Bad Client (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  The look on Rain’s face almost made him bust out in laughter but he managed to hold it in. He held his teacup up and the woman filled it.

  He said to Rain, “You want tea some, too?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Got me.”

  Teffinger grinned.

  “Yes I did.”

  “Look at you, all proud of yourself.”

  “Yes I am.”

  When the waitress left, Teffinger leaned forward and asked the question he’d been dreading. “Okay, so what’d Jena tell you about me this morning. Because in fairness, I should get some rebuttal time.”

  Rain put on a face, as if there was so much stuff that she didn’t know where to start. “Let’s see, what have I learned so far?” she said. “You played guitar in a band in high school, you had a 1966 Mustang, you kept two copies of Playboy under your mattress . . .”

  “She knew that?”

  “Everyone knew that, apparently.”

  Ouch.

  “You had them dog-eared to your favorite pages.”

  Double ouch.

  “What else? Oh, you had long hair past your shoulders, you were the president of your senior class, and other boring stuff.” She paused and put on a serious face: “She’s still hot for you, you know.”

  He shrugged.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Then maybe that’s all that matters.”

  When they were almost finished eating, she had a stray thought: “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “You remember the guy with the glasses, driving the van on Speer, the one I recognized?”

  “No, who’s he?”

  She smacked his arm.

  “Not funny,” she said. “Anyway, I remembered where I saw him.”

  Teffinger raised an eyebrow.

  Oh yeah.

  “Go on.”

  “Do you remember the day you came to the apartment building, not the first time in the morning when we met, but later that afternoon? When the news crew showed up at Ashley’s door.”

  He did.

  “Well, that guy was part of the news crew.”

  Teffinger couldn’t believe it.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  No, she wasn’t.

  “I passed them all in the stairwell,” she added. “I sort of remember him because he gave me a creepy look. I didn’t turn around after he passed, but I got the feeling he did. I could feel his eyes on my ass.”

  Teffinger processed it.

  So the whole thing had been a great big false alarm.

  Oh well.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay. That’s how my life works.”

  HE PLANNED TO SPEND A QUIET EVENING with Rain at his house, maybe have a beer or two and chill out after a long day, pop in a DVD, say A Perfect Murder. But he ended up pacing back and forth until she finally jumped in front of him and said, “All right, what’s going on in that brain of yours?”

  What indeed?

  He wasn’t quite sure.

  “I need to make some progress on this case,” he said. “I’m floundering and people are dying. We tied the guy to the murder of Paradise but it hasn’t done any good. We’re no further now than if we’d never made the connection at all.”

  “You checked her house, right?”

  He nodded.

  Right, but only once.

  He looked at her and reached for the car keys. “Do you feel like going to a dungeon?” he asked.

  “Oh, kinky. I like that.”

  A HALF HOUR LATER they were at Paradise’s house, downstairs in the dungeon. Teffinger had no idea what he expected to find but felt better being in motion than sitting on his ass.

  They both put on gloves before they walked in.

  The place was exactly as he left it.

  Wrist cuffs hung from chains in the middle of the room. Rain walked over and studied them while he wandered around, looking for who knows what, maybe another camera.

  When he looked back, Rain had reached up and grabbed the chains, as if chained herself. “Put me in the cuffs,” she said.

  Teffinger shook his head.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I want you to,” she said. “I’ve never been tied up. Besides, don’t you have to get inside this guy’s mind if you’re going to catch him?”

  He walked over to her, not really convinced that this was a good idea.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  Against his better judgment he reached up to fasten a wrist, but before he could do it, she said, “Blindfold me first. He had her blindfolded, remember?”

  He did indeed.

  He looked around for it.

  There it was, hanging on the wall, a leather one with padding on the inside and a strap at the back, like a belt. Then it dawned on him. The guy would have handled this. His prints might still be on it. With any luck no one had used it since, or even if they had, there was still a chance they didn’t smear his.

  He cocked his head and said, “This may not be such a bad idea after all.”

  “Are you going to blindfold me, or what?” Rain asked. She was in the process of slipping out of her clothes. Teffinger must have had a startled look on his face because she said, “She was naked, remember?”

  He used her tank top as a blindfold, secured her in the cuffs and then tied her feet together. This is exactly how Paradise had been, at least according to the stories she told everyone afterwards.

  Then he sat down against the wall and watched her.

  When she started to say something he said, “No talking.”

  She shut up.

  He imagined that he would play the dice game with her at the end of the hour. What he was seeing, then, was the last sixty minutes of her life, if she lost.

  It was his to savor and enjoy.

  He was the grim reaper and she didn’t even know it.

  “Remember,” Rain said, “he touched her sometimes.”

