Free Fall (15 page)

“Who's Mrs. Crabtree?”

“Mauna Faye Crabtree. Sweet little old lady. Eighty-eight years old. I was with her for three months before she passed away.”

I nod. I figure burying your clients is just part of the whole home health aide deal.

“I was so grateful to have more work,” Christine continues. “I really didn't have any kind of problem when they asked me to keep an eye on Dr. Rosen's medical condition. I thought Judith and David were just looking out for a stubborn old man who wouldn't reveal anything about his health conditions to his family. But then, they started asking me to do weird stuff.”

“Like what.”

“Find his will. Keep tabs on anything Michael Rosen said or wrote to his dad. Smuggle out medical records.”

“Did you do any of this stuff?”

Thankfully, Christine shakes her head.

“No. Dr. Rosen was my patient, not Judith or David. My loyalty was to him, not them.”

“Which isn't what David and Judith wanted to hear?”

“Not at all. So Judith nagged her sister. Told Shona to get on my case. Push me harder. Search my shoulder bag.”

“Which takes us to the night I caught the nine-one-one call.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what do you think David and Judith were really after?”

Christine shrugs.

“Do you think Harvey Nussbaum was right?” I say. “Did they want Dr. Rosen's beach house?”

Another shrug. “Only one thing I know for sure about the Rosen family. Little Arnie was Dr. Rosen's favorite. He called his grandson his ‘living legacy'—the heir to the ‘Rosen bloodline.' He even hoped Little Arnie would grow up and become a dentist and restore ‘our family's good name at U Penn.'”

“He certainly has the smile for it,” I say, remembering all those photographs hanging on the walls of Dr. Rosen's home.

“No doubt about it. He's a good-looking kid. Nice face.”

Christine doesn't add any commentary.

Like how Little Arnie is lucky he didn't end up with his father's face, which sort of resembles the bongo-thumping chimpanzee with the beatnik beard from one of those monkey-of-the-month calendars.

“I guess now that Dr. Rosen is dead,” says Christine, “the two brothers will split everything. David will get his half of the house, Michael his.”

When our clothes come out of the dryers, Christine goes to this tall, flat table in the back of the laundromat and starts folding her things, even her undergarments. For me, this is a novel concept. Usually, I just stuff everything back into the brown paper bag I brought it in and go with the rumpled look.

Tonight, however, I pretend like I always fold my clothes and match up my socks. After watching Christine in action for a minute or two, I even figure out how to do it. Sort of.

And then I drive Christine home to my place, which is now, temporarily, her place.

“You want to come in?” she asks.

That vanilla scent from those candles in my apartment? It's on her skin and in her hair, too. Her chocolate brown eyes are wide and eager. I can feel heat radiating off her body. As the windows start fogging up, I feel like I'm sitting in a cozy sauna with a warm batch of Nestle Toll House cookies.

“Ceepak's probably waiting up for me,” I say. My voice cracks the way it did back in sixth grade on the word “me.”

“Well, maybe one day, Danny Boyle, you'll let me show you how much I appreciate all that you've done for me.”

“Okay,” I say, making sure it comes out deep and low. “Some day.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

Christine leans in and kisses me. On the cheek. The move jostles everything her halter-top was supposed to be halting.

But somehow, I keep my hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel.

32

I
NEED A BEER
.

I'm not sure Ceepak has any in his fridge. At least not the real stuff. Ever since his time in Iraq, he's big on Near Beer—stuff like O'Doul's and Coors Non-Alcoholic.

So I pull into the parking lot for Neptune's Nog Discount Liquor Outlet.

It's another flat-roofed building the size of a small supermarket with every kind of beer neon glowing in its front wall of windows. Bud. Miller. Corona. Sam Adams. Blue Moon.

Inside the store you'll find aisles lined with shelves crowded by battalions of wine and liquor bottles, not to mention rack after rack of salty snacks. You'll also see towering stacks of beer packaged in what they call suitcases—24-can cartons with a handy handle for toting down to the beach or up to your motel room.

I pull into the parking lot next to a dinged-up Ford F-150 pickup and douse the headlights so the moths will leave my Jeep alone and go attack the fluorescent tube lights giving the package store its ghoulish green glow.

