Free Fall

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Sorry to disturb you, Detective. But, well, I thought you should know.”

  And then there’s this pause.

  “It’s your father. Again. The gatehouse security guard at …”

  Ceepak doesn’t stay parked for the rest. He jams the transmission into reverse.

  “… the Oceanaire condo complex …”

  Those black Nitto tires on Ceepak’s slick new ride spin so fast it smells like rubber duckie burning day at the town dump.

  “… called nine-one-one …”

  We rocket out of the hotel parking lot.

  “Lights and sirens,” says Ceepak.

  I find the buttons. Punch them.

  Cars and bikes and sea gulls scurry out of our way when all those LEDs strobe to life inside their sleek black hiding places. The Batmobile is on the move.

  “We’re on our way,” Ceepak says into the mic. Then he tosses it aside so he can keep both hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel and drive us NASCAR-style over to his mother’s condo complex.

  Red lights and stop signs?

  We barely even pause.

  “I should have known,” Ceepak mutters through gritted teeth as we whip around another corner.

  “Known what?” I say, hanging on to the grab bar over my door, thinking that holding it will somehow protect me when we have our high-speed collision.

  “This is Monday,” says Ceepak. “Sinclair Enterprises hired a second factory-certified operator for their Free Fall who was slated to start work today.”

  “Giving your dad the evening off.”

  50

  CEEPAK SLAMS ON THE BRAKES, CUTS THE WHEEL HARD TO THE RIGHT.

  We skid sideways into the Oceanaire’s entry road.

  Bruce Southworth, the kid with the clipboard, is out of his guard hut.

  Brian Ersalesi and John Johnston, two of our SHPD uniform cops, are standing in front of their cruiser, which has its roof bar lights swirling. No weapons are drawn. Well, except for Bruce Southworth’s clipboard.

  Mr. Ceepak stands between the two SHPD officers and the security guard. All smiles. He’s carrying a bakery box. Guess he’s bringing sweets this time instead of flowers.

  Ceepak and I yank open our doors and head out.

  “What’s the situation?” he hollers.

  “He still wants to see your mother,” Southworth hollers back.

  “You know this guy, Detective?” shouts Ersalesi.

  “10-4.”

  “I’m his Papa!” wheezes Mr. Ceepak as he stumbles forward a foot or two. “And since when is paying a courtesy call to your spouse a crime, Johnny?”

  “Since you were advised to stay away.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before your mother went bonkers. She’s throwing my money down the crapper. Buying this Christine girl another lawyer? I heard all about it from Dave Rosen in H.R. at work. Your nurse pal killed Dave’s dad but your mother’s still bankrolling her? Adele’s losing it, Johnny Boy. Someone needs to make her come to her senses.”

  Then he makes a big mistake.

  He tucks that bakery box sideways under his left arm and balls up his right hand into a fist to show how he’s going to persuade Adele to see the light.

  Ceepak goes toe to toe with his old man. My hand hovers over my Glock.

  The two uniforms see me make my move. Their hands are hovering over holsters now, too.

  “Do you intend to beat that sense into her, sir?” demands Ceepak.

  His father gets a devilish glint in his eye. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, son.”

  Ceepak’s told me stories. His father used to hit his mother. Until Ceepak turned thirteen. Then he was finally big enough to protect his mom, even if it meant taking a few punches himself.

  By the time Ceepak was fifteen, his father was too terrified of his giant, muscle-bound son to even think about ever using his wife as a punching bag again. That’s when Joe Sixpack shifted his rage toward Billy, Ceepak’s little brother.

  “Hell’s bells, son. Somebody needs to teach that woman a lesson. You don’t piss away a family’s fortune on total strangers unless you’re crazy or drunk or both. That’s Ceepak money!”

  “What’s in the box?” asks Ceepak.

  “Cookies.”

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  Mr. Ceepak pulls back. “They’re not for you.”

  Ceepak repeats himself. “Mind if I take a look?”

  His father grins. “You got a search warrant?”

  “No. However, I know you had your gun carrying rights restored. In Ohio.”

