Mad Mouse

CHAPTER THIRTY

Square one.

I figure that's where we basically are. Back at the starting line, inside one of those tiny wooden boxes they squeeze the horses into at the Kentucky Derby.

We're nowhere.

Maybe Mook's ARMY buddy turned on him. Maybe he was done having fun when they wounded Katie, but maybe his ARMY buddy couldn't stop. Maybe Rick, I remember that was his name, maybe Rick is a killing machine without an “off” switch.

“Richard Westerfield,” Ceepak says. His friends in the army just faxed us a list of discharged snipers known to have recently returned to college. “Pfc. Westerfield never saw action. He was honorably discharged before the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

So Mook's college buddy learned all this sniper stuff but never got to use it, never hunted a human. Maybe, after shooting at us a couple of times and missing, he wanted more, wanted to see the pink mist when his bullet made a skull explode. Wanted to go for the kill when Mook wanted to move on to the next joke. Maybe Richard Wester-field took out party pooper Harley Mook.

That's my best guess right now.

Ceepak and I sit in the front seats of the Explorer.

He's on his cell phone to someone back at the house.

“You have Westerfield's plate number?”

Ceepak nods so I guess they do.

“Able Baker four-nine-four Charlie seven. Got it.” Ceepak writes the number in his little spiral notebook. “Excellent. Thanks, Denise.” It's Diego. The woman puts in a full day. “This will help. Have Gus issue an APB. Suspect has been seen in the area but could be mobile, could be …” he looks at his watch, does some mental math, “anywhere in a radius of a hundred and fifty miles from our current position. Right. Thanks.”

Ceepak closes up his cell and clips it back on his utility belt. He has so much gear dangling off that thing he could pass as a plumber.

“You think it's Mook's new buddy?”

“It's one possibility.”

“Right.”

When we're working a case, all things are possible with Ceepak until they have been proven otherwise. Or something like that. I forget sometimes, especially when people are shooting at my friends and me.

“This drug dealer Wheezer? What do we know about him?”

“Not much. Just what Mook told me.”

Ceepak waits.

“Focus, Danny.”

I try. But my eyes and mind drift over to the small crowd of civilians clustered around Chief Buzz Baines and Mayor Sinclair. The bosses have arrived on Oak Street and are giving the curious citizens some sort of impromptu press conference. They're quite the dynamic duo: the tall, handsome police chief and the sandy-haired, boyish mayor. They're smiling, then frowning, then smiling again, then shaking their heads in dismay, telling everybody that Mook's murder was “the tragic consequence” of a “drug deal gone bad.” The chief says the good people of Sea Haven have nothing to fear, unless, of course, they have plans to purchase illegal narcotics in the near future.

The crowd chuckles.

I hear Baines wind up: “Unfortunately, this is where underage drinking ultimately leads. There's an express lane that takes teenagers from beer blasts on the beach to marijuana binges to crack houses and heroin addiction. That express lane dead-ends right here.” He hangs his head like a graveside preacher, and everybody knows what he means: Harley Mook got shot in a carport by drug thugs because he bought beer with a fake ID when he was fifteen.

Buzz Baines has done it again. He's linked Mook's murder to his favorite boogeyman-underage drinking.

“Danny?” Ceepak must sense that I'm floating along like a stringy clump of seaweed. “Wheezer?”

I need to focus. Work the evidence. Chief Baines can tell the people out in the street anything he wants. It's up to us to find out the truth.

“Yeah. Okay. What Mook said was that Wheezer was a guy ‘from back in the day.’ ”

“A school friend?”

“I don't know. He wasn't specific. Just ‘back in the day.’ ”

“Go on.”

“Mook said he never really liked the guy but that Wheezer had this primo ganga. That's-”

“Marijuana. Was Wheezer Mook's usual dealer?”

“I doubt it. But I really don't know. Mook was just in town for a week or two. Summer break from grad school. He was here having fun, seeing old friends. Wheezer sounded like someone Mook accidentally reconnected with, or bumped into at a bar. Not like a guy he went looking for. He also said he never ‘pictured the dude for a dealer.’ ”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Said Wheezer was more like a loser.”

“Interesting. Do you remember this Wheezer?”

“No.”

Ceepak nods. “He didn't think you would.”

“What do you mean?”

“The note.”

You'll never remember, I'll never forget.

If only I hadn't done so much underage drinking. All that beer, Boone's Farm and those Icees laced with Bacardi, which is how we used to enjoy rum and Coke without buying cocktail glasses or ice.

“You think he left that note for me?”

“Yes, Danny, I do.” Ceepak fixes me with an odd look. “I think he intended the note to be read by you and your friends from, as you say, ‘back in the day.’ The beach crew from nineteen ninety-six.”

