Private #1 Suspect Read online

  “Yes. So you’ll take the job?”

  “I can’t make any promises, but we’ll check out the room and the body. Call it a consultation.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll need access to the room.”

  Jinx Poole opened her handbag, took out a master key card, and handed it over.

  “I need a place to stay for a couple of nights. I can check into the Sun,” I said.

  “Great idea,” said Jinx Poole. “The Coppola Suite is empty. Be my guest.”

  CHAPTER 16

  WITH THE EXCEPTION of city dumps, hotel rooms are the worst places on earth for gathering forensic evidence. Even in five-diamond hotels, DNA, fibers, and fingerprints from a few hundred previous guests will all be present.

  But it was worth a try.

  Carl Mentone, a high-tech geek known at Private as Kid Camera, manned the laptop with the Delta program that mapped out the Bergman Suite from every angle. My laptop came to life with streaming video that bounced off a satellite and delivered crystal images to my office.

  As if I were standing inside the doorway, I watched Sci, Del Rio, and Emilio Cruz enter the suite, the Kid giving me the video tour of what $1,500 a night looked like in a Beverly Hills hotel.

  Gold silk curtains framed the windows. Cozy furniture was grouped around a mahogany table, and good art hung on the walls. The lamps were standing upright. Throw pillows were in place. There hadn’t been a struggle. So what had happened here?

  By the desk, looking like a particularly grotesque sculpture, was the dead man.

  Sci stooped beside the body of a white male wearing dark trousers and an unbuttoned white shirt. His hair had been recently cut, businessman-style. He wore a wedding band. His wrist was white where his watch used to be.

  Sci peered at the dead man’s neck. “A garrote,” he said. “It’s a thin, coated copper wire, commonly found in hardware stores. The victim tried to claw the wire loose but failed.”

  “Has he got ID?”

  “Wallet’s gone,” said Sci.

  Cruz leaned in toward the lens and said, “Jack, there’s no problem with the lock. The victim either let the killer in or had a key. There’s an open bottle of Chivas on the table, two glasses. Dregs of scotch in the glasses.”

  “Let’s go into the bedroom,” I said.

  The Kid led the others, set the laptop on a table. The quality of the images I received was so fine that I could see the weave in the jacquard bedspread lying in a tangle on the floor. Pillows had also fallen to the carpet. The sheets were twisted toward the foot of the bed.

  “Looks like sex to me,” said the Kid.

  Sci set his scene kit on the floor and went to work running an alternate light source with variable wavelength filter over the sheets.

  “Right you are. We’ve got sex,” he said.

  “No wallet in here either,” said Cruz, pawing through a small pile of personal items on the nightstand. A ballpoint pen, spare change, rental-car keys.

  The Kid took his webcam into the bathroom. I saw swim shorts and goggles on a hook behind the door, toiletry kit on the vanity, towels on the floor.

  Emilio Cruz took a seat on the closed toilet lid and spoke into the lens.

  “Jack. This killer was cool, maybe professional. There’s no sign of a fight. Like I said, the dude let his killer into the room. Had a drink with him, and then maybe he said or did something to piss the guy off. The killer got behind him and strangled him. Bingham never had a chance.”

  CHAPTER 17

  WHILE I VIEWED the Bergman Suite from ten miles away, Cody kept me informed about incoming phone calls, his messages popping up on the left-hand side of my screen.

  I typed back to him as I watched Del Rio scrutinize the scene for evidence. He was only feet from the deceased when something caught my attention.

  “Kid, what’s on the desk?” I asked.

  “Phone book,” he said. “Local type. Beverly Hills.”

  He moved in tight on the phone book, which was open, face down, and lifted the book with his gloved hand, showing me the pages the book was opened to.

  I could read the print as clearly as if the book were in my hand.

  The category was Escort Services.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Maybe Mr. Bingham paid for the party in his bedroom.”

  “Could be, Jack. You think a woman did this? She had to be strong to strangle a guy this size, though.”

