Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Then everything happened at once.

  Michael appeared from around the back of the van, dragging a limp body that was unmistakably a woman’s. For some reason, he didn’t look like himself, really strange, some kind of trick of the night. Two women came out of the station, walking towards their car. One of them looked in Michael’s direction and started to yell.

  Hey, what the hell . . .

  Game time.

  Kelly stopped the car and dialed 911.

  A voice answered, a calm woman’s voice, asking her short questions that sounded like they came off a cue card. Now Northway’s van was pulling out, fast, but not powerful enough to squeal the tires.

  The cops showed up almost immediately, within three or four minutes max. Way too fast. Damn it. What if they actually caught him? Three police cars, pulling in from the same direction she’d come from, slid to a stop. Red and blue lights bounced through the air and suddenly made everything very real.

  She bit her lower lip and clenched the steering wheel.

  One of the cops was out of his car now and running over to her.

  He had a hand on his gun, as if ready to draw.

  “What happened?”

  “A man . . . he took a woman.”

  “What is he driving?”

  “A van.”

  “What color?”

  “I don’t know . . . dark . . .”

  “Did you get a license plate number?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Which way?”

  She pointed.

  “That way.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  He ran back to the car, shouting “Stay where you are,” over his shoulder.

  Get to the fucking freeway, Michael.

  Goddamn it.

  Interstate 25 was a mile up the road . . .

  Two of the cop cars squealed off and the smell of rubber filled the air. The third car stayed behind. There were two cops inside. One of them talked into a radio, very excited.

  The other two women stood by their car. A man had joined them, someone with baggy jeans and a flannel shirt, undoubtedly the person who worked at the gas station. The women were attractive, somehow that came through even at a distance. The flannel shirt looked like he might be coming on to them. He was standing a little too close.

  THE COPS GOT OUT OF THE CAR. One went over to the group and one came over to her.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” he said. “Are you the one that called 911?” She thought, the one who called 911, not the one that. He was short, surprisingly short for a cop, maybe five-four, with a baby face. He couldn’t have been on the force for more than a few years.

  Even she could kick his ass if she had to.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He held a spiral notebook and opened it up. “I’d like to get a statement, if you don’t mind. Why don’t you come over to my car? I’ve got the heater on.”

  Sitting there in the front seat, by the shotgun, she told him what she saw. She was just starting to pull into the station to get some gas when she saw a man drag a woman’s limp body around the back of a van. He slid open the passenger-side door, threw her in and took off. It all happened in a matter of seconds.

  She called 911.

  “Describe this guy,” the cop said.

  “Well, I didn’t get a real good look,” she said, “because he was sort of hunched over, dragging her under the arms. He was Asian, that much I did see.”

  “Asian?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Whether he was Korean or Japanese or Chinese, that I can’t tell you. But something like that.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Positive,” she said. “I mean, I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, but I saw his general features pretty good.”

  “Was his face flat, or more rounded?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded vaguely, and said, “So, this Asian guy, what are we talking about size-wise? Small, I assume.”

  She nodded.

  “Yes. I didn’t exactly run up to him with a tape measure . . .”

  He smiled as if picturing it.

  “. . . but he was definitely on the smaller side. He had baggy clothes, but they were hanging on him like he was skinny. And he didn’t appear to be overly strong. It looked like he was having a pretty hard time with the woman, especially when he tried to get her through the door.”

  “Okay.”

  “Black hair.”

  The cop grilled her for another five minutes, and then seemed ready to wrap up. “Oh, one more thing. You see those two ladies over there, talking to the other officer?”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you talked to either of them?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. I called 911 from my car and you guys showed up almost right away. That was pretty impressive, by the way. The other officer that came over to me, before he took off, told me to stay where I was, so I just stayed here.”

  He nodded.

  “Good.”

  “Why good?”

  “It just helps us when the witnesses haven’t talked with one another. We get the stories fresh without contamination. Do you know any of those other people, by the way?”

  She looked at them and then back.

  “No. I’ve never seen any of them before in my life.”

  “Okay. Wait here, if you would.”

  She watched him walk over to the group. He came back about five minutes later, opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

  “Cold out,” he said, holding his hands up to the vent.

  “Summer’s coming.”

  “Not fast enough. The wind is starting to kick up, too.” Michael had gotten away. That much was clear, otherwise he would have said something or she would have heard it over the radio.

  “The two women saw the same thing as you,” the cop volunteered. “The story is that there were three of them. They stopped for gas. Two of them went inside to pay. The other one, the one that got taken, stayed behind to clean the windshield. Her name is Alicia Elmblade. When they came out of the station an Asian guy was dragging her into a van. Weird.”

  “What about the guy from the station? Did he see anything?”

  “No. He had the Rockies game on.”

  She tried to look disappointed.

