“Perhaps your choice was the wisest. Let’s go.”
We head inside to talk to Marty “I Don’t Brake For Small Animals Or Children” Mandrake.
40
M
ARTIN
M
ANDRAKE IS WAITING FOR US IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM
.
His choice. He requested a room “without any windows,” according to Sergeant Broadwater, who’s got the desk duty this afternoon.
“I think he’s spooked,” the sergeant says to Ceepak.
“Understandable. Have you been able to reach Detective Botzong from the State Police Major Crimes Unit?”
“Yeah. He said to tell you …” He reaches for a pink While You Were Out message pad. “That a ‘Detective Jeanne Wilson is at the municipal garage where we impounded the vehicle and was able to remove a slug from the Mercedes in just about the same spot where we found the hole in the Mustang.’ That make any sense to you guys?”
“Indeed it does,” says Ceepak. “Thank you for taking such a detailed message, Sergeant.”
Broadwater shrugs. “It’s the job. Oh, here.”
He hands Ceepak an envelope.
“From Mrs. Rence?” Ceepak asks.
“Yeah,” says Broadwater. “Some kind of printout you wanted.”
“Thank you.”
We head up the hallway, past the empty Chief’s office. Guess it will stay empty until the town fathers get around to hiring a replacement. I hope, this time, Ceepak puts his name in the hat. Or tosses his hat into the ring. Or that a hat in the ring has his name in it. One of those.
The last time the job became vacant, right after our first case together, Ceepak declined all offers to take over the top cop slot. But that was a few years ago. He had only been in Sea Haven a couple months. Now, there’s nobody better.
We push open the door to the interview room. It looks a lot like a conference room but with crappy furniture, a box of old Christmas decorations in one corner, some files and magazines in another, and a humongous wall mirror that’s actually a one-way window. Mandrake is on his phone, pacing at the far end of the long table.
“Ask Layla.” He waves at us to “come in, come in,” like our SHPD Interview Room is suddenly his new production trailer. “Ask Layla. Look, I am temporarily indisposed. If anybody has any questions, send them to Layla. I don’t give a shit. I almost died. This is the second time a man has pulled a gun on me. The first was back in ’Nam. Some Viet Cong asshole didn’t like the way I was looking at his girlfriend in a bar. This was worse. This asshole fired.” He puts his free hand up to his free ear. “You ever hear a bullet whizz by, inches from your brain? I was like Lincoln, sitting at that stop sign.”
Except, of course, Abraham Lincoln was president, freed the slaves, and won the Civil War. Martin Mandrake? He makes cheesy TV shows about kids playing Skee-Ball, hopping into each other’s beds, and puking up beer.
“I gotta go. Some more cops want to talk to me. Talk to Layla. No. No! Don’t even think like that. We cannot cancel the finale. The show must go on.” He punches the
OFF
button on his iPhone.
“Where the hell were you two?” he snaps at us.
“Excuse me?” says Ceepak.
“You’re in charge of security! How come you didn’t stop this nutjob?”
“You chose to leave the secure location,” says Ceepak. “To venture outside the Green Zone.”
“Because I needed a Vegan Philly Cheese Steak.”
Ceepak gestures toward a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
“Did you catch this creep?”
“Not yet,” says Ceepak.
“Who would do such a thing?”
“We suspect the same person who transported Paul Braciole’s body to the boardwalk.”
“Skeletor? No way. He’s dead.”
Yeah
, I think,
because you paid Bobby Lombardo to whack him
.
“Mr. Braciole was not murdered by Thomas Hess, a.k.a. Skeletor.”
“Oh, right. You think I did it.”
“No, sir. I never said you were the triggerman. However, I suspect that, through various intermediaries, you hired this man to do your killing for you.”
Ceepak pulls a black-and-white printout from the envelope Mrs. Rence has left for us at the front desk. It shows two guys on a motorcycle. The one in front wears a sleek racing helmet and a leather jumpsuit.
