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Authors: Chris Grabenstein

BOOK: Hell Hole
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“you sure
you guys don't need to go to the hospital?” asks Samantha Starky.
She'd finished breakfast and was hanging out at the station house when the distress call came in:
Officers down.
Yeah. We were down all right—down in a ditch. My buddy George Hansen from Undertow Towing brought his rig to mile marker 55 (that's the one I bent when I went off the road), hooked the crushed cruiser up to his winch, and asked, “So, how'd you do that, man?”
I gave George the abridged version of Mr. Danny's Wild Ride (which, by the way, he considered “totally awesome”) then Ceepak and I climbed into Starky's car because we needed to be three miles down the road at the rest stop.
I'm sitting up front. Ceepak is in the back, using gauze from the first aid kit Starky keeps stowed in her way back to blot at that head scratch. We're sort of cramped inside Starky's personal vehicle. It's a Honda Civic. I think it's one of those hybrids and gets like fifty miles per gallon. Our Ford Explorer used to do fourteen. Now? Well, let's just say its actual mileage days are behind it.
“You guys should know: Chief Baines is totally ticked off,” Starky reports. She looks into the rearview mirror so she can address Ceepak. “Did he reach you on your cell phone, sir? He tried like twenty times.”
“My cell phones were both incapacitated in the accident,” says Ceepak.
Mine too. No more playing that “Mine Sweeper” game on its tiny screen.
“You might want to give the chief a call,” suggests Starky.
“Will do,” says Ceepak. “As soon as it becomes feasible.”
“You want to borrow my cell? All my weekend minutes are free.”
“Thank you,” says Ceepak. “However, I prefer to wait until after we meet with Shareef Smith's sisters at the rest stop. We're already running late.”
“Understood, sir.” Now she glances over at me. “You're certain you're uninjured, sir?”
“Yeah.” I kind of groan it. Who knew your ribs could hurt every time you tried to breathe?
“I have Advil in the glove box, sir. And I brought along bottled water.”
Starky's sort of like Ceepak, a Boy Scout without the Boy part. She's always prepared. I open the glove box. Find the Advil. Starky indicates a cool bottle of Dasani propped in the center island cup holder.
“Thanks,” I say.
“No problem, sir. So they put the razor blade between the treads?” she asks Ceepak. “Why didn't they just slash your tires if they wanted to punk you?”
“I don't believe this was intended to be practical joke,” says Ceepak. “Whoever sabotaged our tires was attempting to engineer a high-speed blowout that, I presume, they intended to be fatal. It appears that they cut a long and somewhat deep gash between tread ridges, then lodged the razor blade into that groove.”
Sort of like you do with a penny to see if you need new tires. If you can see above Abe's head, you do.
“They knew that the blade would work its way into the rubber as the tire compressed under increased acceleration. As we picked up speed,
the razor blade pushed itself deeper into the tire until it sliced through. The faster we went, the more severe the cut.”
“Wow,” I say. “Clever.”
“I believe
devious
would be a more appropriate descriptor, Danny. However, their efforts failed. Thanks in no small measure to your excellent driving skills.”
Now Starky beams over at me. “Way to go, sir. Awesome. Is that why you like to drive when we work together?”
“Yeah.” That and the driver gets to pick the radio station. It's an unwritten rule.
“So who do you think did it?” asks Starky.
I shrug. I don't have a clue. I'm still wondering how come Ceepak knows how to engineer a high-speed blowout. I guess they teach you that kind of commando stuff in the Army.
She looks up into the mirror.
“Sir? Any suspects?”
“Uncertain at this juncture.”
“Well,” says Starky, who, again like Ceepak, is always attempting to hone her investigative and deductive skills (while I, on the other hand, spend my free time wondering how they paint the tiny word Advil on the side of all the gel caps), “I'll bet whoever it was did it while you two were away from the vehicle! Was the car parked in any one place for a long time today?”
“This morning,” says Ceepak. “Outside the Pig's Commitment.”
“The senator's bodyguards were there!” I say. “Remember? They came in with Senator Worthington. And Nichols and Shrimp! The Feenyville Pirates were on the sidewalk with that janitor when we came out! And what about Slominsky? We were still parked at the Pig when we went over to play putt-putt.”
