C h a p t e r 7
Earlier that night, Micah had looked around in awe, marveling at the red-carpet frenzy and the magnificent crowd. He couldn’t have dreamed of a more perfect New York evening. The mid-August air was alive with a rare pre-autumn chill, and the lights from the paparazzi added just the right touch to Manhattan’s Midtown nightscape. Several news outlets had already coined it “THE LAUNCH PARTY OF THE DECADE,” and Micah could definitely see why. He looked around at the bustling swarm of entertainment’s elite and publishing’s power player and felt jealousy bubbling to the surface.
Josh made all of this happen, Micah thought as he walked through the vast concrete and marble courtyard and ascended the majestic stairs leading into the foyer of the new Élan headquarters. Huge two-story banners rippled down both sides of the staircase, each displaying a different celebrity featured in the September issue of Élan.
Damn, this is good.
Fucking Josh.
Micah saw Josh from a distance, talking with the actress Jennifer Lawrence at the top of the stairs. Micah made a point to brush by him, bumping him with his shoulder, just to let him know he was there.
Micah kept walking and stopped at the triple-decker appetizer table. He grabbed a shrimp and was about to choose a sauce for dipping.
“Hello, Micah!”
Startled, Micah dropped the shrimp in the cocktail sauce. At first Micah thought it was Josh, but when he turned, he was face to face with James West, Élan Publishing’s CEO, the man most often credited for the company’s dramatic success.
James West was a tall, slender man with gray hair, and at forty-three considered very young for his position. He was a handsome Harvard Business School graduate who’d started the company from scratch at age twenty-eight—a mere fifteen years ago. He owned every room he entered, and he had the money to literally own it as well. His business philosophy was to hire youthful, passionate, driven people who knew what they were doing, guide them, and watch them make him look good. The “West Way,” as his employees had coined it, was the main reason why he had hired Lennox. And that’s also why he approved of Micah as a top freelancer for his burgeoning marketing department.
“Thanks for coming!” James West replied in a loud voice, overcompensating for the crowd noise echoing off the stark cement walls.
“I wouldn’t have missed it.” Micah’s voice was at a normal level, hoping Mr. West would take the hint. “Quite the lobby, and quite the launch party.”
“Wait till you see what Josh has in store for the grand opening party, where we let you into the rest of this magnificent place!” He was still screaming. “Where’s your better half, by the way?”
“Well, sir, last time I saw Lennox, he said he should be here around …” Micah looked down at his phone and grimaced. “Any minute now.”
“Please give him my best and have him find me. We have something to discuss.”
“Will do, sir.” Micah knew this was the extent of his time with Mr. West.
“Have a good night, then.” James turned around. “Angelina!”
He was already in another conversation.
Micah continued to look through the crowd. Jenna’s late. Typical. He walked toward the celebrity meet-and-greet area, noticing how alone he felt. I wish Lennox were here.
He texted him.
OH. MY. GOD. You said you’d be right here. Lemme know an ETA, baby.
Micah looked up from his phone and saw his friend Shawn and his wife Haylee, both gawking at Meryl Streep, who was talking with Goldie Hawn. Shawn and Haylee were standing less than three feet away, staring as if their stalking would be rewarded with a private conversation.
“Oh, wow, they actually think they’re next in line to talk with her,” Micah mumbled out loud.
“You know Meryl is just dying to meet them,” said Jenna, sneaking up from behind.
“Haha, that’s what I was just thinking,” he said, kissing both sides of Jenna’s face. He looked at her little black dress. “I thought you were gonna wear the red gown, the big Halston one with the flared sleeves?”
“I couldn’t find it.”
“Jesus, Jenna, you need constant supervision.”
“Are we having fun?” she asked, in her signature coarse and crumbly voice, with a classic European upward lilt at the end of her inquiry.
“Sure! If you call ‘fun’ looking at this amazing event and the ridiculous people your boy Josh got to come here.”
