Chris Grabenstein - Tilt-a-Whirl

“Yes.”

“Especially when the child has so much money.”

“Pardon?”

“Ashley now owns everything Mr. Hart used to own. His houses. His corporation. His casinos. She inherited it all. She's probably one of the wealthiest little girls in the whole world.”

The butler actually smiles. Maybe he thinks Ashley's a soft touch. Maybe he thinks he's overdue for a raise. Maybe a promotion. Maybe he always wanted to be a casino manager when he grew up.

“Oh, drat,” Ceepak says.

“Problem?”

“Well, I wanted to call Ashley … talk to her about all this … but I don't have her cell phone number.”

“Allow me….”

I guess the butler figures Ceepak is going to put in a good word for him. Tell Ashley how helpful the guy's been. He writes down a cell phone number on the back of a cream-colored note card and hands it to Ceepak.

“That is the number.”

“Thanks.” Ceepak tucks the card into his shirt pocket. “Hey, Danny? You got a cigarette?”

I look at Ceepak like he's nuts. I don't smoke. Neither does he.

“Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “Fresh out.”

Ceepak eyes the sandstone box on the glass coffee table.

“Do you mind?”

“Please,” the butler says. “Help yourself.”

Ceepak lifts the lid and grabs a cigarette.

The butler reaches for the clunky lighter but Ceepak waves him off.

“I'll save it. For later.”

He sniffs the cigarette.

“Clove?”

“Yes. Actually, they're called kretek. Djarum Black. Imported from Jakarta. Indonesia? Very hard to find. I have to special-order them over the Internet.”

“Wow. You don't see many cigarettes wrapped in black paper like this, do you? I guess you can't just run down to the 7-Eleven for a pack?”

“Hardly.”

“You sure you don't mind me taking one?”

“Not at all. Enjoy.”

“Thanks. Well, we need to be going. Thank you again for your time and assistance.”

“My pleasure. Have a pleasant day, gentlemen.” The butler ushers us to the front door. “Give my best to young Miss Ashley.”

“Will do.”

When we're back inside the Ford, Ceepak pulls out one of his evidence bags and places the fresh cigarette carefully inside it.

“I suspect it will match,” he says.

“Match what?”

Ceepak unsnaps a pants pocket and pulls out a rolled-up bag. He opens the top so I can see the evidence inside.

A stubbed-out black cigarette butt covered with gray, gritty sand. There's a thin gold band wrapping around the filter, just like on the one he snagged off the coffee table.

When the bag is under my nose, I get a good whiff.

Burnt clove.

He smiles.

“Don't you just hate it when smokers treat the beach like it's their ashtray?”

We're driving back to town.

Ceepak is on his phone with Morgan from the FBI. He rattles off Ashley's cell number from the cream-colored card. “It syncs up with what you said earlier,” he tells Morgan. “Your theory on the note….”

I'm trying to remember what Morgan said. Something about how our ransom note was a copy of the Jon Benet Ramsey note. That our kidnapper had never kidnapped before, so he had to cheat to make it sound like he knew what he was doing.

I still don't know what Ceepak's doing. I thought this thing ended last night.

And why aren't we telling the chief where we are?

Ceepak shuts his flip phone.

“Let's go visit Ms. Stone.”

“At Chesterfield's?”

“Roger that.”

I hope she's in a better mood than the last time we all got together there. Like yesterday, when we tried to bust her.

* * *

“I was attempting to rescind Mr. Hart's order,” Ms. Stone explains.

We're in the dining room at Chesterfield's. Ceepak's nibbling on a blueberry muffin. She has a scone going, which is like a sideways biscuit you eat with jam instead of jelly. I'm helping myself to the breadbasket and lots of expensive butter-it's cut into patties shaped like seashells.

“Mendez had been hired to bring down The Palace Hotel?” Ceepak asks.

“Yes. I'm afraid so. Mr. Hart was reverting to the tactics he employed earlier in his career. The hotel had been declared an historic landmark and there was no economical way he could complete the modifications deemed necessary to make it commercially viable.”

“So Hart decided to destroy it instead?”

“Yes. It was certainly one way to skirt the restrictions imposed by the landmark laws.”

“You advised against it?”

“Strongly. It was a lovely old building. Almost like a castle. I believe we could have restored it.”

“But Mendez and his crew-they had it wired?”

“They'd been in town for about a week. Setting things up, placing charges in strategic positions. Timers. Their implosion plan was quite impressive.”

“You saw it?”

“Mendez told us what he and his team had worked up at a luncheon meeting on Friday.”

“Where?”

She flips open her daybook. I notice the pages are filled with tiny writing, like she records what she does every day in fifteen-minute intervals-probably so she can charge people all the billable hours she's due.

“The Lobster Trap.”

“Danny?”

“It's up near Locust Street.”

“We'll check it out.”

“Please do. It's the same meeting you found listed in Mr. Hart's computer diary.”

“The one you told us was cancelled?”

“Yes. Sorry. My mistake.”

“Don't worry,” I say and gesture toward Ceepak. “His pencil has an eraser.”

Ms. Stone stares at me. She doesn't get it. I grab another chunk of raisin roll.

“Why were the timers set for Sunday night?”

“Mr. Hart planned to leave town Sunday morning, after our final breakfast meeting concerning the implosion plan. Mendez, himself, was scheduled to depart Sunday afternoon, after one last check of the wiring.”

“So you'd all be long gone when the deed went down?”

“Yes.” Ms. Stone sounds ashamed. “When Mr. Hart was … murdered … I contacted Mr. Mendez. Offered to sell him the hotel property.”

“Why?”

“Pending probate, I had Mr. Hart's irrevocable power of attorney. I hoped to persuade Mr. Mendez to remove his incendiary devices. Thought if he owned it, he wouldn't be so quick to knock it down. I gave him some brochure mock-ups I had commissioned in a final attempt to convince Mr. Hart to develop the hotel into time-share units, not destroy it. Mendez agreed to meet with me here Sunday morning to discuss my ideas further….”

“Really?” Ceepak finds Ms. Stone's love of the grand old structure a little hard to swallow. Me too. I heard those rats scampering around in the walls. I might have been in the Hart-Mendez camp. Knock the sucker down!

“Why are you so interested in this particular building?” Ceepak asks.

“Stone, McCain and Whitby.”

“Excuse me?”

“My great-grandfather. Josiah Stone. He and his architectural partners designed the original hotel. It was their grandest achievement. When I first went to work for Mr. Hart, I encouraged him to pursue the property. I convinced him that we could restore it to its former glory. Mr. Hart was more impressed by the business possibilities. As you know, the hotel is situated on a prime piece of shoreline real estate. The whole north end of the island is a gold mine, waiting for the right person to come along and rescue it from decades of neglect. But refurbishing the landmarked hotel would prove prohibitively expensive to most….”

“But not Reginald Hart.”

“It would have been stupendous! We were going to put trendy shops in the lobby, gourmet restaurants and wine bars along a restored pier….”