Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (26 page)

Enough thinking.

It was time to get laid.

78

Day Ten—June 20

Wednesday Morning

TEFFINGER WOKE BEFORE SUNRISE and jogged three miles up and down the streets of Green Mountain before kissing Venta as she slept and heading out the door. He stopped at the 7-Eleven on Simms for a thermos full of coffee and headed straight to Alan English’s house, intent on finding the man’s secret compartment, the one that held the bondage CDs.

With a Beatles disc spinning, and coffee in hand, Teffinger checked every room for wall compartments.

He found nothing.

He looked under carpeting for floor compartments.

More nothing.

He checked every dresser, table, drawer, cabinet and piece of furniture for false bottoms or hidden compartments.

Twice as much nothing.

Come on.

Where are you?

Maybe the CDs weren’t here anymore. Maybe the killer took them because they were incriminating.

THE TEMPERATURE OUTSIDE WAS NICE. Across the street, a middle-aged woman pulled weeds from an artsy flowerbed. Teffinger wandered over to see if she was the one who had seen a car stalking English’s house.

She was.

Her name was Bunny Britt.

“So tell me what you saw,” Teffinger said.

“Well, like I told the detective—”

“—Sydney Heatherwood—”

“—right, her, a man drove by in a car a couple of times, always slowing down right in front of my house. I knew the car didn’t come from this street. I’ve lived here for ten years and know what people drive.”

“Would you recognize the man if you saw him?”

She laughed.

“Heavens no,” she said. “This was always at night.”

“So how do you know it was a man?”

She retreated in thought, as if not quite sure.

“I guess by the outline of his face,” she said. “He had a moustache.”

“A moustache?”

“Right, a moustache.”

“Anything else?”

“Black glasses.”

“Anything else?”

“A hat.”

“What kind of hat?”

“A baseball hat.”

Teffinger took a sip of coffee. A robin flew by with another one on its tail. It wasn’t clear if they were playing or fighting.

“Go back to the moustache for a minute,” Teffinger said. “Was it big or small?”

“I’m thinking big,” she said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have made such an impression.”

“How big was this guy?”

“I don’t know, he was driving the car.”

“Right,” Teffinger said. “I appreciate that. But did he seem to sit up high in the seat, like a tall man, or down lower?”

She shrugged.

“I’m thinking lower, but I can’t tell you why.”

He nodded.

The robins flew by again, this time clearly fighting.

“One last question,” Teffinger said. “Could the man have been a woman disguised to look like a man?”

She paused and screwed an expression on her face as if she was trying to recreate the image.

“I suppose so,” she said. “Like I said, it was dark and I didn’t get that good of a look. Basically what I saw was the blurry silhouette of a head.”

Teffinger took a sip of coffee and said, “I like your flowers. We don’t have any up where I live because they’re just deer candy.”

BACK IN THE TUNDRA, Teffinger called Venta, ostensibly to say hello. Then he headed back to his house after learning that she was out for the morning with her assistant, Hannah Trent. He hated to do what he was about to do but had no choice. After confirming that she wasn’t in the house, he went through her suitcases, four of them, being careful to put everything back exactly as it was.

The red suitcase turned out to be something in the nature of a P.I. spy kit—binoculars, listening devices, bugs, transmitters, a GPS, a 9mm Glock, lock pickers, a small tool kit, hair dye, colored contact lenses and other assorted and sundry items. He also found what he hoped he wouldn’t.

—A number of hats, including a baseball hat.

—Several false moustaches, beards and eyebrows.

—Three pairs of glasses with flat glass.

Damn it, Venta.

HE CALLED SYDNEY AS HE DROVE TO HEADQUARTERS and said, “Meet me out front of the building in twenty minutes.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

They ended up taking a walk over by the Art Museum as Teffinger explained what he found out this morning. “I think I’m at that point where I need to get out of the case and hand it over to you,” he said.

She studied him and disagreed.

“You’re reading too much into nothing,” she said. “English went to Bangkok, sure, but even after you spent hours tearing his house apart, and I spent hours interviewing his passengers, we have absolutely no proof that he ever frequented the place where Venta was taken. So we really don’t have a motive for her to kill him. She was in Denver when English got killed, and presumably had opportunity, but so did a million other people, including you and me. The neighbor saw a man staking out English’s house, a man who could possibly have been a woman in disguise, but could also have been a man. And most importantly, you don’t have a single shred of tangible evidence connecting her to the scene—not a fiber or a print or anything else.”

He said nothing.

“All you have is a theory and a fear,” she added. “That’s not enough.”

He disagreed.

“True it’s just a theory, but it’s the best one I have,” he said. “If she didn’t kill English, then who did?”

Sydney shrugged.

“I don’t know—the guy staking him out, I assume—but I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “If you dump the case on me, I’m not going to follow up on Venta. There’s not enough there to justify wasting my time. Not to mention that the last thing I need is to get in the middle of your love life.”

He shook his head, beaten.

“You’re too stubborn,” he said. “I pity the guy who eventually marries you.”

She smiled.

“Well, no one’s asking, so they’re all safe.”

79

Day Ten—June 20

Wednesday Morning

JEKKER WANTED TESSA BLAKE DEAD SO BAD that he thought about walking her into the mountains this morning, two or three miles from the boxcars, and getting it over with. But he worried about dogs tracing her scent to the boxcars if she ever got found. Plus, he couldn’t exactly set out on a walk with her carrying a shovel, meaning he would have to walk her into the mountain, kill her, leave her exposed while he came back for a shovel, then return and bury her.

