7th Heaven

by James Patterson

  She was a beauty, but what grabbed me the most was Junie Moon’s disarming, childlike appearance. Junie pulled the sash of her gold silk dressing gown tightly around her narrow waist as my partner showed her his shield, said our names and “Homicide. Mind if we come in?”

  “Homicide? You’re here to see me?” she asked. Her voice matched her appearance, not just young, but sweetened with innocence.

  “We have some questions about a missing person,” Rich said, launching his amazing, babe-catcher smile.

  Junie Moon invited us in.

  The room smelled sweet, floral, like lavender and jasmine, and the light was soft, coming from low-watt bulbs under silk-draped lampshades. Conklin and I sat on a velvet upholstered loveseat while Junie took a seat on an ottoman, clasped her hands around her knees. She was barefoot, her nail polish the pale coral color of the inside of seashells.

  “Nice place,” Conklin said.

  “Thank you. I rent it. Furnished,” she said.

  “Have you ever seen this man?” I asked Junie Moon, showing her a photo of Michael Campion.

  “You mean for real? That’s Michael Campion, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  Junie Moon’s gray eyes grew even more huge. “I’ve never seen Michael Campion in my entire life.”

  “Okay, Ms. Moon,” I said. “We have some questions we’d like to ask you at the police station.”

  Chapter 5

  JUNIE MOON SAT ACROSS FROM US in Interview Two, a twelve-by-twelve-foot gray-tiled room with a metal table, four matching chairs, and a video camera affixed to the ceiling.

  I’d checked twice to be sure. The camera was loaded and running.

  Junie was now wearing an open-weave pink cardigan over a lace-trimmed cami, jeans, and sneakers, no makeup, and – I’m not overstating this – she looked like she was in the tenth grade.

  Conklin had started the interview by reading Junie Moon her Miranda rights in a charming, “no big deal,” respectful manner. She initialed the acknowledgment of rights form without complaint, but still, it irked the hell out of me. Junie Moon wasn’t under arrest. We didn’t have to Mirandize her for a noncustodial interview, and Conklin’s warning might very well inhibit her from telling us something we urgently needed to know. I swallowed my pique. What was done was done.

  Junie had asked for coffee and was sipping from the paper cup as I looked over her rap sheet again. I mentioned her three arrests for prostitution, and she told me that since she’d changed her name, she hadn’t been arrested for anything.

  “I feel like a new person,” she said.

  There were no track marks on her arms, no bruises that I could see, and that made it even less understandable. What was the draw? What was the hook?

  Why would a pretty girl like Junie turn pro?

  “I took my name from an old Liza Minnelli movie,” she was telling Conklin. “It was called Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon. A lot of my clients ask me to tell them that,” she said with a wistful smile.

  Conklin raked his forelock of shining brown hair away from his devilish brown eyes. I was sure that Rich had never seen the movie or read the book. “Is that so?” he said. “That’s cool.”

  “So, Junie,” I said, “most of your clients are prep school kids?”

  “Tell me the truth, Sergeant Boxer. Should I get a lawyer? Because I think you’re trying to say that I have sex with underage boys, and that’s not true.”

  “You ask for their driver’s licenses before you take off your pants?”

  “We’re not interested in your, ah, social activities, Junie,” Conklin said, breaking in. “We’re only interested in Michael Campion.”

  “I told you,” she said, her voice trembling just a bit. “I’ve never met him, and I think I would know.”

  “Understand,” I said, “we’re not blaming you for anything. We know Michael was sick. Maybe his heart gave out while he was with you -”

  “He was never a client,” Junie insisted. “I would have been honored, you know, but it just didn’t happen.”

  Conklin turned off the dazzling smile, said, “Junie. Work with us and we’ll leave you and your business alone. Keep stonewalling us and vice is going to nail you to the wall.”

