by R. J. Jagger
His pulse raced.
Thirty minutes later he veered off I-70, into the twisty mountain topography of Genesee. Expensive homes sat on large lots, well separated from one another. Almost no one had grass. Except for the houses and the roads, the area maintained its original organic state, which meant plenty of aspen trees, ponderosa pines and wildflowers.
Dalton drove by Lynch’s house and gave it a once over.
There were no cars in the driveway.
No one was in view.
The windows were closed.
IT TURNED OUT TO BE NEAR the orgasmatron house used in Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” on the I-70 side of the mountain, which meant a lot of traffic noise. It had a contemporary mountain design and looked to be about 5,000 square feet. It sat a good distance from the narrow asphalt road, behind a thicket of trees. Dalton turned around a half mile down the road, doubled back and pulled into the driveway.
He got out, rang the bell and waited.
No one answered.
He looked around for security cameras and saw none. He tried the doorknob and found it locked.
He swallowed.
Looked around.
Saw no one.
And headed towards the back.
If he ran into anyone, he already had a story—namely that he was with Martin Productions and that he was trying to track down G-Drop, who didn’t show up for a concert last night. Someone said that G-Drop’s right-hand man, Malcolm Smith, might be staying here.
The house had vertical sliding windows.
Every one in the back was up three inches.
No doubt to vent the heavy Colorado sun.
He raised a screen and climbed inside.
Silence.
Perfect.
Come on, Lindsay Vail.
Be here somewhere.
HE WAS FIVE STEPS INTO THE STRUCTURE when a German Shepherd bounded around a hallway corner and leaped at his face.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
AFTER THE MAX MONITEAU LETDOWN, Teffinger came up with Plan B, and set it in motion by calling Jena Vellone. Most people in Denver knew her as the TV 8 roving reporter, the charismatic blond with the big green eyes who wasn’t afraid to get in the middle of the mess. Teffinger knew her from the old high school days in Fort Collins, when she was the ticklish younger sister of Teffinger’s best friend—Matt Vellone.
As he dialed, Venzelle asked, “Who you calling?”
“Your co-host’s older sister,” he said.
When Jena answered, Teffinger said, “I’m in New Orleans.”
“Um, duh.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Geneva’s been mentioning that on Hot Talk about every five minutes,” Jena said. “What the hell’s going on?”
Teffinger explained.
He was trying to get someone to follow him there.
“Here’s the reason I’m calling,” he said. “I need an in to one of the TV stations down here. Do you have any connections I can tap?”
“Maybe,” she said. “What’s in it for me?”
Teffinger chuckled.
“What do you want to be in it for you?”
“I want you to take me out and get me drunk.”
“Be careful,” he said. “I’m going to call your bluff one of these days.”
“Start calling.”
She gave him a name and number; he jotted it down.
“How’s Alley?” he asked.
“Alley’s fine.”
When he hung up, Venzelle looked at him and asked, “Who’s Alley?”
“Alley’s a cat,” Teffinger said.
“You never struck me as a cat kind of guy.”
He wrinkled his forehead.
“I like all creatures,” he said.
She chuckled as if she just heard a joke.
“What?” he asked, curious.
“You don’t like rattlesnakes.”
He pulled up a visual and raked his hair back with his fingers.
“Rattlesnakes aren’t creatures, they’re reptiles.”
IN FRONT OF THE COURTHOUSE, an hour later, a TV van pulled up and a well-dressed, petite, black-haired beauty stepped out the passenger door. “You my story?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Teffinger said. “You my storyteller?”
She grinned.
“Tammy Bahamas,” she said.
“I’ve never been to the Bahamas,” Teffinger said.
“It’s a nice place.”
“I’ll bet it is.”
Venzelle punched him in the arm. “Teffinger, you’re flirting with this woman and I’m standing right here next to you.”
“I’m not flirting, I’m talking geography,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and shook hands with the reporter.
“I’m Venzelle Oceana.”
“Yes you are,” the reporter said. “So are you guys new to the city?”
They were.
“Do you have anyone to show you the sights?”
They didn’t.
“Well, we need to change that.”
The driver—a heavyset man who looked like Paul Kwak—walked over with a camera perched on his shoulder and handed a microphone to the raven-haired one.
Then they did the shoot.
IT WAS A FAIRLY SIMPLE STORY. Nick Teffinger was a homicide detective from Denver. He was in town to get information on the man on the screen who is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of one woman and the disappearance of another in Denver.
If anyone knew who the man was, they should call the number at the bottom of the screen.
The number was also posted on the station’s website.
The man on the screen was the pirate, emailed to the station by Sydney Heatherwood at Teffinger’s request.
Teffinger really didn’t know if the man from the restroom last night was the guy he was searching for but he didn’t care that much either.
The important thing is that Teffinger got his name and face on the news.
