Nooners

by James Patterson

  “It certainly is, Tim. Certainly is. And needless to say it just puts Marterelli’s deeper under the microscope. What the hell is going on over there?”

  “Damn good question, which is why I’m calling you…and Jesus, I feel like a traitor…but I know you guys are counting on me and something happened late yesterday that I think you need to know about.”

  “I’m listening.…”

  “Right before I left work last night, I had a visit from Chris Berardo, our creative director.”

  “I know who Chris is.”

  “Well, and I don’t know quite how to say this any other way…he’s carrying. He’s got a pistol. Showed it to me, and I have no idea why.”

  “Are you sure, Tim?”

  “Absolutely. And of course with an all-points out for a murder suspect who’s killing people with a gun, a pistol, and now Bonnie Jo, well…”

  “Absolutely, Tim. Would have liked to have known about this last night—but you’ve done the right thing, thank you,” he says, and hangs up.

  Chapter 34

  I run some water in the sink. Splash some on my face and take a cold, hard look at myself in the mirror.

  I don’t recognize the guy looking back at me.

  Who are you, MacGhee? Who the hell are you, really? Where does all this madness go? Where does it end? And why? Why is this shit happening now? And what does it mean for me?

  No answers…not yet…

  I dry off with a couple of paper towels, brush my hair back, take a deep breath, and head back for the conference room. Chris is looking at me, determinedly, like he’s searching for answers, too—a different kind, no doubt—and I’m wondering if he thinks he sees a look of betrayal on my face.

  “Tim. What can we do?” It’s Mo again.

  Before I can come up with anything, I see Detective Quinn and his partner through the glass wall, quick-stepping it past Mo’s desk, headed for a conference room where Paul is waiting.

  That didn’t take long.

  Then Paul sticks his head in and, despite our conversation just twenty minutes ago, asks me to join them. I follow him over to the conference room.

  My friend Pete doesn’t look quite as friendly anymore, standing there, straight as an arrow, arms folded.

  “Detective,” I nod. He nods back, expressionless, like a stranger. Like he was trained to be.

  “This is so awful, so sad. So impossible to even believe, much less deal with,” Paul says.

  “Tragic,” I say. “Absolutely tragic. Ramon was bad enough. And Tiffany. But Bonnie Jo Hopkins? The brightest light in this agency. An inspiration to everyone. What a terrible, terrible loss.…”

  “And what a wicked coincidence, isn’t it?” Quinn says. “Three people murdered, all of whom had a relationship with this advertising agency. We sure are missing something here, that’s a damned definite.”

  I have to sit down.

  “I know you guys will get to the bottom of this,” I tell them.

  Surely they can see the devastation written all over my face.

  “Count on it,” he says, leaving no doubt he’ll be talking to me again.

  “Understand, Detective, absolutely. But you need to know something that Paul and I have just discussed. I am leaving the agency as of today, at my own initiative, and going to work with Linda Kaplan over at Kaplan-Thaler. Great opportunity. Due to start Monday. But of course you can contact me there, and you have my cell and e-mail info.”

  “Understand,” says Quinn, looking down at the floor, and then back up at me. “We’ve got a lot more talking to do with people here, too, so we’re going to get back at it. But before I go there’s something you both should know, and it’s based on the input we just got from MacGhee: Chris Berardo has been seen carrying a weapon, a pistol, inside the office—we don’t know for how long—so we’re taking him in for questioning.”

  “Are you serious, Detective?” It’s Paul, in an extended state of disbelief.

  Then he looks over at me.

  “Slam dunk, based on what MacGhee’s telling us. Want to get him away from the others to talk. But you need to know because that’s where we’re headed right now, and that’s why he’ll be leaving with us.”

  Paul and I watch as the detectives approach the meeting room and gesture for Chris to step outside. There’s twenty seconds of detective speak from Quinn and then they turn him around, place his hands up against the wall and pat him down! Surreal.

