Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Teffinger frowned, picturing it.

  “Probably some kind of psychological torture,” Miller added. “I can just picture the little prick pretending to abandon her and then sitting back and watching the show.”

  A dog barked.

  Miller must have noticed Teffinger’s expression, because he volunteered, “That’s the same dog that we found wandering around at the other farmhouse. He lives here.”

  “So what was he doing over at the other place?” Heatherwood questioned.

  Miller shrugged.

  “Wandered off, I guess, maybe after Bickerson got himself killed.”

  For some reason that explanation seemed insufficient to Teffinger. He knew he had to think about that more when he got the chance. Right now he could hardly think at all. He was sick at the fact that the asshole had been right next door to them when they were processing the scene at the other farmhouse and they didn’t even know it. They had him pinned and let him get away. All they had to do was drive over here and check. It would have taken five minutes.

  “This guy’s starting to give me a headache,” Teffinger said.

  Miller nodded. “The only good thing out of this so far is that Megan Bennett is still alive, bless her little heart. The locals are going to double-check the area one more time to be sure he didn’t dump her around here somewhere, but it seems like he took her with him.”

  “She has to be getting weak, though,” Heatherwood observed. “How much longer can she possibly last?”

  Good question indeed.

  SHORTLY BEFORE ELEVEN TEFFINGER GOT A CALL from Kelly, who said she needed to talk to him immediately and offered to drive out to where he was if that’s what it took. He said okay, but only if she agreed to swing by a Wendy’s and pick up a combo meal on the way, hold the mayonnaise and onions please. He’d pay her back of course.

  She showed up about an hour later and called to say she was down at the end of the driveway and no one would let her in.

  Teffinger drove down to meet her and they ended up strolling down the gravel road, he with the burger in one hand and a diet Coke in the other, and she carrying his fries for him. She wore an expensive gray suit, nylons and soft leather shoes with a one-inch heel. A Gucci purse draped over her right shoulder and she smelled like a field of flowers.

  She told him the story that the client told her this morning on the 16th Street Mall. Teffinger, as usual, made her repeat it over and over, and kept looking for holes or inconsistencies. In the end, however, it held together perfectly.

  He didn’t see a reason not to believe it and told her so.

  “So you’ll back off Michael Northway, then?” she questioned.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, a rhetorical question to give him time to think.

  “Yes,” she said. “But not just for Michael’s sake, for the whole firm. It’s a lot more fragile than you’d probably think. I don’t want to see it get tarnished.”

  Teffinger considered it, chewing on a fry.

  Actually, he’d already searched Northway’s house, and hadn’t found much, other than the photos in his bedroom, which were now perfectly explained. Clay Pitcher, Esq., had counseled against trying to get a search warrant for Northway’s law office, which he viewed as not only too politically charged, but also on extremely shaky legal grounds given the fact that the place was a refuge of sensitive information that was truly protected by the attorney-client privilege. Heatherwood was right, Clay was loosing his edge.

  But, that said, there wasn’t much more to do anyway. They could try to question Northway, try to make him reveal the name of the client and then talk to the client directly, but Northway could take the 5th and so could the client, for that matter. Also, if the client wouldn’t show his face to Kelly Ravenfield, there was no way he’d talk to Teffinger.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t have any plans right at the moment to do anything that would create a public embarrassment to either Northway or the law firm. This client needs to be held accountable at some point for assaulting those women, and I will follow-up on that, mark my words, but that’s something for another day and another place.”

  He had one more thought, on a related subject.

  “If the story that the client told you is true, that means that the person who killed D’endra Vaughn and tried to kill you is the same person who killed the women in the pictures that he sent to the client. Right?”

  Kelly obviously agreed with him, “Correct.”

  “You mean right.”

  “That’s what I said, correct.”

  Teffinger shook his head.

  “If someone says, right?—and it is right—then you say right. And if someone says, correct?—and it is correct—then you say correct. But you can’t mix right and correct.”

  “Sure you can,” she said, defending herself.

  “No,” he said, “because that upsets the balance of the universe. Right?”

  She laughed. “Correct.”

  He shook his head, beaten.

  “So,” he said, thinking out loud, “maybe that gives me a foothold. Maybe I can find out who the dead woman is in the photos that I got out of Northway’s bedroom and find out who killed her. That’s who killed D’endra Vaughn and tried to kill you.”

  Kelly looked skeptical.

  “That seems like a long shot,” she said. “It’s a whole separate investigation.”

  That was true, actually.

  “But one that may already be done,” Teffinger said. A pause, then, “We also have that other file, too, the one with the hair and everything that Northway’s secretary saw in his office. That’s another victim of this same guy. Tell Northway that I want that file. If there really is a driver’s license and newspaper articles in there, then we’ll have the name of the victim and the location of the crime. That’ll get me in touch with the police department who did the investigation. There’s no telling what they have. Hell, they might even have a name and a picture for all we know.”

