James Patterson - #1 Suspect

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.”

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.

Did you kill Colleen Molloy?

Are you a murderer?

I had imagined Colleen’s death so many times at this point that it felt as though I had been standing by the bed when bullets from my gun drilled into her chest.

Fescoe’s call ten minutes ago had turned my mental imagery into something immediate and real. The cops had found my gun. They were running the ballistics now. And I knew with near certainty that sometime soon I would be charged with murder in the second degree.

I said, “Good morning,” squared the printout of the agenda in front of me, tapped the table with my pen.

I brought my colleagues up to date on the investigation into Colleen’s death and said, “The person who killed Colleen is a pro. That person is trying to incriminate me-and doing a good job of it too. He did his research. He knew Colleen was in Los Angeles, knew her movements and mine. He got into my house, killed her, and left without making any obvious mistakes. The police felt they didn’t have to look further than me. Why would they? The killing happened to my friend, in my bed, and she was killed with my gun.

“It was a beautiful setup. I don’t know who killed Colleen, but I have some ideas, and we’re going to bring him down. Please see me if you have any thoughts or if you can give me any help. Tell your staff and your clients that I’m innocent, and you can take my word for that because you all know me and I’m telling you the truth.”

“Jack, excuse me. What are these ideas you have?” asked Pierre Bonet, our director from France.

“I’m not going to discuss them until I have something solid.”

I asked if there were any other questions, and then I looked down at the agenda.

“Ian, you’re up first. You want to talk about expanding the London office into Glasgow…”

I set my expression to “listen,” although I could actually make no sense of what Ian was saying. He was reading from a chart projected on a screen when the door swung open and Tandy came in, Ziegler right behind him.

I felt sudden, pure terror, as if thugs had just broken in firing automatic weapons. Fescoe had given me no time to call my lawyer, no time to even clear the room.

“Excuse me, Ian. Mitch, let’s take this outside,” I said to Tandy.

“That won’t be necessary,” Tandy said. “Please stand up, Mr. Morgan. Turn around and face the wall.”

There was no way out. Nowhere to go. I told Cody to find Caine and Justine, and I followed Tandy’s orders.

Cuffs locked around my wrists. Tandy stuffed an arrest warrant inside my breast pocket and read me my rights, his voice the only sound in the otherwise stark silence of the conference room.

Tandy wanted to make sure he was humiliating me as much as possible.

I had time to say to my colleagues, “I’ll be talking to each of you very soon,” before Ziegler gave me a little shove and I was marched out of the room in the custody of two homicide dicks from the LAPD.

Tandy grabbed my left elbow, Ziegler hooked my right, and they walked me down the winding staircase that opened into the reception areas on every floor. Clients and would-be clients, staffers moving between floors, all of them saw that I was under arrest.

Their faces mirrored my shock.

“We’ve got a car waiting,” Ziegler said. “It’s not your usual ride, Jack. But it has an engine. And wheels.”

“You didn’t have to do it this way,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure you know that.”

Tandy laughed. The son of a bitch was having a very good day. When we reached the ground floor, Ziegler held the front door open and we exited out onto Figueroa.

Clearly, the media had been alerted by the cops. The morning sun cast a flat bright light on the eager faces of the press surging toward me. Bystanders crowded in from the fringes.

Tandy cracked, “Hey, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, Jack. I read that in Variety.”

Cody was waiting for me at the curb. He was very close to tears.

“Justine and Mr. Caine are heading out to TTCF,” he said to me. “They’ll meet you there.”

The Twin Towers Correctional Facility was the supersized prison complex that had replaced the LA Hall of Justice after the quake of ’94. It was known as the busiest prison in the free world, consisting of an intake center and three jails on a ten-acre campus.

The horror stories of the brutality at TTCF were legendary. If you couldn’t make bail, you could lose your health, even your life while waiting months to see a judge. This was true whether or not you were guilty of anything.

“What should I say to people?” Cody was asking.

“Say that I’ve been falsely charged and that I’ll have a statement for the press as soon as I’m back in my office.”

“Don’t worry, Jack. Mr. Caine will get you out. He’s the best.”

Cody was trying to reassure me, and I wanted to reassure him, but I had nothing comforting to say.

I wished now that I hadn’t listened to Justine, that I had gotten to Tommy and beaten the crap out of him. He was a cagey bastard, but he couldn’t stand up to me. Not in a fair fight. He would have told me something.

Reporters called my name, shouted, “What’s your side of the story, Jack? What do you want people to know?”

Tandy pushed my head down and folded me into the backseat of the unmarked car. As I ducked under the doorframe, I turned my head and glanced up at our offices.

Mo-bot was on the second floor, leaning out an open window with a video camera.

She was filming everything.

She saw me look up at her and gave me a thumbs-up. I was filled with affection for Mo. I smiled at her for a second before Tandy slammed my door. He went around to the other side and got into the backseat next to me.

Up front, Ziegler started the engine.

He waited a good long minute or two for an opening in the traffic while reporters banged on the doors and windows. And then the car took off.

I didn’t see a crack of hope.

They had me, and if they could they would destroy me.

Tandy and Ziegler broke a path through the thick clots of gangbangers between the street and the chain-link fence surrounding the prison building. A guard opened the gate, Tandy spoke, and we were led through a number of checkpoints until we reached an interrogation room on the ground floor.