23
Ceepak tells me to meet him at Oak Beach.
In Sea Haven, we name our beaches after the streets they dead-end into. I have a lot of history on this particular plot of sand: it’s where my friends and I used to hang out when we were teenagers, born to run, like Springsteen says, from everything we knew in New Jersey.
Of course, I never did run. I’m still here.
But Oak Beach was where we plotted our escape and talked big about what we’d do and who we’d become. I think I was going to become a rock star. More specifically, I was going to play trombone with the E Street Band, even though, as my late girlfriend Katie pointed out, “they only have a saxophone player.”
“That’s why they need me!” I told her.
But I quit blowing the bone before the end of my freshman year in high school. There was an unfortunate marching band incident. My slide took out the tuba player. Spit valve to the neck.
We laughed about that all summer long.
Every day in June, July, and August, after working our various crummy jobs catering to tourists, we’d all march down to Oak Beach and hang out together. We’d plant our umbrella in whatever patch of bare sand we could find, hide the cooler of beer we were too young to legally drink under a beach towel, and spend the end of the day shooting the breeze, smelling the salt air, dashing up to the dunes every time the guy with the ice cream truck tinkled his bell, honestly thinking we would live that Dylan song Springsteen sings sometimes and stay “forever young.” Our glory days would be like the waves crashing against the shore. Endless.
Oak Beach is also where I fell in love. Several times each summer.
If I want to re-connect with my first girlfriend from seventh grade, I don’t have to do it on Facebook. She’s just up Shore Drive, at the Mussel Beach Motel, fluffing pillows and wrapping crinkly sanitary paper on top of bathroom glasses. Becca Adkinson is kind of like me: we swore we’d get out when we were young and, instead, ended up hanging around town forever.
I guess I’m clinging to my memories because I’m about to march into another crime scene that, I’m pretty sure, will make me hate Oak Beach for the rest of my life.
Thomas, a.k.a. Skeletor.
Dead. In a lifeguard chair.
It’s still early. Too early for much beach traffic. In time, the scrubby sand alongside the boardwalk path cutting through the dunes will be cluttered with kicked-off sandals and flip-flops. People just leave them here when they first hit the beach, pick them up on their way back to their rental houses for lunch-probably a sandwich made with cold cuts from the supermarket deli on a nice soggy roll.
Surprisingly, nobody ever steals the footgear. It’s the shore’s unwritten code. This is a place to escape all that, all the pushing and shoving and stealing and lying.
Well, in my memory it is.
I can see Ceepak standing on the other side of a corral of fluttering yellow police tape stretched out between flagpoles, the ones the lifeguards stake in the sand to mark how much beach they’re keeping an eye on. My partner is staring up at the lifeguard chair, a bright yellow perch about six feet off the ground. A lanky body is flopped sideways in the wooden seat, its legs and arms dangling down like a rag doll a kid has tossed on the edge of a couch. The head droops sideways.
Whoever put Skeletor in his high chair must’ve cinched up the chinstrap on his Boonie hat: it’s buffeted by the sea breeze, but it’s not blowing off his dead head.
I duck under the police tape, check out the pattern of footprints in the sand, and find the path most likely left by Ceepak’s shoes so I can use his trail like stepping stones. I’m sure Bill Botzong and his MCU crew will be plaster-casting all these dimples and divots, hoping the killer left us some kind of footwear impression we can use to track him down.
“MCU is on the way,” says Ceepak.
I nod. “Who found the body?”
“Early-morning joggers.” He points to a waffle-wedge impression in the sand. “They like the Nike LunarGlide running shoes.”
“How’d he die?” I ask.
Ceepak taps his left temple. “Single bullet, shot from a distance of two to three feet. Exit wound slightly lower on the right side, suggesting a downward firing angle.”
“Just like Paulie Braciole.”
“Roger that.” Ceepak has shifted into his more robotic mode. He usually does this when confronted with the horrors of death. I think it’s how he made it through Iraq without totally losing his mind.
“Was this where he was killed?” I ask.
“Doubtful. The beach, although officially closed at midnight, still attracts quite a few night visitors.”
True. I’d say fifty percent of my Oak Beach memories took place after dark.
“Also, Danny, as you can see, there are no bloodstains on the lifeguard stand itself.” Right. If they shot Skeletor while he was sitting up in the elevated chair, there’d be blood splatter stains and dribble marks all over the bright yellow paint.
“Most likely,” Ceepak continues, “Skeletor’s body was dumped here sometime shortly before dawn. The joggers called 9-1-1 at 5:30 A.M. When the first responders realized who the victim was, they immediately notified Chief Baines at home. The chief called me.”
And Ceepak called me.
Before I could call him. Geeze-o, man. I almost forgot.
“His name is Thomas,” I say.
“Come again?”
“Skeletor. His first name is Thomas. He’s Gabe’s brother.”
“And who is Gabe?”
This happens sometimes. My mouth races ahead of my brain.
“The guy with the Heil Hitler knuckles from the candy stand.”
Okay. The brain still hasn’t quite caught up.
“You mean the gentleman we spoke with yesterday at the All American Snack Shack booth?”
“Yeah. I bumped into him at the Sand Bar last night. I went there to watch
“May I ask why you didn’t notify me immediately?” Ceepak asks, more puzzlement in his voice than criticism.
“I would have, but Gabe said Thomas couldn’t turn himself in until tomorrow morning, Saturday. Lady-friend problems.”
“I see.”
“This all happened around eleven o’clock,” I say, without adding, “after your bedtime.”
“Did Gabe suggest that his brother, Thomas, a.k.a. Skeletor, had reason to fear for his life?”
“No. Not really. He said the Creed had ostracized Skeletor. But if they had wanted him dead, he’d be dead already.”
“Indeed,” Ceepak says thoughtfully. “Do you know his last name?”
Damn.
“No,” I say. “Sorry. Should’ve got that. Sorry.”
“Don’t ‘should’ on yourself, Danny.”
Ceepak slips a digital camera out of the thigh pocket on his cargo shorts, puts the viewfinder to his eye, and activates the zoom.
“Fascinating,” he says.
“What?”
“There is a square of folded paper pinned to the Boonie hat with a beach badge.”
