’t that close. But I guess you know what that’s like.”

Ceepak gives Skip one of his confused-bird looks. His big jarhead tilts ever so slightly to the right. He does this when somebody says something he wasn’t expecting-or something extremely rude.

“Well, I better get back to work,” says Skippy.

“Us, too,” says Ceepak.

“Right. Okay. Thanks for swinging by.”

“Thanks for sharing your evidence with us.”

Skippy thrusts out his hand. Ceepak takes it. Gives it a good shake.

Skippy beams.

Man-he so wants to prove to us that he could be a good cop. Well, he wants to prove it to Ceepak. I’m just always standing next to the big man in blue.

“Oh, one more thing, Skip,” says Ceepak, reaching into his shirt pocket, pulling out that folded-over check. “My stepson and his friends will be visiting your golf course tomorrow morning. I believe they will be a party of six.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Skippy. “It’s on the house.”

“No. I insist on paying.”

“And I insist on not taking your money.”

“Skippy?”

“Sir?”

“I believe the Chiefs of Police Code of Ethics says it best: ‘I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and … never accepting gratuities.’”

Skippy nods.

“It’s forty-eight bucks for six of them,” he says, sounding like one of the nuns back in grade school just read him the riot act, only this time it was Sister Ceepak.

Ceepak writes him a check. Skippy takes it, heads back to his pyramid to hand kids their balls. Sorry. Whenever I think about Skippy’s job, I can’t not go there.

The radios squeal on our belts.

“Unit A-twelve? Unit A-twelve?

“I got it,” I say, grabbing my mobile unit off my belt. “This is Officer Boyle.”

“Be advised, Lieutenant William Botzong, the acting unit supervisor of the MCU detectives, would like to talk to youse two.”

Our new dispatcher. Dorian Rence. She tries to talk like an episode of Law and Order , but every now and then, a Joiseyism slips in.

“Be best to field the call on a land line,” says Ceepak.

“We’ll head back to the house,” I say into my radio and get a head nod from Ceepak for saying the right thing. “We can be there in five.”

“Ten-four,” says Dorian. “I will advise Detective Botzong as to your disposition and whereabouts.”

“Thanks.” I clip the radio back to my belt.

“Let’s roll,” says Ceepak. “Sounds like Detective Botzong has new information to share.”

Yeah. With “us twose.”

“I’m going through the call data now,” says Denise Diego when Ceepak and I hit the house. “Should have something to show you guys in ten, twenty minutes.”

She’s at the vending machine. Refilling her Doritos stash. Fueling up on Red Bull.

“Thanks,” says Ceepak. “Would you like a soft drink, Danny?”

“Sure.”

We grab a couple of cold Cokes.

“So what do you think of Skippy’s evidence?” I ask.

“Extremely circumstantial,” says Ceepak. “I would imagine that many of the male patrons of The Rusty Scupper have asked Ms. Baker to pose with them. I am given to understand that the same sort of snapshots are often taken at Hooters.”

True. I have two of those and one of Gail. I keep them hidden in a shoebox up in my closet.

“Skippy used to date Gail,” I say.

“Indeed. I recall he was quite infatuated with her.”

Yeah. That’s who he was gabbing with when he was a summer cop and Ceepak yanked the phone out of his ear.

“So, why does he want us to think his father was having an affair with Gail Baker?” I ask.

“Because he and his father have ‘issues.’ I fear he is attempting to take advantage of Ms. Baker’s death for his own purposes.”

Wow. Not cool, Skip. Not cool.

I follow Ceepak into the dispatcher room where Mrs. Rence sits at a wraparound desk cluttered with computer monitors, punch-button consoles, and three-ring binders filled with police codes and emergency protocols.

“Welcome back, boys,” she says when she sees us. “Detective Botzong will call at eighteen fifteen hours.”

I smile. Mrs. Rence, who is what they call an empty nester, took this civilian job when her last kid shipped off to college. She’s only been with us a couple of months but has already learned how to use the military time clock. I think Ceepak gave her lessons.

“Shall I put the call in the conference room when it comes through?” she asks.

“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “And Dorian?”

“Yes, John?”

“We call it the interview room.”

“Really?”

“Ten-four.”

“Sorry. Too many years working for the electric company.”

“It’s all good,” says Ceepak.

Mrs. Rence (we all call her that because, well, she looks like someone’s mom) opens a little wire-bound notebook. Jots down “Interview Room” under a list of other terms: Dee Wee (driving while intoxicated), the house (the stationhouse, where we are now), Loo (slang for “Lieutenant” that cops actually like).

“Dorian,” says Ceepak, “do you know how we can get in touch with Sergeant Dominic Santucci?”

“He clocked out at fifteen hundred hours,” she reports. “He’ll probably be working his side job tonight.”

Side job? I thought he was going home to catch the Yankees.

Mrs. Rence flips through a purple binder where she has everything organized inside plastic flaps. I think she might be a scrapbooker on weekends.

“Here’s his card. ‘Italian Stallion Security.’ This business number here is really just his cell phone.”

Ceepak jots the number down.

“Thank you, Dorian. And thank you for not only learning your job so quickly but for doing it so well.”

“You trying to butter me up so I’ll bring in another loaf of pumpkin bread?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughs. “I’ve got work to do here. So ten-whatever, youse two.”

We set up shop in the interview room, which is really just a room with a long table, a one-way mirror, a couple of chairs and a speakerphone. It’s also where we store the Christmas lights in the off-season, which, in certain parts of New Jersey, means you take ’em down at Easter, put ’em back up after Halloween.

The phone burps. Ceepak punches the speaker button.

“This is Ceepak.”

“I have Detective Botzong for you. Please hold.”

We do. We sit and stare at the phone like it’s a dog we expect to roll over or something.