Rolling Thunder

17

King Putt Mini Golf is starting to get crowded.

This is where the families with kids come after they boogie-board on the beach all day, before they go out for the fifth pizza of the week. More will come after dinner, before ice cream.

We park off to the side of the big pink pyramid, right beside the King Putt pickup truck. The door panel is painted with a bubble-nosed cartoon of the boy king in his Pharaoh hat-a green golf ball where the emerald scarab usually goes.

As we hike across the parking lot I can see a sunburned boy in a baggy T-shirt and shorts lining up his shot on hole number eleven: The Sphinx. I want to tell him to forget about aiming for the tunnel between the lion’s paws, go for the bank shot; carom your ball off the curb to the right. But he’s nine and I’m supposed to be more mature. Just ask Mrs. Starky.

“T.J. and his buddies are coming here tomorrow morning,” says Ceepak. “A farewell to Sea Haven party. Rita’s organizing it. I hope we don’t have to miss the entire affair. I imagine we will be rather busy.”

Hi diddly dee. The cop’s life for me. Duty calls, the family suffers.

Ceepak’s stepson will be shipping off to Annapolis in a couple of weeks to start what they call “Plebe Summer.” Apparently, it’s the naval academy’s version of boot camp. T.J. will not get to see any family or have any liberty or shore leave (or whatever they call hanging out with your buddies) until Plebe Parents’ Weekend in August.

“Is Dave Tranotti gonna be at the big send-off?”

“Roger that.”

“Cool.”

Tranotti is a little older than T.J. and is already a midshipman at Canoe U., which is what some people call the naval academy. Tranotti, another local, is the one who put the bug in T.J.’s ear about applying for an appointment to Annapolis. Some guys grow up this close to the ocean, they want to play with boats for the rest of their lives. BIG boats.

Ceepak taps his top shirt pocket. “I need to pay for the boys.” He pulls out a folded-over check to make sure it’s there, stuffs it back in.

Skippy comes out of the office pyramid in a windbreaker that covers the top half of his pleated Egyptian chariot driver skirt. I see the Pharaoh hat stuffed in the pocket.

“Thanks for coming over, you guys,” he says, sounding kind of nervous. “I have a fifteen-minute break. Maybe we could talk across the street? One of those benches?”

He points to the Pig’s Commitment, a restaurant where pork and pancakes are the main attractions. There are a couple of benches out front for people waiting for tables during the morning rush. It’s six P.M., so they’re empty.

That means I get to see Mrs. Starky’s horse-tooth smile again.

There’s an ad for All-A-Shore Realty on the back of the bench.

“Uh, Mr. O’Malley?” someone calls behind us.

It’s a guy in green coveralls holding a Weed Whacker.

“What is it, Fred?”

Fred lifts the Weed Whacker a little higher. “I ran out of gas.”

“Then refill it.”

“Okay.” We can see Fred thinking. It appears to be hard work. “Should I, like, go down to the gas station?”

Skippy gives us a perturbed “do-you-see-what-I-have-to-work-with” sigh.

“There’s a gas can in the shed!” He gestures toward another pyramid, about fifteen feet tall, situated behind some fake palm trees on the far side of the bright blue River Nile snaking through the course. I see there are two handles on the front of the triangular structure. Clever. A hidden tool shed.

“Okay. Thanks, boss. When I refill the gas, should I keep whacking the weeds?”

“Yes-but only in the parking lot and around the fences. Not where people are playing!”

“You got it, Skipper!”

Fred salutes and bops off to gas up.

Skipper shakes his head. Sighs again. We go across the street.

“I found this when I was taking out the trash this morning. I try to pull out any recyclable paper. My dad just stuffs everything into one big can.”

He shows us a sheet of paper with something printed on it. It’s stained brown and dripping at the bottom.

“Sorry,” says Skip. “Dad wadded it up and crammed it into an almost empty cup of coffee.”

Ceepak reaches into his cargo pants pockets, pulls out a pair of forceps so he can examine what appears to be a digital photo printout.