  “How did you know about the gun, Tim?” Paul wants to know.

  “Don’t ask, Paul. You wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

  All anyone can do is stare in disbelief. Gloved, Quinn removes a pistol from Chris’s inside jacket pocket, drops it in the evidence bag Garrison’s holding, and pulls Berardo’s hands down behind his back to cuff him. As they escort him out I get a satanic stare from Chris that would pierce a granite wall.

  He’s not looking for answers anymore. He knows.

  At least now the cops have a lead suspect.…

  Chapter 35

  The agency is completely unwired, just like when Ramon got killed. No, worse. The sooner I get out of here, the better.

  Quinn’s across the way, and his eyes follow me as I cross the third floor and head for the back stairs, tracking my every step. What the hell?

  Bill Kelly approaches. “Tim, oh man, I am so, so sorry for all of this. And look, I just want you to know how especially sorry I am for you and…Bonnie Jo…I…”

  “Why, man? I mean, we all loved Bonnie Jo. I worked very closely with her over the years. Just like a lot of you.”

  “Just wanted you to know, that’s all,” he tells me, with what amounts to a knowing look.

  Jesus, what else do people know about me?

  I grab a couple of empty boxes from the kitchen storage room and head up the back stairs. And here’s Lenny smoking a joint! “What the hell, Lenny? Have you lost your freakin’ mind?”

  “Want a hit?” he says.

  “No, I don’t,” I lied. “Put that thing out and get the hell out of here!”

  Yeah, it’s time to go.

  I’m crossing over the fifth floor to my cubicle and pass Clay Caulkin’s workspace. He’s one of our top account guys. “Hey, Clay, you okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he says. For the first time I see the old Adweek column, “Making Stuff Happen,” actually framed and hanging on his wall.

  “Clay, I can’t believe you’ve still got that old Adweek column on your wall. So do I. No wonder you’re so damned good.”

  “Whatever,” he says. He looks defeated, and I don’t blame him.

  There’s nobody around when I get to my cubicle. Got one more thing to take care of, so I pull out the note Juanita gave me.

  “Como?” she answers on the second ring.

  “Juanita, buenas tardes. It’s Tim MacGhee, and I have some good news for you. We’ve been able to collect some money for you.…”

  “Bueno…” is all I get.

  “Sure, so I’d like to bring it to you after work tonight. Will you be at home?”

  “Sí.”

  “And will tu madre be there, too?”

  “Sí.”

  “Okay, good. I will try to be there by seven. Is that okay?”

  “Sí.”

  “Good. Bueno. I’ll see you then,” and hang up.

  Takes me just fifteen minutes to pack my stuff. I spend another minute catching my breath. Five years, five more good years here, and boom, it’s done. It’s hard to be excited when my entire universe has caved in on me. I’ve got one chance to make it right, and that’s the new job at Kaplan-Thaler.

  Thank God for minor miracles, I think, and head for the elevator.

  But no quick escape—because Detectives Quinn and Garrison are there waiting for me. How the hell’d they get back here so fast?

  “Pete?”

  “Let’s make it Detective Quinn, MacGhee. And I’m afraid we’ve got some more questions for you.”

  “We
ll, sure. What else can I tell you? Let’s go back to my cubicle where we can talk.”

  “No, not quite. We’re going to need to take you down to the station, where we can be sure our conversation is completely private.”

  “Seriously? Well…of course, if that’s what it takes. As you can see I’m in the process of leaving the agency.”

  “Yes, like you told us. And we want to make this as easy as possible, and attract as little attention as possible. So first, we’re going to ask you to drop off your things back in your cubicle. And then we’ll escort you downstairs to our car.”

  “And I’ll take that bag,” this from Detective Garrison. I hand it to him. Nothing in it except my laptop.

  Jesus—is this their way of showing me how valuable I am to their investigation?

