Free Fall (16 page)

“Mind if I have one of those?”

Ceepak. The guy's stealthy. Even in his bedroom slippers.

“I picked up some of the Coors for you.”

“Think I'll go with the real deal tonight. If you have one to spare.”

“Definitely.”

I hand him a bottle. We grab seats at the linoleum topped kitchen table.

“How's Christine?”

Realizing that “
hot as hell and ready to get busy
” isn't the kind of information Ceepak is typically interested in, I say, “Hanging in.”

He nods. “Good.”

“I ran into your dad,” I say. “At the liquor store. Neptune's Nog, down on Ocean.”

“And?”

“The born-again act is just that—an act. He hasn't changed a bit. He just has a new price.”

“Which is?”

“One million dollars. Your mother gives him a cut of her inheritance, he promises to leave town.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. He even has bible verses to back up his claims.”

“I'm sure he does. But Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“It's never going to happen.”

“Roger that,” I say.

We clink bottles, something guys usually only do in beer commercials.

Then we drink and think in silence.

Until it's time for our second beer.

Then we drink and think some more.

35

A
RNOLD
R
OSEN
'
S FUNERAL TAKES PLACE EARLY
S
UNDAY MORNING
at the Grossman & Mehringer funeral home's memorial chapel.

Ceepak, Rita, Ceepak's mom, and I go to pay our last respects.

Grossman & Mehringer's is located on Sea Breeze Drive, just about a block from the Salty Dog Deli, which, I'm told, caters a lot of the post-funeral receptions for those utilizing the services of the funeral home. Probably because the owner, Saul, makes the best Reuben sandwiches in the state, even though Saul once told me they're not kosher.

“It's corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut on toasted rye bread,” he said. “The combination of Swiss cheese, a milk product, with corned beef, a meat product, violates the rules for kosher food.”

“So if you eat one, you're going to hell?”

“No. Because Jews don't believe in hell.”

And then he told me that a forgiving and compassionate God would never create such a thing as Hell to punish souls for all eternity.

“Except maybe Hitler.”

Saul's a very interesting guy. Makes good sandwiches, too.

Ceepak and I pick up our disposable yarmulkes in the lobby and head into the funeral chapel. Stained-glass windows filled with jagged geometric shapes filter and color the beams of morning sunshine streaming into the room.

I notice Christine sitting all alone in the last row of chairs. I think about going over to sit with her, but she warns me off with a subtle shake of her head.

“Oops. It's Sunday,” I hear Mrs. Ceepak whisper to her son. “Does this count as going to church?”

“I don't believe so, mother. However, I am not that conversant with all the rules and regulations of the modern day Roman Catholic church.”

“Well, Jesus was Jewish before he became Catholic, so I say it counts.”

Monae Dunn is sitting on the left-hand side of the chapel with Michael and another African-American woman who looks like she might be Monae's sister, Revae. They're both in very nice, very black church dresses. Michael is wearing a nicely tailored black suit. I'm sort of curious as to how he knew to pack it for his weekend trip home.

Judith, David, and Little Arnie Rosen are seated on the right. Shona Oppenheimer and her son, Samuel, are right behind Judith, Arnie, and David. Shona leans forward to give her sister a gentle shoulder massage and all I can think of are those same hands throttling Christine Lemonopolous' neck.

Guess that's why Christine picked a seat six rows away.

Mrs. Ceepak leaves our row to go sit with that handsome gent Hank (the good dancer) and a few of Dr. Rosen's other “bingo buddies” from the senior center.

Other than that, the golden, padded chairs are pretty much empty. Not exactly a sold-out crowd.

I guess when you live to be 94 you lose a lot of friends and family along the way.

I'm glad Dr. Rosen's coffin lid is closed.

Whenever you can see the body in an open casket at a funeral it looks, to me anyway, like the guy who the show is all about got so bored with the whole thing he had to lie down and grab a quick nap. I have to figure that a casket, lined with those soft silken pillows, is the most comfortable seat anybody ever gets in church. Too bad you can't really enjoy it.

Rabbi Bronstein leads the service.

