The doorbell rang again.
CHAPTER 4
The arrival of Dr. Sci and Mo-bot improved the odds of figuring out what had happened in my house by 200 percent.
Dr. Sci, real name Seymour Kloppenberg, was Private’s chief forensic scientist. He had a long string of degrees behind his name, starting with a PhD in physics from MIT when he was nineteen-and that was only ten years ago.
Mo-bot was Maureen Roth, a fifty-something computer geek and jack-of-all-tech. She specialized in computer crime and was also Private’s resident mom.
Mo had brought her camera and her wisdom. Sci had his scene kit packed with evidence-collection equipment of the cutting-edge kind.
We went to my room and the four of us stood around Colleen’s dead body as night turned the windows black.
We had all loved Colleen. Every one of us.
“We don’t have much time,” Justine said, breaking the silence, at work now as an investigator on a homicide. “Jack, I have to ask you, did you have anything to do with this? Because if you did, we can make it all disappear.”
“I found Colleen like this when I got home,” I said.
“Okay. Just the same,” said Justine, “every passing minute makes you more and more the guy who did it. You’ve got to call it in, Jack. So let’s go over everything, fast and carefully. Start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
As Mo and Sci snapped on latex gloves, Justine turned on a digital recorder and motioned to me to start talking. I told her that after I got off the plane, Aldo had met me at British Airways arrivals, 5:30 sharp.
I told her about showering, then finding Colleen’s body. I said that my gun was missing as well as the hard drive from my security system.
I said again that I had no idea why Colleen was here or why she’d been killed. “I didn’t do it, Justine.”
“I know that, Jack.”
We both knew that when the cops got here, I would be suspect number one, and although I had cop friends, I couldn’t rely on any of them to find Colleen’s killer when I was so darned handy.
I had been intimately involved with the deceased.
There was no forced entry into my house.
The victim was on my bed.
It was what law enforcement liked to call an open-and-shut case. Open and shut on me.
CHAPTER 5
If you’re not the cops on official business, processing an active crime scene is a felony. It’s not just contaminating evidence and destroying the prosecution’s ability to bring the accused to trial, it’s accessory to the crime.
If we were caught working the scene, I would lose my license, and all four of us could go to jail.
That said, if there was ever a time to break the law, this was it.
Mo said, “Jack, please get out of the frame.”
I stepped into the hallway and Mo’s Nikon flashed.
She took shots from every angle, wide, close-up, extreme close-ups of the wounds in Colleen’s chest.
Sci took Colleen’s and my fingerprints with an electronic reader while Mo-bot ran a latent-print reader over hard surfaces in the room. No fingerprint powder required.
Justine asked, “When did you last see Colleen alive?”
I told her that I’d had lunch with her last Wednesday, before I left for the airport.
“Just lunch?”
“Yes. We just had lunch.”
A shadow crossed Justine’s eyes, like clouds rolling in before a thunderstorm. She didn’t believe me. And I didn’t have the energy to persuade her. I was overtired, scared, heartsick, and nauseated. I wanted to wake up. Find myself still on the plane.
Sci was talking to Mo. He took scrapings from under Colleen’s nails, and Mo sealed the bags. When Sci lifted Colleen’s skirt, swab in hand, I turned away.
I talked to Justine, told her where Colleen and I had eaten lunch on Wednesday, that Colleen had been in good spirits.
“She said she had a boyfriend in Dublin. She said she was falling in love.”
I had a new thought. I spun around and shouted, “Anyone see her purse?”
“No purse, Jack.”
“She was brought here,” I said to Justine. “Someone had her gate key.”
Justine said, “Good thought. Any reason or anyone you can think of who could have done this?”
“Someone hated her. Or hated me. Or hated us both.”
Justine nodded. “Sci? Mo? We have to get out of here. Will you be all right, Jack?”
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You’re in shock. We all are. Just tell the cops what you know,” she said as Sci and Mo packed up their kits.
“Say you took a very long shower,” Sci said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Make that a long bath and then a shower. That should soak up some of the timeline.”
“Okay.”
“The only prints I found were yours,” said Mo-bot.
“It’s my house.”
“I know that, Jack. There were no prints other than yours. Check the entry card reader,” she said. “I would do it, but we should leave.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mo.”
Justine squeezed my hand, said she’d call me later, and then, as if I had dreamed them up, they were gone and I was alone with Colleen.
CHAPTER 6
The Beverly Hills Sun was one of three exclusive hotels in the chain of Poole Hotels. Located on South Santa Monica Boulevard, a mile from Rodeo Drive, the Sun was five stories of glamour, each room with a name and an individual look.
The Olympic-sized eternity pool on the rooftop was flanked with white canvas cabanas, upholstered seating, and ergonomic lounge chairs-and then there was the open-air bar.
Hot and cool young people in the entertainment business were drawn like gazelles to this oasis, one of the best settings under and above the Sun.
At nine that evening, Jared Knowles, the Sun’s night manager, was standing in front of the Bergman Suite on the fifth floor with one of the housekeepers.
He said to her, “I’ve got it, Maria. Thank you.”
When Maria had rounded the corner with the bedding in her arms, Knowles knocked loudly on the door,
