Private: #1 Suspect

by James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

  A car horn blew loud and long as the speeding caravan forced a Caddy tight up against the median strip.

  Del Rio said, “Pay attention, Emilio.”

  “Pay attention? I’m driving in a straight line. It’s too fast, man? You want me to pull over and you drive? That’s okay with me. I want to piss my pants, you hear me?”

  The Impala made a sudden screaming right onto Neenach, and Cruz followed, Jack tight behind them.

  Neenach was residential, a lot like the street where Gomez lived, two lines of facing single-story stucco homes fronted by low walls or small gardens, a few trees sprouting up between the houses and the asphalt.

  Cruz didn’t want to take his eyes off the road long enough to check the speed, but his gut told him they were going ninety down Neenach, flying toward the intersection at Haddon.

  But Gomez didn’t take the turn at Haddon.

  There was a sound wall up ahead where Neenach Street dead-ended at the freeway. Gomez wasn’t stopping. She sped into the cul-de-sac, a dead end with a semicircle of houses, maybe six of them, facing the high cement wall that separated them from the freeway.

  Cruz slammed on the brakes.

  So did Jack and the four cruisers behind him. Cars spun and jackknifed, ran up on lawns and into parked cars. Rubber burned. There was the grating sound of metal compacting as cars slammed into garbage cans and walls.

  Cruz saw the Impala leap forward in stop action. The car seemed to pause in the air, then fold up as it collided with the wall. Cruz had his hand on his door handle before his car stopped, and then he was out and running.

  Rick and Jack were also running toward the crash, but Rick was yelling at Jack, “Jack, stop. That car is going to blow.”

  Jack shouted back over the noise, “I have to know if she’s alive,” and kept running toward the crushed red metal that had been Carmelita Gomez’s car.

  CHAPTER 113

  PEOPLE CAME OUT of their houses in their pajamas and underwear, kids clung to their parents, cop cars piled up in the cul-de-sac. I knew full well that I was running toward a crashed car, but flashbacks were flooding my mind, sending me back to the worst night of my life.

  I was in Afghanistan, transporting troops to base, when a rocket grenade tore through the belly of my CH-46, knocking out the rear rotor assembly and bringing us down.

  There’d been a terrifying descent. The aircraft dropped into a black vortex of night. I pulled up on the cyclic, praying that I could land the Phrog upright—and miraculously I did.

  As Del Rio and I scrambled out onto the sand, fuel ignited. Ordnance exploded. A column of fire burned and, through my night-vision goggles, became a green wall of flame.

  We were out of the aircraft intact, but fourteen US Marines were trapped in the cargo hold where we’d taken a direct hit.

  It was an honest-to-God hell on earth.

  Men I knew, fought with, loved, were certainly dead, but I had to know for sure that no survivors were burning alive. I ran toward the cargo bay, and as he was doing now, Del Rio shouted at me to stop, screamed that the aircraft was going to blow.

  “Jack.”

  I turned to Del Rio now and shouted, “I have to know if she’s alive.”

  The front end of the Impala had hit the wall head-on and compacted like an accordion.

  The driver’s-side door was open and the air bag had deployed and deflated. Gomez was hanging limp from the seat belt. She was bleeding from her mouth, but she was breathing.

  I leaned into the doorframe and said to her, “Carmelita. Can you hear me?”

  She flicked her eyes toward me.

  “Who?”

  “I’m Jack Morgan, a special investigator. Did you do it? Did you kill Maurice Bingham? Did you kill Albert Singh?”

  Her laugh was a wheeze, maybe an answer with her last breath. But it wasn’t answer enough for me.

  “You’re dying, Carmelita. You don’t want to go with this secret.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  Cruz said, “Candy. Dime la verdad. Pides perdón.”

  She sucked in air and said, “God knows. I killed them. No me necesito maldito perdón, muthafucka. They…got…what they deserved.”

  She lifted her hand with great effort and, looking right at me, she gave me the finger. Then her face froze, her eyes went flat, and she died.

