Free Fall

by Chris Grabenstein

  Judith is not even pretending to smile today.

  “And how dare you send those two police officers up here to harass me? Why haven’t you people arrested Christine Lemonopolous?”

  “Well, for one thing,” I say, “we’re pretty sure Ms. Lemonopolous didn’t do anything to be arrested for.”

  “But you put me under house arrest?”

  “We also continue to monitor Ms. Lemonopolous’s whereabouts,” says Ceepak,

  “You should. She poisoned my father-in-law. She attacked my sister. She killed Mauna Faye Crabtree and all those other old people she used to work for …”

  Ceepak cuts her off. “No, Mrs. Rosen, she did none of those things. We know about Franz Gruber.”

  “Who?”

  “Sperm donor one-four-three, whose semen you selected when you could not conceive a child utilizing your husband’s sperm.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We just came from Avondale. The Garden State Reproductive Science Center.”

  “That’s where you went for fertility treatments,” I add. “Right?”

  “So? We were having trouble conceiving in the traditional manner. And both David and I desperately wanted children.”

  Yeah, I’m thinking. So they could give Arnold Rosen a grandson and cash in on his millions.

  “Highly ranked staff at the Reproductive Science Center,” says Ceepak, “told us how you ended up choosing a blonde, athletic, and intelligent sperm donor when your husband’s sperm repeatedly failed to fertilize your harvested eggs.”

  “What? Who told you these lies?”

  “The same people who told Michael. Michael then told David what he had uncovered on Friday night, after that acrimonious dinner at The Trattoria restaurant.”

  “But,” I say, “Michael didn’t have his big dramatic finish until today when Franz Gruber came to the clinic and freely admitted to being your son’s father.”

  Judith laughs. “For a multimillionaire, Michael can be such a baby. Trying to smear David and me like this? Attempting to turn his only nephew into an illegitimate bastard? Why can’t he just get over the fact that, as a gay, he will never, ever be able to call himself a real father, no matter how many black babies he adopts?”

  Ceepak shifts gears.

  “Mrs. Rosen, we know you have spent a good deal of time with your friend Cele Deemer in her jewelry store.”

  “So?”

  “Ms. Deemer uses cyanide.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “It’s right there on the shelf in her workshop,” I say.

  “Look, detectives, how many times do I have to say this? Christine Lemonopolous did it. She’s the one who gave my father-in-law the poison. I told David she was trouble. That his father needed to fire her.”

  “Because she wouldn’t do as you requested and spy on Dr. Rosen?” says Ceepak.

  “For the last time, detective, we did not ask Christine to spy on Dad. We asked her to keep an eye on David’s father. There’s a difference. A big difference. But David is such a weakling. He couldn’t persuade his father to fire Christine, no matter how many times I told him he had to do it. Then, Christine attacks my sister? I tell David, ‘See? The girl is violent! For your father’s safety, we need to get rid or her!’ David finally grows a pair and says something to his father, but his father tells him to mind his own business.”

  Judith shakes her head in disgust, sloshes a little more Pinot Grigio into her glass.

  “Poor Arnold Rosen,” she continues after a bracing gulp of vino. “One son is a bona fide homosexual, the other is such a wimp he doesn’t know how to be a man. I have to hold his hand, tell him what to do …”

  I guess Little Arnie has heard enough.

  He comes marching into the living room.

  “Stop saying all that bull crap about Dad.”

  “Go to your room, young man.”

  “No. I heard what you said. Dad isn’t a wimp.”

  “Go. To. Your. Room.” Judith slams down her wine.

  Little Arnie flinches. Like he knows what comes next: a slap or a punch or a flying glass.

  “Do we need to remove your son?” says Ceepak.

  “What?” Judith acts like she’s shocked.

  “If you give us further reason to suspect that child abuse is taking place in this home …”

  “Child abuse? Arnold is my son. I will discipline him as I see fit.”

  “No, ma’am. There are limits. Even to parental authority.”

  “I’m okay,” says Little Arnie. “Really. I just don’t like her trash-talking Dad.”

