SOME BUSINESS
by Charlie Kondek
Rain on a building, West Grand
Boulevard, Detroit. Five gray stories, three of them belonged to an ad agency,
FNK, formerly Finch Newcomb Kincaid. General manager and part owner Alex Zymond
sat at his desk in the agency’s biggest office wondering if he could risk
smoking a cigarette there or if it’d set off the building’s fire alarms. Zymond
wished you could still smoke in the office like when he’d started in
advertising in the ‘80s, but he supposed a lot about advertising had changed, some
for the better; others stayed just about the same. Like how there was nothing
unusual about people working late, especially when trying to meet a deadline.
Unusual, one of them dying at his desk. Even less usual, dying there of
unnatural causes.
Zymond’s office had a glass wall through which he could see the entire floor below him, acres of desks, cubes, production suites and equipment, couches and common tables, one of them occupied by uneaten sandwiches in wax paper. It also afforded him a view of their biggest conference room, also with a glass wall, its interior visible when the curtains were open, as they were now. From where he sat, Zymond could see:
Executive creative director Trevor Wells, head over his desk in one of the larger cubes, permanently that way because someone had apparently bashed in Trevor’s head with one of his D Show awards. A small lake of blood circled Trevor’s keyboard and marched across his creative briefs. Police tape surrounded his cube, and the cadre of forensic examiners photographing, sampling, measuring and cataloguing every inch of its contents had ebbed so that these men and women in their uniforms and coveralls trickled toward the agency’s lobby and out its doors.
In the conference room, the DPD homicide detective moved slowly among the FNK people sitting uncomfortably at the long, boomerang-shaped table. The detective was a handsome, dapperly dressed black man with a mustache whose name – Zymond had it on a card on his desk – was Lt. Crown. His partner was an older white sergeant called Currie. At the table:
Ingrid St. Cyr, brand strategist, bulldog-like, frowning.
Nathan Lachance, creative director, lithe and tattooed. Two producers from his team, younger guys whose names Zymond forgot, and an intern named… Chad? Brad?
Account director Shane Jaskulski and two young women from his team, Lindsay and Allison.
Video editor Jimmy Scagliotti. Sound editor Larry Ruben.
Two women from the evening cleaning staff, Roberta and Elise.
Crown was saying something that seemed to make them all more miserable if that were possible. He and Currie had interviewed them individually and repeatedly over the course of several hours. Now, Crown and Currie exited the conference room and crossed the floor to the staircase that led to Zymond’s office.
The door was open, so Crown didn’t have to knock. “I apologize for keeping all of you here for so long,” he said. He had a voice coffee rich and saucer smooth. “And I thank you for your patience. As I and Sgt. Currie explained, the best way to nab a killer is as close in time and space to the murder as possible. We’re lucky we were able to contain the crime scene this way.”
“Of course. I understand.” Zymond had been at home when the body had been discovered and the police called, and just about to take his first bite of supper, forgoing it and a second glass of wine to return to the office to oversee cooperation with the police.
“The good news,” Crown announced, “is we’re going to make an arrest tonight, er, this morning. Through cross-examination and the circumstantial evidence at the scene, we’re able to determine who in this building killed Trevor Wells.”
“That’s excellent. Can you tell me?”
“Yes. I’d like your feedback on our ideas, actually. But will you permit me to observe… advertising seems to be a passionate business. It’s astounding, but almost everyone in this building seemed to have good reason to hate Mr. Wells.”
“Yes, well, when you have a process that requires so much collaboration, on an output that involves so much creativity, there’s bound so be some arguments and bruised feelings. Still, even among creative directors, who are notoriously cranky and demanding, Trevor was… challenging to work with.”
“You noted the process is collaborative and the output creative. Subjective, maybe, could we say? A lot of opinions on what makes a good ad?”
“Informed opinions, but I’d say that’s fair. Each person has to contribute from his or her own discipline. Creative directors want to do award-winning work. Account executives want to keep their clients satisfied. Strategists have done the research on the target audience, and want the work to incorporate that. Producers just wanna get the damn thing made.”
“Permit me another observation,” said Crown carefully, “one that may be unkind. It seems to Currie and me that people in advertising are… refugees, shall we say, from other possible professions. Like they might have done something in the arts or social sciences but pursued this more lucrative trade instead. In other words…” He consulted a notebook. “Trevor Wells was a creative director because he could not be a painter. Nathan Lachance a frustrated writer. Shane Jaskulski acts like he is the only adult in the room and knows how his clients should run their business better than they do. Jimmy Scagliotti and Larry Ruben belong in Hollywood. Ingrid St. Cyr sounds like she wants to be a psychologist. She told me she ‘thinks for a living,’ which, as a detective, I have to tell you, I found highly amusing. My point is, people in advertising seem frustrated that they’re not in other, more respected jobs. Do you think that’s accurate? And could the phenomenon, plus the high frequency of layoffs in your industry, contribute to the passion someone feels about the people they work with?”
