Free Fall Page 14

  “Good!” shouts Judith. “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

  David is about to pat her on the knee again and tell her to calm down. But he remembers he’s not supposed to do that, not if he wants to keep on living. So, instead, he fidgets with his Bart Simpson wristwatch.

  “Danny?” Ceepak nudges his head toward the door.

  Hallelujah.

  We’re done sitting shiva.

  39

  WE CLIMB INTO CEEPAK’S SHINY HOT WHEELS DETECTIVE CAR and head south.

  I use my cell to contact Christine.

  “We need to talk to you,” I say in my most official junior detective voice.

  “No problem,” she says. “You guys want coffee or something?”

  “Sure. Do I have any?”

  Christine laughs. “No. But I’ll go grab a couple cups at the Quick Pick Mini Mart.”

  Come to think of it, that’s what I do every morning, too.

  When I end my Christine call, Ceepak asks me to contact Chief Rossi. That means I get to try out the high-tech radio stashed under a sliding cover in the center console below a compact General Dynamics computer.

  The Chief and Ceepak discuss putting “light surveillance” on our five suspects: Christine Lemonopolous, Monae Dunn, Michael Rosen (currently residing at the Sea Spray Motel), and David and Judith Rosen.

  “We may also need to keep tabs on a Joy Kochman, a home health aide whose job at Arnold Rosen’s home was terminated. Her whereabouts, at this juncture, are unknown.”

  Oh, yeah. Ceepak is good.

  Joy Kochman, the nurse David and Judith fired so they could plant their spy, Christine, in Dr. Rosen’s house could be a disgruntled former employee, the kind that’s always taking a loaded pistol back to their former workplace and wreaking revenge. Maybe Joy took a pill instead.

  Ceepak parks next to Christine’s VW Beetle in the Sea Village parking lot.

  This is so weird.

  We are going to interview Christine Lemonopolous in my apartment. I need to knock before I open my own door.

  “Come on in, guys!”

  Christine gives us our coffees, then perches on the edge of my bed. Ceepak takes my one Salvation Army chair. It cost me five dollars. The seat cushion was ripped. In two places.

  I sit on the arm of my TV chair. It’s a recliner. That rocks. I try to maintain my balance and a little detective-esque dignity.

  Ceepak drops the first bombshell.

  “We now know that Dr. Rosen was poisoned and that, in all likelihood, you were the one who gave Dr. Rosen the pill containing cyanide that killed him.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she mutters.

  I’m studying Christine’s face and hands. Looking for any ticks or tells. Some kind of body language that suggests maybe she’s faking her reaction.

  I get nothing except shock.

  “However,” Ceepak continues, “the fact that you are the one who put the tainted pill into Dr. Rosen’s hand doesn’t mean …”

  “A paper cup.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We always took Dr. Rosen’s pills out of the appropriate compartment and placed them into a small paper cup. Like a dentist uses for mouthwash. Dr. Rosen had a case of them left over from his practice.”

  I have a brainstorm.

  “We should dust the pill organizer for prints,” I say. “See who handled it.”

  “I’m quite certain, Danny,” says Ceepak, “that each and every one of our suspects made contact with that pill organizer at one time or another.”

  He’s right. My idea would be a waste of fingerprint powder.

  Now Christine has an idea. “Monae was in charge of organizing the pills. She usually doled out the medicines into their slots early in the morning while Dr. Rosen was asleep. Said it gave her something to do besides watch TV. There’s not much good on at three or four in the morning.”

  “We will be talking to Ms. Dunn,” says Ceepak, flipping through his spiral notebook. “As I was about to say, the fact that you literally gave Dr. Rosen the lethal pill or pills does not make you the murderer or even an accessory to the crime if you had no idea that some of the medicines you were administering were actually poison capsules.”

  “Good. Because I didn’t.”

  “Did you know that Dr. Rosen recently changed his will?”

  “Yes. He mentioned it.”

  “Do you know what changes he made?”

  “No. He didn’t discuss any details. But …”

  Christine hesitates.

  Ceepak cocks an eyebrow and waits.

  “He said Monae and I would be ‘very, very pleased.’”

