Tick Tock (Michael Bennett 4)

It was time for his contingency plan. The one that even Carl didn’t know about.

It was over for him, Berger thought, looking at the pill. In the sanctity of his citadel, he’d imagined that he could stare society coldly in the eye and laugh. Faced with actually doing it, he knew there was no way.

He thought about how disappointed Carl would be in him. Because the plan they’d agreed on wasn’t actually over. All that had happened so far was supposed to be only phase one.

Once Berger was dead, his will would immediately be contested by his sister in Minnesota. All of his assets, including the murder slush fund he’d given Carl access to, would immediately be frozen. Carl, perhaps the only real friend he’d ever had, would be hung out to dry.

It couldn’t be helped, Berger thought, quickly putting the pill into his mouth.

Berger surprised himself. Instead of his usual waffling, he bit down and swallowed readily. He thought he might throw up again at the sudden bitterness, but he breathed slowly and carefully until he felt better and the room began to dim.

Chapter 77

EVERYONE WAS ASLEEP when I came home after midnight, and they were still snoozing when I came out of my bedroom dressed for work at the ungodly hour of five a.m.

Well, almost everyone, I thought, spotting a light coming from the living room. I went in and saw the lamp on by the empty reading chair in the corner. I was about to click it off when I heard some giggling from behind the chair.

I leaned over. It was Bridget. In her Phineas and Ferb pajamas she was sitting Indian-style on her pillow with the latest 39 Clues book open in her lap.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey, Dad,” she said without looking up.

“Um, what are you doing out of bed so early?”

“Reading,” my daughter said, a tacit “duh” hanging in the air.

“Don’t you want to sit in the chair?”

“I can’t,” Bridget said, turning the page. “I have to read in secret because of Fiona. MC is sponsoring a contest to see who can read the most books by the end of the summer, and I think I’m one ahead of Fi-Fi. If she sees me reading, she’ll try to catch up. I want to lull her into a sense of complacency.”

I blinked and nodded. Of course. Even reading was competitive in a family of ten. Well, at least in a family of ten as crazy as mine.

“What do you get if you win?” I asked.

“Dinner and a movie with Mary Catherine. Just the two of us.”

Sounded good, I thought. I made a mental note to swing by the library on the way home.

“Well, carry on with your lulling,” I said as I smooched the top of her head and headed for the front door. “Good luck. I think.”

It was still dark when I climbed into the car and drove away from the house. Somewhere around the Brooklyn-Queens border, I pulled off the expressway and got some takeout from a diner. Back outside, surrounded by rumbling semis in the darkened parking lot, I checked in to the squad from my car.

There was no news, which in my high-profile case was actually bad news, since it meant Berger’s buddy, Carl Apt, was still missing. There still wasn’t sign one of Apt or of the Mercedes convertible Berger kept in a garage around the corner from his apartment.

Worst of all, there were no records of a Carl Apt in any of the city and state databases, no last-known address, no Social Security number, no driver’s license. Nada. Maybe I should start reading the 39 Clues, I thought as I restarted the Chevy’s engine, because no matter what we did, this ugly, baffling case just didn’t want to die.

I was up on the elevated expressway with the sun finally coming up over the decrepit Queens skyline on my right when I got a call. It was from Steve Makem, the desk sergeant at the Nineteenth Precinct.

“What’s up, Sarge?”

“You’re the primary on Berger, right? Well, heads-up. They just went in to take him to his arraignment and found him in the holding tank, unresponsive.”

I was having trouble absorbing what I was being told. Remembering my recent near-death driving-while-phoning experience, I lowered my cell as I pulled over onto the right-hand shoulder.

“Hit me again there, Steve,” I said.

“EMTs are inbound, but I saw him, Mike. Humpty had a great fall out of his stretcher. His face is a bright strawberry red like I’ve never seen before. I don’t know what, but something happened. Something bad.”