Private Vegas (Private 9)

He rubbed his chest with the hand that wasn’t holding the tumbler of alcohol.

“She was harassing you, you’re saying? She was trying to frighten you to death.”

“That’s it. She was trying to kill me, one night at a time. And she was going to do it, Jack. And that’s why I had to put her down.”

There was still time for Sci to get here, same for Cruz. But what the hell could any of us do? I’d rarely seen a crime so open-and-shut, but still, I was amazed that a big, rich, powerful man like Archer had resorted to killing an unarmed and helpless woman.

I took out my phone. I have Chief Mickey Fescoe on speed dial. I punched the number.

Hal suddenly became alert. “Who are you calling?”

“Friend of mine. Chief of police.”

“Nooooo,” Hal shouted.

He stood up, grabbed the chair for balance, and dropped his glass. “No, no, no. Make this mess go away. That’s what I hired you to do.”

Hal flailed out to grab me, but I stepped out of his reach, said into my phone, “Mickey, I need you to send some people to sixty-five forty-seven Donovan Drive. Hal Archer’s place. Go to the pool house in the back. Yep. We’ve got a dead body. I’ll be here.”

Chapter 51

I OPENED THE pool house door for four cops I didn’t know.

Hal Archer was sitting in the lounge chair again, staring out over the canyon. He had made himself a fresh scotch, and I thought there was a good chance he would pass out.

There was an equally good chance he would launch himself over the cliff, so I kept an eye on him as the detectives did a walk-through.

Detective Sergeant Joan Feeney introduced herself and her partner, Detective Phillips, told me that she and Chief Mickey Fescoe were old friends. Meaning, on this case she was reporting directly to him. As Feeney’s partner went into the next room, she took out her notebook and asked me to tell her what I knew.

I told Feeney that Hal Archer was a client, that Private Investigations was contracted to do security checks on his executive staff and whatever else Archer and his family needed in the way of surveillance and security.

Feeney asked, “And what brought you here today, Mr. Morgan?”

“Mr. Archer called to tell me that his wife was trying to kill him. He wanted me to evaluate her. Tell him if I thought he was in danger. He asked me to talk to her, reason with her if I could.”

“I see. You came out to reason with her.”

She wrote it down.

“A half hour after he first called me, I called him back and then he told me that his wife was dead,” I said.

“Okay,” said Feeney. “As I understand it, the DB in the next room is the wife that was allegedly threatening to kill Mr. Archer.”

“That’s right.”

“And did your client say that he killed her?”

“He just said that she was dead.”

Lying to the police was obstruction, and I was breaking the law on behalf of my client. But I had turned Archer in; I didn’t feel that I needed to put him on death row.

Feeney asked, “Did you disturb the scene in any way, Mr. Morgan?”

“Not at all. I looked. I saw. I phoned Mick.”

F

eeney’s partner, Detective Phillips, was saying to Hal, “Did you kill your wife, Mr. Archer?”