Free Fall

56

“Ms. Deemer?” says Ceepak.

“Yes?”

“I would be remiss if I did not encourage you to take better security precautions and more stringently control access to your workroom. Cyanide gas, which could be generated in a simple spill, is what many states with the death penalty use to execute …”

The radios clipped to both of our belts start squawking.

“Detective Ceepak?” bursts out of the radio surrounded by static.

“Excuse me,” Ceepak says to the jewelry storeowner as he reaches for his radio.

“Please,” she says, sounding annoyed. “Be my guest.”

“This is Ceepak. Go.”

“Yeah, this is Officer Al Hallonquist. Me and Craig Kennedy just made our loop through the Sea Spray Motel parking lot and eyeballed that guy you asked us to keep tabs on.”

“Michael Rosen?”

“Right. He just took off in his white rental car. We tailed him as he cruised out of the parking lot. Kept hoping for a busted tail light or a minor traffic infraction, but …”

“Where are you now?”

“Three cars behind him. On the causeway bridge. Another hundred yards, they’re out of our jurisdiction.”

“Stay with him.”

“Okay, but like I said …”

“Stay with him, Officer Hallonquist. We need to know where Michael Rosen is headed. I will personally assume all responsibility for any jurisdictional blowback.”

Hallonquist gives us a 10-4 and tells us he’ll continue following Michael. Ceepak and I dash outside, hop into the Detective-mobile, and blast off.

And I’m hanging on to that grab handle over the passenger door again while Ceepak bobs and weaves his way through traffic.

A couple minutes later, Hallonquist radios in with Michael Rosen’s final destination: The Garden State Reproductive Science Center in Avondale. I’m guessing Michael wants to chat with Revae Dunn some more.

“He went into the building,” says Hallonquist over the radio.

“Roger that,” says Ceepak. “We’ll take it from here. Return to Sea Haven. And Al?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Riding in Ceepak’s turbocharged black bullet, we’re at the clinic five minutes after David.

We shove open the swinging glass doors and stalk into the medical building, making a beeline for Revae Dunn’s office. We shove open her door, too. Ceepak is not in the mood for knocking, today.

When we barge into Revae Dunn’s posh office, we find her and Michael sitting with an aging surfer dude with curly blonde hair. Franz Gruber. Yes. I know him, too.

“Yo, Danny boy. How fare thee, dude?”

When I was a teenager, Mr. Gruber was my surfing instructor on Saturday mornings. For a couple months, anyway. I didn’t like all the wiping out or the salt water shooting up my nostrils when I fell face-first into the foam.

“I’m sorry, officers,” says Revae Dunn. “This is a private meeting.”

Ceepak ignores her. “Mr. Rosen? We asked you not to leave Sea Haven until we concluded our investigation into your father’s murder.”

“So, sue me,” he says.

“We don’t sue,” I say. “We arrest.”

“Take a chill pill, detective Boyle,” says Michael, sounding all snitty. “You two are going to love this. Ms. Dunn has validated my substantial monetary investment in her and her sister Monae. She has, at long last, located Little Arnie’s true father.”

Michael happily bobs his head toward Mr. Gruber.

“Like I told you yesterday, ever since my one and only nephew hit puberty and started blossoming into a handsome young lad, I have been wondering about Little Arnie’s paternity. His perfect teeth. His athletic prowess. His blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. These are not Rosen traits, gentlemen. Trust me.”

Mr. Gruber grins. His teeth are perfect. His eyes sparkle like blue marbles.

Michael keeps going. “Now I knew that, in the ninth year of their marriage, David and Judith began investigating various fertility treatments. How did I know this? Because my father kvetched and moaned to me about paying for them.” He turns to Revae. “How much did Dad-ums pay you people?”

“All told?” says Monae’s sister. “One hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars.”

“One hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars!” Michael fans his face like the number might give him a heat attack. “All that money and still Judith could not conceive. Why?”

Michael, once again, turns to Revae.

“Your brother, David, was shooting blanks.”

Ceepak raises a hand. “Excuse me, Ms. Dunn. Aren’t you divulging confidential information?”

She shrugs. “So? I figure Michael has a right to know the truth.”

Yeah, I’m thinking. Especially if he bought you a brand new Jaguar.

Ceepak’s jaw joint is popping in and out near his ear again but he doesn’t stop Michael and Revae Dunn from revealing everything they’ve learned in their well-financed investigation.

“When Mr. David Rosen’s sperm proved incapable of fertilizing his wife’s eggs,” explains Ms. Dunn, flipping through a stack of papers, “Mr. and Mrs. Rosen filled out a request for donor sperm. They specified that the donor be athletic, intelligent …”

“I’m in Mensa,” says Franz. “But I find the meetings so lugubrious.”

“She also wanted her son to be handsome and, preferably, blonde,” says Revae.

“Everything her husband wasn’t,” adds Michael.

Franz holds up his hands. “What can I say? I was and remain the perfect package. But hey, I’m sorry the little dude lost his granddaddy.” Now Franz scratches the shaggy hair behind his ear like a flea-bitten dog. “Maybe I should pay him a visit. Assuage his emotional anguish with an ice cream cone or something.”

“A little over fourteen years ago,” says Revae Dunn, very drily, “Mr. Gruber’s sperm sample, then known as Donor One-four-three, fertilized Mrs. Rosen’s egg in a Petri dish and created the child named Arnold David Rosen.”

“Dig it,” says Gruber, cocking a thumb toward Revae. “According to Ms. Dunn, here, I’ve spawned like a hundred and fifty kids. Who knew? I just did it for beer money, man. Seventy five bucks a pop for reading lascivious letters to Penthouse and, you know-choking my chicken.”

I just nod and try to smile.

“After that horrible dinner on Friday night with Father, where both he and David belittled my choice of adoption,” says Michael, “I warned my brother. Told him I was this close to uncovering the whole truth about Little Arnie.”

Ceepak leans forward.

“What exactly did you say?”

“I told David that he and Dad shouldn’t look down their noses at my adopted son. I also suggested that he who laughs last laughs loudest and that, judging by Little Arnie’s Germanic good looks, I wouldn’t be surprised if he, for all practical purposes, was adopted as well. Like I said, I let David know that I was very close to finding out the whole truth.”

Franz Gruber does a little wiggle-fingered wave.

“It was me, man. And yo, if this generous Hollywood mogul is willing to provide compensation to the tune of fifty thousand big dollars, I have no qualms about totally rescinding my confidentiality agreement with the clinic and going public.”

Ceepak focuses on Michael. “So on Friday night, you told your brother you knew that his son might not be his grandfather’s legitimate ‘bloodline heir’?”

Michael smirks. “I did indeed. Right there in the restaurant parking lot after Monae drove Dad-ums home. And you know what, detectives? It felt good. Really, really good.”

“And when you heard your father’s provisions for his grandson in his will?”

“That, I confess, felt horrible. It meant I had missed my deadline. I should’ve completed this task sooner. Before my father died. But it occurs to me, that’s probably why David and/or Judith poisoned the poor bastard: to prevent him from learning the god-awful truth and completely cutting them out of his will.”

“Danny?” says Ceepak.

I’m up. We need to leave. Now.

Our suspect list?

It’s down to two.