  “Sci, you’ve got Bingham’s prints?”

  “Yep. Couple hundred other prints on the furnishings that could belong to anyone. DNA up the wazoo.”

  “Need anything else?”

  He shrugged as if to say, “What can I do?”

  If the cops found us at this crime scene, Private was out of business.

  “Okay. I’m calling it time to go,” I said.

  My people snapped their cases closed and headed to the door. The Kid turned the camera on his own intense, heated, twenty-two-year-old face and said he was going to shoot the hallway and the exits.

  When the video feed was shut down, I called Jinx Poole.

  “Jinx, you can turn the security cameras back on. And I need a backup of last night’s tape of the fifth floor.”

  “I already made you a copy.”

  “Fine. Leave it for Rick Del Rio at the desk. It’s time to have housekeeping discover the body and call the cops.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It’s got to be done.”

  I was telling my new client that I’d be at the hotel’s bar tonight, when another of Cody’s instant messages popped up on my screen.

  The text read, “Lieutenant Tandy and Detective Ziegler are here to see you.”

  My stomach dropped to the basement. What was this about? Did they have a lead in Colleen’s murder?

  I told Jinx I’d see her later.

  Then I asked Cody to send in the bad lieutenant and his partner.

  CHAPTER 18

  MITCH TANDY AND Len Ziegler entered my office and looked around as if they’d just bought the place at a blind auction and were seeing it for the first time.

  I showed them to the seating area, and Tandy and I sat down. Ziegler wanted to look around—at the view, the bookshelves, the photos on the wall.

  Tandy said to me, “Why did you mess with the crime scene, Jack? It’s just a little too neat, you know what I mean?

  “Girl dies in the middle of the bed with her shoes on. Doesn’t leave any fingerprints, not even in the bathroom. In my experience, the girl always uses the bathroom.”

  The cops hadn’t come to bring me news. They were here so that they could read me, scare me, catch me in lies or deviations from what I’d told them last night.

  “She was dead when I got home,” I said. “What you saw is what I saw.”

  “Jack, I’m a fair guy.”

  Aside to self: No, he wasn’t. He was a poisonous human being. His unexamined lack of self-respect and his envy of others made him that way. Dangerous.

  He said, “Tell me what really happened so you can get ahead of this thing.”

  “Mitch. I told you everything I know.”

  “Okay.”

  He leaned over the coffee table, straightened a stack of books, and said, “Now I want to give you my theory of how this girl got killed. Colleen Molloy was in love with her boss. That’s not in dispute. Not unusual. Happens all the time. But this particular girl, Colleen, she tried to kill herself after you and she broke up. That’s a fact. Attempted suicide tells me she was emotional. Unstable.”

  “Slashed her wrists about six months ago,” Ziegler said from across the room. He had a pocketknife, about six inches long, pearl handle. He tossed it in the air and caught it. Did this throughout as he went on. “Colleen survived. Quit her job and moved back to Ireland, returned to LA two weeks ago to see friends.”

  “That’s right,” said Tandy. “Now we’re up to date. So last Wednesday, Colleen has lunch with you at Smitty’s, but whatever went down wa
sn’t entirely satisfying to Colleen. She knows your schedule, when you’ll be coming home, et cetera, and last night she takes a cab and shows up at your house uninvited.”

  His tone was even. No rough stuff. No threats. But Tandy was laying out his theory, that it was me, and he was setting it in concrete.

  I said, “You’ve got a good imagination, Mitch. But Colleen had a boyfriend in Dublin. She wasn’t stalking me.”

  “Not saying she was stalking. She wanted to talk. She knew when you’d be home. She uses her access code and waits for you. You walk in. She says, ‘Surprise, I still love you, Jack. I’ll always love you.’”

  “Tandy, you’re making me sick, you know that? Nothing like that happened. Colleen and I were friends. Just friends.”

  “You were tired when she showed up. That’s what you told us. That long flight, all those layovers. You’re not in the mood for the needy ex-girlfriend, but maybe you try to be a gentleman.”

