Sudden Guilt (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  Ta’Veya didn’t hesitate. “That’s the way,” she said.

  “You like that?”

  “After what he did? Yeah, I like it a lot.”

  They both turned to Paige.

  “What about you?” Aaron asked. “Does that sit okay with you?”

  Actually it was a little more horrific than Paige preferred.

  But Ta’Veya and Trane were clearly set on it and she needed to get this behind her.

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” Trane asked. “You don’t sound sure.”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “I’m just not going to enjoy it.”

  “We need to all participate,” Aaron reminded her. “That’s the deal. That’s the only way we can all be sure that no one has second thoughts after the fact.”

  “I said I’m in,” Paige said. “Stop worrying about it.”

  Trane studied her.

  “This isn’t just about us,” he said. “It’s about all those poor women he killed too. Not to mention the ones in the future. Don’t forget about them. And don’t forget about your law school friend Marilyn Poppenberg.”

  Suddenly Ta’Veya said, “Headlights!”

  AS SOON AS MITCH MITCHELL WALKED THROUGH the front door, before he could even get his hand to the light switch, Tarzan punched him in the nose so hard that the cartilage snapped.

  Then Trane dragged the little freak into the center of the room and straddled him.

  Ta’Veya shined a flashlight into his eyes.

  The man started to say something and Trane smacked him across the face.

  “Shut your mouth!”

  The man almost said something but thought better of it.

  “Now listen to me carefully,” Trane said. “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to ask you a question. I’m only going to ask it one time,” he said. “You’re going to answer that question truthfully. If you lie to me, things are going to get very painful for you—very painful. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “So painful that you’d do anything in the world to make that pain stop,” Trane added. “But it won’t stop. If you make me start the pain, it won’t stop. There won’t be anything you can do or say to make it stop. Do you fully understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That pain’s going to come in a lot of different ways,” Trane said. “Some of it will come from pliers. Some of it will come from a razorblade. Some of it will come from matches. And a lot of it will come from ways that I haven’t even begun to think of yet. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope so,” Trane said. “Because if you think I’m exaggerating, you’re going to learn a very hard lesson and go to a very insane place.”

  “I understand.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Here’s your question. Did you kill Marilyn Poppenberg?”

  No answer.

  Then the man cried.

  And muttered, “Yes.”

  Barely audible.

  “Did you say yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you bind her in blue rope and dump her by the railroad tracks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you bind her in blue rope so it would look like someone else did it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you telling me the truth right now?”

  “Yes.”

  THE IMAGE OF MARILYN POPPENBERG DEAD in the night, tied up like a sack of garbage, rushed into Paige’s brain and snapped.

  She kicked the man on the side of the head.

  He immediately screamed and thrashed.

  Aaron said, “Get the knives!”

  Suddenly they all had knives in their hands. Trane continued to pin the man under his weight. Ta’Veya got on one side and Paige got on the other.

  All three of them raised their knives.

  Trane looked at Ta’Veya. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes!”

  He looked at Paige. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he said. “On the count of three.”

  Thunder crackled directly overhead.

  So close that the house shook.

  “One—two—three!”

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Day Nine—May 13

  Tuesday Night

  ______________

  TEFFINGER LEARNED A FEW THINGS about Ta’Veya during their dinner at the Rock Rest, after he got her calmed down and scooted Mandy and not-Mandy out of the booth. The main thing he learned was that she wasn’t about to let him learn anything about her.

  Or Paige Deverex.

  He learned something else when she twisted her hair into a ponytail and her blouse rode up. Namely that she had a lot of stitches on the side of her stomach—crude stitches, the take a swig of vodka and we’ll do it right here in the kitchen kind; no doubt the medical emergency that kept her from calling Friday night.

  He didn’t mention them.

  She glanced at her watch repeatedly throughout the meal, keeping most of the chat directed at the manhunt Teffinger commissioned this morning, telling him that it was so romantic. Then at exactly seven o’clock she kissed him on the lips and said she had to run.

  He almost followed her but didn’t.

  Instead he paid the bill, left a hefty tip and walked out to the Tundra in the rain. He liked the sound of the storm on the roof of the truck and decided to just sit there for a minute. He closed his eyes and tasted Ta’Veya’s kiss.

  Then he opened his eyes and focused on the water running down the windshield. Something had been nagging at him for the last hour. Namely the call from Tracy Patterson, telling him that she’d seen Robert Sharapova somewhere before.

  For some reason Teffinger had the same feeling.

  Not that it meant anything.

  After all, the man was a prominent lawyer. No doubt he’d been on the news a number of times. Plus Teffinger spent his share of time in the courthouse and could have seen him there.

  Then a wild thought entered his head.

  He immediately called Tracy Patterson.

  She didn’t answer.

  Of course.

  HE FIRED UP THE ENGINE, jammed the transmission into drive and stepped on the gas. He got caught at a red light, slowed, looked around and then went through it. Two heartbeats later he got Sydney on the phone.