  We played patty-cake with Junie for about two hours, using every legal technique in the book. We made her feel safe. We leaned on her, lied to her, reassured her, and threatened her. And after all that, Junie still denied any knowledge of Michael Campion. In the end, I played our only card, slamming my hand down on the table for emphasis.

  “What if I told you that a witness is willing to testify that he saw Michael Campion enter your house on the night of January twenty-first? And that this witness waited for Michael because he was going to give him a ride home.

  “But that never happened, Junie, because Michael never left your house.”

  “A witness? But that’s impossible,” said the young woman. “It has to be a mistake.”

  I was desperate to crack open this one miserable lead, but we were getting no traction at all. I was starting to believe that Jacobi’s anonymous tipster was yet another crank caller – and I was seriously considering waking Jacobi and peppering him with a few choice words – when Junie looked down at the table. Her eyes were moist and her face seemed pinched, actually transformed by grief.

  “You’re right, you’re right, and I can’t take this anymore. If you turn that thing off, I’ll tell you what happened.”

  I exchanged startled looks with Conklin. Then I snapped out of it. I reached up to the video camera and switched it off. “You can’t go wrong if you tell us the truth,” I said, my heart going ga-lump, ga-lump.

  I leaned forward, folded my hands on the table.

  And Junie began to tell us everything.

  Chapter 6

  “IT HAPPENED just like you said,” Junie said, looking up at us with an anguished expression I read as fear and pain.

  “Michael died?” I asked her. “He is, in fact, dead?”

  “Can I start at the beginning?” Junie asked Conklin.

  “Sure,” Rich told her. “Take your time.”

  “See, I didn’t know who he was at first,” Junie said. “When Michael called to make the date, he gave me a fake name. So when I opened the door and there he was – oh, my God. The boy in the bubble. He’d come to see me!”

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “He was really nervous,” Junie said. “Shifting from one foot to the other. Looking at the window like someone could be watching him. I offered him a drink, but he said no, he didn’t want to forget anything. He said that he was a virgin.”

  Junie bowed her head and tears spilled out of her eyes, dropped to the table. Conklin passed her the box of tissues, and we looked at each other in shock as we waited her out.

  “A lot of boys are virgins when they come to me,” she said at last. “Sometimes they like to pretend that we’re having a date, and I make sure it’s the best date they ever had.”

  “I’m sure,” Conklin murmured. “So is that what happened with Michael? He pretended he was on a date?”

  “Yeah,” Junie said. “And as soon as we got into the bedroom, he told me his real name – and I told him mine!

  “He got a real kick out of that, and then he started telling me about his life. He was a champion chess player on the Internet, did you know that? And he didn’t act like a celebrity. He was super real. I started to think we were on a date, too.”

  “You got around to having sex with him, Junie?” I asked.

  “Well, sure. He put the money on the night table, and I took off his clothes, and we had, you know, just started when – when he had to stop. He said he was in pain,” Junie said, touching her chest with the flat of her palm. “And I knew about his heart, of course, but I hoped it would pass.”

  And then she broke down, put her arms on the table, her head in her arms, and sobbed as though she’d really cared.

  “He got worse,
” Junie choked out. “He was saying, ‘Call my dad,’ but I couldn’t move. I didn’t know how to call his father. And if I had, what would I say? That I was a prostitute? His dad was Governor Campion. He would’ve put me in jail forever.

  “So I held Michael in my arms and sang to him,” Junie told us. “I hoped he’d start to feel better,” she said, lifting her tearstained face. “But he got worse.”

  Chapter 7

  THE MUSCLE TWITCHING in Conklin’s jaw was the only outward sign that he was as stunned by Junie’s confession as I was.

  “How long did it take for Michael to die?” he asked Junie Moon.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a couple of minutes. Maybe a little more. It was awful, awful,” Junie said, shaking her head at the memory. “About then, that’s when I called my boyfriend.”

  “You called your boyfriend?” I shouted. “Is he a doctor?”

