Free Fall

51

“Gosh, 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?”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘spy,’ but we did indeed ask Miss Joy and, later, Miss Christine to keep an eye on Dad. To monitor his physical and, yes, mental well-being. We were worried about him. Dementia is a serious problem for senior citizens. As we age, our brain shrivels.”

Yeah. Mine’s doing it now.

“If you were so concerned,” says Ceepak, “why didn’t you visit Dr. Rosen more often?”

More blinks. “Because we respected his privacy.”

“How often did your husband take money from his father?”

“Gosh, Dad was so generous. Through the years, we’ve all benefitted from his gifts.”

“I’m told Michael never asked his father for a dime.”

“And see how well he’s done? With Michael, I think Dad’s generosity was of the heart. It wasn’t easy for Dad to accept his son’s gayness.”

Yes, if Ceepak says black, this lady is going to say white.

“And please, Detectives, take into consideration all that David and I did to earn Dad’s generosity. The many meals we ate with him …”

Which, I’m guessing, Dr. Rosen always paid for.

“How we were always available to join him on a moment’s notice at a Broadway show or a symphony performance.”

Ditto on the tickets.

“We also surrendered a good deal of our own family life to David’s father.”

“How so?” says Ceepak.

“Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but Dad was a bit of a control freak. One time, right after Little Arnie was born, Dad brought over all these classical records because he didn’t like the Raffi music I’d been playing in the nursery. Said it would stunt Little Arnie’s ‘intellectual development.’”

“So he imposed himself into your daily life?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, my husband found it very difficult to stand up to his father. I guess some boys always do. It’s why we never have bottled water in our home.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dad didn’t believe in bottled water. Once, when he came over to visit Little Arnie, he saw a few bottles of Poland Spring in our fridge. ‘Is that where my money is going?’ is what Dad said to David because he had just given us a ten-thousand-dollar holiday gift. From that point on, I was forbidden to drink anything but tap water in my own home.”

“So all the money Dr. Rosen gave you came with a heavy price?”

“Exactly.”

Ceepak closes up his notebook.

“We may have more questions at a later time. Right now, we’d like to talk to David.”

“I’m sure he’s still at the office.”

“By the way,” says Ceepak, “I couldn’t help but notice the ring on your right hand. It’s quite unusual.”

I check out the ring that’s too tight for a finger on her right hand. It looks like a cigar band on a sausage.

“Thank you,” says Judith, admiring it herself. “Believe it or not, this was a Valentine’s Day gift from Dad.”

“Your father-in-law gave you a ring?”

“In a way. He gave David a gift certificate worth several thousand dollars, suggested he use it to buy me something special for Valentine’s Day. This was a few years ago. David and I had hit a rough patch. All marriages do, I suppose. Anyway, the gift certificate was for my girlfriend’s shop. Cele Deemer. Runs the cutest little boutique-The Gold Coast on Ocean Avenue. She only sells her own incredible handcrafted jewelry. They’re all one-of-a-kind items.”

“It’s very creative.”

“Thank you. Can you see the keyhole in the center of the heart? I think that is so cute.”

“Indeed. Is it gold?”

“Fourteen karat. Gold is all Cele works with. It’s why she calls her shop The Gold Coast.”

Ceepak nods.

I have to figure he’s thinking what I’m thinking: Judith’s friend, the local goldsmith, probably uses potassium cyanide in her work. She definitely could’ve loaned her gal pal a tablespoon or two last week.

Especially if Judith asked for it in her nicey-nice voice.