by R. J. Jagger
Venzelle studied it and then backed away.
Teffinger saw something in her eyes and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I think this voodoo doll is you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
WEARING HER INCOGNITO CLOTHES—a baseball cap, sunglasses, shorts and tennis shoes—Raven waited on the shady side of the 16th Street Mall for her client to emerge from the tall gray office building across the way. Spotting someone following Erin Asher from her office to her car was going to be harder than Raven thought.
A lot harder.
The photograph of the pirate from the newspaper, while better than nothing, wasn’t better than nothing by much. It was just one grainy shot, from one position, with one facial expression. Change any one of those, or add sunglasses or a bandanna or a moustache, and forget it.
Worse, bodies were everywhere.
A lot more than Raven envisioned.
Stampeding.
Passing one other.
Jockeying for position at the intersections.
Suddenly Erin emerged, swinging a tan leather briefcase, nicely dressed, walking fast, to all intents and purposes just one more workday stiff anxious to escape the city heat and swap into sensible clothes.
Raven followed.
As far back as she could.
Concentrating on the people between her and Erin; doing her best to memorize the backs of their heads and the colors of their clothes.
Two blocks later, when Erin turned east on California, most people continued straight. But some didn’t, including a large muscular man about six-two wearing jeans, oversized sunglasses, red tennis shoes, a black T and a blue bandanna.
It was the bandanna that intrigued Raven the most.
The forehead scar was the man’s most distinctive mark.
The bandanna would hide it.
Raven phoned her client, who answered on the second ring.
“We might have someone,” she said.
“Really?”
“I’m not sure, maybe.”
“What’s he wearing?”
Raven described the man.
Then something bad happened. Erin slowed down, just a tad, and looked behind her until she spotted the man. She stared directly at him. Just for a heartbeat, but directly, nevertheless.
At 17th Street, when Erin turned left, the man turned right.
Raven followed him.
Twenty steps behind.
With a racing heart.
THE MAN SUDDENLY STEPPED into the shade of a building and stopped. Raven had no choice but to continue walking.
Directly in front of him.
She kept her face pointed straight.
But felt his eyes on her.
A half-block later, when she glanced over her shoulder, he was there.
Walking.
Twenty steps behind.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
WITH LINDSAY VAIL HOGTIED IN THE TRUNK of the BMW, Dalton wound up Clear Creek Canyon west of Golden. The steep canyon walls messed up the radio, so he popped in an old Beyonce CD, cranked up “Get Me Bodied,” and pulled up the MTV visual of her dancing in a silver dress.
To the left, Clear Creek frothed down the canyon, sometimes wide and slow but mostly narrow and fast. The summer had sucked most of the life out of it, but it still had more than enough power to kill an unsuspecting kayaker.
Unfortunately, traffic was thicker than he anticipated.
Too many people were heading up to Central City to throw their money in the slots. He didn’t have time for the intrusion. He needed to get this done and then pick up Samantha Dent.
G-Drop needed his toy in place.
He turned right on Highway 119, which took him out of the canyon. Five miles later, the other cars on the road turned into Central City. He continued straight, wonderfully alone.
He turned onto an old mining road that hardly had any gravel left and did his best to stay out of the bigger ruts. A rooster-tail followed.
A nice Colorado sky floated above.
Deep blue.
Almost a crayon color.
A smaller, one-lane road forked in from the right. He turned up it and came to a dead-end five minutes later.
He killed the engine and stepped out.
THE HEAVY AROMA OF PINE perfumed the air. Not a wisp of air moved. The mountain was deathly silent; so quiet that he could hear his own breathing. A bluebird the size of a pigeon landed on the branch of a lodgepole pine and set it bouncing. Something rustled in the undergrowth to his right. He looked but saw nothing.
He felt good.
Soon he’d be able to concentrate on his GQ life again.
Eat well.
Exercise.
Break hearts.
Get high.
Be important.
He pulled his blindfolded captive, Lindsay Vail, out of the trunk.
“Smell that pine,” he said. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
TEFFINGER BAGGED THE VOODOO DOLL and the newspaper article, then continued to search Ripley’s house. Venzelle told him she just had a weird thought.
“What kind of weird thought?” he asked.
“The bullet through the windshield,” she said. “Maybe the shooter wasn’t trying to hit you after all. Maybe he was trying to slice your face with glass, like the voodoo doll was sliced.”
Teffinger considered it.
“Here’s the important thing,” he said. “Don’t say a word about this on your show.”
She punched him on the arm.
“I already know that, Nick,” she said.
“I know you know,” he said, “but I just want to be sure. I bent the rules by letting you come here in the first place. I need to be sure it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.”
