114 - A Watched Phone Never Rings

“Put down that goddamn phone.”

Jon’s tone was mild and without any harsh inflection, but his wife’s head snapped up on the other side of the table as though he’d barked it out like a drill sergeant.

It had been almost a week since she’d made her overly generous offer to the photographer with no word yet.  The Monday midnight deadline was looming just about five hours ahead of them and Sheridan’s anxiety was becoming more and more pronounced as time wore on. 

She hadn’t had that phone more than inches from her hand in the past three days, making Jon’s attachment to his phone look slight by comparison.  Anyone who knew him could tell you that business and his kids had him addicted to it, so Sheridan’s current fixation was intervention-worthy.

Gently putting the phone down – face-up so she could still see the screen – she picked up her fork and poked mindlessly at the pot roast and vegetables that was their meal. 

Jon felt bad for her.  This was why he hadn’t really wanted her to make the offer.  Not for a minute had he thought the guy was actually going to be able to deliver on his promise, and he knew she was setting herself up for disappointment.  But she’d been so hopeful that he indulged her.

He had even indulged her in her not-so-secret plan to make his stomach as big as hers, despite his inability to carry twins.  It was going to mean extra covert work-outs in the gym next week, but he’d been on board with anything to chip away at her obsession with the damn phone.

“He’s not going to call, is he?”

Resigned green eyes were blinking at Jon over the rim of his wineglass.  He had used his drink to drown the sigh that wanted to escape.  This is exactly what he’d been afraid of.

“Probably not, baby.”

Her fork hit the edge of the plate with a metallic ‘thunk’ and a troubled frown dug little furrows into her forehead.  “Then what are we going to do?  Hold our breath waiting to see what else the media digs out of our private lives and parades around the world?  Your mother is still mad about the ultrasound.  I know she thinks it’s my fault – my mother sure as hell does.”

He carefully set his wineglass down.  Shaking his head, he reached across the table and took the fingertips that were affixed to the phone screen, forcibly removing them from the device and wrapping them in his hand. 

“My mother is mad at what happened, but she’s very well aware that it has nothing to do with you.  You gotta remember she’s been around this stuff a long time.”

Her mouth puckered into a deeper frown and she pulled her hand away.   “Well, I haven’t and, at this rate, I’m not sure I’m going to make it a ‘long time’ without having a stroke or a long list of assault and battery charges.”

Impatience and his own disappointment made him want to snap at her to suck it up.  This was what she had signed on for and she was acting like a petulant teenager rather than a grown woman.

But…  She’s a pregnant, hormonal grown woman.  Same thing.  Keep your shit together.

“I thought you said talking to Dorothea helped?”

After she made that call for him last week, she confided that she’d spent a long time talking to his ex about how she’d kept her children out of the limelight.  God bless her, Dorothea had told Sheridan the same thing he had – that interest would fade.  Normal, day-to-day lives didn’t interest the media hounds.

“It did, to a certain extent, but even she admits I’m in a unique situation.  Her experience is limited to nosy reporters wanting to take pictures of her and the kids.   She’s never been forced to suffer this kind of invasion of privacy.  It’s like somebody’s got a personal agenda against us, Jon.”

That had crossed his mind a couple dozen times, too, but he couldn’t imagine who.  Sheridan swore to him time and time again that Suzanne and Karl had nothing to do with this, and they were the only logical choice.  Nobody else knew about the egg harvest. 

He had even grilled her over whether or not she was absolutely certain that her ex-husband had no idea about that bit of history.  Again, she swore to him there was no way.  At the same time he hoped she was right, he hoped she was wrong, because, if she was right, it meant someone’s nose was way too far up in their business.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it until he found out who it was.

“I don’t know what to say to you, Kitten.  Sometimes fame and celebrity sucks, but it is what it is.  I can’t stop people from wanting to know how many shits I take, no matter how much I want to.”

“I know.”  With those two soft words, she picked up her half-eaten dinner and took the plate to the sink. 

There had been times in his life that he wondered if the price of fame was worth the money.  Except for the odd moment here and there, up until now, the answer had been yes.  All he could do now was hope that this was another odd moment that would soon pass.

❧❧❧

Hal checked the time on the microwave in his tiny kitchen for what felt like the millionth time. 