  40

  MONAE DUNN ACTUALLY LIVES ON THE MAINLAND, IN A TOWN called Williamsville on the far side of the causeway bridge.

  Her house is kind of smallish. Which makes the silver 370-Z coupe sitting in her driveway look a little out of place. I checked out the Z the last time I went car-shopping. They start at $33,000.

  We let her know that Dr. Rosen had been poisoned.

  “Uhm-hmm,” she says knowingly. “I figured as much.”

  “You did?”

  “I’m semi-psychic. So, who did it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine,” says Ceepak.

  “Well, I know it wasn’t me.”

  “Did you typically organize Dr. Rosen’s pillbox?”

  “Uhm-hmm. Doesn’t mean I poisoned him.”

  “We know that.”

  “You think I murdered Dr. Rosen because I’m black?”

  “No, ma’am. We’re just trying to get an idea as to who might’ve had access to the pill organizer.”

  “Anyone who walked in the damn door, that’s who. We just left it out on the kitchen counter. Wasn’t locked up inside a safe or anything. This week, I filled up all the slots on Wednesday morning. You talk to Christine?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” says Ceepak.

  “Good. The last old lady she worked for, that Mrs. Crabtree, she died, too.”

  “So we have heard. Was anyone else at the house on Saturday morning—besides you and Christine Lemonopolous?”

  “David and Judy showed up. A little after eight.”

  Ceepak pulls out his notebook.

  “Why were David and Judith there?”

  “To make me work overtime.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “David and his wife, they don’t like Christine. Not since she and her lawyer put a public whooping on that Shona Oppenheimer woman—that’s Judy Rosen’s sister.”

  “Yes. We know that.”

  “She wants everybody to call her Judith so I call her Judy.”

  “I see.”

  “Christine can’t be in the same room when David or Judy stop by. So, she has to disappear and I’ve got to be with Dr. Rosen in case he needs to use the bathroom.”

  “And why were David and Judith at Dr. Rosen’s home on Saturday morning?”

  “They said they wanted to see how ‘Dad was holding up’ after the ‘ugly family dinner’ on Friday night.”

  She makes the face she makes every time she says “Uhmhmmm”—a look that tells you, no matter what you’re selling, Monae Dunn isn’t buying it.

  “See, on Friday, Michael came to town with some kind of big news and wanted to take a father-son stroll on the beach with his dad, tell him all about it. That’s why he bought Dr. Rosen that battery-powered beach wheelchair.”

  “Did they take their walk?”

  “Are you kidding? Dr. Rosen told Michael his ‘Mars rover’ was a ‘monstrosity.’ That the neighbors would laugh at him if he ‘so much as sat down on it.’ So, when Michael gets to the house on Friday morning, after flying all night from L.A., the first thing he hears from his father is what a ‘foolish wastrel and spendthrift’ he is. That means he spends money like it’s water.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Anyway, I like Michael, so I come out of my room to see if I can help him.”

  “Christine was on duty
when Michael arrived at the house Friday?”

  “That’s right. Anyway, Dr. Rosen, he gets all snippy with his son. ‘What’s this big news, Michael? Just tell me!’ But Michael, he says, ‘No. This isn’t the proper setting.’ See, Michael works in Hollywood. Setting and mood are important to people in Hollywood.”

  “I imagine so,” says Ceepak.

  “That’s when I pipe up. ‘Why don’t you make your big announcement at dinner tonight? Someplace special.’ Michael? He hugs me. Says it’s perfect and I should move to Hollywood and write movie scripts. I might. I got a knack for storytelling. Anyway, Michael being Michael, he makes a reservation at the fanciest restaurant in town.”

  “The Trattoria?” I say, remembering what Christine told us.

  “Uhm-hmm. ‘Let’s invite David and Judith to join us,’ says Dr. Rosen. ‘Make it a family affair.’ Michael didn’t like that idea. Insisted that it just be what he called ‘the real Rosens.’ The two boys and their father.”

  “So, Saturday morning,” says Ceepak, “Judith and David really came over to complain about Judith’s exclusion from the family dinner?”

