Private: #1 Suspect

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.