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah, too bad. The other two women are D’endra Vaughn and Jeannie Dannenberg. The guy is Rick Marlow, Jr. It’s his dad’s place. You don’t know any of them, huh?”

  “No. I was just stopping for gas.”

  THAT WAS LAST MAY. RIGHT NOW, TODAY, Northway shifted behind his desk and looked at his watch. D’endra Vaughn was dead. Someone had used her cell phone to call Kelly yesterday. Lori would be on his case any minute to get him off to the airport. “So you didn’t tell these homicide detectives anything?” he asked.

  Kelly shook her head.

  “Of course not. Nothing. I acted like I’d never heard the name D’endra Vaughn.”

  He nodded.

  “Good. That was the right thing to do.”

  She chucked as if contemplating the conversation.

  “What would I say? I don’t really know who killed D’endra Vaughn, but would you like to hear this really neat story about how we both happened to be at the same gas station last year and gave the same lies to the police?”

  He laughed.

  “I’m in the same boat as you, remember that.”

  “Yeah. Two men in a tub.”

  “Rub-a-dub-dub.”

  She grew serious, uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Michael, I need to know who this mystery client is, the one who put you up to this charade.”

  He immediately shook his head.

  “Not possible.”

  “But . . .”

  “Kelly, it’s not . . .”

  “Damn it, it’s my ass on the line.”

  “. . . an option.�
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  She could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t going to happen, at least not this moment. “I keep turning this over in my head,” she said, “and there’s only one thing that I can think of that even makes an iota of sense. This client, is there any reason he would want us all gone? I mean everyone who was involved in that charade? Do we suddenly pose some kind of a threat to him or something?”

  He considered it, taking his time, and finally said, “No, and even if he did, why would he be playing games with the cell phone? No. Not him. He’s not behind this.”

  “Then who?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  Suddenly Lori’s voice came from the intercom, sweet and syrupy, Marilyn-like. “Michael? It’s time for the airport.”

  “Okay, two seconds.”

  He waited until he intercom hum died, then looked back at her.

  “Let me think about it. I’m going to make a few calls. In the meantime, stay calm.”

  She exhaled. “Right, no problem.”

  Teffinger’s pictures of D’endra Vaughn jumped into her brain.

  Not just killed.

  Mutilated.

  Chapter Four

  Day Two - April 17

  Tuesday Noon

  ____________

  JOHN GANJON MANEUVERED his 27-year-old God-like frame down the 16th Street Mall in the heart of downtown Denver, feeling better than good, on the hunt. This was most definitely one of his favorite parts—circling, closing in and watching. Total foreplay. No stress, no precision, no complications. Take it all home later, close your eyes in the dark and pump your dick to it.

  Around him the street scurried.

  Step on an anthill and you’ll get the same effect.

  The lunchtime crowd was just starting to spill out, grabbing food and nicotine and gossip, spitting and scratching and strutting. Shuttle busses ran up and down the street, in and out of the shadows of the city’s tallest buildings. A hot dog peddler standing under a tattered umbrella slung buns and meat and change with greasy hands, trying to move a line four deep. Twenty yards down from him three cops sat on brown horses, wearing shades and being nice to kids.

  Who were they trying to fool with the shades?

  We weren’t supposed to figure out they were there to hide their eyes when they looked down mommy’s blouse?

  Dumb-ass cops.

  There were tons of pretty little things all around, parading up and down the street like they meant something, all decked out in their little nylons and dresses and black leather pumps. He could pick any one of them at random, hunt them down and snap them like a stick figure. The pure and simple thought that they continued to live only because he allowed them to held a little tingle. It made the corner of his mouth turn up ever so slightly; especially when he saw one he might actually choose.

  Right now, though, he was interested in only one person, one very special person.

  Megan Bennett.

  He was fairly certain at this point that he’d end up spending some quality time with her, but his mind wasn’t totally made up. She’d been an orphan. Good old daddy shot mommy in the head one drunken night and then stuck the barrel in his own stupid mouth. That happened when she was two. Ganjon just found out about it yesterday. It shouldn’t matter, but for some reason he kept coming back to it.

  He looked skyward as he walked, seeing more brick and mortar than he remembered. The old cow town was growing up. Damn, what a gorgeous day. What was it about the spring? He wore faded jeans and a simple long-sleeve, solid-blue, cotton shirt that was thinning at the elbows, nothing that would stand out or be remembered. That was the rule, one of many. Always be invisible, even when you have a treetop-lover frame and gorilla muscles. In his left hand he carried a sack lunch in a plain brown bag.

  HE TOOK OFF HIS BASEBALL CAP and ran a hand over his scalp, wiping the sweat off, and then dried his hand on his pants. For over a year now his hairline had been in a battle with his forehead and the forehead was slowly kicking ass, getting bigger and bigger every day. Another one of life’s precious little ways of saying thanks for being here.

