Sea Beach wasn’t much of a town in the off-season, and the end of September was definitely approaching that time. The seasonal residents came in mostly on weekends now, probably because they owned a place and felt obligated to use it, but also because it was so peaceful, a distinct difference from the height of summer when the boardwalk bars rocked every night of the week with Jersey Shore partiers. I pulled into the parking lot behind the diner, surprised that I had trouble finding a parking space. I actually had to wait in line outside for a few minutes, which gave me an opportunity to get some oxygen into my system. It was as foggy there outside the diner as it was inside my head, and the air was damp and cool going into my lungs. It felt like I was inhaling a piece of the ocean itself. The owner came out with some menus and spotted me at the end of the line. The owner was my first cousin on my father’s side, Demetrius Manos.
“You by yourself, Johnny? I got a spot at the counter, if you want it.”
I said, “Thanks Demetrius, that would be fine.” I smiled and nodded at a couple of people whose face I recognized, but whose name I didn’t remember—I’m terrible with names, a bad trait for a reporter—and took a seat on the counter.
Demetrius laid down a menu and a coffee at the same time. “You look like you could use this.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said smartly, and I shoveled some sugar into the cup. The coffee looked like motor oil, and it was perfect. If this didn’t get me going…. I caught my reflection in the stainless steel panel behind the plate racks. I’m no Greek god, mind you, but I’m no Cyclops either. Normally, my tight, jet-black hair stays where it’s supposed to, and if I comb it right it gives me another inch, which means I’m able to tell the summer honeys on the boardwalk that I’m six-one and get away with it. This morning, it looked kind of spiked out, and my face looked like it was covered with ants, seeing as I hadn’t shaved in a while. I looked like a terrorist, and I hoped it was just the reflection. I stopped worrying about my appearance, and I started worrying about how I was going to explain my absence at the wedding to Murph. Surprisingly, I hadn’t gotten any messages from anyone on my cell phone or my regular phone cursing me out for not being there.
I ordered some pancakes and got a refill, when I started to tune in to my surroundings. Why was the place so busy? Sea Beach wasn’t but three thousand people in the off-season, and it looked like every single one of them was inside the diner.
“Demetrius,” I said, waving him over. “What’s up with all the people?”
Demetrius gave me a strange look, but it was clear that it wasn’t about my hair. “Lost Friday,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re not writing about it.”
It didn’t register. “Demetrius, what’s Lost Friday?”
Demetrius just turned and went to the cash register. He was back a second later with a legal pad and a pencil. “Over there,” he said, nodding toward the dining room area of the diner. “You’re going to need to take some notes.”
I looked over to where Demetrius had indicated, noticing that a crowd had gathered around one of the tables. A couple of people had cameras, and one of them looked like a professional photographer. As I sat there, a news van actually pulled up outside the diner with WTFX Philadelphia, Fox News 29 painted on the side.
“You better get over there before you get shut out,” Demetrius said.
I slurped down some coffee and squeezed my way over to the still-gathering crowd, flashing the press badge I kept in my wallet as I fought my way in. Once there, I wedged into the wall of bodies that took up an entire corner of the dining room, elbowing my way to the front. I’m good at that. When I finally got to where I could concentrate on something besides avoiding all the bad breath in the air, I was surprised to see Chief of Police Roy Mulroney sitting there, handling questions as if he were conducting a presidential press conference. I’ve known Roy for a long time—hell, he used to escort me home when drinking a couple of beers in the Pinelands with your friends wasn’t a capital offense—and I know Roy would rather have gotten a tooth pulled than sit in front of a group of reporters. It looked like he didn’t have much choice, however.
Spotting me, he said, “Mornin’, Johnny. Where have you been?”
A camera clicked somewhere behind my left ear, and I said, “I don’t know, Roy. Where have we all been?”
Chapter 2… Feeding Frenzy
“Chief, are you saying the entire town is missing a day?”
The microphone almost hit Roy in the face as the reporter from WTFX actually turned and smiled for the camera. I mean, was this something to smile about? I don’t think that schmuck reporter believed a word of what was being said, but he knew he had an exclusive, seeing as there were no other TV guys there—yet. He was milking the opportunity for all it was worth, and he looked at all us newspaper guys like we were second stringers.
Roy held up his hands as if to push back the buzzing throng. “As far as we can tell, yes, that’s the case. It seems that anyone who lives inside the town’s boundaries has no recollection at all about yesterday.”
“That would be Friday, September twenty-fourth. Is that correct?”
Roy looked at the reporter the way he’d look at a mosquito that just landed on his arm. “That’s correct.”
“Really, Chief, how is that possible?”
Roy was pretty down-to-Earth, and had about as much patience for sanctimonious people as he would the mosquito. He hauled his six-foot-four frame out of the chair and hulked over the reporter. Giving the mosquito a mental swat, he said, “I don’t know how it’s possible, son, but it happened.” With that, Roy pushed through the crowd, and, surprisingly, shot a finger at me as he passed by. “Outside,” he said lowly.