  Teffinger pushed against the wall to rise to his feet, walked over, pulled off the glove and ran the index finger of one hand in slow wavy motions up and down her body. She trembled under his touch.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Day Seven - July 17

  Monday Evening

  _____________

  JACKIE WORKED AT THE OFFICE until 6:30 in the evening because she didn’t feel like messing with the roads until the rush hour thinned. Then she stopped at a Subway, bought a turkey sandwich with everything except mayo, plus a diet Coke and bag of Cheetos, and ate in the Porsche as she drove north on I-25 to farmland.

  She kept going until the roads were no longer called street or avenue but had a CR designation instead, meaning County Road. She got off the interstate when civilization seemed sufficiently diluted, and stopped at the first gas station she came to.

  It was one of those two-pump dinosaurs that probably hadn’t changed an iota in twenty-five years. She pictured an inch of dust in the back storeroom. An old fart sat behind the counter fighting with a crossword puzzle.

  He smelled like a cigar and wore a flannel shirt.

  “I’m a lawyer from Denver,” she said. “I’m looking for someone who lives around here somewhere, but I don’t know his name. He drives a van and has black glasses. I thought maybe you’d know him.”

  The man studied her.

  He thought about it, then shook his head.

  “Can’t say that rings a bell,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Okay, thanks,” she said, handing him a business card. “If he does show up, give me a call, will you?”

  He looked at the card and then stuffed in his front shirt pocket.

  “Sure thing,” he said.

  IN THE NEXT THREE HOURS she made twenty more visits just like that one. No one had any recollection of seeing anyone similar to the man she was looking for.

  She left her business card at every location.

  If she couldn�
��t find him, she’d let him find her.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Day Seven - July 17

  Monday Evening

  _____________

  AFTER SUPPER, WICKERFIELD went grocery shopping at King Soopers, a thirty-mile roundtrip, exactly like he did every Monday evening. He didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving Ashley Conner alone with so much heat around, but wasn’t partial to breaking his habits either, just in case anyone was paying attention.

  Plus he needed food and liquor.

  Sure, the kitchen island had lots of wine bottles in the built-in chiller, but those were the expensive units to impress guests. He needed some cork that he could actually pop without having to worry about taking out a second mortgage.

  When he got back home it was almost nightfall. He hadn’t turned on any lights inside the house before he left and the windows were dark when he returned, as they should be. The temperature was bearable and, in fact, just about perfect—somewhere in the upper eighties. Of course, that would change fast once the deeper night settled in. He parked the Camry as close to the front door as he could, popped open the trunk, muscled up two bags of groceries and walked towards the entry.

  What he saw he could hardly believe.

  The front door was wide open.

  He wasn’t the one who left it like that.

  In fact, he had checked it twice before he left, just to be absolutely sure it was locked.

  What the hell?

  He set the bags down and then stood there frozen, listening, ready to bolt in whatever direction seemed best. Seconds passed and nothing happened.

  No headlights raced down the road.

  No caravan of cops squealed into the driveway.

  No sounds came from inside the house.

  HE KEPT A GUN IN THE DEN, in the bottom drawer of the desk. He took two steps inside the house, slow careful steps, as if sneaking up on someone, and stopped. Still he heard nothing. He walked all the way to the den, one careful step at a time, and pulled out the bottom drawer as quietly as he could.

  He reached down into the black space.

  The gun was there right where it should be, so sweet.

  He brought it out without making a sound, took off the safety and then headed for the kitchen.

  He still heard no sounds from anywhere.

  The kitchen was empty.

  He almost turned on the lights but didn’t.

  Instead he tiptoed back to the front door and looked around outside. Nothing had changed. He started to feel better now. If the cops were coming for him they would be here by now.

  Wouldn’t they?

  He searched the rest of the house, one room at a time. A window in the spare bedroom was broken. A rock sat on the floor in a pile of glass but no one was in the house.

  He went to the dungeon.

  The door was locked, as it should be.

  Inside, Ashley Conner lay on the bed, still in a coma.

  HE WALKED AROUND THE PERIMETER of the house but found nothing out of the ordinary. Back inside, he turned on the lights and searched the house again.

  Everything was absolutely normal except for a couple of things. Someone had riffled through his bills. Some of his old phone bills were sitting on the desk. It looked like some of them were gone. Also, some of the pictures around the house were missing, frames and all, pictures of him and friends.

  He slipped into warmer clothes, all black, turned off all the lights in the house and stepped outside, locking the front door behind him. With the gun and binoculars in hand, he took a position in the trees, about fifty yards from the house, and watched.

  If anyone came for him tonight he’d disappear into the woods, then make his way to the getaway car never to be seen or heard from again.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Day Eight - July 18

  Tuesday Morning

  _____________

  SOONER OR LATER THE ASSHOLE’S luck was going to run out. Teffinger was excited, pounding down coffee well before dawn, more than hopeful that today was the day. He was already waiting for Paul Kwak when the man’s big old gut pushed through the door on the sixth floor. “All this stuff,” Teffinger said—pointing to evidence bags holding blindfolds, whips and cuffs—“comes from Paradise’s dungeon. I’m pretty sure our guy handled at least some of it, particularly the blindfold. I need everything printed ASAP. Then we’re going over to her house to print a wall. I’ll show you where.”