  The hair thing was just the latest variation on the theme.

  There had been the acne, landing almost heels and toes with those god-awful, black-rimmed eyeglasses that trailer-trash mom found on a rack at some stupid-ass drugstore for fifteen bucks. Ninth grade—that was the first of his Clark Kent years. It was in the middle of that year that he took his second life—Michelle Spencer—with her perfect little blond hair and her perfect little face and her perfect little friends, everything about her so goddamned perfect. All he really wanted to do was be invisible, bury himself in his books, eventually get a college scholarship and come out the other side of puberty as unscathed as possible. But she was too perfect for that, with her little whispers and giggles.

  He hadn’t set out to kill her, down by the river, and that’s the honest-to-God truth.

  He only wanted to make a point, about what could happen to pretty little bitches if they weren’t careful. She shouldn’t have screamed, he even told her that up-front. It’s not like he didn’t warn her. She crossed a log and somehow fell in the river and drowned, that’s what the cops eventually figured. They couldn’t imagine anything even a shade darker, with their puny little brains and small-town thoughts. Everyone they interviewed confirmed that the girl couldn’t swim, even her parents. Huge teary-eyed funeral, end of case.

  Amazing, really.

  No more googly eyes from Michelle Spencer after that.

  HE STAYED ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE STREET in the sun. It felt good, perfect actually. It had been a long gray winter in Cleveland. He walked slowly, taking his time, getting caught at a red light at Fremont. People washed up around him, then washed away when the light changed, like a tide. The outdoor sidewalk seating at the Paramount Café, a ways further up, was already filled when he walked past, jammed with business types doing their so-called power lunches.

  They thought they had power.

  They had shit.

  Not a one of them had the focus or self-control, not to mention the gonads, to even know what power was. About the best they had was normal. Look back throughout history, go back as far as you want, and try to find one truly great man who was normal. You won’t find one. Normal is for sheep, for losers, for people who think that getting a promotion or a new house or having a baby is something really special.

  Kill me please.

  SOON AFTER HE PASSED the Rock Bottom Brewery he spotted her, Megan Bennett, right on schedule, sitting on the ledge of a tree planter next to the sidewalk, eating with her ankles crossed, a Subway bag on her lap. The ledge was lined with a half-dozen people with the same idea, mostly guys, watching the parade of noontime skirts slink by. She wasn’t particularly pretty, in fact, leaning the opposite way if anything, and the glasses didn’t help. But there was something about her. Her body was strong and solid. She’d taken good care of herself. He could respect that, but there was something more. She actually seemed attainable on a personal level, and someone within reach had always been sexier to him than a hundred centerfolds.

  When the old bag next to her got up and left, he hustled over, slowed down at the last minute and eased in.

  “Hope I’m not crowding you here,” he said, absently reaching into the sack and pulling out a sandwich. He watched as she turned his way, saw her look into his face and then at his hat, sizing him up, not showing much of a reaction one way or the other. He wasn’t bad looking now, better than average, actually. The acne left no scaring and he sprung for corrective eye surgery two years ago. He had a solid, prominent nose that gave him character, like a Roman warrior. More than a few women had come to his bed voluntarily, although he really didn’t pretend to have any extraordinary bragging rights in that regard.

  “No, not at all,” she said, looking back at her food.

  He took a bite, chewed, then closed his eyes and pointed his face to the sun. When he opened
them she was packing up and getting ready to leave.

  “I’m a profiler,” he said, suddenly needing to keep her there.

  She looked at him, slightly interested.

  “As in the FBI?”

  “That’s right. Special Agent Ron Stokes. Point to somebody, anyone you want, I’ll give you a quick snapshot.”

  She looked around to a hundred people in close proximity and then pointed.

  “There, that woman over there with the kid.”

  He looked at the target.

  “Okay, let’s see . . . based on her age I’d guess that her most impressionable music years were in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The carryover hippie look tells me she probably has a lot of favorite songs from the Eagles, Elton John, James Taylor, the Supremes, and the Beatles, of course, a few by the Stones, but probably not many, she doesn’t look quite radical enough. The kid is about what . . . ten? So she had him later in life, which probably means during a second marriage. She’s a good person, you can tell because the kid touches her a lot, which means he likes her. Her back door has a crack in the glass . . .”

  Megan Bennett looked mystified.

  Hers did too.

  “How would you know that?”

  He smiled.

  “I don’t, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. But, actually, it could be true. See how energetic the kid is? I was the same way when I was his age. Some kids have a tendency to be a little rough on things.” A pause then, “Have you got any kids?”

  She shook her head and mustered a smile.

  “Wow, the FBI. Have you worked on anything big, I mean something I’d know about from the papers?”

  “Let’s see, maybe I have . . .”