Free Fall (28 page)

“Not going to happen,” I say. “We're busy. Need to arrest someone for murder.”

“Really?” says Bob, eagerly. “Who?”

“Danny?” says Ceepak, shaking his head.

“Excuse us,” I say to Bob.

Ceepak and I march across the wide room. Bob goes over to a nearby copy machine and pretends like he's ready to collate a couple documents. But I can tell, he has his eyes glued on Ceepak and me.

“Sorry about that,” I mumble in a whisper.

“It's all good,” Ceepak whispers back. “However, we can only arrest David Rosen when we have sufficient evidence to press formal charges.”

“So you're hoping he confesses?”

Ceepak nods. Then, outside David's cubicle, he clears his throat.

“Hugh? I'm going to have to call you back. It's those cops again. Right. I'm not sure. Okay. You're the boss. Appreciate it.”

He hangs up the phone.

“Mayor Hugh Sinclair,” he says like he expects us to be impressed.

We're not.

“He's in the neighborhood. Might pop in to say howdy.”

Ceepak ignores what, I'm guessing, David hoped would be a threat.

“Mr. Rosen? We need to talk to an employee of yours.”

“Okey-doke. Which one? I've got a million of 'em.”

“Bart Smith.”

“Smith? Name doesn't ring a bell …”

“He recently ordered half a gram of potassium cyanide from a chemical company in India.”

“Coincidentally,” I add, “that's the same chemical that killed your father.”

David strokes his goatee.

“Smith, Smith, Smith …”

“
Bart
Smith,” says Ceepak.

David snaps his fingers. “Right. Bartholomew Smith. One of our custodians. Said something about ordering poison to take care of rodents in the rafters over at Cap'n Scrubby's Car Wash.”

“May we speak to Mr. Smith?”

“No. 'Fraid not. He didn't last very long. Liked to sleep in the dryer room with the warm towels. We had to let him go. Back in late May, I believe.”

“So did the package come to your desk?”

“Pardon?”

“After you fired Bartholomew Smith, did the cyanide sample he ordered from India end up on your desk?”

“I don't think so …”

“Shawn Reilly Simmons signed for it,” I say, placing a copy of the order form Botzong e-mailed to us on David's desk.

“Really?” David makes a confused monkey face. “I really don't recall any packages. You say it came from India? I think I would've remembered the stamps. I still collect them. How about you fellas?”

“This shipped DHL,” I say, tapping the form. “No stamps.”

“Did you order the potassium cyanide under an assumed name, David?” asks Ceepak.

“Me? No?”

I hear the front door whoosh open. Feel a blast of humid air.

“What's going on here?”

Get ready for a sunny, funderful day.

Mayor Sinclair is in the house.

60

“O
FFICERS, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS INTRUSION
?” demands the mayor.

Ceepak gestures at David Rosen, who is still sitting trapped inside his glass cage and looking more and more like a hamster who lost his wheel.

“Your honor,” says Ceepak, making a pretty loud pronouncement, “we have reason to believe that your Human Resources director, Mr. David Rosen, poisoned his elderly father, the late Arnold Rosen, with potassium cyanide purchased by Sinclair Enterprises.”

Mayor Sinclair looks stunned. The other employees have stopped doing any kind of work. They're all staring at David.

I notice Bob over at the copy machine. He silently mouths something that looks like it rhymes with “moldy grit.” He heads for the door like he is ready to tell everybody he knows, “Hey, guess who murdered his old man?”

I notice tiny droplets of sweat forming on top of David's bald dome.

“And tell me, Detective Ceepak,” says the mayor, “do you have any proof to substantiate your accusation?”

“We are currently piecing together a trail of evidence,” says Ceepak, once again telling the truth when I wish he would just say, “
Yeah, David did it
.”

The mayor scoffs. “A
trail
of evidence?”

