Private: #1 Suspect

CHAPTER 50

Del Rio’s office smelled of pepperoni pizza.

It was after nine, and he and Cruz had been working on the Beverly Hills Sun murder all day and now well into the night, comparing and contrasting the five murders that had been committed in California hotels in the past year and a half.

The first two killings had been six months and a hundred miles apart, so no one thought they were linked.

Victim number one, Saul Cappricio, was found strangled in Jinx Poole’s San Diego hotel. Victim number two, Arthur Valentine, was discovered decomposing at the Seaview, a third-rate hotel in LA.

By the time the third victim, Conrad Morton, had been found garroted in the San Francisco Constellation, also a Poole hotel, the cops were looking for a connection-but even with several police departments involved, or maybe because three departments were involved, no viable suspect had turned up.

To date, five businessmen, including Maurice Bingham, ages thirty-five to fifty-one, had been strangled with various types of ligatures in their hotel rooms. The men had not worked for the same companies; all had different occupations, lived in different cities. Three were married and two were not.

Right now, Del Rio was at one computer cross-checking phone logs. Cruz was at a second computer, examining credit card charges.

Cruz said, “Bingham used the same escort service as Valentine, who also charged up six hundred bucks for two hours of patty-cake.”

Del Rio leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “All of them used hookers. Not the same service, though. Is that a lead or is that just what road warriors do?”

“I feel a business trip coming on,” said Cruz.

“Crap. Me too.”

“It’s a lead,” Cruz said. “The escort services are a lead, not a coincidence. Maybe a hooker with a thrill for the kill is moving from one place to the other.”

Del Rio could see how the next few days were going to go: interviewing prostitutes and johns and widows. He turned off his computer and threw the pizza box into the trash. He put on his jacket.

A list of escort service names and numbers chugged out into the printer tray.

Del Rio said, “Get the lights, will you, Emilio? I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning at eight. We’ll stop first for coffee.”