  “No. But I needed him. And so Ricky came over, and Michael had passed away by then, so we put him into the bathtub. And then Ricky and I talked for a long time about what to do.”

  I wanted to scream, You moron! You might have saved him! Michael Campion might have lived. I wanted to shake her. Slap her bimbo face – so I got a grip on myself, sat back, and let Conklin keep the ball rolling.

  “So what did you do with his body, Junie? Where is Michael now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” I said, getting up from my chair, making a racket with it, taking a couple of laps around the table.

  Junie started speaking quickly, as if by talking fast she’d get to the end of her story and it would all be over.

  “After a few hours, Ricky decided to cut up his body with a knife. It was the most horrible thing I could ever imagine – and I grew up on a farm! I was throwing up and crying,” Junie said, looking as though she might do it now.

  I pulled out my chair again, put my butt in the seat, determined not to scare the little hooker even as she shocked me to the bone.

  “But once we started cutting, there was no way back,” Junie said, pleading to Conklin with her eyes. “I helped Ricky put Michael’s body into about eight garbage bags, and then we piled the bags into Ricky’s truck. It was like five in the morning. And no one was around.”

  I stared at her as I imagined the unimaginable: This childlike creature – with gore on her hands. The body of Michael Campion in bloody chunks.

  I heard Conklin say, “Go on, Junie. We’re with you. Get it all off your chest.”

  “We drove up the coast a few hours,” Junie said, now telling the story as if she were recalling a dream. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up, Ricky was saying, ‘This is the end of the line.’ We were parked in the back of a McDonald’s, and there were some Dumpsters back there.

  “That’s where we left the garbage bags.”

  “What town? Do you know?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Think,” I snapped.

  “I’ll try.”

  Junie gave us her boyfriend’s name and address, and I wrote it all down. Rich passed her a pad of paper and asked her if she’d like to make her statement official.

  “Not really,” she said, seeming empty and exhausted. “So… will you drive me home now?”

  “Not really,” I repeated back at her. “Stand up and put your hands behind your back.”

  “You’re arresting me?”

  “Yes. We are.”

  Even on the tightest notch, the cuffs were loose around her wrists.

  “But – I told you the truth!”

  “And we appreciate it,” I said. “Thank you very much. You’re under arrest for tampering with evidence and interfering with a police investigation. That should hold you for now.”

  Junie was crying again, telling Conklin how sorry she was and that it wasn’t her fault. I was scanning the map in my mind, imagining the towns along the coast, the six hundred McDonald’s restaurants in Northern California.

  And I was wondering if there was a chance in the world that we’d ever recover Michael Campion’s remains.

  Chapter 8

  AT JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT, I was sitting on a kitchen stool watching Joe put pasta on to boil. Joe is a big, gorgeous guy, over six feet, dark hair, bright blue eyes, and now he was standing at the stove in his blue boxers, his hair rumpled and his dear face creased with sleep. He looked husband-y and he loved me.

  I loved him, too.

  That’s why Joe had just moved to San Francisco from DC, ending our tumultuous long-distance relationship in favor of starting something new and maybe permanent. And although Joe had rented a fantastic apartment on Lake Street, a month after his move he’d brought over his copper-bottomed cookware and started sleeping in my bed five nights a week. Luckily, I’d been able to move up to the third floor of my building to give us a little more room.

  Our relationship had gotten richer and more loving, exactly what I’d hoped for.

  So I had to ask myself – why was the engagement ring Joe had given me still in its black velvet box, diamonds blazing in the dark?

  Why couldn’t I just say yes?

  “What did Cindy tell you?” I asked him.

  “Verbatim? She said, ‘Here’s Martha. Lindsay got a break in the Campion case and she’s on it. Tell. Her. She wrecked our weekend, and I’m calling her in the morning for a quote. And she’d better give me a good one.’ ”

  I laughed at Joe’s imitation of Cindy, who is not only my friend, but also the top reporter on the Chronicle’s crime desk.