“It won’t.”
“Okay.”
“I won’t say a single word to anyone,” she said.
He put his arm around her waist and pulled her stomach to his. “You’re too damned sexy.”
She stared into his eyes.
Then she put her arms around his neck and brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered, “Prove it.”
He chuckled.
“Not here.”
“Why?”
“It’s an evidence scene.”
She pushed away, pulled her T-shirt over her head and threw it on the floor. “How about that? Is that evidence?”
“Venzelle—”
She reached behind her back, unhooked her bra, and rocked her shoulders seductively until it fell off. Then, before he could stop her, she wiggled out of her shorts. Next her shoes and socks came off.
She stood before him.
Wearing a black thong.
Nothing else.
“See you later,” she said.
“Where you going?”
She slipped the thong over her hips and let it slide down her legs. Then she stepped out of it, rocked her hips, and said, “I’m going to see if you can catch me before I get to the front lawn.”
Then she turned and ran.
TEFFINGER CHASED, surprised at how quick and athletic she was, especially when she bounded down the winding staircase two steps at a time. Ten feet from the front door, he finally got close enough to get an arm around her waist and swung her to a stop.
He got her on the carpet, straddled her and pinned her arms above her head.
She fought to get away.
But he tightened his grip and moved up farther on her chest.
Then he brought his lips close to hers and said, “You are a very bad girl.”
She wiggled her hips.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Chapte
r Thirty
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
RAVEN WALKED FOR A BLOCK and then couldn’t take it any more. She stopped, turned and stared directly at the man in the bandanna as he approached; intent on getting a good enough look at his face to determine if he was the pirate from the newspaper.
But it didn’t happen.
Instead, the man suddenly darted into traffic, emerged on the other side of Broadway and walked briskly away.
Raven flagged a cab.
They zigzagged for twenty minutes while she stared out the back window to determine if anyone followed. After she felt comfortable that no one did, she had the cabbie drop her off at the 4Runner.
Then called Erin.
“I don’t trust your house tonight,” she said. “I think you should either get a hotel, or spend the night with me.”
“On the sailboat?”
Right.
In fact, the boat was the better idea. That would give them a chance to talk and come up with Plan B.
“Actually, I think we’re up to Plan C at this point,” Erin said.
Raven chuckled.
“Meet me there.”
I-25 SOUTHBOUND was thick, slow and hot. Raven got stuck behind an 18-wheeler and sucked diesel for a mile before she finally got enough daylight to dart into the next lane. Then someone called who she didn’t expect.
Dakota Van Vleck.
“Osborne and Salter spotted me at lunch,” she said.
Raven was shocked.
“They did?”
“Big time,” Dakota said. “Osborne pulled me into his office and interrogated me on whether I was feeding you information about our side of the case.”
“That’s insane.”
“That’s what I told him,” Dakota said. “You know what he did?”
No.
She didn’t.
“He pulled me off the case,” Dakota said.
“What?”
“Yep, just like that—boom, off, gone.”
“What a flaming jerk,” Raven said. “He doesn’t think that you have enough integrity to have lunch with opposing counsel without violating the client’s confidentiality?”
“Oh, I’m sure he knows I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have,” Dakota said. “But that’s not the issue. The issue is that he’s pissed off. That means that I get pissed on.”
“I am so sorry—”
“This isn’t your fault,” Dakota said.
“So what are you going to do?”
A pause.
“I don’t know,” Dakota said. “For now, I don’t have much choice except to sit back and see if this is the beginning of the end.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
JUST AS DALTON GOT LINDSAY VAIL out of the trunk, his cell phone rang and Poindexter’s voice came through. “I got hung up, dude.”
“How hung up?”
“Seriously hung up,” he said. “We’re going to have to reschedule.”
Dalton powered off and kicked a stone.
Damn it.
This screwed up everything.
He paced.
What to do?
Now he needed to keep the woman alive but couldn’t take her back to the machine shop. Plus, he needed to leave almost immediately to pick up Samantha Dent in time to get her set up for G-Drop.
A bluebird landed on a pine tree twenty yards away.
Dalton picked up a stone and threw it with all his might.
He always missed by a mile.
But this time he didn’t.
The rock hit the bird squarely in the head.
It fell straight to the ground and didn’t even flap a wing on the way down.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
THEY DIDN’T FIND ANY MORE VOODOO dolls in Ripley’s house. Teffinger got back to headquarters shortly before five, gave the doll and the newspaper article to Paul Kwak and said, “I need to know if the blood is human or animal. If it’s human, I need to know if it’s Ryan Ripley’s.” Then he went down to homicide, poured decaf and told Sydney that the dead BJ lawyer put a voodoo curse on him.
