Ronni Chasen and Morgan Freeman (Photo by John Heller/NFL)

Confronting a person of interest with a search warrant last evening, detectives planned to question the suspect on publicist Ronni Chasen’s murder when he pulled out a hidden pistol.  Before Beverly Hills cops could react, the man shot himself.

Great luck for the detectives they weren’t shot.  Bad luck for the investigation that Chasen’s (possible) murderer took with him the names of (likely) co-conspirators to the grave.

Police have put together a workable scenario of the final moments of the lovable publicist (for those of us who knew her personally).

While waiting to turn left on Whittier Drive from Sunset, a car pulled to the passenger side of Chasen and fired several “tightly patterned” rounds through the window, striking her three times in the chest and twice in the arm.  At 64 and mortally wounded, Chasen throttled her car down two blocks of Whittier until stopped by a post.  Several in the exclusive neighborhood called 911 where an ambulance raced Chasen, still living, to hospital.  As her pulse couldn’t be raised and the ER team gathered, Chasen was declared dead.

Cops are saying nothing except that the investigation is ongoing.

Not Hammett or Chandler from the studios could have written a more intriguing fiction, but this is a real-life puzzling detective thriller that happened to occur in Hollywood.