Private jm-1 Read online

  “C’mon, I’m basically a glorified bean counter, Jack. And who’d want to kill Shelby? She’s a sweetie. Everyone loved her…”

  Apparently not.

  I had to ask him. “You have to tell me the truth, Andy. Did you have anything to do with this?”

  In about five seconds, Andy’s expression went from grief to shock to fury.

  “You’re asking me that? You know how much I loved her. I’m telling you now and I never want to have to say it again. I didn’t kill her, Jack. And I don’t know who did. I can’t imagine this happening. I can’t, Jack.”

  Night was falling. I reached up and turned on a light. Andy was looking at me as though I’d punched him in the face.

  Christ, I was his best friend.

  “I believe you,” I said. “The cops are going to grill you, though. Do you understand? The husband is always suspect number one.”

  He nodded his head and started crying again.

  I got up and went into the foyer. I called Chief of Police Michael Fescoe at his home. Fescoe and I had become friends in the past couple of years. He was depressed due to his crap job, but he was a good man, and I trusted him.

  I gave Fescoe the rundown, told him that Andy and I had been childhood friends and frat brothers at Brown and that I could vouch for his character a hundred percent.

  I stayed with Andy as the cops and the CSU arrived. I heard him tell a detective that Shelby didn’t have an enemy in the world.

  And yet, whoever killed her had made a point.

  This was not only an execution.

  It was personal.

  Chapter 4

  Justine Smith was an elegant, serious-minded, academically brilliant brunette in her midthirties. She was a shrink by trade, a forensic profiler, and Jack Morgan’s number two at Private. Clients trusted her almost as much as they trusted Jack. They also adored her; everyone did.

  That evening, she was having dinner with LA’s district attorney, Bobby Petino. Bobby was her best friend and her lover. He was a transplanted New Yorker, a connoisseur of Italian food. He had surprised Justine by picking her up as she was leaving work and driving her to one of their favorite places, Giorgio Baldi’s in Santa Monica.

  The restaurant was cozy, casual, family owned; the candlelit tables were close together, comfortably intimate. Several of the customers in the dining room were A-list celebrities, but Bobby’s eyes were on Justine and no one else. Not even Johnny Depp and Denzel Washington, when they walked in laughing and joking as though life were just a big fun movie for them.

  Bobby touched his wineglass to hers as Giorgio brought the steaming homemade pasta to the table. There was nobody here but the two of them.

  “You know what?” Justine said. “I just love a surprise that puts a truly awful day into reverse. This is perfect. Thank you.”

  “All work, no play makes Justine a sad girl,” he said. “And that just won’t do.”

  “It’s official. My awful day is in the rearview mirror. I’ve been helping out on a nasty case out of our San Diego office, but it’s done for the day. Yahoo.”

  Justine smiled, but Bobby ducked her gaze a little. As if there was something he didn’t want to tell her. They were usually good at reading each other’s minds, but right now Justine didn’t have a clue.

  “What is it? Please. Don’t make me guess.”

  “I got a call from the chief of police. I was going to tell you after dinner, I swear. Another schoolgirl was killed. They just found her.”

  Justine’s mind skidded and spun out of control. She knocked over her wineglass and didn’t move to stop the flow. Her glow was gone, her thoughts shooting back to very bad days in the recent past.

  Morgue shots flooded her mind: teenage girls who’d been murdered over the past two years. The poor girls had all been in high school, lived throughout Los Angeles, but most had been from the neighborhoods of East LA. The last girl had been found dead just a month ago.

  There had been so much police and media attention on that girl’s death, Justine had almost come to believe that the killer had retreated or even quit. Maybe he was in jail. Or maybe he had died. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  But now Bobby had shattered that fantasy, and at least one other she had had about tonight and the possibilities it held for the two of them.

