Nick Teffinger Thrillers - Box Set 1 (Specter of Guilt, Black Out, Confidential Prey)
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Song frowned.
“Did you call an ambulance or anything?”
Shaden diverted her eyes.
Then she said, “She was dead.”
“Did you check her pulse?”
Shaden shook her head.
“I didn’t need to,” she said. “I could tell she was dead by the sounds she made.”
Okay.
“ARE YOU READY FOR THE LAST PART?” Shaden asked.
Yes.
She was.
“Okay, here it comes. But brace yourself, because this is where it gets weird. Me and Rayla figured that the best thing to do would just be to report to work Monday morning as if nothing happened. We were wearing gloves when we broke in—did I mention that already?—so we weren’t worried about leaving fingerprints. Also, the house was dark, both inside and out back. I don’t know if there were any surveillance cameras anywhere, but even if there were, there would be a good chance that they never got a good look at us. Anyway, like I said, we decided to just go to work as usual and see what happened.”
“I understand.”
“Here’s the weird part,” Shaden said. “Rekker also reported to work as if nothing happened. He was his normal self all day yesterday. He didn’t say a peep to anyone about coming back home Sunday night and finding his girlfriend or whatever she was dead in his house. Also, as far as I can tell, he never reported the body to the police.”
“He didn’t?”
No.
Negative.
“Why not?”
“That’s the question,” Shaden said. “I’ve been thinking about it non-stop and have come up with a theory. Do you want to hear it?”
12
Day 2—September 22
Tuesday Morning
TEFFINGER DROVE DOWN MARKET with “Born to Run” on the radio, loud, the way it was supposed to be, singing along when the chorus came up. Chase St. John might be a killer, she might not. Either way, Teffinger couldn't undo what had already happened when he looked into her eyes this morning. He was on a trip, like it or not. About the best he could do at this point was hold on.
So far, no body had shown up.
So far, no call came into 911 from some freaked-out passerby who was heading to work this morning just like he’d done a thousand times before and expected to see just about anything except a dead tattooed woman stuffed under a car.
No body.
No body.
No body.
That was good.
Maybe what Teffinger saw last night hadn’t been a killing at all. Maybe it was nothing more than a fake snuff, designed to trick the camera. Too bad, in hindsight, that Condor came home at exactly the wrong time. Teffinger had no idea if the victim was still hanging limp when someone took her down or whether she simply raised her head, smiled and said, “How’d I do?”
On the other hand, he never saw a camera.
It could have just been a private session.
Either way, what was Chase doing there?
She was a lawyer.
More precisely, she was a lawyer in a very reputable, conservative law firm that had a reputation to maintain.
Chase.
Chase.
Chase.
Who was she?
HE WASN’T SURE how to handle Condor now that he knew he was SJK. He didn’t want to wait until the night in question and try to nab him in the act, although it might come to that. The last thing he could afford to do was screw the case up a second time.
In fairness, Teffinger wasn’t the one who screwed it up the first time.
Those honors went to Detective Frank Finger, who got obsessed with finding the murderer of Paris Zephyr, back in the days when Paris Zephyr was still Paris Zephyr instead of Number One.
What Finger did was impressive, even today.
He built a very strong circumstantial case against a man named Kyle Greyson, a filthy-rich scumbag whose only contribution to society was plying women with liquor and hanging out at the most happening haunts up and down the coast.
The DA didn’t care that the case was circumstantial.
He’d take what he could get.
He had enough, that was the main thing.
Charges were filed.
Greyson lawyered-up with a team quarterbacked by none other than Dirk Rekker, head of the criminal defense division of Rapport, Wolfe & Lake.
Both sides showed up for trial.
The slugfest started.
The DA was winning.
Then everything went to shit.
DETECTIVE FINGER dealt with the courtroom stress by getting seriously drunk on the Sunday before the start of the second week of trial. He got so drunk in fact that he thought it would be a good idea to punch his bitch girlfriend Haley Key in the face after she kept telling him to put the bottle down and he kept telling her to leave him alone.
She didn’t file charges.
No.
She had a better idea.
She called up Greyson’s attorney—Rekker—and told him all the dirty little secrets that Finger had told her—how he’d planted evidence, falsified reports and on and on, how he had to do it because he knew Greyson was guilty but he didn’t have enough real evidence to prove it in a court of law.
She testified to that effect Monday morning.
Rekker called Finger to the stand directly after his girlfriend. He didn’t have time to talk to anyone. He didn’t know that she’d spilled his dirty little secrets. Rekker slammed him upside the head with what he’d done.
Finger lied on the stand.
He denied doing anything improper.
He even denied punching his girlfriend.
Everyone knew he was lying but the case went forward because, in the end, it was a jury question as to whether Finger could be believed or not.
Rekker spun into top gear, scrambling for extrinsic evidence to contradict Finger and prove he was lying.
