by R. J. Jagger
Then Alexandra slid an airplane ticket across the table. “If you’re ready to make history—make that more history—we leave on Friday. Don’t worry about money. We’ll have tons of it. More than you’d ever make being a lawyer.”
Deja retreated in thought and put a worried look on her face.
“Are there snakes in that area?”
Alexandra shrugged.
“Yeah, probably.”
Deja stuffed the ticket in her back pocket.
“Good, I’m kind of missing the little fellows.”
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Day Twelve—July 23
Friday
______________
TEFFINGER AND FALLON WORKED the caveman case Wednesday, Thursday and Friday before officially resigning themselves to defeat. Whoever gouged out Amanda Peterson’s eyes in Denver would forever be a mystery.
It was over.
The man had won.
Painful as it was, that was the end result.
Sometimes that happened.
The best thing to do was just accept it.
Let it go.
Move on.
THEY DID, HOWEVER, FIND OUT a couple of interesting things over the last few days. According to files found in the house of Marcel Durand, he had actually been contacted by Emmanuelle at Blue Moon to find out who killed Sharla DePaglia.
Teffinger chuckled.
“Can you imagine the look on his face when she gave him the assignment,” he said. “That’s probably the first time in history where a P.I. killed someone and then got the job to investigate it—to find himself, in effect.”
“I wonder what he was going to do,” Fallon said. “Other than take the money and pretend he was working the case.”
“He had to give up someone’s name eventually,” Teffinger said. “That’s the only way he could get Emmanuelle to close the file. He’d probably give her the name of someone he didn’t like and kill two birds with one Blue Moon.”
She nodded.
Yeah, that’s what he’d do.
That’s exactly what he’d do.
FILES FOUND ON NICHOLAS RINGER’S YACHT in Nice also provided an interesting story. It turned out that Ringer hired Durand to run down a license plate number that Durand then traced to Luc Trickett.
They didn’t know why.
Not for two days.
Then Fallon said, “This is speculation, but here’s what I think happened. Nicholas Ringer went to the house to kidnap Michelle Berri. His girlfriend, Nodja Lefebvre, was waiting down the street, keeping a lookout. She saw someone leave the house just after Ringer went in. She wrote down his license plate number.”
Teffinger cocked his head.
Interesting.
Go on.
“Ringer goes inside and finds Tracy White dead. He doesn’t freak, though. He waits until Michelle Berri comes home and then abducts her as planned. Later, Nodja tells him just how close he came to whoever it was that was in the house just before him, meaning the person who killed Tracy White. Now Ringer starts to wonder if the man saw him.”
“Thinking he was a possible witness,” Teffinger said.
Exactly.
“Two ships crossing in the night,” Teffinger added. “Crossing a little too close.”
Precisely.
“So he hired Durand to find out who was driving the car. Durand traced it to Luc Trickett,” Fallon said. “Then Ringer had Durand kill Trickett, just so there wouldn’t be any loose ends. Unfortunately for Durand, a neighbor saw him leaving the house.”
“Very impressive,” Teffinger said.
“That means Trickett is the one who gouged out Tracy White’s eyes,” she said.
Why?
Why?
Why?
He wasn’t a caveman, he was a boxer.
TEFFINGER HAD A FLIGHT scheduled out of CDG back to Denver at 9:18 p.m. tonight. Tomorrow, he’d go to the office, tie up loose ends, and officially hand his resignation to Double-F Tanker, the chief.
Tanker would scream and kick and moan but Teffinger would be ready for him.
Sydney would cry.
Katie Baxter would swear.
And Paul Kwak would remind him that there aren’t any cool cars in France.
He wouldn’t be ready for any of that but he’d have to handle it, somehow.
Then he’d meet with a realtor and get his house on the market.
On Tuesday or Wednesday, he’d fly back to Paris.
Fallon was going to take two weeks off.
They’d spend most of it in the museums.
With Renoir.
Van Gogh.
Degas.
And other people Teffinger didn’t even know yet.
FRIDAY EVENING, Fallon dropped Teffinger off at the airport, kissed him goodbye and said, “See you next week.” Then she headed back to the houseboat.
Clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up.
The Seine got choppy.
The boat rocked.
She drank wine, watched TV, read a magazine and went to bed.
Chapter Ninety
Day Twelve—July 23
Friday Night
______________
FALLON WAS SOUND ASLEEP when her head exploded into colors. She knew she’d been hit with something and opened her eyes just long enough to see the dark silhouette of a man above her. Before she could scream, something hit her again even harder and everything went black. She woke up at some point later, which could have been two minutes or three hours.
She tried to move but couldn’t.
She was tied spread-eagle on the bed.
Naked.
She pulled wildly but it did no good.
She could barely budge.
She was stretched tight.
Immobile.
She tried to scream but couldn’t.
She was gagged.
Outside the wind howled with a terrible, demon fierceness.
Lightning crackled.
Rain pummeled against the windows.
Suddenly the black shape of a man appeared above her. He straddled her stomach, tweaked her nipples and said, “You’re awake. Good.”
She recognized the voice but couldn’t place it.
The man set a knife on her chest between her breasts.
“I’ve been wanting to do this ever since that first day in your office,” he said. “Ever since the first time I saw them—and by them, I’m referring to your eyes, of course. There are certain eyes that just need to be turned around and pointed the other way.”
Suddenly she knew where she’d heard the voice before.
It belonged to that lawyer, the caveman lawyer.
Paul Sabater.
The one who came to her office and accounted for his whereabouts at the time Tracy White was killed.