  CHAPTER 114

  AMBULANCES POURED INTO the bowl of the cul-de-sac, and uniformed cops put up barricades, instructing dazed and frightened homeowners to stay out of the street.

  Sergeant Jane Campbell interviewed me beside my car.

  Jane was a good cop, twelve years on the job. I had gone to high school with her brother, had had a few sandwiches at her kitchen table a long time ago.

  “Looks like about thirty grand in damage,” Sergeant Campbell said, surveying my car. “And that’s just for the rear panel.”

  “A police cruiser gave me a tap, but I’m okay. And I’m insured.”

  Campbell smiled. “Glad to hear it. Tell me what happened, Jack.”

  “Long version or short?”

  “Start with the summary, then we’ll back up.”

  “Okay. We got information about a case we’re working. Men who were garroted in their hotel rooms. I had a theory that they were killed after having sex with a hooker. We wanted to talk to Ms. Gomez.”

  “The LAPD is working that case.”

  “We’re on it privately for Amelia Poole.”

  “She owns the Sun? On Santa Monica?”

  “Right. Another guest was killed in her hotel today, strangled with a wire. She’s concerned for her guests’ safety.”

  “You think Carmelita Gomez was the killer—”

  “We got a tip an hour ago saying she was. We went to her house to talk to her, and she fled, I mean at warp speed. We called the police immediately.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “We had to follow her, Jane. She was telling us she was guilty by the fact of her flight. We couldn’t take a chance she’d get away. I saw her drive into that wall. She didn’t try to brake. You’ll see there’s no rubber on the road. It was a suicide.”

  “So you had a tip, chased your suspect, and now she’s dead. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “I didn’t see any other option. I still don’t.”

  “Emilio Cruz,” she said, indicating him with her chin. “He said Ms. Gomez made a dying declaration.”

  “She did.”

  “And you’ll testify to her confession?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes. I will.”

  “We’re going to have questions. Please don’t leave town, Jack.”

  “People keep telling me that,” I said. “Do I have to worry about moving violations? Anything like that?”

  “Why? So you can call Fescoe and get it fixed? Just get your taillight repaired,” she told me. “And tell Tommy I said hi.”

  I drove my car up to where Del Rio and Cruz sat in the fleet car with the engine idling.

  “Is the day over yet?” Del Rio asked.

  “It’s done. Good job, both of you.”

  I said good night and drove my injured car to the Hollywood Freeway. This time of night, it was only twenty minutes to Hancock Park.

  Since my release from jail, I’d spent every free minute analyzing, researching, watching. Then I’d ruminated some more.

  Jane’s message to Tommy was the prodding I needed to do what my gut had been telling me to do since the beginning.

  CHAPTER 115

  I PARKED IN the driveway of a house with a pediment and Doric columns and underwater lights turning the reflecting pool deep ocean-blue. It was the very picture of over-the-top conspicuous consumption as only Californians could do it.

  Lights were on in the house.

  I set the brake, climbed the walk, rang the doorbell a couple of times, and when no one came to the door, I let myself into the house.

  I found my sister-in-law in the five-hundred-thousand-dollar k
itchen, making chocolate pudding and watching Goodfellas on TV. Her back was to me.

  I said, not too loud, “Annie. Hey.”

  Annie screamed and dropped the spoon. She turned, hands to her cheeks, still screaming.

  “It’s me, it’s me. I rang the bell.”

  She took a breath, put her arms out, and hugged me. “You’re a menace, Jack,” she said. “Feel my heart racing?”

  “I’m sorry.” Maybe she’d lied to give my brother an alibi, but I loved her anyway.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me.

  I hugged her, patted her back, said, “I’m fine. But I’ve got to see Tommy. Believe it or not, I need his help.”

  “He’s in the barn. Go wake up your nephew. He’s worried about you. Take this.”

  She took a jug of milk out of the refrigerator, poured a glass, and handed it to me. “You remember where his room is?”

