Free Fall (23 page)

“They sell suits at Kohl's?”

“Indeed so.”

I'm guessing Kohl's was one of the men's stores Ceepak and Rita visited back in his short-lived Chief Of Police days.

“But,” Ceepak continues, “by having one very nice black suit that he can wear to any event—be it a wedding, funeral, or cocktail party—instead of a closet full of suits in various colors and textures, Michael is displaying some of the same miserliness he professed to despise in his father. It reminds of what Bruce Springsteen wrote …”

Hey, what doesn't? Especially when you're talking “fathers and sons.”

“‘Independence Day,'” says Ceepak, citing the song before quoting the lyric: “‘There was just no way this house could hold the two of us. I guess that we were just too much of the same kind.'”

I remember hanging at Ceepak's place one weekend, listening to E-Street Radio, the all-Springsteen all-the-time channel on the Sirius satellite radio Rita gave Ceepak for Christmas last year. (Okay, I love Bruce, but does anybody really need a 24/7 Springsteen channel just so they can hear fifty different versions of “Born To Run” every day?) The satellite station played a bootleg recording of “Independence Day” from a 1976 concert in New York City. Before he sang the song, Springsteen told the crowd a long, heart-wrenching story about coming home to his father's house.

“I could see the screen door, I could see my pop's cigarette,” Springsteen said on stage. His dad kept all the lights off in the house and would sit at the kitchen table in that darkness, smoking cigarettes and working on a six-pack of beer until all the cans in the plastic rings were gone. “We'd start talkin' about nothin' much. How I was doin'. Pretty soon he'd ask me what I thought I was doin' with myself, and we'd always end up screamin' at each other.”

When the song was finished, Ceepak said something that stuck with me: “Apparently, Bruce Springsteen and I grew up in the same home.”

At the time, I thought, “That's impossible,” because Ceepak's from Ohio, not New Jersey. Then I realized he was being metaphorical. But still—no way are John and Joseph Ceepak “too much of the same kind.”

That's when our radio starts squawking.

It's Dorian Rence, our dispatcher.

“Ceepak? Have you got your ears on?”

Mrs. Rence is still a little new on the job. Thinks she's supposed to use CB Radio jargon.

Ceepak grabs the mic.

“This is Ceepak, go.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Detective. But, well, I thought you should know.”

And then there's this pause.

“It's your father. Again. The gatehouse security guard at …”

Ceepak doesn't stay parked for the rest. He jams the transmission into reverse.

“… the Oceanaire condo complex …”

Those black Nitto tires on Ceepak's slick new ride spin so fast it smells like rubber duckie burning day at the town dump.

“… called nine-one-one …”

We rocket out of the hotel parking lot.

“Lights and sirens,” says Ceepak.

I find the buttons. Punch them.

Cars and bikes and sea gulls scurry out of our way when all those LEDs strobe to life inside their sleek black hiding places. The Batmobile is on the move.

“We're on our way,” Ceepak says into the mic. Then he tosses it aside so he can keep both hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel and drive us NASCAR-style over to his mother's condo complex.

Red lights and stop signs?

We barely even pause.

“I should have known,” Ceepak mutters through gritted teeth as we whip around another corner.

“Known what?” I say, hanging on to the grab bar over my door, thinking that holding it will somehow protect me when we have our high-speed collision.

“This is Monday,” says Ceepak. “Sinclair Enterprises hired a second factory-certified operator for their Free Fall who was slated to start work today.”

“Giving your dad the evening off.”

50

C
EEPAK SLAMS ON THE BRAKES
,
CUTS THE WHEEL HARD TO THE RIGHT
.

We skid sideways into the Oceanaire's entry road.

Bruce Southworth, the kid with the clipboard, is out of his guard hut.

Brian Ersalesi and John Johnston, two of our SHPD uniform cops, are standing in front of their cruiser, which has its roof bar lights swirling. No weapons are drawn. Well, except for Bruce Southworth's clipboard.

Mr. Ceepak stands between the two SHPD officers and the security guard. All smiles. He's carrying a bakery box. Guess he's bringing sweets this time instead of flowers.