If the black woman was from New Orleans, someone in town would know that she was after Teffinger.
They would call her and she’d return.
THE DAY WAS GETTING HOT AND HUMID.
“Now what?” Venzelle asked.
Teffinger kissed her.
Then he said, “Now we start paying a visit to the voodoo shops.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
RAVEN LEFT DAWN HOOKER’S HOUSE with the corner of her mouth turned up slightly. The list of names jogged Dawn’s memory—Robert—that was the man’s first name. As soon as she remembered it, she did a word search and moved from one Robert to the next. There were nineteen of them. None of the last names rang a bell; probably because the man never mentioned it.
Luckily, Raven had been smart enough to throw the original receipts into the back of the 4Runner before pulling out of the marina.
She got them and brought them inside to the kitchen table. They refilled their coffee cups, then went through and pulled out all the Robert receipts to see if they had any additional information that might spark something.
None had an address or phone number or anything to set off a spark.
But, still—
Nineteen was a manageable number.
DAWN’S PENCIL SKETCH OF THE TATTOO that she gave the pirate—Robert—sat on the passenger seat of the 4Runner as Raven drove east on the C-470 freeway, parallel to the foothills. It depicted a dead woman with a knife imbedded in the side of her head, almost up to the handle.
Blood dripped down.
Very hateful.
The product of a seriously disturbed mind.
SHE PULLED OFF AT THE MORRISON EXIT TO GAS UP. While the tank filled, she called her client—Erin Asher—and brought her up to date.
“I’m
floored that you’ve come up with all this,” Erin said.
“Me too, sort of,” Raven said. “When I get back to the sailboat, I’ll scan the tattoo into my computer and email it to you. Just be ready for what you see. I’ll also send you a list of all the Roberts with their last names and see if any ring a bell. Get back to me ASAP. If you don’t recognize any of them, I’m going to start running them down. ”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet,” Raven said. “I suppose I’ll start with the phone book and Google.”
The gas pump clanked.
The humming stopped.
As Raven pulled the nozzle out, she said, “This guy’s starting to scare me.”
“You want out?”
“No, that’s not what I’m getting at,” Raven said. “All I’m saying is that we need to be careful.”
“Agreed. We should meet and brainstorm everything. How are you looking tonight?”
Good question.
Would it be a Coyote night?
It didn’t matter.
She could fit it all in if she had to.
“Tonight’s fine, but not at the boat. Check your email in thirty minutes.”
COYOTE WAVED FROM THE SEARAY when Raven got back to the sailboat. She waved back, headed into the cabin and sent the email. Two minutes later her architect-client called and said, “Nada on the Robert names.”
“Of course, that would be too easy. How do you like the tattoo?”
“Lovely.”
Raven chuckled.
“Hey, I was wondering, do you have any tattoos?”
No.
“Did you ever work in a tattoo shop?”
No.
“Do you know anyone who ever worked in a tattoo shop?”
No.
She had no connection to tattoos at all.
Not even a little one.
Except that she had a boyfriend back in high school who had a small skull-and-crossbones inked on his ankle.
“Like a pirate,” Raven said. “Was his name Robert by any chance?”
Erin laughed.
No.
It was Irving.
Irving Hunter.
“He’s a lawyer or judge or something like that now,” Erin said. “Down south somewhere—Atlanta or New Orleans, I think.”
SHE WAS CHECKING THE LOCAL PHONE DIRECTORY to see if any of the nineteen Roberts were listed when her cell rang. It turned out to be her other client, Dakota Van Vleck.
“You’re not going to believe what I found out this morning,” she said.
“What?”
“Jeff Salter was sleeping with Whitney White.”
Raven pulled up an image of the two of them together.
Jeff Salter, Esq.—senior partner at Radcliffe & Snow.
Whitney White—a secretary at R&S.
A secretary who got stabbed through the eye a year ago.
“What makes you say that?”
“Not now,” Dakota said. “I have a theory I want to run by you later. Do you have time to meet sometime today?”
She did.
“I’ll call you later.”
ONLY TWO OF THE ROBERTS SHOWED UP in the white pages and there was no guarantee they were the ones who got the tattoos. It could be that they just coincidentally had the same names. Raven was just starting a Google search when she realized something.
Something weird.
The tattoo that Dawn gave Robert wasn’t a whole lot different from the real-life murder of Whitney White.
Both involved a woman stabbed in the head.
Different only in that one was from the side.
And one was through the eye.
Suddenly the boat rocked.
Meaning someone had stepped on board.
“Knock-knock.”
Raven recognized the voice.
Coyote.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Noon
______________
WHEN THE GERMAN SHEPHERD rounded the corner and sprang at Dalton’s face, he twisted to the right with lightning reflexes and hooked a powerful fist to the side of the animal’s head in midair. The dog fell to the ground with a thud and twitched for a few seconds—disoriented. Then it muscled painfully to its feet and disappeared.