  “It’s me, the pain in your posterior,” he said.

  “Nick?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Listen,” he said. “You know what Tashna Sharapova’s husband looks like, don’t you?”

  “You mean the lawyer?”

  “Right. Robert Sharapova.”

  “I saw him on the news earlier today,” she said. “But that’s it.”

  “Would you recognize him if you saw him?”

  A pause.

  “Probably, why?”

  “Do me a favor. Go down to headquarters, can you do that?”

  “I suppose so if it’s important. Why?”

  “The Tashna Sharapova file is on my desk,” he said. “Find the DVDs labeled Camel’s Breath—they’re the bar’s surveillance tapes from the night when Tracy Patterson was there and got taken. See if you can find the lawyer in the crowd.”

  “He won’t be there,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because he already said he was out of town that weekend,” she said. “Remember?”

  “He could be lying,” Teffinger said. “Tracy Patterson called me earlier this evening and said she saw him somewhere. I’m thinking that she saw him there at the bar that night but doesn’t recall it very well because she was so drunk. After she called and mentioned it, I started to have the same feeling, like I’d seen him somewhere before. I’m wondering if I saw him in the surveillance tapes and that’s why he seems familiar to me.”

&nb
sp; “Okay,” she said. “I’m heading down. Are you going to meet me there?”

  “No, there’s no time. I’m on my way to his house,” he said. “Call me as soon as you have something. And thanks. I owe you one.”

  “One?”

  “Love you,” he said.

  TWENTY-TWO MINUTES LATER HE DROVE slowly down the lawyer’s street. Inside the house a light went off and a different one went on.

  Good.

  The man was home.

  Teffinger parked at the far end of the block, turned off the headlights and killed the engine.

  The storm immediately grew louder.

  He licked his lips and tasted Ta’Veya’s kiss.

  He sat in the storm for a long time, barely able to see the lawyer’s house through the downpour. Rain called to tell him she missed him and wanted him to come over. Her voice reminded him of their prior conversation, the one where she told him that the man who abducted her was stronger than Teffinger, a lot stronger.

  The lawyer didn’t fit that bill, meaning Teffinger was probably wasting his time yet again.

  Then Tracy Patterson returned his call and told him that she had no specific recollection of seeing the lawyer at the Camel’s Breath, but could have.

  Not good.

  Not good at all.

  Finally Sydney phoned.

  “If he’s in the crowd, I can’t find him,” she said.

  Teffinger slumped in the seat.

  “You sure?”

  “Well, the cameras are on the ceiling so the angle’s not good, and I went through it using fast forward,” she said. “But I still think I would have been able to tell.”

  Teffinger thanked her and hung up.

  Two heartbeats later headlights pulled out of the lawyer’s driveway and headed in the opposite direction. Robert Sharapova was on the move. Teffinger could feel it.

  He called Sydney back.

  “I need to impose upon you to do one more thing,” he said.

  “You know what time it is—right?”

  He did.

  Late.

  “Drive down to the Camel’s Breath and show the bartenders pictures of the lawyer,” he said. “See if they recognize him.”

  A pause.

  Then she said, “I’ll do it but only because you’re the one asking. I have to say, though, that I’ve never seen anyone chase something so vague with such intensity.”

  He grunted.

  “I learned how to do this when I was twenty-one. Trying to catch women in bars. Same exact thing.”

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Day Nine—May 13

  Tuesday Night

  ______________

  AFTER THEY STABBED MITCH MITCHELL TO DEATH, they left only one knife sticking in his chest to make it look like the work of a single person. The other two weapons got thrown into the open space more than a half mile from the house as they walked. They took off their gloves at the car, turning them inside out as a precaution against tracking blood into the vehicle. The gloves then went into a brown paper bag which in turn went into the trunk.

  Then they took the 6th Avenue freeway east, passing Union/Simms, Kipling, Wadsworth, Sheridan and Federal, driving through the storm with the wipers on high, dangerously close to hydroplaning, headed to Tarzan’s place to regroup.

  As soon as they got there, Trane put on a fresh pair of latex gloves and washed the other three pairs thoroughly in the kitchen sink. Then he cut them into little pieces, threw the pieces into the brown paper bag, and then drove for a good two miles until he found a desolate industrial dumpster.

  In they went.

  On the drive back, he tried to decide how upset he was at Paige Deverex for not thoroughly stabbing Mitchell. Her knife had barely penetrated the man’s flesh, in stark contrast to his knife and Ta’Veya’s, both of which sank down to the handle and drew solid pools of blood.

  Paige wasn’t fully vested in the kill.

  That presented a problem.

  WHEN HE GOT HOME, the two women were on the couch, feeling no pain. A bottle of white wine sat on the floor, almost empty. He grabbed a Bud Light, downed it at the refrigerator in one long swallow, then grabbed another and sat on the floor by the women’s feet.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said “I don’t see how we could have covered our tracks any better.”

  Ta’Veya and Paige agreed.

