“Is everything okay with Rita? Your mom?”
“Affirmative. However, I was having difficulty falling asleep this evening so I went into the other room to monitor my police scanner.”
Yes, some people drink a glass of warm milk or pop an Ambien. Ceepak? He chills with cop chatter.
“Do you remember Katie Landry’s emergency room nurse friend Christine Lemonopolous?” he asks.
“Sure. In fact, she was involved in an incident a couple hours ago down in Beach Crest Heights. Santucci and I took statements.”
“I heard her name come across the radio. Cam Boyce and Brad Hartman were working the night shift when nine-one-one received a complaint of a woman sleeping in her car outside a residential property in Cedar Knoll Heights. They investigated and identified the ‘vagrant’ as Christine Lemonopolous.”
“Where are you now?”
“Eighteen-eighteen Beach Lane in the Heights.”
“I’m on my way.”
You may think it odd that Ceepak would run out of his house at two-thirty in the morning to make sure a woman he barely knows is okay.
Not me.
I’ve been working with the guy for a while now. This is what he does. He jumps in and helps first, asks questions later.
Before he came to Sea Haven, Ceepak was an MP over in Iraq, where he won just about every medal the Army gives out including several for rushing in and saving the lives of guys he didn’t know-even when common sense (and my intestines) would’ve said run the other way.
Cedar Knoll Heights is, as the name suggests, a slightly elevated stretch of land overlooking the beach. That elevation? It saved the million-dollar homes lining Beach Lane in The Heights from Super Storm Sandy’s full wrath and fury.
When I reach 1818, I see Ceepak’s six-two silhouette standing ramrod straight beside a dinged-up VW bug. It’s not Ceepak’s ride. He drives a dinged-up Toyota.
The VW is parked in a crackled asphalt driveway leading up to a three-story mansion. The lawn is a tangle of sand, weeds, and sea grass.
“Thanks for joining me,” says Ceepak.
I know I must look like crap, having crawled out of the rack with chin drool and bed hair, a problem Ceepak will never know. He’s thirty-seven, been out of the Army for a few years, but still goes with the high-and-tight military cut.
Christine waves to me from behind the wheel of her VW.
I wave back.
I haven’t seen Christine Lemonopolous in years. Now, we bump into each other twice in one night.
Ceepak motions for me to step out to the street with him.