by R. J. Jagger
The man didn’t blink or move a muscle.
Then his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you saying this guy shot Andrea in the back of the head?”
Yardley nodded.
“That’s my belief.”
Big Rick studied Yardley’s face to see if she was messing with him.
Then he slammed his fist on the counter, so hard that a picture fell off the wall.
Glass shattered.
He didn’t look over.
Instead he looked Yardley directly in the eyes and said, “He’s a dead man.”
90
T he wind howled and pushed eerie black clouds violently across the sky. Dalton was nestled in an enclave down by the Mississippi, watching the wind whip the water into whitecaps, when his phone rang and the voice of Norma Jean came through.
“We just got some very interesting news,” she said.
“Like what?”
“It’s about Teffinger’s girlfriend,” she said. “The word is that she tried to reverse the death curse on Teffinger.”
“How?”
“By buying it off,” she said.
“So what happened?”
“She went to the wrong place—that was last night. Then things didn’t go well for her,” she said. “Where are you?”
He told her.
“Get back here,” she said. “We’re going to Plan B.”
“I like Plan A,” Dalton said.
“Trust me, Plan B is way better.”
Teffinger, it turned out, was staying in Room 118 at the Cajun Blue Hotel, a cheap one-story structure at the edge of the city, where the parking lot came right up to the rooms. Dalton and his accomplice—Norma Jean—didn’t care about Teffinger’s room though. Instead, they backed into the parking space in front of Room 120 and killed the engine.
They looked around, saw no one and got out.
Dalton rapped on a blue wooden door.
No one answered.
He tried the knob.
It was locked.
They headed around to the rear of the building through a maddening wind, broke the bathroom window, and crawled in. Dalton knew what to expect, but the sight still caught him by surprise.
Teffinger’s girlfriend—Jessie-Rae—was tightly tied spread-eagle to the bed, naked except for a black thong and gagged with a knotted rope.
On the floor was a dead rooster. The head had been cut off and the blood had been drained into a green plastic bowl that sat on a nightstand. The feet had also been cut off. Someone had dipped the feet into the blood and marked the woman’s stomach with some type of symbols.
“What do these mean?” Dalton asked.
Norma said, “They’re a curse.”
Jessie-Rae pleaded with them through wide fearful eyes and tugged at her bonds. Muffled words came from the gag, too vague and jumbled to understand. Norma Jean sat down on the side of the bed and traced a fingertip on the blood symbols.
“You’re cursed,” she said. “Too bad, you’re so beautiful.”
She looked at Dalton and said, “Get me a wet washcloth. I’m going to clean her up.”
Dalton did it.
Norma Jean wiped the blood off the woman’s stomach and said, “This doesn’t remove the curse. It only makes you more presentable.”
Then she pulled a jackknife out of her pants pocket, opened it, waved a razor-sharp 3” serrated blade in front of Jessie-Rae’s face, and gently laid it on the woman’s stomach. “Will you be quiet if I take your gag out?” she asked.
Jessie-Rae nodded.
“Good, because if you say a word or make even the smallest sound, my knife friend here is going to slit your throat from ear to ear,” Norma Jean said. “Are we clear on that?”
Jessie-Rae nodded.
“Crystal clear?”
Another nod.
Norma Jean picked up the knife, straddled the woman’s stomach and cut the gag off. Jessie-Rae gasped for air but didn’t make a sound.
“Good girl,” Norma Jean said. “Would you like some water?”
“Yes.”
Dalton brought a glass of water from the bathroom.
Norma Jean lifted Jessie-Rae’s head forward, put the glass to the woman’s lips and poured, slow enough that she didn’t choke.
“There, better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Norma Jean said.
“I have to use the bathroom,” Jessie-Rae said.
“Will you behave yourself if we let you up?”
“Yes.”
She cut off the woman’s thong and threw it over her shoulder. It landed on a lamp and got snagged on the shade. Then she cut the ropes, led the woman to the bathroom and stepped out—leaving the door cracked a couple of inches.
Outside, the wind screamed and an evil blackness raked across the sky. The sound of a vehicle emerged above the noise of the weather. Dalton pushed the curtain aside, just an inch, and saw a vehicle jerk to a stop in front of Room 118, two doors down. Nick Teffinger muscled the door of the vehicle open against the wind, stepped out holding a disposable cup of coffee, and disappeared into his room.
Dalton’s heart raced.
He prepared himself to knock on the man’s door and beat him to death with his bare hands.
91
T he blue car behind Teffinger either wasn’t following him or had a change of plans, because it didn’t turn down the asphalt road when he did. By the time he got back to the main road, it was gone.
Now what?
He was still a rabbit but one with no fangs chasing him.
He pointed the front end of the car back towards the city.
