Private L.A. (Private 6)

“Señora?” she called, then continued in Spanish. “We’re with Private Investigations Worldwide. We wanted to talk about the story you put up on your blog, about the Harlows?”

But there was no reply.

“Let’s check the bedroom and get out of here,” Cruz said. “Place makes me want to take a shower. Make that several showers.”

Justine nodded, went to the hallway beyond the kitchen, turned on the light. The hallway had been turned into a pantry of sorts, with canned food, human and feline, stacked on shelves beside several full bottles of tequila.

The bedroom was a shambles—clothes commingled with books and paper and trash—and Justine found herself wondering about the bizarre reaches of the human mind, how it could drift into a realm where living in a garbage dump felt like the exact right thing to do.

The cat meowed even more loudly and then hissed as if it were facing off with a do

g. The noises came from behind a closed door in the corner.

“Señora?” Justine called, and knocked gently at the door.

When she got no answer, she looked at Cruz, who nodded. She twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The cat, an orange tabby with mangy fur, leaped off a counter and blew by Justine before she could fully digest what she was seeing inside the bathroom.

Leona Casa Madre was naked, bloated, sprawled between the toilet and the bath, a broken bottle of tequila beside her. Her head was turned toward the door as if she’d been listening for something or someone before she died.

Whether or not she’d seen Death come for her, or had talked to Death, was unclear. Her eyes were gone, eaten out of their sockets. Her lips were chewed off as well.

“Now do you think we should contact the cops?” Cruz asked.

But Justine was rushing from the room, wanting to throw up everything she’d eaten in the last five days.

Chapter 33

“ALL RISE,” THE bailiff cried at two that afternoon. “The Honorable Sharon Greer presiding.”

Judge Greer, a handsome woman in her late forties, strode up onto the bench inside the Bauchet Street Superior Courthouse east of L.A.’s Chinatown. She sat, donned reading glasses, and asked her clerk, “How many more?”

“Ten, Your Honor,” the clerk replied.

“Let’s move …” The judge stopped her order in midstream, spotting the district attorney as he entered. “Mr. Blaze,” she said, cocking her head. “A surprise to find you in my courtroom. I didn’t think you did arraignments anymore.”

“It’s an honor, Your Honor,” Billy Blaze replied, running a hand down the front of his suit jacket as if to make sure it was buttoned correctly, swiveling his head, taking in the surprisingly empty courtroom and me.

I’d feared a media horde for Tommy’s arraignment. Billy Blaze acted like he longed for a media horde. But I imagined that almost every journalist in L.A. was working some angle of the No Prisoners shootings by now.

In any case, the district attorney nodded stiffly at me, went through the swinging gates, set his briefcase on the state’s table. A harried, mousy woman clutching a stack of manila files hurried after him and I groaned. Alice Dunphy was defending Tommy? Dunphy was a public defender, and not the most organized person in the world.

Then again, maybe she’d just been asked to rep him for arraignment. I prayed that was the case. If Dunphy planned to defend Tommy through the criminal phase, he might as well call ahead to San Quentin to reserve a cell.

I noticed something else. Neither Tommy’s wife, Annie, nor his nine-year-old son, Ned, was in the room. I had no time to consider what their absence meant because a door behind the bailiff opened. A sheriff’s deputy led my brother in. He’d surrendered himself earlier in the day and now wore an orange jumpsuit, wrist and ankle shackles.

True to form, Tommy appeared not to care, as if he were wearing his latest suit from Hermès and had come to the room for a high-level meeting among equals. He spotted me, winked, then turned, sat, and began whispering to his attorney.

The wink. I kept seeing it. Was this it? Was he going to implicate me in a killing that I absolutely had not committed? Clay Harris might have killed my ex-girlfriend, but I still suspected that Tommy was behind it somehow. And that would explain why he had gotten rid of Clay—to tie up any loose ends. Now he was trying to pin Clay’s murder on me. Was my brother going to destroy me for spite?

“The State of California versus Thomas Morgan, Jr.,” the clerk announced.

Alice Dunphy nudged Tommy. My brother stood, looking at ease, in control, unshaken by the gravity of the proceedings.

“Charge?” the judge asked.

“Murder in the first degree,” Billy Blaze said, paused for dramatic effect. “Your Honor, the state plans to seek special circumstances in this case.”

Special circumstances. Blaze was seeking the death penalty for my brother. The charge and the potential penalty shook me. They seemed to mildly amuse Tommy, however, because he looked back over his shoulder at me and winked again, as if to say, “Care to join me in the gas chamber, brother?”