by R. J. Jagger
She had no gun or knife.
TEFFINGER SPRANG ACROSS THE ROOM and pinned her to the mattress before she even knew he was coming. He sank his weight on her chest and said, “You got a lot of nerve, lady—”
“Actually—”
“Shut up! You’re either going to tell me where Venzelle is, right here, right now, or I’m going to rip your heart out and throw it in your face.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“Bullshit!”
Chapter 101
Day Five—July 16
Friday Night
______________
THE PIRATE TALKED AS HE DROVE and every new word terrified Raven even more. Not just because of the story he was telling, but because he was feeding her facts that would put him in the electric chair ten times over if the cops ever found out.
Meaning there was no going back.
He had to kill her.
Even if he changed his mind, he would still have to kill her.
From what she could tell by their speed and their turns, he had come out the back entrance to the park and was cutting over to Santa Fe. Headlights from behind them bounced off the rearview mirror and flickered inside the SUV.
The pirate stopped ranting and got silent.
She pictured him with one eye on the mirror and his grip tight on the steering wheel.
Suddenly he decelerated rapidly, pulled over to the shoulder and stopped.
Raven knew why.
This road was relatively abandoned, but once they got to Santa Fe there’d be traffic.
If he had to deal with someone following him, it would be better to do it here where there weren’t any witnesses.
He powered down his window.
Cool night air rushed into the vehicle.
He breathed heavily as if getting ready for battle.
The other car approached and slowed as it got closer.
THE PIRATE POWERED THE WINDOW back up and said, “If this vehicle stops, and you say a word, I’ll kill everyone in it. The blood will be on your hands. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“So keep your mouth shut.”
“I will.”
“You better,” he said. “Otherwise, your own death will be so horrible that people will talk about it for years. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The pirate got quiet.
And tapped his fingers.
Waiting for the other car to pass.
Then he slammed his hand on the dashboard and said, “Goddamn it!”
The other car pulled up next to them and stopped with the engine running.
No light bars flashed.
That meant it wasn’t a cop.
The pirate cranked up the radio, stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Raven heard the muffled sound of the pirate talking to someone, barely audible above the blare of the speakers.
They were laughing about something.
She almost screamed for help but didn’t.
It was better to die without the blood on her hands.
There was no use dragging another innocent person down with her.
SUDDENLY THE TALKING STOPPED and the other vehicle took off. Robert, the pirate, took a piss in the road, got back in, shifted into drive and stepped on the gas.
“It was just some dumb-ass guy who wanted to know if I needed help,” he said. “I told him I stopped to take a leak. Good thing you didn’t call out. I wasn’t kidding about what I said.” He chuckled and added, “Hey, he told me a joke. You want to hear it?”
Silence.
“It’s about the Ono Bird,” he said. “Do you know how the Ono Bird got its name?”
No response.
“Well, the Ono Bird, it turns out, is the only bird species in the world where the male is so well endowed that its cock is actually longer than its legs. Every time it comes in for a landing, it makes a sound that goes like this … Oh-no! Oh no! Oh no!”
The pirate laughed.
“Get it?”
She did.
“Ono Bird,” he said. “I got to remember that one.”
She waited until he calmed down and said, “Let me ask you something.”
“Sure, shoot.”
“I’m not clear why you were stalking Erin Asher last Saturday night,” she said. “She never gave you a tattoo. She has nothing to do with tattoos or tattoo shops or anything like that.”
“Erin Asher?”
“Yeah.”
“Never heard of her,” he said.
“She was the one you were following last Saturday night; the architect.”
The pirate grunted.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Except that last Saturday I was in New Orleans.”
He flicked the radio stations, landed on Guns & Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” and cranked it up.
Chapter 102
Day Five—July 16
Friday Night
______________
TEFFINGER KNOCKED ON THE DOOR to James Maddens’ place in the French Quarter. When no one answered, he shot the lock and busted in. Kristen Starkell followed less than a heartbeat behind.
No one was there.
Including Venzelle.
Goddamn it!
“They must be out hunting you,” the woman said.
Teffinger threw a lamp against the wall. Then he tore the place apart. He found no evidence that Venzelle had been held there; or any evidence where she might be.
He looked at his watch.
10:15 p.m.
Less than an hour until Venzelle died.
He picked up a blender and threw it at the window. It bounced off the glass, leaving a three-foot crack. Ten seconds later the storm blew it in. The wind was so fierce that the rain hit Teffinger all the way across the room.
“Let’s go!” he said.
Outside, they muscled the doors to the Mustang open and got in. Teffinger cranked over the engine but kept the transmission in neutral.
He looked at the woman and said, “Now what?”
She sat there.
Staring ahead.
Saying nothing.
Then her face sprang to life and she pointed to a street.
“Go that way!”
He skipped first gear, put the stick directly in second and punched it. The rear tires spun and then the vehicle lunged forward.
“Where we going?”