It's actually very moving. The rabbi tears black ribbons and hands them to family members to pin on their clothes to symbolize their loss. Psalms are recited, including some that Mr. Ceepak hasn't quoted at us yet. Rabbi Bronstein gives an eloquent eulogy for “this good and honorable man” Arnold Rosen. He even tells a small joke. “Arnold once told me he was named Dentist of the Year, back in the late 1970s. When I asked him what the award was, he said, ‘Nothing much. Just a little plaque.'”

Everybody smiled. Well, everybody I could see.

Later, the whole congregation (except me) recites a memorial prayer. In Hebrew. Fortunately, there is a translation in the slender programs printed up for the event. Everybody's asking God to shelter the soul of the deceased “under the wings of His Divine presence.”

The casket is then wheeled out of the funeral chapel while all the mourners, me included, recite the 23rd Psalm and follow the coffin up the center aisle.

I don't see Christine. She must've slipped out early.

We don't go with the family to the cemetery. Instead, we all head down the block to the Salty Dog Deli and order Reuben sandwiches or corned beefs on rye.

“It's what Arnie would've wanted,” says Adele, deconstructing her towering six-inch-thick sandwich and rebuilding it into something that might actually fit in her mouth.

All of our sandwiches are stacked so high with sliced meat, vegetarians everywhere are weeping.

Neither Ceepak nor I mention a thing about her ex-husband's recent million-dollar request to Mrs. Ceepak. However, Ceepak does, once again, lobby hard for his mother to reconsider the installation of a home security system.

“I don't need a burglar alarm, John,” she says. “Joe doesn't scare me. Not anymore.”

“I'm worried, mother,” says Ceepak.

“Me, too,” adds Rita. “Your ex is a mess.”

I raise my hand to add my vote. I can't speak because my mouth is full of ten pounds of pastrami.

“Well, you're all very sweet. But like I said, we have the security guards at the front gate.”

“He could grow desperate, mother,” says Ceepak. “Purchase a weapon.”

“Can he do that?” says Rita. “I know he didn't serve much time in prison, but he
is
a convicted felon.”

“Under federal law,” says Ceepak, “those with felony convictions do, indeed, forfeit their right to bear arms. However, due in part to an overhaul of federal gun laws orchestrated by the National Rifle Association, every year, thousands of felons across the country have those rights reinstated, often with little or no review.”

“Well, don't tell your father,” jokes Mrs. Ceepak. “He might try the same thing.”

The waitress brings Styrofoam cartons to our table so we can all box up the second half of our sandwiches and take them home. I'll probably be eating pastrami till Wednesday.

“Where are they sitting shiva?” asks Rita, probably to steer the conversation away from scary stories about Old Man Ceepak getting a gun.

According to my buddy Joe Getzler, “shiva” means seven in Hebrew. Traditionally, the mourning family receives guests and accepts condolences for a week. “Reform families only do it for three days,” Joe told me. “Sometimes, if people have to travel, it only lasts a day.”

I have a hunch that Arnie Rosen will be given short-shrift-shiva.

“The family will be accepting calls at David and Judith's house,” says Ceepak.

“Should we go?” asks his mother. “Arnie was such a good man.”

That's when Ceepak's cell phone chirrups.

“Work?” says his mother who, I guess, has memorized her son's different ringtones. “On a Sunday?”

“Apparently so,” says Ceepak, squinting so he can read the caller ID window. “Dr. Kurth,” he mumbles.

The medical examiner.

I'm glad the lid is down on my Styrofoam box. There's something slightly sickening about hearing gory medical details while staring at a juicy mound of meat.

“This is Ceepak. Yes, ma'am. I see. Well, be sure to thank them for the quick turnaround. We weren't expecting your answer until much later in the week. Any indication as to where it came from? Very well. Yes, ma'am. I will, indeed, tell her.”

Ceepak closes up his phone.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“You'll be with me again this week.”

“More rides to inspect?”

He shakes his head. “Mom?

“Yes?”

“The county medical examiner said to tell you that you were correct. Arnold Rosen was murdered. Potassium cyanide.”

Adele brings her hand to her lips. “Oh, my. Poor man.”

