Chris Grabenstein - Rolling Thunder

Or maybe that’s Ceepak.

I know he tries to keep a lid on his rage at all times but sometimes he’s a lot like that Springsteen song “The Promised Land”: He just wants to explode.

We head back to the house, which is what we call police headquarters over in the municipal complex on Cherry Street.

All the east-west streets in Sea Haven are named after trees, even though, with all the sun and sand and salt water, we don’t really have that many trees-just a few scrubby evergreens and rows of telephone poles that used to be trees in their youth.

“You think Sean had anything to do with his mother’s death?” I ask Ceepak as our Crown Vic Police Interceptor cruises south on Ocean Avenue.

We just passed Pizza My Heart, one of at least three dozen Italian restaurants in Sea Haven. The parmigiana, manicotti, and fried calamari on their menus probably cause more heart attacks than all our boardwalk rides combined, but the menus don’t come with any warning signs and there’s no minimum height requirement; they’ll even give the kids a booster seat.

“Is there some way Sean could’ve killed her and made her death look like a heart attack?”

“It’s a possibility,” says Ceepak. “However, we’ll soon know if foul play is indicated. By New Jersey state law, the medical examiner is required to investigate all cases of human death that occur under suspicious or unusual circumstances.”

I guess death by roller coaster is pretty unusual.

“If memory serves,” Ceepak continues, “only four Americans die each year in roller coaster-related incidents.”

“Heart attacks?”

“Often. The rides are designed to send heart rates soaring. In a recent study …”

Did I mention that Ceepak reads recent studies on just about everything? Last week, it was oysters and water pollution.

“… German researchers noted that the heart rates of test participants climbed from ninety-one to one-fifty-three while riding a coaster with a maximum speed of seventy-five mph.”

I nod and hope none of this is on the final.

“However, it wasn’t the speed that caused irregular heart beats; it was the fear and stress of the ride.”

“So Mrs. O’Malley scared herself to death?”

“She may have had a preexisting, undiagnosed heart condition. Perhaps high blood pressure. Or she may have been under some form of stress brought on by a life-altering event.”

“Huh,” I say. I guess Mrs. O’Malley could’ve been stressed about her daughter, Mary (who almost gave me a heart attack this morning), and her sons Sean and Peter. I think sons Kevin and Skip are pretty stress-free: hard-working, level-headed boys who don’t drink Bacardi for breakfast, date San Juan hotties or, you know, other boys.

“Interestingly,” says Professor Ceepak, “the 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles resulted in a four-fold increase in sudden deaths due to heart attacks. In 1991, when Iraq launched scud missiles at Israel, heart attacks doubled. A widow grieving the loss of her husband will see a fifty percent increase in her chances of sudden death due to a heart attack.”

Stress. It’s why I still surf, boogie board, and drink beer on a regular basis. It’s all part of my heart-healthy lifestyle.

But I remember what Skippy said: His mother didn’t want to ride the Rolling Thunder. She was afraid of roller coasters.

But Kevin probably convinced her she needed to be there for PR purposes, the same way political wives have to be there when their husbands call a press conference to confess that they’ve just had an affair with a hooker they met on the Appalachian Trail.

But what if Kevin O’Malley, for whatever reason, wanted to scare his mother to death?

Pretty easy way to get away with murder.

You don’t need a gun or knife or poison or any kind of weapon at all.

You just need to build a big, honking roller coaster.

We pull into the parking lot behind the house.

There are about a dozen white cruisers (detailed in beachy turquoise and flamingo pink) angled into slots on the hot asphalt. The cop cars are flanked by assorted civilian cars, including my Jeep. Ceepak, on the other hand, rides his trail bike to work, lets his wife Rita have their one car, a dinged-up old Toyota.

The Sea Haven PD building looks like a sprawling split-level suburban home where the world’s biggest ham radio operator lives. We have this huge antenna tower with all sorts of booms and masts angling off it-and still, our TV reception in the break room stinks.

When we hit the lobby, Chief Buzz Baines, who looks like a handsome TV anchorman back when they all used to have mustaches, is escorting a lumbering Italian bear through the gate in the wooden railing that separates the police from the public.

Bruno Mazzilli. The baron of the boardwalks. He now owns all four of the amusement piers jutting out into the ocean, including Pier Four, which he purchased at a steal according to what Samantha Starky’s mom told me. Mrs. Starky works in real estate. She knows who owns everything and how much they paid for it. Makes me nervous sometimes. Then again, I don’t own anything except my Jeep, and I sort of share that with PNC Bank.

“Ceepak! Boyle!” The chief sees us. “Awesome work out there this morning, guys. Awesome.”

“I only wish we had reached the roller coaster car sooner,” says Ceepak.

“Hey,” says Bruno Mazzilli, “your number’s up, it’s up, am I right?”

Ceepak does not answer.

Mazzilli turns to the chief. “So, you’ll lean on the M.E.?”

The chief’s mustache twitches. “I will ask Dr. Kurth to make her findings public ASAP.”

“Good, good. That’s all I’m askin’. Sooner people hear my partner’s wife had a heart attack because, you know, she had a bum ticker or whatever, the sooner they know it wasn’t our fault. We spent a fortune making sure Rolling Thunder is one hundred percent safe.” He turns to us. “Thanks again, boys. You made the whole town look good, runnin’ up the roller coaster like that and all. Makes tourists feel comfortable coming down here knowin’ we got a world-class police operation. The roller coaster reopens next weekend. Let me know if you guys need free tickets. I’ll fix you up with a stromboli, too.”

Mmm. Stromboli. A rolled-dough sandwich stuffed with salami, provolone, pepperoni, peppers, garlic, and onions, then baked so the grease soaks into the crust. If you don’t puke it up on the first hill of your roller coaster ride, you’ll fart it out on the second.

“See you ’round, Buzz.”

Mazzilli leaves.

“You guys hungry?” asks the chief, maybe picking up on that whole stromboli thread.

Truth be told, I’m starving. I skipped breakfast, figuring I might snag some fried chicken fingers rolled in Cap’n Crunch on the boardwalk. But then we had to run up a few scaffolded hills, instead.

Ceepak? The man could live on bran flakes, fruit, and power bars.

“Sam Starky brought in doughnuts,” the chief adds.

Ceepak must see the starved-puppy look in my eyes.

“Doughnuts sound good,” he says.

I shrug. Try to not drool.

Ceepak smiles. “After you, Danny.”

I lead the way to the break room and I hear this playful little chuckle behind me.

Ceepak. I think me and my stomach amuse him.

“You guys were incredible! I heard the whole thing on the radio, and then Cliff dedicated that Springsteen song, ‘Local Hero,’ to you two, and I said to my friend Kim, ‘I know those two guys, in fact, one’s my boyfriend.’ Here, Danny. This one is the Vanilla Kreme, the kind with the wedding cake white frosting you like in the middle, not the custardy yellow gunk you don’t like because it reminds you of …”