“To Ida’s.”
HE DROVE BUT SHOOK HIS HEAD in disbelief, still not sure that he fully comprehended the woman’s story and, more importantly, whether he believed it. What she told him back at the hotel was that she was the granddaughter of Ida Wrisp, a New Orleans voodoo priestess renowned for death curses. Starkell was born in the United States but lived in Haiti with her mother—Ida Wrisp’s daughter.
Starkell came to the U.S. and visited her grandmother every so often.
The death curses didn’t bother her.
That was part of voodoo.
Dying was part of life.
But then she heard something troubling.
On her last visit, she heard a street rumor that Ida was using finishers to make her death curses come true. Ida denied it and Starkell concluded that if finishers were being used, Ida truly didn’t know about it. Nor would she condone it.
Starkell decided to investigate and bring the practice to a halt if it existed.
Ida told her who the most recent curse had been put on—a detective from Denver by the name of Nick Teffinger.
Starkell went to Denver to follow Teffinger, to see if he got murdered and, if so, by who.
That’s why she was following Teffinger at Chatfield, when he spotted her on the beach; and that’s why she was following him down at the South Platte, when he chased her into the river and nearly caught her. And that’s why she followed him to New Orleans after she heard on Hot Talk that that’s where he was.
According to her, she wasn’t the one who shot the Corvette.
She wasn’
t the one who put the rattlesnake in his truck.
SHE KNEW THAT JAMES MADDEN was one of Ida’s main contacts. She suspected that he had to be orchestrating the finishers, if there were such things. And she knew where Madden lived in the French Quarter.
That’s why she told Teffinger about him.
And why they went there just now.
THE VOODOO PRIESTESS Ida Wrisp lived in an unassuming house on the edge of town. Teffinger slid to a stop in front of her house, killed the engine and followed Starkell to the front door.
The voodoo woman sat on a couch watching TV.
A snake was curled up next to her, flicking a tongue.
Incense filled the air.
The woman’s eyes narrowed when they landed on Teffinger. She looked at Starkell and said, “This man is cursed.”
Starkell ignored her and said, “James Madden is holding a woman captive. Where would that be if it’s not at his place in the French Quarter?”
“He would never—”
“Ida! I need you to answer!”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER they were in an unlit building in a blacked-out neighborhood, feeling their way one step at a time down a pitch-black stairway. The darkness couldn’t have been more absolute. At the bottom they came to a door. Teffinger felt around until he found the knob and turned it.
“It’s locked,” he said. “Stand back and cover your eyes.”
She did.
He shot the lock and pushed into the room.
It smelled like wet rocks.
A muffled voice came from the darkness, something unintelligible, but something that sounded like Venzelle.
“Venzelle? Is that you?”
“Teffinger! Help me, I’m tied—”
He felt his way over, pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “You’re okay, baby. I got you now.”
“Untie me. The ropes are killing me.”
He worked at the knots. They were insanely tight and he couldn’t see what he was doing. Then he heard a noise, up the stairway.
“Someone’s coming!” Starkell whispered.
TEFFINGER PULLED VENZELLE into the left corner of the room and told her and Starkell to lie flat on the floor and not make a sound. He went to the right corner, stood in the dark with a racing heart and waited for the footsteps to get all the way to the door.
When they did he said, “I have a gun. Turn around and leave while you can.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he dropped to the floor as quietly as he could. A heartbeat later, two guns fired and bullets struck the wall where his chest had been. The flashes from the barrels lit the room just enough for Teffinger to see three figures.
He pulled the trigger.
Three times.
So fast that it sounded like once.
Two bodies dropped to the ground.
The other ran up the stairs.
TEFFINGER CARRIED VENZELLE UP THE STAIRS, out of the house and into the yard. He put his weapon in Starkell’s hand and said, “Get her out of here!”
Then he ran to the street.
The storm was even worse now.
Water hammered into his eyes.
To the right he saw nothing.
To the left he saw something that might be movement.
He sprinted that way as fast as he could.
The gap began to close but Teffinger was losing wind. He eased back to a pace he could maintain. A mile later he was only fifty yards behind. It was now clear that his target was a man, a large man.
By the way he swung his arms, he wasn’t holding a gun.
As they came out of the blackout area to where the streetlights worked, Teffinger saw that they were heading straight for the Mississippi River.
The man stopped when he came to the water.
He was white and had long hair.
Mean whitecaps rolled down the water with a thundering noise.
The man suddenly turned and jumped in.
Teffinger ran to the edge and saw the man hanging on to the end of a log, seconds from being swept out of reach.
He dived in and fought his way through the turbulence to the other end of the log.
He held on, trying to catch his breath.
The other man was muscling his way down the log towards him.
Teffinger did the same and had only one thought.
Die you asshole.
Die forever.
