by R. J. Jagger
He hoped not.
That would make things a lot easier.
Chapter Seventy-One
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Afternoon
______________
SYDNEY’S BIG NEWS turned out to be a street rumor that a prostitute named Cynthia Brown was working the Colfax alley the night Ryan Ripley got stabbed in the back.
“No one’s seen or heard from her since that night,” Sydney added.
“Meaning she skipped town?”
“That, or she went deep.”
“How strong is the rumor?”
“The usual, third or fourth degree hearsay,” Sydney said. “Not enough for an arrest warrant, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Well, run her down and see if she’ll talk,” Teffinger said. “She may have skipped because she was part of it, but maybe she’s just afraid that whoever did it doesn’t want any witnesses hanging around in a live condition. Either way, she’s the key.”
Agreed.
“I’d like to know if it’s her saliva on Ripley’s dick,” he added.
“Good point,” Sydney said. “How’s it going down there?”
“I’m learning more about snakes.”
EATING MCDONALD’S ON THE WAY, Teffinger and Venzelle headed to their next target, a place called Shadow Walkers. When they arrived, a raggedy wooden door was propped open with a metal Gargoyle, meaning no AC. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to wait in the car,” Venzelle said. “The heat’s killing me.”
No problem.
Teffinger left the engine running.
When he returned, she was reclined in the seat with her eyes closed and hip-hop on the radio. Every vent in the car blew cold air at her.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“It’s a possibility, but I’m still more interested in that first place, the one with the snake lady.” He spotted a wayward fry on the seat, popped it in his mouth and pulled into traffic.
Next stop—The Black Gate.
“I’m sort of surprised that the station let you off—I mean, you just started on Monday,” he said. “That was pretty nice of them.”
Silence.
He looked at her.
“When I told you before that they let me off,” Venzelle said, “there was maybe a little bit more to it than just that.”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“Like what?”
“Well, they did say I could take off if I wanted, but I should also consider my ass fired,” she said. “I said fine and that was that.”
“You got fired?”
“Yes, but only for about ten seconds, because Geneva jumped in and said if I was fired, then she was quitting.”
“She did?”
“Yes,” Venzelle said. “So the bigwigs spent five minutes behind a closed door and then came out and said I could take some time off if I wanted.”
Teffinger shook his head in bewilderment.
“I can’t believe you two put your careers on the line.”
She leaned over and kissed him.
“Well believe it. Geneva said you really helped her out once. She said if I was helping you then she had to help me.”
“Help is one thing,” he said. “Insanity is a whole different kind of animal.”
She grinned.
“What?” he asked, curious.
“I was just thinking about that snake biting you in the neck. Nothing’s ever normal with you. Do you know that?”
TEFFINGER ALMOST ANSWERED, but he was more concerned about the car suddenly on his tail.
Following close.
Dangerously close.
Then it rammed him.
Hard.
His vehicle left the road wildly out of control and flipped into a death roll.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Evening
______________
ARMED WITH THE NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPH of Robert the pirate, together with the tattoo sketch that Dawn Hooker drew, Raven drove to tattoo shops Thursday evening to see if anyone recognized the mysterious Robert or gave a tattoo to anyone of a woman being killed.
Three stops into it, she still hadn’t had any luck.
At each place, she left a Xerox copy of Robert’s photograph and the tattoo, so they could be shown to other workers who weren’t around at the moment.
At this rate, it would take a week to hit every shop.
Not good.
Blind luck, that’s what she needed.
As she drove south of downtown on Broadway, a dark blue sedan in the rearview mirror grabbed her attention. At first, she didn’t know why.
Then she did.
She’d seen it before.
Was she being followed?
SHE TURNED INTO THE PARKING LOT of an antique store. When the other car went past, the driver turned her face away. Raven saw enough, however, to recognize Coyote. She squealed out of the parking lot, sped up and flashed her lights.
Coyote looked in the rearview mirror at least six times and finally pulled over.
Raven stopped behind her, left the engine running, and walked up to confront her stalker. When she got there, Coyote had the window down.
“How long have you been following me?”
“That’s not the question.”
“Oh, no? So what’s the question?”
“The question is—what’s your interest in all these tattoo shops?”
“I’m going to get a tattoo.”
“No you’re not,” Coyote said. “I’m going to go back to them later and find out what you talked about. So why don’t you just save me the trouble?”
Raven shook her head in disbelief.
“I thought we were friends,” she said.
“We are,” Coyote said. “You know I have you under surveillance. I don’t understand what you’re so upset about.”
“You are so frustrating.”
“I have an idea,” Coyote said.
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t I just ride with you in your car? We can save gas—be nice to the environment and all that.”