“Who is this?”
“On the back of the seat is the corpse of Paul Braciole. The motorcycle operator is, we hypothesize, one half of the professional hit team that Bobby Lombardo contracted on your behalf to murder Mr. Braciole.”
Mandrake is staring hard at the picture.
“We figure someone else shot Paulie,” I say. “Came up alongside his vehicle while he was parked at a stoplight, whipped up his pistol, and boom.”
“Only,” says Ceepak, “Mr. Braciole had come to a full and complete stop. Therefore, the bullet did not ‘whizz past his ear,’ as you just described. It coursed through both hemispheres of his brain.”
Mandrake is still frozen. Everything except his hands. They’re starting to rattle the picture he’s staring at.
“Next time,” I say, “he’ll know that you roll through stop signs, so he’ll compensate for the moving target. Next time, he won’t miss.”
“Jesus,” Mandrake mumbles. “The helmet, with the lightning bolts. The flames on the jacket shoulders. It’s the same fucking guy?”
“You tell us,” says Ceepak.
“It’s the same fucking guy! This is the maniac who came at me, put a gun to my head.…”
He puts the paper down on the table and reaches for a bottle of water. Liquid sloshes out of his lips. The man’s hands are quaking because he’s finally put two and two together and come up with five, maybe six.
The tables have been turned.
The great Martin Mandrake has been double-crossed.
The killer he contracted to kill Paul Braciole and Thomas “Skeletor” Hess has a new target: Martin Mandrake.
“Mr. Mandrake?” says Ceepak, “the time for deceit and prevarication is over. If you want us to protect you, then you must start telling us the truth. Immediately.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” he mumbles. “This wasn’t part of the fucking deal!”
41
A
T APPROXIMATELY 3:15 P
.
M
.,
BARELY THIRTY SECONDS
after mumbling his semi-confession, Marty Mandrake totally clams up.
“I need to call my lawyer,” he says. “I have the right to consult with an attorney and have that attorney present during questioning.”
The guy has been in TV so long, he has the
Law & Order
version of the Miranda warning memorized.
“That, of course, is your right,” says Ceepak. “However—”
“Don’t try to strongarm me! I need to consult with an attorney.”
“Would you like some privacy for your phone call?”
“What? You think I have a death wish? Suppose you two leave and this crazed killer bursts through that door to finish what he started? I’m unarmed here!”
He’s also extremely paranoid, but I guess Abraham Lincoln would’ve been paranoid too, if John Wilkes Booth had missed. So we babysit him while he calls his lawyer.
Ceepak and I both cringe when we hear his lawyer’s name: Louis “I Never Lose” Rambowski, the same creep hired by the O’Malleys earlier this summer when we were working the Rolling Thunder case. Every cop in the SHPD (and most of New Jersey) knows and despises Rambowski, ever since he helped a thug up in Newark waltz out the door by convincing the jury that it was a dead cop’s own fault he got shot in the back of his head.
Today, it turns out, Rambowski is working out of his New York City office and needs to finish up “a few things.” He’ll have his driver whisk him down to Sea Haven ASAP, probably around four. At the start of rush hour. When the Lincoln and Holland tunnels are so clogged with cars, they need Drāno.
This means we don’t expect to hear any more from Martin Mandrake until 7, maybe 7:30
P.M
.
We leave him in the interview room. He asks for an armed guard. Ceepak promises he will lock the door and “take personal responsibility for the key.” That means he’s going to slip it into one of his cargo pants pockets.
“Is he talking?” this from Special Agent Christopher Miller, FBI, who’s hovering in the corridor outside the Interview Room. So are about six other serious-looking individuals—male and female—dressed in suits, sunglasses, and Secret Service-style earpieces with wires resembling see-through pigtails. All six plus Miller are sporting suspicious bulges beneath the breast pockets of their natty jackets.
They’ve all got sidearms in shoulder holsters.
