Private Vegas (Private 9)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I do know you’re blocking my view.”

Phillips said, “Stand up, Mr. Archer. Put your hands behind your back.”

Feeney took my phone number, closed her notebook. She looked in at the victim, called Chief Fescoe, and gave a report. Hal said to the cop, contempt oozing with every word, “I’m not standing until I feel like it. Lift a hand to me and I will sue you personally and then I’ll sue all these cops.”

Detective Phillips lifted him by his elbows until he was standing, and Feeney pulled Hal’s right arm behind his back, did the same with the other arm, locked the cuffs around his wrists. Hal screamed, “You’re going to be sorry. You wait.”

Feeney read him his rights and Hal shouted over her.

“No, you don’t. Jack. Tell this rookie bitch—”

I caught up with Hal, stayed right with him as he was pushed and hoisted through the house and along the marble walk to the curb.

I told him, “Cooperate, Hal. Do what the police say, but don’t talk about anything that happened here.”

“You fickle prick.”

“Shut up, Hal. I’m calling your attorney now. You’ll be neck-deep in lawyers within the hour.”

Hal was looking at me like he was a pet dog that had bitten the neighbor’s child and was now being dragged to the dog catcher’s van. It was as if he just didn’t understand what he’d done. He showed no remorse for stabbing his wife to death.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched the cops stuff a bellowing Hal Archer into the backseat of the squad car. It was true that he’d soon be surrounded by a wall of his own lawyers.

But I didn’t think there was a law firm in the world that could save Hal Archer from spending the rest of his life in an eight-by-six-foot cage.

Chapter 52

AN HOUR AFTER leaving Hal’s Balinese-style estate, I cruised past scorched earth outside my house, stopped to key open my front gates, then parked my loaner inside the garage.

Security lights threw a hard glare on all the corners of my property, and once inside the house, I searched room by room, turning on lamps and overheads, hoping to find that no one had gone through the place, taken anything, touched my surveillance system, or shot a friend in my bed.

The premises were clear. Well, Colleen’s sad ghost was there, as always. But there were no living souls.

I went to the kitchen, flipped on the TV, and watched the news while I put fruit, ice, and rum into the blender.

The anchorman was talking about the recent series of car bombs and so I tuned in to the report about the nineteen-year-old woman who’d been burned alive only yards from the front door of her parents’ house.

Maeve Wilkinson, deceased, had a role on a popular sitcom and was regarded as a bright light with a big future. The screen behind the TV reporter flashed shots of Maeve on set and in a club, and then showed a close-up of the burned wreck of a car.

I’d already seen what remained of the car after a fire so intense that it was impossible for the ME to remove Maeve Wilkinson’s body without it crumbling to ash.

The anchor turned the story over to the reporter on the scene who was one of dozens of journalists trying to get quotes from the bereaved parents.

Corinne and Lionel Wilkinson were in their forties, and they looked like people who, until yesterday, had had everything in the world to live for. Lionel went to the microphone, said that he was offering a substantial six-figure reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever had killed his daughter.

Then he broke down. His knees buckled, and a man who looked to be a family friend caught him. His weeping wife grabbed him too. As reporters shouted questions and moved toward the Wilkinsons, their friends became roadblocks, and the victim’s parents disappeared behind the gates of their home.

Seeing them in the harshest light on the worst day of their lives, knowing that they would never recover from their daughter’s unthinkable, horrific, and utterly senseless death, tore at my guts.

I switched off the tube. I no longer had any doubt. The car fires weren’t personal; they were crimes of opportunity. My car, the Wilkinsons’ car, had both been sitting out in the open. I’d bet anything that the others had been left in similar circumstances.

I called Eric Caine and after he assured me that Rick’s trial was going as well as could be expected, I went back to making daiquiris. Much later, I would realize that my phone had vibrated while I was running the Cuisinart. I wish that I had heard it and answered the call.

Chapter 53

MY FRIEND AND former client Jinx Poole had dropped by for drinks. We lounged in chairs facing the ocean, the frosty pitcher of strawberry daiquiris on the teak table between us, a soft breeze blowing through our hair.

Jinx wore a strapless yellow dress, espadrilles, and a choker of diamonds. Hers is a swirly and girlie style, but Jinx is a hard-core businesswoman who rebuilt a low-rent hotel with a settlement from her dead husband’s estate. After that, she had turned three other slummy hotels into five-star gems, each more profitable than the last.