“Sir?” Starky is, of course, confused.
“We discussed evidence related to Corporal Smith's death with Crime Scene Investigator Saul Slominsky this morning,” explains Ceepak. “He asked that we meet him at the miniature golf course.”
“So,” I say, “I'm thinking he suggested we meet him there so one of
his other CSI guys would have plenty of time to booby-trap our tires! Those guys know all about tire treads. I've seen it on
CSI: Miami
.”
“You're right!” At least Starky's with me. “Maybe it was his partner! The other guy in the bathroom Friday night. The one with all the Chex Mix in his mouth!”
“Yeah!”
Ceepak squirms around in the backseat. I think his chest hurts too—from the air bag impact. Either that or our wild leaps of logic in the front seats are starting to irritate his brain.
“All the individuals you mention are, indeed, potential suspects. However, I would put Senator Worthington's bodyguards at the top of my list.”
“How come?” asks Starky.
I know this one: “Because that's who we were chasing when the tire blew!”
Smith's two sisters are standing alongside the Ford Focus when we pull into the rest area parking lot. It's the same car their brother drove to this same parking lot Friday night. I point them out to Starky.
They're parked in a bright-blue-lined handicapped space right near the entrance to the main building. I guess they figured we'd be coming in a cop car so no one would hassle them about parking there without a wheelchair on their license plate. I also figure they wanted to park as close as possible to the front door and all those people streaming in and out. They wanted a public space; they took it.
“Can we park there, sir?” Starky asks. “In the other open slot?”
“Those are reserved for the use of handicapped individuals only,” says Ceepak.
“Why don't you drop us off,” I suggest. “Hunt down a parking spot. Come back and join us.”
“Ten-four, sir.”
She stops. Ceepak and I step out. The Civic is lower to the ground than what we're used to so it's a bit of a strain to get up and out. Especially
if you recently “extricated” yourself from an upside-down SUV.
“Are you hurt?” Tonya Smith asks. I guess I'm limping a little. Ceepak too.
“Minor mishap this morning,” says Ceepak. In his world, that's not a lie. A
major
mishap is riding in a military convoy outside Baghdad and having the Humvee behind you get blown to bits by a roadside bomb. “We're good to go.”
Tonya looks at Ceepak warily.
“Show it to him,” says Jacquie.
Tonya takes out a folded piece of paper. Hands it to Ceepak.
“I printed it off my computer.”
Ceepak works it open.
“Shareef e-mailed it to me a couple years back. When he first went over there.”
Ceepak studies the picture. His eyebrows pinch down, like he's trying to figure out how he's seeing what he's seeing.
“The one in the bed? That's Shareef.”
Ceepak nods. “I recognize him.” He doesn't add:
from the crime scene photographs.
“Good,” says Tonya bravely. “You recognize that other individual? The soldier there, standing beside the bed, shaking Shareef's hand?”
Another nod. “Yes, ma'am.”
“That's you. Right? You're John Ceepak? Says so on that business card you handed me yesterday.”
“Yes.” He still looks puzzled.
“Like I said, it was taken three or four years back. Got the date stamp in the corner there.”
“This looks like the American military hospital in Balad.”
“That in Iraq? Near Baghdad?” This from Jacquie.
“Yes.”
“That's where they took him after.”
Ceepak still looks confused. “After?”
“After you dragged him out of that alley. Place called Sadr City. You remember Sadr City?”
Oh, man.
That's where Ceepak won his Bronze Star, where he dragged an unknown soldier to safety under heavy enemy fire.
“That was your brother?”
Tonya nods. I see tears in her eyes. “Yes, sir. You saved Shareef's life. You even came to the hospital to see how he was doing. Remember?”
“I'm sorry—I had forgotten his name. I'd forgotten … so much …”
“I gave Shareef that digital camera when he first shipped out,” Tonya says proudly. “Wanted him to stay in touch. He did. For a little while. For the first year or so, he was always sending me e-mails and snapshots. Last couple of years, he didn't send me anything. Anyway, this was the picture that scared me the most. Seein' him that way.”
Since I'm almost up on tippy-toe trying to look over Ceepak's shoulder, he hands me the picture.
