Chris Grabenstein - Free Fall

“As I told my brother Friday night after that god-awful family dinner: We are close. Very, very close.”

“Why didn’t you just run one of those Maury Povich show paternity tests?” I ask.

Michael shakes his head. “David would never consent to the DNA cheek swab. Besides, it’s not dramatic enough. I wanted Dad-ums to meet his grandson’s real father. Live and in person.”

“And how did David react when you told him that you were close to identifying the sperm donor?” asks Ceepak, who’s back in the game.

“He said I was just jealous because all I can do is adopt. And as you have heard from my brother and sister-in-law, adopted children, such as Kyle, don’t count. They do not qualify as blood heirs. They can never be considered legitimate grandchildren.”

“Do you think Michael killed Dr. Rosen because there was just no way to for him win his father’s love?” I ask Ceepak when we’re back in our car

I know. I sound like one of those touchy-feely dudes with afternoon talk shows on TV.

“It’s a possibility,” says Ceepak, which is what he usually says when he can tell I’m jumping to conclusions-especially conclusions you might find inscribed inside a sappy greeting card: “ Dear Dad, you never hugged me when I was young; So here’s a poison pill to place upon your tongue! ”

It’s a little after six-eighteen hundred hours in the Ceepak Time Zone. David and Judith Rosen’s apartment will be our next stop.

“Oh, shoot,” I mumble as we climb into the stealth-mobile. “I forgot to ask Michael about his suit.”

Ceepak crinkles into the driver’s seat. “His suit?”

“Yeah. How did he know to pack that black suit he wore to the funeral?”

“You’re suggesting he anticipated his father’s death prior to his departure from California?”

“Maybe he packed the cyanide pills, too.”

“Interesting hypothesis, Danny. And your deductive reasoning is commendable as well.”

Okay. I know I’m about to get a “but” or a “however.”

“However …”

There it is.

“… as you may have also observed, Michael Rosen is constantly dressed in black. In addition to being a fashion statement popular with those in the entertainment industry, it might also be a reflection of the frugality and parsimony Michael inherited from his father.”

“You mean Michael is cheap, too?”

“Perhaps so-on a vastly different scale. Yes, his tailored suit most likely cost more than a similar, if less stylish, suit purchased at Kohl’s …”

“They sell suits at Kohl’s?”

“Indeed so.”

I’m guessing Kohl’s was one of the men’s stores Ceepak and Rita visited back in his short-lived Chief Of Police days.

“But,” Ceepak continues, “by having one very nice black suit that he can wear to any event-be it a wedding, funeral, or cocktail party-instead of a closet full of suits in various colors and textures, Michael is displaying some of the same miserliness he professed to despise in his father. It reminds of what Bruce Springsteen wrote …”

Hey, what doesn’t? Especially when you’re talking “fathers and sons.”

“‘Independence Day,’” says Ceepak, citing the song before quoting the lyric: “‘There was just no way this house could hold the two of us. I guess that we were just too much of the same kind.’”

I remember hanging at Ceepak’s place one weekend, listening to E-Street Radio, the all-Springsteen all-the-time channel on the Sirius satellite radio Rita gave Ceepak for Christmas last year. (Okay, I love Bruce, but does anybody really need a 24/7 Springsteen channel just so they can hear fifty different versions of “Born To Run” every day?) The satellite station played a bootleg recording of “Independence Day” from a 1976 concert in New York City. Before he sang the song, Springsteen told the crowd a long, heart-wrenching story about coming home to his father’s house.

“I could see the screen door, I could see my pop’s cigarette,” Springsteen said on stage. His dad kept all the lights off in the house and would sit at the kitchen table in that darkness, smoking cigarettes and working on a six-pack of beer until all the cans in the plastic rings were gone. “We’d start talkin’ about nothin’ much. How I was doin’. Pretty soon he’d ask me what I thought I was doin’ with myself, and we’d always end up screamin’ at each other.”

When the song was finished, Ceepak said something that stuck with me: “Apparently, Bruce Springsteen and I grew up in the same home.”

At the time, I thought, “That’s impossible,” because Ceepak’s from Ohio, not New Jersey. Then I realized he was being metaphorical. But still-no way are John and Joseph Ceepak “too much of the same kind.”

That’s when our radio starts squawking.

It’s Dorian Rence, our dispatcher.

“Ceepak? Have you got your ears on?”

Mrs. Rence is still a little new on the job. Thinks she’s supposed to use CB Radio jargon.

Ceepak grabs the mic.

“This is Ceepak, go.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Detective. But, well, I thought you should know.”

And then there’s this pause.

“It’s your father. Again. The gatehouse security guard at …”

Ceepak doesn’t stay parked for the rest. He jams the transmission into reverse.

“… the Oceanaire condo complex …”

Those black Nitto tires on Ceepak’s slick new ride spin so fast it smells like rubber duckie burning day at the town dump.

“… called nine-one-one …”

We rocket out of the hotel parking lot.

“Lights and sirens,” says Ceepak.

I find the buttons. Punch them.

Cars and bikes and sea gulls scurry out of our way when all those LEDs strobe to life inside their sleek black hiding places. The Batmobile is on the move.

“We’re on our way,” Ceepak says into the mic. Then he tosses it aside so he can keep both hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel and drive us NASCAR-style over to his mother’s condo complex.

Red lights and stop signs?

We barely even pause.

“I should have known,” Ceepak mutters through gritted teeth as we whip around another corner.

“Known what?” I say, hanging on to the grab bar over my door, thinking that holding it will somehow protect me when we have our high-speed collision.

“This is Monday,” says Ceepak. “Sinclair Enterprises hired a second factory-certified operator for their Free Fall who was slated to start work today.”

“Giving your dad the evening off.”

Ceepak slams on the brakes, cuts the wheel hard to the right.

We skid sideways into the Oceanaire’s entry road.

Bruce Southworth, the kid with the clipboard, is out of his guard hut.

Brian Ersalesi and John Johnston, two of our SHPD uniform cops, are standing in front of their cruiser, which has its roof bar lights swirling. No weapons are drawn. Well, except for Bruce Southworth’s clipboard.

Mr. Ceepak stands between the two SHPD officers and the security guard. All smiles. He’s carrying a bakery box. Guess he’s bringing sweets this time instead of flowers.

Ceepak and I yank open our doors and head out.

“What’s the situation?” he hollers.

“He still wants to see your mother,” Southworth hollers back.

“You know this guy, Detective?” shouts Ersalesi.

“10-4.”

“I’m his Papa!” wheezes Mr. Ceepak as he stumbles forward a foot or two. “And since when is paying a courtesy call to your spouse a crime, Johnny?”

“Since you were advised to stay away.”

“Yeah, well, that was before your mother went bonkers. She’s throwing my money down the crapper. Buying this Christine girl another lawyer? I heard all about it from Dave Rosen in H.R. at work. Your nurse pal killed Dave’s dad but your mother’s still bankrolling her? Adele’s losing it, Johnny Boy. Someone needs to make her come to her senses.”