Body of Shadows (18 page)

Kelly knew that.

It was all over the news not to mention the talk of the legal community.

“Send Sydney.”

Sydney.

Sydney.

Sydney.

She still hadn’t returned Drift’s calls.

He took a swallow of beer and said, “I want you to be my attorney for a minute. If you agree, then you have to keep what I say confidential, right?”

“Yeah but there’s a downside.”

“What’s that?”

“Attorneys aren’t supposed to sleep with their clients.”

He knew he should smile.

Instead he got serious and told her how he broke into September Tadge’s law office and copied the file on a suspect, Van Gogh, who had committed several murders in the past identical to Jackie Lake. Drift ended up getting caught on videotape, which was now in the hands of Grayson Condor who was acting as September’s attorney. “He’s keeping the tapes under lock and key so they stay private, but if anything happens to September,
i.e.
Van Gogh pops out of a shadow and kills her, then Condor’s under instructions to turn the tapes over to the D.A.’s office, plus my chief.”

“God, Dent, this is serious.”

He swallowed what was left in the can then crumpled it in his fist.

“I know.”

“You could lose your job.”

“I know.”

“Not could, would,” Kelly said. “They’d have to protect the system. They wouldn’t have a realistic option to do otherwise, no matter what your track record’s been.”

Drift exhaled.

“I’m telling you because I don’t know where this thing between you and me is going,” he said. “You need to know that I might not have a job or an income down the road.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said.

“I wish it was that simple.”

“I know of September Tadge but don’t know her personally,” Kelly said. “She does criminal defense so our worlds don’t really intersect. I could talk to her though. Maybe I can get her to back off.”

“You think?”

She patted his knee.

“Even so, though, we still have the problem of Grayson Condor,” she said. “That firm’s extremely political. Having dirt on the person in charge of Denver’s homicide unit could have a value in some way at some point down the line. I wouldn’t put it past him to keep a copy of the tape even if September tells him not to.”

“Do you really think he’d do that?”

“Yes.”

Drift exhaled.

“Is there any way around it?”

Kelly took a sip of wine.

“Maybe,” she said. “It only shows a break-in if September says so. If September were to say, for example, that she hired you to enter like that as a test run to be sure her security system was working the way it should, then it wouldn’t be dirt at all.”

Drift frowned.

“Right now she won’t even talk to me,” he said. “Having her lie on my behalf is something I can’t even imagine. Plus, what about Condor? He could contradict her story and say she hired him because I’d broken in.”

Kelly shook her head.

“No he couldn’t, not if she didn’t give him permission. Anyway, we’re getting way too far down the road,” she said. “I’ll talk to September tomorrow, as your attorney.” A beat then, “There’s one thing nagging at me. She obviously has some type of connection to Condor to choose him as her attorney. In fact, he’s sort of a weird choice because he’s almost in a conflict position. I mean, here he is working against you while you’re the guy trying to find out who killed an associate in his firm. If I was September, I would have picked someone outside the firm to represent me. She must have chosen Condor because they have some past relationship together.”

Drift shrugged.

It made sense.

“In that case, if she asks him to return the tape and not make a copy, maybe he will,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Here’s what I’m getting at,” she said. “She knew that her mystery client was the prime suspect in Jackie Lake’s murder. I have to imagine that if she already had some kind of relationship with Condor, she would have mentioned it to him. If that’s true, why didn’t Condor tell you?”

“I don’t know.”

Drift stood up.

“Want to take a ride?”

“Where?”

“There’s a guy I’m curious about who may be Van Gogh,” he said. “I want to swing by his place.”

“What’s his name?”

“Evan Starry,” he said. “He was stalking Pantage Phair on Friday night. He’s built like a gladiator.”

She studied him.

“Who’s Pantage Phair?”

“She was at the scene when Jackie Lake got murdered,” he said. “This is confidential by the way. She may have been the intended victim, not Jackie Lake.” He exhaled and added, “She’s also the woman who wrote on my mirror.”

She wrinkled her face.

“What mirror?”

“In the master bathroom.”

“She wrote something on the mirror in your bathroom?”

He nodded.

“When? Today?”

“No, six months ago.”

“She wrote something on your bathroom mirror six months ago and it’s still there?”

Yes.

It was.

“What’d she do, scratch it in?”

“No, it’s written in lipstick.”

“Lipstick?”

Right.

Lipstick.

“Show me.”

54

Day Three

July 20

Wednesday Night

The Rikki
had a checkered past, starting life as a biker bar, then morphing into a disco, then a drug-driven hard rock club and now a theme club, with hump day being British Invasion night—Peter & Gordon, Beau Brummels, Kinks, Stones, Who, and of course those four guys from Liverpool. The crowd stretched from 21 to 35. Tie-dyed shirts, headbands, peace signs and bikini tops were the attire of choice.

It was located east of the South Platte, backing up to the BNSF line.

The side and back parking lots were full.

Latecomers lined the service road, both sides, for a good hundred yards in each direction. That’s where Yardley found a slot, fifty yards up on the opposite side of the street, next to the culvert.

