Chris Grabenstein - Free Fall

“Thank goodness you’re here!” says the older woman.

I quickly scan her face. Her hair is jet black, her nose perfect, her skin taut and wrinkle-free. She looks like she wears makeup in her sleep.

“That vile creature attacked me!” she screeches in my face.

“You … attacked … me ,” gasps the other woman.

“I did no such thing.”

“Ma’am?” I say. “I need you to move to the other side of the room.”

“This is my home-”

“Now!”

Yeah. I sort of shouted it.

“Mom?” says the boy, up in the higher level in his wheelchair. “Please? Do like he says.”

“You heard Officer Boyle,” says Santucci. “Move it.”

I look over to the nurse.

She’s my age. Maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight. A mountain of dark, curly hair. Olive skin. Chocolate brown eyes that aren’t quite dark enough to hide her fear.

And, of course, I know her.

It’s Christine Lemonopolous. One of my old girlfriend Katie Landry’s best buds.

“Christine?” I say, arching up an eyebrow, hoping for a good explanation.

Her lips quiver into what she probably hoped might end up as a smile. It doesn’t.

“Can you breathe?” I ask. “Is your airway clear?”

She nods.

“What’s this all about?” I ask.

“I didn’t do anything, Danny.”

“Liar,” snarls the other one.

“I swear on Katie’s grave.” Christine’s voice is raw and raspy. “I didn’t do anything!”

Like I said, there’s nothing worse than hearing that from an old friend.

Especially when she drags the late, great love of your life into it.

It’s a good thing the McMansion has so many rooms.

It’s time to separate the combatants.

The lady of the house is fuming in one corner of the sunken living room. Christine stands in the other. The boy with the phone is parked near the blizzard colored sofa, shaking his head.

I know how he feels.

“Ma’am?” I say to the woman in the designer tracksuit. “Your name, please?”

“Shona Blumenfeld Oppenheimer. Widow of Arthur Oppenheimer.”

She puts “Arthur” in italics when she says it. I guess I’m supposed to be impressed. I’m not sure why but, then again, I don’t know that many impressive people.

“Mrs. Oppenheimer,” I say, “I need you to wait in another room.”

“Why?”

“He’s separating the parties involved in the altercation,” snaps Santucci, who, I guess, paid attention in cop class that day. “It’s what we do when attempting to ascertain what happened in a dispute such as this one you two got goin’ on here.”

“You’re going to take her statement before mine?” Mrs. Oppenheimer flaps a well-toned arm toward Christine.

“No, ma’am.” I nod toward the boy. “We need to talk to your son first.”

“I’m his mother. I should be there.”

“No, ma’am. You should not.”

“He’s not well. I’m going to call my lawyer.”

I give her a confused look. “Why?”

“To make sure everything is …” I can tell she’s struggling to find the right word. “Legal!”

Found it.

“Don’t worry, it will be,” says Sal. “Officer Boyle here was trained by John Ceepak.”

“Who?” says Mrs. Oppenheimer as she and Santucci finally move out of the living room.

“Biggest overgrown Boy Scout you could ever meet. Come on, I’ll tell you all about him …”

I grin. Santucci actually handled that pretty well.

“Christine?” I say when they’re out of the room.

“Yes, Danny?”

“Your neck okay?”

“It hurts.”

“Do you want an ambulance?”

“No. I don’t think it will swell up any more.”

“How ’bout you wait in the kitchen? Maybe put some ice on it?”

“Good idea.”

She leaves and I move into the upper living room. Take a seat in a very comfy, very white chair. The boy in the wheelchair is staring at the phone in his lap. Turning it over and over.

“You’re Samuel Oppenheimer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You feeling good enough to talk?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great. So, you’re the one who called nine-one-one?”

“Yeah.”

“Good for you. Smart move.”

Samuel looks up. We make eye contact. “Thanks,” he says.

“So,” I say with a shrug. “What happened?”

“They got into a fight, I guess. My mom’s been sort of stressed lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“She and my nurse, Christine, have been getting on each other’s nerves. They used to be friendly. Not anymore.”

“Christine, Ms. Lemonopolous, she’s here a lot?”

“Yes, sir. She lives here.”

Oh-kay. A live-in nurse? Not sure where this is going. Christine is curvy and cute. Don’t know if she’s, you know, dating anybody or even whose team she’s playing on. So I just nod a little. Hope Samuel will give me more to work with. He does.

“Christine is just my home health aide. She doesn’t really have a place of her own, I guess, and can’t afford to find one because she quit her real job, so Mom let her stay here rent-free in exchange for helping me with my feeding tube and, you know, the seizures. She also does housecleaning, the laundry, and I guess you’d call it babysitting if Mom stays out late on a date. Stuff like that.”

“So, how long has Christine been living here with you guys?”

“About a year, maybe. I had somebody else before, but I like Christine better.”

I press on.

“So, what happened tonight?”

“I dunno. They both went totally ballistic. I was in my room. All of a sudden, I heard shouting. Then something crashed and glass shattered.”

I look to the floor. See shards of clear and green glass, not to mention a broken-off wine goblet stem.

“I rolled out here as fast as I could,” says Samuel, “and saw the two of them going at it. Christine was kicking at Mom. Mom was grabbing Christine’s throat. I told Mom to stop. She told me to, you know, ‘eff-off.’”

“That when you called nine-one-one?”

“Yeah. You guys got here fast.”

“We caught a break. We were in the neighborhood. You okay staying here tonight?”

He gives me a look. “What do you mean?”

“You sure you’ll be safe? If not, we’ve got places you could go …”

“Don’t worry. My mom isn’t going to strangle me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Okay. If you feel different, just call nine-one-one. Or, here.” I hand him one of my business cards. “Call me. I’ll come pick you up.”

Samuel cracks a grin.

“Will you turn on those sirens again?”

I grin back. “Roger that.”

Next up is Christine in the Kitchen with the Ice Pack.

We’re not playing “Clue.” She’s administering first aid to her neck wounds.

A pair of purple bruises-what Ceepak would call ligature marks-have blossomed where Mrs. Oppenheimer’s two hands used to be.

“Do you mind if I take a photo?” I say, gesturing toward her neck.

“No.”

I pull out a small digital camera.

“Can you hold your chin up a little?” I say.

Christine does.

I snap some very unflattering photos of her bloated and bruised neck.

“So, what happened?”

“We had … a disagreement.” Her voice sounds like she spent the night screaming at a Bon Jovi concert.

“About what?”

“Some issues. So, I tried to defuse the situation by walking out of the room. That’s when she attacked me.”

I don’t react to that. “So, you live here? Take care of Samuel?”

“Yes. Part-time. He needs help with his G-I tube. And seizures. I’m basically on call all night long. Sleep in the guest room closest to Samuel’s bedroom with a baby monitor. On weekends I clean the house and do the laundry. Stuff like that.”