He got some of what he was looking for that evening.
More on Tuesday.
More on Wednesday.
And even more on Thursday.
That night, Thursday, he met with the DA off the record in a dive bar in Tenderloin. He showed him the evidence he’d compiled this week and would be presenting in the morning. He gave the DA another opportunity to dismiss the case.
The DA studied it.
He studied it very carefully.
Then he looked Rekker in the eyes and said, “I can’t do anything without clearing it with my client, obviously, but my recommendation will be to dismiss the case. I’ll let you know for certain one way or the other first thing in the morning.”
In the morning, the DA did exactly that, namely dismissed the case.
THREE DAYS LATER word broke that a body had been found, the body of a blond named Jamie van de Haven, who was killed the same way as Paris Zephyr.
Rekker called the DA.
“I heard about this second woman whose body just got found,” he said. “My question is, when was she killed?”
A pause.
“Sometime last week,” he said. “Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, we’re not exactly sure yet.”
“My client was in custody all last week,” Rekker said.
“I know.”
“I don’t mind winning the trial,” Rekker said, “I’ll be the first person to admit that. But I wish there hadn’t been one. I wish the city would have spent it’s time catching the right man instead of framing the wrong one.”
A pause.
Then, “You and me both. Did I say that out loud?”
Rekker smiled.
“No. I didn’t hear a thing.”
TWO WEEKS LATER, Rekker filed a civil suit on behalf of his client Kyle Greyson, against the City of San Francisco as well as Finger, personally.
That suit was quickly settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.
Finger was discharged.
So was the head of the homicide detail, Alex Pacer, a man with fifteen years
tenure who either knew or should have known what Finger was doing.
That’s when Teffinger got the job.
And that’s why he could never let anyone find out he’d broken into Condor’s house.
13
Day 2—September 22
Tuesday Morning
BLACK BART’S HOUSE was an old Victorian built in typical San Francisco style, meaning narrow and tall, with a garage at street level and steps leading up to the main floor. Jonk rapped on the door, got no response, then did it again, louder.
No answer.
“Looks like we’re in luck.”
He tried the knob, already knowing it would be locked, only to find that it actually turned. He edged the door open and stuck his face in.
“Anyone home?”
A Bob Marley song came from upstairs.
Fairly low volume.
Not jammin’, the way it was supposed to be.
“Hello?”
Silence.
They stepped in and shut the door. The first floor wasn’t neat—anything but, in fact. Junk was everywhere, especially empty wine bottles, years worth judging by the number. Every square inch of wall and carpet and wood reeked of marijuana. Dirty ashtrays were everywhere.
A quick search showed no Black Bart.
Jonk and Tag headed upstairs, quietly.
JONK OPENED AND CLOSED his right fist in successive motions, ready for whatever was about to happen, but not too worried at this point about finding a man healthy enough to put up a good fight.
They approached the master bedroom.
Jonk expected to find his target sprawled out unconscious on the bed, the victim of too much self-abuse last night. He was half right. There was someone sprawled out on the bed all right but it wasn’t Black Bart.
It was a woman.
A woman wearing jeans and a pink tank.
Passed out on top of the covers.
When Jonk and Tag stepped into the room, the woman shifted slightly but didn’t raise her head or open her eyes.
He checked the master bathroom to find it empty.
Same thing with respect to all the other rooms upstairs.
No Black Bart.
Not anywhere.
THE REAR WALL of the bedroom had sliding glass doors, open, that lead to a small deck. Jonk checked it and found no one. Then he looked down, over the edge. A man was sprawled out motionless on the concrete patio below.
He wore jeans and tennis shoes but no shirt.
A lot of blood had spilled out of his face and head.
It was brown now.
Dried.
Jonk looked closer and saw something he didn’t expect.
The handle of a knife stuck out from under the man’s torso, at an angle to suggest that the blade was stuck in his body, between his chest and abdomen. Closer examination showed blood in that area.
“We have company,” Tag said.
Jonk turned.
What he saw he could hardly believe.
The woman on the bed wasn’t sprawled out anymore. She was sitting up, staring directly at them through bloodshot eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked.
14
Day 2—September 22
Tuesday Morning
WHEN SHADEN LEFT, Song peddled her bicycle to the bank and deposited $10,000 cash into a trust account, which drew a raised eyebrow but no direct comments from the teller. She did that three more times, then headed back to get the last installment. She wasn’t sure if she’d end up drawing on the account because she wasn’t sure if she could do anything for her client.
So far, she had no bright ideas.
Not a one.
Shaden’s theory as to what happened, while extreme, actually made sense. She believed that Rayla White may not have really been on Shaden’s side at all, but might have only been pretending to be. Rayla might have been in cahoots with Rekker the whole time. The events at Rekker’s house Sunday night might have been nothing more than an elaborate charade to make Shaden believe she killed someone, at which point she would back down.
The bullets might have been fake.
