Private #1 Suspect (Private 2)

“An N-spec,” Sci said. “That’s a Porsche standard tire. Justine, may I?”

Sci tapped the laptop keys and found what he was looking for.

“The N-spec tires have a special tread design. Yep, it’s got a thin groove around the outboard shoulder. I’m gonna say it’s the tire of choice on the Porsche 911.

“Hey-hey. Look at this,” Sci continued. He pointed to a flat mark near the image that wasn’t part of the tire track. “This is a partial shoe print. Part of the toe. The guy stepped in the dirt when he got out of the car. Too bad he backed over the rest of the prints on his way out.”

“Can you run that?” Justine asked.

“Even if we could identify the type of shoe, it’s not enough to give us a size or idiosyncratic wear patterns.”

Justine was thinking back to way early yesterday morning.

She had started down the trail behind Danny’s cabin in the direction of his cries. Del Rio had caught up to her, and then they’d heard car doors slamming behind them.

Del Rio had gone on ahead while Justine had gone back to the cabin. When she got there, she spoke with each of the men who’d

arrived to help Danny: Schuster, Barstow, Koulos.

She hadn’t been looking at cars, couldn’t make a positive ID on any vehicle she’d glimpsed at four a.m. in the dark.

Still, she thought one of those cars had been a Porsche.

What model? Who had been driving it?

She couldn’t say. But all the cars had parked in the gravel driveway. If one of those three men had arrived earlier, while Danny was sleeping, if he had been in a hurry and parked his Porsche beside the Ferrari, not behind it, in the flower bed…

Justine said, “We can get a match the old-fashioned way.”

“Justine, there’s no way,” Nora shouted at her, right there in front of Sci and Stan and every other tech within earshot. “I can’t get a warrant based on a tire track that could match any of six jillion Porsches in LA.”

Justine stood speechless, not used to having a rule book, not used to be shouted at either. Of course Nora was right. But there were other ways.

“Can you look at traffic cam footage, Nora? Can you do that without a warrant?”

CHAPTER 95

IT HAD TAKEN Justine two minutes on the DMV database to learn which of Danny’s handlers owned a Porsche 911. After that, she and Del Rio had gone looking for the car in logical places and hadn’t found it.

Now Del Rio parked the fleet car in the circular drive of a six-million-dollar, ten-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean-style house in Bel Air.

He took his gun out of the glove box, slipped it into his shoulder holster, and said, “Justine, there’s no point in getting worked up. As my old cell mate used to say, ‘If you can’t find what you’re looking for on the street, go into someone’s house and take it.’”

“Great. We’re taking advice from a convict.”

“And you’re taking advice from my cell mate too.”

Justine laughed. “No offense, Rick. I don’t think of you as a jailbird.”

“I’m honored. You ready to risk your life and reputation?”

“Maybe. I mean, let’s go.”

A young Hispanic housekeeper came to the door under the portico, smiled pleasantly, said, “I’m sorry. No one is home.”

Del Rio held up his badge, opened his jacket to show the woman his nine. He said, “It’s okay, miss, we’re authorized to do a quick search and seizure.”

“We’re painting the great room,” the young woman wailed.