  By the time we head back to the elevators the entire fifth floor is watching us, with a range of expressions—curiosity, surprise, some smirks. Mary Claire, Julie Reich. All of them. Clay stands up and I get the raised fist and arm slap of indignation—the old Iberian finger, which Ramon would appreciate.

  Downstairs we pass Mo on the way out. I can’t bear to look at her, but I can see she’s clapped her right hand over her mouth in genuine concern.

  “It’s okay, Mo. We’re just going to find a more private place to talk.”

  Out on the street, Garrison locks my bag in the trunk, opens the front door, gets into the driver’s seat of their unmarked car and cranks up the engine. Quinn opens the back door so I can climb into the backseat. It’s caged, with no way to open the doors from the inside.

  What the hell is going on?

  Chapter 36

  Off we go.

  “I’m a little confused at why all this security stuff is necessary,” I ask.

  “Not to worry, MacGhee. Just official procedure. We want to get you away from the office so we can get down to business.”

  “Got it…I guess. What’d you do with Berardo?”

  “Sent him with two other officers.”

  We pull up in front of the precinct office on East 21st Street. Quinn opens the door for me and walks me inside. Garrison gets my bag out of the trunk and turns it in at the front desk.

  “Coffee? Water?” Quinn offers.

  How ’bout a cocktail?

  “Ah, water’s fine, thanks.”

  “Come with me.” I follow him over to the water cooler and then down the hall to a private…interrogation room?

  “Have a seat, MacGhee. My partner will be here momentarily.”

  I take a seat and Quinn sits down on the other side of the table. This room has no windows, bare walls, a table, and four chairs. Just like the interrogation rooms you see on TV.

  Two knocks on the door and Garrison joins us without waiting for a response.

  “Detective Scott Garrison, 21st Precinct.” A formal introduction again, and this time he presents his badged credentials to me.

  Quinn sets his Samsung smartphone on the table, taps one of the apps and then taps it again.

  “I’m going to record our conversation, MacGhee. Understand?” He slides the phone toward me, so it’s in the middle of the three of us.

  “Okay, sure…”

  “Okay, let’s get down to basics.” Here it comes. “There’s been three murders connected to the Marterelli and Partners agency, where you’ve worked for more than five years, this time around, and earlier, for some sixteen months when you first started with them back in 2004. By all indications, you are the main man there, the one with the best connections to and relationships with just about everybody there.”

  “Well, sure, you know, five years is long enough…” but I’m interrupted.

  “Correct. And of course that includes Bonnie Jo Hopkins.”

  My gut tightens.

  “What exactly is your relationship with Bonnie Jo Hopkins?”

  “You know this, Detective. I’ve worked with her ever since I got there, most recently, and she was already there back when I started with Paul right out of the Marines. She’s the key, hands-on creative in the agency, so she’s involved in virtually every aspect of our advertising, from writing, to production, and including new business pitches. So I work with her all the time.”

  “Right. What about after work hours?”

  “Well, sure, we have long days, a lot of times. Sometimes some of us unwind together at a local pub or something. In fact a bunch of us went to hear Chris Berardo’s band just, what? Monday night.”

  “What else?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Detective.”

  “What else does your relationship with Bonnie Jo Hopkins involve?”

  “Nothing, really. I mean, sure, we’re close. We share a lot of things, professional and even personal.…”

  “Have you ever been to her apartment?”

  My tightening gut twists its way up to my throat, which I have to clear.

  “No, no. Well, wait. There was this one time when I helped her get a bunch of art bags home for an out-of-town client trip she was taking the next morning, but…”

  “That’s it? That’s the only time you were at her apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “MacGhee, we’ve checked the LUDs from her cell. And there are dozens of calls from you, and from her to you, most of them after hours. What’s that all about?”

  My pulse is quickening.

  “Like I said, we’re close. The agency business is 24/7. We had lots of stuff to talk about, all the time.”

  And I realize my right leg is pumping under the table at a hundred miles an hour, and I hope he’s not seeing it.

