Huddled Masses (JP Warner Book 2)

by Derek Ciccone

  The cynic in me thought we might be witnessing Cliff Sutcliffe’s ultimate ratings dream. But while some might insist pulling the plug would be the proper move here—before they encourage every wacko to take to the airwaves to spread their crazy ideas—in this case, it was the last thing Cliff should do. This was a crime scene that had millions of witnesses.

  Lauren read, “If meaningful steps are not taken to return America to its people, the events that you’ve witnessed over the last few months—Scottsdale, Atlanta, West Palm … and tonight in New York—will not only continue, but will become a daily occurrence. A new normal for America. The elites will not be able to hide from us, whether that be in a shopping mall, at a wedding, on a yacht, and numerous ways not yet seen, but already feared.”

  When Lauren finished reading the statement, Nora forced her to her feet, “You have done your duty, and now you will die with honor. You will be remembered as a hero of this revolution.”

  Lauren scoffed, “It’s your own fault that your life is what it is. Nobody made you do those drugs. These elite people you talk of didn’t shove that needle into your arm.”

  The words didn’t sway Nora. But just before she pulled the trigger, a monster rose up, like a scene out of a horror movie. Except this monster was wearing a mauve colored suit.

  Tino Fernandez made a noble attempt to save the day, but he was limited, with his hands still tied behind his back and his mouth gagged. Nora turned and fired a shot into his chest, and he fell back to the floor behind the anchor desk. Lauren screamed as Nora continued to fire shots at him.

  Nora turned back toward Lauren and fired. But nothing happened. She had used up all her shots on Tino, and she began to do a quick change of the clip. It gave Lauren a moment to act, but she remained frozen, blubbering.

  If she was going to make it out alive, she needed some sort of intervention, and perhaps the divine type. Where were the police? The SWAT team? Anybody? The place must have been surrounded by this point. If now wasn’t the time to act, then when? “Somebody help her!” I shouted at the TV screen.

  And then somebody did.

  The last person I’d ever suspect. Cliff Sutcliffe dashed in as Nora attempted to reload, and tackled her to the ground. Maybe not exactly a tackle, but he was able to grab hold of her, and hold on until the hostage team could move in.

  Chapter 25

  I stared out my bedroom window at a world I wasn’t sure I recognized anymore.

  In the reflection of the dark glass, I noticed Gwen step out of the bathroom. She was wearing one of the T-shirts that Kristi had given us at the meeting—green and gold school colors with the standard “Class of” followed by the year across the front. Except mine, in which they conveniently left off the CL. It got a lot of laughs at the time, but then everything stopped being funny.

  “You were right, you know,” I said, staring out at the darkness.

  “Did you think I was making up the fisher cat epidemic?”

  “I meant about how I was trying to pick up where we left off, and remove anything that happened in between.”

  “That’s a pretty big chunk of your life to just toss aside like it never happened.”

  “I was just a kid when I started at GNZ. I didn’t always like the direction, and the last few years were a constant battle between the reporters in the field and management back in New York. We were a big dysfunctional family, but a family nevertheless, and I feel like someone broke into the family home tonight.”

  “And it wasn’t just some random burglar who broke in, was it?”

  I kept eye contact with her in the reflection, as she stood behind me. “When you’re out there with the bombs going off around you, and you don’t know if you’ll make it out alive, you form a certain bond with people.”

  “But this bond was stronger than the usual one, wasn’t it? I could see it in your eyes while you were watching her.”

  “You’re the only one I truly ever cared about, Gwen.”

  She sighed. “That’s a sweet story, but we both know it’s not true.”

  “You think I was in love with her?”

  “What I think is that there’s been a lot of talk lately about who we are today, and how we have changed. But certain things about us remain a constant, and your constant, JP Warner, is that you care … maybe too much sometimes. So it’s alright that you cared about this Nora Reign, or some other woman who wasn’t me—I’d be disappointed to find out that you didn’t.”

  “She’s not a killer,” I said, which was an odd thing to say, having just watched her shoot someone in cold blood on national TV.

  “We never really know people.”

  “We know them, we just don’t know what they’re really capable of … or what might set them off. I’m sure Grady Benson didn’t set out to become a serial killer, but something changed inside him. Something changed inside of her.”

  Gwen wrapped her arms around me from behind, and together we stared out the window. One thing that would never change was how safe I felt in her arms.

  My phone broke up the soft moment, and I reluctantly answered. As I listened to the voice on the other end, my calm evaporated, and I could feel my pulse racing.

  When the call ended, Gwen asked with concern, “Who was that?”

  “It was Nora’s lawyer—he told me she is refusing to talk to anyone … except JP Warner.”

  Chapter 26

  I met with Nora in an airless room in the bowels of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.

  She entered the room, accompanied by armed guards, who chained her to a metal table. She wore a blue, prison-issued jumpsuit. The makeup had been scrubbed from her face, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, but she still didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer.

