“Unit A-twelve? Unit A-twelve?
“I got it,” I say, grabbing my mobile unit off my belt. “This is Officer Boyle.”
“Be advised, Lieutenant William Botzong, the acting unit supervisor of the MCU detectives, would like to talk to youse two.”
Our new dispatcher. Dorian Rence. She tries to talk like an episode of
“Be best to field the call on a land line,” says Ceepak.
“We’ll head back to the house,” I say into my radio and get a head nod from Ceepak for saying the right thing. “We can be there in five.”
“Ten-four,” says Dorian. “I will advise Detective Botzong as to your disposition and whereabouts.”
“Thanks.” I clip the radio back to my belt.
“Let’s roll,” says Ceepak. “Sounds like Detective Botzong has new information to share.”
Yeah. With “us twose.”
18
“I’m going through the call data now,” says Denise Diego when Ceepak and I hit the house. “Should have something to show you guys in ten, twenty minutes.”
She’s at the vending machine. Refilling her Doritos stash. Fueling up on Red Bull.
“Thanks,” says Ceepak. “Would you like a soft drink, Danny?”
“Sure.”
We grab a couple of cold Cokes.
“So what do you think of Skippy’s evidence?” I ask.
“Extremely circumstantial,” says Ceepak. “I would imagine that many of the male patrons of The Rusty Scupper have asked Ms. Baker to pose with them. I am given to understand that the same sort of snapshots are often taken at Hooters.”
True. I have two of those and one of Gail. I keep them hidden in a shoebox up in my closet.
“Skippy used to date Gail,” I say.
“Indeed. I recall he was quite infatuated with her.”
Yeah. That’s who he was gabbing with when he was a summer cop and Ceepak yanked the phone out of his ear.
“So, why does he want us to think his father was having an affair with Gail Baker?” I ask.
“Because he and his father have ‘issues.’ I fear he is attempting to take advantage of Ms. Baker’s death for his own purposes.”
Wow. Not cool, Skip. Not cool.
I follow Ceepak into the dispatcher room where Mrs. Rence sits at a wraparound desk cluttered with computer monitors, punch-button consoles, and three-ring binders filled with police codes and emergency protocols.
“Welcome back, boys,” she says when she sees us. “Detective Botzong will call at eighteen fifteen hours.”
I smile. Mrs. Rence, who is what they call an empty nester, took this civilian job when her last kid shipped off to college. She’s only been with us a couple of months but has already learned how to use the military time clock. I think Ceepak gave her lessons.
“Shall I put the call in the conference room when it comes through?” she asks.
“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “And Dorian?”
“Yes, John?”
“We call it the interview room.”
“Really?”
“Ten-four.”
“Sorry. Too many years working for the electric company.”
“It’s all good,” says Ceepak.
Mrs. Rence (we all call her that because, well, she looks like someone’s mom) opens a little wire-bound notebook. Jots down “Interview Room” under a list of other terms: Dee Wee (driving while intoxicated), the house (the stationhouse, where we are now), Loo (slang for “Lieutenant” that cops actually like).
“Dorian,” says Ceepak, “do you know how we can get in touch with Sergeant Dominic Santucci?”
“He clocked out at fifteen hundred hours,” she reports. “He’ll probably be working his side job tonight.”
Side job? I thought he was going home to catch the Yankees.
Mrs. Rence flips through a purple binder where she has everything organized inside plastic flaps. I think she might be a scrapbooker on weekends.
“Here’s his card. ‘Italian Stallion Security.’ This business number here is really just his cell phone.”
Ceepak jots the number down.
“Thank you, Dorian. And thank you for not only learning your job so quickly but for doing it so well.”
“You trying to butter me up so I’ll bring in another loaf of pumpkin bread?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She laughs. “I’ve got work to do here. So ten-whatever, youse two.”
We set up shop in the interview room, which is really just a room with a long table, a one-way mirror, a couple of chairs and a speakerphone. It’s also where we store the Christmas lights in the off-season, which, in certain parts of New Jersey, means you take ’em down at Easter, put ’em back up after Halloween.
The phone burps. Ceepak punches the speaker button.
“This is Ceepak.”
“I have Detective Botzong for you. Please hold.”
We do. We sit and stare at the phone like it’s a dog we expect to roll over or something.
“Ceepak?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Bill Botzong. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem.”
“We have a lot to talk about. My team’s moving fast. You guys pick up anything at your end?”
“We’ve talked to the few neighbors currently in residence on Tangerine Street.”
“And?”
“All we have so far is a dog barking at three A.M.”
“Could coincide with the body dump,” says Botzong. “The M.E.’s initial time-of-death estimate is one A.M. Friday. Our guy kills Ms. Baker, cuts her up, stuffs her into the suitcases, goes looking for a spot to drop the bags. He picks, for whatever reason, Tangerine Street. Gets there about three in the morning. The dog hears the pickup truck-”
“Your sure it was a pickup?”
“Carolyn Miller is. Probably a Dodge Ram, she says. See, a guy working a rake, he has to stop raking at some point. This guy, he did it all the way back to the running board on the side of his truck, or so we suppose. Carolyn found tire tracks in the sandy edge of the street where he couldn’t rake because he was too busy driving away.”
“Do you have a model number?”
“BFGoodrich G-Force T/A KDW 205/50ZR 15s. They got this unidirectional racing stripe-style tread design and an increased interior groove offset for snow and sand traction.”
Wow. Ms. Miller is good.
“Any of Ms. Baker’s known acquaintances pickup truck jockeys?”
“Negative,” says Ceepak. “So far, we have talked to Dr. Marvin Hausler, a local dentist, who had been overheard on several occasions making derogatory remarks about Ms. Baker. He and she had been romantically involved for a brief period of time. The dentist, while harboring deep-seated resentment toward the victim, has an
