Mind Scrambler (19 page)

“Diary?”

“That little spiral notebook we found.”

“Have you analyzed and authenticated the handwriting? Is it Pratt's?”

“Matches a postcard we found on the nightstand. He was writing his mother. Telling her not to worry. Letting her know he was okay.”

Guess he was—when he wrote it.

“Might I inquire as to the diary's contents?” says Ceepak.

Maroney reaches into his raincoat, pulls out his own memo pad. “First couple pages it's more or less his daybook. Rehearsal dates. Call times. Breakdown of the show.” He flips forward a few pages. “He also scribbled a couple to-dos in a list. Tell wardrobe he needs a new dance belt. Get his tap shoes repaired.”

Ceepak pulls out his own spiral book and starts jotting down notes.

“Things get extremely interesting on page six,” says the chief. “I wrote it down verbatim.”

Ceepak leans in so he can write it down verbatim, too.

“ ‘Katie. I am moving into the Royal Lodge as suggested. Being closer is better. I love you. I can't wait to be so close we melt into each other.' ”

I must've flinched. Maroney is giving me the once-over.

“You okay hearing this?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chief Maroney starts reading again: “ ‘I will get what we need. Ball gag. Hood. Harness. Handcuffs. I love you. The danger excites me. We were meant to be together forever.' ”

Ceepak finishes writing, closes up his notebook. “If Jake Pratt loved Ms. Landry so much, why would he kill her?”

“How many times do you guys need to hear this? It was an accident. Erotic asphyxiation. Kinky sex that got out of hand.”

Okay. My turn to speak up: “No way, sir.”

“Excuse me?” This from the chief.

“No way did Katie Landry willingly allow Jake Pratt to strangle her with a bolo tie so she could, you know, have a heightened orgasm.”

“Says who?”

“Me. And Detective Flynn. He figured that Pratt surprised Katie while she was drawing a bath for the boy. Then he kicked out the kids, forced her to put on that getup. Come on, if Katie Landry was really into breath-control games, she would've told Pratt what size S and M gear to buy. Katie was a kindergarten teacher! She knows how to order supplies!”

Okay, that didn't come out exactly the way I wanted it to, but I think I made my point.

“Has Dr. McDaniels examined the forensic evidence from Ms. Landry's murder scene?” Ceepak asks.

“Look,” says the chief, sounding pretty annoyed with his newest deputies, “two of my best cops, two guys I play softball with, whose kids I know, two extremely good men were killed this morning. Figuring out what really happened inside that motel room is priority number one. For me. For Dr. Sandra McDaniels. For the entire ACPD. As far as we're concerned, the thing across the street is closed. Mr. Jake Pratt accidentally killed Ms. Katie Landry, even if she wasn't a willing participant in the sex games. Then Pratt stole Rock's notebooks, the ones we found in his room here, so he could extort some cash and finance his getaway. End of story. It's why that imbecile of a PI Krabitz knew where to find the kid. I figure Pratt contacted Rock's people. Made his demands known. They were haggling over price when my guys busted up their confab. So, I'm sorry, Officers, but I do not have the time, the
manpower, or, frankly, the inclination to investigate the Landry murder further.”

“We do,” says Ceepak. “As I indicated, we're free all week.”

The chief exhales noisily. I smell eucalyptus.

“You really think I'm missing something?”

“I think,” says Ceepak, “that we owe it to Detective Flynn to ascertain the truth. It's what he was attempting to do. It's what made him follow Mr. Krabitz up here to this motel room.”

That gets the chief sighing again. “Fine,” he says. “Do it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But remember: resources get allocated my way first. Do not even think about dragging Dr. McDaniels away from what I need her to be doing.”

“Of course not. You have our word.”

“I can't give you weapons. Liability issues.”

“Understood.”

“So why the hell are you still standing here? Go on. Get to work.”

Ceepak straightens up. Stands at attention. “Yes, sir. Danny? Let's roll.”

 

 

“Where we going?” I ask as we clank down the steel steps toward the parking lot.