On the way, his phone rang and Sydney’s voice came through. “I called Boston on the Zandra Oceana deal,” she said. “The detective assigned to the case is someone called Tom Watkins, who’s on vacation this week. I spoke to another man by the name of Randy Brown, who wasn’t working the case but knew about it. According to him, the case was a robbery gone sour. Someone took her purse, jewelry, laptop, etcetera. The theory is that she came home while it was in progress.”
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Teffinger said.
“That’s what they think.”
“Well, that doesn’t bode well for your theory,” he said.
Meaning her theory that someone was out to kill both Zandra and Jessie-Rae; and that Jessie-Rae was currently the real target, not Teffinger.
“It could be that the guy just staged it to look like a robbery,” Sydney said.
True but unlikely.
“It was a good thought, but shelve it,” Teffinger said. “We have too much going on to get sidetracked. Besides, I know in my heart that I’m the target.”
“Maybe you’re both targets, for different reasons,” she said. “Maybe one person is trying to kill you and someone else is trying to kill her. Maybe that’s why we can’t figure it out. We’re looking for one person when we should be looking for two.”
“Now you’re getting too complicated,” he said. “You’re starting to make my brain hurt.”
Silence.
“Any sign of Kristen Starkell?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Teffinger said. “She’ll make a move tonight, if she doesn’t before then.”
“Nick, I should be there.”
Her voice trembled.
He considered it and had to admit deep down that he didn’t want to die alone, in a strange city, in a storm.
But he couldn’t put her at risk.
He just couldn’t.
Suddenly “Love Me Do” got his attention.
“A Beatles song just came on the radio.” He turned it up and held the phone by the speaker to prove it. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Nick!”
He hung up.
When the Beatles stopped singing, Teffinger called Coyote and could hear the lapping of the lake against the breakwater when she answered. “Give me some good news,” he said.
> “Nick?”
“Right.”
“Where are you? It sounds like you’re in a hurricane or something.”
“Just a little breeze,” he said. “Are we still thinking that the pirate’s name is Robert and that he got a tattoo?”
“Let me put it this way, Yardley Sage is still running all over town, flashing his picture in tattoo shops, to see if anyone recognizes him.”
“Why does she think he got a tattoo?”
“She won’t say.”
“Is she legit? Is she really on to something?”
“I think so,” Coyote said. “She’s not the kind to waste her time.”
Teffinger exhaled.
“Then she’s doing better than us,” he said. “How could that happen?”
Coyote didn’t know but added, “I fed her some information to help her. I’m hoping that if she finds the guy, she’ll give me his name.”
Fed her information?
What information?
She told him.
“That’s against every rule in the book,” Teffinger said.
“Do you want me to find the pirate or follow the rules? Because I’m only going to be able to do one of them—”
He shifted his weight and pulled up an image of Lindsay Vail.
Missing since Saturday night.
Almost a week now.
Probably dead.
But maybe not.
“Find the pirate,” he said.
“I’m sort of seducing her, too, to get her to talk,” Coyote added.
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing. I don’t want to know,” Teffinger said. “Just find the pirate.”
He hung up and headed back to his hotel to see if anyone had broken into the room while he was gone. If they had, maybe they inadvertently left breadcrumbs to follow.
Debris flew through the air.
The storm was getting meaner.
On the way, he called Maggie Bender, to see if there were any hits yet on the BOLO for Jessie-Rae’s rental.
There weren’t.
“Trust me,” she said, “I’ll call you the second I hear anything.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being a pest. I know that.”
“No you’re not.”
“Next time, I’ll count to ten before I call.”
She chuckled.
“Five’s good enough,” she said.
“Then five it is,” he said. “Thanks for putting up with me.”
He called the TV reporter, Tammy Bahamas. “I got a lead that the pirate’s name might be Robert and that he might have one or more gruesome tattoos,” he said. “What’s the chance that I can get his picture on the news again, with this updated information?”
“I’d say your chances are pretty good.”
“Thanks,” he said. “If I’m still alive when this is over, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Be careful, I’ll hold you to it.”
“You do that.” He chuckled and added, “If I’m not alive, and you do a story on me, don’t look under my mattress.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t do it,” he said.
92
A fter leaving Physical Graffiti Tattoo, Yardley had a wild thought while driving back to the marina and called Dakota. “I’ve been thinking about your theory that Jeff Salter killed Ripley. I might have come up with a motive, but it’s purely speculation.”
“I’ll take speculation,” Dakota said.
Yardley swallowed.
“Actually, it’s more of a wild-ass guess than speculation,” she said.
Dakota chuckled.
“I’ll take wild-ass, too.”
“Okay, but don’t think I’m nuts.”
“You mean more nuts than me? Come on, girlfriend, spit it out.”
“Okay, but—”
“Damn, girl, you’re like a vibrator on slow speed. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
Yardley laughed.