  Ziegler was on his feet, knife in his back pocket now, moving around toward my desk. I got up, went over to my desk, shut down my computer, and said over my shoulder to Tandy, “Nothing you’ve said is true.”

  “It’s just talk,” Tandy said pleasantly. “Just talk. When I’ve finished telling you my theory, you can tell me yours.”

  CHAPTER 19

  TANDY ENJOYED SPINNING his “Jack Morgan did it” storyline. He sat there on my couch, smelling like curry, moving his hands around as he got to the crux of his “theory.”

  “So now the girl is crying, I don’t know, or maybe she’s giddy. Was that it? Was she all lit up? Manic?

  “At any rate, Colleen is worked up. And here’s where it gets painful,” Tandy said. “You say you’re not interested in her anymore. ‘Thanks but no thanks. Let’s be friends.’ And she doesn’t want to be rejected by you again. So she’s going to kill herself. That’ll show you.”

  What Tandy was saying hurt. Yes, Colleen still had feelings for me. I’d still had feelings for her too.

  I said, “Very theatrical, Tandy, but as I keep telling you, I didn’t do it.”

  “So, as I’m telling you, Colleen knows where you keep your gun. She goes for it. You struggle with her. The two of you fall on the bed—and the gun goes off. Hair trigger. Bam. Bam. Bam. She takes it in the chest.”

  “That never happened.”

  “Colleen has been shot. It was an accident. I know you well enough to say that, Jack. But you can’t change the events. And now this poor mixed-up girl is dead in your place. Sure, you could dump the body, but you gotta ask yourself. Maybe Colleen told a friend she was coming to see you; you can’t know. Or maybe you’re scared. You panic. You lose it—”

  “Ziegler, stay away from my desk.”

  “What’s wrong, Jack? Is there something here I’m not supposed to see?”

  Ziegler meandered over to where I was sitting with Tandy. I imagined putting my fist into his jack-o’-lantern grin.

  “If I’ve got this wrong, make me a believer and I’ll work with you,” said Tandy.

  So polite. Covering his ass because the chief of police and I were friends.

  I said, “My turn to talk?”

  “You’re on,” Tandy said.

  “Okay. You’ve got to look at me for the crime. I get that. But you’re wasting time. I’ve been set up. Someone doesn’t like me. He kidnapped Colleen, got her to give up her key fob, and used her print to open the door. He brought her into my house and shot her in my bed.

  “The shooter left before I got home. He figured that the cops wouldn’t look very hard at anyone but me. That was his plan.”

  Tandy smiled. “But here’s where your story goes off road, Jack. There’s a gap in your timeline. You left the airport at five-thirty-something. Hit some traffic. You arrived home at six-thirty. So you say.

  “At eight you call the chief. Time passes as Fescoe calls the precinct and the call goes down the line. By the time Ziegler and I arrive, almost two hours have gone by since you walked in your door.

  “You had plenty of time to shoot the girl, get rid of your gun, throw it and your security system hard drive into the ocean. Then you shower, shampoo—hell, you could have had your guys come in and do a professional cleanup, like it never even happened.”

  I said, “Mitch. The card reader shows Colleen’s key was swiped at six. At six, we were just getting clear of the airport.”

  “So what? She waited for you. Or you screwed with the security program after the fact. Look, I’m a fair guy, Jack. You tell me. Who do you think killed Colleen?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  “Well, think about it. I could use your thoughts on this. Why don’t you put together a list of your enemies. I’ll check them out. Personally. Okay? Call me, Jack. Anytime.”

  “Thanks, Mitch. I will.”

  I shook hands with the cops, then Cody walked them out to the elevator. Bastards. It was absolutely clear. I was going to have to find Colleen’s killer.

  It was up to me to save my own life.

