Tilt-a-Whirl

The girl looks up, right at Amy.

“Do you have something to….”

She can't finish, so I fill in the blanks.

“You got a first-aid kit, Amy?”

“Unh-hunh….”

“Could you maybe go get it? Grab some peroxide? Gauze?”

It's like Amy finally wakes up. She runs up front to grab the first-aid stuff.

I see a towel hanging near a sink back where they make the fudge. I go grab it and run some warm water to make it soppy.

When I get back to the little table, the girl is staring blankly at the menu board on the wall behind the fudge counter, like she's trying to decide whether she wants the almond-coconut or the pecan-marble.

I wipe her face. Then her hands.

“We go there to talk,” she says.

“You go where?”

“The Tilt-A-Whirl.” She sounds like she's narrating somebody else's dull home video, like she's not really here. “Even when it's not running, we go to the Tilt-A-Whirl. The cars look like big sea turtles.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Big green sea turtles.”

“Yeah.”

“They call it the Turtle-Twirl Tilt-A-Whirl.”

“I know. It's my favorite ride in the whole park.”

Not really, but it seems to work.

The girl smiles faintly, flashing braces. She's a pretty kid. Long blond hair framing an open, eager face. Bright blue eyes, the kind that sparkle.

“We share secrets….”

Her voice fades, the smile vanishes, her head drops. I can see tears tumbling into her lap.

“Here you go.” Amy has the first-aid kit and a paper cup of cold water.

The girl takes a big gulping sip.

When she's done, I pour peroxide on her wounds. She sucks in the sting between her teeth.

“Easy,” I say. “I know it burns. We need to clean you up.” I mop up her palms with the wet towel. She helps, taking the towel and rubbing it all over her hands.

“The sting going away?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

I show her my smile. Then I finish cleaning up her hands. Amy's got another wet towel. The girl takes that one and pats her face with it. The white towel soaks up the brownish blood. She's looking more like a kid again.

“We'll wrap your hands with the gauze now, okay?”

She nods.

I start unwrapping the roll of Johnson and Johnson around her mitts.

“We snuck in from the beach,” she whispers. Maybe she thinks whatever happened to her father happened because they were trespassing.

“Really?” Let her talk, I figure. Let her get it out.

“We've been sneaking in like that ever since I was a little kid….”

She stops talking again.

I think she just realized she and Daddy won't be sneaking in anywhere any more.

The walkie-talkie clipped to my belt squawks. It's got to be Ceepak. I push the talkback button.

“Yes, sir?”

“I'm at the scene,” Ceepak says, “and have made a preliminary identification of the victim.”

There's a real long pause.

“It appears to be Reginald Hart.”

I turn to the girl.

“Is your father Reginald Hart?”

The girl nods.

Oh, man.

“Danny?” Ceepak's filtered voice comes through loud and clear in The Fudgery. “Need your help here. Did the girl see who did this? Can she ID the perpetrator?”

She nods again.

“10-4,” I say into the walkie-talkie.

“Okay. Danny?”

“Yes, sir?”

“This is important. Focus.”

“Yes, sir….”

“You need to take her someplace safe.”

I wonder if Pudgy's Fudgery works for Ceepak.

“10-4.”

“Stick with her. Call the house for backup and secure your position. The bad guy's still at large and must be considered armed and dangerous. Alert the chief. I'll secure and preserve the crime scene.”

I look at my companion. She's too scared to be frightened any more.

Not me. My knees now start shaking.

Amy, having heard all of this, rechecks to make sure the Fudgery's front door is locked and deadbolted. Then she lowers the blinds. This morning, no one's going to get to check out the fresh fudge in the window.

There's a bad guy on the streets, someone crazy whom Ceepak says is “armed and dangerous” and who's probably looking for the one witness who can pin a huge homicide on him.

Then there's me.

A summer cop.

The guy without a gun.

CHAPTER THREE

Reginald Hart is kind of like Donald Trump, only richer and without the gravity-defying comb-over.

Plus, now he's dead.

If you grew up around Sea Haven, you've heard about Hart all your life. He owns half the skyscrapers up in the city and more than half the casinos further down the shore in Ocean Town. He also owns a bunch of restaurants, an NFL franchise, some oil tankers, and an airline. I think he used to own a mansion here on the ritzy south end of the island, but his third wife scored it in their divorce.

There are all sorts of stories about how Reginald Hart got his start and earned his nickname-Reginald “Hartless.” Apparently, when he was a young tycoon-in-training, Hart bought up cheap buildings in neighborhoods he figured were ripe for gentrification. But before he could renovate them, class them up for yuppies-or whatever they called professional people with money to burn back before Starbucks- Hart had to convince the old folks already living in his newly acquired tenements to move out.

Many of these longtime tenants didn't wish to accommodate Mr. Hart's desires. They had rent-controlled apartments and fixed incomes and wanted to stay where they were, thank you very much.

Hart energetically encouraged them to reconsider their real estate options.

He hired hookers and drug dealers and junkies to move into the buildings, even made some of the scuzzballs his resident superintendents.

Some people say Hart bought rats and turned them loose in the hallways. I don't know where you buy rats.