was buried underneath the dock.
Fortunately, it was near a piling sunk into the dirt on shore, not permanently underwater. I didn't bring a change of clothes to work today. We dug up a big, mucky plastic box, some kind of watertight storage tub like they sell at Home Depot to stow tools in. It had a rubber gasket around its lip to seal the latched lid and keep the contents dry.
All the evidence inside, another complete set, had survived high tides for over two decades.
“Hey, Ceepak. What you guys doin’ down there?”
Ceepak closes the box. We crabwalk out from under the dock.
It's Gus Davis. This is the pier where our retired desk sergeant parks his boat.
“Retrieving evidence.”
Ceepak and I climb up to the dock.
“What kind of freaking evidence you find down there? Barnacles?”
Ceepak flashes a smile.
“How are you, Gus?”
“Can't complain. You still looking for that runaway from back in 1980-whatever?”
“Not really,” says Ceepak. He doesn't add,
Gus tugs on the brim of his fishing cap. “Good,” he says. “You know why?”
“No. Why?”
“You ain't gonna find her down there!” Gus wheezes a laugh.
I notice he's carrying a tackle box. I also notice that the tackle box looks a lot like the plastic container we just pulled out of the dirt underneath the dock. The one big difference? Ours is black, his is yellow.
I glance at Ceepak. He nods. He sees it too.
“That your tackle box?” Ceepak asks.
“Yep. Kind of dinged up, hunh?”
“I'm sure it's seen a great deal of use.”
“Ain't that the truth? Used to keep it in my trunk, in case I ever caught a minute or two to hit the pier after my shift. Now, all I got is time, you know what I'm saying?”
“You earned it, Gus,” says Ceepak.
Gus adjusts his hat again. He gazes out at all the boats lined up along the pier. It's a little after two and the sun is starting its slow slink toward the west.
“You know,” he says, “you have too much free time, you maybe think too much, too.”
“I suppose so.”
“That's what I've been doing. Thinking. Ruminating, so to speak. Ever since you two mamelukes came by my boat and started giving me the third degree….”
“What's on your mind?” Ceepak steps sort of sideways so he's blocking the slanting sun and Gus's view of our muddy box.
“That girl you were hassling me about. The runaway. What was her name again?”
“Mary Guarneri.”
“Yeah. I've been thinking that if this Mary Guarneri got herself in trouble or whatever, maybe it was her own fault.”
“How so?”
“You've been here, what? A year?”
Ceepak nods.
“You meet any of these girls? These runaways?”
“A few.”
“Then you know what I know. They're tramps. Whores. There. I said it. These girls come down here looking for a good time. You gotta figure one or two of 'em are gonna wind up partying with the wrong type of individual.”
Ceepak's eyes narrow.
Gus doesn't notice. “So all I'm saying is-don't come around here blaming me. This girl got in trouble? Chances are, trouble is exactly what she came looking for in the first place.”
Ceepak stays silent.
“Nice bumping into you guys,” says Gus. “See you 'round. I got fish to catch.”
He shuffles up the dock, raises his fishing rod hand to signal goodbye.
“Do you think?” I whisper.
“It's a possibility,” says Ceepak. “Hopefully remote.”
“Yeah.”
“Let's take this box back to the car. Catalog the evidence.”
“Yeah.”
We don't want to scare the people on the dining deck outside The Rusty Scupper. The food the Scupper serves is already scary enough.
Secure behind the tinted windows of our patrol car, we re-open the box.
It's Lisa DeFranco. Killed in the summer of 1983. When I look at her Before Polaroid, I can see the LISA earring sparkling in her left ear lobe.
“It's the end of our line,” says Ceepak. He's been studying the map. “It leads us back to Oak Beach and the spot where the backhoe unearthed Mary Guarneri.”
“So now where do we go?”
“The Sonny Days Inn. We need to talk to Reverend Trumble again. ASAP.”
The Ezekiel quote. The biblical names. The Polaroids of girls with a placard draped around their necks proclaiming their sin of whoredom. The kindly preacher man they might have confessed their sins to
“What about the surgeon? The jerk from Princeton. He used to come here back in the 1980s.”
“He's on the list, too. As is your bartender friend. I believe he was in town during the 1980s as well.”
“Yeah.”
In my mind, I see Ralph slicing and dicing lime wedges like the guy in the Ginzu commercials. He does it with a couple quick flicks of his wrist.
“Let's roll,” I say, juiced to be doing something besides digging up buried skulls all over the island. As soon as I slap the transmission into drive, the radio crackles with static.
“Ceepak? Come in. Over.”
It's the chief.
Ceepak reaches for the radio mike mounted on the dash.
“This is Ceepak. Over.”
“We need you on the North End. Now. Meet me at the pier behind the former location of The Palace Hotel. Copy?”
“10-4.” Ceepak gestures for me to make the appropriate course correction. I hang a U-turn in the middle of Bayside Boulevard. Burn a little rubber.
Ceepak grabs an overhead grip and steadies himself so he can continue his chat with the chief.
“What's the situation, sir?”
“Santucci and Malloy worked the North End. Dug up six more boxes. Followed the trail. Found the final hole.”
“Come again?”
“We found the final hole. It was empty. Except for a photograph tucked inside a plastic sheet protector.”
“A photograph?”
“Yeah. The Before shot. You were right, Ceepak. This guy's getting ready to kill again. He's already picked out his next victim.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“No. Doesn't look to be a local.”