  Judith shakes her head. “You see what I have to deal with? I’m the only adult in the whole house …”

  Ceepak gives me a look. “Danny?”

  We’ve been together long enough for me to read his mind. He wants me to spend a little time with Arnie. Make sure the kid is truly okay; that the domestic violence situation is under control.

  “Come on, Arnie.” I nod my head toward the door to his bedroom. “Let’s let these two finish up their talk. You got an X-Box?”

  “PS3.”

  “Cool.”

  He leads the way. I follow.

  58

  “YOU OKAY?” I ASK WHEN THE BEDROOM DOOR IS SECURELY closed.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “So, how much did you hear?”

  “Not much. Just mom calling dad a wimp and Uncle Michael a homo.”

  Little Arnie sits down on the edge of his bed.

  “Does your mother say mean things like that about your father a lot?” I ask, even though I don’t think David Rosen is really Little Arnie’s father.

  “Yeah. All the time.”

  I can hear Ceepak and Judith’s muffled voices through the door. Well, actually, I can hear Judith. She is a loud drunk.

  “Hey,” I say to Little Arnie, “if you ever feel like, you know, you’re in danger here, that you might get hurt, you can call me.” I give him one of my cards. “And right now, there’s a cop parked right in front of your house. Nice guy. Sal Santucci. He’ll be down there all day.”

  “Thanks. So, is Franz Gruber the guy who gives surfing lessons over near Veggin’ On The Beach?”

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping I can change the subject fast. I’m not a social worker and I think Little Arnie’s going to need one when he learns the truth about who his birth father really is.

  I notice a photograph in a cardboard frame propped up on the dresser: Little Arnie and his dad, locked in their seats and screaming their heads off as they plummet down the StratosFEAR.

  “So, how many times have you ridden the Free Fall?” I ask.

  “A bunch. We get to ride for free. And they have these cameras that snap your picture when you’re like halfway down.”

  “Awesome,” I say.

  There’s a knock on the bedroom door.

  “Danny?”

  Ceepak.

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to roll.”

  I open the door.

  “Everything okay?”

  He nods. “Is the boy safe?”

  “I think so. He has my card and knows Santucci’s outside if his mom, you know …”

  Another nod. Neither of us wants to get into gory details in front of Little Arnie.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “Bill Botzong is e-mailing us a list of names and addresses.”

  And Ceepak’s state-of-the-art cop car has a computer.

  I turn around. Look Little Arnie in the eye. “You sure you’re okay here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember. There’s a cop right outside.”

  Arnie pulls back his curtains. Looks out the window.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “And if Sal can’t help you …”

  Little Arnie smiles. “I’ll give you a call.”

  “Excellent.”

  The list Botzong and his MCU crew have pieced together is actually prett
y short.

  Guess there’s not that big of a demand for potassium cyanide in Sea Haven. Also, Ceepak informs me that it’s very expensive—over five hundred dollars for half a gram of the pure stuff.

  None of our suspects’ names show up in Botzong’s report of recent sales:

  Bobby McCue

  Buggy Bobby’s Fumigation and Pest Control

  25 Spruce Street

  Clare Thalken Harrington

  The Treasure Chest

  2311 Ocean Avenue

  David Magayna

  Dave’s Roof Rat Removal Inc.

  101 Swordfish Street

  Cele Deemer

  The Gold Coast Fine Jewelry

  1510 Ocean Avenue

  Bart Smith

  Sinclair Enterprises

  1500 Ocean Avenue

  “Of course,” says Ceepak.

  “What?”

  “We need to head over to 1500 Ocean Avenue.”

  “Sinclair Enterprises?”

  “Yes. We need to talk to ‘Bart Smith.’ He is our murderer.”

  59

  “SO, WHO’S BART SMITH?” I ASK AS WE DRIVE BACK TO THE worldwide headquarters of Sinclair Enterprises.

  “If the theory I have been formulating is correct, he is an alias created by David Rosen.”

  I remember David Rosen’s Bart Simpson watch and desk clock. Maybe he took John Smith, the most obvious alias in the world, and added a little Simpsons twist.

