Chris Grabenstein - Mad Mouse

“And two?”

“I didn't find a single print on the paintball rifle.”

Ceepak nods. “Because he wore the neoprene gloves.”

“Precisely. If he's going through all that rigamarole to keep the paintball rifle clean, how come his prints are all over the M-24?”

“Well, don't forget,” I say, “we found his surfer gloves in the back of the van. Maybe he forgot them when he, you know, packed his bag.”

Ceepak and McDaniels both look at me again like I'm the slow kid in class.

“It's a possibility, Danny,” says Ceepak.

“Yeah. It's possible,” McDaniels adds. “And I could be the next Miss America. I guess that's possible, too.”

Ceepak and McDaniels seem real worried.

And I don't think it has anything to do with beauty pageants.

The lawyer finally arrived around eight P.M.

We talked to Weese for about two hours and he didn't say a word. Nothing. Nada. We asked him about his wife, the kids, Derek Jeter, the Yankees’ chances his year, everything. We got nothing but silence.

He didn't even tell us his name. His parents did it for him.

“George Washington Weese,” his mother said when George just sat there like he couldn't remember his name.

“We wanted him to grow up and become somebody,” Mr. Weese said. “But, apparently, he had other plans.”

Even his old man's ragging on him didn't snap George out of his trance. He kept quiet, kept staring at the wall.

“What's wrong?” Mrs. Weese asked when her son sat there like a spud. “Did you people torture him?” She shot that one straight at Ceepak. “Did you try any of that Abu Ghraib prison crap? I know you were in Iraq, Mr. Ceepak. You were one of those military police, like in those pictures with the naked prisoners.”

Ceepak didn't take the bait.

• • •

Around ten P.M., the lawyer, who had on this white polo shirt that showed off his incredibly bronzed tan, suggested we resume our “attempted interrogation” first thing in the morning.

“Oh-seven-hundred?” Ceepak said.

The lawyer frowned. “I'm no good before ten. Besides, tomorrow's a holiday.”

“Maybe for lawyers,” Mr. Weese huffed. “Some of us have to pay our bills-the bills our lawyers send us.”

“Does ten work for you?” the lawyer asked Chief Baines.

“Fine. We'll be busy earlier, securing the party site. John? You okay with ten?”

“Ten hundred hours will work.”

We trooped out of the room. George was escorted back to a jail cell. Ceepak suggested I head for home.

“Big day tomorrow,” he said.

“Yeah. I'm scheduled to work security at the sound stage. Stop the girls from jumping on 3 Doors Down.”

3 Doors Down, the rock band that does that “Kryptonite” song, is scheduled to kick off the big show on the boardwalk at noon tomorrow.

“I want you here,” Ceepak said. “I'll address the issue of your deployment with the duty sergeant.”

I said okay and headed across the bay to Mainland Medical. Katie was sleeping. I kissed her on her forehead; she smiled slightly, snuggled into her pillow, and slept some more.

“Go home, Danny,” Christine, my nurse friend, said. “You look wiped.”

She was right.

I drove back across the bridge and called my friends. Jess, Olivia, and Becca. They freaked when I told them about George Weese.

“Oh, that guy.” Becca said, light dawning.

“Yeah.”

“Does his nose still whistle?”

I had to admit I hadn't been paying attention.

“Fry his ass,” Jess suggested. “Hang him from the highest tree.”

Jess kind of forgets which branch of the criminal justice system I'm working in. Cops don't get to fry anybody, and there'd be hell to pay if we started decorating trees with dead guys, like the Surfing Santas they string up along Ocean Avenue during Christmas.

“Good work,” Olivia, the sensible one, said. “But it's sad how we messed up his mind.”

Olivia, of course, got it right. Like I said, she's the smart one.

I climb into my rack. Tomorrow's the big day. Labor Day.

I have a feeling, one way or another, I'll be laboring my butt off.

H appy Labor Day!”

It's eight A.M.

This is one of those days when I wish I didn't have a clock radio. Mike and Larry, the local morning team on WAVY, are just too damn chipper. They've both apparently guzzled a couple of those forty-eight-ounce tumblers of coffee from the Qwick Pick.

“ Big day on the beach.”

“Bo yeah!”

“3 Doors Down.”

“Ribs. Chicken. Pulled pork sandwiches.”

“Greased pole climbing contest.”

“More ribs.”

“I think that's how they grease the pole.”

“With barbecue sauce?”

“No. Pork lard.”

“You can really pig out on the beach today, that's for sure.”

My fumbling fingers finally find the off switch. If I were more than half awake, I would have found it sooner.

Time to shower and head to Qwick Pick.

Time for my own forty-eight-ounce tumbler of coffee.

• • •

10:02 A.M.

George Weese is talking.

“I want them both out of here,” is the first thing he says. “Their very presence offends me.”

His parents look stunned.

“Your mother and father?” Ceepak says for the video camera. He doesn't want to spare anybody's feelings, he just wants to make certain the official record reflects whom the accused is tossing out of the interrogation room.

“I have a lawyer,” Weese says. “I see no need for my parents to remain.”

“Son, you don't know-”

Weese glares at his dad.

“Be quiet. I am twenty-seven years old. You no longer need tell me what to do.”

Mrs. Weese reaches across the table to touch her son's hand.

He snaps it back, hissing at her.

She gasps.

“Perhaps it would be best …”

It's all the tanned lawyer needs to say. Mr. and Mrs. Weese push back their chairs. The chair legs screech as they do.

“Fine,” Mr. Weese shakes his head, looking at his son. “You are such a goddam disappointment.”

George smiles. “As are you, father.”

Families. Freak shows without the circus tent.

Mr. Weese motions to his wife: “Helen?”

Mrs. Weese remains seated.

“Helen?” He repeats.

She finally picks up her purse, fumbles around inside to make certain she has her cigarettes, and trails her husband out the door.

When it closes, George leans back in his chair, studies Ceepak and me. He shakes his head and smirks.

“You two. What a pair of incompetents. The Two Stooges.”

“Why do you say that?” Ceepak asks, showing no emotion.

“I had to hand you seven Derek Jeters before you could piece together my ingenious little puzzle? Maybe I should have spelled it out in braille, you're both so blind.”

Now I sort of wish we were back to the bit where George Weese wasn't saying anything.

“The Jeters?” I say. “You dropped those the day you shot Katie, am I right?”

“Danny?” Ceepak shoots me one of his looks.

“You.” Weese waggles a finger at me. “You ruined my life. You and your five little friends!”

“George?” The lawyer guy puts a gentle hand on Weese's shoulder.

Weese smiles. Leans back.

“Tell us about it,” Ceepak says.

“About what?” Weese wants to call all the shots. For the moment, Ceepak's playing along.

“Tell us how Danny and his friends ruined your life.”

“With pleasure. August twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety-six,” he says, deliberately drawing out each syllable of the date, like he's relived that particular day a billion times. “Unbeknownst to me, my father had come home early from work that day. He was in the kitchen cleaning out his golf cleats with a house key. When I came in the back door, he stopped what he was doing to stare at me. As you might recall, Daniel, the front of my white swimsuit was stained purple with grape soda. The wet cloth was clinging to my skin. I know my father could see my penis. I could feel his cold stare.”