“You got to be joking.”
“Come on,” she said. “Think green.”
WHEN COYOTE SLID INTO THE PASSENGER SEAT, Raven said, “I can’t believe I’m actually letting my stalker ride with me. This has got to be the weirdest surveillance to ever go down in the history of the world.”
Coyote agreed.
“So what’s up with the tattoo shops? Talk to me—”
Raven told Coyote what she would inevitably find out in any event—namely, that Raven was trying to locate the man who was pictured in the Rocky Mountain News in connection with the disappearance of Lindsay Vail and the murder of Julie Pratt. She also admitted that she believed the man’s first name was Robert, since she had already thrown the word all over town.
“Why do you think his name’s Robert?” Coyote asked.
“I can’t answer that.”
Coyote looked like she was about to ask the same question again using different words, but didn’t.
“Okay, then, why are you trying to find him?”
“I can’t answer that either.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Did he do something to you at one point? Are you one of his victims?”
“No.”
“What makes you think he has a tattoo?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Why do you care if he has a tattoo?”
“I can’t answer that.”
Coyote shook her head and said, “You sure don’t have many answers.”
“That’s because you’re asking the wrong questions,” Raven said. “Try a math question. I’m pretty good at math.”
Coyote grinned.
“Okay, what’s the square root of 413?”
Raven chuckled.
“That’s easy—twenty point something.”
�
��Very good.”
“Put it in your report.”
THE NEXT TATTOO SHOP, ingeniously called The Next Tattoo Shop, popped up on Broadway just south of Evans. Raven pulled in, killed the engine and said, “Do you mind waiting in the car?”
“Why?”
“Because you already know more than I want you to.”
Coyote opened the door, stepped out and said, “Come on, we’re wasting time.”
Raven got out.
“For the record, you’re the most annoying stalker ever.”
Coyote kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll put it in my report.” As they walked towards the front door, Coyote asked, “If you do find this guy, are you going to tell me his name?”
Raven stopped.
“What’s in it for me, if I do?” she asked.
“What do you want to be in it for you?”
“I don’t know.”
Coyote must have seen something in Raven’s eyes because she said, “The next time we pass a liquor store, let’s pick up some wine.”
Raven came to a halt.
“Let me ask you something and I want you to be totally honest with me,” she said.
“Sure.”
“I mean it.”
“I said sure.”
“All this coming on to me, is that just part of some grand plan to butter me up?”
Coyote hesitated.
“Maybe it was a little at first, but not now,” she said. “Now it’s real.”
“Is it going in your report?”
Coyote rolled her eyes.
“Are you kidding? I’d be fired in a heartbeat.”
“So you’re vulnerable to the very person you’re stalking.”
“Yes I am,” Coyote said.
“That’s something of a predicament.”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d never use it against me.”
Raven looked at the sky.
Clouds hung low.
Twilight was coming.
There would be a sunset later.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Evening
______________
LATE THURSDAY EVENING, DALTON FLEW OUT OF DIA into a cloudy but calm sky. He sat in first class with a vodka mix in his left hand, thumbing through a Rolling Stone. To his right was an incredibly attractive heartbreaker of a woman, casually dressed, no ring, about twenty-five. She ignored him. Halfway to Miami he turned and said, “You haven’t said a word to me the whole flight. That means one of two things.”
She looked over.
“Which are what?”
“Either you really like me or you really don’t.”
“How do you know it’s not something in the middle?” she asked. “Maybe I don’t care one way or the other. Or maybe I have other stuff on my mind.”
Dalton shook his head.
“No, because in the middle, there’s always some talk,” he said. “It might not be much more than How you doing?, but it’s something. You got to work hard to have absolutely no talk at all. It’s the equivalent of keeping your body perfectly still. It doesn’t happen by accident.”
“So, let’s suppose you’re right, just for the sake of argument. Which one is it?”
Dalton studied her.
“I have an okay face,” he said.
“An incredible face,” she agreed.
“Nice hair.”
“Yummy hair.”
“A good, strong body.”
True again.
“So the smart money would be on you really like me. But I’m betting the other way.”
“I really don’t like you?”
He nodded.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because you see me sitting here with this tan and hair, drinking vodka and reading Rolling Stone, and you think I’m trendy and shallow. You have too much substance to want to know anyone like me. You’re above the person who you think I am. That’s why I decided to talk to you. To let you know you got me all wrong.”
“I do, do I?”
“Way wrong.”
“And you’re going to set me straight, I suppose.”
“Well, since you insist, why not?”
SHE TURNED OUT TO BE HEATHER RAY, a flight attendant headed back to South Beach after a week in the sky. The lights of Miami were just starting to twinkle when they landed.