It took a while for Roy to make it out of the diner, so I waited next to his truck while he took time to calm some of the townspeople who stepped into his path. Roy was a hell of a guy, Vietnam War hero, the whole nine yards, and people looked up to him. The mayor was only a part-time position in the boro, so for all intents and purposes, Roy was the man in town. I heard he once took two bullets in the back during a bank hold up and still managed to chase down two bad guys, one of whom somehow ended up with a broken neck. Roy has always maintained that he has no idea how that happened. I waited patiently until he patted everyone’s back and shook everyone’s hand, leaving each concerned citizen with a, “Don’t worry, I’ll get to the bottom of this.” They believed him, and I did too.
Reaching me, he speared me with a look I’d never seen before. “I want you to be my spokesman on this, Johnny. The shit’s gonna start flying pretty soon, and this town is going to turn into a zoo. I need someone to handle all the media crap so I can concentrate on figuring out what the hell happened.”
The way he said it, I don’t know if I really had a choice. “On one condition,” I said, bluffing my way along.
“What’s that?”
“That I get the inside track on this thing.”
Roy nodded slowly, and drawled, “I think I can handle that. Let’s go to my office.”
I hopped into my Corvette and followed his battered truck through the streets, noting there was barely a soul out there. All the bungalows were shuttered up tight, and the boardwalk looked as deserted as if everyone had been abducted by aliens. Perhaps it was so, I thought weirdly. Even the tackle shops were barren, and there were always a couple of four-wheelers parked there during striper season.
At the police station, Roy gave my ’Vette the eyeball and said, “What do you do when you have to carry a suitcase?”
Poor Roy. He just didn’t understand the importance of having a ’Vette. “I take the Escalade when I have to carry anything bigger than my ego,” I said comically.
Roy chuckled. “You’d need a dump truck to carry that.” He turned toward the station and questioned over his shoulder, “Do you really have an Escalade?”
I didn’t, of course. Hell, I’d bought the ’Vette used, and I
could barely afford the payments on that, but I didn’t say anything. I found that in my line of work it was better to keep people guessing.
Inside, things were humming. During the summer, the population of Sea Beach went from about three thousand to forty thousand, and Roy employed a lot of part-time cops, using a lot of school teachers, grad students, and the like, guys and gals who basically baby-sat the out-of-towners and made sure they got back to their bungalows at night without running anybody over. The force expanded from its permanent eight officers to about thirty. As a result, there were a few empty desks inside the station, and the phones were ringing on every single one of them. The two officers on duty both had a regular phone and a cell phone in each ear, and both were talking a blue streak.
Roy ignored the hubbub, and headed straight to his office. “I want you to hold a press conference right away,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk.
Like I said before, I know Roy, and there was no way he’d do that in order to call attention to the situation. Being the cunning reporter that I am, and, knowing that I needed to get my thoughts on the situation squared away pretty soon, I said, “What do you want to accomplish with another press conference?”
“Control,” he said. “It’s already turning into a feeding frenzy out there …” He thumbed somewhere through the wall. “… and I don’t want the people in this town portrayed as a bunch of loonies. By the end of the day, we’ll have news crews here from every TV and radio station within driving distance, and by tomorrow the networks will be on this like stink-on-a-skunk. I need you to put a proper spin on this, Johnny.”
I understood completely, but I had no clue on how I was going to accomplish that. I mean, damn! From the sound of it, the population of an entire town—but only the town—had lost all memory of an entire day! Who wouldn’t think we were all a bunch of loonies? I needed a foothold, and Roy was as good a place to start as any. I’d taken a notepad with me from the car, and I flipped it open.
“What about you, Roy? What was the last thing you remember before this morning?”
Roy drilled me with a look that told me he was weighing how much he could trust me. Probably about as much as he would trust an angry rattlesnake, I figured. He folded his hands over his full belly, and said, “For me, Thursday night was pretty much like any other night. Went home to the missus, grilled a steak, watched some football on ESPN.”
“Nothing beyond that?”
“Nothing, but what does any of that have to do with—”
I held up a hand. “Bear with me, Chief, just for a minute.” Roy held his tongue. “Nothing beyond that?” I repeated.
“Nothing. Checked in with the station, and went to bed around eleven.”
“Do you usually check in with the station?”
“Not always, but we were holding three prisoners on transfer up to Jersey City and I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”
“And, was it?”
“According to Keller, it was. Sometimes we put a TV back in the cell area, and Keller did. It gives the prisoners something to do besides scratching their initials on the walls. They were probably watching the same football game I was.”
“When was the prisoner transfer supposed to take place?” I asked, putting a string of thoughts together.
Roy shifted uncomfortably, and I noticed his bushy eyebrows had formed a line beneath his United States Marines baseball cap. “It was supposed to happen on Friday—which I thought was today,” he went on. “I haven’t had time to check.”
“So, you don’t know if it actually happened.”
“No, I don’t,” he said testily.
I’m sure Roy was thinking the same thing I was, which was that he couldn’t account for three prisoners that could have been axe murderers, for all we knew. Just then, there was a knock on the door, and one of the officers from outside poked his head through the crack.
“What is it, Kaplan?”