“Josh told me he, um, ran into you.”
“That was fast.”
“Well, I’ve been here just a little bit, walking around with him, enjoying everything he’s done. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he told me I just missed you.”
“You still love him, even after everything that happened,” Micah said, looking for contradictory validation.
“I can’t help it. And you can’t help but like him too. Admit it.” She nudged him a little too hard, but Micah did not move. “God! You two are in constant competition. So Josh didn’t hire you for this event, who cares? You literally design everything else for this company.”
“You know it’s not about that, Jenna.” He rarely used her name so sternly, and Jenna took note.
“Oh. Speaking of, where is that handsome man of yours?” she asked, emphasizing the word yours.
“He’s so late. I was just about to call him again.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you. I’ve got some sleuthing to do.” Jenna winked to let Micah know that she knew how weird it was for her to be here. She was the executive assistant to the competition’s CEO, after all, and the only reason she was there was to be her best friend’s date. Josh had pulled some strings.
Micah headed to a nearby alcove just outside the breezeway of the lobby, dialing Lennox as he made his way through the crowd. Lennox didn’t answer, so Micah left another voice mail. “Hey, baby, where are you? I miss you. I can’t tell you how many people are asking about you. Text me or call me, I have my phone. I hope everything’s all right.”
Over an hour had passed since Micah had arrived, and the party was moving from mingling and drinking to presentations and speeches. Micah saw that Jenna had relocated to the back of the crowd, which was transitioning into an audience, and made his way toward her.
“Lennox still isn’t here, and I can’t get ahold of him. Something doesn’t feel right,” he whispered to Jenna. He kissed her good-bye and left before she could say a word.
C h a p t e r 8
“Then I took a cab, came home, opened the door, and I told you the rest.”
Micah exits his dreamlike state of remembering the normalcy of the night … how everything was beautiful and right, and then shattered in an instant. Of course, Micah has hit only the highlights outlining the evening aloud to Detective Penance. He doesn’t feel the need to go into the details his mind tends to embellish.
“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm him?” the detective asks. “Maybe this Josh character. What’s his full name, and who is he to you?”
Micah pauses, then answers.
“Josh Harrison. He had an affair with Lennox two years ago.”
“Hmm.” Detective Penance jots down the name.
“Josh is harmless and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, he was there at the party. He was in charge of the whole freaking event.”
“Still. We’ll check. How about the Élan CEO you mentioned? What was his name? Mr. James West?”
“James West, yes. I only barely know James,” Micah answers. “Although he was very serious when he said he wanted to talk to Lennox. I still have no idea what that was about.”
Lily leans forward and whispers something to Detective Penance, who then moves the conversation in another direction.
“That brings us back to you, then,” the detective says. “There’s no blood on the light switch. Can you explain that?”
“Excuse me?” Micah asks.
“You said it was dark. But Officer Palino was the fir
st on the scene, and he says the lights in the living room were already on.”
Detective Penance pauses for an answer. Nothing. He grows impatient and slightly raises his voice.
“There’s blood everywhere you touched, but there’s no blood on the light switches. Can you explain that, please?”
Again, Micah does not respond in the timely manner that Detective Penance would like, and the detective grows weary of what he takes to be consistent avoidance. He decides to shift his questioning to get Micah’s attention and almost yells. “Why did you pound on your husband’s mutilated body when you knew he was still alive?”
“Sir, I told you, I was freaking the fuck—” Micah stands up, but then he discards his momentary anger and pauses. He looks up at nothingness, then looks down.
“Geez, oh man, did I …?” Micah locks eyes with Detective Penance, then the two-way mirror, then Lily. They all become nameless, faceless people in the seeming blur that is this moment.
“Did … did I kill him?” Micah asks, to anyone who would answer. He places his hands around the temples of his forehead, slumping back in his chair. “Oh, dear God, I killed him myself.”
The door to the holding room opens.
