Free Fall (29 page)

“Actually,” says Ceepak, climbing up the steps to put his big body between Shona and Christine, “we currently suspect that your brother-in-law, David, was the one who poisoned Dr. Rosen.”

“I know. Judith called me. Are all the cops in this town as crazy as you two?”

“No,” I say, hiking up the steps to stand beside Ceepak. “We're special.”

I take Christine by the elbow and give her a police escort down to her parked vehicle.

“You can drop your gift off with Kurt in the guardhouse,” I whisper. “He'll make sure it gets delivered.”

“It's a game Samuel wanted. For his X-box.”

“Awesome.”

I hold open the door to Christine's ride.

“David killed his father?” she says after she slides in behind the wheel.

“Yeah. We think so.”

“That's horrible.”

“That it is.”

While the two of us take a moment to ponder the monstrosity of what David Rosen did, up on the porch, I can hear poor Ceepak asking Shona Oppenheimer if she “wants to press trespassing charges.”

“I'm thinking about it!”

“Then,” Ceepak says, “you should know, since your property is not marked, fenced in, or enclosed and I observe no notice against trespassing being otherwise given …”

Ceepak. I love when he sticks it to people and they don't even know he's telling them to sit on it and rotate.

“Go back to Becca's,” I suggest to Christine. “Ceepak and I have a bunch of loose ends to tie up.”

“I have one more gift to deliver.”

“For who?”

“Ceepak's mom. I know she's from Ohio and Pudgy's Fudgery does chocolate Buckeyes. There's peanut butter in the middle …”

“Save me one,” I say.

She smiles. “I will.”

I back Ceepak's ride out of the driveway so Christine can pull out, too.

As I watch her putter away in the rearview mirror, my cell phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Um, officer Boyle?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Arnie Rosen.”

“Hey, Arnie. Everything okay?”

“I don't think so.”

“Okay. Officer Santucci is out front …”

“I know. But they snuck out the back.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dad and that old guy who runs the Free Fall. He's helping Dad run away.”

63

“I
GUESS
I
SHOULD
'
VE CALLED SOONER
,”
SAYS
A
RNIE
.“B
UT
that old guy, he's scary.”

Yeah. Tell me about it.

That old guy is, of course, Joe “Six Pack” Ceepak.

“He said, ‘Boy, you need to be a man. Don't call the cops. I heard what people are saying about your Pops. Him and me need to make a run for the border.' And then, my mother, she said, ‘You heard him, Arnold. Not a word about this to anybody.' So, it took me like ten minutes to figure out what I should do. Call you.”

Arnie is whispering all this. Probably doesn't want his mother to know that he did the right thing. He called the cops.

“You're in your room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. Lock the door. Don't open it till you know for sure that Officer Santucci or his partner, a nice lady named Cath Hoffner, are on the other side. Can you do that for me, Arnie?”

“Yeah. I guess. But Mister Santucci doesn't even know Dad is gone because he didn't see them sneak out. See, he's out front and they cut through the backyard to our back-door neighbor's yard and then they ran up their driveway to Swordfish Street.”

“You saw all this, Arnie?”

“Yeah. A while ago, I heard Mom being all sweet with Dad so, you know, I thought everything was all better. I went into the living room. Mom was hugging Dad but the Free Fall guy was in there, too.”

“What did the Free Fall guy say?”

“That they'd fry Dad in the electric chair for killing his father.”

Great. Mr. Ceepak couldn't be content with scarring his own son for life, now he's got to give young Arnold Rosen nightmares, too?

“I watched them run away from out on the deck.”

“And then what?”

“My mother told me to get my butt in the house. That I should be proud of my father for finally doing what needed to be done.”

I hear Arnie sob a little.

“Did my dad really kill my grandfather?”

I'm not Ceepak so I go ahead and lie a little. “We're not sure about that, Arnie. So, do me a favor, and stay in your room, like I said. I'm going to call Officer Santucci. He or his partner, they're going to take you and your mom to the police station.”

“Why?”

“You can help us protect your dad better at the police station, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Hang tight.”

