He smiled just thinking about it and wished he could be there to see Teffinger’s face.
“You’re a rock star,” he told himself.
Then he had a neat idea. He gathered together what he needed, walked out to the Camry and pointed the front end of the vehicle towards Teffinger’s house.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Day Five - July 15
Saturday Morning
_____________
TEFFINGER WAS TAKING RAIN HOME, heading east on the 6th Avenue freeway in the middle lane with a cup of coffee in his left hand, when an 18-wheeler started riding his ass. He sped up to get some breathing room. It didn’t work. Then it moved into the right lane, pulled next to him and blew the horn.
Teffinger looked over and found the driver pointing to Rain, who wore black shorts and a white tank top. He waved at the guy as if to say, “Yeah, I know, she’s hot, ” and expected that to be the end of it. But the honking continued and the truck didn’t speed up even though the lane was clear ahead.
“I think he likes you,” Teffinger said.
She looked at him, then back at the driver, a heavyset man with a full beard who now had his arm all the way out the window, pointing.
Honk.
Honk.
“He reminds me of that guy in Thelma and Louise,” she said. “Disgusting.”
“Never saw that movie,” Teffinger said.
“You didn’t?”
“No, it’s a chick-flick, right?”
“Well, sort of.”
“I don’t do chick-flicks.”
Honk.
Teffinger slowed to let the trucker get ahead but the dumb ass decelerated with him and kept honking. “What’s with this guy?” Rain must have seen something he didn’t because she unfastened her seatbelt and climbed halfway in the back seat. “I thinks he’s pointing to the bed,” she said.
Then she screamed.
“What?”
“An arm! There’s an arm in the back!”
TEFFINGER HIT THE BRAKES—dumping the coffee—and pulled over to the side of the freeway as fast as he could, sliding to a stop. He jumped out, wiping his pants, and looked in the back.
Damn it.
An arm stuck out from under the tarp and wood. He pulled the coverings back and found a woman.
She was dead.
She was naked.
She looked to be about thirty, with short black hair, slightly overweight, with more tattoos than she needed. He kicked the tire and then punched the side of the truck so hard that it dented.
“You son-of-a-bitch!”
He paced all the way around the vehicle, then again, then again. Rain watched him but said nothing. “Okay,” he finally said, “calm down. Calm down and catch the little prick.”
Ten seconds later he called the Crime Lab, then Jena Vellone.
“Hello?”
She was breathing heavily and he pictured her on a treadmill.
“You wanted me to call you so I am.”
“Where are you?”
“6th Avenue east bound, at Federal.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
SEVERAL PATROL CARS PULLED IN behind the truck. Teffinger had them set up a perimeter that no one was to cross without his express permission. A few minutes later the Crime Lab pulled up and Teffinger was relieved to see Paul Kwak at the wheel.
“Don’t lose a fiber,” Teffinger told him before he could even open the door. Kwak looked at him, as if to say you’re blocking the way, and then got out when Teffinger stepped back. He immediately walked around the pickup, dragging that big old gut of his, stared at the woman for a few moments, then told Teffinger: “It looks like you made another mess. What I need you to do is close that lane of traffic and get a bottleneck going so we don’t have the truckers blowing through here at a hundred miles an hour.”
“You got it.” He felt a layer of stress fall away. “By the way, good morning.”
Kwak looked at him and scrunched his face. “You know, they make diapers for adults.”
Teffinger looked at his pants.
He had to admit, it did look like he wet himself.
“I want this guy,” he said.
THE DEAD WOMAN HAD BRUSING on her wrists and ankles, as if she’d been cuffed and then pulled like a maniac to escape. There were no other visible marks on the body. Her face still had fear etched on it.
Traffic had bottlenecked now and the uniforms were doing their best to keep the Lookey-Lews moving. Jena Vellone shouted at him from behind the perimeter but he didn’t have time for her right now.
He’d just have to apologize later.
Sydney showed up about the same time that Teffinger noticed a news helicopter overhead. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He could care less if he was okay nor not. This wasn’t about him.
“Yeah, fine,” he said.
He needed coffee in the worst way.
A visit to a restroom wouldn’t hurt either.
She pulled out a notepad. “Let me get your statement before you go all senile on me,” she said. He gave it to her, standing there next to the truck, while they watched a Crime Unit Detective by the name of Lieberman photograph the body. Teffinger and Rain drove around last night looking for the van. They gave up about three in the morning, went to his place and fell asleep almost immediately. They got up about nine, briefly stopped at the Einstein Bros on Union to get two coffees to go, and were driving down the freeway when some trucker next to them got all excited and started blowing the horn.
“Did you get out of the truck at Einstein’s?”
Teffinger nodded. “Yeah, for about five minutes, tops.”
“Okay.”
“The body didn’t get dumped there,” he added. “There were too many cars around. It had to have been at my house, sometime between three in the morning and daybreak.”
She nodded.