Then got serious and said, “Okay, it goes like this. Whitney got wind of Ripley’s voodoo obsession through the grapevine; and the fact that the opposing counsel and the opposing client both mysteriously died within 24 hours of each other. She started to snoop around to figure out if Ripley killed them—maybe he got paid to do it from his voodoo client or something like that. Ripley found out she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong and took her out. Salter then found out about the whole thing and killed Ripley for killing Whitney. He bided his time and did it in the alley, just like you said—the perfect murder.”
“God, it all fits,” Dakota said.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“So how do we prove it?”
“I don’t think we can.”
Yardley wasn’t at the sailboat more than ten minutes—just long enough to throw water on the deck, open the hatches and get the fans blowing—when she got a call from the last person in the world she expected.
Susan Salter, Jeff Salter’s wife.
“Can we meet?” Susan asked. “I’d like to talk to you, but it needs to be in the context of an attorney-client privilege.”
“As long as you’re talking to me in my capacity as an attorney, then whatever you say will be privileged and confidential,” Yardley said.
“So you can’t tell anyone?”
“That’s correct,” Yardley said.
“Or use it against me?”
“Also correct.”
“Even if I don’t end up retaining you?”
“The privilege attaches, either way.”
Yardley made sure Coyote wasn’t following her, and met Susan at Red Rocks Park, in the lower parking lot of the amphitheater. The woman was exactly as Yardley remembered her from law firm Christmas parties.
Elegant.
Flawlessly attractive.
Kind.
Soft spoken.
At Susan’s request, they hiked down a trail at the base of a mountain of red rocks. They got sufficiently away from prying eyes and found a shady boulder to sit on. Susan got right to the point and handed Yardley a large manila envelope. Inside were several photocopies of eight-by-ten pictures of Jeff Salter and Whitney White, in intimate positions. Plus a photocopy of a blackmail note to Jeff Salter, telling him that the pictures would be turned over to his wife if he didn’t cooperate with their demands.
“Jeff has a wall safe at home,” Susan said. “About a month ago, he had it open and didn’t shut the door all the way. Before I closed it, I took a peek inside. I found these and made copies.”
“I’m so sorry,” Yardley said, and squeezed the woman’s hand to prove it.
Susan squeezed back and fought tears, then regained her composure.
“I don’t know when these pictures were taken,” she said. “But I had my accountant go back and track the finances to see if Jeff actually paid any blackmail money.”
“Did he?”
Susan nodded.
“A lot.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Millions.”
Three magpies glided down from the rocks and landed on a scraggly pine ten yards off. They squawked and then took off again.
“Why are you telling me this?” Yardley asked.
“Jeff was irritable at supper last night,” she said. “When I asked what was going on, he said that you were running around doing some kind of investigation on him. Is that true?”
“I can’t comment on that one way or the other,” Yardley said.
Susan nodded, understanding.
“On the off chance that it was true, and you really were investigating him, I thought you should know about this,” Susan said. “This is going to sound totally cold, but I hope you can use this against him.” She paused and added, “My life with him is over. He doesn’t know it yet, but we’re getting divorced as soon as I finish figuring out everything he did. That’s why I need this to be confidential; to be sure you don’t say anything to him or to anyone else. If he knows I’m on to him, he�
�ll cover his tracks. He might even kill me.”
Yardley shuffled through the photographs again.
“Most of the marriage money is mine,” Susan added.
“So it’s pre-marital property?”
“Right,” she said. “And it appears that Jeff stole a lot of it to pay off his blackmailer. I’m going to do everything in my power to see that he goes to jail for it.”
Yardley picked up a pebble and flicked it with her thumb.
“So who was doing the blackmailing?”
Susan shrugged.
“There’s no paper trail,” she said. “What Jeff did was funnel money through several different banks and then made repeated cash withdrawals. Where that cash ended up, I don’t have a clue.”
“What a scumbag.”
Susan chuckled and said, “Don’t say that. You’re insulting scumbags all over the world.”
Yardley grinned.
Then she grew serious and said, “To be sure that this stays confidential, you should probably ask me something legal.”
“Fine,” Susan said. “Do you want to be my divorce attorney?”
Driving back to the marina, Yardley had a weird thought. Was Susan actually working with her husband to feed Yardley false information?
Was the whole story a big charade?
Orchestrated by Jeff Salter?
To throw her off track?
Were the pictures doctored? Is that why Susan only gave her photocopies of the pictures instead of the actual photos themselves?
Would Jeff really be so stupid as to leave his safe open with something that damaging inside?
Something didn’t smell right.
And what about Adam Osborne?
Yardley had a bad feeling about him that she hadn’t been able to shake from day one.
Adam Osborne.
Mr. Opposing Counsel.
Why did he pop into Yardley’s head right now, when he should be the furthest thing from it?
Her brain hurt.
She powered up the radio and got a song she hadn’t heard in years—Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer.”