Free Fall

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Big day tomorrow,” I say and stretch into a pretty phony yawn. I even pat my hand over my open mouth a couple times.

  That makes Christine smile.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s the hour, not the company.”

  I escort her down to the parking lot and her VW.

  “Everything okay at the motel?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Becca gave me a really nice room.” She moves closer. “Would you like to see it?” Her voice is extremely husky. And by husky, I do not mean the size of blue jeans chubby boys wear.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’d love to come over. But …”

  “I know,” says Christine. “You’ve got a murder to solve.”

  “Something like that.”

  She shrugs. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Then she goes up on her toes so she can kiss me.

  I, naturally, kiss back.

  I’ll skip the juicy details but lets just say we linger.

  When we finally break out of lip lock, both of us are a little discombobulated, our clothes slightly disheveled. I also notice I’m breathing a little more rapidly than when I’m, say, brushing my teeth.

  “Thanks for standing up for me.” Christine leans her head against my chest. It’s a good fit.

  “Mr. Ceepak is a nasty piece of work,” I say.

  “I hate when mean people like him try to push other people around. He reminds me so much of Shona and Judith. They shouldn’t get away with the horrible stuff they do. Someone has to stop them.”

  “And that’s why God invented cops and soldiers,” I say, hoping to tamp down the smoldering anger I see burning in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything dumb or stupid, Danny.”

  “Good. That’s my job.”

  Christine smiles.

  We kiss one more time.

  And then she putters away in her VW.

  Tuesday morning, Ceepak and I roll in his detective-mobile to “The Gold Coast” jewelry shop at 1510 Ocean Avenue.

  The store isn’t open, but we press our badges against the glass-panel front door and the lone worker inside twists open the lock to let us in.

  “Sorry to be intruding so early in the morning,” says Ceepak. “Is Cele Deemer available?”

  “I’m Cele,” says the bony woman who opened the front door. Her skin is so tan and tight, it reminds me of an old leather suitcase with ribs.

  “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

  “Do you know Judith Rosen?”

  “Certainly. We’ve been friends since high school. And don’t you dare ask me how long ago that was.”

  She laughs and brings a hand up to her enormous golden necklace, which halfway reminds me of the chest pieces chariot drivers used to wear. She’s also wearing enough golden rings for a solo in a Christmas carol.

  “Now then, officers—what’s this all about?”

  “We are investigating the murder of Mrs. Rosen’s father-in-law.”

  Ms. Deemer clucks her tongue a couple times. “Such a tragedy. How can I help?”

  “You design and create your own jewelry?” asks Ceepak.

  “That’s right. I work exclusively in gold. Bracelets, rings, necklaces …”

  “And do you use cyanide?”

  She nods. “A liquid product called ‘Twenty-Four K.’ Of course, I only use it in a very well ventilated space. I have an exhaust fan and fume hood right over my workbench in the back. Plus, I always wear chemical safety goggles, neoprene gloves, and a rubber apron whenever I work with it.”

  “Wise precautions,” says Ceepak.”

  “Well, it’s extremely toxic. Fatal if ingested.” Ms. Deemer gasps. “Is that what happened to Dr. Rosen?”

  Ceepak doesn’t answer. Instead, he asks, “Where do you store your cyanide solution?”

  “In my workshop.”

  I glance toward the rear of the shop. There is a flimsy goldsequined curtain hanging on a rod above an open doorway. Anybody could breeze through and help themselves to anything on Ms. Deemer’s supply shelves. Her workshop security situation is, in a word, nonexistent.

  “A while back,” says Ceepak, “we understand you created a ring for your friend, Judith Rosen.”

  “Actually, her husband was my client.” She laughs. “It was supposed to be a big, romantic Valentine’s Day gift. Well, on Valentine’s Day, David gives Judith a gift certificate that his father came in and bought for him. A very generous gift certificate, by the way. Five thousand dollars. But when David gives Judith a gold envelope with a slip of golden paper inside instead of jewelry, she hits the roof. I don’t blame her. Seriously. What kind of romantic Valentine’s Day gift is that? So, Judith made David come in here and tell me what to design just to prove he knows what his wife likes. Of course, he doesn’t. What husband does? So, I help David out a little. Tell him how Judith has a thing for hearts. David comes up with the keyhole idea—like she has the key to his heart. A little corny, sure, but, hey, he’s trying, am I right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you see David and Judith socially?”