  “So? I worked a lot of county fairs last fall. Needed protection. Some of those carnies are tough customers.”

  “And you don’t have a weapon in that white paper box?”

  “I told you—it’s a dozen damn cookies from the bakery at the supermarket.”

  “Then why did they forget to tie it with string?”

  “Because I was in a hurry …”

  Ceepak leans in. Sniffs his face.

  “Are you drunk, sir?”

  “No. I had a couple beers after work. Arrest me.”

  “We will. The next time you come within one hundred yards of my mother.”

  “What?”

  Ceepak reaches into his back pocket. Pulls out a document.

  “This, sir, as you might recall, is what is known in New Jersey as an emergency restraining order. They may be obtained at any police station in the state.”

  “What? What’d I do?”

  “You foolishly threatened a family member with physical violence in front of five witnesses, four of whom are law enforcement officers, thereby giving me grounds to invoke these emergency powers as a protection against future domestic violence.”

  “Don’t do this, Johnny.”

  “It’s already done.” He slaps the paper against his father’s chest. “Judge Mindy Rasmussen signed it the day we heard you were coming to town. Just in case.”

  Mr. Ceepak sneers. “Be prepared, right? You overgrown Boy Scout fruitcake.”

  Mr. Ceepak grabs the ERO out of his son’s hand. He still has that bakery box stuck sideways under his arm.

  If there were cookies inside it, they would’ve toppled out by now.

  “You’re backing me into a corner, Johnny,” Mr. Ceepak hisses. “You ever see what happens when you corner a hungry alley cat?”

  “No, sir. I’m more of a dog person.”

  “Don’t you give me lip, boy. I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it, too.”

  “I highly doubt that, sir.”

  Yeah. Me, too.

  “However, if you’d like to continue to make threats against an on-duty police officer, once again in front of all these witnesses, we can inform your friends at Sinclair Enterprises that you will not be coming to work tomorrow.”

  Mr. Ceepak backs down.

  “Fine, Johnny boy. Fine. You win this round. But I want my million dollars.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “This isn’t over, son.”

  “You are correct. This emergency order will last until a judge of the Family Part of the Chancery Division of the Superior Court grants or denies a final restraining order. You will receive notice of that hearing within ten days.”

  “Okey-dokey. See you in court, Johnny—if not before.”

  When Mr. Ceepak says that, he gets that glint in his eye again.

  Why do I think he is already hatching some new scheme to get at Mrs. Ceepak?

  Probably because he is.

  51

  “GOSH, OFFICERS, I NEVER SAID ANY SUCH THING.”

  Judith Rosen is playing little Miss Nicey Nice again.

  We’re in David and Judith’s upstairs apartment. It’s getting dark out. “Little Arnie” is in his room, blasting away at zombies with robots. David is still at work. Judith is stuffing chunks of buttery fudge into her mouth and sucking on them like they were breath mints.

  I see a bundled stack of moving
cartons leaning against a wall. Guess David and Judith are already planning a move into the beach house they inherited from the late Arnold Rosen.

  Ceepak is reading from his notepad, repeating what Judith said to her father-in-law on the night her sister was, more or less, humiliated in open court.

  “So you deny ever saying ‘Why don’t you do us all a favor and die?’”

  “To Dad? Heavens, no. Who would say such a horrible thing to a dying man?”

  Ceepak cocks an eyebrow. “Was Dr. Rosen actually ‘dying’ at that time?”

  Judith smiles and blinks. “Well, officer, we’re all born with a death sentence. And the older we get, the closer we crawl to our graves.”

  Then she blinks some more. Just so we have time to contemplate her mind-blowing Zen wisdom.

  “How’s your stroke situation?” I ask because, even though I’m no Ceepak, I can tell when a witness is yanking our collective crank. I’m not buying Judith’s innocent-angel act.

  “Excuse me?” says Judith.

  “Boss?” I say.

  Ceepak refers to his notes. “During that same verbal exchange with Dr. Rosen, you told your father-in-law that the situation between Christine and your sister had made you so upset that you might suffer a stroke. That, and I quote, ‘my death will pre-decease yours.’”