“I saw you fly in, Chief, and I know you got your hands full, but….” Kaplan came in and slid a form across the desk. Roy looked up. “When did this come in?”
“About ten minutes ago. I’ve got DiNardo on the way over there now.”
Roy looked at the report again. “Did you call the FBI office in Atlantic City?”
“I was about to do that now,” Kaplan answered. “I think we might want to call in some of the part-timers if they’re available. Sounds like we’re going to be pretty busy.”
Roy nodded in agreement. “And everyone else who’s off shift. We need to show a presence on the streets.”
This was really getting serious, I thought. “What is that?” I asked, indicating the report.
Even though he’d asked for my help, Roy clearly didn’t know how far to go with me. “We just got a call from Ben McDermott down at the bank.”
“I know Ben,” I said, seeing Roy hesitate.
“Seems that the bank vault is empty.”
The words hit me like a freight train, and my brain went into overdrive. A thousand questions immediately stacked up inside my head, but I didn’t get to ask any of them. Roy bolted upright, and bellowed for Kaplan to come back in.
“Call my wife,” he ordered. “Tell her I can’t take her to the doctor.” Roy looked at me and said, “You got any plans for today?”
“I didn’t,” I said sincerely.
“Well you do now. This is spinning out of control in a hurry. I want you to organize that press conference yesterday, and start working to get the right questions prepared. I’ll answer any and all of them, but I don’t want those reporter maggots firing them at me at a mile-a-minute. You got me?”
I bristled at the maggot comment, but I knew where Roy was coming from.
I nodded, and Roy said, “Good. After the press conference, you need to get back here right away so I can get something into the media that I know is the truth.” Looking at Kaplan, “Why are you still here?” he snapped.
“There’s something else,” Kaplan replied, holding another piece of paper.
“What is it now?”
“I don’t know if I should bother you with this yet, Chief. I mean, the phones are ringing off the hook and—”
“C’mon, Kaplan, what the hell?”
“David Robelle’s parents called.”
“David Robelle—as in the quarterback?”
Kaplan nodded. “They can’t find him.”
Three prisoners couldn’t be accounted for, the bank vault had been cleaned out, and the captain of the high school football team was missing. I think I found my foothold.
Chapter 3… The Words
“Who the hell are you?”
I looked down and spat out in a tone that indicated my displeasure, “My name is Johnny Pappas. And you are?”
“Irene O’Connor, WABC, New York.”
It rang a bell as soon as she identified herself. I’d seen her on TV many times, talking into the camera with that long red hair and those full frosted lips of hers. She was one of my favorite news bunnies, which meant she had nice ta-tas.
“What’s going on?” she called up from the floor when I didn’t answer right away. “I don’t have much time.”
“Who else can we talk to?” another reporter called out.
“Yeah, where’s Sheriff Mulroney?”
Roy was right. It was going to be like maggots on bad meat, and I didn’t know if I was a maggot, or the meat. I held up my hands like I’d actually been through this before.
“Chief Mulroney,” I said, glaring at the dink who’d called him Sheriff, “will be here in about half an hour. In the meantime, I’ll try and answer any questions.”
“Are you the same Johnny Pappas who writes for the Asbury Park Press?” someone hollered from the back.
Someone had actually heard of me. “Yes, I am,” I answered. A collective groan erupted, and my self-esteem deflated like a spent airbag.
“What are you doing
up there, Johnny? Trying to snake the juicy stuff for yourself?”
The question came from the left, and I spotted the source—a screamer with a greasy beard that I recognized from one of the cable channels, the same cable channel that carried the Jerry Springer Show, I remembered for some reason.
“Is that camera running?” I asked aggressively.
“Yeah. What about it?”
I motioned for quiet. “I live here, people, and Chief Mulroney asked me to get this press conference organized. Now, that’s exactly what I’m going to do, and anyone who doesn’t like it can take their freedom-of-the-press ass outside. And that goes double for you, smart mouth.” I pointed directly at mister greasy-beard, and glanced at the two officers stationed at the back of the town hall hearing room. One of them smiled and flashed me a three-fingered okay sign, indicating that all I had to do was say the word. “I’ll answer any questions I can. Those I can’t answer we’ll save for the chief, and he’ll answer them in the order that they’re asked. We’re looking to get the information out, everyone. You bombard him, and this news conference will be over. Now—”
“Is it true that three prisoners have disappeared from the local jail?” Irene O’Connor asked promptly.
“There were three prisoners in the lockup on transfer up to Jersey City. As we speak, the chief is checking to see if the prisoner delivery was actually completed. Next question.”
“About the bank robbery, has a CSI team been called in?”
“I know the FBI has been called. I assume they’ll handle that part of it.” These guys had done their homework, I thought. I looked at my watch. It was only one in the afternoon, and the news had obviously spread like a brushfire. As if I knew something more than I did, I followed up with, “I don’t think anyone from the FBI has arrived yet, however. Next question, please.”
Three reporters started in at the same time, but only one question made it through. “What about the unusual tracks found out by the reservoir?”
“I… I don’t know anything about those,” I stammered.
“Are there any reports of anyone outside the town getting caught up in this?”