  The compact printer in Ceepak’s new ride is spitting out the details of “Bart Smith’s” potassium cyanide purchase: 97% analytical grade; came from a company in New Delhi, India. Mr. Smith purchased half a gram for $499.99 and billed it to Sinclair Enterprises.

  The lethal oral dose of potassium cyanide? 200 mg or 0.2 grams. A rounded teaspoon of the powder would be about two and a half times the amount needed to kill a person. Bart Smith’s sample? If it really went to David Rosen, he could’ve killed his dad sixty times over.

  “So David had the poison sent to his office but to a fake name. I can understand why. But there had to be a chance it would wind up on the wrong desk.”

  “Not really,” says Ceepak. “Do you remember my father’s ‘Guns And Ammo’ magazine?”

  “Somebody brought it to David.”

  “And the stack of mail that arrived at fifteen hundred Ocean Avenue for the second ride operator, Shaun McKinnon?”

  Right. My friend Shawn Reilly Simmons gave it to David Rosen.

  “As head of Sinclair Enterprises’ human resources department,” says Ceepak, “David Rosen was responsible for making certain all the company’s short-term summer hires received their forwarded mail.”

  “So,” I say, “he knew that if he cooked up a name nobody at the company recognized and had a package sent to that name care of the office, it would eventually find it’s way to his cubicle.”

  “Such has been my supposition, Danny.”

  “And he killed his father because of what Michael said on Friday night? That he was close to proving that Little Arnie wasn’t his father’s legitimate ‘living legacy.’”

  “Which,” Ceepak says, “would’ve jeopardized David and Judith’s favored state in Dr. Rosen’s will—if he lived long enough to amend it in light of Michael’s revelations.”

  “But wait a second—how come he ordered the cyanide before he knew any of this stuff? I mean, no way he ordered it after dinner on Friday night and got the package in time to doctor the pills first thing Saturday morning.”

  “I suspect that David had been contemplating terminating his father’s life for quite some time.”

  “Why?”

  “To free him from the unrelenting pressure of his wife’s harangues. I’m sure Judith was constantly badgering David, telling him they deserved their full inheritance, now. That they had earned it by putting up with David’s judgmental, demanding, and controlling father. We’ve heard how Judith talks about David. Not just today, but earlier. Imagine what she says to him in private. Late at night. After she has been drinking heavily. Undoubtedly, she hinted at how David could prove himself to be a man. How all their dreams could come true if only …”

  I finish Ceepak’s though by paraphrasing Judith’s drunken late-night remarks to her father-in-law: “If only Dr. Rosen did everybody a favor and died.”

  “Indeed. I suspect Judith’s constant, emasculating outbursts took their toll on David. He saw an easy way to slip free before his spirit was completely crushed. He purchased the cyanide but couldn’t find the courage to actually do the deed until Michael’s thinly veiled threats on Friday night pushed him over the brink.”

  “He murdered his own father.”

  Ceepak nods grimly. “However, I feel certain that, in David’s eyes, he merely hastened his father’s exit from this world; shortening the old man’s life by a few meaningless months.”

  “But it’s still murder. Right?”

  “Roger that.”

  We arrive at Sinclair Enterprises around 2 P.M.

  David Rosen is sitting on the far side of the floor in his glass box, working his phone.

  “Hey, how’s it going, fellas?”

  Seems Bob, the manager from the StratosFEAR, is visiting headquarters today, too.

  “Fine,” says Ceepak, his eyes laser-locked on David. “Nice of you to inquire.”

  “You know, Detective Ceepak, your pops gets off work early today. Might be a good time for you two to grab a little chow, knock back a couple cold brewskis, bury the hatchet.”

  “Not going to happen,” I say. “We’re busy. Need to arrest someone for murder.”

  “Really?” says Bob, eagerly. “Who?”

  “Danny?” says Ceepak, shaking his head.

  “Excuse us,” I say to Bob.