  “David? Not really. I see him on the sidewalk sometimes. He works just up the block.”

  “And Judith?”

  “I see her maybe once or twice a month. Her gym is around the corner.” She leans in like she’s going to let us in on some big, juicy secret. “I think she only goes to the gym to get a massage. You know what I mean?” Here she uses her hands to mime her cheeks bloating up like blowfish. “Anyway, sometimes, when her son is at school, Jude drops by with pasta or pizza.”

  “Is David ever involved in these lunches?”

  “No. Just us girls. We eat in the back and I show her whatever I’m working on.”

  “In your workroom?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And David?” asks Ceepak. “Did he ever spend time in your workshop?”

  “Maybe. When I was doing the heart ring. I think he was back there with me once or twice so I could show him the work in progress.”

  So David and Judith both knew a local spot where they could pick up some cyanide.

  “Has David been back in your shop since he ordered the ring?” I ask.

  “No. Just Judith.”

  “Do you ever use powdered cyanide?” asks Ceepak.

  “Not for years. Oh, speaking of Judith, this is cute.”

  Cele Deemer pulls a sheet of paper out from under a pile of receipts and ledger books.

  “Last couple months, over lunch, we’ve been brainstorming a design for a big, chunky ‘J’ she could wear on a necklace like a rapper.”

  “Was this something Mrs. Rosen anticipated purchasing in the near future?”

  “I doubt it. Not unless she won the Lottery. That’s what we always said. When her numbers hit, we’d make the fourteen-karat ‘J.’”

  “How much do you estimate such an item would cost?”

  “Three, four times more than her ring. But there’s no harm in dreaming, am I right?”

  True. Unless, of course, you take a few illegal steps to make your dreams come true.

  Like poisoning your father-in-law.

  56

  “MS. DEEMER?” SAYS CEEPAK.

  “Yes?”

  “I would be remiss if I did not encourage you to take better security precautions and more stringently control access to your workroom. Cyanide gas, which could be generated in a simple spill, is what many states with the death penalty use to execute …”

  The radios clipped to both of our belts start squawking.

  “Detective Ceepak?” bursts out of the radio surrounded by static.

  “Excuse me,” Ceepak says to the jewelry storeowner as he reaches for his radio.

  “Please,” she says, sounding annoyed. “Be my guest.”

  “This is Ceepak. Go.”

  “Yeah, this is Officer Al Hallonquist. Me and Craig Kennedy just made our loop through the Sea Spray Motel parking lot and eyeballed that guy you asked us to keep tabs on.”
<
br />   “Michael Rosen?”

  “Right. He just took off in his white rental car. We tailed him as he cruised out of the parking lot. Kept hoping for a busted tail light or a minor traffic infraction, but …”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Three cars behind him. On the causeway bridge. Another hundred yards, they’re out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Stay with him.”

  “Okay, but like I said …”

  “Stay with him, Officer Hallonquist. We need to know where Michael Rosen is headed. I will personally assume all responsibility for any jurisdictional blowback.”

  Hallonquist gives us a 10-4 and tells us he’ll continue following Michael. Ceepak and I dash outside, hop into the Detective-mobile, and blast off.

  And I’m hanging on to that grab handle over the passenger door again while Ceepak bobs and weaves his way through traffic.

  A couple minutes later, Hallonquist radios in with Michael Rosen’s final destination: The Garden State Reproductive Science Center in Avondale. I’m guessing Michael wants to chat with Revae Dunn some more.

  “He went into the building,” says Hallonquist over the radio.

  “Roger that,” says Ceepak. “We’ll take it from here. Return to Sea Haven. And Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  Riding in Ceepak’s turbocharged black bullet, we’re at the clinic five minutes after David.