  “Really? Somebody told you I said that? How can my death pre-decease anybody else’s? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, ma’am. It does not. However, such is often the case when one speaks while inebriated.”

  “Excuse me? Are you suggesting that I was drunk?”

  “I am simply relaying the observations of a witness to your angry exchange with your father-in-law.”

  I butt in. “This same witness also told us that you swore Christine Lemonopolous ‘would get hers.’”

  Ceepak takes over. “Were you already scheming to somehow implicate Ms. Lemonopolous in your father-in-law’s death?”

  “Why would I do something like that? If anything, I was encouraging Christine to keep on trying to beat her PTSD. If she did as her doctors advised, I was confident she’d ‘get hers’ some day—meaning her reward for all her hard work. Maybe a husband, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Ceepak. “Your recollection of this incident does not jibe at all with that of our witness.”

  “Was it Miss Monae?”

  Ceepak doesn’t answer.

  “That’s okay,” says Judith, putting on her toothy smile again. It’s smudged with chocolate. “I already know the answer. It had to be Miss Monae. She works nights and you say this ‘incident’ took place at night?”

  “No, ma’am. I gave no indication as to the time of day.”

  “Well, I do remember being very angry one night with Dad. I thought he was making some very bad choices. He should have fired Miss Christine the minute she attacked my sister. You don’t want an individual with such a short fuse acting as your caregiver or, even worse, living under your roof. I may have raised my voice slightly but only because Dad was in imminent danger and hard of hearing. Whatever I said, I said it to protect Dad from a very volatile and violent woman with a serious medical condition.”

  I’m not even sure if Mrs. Rosen knows she’s lying. I think she lives in some kind of a bubble where what she believes is always true.

  “You gentlemen, of course, know that Miss Monae was spying for David’s little brother Michael?”

  “What do you mean by ‘spying’?” asks Ceepak.

  “Michael was jealous. Didn’t like the fact that David and Little Arnie were his father’s favorites.”

  “Speaking of spies,” says Ceepak, “was it truly your intention for, first, Joy Kochman and then Christine Lemonopolous, whom you planted inside Dr. Rosen’s home, to feed you information about your father-in-law’s medical condition?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word ‘spy,’ but we did indeed ask Miss Joy and, later, Miss Christine to keep an eye on Dad. To monitor his physical and, yes, mental well-being. We were worried about him. Dementia is a serious problem for senior citizens. As we age, our brain shrivels.”

  Yeah. Mine’s doing it now.

  “If you were so concerned,” says Ceepak, “why didn’t you visit Dr. Rosen more often?”

  More blinks. “Because we respected his privacy.”

  “How often did your husband take money from his father?”

  “Gosh, Dad was so generous. Through the years, we’ve all benefitted from his gifts.”

  “I’m told Michael never asked his father for a dime.”

  “And see how well he’s done? With Michael, I think Dad’s generosity was of the heart. It wasn’t easy for Dad to accept his son’s gayness.”

  Yes, if Ceepak says black, this lady is going to say white.

  “And please, Detectives, take into consideration all that David and I did to earn Dad’s generosity. The many meals we ate with him …”

  Which, I’m guessing, Dr. Rosen always paid for.

  “How we were always available to join him on a moment’s notice at a Broadway show or a symphony performance.”

  Ditto on the tickets.

  “We also surrendered a good deal of our own family life to David’s father.”

  “How so?” says Ceepak.

  “Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but Dad was a bit of a control freak. One time, right after Little Arnie was born, Dad brought over all these classical records because he didn’t like the Raffi music I’d been playing in the nursery. Said it would stunt Little Arnie’s ‘intellectual development.’”

  “So he imposed himself into your daily life?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, my husband found it very difficult to stand up to his father. I guess some boys always do. It’s why we never have bottled water in our home.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dad didn’t believe in bottled water. Once, when he came over to visit Little Arnie, he saw a few bottles of Poland Spring in our fridge. ‘Is that where my money is going?’ is what Dad said to David because he had just given us a ten-thousand-dollar holiday gift. From that point on, I was forbidden to drink anything but tap water in my own home.”