  “Put that aside for the moment…Now, I want you to have a look at something.” He picks up his phone, swipes it a few times, and holds it out to me. Video starts playing.

  Jesus!

  “This is the lobby in Bonnie Jo’s apartment. As you can see, the lobby monitor has you entering her apartment building. This one’s from two weeks ago.”

  Yup, there I am.

  The video cuts to the next piece—me leaving.

  “And, as you can see from the time/date code, you’re leaving her building some three and a half hours later. Can you explain that—since you’ve just told us you were only there once, to drop some stuff off?”

  “Right…” I gulp. Hard. “Forgot. We had to crash on a new business pitch, so I hung around so we could work together, till the wee hours, you know?”

  “So you say. There’s more. But I want you to look at this one. As you can see from the time/date code, this is from two nights ago.…”

  Holy shit!

  “The last time anyone saw her alive…”

  “Okay, look. Yes, we had a relationship. We had an affair, actually. For a long time.”

  “Obviously, MacGhee. We’ve searched her apartment. We’ve got pictures. The hall closet is filled with clothes that are your size, that will no doubt have your DNA all over them. The bathroom is loaded with men’s toiletries, presumably yours.”

  “Oh, my God. Fine. We loved each other. And yes, I was there Wednesday night. She was alive and well. Anything that happened, happened after I left.”

  “Really? Here’s the lobby video from the next morning. You were there until seven forty-five a.m.”

  “Exactly! And we found out at work a day later that she had been murdered. Which of course is plenty of time for the killer to do his deed after I’m gone.”

  “The medical examiner’s report on time of death isn’t going to support that,” Quinn tells me.

  “Detective—ask my colleagues—I was crushed, shocked, heartbroken when we found out. Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t kill her. I loved her!”

  “A strange coincidence, all of this, don’t you think, MacGhee? But that’s okay, you don’t have to answer that. Now I want to ask you about Tiffany Stone, the actress who was killed in Grand Central Station Tuesday night, the night of Ramon’s wake.”

  “Can I have some more water?” I need a minute to try to bring some order to the u
tter chaos in my head.

  The detectives leave me alone in the room. It is a very long time before they return.

  Chapter 37

  I am about to be hoisted by my own petard, by the kinds of cruel coincidences that get the wrong guys accused. I search for some corner of my spinning head that can respond with plausible answers to these determined detectives.

  I gulp down my water and ask for more.

  “Yes, clearly I knew Tiffany…I hired her for that CrawDaddy commercial way back when.” Shut up, asshole. Just answer the questions.

  “And just how well did you know her?”

  “Not well. Honestly. She knew the creatives better, since she was in the business. She knew Bonnie Jo.” Uh-oh. Too much information!

  But of course, if they know about me and Bonnie, they probably know about me and Tiffany.

  “I mean…I knew her…but I didn’t really know her, if you get the drift…”

  “Would you be surprised to learn that we know otherwise? We’ve talked to people. Clearly you had an extended, ongoing relationship with her, too. It’s obvious she was in love with you, MacGhee. Even CrawDaddy’s CEO knew all about it.”

  “Sure. Parker Roberts and I stayed in touch for a while after the shoot. He was cool.” I babble on. “First time we met Tiffany out in LA he takes one look at her boobs and says, ‘Are those real?’ She goes, ‘Real expensive.’ From then on it was like a match made in heaven.”

  “Stop the bullshit, MacGhee. How could all of that be if you didn’t know her well? Really well. Can you answer that?”

  It’s time to come clean. Past time. I’ve got my fists clenched in full view…relax!

  I take a deep breath.

  “Actually, yes. I plead guilty. I have a weakness where women are concerned. Not especially proud of it…but I’ll own it. Tiffany and I stayed in touch over the years. Or more accurately, she stayed in touch with me. Anyway, we’d see each other from time to time, you know. Get together. Long lunches…

  “So it’s no wonder she would feel like this was the real deal.” I try a joke. “I can tell you from experience those boobs were worth every cent she spent on them…”