“He wants his lawyer,” says Ceepak.
Miller nods. “Probably wants to cut a deal.”
“If he gives up Bobby Lombardo, he might just get one,” says a woman with a severe haircut (like she does it herself with a pair of orange-handled knitting scissors) and a serious scowl.
“John, Danny,” says Miller, “this is Lisa Bonner. Works with the New Jersey State Police Organized Crime Unit. These other folks are with me. And we’re expecting more guests any minute.”
“Such as?” asks Ceepak.
“Some friends of mine from our Organized Crime Task Force, as well as a few folks from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Everybody wants Bobby Lombardo to go away, big-time.”
And I thought all these nice people in suits were here to help us catch the hired killer on his motor scooter.
“I suggest you all make yourselves as comfortable as possible,” says Ceepak. “Coffee and soft drinks are available in the break room. We do not expect Mr. Mandrake’s lawyer to arrive for another three hours. Check back with me at 1900 hours for an update.”
Ceepak makes like he’s ready to leave. Ms. Bonner raises a hand.
“Maybe we could just go in there and have a friendly chat with Mr. Mandrake?” she says, cracking what I think she thinks is a smile.
“No, ma’am,” says Ceepak. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Officer, we suspect that Mr. Mandrake can directly link Bobby Lombardo to your two homicides. We need to talk to him. Sooner, not later.”
“I understand your frustration,” says Ceepak. “However, Mr. Mandrake has requested that an attorney be present during questioning. We must respect his rights.”
“Says who?”
“Let’s go grab a cup of that coffee,” says Special Agent Miller, putting his big hand at the small of Ms. Bonner’s back to guide her down the hall. “It still as bad as I remember, Boyle?”
“Worse,” I say. “Now we’re burning hazelnut-flavored beans.”
Miller chuckles a little and leads the disappointed suits away from the Interview Room.
Ceepak head-gestures to the left. We take a side door that opens into the parking lot.
“Let’s head over to the municipal garage,” says Ceepak, “check in with Bill Botzong and the CSI team.”
“They’re going to cut Mandrake a deal, aren’t they?”
“Perhaps, Danny. However, that does not give us permission to abandon our investigation before we have gathered all the evidence we can.”
And the MCU people have some for us.
Ceepak and I leave the sunshine for the darkness of the municipal garage where, once my eyes adjust, I see Marty Mandrake’s sporty convertible parked next to the Sanitation Department’s sand sweeper. Bill Botzong is with Detective Wilson over at a workbench, where they look like lab partners huddled around a microscope.
“What have we learned, Bill?” asks Ceepak.
“Plenty. Jeanne?”
The ballistics expert looks up from the microscope’s eyepiece. The rubber ring at the top of the tube has given her a red circle around her eye.
“We found a casing in the street and pulled a .45 ACP slug out of the interior panel,” she says, “right above the door handle, suggesting, as we said earlier, that our shooter took approximately the same downward firing angle as that used to take out your first victim, Mr. Braciole.”
“But wait,” says Botzong, in his best late-night TV voice, “there’s more.”
Detective Wilson nods toward her laptop. “I did a preliminary match with our ballistic fingerprinting database. Now, I can’t give you the serial number of the weapon we’re looking for …”
“But?” I say.
“… but it looks pretty consistent with what we’ve seen on ammunition fired from the Heckler & Koch USP Compact Tactical.”
Suddenly, Ceepak looks kind of green around the gills.
42
“A
S YOU KNOW
,” B
OTZONG SAYS TO
C
EEPAK
, “H&K
DEVELOPED
the Universale Selbstlade Pistole, or ‘universal self-loading pistol,’ as a semi-automatic sidearm for the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Offensive Handgun Weapon System program.”
Ceepak nods. “The hired hit man may be former military.”
“Yeah,” says Botzong. “Special Forces. Navy SEALS. Delta Force. Green Berets.”