The instant I climb out of my Jeep, I see Ben Sinclair and a few of his young suburban gangsta buddies leaning against the booze mart's grocery cart return corral.

They have their hands stuffed into the front of their hoodies or the pockets of jeans hanging halfway down their butt so they can show off their plaid Ralph Lauren boxer shorts.

They're waiting.

For somebody in the store, judging by the way one of the kids keeps craning his neck and going up on tippy toe.

By kids, I mean neither Ben nor any of his crew are over twenty-one, the minimum legal drinking age.

I know who they're waiting for.

The same guy me and my underage buds used to wait for outside a package store on a warm June night down the Jersey Shore: an older dude to go inside to buy us our brewskis for a small handling fee.

I hang near my Jeep. Wait to see who Ben's dude is. Ours was a wino we called Clint The Splint because he always seemed to have one limb or another in a plaster cast. He'd go into Fritzie's package store and get us anything we wanted for five bucks. Cigarettes. Boone's Farm. Malt Duck. Colt 45. Slim Jims. Hey, we had to eat something.

I hear sleigh bells tinkle. The front door swishes open.

And out comes Mr. Joseph “Sixpack” Ceepak.

33

I'
M WONDERING WHAT BIBLE VERSE
M
R
. C
EEPAK
'
S GOING TO
quote when I bust him for buying alcohol for minors.

Whistling merrily, he strides out the sliding door and into the harsh glare of those overhead fluorescents. He's still in his StratosFEAR uniform and wears a cocky grin on his face. One arm is wrapped around a grocery sack full of jingling glass bottles. His other is toting what looks like a filing-cabinet-sized carton of Budweiser. Maybe they're doing 48-packs now.

Ben and the boys over by the cart corral give off a couple “Booyahs” and swarm like a wolf pack toward Mr. Ceepak.

“You get the Mike's and vodka, too?” asks Ben.

Mr. Ceepak is about to answer when he sees me step out of the shadows.

“Good evening, Officer Boyle,” he says.

I nudge my head toward his groceries. “That all for you, sir?”

Now Ben and his pals try to act casual but their worried eyes betray them. They're probably wondering if the old fart Ben hired is going to rip them off for a hundred bucks worth of booze plus whatever handling fee he charges.

“Yeah,” says Mr. Ceepak. “This is all mine.”

One of the kids is about to say something when Ben elbows him in the ribs.

“Setting up housekeeping,” says Mr. Ceepak. “Excuse me. Need to load up my truck.” He gestures toward the dirt splattered workhorse parked next to my Jeep.

“I thought you put down the bottle when you picked up the bible, sir?”

“The two are not mutually exclusive, Officer Boyle. Ecclesiastes nine tells us to ‘Seize life! Eat bread with gusto; drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes, God takes pleasure in your pleasure!'”

“So, you're just out here pleasuring God, huh?”

“Doin' my best, Boyle. Doin' my best.”

“Hey, as long as you don't drink and drive, I have no problem with you buying enough beer, hard lemonade, and vodka for, oh, I don't know …”

I make a show of counting heads in Ben's bunch.

“… five guys. Just so long as you're not going into liquor stores up and down the island buying booze for kids.”

“What?” Mr. Ceepak wheezes out a laugh. Coughs up a nasty wad of sputum. Puts down his cargo so he can jab another cigarette in his mouth to keep his shriveled lungs' mucus mines working. “Why would I do something dumb like that?”

“I don't know.” I turn to Ben. “Back in the day, we'd find a wino to do our shopping for like five bucks.”

“It's ten now,” says Ben's dumbest friend before Ben can elbow him again.

Mr. Ceepak laughs his chesty chuckle. Torches his smoke with a butane lighter that's decorated with a bikini babe.

“Not a bad idea, Boyle. Not bad at all. Ten bucks a pop, huh? Interesting idea. I could use a little extra walking-around money.”

“I thought you were making double, triple overtime sending that chair lift up and down on the boardwalk.”

“Oh, Ben's daddy pays me good. I ain't complaining.” He smacks down a wet drag on his cigarette. “But let's be honest, here. No matter how hard I work, how many hours I put in, I'll never make a million bucks.”

Ben Sinclair eyeballs the paper sack and giant cardboard beer carton sitting on the ground. He can't resist. Makes the slightest move for it.

