Chris Grabenstein - Mad Mouse

“Wait a sec.” Donna crosses her arms over her chest. “Isn't that like against the law? You need a warrant, am I right?”

“No, ma'am,” says Ceepak. “Since Mr. Harley Mook has checked out, any property, record, or information he may have left behind is considered abandoned and, therefore, not subject to the Fourth Amendment protections provided by the Constitution.”

Donna purses out her lower lip. Nods. She's impressed. “Interesting. You go to night school or something?”

“The key?”

“Sure, sure.” Donna reaches under her tiny desk and finds a miniature baseball bat with a key dangling off the handle.

Ceepak takes it. “Upstairs?”

“Yeah. Two-oh-seven. Second floor. Seventh door down.”

“Thanks, Donna.”

“Any time, Danny.”

We hustle toward the door.

We pass the ratty Coke machine, reach the staircase, clank up the rusty metal steps, and hurry down the crackled concrete landing to 207.

Ceepak works the passkey into the lock. The door squeaks open and we're hit with a wall of recirculated air that stinks of cigarettes mixed with mildew. The air conditioner is rattling away underneath a window darkened by thick, plastic-based drapes. The room is a mess. The sheets and flabby pillows are clumped in a tangled bundle in the middle of the bed. Back in the bathroom, I can see a pile of soppy towels lying in a puddle near the shower stall. There's a Domino's pizza box feeding flies on top ot the TV. Judging by the color of what used to be cheese, I'd say the pie's been sitting there since at least Thursday.

Ceepak spies a pink slip of paper wedged under a half-empty beer bottle on a small table with a wrinkled walnut veneer. The pink beer coaster is actually one of those “While You Were Out” phone message deals.

“Apparently,” says Ceepak, “someone named Wheezer called Mr. Mook at eight forty-five A.M. The woman downstairs must've given him this message when he returned from Schooner's Landing this morning. Prior to his decision to check out.”

“Wheezer is Mook's local drug connection,” I say. “The guy with the ‘good ganga.’ ”

“The front desk did not record the caller's number. However, there is a note: ‘He'll call your cell.’ ”

Ceepak secures the pink slip in an evidence envelope and moves toward the rumpled bed. He tilts his head to study a notepad near the telephone on the bedside table. Now he reaches into his cargo pants and pulls out a stubby carpenter's pencil. Okay, even I know this one: he's going to rub the pencil on the empty sheet of paper and see if he can pick up whatever was written on the sheet that used to be on top.

“Wheezer, again,” Ceepak says after he's done dusting the pad with pencil lead. “Noon. Circled. I suspect twelve P.M. is the time Mook and Wheezer agreed to meet in some undisclosed location for the drug buy. Mook will most likely drive there.”

“In his little red Miata.”

“Roger that,” Ceepak says. “Red Miatas are much easier to spot than white minivans.” He tucks the small sheet of motel notepad paper into a second evidence envelope. “We'll definitely nab him.”

“Great.”

We're going to catch the creep. Just like I promised Katie.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Since we seem to have some time …”

Ceepak has this look on his face.

“What's on your mind?” I ask.

“The lady downstairs. She's a friend, I take it?”

“Donna Pazzarini? Yeah. Well, I mean I know her on account of her brother. Tony. We worked together at a gas station one summer.”

“I'd like to offer an observation.”

“Sure.”

“Everywhere we go, you know people. In fact, you have more friends than anyone I've ever met.”

“Maybe. Of course, I grew up here. Plus, I'm just, you know, sociable, I guess. Friendly.”

“Here then is my question: with all these friends, why is our shooter only singling out certain individuals? Why not Ms. Pazzarini downstairs? Why not her brother or your former colleagues at the Pancake Palace? Why not that girl you know over at the ice cream shop? Why is the sniper only targeting the people you were with Wednesday night?”

I wonder.

Why Becca, Katie, Olivia, Jess, and me? Especially if the bad guy is Mook. What'd we ever do to him?

“Good question,” I say to Ceepak.

“It's the question, Danny. The only one we really need to answer.”

“Okay. Let me think about it.”

“Think hard, Danny. Think fast.”

I nod. “You want to search the room?”

“No. We'll ask Kiger and Malloy to swing by.” He checks his watch. “I want us mobile prior to noon. I suspect someone will spot Mook's Miata before he connects with his dealer. In the meantime, let's stop by the house, pick up the Phantom and Avenger cards. Dr. McDaniels will definitely want to see those.”

I'm about to follow Ceepak out the door when he takes a detour to the window air-conditioner unit. Using the eraser end of his pencil, he pushes down on the button to turn the humming monster off.

“You should always set the thermostat to seventy-five or higher when out of your residence for an extended period of time. Especially during peak hours of consumption.”

Right.

It's suddenly quiet, now that the sour-air recirculator is shut down. I hear a vehicle bump and crunch its bottom across the blacktop humps down in the parking lot. I step out on the crappy veranda to see if it's Mook's Miata.

It's a white minivan.

I guess the driver sees us, too-sees we're cops.

He's peeling wheels in reverse, burning rubber and taking off like maybe he just did something really, really bad.

The white van is out of the parking lot before I can spot its bumper sticker display, see if there's an ARMY plastered back there.

“Male driver,” Ceepak announces as he dashes down the balcony toward the stairs.

“What else?” I ask, running behind him. “Did it look like an army guy?”

“Couldn't tell. Sun glare.”

Ceepak grabs of the railings and slide-flies down the steps. I try to do the same thing. Rust chunks scrape my palms.

“He's at the corner,” Ceepak says. “Turning onto Sunshine, direction Ocean.”

“Great. That gives us a chance!” Traffic. You want to stay off Ocean Avenue on any summer Saturday because it's basically bumper-to-bumper from nine A.M. on.

We leap into the Explorer. Ceepak snatches the radio mic.

“This is Unit Twelve. Request all available backup. Ten-eighty. White van. We are in pursuit.”

Those asphalt humps in the Smuggler's Cove parking lot feel more like moguls on a ski slope the way Ceepak blasts over them, slamming pedal to rubber floorpad. When we first started working together, Ceepak didn't drive on account of this horrible thing that happened in his Hummer back in Iraq. Now I see the man has driving skills, like the army sent him to Aggressive Driving School or he studied with the stunt guys who drove the Mini Coopers in that movie The Italian Job. We're barreling down this quiet residential street nobody's ever barreled down before and I see the minivan screech into a right turn. We do the same thing.

“This is Twelve,” Ceepak says into the mic. “We are southbound on Sunshine, approaching Oak.”

Make that Pine. We're moving fast and the streets are just clipping along.

“Unit Twelve, this is Six. We're approaching on Spruce.”

Ceepak flicks on the lightbar and sirens. No way the white van doesn't see us coming up behind him, no way he doesn't hear us, no way he can't tell we're the Police and he should slow down, pull over, and stop- now.

But he doesn't, he keeps racing down the road, pushing his soccer-mom van to do 70 mph. If nothing else, he's earning himself a speeding ticket today.