Chapter 103
One Week Later
July 22
Thursday Morning
______________
ONE WEEK LATER, Raven called Jeff Salter and said, “It would probably be a good idea for us to have a little chat.” He agreed, and an hour later they met at Civic Center Park, across from the Colorado State Capitol. He wore an expensive suit and a burgundy tie. She wore shorts, Adidas and a T. They found a private place to talk on the amphitheater steps.
Transients slept on the grass, wherever the best shade was.
Some next to shopping carts.
Some next to backpacks.
Some next to nothing.
“Robert Poindexter told me a bunch of stuff before he got killed,” Raven said. “I’ve been debating whether to tell you or not, and I’ve decided that you have a right to know.”
“Know what?”
“You had an affair with Whitney White,” Raven said. “Then you got blackmailed. You paid for a while and then asked Ryan Ripley to see if he could figure out who the blackmailer was. He later told you he couldn’t figure it out. That was a lie.”
She paused to let the words sink in.
“What are you talking about?”
“Actually, Ripley did figure it out,” Raven said. “He found out that the blackmailer was none other than Whitney White herself. She set you up from the start.”
“Bullshit!”
“Let me finish,” Raven said. “Instead of telling you about Whitney, Ripley approached her and made her agree to split the blackmail money fifty-fifty. You paid a lot of money. Half of it went to Whitney and half went to Ripley.”
Salter furrowed his brow, deep in thought.
“Go on,” he said.
“There came a point when Whitney wanted out. She had enough money and was sick to death of dealing with Ripley. She also felt a little sorry for you, too. Ripley said fine, he would carry on without her. She said no, it needed to end. So Ripley decided to take her out.”
“So Ripley killed Whitney?”
“Not directly,” Raven said. “Ripley was deep into voodoo at that point. He went down to New Orleans and had his client put a voodoo curse on Whitney. The doll had a needle stuck in the left eye. A week later, Whitney died. The pirate—Robert Poindexter—is the one who did it. He stuck a screwdriver in her eye. That’s how he knew the story.” She paused and added, “Does any of this make sense?”
SALTER EXHALED. “What I’m about to say can’t go beyond you,” he said. “I need that assurance.”
She nodded.
“You have it.”
“Okay,” he said. “I was at a big law firm party at Ripley’s about a month ago. My wife Susan was sick that night and stayed home. One of the young ladies at the party came on to me pretty strong and we snuck up to the master bedroom. She was drunk and started going through Ripley’s dresser drawers. She found a voodoo doll with a needle in the left eye. As soon as I saw it, I knew that Ripley had put a curse on Whitney and that he was behind her death. I resolved right then and there to kill him. But I bided my time. I wanted it to be the perfect murder.”
“So you’re the one who killed him in the alley.”
Salter shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I wish it had been me, but it wasn’t.”
“Like I said, this doesn’t go anywhere beyond me,” Raven said. “We can treat this as attorney-client privilege if you want.”
“I’m being straight with you,” Salter said. “I didn’t kill Ripley. What did happen, though, is that I saw the pirate’s picture in the Rocky Mounta
in News. I recognized him as someone who had met with Ripley a number of times. He was somehow associated with Ripley’s voodoo client down in New Orleans. I knew in my heart that he was the one who killed Whitney.”
“Well in hindsight, you were right,” Raven said.
“I guess I was,” he said. “At that point in time, I wanted to find out who he was and kill him with my own two hands. That’s when I hired you to find him.”
Raven must have had a look on her face because Salter laughed.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You still haven’t figured out that I was your real client?”
“You’re not making sense,” Raven said.
“Okay, it goes like this,” Salter said. “I needed someone to find the pirate and wanted to be sure the whole thing was legally confidential, which it would be if I used a lawyer instead of a P.I. I knew you’d be perfect for the job. But I knew you’d never help me, because of our past differences. I had a friend named Samantha Dent, who is an escort that I visited every now and then.”
“I met Samantha.”
“Yes, you did,” Salter said. “I told her that I wanted her to hire you to find the pirate. I had a story that she was supposed to use, namely that she had been followed by the man on Saturday night at the same time that he supposedly killed someone else across town. She was his alibi, in effect, but she didn’t want to go to the police and get him off their radar screen until she could figure out what his intent was with her.”
“So that whole story was made up?”
“It was,” Salter said. “Samantha was willing to help—for $150 an hour plus expenses—but she was clubbing with a friend on that Saturday night, a friend named Erin Asher. So we needed Erin to corroborate the story. Then Samantha came up with the brilliant idea of letting Erin be the client, just in case you ever connected me to her. That way I would be even one step further removed. I asked her to approach Erin but to not disclose my identity. Erin agreed to go along with it, again for $150 a hour.”
“So you were my client, all along?”
He nodded.
“It worked too,” he said. “You actually found him. Not in the way you wanted, but you found him nevertheless.” He chuckled and added, “Remember that night you staked out Erin’s house with Samantha to see if the bad guy drove by?”