Tilt-a-Whirl

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Let's take a walk.”

We're on the sandy concrete sidewalk outside Chesterfield's. The sun is already so hot and bright that the pavement sizzles and any gum you step on is going to be gooey and stretchy like pizza cheese.

Ceepak heads toward the end of the street where pressure-treated planks lead up to the boardwalk paralleling the beach.

“Where we going?” I ask, trying to catch up. The man does not walk at a leisurely pace

“Tilt-A-Whirl.”

“Are you planning on telling me what the hell is going on sometime today?”

“I did. We're walking over to the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

Ceepak is acting like the asshole big brother I never actually had. The one who thinks he's so clever, doing some kind of Three Stooges “nyuck-nyuck-nyuck” hand wave in your face. Some seagulls caw and chitter. They think Ceepak is fucking hilarious.

“That's not what I mean,” I say as we hustle down the boardwalk. All sorts of interesting walkers and joggers come at us, pass us, move up and down the wonderfully level span overlooking the sand and surf. I feel totally out of shape. First, Ceepak walks too damn fast. Second, all these other people look healthy and fit as they speed-walk or run past in their color-coordinated exercise outfits. Third, I drank six beers in sixty minutes flat only about seven hours ago and, like I said, the sun is bright and hot and my armpits bring to mind a cheap brewery.

Ceepak dashes down a short set of stairs and onto the sand. He takes the steps two at a time, swinging from the handrails like a giddy kid. I follow him, trying not to trip, stumble, or fall.

“‘This train?’” Ceepak shouts over his shoulder. “‘Faith will be rewarded!’”

He's quoting another Springsteen song. “Land of Hope and Dreams.” It's not really on any studio album, but Bruce sings it live all the time.

I still have no idea where the hell any of this is leading except, of course, to the chain-link fence surrounding the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Ceepak points to the bushes where I first found the needles and other drug paraphernalia.

“Maybe Squeegee was here. Maybe he came here all the time, especially when it was raining, to shoot up his drugs. Heroin, mostly. He could have been in those bushes, sleeping it off. Then, all of a sudden, he hears a gun go off. Seven, eight, nine shots. Lot of noise. Only Squeegee doesn't pop up right away. He's groggy. Did some heavy-duty smack the night before. He's half-awake, half-asleep when he hears the fence rattling.”

Ceepak kicks the bottom of the fence. It shimmies and rattles and pings against its poles. It'd get me out of bed.

“Maybe he finally sits up. He looks toward the beach, expecting to see the cop who gives him his wake-up call most mornings. Only this particular morning, he sees a lady wearing sunglasses and a scarf and smoking a cigarette. A sweet-smelling cigarette. The sea breeze? It blows that fragrant smoke right up at him and he thinks it smells like something he made for his mother once, for her to hang in the closet. A clove pomander.”

What do you know-Squeegee and I have at least one thing in common-we both made stinky gifts for our moms.

Ceepak points to people and things that aren't there, but I start to see them. He walks over to the trapdoor buried in the sand.

“Maybe he sees this same lady bend down and pull a pistol out of this hole. A pistol just like this one.”

Ceepak pulls out his Smith amp; Wesson.

“Maybe the next time Mr. Jerry Shapiro, a.k.a. Squeegee, is shown such a weapon he says, ‘Yeah, that's like what she had.’ And, he says the lady was wearing white gloves.”

Ceepak snaps open his pants pocket and pulls out a pair of those lint-free evidence gloves.

“‘Like these?’ I ask. ‘Yeah. Like those,’ he says.”

No wonder he was up in Room 215 so long last night. He and Squeegee had quite the conversation.

“The lady's smart. She's not leaving any fingerprints on the murder weapon. Then our witness? He hears the lady whisper something. ‘We need to talk!’”

“Is the lady whispering this to Squeegee?”

“No. He thought so at first. Apparently, some of his recreational drugs increase his sense of paranoia. However, he soon realizes-the lady tucking the gun into her beach bag is talking to somebody else. Somebody up in the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

“Okay.” This is getting creepy.

“Now, let's pretend you're a heroin addict. A junkie. You've just been rudely awoken. You've seen a woman with a gun, whispering to someone you can't see. What do you do?”

“Freak out?”

“Good answer. You see the gun lady run away. Maybe you get up and run through the mud over there where that broken sprinkler head soaked the ground. You run out from behind the Sunnyside Clyde sign and see a bloody body slumped in one of the Turtles. You freak out even more, pace around and leave your bootprints all over the platform. Then you realize, if you stick around? Everybody is going to say you did it, they'll say the murder was a robbery gone bad. So you decide to get the hell out of there before … before? Danny? Before what?”

“Uhm … uh….” I didn't know this was going to be one of those audience-participation game shows.

“Focus, Danny. You're the junkie. You're a tramp who gets busted for sleeping on the beach or in the bushes or under the boardwalk or up in the Tilt-A-Whirl all the time.”

“So you know everybody's schedule?”

“Awesome! So what do you do?”

“Get the hell out of here before the cop on the scooter shows up?”