I see Shareef Smith lying under blue covers in an Army hospital bed. I can tell it's an Army hospital because a lot of the equipment mounted to the walls is painted olive drab. Shareef is smiling. Laughing. Tubes snake their way into the back of his right hand, anchored in place with surgical tape. He's propped up on pillows in the bed and wears a light-blue hospital gown. The blanket is blue too. Darker. There's a sign hung behind the headboard, near all the IV bags and bottles:
Critical Bed 5
. It's written in red.
And there, standing next to him, shaking Shareef's hand, using his other hand to give the camera his biggest “it's all good” thumbs-up is a grinning John Ceepak. Of course he looks younger and he's wearing his MP uniform. He also has less hair, even more muscles, but you can tell it's him.
“I asked Shareef about you,” says Tonya. “When he first e-mailed me this picture. I said, ‘Who is that handsome white man visiting you, Shareef?' He said, ‘Why, that's Mr. John Ceepak. The bravest soldier I ever met.'”
Ceepak's not saying anything. I see he's working his jaw. The joint is popping out near his ears. His eyes are crimping down tight too—
trying to stay dry. He's back inside that photograph and all that happened beforehand to bring it into existence.
“Shareef followed up on you,” says Jacquie. “He asked around at the Army hospital. ‘You know this John Ceepak? How come this John Ceepak risked his life to save mine?'”
Tonya smiles softly. “Everybody told him the same thing: You were a brave and honorable man.”
“Some of those men told Shareef you were the most honest man to ever wear the uniform,” adds Jacquie. “Is that true? You as good as all that?”
“I—” Ceepak stammers. “I—”
“Doesn't really matter,” says Tonya. “It's what Shareef thought. What he believed. It's why he drove all the way up here on Friday night.”
Ceepak's stunned. Me too.
“Ma'am?”
“He was coming up here to see you, Mr. John Ceepak. Said he had something he needed to show you because you were the only man in the whole world he could trust showing it to.”
“Hi! I'm
Samantha Starky. I don't believe we've met.”
“I'm Tonya Smith.”
“Jacquie.”
“I'm very pleased to meet you both. Sorry for your loss.”
So Starky found a parking spot. About a half-mile away. Down near the gas station.
“Did I miss much, sir?” she asks me.
“Well …”
“Officer Starky?” This from Ceepak. He's squinting. Sees something off in the distance.
Okay. I see it too.
Two Sea Haven PD cop cars cruising down the exit lane off the Garden State Parkway. The one in front is our standard white Crown Vic police interceptor with the pink-and-turquoise stripes and lettering. Bringing up the rear is our one and only Ford Expedition.
The chief's car.
“Could you kindly escort these two ladies inside?” Ceepak says to Starky.
“Ten-four, sir. Would you ladies like some coffee? Maybe a Coke or a yogurt shake? They're awesome at TCBY … .”
The cop cars pull into the parking lot.
“Perhaps you ladies could discuss your beverage selection once inside the building?” Ceepak suggests.
“Roger,” says Starky. “Ladies?”
She leads Tonya and Jacquie Smith past the outdoor sunglasses carts and into the main building. They disappear into the sea of T-shirts and shorts. Hundreds of weary travelers, stretching their limbs, dislodging their undershorts, heading in to hit the johns and reload on fatty foods.
Since we don't have a police car anymore, Chief Baines has trouble spotting us. He and the other SHPD vehicle cruise up and down the rows of shimmering sheet metal like last-minute shoppers hunting for a parking space at the mall on Christmas eve.
Ceepak waves both arms over his head.
The chief whoops his siren one bleep. The two cop cars crawl over toward the curb. We hold our positions on the concrete sidewalk.
The chief climbs down out of his SUV.
“John. Boyle.” He sort of nods and hikes up his neatly pressed pants. Per usual, Chief Buzz Baines is dressed in a starched white shirt and striped tie. His shield is clipped to his Brooks Brothers belt. I get beaned in the eyeball by a reflected sunbeam glinting off his gold badge.
The door on the Crown Vic opens. It's Dylan Murray. He's in uniform. Went with the shorts today because it's a scorcher. Nobody gets out on the passenger side. Guess Murray's flying solo this shift.
