81
Day Ten—June 20
Wednesday Night
TEFFINGER HAD A REDWOOD DECK behind his house, nestled on the side of Green Mountain, that looked over the roof and onto the world. To the west, an incredible sunset unfolded. To the east, the lights of Denver began to twinkle.
The temperature was perfect.
The air was quiet.
Sparrows darted on silent wings and snatched insects out of the sky.
A streetlight kicked on.
Then another.
Venta sat next to Teffinger, wearing white shorts, sipping a glass of wine and looking out at the world. Headlights snaked up the street and drove past Teffinger’s house. They did a one-eighty in the turnaround at the end of the street and then headed back down the hill.
No problem.
They didn’t belong to a black sedan.
Teffinger took a long swallow of Bud Light, his second. Ordinarily right about now he would be feeling pretty good. But he couldn’t get his mind away from the thought that the woman next to him might actually be a killer.
If that was true, he’d find out sooner or later and it would all tumble down.
How could he continue to build a relationship with someone who might get yanked from his life? But then again, how could he not when the woman was Venta?
Without warning a stray thought entered his head.
ALAN ENGLISH GOT KILLED before he even brought his luggage into the house. It had still been in the back of his vehicle. Sydney went through it quickly, found nothing of interest, and left it in English’s car, including a digital camera.
No one had ever looked at the pictures.
Maybe English visited the place where Venta was taken and took pictures that were still in the camera.
Teffinger leaned forward in his chair and twisted the beer can in his fingers. Venta must have sensed a change in his equilibrium because she asked, “What’s wrong?”
Should he go to English’s now or wait until morning?
SUDDENLY HIS CELL PHONE RANG and the voice of Dr. Leanne Sanders came through. “You never called me back with the name of Mark Remington’s hotel in Bangkok,” she said.
Teffinger flopped back in his chair.
“God, I knew there was something—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I ran it down myself and had a few conversations with the Bangkok police as well as the hotel people. From the scraps of information I’ve managed to gather, I’m getting more and more convinced that Remington’s suicide wasn’t self-inflicted.”
Teffinger wasn’t surprised.
“Meaning someone picked up where the Frenchman left off,” he said. “What I don’t get is why you care. I thought your assignment was limited to babysitting Boudiette.”
“It was.”
“But?”
“But now it’s getting bigger. In fact, I may be coming back to Denver, so consider yourself warned.”
He hung up and told Venta, “That was my FBI friend. She thinks that Mark Remington’s suicide was really murder. I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t jabbing that law firm right now.”
“They jabbed first,” she said.
“Still, it’s dangerous.”
“They’re all going down,” she said. “Women are dying in that place even as we speak. That’s not something I can turn my back on.”
Teffinger nodded.
“I wish I could, but I can’t,” Venta added.
“I understand.”
“I need you with me, not against me.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I’m with you,” he said.
She chuckled.
“What?” he asked, curious.
“You’ve never had a woman with so much drama,” she said. “I can tell.”
He grinned.
“I just worry about you,” he said.
She drank the rest of her wine in one long swallow and stood up, at this point not much more than a silhouette in the dark. Her ass wiggled and then her shorts and panties dropped down her legs and fell to her feet. She stepped out of them, kneeled in front of Teffinger and unzipped his pants. “I want you to just sit back, relax and enjoy the hell out of this,” she said.
He thought he heard a slight noise behind him but forgot about it just as fast.
82
Day Ten—June 20
Wednesday Night
THE NEW MARK—VENTA DEVENELLE—WAS TURNING out to be a major pain in the ass. Jekker swung by Teffinger’s house a good ten times, only to find the place deserted. Precious time slipped away all day long and Jekker had no idea where the woman was. Then she and Teffinger showed up at eight o’clock in separate cars. They milled around inside, probably eating, and then headed up to the deck behind the house to watch the sunset and get drunk.
One thing was certain.
There was no way Jekker would be able to kill the woman tonight and make it look like an accident. So which was more important?
Getting it done tonight?
Or waiting until it could be an accident?
He called his contact for guidance.
“Do it tonight if you can. Just don’t get caught.”
Perfect.
He parked on a side street around the bend of the mountain and then snuck through the terrain on foot with an eight-inch serrated knife in hand, pondering the big question, namely whether he should kill Teffinger too.
On the plus side, Teffinger wouldn’t be around to hunt him.
On the negative side, a hundred others would.
Relentlessly.
He scurried through the darkness as fast as he could, wanting more than anything to get to the deck before they went inside. A hundred feet away he spotted them, still there.
Oh yeah, baby.
He slowed and approached with a beating heart.
Then something beautiful happened.
The woman stood up and slipped out of her shorts and dropped to her knees.
