James Patterson: Private

It took time for the e-mail to work its way through the system, and more time before it was taken seriously.

But three days after that encrypted e-mail was sent, the planter was dug up. A plastic bag was recovered. Inside were items taken from the latest victim. There was no DNA on the objects, no prints, no trace; the police were left with nothing but the humiliation of the killer’s last laugh.

Justine had volunteered to consult with the LAPD, and they invited her in. She remembered now how seeing the girl’s personal effects made her physically ill. The killer had handled them, buffed them up, and sent them back to the police with a meaningless signature and a dare.

Then Justine had come up with a plan. To make it work, she got Jack Morgan and Bobby Petino together.

And in a controversial arrangement that had outraged the homicide division of the LAPD, the district attorney’s office approved Private Investigations to work the case as a public service-pro bono.

And now another girl was dead.

Bobby was answering his cell phone, trying to get her attention. “Justine. Justine. Your ride is here.”

Damn it! Justine gripped the armrest of the sleek black, ridiculously fast Mercedes S65 as Emilio Cruz, her “ride” and fellow investigator at Private, took a hard right turn onto Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake area of East LA.

The four-lane road was lined with strip malls and fast-food restaurants of every kind, all within easy walking distance of the John Marshall High School, which two of the murdered girls had attended.

“What do you know about the victim?” Justine finally asked Emilio, glancing his way.

Emilio Cruz didn’t even have to try to look good. He bunched his black hair back with a rubber band, put his ancient leather jacket over anything, and generally looked like a movie star just waiting to break out.

Cruz’s voice was as soft as butter. “Her name is Connie Yu. She was a bright light. In the eleventh grade, only sixteen years old.”

“She’s so smart,” said Justine, “why was she walking on this street alone?”

“These girls, Justine, are being killed in my neighborhood. They’re too tough to act scared.”

“Sorry, Emilio. That’s my frustration talking. I feel desperate and even guilty. Why can’t I get a decent handle on this fucker?”

“Tell me about it. I’m here with you, right? Pro bono. I hate pro bono.”

Cruz hated to lose too, really hated it. Maybe even more than Jack did. He had once been a ranked prizefighter, then a cop, then a special investigator for the DA’s office under Bobby Petino. Three years later, Bobby Petino introduced him to Jack, who hired him as a Private investigator. Justine was in awe of Cruz’s bulldog-like tenacity when it came to getting to the truth. This and his natural charm made Cruz a gifted investigator. Only the gifted made it at Private.

“What else, if anything, do we know about Connie Yu?” Justine asked.

“Hey, listen, I apologize, Justine. You’re right. The girl was smart, so what’s wrong with this fucked-up picture? Especially after you went to all these schools to warn the kids. You shouldn’t feel guilty-you’re doing more than anybody.”

Cruz slowed the powerful car and pulled up to the curb between cruisers blocking off an alley a couple of blocks from the Hyperion Bridge.

Justine got out, shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, and headed toward the crime scene tape that cordoned off the alley. Ahead she saw the LAPD’s lead investigator on the Schoolgirl case, Lieutenant Nora Cronin.

Cronin was feisty, a smart cop with maybe too much attitude. She had a crazy crush on Cruz and glowered at Justine. Her entire body, all two hundred pounds, radiated with just how much she hated Private’s involvement in her case.

“The DA sent us,” Justine said, biting off the line.

“Uh-huh. Your boyfriend calls, you go to a murder scene. That’s kinky.”

Justine walked away from the pissy lieutenant, signed the log for herself and for Cruz. Then she ducked under the tape and called out to the medical examiner, Dr. Madeleine Calder, a good friend.

“Hey, Madeleine. We need to take a look at the victim.”

“Howya doin’, Justine? Cruz?” said Calder. The ME was small boned and petite, but strong enough to flip the body of a homicide victim when necessary. She stepped aside, giving Justine a full-on view of the girl lying between bags of trash and the cruddy back door of a Taco Bell restaurant.

Justine stooped beside Connie Yu, saw the dark pool of blood around the girl’s head. And also a gold stud glinting from the girl’s left ear.

Madeleine Calder said, “Justine, check this out.”

There was no earring in the victim’s right ear.

There wasn’t even an ear.

Dr. Calder said, “The ear’s gone, Justine. Restaurant Dumpsters have been tossed. The crew has been up and down the street looking for it. Nowhere to be found. I guess the perp will tell us where it is in a couple of days.”

Agonized screams at the police cordon caught Justine’s attention. She looked up at Cruz. “Connie Yu’s family has arrived. Let’s get out of here, Emilio. We can’t help those poor people. Not here, anyway.”

Justine had gone to the morgue with the girl’s body, and it was past two a.m. when she called Private’s chief criminalist, Seymour Kloppenberg, nicknamed Dr. Science-Sci for short-and said she needed him right away.

Sci told his girlfriend, Kit-Kat, he had to go in to the Private offices, made a snack for his rather unusual pet, Trixie, and left the apartment with his helmet under one arm.

His lovingly restored World War II courier bike with sidecar was in the garage under Sci’s apartment building. He kick-started the motor and floored it up the ramp onto Hauser, then took Sixth all the way to Private’s offices in downtown LA.

Flashing his ID at security, he took the elevator to the basement level, where his lab was located.

Justine was already waiting for him.

“This is about schoolgirl number twelve?” he asked, unlocking his door, immediately switching on music-the theme from Sweeney Todd.

“Yes,” Justine said. “And it’s enough to turn your stomach. Well, maybe not yours.”

Sci gave her a jokey fanged-monster face. Then he escorted Justine through the negative-pressure chamber into the lab, his “playground.”

Accredited by the International Organization for Standardization, Sci’s multimillion-dollar lab was the heart of Private’s operations, as well as a profit center. It was used by several West Coast law enforcement agencies, since it was better equipped and faster than anything at the LAPD or the FBI.

Sci’s crew of twelve technicians worked in several areas of forensic science: analysis, serology, forensic identification, and print and latent-print identification. Sci’s latest pride and joy was the new holographic-manipulation technology that he used to tease apart cells with a microlaser under a high-powered microscope.

His people had been the first to test real-time use of a satellite, a method called teleforensics. Using a tiny camera, Private’s investigators could bounce streaming images from a crime scene straight back to the lab, saving time and resources, preventing scene contamination.

Justine followed Sci across the vast underground space to his hub of an office and personal control center. Horror movie posters adorned the walls: Shaun of the Dead, Carrie, Hostel, Zombieland.

Sci dragged up a stool for Justine, then dropped into his chair and swiveled around like a little kid in an ice cream store.

“Sorry to take you away from Kit-Kat,” Justine said, smiling, “but I need you to look at what we’ve got before I turn it over to the LAPD in the morning.”