Mind Scrambler (18 page)

“Oh, shit. They're fucking dead!”

 

 

 

 

 

Ceepak and
I monitor the radio chatter and race to the scene of the crime: the Royal Lodge, that shabby three-story motel directly across the street from the Xanadu.

I see about two dozen cops swarming all over the place: in the office, clunking up steel steps, patrolling the second- and third-floor terraces. The biggest cluster is on the second floor, bunched up outside a door near one of the rusty staircases.

Down on the ground, two cops in bicycle helmets are rolling out
Police Line: Do Not Cross
tape, penning in the cars crammed nose-to-bumper in the parking lot. Three boxy ambulances and half a dozen cruisers with their roof bars spinning are parked on the sidewalk, rear wheels hanging off the curb, shafts of colored light bouncing off motel windows.

More mirrors.

Ceepak flashes his deputy badge at the cop standing guard
near the access point in the barrier tape. Fortunately, it's one of the bicycle guys we met yesterday.

“We need to be upstairs,” says Ceepak. “We were working with Detective Flynn.”

The guy nods. “The chief is up there now.”

“What room?”

“Two-twelve. On the left.” He gestures toward that knot of blue uniforms on the second floor.

“How are Detective Flynn and his partner?” asks Ceepak.

The bike cop shakes his head. “They're not gonna make it. The Pratt kid, either. It's a mess up there.”

 

 

Yeah.

It's a mess.

We wait outside on the concrete balcony. From our holding position outside the door, I can see Detective Flynn and his partner Mike Weddle sprawled out flat on the floor. Both their chests are soaked with blood. It looks like somebody performed a rapid-fire exercise on them with a semiautomatic weapon as soon as they stepped across the doorsill. They're still holding their badges in frozen fingers. Sidearms are holstered and strapped. They never went for their weapons. Probably means somebody told them to come on in.

They weren't expecting resistance.

They should've. Their torsos are so riddled with splotchy circles of blood, I'm guessing neither of the detectives put on his Kevlar vest when they set out to tail Kenny Krabitz, PI, this morning. I see a radio like the one Flynn gave Ceepak. Krabitz must've dropped it after calling in his “officer down.” It spit up batteries when it hit the floor.

I lean to my right, look left, and now I'm guessing Jake Pratt
was the one firing the semiautomatic pistol at the two cops who came knocking on his door. I can see a Beretta M9 gripped in his rigor-mortised right hand. The former dancer is sprawled on top of the bedspread. The garden of blooms on the floral-patterned comforter is slowly sinking beneath a creeping lake of blood. Someone took Pratt down with a single shot to the heart.

For that role, I'm nominating Kenny Krabitz.

Richard Rock's PI is seated directly across from the bed at a shiny table in what the Royal Lodge brochures probably claim is a kitchenette. I see a waist-high, dorm-style fridge, a microwave with Chef Boyardee splatter patterns on its window, and a rack of uneven wire shelves lined with coffee mugs, picnic basket salt-and-pepper shakers, and a half-empty roll of paper towels.

Kenny Krabitz, P.I. is casually smoking a cigarette. There's a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Dick Tracy-type pistol sitting on the table in front of him, right next to the paper deli cup of coffee that doubles as his ashtray. It is, of course, the five-shot .38-caliber pistol reported missing from the “Rock 'n Wow!” prop room last night. There's also a small pocket-sized notebook on the table, between the cup and the magician's pistol.

Krabitz locks the soles of his scuffed shoes on a chair rung, leans back, and props himself against the maple-paneled wall.

“Douse the smoke,” orders this tall guy wearing a faded navy blue raincoat even though there's not a cloud in the sky. From the sound of his voice, his snowy white hair, and the way he carries himself, I'm figuring he's the chief.

“My nerves are jumpy,” claims Krabitz, sucking down a few more milligrams of tar and nicotine with a wet smack.

“Douse it.”

“I believe that's Chief Maroney,” whispers Ceepak. He must've gone to the ACPD Web site and memorized the chain of command after we were deputized by Flynn.

“Okay, Mr. Krabitz,” says Chief Maroney. “Tell me again. What the hell happened here?”

