why she and I don't date. “This one guy? Virgilio Mendez? His chest and arms look like an art museum. He's pumped to the max and has the Blessed Virgin Mary inked on his right shoulder … Jesus with the crown of thorns on his left pec….”
Halfway through the beers-my second, their third-we decide it's time to order dinner. So we flag down a waitress and order some fried shrimp and fried clam tenders and a French-fried lobster.
The fried food always comes to the table fastest.
I'm just getting started on my clam strips and curly fries when my cell phone rings.
I figure it's Ceepak, calling to make sure I'm tan, rested, and ready for our big day tomorrow.
Caller ID confirms my hunch. It's my 9:30 tuck-in call.
“Yes sir?”
“Danny-how many beers have you had?”
“Two.”
“That'll work. I need you down here at the beach house.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Negative. Ashley Hart is missing.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I've never seen so many cop cars.
Red and white lights are swirling everywhere. The road is clogged with armed troops lugging all kinds of heavy firepower. I even see some guys with black Kevlar helmets and full body armor. I swear-it looks like we're about to invade the next town down the shore.
I see Adam Kiger. He's got another Dunkin’ Donuts coffee going. This one's iced, one of those slushy Coolatas they sell, because it's still hot and muggy and the wind isn't even blowing.
“Guess I'm never gonna get any sleep,” Adam jokes when I catch his eye.
“Yeah. You seen Ceepak?”
“Out back. That's where the girl snuck out.”
“Thanks, man.”
I find Ceepak in the back yard, out near the pool.
“She snuck out,” he says. “To meet her boyfriend.”
He points up to a small balcony on the second floor. There's a sliding glass door up there and it's open. The balcony's right near this trellis deal made out of four-by-fours and latticework with grapevines or something growing all over it. It'd be an easy little hop from the balcony to the top of the trellis and then a quick shimmy down to the ground. It's like Ashley has a backyard “Romeo and Juliet Playset” instead of the more traditional jungle gym.
“Is the boyfriend here?”
“Negative,” Ceepak says. “We heard his story, then his father hauled him home.”
“Mayor Sinclair?”
“Roger that. The boy will be available for further questioning, should we need to talk to him later.”
“So what's his story?” Ceepak pulls out his little notebook.
“Ben Sinclair says Ashley Hart called him from her cell phone and stated she needed to see him right away. She was so ’totally freaked by everything that happened today, she asked him-no, he said she ‘begged him’-to meet her back here by the pool. He hopped on his motorcycle, left town around 2045. They waved him through at the guardhouse gate….”
Figures. Guess being the mayor's son gives you an E-Z Pass through life.
“Sinclair arrived here at approximately 2100 hours. The state police officer guarding the northern perimeter let him pass when he explained who he was.” He does a two-finger point to the south. “I was patrolling the far perimeter. Wasn't alerted to his arrival. The young man waited approximately fifteen minutes. Sat there.”
Ceepak points to a chaise longue on the patio surrounding the kidney-shaped pool. I see one empty and one half-empty Heineken sitting on a small round table next to the chair.
“How old's this boyfriend?” I ask, looking at his beer bottles.
“Sixteen. Maybe seventeen. Apparently, he knows where they stow the alcoholic beverages.”
Ceepak nods at a refrigerator tucked into the brickwork of a massive backyard barbeque. I'm not talking Weber grill and sack of charcoal here. This is one of those stainless-steel professional jobs built into a garden wall.
“So the kid sat sipping beer for five, ten minutes,” I say, picking up the narrative.
“Right,” Ceepak says, piecing it all together for me so it becomes clearer for him. “Then, when Ashley still doesn't show, he starts ‘getting pissed.’ He walks over here … to the pergola-”
“The what?”
“The arbor. The trellis.”
“This thing? With the vines?”
“Right. He comes over here and tries calling up to Ashley's room … tosses a pea pebble or two at her bedroom window….”
“And he realizes her balcony door is open.”
“Exactly,” Ceepak says. “That's when young Mr. Sinclair starts, as he puts it, ‘to shit a brick.’ He runs back up to the road, yells at the state police officer, says, ‘Ashley's gone! Ashley's gone!’ Her mother hears the boy, comes running out the front door. She proceeds to scream as well. At 2125 hours, I call for reinforcements, initiate a hard target search.”
That would be 9:25 P.M.
It's almost ten now. Took me fifteen minutes to drive down from The Sand Bar. I drove slow because, well, I'd been drinking.
“Ceepak?”
It's the chief.
“What the hell happened?”
The chief is wearing a big mesh T-shirt, like a football jersey if they played football in July instead of the fall. He's got on gray sweat-pant shorts and flip-flops and looks like he was home in his comfy chair, ready to kick back, pop the top on a cold one, and watch some ball when this new thing started going down.
“Nothing definite yet, chief.”
“Well, find something definite, okay? Find it fast.”
“I'm all over it, sir.”
The chief does one of those quick looks around, like he wants to make sure nobody is eavesdropping.
“This thing? It could … you know … it could get messy. State police. FBI. I need, you know … I need your best, John.”
“It's all I'll ever give you, sir.”
“Great. Okay. Great. Thanks.”
Something about the way Ceepak says stuff, like he truly means it, always puts people at ease.
“Where's the mother?”
“Inside. Jane is sitting with her.”
“Okay. Good. Smart. I'm going up to the road,” the chief says. “Reconnoiter with the troops. Work out a search grid. You coming?”
“In a minute. I want to nose around down here first.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Holler if you find something … anything.”
“Roger.”
“I'm putting out an Amber Alert.”
