James Patterson - #1 Suspect

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

I was dressed in my best, had on the nice aftershave Justine had given me, and was driving the Lambo at a pretty good clip from the office toward Beverly Hills. Justine was sitting beside me and urging me to go faster.

She was edgy, and she was talking to me like I was hired by the hour.

I got onto the 110. Although it was largely ignored, the posted speed limit was fifty-five. I nudged the accelerator until I was going a shade over sixty, and still Justine was applying the whip.

“If we get pulled over,” she said, “don’t worry. I’ve got a friend in the LAPD.”

“I’m the one who’s out on bail, Justine. Bail can be revoked. Let’s not push my luck, all right?”

Justine said, “Uh-huh,” looked at her watch, then stared through the windshield. I knew she wasn’t seeing anything on the freeway. She was inside her head, thinking back, projecting forward.

“Justine. Hello. It’s me. Jack. I’m right here.”

“I’m running it all through my mind again,” she said, her voice heavy with exasperation.

“Okay.”

“Danny could have finished the film, but he’s so messed up, it would have been a joke. It would have been panned. And a bomb at the box office meant certain bankruptcy.”

“Piper’s death killed the film.”

“Yeah. Who would’ve guessed that could be a good thing?”

I left Justine to her thoughts, dwelling on other fights we’d had, how I hated them, how much I wanted things to be all right with us. Christ, I missed her. I wished she missed me.

After a one-minute mile on the freeway I got off and took a route through the streets of Beverly Hills that saved us a couple of minutes, finally taking a right onto North Crescent Drive, which brought us to the entrance of the famous pink-stucco, five-star Beverly Hills Hotel.

As I handed my keys to the valet, Justine called to Nora Cronin, who was getting out of her own car. Unmarked police cars pulled up to the hotel entrance, and I heard Nora telling the valets to leave the cop cars right where they were.

There was a poster on an easel near the front door; a life-sized photo of Piper Winnick, draped in black crepe, the dates of her birth and death beneath her young and angelically beautiful face.

Justine and Nora spoke briefly under the porte cochere, then Justine broke away from Nora and said to me, “We’re late, Jack. But not too late.”

I gave her the crook of my arm and together we walked up the red carpet that ran between pairs of square columns and up three steps. Still on the carpet, we entered the dazzling hotel.

Justine tried to see everything at once as she entered the Crystal Ballroom.

It was a sumptuous place, a grande dame of a room; round, pale, decorated in an art deco style, looking much as it had when the hotel was built in 1931.

Justine did a visual check of the exits, the walls of silk-draped windows, the tall French doors leading out to the Crystal Garden. And she checked out the tables under the magnificent chandelier.

There were celebrities at every place: movie stars both young and old, fashion designers, and talk show hosts. Piper’s parents were near the stage, and Danny’s people were at a table in the center of the room. Larry Schuster was there, and Alan Barstow, as well as Danny’s entourage and their dates and wives.

If she and Nora didn’t screw this up, Danny Whitman could be out of jail tonight.

Across the room was a large stage, the wall behind it forming a backdrop for a Piper Winnick slide show. Still shots from Piper’s films and endearing candid photos from her childhood flashed by. Four-foot-tall vases of white roses flanked the stage, and there were candles everywhere.

Mervin Koulos stood behind the podium at center stage.

He looked impressive today: a six-foot-tall, perfectly groomed Hollywood producer of a shattered picture with an untraditional, non-Hollywood ending.

One of his stars was dead. The other star was in jail. And he’d figured that this disaster would be his salvation.

Justine walked along the left-hand wall toward the steps to the stage. Nora Cronin advanced on the stage from the other side of the room.

Meanwhile, Merv Koulos was telling a story about Piper, and he was having a hard time getting his words out.

He said, “I’ll never forget when Piper was cast in the role of Gia in Shades of Green. She said to me, ‘Merv, it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to work with Danny Whitman.’

“Lifelong dream,” he choked, his voice cracking. “Imagine that. She was just sixteen.”

Justine and Nora had both reached the stage, but Koulos saw only Justine, who had walked right up to the podium and touched his arm.

Koulos started. He looked bewildered.

He put his hand over the microphone and said, “Dr. Smith. What is this?”

Justine said, “Merv, I want you to say this into the mic. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been called away. It’s an emergency.’”

Koulos kept his hand over the mic and whispered, “Whatever the hell you think you’re doing, it can wait. If you didn’t notice, I’m giving a eulogy.”

“Merv. Look to your left. See that woman in the blue blazer, waggling her fingers at you? That’s Lieutenant Cronin. Homicide. She needs to speak with you, urgently.”

Koulos scowled. The buzzing of conversation rose up from the tables. Koulos spoke into the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Winnick, I’m very sorry for the interruption. This is some kind of prank, and it’s in very poor taste. Will someone please call security?”

Nora crossed the stage. She had her badge in her hand and three uniformed officers following her as she came toward Koulos. She said, “Mr. Koulos, please put your hands behind your back.”

“Are you crazy?” Koulos peered out into the audience. “I need help here. Alan? Give me a hand, will you?”

All conversation died-then Koulos panicked.

He broke away from the podium, knocking the microphone to the floor. He ran toward the stage door, but the cops were quicker and they brought him down, pulling back his arms for Nora, who clapped on the handcuffs.

The fallen microphone carried Koulos’s desperate cries for help and Nora Cronin’s response.

“Mervin Koulos, you’re under arrest for the murder of Piper Winnick.”

Now the audience panicked too. Women screamed. Chairs went over.

Koulos yelled at Nora over the recitation of the Miranda warnings. “So much hell is going to rain down on you. You’ll be a meter maid by the time I’m done with you. If you’re that lucky.”

Justine watched the cops drag Koulos to his feet. Then she turned away and walked down the stage steps, her job done.

As she moved toward the exit, she thought about greed: how Koulos had lived too large, had borrowed too much, had put every penny into this film starring Danny Whitman, a guy too damaged to bring it off.

But Koulos had an insurance policy on the film in the form of a completion bond worth a hundred million dollars.

He wouldn’t be collecting that money now.

Jack was waiting for her near the door. He put his hand to her waist and walked her out.

“Well played,” Jack said to Justine. “Well played and well done.”

It was eight P.M.

I was standing just inside Private’s front entrance, saying good night to my friend and attorney Eric Caine. He hadn’t said so directly, but he had let me know that without new evidence, my defense in the case of California v. Jack Morgan was looking bad.