Chris Grabenstein - Rolling Thunder

“That’s what the trip to Buffalo was all about,” Mr. O’Malley confesses, looking down at his hands.

Frances Ryan laughs. “That night before the funeral, oh I reamed Big Paddy but good. Screamed like a banshee at him. We got so loud, we woke up the motel management. Lovely young lady named Rebecca came out in her bathrobe, told me to, and I quote, ‘shut my trap.’ Said I’d wake the dead, not to mention all their paying guests.”

“The motel manager is a friend of ours,” I say. “We’ll ask her to corroborate your story.”

“Oh, she’ll corroborate it all right,” says Frances. “I don’t think Ms. Rebecca will soon forget Paddy O’Malley and me.”

“I drove home around four in the morning,” says Big Paddy.

“After I made him a pot of coffee in my motel room. He was drunker than a skunk in a barrel of rum.”

“And why,” asks Ceepak, “did you wait until now to tell us all this?”

“Because,” says Mr. O’Malley, “my learnèd counsel advised me not to say anything to the police about any telephone calls I might’ve made on the night of Miss Baker’s murder, no matter how innocent they may have seemed. He also suggested that you gentlemen would have difficulty with my admission of drinking and driving, something, I swear, I very rarely do.”

The sister-in-law snorts out a “Ha!”

Guess she won’t lie about that, either.

“So,” says Kevin, “can we go home now? You know where dad was when Ms. Baker was murdered.”

“Please wait here,” says Ceepak standing up from the table. “My partner and I need to confer with our chief.” He turns to Big Paddy. “We will also need to call the management of the Mussel Beach Motel to confirm your whereabouts for late Thursday into Friday morning. After that, you, sir, are free to leave.”

“Thank you.”

“Awesome,” adds Kevin because I don’t think he caught the point Ceepak just made: The father may be going home, but the son who tried to set him up will probably be spending the night in jail.

“This shouldn’t take long. Danny?”

We head out the door, hit the hall.

“You buy it?” I ask when we’re out of earshot of everybody in the interview room.

“Yes. For some time now, I have sensed that Mr. O’Malley had nothing to do with either death.”

“Because so much evidence said he did?”

“So much overwhelmingly obvious evidence, Danny. It’s usually rather easy to spot a cheater. They try too hard to convince you that they’re playing fair. The business card in the shopping bag was, for me, the last straw.”

Yeah. That was definitely a lame move. If you’re trying to frame somebody, you can’t turn the framee into a complete imbecile.

“So, we’re holding Kevin for further questioning?”

Ceepak’s cell phone chirps. The personal line.

“Perhaps so,” he says, ignoring the phone burping on his belt.

“I’ll call Becca, check out the Mussel Beach story.”

“That’ll work,” says Ceepak as I whip out my cell phone.

Then I give him the pursed lips and head bob that he gave me earlier when Samantha Starky called: It’s okay for him to answer his personal phone on duty “just this one time.”

So he does.

“Hello, dear. Yes. Good. And they’re having fun?”

He steps away to get an update on T.J.’s big farewell bash.

I speed-dial Becca.

She definitely remembers Frances Ryan and Big Paddy O’Malley.

“They were boozing it up and screaming at each other until I finally went out there and threatened to call the cops. The fat one, the woman with that rat nest of carrot-colored hair, which, by the way, is a total dye job, she said, ‘May heartache and vultures gouge out your eyes.’ I think it’s an Irish curse. They were drinking Old Busmill’s and Jameson whisky-so at least their blood alcohol level was Irish.”

She confirms the alibi.

I promise to bring back the towel I borrowed. Tomorrow.

When I hang up, Ceepak is finishing with Rita.

“Right. How’s Ms. Minsky? Good to hear. Right. I’ll be in touch. Same here, dear.” He closes up the phone.

“Everything okay?”

He nods. “T.J. and friends are at the miniature golf course. Ms. Minsky is napping. Apparently, Gizmo is curled up on the bed beside her.”

And as soon as he says that, his face freezes into a solid block of focused thought.

I’ve seen the look before: Ceepak just figured everything out.

Ceepak moves like a man possessed to the nearest computer terminal.

I ask no questions. I never do when he switches into his totally focused mode.

He clacks keys. I read over his shoulder.

In the Google search box he is typing “animal euthanasia potassium chloride.”

The first entry is for a PDF from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

He clicks to it.

“AVMA Guidelines on Euthanasia. June 2007.” He scrolls down the table of contents, past inhalant agents to noninhalant pharmaceutical agents. There it is on page 12: “Potassium Chloride in Conjunction With Prior General Anesthesia.”

He moves the pointer to the chapter heading. Clicks again. A new page pops up. Ceepak scrolls down until he sees the paragraph about potassium chloride: “Although unacceptable and condemned when used in unanesthetized animals, the use of a supersaturated solution of potassium chloride injected intravenously or intracardially in an animal under general anesthesia is an acceptable method to produce cardiac arrest and death.”

There’s another paragraph listing the advantages: “(1) Potassium chloride is not a controlled substance. It is easily acquired, transported, and mixed in the field. (2) Potassium chloride, when used with appropriate methods to render an animal unconscious, results in a carcass that is potentially less toxic for scavengers and predators in cases where carcass disposal is impossible or impractical.”

Guess that means you could use it on your pet elephant and not worry about poisoning all the buzzards circling overhead.

Ceepak swivels in the desk chair, grabs for a phone. I glance at the next paragraph: “Disadvantage-rippling of muscle tissue and clonic spasms may occur on or shortly after injection.”

Ceepak presses 411. Puts the call on speakerphone.

The chirpy recording says, “Verizon four-one-one. What city?”

“Avondale, New Jersey,” says Ceepak.

“Okay. Business or residence?”

“Business!” says Ceepak, kind of tersely. Seems the perky prerecorded woman asks too many questions for a cop in a hurry.

“Thank you.” The voice fakes hesitation, like she’s really listening to us. “Um, which business?”

“South Shore Animal Shelter.”

“Hang on while I look that up.”

When she tells us she found the number, Ceepak tells her, even though she isn’t really a person (well, she was a person when she recorded this crap but she’s not one now), that she can go ahead and place the call for an additional charge. Hey, we’re in a hurry. Whatever Ceepak’s just figured out has to be huge or he wouldn’t waste fifty cents of the taxpayers’ money.

The call rings through. Someone answers. A real person this time.

“South Shore Animal Shelter, how may I direct your call?”

“Dr. Cathy Langston, please.”

“Who may I say is calling?”

“Officer John Ceepak. Sea Haven Police.”

“Oh. Um. Okay. Just a moment.”

Police get that kind of response all the time when we call folks.

While we’re on hold, I’m tempted to say, “So, what’s up?” But I don’t. Ceepak’s eyes are riveted on the speaker box like he expects a miniature Dr. Langston to pop out of it.

“This is Dr. Langston.”