Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

Tandy got comfortable in one of the two metal chairs across from us. Then Ziegler came in with a bulky manila envelope. He made a big production of pulling out a chair, putting the envelope down on the table, and taking his seat, snapping a rubber band on his wrist.

Like he was onstage.

Like he wanted all the attention.

What was up?

Other than the rubber band tic, neither cop gave any sign of emotion.

Tandy said, “I suppose you know what this is about.”

“Why don’t you tell us?” Caine said. “My client has a busy schedule. I’m sure you do too.”

“Does the name Clay Harris mean anything to you?” Tandy asked me.

He knew fu

ll well that I had known Harris.

Three days had passed since I’d stared down at Harris’s dead body. I hadn’t heard anything about the shooting since then. And I hadn’t heard from my brother.

Caine was speaking for me.

“We both know Clay Harris. He worked for Private for, what, three years, Jack? He was terminated in ’09 for extortion.”

“He’s dead,” Tandy said. “He was shot in his house out in the boondocks three days ago. An anonymous tipster called it in.”

“I’m sorry to hear that Harris is dead,” Caine said. “What does that have to do with Jack?”

The snakes writhed in my belly. Had I left a fingerprint at Harris’s house? Had my car, with its crumpled rear panel, been seen by a passerby? Had Tommy gone to the police and said that I was the shooter? I’d considered these possibilities many times, but I was sure that I hadn’t touched anything in Harris’s house. I hadn’t left any trace, I was pretty damn sure.

Ziegler opened the envelope, rummaged around, took out a sheet of paper. I’d learned to read upside down when I was three. Ziegler had a report from the LAPD’s forensic lab.

Ziegler said, “Someone took a bite out of Clay Harris’s hand. The ME matched the bite mark to Colleen Molloy’s dental chart. Looks like she bit Harris. Probably the last thing she did before he shot her.”

I already knew what the LAPD lab knew. Sci had matched that bite mark to Colleen’s charts too.

I waited for Ziegler to speak again. I guessed he was hoping I’d blurt something out, give him something on me that he didn’t have already. The silence seemed to go on forever.

Caine said, “This isn’t 48 Hours, Detective, and we don’t have forty-eight hours. You matched the bite on Harris’s hand to Colleen Molloy’s teeth. You want to know if we’re interested? We are.”

CHAPTER 121

ZIEGLER TWISTED IN his seat. He’d delivered the news as if it had caused him physical pain.

“We’re all interested, Caine,” he said. “We actually want the one who killed her.”

I exhaled. It didn’t matter that Ziegler and Tandy saw my relief. They had evidence that Colleen had bitten Clay Harris. Their evidence was now our evidence.

Apparently Tandy felt the same way. He said, “We’re going to concede that Colleen bit Harris. But, Morgan, before you and your attorney start throwing confetti around, let me say that this bite mark isn’t conclusive. It doesn’t mean that because Colleen Molloy bit Harris, he killed her. You understand that, right?”

The bitterness was in his tone if not his words. Tandy had been wrong about me and that had to be killing him. I wished I could tell him that in the past couple weeks he’d funneled me through a meat grinder with a very sharp blade, that he was a bad cop, that someday he was going to pay.

I stifled myself.

“Colleen fought for her life,” I said. “I’m glad about that.”

Caine tapped the table, half a signal to me to shut up, half a signal to the detectives to keep talking.