Ceepak and I yank open our doors and head out.

“What's the situation?” he hollers.

“He still wants to see your mother,” Southworth hollers back.

“You know this guy, Detective?” shouts Ersalesi.

“10-4.”

“I'm his Papa!” wheezes Mr. Ceepak as he stumbles forward a foot or two. “And since when is paying a courtesy call to your spouse a crime, Johnny?”

“Since you were advised to stay away.”

“Yeah, well, that was before your mother went bonkers. She's throwing my money down the crapper. Buying this Christine girl another lawyer? I heard all about it from Dave Rosen in H.R. at work. Your nurse pal killed Dave's dad but your mother's still bankrolling her? Adele's losing it, Johnny Boy. Someone needs to make her come to her senses.”

Then he makes a big mistake.

He tucks that bakery box sideways under his left arm and balls up his right hand into a fist to show how he's going to persuade Adele to see the light.

Ceepak goes toe to toe with his old man. My hand hovers over my Glock.

The two uniforms see me make my move. Their hands are hovering over holsters now, too.

“Do you intend to beat that sense into her, sir?” demands Ceepak.

His father gets a devilish glint in his eye. “A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, son.”

Ceepak's told me stories. His father used to hit his mother. Until Ceepak turned thirteen. Then he was finally big enough to protect his mom, even if it meant taking a few punches himself.

By the time Ceepak was fifteen, his father was too terrified of his giant, muscle-bound son to even think about ever using his wife as a punching bag again. That's when Joe Sixpack shifted his rage toward Billy, Ceepak's little brother.

“Hell's bells, son. Somebody needs to teach that woman a lesson. You don't piss away a family's fortune on total strangers unless you're crazy or drunk or both. That's Ceepak money!”

“What's in the box?” asks Ceepak.

“Cookies.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

Mr. Ceepak pulls back. “They're not for you.”

Ceepak repeats himself. “Mind if I take a look?”

His father grins. “You got a search warrant?”

“No. However, I know you had your gun carrying rights restored. In Ohio.”

“So? I worked a lot of county fairs last fall. Needed protection. Some of those carnies are tough customers.”

“And you don't have a weapon in that white paper box?”

“I told you—it's a dozen damn cookies from the bakery at the supermarket.”

“Then why did they forget to tie it with string?”

“Because I was in a hurry …”

Ceepak leans in. Sniffs his face.

“Are you drunk, sir?”

“No. I had a couple beers after work. Arrest me.”

“We will. The next time you come within one hundred yards of my mother.”

“What?”

Ceepak reaches into his back pocket. Pulls out a document.

“This, sir, as you might recall, is what is known in New Jersey as an emergency restraining order. They may be obtained at any police station in the state.”

“What? What'd I do?”

“You foolishly threatened a family member with physical violence in front of five witnesses, four of whom are law enforcement officers, thereby giving me grounds to invoke these emergency powers as a protection against future domestic violence.”

“Don't do this, Johnny.”

“It's already done.” He slaps the paper against his father's chest. “Judge Mindy Rasmussen signed it the day we heard you were coming to town. Just in case.”

Mr. Ceepak sneers. “Be prepared, right? You overgrown Boy Scout fruitcake.”

Mr. Ceepak grabs the ERO out of his son's hand. He still has that bakery box stuck sideways under his arm.

If there were cookies inside it, they would've toppled out by now.

“You're backing me into a corner, Johnny,” Mr. Ceepak hisses. “You ever see what happens when you corner a hungry alley cat?”

“No, sir. I'm more of a dog person.”

“Don't you give me lip, boy. I brought you into this world, I can take you out of it, too.”

“I highly doubt that, sir.”

Yeah. Me, too.

“However, if you'd like to continue to make threats against an on-duty police officer, once again in front of all these witnesses, we can inform your friends at Sinclair Enterprises that you will not be coming to work tomorrow.”

Mr. Ceepak backs down.

“Fine, Johnny boy. Fine. You win this round. But I want my million dollars.”

“I'm sure you do.”

“This isn't over, son.”