“Hey, Danny,” he says, pressing back on his sunglasses with an index finger. “Ceepak.”
“You two injured?” Chief Baines asks.
“Negative, sir,” says Ceepak. “It's all good.”
“Except, of course, for your vehicle. I saw it. Back up the road. It didn't look so good.”
“Roger that.”
“What's going on, guys?”
“We're investigating that burglary I told you about,” says Ceepak.
“The Feenyville Pirate thing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This where they broke into the dead man's car?”
Ceepak points toward a lamppost about fifty cars away.
“Over there in that vicinity.”
The chief turns. Studies the towering pole. Turns to his left.
“Looks like there's a surveillance camera mounted on that pole there. See it? Up in that black globe.”
Ceepak nods.
“Art Insana getting you the tapes?”
“He's working on it.”
“I'll give him a call. Tell him to work faster.” The chief now focuses fully on me. “So, Officer Boyle, the taxpaying citizens of Sea Haven want to know: how the hell did you total one of their very expensive police vehicles?”
Oh, boy.
“Well, sir, we were pursuing another vehicle. We put the radar on him and he was doing like ninety, ninety-five miles per hour. We were attempting a, you know, a ten-sixty-five.”
Baines crosses his arms across his chest. Now I get sun flares off his cuff links.
“Did you happen to notice that the motor vehicle in question belonged to a United States senator?”
“Yes, sir. I saw the tags.”
“Okay. Good. So did you think, for maybe just a second, that Senator Worthington was inside that SUV, on his way back to Washington?”
“If so,” says Ceepak, “he was traveling at an excessive and dangerous rate of speed.”
“It was a motorcade, John! That's what they do. They drive fast. Hell, they speed! Makes it harder for any nut job with a rifle to assassinate him if he flies by in a blur!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dylan Murray looking at his shoes, trying not to laugh.
Ceepak's not mentioning the razor blade jammed into our tire treads so I don't either. Although the way the chief is riding Ceepak's ass, I'm tempted.
“When you two ran off the road,” the chief continues, “it was Senator Worthington's driver who first called nine-one-one.”
“It's a shame the senator couldn't stop to assist us,” says Ceepak. “Perhaps he was late for one of the Sunday morning talk shows.” Wow—a surprising and rare display of sarcasm from Ceepak.
The chief ignores it. “So you two left the scene of the wreck to do what? Grab a slice of pizza? Use the facilities?”
I answer so Ceepak doesn't have to lie: “We're talking to witnesses, sir.”
“Witnesses? Somebody saw the pirates rip off Smith's vehicle?”
“Not exactly witnesses, sir … .”
“People of interest,” says Ceepak.
“Solid leads?”
“We think so. We have also uncovered a connection to Hot Stuff heroin.”
The chief's eyes widen. “Are the Feenyville Pirates hooked up with that?”
“It's a possibility, sir.”
“Good work, John! Now can we, please god, finally, once and for all, locate and destroy their damn drug factory?”
“We're working on it.”
“Good. Murray?”
“Sir?”
“You're riding back with me.”
“Yes, sir.” Murray hands me the keys to the Crown Vic.
The chief cracks a smile. “Try not to wreck it, okay, Boyle? One car a summer is all I intend to tolerate.”
Looks like Starky and the Smith sisters went with Starbucks.
They're all sucking frothy frappucinos when Ceepak and I join them at the dining tables near the Hot Dog City counter in the food court.
“Want to hear something interesting?” asks Starky.
“Sure,” says Ceepak.
“Somebody messed around in the trunk of their car! The one their brother drove up here Friday night!”
“We know that, Sam,” I say. “That's where the CD changer was mounted.”
Tonya shakes her head. “They flipped over the carpet.”
Ceepak leans forward. Very interested. “How can you tell?”
“There's an oil stain on that rug, on account of the fact that the car is so old and burns too much oil, so I always keep some extra in the trunk. I put the bottle in this cardboard tray I saved off a case of Sprite. But if you hit a pothole, the bottle tips over, and the oil spills out. Leaks right through that cardboard.”
Ceepak nods. “Staining the rug underneath.”
“Right. So I always keep that tray on the same side. It covers up the spot.”