  Kwak looked at him, pulled a glazed donut out of a white bag, and took a bite. “Do you work here?” he asked. Teffinger grinned and was almost gone when Kwak shouted at him, “Thank you Paul.”

  Teffinger half turned and hollered over his shoulder, “Thank you Paul.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER THE FBI PROFILER, Leigh Sandt, called him with startling news. He was just hanging up, still flabbergasted, when Sydney walked in. He grabbed her by the arm and headed for the door: “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to New Mexico.”

  The words surprised her.

  “New Mexico the state?”

  “Santa Fe to be precise.”

  At the elevator she reached to press the down button but he yanked her arm and led her to the stairway.

  “Oops,” he said. “Be right back.” Forty-five seconds later he fell back into step, this time holding a thermos of coffee and two Styrofoam cups.

  They headed south on I-25, initially caught in the rush hour mess but finally breaking free after Belleview. Teffinger brought the 4Runner up to 78 and set the cruise control. Before long they had Dry Creek Road in their wake and entered an open stretch of freeway that carved its way through a stunning and relatively undeveloped topography. To the west lay the Rocky Mountain foothills. To the east, somewhere out there, lay Kansas. Santa Fe would be a six or seven hour trip, meaning at least an equal number of rest stops, thanks to the thermos. That was okay, because Teffinger knew where they all were.

  “The chief called me at home last night,” he offered. “He wants me to tee up the Stephen Stepper case again. He says nothing’s happened in over a month—which is true—and he’s getting flak from a number of directions.”

  Sydney frowned.

  “I don’t see how he can bother you with that at a time like this,” she said. “You’d think he’d be more interested in getting Denver off the CNN evening news.”

  Teffinger agreed.

  But he understood the chief’s viewpoint.

  “He’s not looking for much,” he said. “Just something he can take back and say, See, we’re working on it.”

  She reclined her seat and closed her eyes.

  “Where are we at on that, anyway?”

  Good question.

  “I can’t tell yet if Stephen did it or not,” he said. “Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no.”

  “Why is that even our case? I thought they lived in some ritzy estate in Greenwood Village.”

  “They do,” Teffinger said. “But the wife disappeared downtown, remember?”

  Now she recalled. “Right, okay.”

  “Stephen has motive,” he added, “millions and millions of motives in fact, and no alibi. But since we never found the abduction scene, we have squat for evidence. Her car was clean. There were no eyewitnesses. Basically, we have no choice but to sit back and wait for the body to show up.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He shrugged.

  “I guess I’ll just call him in again for some more questioning.”

  “That’s called harassment.”

  “It’s also called keeping my job.”

  Sydney shifted thoughts.

  “So how are you and the mysterious Rain St. Croix getting along?”

  He briefly recalled last night, working her into a sexual frenzy in Paradise’s dungeon.

  “Not bad.”

  “Not bad, huh?”

  “No, not bad.”

  “Meaning what? Good?”

  He nodded. “Better than good, probably
.”

  “Better than good. So we’re talking, what? Excellent? Something like that?”

  “Right.”

  She grinned and punched him in the arm. “Teffinger, you’re in love, you dog.”

  He denied i

  t. “No way.”

  Sydney shook her head, as if contemplating a distant thought. “That poor girl,” she said.

  He smiled. “Yeah, you got to feel for her.”

  THEY CAUGHT A LATE LUNCH AT MICHAEL’S KITCHEN in Taos—slightly out of the way but worth it—and ended up rolling into the Santa Fe Police Department in the middle of the afternoon. Teffinger immediately headed for the restroom and his cell phone rang on the way.

  “Teffinger,” he said.

  “Mr. Teffinger, this is Archie Baxter.”

  Teffinger drew a blank.

  “We met on the bus, I just lost my job and you gave me a number to call.”

  The confusion dropped off his face.

  “Right, how are you?”

  “I’m good. I just wanted to thank you.”

  “So you got hooked up?”

  “I sure did. I’ve been meaning to call you and say thanks.”

  “Not a problem.”

  When he got out, Sydney was nowhere to be seen. Then he spotted her down the hall waving at him and headed in that direction.

  It was time to catch a killer.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Day Eight - July 18

  Tuesday Morning

  _____________

  JACKIE FOUND HERSELF LOCKED in a conference room with two of her client’s in-house lawyers and the head of the Human Resources Department, Martha Gatlin, a terrible looking woman with too much sugar in her smile.

  They were noise in her ears.

  From the information she had been able to process, it appeared that one Joel Smith, a young African American man with a family to support, filed a discrimination case in the United States District Court yesterday, alleging that his discharge nine months ago was racially motivated. Apparently two of the claims in the Complaint, the ones based on negligence and defamation, might be covered under the company’s insurance policy, so the prudent thing to do would be to promptly file a claim with the insurance carrier. Then, if . . .