Mind Scrambler (11 page)

The kid talks faster than those TV commercials for prescription drugs listing side effects that may include death and anal leakage.

“Richie, on the other hand, still eats his boogers and blows snot rockets when he isn't busy floating air biscuits.
Air biscuit
means fart.”

“Here we go, kids,” says Parker. Holding open a door into the casino. “Your parents would like to talk to you.”

“Why?” asks Britney.

“I guess because you took off like that.”

Britney freezes. Plants both hands on her hips. “We only did what our stupid nanny told us to do!”

“We know,” Parker says, leaning down and grinning like he's the friendly ol' bear in a picture book. “I think they want to talk to you about, you know, something else, too. Something pretty serious. Kind of grown-up.”

“Oh. Like Jake and Katie doing the nasty?”

Somehow, Parker keeps smiling. “Your mom and dad are downstairs. Uncle Chang's Ice Cream Parlor. Do you like ice cream, Britney?”

She blows Parker the lip-noise equivalent of one of those air biscuits. “Well, duh.” She marches into the casino shaking her head and muttering, “Do you like ice cream? Jesus!” like the big man is retarded, too.

 

 

We happily drop the kids off with their parents and head back to room AA-4.

The Atlantic City homicide detective has arrived and wants to talk to us. More specifically, he wants to speak to me—the guy who discovered the body and, if the digital video in the surveillance control room is to be believed, the only human being to set foot backstage after “Rock 'n Wow!” started.

“Brady Flynn's a good guy,” says Parker as we make our way past two of his casino security guys stationed outside that
Authorized Personnel Only
door near the Shalimar Theater. “Ex-boxer. Former Golden Gloves champ.”

We head down the hall.

“He also used to work with Sandy McDaniels. State major crime unit. You know her, right?”

“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “I've studied her forensics field guide extensively. Danny and I also had the privilege of working with her on one or two occasions.”

“Well, Detective Flynn is almost as good. Helped McDaniels update the fifth edition of her book. Wrote the chapter on computer fraud.”

We pass the stage door. I'm looking for Mr. Event Staff. Of course he isn't there. But the door is propped open and I can see some of the set pieces from the show: the archery target, the human-sized Rubik's Cube, and the two glass booths that they used to transport Mrs. Rock from one side of the stage to the other in under a second.

“There he is,” says Parker as we hit the
T
and take the right. “Detective Flynn?”

“Yo?”

There's this stocky guy in a suit that looks too small for all his muscles standing outside room AA-4. I figure he's in his late thirties or early forties. Caesar-style haircut. Crooked nose where he took a punch or two from someone else's golden gloves. He's twitching his shoulders a lot.

“I'm Cyrus Parker. Head of hotel security. We've met before.”

“Sure, sure. How you doin'?” His head jerks sideways like he has a crick in his neck he can't crack out.

“Been better,” says Parker. “This is Danny Boyle. He's the one who found the body. He's also a cop, up in Sea Haven.”

“Boyle.” Flynn shoots out a hand the size and texture of an antique catcher's mitt. “How you doin'?”

Parker continues with the introductions. “His partner, John Ceepak.”

The mitt moves right. “How you doin'?”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” says Ceepak, who doesn't realize “How you doin'?” is the official manly-man greeting of the Garden State and has been long before Joey showed up on
Friends.

“Excusemeyouseguys.” Flynn mumbles worse than my dad, who always sounds like he's talking to himself even when he's talking to you. The detective turns around. Looks up the hall, toward Mr. and Mrs. Rock's rooms and whatever else is up that way. Leans back. Examines the ceiling tiles.

“Wheresdacameras?”

“Excuse me?” says Parker.

Flynn points up. “How come there ain't no cameras back this way?”

I think that's what he said.

“No need,” says Parker. “Security department always considered this hallway an area of minimal interest.”

“Yeah. Untiltonight.”

“Say again?”

“Until tonight. Major interest tonight, am I right?”

Flynn turns around to gaze in our general direction again. Scrunches up his nose. Doesn't mumble anything so Ceepak jumps in: “I can vouch for Mr. Boyle from nineteen hundred hours through twenty-one twenty.”

