“Larry, unless you say, ‘I know he didn’t do it, because I killed her,’ I’m not going to believe you.”
Schuster said nothing. He just stared at her.
“Did you kill Piper, Larry?”
“No. No. I’m sorry. I was just thinking whether it’s all right for me to tell you what I think-”
“Tell me, damn it. Or get the hell out of here and don’t ever call me again.”
“Alan Barstow.”
“Do not make me drag this out of you.”
“Alan Barstow paid off those other girls. And he tried to pay off Katie Blackwell. Alan stands to make many, many millions on Danny and will do whatever it takes to keep him as a client.”
“Why would he kill Piper? What’s his motive?”
“Piper didn’t like Alan. She was trying to get Danny to change agencies. If Piper got between Alan and Danny, Alan would have been dangerous. He’s a very scary dude. You should seriously check him out, Justine. I think you should put him on a skewer and fire up the grill.”
CHAPTER 91
Justine drove the car around the lake with the Vegas-style fountain set in front of the enormous black glass building in Century City. The Monolith, as it was called, was home to Creative Talent Management, the biggest, most influential talent agency in Hollywood. And the world.
Nora Cronin sat beside Justine in the passenger seat.
Early in the year, Justine had worked for the DA’s office to help the LAPD catch a spree killer who had been terrifying the city and running the cops into the weeds.
The Schoolgirl Killer had been Lieutenant Nora Cronin’s case, but despite her initial outrage that the DA had assigned Private to work with her, she and Justine had meshed brilliantly, as if they’d worked together for years.
Nora touched up her lipstick as Justine drove into the garage, took a ticket from the machine, then cruised around the subterranean car park that consumed more square footage than the town where she was born.
“You know what’s freaky? More money passes through this building than we spend annually on national defense.”
Nora was big, built like a tank, and she had a good, hearty laugh, which she let loose now.
“You’re too funny, Justine. Actually, I can’t wait to see the inside of this place.”
“Yeah?” Justine said. “I think we’re in for a real gladiator-style face-off with an egomaniacal, money-driven jerk who may also be a killer.”
“We might not be able to pull this off. I’m just preparing you. If he says to leave, we’ve got to go.”
“Come on, Nora. A cop and a shrink are going to tag-team him. He’ll talk. He’ll beg us to listen to him.”
Nora laughed again. “What a pair you have, Justine. Anyway, this place may be the colosseum, but we only have to take down one lion. Only one. Here, take this.”
Nora reached down to the floor, picked up a file, and passed it to Justine, who stashed it in her briefcase.
“Let me do the talking,” Justine said.
“Fine,” said Nora. “I’ll be your bodyguard.”
Justine laughed. “Perfect,” she said. “I’ve always wanted one of those.”
CHAPTER 92
An elevator took Justine and Nora from the car park to the Creative Talent Management lobby, a vast, marbled space hung with imposing works of modern art. Glass-faced staircases fooled the eye and suspended disbelief, rising thirty feet through the reception area ceiling, itself made of glass.
The space was meant to impress and intimidate-and it did both of those things to Justine. She’d laughed about CTM as the black hole of greed, but now she felt the force of the place. The might of the money.
And she and Nora were on their own.
Justine gave their names to a receptionist, signed a log book, and she and Nora took seats at the periphery of the room to watch the show.
Actors practiced their lines, gesticulating in the corners; messengers came and went; groups of well-dressed people entered the agency through doors that blended so perfectly with the surrounding walls there didn’t seem to be doors at all.
Tom Cruise came through in one of those groups.
Ethan Hawke left the building.
Fifteen minutes after they had arrived, a young man floated down one of the invisible staircases. He was wearing a white linen shirt, dark pants, and a smug expression. Approaching Justine and Nora, he said, “I’m Jay Davis, Mr. Barstow’s assistant. Alan is ready to see you now.”
Justine lifted her briefcase, feeling like she was carrying a dirty bomb, thinking, I doubt Alan is ready for this.
