I do the same.
We reach the ice machine and he raises his right hand. We halt. He points down to something on the deck in front of the office door.
It's Pete's stupid talking parrot.
Somebody ripped it off its hook and tossed it to the ground. Looks like they stomped on it, too. There's a deep dent cracked into its bright yellow belly. I wonder if that annoying voice chip recorded something Cap'n Pete didn't want anybody else to hear. Maybe a girl's screams.
“Looks like a possible 10–36,” Ceepak whispers.
Vandalism.
We now have probable cause to search the premises.
Ceepak raises his pistol skyward. I keep mine aimed straight ahead. He'll do the door. I'll deal with whatever's on the other side once he swings clear.
He nods. I nod back.
His left hand twists the metal knob on the screen door. It's unlocked. Also rusty. He pulls it open. Slow. The door squeaks.
Ceepak peers through the window at the top of door number two, the fiberglass storm behind the screen.
“Clear,” he whispers. He tries the second door. “Unlocked.”
You'd think you'd lock your doors if you were inside sawing someone's head off.
“Going in.”
Ceepak speaks in quiet, terse bursts. I nod. I know what I'm supposed to do: cover his ass. He is putting himself in the most vulnerable position, making himself the first target. My job is to shoot anybody who shoots at him.
He raises his right leg. This door will be kicked open so he can keep his gun in front of his chest. He's done this before. Lots of times. They were always knocking down doors back in Baghdad. Busting up apartments doubling as bomb factories.
He kicks.
The cheap storm door nearly flies off its hinges. It swings open so fast it hits an interior wall and bounces right back. Ceepak kicks at it again, softer this time. Gives it more toe, less heel.
“Clear!” he shouts.
We storm into the front room.
“Clear,” I shout back because I need to shout something.
The room looks like it did when Cap'n Pete was showing us his shoebox full of treasures. No wonder the worst treasure hunter in Ceepak's club was finally able to actually find something: it was all stuff he had buried himself so he knew where to dig.
Ceepak points to the curtained partition separating the public space of the office from the private back room. The storage room. The room where, I've heard, Cap'n Pete keeps a cot for those late nights when he's been out on the continental shelf in his boat, fishing for blues, and doesn't return to dock until three or four in the morning. The same cot he probably slept on back in the ’80s, after those long nights of strenuous mutilation in the service of the Lord.
Ceepak snags my attention.
He's going into the back room.
I'm aiming my Glock forward again.
I nod.
He nods.
He takes in a deep breath, shoves the heavy blanket aside. It slides away like a wool shower curtain.
We step into the darkness. The room has no windows. No lights. Our eyes adjust.
When the shadows start to take on shapes that make sense, we see that the side walls are lined with industrial shelving. Metal racks with exposed nuts and bolts and diagonal slats like you'd use in your garage. The shelves are crammed with neatly arranged plastic storage bins stacked on top of each other. At the far wall, ten feet in front of us, I make out the shape of a small rollaway bed.
Ceepak flicks on his Maglite, swings the flashlight beam over to the bed.
Stacey is lying spread-eagled on the mattress. I can see her dyed hair but not her face.
She is lying on her stomach.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
There are no sheets or blankets on the bed.
Stacey's face is buried in the lumpy crevices of the stained mattress. Her arms and legs are anchored to the bedposts with plastic FlexiCuffs strapped around her ankles and wrists.
Ceepak dashes over to her.
I twist around, aim my pistol back at the curtain. I don't want Pete sneaking up behind us with his hacksaw.
“She's been drugged,” says Ceepak. “I suspect trichloromethane. Chloroform.”
I back up so I can keep one eye on the door, the other on Ceepak and the girl. When I bump against the shelf unit behind me, I hear the unmistakable rattle of glass jars.
I think we've discovered the Cap'n's private museum. The place where he keeps his favorite trophies and souvenirs.
Ceepak pulls out his Swiss Army knife and uses the scissor tool to snip through the four FlexiCuffs. Then, he gently rolls Stacey over. He wants to put her on her back, wants to check out her face.
I turn away. Focus on the curtained entryway. Raise my gun higher and aim it at nothing.
I don't want to see Stacey's nose and ears or what Cap'n Pete might've already done with his knives. I assume he cuts up his victims here in this dark chamber but maybe he takes them out back and uses that plastic fish-cleaning table mounted on the dock. That's where he keeps his crate of old newspapers. He could wrap up Stacey's skull in Friday's local Sports section, then hose everything down, wash all the evidence down the drain, and watch it trickle off the dock, out into the bay, disappearing into the Atlantic Ocean.
“We need to call an ambulance,” says Ceepak.
“Is she … did he …?”
“She's unconscious but uninjured.”
I decide it's okay to look.
Stacey still has her nose, which I now notice she's currently using to snort out some room-rumbling snores. Ceepak takes off his windbreaker and drapes it over her. For the first time since I met her over near the causeway, Stacey looks like what she probably is: a high-school kid who needs a nap.
“This is Unit Twelve,” Ceepak says into his radio.
“Go ahead Twelve.”
“Request ambulance at Cap'n Pete's Pier House. Bayside Boulevard and Gardenia Street.”
“Status of injured party?”
“The prognosis is optimistic. We assume she was the victim of foul play, an abduction involving chloroform. Please advise the chief that we have located and secured the girl, the subject of Sergeant Santucci's recent search.”
“Is she the one who needs the ambulance?”
“Roger that. We also need to issue an APB. Please alert all units to be on the lookout for one Peter Paul Mullen.”
“Cap'n Pete?” The dispatcher sounds surprised.
“Suspect should be considered extremely dangerous,” Ceepak continues. “Please send a unit to his house at 32 West 14th Street in Cedar City.”
“He and his wife go to my church. His sons are….”