  CHAPTER 20

  I SWALLOWED SOME aspirin, then stole a few minutes at my desk, attacking the backlogged avalanche of e-mails and phone calls. When I looked up, Sci was sitting in front of me. I hadn’t heard him come in. Had he materialized out of the air? If anyone could do that, it was Dr. Sci.

  “What the hell?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  Sci was wearing a red shirt, tails out over his jeans, bowling shoes up on the edge of my desk. He had the face of a cherub and the brain of Einstein—if Einstein had lived in the digital age. Since he hadn’t, Dr. Sci was arguably smarter.

  “Thinking about what?”

  “I’ve got news, Jack. I can’t find anything good in it.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I spoke to someone.”

  Along with Sci’s advanced degrees, he’d worked in the LA crime lab for a couple of years, doing rotations in ballistics, fibers, DNA. He had deep contacts at LA’s hundred-million-dollar lab, and his tech friends were close to the cops. One of those friends was hoping that Sci would bring him over to Private.

  We had agreed long ago that Sci would give me off-the-record intel and I wouldn’t ask any awkward questions.

  “There was a witness,” said Sci.

  “Someone saw Colleen?”

  “Someone saw you, Jack. On the beach. A neighbor, Bobbie Newton. You know her?”

  “Slightly. She lives a couple houses down the beach.”

  “She said she was jogging last night and she saw you on the beach, talking on your phone. She waved at you and you waved back.”

  “When was this?

  “Approximately six something. She doesn’t know for sure. She wasn’t wearing a watch.”

  “She saw me? ”

  “So she says.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Sci. I wasn’t on the beach.”

  I didn’t want to have the thoughts that were turning in my mind, but the tumblers were clicking into place. A riddle. Who was me yet not me?

  My womb-mate. My enemy.

  “Tommy,” I said. “What else?”

  “The fingerprints in your room were all yours.”

  “We’re identical,” I said.

  “Yes, but your fingerprints aren’t identical. They’re shaped by the currents in utero. Tommy’s prints will be a little different than yours.

  “Jack, you really think Tommy killed Colleen?”

  “He knows her. He knows me. He could get close to her and he could force her to give up her key, press her finger to the biometric lock. He has motive. He fucking hates me.”

  CHAPTER 21

  I TOOK THE stairs down to Justine’s office, which was directly under mine. Three associates were arrayed around her semicircular desk: Kate Hanley, Lauri Green, and our sixty-year-old virtual chameleon of a sleuth, Bud Rankin.

  Justine was assigning them to collect background on all five of the hotel murder victims.

  She looked
up, her long dark hair hanging to her shoulders, framing her lovely face.

  She thanked the troops and they filed out.

  I sat down and told Justine about Noccia’s offer that I couldn’t refuse.

  “We’re not taking the job, are we?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I vote, no, no way, and not in a million years.”

  “Duly noted.”

  “Now, bring me up to date on Colleen.”

  About me and Justine. A few years back, we bought the beach house where I live as a future wedding present to us both. We made a lot of love and had a lot of good times in that house. Truth is, we fit together in every way—but one.

  I don’t like to spill my guts. And Justine is a shrink. I’m guarded, or what she calls “too well-defended,” and she gets pissed off. Then she closes up. And she stays mad.

  We were lovers. We broke up, then tried it again with the same result. After we split up the second time, more than a year ago, I started seeing Colleen—and Justine dated a guy not half good enough for her.

  A few months ago, we were both unattached again, and we’d started dating in a noncommitted way. I still couldn’t open up. She still couldn’t tolerate that. So for good and for bad, not much had changed.

  Sitting here looking at her, I couldn’t understand why I had to talk when Justine could pretty much read my mind.

  She was peeling back the layers even now.

  “There’s a witness,” I said. “A neighbor says she saw me on the beach around the time Colleen was killed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  I leaned back in the chair without breaking eye contact with Justine.

  “God. It was Tommy,” she said.

  We were both thinking about my evil twin. Would he dare set me up to be tagged for Colleen’s murder? Did he really hate me that much?

  Justine asked, “What do you think happened?”