  Chapter 5

  “I have to call Jack right now,” Justine said to Bobby. “I have to. Damn it. Damn it!”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I already called him. Your ride will be here in twenty minutes. You’re going to be up most of the night, Justine. Have some pasta. Please, honey? You’re going to thank me for making you eat.”

  A waiter put a clean cloth on the table and refilled Justine’s wineglass, but she was no longer aware of her surroundings. She picked up her fork and stabbed a tortellini to satisfy Bobby and so she wouldn’t have to speak while she mentally reviewed the case.

  All eleven of the girls had been killed by different methods. That was highly unusual. The murder weapons had been removed from the crime scenes as had the victims’ handbags and backpacks. The killer had always taken trophies: a hank of hair, a contact lens, a pair of panties, a class ring. What law enforcement people called “murderabilia.”

  Then, in a bizarre and audacious twist, the killer had claimed credit for one of the murders in an untraceable e-mail to the mayor.

  He wrote that he had buried his trophies from the most recent murder in a planter outside an office building on the corner of Sunset and Doheny. He signed the note “Steemcleena,” a name that revealed nothing, then or now.

  It took time for the e-mail to work its way through the system, and more time before it was taken seriously.

  But three days after that encrypted e-mail was sent, the planter was dug up. A plastic bag was recovered. Inside were items taken from the latest victim. There was no DNA on the objects, no prints, no trace; the police were left with nothing but the humiliation of the killer’s last laugh.

  Justine had volunteered to consult with the LAPD, and they invited her in. She remembered now how seeing the girl’s personal effects made her physically ill. The killer had handled them, buffed them up, and sent them back to the police with a meaningless signature and a dare.

  Then Justine had come up with a plan. To make it work, she got Jack Morgan and Bobby Petino together.

  And in a controversial arrangement that had outraged the homicide division of the LAPD, the district attorney’s office approved Private Investigations to work the case as a public service-pro bono.

  And now another girl was dead.

  Bobby was answering his cell phone, trying to get her attention. “Justine. Justine. Your ride is here.”

  Chapter 6

  Damn it! Justine gripped the armrest of the sleek black, ridiculously fast Mercedes S65 as Emilio Cruz, her “ride” and fellow investigator at Private, took a hard right turn onto Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake area of East LA.

  The four-lane road was lined with strip malls and fast-food restaurants of every kind, all within easy walking distance of the John Marshall High School, which two of the murdered girls had attended.

  “What do you know about the victim?” Justine finally asked Emilio, glancing his way.

  Emilio Cruz didn’t even have to try to look good. He bunched his black hair back with a rubber band, put his ancient leather jacket over anything, and generally looked like a movie star just waiting to break out.

  Cruz’s voice was as soft as butter. “Her name is Connie Yu. She was a bright light. In the eleventh grade, only sixteen years old.”

  “She’s so smart,” said Justine, “why was she walking on this street alone?”

  “These girls, Justine, are being killed in my neighborhood. They’re too tough to act scared.”

  “Sorry, Emilio. That’s my frustration talking. I feel desperate and even guilty. Why can’t I get a decent handle on this fucker?”

  “Tell me about it. I’m here with you, righ
t? Pro bono. I hate pro bono.”

  Cruz hated to lose too, really hated it. Maybe even more than Jack did. He had once been a ranked prizefighter, then a cop, then a special investigator for the DA’s office under Bobby Petino. Three years later, Bobby Petino introduced him to Jack, who hired him as a Private investigator. Justine was in awe of Cruz’s bulldog-like tenacity when it came to getting to the truth. This and his natural charm made Cruz a gifted investigator. Only the gifted made it at Private.

  “What else, if anything, do we know about Connie Yu?” Justine asked.

  “Hey, listen, I apologize, Justine. You’re right. The girl was smart, so what’s wrong with this fucked-up picture? Especially after you went to all these schools to warn the kids. You shouldn’t feel guilty-you’re doing more than anybody.”

  Cruz slowed the powerful car and pulled up to the curb between cruisers blocking off an alley a couple of blocks from the Hyperion Bridge.