  “That’s right. Kicked Christine out of the room and made me wake up poor old Arnie. ‘Aren’t I family?’ Judy says, getting all weepy. ‘Don’t I deserve a dinner at the finest restaurant in town? I gave you your only grandson. How dare you let Michael treat me like that?’ On and on she goes.”

  “How did Dr. Rosen react?”

  “Like he always does when she starts ragging on him. He just nods and says, ‘Yes, dear; you’re right, dear’ a lot. But inside I know what he’s probably thinking.”

  “What’s that?”

  Monae laughs. “‘I spend too much money on your liposuction treatments for you to be stuffing your face with lasagna and cheesy bread.’ But he didn’t say it out loud. He only said that kind of stuff when it was just him and me in the house.”

  “Dr. Rosen wasn’t pleased with his daughter-in-law’s weight problems?”

  “No, sir. Said her tuckus was too big. Tuckus is a Jewish word. Means butt.”

  Ceepak dutifully makes a note in his pad. “But you went to that Friday-night dinner, correct?”

  “Well, I took Dr. Rosen. Drove him over. Wheelchaired him into that private room they have in the back. Then I sat by myself at a table near the kitchen and had some spaghetti and meatballs. They call it Pasta Vesuvius, but it’s just spaghetti and meatballs, even if they do charge twenty-four ninety-five for it.”

  “What was Michael Rosen’s big announcement?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there when he made it.”

  “Did you hear or observe anything else?”

  “Just some hollering. Then the Rosen men come stomping out of that room, none of them even looking at each other. Nothin’ but cold hate and old grudges in their eyes. I drove Dr. Rosen home. Never heard him be so quiet.”

  Ceepak shifts gears. “It seems you and Michael are on very friendly terms?”

  “We sure are.”

  “Did he buy you your car?”

  I grin. Ceepak noticed the Z, too.

  “Did Michael tell you about that? Because I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody. Promised him and Revae I never would.”

  “Who’s Revae?” asks Ceepak.

  “My sister. She’s known Michael longer than me. Revae’s the one who got me this job.”

  “How?”

  “By telling Michael his daddy had to hire me.”

  “How come.”

  Monae shrugs. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Don’t worry,” says Ceepak. “We will.”

  41

  CEEPAK AND I SPEND THE REST OF SUNDAY AFTERNOON tracking down Joy Kochman and Revae Dunn.

  We finally draw a bead on Joy Kochman thanks to the folks at the AtlantiCare Home Health Aide Agency. She has taken a live-in position with a wealthy couple up in Lavallette. That’s about an hour north of Sea Haven. You have to leave the island, head up the Garden State Parkway, exit at Tom’s River, cross over another causeway to Seaside Heights, then drive a few miles north.

  So we call our friends in the Lavallette Police Department. Ask them to keep an eye on 323 Bayview Drive, the waterfront home where Ms. Kochman is currently working and living, until we can run up and conduct a proper interview.

  As for Revae Dunn, we learn she lives and works in Avondale, the same town where Mainland Medical is located. We need to talk to her, too. Find out what’s up with her and Michael Rosen. How come she was able to swing a job for her sister, Monae, not to mention a shiny new Z car, too.

  But both Revae Dunn and Joy Kochman have to wait till Monday.

  Because Sunday evening we get a call from Steven Robins, a senior partner at Bernhardt, Hutchens, and Catherman. He is the executor of Dr. Rosen’s estate.

  “I know this is highly unusual,” says the lawyer, who Ceepak puts on speakerphone in his office, “but I was able to pull some strings at Surrogate Court and move Dr. Rosen’s will through probate, post haste.”

  “On a Sunday?” says Ceepak, sounding impressed.

  “Indeed. The judge is an old friend. From law school. Harvard.”

  Now the lawyer sounds impressed. With himself.

  “Since this will might, I suspect, have some bearing on your current investigation into the manner of Dr. Rosen’s death, I think it only prudent to invite you, or your duly authorized representative, to join me and the other interested parties at my law offices this evening. Seven P.M. Will that be convenient?”

  “Of course,” says Ceepak.

  The law offices of Bernhardt, Hutchens, and Catherman are pretty swanky.

  For one thing, the air conditioning doesn’t smell like recycled mildew. For another, the walls are made out of real wood, not that paneling they used to give away on TV game shows back in the 1960s, which was the last time most of the office buildings in Sea Haven were redecorated.