  Ned was asleep.

  I turned on the lamp and lit up a room lined with posters: military recruitment, dinosaurs, action figures. I sat on the side of the bed, looked at the eight-year-old boy who wasn’t my child but carried half my genes.

  I put the milk down, touched Ned’s arm, said, “Hey, buddy. It’s your old uncle Jack.”

  His eyelids flew open and he sat up fast, throwing his arms around my chest. I hugged him and kissed his hair.

  “How are you, buddy? How’s Ned?”

  He pulled back and grinned at me. “I was digging and look what I found. Dad says it’s older than he is.”

  I followed his finger, saw the old glass Coke bottle on the night table. I picked it up, and admired it under the light.

  “This is fantastic. It’s a real antique.”

  “I saw you on TV,” Ned said. I put the bottle down, and Ned was back in my arms, talking into my chest. “They said you killed someone. Colleen.”

  “It’s not true, honey. I know what people say, but I didn’t kill her. I’m being framed.”

  He looked up at me, questions and tears in his eyes.

  “Someone lied about you? But why? ”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not right. That’s whack, Uncle Jack.”

  “He’s not going to get away with it. I’m not kidding.”

  “Good. Go get him. Bring the dirty dog down.”

  I bumped fists with the little guy and hugged him again. Then I left the house with its elaborate coved ceilings, formal furniture, and fireplaces in every room, walked past the Olympic-sized heated pool and out to the six-bay car barn.

  Tommy had a classic American car collection, a passion he’d shared with Dad. I found him under a 1948 Buick Roadmaster, a pewter-gray automobile that looked as if it had been blown from a bubble machine. It was a beautiful thing.

  I grabbed Tommy’s ankles and pulled him out on the dolly he’d rolled in on.

  He stared at me, his expression changing as his initial fear turned to mocking anger.

  “What’s your problem, Jack?”

  “I know who set me up, Junior. I know who killed Colleen.”

  CHAPTER 116

  “TAKE A LOOK at this,” I said to Tommy.

  I cued my iPhone to Mo-bot’s video and handed the gadget to my brother. He pushed the “play” button, and I heard the tinny sound of reporters shouting to get my attention outside my office on a day I would never forget.

  “This is you being taken to the hoosegow,” my brother said. “That’s a rough crowd.”

  “Keep looking. You see someone we know?”

  “Huh. Clay Harris. What’s he doing there?”

  “He works for you, Tom.”

  “Part-time. He’s a charity case, believe me.”

  “So you had nothing to do with him being there?”

  “Hell, no. What are you saying? That I knew you were going to jail? And that I called Clay? Why would I do that?”

  “Let’s go talk to him,” I said.

  “Now?”

  “No better time than now.”

  “If you say so. I’ll tell Annie I’m going out for a while. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  A few minutes later, Tommy met me in the driveway. He was wearing a jacket, different shoes. He walked around to the back of my car.

  He ran his hand over the Lambo’s left rear haunch and along the crease to the door. His jacket fell open, and I saw the gun stuck in his waistband.

  “Christ,” he said. “What the hell happened to your car?”

  “I went to the supermarket. When I came out…”

  “I’ve got a great body shop guy. I’ll give you his number. But as good as Wayne is, this is never going to look the same again,” Tommy said. “It’s a damned shame.”

  “Get in, will you?”

  “Are you allowed to drive?”

  “Get in. Try not to shoot yourself in the dick.”

  Tommy got into the car. I pulled out onto West Sixth, toward the 5 going north. I figured it would be forty-five minutes to Santa Clarita at this time of night.

  “Why do you want to talk to Clay?” Tommy asked me.

  Clay Harris had worked for my father as an investigator, and when I took over Private, he was on the payroll.

  I didn’t like him, but he was great at surveillance. He could stay on a tail or sit in a vehicle for days at a time. He looked like an unemployed factory worker, could blend into a crowd on the street. And he knew his way around electronics.

  But he was a cheat and a liar.