“You want to hit some of the clubs tonight?” she asked.
“Sure. I need to find a place to stay first.”
She chuckled.
“You’ve already had that for more than an hour.”
He tipped her with his glass.
Perfect.
This way his name wouldn’t be in a hotel registry.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Afternoon
______________
THE VEHICLE ROLLED VIOLENTLY, skidded on its roof, slammed into a telephone pole and spun. Teffinger dangled upside down, caught in the seatbelt, disoriented.
He smelled gas.
“Nick!”
“Hold on!”
He tried to get his door open but it wouldn’t budge. The metal must have tweaked. He released the seatbelt and got untangled, then put his weight into the door.
It didn’t move.
He pushed the window button.
No response.
“Go out your door!” he said.
Venzelle tried but couldn’t get it.
“It’s stuck!”
Teffinger kicked the windshield.
It didn’t crack or show signs of weakening.
They were trapped.
The tank could explode any second.
Then glass smashed.
Teffinger followed the sound to the other side of the car. Someone outside had smashed the passenger window with a rock. It was totally shattered, leaving an opening.
“Get out!”
Venzelle pulled herself through and Teffinger followed as fast as his muscles let him. A young black girl was next to the car, about eleven or twelve—no doubt the one who smashed the window. Her bicycle was lying on the ground and she was bending down to pick it up. Teffinger swooped her up in one arm and ran as fast as he could with Venzelle at his side.
They didn’t get more than twenty steps when the vehicle exploded.
A wall of fire rushed past and knocked them to the ground.
Teffinger shielded the girl with his body.
SHE TURNED OUT TO BE 12-year-old Melissa Johnson, who happened to be riding her one-speed Schwinn down the road when Teffinger’s car flipped—so close, in fact, that the vacuum pulled her over and took her down.
She got back on and peddled to the wreck.
She saw Venzelle struggling with the door, then spotted the rock.
Teffinger kneeled in front of her, so they were eye to eye, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You saved our lives. If you hadn’t smashed that window, we’d both be dead right now. Thank you—thank you very, very much.”
She had dirt on her face and a skinned knee.
Her teeth were the whitest white.
Her eyes were shy.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
She wore a tattered sundress two sizes too big; an obvious hand-me-down. One of the straps was fastened with a safety pin. Her socks were two different colors. Her canvas tennis shoes had holes at the toes.
“I’m going to get you a new bike,” Teffinger said. “Do you live around here?”
She pointed.
“Over there.”
“I want to talk to your parents and tell them what a fantastic, brave young woman you are.”
“Only my mom,” the girl said. “My dad doesn’t live with us any more.”
“Your mom will be proud of you.”
Two patrol cars and an ambulance pulled up with lights flashing.
THEIR CUTS AND SCRAPES
turned out to be treatable at the scene. Venzelle’s neck hurt but not enough that she wanted to go to a hospital.
The cops took their statements and jotted down notes.
“We were rammed on purpose,” Teffinger said. “What we’re dealing with is attempted murder, pure and simple. Two counts.”
The cops didn’t seem impressed.
“Could have just been a drunk,” one of them said. “Did you get a look at him?”
“No.”
“Was he white or black?”
Teffinger didn’t know.
“He was a guy though, right?”
Teffinger wasn’t sure.
The cops pressed for details.
Teffinger didn’t have any.
SUDDENLY HIS PHONE RANG and the voice of Chief Forrest F. Tanker—Double F—came through. “I just got a call from one Max Moniteau down there in New Orleans. He said you held a news conference this morning, trying to get information on our pirate friend. Is that true?”
“I think I saw him in a club last night,” Teffinger said.
“Well, Moniteau’s got his nose all out of joint, since it didn’t go through his office. He said you’re a wild, rogue cop, who either needs to get with the program or get out of town.”
Teffinger groaned.
“What’d you say?”
“That’s not important. What is important is that—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You didn’t stick up for me?”
“I didn’t see a need to start debating it.”
“Damn—”
“Nick, stay focused,” Double-F said. “What’s wrong with you anyway? You sound weird.”
Teffinger told him about the crash.
Double-F said, “Get back to Denver.”
Teffinger picked up a stone and threw it at a crushed Coke can lying in the dirt.
He actually hit it.
“I can’t,” he said. “When you see Sydney, tell her to call me. I want an update on Lindsay Vail.”
A TV NEWS VAN suddenly pulled up to the scene. Tammy Bahamas popped out of the passenger door with a microphone in hand before the vehicle even came to a complete stop.
“A lot of people live in this town for ninety years and never make the news,” she said. “You make it twice your first day here. I’m impressed.”
“Someone said nothing’s ever normal with me,” he said.
