Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

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.”

PART FOUR

DEAD END

CHAPTER 98

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.

As I closed the door, a storm came up out of the blue. Rain slashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the building and haloed the headlights of the traffic streaming along Figueroa.

Caine ran to his car, and I headed up the winding staircase to my office, where I planned to put in another four or five hours of work on my own behalf.

As I climbed the quarter-turn span between the third and fourth floors, I saw Justine coming down.

She was still wearing the black dress she had worn to Piper Winnick’s memorial service, and seeing her sent a jolt to my heart, as it did every time.

I said, “Hey.”

Justine returned the hey and kept going down the stairs. I stopped and said, “Justine, did you eat? Let’s go out and celebrate your Koulos bust—”

“No, thanks anyway, Jack. I’m wiped out. I can’t wait to get home.”

“Are you sure linguini marinara and some good wine wouldn’t beat being home alone? I need to talk to you.”

“Not tonight, Jack. Ask Cody to fit me into your schedule tomorrow.”

She started to pass me on the stairs, and I didn’t like it. She wasn’t tired so much as she didn’t want to deal with me. As though I were a guy standing behind her in line at Starbucks, breathing down her neck and yakking into his phone at the same time.

I said, “Then spare me a couple of minutes now. Are you going to take that job offer? I have to know.”

Justine sighed, shifted her weight, adjusted the strap on her shoulder bag.

“They’re matching my compensation plus fifteen percent.”