“Yes, sir. Information recently obtained by the New Jersey State Police Major Crimes Unit suggests that the poison—the murder weapon, if you will—was purchased by David Rosen under an assumed name and paid for by a Sinclair Enterprises corporate credit card. We further hypothesize that he placed the order for that chemical compound right here, from one of your computers or telephones. Therefore, we will be requesting a search warrant granting us permission to impound your computers, confiscate your files, subpoena your phone records …”

“Whoa, wait a second, cowboy. It's summer. Business is booming. You can't come in here and shut down my back office operations.”

“Yes, sir. We can. Immediately after Judge Rasmussen signs the search documents, which I anticipate happening within the hour.”

The mayor turns to Rosen.

“David?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you do this thing the detectives say you did?”

Sweat is dribbling down David's brow. “Of course not.”

“We'll also need the complete pay records for one Bartholomew Smith,” says Ceepak.

“Who?” asks the mayor.

Ceepak doesn't answer.

So the mayor turns to Rosen. “David?”

“Short-timer, sir. Worked here in May. A little bit of June. Had that rodent infestation problem.”

“What? Where?”

“Cap'n Scrubby's, I think. Could've been one of the ice cream parlors, though …”

Panic fills the mayor's eyes. The last thing he wants is for rumors to start spreading around town about what those brown lumps really are in his Moosetracks ice cream.

“David, I'm wondering if, perhaps, you should take the rest of the day off. Maybe take a few personal days as well—until this police matter blows over …”

“I promise you, sir, what these detectives are saying …”

“
Paid
personal days, David. Okay? Go home. Spend some time with Little Arnie and Judith. Find yourself a good lawyer.”

61

W
E FOLLOW
D
AVID
R
OSEN AS HE DRIVES HOME TO
T
UNA
Street.

On the ride, Ceepak advises Mrs. Rence, our dispatcher, to pull the cops keeping an eye on Christine Lemonopolous and Michael Rosen off their assignments.

“However,” he adds, “we need to continue the twenty-four-hour surveillance detail outside 315 Tuna Street. David and Judith Rosen's home.”

“Will do,” says Mrs. Rence over the radio.

“Can you put me through to Chief Rossi?”

Ceepak and the Chief hammer out the details needed to get the legal paperwork moving through the system—warrants that will allow us to toss the headquarters of Sinclair Enterprises and confiscate all their hard drives.

It's a little after two in the afternoon when we reach the Rosen residence on Tuna Street.

Santucci and his partner Cath Hoffner see us pull into the driveway behind David's vehicle. The two uniforms emerge from their patrol car, most likely to find out what's up. As David climbs out of his Subaru, he sees the two officers out in the street, adjusting their gun belts.

“Why have those two police officers been parked there all day?” he asks.

“It's part of our new neighborhood watch program,” I crack. “Every day, we pick one house in a neighborhood and watch it. Today is your lucky day.”

“What? You think I'm some kind of flight risk?”

“Are you?” asks Ceepak.

“Of course not. I didn't do anything, why would I run away?”

“Look,” I say. “We know Michael and your wife backed you into a corner. That Michael told you …”

He ignores me. Turns to Ceepak. “Am I under arrest?”

“No, sir. Not yet.”

“Then get off of my property.”

“Technically, sir, this is not your property. You are a renter and therefore …”

“Come back when you have an arrest warrant.”

“Yes, sir. We will. We'll also come back when we have a search warrant.”

“You're going to search my home, too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Several times,” I add. “If we have to.”

David storms around the side of the house and makes his way to that back staircase.

Ceepak waits until he hears David's footfalls climbing the steps. Then we stroll into the street to have a word with Santucci and Hoffner.

“Sal?” says Ceepak.

“Sir?”

“We have reason to believe that Mr. David Rosen murdered his father.”

“I thought it was the wife,” says Cath Hoffner, his partner. “She's such a witch, you know?”

I nod. Surprisingly, so does Ceepak.

“Currently,” he adds, “the husband, David Rosen is our primary suspect in what might have been a conspiracy to commit murder. However, we need to gather more evidence. Right now, everything we have is solid but highly circumstantial. We need to find a more direct link.”