  The guards left the room, but were still nearby, and just a suspicious wink could send them into action. Nora’s lawyer—a thin, nondescript man with silver hair—remained. The only conversations in this place that weren’t taped were the ones solely between attorney and client, so I didn’t expect some grand confession from her, but her motives for bringing me here had roused my curiosity.

  I took a seat across from her, and met her tired eyes. Apart from the weariness, they looked as they often did—a vulnerability frosted over by a stubborn fire. “It’s been a long time,” I said.

  “Brussels, I believe,” she responded in a soft voice.

  “Like I said … a long time ago. Why am I here, Nora?”

  “To tell my story. Who better to do that than the best reporter in the business? I don’t expect you to go soft on me because of our relationship. So dig away.”

  “I think that’s exactly why you brought me here. Hoping you could manipulate me like you always have—put out a propaganda piece for you and your new Huddled Masses friends.”

  “And what would that accomplish at this point?” she said, viewing the chains wrapped around her wrists.

  “To influence potential jurors—the ones who will decide your fate at trial.”

  “Trial? That’s a good one, JP. But I’ll be lucky to see my arraignment. I wasn’t able to complete my mission, and now they’re going to finish it for me.”

  “And by not finish, you mean you didn’t take one for the team. All the other Huddled Masses killers took their own lives … except those cowards in West Palm who fled the scene.”

  “Unfortunately, I ran out of bullets.”

  “If I recall, you wasted them on Tino’s already dead body. Was that part of the plan, or was that personal for what he did to you?”

  She shook her head, suddenly animated. “If you’re talking about the drugs, I’d started on that path long before I had met him. Just a few pills to get me through a bomb-filled night, smoking a joint to make the empty life a little less empty, easing my hop from one war zone to the next. And if I was going to shoot him for revenge, I certainly wouldn’t do it on television, and turn him into an even bigger hero.”

  “How did you ge
t mixed up with this Huddled Masses group?”

  “I went to many dark places, but I’ve been sober for nine months now. It’s amazing how different things look when you’re sober.”

  “So you’re going to use drugs as an excuse?” I turned to her lawyer. “I hope you can come up with something better than that.” He didn’t appear amused.

  This time an ugly resolve came over her face. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t regret what I did last night. And I will never apologize for protecting those I care about.”

  “So if you were protecting someone, then you were threatened. They forced you to do this, didn’t they, Nora?”

  “I know this must be hard for you to comprehend, JP, but the facts are that I am a full-fledged member of Huddled Masses, and as I said, I have no regrets about what I did last night.”

  “Not even that you didn’t finish the job?”

  “I have a feeling I will be made to regret that very soon, but your focus on me is too narrow. You should be concentrating on the bigger picture of what is Huddled Masses.”

  “Then tell me how it works—who is behind it? Are there clandestine meetings in dark alleys, or is it like some big Amway conference where you all get together?”

  She shook her head like I just wasn’t getting it. “The revolution is happening right before our eyes, for all the world to see. Maybe the world has just chosen not to see it.”

  “Very well, but every revolution needs leadership. The American Revolution wouldn’t have survived without George Washington and the signers of the Declaration. Average citizens didn’t just start randomly shooting British soldiers because ‘the revolution was happening right before their eyes’.”

  “And your point is?”

  “That someone gave you specific orders to go to GNZ and do what you did, and they were the ones who targeted Tino and Lauren. And based on the fact that you’d set up a job interview weeks in advance, the timing was not coincidental. Who’s behind the curtain, Nora?”

  “I just looked in the Good Book. The plan is laid out everywhere you look—in homes, in hotel rooms, I found mine in the dumpster.”

  “The Good Book? You never struck me as the religious type.”

  She smiled coyly. “I’m a reporter—I’m wired to get to the most direct source. So for me to buy into religion, I needed to talk directly to God to get the true story. His messengers were always suspect to me.”

  “So are you saying you found God?”

  “I came close, but I ran out of time.”

  “So what’s the name of the holy creator of Huddled Masses?”

  “They call him New Colossus,” she said, which was also the name of the sonnet behind their namesake. “But as I got closer, I realized that it wasn’t a new religion—just a paint job on an old one.”

  I took a deep breath—if she was preparing for an insanity defense, this conversation could only be helpful.

  She looked intently at me. “I think it’s important that you find the message of God before it’s too late, JP. You’ve cheated death for so long—I worry you won’t find Him before death comes looking for you.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Just a friendly warning.”

  We were going around in circles, but there was one aspect of the shooting that continued to puzzle me, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. “Who brought the gun into the studio? Someone on the inside was helping you.”

  She shrugged. “That’s what makes Huddled Masses such a threat—your neighbor, your co-worker, your spouse. Nobody has ever seen New Colossus, or any tangible proof that he truly exists … yet like all gods throughout history, there has never been a shortage of those willing to act in their name.”

  The armed guards re-entered the room, informing us that we were out of time. I grew annoyed. “You basically told me nothing, Nora. So what was the point of all of this?”

  She looked at me with an intensity that burned through me, and for a brief moment I recognized the old Nora. “I knew this would be the last opportunity to see you. And I just wanted to apologize for the way things went down with us, and let you know that I’ll always care about you … no matter what you think of me.”