“Dr. Kurth hypothesizes that the poison was given to Dr. Rosen with his morning medications. That someone poured a lethal dose of cyanide into a gel cap and slipped the tainted capsule into Dr. Rosen's pillbox.”

“He was taking so many meds,” I mumble. “It'd be so easy to do …”

“Roger that. Ladies? We need to take you home and then Danny and I need to pay a visit to the Rosens.”

We're not going there to sit shiva.

We're going there to officially open our murder investigation.

36

W
E DROP OFF
C
EEPAK
'
S MOM AND WIFE AND THEN SWING BY
the house to pick up Chief of Detectives Ceepak's new undercover vehicle: an unmarked Ford Taurus Interceptor.

The sleek black beauty's bright white and red LED emergency lights are hidden all over the car: behind the thick black grill up front, along the black rim of the trunk in the back, across the top of the tinted-black windshield. Called The Undercover Stealth, the brand new Ford rides on 22-inch Forgiato black wheels and Nitto tires, also black. To tell you the truth, Ceepak's new ride looks extremely sinister.

Remember those budget cuts I was telling you about? They did not affect the purchase order for the new Ceepakmobile. I'm pretty sure one of Mayor Sinclair's biggest political contributors runs our local Ford dealership.

We climb into the rolling stealth bomber, savor that new cop-car scent, then cruise over to David and Judith's apartment at 315-B Tuna Street (yes, some streets in the center of Sea Haven are named after fish).

“This murder investigation will be different than any we have undertaken in the past,” Ceepak remarks as he pilots the incredibly smooth-riding vehicle up Ocean Avenue.

“Yeah,” I say. “None of our other victims were ninety-four years old.”

“True. This is also the first time we know exactly how the murder was done. We already have our weapon: a small capsule filled with potassium cyanide powder.”

That's right. In the past, we've had to spend a lot of time on forensics and bullet trajectories and crime-scene analysis to figure out exactly how the deed was done. This time, we already know the How. We just need the Who and the Why.

“Guess there's no need to call Bill Botzong,” I say.

Botzong is the head of the New Jersey State Police's Major Crimes Unit. He and his crew of crime-scene technicians do all that snazzy stuff they do on the CSI TV shows for police departments, like ours, that can't afford a high-tech lab full of gizmos and gadgets.

“Actually, Danny, we will, once again, be soliciting Bill's assistance. Hopefully, he and his team can help us track down the source of the potassium cyanide, a chemical with a wide variety of industrial uses.”

Ceepak. The guy probably started doing his cyanide homework the day he asked Chief Rossi for permission to go to Dr. Kurth for a toxicology screening on a 94-year-old's corpse.

He fills me in with more cyanide details. How it can be distilled from the kernels of certain nuts such as almonds. How its bluish hue is why cyanide and cyan (blue) toner cartridges are word-root cousins.

“A lethal dose can be as low as one point five milligrams per kilogram of body weight.”

And Dr. Rosen didn't weigh very much.

It'd be easy to hide a lethal dose of cyanide inside something the size of an Extra Strength Tylenol capsule, which, Ceepak reminds me, was done, by someone who's still at large, in the Chicago area—way back in 1982. That's why pain reliever bottles are so hard to open these days—even with your teeth, especially when you have a hangover. And why you now see “caplets” or “gel caps” instead of “capsules” on the shelves at CVS.

“Doing a quick Google search,” Ceepak continues, “I found several sources of ninety-eight percent pure cyanide, available in powder, crystals, or briquette form.”

“No way.”

“It's a quite common chemical compound, Danny. One frequently used by jewelers to clean tarnish from gold and silver.”

“So, which one of our suspects owns a jewelry store?”

Ceepak actually chuckles. “If only it were that simple.”

Yeah.

But if it were, they wouldn't give you a super dude detective car.

“Well,” I say, as Ceepak makes the right turn onto Tuna Street, “I guess we know that Christine was the one who gave Dr. Rosen his final and fatal pills.”

“True. However, someone else could have very easily put the poisoned pill into Dr. Rosen's medical organizer without Christine knowing it.”