When they entered his office, Barstow was standing with his back to the door, shouting into the mic of his headset, “I said no, you dumb prick. Lily Padgett will not do a screen test. You made the deal and if you dare to break it, we’ll sue you for breach. We’ll take everything you’ve got including the sweat on your balls. Yes. A network series. Jerry Bruckheimer. She turned him down. Do you get me now?”
Barstow clicked off the phone, turned, and saw the two women come into his large, transparent corner office. His smile was bright and cold, like winter sun on a frozen lake.
“How’s Danny?” he asked, shaking Justine’s hand. “I hope you have good news.”
Justine introduced Nora as her partner and they took seats around Barstow’s coffee table, where they had a view of a Frank Stella construction the size of a barn wall, and a panoramic view out the window of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
But Justine was scrutinizing Alan Barstow.
He had acne scars and thinning hair and narrow shoulders, but he had swagger to spare. That came from being a top earner at CTM, from making millions upon millions every year.
Justine sat forward in a five-thousand-dollar armchair, put the Waterford crystal goblet she’d been sipping water from down on the Brazilian cherrywood table, and said, “Alan, we think we know who is responsible for Piper Winnick’s death, but we need your help.”
Barstow pressed a button on the arm of his chair and said, “Jay, no calls.” Then, “I’m all yours.”
Justine said, “We think Piper was killed by someone who was jealous of her relationship with Danny.”
“No kidding. That’s bizarre.”
“A few people knew about Danny and Piper. You, Merv Koulos, Larry Schuster, Danny’s friend Kovaks, and his assistant, Randy Boone. But Danny’s relationship with Piper wasn’t public knowledge. Neither was his cabin in Topanga.”
“So obviously someone close to Danny did it.”
“Yes. We think this man expected Piper to be grateful to him for getting her the part in the film and attracted to him because he’s a powerful guy, and he was furious that she ran off with Danny. So it makes sense that he drove to the cabin, woke Piper up, and got her to take a walk with him on the trail. We surmise that he argued with her. That things got physical.”
Barstow broke in. “Justine, are you making a pitch or do you want my help? Who the hell did this to my boy?”
“Someone who likes young girls, Alan. A man who has a real passion for young girls.”
Justine took the folder out of her briefcase, opened it on the table, turned it toward Barstow, and fanned out the pages.
Justine said, “This is what we’re going to show the police. And I have a feeling these mug shots are going to find their way to the Internet. Millions will know that Alan Barstow is a sex offender. That’s you, Alan. You’re the real deal.”
CHAPTER 93
Barstow sputtered, “Whoa-whoa-whoa. Where did you get this? ”
A shiver danced up Justine’s spine. She watched Alan Barstow’s face as he stared at his mug shots and the rap sheet listing his arrest for sex crimes against minors. His arrogance was gone, replaced by more primitive stuff: fear, anger, and confusion, emotions that made people turn violent.
Justine said, “There’s software now, Alan. It can match faces to sex offenders in any police database, even if the crime happened ten years ago in N
ew Jersey. Even though you changed your name.”
“So what? ” he said, pushing the file off the table. “You’re saying this means that I killed Piper? Are you fucking kidding me? Look, you. The only interest I had in Piper Winnick was financial. That’s all.”
He grabbed a copy of Variety off the coffee table and showed Justine the headline, “Shades of Red.”
Barstow shouted, “The film is dead. A great slamming summer movie is dead. You know what I got for a year of busting my nuts? Absolutely nothing.”
The angrier he got, the more relaxed Justine became. As long as he only yelled.
“Calm down, Alan. I’m not saying you planned to hurt Piper. I’m saying you were insulted. You tried to tell her who you were and who she was. Things got out of hand. She pulled away from you-”
Barstow cut her off. “Dr. Smith, you are totally, I cannot say this strongly enough, totally out of your tiny little mind. This meeting is over. If you repeat a word of this crap, I’ll sue you for slander, for defamation, for anything our legal department can throw at you.”
