Mrs. Ceepak offers us coffee in china cups with saucers.
I don’t have any saucers, just coffee mugs. This is why there are numerous brown rings staining most of my furniture.
Hope Christine can deal.
Mrs. Ceepak also has an assortment of Pepperidge Farm cookies. And they’re not in the box or the bag. They’re on a glass tray sculpted to look like a flat flower.
“We wanted to ask you about your conversation last night with Dr. Rosen,” says Ceepak.
“Fine, dear. Would you like a Mint Milano, first?”
“No, Mom. Thanks.”
“How about a Brussels?”
“No, thank you.”
“A Tahiti? They have that coconut you like.”
Ceepak takes a cookie and crunches it. I guess he’s lost this battle before.
I pick up a dainty cookie, myself, and almost extend my pinky finger while I nibble around its edges. Almost. Mrs. Ceepak is crunching a Mint Milano. And since we all know it’s rude to talk with your mouth full of food, the only sound in the room is that of crisp cookies being ground to bits by multiple molars.
Ceepak finishes his cookie, dusts off his hands.
“Mom, in your conversation last night with Dr. Rosen, what else did he say?”
“Oh, John, he was so sad. Felt like his whole family was against him. His two boys, his daughter-in-law.”
“Were those the assassins he feared?”
“I suppose. Apparently, David and Judith were furious because, just last week, Arnie visited his lawyer and made a few changes to his will.”
Okay. Maybe I’ve seen watched too many “48 Hours Mystery” shows and old episodes of Columbo. But “Last Minute Changing Of The Will” is always a prime murder motivator-either to stop the changes or reap the rewards.
“What changes did he make?”
“I’m not sure, John. Arnie didn’t go into specifics. Just said that, when he told David and Judith what he’d done, they both blew up. ‘You’re jeopardizing your only grandson’s future,’ they said. His other boy, Michael, the one from Hollywood, he didn’t seem to mind, but Michael has money of his own. Do you think the changes Arnie made to his will is the reason someone murdered him?”
“First, Mom, we don’t know yet whether he was murdered or not …”
“I do.”