  We shove open the swinging glass doors and stalk into the medical building, making a beeline for Revae Dunn’s office. We shove open her door, too. Ceepak is not in the mood for knocking, today.

  When we barge into Revae Dunn’s posh office, we find her and Michael sitting with an aging surfer dude with curly blonde hair. Franz Gruber. Yes. I know him, too.

  “Yo, Danny boy. How fare thee, dude?”

  When I was a teenager, Mr. Gruber was my surfing instructor on Saturday mornings. For a couple months, anyway. I didn’t like all the wiping out or the salt water shooting up my nostrils when I fell face-first into the foam.

  “I’m sorry, officers,” says Revae Dunn. “This is a private meeting.”

  Ceepak ignores her. “Mr. Rosen? We asked you not to leave Sea Haven until we concluded our investigation into your father’s murder.”

  “So, sue me,” he says.

  “We don’t sue,” I say. “We arrest.”

  “Take a chill pill, detective Boyle,” says Michael, sounding all snitty. “You two are going to love this. Ms. Dunn has validated my substantial monetary investment in her and her sister Monae. She has, at long last, located Little Arnie’s true father.”

  Michael happily bobs his head toward Mr. Gruber.

  “Like I told you yesterday, ever since my one and only nephew hit puberty and started blossoming into a handsome young lad, I have been wondering about Little Arnie’s paternity. His perfect teeth. His athletic prowess. His blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. These are not Rosen traits, gentlemen. Trust me.”

  Mr. Gruber grins. His teeth are perfect. His eyes sparkle like blue marbles.

  Michael keeps going. “Now I knew that, in the ninth year of their marriage, David and Judith began investigating various fertility treatments. How did I know this? Because my father kvetched and moaned to me about paying for them.” He turns to Revae. “How much did Dad-ums pay you people?”

  “All told?” says Monae’s sister. “One hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars.”

  “One hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars!” Michael fans his face like the number might give him a heat attack. “All that money and still Judith could not conceive. Why?”

  Michael, once again, turns to Revae.

  “Your brother, David, was shooting blanks.”

  Ceepak raises a hand. “Excuse me, Ms. Dunn. Aren’t you divulging confidential information?”

  She shrugs. “So? I figure Michael has a right to know the truth.”

  Yeah, I’m thinking. Especially if he bought you a brand new Jaguar.

  Ceepak’s jaw joint is popping in and out near his ear again but he doesn’t stop Michael and Revae Dunn from revealing everything they’ve learned in their well-financed investigation.

  “When Mr. David Rosen’s sperm proved incapable of fertilizing his wife’s eggs,” explains Ms. Dunn, flipping through a stack of papers, “Mr. and Mrs. Rosen filled out a request for donor sperm. They specified that the donor be athletic, intelligent …”

  “I’m in Mensa,” says Franz. “But I find the meetings so lugubrious.”

  “She also wanted her son to be handsome and, preferably, blonde,” says Revae.

  “Everything her husband wasn’t,” adds Michael.

  Franz holds up his hands. “What can I say? I was and remain the perfect package. But hey, I’m sorry the little dude lost his granddaddy.” Now Franz scratches the shaggy hair behind his ear like a flea-bitten dog. “Maybe I should pay him a visit. Assuage his emotional anguish with an ice cream cone or something.”

  “A little over fourteen years ago,” says Revae Dunn, very drily, “Mr. Gruber’s sperm sample, then known as Donor One-four-three, fertilized Mrs. Rosen’s egg in a Petri dish and created the child named Arnold David Rosen.”

  “Dig it,” says Gruber, cocking a thumb toward Revae. “According to Ms. Dunn, here, I’ve spawned like a hundred and fifty kids. Who knew? I just did it for beer money, man. Seventy five bucks a pop for reading lascivious letters to Penthouse and, you know—choking my chicken.”

  I just nod and try to smile.

  “After that horrible dinner on Friday night with Father, where both he and David belittled my choice of adoption,” says Michael, “I warned my brother. Told him I was this close to uncovering the whole truth about Little Arnie.”

