Free Fall

47

“We understand you saved your father’s life,” Ceepak says to Michael Rosen.

We’re in his suite at the Sea Spray, the highest-priced hotel in Sea Haven. It even has bellhops and somebody to carve an S-S logo into the sand in all the outdoor ashtrays.

“You mean the pendant?” says Michael, offering us each a chilled bottle of Pellegrino water from his mini-fridge. I see one of those Toblerone candy bars sitting in a wicker basket on top of the fridge snuggled between a tiny bag of Famous Amos cookies, a jar of cashews, and a Pringles-style can of M amp;M’s. I’m guessing every item in the basket costs at least ten bucks.

Ceepak raises his hand to say no-thanks to the bubbly water. I do the same. But I’m seriously eyeballing those M amp;M’s.

“Dad, of course, thought the monthly fee for the monitoring service was too high. So I put it on one of my credit cards.”

Michael holds a drinking glass up to the afternoon sun streaming through his twelfth-floor windows and must see a spot, because he curdles his nose.

“Filthy. Can you believe this is actually considered the ‘nicest’ hotel on the island?”

He shakes his head to further convey his “what a world, what a world” disdain.

After chatting with Christine and her lawyer, Ceepak decided it would be best if we spent the rest of the day talking to the Rosens: Michael, David, and Judith. He is convinced that our suspect pool is similar to a kiddies’ wading pool: “very, very shallow.”

“And probably full of crap,” I added.

According to Ceepak, we need to look at the nurses and the family. Every single one of them, at some point in the days prior to Dr. Rosen’s fatal pill pop, could’ve had the means and opportunity to slip a cyanide-laced capsule into the Saturday-morning meds slot.

“The key, I suspect,” Ceepak told me on the drive over to Michael’s hotel, “will be determining who had the strongest motivation.”

And so we probe the richest son first. The one who dropped by Dr. Rosen’s house on the Friday before he died hoping to take “a walk on the beach” with his father.

“Over the years, you purchased many items for your father,” says Ceepak. “Is that correct?”

“Well, somebody had to,” Michael answers. “He was too cheap to buy what he needed himself. And my brother was bleeding him dry. That’s why I never gave my father money. If I wrote my father a check, he’d just deposit it in his bank account so he could write another check for David and Judith and Little Arnie. That reminds me. I need to hire somebody to take that 3-D TV out of Dad’s house. I didn’t give it to him so he could leave it to them.”

“So you were angry with your father about his preferential treatment of your brother and his family?”

“I could not care less about the money. Honestly. As you gentlemen have undoubtedly heard, I have done pretty well for myself since leaving home thirty years ago.”

“You’re being modest,” says Ceepak.

“You made fifty-two million last year alone,” I chime in. “They put you on that list in Forbes magazine.”

Michael feigns a modest blush. “Guilty as charged. But dear boy, you forgot to mention my Emmy awards.”

“Sorry,” I say.

He brushes it off. “That’s okay. If my father were still alive, he’d tell you about each and every one of them, over and over and over again. In his eyes, that’s who I was. The very wealthy, very important, award-winning son. Trust me, with Arnold Rosen, there was no such thing as ‘unconditional love,’ not like I finally found with my partner Andrew. With Dad-ums, you had to earn it every day. I found that wildly successful television shows, Emmy awards, and millions of dollars in the bank helped.”

“When did you leave Sea Haven?”

“When I was eighteen. I went to college in California. U.S.C. Fought and scraped for everything I have. And all that time, even when I was working as a waiter in some sketchy dive to make ends meet, I never once thought about coming ‘home’ to sunny, funderful Sea Haven.”

“Why do you think your brother stayed in Sea Haven?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he likes playing miniature golf or eating pancakes the size of manhole covers. Maybe he’s really Peter Pan and refuses to grow up. Of course, Dad made staying here super easy for David. All he had to do was let Daddy run his life and produce an heir to the Rosen throne.”

Michael plops down into a chair. I can tell venting all this bottled-up anger is exhausting him.

“Here’s another reason why David did not kick the sand of this crummy little town off his shoes and run as far away as he possibly could and still be in the continental United States: David, gentlemen, is not gay. And newsflash, thirty-some years ago, Sea Haven was not, shall we say, a safe haven for boys like me.”

“And your father?” asks Ceepak. “How did he react to your sexual orientation?”

“Horribly. We’re Jewish, but I think he seriously considered becoming a Born Again Christian just so he could find one of those preachers to pray my gay away. Mom was better. In fact, she’s the one who told me to ‘move as far away from Arnold Rosen’ as I could and make my own life. She said she should’ve done it herself.”

“When did your mother pass away?”

“Seventeen years ago. January 18th.”

“She and your father weren’t close?”

“Who knows? They were never very kissy or huggy, not in front of us. Dad didn’t come home from the office most nights till nine. We only saw him on weekends when he’d take us fishing or to a football game up in New York or on some other god-awful manly adventure.”

“But your mother and father never divorced?”

“Nope. She just did a lot of retail therapy to compensate. In the end, I think Dad just wore her out.”

“How so?”

“My father-sweet and charming as he may seem when you first meet him-was a very demanding, very manipulative, very controlling, and extremely cheap, almost miserly man. Did you know, he always bought his socks and underwear at Sears because ‘nobody saw the labels on your socks and underwear.’ To do otherwise would be a waste of money, he’d say. So, you can imagine how disappointed he was when he heard I was spending a fortune on skivvies from Fred Segal.”

“And who is this Fred Segal?”

“High-end fashion boutique in Beverly Hills.”

“I see.”

“My father had a set way of doing everything. And woe betide anyone who strayed off his very rigid, straight and narrow road. Drove my mother crazy. Me, too. One time, maybe twenty, twenty-five years ago, I made the mistake of going with him to the airport. We were both flying off in different directions. Anyway, we get out of the cab at Newark airport and, being a good little son, I grab Dad’s bags and haul them over to the skycap.

“Well, my father pitched a fit. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Checking your bags.’ ‘That’s not how it’s done!’ he says, thinking I’m like David and have never flown anywhere on my own. So I say, ‘Uh, yes, Dad, it is. You give this nice young fellow your suitcase and he takes care of everything for you.’ My dad stomped his feet like a little boy. ‘No, Michael. That is not how I do it.’

“And that, gentlemen, is the key. My father could not abide anyone doing anything in a manner that didn’t conform to his well-scripted perceptions of perfection.”

Now Michael pauses.

“I suppose I should’ve thanked him for that.”

“How so?”

“Why do you think I’m such a highly paid television producer? I’m a perfectionist and a control freak. I am, gentlemen, my father’s son.”