Whack A Mole

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

We swing by the station house to drop off Dr. Winston's driver's license.

Denise Diego scans it into her computer and in ten seconds flat, Dr. Theodore A. Winston's headshot is displayed on Mobile Data Terminals inside cop cars up and down the island and over on the mainland.

“Handsome dude,” Diego says, wiping Dorito grease off her fingers and onto her pants.

“Stay away from this one, Dee,” I say. “He's trouble.”

“Roger that,” says Ceepak.

“A bad boy, hunh?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Sometimes those are the most fun.”

We leave our colleague to her dirty daydreams and head out of the computer room, into the open bullpen around the front desk.

“Ceepak? Boyle?”

It's Chief Baines, lurking in the doorway to his office.

“Sir?”

“Santucci's back on task,” he says. “I told him to concentrate on finding the girl.”

Ceepak nods. It's not what he wants to hear, but he has to live with it for the moment.

“Did the wife know where Dr. Winston went?”

“Negative,” says Ceepak.

“He's probably our doer. Why else would he run?”

“It's a possibility, sir.”

“The guilty ones always bolt.”

“So do the frightened ones, sir.”

“Yeah, well, I say he's guilty. Where do you think he's hiding out?”

“No telling. He's pretty familiar with the island. He's vacationed here a number of summers over the years.”

“He was here back in the 1980s? When those other girls were killed?”

“Yes, sir. Our intelligence suggests as much.”

I smile a little. I'm “our intelligence” because I let the jerk talk my ear off one night in a bar.

The chief doesn't know this, however. I think he thinks he's the one who just figured it all out. “He's our man, John. Go nab him.”

“Yes, sir.” Ceepak says it without any of the gung-ho enthusiasm I suspect the chief was looking for.

Ceepak just said it so the chief would shut up and let us go do our job.

“Where now?” I ask.

“Reverend Trumble's,” says Ceepak. “I suspect Life Under the Son is where our killer first met his victims. Perhaps his face is even captured in one of those photographs hanging on the Reverend's office wall.”

“Those surf baptisms? The ones with the crowds?”

Ceepak nods. “The killer may have heard the girls confess their so-called sins and then, his head filled with the Reverend's fire and brimstone, become something of a vigilante, enforcing a rigid code of justice as outlined in the writings of Ezekiel-a code he may have first learned from the Reverend himself.”

We head over to Beach Lane and travel north to The Sonny Days Inn.

“Let's see if the good Reverend is in.”

We head toward the office. On the walk across the parking lot, my stomach growls because it's after five and I can smell Italian sausage, onions, and sweet peppers wafting on the breeze. We're that close to the boardwalk. I can even see the sausage booth. The curly fries shop. The funnel cakes wagon. It's hard to resist the siren call of indigestion.

But I do.

I pull open the squeaky aluminum storm door and we enter the motel office. In here it smells wholesome. Like air-conditioned lemonade and sugar cookies and crisp apples.

The young girl behind the counter is definitely a devoted member of the Trumble flock. I can tell by the tight green T-shirt hugging her ample chest. It says, NO TRESPASSING. MY FATHER IS WATCHING. Clever. Disappointing, but clever.

“We need to see Reverend Trumble,” says Ceepak.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“We need to see him now.”

“I understand, but….”

There is the sound of a door opening.

“Hello, Officers.”

We turn around. Smiling at us, the Reverend Billy waves off his anxious, T-shirted minion and beckons us into his private chambers.

“Are you familiar with Ezekiel Twenty-three, verses twenty-five to twenty-seven?” asks Ceepak.

“Of course. ‘And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword!’”

He recites it like he's Charlton Heston in that movie about Moses. He points a finger toward the ceiling, up where God is, I guess. In a room on the second floor. Maybe higher.

“‘They shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire. They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt!’”

He looks at us when he finishes.

“I believe I quoted it correctly.”

“Have you preached on this text?”

“Certainly.”

“Often?”

“Indeed. For it describes the punishment God promises all promiscuous women.”

