Private: #1 Suspect

PART TWO
LOVE YOU, LOVE YOU NOT
CHAPTER 36

The next morning, I walked from my office across the hall to the “war room,” thinking about Colleen. I wondered what she’d been doing in her last hours, trying to see through her eyes how she’d been trapped by a man with murderous intentions. I imagined her horror when that gun-probably my gun-had been aimed at her chest, her killer taunting her before he squeezed the trigger.

I had a horrifying thought.

What if she’d believed her killer was me?

I stiff-armed the door, saw that the conference room was packed: Sci, Cruz, Mo, and Del Rio, arrayed around the black table, hunched over coffee, texting and phoning, looking up when I came in.

Associates filled the row of swivel chairs around the perimeter, buzzing about a hot case that had been resolved at four this morning when a team of Private investigators caught a runaway teen and her user boyfriend withdrawing funds from an ATM with her mom’s bank card.

Justine’s seat was empty. Justine was never late for a meeting. Had never been late in five years.

The chatter stopped as I pulled out my chair.

Cody brought in my Red Bull and a list of names.

“What’s this?”

“Candidates for my job. I’m setting up appointments for you to meet the best three. Best three in my humble opinion.”

I nodded. “Let’s get started.” I introduced Christian Scott, said that Scotty had been with the Joffrey Ballet, suffered a knee injury, joined the California Highway Patrol as a motorcycle cop.

“Scotty was one of three guys who brought down a major doper, four hundred pounds of weed in the trunk. It was Scotty who pulled him over on a hunch-”

“A hunch and the rear of the car was sending up sparks on the freeway,” Scotty said.

“He’s got good hunches and, I’ve been told, a pretty decent pirouette,” I said into the laughter. “Scotty has just finished his six thousand hours as an investigator at California Casualty, so his license is in the mail.

“Stand up and show us your face.”

There was applause. Scotty stood and said he was glad to be here. Then investigator Lauri Green raised her hand and said, “Jack, I gotta go in a minute. Just to let you know Mara Tracey is out on bail.”

Lauri was talking about our shoplifting movie star, made ten million a picture and still lifted a hundred-dollar sweatshirt from a boutique, attracting tabloid headlines, paparazzi popping up out of the shrubbery, and a publicized date next week in front of a judge.

Mara’s husband had hired us to keep eyes on her. We discussed tailing Ms. Tracey, then Cruz got up and filled the group in on the dead businessman at the Beverly Hills Sun. He sketched in the backstory: the string of four other dead men in other hotels, and the dead-end lead to an escort service. He talked about research he was doing now, interviews with hotel staff, and so on. He was keeping himself in the background, he said, now that the cops were on the case.

He didn’t mention the Noccias’ stolen van full of boosted pharmaceuticals-I was keeping that one off-limits to the group.

When Cruz sat down, I tapped keys on my laptop and Colleen’s photo filled the center flat screen on the wall.

My ears hummed and my heart rate shot up when I saw that picture. Only two days ago, Colleen had been alive and well.

I dropped my eyes to the keyboard, trying to get a grip on my emotions. When I spoke, my voice cracked.

“Most of you knew Colleen. She was most likely killed to torment me and to implicate me in her death.”

Del Rio said quietly, “Dude.”

I swallowed hard and kept going.

“As you’ve probably heard, I’m not only the prime suspect, I’m the only suspect. Meanwhile, Colleen’s killer is out there somewhere-laughing his ass off.”