  Chapter 27

  Tino Fernandez’s funeral took place on St. Patrick’s Day in the cathedral of the same name.

  You had to be a pretty big deal to have your final sendoff in this venue, and Tino was all that and more. So much so that another service would be held in his hometown of Miami the following day.

  I took my seat in the back, and watched somber speaker after somber speaker remember a Tino Fernandez that I’d never met.

  When the powerful pipe organ signified that the service was over, I went to say my goodbyes to my GNZ colleagues, including the suddenly single Lauren Bowden. She was dressed in black, with hat and veil covering her blonde tresses. I don’t know if it was the dress, or maybe she’d been drowning her sorrows in food the last few days, but she looked like she’d gained significant weight in her midsection.

  Before we could make our way out, Cliff Sutcliffe approached me with an offer, as was his way, “What do you say I take you out to eat, JP? To show my appreciation for how you supported a fallen colleague.”

  I almost laughed, but this didn’t seem like the proper venue for that. “I don’t think so, Cliff.”

  “It would really mean a lot to Lauren,” he said, as if that might actually help his cause.

  “What I meant to say, Cliff, is that I’m the one who’s going to take you and Lauren out. I think you both deserve it, for the heroism you showed the other night. It made me proud to be a member of the GNZ family.”

  “It was nothing, really.”

  “It was a lot more than nothing, and we both know it. Gwen and I will feel much safer dining out with you by our side.”

  When Lauren learned of my gesture, she appeared touched. Gwen, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to touch me in the most painful of places. “You do know this is all about getting information from you about your interview with Nora Reign, right?” she whispered.

  “The information superhighway is a two lane road, my dear,” I replied with a grin, before addressing the group, “I took the liberty of booking a table at Norvell’s.” A near impossible task on one of New York’s most popular holidays, I thought to add.

  This led to more tears from Lauren. “Our restaurant, John Peter … you remembered after all this time.”

  “How could I forget? Our time together was unforgettable.”

  Gwen looked like she wanted to burst out in laughter, but was confined by the same church/funeral constrictions that held me back earlier.

  It was eight months ago during patio lunch with Lauren at Norvell’s, when I decided to give up the crazy circus. And when Carter literally carried me out, it also effectively ended my relationship with Lauren. But to prove there were no hard feelings, I was going to take her to a pricey restaurant tonight and extract information about a murder she’d witnessed. One that just didn’t add up.

  We made the short walk from St. Patrick’s Cathedral to Norvell’s. Tino’s funeral didn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm of the St. Patty’s Day revelry in Manhattan. I’m normally in favor of all holidays that are created solely as an excuse for drinking—St. Patty’s, Cinco de Mayo, Arbor Day—but that was before I moved to the city and realized that there was a one in three chance that some drunken idiot would puke on you before the night was over. And if you ride the train, the odds go up to fifty-fifty.

  We moved through the patio area where Lauren and I had eaten our final meal, and into the warm restaurant. I’d requested a table in the back for privacy.

  I recognized our waitress as Bridget, who often waited on Lauren and me when we used to frequent the place. I think she received a medal of honor for her bravery, or should have, anyway.

  She looked happily surprised to see me. I’d like to think it was because she missed my lovable charm, but it was likely because I was a really
good tipper. But when she saw that I was with Lauren, it was like she’d seen a ghost.

  When I introduced Gwen as my girlfriend, Bridget’s look turned to pleasant confusion. Perhaps she wasn’t an avid tabloid reader, and was unaware that Lauren and I had broken up. Or maybe she did read them, so she was wondering what would compel me to invite my girlfriend and ex to dinner together. I was starting to wonder the same thing.

  But being the professional she was, Bridget kept to the basics, “It’s good to see you again, and thank you for choosing Norvell’s. Our St. Patrick’s Day special is corned beef and steamed vegetables. It comes with turnips, boiled potatoes, and a slice of our homemade soda bread. Would you like to order … or maybe start with something to drink?”

  The question caused Lauren to burst into tears. And once she had all eyes upon her, she whimpered, “Tino would always order for me … and now I don’t know what to do.”

  “We are so sorry for your loss,” Bridget said in an empathetic voice. “And he was very brave to try to save you.”

  Bridget’s eyes moved to the man sitting beside her, and a light bulb went on. “Oh my gosh … you’re Cliff Sutcliffe—the one who saved the day!”

  “It was really nothing,” Cliff tried to play humble.

  “Nothing? If it wasn’t for you, there’s no telling how many lives might have been lost.”

  Lauren found her resolve. “To be fair and accurate, which is what we in the field of journalism strive for, the assailant’s gun had run out of ammunition, so anyone really could have stopped her at that point. As a news organization, I think it’s important to get the details right.”

  Her words didn’t seem to dampen Bridget’s enthusiasm. I would have loved to see how this played out, but there was more important business to get to tonight. “I think we’re ready to order,” I interrupted.

  Bridget took out her pad, and looked at me, “Will you have your usual, Mr. Warner—our greasiest cheeseburger and bottle of our cheapest beer?”