  She nodded.

  “So, there you have it,” he said. “I’m going to be nice to Northway if he gets that file in my hands.”

  “I’ll call him,” she said.

  “Do it right now,” Teffinger told her. “I want to know what his position is.”

  He sat down on a rock and picked the last of the fries from the bottom of the box while she wandered down the road to talk to Northway in private. When she came back she was smiling.

  “Michael gave the file back to the client,” she said, “but he’s going to call and see if he still has it and would be willing to turn it over to you. In the meantime, he said he remembered the name on the driver’s license. Melinda Russell. And he remembered that the newspaper article was from Memphis, Tennessee.”

  Teffinger was satisfied.

  “That’s all I need, really.”

  Ten seconds later he was on the phone to Katie Baxter.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Day Eleven - April 26

  Thursday Morning

  ____________

  IN AN EINSTEIN BROS COFFEE SHOP on Sherman Street, Ganjon strategically positioned his magnificent frame at a table next to the windows where he could see the shelter, and sipped coffee while he read this week’s Westword.

  He had mixed emotions about hunting down the biker bitch and still didn’t know which way the scales would eventually tip. On the one hand, no one gets to screw with him the way she did, period, end of sentence. On the other hand, you don’t want to let your emotions get the better of you and pull you into a trap.

  What he needed to know is whether the cops had set her up as bait. He needed to know that now because once she drifted away from Denver he’d never see her again. She was one of those slimy little invisible people who live in rat holes and hug the dark.

  It felt good to be out among people.

  He realized now how much he missed the buzz and activity of crowds and how incredibly long he’d been cooped up with Megan Bennett. />
  Megan Bennett.

  She was getting weak, familiar and uninteresting.

  The initial excitement was waning fast.

  Even her little pain-dance yesterday didn’t help much.

  Plus she was drawing an incredible amount of heat. If she was dead, the cops would still be looking for him but not with anywhere near the sense of urgency they were now.

  The end was coming with her.

  He could feel it; the inevitable transition was in motion.

  It might even happen tonight.

  He refilled his coffee cup and refocused on the Westword, an alternative, edgy newspaper, but also one with articles that he found to be surprisingly well researched and well written. It clearly made its money on advertising to the fringe element, being jammed packed with come-ons for clubs, dining, tattoo parlors and, most noticeably, the escort and sex industry.

  HE WATCHED BODIES FILE OUT of the shelter one after another and then, bingo, there she was, finally. The biker bitch was out of the building and walking down Sherman Street in his direction.

  He adjusted his sunglasses. They were dark, oversized and cheap, something he picked up earlier this morning from a street vendor for ten bucks. He also pulled the brim of the baseball cap down so that it sat even lower on his face.

  The biker bitch was on his side of the street now and would be passing by any minute. She wore oversized jeans, tennis shoes, and a black T-shirt, with those overly tattooed arms of hers hanging out. Her left arm, between the elbow and the wrist, was wrapped in gauze. Her hair was short, the length Ganjon cut it just a few evenings before. It was a little choppy, too, not overly so, but enough to suggest to a stranger that the woman had probably cut it herself. She obviously hadn’t sprung the ten or twenty bucks it would cost to get it smoothed out.

  When she walked by down the sidewalk he held the Westword in front of his face. He actually felt the coolness of her shadow as she passed between him and the sun.

  He turned, stood up, ready to follow her—then, shit!

  She was opening the door and coming inside.

  Damn it!

  He was back down in his chair in a heartbeat, his face stuffed back into the newspaper.

  She stepped to the back of a line that was four deep, half facing him, not more than ten feet away.

  His first thought was to turn his head directly away from her, get up, and head calmly for the door, just one more average Joe-Blow who had finished his coffee and was heading to work. But the movement would draw her attention; that was certain. Then she’d recognize his size, at the least, and maybe his posture. Maybe she’d be stupid enough to run over and try to get in front of his face to see if it was him or not.

  What to do?

  Two cops came in.

  He was busted!

  They walked straight at him.

  Then, no—wait.

  Instead of pulling their weapons, they walked past him and took a place in line, directly behind the biker bitch. One of then was older, somewhere in his forties, but the other one was young and chewing gum that made the muscles in his jaw pop. He looked like the kind of guy who wouldn’t think twice about getting into a bare knuckles fistfight.

  He looked fast, like he could run.

  Ganjon was strong but he couldn’t run for shit.

  The coffee for some reason was suddenly right now building up in his bladder. Ordinarily, this is where he would get up and head for the restroom.

  Now the younger cop and the biker woman were talking to each other, apparently about her tattoos, because she was holding up her right arm for him to see better.

  She had that come-on, flirtatious aura about her.

  The one he recognized so well.

  What a slut.

  He kept the Westword propped up in front of his face and forced himself to stay as calm as he could. If everything went to hell, he would go for the younger cop first and drop him straight to the floor with a punch to the face, then take care of the old fart before he could get his weapon drawn.

