Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)
Barstow said, “You’re a cop? You’re supposed to say you’re a cop. This is entrapment. You haven’t read me my rights. I’m not saying another word without my lawyer.”
Nora got up and stood toe-to-toe with the raging Barstow.
“You’re all wrong, Mr. Barstow. I don’t have to identify myself, and you only get your rights read if you’re in custody.”
Barstow’s eyes darted from Nora to the door, to Justine, back to the door, looking for a way to save himself.
“Don’t wreck my life for this,” he said. “I didn’t kill Piper. I may have invited girls to my house for Danny. I may have served liquor. Some girls maybe woke up in bed with Danny and thought they’d had sex with him.”
“That’s not a confession. That’s a ‘maybe.’ ”
“But I did not push Piper off a cliff. Not accidentally, not on purpose. I had nothing to do with her death.”
Nora said, “Mr. Barstow, you’re under arrest on suspicion of murder and a few dozen lesser charges that will keep you in custody while we check out your story. You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. It’s time to call that lawyer. I think you’ll find that you have a morals clause in your contract, in which case CTM is going to cut you loose. But play it out. See what happens.”
Barstow turned desperate eyes on Nora.
He said, “Wait. If I can help you get Piper’s killer, can we make a deal?”
Deals were what Alan Barstow did. He was finding hope in his comfort zone.
Nora said, “If you have information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Piper Winnick’s killer, I’ll do my best to help you.”
“Okay,” Barstow said. “I’m cooperating with you. I’ll put it in writing. If we can all relax, start over again. I think I know who killed Piper. It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t Danny.”
CHAPTER 94
JUSTINE WAS BACK at the Topanga Canyon cabin, this time in sunlight, standing with Dr. Sci and Nora Cronin a few yards from the flower bed where fresh tire tracks had been pressed into the earth.
A car had parked among the flowers recently, just as Danny had said. And Danny had also said that whoever killed Piper had to have been driving that car.
The LAPD’s tire track specialist aimed his Minolta at the tread marks and fired off a few shots. He put a scale down next to the impressions and fired off another few rounds.
“Thanks, Stan. We’re good for now,” said Nora.
Dr. Sci was as excited as a kid on his birthday. “This is a beautiful thing, Justine. What a great tread mark.”
The LAPD had two big Leica scanners back at the lab.
Sci was using Private’s state-of-the art, handheld ZScanner 700 CX, which captured images in three dimensions, in full color, with self-positioning in real time. There was no scanner anywhere that could top it.
Nora said, “I don’t care if you show off, Sci. But gloating is just uncool.”
Sci laughed. “Just sayin’, you’re going to thank Jack for spending the fifty grand on this.”
“If we catch the dirtbag because of your scanner, I’ll kiss Jack on the mouth, okay?”
Sci grinned. “If it’s okay with Jack, it’s okay with me.”
The 3-D scanner looked something like two hairdryer heads fused onto one handgrip. Sci laid down a net of small positioning markers in the tire track, then passed the scanner above the track in one continuous motion. As he did so, the image transferred to the laptop Justine had set up on a nearby tree stump. Every ridge, wave, and detail of the tread mark appeared right on her screen.
Nora came over to watch as Justine ran the image through the software that compared the image to six thousand distinct patterns in the TreadMate database.
Justine held her breath as the computer stopped at a tread mark identical to the image Sci had scanned. The word match flashed onscreen.
“We have a hit,” she said.
Sci joined Nora in looking over Justine’s shoulder.