“You are correct. This emergency order will last until a judge of the Family Part of the Chancery Division of the Superior Court grants or denies a final restraining order. You will receive notice of that hearing within ten days.”

“Okey-dokey. See you in court, Johnny—if not before.”

When Mr. Ceepak says that, he gets that glint in his eye again.

Why do I think he is already hatching some new scheme to get at Mrs. Ceepak?

Probably because he is.

51

“G
OSH
,
OFFICERS
, I
NEVER SAID ANY SUCH THING
.”

Judith Rosen is playing little Miss Nicey Nice again.

We're in David and Judith's upstairs apartment. It's getting dark out. “Little Arnie” is in his room, blasting away at zombies with robots. David is still at work. Judith is stuffing chunks of buttery fudge into her mouth and sucking on them like they were breath mints.

I see a bundled stack of moving cartons leaning against a wall. Guess David and Judith are already planning a move into the beach house they inherited from the late Arnold Rosen.

Ceepak is reading from his notepad, repeating what Judith said to her father-in-law on the night her sister was, more or less, humiliated in open court.

“So you deny ever saying ‘Why don't you do us all a favor and die?'”

“To Dad? Heavens, no. Who would say such a horrible thing to a dying man?”

Ceepak cocks an eyebrow. “Was Dr. Rosen actually ‘dying' at that time?”

Judith smiles and blinks. “Well, officer, we're all born with a death sentence. And the older we get, the closer we crawl to our graves.”

Then she blinks some more. Just so we have time to contemplate her mind-blowing Zen wisdom.

“How's your stroke situation?” I ask because, even though I'm no Ceepak, I can tell when a witness is yanking our collective crank. I'm not buying Judith's innocent-angel act.

“Excuse me?” says Judith.

“Boss?” I say.

Ceepak refers to his notes. “During that same verbal exchange with Dr. Rosen, you told your father-in-law that the situation between Christine and your sister had made you so upset that you might suffer a stroke. That, and I quote, ‘my death will pre-decease yours.'”

“Really? Somebody told you I said that? How can my death pre-decease anybody else's? That doesn't make any sense.”

“No, ma'am. It does not. However, such is often the case when one speaks while inebriated.”

“Excuse me? Are you suggesting that I was drunk?”

“I am simply relaying the observations of a witness to your angry exchange with your father-in-law.”

I butt in. “This same witness also told us that you swore Christine Lemonopolous ‘would get hers.'”

Ceepak takes over. “Were you already scheming to somehow implicate Ms. Lemonopolous in your father-in-law's death?”

“Why would I do something like that? If anything, I was encouraging Christine to keep on trying to beat her PTSD. If she did as her doctors advised, I was confident she'd ‘get hers' some day—meaning her reward for all her hard work. Maybe a husband, too.”

“I'm sorry,” says Ceepak. “Your recollection of this incident does not jibe at all with that of our witness.”

“Was it Miss Monae?”

Ceepak doesn't answer.

“That's okay,” says Judith, putting on her toothy smile again. It's smudged with chocolate. “I already know the answer. It had to be Miss Monae. She works nights and you say this ‘incident' took place at night?”

“No, ma'am. I gave no indication as to the time of day.”

“Well, I do remember being very angry one night with Dad. I thought he was making some very bad choices. He should have fired Miss Christine the minute she attacked my sister. You don't want an individual with such a short fuse acting as your caregiver or, even worse, living under your roof. I may have raised my voice slightly but only because Dad was in imminent danger and hard of hearing. Whatever I said, I said it to protect Dad from a very volatile and violent woman with a serious medical condition.”

I'm not even sure if Mrs. Rosen knows she's lying. I think she lives in some kind of a bubble where what she believes is always true.

“You gentlemen, of course, know that Miss Monae was spying for David's little brother Michael?”

“What do you mean by ‘spying'?” asks Ceepak.

“Michael was jealous. Didn't like the fact that David and Little Arnie were his father's favorites.”

“Speaking of spies,” says Ceepak, “was it truly your intention for, first, Joy Kochman and then Christine Lemonopolous, whom you planted inside Dr. Rosen's home, to feed you information about your father-in-law's medical condition?”