Private

"Private is under contract to the city. We're doing this for free. No billable hours."

Justine waited for Cronin's next crack, but it didn't come. Cronin put a hand on her hip and said, "Is your air conditioner working?"

The two women sat in the Jag with the air on high while Justine briefed Nora on Christine Castiglia.

"In 2006, Castiglia saw two kids toss a girl who looked like Wendy Borman into a black van. An hour ago, she identified one of them. I think Wendy Borman might have been the first schoolgirl in the spree."

"I know about that Castiglia girl. Kid was eleven at the time, right? Her mother put up a firewall to keep the cops away from her. You saying you trust her five years later to make a positive ID?"

"Not entirely, no. I got Borman's clothes out of evidence, ran them at our lab. The DNA is good," Justine said to Cronin. "Two male single-source samples. But no bells went off in the database."

"So what do you want from me? I'm a little lost here."

"We have reason to believe that another murder is going down in two days."

"Oh, really? But you can't tell me how you know this, right? So, I repeat, what do you want from me?"

"Christine Castiglia saw a Gateway Prep decal on the kidnap van," Justine said. She tapped buttons on the dashboard computer and called up the photo of Rudolph Crocker's face.

"This is the guy Christine Castiglia ID'd. Name is Rudolph Crocker. He graduated from Gateway in 2006. Now he's a suit at a brokerage house. Christine is sure he's the one she saw."

"Uh-huh. Now what, Justine?"

"So, I've got a suspect over here," Justine said, holding up one hand. "And I've got a DNA sample over here." She held up the other hand. "If we can put this hand and this hand together, we might just put a bloody psychopath out of business."

"Saying I want to do it, I'd have to know everything you know," Cronin said. "None of this 'We have reason to believe' crap. You hold anything back from me, I quit."

"Of course."

"I don't answer to you."

"No, you don't. And you can't bring anyone from LAPD into this without my okay. Okay?"

"Yeah," said Nora.

She was smiling now. It was probably the first time Justine had seen a smile from her. "I'm gonna take a lotta crap for working with you. After all the names I've called you."

Justine nodded. "Deal?"

"Deal." They slapped high fives in the frigid air.

"We're going to make a great team," said Justine.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," said Nora Cronin. "I still don't particularly like you."

Justine finally smiled. "Oh, you will."

Chapter 93

I WAS HEADING into the office, stuck in a swamp of traffic on Pico, when Mo-bot called me from the tech center.

"Five minutes ago, our friends at the LAX Marriott made a call to a bottling plant in Reno asking for a donation to the State Troopers' Widows Fund," she said, her voice trilling with excitement. "The plant is owned by none other than Anthony Marzullo. Happy, Jack?"

"Good catch, Mo. That's excellent. But you know what I really want."

"To hear the sound of coins changing hands?" Mo laughed. "After the call to Nevada, Victor Spano called Kenny Owen on his mobile. They're meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bungalow four this afternoon."

Mo had been tapping into Kenny Owen's and Lance Richter's phones since they'd arrived in LA in advance of tomorrow's game. We already knew that the professional handicappers expected the Titans to crush the Raiders by three touchdowns. And we knew that if the two refs could skew the calls, could make a seventeen-point spread hold up, tens of millions in illegal bets would slide over to the Marzullos' side of the ledger.

But Uncle Fred and his associates would want more than idle chitchat and suspicion. They'd need proof.

I called Del Rio, met him at the garage, and swapped my car for one of our Honda CR-Vs. The Honda was black with tinted windows, outfitted with cutting-edge wireless electronics.

I drove myself and my wingman to Sunset, pulled the car under the porte cochere at the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and dropped Del Rio off.

He pulled down the bill of his cap and adjusted his camera bag as he entered the hotel. Once he was inside, I looped around Sunset and parked on Crescent Drive, a hundred yards and a stucco wall away from the pretty white cottage in the lush garden surrounding the hotel.

Del Rio kept me posted through his lapel mic as he planted the pin cams, one at the bungalow's front door and another at the patio, and stuck three more "spider eyes" on windows facing into the three rooms.

A long twelve minutes later, Del Rio was back in the CR-V, and the microcameras were streaming wireless AV to our laptops.

The only things moving inside the bungalow were dust motes wafting upward in columns of sunlight.