He looked at her, then back to the victim.
“We need to get this poor woman identified,” he said. “I want to know where she was last night and where she got taken. That’s a crime scene and the longer we take to find it the less it’s going to help us.” He looked at the helicopter, briefly distracted, then back at her. “The other crime scene is at my house, where he put the body in the back. In fact, would you mind going over there and securing it?”
No, she wouldn’t.
“Love you,” he said as she walked away.
He looked around for Rain but couldn’t find her. She must have slipped away during the commotion, probably to find shade.
It was already in the nineties and you could feel the temperature rising. Even the coffee on his pants had already dried.
HE WASN’T QUITE SURE AT THIS POINT what to do next. He couldn’t wander outside the perimeter; otherwise he’d be barraged by reporters. So he slipped into the front seat of the pickup where he at least had some shade, left the door open, and called the FBI profiler, Leigh Sandt. She was about thirty seconds away from stepping into a meeting when she answered, so he gave her the reader’s digest version of what just happened.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m going to mull this over tonight, but here’s my preliminary thoughts, which may change later. This guy probably got a bigger charge out of putting the body in the back of your truck than he did actually killing the woman. I wouldn’t doubt it a bit if he actually followed you around this morning to see the look on your face when you discovered the body. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s watching you right now.”
“You mean he’s here somewhere?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. What fun would it be to cause such a big fuss and then not be there to watch?”
Two minutes later Teffinger motioned for Jena Vellone to come over.
“I’m going to give you some one-on-one time in a bit,” he said. “In the meantime, I want you to film as much of the crowd as you can, but don’t be obvious. Get in different positions and make it look like the cameraman is focuse
d on you, but get the crowd.”
He watched her process the information.
“Do you think the man who did this is actually here somewhere?” she asked.
Teffinger shrugged.
“We don’t know. It’s possible.” Then, looking up: “Is that your chopper up there?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any way for you to get the word to them to get some film of the crowd too, as well as the cars parked around here?”
She nodded and pulled out a cell phone.
“Done,” she said.
She turned and almost got away before he grabbed her by the arm. “By the way, here’s a scoop. We’ll be setting up another crime scene at my house soon.”
She looked startled.
“How soon?”
Teffinger looked at his watch. “Ten minutes, I’m guessing. Detective Heatherwood is on her way right now.”
She looked like she just won the lottery. “Teffinger, this is huge,” she said. “This’ll be national news. I’m talking CNN and all the rest of them.”
He hadn’t thought about it but she was right.
The case was about to explode and that would only inspire the guy more.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Day Five - July 15
Saturday Morning
_____________
JACKIE BROKE MORE THAN A FEW speed limits as she raced down the 6th Avenue freeway to the crime scene location reported on the gym’s TV monitor. Traffic was already backed up to Wadsworth, so she got off there and took the side streets to Federal, then parked the Porsche in the lot of a seedy hotel and walked over to all the commotion.
The epicenter of the storm was a white pickup truck.
From her vantage point, slightly higher in elevation, she could make out the naked body of a woman in the truck’s bed. A large crowd stood around and at least a dozen cops were strategically positioned to keep everyone out. Others, like her, were walking down to the scene.
Sweat dripped down her forehead and into her eyes. She pulled her shirt up and wiped her face as best she could, flashing a flat, tanned stomach to anyone who might be looking.
That helped but not much.
She really didn’t know what she expected to find here.
All she knew is that the dead woman was probably the work of the man all over the news who bragged about his “visit” this weekend. And, if Stepper’s theory was correct, this is his mystery client, the man she was trying to find.
She squinted.
Back at her car, safe and sound, she had sunglasses and a visor. For a heartbeat she considered getting them but didn’t really feel like making another 200-yard trek in the heat.
So she wandered around to the other side of the crowd instead. There, at least, her face pointed away from the sun.
It was too damned hot.
The whole world was drying up.
She couldn’t believe the size of the crowd. There had to be two hundred people, minimum, plus the cops and news crews, and vehicles all over the place. Three helicopters floated above it all, washing the air with a deep, vibrating rumble.
BEFORE LONG IT BECAME CLEAR who was in charge—a man about six-two, strong looking, with long brown hair that kept flopping down over his forehead in spite of the fact that he repeatedly raked it back with his fingers. His tanned face belonged on a magazine cover. He was a little too tall for her taste, but other than that, eminently doable. He wore jeans and a blue cotton short-sleeved shirt, punctuated with a black holster and weapon. She’d seen him on TV a number of times but he looked bigger and better in person.
Right now he was intense, almost mean-looking.
She was glad she wasn’t on the receiving end of whatever it was he was thinking.
She worked her way through the crowd to get closer to him. There was something about him pulling her in. For some reason she pictured the two of them together in a cool quiet place somewhere, intoxicated, on the verge of screwing like rabbits.