“Good answer. But-you realize. That cop usually comes here earlier. Adam Kiger typically swings by when the sun's barely up. In fact, you realize, even though you don't have a watch or an alarm clock, you got to sleep in a little later than usual this Saturday morning. You can tell by how high the sun is over the ocean. But you hear noise. In the distance. A tractor.”

“Joey T.?”

“The Sand Rake sweeps this sector of the beach between 0725 and 0730. As I indicated earlier, your friend keeps a very rigid schedule. Squeegee can hear him coming.”

“So the junkie … he crawls out of the hole and high-tails it … wherever.”

Ceepak nods.

“Did Joey see him?”

“No,” Ceepak says. “He was up the beach, facing north, about to double back and rake south. Like mowing a lawn-he does the beach in overlapping lines.”

“I see.”

“So our junkie friend? He gets extremely lucky. He scurries through the hole and runs up the beach. A few minutes later, Joey T. comes along and covers up his tracks for him. The lady's too. But Jerry saw the lady stub out her cigarette….”

“Which Joey swept up?”

“Check.”

“Which ended up in the Sand Rake's hopper?”

“Double check.”

“Which is now in your pants pocket?”

“Checkmate.”

“So-why didn't Squeegee see Ashley?”

“Firstly, he's, as you say, ‘freaking out’ so he's not seeing much of anything except Mr. Hart's bloody body. Secondly, Ashley was hiding behind the turtle. Remember her footprint path? How it went around to the back?”

Ceepak pulls out his little notebook.

“I asked her, ‘Which way did he go?’ She answered, ‘I'm not sure. I went behind the Turtle to hide.’ I believe she was telling the truth. About hearing Squeegee in the bushes, maybe even catching a glimpse of him stumble-bumming around. She was scared and hid until she was sure he was gone. Probably heard the fence rattle again when he crawled under it.”

“You think she lied about everything? To protect her mother?”

“They're very close. The butler said so. We've observed it ourselves.”

“And the kidnapping?”

“An excellent means of expediting the whole probate process. To ensure no one contested the will and Ashley immediately inherited everything-billions and billions of dollars. Surely, the richest girl in the world would share some of her newfound wealth with her mother. I believe Betty Bell Hart cooked up the kidnapping scheme early Saturday afternoon, when she realized Ms. Stone was in a position of power and able to dispose of assets….”

“So all of a sudden, you think she did it? Did everything all by herself?”

“Not all of a sudden, Danny.”

I'm remembering our walk from the bank.

“And,” Ceepak adds, “not all by herself.”

“But how would Ashley know to tell us about the crazy man with the buggy eyes?”

“I believe Ashley and Mom had a quick little chit-chat. After the murder, after the junkie was gone. Miss Bell most probably ran off the beach … around there … to the side … somewhere where they couldn't be seen. Maybe behind another Sunnyside Clyde sign. I suspect she coached her daughter on exactly what to say … and Ashley was scared … covered with blood … horrified … but mom calmed her down … talked her through it….”

“That would take some time….”

“Yes,” Ceepak says. “At least fifteen, twenty minutes. But Betty was very clever. She didn't overload her daughter with too much information. Just enough. About a crazy man with googly eyes. I suspect they talked and rehearsed from 0725 to 0745.”

“Which is when we saw Ashley in the street!”

“A full half hour after her father died. I never stopped to ponder that lag in the timeline until I talked to Squeegee.”

“Squeegee gave you a lot of information.”

“He's our first eyewitness. His testimony, however, would be vigorously contested in any court of law, given his vagrant background and history of drug abuse….”

“So why'd you shoot him?”

“Who?”

“Squeegee.”

“Danny, did I ever say I shot anybody?”

“No but … I assumed….”

Oh, Jesus. My dad was right. I made an ass “out of u and me.” I drank all that beer last night without just cause.

“But….”

“Danny, I could not ask you to lie for me when the chief, as I knew he would, asked you what I did inside the hotel. Furthermore, telling everyone the suspected kidnapper was alive might have endangered Squeegee before I had a chance to see if he was telling me the truth.”

“But-you fired your rifle! I smelled it.”

“As I knew you would.”

“I see. So you sort of set me up?”

“I allowed you to jump to a conclusion. Yes. Sorry.”

“It's all good.” I actually say his catch phrase back at him because I am totally relieved. “So-who did you shoot at?”

“No one. I took a little target practice. You know that lighthouse? Where the red paint meets the white?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I nailed it. Right on the line. Split it down the middle. We should run by and check it out … later.”

“And the hotel burned down because?”

“I couldn't deactivate the timers.”

“But you knew when the building would blow?”

“I used the sniper rifle's telescopic sight to read the digital output on the timers secured high in the rafters of one of the turrets. It's why I encouraged evacuation of the premises in such a dramatic fashion.”

“You mean firing your pistol into the floor like that?”

“Affirmative.”

I feel all warm and fuzzy. The Code lives on. So apparently, does Squeegee.

Ceepak crouches down near the sand-covered trapdoor.

“Now then-we never actually checked the bottom of this fence for fibers. If Betty crawled out, perhaps….”

“Don't touch that fence!”

A skinny old lady in shorts and a cowboy hat is limping up the beach, yelling at Ceepak.

“Do not touch it!”