“The greasy splotch,” I blurt out. “I saw it Friday night. Sniffed it.”
“You could tell it was motor oil?” asks Ceepak.
“Yeah. On account of the smell. The splotch was on the right-hand side.”
“That's right,” says Tonya. “Only last night, when I parked it over on Mary Dell Road, I noticed the rug was all turned around and backwards.”
“The greasy spot was on the
left
!” I say. “Down near the tailgate.”
“Exactly.”
Ceepak cocks an eyebrow. “Danny?”
“It was that way at the house on Kipper Street. When you asked the ladies if we could look inside the trunk yesterday. The greasy splotch was on the left! I should've realized it'd been switched around.”
Ceepak leans back in his chair. “Meaning it was rotated sometime after you saw it here in the parking lot but before we reexamined it at the rental house.”
“Somebody was searching for something!” says Starky, her powers of deductive reasoning sharp as cheddar cheese spewing out of a spray can.
“Ms. Smith,” Ceepak says to Tonya, “you indicated that Shareef needed to
show
me something.”
“That's what he said. When he first got to Baltimore and asked if he could borrow my car.”
“Any idea what it was?”
“No, sir. Only that you were the one man he could trust showing it to.”
“I'll bet it was Worthington!” I blurt out. “I'll bet he tore up the carpet after the state police towed the car over to Kipper Street! I'll bet he was searching for whatever Shareef Smith brought here to show you!”
“Danny?”
“Yeah?”
“This isn't Atlantic City. We don't bet. We gather information. We investigate. We reach logical conclusions.”
“Well said, sir!” This from Starky. Great. They're double-teaming me.
“Sorry.”
“Who's this Worthington?” asks Jacquie.
“One of the soldiers from Shareef's unit over in Iraq,” explains Ceepak.
“You think he had something to do with what happened here?”
“It's an avenue we're currently exploring.”
“Is his father the one everybody says is going to be president? The senator?”
Ceepak nods.
“He's that fool who's always clomping around in his boy's combat boots?”
“Yes, ma' am.”
She snorts like a disgusted horse. “Damn man don't fool me. That's just an act. Senator Worthington don't give a damn about our troops. He just wants to move into the White House.”
“Shareef didn't like Senator Worthington, either,” says Tonya.
“How do you mean?”
“When he was home last week, over at my place for dinner, the news came on. I was in the kitchen. He was sitting in the living room, watching. That Brian Williams was talking to Senator Worthington. ‘Effing hypocrite,' Shareef hollered. ‘Effing liar.' Only Shareef was using the real F word,”
“I don't blame him,” says Jacquie. “That man's an effing fool.”
Tonya plays with her straw. Won't meet anybody's eyes. “Shareef started using all sorts of foul language once he started using the drugs.” Now she looks up. Straight at Ceepak. “Oh, yes. We knew all about it. Knew what he was doing.”
“Uhm-hmm,” seconds Jacquie. “Shareef couldn't fool his big sisters. We raised that boy. Besides, all you had to do was see him in a short-sleeved shirt to know what sort of nonsense he'd been up to.”
“He started with the drugs over there in Iraq,” says Tonya. “After he was wounded. After you saved his life. I think he was trying to fight the pain.”
“Why didn't Shareef come home?” Ceepak asks. “After he was wounded, did they offer him an honorable discharge?”
Tonya shakes her head. “He told us his wound wasn't severe enough. Besides, they needed soldiers.” She smiles faintly. “Maybe if you had left him in that alley a little longer, he would've gotten wounded enough to get out.”
“Maybe he might be dead too, Tonya!” says Jacquie. “You did the right thing, Mr. Ceepak. We won't ever forget it. So, I'm sorry if, y'know, yesterday, I came off all cranky. It was a long drive up from Baltimore. No air-conditioning. Too many tolls. Besides, I didn't know who you were till we got home and Tonya showed me your business card.”
“Understood.”
“Shareef reenlisted two times,” says Tonya. “Said he didn't want to leave his ‘family.' That's what he called the Army, the other soldiers he was over there with. They were more than friends. They were like blood relations. His brothers.”
“In your phone conversation Friday evening, Shareef told you a friend was meeting him here. In fact, he hung up when that friend arrived.”

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