Jekker didn’t move until Teffinger started moaning.
Then he approached on cat feet, one silent step in front of the other.
HE TURNED THE KNIFE AROUND so that he’d be stabbing with the butt of the handle instead of the blade, put it in a white-knuckle death grip and then brought it down with all of his might on the back of Teffinger’s head.
A horrible sound escaped from the man’s mouth.
Then he slumped over.
The woman looked at Jekker.
Then she screamed and ran.
JEKKER CHASED HER DOWN THE STAIRS, through the backyard and down the side of the house. When he came around the corner of the garage a terrible thing happened.
He saw her.
She was swinging a shovel violently at his head.
He tried to bring his hands up but didn’t have time.
Then his face exploded with a terrible pain, a pain like no other.
Bright colors flashed and he fell to the ground.
Then a pain exploded in his back.
Again.
And again.
And again.
83
Day Ten—June 20
Wednesday Night
HANNAH WAS WATCHING a Sex in the City rerun when London got back to the apartment shortly before ten. The woman wore black cotton shorts and a pink blouse. Her hair was tossed and disheveled—very sexy. They kissed, which is something they hadn’t done before, but it was just a peck and didn’t seem like anything to take notice of.
London fired up the laptop.
Hannah poured boxed wine into plastic cups, handed one to London and said, “What are we doing?”
“Research on V&B,” she said.
“What kind of research?”
“Research to find out if they’re killing people to win lawsuits,” she said.
Hannah shook her head as if London was messing with her.
“No, really,” she said. “What are we doing?”
“Really, that’s it,” Lon
don said.
Hannah wrinkled her forehead.
“What does that have to do with Bangkok?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are we worried about it?”
“We’re worried about it because we might be the only people in the world asking the question,” she said.
London started with the dead judge in Paris that Michael Montana told her about. It turned out to be quite the buzz at the time and there was no shortage of newspaper articles about it. The man got stabbed to death taking a walk after dark. His wallet and watch were taken. The police investigated for a long time but never found the killer. It didn’t appear that V&B or its client, Singer Aerospace, were ever suspects.
Interesting.
THEN LONDON FOUND SOMETHING ELSE INTERESTING.
It involved the Hong Kong branch of V&B.
In that case the opposing party was an individual. He died of a gunshot wound to the head a month before trial. The police weren’t quite sure at first if it was a suicide or a homicide. In the end they felt it was a suicide and closed the file. The man’s estate didn’t bother to step in as the new party of interest, no doubt because the case was a loser without the man alive to testify. The court then dismissed the case for lack of prosecution.
London took a sip of wine and said, “V&B seems to have death on their side in their high-stakes litigation. Their Denver drug case fits that profile, but what I still don’t get is why V&B would kill Porter Potter. His testimony helped V&B’s case.”
Hannah shrugged.
“Porter Potter’s a good example of why your theory doesn’t work,” Hannah said. “I’ll admit that you found a couple of suspicious things. But you have to focus on the big picture. V&B has thousands of attorneys worldwide. I can’t even imagine how many cases they try in a year. You’re going to find weird things happen simply because there are so many opportunities for weird things to happen.”
“Maybe,” London said.
She looked at her watch.
12:10 a.m.
“It’s already tomorrow,” she said.
They hit the sack.
84
Day Ten—June 20
Wednesday Night
A SWEET AROMA CUT THROUGH the antiseptic hospital smell. Teffinger recognized it as Venta’s perfume and opened his eyes. She was sitting in a chair reading a magazine. He put his hand to his head and felt gauze. His thoughts were foggy but the pain had dissipated.
“I have one question,” he said. “Was the little fellow in or out when the paramedics showed up?”
Venta jumped, then smacked his arm and said, “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” She kissed him and added, “I put him away for you.”
He grunted.
“Thanks.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t take him back out again later,” she said. “By the way, Sydney Heatherwood wanted me to tell you that she’s at your house working the scene, otherwise she’d be here.” Then she told him everything that happened after he got knocked out.
Teffinger stretched.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“Me? I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Yeah.
She was.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” she said. “I’m starting to fall for you.”
“Starting?”
She grinned. “Okay, have.”
“How far?”
She squeezed his hand. “Too far. What I’m saying is, don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “And ditto, about that falling stuff.”
“So what are you saying?” she asked. “That you love me?”
He ran his fingers through her hair.
Then pulled her in and kissed her.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
HE KNEW HE SHOULDN’T DO what he was about to do. It was ethically wrong. And maybe legally wrong, he wasn’t sure. But he also knew that he really did love this mysterious woman sitting on the edge of his bed. “I keep thinking about that pilot who got stabbed in the back, Alan English. His death has something to do with Bangkok. My gut tells me he’s been to that place you were taken.”