  With any luck the biker bitch would order a coffee to go and be out of here in the next two minutes.

  Instead, she ordered a coffee and a bagel and took a seat at the table next to his, facing directly towards him. A few minutes later the two cops came over and asked if they could join her. One of them asked Ganjon if anyone was using the extra chair at his table, then took it after Ganjon forced himself to mumble, “No, go for it.”

  HE LISTENED, BEHIND THE NEWSPAPER, while the woman and the cops talked. She told them a story about how Nick Teffinger, who the two cops knew well and described as “a super good guy,” pulled her out from under a Harley that she crashed on some train tracks down by Pueblo. There were some warrants out for her arrest in some other states, but Teffinger made her a deal, that he wasn’t going to call any of those authorities provided she stuck around Denver for a while and helped him out on this big case he was working on.

  There was no talk at all about anyone using her for bait.

  Ten minutes later the biker bitch got up, said goodbye to the cops, refilled her coffee cup and walked out the front door.

  Ganjon headed straight for the restroom.

  When he got out the trail was cold.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday

  ___________

  GANJON WOKE IN A COLD SWEAT and looked at his watch. It was three in the morning. The world was black and quiet except for the heavy breathing of Megan Bennett who slept next to him with one foot chained to a post.

  He stood up, grabbed the flashlight, walked outside and pissed in an old one-gallon plastic milk jug, now almost full. He’d take it with him when all was done to minimize the DNA.

  Megan Bennett was no longer worth the effort.

  She had great legs, he had to admit that, and she honestly had some minor amount of affection for him on some emotional level, but that was no longer enough.

  She didn’t love him and never would.

  That was obvious.

  He gave her plenty of chances to get used to the situation and see the good side of him but she refused at every turn.

  So screw her.

  She hadn’t earned the right to die quickly.

  She made her choice and she’d have to live with it.

  That was fine with him, because at least now all his hard work and planning wouldn’t be wasted. Of all the OSU women, she was definitely the most complicated so far. Beth Williamson had been a snap. All he needed was a 55-gallon drum and a nice quiet place to dump her. The next two women were equally easy from a logistic standpoint.

  For Dana Frost all he had to do was bury her up to her neck, shave her head and then pour honey all over it. He went to visit her last month, surprised to find she was still right there where he left her—undiscovered. Her skull stuck out of the ground, picked clean.

  The other woman, Cindy Smith, was also easy. A little rope, a bottle of acid and a good dripper was all he needed.

  Megan Bennett’s little nightmare, on the other hand, was complicated. Ganjon bought a cheap motorcycle helmet and fitted it with two holes, one to let air in from the blower and the other to let air out. The exit hole was fitted with a one-way valve so that the airflow could only go out and not back. The entry hole was connected to a blower by way of a flexible plastic tube. The blower was equipped with a timer that turned the power off after five minutes. You could turn it back on by pressing a button. Designing and fabricating all of this ended up stealing two days out of Ganjon’s life.

  But at least he had it and it worked perfect.

  Right now it was all stored in the trunk of the Camry. He got it and brought it inside, quietly, so as to not wake the woman.

  The time had come.

  The reaper was here to visit.

  In her psychology paper, Megan Bennett described being strapped down in a chair. But there wasn’t one around so Ganjon decided he would stretch her out on the workbench instea
d. That would be better anyway because she wouldn’t be able to thrash around as much.

  He got everything into position while she lay there sleeping.

  Luckily there was still power at the outside junction box to the building and he was able to rig up an extension cord for the blower.

  With everything in place, he unchained the woman’s leg from the post and then picked her up and carried her over to the bench as she woke up.

  “What’s going on?” she questioned.

  “Nothing much,” he said. “We’re just changing positions.”

  She fought with her last ounce of strength but it did no good. Within five minutes he had her securely racked on the bench with the helmet on her head and the blower going.

  He sat back and watched her for an hour.

  It was so cool when the blower shut off.

  It startled the woman, every single time.

  The way she jerked when it happened was so cool.

  She punched the switch immediately, usually three or four times, just to be sure.

  Then the blower kicked back on and she got quiet again.

  Finally he got bored with the whole thing and went back to sleep.

  She’d be a lot more fun to watch in the morning, after she’d been at it for a while.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday Morning

  ___________

  TEFFINGER WAS DOWNTOWN at his desk by 5:30 in the morning, which was 7:30 Memphis time, dialing the direct number of Corey Peterson, who was the detective in charge of the Melinda Russell investigation. Teffinger naturally got the answering machine again, for the umpteenth time, hung up and walked over to refill his coffee cup.

  Before he could do that his phone rang. He weighed his options for a second and then ran to his desk.

  “Teffinger,” he said.

  “Teffinger, huh? Well, I thought I’d better get back to you first thing, before you wear out the ringer on my phone.”