Private Vegas (Private 9)

“Come on,” she said. “Come with me.”

We walked back toward the house, Justine saying, “You don’t take care of yourself, Jack. Do you want to die? Do you?”

I was wondering what the hell had just happened. Cars don’t normally spontaneously combust. So what had caused the fire? Had it been deliberately set?

Sirens screamed in the distance, got louder as they closed in on my stretch of highway. Three fire rigs appeared out of the gloom, pulled up on the roadside. Firefighters bailed out of the trucks and trained lines on the burning car.

Steam sizzled, and as the fire died, police cruisers arrived from north and south. Car doors slammed. Police radios chattered. Cops set out markers and closed the highway down.

An unmarked car pulled alongside Justine and me as we walked toward my front gate. Then the car surged ahead, crossed, and braked in front of us, bringing us to a stop.

r /> Two cops got out of the gray Ford sedan.

They were detectives, Mitchell Tandy and Al Ziegler, and I welcomed them as warmly as I would the stomach flu.

Tandy and Ziegler were dogged career detectives who had taken a special dislike to me.

Tandy was freshly spray-tanned, his teeth bleached to a blinding white. He had put on ten pounds since last year when he’d tagged me for Colleen’s murder. Even though I hadn’t killed her, Tandy still believed in his black heart of hearts that I had.

“Morning, Jack. What do you know about this?”

“I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

“Sure. I’m glad you’re okay. So, now, Jack. What do you know about this?”

I said, “I parked my car outside my gate last night so that Justine could get out in the morning without dinging her car. It was a dumb decision, Mitch, but that’s all I know.”

“You have any explosives in the car?”

“No, I did not.”

“You were insured?”

“Yes. But come on. I set fire to my car for the insurance money?”

Tandy didn’t smile, just said, “Anyone got it in for you, Jack?”

“Hell no.” It was one of those lies that was so transparent, it was a joke.

Ziegler had been observing the firefighters. Now he came over to us, his hands jammed in his Windbreaker pockets. He was tall with broad shoulders, muscular. Had sleepy eyes that didn’t miss anything. Ziegler and I also had a little history that he would prefer to forget.

“Well, Jack, the arson investigator is on the way. Yours is the sixth car that’s been torched around here in the last two months. And no, we have no idea if the fires were set by one person or more, if they’re protests against the richy-rich, or even if they’re linked.”

“In other words, you’ve got nothing,” I said.

“We’re going to impound what’s left of your vehicle and give the arson investigator a crack at it,” Ziegler said. “But this much I know: The other car fires weren’t accidental. Maybe the first five were misdirection. Maybe you were the real target all along.”

It was a theory.

I’d hate for Ziegler to be right.

Chapter 10

I SAT ON a stool in the kitchen and watched as Justine unloaded the dishwasher, put away the blue earthenware bowls we had bought together.

She said, “I can name a dozen people who want to see you dead, Jack, and that’s not counting your brother.”

“Don’t count Tommy out,” I told her. “I wouldn’t count out Ziegler and Tandy either.”