  Ceepak and I march across the wide room. Bob goes over to a nearby copy machine and pretends like he’s ready to collate a couple documents. But I can tell, he has his eyes glued on Ceepak and me.

  “Sorry about that,” I mumble in a whisper.

  “It’s all good,” Ceepak whispers back. “However, we can only arrest David Rosen when we have sufficient evidence to press formal charges.”

  “So you’re hoping he confesses?”

  Ceepak nods. Then, outside David’s cubicle, he clears his throat.

  “Hugh? I’m going to have to call you back. It’s those cops again. Right. I’m not sure. Okay. You’re the boss. Appreciate it.”

  He hangs up the phone.

  “Mayor Hugh Sinclair,” he says like he expects us to be impressed.

  We’re not.

  “He’s in the neighborhood. Might pop in to say howdy.”

  Ceepak ignores what, I’m guessing, David hoped would be a threat.

  “Mr. Rosen? We need to talk to an employee of yours.”

  “Okey-doke. Which one? I’ve got a million of ’em.”

  “Bart Smith.”

  “Smith? Name doesn’t ring a bell …”

  “He recently ordered half a gram of potassium cyanide from a chemical company in India.”

  “Coincidentally,” I add, “that’s the same chemical that killed your father.”

  David strokes his goatee.

  “Smith, Smith, Smith …”

  “Bart Smith,” says Ceepak.

  David snaps his fingers. “Right. Bartholomew Smith. One of our custodians. Said something about ordering poison to take care of rodents in the rafters over at Cap’n Scrubby’s Car Wash.”

  “May we speak to Mr. Smith?”

  “No. ’Fraid not. He didn’t last very long. Liked to sleep in the dryer room with the warm towels. We had to let him go. Back in late May, I believe.”

  “So did the package come to your desk?”

  “Pardon?”

  “After you fired Bartholomew Smith, did the cyanide sample he ordered from India end up on your desk?”

  “I don’t think so …”

  “Shawn Reilly Simmons signed for it,” I say, placing a copy of the order form Bo
tzong e-mailed to us on David’s desk.

  “Really?” David makes a confused monkey face. “I really don’t recall any packages. You say it came from India? I think I would’ve remembered the stamps. I still collect them. How about you fellas?”

  “This shipped DHL,” I say, tapping the form. “No stamps.”

  “Did you order the potassium cyanide under an assumed name, David?” asks Ceepak.

  “Me? No?”

  I hear the front door whoosh open. Feel a blast of humid air.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Get ready for a sunny, funderful day.

  Mayor Sinclair is in the house.

  60

  “OFFICERS, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS INTRUSION?” demands the mayor.

  Ceepak gestures at David Rosen, who is still sitting trapped inside his glass cage and looking more and more like a hamster who lost his wheel.

  “Your honor,” says Ceepak, making a pretty loud pronouncement, “we have reason to believe that your Human Resources director, Mr. David Rosen, poisoned his elderly father, the late Arnold Rosen, with potassium cyanide purchased by Sinclair Enterprises.”

  Mayor Sinclair looks stunned. The other employees have stopped doing any kind of work. They’re all staring at David.

  I notice Bob over at the copy machine. He silently mouths something that looks like it rhymes with “moldy grit.” He heads for the door like he is ready to tell everybody he knows, “Hey, guess who murdered his old man?”

  I notice tiny droplets of sweat forming on top of David’s bald dome.

  “And tell me, Detective Ceepak,” says the mayor, “do you have any proof to substantiate your accusation?”

  “We are currently piecing together a trail of evidence,” says Ceepak, once again telling the truth when I wish he would just say, “Yeah, David did it.”

  The mayor scoffs. “A trail of evidence?”

  “Yes, sir. Information recently obtained by the New Jersey State Police Major Crimes Unit suggests that the poison—the murder weapon, if you will—was purchased by David Rosen under an assumed name and paid for by a Sinclair Enterprises corporate credit card. We further hypothesize that he placed the order for that chemical compound right here, from one of your computers or telephones. Therefore, we will be requesting a search warrant granting us permission to impound your computers, confiscate your files, subpoena your phone records …”