He was talking to a female who also wore a weapon, no doubt another detective. She had short wash-and-blow hair and an easy smile. Judging by her manner, she held Teffinger in high respect. She also seemed to have a lot of chest under her clothes. Some of the guys in the crowd were actually focused on her with some intensity.
Jackie worked her way in even closer, so near that she was now able to actually pick up the conversation.
“HERE’S THE PISSER, KATIE,” Teffinger said. “I think I actually had this guy in my crosshairs last night. If I’d been smart enough to react a little faster, this poor woman might be alive right now.”
The woman—Katie—looked puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“Okay,” Teffinger said. “Rain and I were going through a green light at the intersection of Speer and 14th.”
Katie interrupted him. “Rain doesn’t exist.”
Teffinger tilted his head.
“Not according to Heatherwood,” Katie added.
“That’s the rumor,” Teffinger said. “But trust me, she does.” He then told her about a man with black glasses, driving a van, who disappeared down Speer before they could catch him. “He’s our guy,” Teffinger said. “I had the little prick in my hands and let him wiggle out.”
Katie looked skeptical. “Nothing personal, Teffinger, but that’s a pretty big stretch. So what if the guy took off fast? Everyone in the world floors it as soon as the light turns green.”
“It’s not just that,” Teffinger said. “I think Rain recognized the guy because he’d been hanging around Ashley Conner’s place. Remember, Rain lives across the hall from her. My guess is that this guy was checking out the neighborhood, certainly before he took Ashley, but maybe afterwards too. I haven’t told you this yet, but I’ve been in contact with Leigh Sandt.”
“The profiler?”
“Yes,” Teffinger said. “In her opinion, our man’s a moth who loves to be around the flame.”
Katie looked as if that made sense.
“Can Rain give us a composite?”
Teffinger shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. It’s just one of those vague things, when you see someone and know you’ve seen them before, but really don’t have enough of an image in your mind to describe their features.”
“But,” Baxter said, “she might be able to pick him out of a lineup, if we got to that point.”
Teffinger shrugged.
“You never know.”
Suddenly Teffinger, who had his back to Jackie, turned and looked directly at her.
“HI THERE,” HE SAID.
Jackie stared at him, unsure what to do. There was something about his eyes that wouldn’t let her look away. Then she figured it out—one was blue and one was green.
“Hi there back,” she said.
She had a sudden urge to light a match and instinctively reached down to her pocket, before she realized that she still wore her workout shorts which didn’t have any pockets. That’s why she carried the Porsche keys in her hand.
“Did you hear all that?” Teffinger asked.
Her first instinct was to lie but the man’s eyes wouldn’t let her.
“Maybe a little,” she said.
Teffinger nodded. “Hot out again,” he said and raked his hair back with his fingers. “That stuff about the van and the black glasses is confidential. Do you think you could help me keep it that way and forget about it?”
She nodded.
“Forget about what?”
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
SHE HUNG AROUND FOR ANOTHER FIFTEEN minutes before finally deciding there wasn’t much more she was going to get out of it.
From there, she headed home and stood under a cool shower until her core temperature came down to normal. Then she called Stepper, apparently catching him on a golf course somewhere. “Stephen, quick question,” she said. “The guy who ran you off the road. He was driving a pickup, right?”
“Right.”
“
It wasn’t a van.”
“No, it was a truck.”
“Okay,” she said. “One more question. I know you said you couldn’t see his face, because it was dark. But could you tell if he was wearing black glasses or not?”
A pause on the other end of the phone and then, “I don’t think so.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure,” Stephen said. “I didn’t see his face, but I did see the outline of it. If he’d been wearing glasses, I think I would have noticed.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Not a hundred percent,” Stephen said. “Why?”
“No reason. Just trying to narrow things down.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day Five - July 15
Saturday
_____________
WICKERFIELD JOGGED UP the old gravel firefighting road on the west face of Green Mountain, maintaining a steady pace under a blistering sun. He wore a small, lightweight backpack that held a pair of Bushnell auto-focus binoculars and a water bottle. The mountain was pretty much his and his alone thanks to the heat. All the sane people in the world had found shade or air conditioning somewhere.
He liked the heat.
In fact, he liked just about anything extreme—temperature, wind, waves, workouts, whatever. Life was crisper and more intense at the edge.
Green Mountain traditionally lived up to its name and was actually green. But this summer the sun had sucked the color out of it and painted it a dead brown instead.
It had no trees, not a one, not even a scraggly Pinon, which can grow just about anywhere in Colorado. Wickerfield couldn’t figure out why, because across the valley, on the other side of C-470, the hills were no higher but were thick with Ponderosas.
Trees there, none here.
Weird.
The jog to the crest of the mountain was about two miles. Then he ran along the wide, flat ridge, able to see many miles in all directions. The view to the east displayed Denver and the endless flatlands beyond. The view to the west dropped into a valley and then lifted up into the Rocky Mountain foothills, seriously stunning.
Bad Client (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Page 11