Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

Ziegler had a swimmer’s build: broad shoulders, a long torso. He wore a copper bracelet on his right wrist. Gun on his hip. I remembered him now. We’d mixed it up once when he was harassing one of my clients. I’d won. His hair had gone gray since I’d seen him last.

Tandy said, “Where’s the victim?”

I told him and he told me to stay where I was.

Ziegler smiled, said, “Sit tight, Jack.”

I stared out the windows toward the beach. All I could see was foam on the dark waves. My head pounded and I wanted to be sick, but I held everything down as Tandy and Ziegler went to my bedroom.

I heard Tandy’s voice on the phone but not what he said. And then he and Ziegler were back.

Tandy said, “I called the ME and the lab. Why don’t you tell us what happened while we wait for them to come?”

We all sat down, and I told Tandy that I didn’t know who could have killed Colleen or why.

“I haven’t slept in more than twenty-four hours,” I said. “I

was a zombie. I started taking off my clothes the minute I walked in. I used the hallway entrance to the bathroom.”

I told him about walking into my bedroom after my shower, expecting to fall into bed. Finding Colleen.

“Very convenient, you taking a shower,” Tandy said. “I suppose you did a load of wash too.”

“My jacket is on that chair. My shirt is on the hallway floor. I threw my pants over the door. My shorts are outside the stall.”

I gave Ziegler the names of Colleen’s next of kin in Dublin and told the cops that the entry log showed that Colleen’s code had been used a half hour before I came home.

“Colleen had the access key to the gate. But it’s not here,” I said. “Someone had to have coerced her, used her key, pressed her finger to the pad at the front door.”

Ziegler said, “Uh-huh,” then asked me to talk about my relationship with Colleen.

“We used to go out,” I said. “And Colleen worked for me. I was very fond of her. After we broke up, she went home to Ireland. She came back a couple of weeks ago to visit friends in LA. I don’t know who. I had lunch with her last Wednesday.”

Tandy didn’t read me my rights and I didn’t ask for a lawyer. I hoped he would have a breakthrough, find something I had missed, but when he asked me to tell him if Colleen and I had had a fight, I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and threw up.

I washed my face and returned to my interrogation.

Tandy asked again, “You have a fight with the girl, Jack?”

“No.”

“You shouldn’t have taken a goddamn shower. That was either insulting or a mistake. We will take your clothes and we will take your drains apart. We’ll check the airport surveillance tapes and dump your phones. That’s just tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do background on the victim. I’m thinking her body will tell us something interesting.”

“Do your best, Tandy. But even you and Ziegler have to know that I wouldn’t kill my ex-girlfriend in my house and then call the cops. It’s a setup.”

“I only want one thing. To find that girl’s killer.”

“I want the same thing.”

I gave Tandy my boarding pass and Aldo’s contact information. I said I wouldn’t leave town. I said I wouldn’t take a piss without asking him first.

The ME came and the CSIs arrived after that. I gave the lab techs my prints, some fresh cheek cells, and my dirty clothes.

“Am I under arrest?” I asked Tandy.

“Not yet,” he said. “You have a friend in high places, Jack. But you can’t stay here.”

I called Rick Del Rio.