He got up from his chair, went to the door, and said to his assistant, “Jay. Show these people out. No. Call security.”
Barstow turned to Justine and Nora. “You have one minute to leave the premises.”
Nora said, “LAPD trumps corporate security anytime.”
She unbuttoned her jacket, showed Barstow the gold badge hanging from a chain around her neck.
“We’re testing Piper Winnick’s clothing. If we find your DNA on that girl, you’re cooked. Meanwhile, we have a witness who claims that you drugged Danny Whitman as well as the girls who accused Danny of sexual misconduct. Our witness says you had sex parties, Alan. Your guests were young girls, drunken girls, you sick son of a bitch.”
Men in khaki uniforms trotted up the hallway. Barstow strode to the doorway, pulled open the door, and said to the head security guy, “Sorry, Roger. My mistake. Everything is under control.”
He closed his door, pulled down the blinds, and returned to the sitting area, but he didn’t sit down.
Barstow said, “You’re a cop? You’re supposed to say you’re a cop. This is entrapment. You haven’t read me my rights. I’m not saying another word without my lawyer.”
Nora got up and stood toe-to-toe with the raging Barstow.
“You’re all wrong, Mr. Barstow. I don’t have to identify myself, and you only get your rights read if you’re in custody.”
Barstow’s eyes darted from Nora to the door, to Justine, back to the door, looking for a way to save himself.
“Don’t wreck my life for this,” he said. “I didn’t kill Piper. I may have invited girls to my house for Danny. I may have served liquor. Some girls maybe woke up in bed with Danny and thought they’d had sex with him.”
“That’s not a confession. That’s a ‘maybe.’ ”
“But I did not push Piper off a cliff. Not accidentally, not on purpose. I had nothing to do with her death.”
Nora said, “Mr. Barstow, you’re under arrest on suspicion of murder and a few dozen lesser charges that will keep you in custody while we check out your story. You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. It’s time to call that lawyer. I think you’ll find that you have a morals clause in your contract, in which case CTM is going to cut you loose. But play it out. See what happens.”
Barstow turned desperate eyes on Nora.
He said, “Wait. If I can help you get Piper’s killer, can we make a deal?”
Deals were what Alan Barstow did. He was finding hope in his comfort zone.
Nora said, “If you have information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Piper Winnick’s killer, I’ll do my best to help you.”
“Okay,” Barstow said. “I’m cooperating with you. I’ll put it in writing. If we can all relax, start over again. I think I know who killed Piper. It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t Danny.”
CHAPTER 94
Justine was back at the Topanga Canyon cabin, this time in sunlight, standing with Dr. Sci and Nora Cronin a few yards from the flower bed where fresh tire tracks had been pressed into the earth.
A car had parked among the flowers recently, just as Danny had said. And Danny had also said that whoever killed Piper had to have been driving that car.
The LAPD’s tire track specialist aimed his Minolta at the tread marks and fired off a few shots. He put a scale down next to the impressions and fired off another few rounds.
“Thanks, Stan. We’re good for now,” said Nora.
Dr. Sci was as excited as a kid on his birthday. “This is a beautiful thing, Justine. What a great tread mark.”
The LAPD had two big Leica scanners back at the lab.
Sci was using Private’s state-of-the art, handheld ZScanner 70 °CX, which captured images in three dimensions, in full color, with self-positioning in real time. There was no scanner anywhere that could top it.
Nora said, “I don’t care if you show off, Sci. But gloating is just uncool.”
Sci laughed. “Just sayin’, you’re going to thank Jack for spending the fifty grand on this.”
“If we catch the dirtbag because of your scanner, I’ll kiss Jack on the mouth, okay?”
Sci grinned. “If it’s okay with Jack, it’s okay with me.”