There were no streetlights.

The only light came from the neon signs of club or the cut of headlights.

Yardley killed the engine.

Madison stuffed a gun in her purse.

“Don’t leave the club,” she said.

“I won’t.”

“Even if he sticks a barrel or a knife in your ribs, don’t leave the club. He won’t kill you inside no matter how much he might pretend to.”

Yardley nodded.

“Where are you going to be?”

“Somewhere across the street where I can see the exit,” she said. “Do you know if the club has any security cameras?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“Look around when you get near,” Madison said. “See if there’s anything mounted on the side of the building shining on the entrance or the parking lots. If there is, call me when you get inside. If I don’t hear from you I’ll assume the negative.”

“Okay.”

Yardley got out, walked up the road to the club and paid ten dollars at the door.

Inside, “Paint it Black” pounded through the air.

Yardley made her way to the bar, squeezed in and ordered a rum and coke.

The place was jammed to the walls with bodies.

She looked around for Cave.

His James Dean face didn’t appear.

She was ten minutes early.

Knowing Cave, he’d show up at exactly the appointed minute.

Ten minutes passed.

Yardley stayed put.

Cave would find her.

She ordered another rum and coke. Time passed, Cave’s face wasn’t appearing. Thirty minutes later, Cave would have had plenty of time to scout every corner of the club.

Where was he?

Yardley called Madison and said, “There’s no sign of Cave. Did you see him come in?”

“No.”

“So what do we do?”

“Let’s give him a little more time.”

Ten minutes passed.

Then twenty.

Yardley’s phone rang. She expected it to be Madison telling her to call it off. She was half right; it was Madison. The message wasn’t what she expected though.

“There’s a bunch of cop cars down the road, on the other end from where we parked. Something’s going on down there. Any sign of Cave yet?”

“No.”

“We’ll give him another ten minutes then call it quits,” Madison said. “I’m going to stroll down the road and see what’s going on.”

“Don’t let anyone see your face.”

“I won’t.”

Five minutes later
Yardley’s phone rang and Madison’s voice came through.

“There’s a dead woman on the ground,” she said. “That’s what all the commotion is about.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, I kept my distance; it could be a hit-and-run or a drug overdose or something like that. The important thing from our perspective is that there’s going to be flashing lights there for hours,” she said. “I doubt Cave will show with anything like that going on. Give me five minutes to get back up the road, then come out. I’ll meet you across the street and escort you back to the car.”

“Okay. I wonder why Cave didn’t show?”

“Maybe he did and he’s out here in the shadows somewhere waiting for you to leave,” Madison said. “We need to be careful. Do you want me to come in and get the car keys from you? I can pick you up in front with the car if you want.”

“No, we can walk it. Even Cave wouldn’t make a move with so many cops around.”

55

Day Three

July 20

Wednesday Night

From the Concrete Flower Factory,
Pantage and Renn-Jaa headed for the gladiator’s loft with plans to tail him to the mysterious ten-thirty “Sweeton” meeting. They made a pass at 9:53 to find his space dark.

“Damn it, he’s already left.”

“Maybe he’ll bounce back. You want to hang for a while or call it a night?”

“Let’s hang. It can’t hurt.”

They found a parking space with a view and waited with the radio on rap, not saying much. Pantage took the opportunity to call Drift, got pushed into his voice mail and left a message, “It’s me, I’m with Renn-Jaa, no problems, everything’s fine. Can I spend the night at your house? Let me know. Call me.”

“Me too,” Renn-Jaa said.

Pantage slapped her thigh.

A solitary figure walked down the sidewalk in their direction, nothing but a dark silhouette at this distance. The motion was erratic.

“Someone’s had too much to drink.”

“Been there.”

Pantage focused
on the figure but used most of her concentration on the mysterious pieces of her past. She killed Chiara out in California. There was no question about it. The more she pictured dumping the body off the cliff, the clearer it became. She could feel the weight of the body as she pushed it with her foot. She could hear the scraping of the body on the ground. She could smell the decay.

She killed Jackie Lake, too, she knew that, not just because of the flashbacks, but because it was vibrating way down in her bones.

There were others too, other murders.

She could feel them out there in the night, standing there and watching her like dark shapes, waiting for her to look in their direction.

As the figure
got nearer, it took shape as a woman, a young black woman, drunk or drugged to the point of hardly being able to walk. She was singing. The words were sloppy and incoherent.

Suddenly figures appeared behind her.

There were three of them.

They were bigger.

“Hey, baby, where you going?”

The voice was deep.

It belonged to a man.

In no time they were up to her, then had her in a circle.

The men were black.

They moved with agility.

Words got exchanged but they were too muddled to make out.

“This isn’t good,” Pantage said.

“No.”

Then with lighting speed, the men dragged the woman into a parking lot. They were holding her down, ripping her clothes off, slapping her face. Words came from her mouth, trying to be screams but coming out muffled and inarticulate.

“They’re raping her.”

Pantage reached for her phone.