“Jesus, Chief, I already told you. Six fucking times.”

“So tell me again!” he screams. Then—and I'd give him a medal for this, even though he's contaminating a crime scene—he rips that ash-dripping cigarette right out of Krabitz's smug mouth and grinds it out on the floor in the threadbare quarter-inch carpet. “Tell me how the hell two of my best cops waltz in here, sidearms holstered, and get themselves blown away by a goddamn chorus boy!”

“The kid had the Beretta,” Krabitz says with a shrug. “Maybe he's ex-military. The M-nine is a military sidearm.”

“So why didn't this ballerina take target practice on your chest, too?”

“Like I said, we were negotiating. He had Mr. Rock's notebooks there.” He gestures toward some Mead composition books stacked on the edge of the bed. “Even had the one for the Lucky Numbers trick, which he knew was worth a fucking fortune. We were working out his asking price when your boys showed up.”

“That when Pratt handed you the snub-nose thirty-eight?”

“He didn't ‘hand' it to me. Like I told you, your two boys knock on the door, announce their presence. Pratt whips out his Beretta and tells them to come on in.”

“And you don't contradict him? You don't warn my officers to stay out of harm's way?”

Krabitz flicks his head toward the bed. “Did I mention the putz had a fucking pistol?”

“Go on.”

“He starts blasting away at your guys. They do not return fire. So, I dive for the thirty-eight I see sitting on the bedside table there and proceed to take Pratt down with a single shot to the chest. Guess I hit the bull's-eye, hunh?”

The chief jams his hands deep into the pockets of that trench coat—I guess so he doesn't strangle Krabitz.

“You're telling me, this kid, Jake Pratt, is sitting on the bed, squeezing off a full magazine of fifteen rounds from an M-nine. Meanwhile, you're tiptoeing around the bed to the night table, grabbing his other gun. Then you nonchalantly stroll back here to the front of the bed, position yourself directly in his line of fire, and take him down with one shot to the heart? What'd you do, count the bullets? Jump in and fire between his trigger squeezes?”

Krabitz shrugs again. “What can I say, Chief? I'm nimble.”

“Why the hell didn't you just shoot the punk as soon as you got your hands on his other gun?”

“Come on—I can't shoot a man in the back. That's what cowards do.”

The chief shakes his head. “Where's Dr. McDaniels?” he shouts to one of his men.

“On her way.”

In my peripheral vision, I notice Ceepak nodding. He's relieved to hear that Dr. Sandra McDaniels, the top CSI in the state, is on the way. Since Detective Flynn helped her write her most recent field manual, you know Dr. McD's going to have a personal stake in nailing down the truth about what the hell really happened here because I'm with Chief Maroney: Krabitz's story sounds like total horse crap.

“Make sure Sandy does the trajectory work. See if it matches up with the bullshit Jack-be-nimble here is trying to sell us.”

“You got it, Chief.”

“And show her those two shopping bags. Could be connected to the other thing over at the Xanadu.”

“Could be?” snorts Krabitz. “Come on! The Pink Pussycat Boutique is where Pratt bought that S and M underwear for the
nanny. Hell, the credit card slip is still in the bag! His credit card! Got his name engraved on it and everything.”

“You looked, hunh?” Maroney asks Krabitz.

“Yeah. While I waited for you boys to show up. It helped pass the time.”

Ceepak, of course, was right once again: Katie's death and the theft of Richard Rock's notebooks are linked.

“And don't forget this,” says Krabitz, tapping his finger near that small spiral notebook on the dinette table. “It's practically a confession. Love notes to the Landry girl. Detailed running time of the show, each bit's start and finish time. He knew exactly when everybody would be too busy to give a shit about how he was diddling the nanny back in that suite.”

Now I wish I had my weapon to make Krabitz shut up.

“This bastard Pratt knew exactly how much time he had to dress her up, do the whole ‘strangle me when I come' bit.”

“Mr. Krabitz?” says the chief.

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Amen, Chief.

“Jesus,” moans Krabitz, “why you being such a hard-ass here? I solved the fucking burglary and the murder. I did your whole fucking job for you.”