“Fellas, that’s enough.” A new face enters the room. “Shawn Connelly, I’m the lawyer for Mr. Breuer.”
Detective Penance looks up, collects his belongings, and stands up.
“Yes, and he’s gonna need you. He’s just confessed to murdering his husband.”
C h a p t e r 9
A cockroach scurries in front of a heavily worn cardboard box, back and forth, back and forth, like a night watchman keeping guard over the contents inside.
A tiny hand slowly peels a small sticker from a dirty white sheet of paper, and places it on a small, sealed plastic bag of light brown powder.
“How’s this?” the ten-year-old voice asks, proud of his clumsy sticker placement.
“Almost.”
A larger hand takes the bag from the smaller hands, peels the sticker off, then centers it on the bag. Ghost throws the branded heroin into the cardboard box with the others. The cockroach scurries away.
The ten-year-old speaks again.
“Thanks, Daddy.”
C h a p t e r 1 0
“We need to find out what’s going on with the drugs that were found. Any leads on what scumbag uses this ghost logo?” Detective Penance is in his office, already dissecting the evidence while Micah consults with his lawyer in another room.
The old-school clock plugged into the wall of Detective Penance’s office reads 3:20am. The room is dark, with an overhead light bulb illuminating the paperwork on his desk. This is tense, but electric, just like I like it, he thinks.
“Nothing in the database on initial search, but we’re still looking,” Lily says, knowing that the “we” she is referring to is most likely only herself.
“I want this Josh character followed up on, and this CEO of the company they all work for as well,” Detective Penance orders, prompting a nod from Lily. “Apparently, there’ve now been two murders in the same night, and both victims are from the same company. This one is within our jurisdiction, so let’s get on it. The computers and phones found at the scene … once they get to the station, make sure we get the passwords we don’t have already, then make goddamn sure everything is in order, logged, and organized. I need to read and listen to these messages the suspect says he left on the victim’s phone, I need transcripts and recordings of the 9-1-1 call, and I want any and all phone records of both the victim and the suspect. Plus anything else they find on this cold-blooded murderer.”
◆
“They think you killed Lennox in cold blood?” Shawn asks Micah, as if it were the furthest thing from any earthly realm of expectation. He reaches out to touch Micah, who seems to flinch at first, but then accepts the gesture. Micah feels safe. After all, Shawn Connelly is here.
A balding straight man, short in stature, but tall in experience, Shawn is both the butt of his friends’ jokes about ego-inflated lawyers and their unabashed cockiness and the defender of his friends’ mistakes, especially when they need him most. He first met Lennox at Harvard Law School, before Lennox decided to switch from law to business. Since Lennox had always been drawn to outgoing extroverts, he and Shawn hit it off and had remained best friends despite their differing paths.
Shawn went on to become quite adept at criminal law, graduating second in his class, and had enjoyed his subsequent pick of New York City’s elite defense firms. He’d finally settled on Lyte & Morgan, where he paid his dues and blossomed into one of the most sought-after up-and-coming criminal defense attorneys in the city.
Lennox chose finance, and was hand-picked by Élan Publishing, a startup at the time, right after graduation. He also chose drugs, which almost cost him his job and his friendship with Shawn until Lennox got clean.
Through weddings, promotions, drugs, sobriety, Shawn has seen the best of Lennox and the worst. Ever the hero, Shawn now stands in service before Micah, whom he’d always admired for keeping Lennox sober. Shawn has been through way too much with Lennox, his best friend, his best man, to stand by and let Lennox’s husband be put away for something that he would never do.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Micah says, looking up at Shawn.
“I know.” Shawn grabs his hand and sits down next to Micah.
Micah, feeling true empathy for the first time throughout this awful ordeal, lays his head on Shawn’s shoulder and begins to weep. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Micah wipes his eyes on Shawn’s shoulder. Practicing his skills of walking the delicate balance between friend and lawyer, Shawn lays his head on Micah’s for a brief moment.
