Free Fall (19 page)

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.”

“Gosh, no,” says Judith, sounding all sugar-frosted corn-flakey again. “I just didn't want anybody around this table raising red flags.”

“Now then,” says the lawyer, before he does a good throat clearing. “To the particulars of his estate. As I said previously, Arnold's will is neither complicated nor complex. He left two specific bequests of monies to be drawn from the sale of all his investments and assets and asked that they be cited as a mitzvah. To his devoted caregivers, Monae Dunn and Christine Lemonopolous, he bequeaths fifty thousand dollars. Each.”

Christine and Monae both sort of gasp.

Hey, I don't blame them. I would, too.

Then Monae starts flapping her hand in front of her face like she's about to faint. “Fifty thousand dollars?” she squeals. “This is better than hitting the Lottery!”

Judith Rosen? She's fuming.

“The remainder of his estate,” says the lawyer, “which, given current market positions, land values, and comparable real estate sales in Cedar Knoll Heights, our accountants conservatively estimate at two point two million dollars, Dr. Rosen leaves to David and Judith Rosen in trust for his quote living legacy end quote Arnold David Rosen.”

Little Arnie. The smiling blonde kid in all the photographs is an instant millionaire. Unless, of course, his parents blow it all on guitar lessons, Bart Simpson watches, and liposuction before he hits twenty-one.

This is why Judith wasn't pleased when Christine and Monae scored their fifty thousand dollars each. That little mitzvah cost her family one hundred thousand dollars. Still, two point one million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. It's better than beer and pretzels rich. It's practically Adele Ceepak rich.

“This isn't fair,” protests Michael, his voice trembling.

“Really?” says the lawyer. “I'm surprised to hear you say that, Michael. Surely you can't begrudge your nephew his inheritance. You earn nearly that much in two weeks.”

“This isn't about money.” Michael says with a laugh even though I can tell he is spitting mad. “This is about fairness. This is about family.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My partner Andrew and I recently adopted a child. An African-American boy we named Kyle.”

“Was your father aware of this?”

“I told him Friday night. At dinner.”

“That was his ‘big announcement,'” says David.

Judith sniggers.

Michael? He looks like he could weep. Or explode. Maybe both.

“I'm so sorry, Michael,” says the lawyer. “Perhaps, had he lived longer, your father would've once more amended his last will and testament to include your son as well.”

“No,” says David. “He wouldn't have. We talked about it at dinner on Friday night. Dad thought Michael and his ‘partner' pretending that they were parents was stupid. Dad didn't believe in adoption. He believed in bloodlines. And legitimate heirs.”

“Dad was all about
real
family,” adds Judith. “When you adopt you're not extending the family tree, you're simply taking on somebody else's problems.”

“You, Judith,” says Michael, sounding completely heartbroken, “are a fat, repulsive bitch.”

Yowser
.

“Watch your mouth, little brother,” snaps David. “That's my wife you're talking about.”

“I know who and what she is—a hideous and heartless cow.”

“Gentlemen?” says the lawyer, banging the table with his fist like it's a gavel.

Michael storms out of the room.

David and Judith shake their heads as if to say, “Poor, poor Michael.” Then they smile a little to savor their triumph.

Christine? She's looking at me with a very nervous expression on her face.

I'm kind of looking at her the same way.

Because I have to wonder: Did the last elderly patient she took care of, Mrs. Mauna Faye Crabtree, also leave her a little sumpin'-sumpin' in her will like Dr. Rosen did? Are deathbed bequests the bonuses of the home health aide trade?

If so, Christine might've had a solid motive for helping ease another one of her patients out the exit door.

42

B
RIGHT AND EARLY
M
ONDAY MORNING
, C
EEPAK AND
I
ARE IN
his office sipping bad coffee from mugs we poured out of the desk sergeant's congealed pot and working the phones.

It doesn't get any more detective-y than that.

Ceepak's in his blazer and khaki cargo pants. I think there's a zipper near the knees if he wants to turn them into shorts later in the afternoon. He seldom does.

I'm in cargo shorts and my favorite FDNY Engine 23 T-shirt. It's been lucky for me in the past. Both of us are carrying sidearms.

We have a busy day ahead of us.

My first call of the morning is to Christine. I tag her on her cell because my apartment doesn't have a landline. Landlines are like e-mail: so two thousand and late.

