Free Fall

62

I tell Ceepak 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.”

“Actually,” says Ceepak, climbing up the steps to put his big body between Shona and Christine, “we currently suspect that your brother-in-law, David, was the one who poisoned Dr. Rosen.”

“I know. Judith called me. Are all the cops in this town as crazy as you two?”

“No,” I say, hiking up the steps to stand beside Ceepak. “We’re special.”

I take Christine by the elbow and give her a police escort down to her parked vehicle.

“You can drop your gift off with Kurt in the guardhouse,” I whisper. “He’ll make sure it gets delivered.”

“It’s a game Samuel wanted. For his X-box.”

“Awesome.”

I hold open the door to Christine’s ride.

“David killed his father?” she says after she slides in behind the wheel.

“Yeah. We think so.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That it is.”

While the two of us take a moment to ponder the monstrosity of what David Rosen did, up on the porch, I can hear poor Ceepak asking Shona Oppenheimer if she “wants to press trespassing charges.”

“I’m thinking about it!”

“Then,” Ceepak says, “you should know, since your property is not marked, fenced in, or enclosed and I observe no notice against trespassing being otherwise given …”

Ceepak. I love when he sticks it to people and they don’t even know he’s telling them to sit on it and rotate.

“Go back to Becca’s,” I suggest to Christine. “Ceepak and I have a bunch of loose ends to tie up.”

“I have one more gift to deliver.”

“For who?”

“Ceepak’s mom. I know she’s from Ohio and Pudgy’s Fudgery does chocolate Buckeyes. There’s peanut butter in the middle …”

“Save me one,” I say.

She smiles. “I will.”

I back Ceepak’s ride out of the driveway so Christine can pull out, too.

As I watch her putter away in the rearview mirror, my cell phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Um, officer Boyle?”

“Yeah?”

“This is Arnie Rosen.”

“Hey, Arnie. Everything okay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Officer Santucci is out front …”

“I know. But they snuck out the back.”

“What do you mean?”

“My dad and that old guy who runs the Free Fall. He’s helping Dad run away.”