“Motel office. If, as Mr. Pratt's diary seems to imply, he and Katie were romantically involved, that he took this room across the street from the Xanadu at her suggestion, she would have undoubtedly spent some time over here with him.”

True. You don't ask your boyfriend to secure a love nest if you don't intend to feather it with him from time to time.

We hit the tarmac and head for the motel office. We push open the door and it smells like they use sour milk instead of
Freon for air-conditioner coolant. There are two uniformed ACPD cops standing guard near the plate-glass windows.

Ceepak and I nod at them; they nod at us and hike up their gun belts because they actually have weapons even if we don't.

The desk clerk could care less about all the nodding and belt-hiking going on. He's sitting on a stool behind the counter, eyes glued on the morning newspaper, studying the sports pages, probably trying to decide who to bet his life savings on today.

“Sir?” says Ceepak.

“Yeah?” The guy doesn't look up. All we see are the three strands of oily hair straddling the fleshy summit of his bald dome.

“We need to ask you a few questions.”

“So ask.” He runs a finger across the box scores.

“Are you familiar with the tenant in room two-twelve?”

“Not really.” He flips over a sheet of newsprint. “He the dead guy up there?”

“He's one of them.”

The helpful clerk flicks his hand sideways, still doesn't look up from the paper. “These two showed me his picture.”

“And?”

Now, finally, he looks up. “And what?”

“What can you tell us about him?”

“Who are you?”

“Special ACPD Deputies Ceepak and Boyle.”

“Deputies?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Like that Barney Fife character from Mayberry?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just like Barney. So, what can you tell us about Jake Pratt?”

The guy shrugs. “He checked in Sunday. Didn't pay for the room.”

“Come again?” says Ceepak, stepping closer to the counter.

“He didn't pay for the room.”

“Who did?”

“His girlfriend.” He winks at us. “Older chick. A real cougar.”

“Pardon?”

“You know—an older woman who digs the young stuff. This Pratt kid looked to be right out of high school.”

“How old was the woman?”

“I dunno. Thirty. Forty. Hard to tell. She's had some major work done. Boobs. Nose. Face. You can tell, you know? No wrinkles when they raise their eyebrows. Using that Boflex stuff.”

“What color hair did she have?”

“Blond.”

Great. Means it wasn't Katie.

“But it was a wig,” the guy says. “I don't think she wanted me to know who she was when she came in with the credit card but I could. Easy.”

“By reading the name on the card?” says Ceepak.

“Nah. That was bogus, too. Janice Stone. It was a legit credit card. AmEx. Probably one of those
aka
deals. ‘Also known as,' you know? I swiped it through the machine, everything comes up copacetic. But come on—you'd think she'd pick a better alias. Anybody could see right through that one. Janice Stone. How lame is that? She should'a gone with Betty Rubble, you ask me.”

“Who was she?”

“Jessica Rock.” He bobs his head toward the window. “The magician's wife from across the street.”

 

 

 

 

 

We head
across the street to the Xanadu.

We need to have a little chat with Mrs. Rock, find out why she was bankrolling Jake Pratt's secret motel room. I'm remembering what she said yesterday, that bit about “Nanny Katie, like many women, wasn't immune to the allure of a younger man, especially one as attractive as young Jake Pratt.”

Then Mrs. Rock basically confessed to her own predatory cougarness: “Many of the gals in the show felt the same way.”

Yep. One even paid for Jake's hotel room across the street.

It's no wonder the Rocks' private investigator found Pratt so easily: all he had to do was ask Mrs. Rock where she was warehousing her boy toy.

She probably even slipped Krabitz her copy of the card key.

We figure she might be at the theater rehearsing, seeing how they have to work in a new dancer to take Jake's place, so we head
through that
Authorized Personnel Only
door off the main casino corridor.

“Aloha, dudes!”

Our ponytailed pal Tupula Tuiasopo is on the other side, guarding the backstage entryway in his
Event Staff
windbreaker. It's noon. Toohey starts work early.

“We're looking for Mrs. Rock,” says Ceepak.

Toohey nods.

“Do you know where we might find her?”

“Where?”