I go over the list of all the elderly patients she's taken care of since losing her job at Mainland Medical.

“They're all dead, Danny,” she tells me. “But that doesn't mean I killed them.”

It also doesn't mean I won't be making a few more phone calls to the families of the deceased to see if any of Christine's other patients died suddenly or under suspicious circumstances.

Ceepak spends his coffee and phone time with Bill Botzong at the Major Crimes Unit.

They're trying to track down and trace any shipments of potassium cyanide into Sea Haven. Botzong and his team will be doing some serious data mining with all the known suppliers of the chemical compound, cross-referencing their records against the names and addresses of all our suspects, including Joy Kochman up in Lavallette, whom we will be visiting just as soon as we finish up our phone calls and hit the head.

Bad coffee? It's like beer. You can't buy it. You can only rent it.

We hop into Ceepak's Batmobile and cruise up the Garden State Parkway toward Seaside Heights.

“Fascinating,” mumbles Ceepak, somewhat randomly, seeing how we're basically humming up a generic highway filled with generic cars surrounded by garden-variety Garden State evergreen trees.

“You and I have dealt with several murderers in the past, Danny. In all those instances, the killer had to brutally confront their victim. They possessed strength, skill, or, at the very least, a warped sense of courage.”

“But in this case,” I say, “all the killer had to do was plop a pill into a plastic box and wait.”

“Precisely. It is the easiest murder to execute, perhaps the most difficult to solve.”

Because there's not much evidence. When you use your strength, skill, or warped courage, you leave clues. When you plop a single pill into a slot, not so much.

Unless, of course, our killer was foolish enough to order a pound of cyanide on the Internet and have it shipped to his or her home.

“What about jewelry stores?” I say. “Should we see if any of our suspects have a connection with a business with a legitimate use for the cyanide?”

“Indeed so.”

Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe one of the cyanide buyers will be the store where Judith's sister Shona buys all her clunky gold bracelets and baubles.

323 Bayview Drive in Lavallette is a two-story townhouse in a New England-looking condo complex on the bay side of the Barnegat Peninsula.

I read somewhere that young people with kids like the beach and surf side of any island; older folks like the calmer waters and boat docks on the bay side. In Lavallette, that's the side where the sun sets, too. Makes sense, I guess. You probably watch more sunsets when you're in your twilight years.

Joy Kochman is working as a live-in home health aide for a cranky couple called the Silberblatts.

“They both have Alzheimer's,” she explains when we join her in the kitchen where she's toweling up a mess that might've been breakfast. Lumpy puddles are splattered all over the kitchen table. I'm thinking oatmeal and bananas. “Mr. Silberblatt likes to sleep on the floor. His wife? She likes to wander. We had to pin her name and address on her blouse, like she was in pre-school.”

“Do you have a moment to answer a few questions?”

“Yeah. The meds kicked in. They're taking naps in front of the TV.
Let's Make A Deal
is good for that.”

Nurse Kochman looks to be forty, maybe fifty. Then again, she could be a lot younger. I have a feeling living full-time with the Silberblatts puts bags under your eyes. Her hair is cut short and combed to the side. Some streaks are brighter than others but you can tell she doesn't have much time to fuss with it. She's dressed in dark blue scrubs, the better to hide oatmeal splotches.

“As you may know,” says Ceepak, “your former employer, Dr. Arnold Rosen, passed away this weekend.”

“Yes. I read about that. Sorry I couldn't make it to the services.” She opens up her arms in a gesture that takes in the enormity of her task as the Silberblatts' caregiver.

“Understandable,” says Ceepak. “But you visited Dr. Rosen late last week?”

“Thursday. It's my night off. One of the Silberblatts' kids comes over, relieves me. They're great. Five sons who live in the area. They all really love their parents even though their parents hardly even recognize them any more. We're all starting to think Mom and Dad might be better off in a nursing home. But well, the boys want to keep them here, in familiar surroundings, for as long as possible.”

“How do the Silberblatt children compare to Dr. Rosen's?” asks Ceepak, smoothly steering the interview in the direction he wants it to go.

Nurse Kochman makes a lip fart noise.

Sorry. She does.

“Night and day.
These
kids? They're kind and respectful. To me and their parents. Those Rosens? What a nasty pair of vipers.”