“In some ways,” says Ceepak, “it fits with what we see here. The wheel tracks clearly visible. But the footprints were obliterated with the garden rake.”
“You think whoever did this wanted us to find the body?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Why? Is he sending some kind of message? Do you think the mob did this?”
Ceepak answers my question with one of his own: “How well did you know the victim, Danny?”
“We, you know, talked.”
“Were you ever romantically involved?”
“With Gail Baker? Nah. She was way out of my league. Although …”
“What?”
“She used to go out with Skippy O’Malley. Maybe I had a shot and didn’t even know it.”
“Any known enemies?”
“Gail? No. More like broken hearts. She was a serial dater. She’d hang with a guy for a while, then move on.”
I remember the dentist.
“We should talk to Marvin Hausler.”
“Who is he?”
“Dentist. I think he and Gail were hot and heavy for a weekend he’ll never get over; she got over it by Monday. He’s been kind of stalking her.”
“Come again?”
“Last weekend at the gym, he threw this big fit. And, at Big Kahuna’s Saturday night, he called her a bitch because she stood him up.”
Ceepak’s been jotting down notes in the spiral pad he keeps in the left hip pocket of his cargo pants. “Definitely worth a go-see,” he says.
“She also seemed to be flirting with this dude at the gym.”
“Dude?”
“One of the trainers. Last weekend, they were teasing each other. Talking about hooking up. But that was four or five days ago. By now, he could want to kill her for dumping him. Gail Baker went through guys the way I go through potato chips.”
“We should compile a list of these young men.”
“We could check with Bud, the bartender at Big Kahuna’s. He knows all the local dirt.”
Ceepak keeps staring at the two suitcases.
“What do you see?” I ask.
“Two things. On the handle, the remnant of a luggage tag.”
I see it, too. One of those sticker deals they wrap on when you check your bag. The flappy part is torn off.
“If there is any scanable information on what’s left, we might be able to decipher what flight the bag was checked on.”
“And who was on that flight,” I add.
“Precisely.”
“Would the killer use his own suitcases?”
“If he or she acted in haste, hadn’t premeditated the mutilation, he or she might.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Next to the torn tags.”
I see orange yarn pom-poms. One on each handle.
“That’s what my mom does,” I say. “So she can spot her suitcase on the baggage carousel.”
“Does your father do the same thing?”
“Nah. Only women do that.”
“Such has been my experience as well.”
So …
That’s why Ceepak was doing the “he or she” thing.
Maybe Gail didn’t run into a jealous old boyfriend. Maybe she bumped into somebody’s girlfriend who couldn’t stand the competition.
14
The MCU people arrive.
The boss is a new guy named Bill Botzong who took over when Dr. Sandra McDaniels retired after working her last case in Atlantic City.
She’d seen enough, she told Ceepak. Except her grandkids; them she wanted to see more.
“Has anything been moved?” Botzong asks.
Ceepak has to explain Santucci’s rummaging through the luggage looking for ID and then his repacking of said luggage.
“This Santucci still here?” asks Botzong.
“Across the street,” says Ceepak. “Knocking on doors.”
“Good,” says Botzong, who looks like a chemistry teacher I had in high school, only he’s wearing the navy blue CSI shirt plus aviator glasses and a Star Trek Bluetooth device in his ear. On weekends, I’m guessing, he goes to comic book conventions. “Hey, Carolyn?” he calls out to one of his crew.
“Yeah?”
“Put in a call to that forensic anthropologist in PA. The guy who analyzes knife and saw marks. I want to know what our guy used to decapitate our victim and sever her limbs. Serrated kitchen knife or Ginzu, hacksaw or chainsaw? I want make, model, and manufacturer’s suggested retail price.”
“On it.”
“Carolyn Miller,” says Botzong as Miller walks away. “Good people. Getting her doctorate in forensic geology. She’ll be all over the ground here. If there’s a footprint or a wad of chewing gum or a pebble from a parking lot on the other side of the island, she’ll find it.”
“We noted that the sand has been raked to mask footprints,” says Ceepak.
“Yeah. But the rake man didn’t know I was bringing Carolyn. You walk on water, she’ll tell me your shoe size.”
“We’re going to work this side of the street,” says Ceepak. “Canvass for witnesses. We’ve initiated retrieval of the victim’s phone records and have requested a search warrant for her apartment. We’ll send over a team. Lock it down for your guys.”
“You the lead on this thing for SHPD?”
“Ten-four.”
“Good. Sandy McDaniels told me I should hire you to come work for us. Interested?”
“Not right now.”
“Think about it. You work with us, you get one of these.” He points to his Bluetooth device. Now he gestures toward the crime scene. “When we know anything, you’ll know it, too.”
“Appreciate that.”
“Hey, George-we need to wrangle a truck to get these suitcases back to the lab as soon as Susan’s done taking pictures. Something with refrigeration. Get on the horn, see if a grocery store or a water-ice shop or Ben and Jerry’s or the local Boar’s Head meat distributor can help us out here-”
While the CSI guys comb the crime scene and pack up their gruesome luggage, Ceepak and I head up the block toward the beach.
We ring doorbells, knock on doors. Tangerine Street is a ghost town. The lights aren’t on and nobody’s home. We move to the next block, the one closest to the beach. In Sea Haven, the closer your home is to the
