Lawyer Trap (11 page)

“I checked my messages driving in,” she said. “If we received any tips on who the 911 caller is, they didn't come to me.”

“Me either,” Teffinger said.

“We got her face in the paper this morning,” she added. “Someone will call with her name today, guaranteed. I just hope she doesn't play hide-and-seek.”

They ended up at his desk, he with his feet propped up but pointed away from her so she wouldn't have to look at the bottom of his shoes.

“Okay,” he said, thinking out loud. “Let's see where we're at on this. The biggest thing we need to do is find out who victim number four is. She's been haunting me because she's so young, that and the fact that she had her eyes gouged out.”

Sydney frowned.

“Any word yet on whether that happened pre or post-mortem?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “But if it was pre, I'm going to personally rip the guy's head off and pee in the hole.” He wove a pencil in his fingers and snapped it in two. “Same thing goes for Rachel Ringer's killer. If he took her head off while she was still alive, he's going to wish he hadn't.”

She studied him.

“So you're thinking we're dealing with different killers.”

That was true.

“Three of the killings are violent,” he said, “but in different ways. As to the fourth woman—the one with no obvious signs of trauma—we're still waiting on the cause of death. I already know it's going to be suffocation or poison. Either way, I think we have four different killers.”

Sydney had a serious expression.

“Theoretically, then, Davica is still a suspect as to Angela Pfeiffer.”

Teffinger dismissed the concept with a facial expression.

“Not really,” he said. “She'd never be connected in any way to other killers. She's basically a decent person who just happened to get tangled up in a love life that went south.”

“She's partying her way through life, the way I hear it,” Sydney said.

Teffinger nodded.

“True to a point,” he said. “But there's a lot more to her than that.”

“So have you joined the party yet? Fully, I mean?”

“No, but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold out, if you want to know the truth,” he said. “You're the only one who knows that, by the way.”

She shook her head in disapproval.

“Nick, I'm honestly starting to worry about you,” she said. “You never played this fast and loose with the rules before.”

That was true.

“Why jeopardize your job or your reputation, is all I'm saying,” Sydney added.

He knew she was right.

But she didn't understand Davica's power.

Time to change the subject.

“We need to find out who the fourth woman is. My guess is that she disappeared right around the time of the other three victims, which is the beginning of April. I think if we do a state-wide search of missing persons from that timeframe, she's going to pop up.”

Sydney agreed.

“I can do that, if you want.”

“I want,” he said. “You should probably get right on it. We're going to look pretty stupid if CNN figures it out first.”

An hour later, Teffinger received a telephone call from an attorney named Blake Gray. As soon as he hung up, he walked over to Sydney and grabbed her by the arm.

“We're taking a field trip,” he said.

She stood up and fell into step.

“Where?”

“To interview our 911 caller.”

“You found her?”

“More like she found us,” he said.

29

DAY FIVE–SEPTEMBER 9

FRIDAY MORNING

A
spen found two new files on her desk when she arrived at her office—more dogs for the doghouse. She didn't care. The worst day at work was still better than the best day in the unemployment line. She touched base with the lawyers who had dropped them off, calendared the due dates, and then concentrated as much as she could on pounding out assignments.

She hadn't slept much last night.

That forced her to shore up with too much coffee this morning.

Plus Rachel's death wouldn't leave her alone. She kept getting a mental picture of someone sawing Rachel's head off. On top of that, Jacqueline Moore hadn't shown up yet to apologize in person.

She jumped when her phone rang.

Blake Gray's voice came through.

“The cops are on their way over to interview you,” he said.

“Okay.”

“You sound stressed.”

She probably did but said, “I'm fine.”

“Why don't you come up to my office? We'll get organized.”

When she got to his office, Blake was standing in the doorway talking to Jacqueline Moore. The woman saw her and said, “Sorry about last night. I have some personal stuff going on. I was wrong to unload on you.”

Aspen said, “No problem.”

Jacqueline hugged her around the shoulders and said, “I'm a bitch, but most of the time I'm a nice bitch. Yesterday things got away from me.”

“I understand.”

“We'll do lunch and I'll tell you some gossip to make up for it,” Jacqueline said.

Blake jumped in.

“Not about me, I hope.”

Jacqueline rolled her eyes. “Mostly about you.”

The talk continued, but Aspen paid only enough attention to react when she needed to. Instead, she savored the fact that everything had actually returned to normal. Maybe she really did have a long-term place with the firm after all.

Blake Gray's office turned out to be slightly more than a desk and a credenza. It had a pool table, a wet bar, couches and chairs galore, plants, a treadmill, a fountain, and two old pinball machines—all pointed at an incredible view of the Rockies.

“This is just like my office,” Aspen said.

Blake laughed.

“Now you see why I can't go back to Colfax.”

The walls held expensive modern art, except for the wall behind his desk, which was totally barren except for an old check framed under glass.

“That's the check I told you about,” Blake said, “the one that bounced. My reminder of reality.”

She looked at it.

$182.53.

“Insufficient Funds” stamped in red ink.

“After getting that check,” Blake said, “I spent a lot of time figuring out how to not get another one.” He chuckled. “Of course, it did no good. We still take our share of hits.”

Five minutes later, Blake's personal assistant escorted two people into the room. Aspen recognized the man—Nick Teffinger—from the news report, but wasn't prepared for the live version. She took her eyes off him only long enough to glance at the woman, an attractive African American with a powerful body, professionally dressed, about Aspen's age.

“Nice digs,” Teffinger said.

He focused on the pinball machines.

“I used to play a little when I was a kid,” he said, looking at Blake Gray. “If you want to make a wager, I'll bet everything I own against everything you own.”

Blake grinned.