“You got two cops killed!”

“Well, maybe if these two numb nuts hadn't been illegally surveiling me, hadn't busted in here like Rambo and Schwarzenegger.”

“Enough! Lock this schmuck up. Put Mr. Krabitz in our smallest cell until Dr. McDaniels tells me what I already know: This slimeball is lying through his teeth.”

Krabitz leans back and laughs. “You can't arrest me, Chief.”

“Really? Watch me.”

“What's the fucking charge?”

“Violating municipal ordinance twenty-three nineteen of the Atlantic City hotel-motel code. This is a nonsmoking room.”

“Let's go,” says a uniform who grabs hold of Krabitz's arm and helps him up out of his padded seat.

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

The chief is the one who shrugs this time. “So call him.”

“I want to talk to David Zuckerman. Now! Right now!”

“We'll see what we can do about that,” says the uniform as he escorts Krabitz around the two dead bodies blocking their path to the door.

“Hold on, hot shit,” Krabitz says to the cop, which, by the way, is never a wise thing to call a person who has a loaded weapon strapped to his hip when you don't. “I can call him right here.”

“Confiscate Mr. Krabitz's phone,” barks the chief. “Now! It's evidence.”

“Of what?” snaps Krabitz.

“Whatever the hell really happened here! Give me his goddamn phone and get him the hell out of my sight. He's contaminating my crime scene!”

The uniform tosses Krabitz's cell to another cop, who drops it into a paper sack. We spectators step back an inch or two from the doorway so the cop can shove Krabitz out of room 212 and onto our terrace.

Krabitz sees us. “Officers,” he says with a grin. “I told you I'd find Pratt.”

Yeah. He just didn't mention anything about killing him, too.

 

 

 

 

 

“You the
two cops Brady deputized?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chief Maroney came out to the second-floor motel terrace to catch a breath of fresh air. He unwraps a HALLS Mentho-Lyptus, pops it in his mouth. Nothing like that vapor action to jolt the stench of death right out of your nostrils.

“I'm John Ceepak. This is my partner, Danny Boyle. We're with the Sea Haven police department.”

“What are you doing down here in Atlantic City? R and R?”

“No, sir. Our original objective was to take a deposition from a witness for an upcoming murder trial.”

The chief nods. Clacks the lozenge against his teeth. “And then all hell broke loose.”

“Yes, sir. Detective Flynn indicated that his investigative department was somewhat short-staffed. He asked that we assist him.”

“Sea Haven let you do that?” the chief asks.

“We are on administrative leave from our duties for the remainder of the week.”

The chief steps toward the edge of the terrace and rests his hands on the railing, leans out so he can squint up at the bright blue sky. “Flynn told me you guys knew the nanny.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, at least we know who killed her.”

“Do we?”

The chief turns around so he can eyeball Ceepak. “Jake Pratt. The kid in there dead on the bed. He did it. Dropped a whole clump of pubic hairs on the carpet.”

“You made the match?”

“Last night. We also ran a fingerprint check on that love note smeared across the bathroom mirror. Again, it comes up Pratt. Inside here”—he jabs a thumb toward room 212—“we find Pink Pussycat shopping bags with an itemized credit card receipt, listing the, you know, the merchandise Ms. Landry was wearing.”

“The bondage costume that did not fit,” says Ceepak.

“Yeah—because Pratt was the one who purchased the garter belt and what have you. Yesterday. Paid for it with his Visa card. It's all on the charge card. I figure Ms. Landry forgot to tell him her size. Women do that. Act like we should know.”

“That's one possibility,” says Ceepak, who's not as willing as Chief Maroney to wrap up the Katie killing and pin it on Jake Pratt.

Chief Maroney sighs. “You also got Jake Pratt's bolo tie as the murder weapon.”

“There's no way of knowing whether—”

“Also, you got the fact that Mr. Pratt missed the show last night, the fact that he gave the two Rock children fifty bucks to go buy ice cream, the fact that he's holed up here in the Royal Lodge
instead of down at the Holiday Inn where he's supposed to be. And then there's his diary.”