“Why would he do that?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“The only thing I can figure is that he killed Whitney White, I got close to figuring it out, and he decided to take me off the case,” Teffinger said.
Sydney frowned.
“But the article wasn’t about Whitney, right?”
Teffinger nodded.
“Right.”
The article was nothing more than a short piece about how the number of homicide cases in Denver had increased in the last six months. The photograph of Teffinger was nothing more than something visual to anchor the article.
“Plus, the article came out three weeks ago,” Sydney said. “You haven’t even looked at the Whitney White file in more than six months. I don’t see how it could have sparked anything.”
“Weird.”
“Very.”
SYDNEY COCKED HER HEAD. “So, how are you getting along with your new squeeze? Have you laid any serious rug burns on her yet?”
Teffinger raised an eyebrow.
Not so much surprised by the question, but surprised at the timing of the question, with the rug burns in question less than three hours old.
He almost said, Funny you should ask—
But instead he said, “She’s nice. She told me about her background today. She’s half-black, a quarter Polynesian and a quarter white.”
“Half black, huh?”
He nodded.
“That would be her better half, then,” Sydney said.
“Of course.”
“I guess if you asked my advice, I’d tell you to not fall too fast for her,” Sydney said.
Teffinger chuckled.
“I only have one speed,” he said. “You know that.”
She did.
But looked concerned anyway.
“In three months, her face will be plastered all over the city and every horn-dog guy with half a dick will be wanting to hump her leg,” she said.
“So?”
“So, is she going to be true to you once she gets in the spotlight?”
Teffinger shrugged.
“We’ll find out.”
WHEN TEFFINGER GOT HOME, Venzelle had spaghetti and meatballs waiting for him, to say thanks for the rug burns. The house was hot, but the front steps were in the shade, so that’s where they ate.
The sky was cloudless.
The foothills were quiet.
A bee kept buzzing Teffinger’s plate.
He could have swatted it fifteen different times.
But let it live.
“I talked to my old roommate and she agreed that the voodoo doll is a curse on you,” Venzelle said. “She thinks that the article about you, with your picture, was used in lieu of something personal of yours. She thinks that Ripley commissioned the curse, and then the doll and newspaper were returned to him after the fact. She also told me something interesting, namely that a curse can only be undone by the person who commissioned it. That’s bad news for you, since Ripley’s dead.”
Teffinger raked his hair back with his fingers.
“It’s all hocus-pocus,” he said. “I don’t believe in anything like that. Never have and never will.”
“Well, my advice is that you start,” she said.
He chuckled.
“You can’t believe how much advice I’m getting today.”
“Are you taking any of it?”
“Of course not.”
“Not even mine?”
“Especially yours.”
She punched him on the arm.
“Think about it Nick,” she said. “Ripley puts a curse on you—obviously within the last three weeks because of the
date of the article. And then yesterday, you almost got shot.”
“That’s something from an old case.”
“Is it?”
AFTER SUPPER, they hiked up the draw to the top of Green Mountain. From there, they could see Denver, the airport, and halfway to Kansas.
“You said commissioned before,” Teffinger said.
“Huh?”
“You said the curse can only be undone by the person who commissioned it,” he said.
“Right.”
“I’m glad you said it that way because otherwise I would have never thought of what I’m thinking,” he said.
“What are you thinking?”
“What I’m thinking is that even though Ripley’s dead, the person who actually performed the curse isn’t. That would be a person worth talking to. I’ll bet he or she has a bunch of answers to a bunch of questions.”
Venzelle studied the horizon.
Then looked at him.
“Do you ever turn off the detective brain?” she asked.
“Only when I’m thinking about sex.”
“And how often is that?”
He chuckled.
And took the 5th.
Then he pulled out his cell and said, “What’s your old roommate’s number? I want to ask her a question.”
She didn’t know offhand.
But found it in the memory of her cell phone and gave it to him.
Teffinger dialed and said, “What’s her name again?”
“Reanne. Don’t ask her what I said about you.”
“Why?”
“I’d be embarrassed.”
“In that case, now I have to.”
“Nick—”
“Thanks for giving me the idea,” he said. “It would have never crossed my mind.”
“You are so evil.”
He nodded.
“That’s why voodoo curses don’t work on me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Evening
______________
THEY MICROWAVED LOW-FAT MEALS at the sailboat. Halfway through, Raven said, “We’re not going to find this guy sitting on our asses.”
“So what do you propose?” Erin asked.
“Let’s take a drive to Lindsay Vail’s house.”
