Mike Charzuk is waiting for us in the lobby of the stationhouse, on the other side of the short railing that separates the police from those we’re sworn to protect. Makes us feel safer.
Charzuk is not alone. Peter O’Malley, the gay son, is sitting next to the personal trainer in one of our scoop- bottomed plastic seats.
Does this mean Charzuk is gay, too?
If so, why were he and Gail talking about hooking up?
Am I looking at another potential three-way here? The two-guys-one-girl kind I never actually wanted to include in my personal fantasy files?
“Mr. Charzuk?” says Ceepak.
“Yes, sir,” says Charzuk, standing up. Smoothing out his sweatpants.
“I’m just here as a friend,” says Peter O’Malley.
“I was kind of nervous about coming alone,” says Mike.
Ceepak nods. “Understandable. We just want to ask you a few questions. Is Mr. O’Malley your lawyer?”
“No. Just … a friend.”
O’Malley blinks-silently daring us to ask “what kind of friend?” But we don’t.
“I work for Peter’s landscaping company,” Charzuk explains, “when I’m not at the gym.”
Oh. That kind of friend.
“Would you like a lawyer present while we talk to you?” asks Ceepak.
“Do I need one?”
“That is entirely your call. If you cannot afford one-”
“No. That’s okay. I want to help you guys catch whoever did this to Gail.”
“May I come with Mike?” asks Peter O’Malley.
“Are you a lawyer?” asks Ceepak.
“No.”
“Then you will need to wait out here.”
We sit down in the interview room. Charzuk has a bottle of water. I grabbed a cup of bad coffee because this figures to be a long night. The coffee has been on the Bunn burner so long, it smells like gym sock soup.
Ceepak? He’s on whatever natural fuel Zen masters tap into. I think he could go seventy-two hours without sleep and stay totally alert. I think he had to over in Iraq.
“Were you and Ms. Baker romantically involved?” Wow. First question out of the box. Ceepak’s on a tight schedule.
“Is that important?”
“Yes.”
“Now and then.”
“How about this week?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Really?” I press on. “Then why were you two talking about hooking up last Sunday at the gym?”
“Huh?”
“I overheard your conversation.”
“You work out?” He sounds surprised. I guess he caught a glimpse of my physique. “At Beach Bods?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry. I didn’t recognize you.”
“She told you she was free for the week.”
“That’s right.”
“You offered to give her a ‘deep tissue’ massage afterwards.”
Charzuk sits back in his chair. Rubs his tattooed arms like he’s cold. “You heard all that?”
“Yeah.”
I think I’m freaking him out.
“Look, we weren’t romantically involved. We just liked to, you know, help each other out from time to time. Physically.”
I nod like I know how that goes.
Yeah. Right.
Ceepak’s eyebrows, however, are arched halfway up his forehead. This whole friends-with-benefits, sex buddy stuff is new to him. I think it became an American tradition while he was overseas serving his country instead of back here making booty calls.
“Gail really couldn’t afford to get, you know, serious about me or any guy her own age.”
“Pardon?” says Ceepak.
“She … her money … to earn a living … the tips at The Rusty Scupper aren’t great … she wasn’t a prostitute or anything.…’
“But?” Ceepak says for him.
“She was more like a geisha girl. Made rich men happy. They, you know, said thanks. Gave her stuff.”
The bling the dentist told us about.
“They paid for her clothes, her gym dues and training sessions. All she had to do was, well, keep looking amazingly hot.”
“Who are these wealthy men?” asks Ceepak.
“She never named names. Called them her sugar daddies.”
Making her a sugar baby. The tiny T-shirt was either her little joke or her Hooters-style uniform.
“Where would she rendezvous with these gentlemen?”
“I’m not sure. I know it wasn’t a cheesy hotel like the Smuggler’s Cove or anything. They had really classy parties all the time. Champagne. All the lobster and prime rib she could eat, which wasn’t much, because she had to keep the weight off to keep her men happy.”
“Did she ever talk about a house on Tangerine Street?”
“No. I think it was some place on the beach, though. She’d call it the Sugar Shack or the Beach Boys Clubhouse.”
“Thursday night, right before she was murdered, Ms. Baker called you.”
“That was right before?” He takes a long drink out of his water bottle.
“Do you remember the content of your conversation?”
“Some. Sure. Yeah. She’d been to the party house. Said she had wanted to just hang and chill with her ‘sorority sisters’ but one of the ‘gentlemen’ at the house wanted to, you know, get busy with her. But this guy wasn’t
“They had assignments?” I ask.
“You could call it that. Each girl had their main man. Marny might know more.”
“Ms. Minsky?”
“Right. She’s the one who got Gail into the whole scene. Recruited her. Told her she’d have some laughs, meet some amazingly rich men. Gail even got to hang with the mayor.”
“Mr. Sinclair?”
“Yeah. He was at the house a bunch of times. She met some state senators, too and could get you tickets to any concert or game or anything. Gail’s old guy had some urgent family business to deal with this week so that’s why she told me on Sunday that maybe we could hook up while he dealt with whatever. But, like I said, it didn’t pan out.”
“Why the late night call on Thursday?”
“She was in a jam, didn’t know what to do. I guess this drunk jerk at the house grabbed her and sucked on her neck so hard he gave her a hickey, like they were in high school.”
I remember seeing the neck hickey.
“She booked, hopped in her car, went speeding out of there, like fifty in a fifteen zone.”
Remember that, too.
“A couple of cops pulled her over. Gave her a warning.”
Ceepak and I are both nodding now.
“She thought the guy who’d been groping her might cause trouble. Kick her out of the club. And that would