“Unh-hunh. And that'd be like from seven to like what?”

“Nine-twenty
PM
,” I say since I do the time-clock conversions quicker than Ceepak. “I found the body around nine-thirty.”

“Hunh.”

Oh-kay. If this guy helped Dr. McDaniels rewrite her book, why do I think the forthcoming fifth edition will be totally incomprehensible?

“You two busy?” Flynn suddenly asks, with another triple twitch of the neck.

“Sir?” says Ceepak.

“Busy?”

“We are at your disposal.”

“Good. Good.” He nods, tugs at his suit coat, sniffs. “Iheardaboutyousetwo.”

Ceepak gives him a quizzical look. Me, too.

“Sandy. McDaniels? Says you're sharp. You guys watch cowboy movies?”

Ceepak looks totally confused. I'm right there with him.

Flynn is unfazed. Guess he's used to nobody understanding what the hell he's talking about.

“Westerns.
The Searchers
? John Wayne?”

Ceepak nods slowly, the way you do when somebody tells you the CIA has implanted GPS transponders in your teeth.

“Too many crimes in this town. Drunks. Disorderlies. Shooting-stabbings. Fugghetaboutit.” He shakes his head, twitches twice, tugs three times at his lapels. “As youse two undoubtedly know, all New Jersey officers have the authority and, I might add, the duty to enforce all state laws within the confines of New Jersey twenty-four-seven, regardless of your current geographical location. So, I'm hereby deputizin' youse two until we figure out what the hell is goin' on here. And don't ask about the pay. There isn't any. Cyrus?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to see that tape.”

“Which one?”

He jabs his thick thumb in my general direction. “Boyle here. Walking down the hall.” He scissors two stiff fingers back and forth to, I guess, illustrate a person walking.

“You got it,” says Parker.

“Have you established the time of death?” asks Ceepak.

“Hmm?”

“The time of death.” Ceepak is accenting every syllable, the way you might if you were talking to a deaf person in a noisy airplane hanger.

“Yeah. Sure. I got a good guesstimate.”

“And?” Ceepak waits.

“Hmmm?”

“Is Danny in the clear?”

Flynn nods, which sets off another spasm of sideways head jerks and some more neck-cracking.

“Detective Flynn?” Ceepak wants an answer. “What do you postulate as the time of death for Ms. Landry?”

“Nine. Maybe nine-fifteen. Definitely before the show was over.”

“You're certain?”

“Absolutely. Used the Glaister equation. Ninety-eight point four minus measured rectal temperature divided by one point five.”

Great. He took Katie's temperature. That way.

“Extremely reliable in this instance what with, you know, the temperature inside being thermostatically controlled since the room is windowless and all. So, like I said, I like Glaister in this particular instance.”

Yeah. Me, too. Except for the rectal thermometer bit. Nine or nine-fifteen means I didn't do it.

“That tape?” Flynn says to Parker.

“Yeah. I'll go grab it.”

Ceepak raises a finger as if he has a question, which, I guess, he does.

“Hmmm?” says Flynn.

“If we have established that Danny was in the theater at the time of death, why do you still need to see the tape?”

“I'm looking for her.”

“Ms. Landry?”

“Yeah. How come, if you see Mr. Boyle walking down the hall, you don't see her?”

Oh, yeah. I love this guy.

We ask the same kind of questions.

 

 

 

 

 

Around 11:00
PM
Parker heads back to his office to deal with the impending PR crisis.

I think the general manager of the Xanadu is coming in for a meeting with his security chief. Probably bringing lawyers and spin doctors. Kinky sex, celebrities, backstage romance, murder, death. This is the stuff
Access Hollywood
and
ET
live for. The Xanadu will try to keep a lid on it.

The Rocks have sent their children upstairs to a regular hotel room. One of their wardrobe supervisors from the show has agreed to be the kids' nanny for the night. Little Richie was still clutching his tiger backpack to his chest. Britney? She wanted her special synthetic down pillow because she's allergic to feathers and threw a temper tantrum when the Atlantic City cops guarding her old room told her she couldn't go in and get it. Kid wailed all the way up the hall. Sounded worse than that singer destroying the Motown oldies out in the lounge.