  A very impressive executive assistant (who’s probably making double overtime for working at 7 P.M. on a Sunday and for wearing such a short but tasteful skirt) ushers Ceepak and me into an even more impressive conference room. The shiny wooden table in the center is bigger than most fishing boats. There are bottles of Fuji water and notepads in front of every seat. The water looks like it’s free, too.

  Since we’re basically here as observers, Ceepak and I grab swivel chairs against the wall, leaving the padded table seats and free beverages for the family and other interested parties.

  A few minutes later, an entire Agatha Christie novel walks into the conference room.

  Michael, David, and Judith Rosen. Christine Lemonopolous and Monae Dunn. All our suspects (except the wild cards Joy Kochman and Revae Dunn) file in and find seats around the table, eager to hear the late Arnold Rosen’s last will and testament. Those rewrites he made recently? Tonight the mystery shall be revealed!

  Michael and Monae sit on one side of the massive mahogany table directly across from David and Judith.

  Meanwhile, Christine is seated on Michael’s side of the table but three chairs down, putting her at the greatest possible diagonal distance from Judith and David.

  Christine shoots us a little finger wave when she sees Ceepak and me.

  I wish she hadn’t.

  Because Judith saw her do it.

  She shoots me a very dirty look.

  Then, she narrows her piglet eyes so tight I have to wonder if the plastic surgeons who gave her those liposuction treatments also implanted bionic laser beams inside her tiny eyeballs to give her death-ray super powers like in the comic books. If so, stand by to see my head explode.

  Steven Robins, a dapper little lawyer in his sixties, enters the room. He’s dressed in a very nice gray suit, which is never anyone’s first wardrobe choice on a Sunday night in June. Everyone else around the table is wearing what I’ll call their Sunday schlub clothes. Lots of plaids, short-sleeved shirts, and frumpy pullovers.

  Well, everybody except Michael.
He seems to have packed the right outfit for every possible occasion. Tonight, it’s another black-on-black ensemble—a black polo shirt on top of black linen pants. It’s the kind of country club casual outfit you might wear to the golf course. If you were Zorro.

  “Good evening, everyone,” says the lawyer. “Thank you all for coming here on such short notice.”

  “Mr. Robins?” Judith shoots up her hand.

  “Yes, Mrs. Rosen?”

  “Why are Christine and Monae here?”

  “They are mentioned in Dr. Rosen’s revised will.”

  Now Judith trains her laser beam eyes on her husband. “I knew it.”

  “Relax, Judith,” whispers David.

  “Don’t you dare tell me to relax,” Judith whispers back. But it’s a loud whisper. The kind everybody can hear.

  “And the police?” asks Michael.

  “The two detectives are here at my invitation,” says Mr. Robins. “Since a cloud of suspicion lingers over the circumstances surrounding your father’s death, I thought it best that Detectives Ceepak and Boyle join us this evening. The particulars of Arnold’s last will and testament may prove beneficial to their investigation. The sooner they know about them, the better.”

  Content with that answer, Michael eases back in his seat. The lawyer continues.

  “Now then, we don’t really read the will out loud like they do in the movies. However, should you wish to delve into the details, the whereofs and wherefores, I will gladly provide a hard copy of the document for each of you.”

  Judith shoots her arm up.

  “Yes, Mrs. Rosen?”

  “These ‘recent changes’ to the will. Was my father-in-law of sound mind when he made them?”

  Boom! She just blurts it out. Guess now that the guy is dead there’s no reason for her to be subtle.

  “Rest assured, Mrs. Rosen,” says the lawyer, “whenever Arnold and I met to discuss estate planning issues, I was quite cognizant of his advanced age and, therefore, administered an MMSE test.”

  “What’s that?” asks David, who always seems like the most confused person in any room. “What’s an MMSE? That like the SAT’s?”

  “No, it’s the Mini-Mental State Examination test,” explains Robins. “A brief questionnaire we use to screen for cognitive impairment. Suffice it to say, despite his age, Arnold Rosen’s mental state was quite sound. If you’d like to see proof, I can supply you with his MMSE scores.”