The dead woman might have been a player.
That’s why Rekker never reported the murder to the police, because there wasn’t one.
According to Shaden, Rekker was clever enough to pull something like that off. He was aware that, legally speaking, Shaden would be liable for murder even though she was trying to keep the woman from shooting Rayla. The woman had the right to fire at intruders. She also had a right to defend herself when one of those intruders—Shaden—attacked her. Even though Shaden’s motives may have been good—i.e. she was trying to prevent Rayla from being killed—if there was a murder during the commission of a breaking and entering, she was as guilty as if she’d planned the whole thing from the start.
Rekker knew that Shaden would either know that or be able to figure it out.
Song’s job was to determine if the murder was real or a charade.
Right now, she had no idea how to go about it.
Obviously, it would be nice to know if there were bullet holes in the walls or blood stains on the carpet, but there was no way to know that short of breaking in.
What to do?
WHEN SHE GOT BACK to her office the door was halfway open, which was strange because she’d left it closed and locked. Stepping inside, her breath stopped.
The place was trashed.
Everything on her desk had been pushed off.
Papers were everywhere.
The last $10,000 cash of the retainer was gone.
She checked the door lock closer and found it had been jimmied with a screwdriver or something.
She headed upstairs to see if Nuwa had heard anything.
The woman wasn’t there.
She went back down to the office, sat in her chair and concentrated. Nuwa didn’t know about the retainer, plus she wouldn’t have done something like this in a hundred years.
SONG DIALED SHADEN’S DIRECT NUMBER at Rapport, Wolfe & Lake and said, “Are you okay?”
Yes.
Fine.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“My office was just ransacked and part of the retainer you gave me was stolen,” Song said. “The only thing I can think of is that Rekker either followed you or had you followed this morning. He knows we met. The break-in is a warning to me to not take the case. By extension, it’s also a warning to you.”
Silence.
“That’s it then,” Shaden said. “I’m not going to put you in harm’s way. You’re off the case.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
The line went dead.
15
Day 2—September 22
Tuesday Morning
TEFFINGER HAD A ’58 CHEVY IMPALA called Bertha that he bought when he was eighteen from a guy down the street who picked up a woman at a bar who became a girlfriend who didn’t want to be seen dead in it. It had the classic lines of the era but that was the last good thing that could be said about it. The lacquer paint, initially turquoise and white, was dead, decayed and scratched beyond belief.
The body had dents.
Lots and lots of dents.
Some big, some small.
Teffinger counted thirty at one point, and that was years ago.
It was a convertible, which sounds like a good thing, but wasn’t. The top didn’t come down, never had in fact. What it did do was leak. The most prominent place was right over the driver’s seat, directly into the crotch area. The seats were vinyl—the original vinyl, hard and brittle, now covered by a red flannel blanket.
The heater didn’t work.
Sometimes the left taillight worked, sometimes it didn’t.
The wipers worked, but only on low.
The rear bumper dipped slightly to the right.
The radio was a pushbutton with a gritty patina and hardly any bass. A pair of dice hung from the rearview mirror. For all Teffinger knew,
they’d been there since day-one.
HIS PLAN WAS TO FIX IT UP and, deep down, that was still the plan. Unfortunately, that plan was still in the planning stage.
It was the absolute worst car to own in San Francisco.
It was too big.
Too clumsy.
Too slow.
Too hard to turn.
Impossible to parallel park.
At this point, however, Teffinger was stuck. He’d owned it for fifteen years. It was now an old, comfortable pair of shoes. He wasn’t supposed to drive it when he was on duty, that was the official rule, but he and the chief came to an understanding—Teffinger would break that rule so long as he kept a handheld radio with him, and the chief would look the other way, at least until and unless he got too much flak.
Right now, Teffinger steered Bertha into an alley, came to a stop and killed the engine, which died with a cough of blue smoke.
Teffinger stepped out.
The morning fog was gone.
The air was heating up.
Nice.
HE JUMPED UP, caught the bottom of a dirty black fire escape and pulled himself up. Then he climbed up to the top floor, where the dungeon show came from last night.
The exit door for that level was locked.
He continued to the roof where he found an unlocked access door that led into an interior stairway. No sounds came from below.
He took the stairs down to a hallway that fed the upper level.
Every door was locked.
Shit.
He headed back up towards the roof and was halfway out the access door when he realized he had come too far to not get what he came for.
He headed back down.
The interior door was wooden.
He rammed it with his shoulder until the jam busted, then stepped into the room where Chase St. John may or may not have killed someone last night.
16
Day 2—September 22
Tuesday Morning
JONK DIDN’T LIKE TO KILL PEOPLE and so far he’d been able to get through his life without having to do it. While the woman on the bed posed a risk in that she might describe him to the police who in turn might hunt him as a suspect in the murder of Black Bart, he already knew he’d have to handle the situation in a way other than murder.