Jack Morgan was smart, but he wasn’t perfect. And if he’d overlooked anything in his cleanup of the crime scene, Tandy was sure something that could indict him would be found.
Tandy heard Ziegler call out to him.
“I’m over here,” he answered.
Ziegler joined Tandy where he stood inside the stucco fence that separated Jack Morgan’s house from the raging river that was the Pacific Coast Highway.
Tandy asked, “Find anything?”
“No.”
Tandy said, “He leaves his spunk in her. Doesn’t even use a rubber. That’s risky behavior. Like suicidal.”
“Or it’s his brother’s spooge.”
They’d been over this before. The complication of twin brothers with identical DNA. The kind of thing that could introduce “reasonable doubt” into a jury deliberation. When they’d interviewed Tommy, he’d had an alibi for the time of the murder. His wife said he was home. Swore it. Unshakably.
Still, she could have been lying.
“Tommy or Jack. It was one of them. And only Jack has a motive.”
Ziegler said, “What’s that over there?”
“What?”
Ziegler pointed at a disturbance in the mulch at the base of a bougainvillea vine, hidden in the shade of the fence.
Tandy used his foot to push away the pine bark.
For a long moment, they both stared.
“I’ll get the camera,” Ziegler said.
Tandy nodded, stooped down, and continued to stare. This was the evidence they needed. The rush was indescribable. It was why, with all the endless footwork, dead ends, and bureaucratic hassles, he just loved being a cop.
Moments like this one.
The idiot had left the smoking gun behind.
CHAPTER 52
I headed into my office at eight the next morning, still with a headache pounding like a jackhammer into a spot directly behind my right eye.
Cody was on the phone, but when I passed his desk, he held up his hand, signaling me to wait. He said into his headset mic, “Yes, sir. I’ll see if he’s in.”
He scribbled on the back of an envelope, “Chf Fescoe.”
“I’ll take it,” I said.
I went to my desk, snatched the phone off the hook, and said, “Mick?”
“Jack. This is a heads-up. Call your lawyer.”
“What happened?”
“Tandy and Ziegler found your gun.”
His words were like a fastball to the gut. I felt sick. I lost focus. My mind skipped over the events of the past three days as I tried to make sense of what he was saying.
Words came out of my mouth. “Found it where?”
“In your front yard. Buried under a vine.”
“ Planted, you mean. I reported it missing the night Colleen was killed.”
“I understand that, Jack. Fact is, it’s your gun, a custom Kimber, registered to you. Your prints are on it.”
“Only my prints?”
“Yes.”
I sat down. Cody brought in my Red Bull, set it down on a coaster that he positioned just so. It took him a little too long to leave. I stared at him until he exited and closed the door behind him.
“Jack?”
“I’m still here, Mickey. Say again. Where exactly did they find the gun?”
“Under some mulch, just inside your gate. Your Kimber is a. 45, same caliber as the slugs that killed Colleen Molloy.”
“The killer used gloves,” I said. “That’s why only my prints are on the gun. He left it where the cops would find it.”
“I hear you. Ballistics is running a comparison now,” said my friend the police chief, not committing himself. I pictured him: a big man, six-four, wide smile, me standing with him and Justine six months ago, cameras flashing and Mickey Fescoe thanking us for catching a killer.
He’d certainly trusted me then.
Fescoe’s voice softened. “Are the slugs taken from the victim a match to your gun, Jack?”
“Maybe. Probably. I still didn’t kill her. If I wanted to get rid of my gun, would I actually be that dumb? Mick. I’m asking you. Would I really bury the murder weapon outside my front door?”
“Call your guy Caine. Do what he tells you.”
“Thanks for calling, Mick.”
“No problem. Don’t leave town.”
“I’m staying at a nice hotel. Got everything I want right there.”
“Are you okay?”
“What? Sure. I’m okay for a guy who is being set up to take the rap for a murder I didn’t commit. I’m absolutely fine.”
“I’ll take you out to dinner when this is all over,” Fescoe said.
I told him it was going to be a pricey meal.
Cody came in again as I hung up. He said, “Sorry,” went behind me, turned on my computer, and called up my schedule.
I stared at it blindly.
Cody said, “We’re all set up in the conference room, Jack. Meeting starts in fifteen minutes.”
CHAPTER 53
A chasm opened between my thoughts and my perceptions. Everything outside myself-people walking past me in the hallways, my phone ringing in my pocket, laughter coming up from the stairwell-all of that seemed far, far away, having no relationship to me at all.
I crossed the floor, opened the conference room door, saw a circle of twenty-five men and women seated around the table, all partners in Private Investigations Worldwide, all here for our biannual operations meeting.
I knew every one of the people sitting at the table. Had been to some of their weddings, stayed in some of their homes.
They expected me to reveal plans. Make decisions. They expected me to lead.
But I wanted to be anywhere but here. Nearly all of the twenty-five had been in the military, the law, or law enforcement before they’d joined Private. I knew that when the shock burned off, I wasn’t going to be able to hide my rising panic from these first-class private cops.
Cody took a chair behind mine, and Mo-bot, who is fluent in several languages, sat next to Cody.
All conversation stopped as I pulled out my chair and sat down. There were some greetings, smiles, twenty- five pairs of eyes locking in on my face.
The unspoken question floated overhead in twenty-five thought balloons.
