“You found something?”
“Maybe.”
“Shell casings?”
“No. Our shooter is still quite tidy. However, he needs to watch where he walks. There was an oil stain on the garage floor across the street.”
“He stepped in it?”
“You can say that again. Size twelve. Converse All-Stars. Looks like he went for a little walk.”
“Where to?”
“Around the front of the vehicle, over to the passenger side. Reached the rear tires, stopped, turned around, walked back to the driver-side door.”
“You think he had a flat rear tire?” Ceepak asks.
“One possibility.”
“We should alert the service stations.”
“Yep. You really should.” McDaniels smiles happily. This could qualify as a break. If the sniper had tire trouble, he might've gone to a gas station after shooting Mook. We might be able to track this guy down, maybe even before noon tomorrow.
Ceepak radios Gus Davis back at the house and tells the desk sergeant to coordinate the service station sweep. Phone calls from police headquarters start going out the second Ceepak signs off. He turns to McDaniels, eager for more.
“Any tire tracks?”
“Oh, yeah. Whoever owns that house? They must have one hell of a leaky Mercedes. Puddles everywhere. Oil. Transmission fluid. We picked up several tire tread patterns that look similar.”
Ceepak nods. “The homeowner's vehicle.”
“Right. And one set that doesn't match any of the others. Very fresh.”
“Minivan?”
“That'd be my first guess. Need to run it by the lab. But they look like all-season radials. Maybe Bridgestone BT70s, which are pretty common on minivans.”
“You know your treads,” I say.
McDaniels shrugs off the compliment. “American, Japanese, German, and Italian. I need to bone up on my Chinese. Anyhow, I'd bet serious money it's our minivan.”
I'm thinking about Rick again, the trained sharpshooter with the white van.
“I'll ride to the morgue with the body,” McDaniels says, seeing the EMTs zip Mook up inside a black vinyl bag. “See if the late Mr. Mook can tell us anything else. You boys heading back to the house?”
“Negative,” Ceepak says. “Danny and I will remain in the field. We need to talk to some people. Fast. We have less than twenty-four hours now to grab our shooter. The clock is ticking.”
“Okay.” She waves to her team across the street. McDaniels climbs into the back of the ambulance with Mook's body bag. When she thinks no one is looking, I see her make a sign of the cross and say a quick prayer.
The ambulance and CSI car pull away from the scene. It looks like a very small funeral.
Adam Kiger, one of the cops who went up the street to hunt for witnesses, jogs down toward us.
“Ceepak?” he says. “I think we found somebody.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
If Kiger and Malloy have found a witness to go with our foot and tire prints, things are definitely starting to look up. Which is good. We need to catch our killer or else summer ends early this year in Sea Haven and may never reopen again.
Mark Malloy, another of our guys, is about ten yards behind Kiger. He walks alongside this very tan thirtysomething guy in khaki shorts and a King Putt T-shirt. King Putt is one of the many miniature golf courses on the island. They have the best logo: a pharaoh who looks pretty authentic until you see the putter in his hands where the staff of Ra should be.
“This is Mr. Goldstein,” Malloy says to Ceepak. “He and his family are renting for two weeks at Fifteen Oak. Sir, could you please tell Officer Ceepak what you told my partner and I?”
“Now? I have to be on a conference call with a very important client in, like, five minutes.”
“I'd like to hear your story,” Ceepak says. He towers over the witness. Six-two to five-two. I think the very important client can wait.
“Okay, okay.” The guy sighs like we're ruining his day. Murder will do that. “Like I told these two officers already, my boys and I went down to the beach this morning, came back early for lunch. Around eleven thirty. Anyhow, I saw a car parked over there.” He points to the garage where the CSI team has just wrapped things up. “Figured it was the Realtor, stopping by to check up on the place. The house has been empty all summer I hear. Guess they're asking too much. Overpriced it.”
“What sort of vehicle was it?” Ceepak asks.
“Minivan,” Goldstein says. “White. They pulled in backwards.”
“Excuse me?”
“They backed into the garage. The door was up and I could see the front end pointing forward. I remember thinking that was weird. You ever try to back up into a garage? Tough to do. You gotta work the side mirrors so you don't scrape against the walls.”
“Right.”
“Or you can back in too far. Bump into the wall, crush your golf bag, knock over your weedwacker.”
“Right.”
“I did it once. Backed into my garage. Put this big scratch down the whole side of my truck. Dinged the bumper. Of course, my truck is a lot wider and longer than a minivan. That's it up there. See it? The silver Lexus? The LX 470?” He points and takes a self-satisfied moment to give us enough time to admire his shiny boy toy and calculate his net worth. “It lists for sixty-five but I added some options. We left the Porsche at home this year. He gives us another minute so we can try to guess how much the options and Porsche must've cost.
When he has decided we're sufficiently impressed, he starts up again. “I remember thinking, why would you go through all that trouble to park your van butt in, nose out? It's easier just to pull in and back out, you know?”
“Yes, sir. Was anyone in the minivan?”
“No. Not that I saw. Could have been, but I didn't see anybody. Of course, I wasn't really looking for anyone, since I was heading home for lunch.”
“Was this red sports car parked where it is now?”
“No. Not when the boys and I came up from the beach.”
“And that was approximately eleven thirty?”
“Eleven thirty-two. I have one of those Atomic watches-syncs with the clock out in Boulder?” He waits for us to be impressed again. “They sell it at Hammacher Schlemmer?” Another pause. I just hope the watch didn't cost sixty-five thousand like the SUV.
“I remember checking the time right after I looked at the minivan,” he continues. “I phoned my wife from the beach, told her the boys and I would be home at eleven thirty-five. We were right on schedule. Anyhow, at eleven thirty-two, all I saw was the minivan and, like I said, I figured it was the real estate agent or maybe a maid brigade dropping by to dust off the furniture.”
“Why'd you think it was the Realtor?”
“The license plate was local. You know, one of those ‘Shore To Please’ jobs with the lighthouse.”
New Jersey sells ‘Shore To Please’ license plates to people who tick a box and donate a few bucks toward saving our seacoast from pollution. Most people here in town buy them. But, then again, so do a lot of other people all over the state who like visiting clean beaches for a week or two every summer and not worrying about
