Ceepak stares at Rita.
“She sounds like a wonderful woman,” he says.
“She is.”
“I'd like to meet her.”
“And you will. If and when you really need to.”
Ceepak considers his options. Makes his decision.
“Thank you,” he says. “I appreciate that.”
Rita looks down.
“I'm sorry I never….”
“It's all good. If we absolutely need to talk to this woman, I'm certain you will provide us with her name.”
“I promise,” says Rita.
“You don't have to. You already said you would do it. Your word is good enough for me.”
Rita turns to face me.
“Are you okay with this, Officer Boyle?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Me, too. Your word's good to go.”
“Thank you, Danny.”
“No problem. Hey, like Ceepak says:
Rita laughs. “That's not Ceepak. That's Springsteen.”
I wink at her. “Same difference.”
One of the cell phones clipped to Ceepak's belt chirps. He wears two of them. I'm not exactly sure why.
“Excuse me,” he says and flips open the silver clamshell. “This is Ceepak. Yes, Chief. Right. Roger that. Will do.”
This can't be good. The chief doesn't work nights. He clocks out at five or five thirty. Then again, the poor guy has to wear a suit and tie every day. I'll stick with late nights, bad coffee, and hitting the streets. We get to wear shorts in the summer.
Ceepak snaps his phone shut.
“Danny? You may want to contact Ms. Aubrey Hamilton and postpone your date at The Sand Bar. We need to be at The Treasure Chest. ASAP.”
“Everything okay?” asks Rita. “My tables must be going crazy.”
“Something's come up.”
“Something serious?”
Ceepak nods.
“Going to be a long night?”
“Definite possibility.”
“Okay. Uhm, do you need me to take the dog out for a walk later? After I'm done here?”
“I'd appreciate it. So would Barkley.”
“What's going on, John?”
“I'd rather not say at this juncture.”
When Ceepak starts using words like “juncture,” you know he's shifting back into supercop mode. Typically, you also stop asking him questions.
“Okay.” Rita reaches out, squeezes Ceepak's left hand. “You be safe, you hear?”
“Will do.”
“Promise?”
“I give you my word.”
“Rita?” Olivia has found us. “They need us inside. Time to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ at the four-top up front.”
“I really gotta run.”
“Us, too.”
“Okay.” Rita finally lets go of Ceepak's hand. As soon as she and Olivia are through the door, he turns to me.
“An employee at The Treasure Chest souvenir shop at 105 Ocean Avenue just discovered a severed human nose floating in a jar of formaldehyde.”
“A nose?”
“Affirmative.”
It's like we're playing Whack-A-Mole. Body parts keep popping up all over town.
“Was there a label on the jar?”
Ceepak nods.
“Miriam. 1980.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kitsch.
That's what my mom would call the souvenirs and stuff they sell at The Treasure Chest. Crappy kitsch.
Spoon rests, jumping dolphin paper weights, rubber sharks, salt and pepper shakers shaped like lighthouses, ceramic coffee mugs where the coffee comes out of a fish mouth so you're basically kissing a fish first thing every morning.
I think people's brains must go on vacation when their bodies do. It's the only answer. Vacationers buy things they wouldn't normally buy. If they'll pay thirty dollars for a sand-dollar wall clock to hang in the rumpus room, it must be because their mental faculties have taken the week off.
I think the main purpose of the Sea Haven souvenir shops is to keep New Jersey's Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores stocked for the remainder of the year. And garage sales. Jersey is the capital of Garage Sale Nation.
The Treasure Chest is right across the street from The Bagel Lagoon and Ceepak's apartment on Ocean Avenue. It's a squat, block-long building with pirate flags fluttering every ten feet along the mansard roof. With curb-to-ceiling plate-glass windows painted with slogans like DOCK HERE FOR BIG $AVING$, it kind of looks like a giant furniture showroom, only the floors are cluttered with T-shirt racks and beach ball bins instead of Barcaloungers.
We arrive without lights or siren, since Officers Adam Kiger and Dylan Murray had radioed in to say they'd already secured the scene. The parking lot is empty except for their cruiser and a small Honda.
Our headlights sweep across the two cops as we pull in. I notice they're with a young woman in a purple polo shirt. I look closer and see that it's my old friend from high school, Amy Decosimo. She used to work over at Pudgy's Fudgery, where she was in charge of slicing quarter-pound slabs off the big bricks and making up the assorted-flavor two-pound boxes for people to take home to cat-sitters.
I now recall hearing that Amy has moved up to a management position here at The Treasure Chest. I have a hunch she's the one who found the item that wasn't listed in the store's inventory: one souvenir nose. She looks terrified.
“What've we got?” Ceepak asks Kiger.
“You talk to the chief?”
“Roger that.”
“This is Ms. Decosimo,” says Kiger. “She's the one who found the object in question.”
Amy looks at me. “Hey, Danny.”
I remember the last time I saw her-at the start of the whole Tilt-A-Whirl thing. She helped me clean up the bloody little girl I hauled inside the fudge shop.
Don't get me started. It's a long story.
“How you doin’, Amy?” I ask.
“I … I'm….”