“Whoa,” I say. “Are you trying to steal Mr. Ceepak's daily recommended intake of adult beverage?”

“It's ours, dude!” bellows the dumb one.

I scratch the back of my head. “It's yours? Mr. Ceepak says it's his. I don't know. This is a difficult situation. Maybe I better call the cops. Have them come up here and help us figure this thing out. Oh, wait. I
am
a cop …”

“Go home, boys,” snarls Mr. Ceepak. “We'll talk tomorrow, Ben.”

“B-b-but …”

“Beat it. Now.”

The dumb one puts on his tough guy act. “Yo, old man. You owe us …”

“I don't owe you crap, kid.” Mr. Ceepak finger-flicks the glowing butt of his cigarette at the boy. “Get lost. All of you. Unless you want Boyle here to arrest your pimply butts.”

“Come on, Ethan,” says Ben.

Muttering and mumbling, the young men shuffle off into the darkness.

Mr. Ceepak pops a fresh cigarette into his lips.

“You know, Boyle,” he says, sending the cancer stick wiggling up and down, “the last time I was in the can, my cellmate was a CPA.”

“Huh. I guess you really do meet the most interesting people in jail.”

“Oh, you do, Boyle. You do. This guy, Richard Michael Johnson, he was sharp. Swindled the bank he worked for out of a million bucks just by rounding down numbers on his computer. Nobody noticed. Not until he got greedy. Anyway, he told me all a man really needs is one million dollars to be beer and pretzels rich for the rest of his life.”

“What's ‘beer and pretzels' rich?”

“Less than Wine and Cheese. Nowhere near Caviar and Champagne. I get my hands on a million bucks, Boyle, I'm a happy camper. I go back to my trailer park in Ohio, drink beer and eat pretzels all day long.”

“What about protein?”

“What?”

“That's a lot of carbs, sir. Beer. Pretzels. Where's the beef? Maybe you should go to Mickey Dee's and order off the Dollar Menu. You could get a McChicken …”

“Cute, Boyle,” says Mr. Ceepak, bending down to pick up his groceries, that flicking cigarette perfectly balanced in his lips. “You're still a wise ass, huh?”

“It's what I do best, sir.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor. Tell Johnny I'm not greedy. Adele cleared two point three million when her whacky old aunt kicked the bucket. By rights, we should've split that payday fifty-fifty. But like I said, I'm not greedy. All I want are my beer and my pretzels. One million bucks, Boyle. That's all it costs for you boys to never, ever see me again.”

“I thought all we had to do was save your sorry life at the Rolling Thunder roller coaster.”

“That was nothing special. You two are cops. It's your job. You had to save me or they'd dock your pay.”

“Look, sir,” I say, because it's getting late and I'm getting tired of the same-old, same-old with Joe Sixpack. “Your ex-wife is not going to give you a dime. End of story.”

“She should. It's all over the bible. ‘Wives be submissive to your husbands!'”

“Right. I'll tell Adele you said that.”

“That's okay. I'll swing by some day and tell her myself. After all, you and Johnny can't guard her 24/7 now, can you?”

34

I
HEAD INTO THE STORE
,
GRAB A SIX
-
PACK OF
S
AM
A
DAMS
Summer Ale for me, a sixer of Coors Non-Alcoholic for Ceepak.

Tempted as I am to pop one for the ride home, I don't.

It's a little after eleven when I crunch into the gravel parking lot behind The Bagel Lagoon.

I carry my sack of packaged goods up the outside steel staircase to Ceepak's apartment on the top floor. Using the spare key Ceepak gave me, I let myself in.

The small one-bedroom apartment is dark. Barkley is too old and deaf to do any kind of watchdog duties any more. He just rolls over and cuts the cheese when I come in the door. Twenty-two-hundred hours is the typical lights-out time for Ceepak and Rita. That's 10
P
.
M
. in the Eastern Non-Military Time Zone.

There's a clamshell night-light softly glowing near the fold-out sofa bed, which is made up with sheets and a wool army blanket tucked in so tight you could bounce a dime off it like they always do during inspection in Army movies.

I take the beers to the kitchen area, tuck both six-packs into the fridge, and then pull out a frosty bottle of Sam Adams.