I follow Ceepak and Detective Flynn into AA-4. When I walk past the two bicycle cops still stationed outside the door, they both nod grimly, glad, for the moment, that they're riding bike patrols instead of being me.

Yeah, I wish I wasn't me, too, because it's time to examine the crime scene. Again.

 

 

Detachment.

This was one of the first tricks Ceepak taught me back when we first started working together. He advised an otherworldly separation between your personal feelings and the demands of the job. A cold, analytical approach to stuff that would otherwise tear your guts out. I guess it's how he survived over in Iraq. Yes, your buddies are getting blown to bits by improvised explosive devices but if you freak out about it, you won't be able to save your own ass or help your buddies who are still alive stay that way.

You forget that the body you're examining for clues is the same body you used to admire in a tight white one-piece on Oak Beach when you were both fifteen and that body held all the secrets to everything you ever wanted to know.

“Danny?” says Ceepak. “Is this how you found the crime scene?”

“Yeah.” I find just enough voice to push out the one syllable.

“We know the victim,” Ceepak says to Detective Flynn.

He nods. Gestures toward Katie's naked, trussed-up body, her grisly S and M death pose. “This sadomasochism situation consistent with what you know of her history?”

“Negative,” says Ceepak.

I just shake my head.

“Hunh.” Flynn squats into a crouch, rubs his chin, stares at Katie.

So, I look again, too.

We're in what I'll call the sitting room of the two-bedroom suite because there's a couch, two chairs, a small dining table, and four wooden chairs. Lots of places to sit. One door leads into the master bedroom. Another into a smaller bedroom, which, judging from the trail of toys spilling across its threshold, is where Richie and Britney sleep. A third door is open a crack, revealing a tiled wall and floor. Bathroom.

In the center of the sitting room, Katie is pinioned in a spread-eagle seated position on a wooden chair situated directly in front of the armoire storing the TV set. Her hands are cuffed behind her back. Her ankles are lashed to the rear legs of the chair.

“I found a couple pubic hairs, here on the floor,” says Flynn. “Black. A whole clump of them.”

Katie is—was—a redhead.

“Running the DNA?” asks Ceepak.

“We will,” says Flynn. “But the test takes five days. So first, we'll eyeball 'em under the microscope. Match 'em against samples taken from any potential suspects. Dance belts.”

“Come again?” says Ceepak.

“This dancer. Jake Pratt. The one what missed the show tonight. Can't nobody find him.”

Yep. Jake is definitely a suspect.

“We tagged and bagged his dance belt out of the dressing room. It's like a jockstrap, only for ballerinas. Anyway, we examined this guy Pratt's dance thong. Harvested a couple short curly ones. Black.”

Ah, the glamorous life of
CSI: Atlantic City.
Combing through jockstraps.

Detective Flynn goes back to staring at Katie, so I do, too.

I see it all again, in better light this time. The blindfold. The ball gag. The black leather garter belt studded with steel rivets. The silky rope wrapped above and below her breasts.

The bolo tie cinched tight into her neck.

Now Flynn stands up. Shakes his head.

“Not hers,” he says.

Ceepak nods. “Agreed.”

“What?” I ask.

Flynn nods at Ceepak, encourages him to go ahead and field my question. “The S and M costume,” he says. “Ms. Landry did not purchase it.”

“We don't know that,” I say. “She might've, you know, been into this kind of stuff and kept it secret.”

“In which case,” says Flynn, his diction crystal clear, the way it must be when he goes to court, “we can safely assume Ms. Landry would have purchased a garter belt that fit. This one is loose—even though the waist strap is buckled through the last slot available. It's two inches too big. A medium when she needed a small. This here was staged to misguide us.”

My turn to mumble: “ 'Trust none of what you hear and less of what you see.' ”

“Hunh?” This from Flynn.

“Springsteen,” says Ceepak. “Song lyrics.”

“Oh. Right. I'm more a Bon Jovi man, myself. Keep the faith.”