Zymond smiled gently. “I suppose there’s some truth to that. But you may be overestimating the role these emotions play in how they behave.”
Still consulting the notebook, Crown leaned forward. His partner, Currie, stood calm and emotionless as Crown conjectured, “Lachance said Wells ruined his work. Said he torpedoed or changed his ideas, distanced himself from any criticism when things went wrong, took credit when they went right. Jaskulski claims to have loved the man like a brother, but that, like brothers, they could almost come to blows over bitter disagreements. His assistant account executives recounted several screaming matches between them. Scagliotti and Ruben described him as a complete tyrant, prone to outlandish tantrums, and said that editing for him was like being sent to hell. St. Cyr said he’d argue with her over every word in a brief, even whether grass was green or the sky blue. No surprise, he wasn’t particularly nice to the cleaning women. Look, I get it, people have conflicts at work, but somewhere between seven o’clock, when someone saw Wells getting a sandwich in the common area, and ten after nine, when Allison found him dead at his desk, somebody smashed in his head. That’s a brutal, personal murder, and there are 12 people on hand that might have had a motive to do it.”
Crown stood. Zymond’s office was large enough for him to pace. “Fortunately, we’re able to eliminate some of the suspects because of the physical nature of the crime. That D Show award can be held in one hand, but it’s heavy. It’s shaped like the Detroit English D, which makes it a jagged instrument, but awkward to utilize. And Wells was hit more than once, so whoever did it had to have the strength, deftness and hand size to wield it effectively. Because of that, I think we can rule out all of the women except Roberta, who’s large enough, and Ruben, who has shoulder problems from years of maneuvering sound equipment.”
Crown gestured at the glass wall. “You can’t tell from here, but Wells was struck from behind on the left side of his head. That means whoever struck him was left-handed, bringing the murder weapon down from left to right. Because of that, we can rule out Roberta, who is right-handed. That leaves only one possibility.” He paused to let the sound of the rain emphasize his conclusion. “Nathan Lachance. He had the motive, ability, and, tonight, the opportunity to repay his director, Trevor Wells, for all the humiliations heaped on him over the years.”
Crown crossed his hands in front of him respectfully, waiting for Zymond’s reaction. Currie’s stone posture had not altered, but he seemed to watch Zymond carefully. Zymond really wanted that cigarette. He said, “I think you’d better see something.”
Crown and Currie moved closer as Zymond awakened the screen of his laptop with a few taps and turned it so that all three of them could see the screen, which displayed a media player. “I asked the building manager to send over the footage from the cameras that record people entering and leaving the building,” Zymond explained. “You said there were a dozen people at the agency when Trevor was killed. But you’re forgetting someone. The guy that delivered the sandwiches.”
He pressed play, and they watched a grainy video, time-stamped 6:42 PM, of a man in a delivery vest carrying a long box to the building’s front door, opening it, and entering. “This is the delivery man,” Zymond said, rewinding the brief footage, pausing it, and then zooming in on the man’s face. “It’s hard to see, but I recognize that man and I assure you he does not need the side hustle as a DoorDasher. That’s Dr. Edward Chasen. We belong to the same country club in West Bloomfield, as does Trevor Wells. Ed’s an excellent golfer and tennis player, him and his wife. And even though I make it a policy not to get too involved in the personal lives of my employees, I feel I must share with you that there’s been talk around the club of a relationship between Trevor and Mrs. Chasen that involves, uh, more than just tennis. As you can see, Ed’s a good sized, athletic fellow. As you can also see, he holds the tray of sandwiches with his right arm, and opens the door with his left.”
Zymond leaned back in his chair. Currie was already extracting his phone from his raincoat pocket. “I’ll email this to you,” Zymond said, taking up Crown’s card. “But may I suggest – and far be it from me to presume to tell you anything about your job – that you interview Ed Chasen before you pin your case on Nathan Lachance?”
Crown frowned under his tidy mustache. “Do you have video of Chasen leaving the building?”
“About 8:30. Looks like he waited a while somewhere in the building after delivering those sandwiches.”
Crown nodded at Currie, who left without a word, phone to his ear. “Damn,” Crown said. “What made you go looking for a 13th suspect?”
“Your instincts were good, lieutenant. But what you probably had no way of knowing is that as passionate as advertising can be, as much as every ad man or woman wants to be a star, and as fiercely as they battle each other, they’ve all had their hearts broken and mended so many times there’s thick callouses over their feelings. Sure, they’re eager to put each other down, and every one of them wants to be a Picasso or a Drucker or a Durkheim, but they’ve long since come to terms with it and buried it under layers of shabby dignity. Your mistake was assuming these people care about this stuff enough to kill for it. They don’t.”
“Some business you got here, Mr. Zymond.”
“Yeah.” Zymond stood up from his desk and put an unlit Parliament between his lips, patted his pockets for a lighter. “Some business.”
