Private: #1 Suspect

CHAPTER 95

It had taken Justine two minutes on the DMV database to learn which of Danny’s handlers owned a Porsche 911. After that, she and Del Rio had gone looking for the car in logical places and hadn’t found it.

Now Del Rio parked the fleet car in the circular drive of a six-million-dollar, ten-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean-style house in Bel Air.

He took his gun out of the glove box, slipped it into his shoulder holster, and said, “Justine, there’s no point in getting worked up. As my old cell mate used to say, ‘If you can’t find what you’re looking for on the street, go into someone’s house and take it.’”

“Great. We’re taking advice from a convict.”

“And you’re taking advice from my cell mate too.”

Justine laughed. “No offense, Rick. I don’t think of you as a jailbird.”

“I’m honored. You ready to risk your life and reputation?”

“Maybe. I mean, let’s go.”

A young Hispanic housekeeper came to the door under the portico, smiled pleasantly, said, “I’m sorry. No one is home.”

Del Rio held up his badge, opened his jacket to show the woman his nine. He said, “It’s okay, miss, we’re authorized to do a quick search and seizure.”

“We’re painting the great room,” the young woman wailed.

Justine said, “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful not to step in anything. Where is the master bedroom?”

Some other day, Justine would have enjoyed the house tour of the first-class chef’s kitchen, the loggia and pool, the screening room, the master bedroom that looked like a set from a James Bond film and was equipped with more high-def, high-tech gizmos than the Situation Room at the White House.

Justine expected a tidy closet in the master suite, but this one was a mess. Expensive clothes were hung haphazardly and draped over hooks. Heaps of shoes were under the racks, all types, in no particular order.

While Rick stood in the bedroom doorway, Justine used gloved hands to pick through the shoes. She was looking for a rubberlike sole that could match the three inches of usable shoe print Sci had found next to the tire tread.

Justine paused, trying to sort the shoes in her mind before diving in, and then she saw what she was looking for, a pair of ASICS GEL-Kayanos, the current trend in men’s conspicuous casual footwear.

She plucked the left shoe off the heap and turned it over. She called to Rick, and when he came to the closet, she showed him the bottom of the shoe.

“The good thing about transfer is it works both ways. The shoe makes an impression on the soil. And the soil-see it?”

“I see a dark crumb of something.”

“I see a happy day for Dr. Sci.”

Justine sealed the shoe in an evidence bag, starting as she saw that the housekeeper was now standing behind Rick at the entrance to the closet.

“You get me in trouble,” she said.

“No, no,” said Rick, using his very patient, even fatherly voice. “You don’t tell anyone that we were here. This is a top-secret investigation, covered by the California Seal of Silence. Understand?”

They were leaving North Bentley Avenue when Justine’s phone rang. It was Nora.

“You have something?” Justine asked. She put Nora on speaker for Rick’s benefit.

“We’ve got the Porsche at six stoplights from two to two-thirty this morning, traveling from Bel Air to Topanga Canyon. He was driving fast and leaning over the wheel, so we got close-ups of his mug.”

“This is good, Nora. And I think we have a cherry on top for you.”