  “It’s either tell her everything,” I said, “or tell her nothing. And for now, it’s nothing.”

  “So, fill me in, Blondie. Since I’m wide-awake.”

  I took a deep breath and told Joe all about Junie Moon; how she’d denied everything for two hours before telling us to turn off the camera, then talking about her “date” with Michael and his apparent heart attack; and how instead of calling 911, Junie had sung Michael Campion a lullaby as his heart bucked to a halt and killed him.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  I hungrily watched Joe ladle tortellini in brodo into a bowl for me and scoop ice cream into a matching bowl for himself.

  “Where’s the body?” Joe asked me, pulling out a stool and sitting beside me.

  “That’s the sixty-million-dollar question,” I said, referring to the reported size of the Campion fortune. I told Joe the rest of it: Junie’s dazed speech about Michael Campion’s dismemberment, the subsequent run up the coast with her boyfriend, and the eventual body dump behind a fast food restaurant – somewhere.

  “You know, Conklin read Junie her rights when we brought her in for questioning,” I mused. “And it pissed me off.

  “Junie wasn’t in custody, and I was sure if she was Mirandized, she wouldn’t talk. And frankly, I believed what she said at first, that everything she knew about Michael Campion she’d read in People magazine. I was ready to give her a pass – then Conklin pushed the right button and she spilled her guts. It was a good thing that he’d read her her rights.”

  I shook my head thinking about it. “Rich has such confidence for a young cop, not to mention an astonishing way with women,” I said, warming to the subject. “And it’s not just that he’s great-looking, it’s that he’s very respectful. And he’s very smart. And women just want to tell him everything…”

  Joe reached for my empty bowl and stood up, abruptly.

  “Honey?”

  “It’s getting so I feel like I know this guy,” Joe said over the sound of water running in the sink. “I’d like to meet him sometime.”

  “Sure -”

  “What do you say we go to bed, Lindsay?” he said, cutting me off. “It’s been a long night.”

  Chapter 9

  AT AROUND EIGHT the next morning, we found Ricky Malcolm jiggling his key into the front door of a shabby apartment house on Mission Street. He made us as cops and tried to take off, so we scuffled with him on the sidewalk and convi
nced him to come to the Hall.

  “You’re not under arrest,” I’d said, escorting him to our car. “We just want to hear your side of the story.”

  Ricky was in “the box” now, glaring at me with his weird, wide-spaced green eyes, tattooed arms crossed over his chest, his face blanched with the nocturnal pallor of a man who hadn’t seen broad daylight in years.

  Within the forest of tattoos on Malcolm’s right arm was a red heart with the initials R.M. The heart was impaled on the hook of a crescent moon. Malcolm looked predatory and violent, and now I was wondering if Junie’s story of Michael Campion’s death was true.

  Had Campion really died of natural causes?

  Or had this freak walked in on Michael and Junie – and killed him?

  Malcolm’s sheet showed three arrests, one conviction, all for possession. I slapped the folder closed.

  “What can you tell us about Michael Campion?” I asked him.

  “What I read in the papers,” he said.

  The interview went on in this vein for a couple of hours, and since Conklin’s charms had no effect on Ricky Malcolm, I took the lead. I was trying to get him to say anything, even lies that we could use to trip him up later, but Ricky was stubborn or cagey or both. He denied any knowledge of Michael Campion, alive or dead.

  I blinked first.

  “I think I understand what happened, Ricky,” I said. “Your girlfriend was in big trouble, and so you had to help her out. Pretty understandable, I guess.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The body, Ricky. You remember. When Michael Campion died in Junie’s bed.”

  Malcolm snorted. “Is she saying that actually happened? And that I had something to do with it?”

  “Junie confessed, you understand,” Conklin said. “We know what happened. The kid was dead when you got there. That wasn’t your fault, and we’re not putting that on you.”