It’s a picture of Skippy’s father, his arm draped around Gail Baker’s bikini’d waist at the Rusty Scupper. I recognize the red-and-white-checked tablecloths in the background. He’s holding a bottle of beer. She’s got her waitress pad. Both Gail and Mr. O’Malley are laughing, like they just shared a joke with whoever is behind the camera.

“He was trying to get rid of it,” says Skippy. “When I heard Gail had been killed …” He chokes up for second. “Twice in one week. The bastard …”

“Come again?”

“Nothing.”

Ceepak takes a small paper bag out of the below-the-knee pocket on the left leg of his cargo pants. Slips the crinkled picture into the evidence bag.

“Is this your only evidence of a relationship between your father and Ms. Baker?”

“Yeah. I mean, so far. I could, you know, look around. Check his phone records.”

“That won’t be necessary,” says Ceepak. “And thank you for bringing this evidence to our attention.”

“Is my father a suspect in Gail’s murder, now?”

“He will be on our radar.”

“You guys might want to talk to Aunt Frances. My mom’s sister. Frances Ryan. She’s still in town. I bet she’d know if my mom thought Dad was cheating on her with Gail or some other girl. They talked about everything.”

I remember Aunt Frances from the funeral, snapping at the white-haired woman in the pew behind her, “She was our sister before she was his goddamn wife!”

Why do I have a feeling that Aunt Frances thinks about as much of Paddy O’Malley as Mrs. Starky thinks of me?

“Do you know where she is staying?” asks Ceepak.

“Over at the Atkinsons’ motel. The Mussel Beach.”

“And she’ll be there tomorrow?”

Skip nods. “Yeah. All day. I’m taking her up to Newark Airport first thing Sunday morning.”

“Thank you, Skip.”

“I guess I still have a little detective in me.”

“Indeed,” says Ceepak. “I’m just sorry that your private investigation has, perhaps, exposed some ugly truths about your family.”

“That’s okay. My dad and I aren’t that close. But I guess you know what that’s like.”

Ceepak gives Skip one of his confused-bird looks. His big jarhead tilts ever so slightly to the right. He does this when somebody says something he wasn’t expecting-or something extremely rude.

“Well, I better get back to work,” says Skippy.

“Us, too,” says Ceepak.

“Right. Okay. Thanks for swinging by.”

“Thanks for sharing your evidence with us.”

Skippy thrusts out his hand. Ceepak takes it. Gives it a good shake.

Skippy beams.

Man-he so wants to prove to us that he could be a good cop. Well, he wants to prove it to Ceepak. I’m just always standing next to the big man in blue.

“Oh, one more thing, Skip,” says Ceepak, reaching into his shirt pocket, pulling out that folded-over check. “My stepson and his friends will be visiting your golf course tomorrow morning. I believe they will be a party of six.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Skippy. “It’s on the house.”

“No. I insist on paying.”

“And I insist on not taking your money.”

“Skippy?”

“Sir?”

“I believe the Chiefs of Police Code of Ethics says it best: ‘I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill will, never employing unnecessary force or violence and … never accepting gratuities.’”

Skippy nods.

“It’s forty-eight bucks for six of them,” he says, sounding like one of the nuns back in grade school just read him the riot act, only this time it was Sister Ceepak.

Ceepak writes him a check. Skippy takes it, heads back to his pyramid to hand kids their balls. Sorry. Whenever I think about Skippy’s job, I can’t not go there.

The radios squeal on our belts.

“Unit A-twelve? Unit A-twelve?

“I got it,” I say, grabbing my mobile unit off my belt. “This is Officer Boyle.”

“Be advised, Lieutenant William Botzong, the acting unit supervisor of the MCU detectives, would like to talk to youse two.”

Our new dispatcher. Dorian Rence. She tries to talk like an episode of Law and Order, but every now and then, a Joiseyism slips in.

“Be best to field the call on a land line,” says Ceepak.

“We’ll head back to the house,” I say into my radio and get a head nod from Ceepak for saying the right thing. “We can be there in five.”

“Ten-four,” says Dorian. “I will advise Detective Botzong as to your disposition and whereabouts.”

“Thanks.” I clip the radio back to my belt.

“Let’s roll,” says Ceepak. “Sounds like Detective Botzong has new information to share.”

Yeah. With “us twose.”