James Patterson - #1 Suspect

Justine said, “Pretty sure?”

“It’s all very sketchy. I just remember laughing. Falling down. Girls pawing me. That’s it. And none of my boys saw me leaving with Katie.”

“She could’ve been lying to get out of trouble,” Justine said. “If she was out late, that sort of thing.”

The star pulled on his lower lip, looking to Justine as if he was searching his memory, not making up a story.

Then again, Whitman was an actor.

“Dr. Smith, I might as well tell you, this wasn’t the first time I lost track of myself. My life’s kinda unreal, you know? I was just a kid when I came out here. A normal kid. Here there’s too much of everything and my time isn’t my own. Half the time it feels like someone else is running my life and I have no control over what happens to me.”

Justine said, “All I want to do is help you so that things don’t get worse, so that you can get through your trial without any more bad press. Do you want me to advise you?”

“Yes. Hell, yes. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Justine thought, Oh, crap. Danny was likable and now she was responsible for keeping him clean and celibate so he could make the hundred-million-dollar blockbuster.

She handed Whitman two cards, saying, “Here’s how to reach me and Scotty. It’s really simple. Don’t go out with girls at all. That way there will be no pictures, no headlines. Don’t spend the night out with anyone. Go to work, go home alone, keep your phone on, and stay in touch with us.”

“Done deal.”

“Whose number is on your hand?” Justine asked.

“I don’t know. This is what I’m talking about. Look. It’s gone,” Whitman said, spitting on his hand, wiping it against the leg of his jeans.

“Okay,” Justine said. “Starting now, pretend you’re a monk. And we’ll dig up what we can on Katie Blackwell.”

The staircase at Private was a wide, winding spiral, five stories wrapping around the core of the reception entrance on the ground floor. The stairs were inspired by the cross section of a nautilus shell. And by a stone staircase I once walked down at the Vatican.

I was going up the stairs to my office when Sci loped up the steps, caught up with me on four, and said, “Hold on, Jack.” He had a sad look on his face.

My guts took the down elevator.

“What is it, Sci?”

“You’re looking at the bad-news messenger,” he said. “Bruno just called.”

Bruno was Sci’s friend, the high-level tech at the city lab, the one with cop connections who hoped that Sci would one day bring him over to Private.

We walked past Cody into my office.

Sci dropped into a chair, put his feet up on the edge of my desk, and said, “Between us, okay? Or else we’re going to have to hire Bruno. Lose a good contact at the lab.”

“Go ahead. No, wait. I want Justine to hear this.”

“Are you sure?” said Sci.

“Absolutely.”

I got Justine on the interoffice line. She said she’d be right up, and in a minute she came into my office, barely looking at me. She took the chair next to Sci.

Sci said, “The LA crime lab found semen in Colleen’s body. The DNA is consistent with yours.”

“Come on,” I said.

Justine didn’t say it, but I could read it in her face- Why am I not surprised?

Sci went on, “And apparently the cops have a timeline for the murder. Here’s what I’ve been told. On the day it happened, Colleen used her credit card to buy gas and a few random purchases at the Sunoco on La Cienega. She had lunch alone at the Newsroom Cafe on North Robertson, and her car was just found at the adjacent parking garage.”

I was seeing it as Sci laid it out. I tried to block out the issue of the semen in Colleen’s body.

“Cops have dumped your phone records, Jack,” said Sci. “Your landline was used during the time period when Colleen was killed, and you say you weren’t home.”

“The killer used my phone?”

“Yeah. Seems like he used it to call a number that was answered and then disconnected after two seconds. That call was to Tommy’s cell.”

“ Christ. What the hell does that mean?”

What did it mean?

“That semen,” Justine said. “If Tommy had sex with Colleen, the DNA would be the same.”

“Right,” Sci said. “His DNA and Jack’s are identical.”

“So the cops are saying what? I had sex with Colleen, killed her, and then called my brother? Or we killed her together?”

“Jack, what I know is that Mitch Tandy wants to get you for this, and if he can get Tommy too it’s a very big day for Tandy.”

Tommy.

I had to face it. My goddamned brother could have been involved in Colleen’s death. Had he gone insane? Had he killed Colleen to hurt me?

I thought back to the break that had divided us for good. It had happened when Tommy and I were in the ninth grade, fourteen years old.

April Lundon was a year older.

She was charming and flirtatious and spontaneous. She could walk on her hands and ride a horse bareback, and she’d been to Paris. She’d had a French boyfriend the summer before and knew bedroom French.

She liked to walk between me and Tommy with her hands hooked into the backs of our pants. She said she liked us equally-and we were both crazy for her. April wouldn’t choose.

We agreed, Tommy and I, that only one of us could have the girl. April set the terms, a kissing contest. She would be blindfolded. The best kisser would win. And there was the implied promise that the winner would take all.

We were testosterone fueled and cocky. The idea of a “kiss off” was delicious. We both thought we would win, and we never considered the consequences. It never occurred to either of us to just walk away.

The competition was on for a Saturday morning, and a dozen kids showed up at the beach behind the juice bar to cheer us on in this wicked and daring contest.

April kissed Tommy, then she kissed me. I put my whole heart into that kiss, as if I would never kiss a girl again. April picked me.

Then, best two out of three, she picked me again.

Tommy didn’t forgive April and he didn’t forgive me. Our dispute was encouraged by our father, who would favor one of us, then, for no reason we could see or understand, favor the other. He was unpredictable and cruel.

Our bitterness escalated, got dirty, got physical, and lived on after April Lundon was in college, married, a mother of four. Continued even after my father gave me fifteen million dollars and the keys to Private.

Continued even after he was dead.

So there was bad history between Tommy and me, but could he, would he, get revenge by committing murder?

I thought he was capable of it.

But I didn’t know if he had done it.

I stared through Sci and Justine, thinking that I’d go to his office, drag him out, do whatever it took to get him to talk.

I called to Cody, “I need Del Rio and Cruz. Now.”

But Justine reached across my desk and put a hand on my arm.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait until you have enough evidence to box Tommy in.”

Jack Morgan’s multimillion-dollar crime lab took up the entire lower level of Private: twenty thousand square feet of cutting-edge forensic laboratory, regarded as one of the top independent labs in the country. A service for Private clients, Private’s lab was also a profit center, hired by police departments across the country when they needed fast results and only the most advanced technology would do.

Dr. Seymour Kloppenberg, Private’s own Dr. Sci, was the proud head of this lab, but right now he and Mo-bot were in Mo’s office, a dark cave of a room that Mo liked to call her “cozy hole.” She was burning incense, had scarves draped over the lamps, and photos of her husband and kids saved screens on the dozen computer monitors banked above her desktop.