Sci said, “The LA crime lab found semen in Colleen’s body. The DNA is consistent with yours.”
“Come on,” I said.
Justine didn’t say it, but I could read it in her face- Why am I not surprised?
Sci went on, “And apparently the cops have a timeline for the murder. Here’s what I’ve been told. On the day it happened, Colleen used her credit card to buy gas and a few random purchases at the Sunoco on La Cienega. She had lunch alone at the Newsroom Cafe on North Robertson, and her car was just found at the adjacent parking garage.”
I was seeing it as Sci laid it out. I tried to block out the issue of the semen in Colleen’s body.
“Cops have dumped your phone records, Jack,” said Sci. “Your landline was used during the time period when Colleen was killed, and you say you weren’t home.”
“The killer used my phone?”
“Yeah. Seems like he used it to call a number that was answered and then disconnected after two seconds. That call was to Tommy’s cell.”
“ Christ. What the hell does that mean?”
What did it mean?
“That semen,” Justine said. “If Tommy had sex with Colleen, the DNA would be the same.”
“Right,” Sci said. “His DNA and Jack’s are identical.”
“So the cops are saying what? I had sex with Colleen, killed her, and then called my brother? Or we killed her together?”
“Jack, what I know is that Mitch Tandy wants to get you for this, and if he can get Tommy too it’s a very big day for Tandy.”
CHAPTER 44
Tommy.
I had to face it. My goddamned brother could have been involved in Colleen’s death. Had he gone insane? Had he killed Colleen to hurt me?
I thought back to the break that had divided us for good. It had happened when Tommy and I were in the ninth grade, fourteen years old.
April Lundon was a year older.
She was charming and flirtatious and spontaneous. She could walk on her hands and ride a horse bareback, and she’d been to Paris. She’d had a French boyfriend the summer before and knew bedroom French.
She liked to walk between me and Tommy with her hands hooked into the backs of our pants. She said she liked us equally-and we were both crazy for her. April wouldn’t choose.
We agreed, Tommy and I, that only one of us could have the girl. April set the terms, a kissing contest. She would be blindfolded. The best kisser would win. And there was the implied promise that the winner would take all.
We were testosterone fueled and cocky. The idea of a “kiss off” was delicious. We both thought we would win, and we never considered the consequences. It never occurred to either of us to just walk away.
The competition was on for a Saturday morning, and a dozen kids showed up at the beach behind the juice bar to cheer us on in this wicked and daring contest.
April kissed Tommy, then she kissed me. I put my whole heart into that kiss, as if I would never kiss a girl again. April picked me.
Then, best two out of three, she picked me again.
Tommy didn’t forgive April and he didn’t forgive me. Our dispute was encouraged by our father, who would favor one of us, then, for no reason we could see or understand, favor the other. He was unpredictable and cruel.
Our bitterness escalated, got dirty, got physical, and lived on after April Lundon was in college, married, a mother of four. Continued even after my father gave me fifteen million dollars and the keys to Private.
Continued even after he was dead.
So there was bad history between Tommy and me, but could he, would he, get revenge by committing murder?
I thought he was capable of it.
But I didn’t know if he had done it.
I stared through Sci and Justine, thinking that I’d go to his office, drag him out, do whatever it took to get him to talk.
I called to Cody, “I need Del Rio and Cruz. Now.”
But Justine reached across my desk and put a hand on my arm.
“Wait,” she said. “Wait until you have enough evidence to box Tommy in.”
CHAPTER 45
Jack Morgan’s multimillion-dollar crime lab took up the entire lower level of Private: twenty thousand square feet of cutting-edge forensic laboratory, regarded as one of the top independent labs in the country. A service for Private clients, Private’s lab was also a profit center, hired by police departments across the country when they needed fast results and only the most advanced technology would do.
Dr. Seymour Kloppenberg, Private’s own Dr. Sci, was the proud head of this lab, but right now he and Mo-bot were in Mo’s office, a dark cave of a room that Mo liked to call her “cozy hole.” She was burning incense, had scarves draped over the lamps, and photos of her husband and kids saved screens on the dozen computer monitors banked above her desktop.
The local news was on video six, tight close-up of a talking head reporting on the sensational “Murder in Malibu.”
Sci reclined and rocked in a swivel chair, but Mo was on the edge of her seat, visibly angry and agitated. An accomplished warrior on a multilevel, real-time online combat game, Mo sometimes felt the lines blur between game and reality.
The feeling was coming over her, that rush of being in a warrior frame of mind.
As she watched the reporter speak to the camera, Mo assumed her avatar’s personality, thought about weapons in her arsenal, and assembled her virtual army.
The reporter staring back through the screen was Randi Turner, who had been a fixture on Channel 9 for the past couple of years. Turner said to the camera’s eye, “Jack Morgan, CEO of Private Investigations, is widely viewed as the prime suspect in the murder of his former lover and personal assistant Colleen Molloy.”
Pictures of Jack flashed on the screen, and then shots of Jack, his arm around Colleen, running through rain from a restaurant marquee to his car. After that, there was a film clip of them at a Hollywood party, whispering and laughing.
Turner spoke throughout the slide show.
Turner said, “Jack Morgan’s father was the late Thomas Morgan, convicted of extortion and murder in 2003, died in prison in 2006. Like his father, Jack Morgan is said to have links to organized crime.”
Mo had had enough.
She sprang up from her chair and yelled at the TV, “Links to organized crime? Paid off his brother’s gambling debt, you mean.”
“Take it easy,” Sci said. “All this means is that the press is reaching. If they had something on Jack, they wouldn’t need to refer to his father. They wouldn’t have to imply anything.”
Turner spoke from the high-def screen on the wall above Mo’s desk. “Sources close to the police tell Channel 9 that physical evidence found on the victim implicates Jack Morgan, but the nature of that evidence is being withheld from the press.”
“Damn you. Die, bitch!”
Sci grabbed the remote from Mo’s hand and shut the TV off.
Mo said, “I could cut off her head, slice her below the knees, and leave her standing in sections. She wouldn’t even know she was dead.”
“Maureen, emotion is counterproductive.”
“Jack could never have killed Colleen.”
“No, he couldn’t, he didn’t, and he won’t get charged. This is just the free press at work, churning the news.”
“Oh, and you’re saying no innocent person has ever gone to prison? That never happens?”
“What do you say? What if you put all this energy into working the case?”
“Sure, I will. But you and I both know,” Mo-bot said, “the only thing that can save Jack is a confession from the killer. A confession that includes an explanation of how he got Jack’s semen into Colleen’s body.”
CHAPTER 46
I went through my voicemail as I drove.