Eight o’clock.

If he’d been wearing a watch, there was no doubt he would have carpal tunnel syndrome just from flipping his wrist over to check the time.  He was fairly certain he’d seen every minute tick off since at least five that evening.  That meant that he knew exactly how many pots of coffee he’d drunk in that time – three.  A pot an hour and it wasn’t doing his edginess any favors.

Once he had understood just how serious Sheridan Bongiovi was about her offer, Hal beat every bush he knew of to get information.  Then he, in turn, requested that everyone in those bushes put feelers out in their own networks.  Granted, that wasn’t a likely thing to happen, because his contacts didn’t like revealing their contacts, so they weren’t inclined to ask their cohorts to do the same thing.

But it had paid off.  Almost. 

There was a detective down at the 1^st Precinct who happened to be an old acquaintance of Hal’s.  Calling him a friend would be stretching it, but he had known the guy for at least twenty years. 

Back in the days when Hal was doing legitimate journalism, he was stuck covering the police blotter for the Post.  Paul Halloran had been a young rookie cop at the time, beating the street himself and, despite an age difference of at least ten years, the two men found that they had something in common – trying to make a name for themselves.  They had also found a mutual respect for one another.

Paulie had done well over the years working hard and pushing himself up through the ranks until he finally made detective about five years ago.  Whereas Hal worked just as hard, but had never been in the right place at the right time, or schmoozed the right people.  Until now. 

When he called the Precinct and given Paulie the same spiel he’d given a dozen other people – looking for someone who might be divulging information on celebrities – the detective had gone quiet.  That moment of silence made the hair stand up on the back of Hal’s neck.  Paulie knew something.  Hal could feel it in his gut.

“What kind of information,” had been the detective’s first question three days ago.

“Marriage, alcohol problems, ultrasound results.”

There was a shuffling of papers on the other end, and Hal could hear the sheets flipping over one by one as Paulie rifled through them in search of… something.  When he found what he was looking for, there was quiet again.  Then another paper rustle.

“A specific celebrity?”

By now the hair was standing so stiff on his neck that you might well have called him a porcupine.  He could see the light at the end of his tunnel.  He could see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and it was about to be his.

“Jon Bon Jovi.”

‘Flip’, ‘flip’ went the invisible papers, making him just a little bit nuts.  When they stilled, there was still no reply. 

Unable to stand the silence, Hal pressed the man a little further.  “C’mon Paulie.  Whaddaya got?”

The noncommittal grunt had him, literally, sitting on the edge of his seat.  He felt like a runner poised in the starting block, just waiting for the signal to go.  But he didn’t get the signal, only a another cue to take his mark.

“I might not have anything, but I’m working on a case that could very well be related.  Tentative lead, but nothing that will stand up in court – yet.”

It was infinitely better than any answer he’d received thus far in his search.  He would count it as a win and wait patiently for ‘yet’ to materialize.

He was patient for the next twenty-four hours.  Then he called Paulie again, getting a terse “Not yet,” for his trouble.   He was mostly patient for twenty-four hours after that, until the answer was the same. 

Patience was hard to come by when he counted by the next twenty-four, but his adrenaline levels spiked when the response earlier today was, “I’m waiting on the warrant to come down so I can go pick up the perp.  I can’t tell you anything until they’re in custody.”

That was over four hours ago. 

Four hours and twenty-one minutes.

The coffee maintained and even amped up his adrenaline rush, making him as jittery as a junkie going through DT’s as he watched the clock and his phone.  Disgusted and frustrated that his big break hinged on someone else, he left his coffee behind and moved to the ‘living room’ corner of his third-floor studio. 

Collapsing into the couch, he turned on the television in search of some kind of distraction.  Settling on the Yankees game that was about two innings in, he actually managed to get involved enough to forget the phone lying on the coffee table. 

That is until it rang somewhere in the middle of the seventh inning.  Jackknifing up from his reclined position, Hal saw the number he’d been waiting for and wasted no time in hitting the button that would answer the call. 

“Paulie?  What’s the story?” he demanded without preliminaries as he reached for his notepad and a pen.

“Perp is in custody.  Thirty-two year old Elizabeth Ann Miller of Queens….”

Hal’s relief – and accompanying grin – grew with every detail the detective released.