  Clay Harris had fattened his expense report. He had done work on the side. And one day he sold photos of a client in a compromising position. I found out.

  That’s when I fired him.

  Next day, Harris went to Tommy, who gave him a job.

  Thinking about him now, standing in the crowd, smirking as I was marched off to jail, put Clay Harris in a new category. He disliked me. He had the skills to hurt me. And I couldn’t say murder was out of his league.

  I said to Tommy, “I want to talk to Clay about Colleen.”

  CHAPTER 117

  I TOOK THE 5, heading toward the Tehachapi mountain range linking Southern and Central California.

  Clay Harris lived on a dirt road in an isolated area made up of remote ranches, parks, and forest service land. From the satellite view, I knew his house was at the edge of a three-hundred-acre parcel, marked for development then abandoned when the bubble burst in 2009. Harris’s house was two miles away from any other man-made thing.

  I took the 126 to Copper Hill Drive, which sent me past a minimall and then a cluster of migrant-worker housing. After the development, there was nothing to see but dry scrub and low hills, copses of native trees, and miles of flat land untouched by the hand of man.

  “Here’s our turn,” I said, taking a left onto San Francisquito Canyon Road.

  Tommy had been talking about himself since we left Hancock Park, filling the air with self-aggrandizing stories about his bodyguard service to celebrities, the stunts the A-listers pulled. But he stopped talking as my headlights lit up the chain-link fence and signs reading “Harris. No Trespassing.”

  I slowed as the house came into view, parked on the shoulder, turned off my headlights.

  The house was at the end of a long drive, placed far back on the property; a ranch-style rambler, white with dark trim and a plain front porch.

  There was a clump of mature native oaks in the yard and more oaks at the fence line, but what grabbed my attention was a brand-new Lexus SUV at the top of the drive.

  I knew how much Clay Harris had earned when he worked for me, and assuming Tommy hadn’t quadrupled his income, the Lexus didn’t fit. Unless someone had given him about seventy-five thousand dollars.

  I reached across my brother and opened the glove box, took out a gun.

  “I don’t think you have a license for that,” Tommy said.

  “Let’s just keep this between us, okay, Junior?”

  We got out of the car and edged along the chain-link fence, getting cover from the tre
es. The gate latch was open, an oversight on the part of Mr. Harris, I thought. We were still thirty feet from the porch when the motion detector found us.

  Lights blazed.

  A siren blared across the open land followed by a fusillade of bullets.

  Harris was unloading a semiautomatic, and shots were whizzing through the trees. Then there was a pause in the shooting.

  Had Clay Harris seen us? Or was he just firing in response to the alarm? Thinking coyote. Or bear. Or, If you’re on my property, you’re dead.

  I whispered, “You take the back door and I’ll take the front.”

  “No, Jack. You take the back.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  It wasn’t fine.

  I hadn’t planned for a shootout.

  In fact, as of right now, I had no plan at all.

  CHAPTER 118

  WE WERE TRESPASSING.

  If I called out Harris’s name and he wanted to shoot me, he could get a bead on my voice and nail me. Legally.

  I dropped to the ground and pulled myself across the yard with my elbows until I had reached the side of the house, out of gunshot range.

  With my back to the wall, I negotiated piles of junk and brush as I made my way to the back entrance.

  I held my gun with both hands, using my foot to push the door open. Hinges creaked and I stepped into a mudroom. I expected shots or at least a challenge, but I heard nothing.

  A light glowed from the center of the house, and I made for it. Using the wall as a guide, I moved forward, past garments hanging from hooks, stacks of newspapers, and towers of boxed, empty beer bottles. Clay Harris was one of those people who didn’t throw things out.

  The mudroom led to the small, narrow kitchen. Pots and pans were piled on the table and in the sink. Garbage stank. There was an off-center door at the end of the kitchen, which led to a dining room.

  I stepped around a table that was heaped with boxes of files and hoarded crap, kept moving toward the beams that framed the entrance to the living room. I peered around the corner into the larger room.