  “So all the money Dr. Rosen gave you came with a heavy price?”

  “Exactly.”

  Ceepak closes up his notebook.

  “We may have more questions at a later time. Right now, we’d like to talk to David.”

  “I’m sure he’s still at the office.”

  “By the way,” says Ceepak, “I couldn’t help but notice the ring on your right hand. It’s quite unusual.”

  I check out the ring that’s too tight for a finger on her right hand. It looks like a cigar band on a sausage.

  “Thank you,” says Judith, admiring it herself. “Believe it or not, this was a Valentine’s Day gift from Dad.”

  “Your father-in-law gave you a ring?”

  “In a way. He gave David a gift certificate worth several thousand dollars, suggested he use it to buy me something special for Valentine’s Day. This was a few years ago. David and I had hit a rough patch. All marriages do, I suppose. Anyway, the gift certificate was for my girlfriend’s shop. Cele Deemer. Runs the cutest little boutique—The Gold Coast on Ocean Avenue. She only sells her own incredible handcrafted jewelry. They’re all one-of-a-kind items.”

  “It’s very creative.”

  “Thank you. Can you see the keyhole in the center of the heart? I think that is so cute.”

  “Indeed. Is it gold?”

  “Fourteen karat. Gold is all Cele works with. It’s why she calls her shop The Gold Coast.”

  Ceepak nods.

  I have to figure he’s thinking what I’m thinking: Judith’s friend, the local goldsmith, probably uses potassium cyanide in her work. She definitely could’ve loaned her gal pal a tablespoon or two last week.

  Especially if Judith asked for it in her nicey-nice voice.

  52

  IT’S NEARLY EIGHT WHEN WE CLIMB DOWN THE BACK STAIRC
ASE from David and Judith Rosen’s apartment.

  Judith told us she would call her husband. “Let him know you boys are on your way.”

  “She’s going to coach him,” I say to Ceepak as we make our way around the side of the two-story building to the gravel-and-seashell driveway where the super-charged Ceepakmobile is parked.

  “Such would be my supposition as well, Danny. However, at this juncture, there is little we can do to prevent spousal contact.”

  Judging from his speech pattern (which is beginning to mimic Data’s, the emotionless cyborg from “Star Trek The Next Generation”) and the fact that he said “spousal contact” (in a way that sounded a lot like “conjugal visit”), I believe Ceepak is shifting into his robotic mode because, inside his big analytical brain, the chipmunks are chugging along at warp speed on his mental treadmills.

  He’s starting to figure something out.

  “We’ll drive down to Sinclair Enterprises,” he says. “Interview David.”

  “Have we heard anything from Bill Botzong about when his team will be done with their cyanide data mining?” I ask.

  “Bill sent me a text. His forensics team has all the raw data and will work through the night to analyze the information to see if they can extract any interesting patterns or clusters that might implicate one or more of our suspects.”

  We cruise down Ocean Avenue.

  Things are pretty quiet. There’s some ambling life in the misty pools of light flooding the miniature golf courses. The summer’s first lines of giddy kids and smiling parents have formed outside Custard’s Last Stand and the Scoop Sloop. A few Ocean Avenue restaurants look like they’re doing a brisk dinner business.

  But most of the shops are closed up for the night.

  Including “The Gold Coast: A Handcrafted & Unique Adornment Shoppe” at 1510 Ocean Avenue—conveniently located just five doors down from the worldwide headquarters of Sinclair Enterprises at 1500.

  Why do I think Bill Botzong’s MCU data miners are going to strike cyanide gold on Ocean Avenue?

  The offices of Sinclair Enterprises look like one of those boiler rooms where telemarketers work; calling people at dinner time.

  I think the ground-level space used to be a clothing store. Maybe a hair salon. The walls are painted the same color as guacamole. Bright green poles, spaced at intervals in tidy rows, hold up the drop-panel ceiling. A maze of gray cubicles fills most of the wide-open, industrial-strength-carpeted floor.