“I don't own anything,” he said. “My bankers do. But I'll bet everything that I owe against everything that you owe.”

Teffinger walked over to the machine, tested the flippers, and put a ball in play as he talked to Aspen.

“So tell me the story,” he said. “How'd you find her?”

Aspen talked while Teffinger and Blake vied for points. “It was no stroke of genius,” she said. “I knew the date that Rachel Ringer disappeared. It was at the top of my mind. When the news report came on about the other two bodies, who disappeared about the same time as Rachel, I just put two and two together. It was just a matter of one dot, and another dot, and a straight-line connection.”

Then she told him about how she ended up in the water and actually found the head.

“No one knows yet that the head was detached,” Teffinger said. “We're keeping that close to the vest. Have you told anyone about that?”

She ran through her memory.

“No,” she said. “Just Blake.”

Teffinger nodded.

“Good. I'd appreciate it if you both kept it that way.”

Not a problem.

“That's all I know,” she added. “It was just a fluke.”

Even though the ball was at the top of the board, Teffinger took his hands off the flippers and looked at her. “That's not entirely true,” he said. “You heard that we found a fourth body too, right?”

She nodded.

That was true.

“And you know her name, don't you?”

She swallowed.

“Well, I did happen to sniff around some news articles on the Internet,” she said, “to see if anyone else also disappeared in early April.”

“And?”

“A name did come up,” she said. “Catherine Carmichael.”

Teffinger was impressed.

“Bingo,” he said. “We haven't confirmed it yet, but that's who we think it is too. Again, keep that close to the vest.”

After Blake Gray soundly beat Teffinger three games in a row, they ended up on leather couches drinking coffee, where Teffinger learned that Rachel Ringer didn't have an enemy in the world.

“Not even a little tiny one?” Teffinger asked.

“If you're looking for tiny stuff that doesn't really count,” Blake said, “she did have a minor personality conflict with another lawyer in the firm by the name of Jacqueline Moore.”

Aspen wasn't sure, but Teffinger seemed to react to the name.

“Jacqueline Moore,” he repeated.

“But no more so than everyone else,” Blake added. “Jacqueline rubs some people the wrong way.” He turned to Aspen. “Right?”

Aspen almost agreed, but decided to be politically correct instead.

“She's not so bad,” she said.

Teffinger looked at her and frowned.

“In hindsight,” he said, “I wish we hadn't put your face on the news. Someone might think you're a witness or a threat.” He handed her one of his business cards. “Just keep a lookout. If you hear any strange bumps in the night, give me a call.”

He turned to Blake Gray. “I'd like to look through Rachel's emails.”

Blake put on a face as if he'd love to cooperate, but couldn't. “They'll be lots of attorney-client stuff in there,” he said. “I'll tell you what I can do. I'll look through them for you and let you know if anything looks suspicious. I'll do that this afternoon and call you by the end of the day.”

Teffinger shrugged.

“Okay,” he said. “We'll start like that.”

Five minutes later, just as they were about to break up, Blake Gray's secretary buzzed on the intercom, apologized for interrupting, and informed Blake that he had an emergency phone call. Blake excused himself, walked over to his desk, picked up the phone and put it to his ear.

As he listened, his face grew serious.

He said nothing.

He only listened.

Then, at the end, he said, “I understand,” and hung up.

30

DAY FIVE–SEPTEMBER 9

FRIDAY

W
hen they got to Denver Friday afternoon, Draven dropped Gretchen off at his beat-up Chevy and gave her the keys to it, plus two thousand dollars in cash. Her job this afternoon was to find a cheap furnished place to rent for a month and stock it with food, beer, and Jack Daniels.

Buy clean sheets too.

Draven hated dirty sheets.

Then, in the rental car, he drove up to the cabin and parked a half mile down the road. He snuck up to the structure on foot and found a car parked in front. After jotting down the license plate number, he crept up to the bedroom window and peeked in.

What he saw almost made him vomit.

He jogged back to the car and snaked down the mountain to Denver. On the way his cell phone rang.

“We got another client,” Swofford said.

Draven smiled.

Another client meant another pile of money.

“Details,” he said.

“He wants a specific person,” Swofford said. “She's a stripper at a club called Cheeks. She goes by the name of Chase but her real name's Samantha Stamp. Are you getting this?”

Cheeks.

Chase.

Samantha Stamp.

“Yeah, I got it,” Draven said. “The fee's a hundred for a specific person,” he said.

A reminder.

Just to be absolutely sure there was no confusion.

“I know that and the guy's already paid. He's going to call me when he gets to Denver. My suspicion is that we'll need the woman sometime tomorrow or the day after, so you'll want to get it in motion. Don't take her, though, until I give you the word. The guy wants to be sure he knows when that's going to happen so he can be somewhere public, with an alibi—just in case.”

Draven could care less about that.

He already had a plan how to get the woman.

He was more concerned with being sure he didn't have to worry about two live ones at the same time.

“We need to clean out the cabin first,” Draven said. “You know I don't like overlap.”

“I'll call you tomorrow and let you know when you can go back up,” Swofford said. “My guess is it'll be sometime in the morning, before noon. I don't see an overlap problem at this point. Remember to not take the woman until I give the go-ahead. Just scope her out and figure out how to do it, for now.”

“Understood.”

As soon as he hung up, the phone rang again. This time it was Gretchen, calling from a payphone. “I got us a really cool place,” she said.

Excitement oozed from her voice.

Draven smiled, picturing her face.

“It's a house.”

She gave him directions, and thirty minutes later he pulled into a long gravel drive that dead-ended at a small bungalow in an undeveloped area of Jefferson County, on the west side of Highway 93, between Golden and Boulder. The place must have been a farmhouse at one point, say fifty years ago, given the acreage.