That was too many steps.

Too many complications.

Too much risk.

Too much work, all beneath too many eyes in the sky.

Plus it probably wouldn’t save much time. The helicopter should be gone by tonight at the latest.

MID-MORNING, HE STUFFED HIS CAPTIVE back in the boxcar and hoofed it up the road to see how things were coming with the helicopter. On the way, his contact called.

“Got a job for you,” the man said.

Jekker smiled.

A job meant money.

“Go on,” he said.

“The mark’s a woman named Venta Devenelle,” the man said. “It needs to look like an accident. You should know in advance that there’s a complication.”

“What kind of complication?”

“She’s living with a cop,” he said.

“Cops have guns,” Jekker said.

“We appreciate that and we’re going to double your fee to compensate,” the man said.

Double.

Good.

That was fair.

“Actually it’s a detective,” the man said.

“Who?”

“Nick Teffinger.”

“Did you say Nick Teffinger?”

Yes.

He did.

“Then we need to go triple,” Jekker said.

The man paused and then said, “Done.”

Jekker smiled.

Oh yeah, baby.

“What’s the timeline?”

“Tonight,” the man said.

Jekker laughed and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

No.

He wasn’t.

Not in the least.

WHEN JEKKER GOT TO THE HELICOPTER—a Bell JetRanger—it looked just as weird as it did yesterday sitting out there in the middle of the road. Four guys with a crane were just starting to harness the aircraft.

“What’s the timeline?” Jekker asked.

A rough looking man in an oily shirt didn’t appreciate the interruption.

“As soon as the flatbed shows up,” he said.

Jekker headed for the Audi and said, “Thanks. Have a good day.”

Then he headed to Teffinger’s house to scope things out.

If things went as planned, he should be able to kill both Tessa Blake and this new target, Venta Devenelle, by midnight.

Then he’d start tomorrow as a new man, a rich new man.

He punched the radio buttons, got “Tainted Love,” and cranked it up.

80

Day Ten—June 20

Wednesday Evening

LONDON AND THE ROCK STAR ended up walking down railroad tracks on the edge of the city. Fifteen miles to the west, the sun dropped further and further towards the mountains and would disappear in another hour. No one was around and no trains were in sight. Several seagulls rested on the tracks ahead.

“Recently a lawyer in your firm took the deposition of a man named Porter Potter,” London said. “The man died not too long after that.”

“From the deposition?”

She laughed.

“No, you guys aren’t that tough. He slipped and hit his head in the bathroom,” London said.

“Who took the deposition?”

“Someone named Emily Hand.”

He nodded.

“She’s one of our litigators, a nice gal.” Then he got excited. “Is this on that drug case?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if Emily knows the guy’s dead,” he said.

London shrugged.

She didn’t know.

“I hope she got finished,” he said.

“I find it sort of weird that V&B keeps getting linked to dead people,” London said. “First Mark Remington and now this guy.”

The rock star wasn’t impressed.

It was a big firm.

It did lots of stuff.

Lots of people die.

There’s going to be overlap.

Plus this wasn’t a “link.”

It was just two normal things that happened to occur close in time to one another.

“I WILL ADMIT THOUGH,” he said, “when it comes to the death factor, our firm has really been fortunate.”

London looked at him.

“How so?”

“Well, for example, our Paris office had a huge case last year,” he said. “It was a trial to the court. The trial judge wasn’t seeing things our way. It was crystal clear that he was going to rip our client a new one. The evidence ran for three weeks and ended late on a Friday. The judge said he’d issue his ruling from the bench on Monday morning. Then something weird happened. He died on Sunday. The case got retried to another judge six months later. That judge saw the whole thing differently and ruled in favor of our client.”

“How did the first judge die?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t recall.”

London picked up a stick and broke it in two.

“It seems suspicious to me,” she said.

He laughed.

“Meaning what? That our client killed the judge to avoid a bad ruling?”

She shrugged.

“Whatever.”

He shook his head.

Ridiculous.

“That kind of thing only happens in movies.”

She spotted another stick by the tracks and snapped it in two.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Right, maybe.”

“Meaning maybe not, too?”

She nodded.

“Right, maybe not, too.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Our clients aren’t killing people.”

London knew she should let it rest but couldn’t.

“We’re people, but deep down we’re still animals,” she said. “We do animal things.”

“I see your point,” he said. “But if you’re insinuating that a large law firm can be a killing machine, you’re way off base.”

“Why?”

“Because when people get together in a large organized group, like a law firm, the animal factor disappears—especially when that group has to exist in an organized and structured environment. That happens as a natural course of events because everyone’s animal instincts will never kick in at the same time. If someone’s instincts do kick in for whatever reason, they’ll be subordinate to the group.”

London cocked her head.

“This is getting too philosophical,” she said. “All I can say is that I find it suspicious that the judge died right before he ruled.”

Michael put his arm around her shoulder.

“I’m never going to win an argument with you, am I?”

THEY TURNED AROUND and headed back up the tracks. The sun sank lower over the mountains and filled the clouds with color, subdued at first, but then intense.

They sat on the tracks and watched.

Then when it was almost dark, Michael stretched out on a track timber on his back.

“Get on,” he said.

She stared at him as if he was crazy.

“You’re kidding, right?”

No.

He wasn’t.

She bit her lower lip and looked around.

She saw no one, then slipped out of her pants and got on.

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.