  Justine got out, shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, and headed toward the crime scene tape that cordoned off the alley. Ahead she saw the LAPD’s lead investigator on the Schoolgirl case, Lieutenant Nora Cronin.

  Cronin was feisty, a smart cop with maybe too much attitude. She had a crazy crush on Cruz and glowered at Justine. Her entire body, all two hundred pounds, radiated with just how much she hated Private’s involvement in her case.

  “The DA sent us,” Justine said, biting off the line.

  “Uh-huh. Your boyfriend calls, you go to a murder scene. That’s kinky.”

  Justine walked away from the pissy lieutenant, signed the log for herself and for Cruz. Then she ducked under the tape and called out to the medical examiner, Dr. Madeleine Calder, a good friend.

  “Hey, Madeleine. We need to take a look at the victim.”

  “Howya doin’, Justine? Cruz?” said Calder. The ME was small boned and petite, but strong enough to flip the body of a homicide victim when necessary. She stepped aside, giving Justine a full-on view of the girl lying between bags of trash and the cruddy back door of a Taco Bell restaurant.

  Justine stooped beside Connie Yu, saw the dark pool of blood around the girl’s head. And also a gold stud glinting from the girl’s left ear.

  Madeleine Calder said, “Justine, check this out.”

  There was no earring in the victim’s right ear.

  There wasn’t even an ear.

  Dr. Calder said, “The ear’s gone, Justine. Restaurant Dumpsters have been tossed. The crew has been up and down the street looking for it. Nowhere to be found. I guess the perp will tell us where it is in a couple of days.”

  Agonized screams at the police cordon caught Justine’s attention. She looked up at Cruz. “Connie Yu’s family has arrived. Let’s get out of here, Emilio. We can’t help those poor people. Not here, anyway.”

  Chapter 7

  Justine had gone to the morgue with the girl’s body, and it was past two a.m. when she called Private’s chief criminalist, Seymour Kloppenberg, nicknamed Dr. Science-Sci for short-and said she needed him right away.

  Sci told his girlfriend, Kit-Kat, he had to go in to the Private offices, made a snack for his rather unusual pet, Trixie, and left the apartment with his helmet under one arm.

  His lovingly restored World War II courier bike with sidecar was in the garage under Sci’s apartment building. He kick-started the motor and floored it up the ramp onto Hauser, then took Sixth all the way to Private’s offices in downtown LA.

  Flashing his ID at security, he took the elevator to the basement level, where his lab was located.

  Justine was already waiting for him.

  “This is about schoolgirl number twelve?” he asked, unlocking his door, immediately switching on music-the theme from Sweeney Todd.

  “Yes,” Justine said. “And it’s enough to turn your stomach. Well, maybe not yours.”

  Sci gave her a jokey fanged-monster face. Then he escorted Justine through the negative-pressure chamber into the lab, his “playground.”

  Accredited by the International Organization for Standardization, Sci’s multimillion-dollar lab was the heart of Private’s operations, as well as a profit center. It was used by several West Coast law enforcement agencies, since it was better equipped and faster than anything at the LAPD or the FBI.

  Sci’s crew of twelve technicians worked in several areas of forensic science: analysis, serology, forensic identification, and print and latent-print identification. Sci’s latest pride and joy was the new holographic-manipulation technology that he used to tease apart cells with a microlaser under a high-powered microscope.

  His people had been the first to test real-time use of a satellite, a method called teleforensics. Using a tiny camera, Private’s investigators could bounce streaming images from a crime scene straight back to the lab, saving time and resources, preventing scene contamination.

  Justine followed Sci across the vast underground space to his hub of an office and personal control center. Horror movie posters adorned the walls: Shaun of the Dead, Carrie, Hostel, Zombieland.

  Sci dragged up a stool for Justine, then dropped into his chair and swiveled around like a little kid in an ice cream store.