“Really?” says Ceepak. “I always thought it was more of a metaphor.”

Another smile. “Officer, there are no ‘metaphors’ in the Bible. It is, quite simply, God's Holy Word.” He picks up the Bible conveniently perched on his desk. “I, sir, believe in the whole Bible. I don't throw out the unpopular parts, the verses that make so many so-called Christians squeamish. For instance, I firmly believe that, as is stated in First Corinthians, all those who engage in premarital sex are automatically damned to Hell.”

He says it to Ceepak like he knows about Rita. Then he points his finger upstairs to God's room again.

“‘Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers of themselves shall inherit the kingdom of God.’”

Now I think he's talking about me.

Ceepak edges closer to the preacher's big desk.

“Tell me, sir, exactly how many ears and noses have you personally cut off?” Ceepak points to the framed pictures lining the walls. “These girls. The ones you baptized after they confessed their sins. Some of them had been promiscuous?”

“Indeed. It is a common transgression.”

“Then I'll ask you again, how many noses and ears did you take away? Or did you ask someone else do it for you?”

Ceepak pulls out a copy of Teddy Winston's driver's license photo.

“Was this one of your disciples?”

Trumble studies the picture.

“Doubtful. He looks far too old.”

“What about twenty-eight years ago? 1979. Was he here the same summer as Delilah?”

“I have no way of….”

“What about 1980? Was he here with Miriam and Rebecca?”

“As I stated….”

“Maybe 1981. That's the summer Esther and Deborah had their ears and noses cut off. The summer one of your followers amputated their heads. Mutilated their faces. Did exactly what you and Ezekiel told them to do!”

The preacher looks shocked. He's finally figured out that Ceepak and I didn't come here for Tuesday evening Bible class.

“Someone actually …?”

“A dozen times we know of.”

“Oh my God.”

“I'll ask you one more time: is this man in any of those photos?”

“I … I….”

“Was Theodore A. Winston one of your disciples?”

Trumble is fresh out of smiles.

“Many youngsters who heard my words chose to take up the road to redemption….”

“And one chose to do exactly what you told him to do. Remember, there are no metaphors.”

The Reverend holds on to the armrests of his chair; he's a shriveled balloon all out of hot air.

“Please believe me, Officer,” he says weakly. “I never thought any one would … never, ever believed….”

His voice fades into silence.

“Danny?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Take the photographs off the wall. All of them.” Ceepak leans on the desk. “Sir, do you have a box we might use?”

“Hmm?”

“A box.”

“Yes.” Billy Trumble has lost his radio voice. He sounds like a sad old man. “Take whatever you need….”

“Use that one,” says Ceepak, pointing at an empty carton on the floor. Probably left over after somebody made a food donation. I don't think Reverend Billy would ever let his flock down a whole case of Captain Morgan Rum.

“Take down the photos, Danny.”

I yank the framed photographs off the wall. They're all from the ’80s and early ’90s. Strange hairdos. Bushy sideburns. College-aged kids lined up along the beach, watching the Reverend dunk another sinner in the surf. I scan their faces, looking for a younger version of Teddy Winston. Did he crash the scene on the beach? Was this his happy hunting ground?

In one picture, I see a girl on the shore I think might be Ceepak's Rita, only younger, her hair wilder.

“Let's roll, Danny.”

Reverend Billy Trumble sits slumped in his chair-probably wondering what he's going to tell God the next time the two of them chat.

We hit the parking lot.

“We need to rush these pictures back to HQ,” says Ceepak. “Find someone to examine them more closely, check for a younger Dr. Winston. Meanwhile, we will remain mobile and continue field pursuit of our prime suspect.”

“Right.”

I pull open the cargo bay to stow the cardboard carton. I take one last look at the boardwalk to bid a fond farewell to the sausage-andpepper sandwich I know I won't be eating any time soon.

Suddenly, I see her. Strolling up the boardwalk near The Frog Bog.

The redheaded girl.

The one with the green hair.