“The six targets.”

“Five, Danny. Five.”

Yeah. Mook was just scratched off the list. One down, five to go. Unless, of course, Katie doesn't pull through. Then, there's only four little Indians left.

“Don't worry, Danny. We'll nail the guy.”

“Yeah.”

The chief and mayor march over to our car. The crowd has now dispersed. I guess they bought the chief's act. Now that he's not on, I can see Baines looks worried. Angry. I wouldn't want to be his mustache right now. He's in a plucking mood.

Ceepak and I climb out of the car. We stand in front of the chief.

“Noon tomorrow,” Baines says in this real tight whisper. “If you don't catch this kook, we're calling the other thing off.”

“Yes, sir,” Ceepak says.

“Call it off?” Mayor Sinclair pushes his Ray-Bans up his nose. “We can't just ‘call it off,’ Buzz-”

Baines cuts the mayor off in midbabble. “Noon tomorrow, John. That's it. Catch this creep, or we tell everybody to go home. We shut this island down.”

Good for Chief Baines. He'd rather lose his big new job than see anybody else lose a life.

“Buzz?” Mayor Sinclair doesn't give up easy. “Come on. Don't be rash. What about MTV? Kids all across America are counting on us! This is their beach party, too! And what about Bruno Mazzilli? He just unloaded ten tons of raw pork ribs off a refrigerated truck down by the boardwalk. You ever smell what happens to pork after it sits in the sun? It's worse than fish, Buzz. Worse than fish!”

Baines turns his back on the mayor and walks away.

“Buzz? Hold up. Wait a second.” Sinclair chases the chief up the street.

The chief climbs into his SUV and slams its heavy black door in the mayor's face. Sinclair, being a politician, is used to people slamming doors in his face. He's like one of those Jehovah's Witness ladies with the free magazines. He doesn't take it personally, he just runs over to his own car, hops in, and races after the chief so he'll be poised and ready to knock on his door again wherever the chief stops.

“What's our situation?” Dr. McDaniels comes over for an update.

“We have a deadline,” Ceepak says.

“Interesting choice of words.”

“Noon tomorrow.”

“Fine.”

“You found something?”

“Maybe.”

“Shell casings?”

“No. Our shooter is still quite tidy. However, he needs to watch where he walks. There was an oil stain on the garage floor across the street.”

“He stepped in it?”

“You can say that again. Size twelve. Converse All-Stars. Looks like he went for a little walk.”

“Where to?”

“Around the front of the vehicle, over to the passenger side. Reached the rear tires, stopped, turned around, walked back to the driver-side door.”

“You think he had a flat rear tire?” Ceepak asks.

“One possibility.”

“We should alert the service stations.”

“Yep. You really should.” McDaniels smiles happily. This could qualify as a break. If the sniper had tire trouble, he might've gone to a gas station after shooting Mook. We might be able to track this guy down, maybe even before noon tomorrow.

Ceepak radios Gus Davis back at the house and tells the desk sergeant to coordinate the service station sweep. Phone calls from police headquarters start going out the second Ceepak signs off. He turns to McDaniels, eager for more.

“Any tire tracks?”

“Oh, yeah. Whoever owns that house? They must have one hell of a leaky Mercedes. Puddles everywhere. Oil. Transmission fluid. We picked up several tire tread patterns that look similar.”

Ceepak nods. “The homeowner's vehicle.”

“Right. And one set that doesn't match any of the others. Very fresh.”

“Minivan?”

“That'd be my first guess. Need to run it by the lab. But they look like all-season radials. Maybe Bridgestone BT70s, which are pretty common on minivans.”

“You know your treads,” I say.

McDaniels shrugs off the compliment. “American, Japanese, German, and Italian. I need to bone up on my Chinese. Anyhow, I'd bet serious money it's our minivan.”

I'm thinking about Rick again, the trained sharpshooter with the white van.

“I'll ride to the morgue with the body,” McDaniels says, seeing the EMTs zip Mook up inside a black vinyl bag. “See if the late Mr. Mook can tell us anything else. You boys heading back to the house?”

“Negative,” Ceepak says. “Danny and I will remain in the field. We need to talk to some people. Fast. We have less than twenty-four hours now to grab our shooter. The clock is ticking.”

“Okay.” She waves to her team across the street. McDaniels climbs into the back of the ambulance with Mook's body bag. When she thinks no one is looking, I see her make a sign of the cross and say a quick prayer.

The ambulance and CSI car pull away from the scene. It looks like a very small funeral.

Adam Kiger, one of the cops who went up the street to hunt for witnesses, jogs down toward us.

“Ceepak?” he says. “I think we found somebody.”