  “Sorry to take you away from Kit-Kat,” Justine said, smiling, “but I need you to look at what we’ve got before I turn it over to the LAPD in the morning.”

  She brought Sci up to date on the details of the crime as she knew them: the location, the mutilation, the cause of death.

  She handed him Connie Yu’s backpack. “Found not too far from the crime scene by Emilio. The sonofabitch finally made a mistake… unless he wanted us to find this.”

  “You’ve got the victim’s blood and tissue?” Sci asked.

  “In the bag, along with her personal items. You’ll see.”

  Sci opened the bag. Looked at the articles inside. He’d already started thinking about running the blood, deconstructing the wallet, frisking the phone. If there was anything there, he would have it in time for the staff meeting at nine.

  “I’m on it,” he said, and turned up the Sweeney Todd soundtrack to an almost deafening level.

  Chapter 8

  Justine walked across the vast clipped lawn with its stunning canyon view-a very pretty picture in pearly light and sharp shadow at 5:15 in the goddamn morning.

  She stripped down to her bra and panties, then quietly opened the gate to the tennis court.

  She picked a racket off the bench and practiced her serve, powering balls over the net, taking out most of her frustration on the lime green hairballs.

  Ten minutes into her workout she did a double take. She spun around and saw Bobby’s silhouetted form standing at the fence, his fingers laced into the chain links.

  “You okay, Justine? It’s, like, five in the morning. What’s going on, sweetie?”

  “I’m working off my aggression so I don’t act out,” she said to Bobby, hauling back, grunting as she tossed up another ball and smacked it hard.

  “Put the racket down and come over here. Please.”

  Justine did, walking through the gate into Bobby’s arms. He held her for a good long few minutes, the feel of his strong hands on her back almost putting her into a trance.

  Then Bobby said, “What would you like? Hot tub, breakfast, or bed?”

  “All three-in that order.”

  Bobby took off his robe, draped it around Justine’s shoulders, and walked with her toward the lanai. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “Apart from this murder being another freakin’ tragedy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing I can tell you. Not yet.”

  “Let me put it this way, then, Justine. Have you got a new theory? Anything at all? Where are you on the case?”

  Justine walked up the teak steps to the hot tub, dropped the robe and her underthings. Then she took Bobby’s hand as she stepped into the steaming water.

  She sat down on the seat and leaned back as his arm went around her. She closed her eyes and e
xhaled, letting the water do its work.

  “You must have a theory,” Bobby said.

  “Here it is. The killer has multiple personality disorder.” Justine sighed. “And every one of his personalities is psychopathic.”

  Chapter 9

  My dreams weren’t exactly identical, but they were all variations on the same disturbing theme. There was an explosion: sometimes a house blew up, or a car, or a helicopter. I was always carrying someone away from the fire toward safety: Danny Young, or Rick Del Rio, or my father, or my twin brother-or maybe the person in my arms was myself.

  I never made it out of the fire zone alive. Not once.

  My cell phone vibrating on the night table woke me from this morning’s nightmare, as it had done almost daily for about three years.

  Already, I was swamped with dread, that sickening falling sensation that hits you before you even know why.

  And then my brain caught up with my gut, and I knew if I didn’t pick up the phone, it would ring again and again until I answered.

  This was my real-life nightmare.

  I opened the clamshell, put it to my ear.

  “You’re dead,” he said.

  The voice came through an electronic filter. I called it “he,” but it could have been a she or even an it. Sometimes he called in the morning: a wake-up call. Sometimes he called in the middle of the night, or he might skip a day just to keep me off balance, which he, she, or it did.

  Every time my cell phone rang, I was shocked by a fresh jolt of anxiety. When it was my hate caller, I sometimes asked, “What the fuck do you want?” Sometimes I tried reason and said calmly, “Just tell me what you want.”

  This morning when the voice said “You’re dead,” I said “Not yet.”

  I snapped the phone closed.

  I’d narrowed the list of my enemies to about a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten.