Chris Grabenstein: Free Fall

Ceepak cocks an eyebrow. “In the driveway?”

“No. She’s one of his home health aides. I figured he had a spare room for her.”

“Perhaps. But Ms. Lemonopolous never requested accommodations from Dr. Rosen. Not wishing to disturb his rest, she chose, instead, to spend the night in her vehicle. Neighbors complained. Boyce and Hartman swung by to arrest her for vagrancy.”

“Now what?” I ask.

“I promised Cam and Brad that we would find a more appropriate venue for Christine to spend the night.”

And Ceepak is a man of his word.

“Well, she can’t go back to where she’s been staying,” I say. “There was an altercation. And she doesn’t have a place of her own.”

“So she informed me. Christine has hit hard times, Danny.”

“You guys talked?”

Ceepak nods. “Apparently, she left her high-paying position in the trauma center at Mainland Medical.”

“Did she say why?”

Ceepak shakes his head. “Nor did I ask. At this juncture, it is none of my business. I have no need to pry into her personal affairs.”

Like I said earlier, it’s been a rough year for a lot of folks in Sea Haven. Ceepak’s wife, Rita, for instance, lost her catering business when all the big parties and beach bashes quit pitching their tents around town-even before Sandy blew into town. She’s back waitressing at Morgan’s Surf and Turf.

I glance at my watch. 3:22 A.M.

“Christine is due back here for her nursing shift at oh-seven-hundred hours,” says Ceepak.

So, she could grab some more Z’s-if we can find a place for her to crash for a few hours.

“I was hoping, Danny, that, given your numerous female friends, you might know someone who could take Christine in for the remainder of the night.”

I go down a mental checklist. I do have a lot of gal pals. Kara Cerise. Barb Schlichting. Dawn Scovill. Heidi Noroozy. What can I say? It was a long, cold, lonely winter. But I don’t know any of those ladies well enough to barge in on them at three-thirty in the morning with a stray cat.

And I can’t have her stay at my place. It’s tiny. Christine’s a curvaceous hottie. Do the math.

Ceepak can’t take Christine to his apartment, either. His adopted son, T.J., may be off at the Naval Academy in Annapolis (freeing up the fold-out sofa) but he and his wife (plus Barkley the dog) share a very cramped one-bedroom apartment over the Bagel Lagoon bake shop. Ceepak’s mother moved to Sea Haven last winter, but she’s in an “adults only” condo complex. And by adults, they mean people over the age of fifty-five without kids or grandkids.

“Should we take her to the house?” I suggest. “Let her bunk in one of the jail cells?”

“Probably not our best option,” says Ceepak.

Finally, it hits me. “How ’bout Becca?”

Our mutual friend Becca Adkinson’s family runs the Mussel Beach Motel. It’s the first week of June. The summer season won’t really start for another couple of weeks. They probably have a few vacant rooms.

“Excellent suggestion, Danny.”

Yeah. I just hope Becca and her dad agree.

Oh, by the way, Becca’s father, Mr. Adkinson? He’s the guy who ran for mayor against Hubert H. Sinclair.

The guy who lost.

Becca says yes.

“I’ll escort you over there,” I tell Christine.

Hey, I’m wide-awake now. Besides, it’s already Saturday. My day off.

Before Ceepak leaves, he tells me to “keep my calendar open” next week.

“I’ve asked Chief Rossi to assign you to a one-week stint with me starting Monday.”

Finally. Good news. “What’s up?”

“Annual SHPD pre-season ride inspections. As you know, there are many brand-new amusements on the boardwalk this summer.”

True. After Sandy hit, almost all the rides on the boardwalk had to be replaced. You might remember our Mad Mouse roller coaster. Well, Sandy turned it into a water park ride. A photograph of its twisted steel carcass sitting out in the Atlantic Ocean was on the front page of newspapers everywhere in the days after the storm.

“Some of these new rides,” Ceepak continues, “may, in my estimation, have criminal records.”

“Huh?”

“Sinclair Enterprises has installed a ‘Free Fall’ on its pier. It is ‘used equipment,’ Danny, purchased from Fred’s Fun Zone, a ragtag amusement park near Troy, Michigan where, according to my research, the Free Fall was responsible for one death and several injuries.”

Ceepak. The guy does criminal background checks on amusement park rides.

“Plain clothes?” I say.

“Roger that,” says Chief of Detectives Ceepak.

“Awesome.”

Baggy shorts and a shirt loose enough to hide a holster. My kind of uniform.

“The rides really don’t open till ten or eleven,” says Ceepak.

“You want to grab breakfast at the Pancake Palace first? Say, nine-thirty?”

“That’ll work. My mother and her senior citizen group are taking a bus trip to the boardwalk Monday. Want to make sure everything is up to snuff.”

“You don’t think they’re going to ride the rides, do you?”

“Actually, with my mother, you never know.”

True. Adele Ceepak is what they call a pistol. Or a firecracker. Something that sizzles and pops and does things you weren’t expecting.

I escort Christine and her VW up to the Mussel Beach Motel.

Becca, who’s bubbly and blonde, meets us out front in a pair of sloppy sweats.

“Saving another damsel in distress, Danny Boy?” she jokes with a yawn. That’s her cute way of saying thanks one more time for what went down in the Fun House last summer. It’s a long story. Remind me. I’ll tell you sometime.

“You remember Katie’s friend, Christine?” I say.

“Sure. Rough night, huh?”

Christine smiles. “Something like that.”

“You still at the hospital?”

“No. I’m mostly working as a home health aide these days.”

“Cool. Well, you must be tumblewacked. Come on. I put you on the first floor …”

“How much do we owe you?” I ask.

“It’s on the house,” says Becca. “Hey, it’s what Katie would want.”

Becca had been one of Katie Landry’s best friends, too. A lot of people were. Katie had been like that.

“Thanks, Beck,” I say. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, Christine.”

I head toward my Jeep.

“Hey, Danny,” calls Becca. “There’s two beds in the room if you want to just crash here tonight instead of driving all the way back to your place.”

“It’d be fine with me, Danny,” adds Christine.

I think about it. For two seconds.

“Good night, Becca. See you tomorrow, Christine.”

I don’t look back. I just keep on walking.

Hey, it’s what Ceepak would do.

I rack up a good seven hours of sack time and crawl out of bed a little after eleven.

This is why they invented Saturdays.

I tidy up my apartment. Okay, I pick up the socks and boxer shorts off the floor and toss then into a plastic hamper I should probably replace because I think it used to be white. Now it’s sort of grayish.

Hungry, I hop into my Jeep and head off in search of grilled Taylor Pork Roll, eggs, and cheese on a roll with salt and ketchup. It’s a Jersey thing.

A little after one, I swing by the tired mansion on Beach Lane. 1818 looks even worse in the sunshine. It’s not storm damage. It’s time damage.

I’m in a clean polo shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. I also forgot to shave. Like I said, it’s Saturday.

When I rap my knuckles on the screen door, Christine answers it. She’s in a cheery smock decorated with kittens and puppies, loose fitting green scrub pants, and pink-and-white running shoes. She smiles when she sees it’s me. I try not to wince when I notice how much make-up she had to trowel onto her neck to hide her ring of bruises.