Foreign Affairs (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  She screamed in bed, he could already tell.

  She wasn’t trying to be sexy. In fact, she hardly wore any makeup. Her pants and blouse were conservative. Her shoes were off. Her socks were black.

  Teffinger extended his hand and said, “Nick Teffinger.”

  The woman set the lighter down and shook.

  He liked the feel of her skin.

  “Fallon Le Rue,” she said. “Before we get started, it’s probably best to go over a few of the preliminaries, just to be sure we’re on the same page. The U.S. Marshall, Max Smith, is a good friend of this office. He vouched for you and that’s why you’re here. We’ll share our files with you. We’ll take your information and any ideas you might have. You’re going to be fully in the loop. But the jurisdiction stays with us. You’re strictly here in a watch-and-suggest capacity, not in a hunt-and-act capacity. We appreciate that back in the United States you’re a detective and, reportedly, a very capable one. But here in France you’re a civilian. Any questions?”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “One,” he said.

  “Which is what?”

  “Do you have any coffee?”

  She smiled, and did.

  Then they headed to the crime scene.

  FALLON CAME TO A STOP in front of an unpretentious house on the eastern outskirts of the city, killed the engine and slipped her shoes on. Crime-scene tape circled the yard. They put on latex gloves and entered through the front door. This is where the victim had her eyes gouged out and reinserted backwards, the same as Amanda Peterson back in Denver.

  Inside, Teffinger could hardly believe what he saw.

  An ornate picture frame sat on a table in the corner.

  Inside that frame was a color photograph, a photograph of a woman.

  A woman he knew.

  Tracy White.

  “That’s the victim,” Fallon said.

  “That’s the victim?”

  “Yes.” Teffinger must have had a look on his face because Fallon added, “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  “I thought the victim’s name was Margaux Simon.”

  “It is,” Fallon said.

  Teffinger picked up the frame and looked at it closer. “This is Tracy White.”

  “Tracy White? Who’s Tracy White?”

  Teffinger walked to the window and looked out. Then he turned and said, “This is worse than I thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Teffinger slumped into a chair, leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. He didn’t move for a long time. Then he looked up, locked eyes with Fallon and said, “This is my fault. This woman is dead because of me.”

  Fallon looked dumbfounded.

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  TEFFINGER NEEDED AIR, not in thirty seconds, this second, so they headed outside and ended up walking down the street. He kicked a Coke can ahead.

  “The dead woman in Denver, Amanda Peterson, lived on the seventh floor of a fairly large apartment building,” he said. “A woman named Tracy White lived on the third floor. The building had an elevator, but Tracy was one of those health nuts who always took the stairs. On the evening when Amanda Peterson got her eyes gouged out, Tracy was coming up the stairs carrying a bag of groceries and encountered a man coming down, fast, as in two steps at a time.”

  A car sped by, closer than it should have, a model Teffinger had never seen before.

  Small.

  In a hurry.

  “Anyway, Tracy worked with a sketch artist at my request and we ended up with a pretty good composite that we showed to everyone in the building,” Teffinger said. “It turned out that the guy didn’t live there and hadn’t been visiting anyone, so we figured he was the one we were looking for. We got his picture all over town. He looked like a caveman.”

  She raised an eyebrow at the word caveman and asked, “Do you still have that sketch?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you bring it with you?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s one of the things I want to talk to you about.”

  “Good,” she said.

  He exhaled and kicked the can as far as he could.

  He mostly missed.

  It only went a couple of feet.

  “UNFORTUNATELY, NO ONE CALLED with any leads,” Teffinger said. “Then a couple of days later I got a call from a man who said he was with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. He wanted to know the correct spelling of the name of the person who gave us the sketch—their file had two different spellings. Before I could even think, I told him. It just blurted out of my mouth. As soon as I hung up, I had a bad feeling, and called back to confirm that the call had been legit. Unfortunately it wasn’t.”

  “Meaning it had come from the killer,” Fallon said.

  Teffinger nodded.

  “Now he had Tracy White’s name, and I was the one who gave it to him,” Teffinger said. “I immediately called her and offered to get her into a witness protection program. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t hear of it. So then I came up with a grand plan. I figured the man would make a move sooner or later, so I started following her around—without her knowledge—hoping I could catch the guy in the act.”

  “Like she was bait,” Fallon said.

  No, not bait.

  The word bait implied that Teffinger went along with it, which he didn’t.

  “She was more in the nature of a target, one that I was intent on protecting,” he said. “Anyway, to make a long story short, the guy actually showed up a couple of nights later in the parking lot of Tracy’s building. Things went badly. I ended up getting shot in the stomach. The guy got away and I never got a look at him. Tracy didn’t get hurt at all, but she got so freaked out that she said she was going to go into hiding and never come out. She disappeared the next day. Even I didn’t know where she went.”

  “Apparently, she went here,” Fallon said.

  Teffinger nodded.

  “And took the name Margaux Simon,” Fallon added.

  Teffinger nodded again.

  “I was pretty confident that whoever killed your victim here in Paris was the same one who killed mine in Denver since the signature thing with the eyes is so unique,” Teffinger said. “But now I’m positive. Somehow he tracked Tracy White to Paris. And it’s all because I was stupid and gave up her name.”

  Fallon said nothing.

  They walked in silence.

  Then Fallon said, “Let’s go have a look at your sketch. Time is ticking on Michelle Berri.”

  Michelle Berri?

  “Who’s Michelle Berri?”

  “Tracy White’s roommate,” Fallon said.

  “Roommate?”

  “You don’t know?”

  No.

  Teffinger didn’t.

  Know what?

  “She’s been missing since Friday night, when Tracy got killed. Our assumption is that the guy took her.”