  “In hindsight, we should have worn hairnets, but there’s nothing we can do about that now.”

  Ta’Veya grunted.

  “The cops aren’t going to be looking too hard,” she said. “It’s going to be obvious that he was the one who killed Marilyn Poppenberg. Their attitude is going to be good riddance.”

  “Not entirely,” Paige said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, they’re going to figure out he’s the razorblade killer,” she said. “Because there are so many victims involved, and because the guy’s crossed so many state lines, I’m sure the FBI is working the case.”

  “They are,” Ta’Veya said.

  “They’ll show up and go through that place with a microscope,” Paige added.

  Ta’Veya laughed.

  “Who cares? They won’t connect us in a million years.”

  Then Paige looked at Ta’Veya.

  “What do you mean—They are?” she asked.

  Ta’Veya looked confused.

  “When I said, The FBI is working the case, you said, They are,” Paige said. “As if you know that for a fact.”

  Ta’Veya rolled her eyes.

  “Well, I do know it for a fact,” she said.

  “How?”

  “From the newspaper articles at Mitchell’s house,” she said. “The FBI is mentioned.”

  Paige didn’t seem as if she remembered that but said, “Oh, okay.”

  “And because I’ve personally talked to them,” Ta’Veya added.

  Both Paige and Trane looked at her with confusion.

  She said nothing else but must have felt the pressure of their eyes and added, “Okay, as long as we got this whole thing behind us, I should probably come clean with a few tiny little things.”

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Day Nine—May 13

  Tuesday Night

  ______________

  WITH THAT, TA’VEYA TOLD A STORY that Trane could hardly believe. Ta’Veya had a sister—a younger, married sister named Drew Young—who lived in an eastern suburb of Cleveland called Mentor On The Lake. She had been a victim of the razorblade killer.

  “Eighteen months and twenty-one days ago.”

  The FBI got involved in the investigation, particularly a profiler by the name of Dr. Leigh Sandt, who took a special interest in the case. Ta’Veya had several meetings with the profiler, who was kind enough to keep her in the loop.

  Ta’Veya learned about the other victims and how the perpetrator operated.

  Unfortunately the trail grew cold.

  The profiler and everyone else moved on to more pressing matters. Ta’Veya called the profiler a number of times and even showed up at her office once in an attempt to jump-start the investigation.

  That did no good.

  “We’re basically dead in the water until there’s fresh blood,” the profiler said.

  But no fresh blood showed up.

  Either the perpetrator had gone dormant or no one was finding the bodies. Either way, the investigation came to a solid standstill.

  Then the guy started calling the profiler and taunting her, maybe because he found out that she was so involved in the investigation. The profiler determined that the calls came from public payphones in Denver. She told Ta’Veya about them.

  But everything stopped again.

  “Then I came up with a plan,” Ta’Veya said. “I decided to make my own fresh blood and get the case back on everyone’s radar screen.”

  “What do you mean—make your own fresh blood?” Paige questioned.

  Trane didn’t like the tone
of Paige’s voice.

  He sensed trouble.

  “I DECIDED TO SET MYSELF UP AS THE NEXT VICTIM and make it look like the guy was back at it,” she said. “I went out and bought a neck collar and chain and padlock and razorblade. I scouted around until I found the kind of place the guy would actually use, namely the old boxcar. Then I found you, Paige.”

  Paige’s eyes flashed.

  “What do you mean, you found me?”

  “You were helping some woman change a tire,” Ta’Veya said. “You seemed like the kind of person who would rescue someone if given the chance. Then I had a male friend of mine call you with a scrambler.”

  “So the guy who called me wasn’t real?”

  Ta’Veya shook her head.

  “No. He’s just a man I know who agreed to help me out.”

  “You had no right,” Paige said.

  Ta’Veya agreed.

  “I know,” she said. “It was absolutely wrong of me. I intruded on your life and scared you to death. I had no right to do that. But, in my own defense, I had to do something to stop this guy; and get him either behind bars or dead for what he did to Drew.”

  “You went way over the line,” Paige said.

  “I agree. I absolutely agree.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Ta’Veya looked away.

  “It wasn’t supposed to get this complicated. It was supposed to be simple,” she said. “You were supposed to come and rescue me. Sure, you’d be scared, but you really wouldn’t be in any danger. At that point, after you rescued me, I would encourage you to call the police and then I would disappear, so no one would figure out that Drew’s sister was involved. The FBI would get back on the case and hopefully think of something they hadn’t thought of before. I didn’t mean to screw up your life. I only intended it to be a couple of hours of inconvenience.”

  “That doesn’t justify it,” Paige said.

  Ta’Veya agreed.

  BUT THINGS WENT HORRIBLY WRONG.

  The drifter showed up from out of nowhere and raped Ta’Veya. She reciprocated by blowing his face off with Paige’s gun. Then everything was suddenly messed up big time. They couldn’t go to the police. Ta’Veya was just about to head back to Santa Fe when Marilyn Poppenberg got killed and Paige started coming up with ideas.