“Don't worry,” says Santucci. “While you guys are digging up your direct links and whatnot, Hoffner and me won't let the guy out of our sight.”

“Appreciate it. We're working up a twenty-four/seven duty detail that should have your relief out here by nineteen hundred hours.”

“Cool. You think the Chief could maybe send somebody out with sandwiches for us so we don't have to desert our post? Maybe a couple cold drinks?”

“We'll make it happen,” says Ceepak.

I'm about to reach for my radio and put in the food and drink request when my cell phone starts chirping.

Ceepak nods his permission for me to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Danny?” It's Becca. “Sorry to bother you at work …”

“What's up?”

“Well, right after the cop car you guys had staking out my parking lot pulled away, Christine took off.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“Yeah. Down to Roxbury Drive. Isn't that where this whole mess got started?”

Becca's right.

102 Roxbury Drive is Shona Oppenheimer's address.

62

I
TELL
C
EEPAK WHAT
'
S UP
.

“Let's roll,” he says, practically ripping a car door off its hinges.

“Shouldn't we be chasing down evidence against David?” I say as we blast off in reverse, slam into drive, and squeal wheels up Tuna Street.

“We are in a holding pattern until the various search warrants come down. We can spare thirty minutes to prevent Ms. Lemonopolous from doing something foolish that could haunt her for the rest of her life.”

I'm remembering what Christine told me.

How she hates when mean people push other people around. “
They shouldn't get away with the horrible stuff they do. Someone has to stop them
.”

Has she decided to go vigilante on us and administer a little swift and righteous justice on Shona Oppenheimer?

With Ceepak at the wheel, we race down the length of the island in about twelve minutes. The smoky black Taurus's interior no longer has that New Car scent. It smells more like a fried fan belt.

We reach Beach Crest Heights.

My high school buddy Kurt Steilberger is once again on clipboard duty inside the guardhouse.

Ceepak fishtails to a stop with the nose of our vehicle maybe one inch away from his gate. I pop out of the passenger side door, so Kurt can see something besides smoky black glass, strobing lights, and shiny black sheet metal.

“Kurt?”

“Oh. Hey, Danny. Cool car.”

“Did you just let a Volkswagen in?”

“Yeah. Couple minutes ago.”

“Open the gate!” I shout.

“What's up?”

“Open. The. Gate!”

Ceepak gooses the gas pedal. The engine roars. The gate still doesn't budge.

It's like Kurt can't find the button.

Finally, as I slip back into my seat, the gate arm creeps skyward. When Ceepak knows he has half an inch clearance, we blast off again.

“Hang left,” I say. “One-oh-two is down the block.”

We shoot up the street.

Christine's VW is parked in the driveway outside the three-story mansion.

The front door to the house is wide open.

We're up and out of the car just in time to hear Shona Oppenheimer screaming at Christine.

“Get the hell out of here!”

“B-b-but …”

“Leave or I'll call the police.”

Ceepak takes that as his cue.

“Police!” he shouts.

Christine backs out the door.

She has something clutched in her left hand.

It glints in the sun.

“Christine?” I holler.

She whirls around.

I see what's in her hand: A slim, foil-wrapped box.

Shona Oppenheimer comes out on the porch.

“Arrest this woman!” she snarls. “She's trespassing. She should be …”

And then she recognizes me.

“Oh. It's you.”

“Ma'am?” says Ceepak, striding up the walkway to the front steps. “What seems to be the problem?”

Shona waggles a disgusted hand at Christine. “This one. She has the nerve to invade my privacy …”

“It's Samuel's birthday,” says Christine.

“So?” says Shona.

“I didn't want him to think I'd forgotten.”

“Well, we'd all rather you did. You are not welcome here, Christine. And if you keep harassing me and my family, I will have another Restraining Order issued against you and this time it'll stick!”

Christine tries to hand the shiny package to Shona. “Will you at least give this to Samuel?”

“Hell, no. It's probably poison. Like the stuff you gave to Arnold Rosen.”