Dalton checked all the rooms on that level.
No Lindsay Vail.
He checked the equipment room and found two furnaces, two hot-water heaters, ladders, tools, boxes, clutter and so much junk that he walked to the corners of the room, just to be sure nothing was hidden from sight.
No Lindsay Vail.
He headed upstairs with a bad feeling in his gut.
If he had been Malcolm and had brought the woman here, he would have put her downstairs.
Upstairs, she wasn’t in the kitchen.
Or the living room.
Or the den.
He headed to the master bedroom, hoping against hope to find her there. Instead he found the German Shepherd lying on the carpet. The dog jerked to its feet when Dalton came in, ran past him and out of the room. Malcolm's stuff was all over the room.
Dalton checked the master bathroom.
No Lindsay Vail.
Then he checked the other two bedrooms.
No Lindsay Vail.
He checked the garage; every square inch of it. Two of the three stalls were filled—one with an older Porsche 911 and one with an eggshell-blue ’57 Chevy.
No Lindsay Vail.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
He looked out the rear windows to see if there was a storage shed or outbuilding of some sort in the yard that he hadn’t spotted before.
There wasn’t.
HE PLOPPED DOWN ON A BEIGE LEATHER COUCH in the living room, beaten. Large windows framed aspen trees and a crystal blue sky. Two minutes later he got up to leave, but his stomach growled and made him head to the kitchen instead. In the freezer were a couple of boxes of Lean Pockets. Two went into the microwave and cooked while he sipped a diet root beer. A noise came from the master bedroom—the dog, no doubt.
Dalton walked in to check, just in case.
Sure enough, the dog was lying in the middle of the room.
The microwave beeped.
Dalton headed back to the kitchen, set the root beer on the granite, and opened the microwave door. The dog trotted past the kitchen, gave Dalton a sideways glance, and headed down the stairs to the lower level.
Dalton pulled the Lean Pockets out and sank a fork into one. He was bringing it to his mouth when another noise came from the master bedroom, muffled, barely audible but definitely something.
He stopped the fork in midair, set it down and headed back to the bedroom.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Afternoon
______________
THE SERPENT’S KISS looked like something out of a D-grade horror movie—a billion jars with who-knows-what inside, dangling chicken feet, ancient books, occult clutter, and, of course, the strings of beads hanging in the doorway to the mysterious back room.
But that’s not what grabbed Teffinger’s attention.
What grabbed his attention was the woman behind the counter—black, old, a thin frame draped in dark clothes, a touch of yellow jaundice in her eyes.
She didn’t even look at Venzelle.
She looked only at Teffinger.
Teffinger said, “How you doing?”
She gave no response.
He wandered through the crowded aisles, occasionally picking something up and trying to figure out what it was. Nothing was labeled; nothing had a price.
“You don’t belong here,” the woman said.
Teffinger turned his eyes to her.
“Why not?”
“You should leave.”
Teffinger walked over and set a photograph of Ryan Ripley on the counter.
“Do you know this man?”
> She looked at the picture, then at him.
“You should leave.”
Before Teffinger could get his next question out, the woman pushed through the beads and disappeared into the back room. Ten seconds later, the sound of a voice wove out the doorway. The woman was clearly talking to someone, but too muted to make out any of the words.
Venzelle tugged Teffinger’s arm and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Give me a second.”
HE PUSHED THROUGH THE BEADS into the back room. The woman was pacing, talking to herself or chanting or something, with a snake draped around her neck. Teffinger recoiled when he saw the reptile.
“You have no right,” the woman said. “Leave now.”
“I want to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“Voodoo,” he said.
“Voodoo?”
“I want to put a death curse on someone,” he said. “Where can I go to get that done? Here?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m a voodoo priestess?”
“I don’t know,” Teffinger said. “Are you?”
The woman laughed and then walked over until she was only a foot away. She was a full twelve inches shorter than him and couldn’t have weighed more than 95 pounds. Without warning, she flung the snake and it wrapped its muscular body around his neck. The reptile bobbed its head nervously; it could bite Teffinger ten times in the face before he’d be able to pull it off. The woman put her face as close to his as she could.
“I’m going to give you the best advice anyone has ever given you in your life,” she said. “Get out of New Orleans and do it now.”
She grabbed the snake behind its head and gently tugged. The reptile unwound itself from Teffinger’s neck. The woman draped it over her shoulder. It coiled and darted a forked tongue at Teffinger.
He knew he should leave, right now, this second, but the answers to his questions were right here in this room. He was thinking of the next thing to say when the woman’s eyes flashed and she squeezed the snake.
It immediately lashed out and sunk its fangs into Teffinger’s neck.
Chapter Sixty-Six