“You’re probably wondering if I cut out the eyes before or after I kill the person,” he said. “So far, it’s always been after. But this time, I’m going to change things around a little bit. This time I’m going to do it before.”
Lightning exploded, followed by a terrible crack of thunder.
“YOU DESERVE ONE LAST MEAL, so to speak, before you depart on your final journey,” he said. “So I’m going to give it to you, in the form of a story, to quench that thirsty little detective’s mind of yours. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
He picked up the knife and ran the tip across her forehead, around her eyes and over the bridge of her nose.
Then he set it back down on her chest.
“I’m the one who killed Amanda Peterson in Denver,” he said. “But she wasn’t the first. She wasn’t even in the top five. I’ve had lots of trips over the years—Tokyo, Bangkok, Australia, just to name a few. I always leave my signature mark behind, so to speak.”
He ran a finger softly on her nipple.
“In Denver, someone saw me in the stairwell after I killed Amanda Peterson,” he said. “She cooperated with the cops. That really pissed me off. Her name was T
racy White. I hung around to kill her but failed—one of the few times in my life, I might add. Then one day something weird happened. I saw her in La Defense. Of course, she had to die, not just because I still wanted her dead, but because sooner or later she’d bump into me and end up calling the cops. So she was a threat.”
Lightning exploded.
The room lit, just for a heartbeat but long enough for Fallon to see the look on the man’s face.
It was the look on an animal, an animal about to devour its prey.
She tugged at her bonds.
He smiled.
“That’s a nice touch,” he said. “Thank you for that.”
“ANYWAY, TO CONTINUE with your last meal, I’m a lawyer, which you already know,” he said. “That means I’m smarter than the average bear. Instead of killing Tracy White myself—as much as I wanted to—I decided to hire someone to do it. The man I hired was a lowlife named Luc Trickett. His instructions were to gouge out her eyes and turn them around, just like I would have done.” He smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I just have Trickett slit her throat? Why have him gouge out her eyes?”
He studied her.
“The answer’s easy,” he said. “Nick Teffinger pissed me off as much as Tracy White did, even more. I wanted him to suffer. Having him think that Amanda Peterson’s killer got Tracy White would do just that, since he was the one who gave away her name. Anyway, Trickett had no problem with the eyes-gouging part of it. I went to Madrid and made sure I had a rock-solid alibi at the time.”
He sighed.
“Afterwards, of course, I killed Trickett and cleaned out his files,” he said. “It’s called the no-witnesses theory. I shot him three times in the head. I enjoyed it. The world is a better place with him gone.”
A fierce gust of wind rocked the boat.
“It’s getting nasty out there.” He grinned and added, “Not as nasty as in here, but still—”
He picked up the knife and passed it back and forth between his hands in front of her face.
A taste.
“It’s incredibly sharp,” he said. “Razor sharp. You probably won’t feel a thing. Then again, you might. It’s hard to say.”
He paused as if gathering his thoughts.
“THE THING THAT THREW ME is when that sketch appeared on page 5 of the newspaper,” he said. “Since I had nothing to do with Tracy White, I knew it had to be a re-draw of the Denver sketch. That was a stroke of genius, by the way, very clever. I was impressed and still am. But it also presented a problem. There was a danger someone might think it was me and call my name in. I didn’t know what would happen at that point. I was afraid that you would check to see if I was in Denver when Amanda Peterson got killed. If you had, you would have found out quite easily that I was. That would have raised your eyebrows, at the very least, and you would have dug deeper. So I decided to cut your investigation off at the knees, before it even began. I came to your office, voluntarily, and gave you all the information on my rock-solid alibi for the time Tracy White got killed, hoping you’d see me as a dead end.” He sighed. “Unfortunately for you, you did.”
He ran a finger across her lips.
“Luc Trickett, by the way, didn’t have anything to do with Tracy White’s roommate, Michelle Berri,” he said. “She wasn’t there when he killed Tracy. She must have come home afterwards and got taken by someone else for some other reason. That part of it is still a mystery to me, but one that I don’t care too much about, if you want to know the truth.”
Lightning flashed.
Then again.
Thunder rolled over Paris.
“Enough chitchat,” he said. “Your last meal has now been fully served. I’ve done my job and now it’s time for you to do yours.”
He picked up the knife and positioned the tip just below her eye.
“Are you ready?”
Chapter Ninety-One
Day Twelve—July 23
Friday Night
______________
SUDDENLY THE MAN GURGLED and fell to the side. A flash of lightning showed a knife sticking out the back of his head as he dropped to the floor.
Another man was in the room.
Teffinger.
He untied her.
Then held her tight and rocked her.
She cried.
The storm beat down.
After a long time she asked, “Why aren’t you on a plane?”
“My flight didn’t officially get cancelled, but it got delayed because of the storm, and then I got too scared to fly,” Teffinger said. “So I came back until tomorrow. I hope you don’t mind.”
She exhaled.
“Too scared to fly? You’re such a baby sometimes.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
THE END
Copyright (c) R.J. Jagger
All rights reserved
R.J. Jagger is the author of over 20 thrillers and is also a long-standing member of the International Thriller Writers. He has two series, one featuring Denver homicide detective Nick Teffinger, set in modern times; and a noir series featuring private investigator Bryson Wilde, set in 1952. His books can be read in any order. For complete information on the author and his ebooks, hardcovers, paperbacks and audio books, as well as upcoming titles, news and events, please visit him at:
Rjjagger.blogspot.com
[email protected]