“Okay. Oh, Mr. Boyle?”

“Yeah?”

“I think the Free Fall guy has a gun.”

“Did you see a weapon?”

“No, but he told Dad he didn't have to worry about the cops and tapped his jacket, like that tough guy does in the
Mafia 2
video game.”

“Okay. Thanks for that. That's very important.”

“Officer Boyle?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't let that creepy old guy shoot you. I think he's kind of crazy.”

“Don't worry, Arnie. I'm very good with my gun. Check out Urban Termination II the next time you're at Sunnyside Playland. You'll see my initials in all three top scorer slots.”

“Cool.”

“Stay in your room. Wait for Santucci or Hoffner.”

“Right.”

We hang up.

I'm up and out of the Batmobile in a flash and waving my arms over my head like a lunatic at Ceepak who is still on the porch schooling Shona Oppenheimer on the burden of proof necessary to prove Defiant Trespass in the State of New Jersey.

“Ceepak?” Yes, I am shouting.

He whips around. Sees the frantic look in my eyes.

“Good day, Mrs. Oppenheimer,” he says on the run. “If you have any further complaints or suggestions, please bring them to Police Headquarters on Cherry Street at your earliest convenience.”

He dashes across the lawn, joins me in the street.

“What's up?”

“Your father. He just sprung David Rosen.”

“Come again?”

“Little Arnie called. Said the old guy who runs the Free Fall snuck into their house and told his father that they needed to make a run for the border.”

“And David fled?”

“Yeah. Ten minutes ago. Guess he admitted he's guilty with his feet.”

“Roger that.”

“Santucci and Hoffner didn't see the jailbreak because your dad took David out the back door and cut through the house behind them's lawn. Took him over to Swordfish Street.”

“Do we know what sort of vehicle my father is currently driving?”

“No,” I say.

Then I remember that night at Neptune's Nog, the package store.

“Wait. Dinged up Ford F-150. Maybe ten, twelve years old. Ohio license plates.”

Ceepak raises his quizzical eyebrow.

“We bumped into each other at the beer store. Remember?”

Ceepak reaches into the car to grab the radio mic.

And my phone rings again.

Ceepak holds on. Waits to hear who is calling me. Looks like he thinks it might be Arnie with an update.

It is.

“They're heading toward the pier!”

“Arnie? Take it easy. How can you know that?”

“Dad has an iPhone and I have the ‘Find My iPhone' app on my computer. I punched in his number. It's tracking them. They were in the parking lot near Pier Two; now they're heading out over the ocean. If I switch to satellite, I can tell you what they're near.”

Arnie goes silent.

“Arnie?”

“Yeah. They've stopped. Right in front of the Mad Mouse roller coaster. I think that crazy old guy took Dad back to the Free Fall!”

“Okay. I'm going to call Officer Santucci right now.”

“You won't hurt my dad, will you? When you catch them?”

“No, Arnie. I promise.”

“Okay.”

Now the radio starts chattering.

“I've got to run.”

“Okay.”

I end the call with Arnie.

“All available units.”

It's not the dispatcher. It's Chief Rossi. This is not a good sign.

“Pier Two. Reports of a gunshot. Repeat. Reports of a gunshot and potential hostage situation. All available units please respond. Initiate lockdown protocols.”

Guess Little Arnie was right.

Mr. Ceepak has a gun.

64

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
,
WHEN WE SCREAM INTO THE MUNICIPAL
parking lot fronting Pier Two, we enter bedlam.

The tail end of a panicked mob is still stampeding down the boardwalk access ramps like cattle through a slaughterhouse chute. I hear screams and shouting. Freaked-out tourists and locals are pushing and shoving whoever's not running away from the danger fast enough.

Meanwhile, Ceepak and me have to run the other way.

Up into the swirling chaos and confusion.

The Murray brothers are already on the scene, trying to bring some semblance of order to the pandemonium.

“Keep calm,” shouts Dylan through an amplified megaphone while his brother, Jeremy, stands in the middle of the swarm to do hand signals showing people which way to head so they don't trample each other.