  Ceepak leans forward.

  “What exactly did you say?”

  “I told David that he and Dad shouldn’t look down their noses at my adopted son. I also suggested that he who laughs last laughs loudest and that, judging by Little Arnie’s Germanic good looks, I wouldn’t be surprised if he, for all practical purposes, was adopted as well. Like I said, I let David know that I was very close to finding out the whole truth.”

  Franz Gruber does a little wiggle-fingered wave.

  “It was me, man. And yo, if this generous Hollywood mogul is willing to provide compensation to the tune of fifty thousand big dollars, I have no qualms about totally rescinding my confidentiality agreement with the clinic and going public.”

  Ceepak focuses on Michael. “So on Friday night, you told your brother you knew that his son might not be his grandfather’s legitimate ‘bloodline heir’?”

  Michael smirks. “I did indeed. Right there in the restaurant parking lot after Monae drove Dad-ums home. And you know what, detectives? It felt good. Really, really good.”

  “And when you heard your father’s provisions for his grandson in his will?”

  “That, I confess, felt horrible. It meant I had missed my deadline. I should’ve completed this task sooner. Before my father died. But it occurs to me, that’s probably why David and/or Judith poisoned the poor bastard: to prevent him from learning the god-awful truth and completely cutting them out of his will.”

  “Danny?” says Ceepak.

  I’m up. We need to leave. Now.

  Our suspect list?

  It’s down to two.

  57

  MICHAEL AGREES TO RETURN TO THE SEA SPRAY HOTEL.

  “I can’t wait to see which one of them slipped Daddy the pill. Judith or David. Maybe both!”

  “You realize, of course,” says Ceepak, “that you are partially responsible for driving them to do what they did?”

  “And you know what, Detective Ceepak? I don’t care. I’d do it again. Gladly. I finally realized that my father never really loved me. That no matter how many gifts I showered on him, how much money I made, how many awards and honors I won, I’d never be anything to him but a big, embarrassing mistake. So I’m glad one of those two greedy ingrates finall
y killed him. Saved me the trouble.”

  When we’re back in Ceepak’s car, I ask how we’re going to figure out which of the two Rosens killed their father or father-in-law.

  “They may have worked together,” says Ceepak. “Co-conspirators. However, our first step is identifying which of them procured the cyanide.”

  Ceepak’s still counting on Botzong’s cyanide shipping information to fill in a bunch of blanks.

  Personally, my money is on Judith in the jewelry shop with the cyanide jug.

  And a funnel. She’d need it to pour the liquid into the gel caps.

  But that would probably dissolve the capsules.

  Okay, I’m counting on Botzong, too.

  We head back to Sea Haven.

  Ceepak contacts Sal Santucci—my partner the night Christine and Shona had their wrestling match at the southern tip of the island—who is stationed outside David and Judith’s home.

  “Kindly go upstairs and inform Mrs. Rosen that we are coming over to ask her a few questions.”

  We arrive at 315-B Tuna Street.

  Sal Santucci and his partner, Cath Hoffner, have parked their cruiser in the only shady spot on the street. Fortunately, it’s right in front of the house where David and Judith rent the upstairs apartment.

  Ceepak and I make our way around the side of the building and climb up the steep back steps to David and Judith’s deck.

  It takes three knuckle raps on the door before somebody opens it.

  “Hi.” It’s Little Arnie. Franz Gruber’s kid.

  “Is your mother home?” asks Ceepak.

  “I guess.”

  “May we speak with her?”

  “I guess.” He nudges his head toward the living room. “She’s in there.”

  His mother is seated on the sofa, sipping a glass of white wine. It’s only a little after noon but I suppose it’s five o’clock somewhere—as Ceepak’s dad likes to say whenever he pops a brewski for breakfast.

  We head toward the sofa. Little Arnie heads for his bedroom to close the door and daydream about shooting the curl and hanging ten if, you know, he soaked up any of Gruber’s “surfing genes” in that petri dish.

  “Why on earth do you two need to talk to me?”