Ceepak sighs. “I am asking you.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, dude. What was the question again?”

“Where is Mrs. Rock?”

Tuiasopo shrugs. “Don't know. But, hey—you know who might?”

“Who?” asks Ceepak. He's clenching his jaw so tight I think his temples might pop open.

“Mr. Rock!”

“And where might we find Mr. Rock?”

“Swimming pool on the second floor. It's totally awesome up there, dudes. Tropical as shit. They call it ‘the Garden of Delight' because it's like so totally delightful. And, it's a garden, too.”

“Thank you.”

“
Mahalo.
Later, dudes.”

Yeah. Hopefully, a lot later.

 

 

Ceepak and I take an elevator up to the second floor, weave our way through some more slot-machine alleys, and stop to ask a cocktail waitress for directions, even though we're both guys. Finally, we find the Garden of Delight Spa and Pool.

It's this atrium made out of hothouse glass. The sun glares
down the way it does on an ant frying underneath a magnifying glass. The air's muggier than August back home in Sea Haven. I hear gurgling water and see steam rising up behind a bank of palm fronds.

We make our way through the jungle of sweaty greens and I hear a splash. When we come into a clearing, I see a solitary, dark-haired kid swimming in the narrow lap pool. There's some kind of modern art statue shaped like Tibetan tattoos on one side, a row of chaise lounges on the other.

Richard Rock is kicking back in one of the recliners. He's scribbling something into a marble-covered composition book. On the small table beside his chair are a neatly folded bath towel and a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic suntan lotion.

“Mr. Rock?” says Ceepak.

Rock closes his notebook.

“Hello again, Officers.”

“We're looking for your wife.”

“Really? Why?”

“Jake Pratt is dead.”

Rock gives us what he must think is a very sincere and mournful head bob. “Heard about that. Tragic. Gonna miss him. Mighty fine dancer. Good little showman.”

“Your private investigator, Ken Krabitz, is the one who shot him.”

“Heard 'bout that, too.” He gestures toward the swimming pool. “That's why I'm keepin' an eye on Kyle—Kenny's son.” He leans forward, whispers, “Might be best if we don't talk about what happened across the street in front of the boy, hear?”

The kid swims to the edge of the pool, hauls himself up out of the water. He looks to be eleven, maybe twelve. Olive complexion. Dark hair. He might be five feet tall but probably only weighs about eighty pounds soaking wet, which he is right now.

“Is everything okay, Uncle Rick?” the skinny kid asks, toweling off his hair with a bath sheet he found on the foot of the chaise lounge closest to the pool ladder.

“Everything's fine, son. Why don't you run on inside there.” He gestures toward what I'm assuming is the spa's clubhouse. “Go grab us a couple Coke-Colas.”

“Are these guys cops?”

“Go fetch us them Cokes, hear?”

“Are they the assholes who arrested Kenny?”

“Kyle?” says Rock, sitting up in his recliner. “Watch your language, boy. What happened to your daddy don't give you no excuse to talk to your elders that a'way. It's time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Yep: he's Kenny Krabitz's kid all right.

“It means it's time for you to stop arguing and do as you're told! Go fetch us them Cokes!”

“Jesus. All right already.”

Kyle pads away sullenly, his bare wet feet smacking like flip-flops on the tile floor the whole way.

“Poor boy,” says Rock when the kid is out of earshot.

“Where is your wife?” Ceepak asks again.

“With David Zuckerman. They're hoping to post bail, help Kenny out of this jam. He only did what he had to do. Crazy Jake came at him with a military pistol!”

“We'd like to talk to Mr. Zuckerman as well.”

That surprises Rock. “Really? Why?”

“It seems he is the one who invited Lady Jasmine to last evening's performance of your show.”

“Shoot, son. Who's trying to sell you that pile of cow pies?”

“Lady Jasmine.”

“Really? Well, Officer Ceepak—she's lying.”

“Perhaps. However, her husband corroborates her statement.”

“The midget man? Mighty Mo-Mo?”

“Yes, sir. If they were invited to the show, why were you so concerned about security last night?”