The 3-D scanner looked something like two hairdryer heads fused onto one handgrip. Sci laid down a net of small positioning markers in the tire track, then passed the scanner above the track in one continuous motion. As he did so, the image transferred to the laptop Justine had set up on a nearby tree stump. Every ridge, wave, and detail of the tread mark appeared right on her screen.
Nora came over to watch as Justine ran the image through the software that compared the image to six thousand distinct patterns in the TreadMate database.
Justine held her breath as the computer stopped at a tread mark identical to the image Sci had scanned. The word match flashed onscreen.
“We have a hit,” she said.
Sci joined Nora in looking over Justine’s shoulder.
“An N-spec,” Sci said. “That’s a Porsche standard tire. Justine, may I?”
Sci tapped the laptop keys and found what he was looking for.
“The N-spec tires have a special tread design. Yep, it’s got a thin groove around the outboard shoulder. I’m gonna say it’s the tire of choice on the Porsche 911.
“Hey-hey. Look at this,” Sci continued. He pointed to a flat mark near the image that wasn’t part of the tire track. “This is a partial shoe print. Part of the toe. The guy stepped in the dirt when he got out of the car. Too bad he backed over the rest of the prints on his way out.”
“Can you run that?” Justine asked.
“Even if we could identify the type of shoe, it’s not enough to give us a size or idiosyncratic wear patterns.”
Justine was thinking back to way early yesterday morning.
She had started down the trail behind Danny’s cabin in the direction of his cries. Del Rio had caught up to her, and then they’d heard car doors slamming behind them.
Del Rio had gone on ahead while Justine had gone back to the cabin. When she got there, she spoke with each of the men who’d arrived to help Danny: Schuster, Barstow, Koulos.
She hadn’t been looking at cars, couldn’t make a positive ID on any vehicle she’d glimpsed at four a.m. in the dark.
Still, she thought one of those cars had been a Porsche.
What model? Who had been driving it?
She couldn’t say. But all the cars had parked in the gravel driveway. If one of those three men had arrived earlier, while Danny was sleeping, if he had been in a hurry and parked his Porsche beside the Ferrari, not behind it, in the flower bed…
Justine said, “We can get a match the old-fashioned way.”
“Justine, there’s no way,” Nora shouted at her, right there in front of Sci and Stan and every other tech within earshot. “I can’t get a warrant based on a ti
re track that could match any of six jillion Porsches in LA.”
Justine stood speechless, not used to having a rule book, not used to be shouted at either. Of course Nora was right. But there were other ways.
“Can you look at traffic cam footage, Nora? Can you do that without a warrant?”
CHAPTER 95
It had taken Justine two minutes on the DMV database to learn which of Danny’s handlers owned a Porsche 911. After that, she and Del Rio had gone looking for the car in logical places and hadn’t found it.
Now Del Rio parked the fleet car in the circular drive of a six-million-dollar, ten-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean-style house in Bel Air.
He took his gun out of the glove box, slipped it into his shoulder holster, and said, “Justine, there’s no point in getting worked up. As my old cell mate used to say, ‘If you can’t find what you’re looking for on the street, go into someone’s house and take it.’”
“Great. We’re taking advice from a convict.”
“And you’re taking advice from my cell mate too.”
Justine laughed. “No offense, Rick. I don’t think of you as a jailbird.”
“I’m honored. You ready to risk your life and reputation?”
“Maybe. I mean, let’s go.”
A young Hispanic housekeeper came to the door under the portico, smiled pleasantly, said, “I’m sorry. No one is home.”
Del Rio held up his badge, opened his jacket to show the woman his nine. He said, “It’s okay, miss, we’re authorized to do a quick search and seizure.”
“We’re painting the great room,” the young woman wailed.
Justine said, “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful not to step in anything. Where is the master bedroom?”
Some other day, Justine would have enjoyed the house tour of the first-class chef’s kitchen, the loggia and pool, the screening room, the master bedroom that looked like a set from a James Bond film and was equipped with more high-def, high-tech gizmos than the Situation Room at the White House.
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