“Evacuate to the far edges of the parking lot,” he says over and over and over.

“Keep calm! Do not panic!” echoes his brother with the battery-powered bullhorn.

“Move them out and lock it down,” Ceepak says to the two Murrays. “Who's inside?”

“Brooks Perry and Jack Getze,” says Dylan.

Ceepak and I go swimming upstream; make our way to the boardwalk.

Which is almost empty.

Ceepak grabs the radio clipped to his belt.

“This is Detective Ceepak. Detective Boyle and I are on the scene. What's our situation?”

“This is Officer Perry.”

“What's your twenty?”

“We have taken up a position in the pizza stand west of the StratosFEAR ride. We have the ride operator, Mr. Shaun McKinnon with us.”

I can see the Free Fall's tower rising against the early evening sky maybe a hundred feet in front of us.

“Is Mr. McKinnon injured?”

“Negative. The old guy with the gun threw him out of the control booth and told him to run away. He didn't. He found us instead.”

“Maintain your position. Detective Boyle and I are on our way.”

“Okay. Good. One question—the old guy with the gun. McKinnon tells us he is the day operator of the Free Fall and that his last name is Ceepak.”

“Roger that. He is my father. He should be considered mentally unstable and lethally dangerous. There were reports of a gunshot. Can you clarify?”

“Getze and I were on routine boardwalk patrol, up by Paintball Blasters. Heard the single round fired. Thought it was a kid with an early Fourth of July firecracker. Mr. McKinnon found us. Told us how, uh, your father threatened him with a weapon. Described it as best he could. From our observation post, it looks like it could be a Ruger nine-millimeter pistol. Seven plus one capacity.”

That means Mr. Ceepak has seven bullets left before he has to reload.

“And the hostage situation?” asks Ceepak as we crouch our way forward toward the pizza place, using the game booths and food stalls along the way for cover.

“Your father has a middle-aged bald man with him. Fifty, fifty-five. Goatee.”

“It is David Rosen,” says Ceepak.

“What're they doing here?” I ask.

“Unclear at this juncture.”

Yeah, if Mr. Ceepak was trying to help David Rosen “make a run for the border” he's doing a lousy job, unless he's also arranged for a submarine to come pick them up at the pier.

“Hang on,” says Officer Perry. “There's movement over at the base of the ride. Something's going on …”

Ceepak and I hustle faster.

He hand chops to the left.

We scoot up a narrow alleyway behind a row of booths and shops until we come to a service door, a rear entry into the pizzeria.

“We're coming in,” Ceepak announces into the radio so Perry and Getze don't twirl around and blast us when we come sneaking up behind them.

We push the door open, keep hunkered down, and duck-walk up to the open-air front of the pizza place to take up a position behind the counter with the two cops and Shaun McKinnon, the other factory-trained Free Fall operator from Ohio.

“Does my father know you are over here?” asks Ceepak in a tight whisper.

Getze shakes his head.

All five of us are crouched behind the counter. Fortunately, the sun is setting behind us. The pizza parlor is cloaked in shadows.

Unfortunately, what we see is terrifying.

Mr. Ceepak has the snub nose of his small pistol jabbed into David Rosen's back.

He is marching Rosen up the steps to the ride.

“Sit down.”

He shoves David into a seat. Tucks something into the front pocket of David's shirt.

“Don't hang up on me, Davey. If you do, you die.” He cackles a laugh and backs up; keeping his pistol trained on Rosen every step of the way to his control booth.

The front window is open so he can keep his Ruger up and aimed at David. With his free hand, he raises a crinkled brown bag of something to his lips. Takes a swig.

The bottle bag goes down.

“Now we just have to wait for
my
idiot son to show up.”

I hear a clunk and thud.

The Free Fall starts climbing up its 140-foot tower.

And the shoulder harness over David Rosen's seat?

Mr. Ceepak never lowered it.

65

T
HE
S
TRATOS
FEAR
CONTINUES ITS EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW
ascent up its 140-foot tower.