Venta looked nervous.
“Like I said before,” she said, “I never saw him there.”
“Right, I know that,” Teffinger said. “He’s a bondage freak, but I couldn’t find any fresh pictures at his house. Everything I found was just generic stuff that he pulled off the web three years ago. I’ve been back to his house three times looking for the new stuff, which is probably on CDs. But I can’t find it.”
“Too bad,” Venta said.
“I’m starting to think that the CDs existed but the killer took them because they were incriminating,” he said.
“Incriminating how?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “Maybe the killer is actually in the photos.”
“I guess that’s a theory,” she said. “But if they’re gone, you’ll never know.”
He nodded.
“Right,” he said. “But I’m not sure that the killer got them all.”
Venta shifted her position.
“What do you mean?”
“English got back from Bangkok right before he got killed,” Teffinger said. “His suitcases were still in the car. Sydney did a quick inventory of them during our initial investigation, but didn’t find anything of interest. There was a digital camera in one of the suitcases. We never looked at the pictures in it. It’s possible that some of the bondage pictures that I’ve been trying to find are in that camera.”
Venta wrinkled her forehead.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“No reason,” he said. “It’s just shop talk. Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to head over to the man’s house and check that camera.”
Venta retreated in thought.
Then she said, “There might not be any pictures in it at all.”
Teffinger shrugged.
“If not, then I guess I hit my final dead end,” he said.
85
Day Eleven—June 21
Thursday Morning
JEKKER DRAGGED HIS ALCOHOL LADEN BODY out of bed and staggered to the mirror to survey the damage by the light of day. The right side of his face was a purple mess. His eye was swollen into a slit that he could hardly see through.
And his nose, that was the worst.
Thoroughly broken.
Crooked.
Mangled so bad that he couldn’t breathe through it.
It would have been worse if the woman had kept beating him with the shovel instead of running back up to the deck to check on Teffinger.
Jekker popped two more Tylenol and wished he hadn’t drunk the JD last night to kill the pain.
What to do?
Before he could think, his contact called and Jekker gave him the bad news.
“So your blood is at the scene,” the man said.
“Unfortunately.”
“That’s not good,” the man said.
“My DNA isn’t on file anywhere,” Jekker said. “They can’t use it to find me.”
“But if they do find you then they can tie you to the scene,” the man said.
“They won’t find me.”
“They will if you go anywhere with that face.”
True.
“What’s the status of Tessa Blake?” the man asked.
“She was going to be the second order of business last night,” Jekker said. “Obviously I didn’t get around to her.”
“So what’s the plan today?”
“I think you’re right that I shouldn’t be driving in the daylight,” Jekker said. “As soon as it gets dark I’ll head out with the Blake woman. After that, I’m not sure. Venta Devenelle will be impossible at this point. Maybe I’ll get out of Denver for a while.”
“Bad idea,” the man said.
“Why?”
“You’ll have to stop for food or gas or a hotel or something,” the man said. “You can’t do that with your face. It’s safer just to stay where you are.”
“We’ll see,” Jekker said.
He could almost read the man’s mind. The man wanted Jekker where he could find him. Because Jekker had screwed up too many times. And needed to be dead.
Jekker headed back to bed. The man wouldn’t try anything before Jekker killed the Blake woman, meaning sometime tonight.
86
Day Eleven—June 21
Thursday Morning
SARAH WOODWARD CALLED EARLY Thursday and asked if London could meet this morning alone, without Venta.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here,” the woman said.
An hour later they met.
This time, unlike before, Sarah Woodward appeared confident and sure of herself. She wore a wool-blend suit with a silk blouse that probably cost more than London’s monthly rent. London sipped her coffee and tried to not be intimidated.
“The last time we met,” Sarah said, “I told you that I would investigate the matter and get back to you. Since then, I’ve thrown a lot of time and energy at it and I’ve found out a few things that you’ll probably find interesting.”
“Good.”
“Now, before we begin, I just want to be sure that I wrote things down correctly the last time we spoke.” She referred to her notes and said, “From what I understand, your client arrived in Bangkok on or about April 11th. Is that correct?”
London searched her memory and recognized the date.
Yes, that’s what Venta told her and what she told Sarah Woodward.
“That’s correct,” she said.
“And then that same night she got abducted,” Sarah added.
“Right.”
“Then, if I understand the story correctly, she was held in captivity for approximately one month, until about May 10th. At that time she was purchased for a snuff and escaped following a traffic accident.”
“Right,” London said. “I don’t remember if May 10th is the day she escaped or the day she got back to the U.S., but it was sometime around then.”
Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) Page 23