“Well, first of all, I need to know every detail about what happened tonight.” Shawn lifts his head. Micah takes the cue and sits up. “And not just what you told the detective. I need to know everything, what you were wearing, hearing, seeing, thinking … Did you have a fight, was he cheating again, is there someone else in the picture, was he doing drugs, was he meeting with weird people again … All of it.”
Micah nods. He thinks about how weary he is of talking and processing this horrible evening. He flashes back to seeing Lennox, hearing his gurgles, pounding on his chest, hearing the weird beeping sound, wondering about the flashing lights from the corner of the room. He wants to talk to Shawn but is fighting to keep his eyes open.
Shawn reads the situation.
“Maybe we should do this tomorrow. Let’s get you a hotel room for the night.” Shawn looks down at his watch, which reads 3:50am. “Jesus.”
✽✽✽
“Christ!” Detective Penance is on a phone call with the crime scene. “I’m sorry, one more time. Slowly.”
Lily looks on, shrugging her shoulders as if to ask, What the fuck are they saying?
“Ok, thanks.” He hangs up the phone.
“What?” asks Lily.
“Sit down.” Detective Penance smiles. Lily was already sitting. “There was a wireless camera in the corner of that room.”
“Come again?”
“The battery was dead, but the camera was still warm.”
“Wait. What? How? What? Wireless?”
“Yes!” Detective Penance exclaims. “A tiny camera, hidden in an African-looking wooden box, all hand-carved and shit, with a hole in the front. Coulda recorded everything.”
“Fuck me.”
“Yep. Now we just have to find where it recorded to.”
C h a p t e r 1 1
Josh Harrison is waiting at AM, the brunch place where he is supposed to meet Jenna. Late August is once again pounding the city with its sweltering heat, and he wonders if sitting outside is the best idea, despite it being the only open table.
Jenna is late. Sunday morning is a busy time for the NYC hot spot of the moment, and Josh is thinking of succumbing to the passive aggressive pressure from the waitress with the rolling eyes.
He has chosen t
he best spot for people-viewing, right below the two huge restaurant sign letters that read “AM.” He sits at one of three black metal curbside tables, reading the New York Times Sunday edition on his iPhone. He scrolls through a raving review of his launch party and smiles. Then he reads an in-depth story on Lennox’s murder.
Lennox.
He stops on a color photo of the murder suspect, a man who vaguely resembles himself, with the same hair, same defined features.
“Fucking Micah,” he says out loud. He runs his fingers through his sweat drenched, wavy blond locks. Lennox had a type. That’s all. Stupid to think I was ever anything more.
Despite his feelings about Lennox and Micah, Josh wants to continue enjoying his weekend, continue basking in his success. But he can’t seem to settle his thoughts.
Relaxing is supposed to be one of the perks of having a big budget. He thinks of the janitorial crew he hired, mostly likely still cleaning up after the event. So why can’t I sit back and be proud of what I’ve done?
He checks the time on his phone.
Waiting on Jenna, he thinks.
Sounds like a romantic comedy. Or a fucking frustrating film about …
“I’m so sorry.” Jenna appears from behind on his left, a full twenty minutes past her planned arrival. She kisses him on both sides of his face. “You wouldn’t believe it if you tried.”
“Jenna, lovely Jenna, right on time.” Josh tries to mask his frustration with sarcasm, a language he knows she will understand. “Where have you been? And don’t tell me you’ve been home, because you never are. You barely even sleep there.”
“Stop. You know I nanny in Soho on Friday nights, but since I had your event that night, I told her I could do Saturday instead. Just got done.”
Jenna, dressed in seersucker shorts and a yellow v-neck, crosses Josh and seats herself in the chair opposite him. She looks up at the sign above Josh’s head and smiles.
“Dammit, I missed it again,” she says.
“You and that sign.”
“My dear sweet Josh, are you okay?” Jenna reaches in her purse for a cigarette. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, it’s all been a bit too much.”
Naive Page 3
