Mad Mouse

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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.