  Chapter Five

  Day One—July 12

  Monday

  ______________

  MONDAY PASSED and Deja hardly noticed. She was too busy picturing herself as an actual flesh-and-blood attorney and trying to get a handle on everything that meant, socially, economically, and every other way. She got home shortly after six, unlocked the door and stepped inside. What she saw she could hardly believe.

  The place was totally trashed.

  Drawers had been pulled out and dumped.

  Every picture had been taken off the wall and slit open at the back.

  Her laptop was gone.

  The mattress was leaning against the wall and had been sliced open, front and back.

  The carpeting had been pulled up.

  Almost every food product in the kitchen had been opened and dumped into the sink.

  She heard a gasp behind her and turned.

  A woman stood in the doorway, an exotic woman with mysterious brown eyes, golden skin and raven-black hair.


  “Are you Deja Lafayette?” the woman asked.

  “Oui.”

  “Did this just happen?”

  “Oui.”

  The woman grabbed her arm and said, “Hurry! Come with me while there’s still time!”

  “But—”

  “Right now! Your life is in danger!”

  DEJA SLAMMED THE DOOR SHUT as she ran out of the apartment but didn’t stop to lock it because the mystery woman had her by the hand and was pulling her down the stairs. They hurried through the crowded streets of Montmartre, not talking, looking over their shoulders. Deja saw nothing suspicious but felt eyes on the back of her head.

  Very strange.

  A half hour later they got to the Seine and tried to board a Batobus just as it was casting off, except they got turned away because they didn’t have passes.

  So they hurried down the riverside walkway instead.

  They crossed over to the Left Bank at Passerelle des Arts and found a safe looking wine bar on Rue de Verneuil in the St. Germain des Pres district.

  They took a private table inside, near the back, and ordered.

  They kept their eyes on the door.

  Everyone who came or went looked normal.

  Two minutes later a frazzled waiter set a carafe of Anjon Blanc and two glasses on their table and walked off.

  Deja immediately took a strong swallow and felt everything soften as the alcohol dropped warm and tingly into her stomach.

  She looked at the mystery woman, her first really good look in fact.

  THE WOMAN was in her late twenties, five-nine, dark, exotic and sensuous, dressed in khaki pants, a white cotton shirt and black leather shoes. She looked feminine enough to dance the can-can at the Moulin Rouge and tough enough to hunt lions on the Serengeti.

  “So who are you and what happened to my apartment?” Deja asked.

  “Fair questions,” the woman said. “What do you know about archeology?”

  “Archeology?”

  “Right.”

  Deja wrinkled her forehead. “Absolutely nothing. Why?”

  “What do you know about the work your uncle was doing?”

  “Remy?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Because that’s why he’s dead and why you’re in danger,” the woman said. Then she exhaled and said, “I’m sorry, you asked who I am and I haven’t told you. My name is Alexandra Reed.”

  “Who tore my apartment apart?”

  Alexandra took a deliberately slow sip of wine, looked into Deja’s eyes and said, “I don’t know but I do know what they were looking for.”

  “What?”

  “The map,” Alexandra said. “They think Remy might have given it to you for safekeeping.”

  Map?

  What map?

  “The map to the treasure,” Alexandra said. “Ancient treasure.”

  Deja shook her head in disbelief and took another sip of wine.

  “Remy never gave me anything,” she said.

  Alexandra didn’t look impressed.

  “Maybe he did and you just don’t know it.” She drank the rest of her wine and set the empty glass on the table. “Drink up,” she said. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Deja drained what was left in her glass.

  “How do you know all this stuff?”

  Alexandra stood up.

  “All in time,” she said. “Which we’re wasting.”

  Chapter Six

  Day One—July 12

  Monday Night

  ______________

  MORE PROBLEMS THAN USUAL ERUPTED at Ringer Shipyards on Monday. Several vendors still hadn’t delivered overdue materials that were in the critical work path of a vessel, bringing its construction to all but a standstill. A buyer from Greece who was supposed to cure a payment default today still hadn’t done so. A 50-year-old worker fell off an unguarded scaffold and broke his hip, re-igniting locker room grumbling that production was being emphasized over safety.

  Nicholas Ringer’s phone rang all day.

  Then, after dark, he got yet another call, only this one wasn’t work related.

  It was from Deja Lafayette, the young woman he met this morning, the interpreter, Remy Lafayette’s niece.

  She sounded upset.

  “Is that offer for a P.I. still good?”

  It was.

  Absolutely.

  “I only have a few seconds to talk right now but I’ll call you tomorrow with more information,” she said. “Here’s what’s going on. Someone broke into my apartment today and tore the place apart. Then a woman mysteriously showed up out of the blue. She says her name is Alexandra Reed. She says that Remy was killed because of some ancient map. A map to treasures that are supposedly buried somewhere in Egypt.”

  A map?

  Right.

  “She says that’s why my apartment was torn apart, because someone thought he might have given the map to me,” she added. “We’re going to Remy’s house in a little bit to look for it.”

  The map?

  Right.

  The map.

  “HERE’S THE BOTTOM LINE,” she said. “This woman says she’s working for the Egyptian government on a clandestine mission. She says that the government can’t be officially involved because she might be forced to do certain things that it can’t afford to be associated with.”

  Like what?

  Kill somebody?

  “I don’t know, she didn’t specify, but that’s the impression I got—something dirty or extreme,” she said. “Her mission is to get to the treasure first to be sure it gets turned over to the authorities so it can take its proper place in history. These other people are nothing more than looters. I know I’m rambling, but does any of this make sense?”

  “I’m following you,” Ringer said.

  “She doesn’t want the police involved, because she can’t have anyone snooping around who might find out about her affiliation with the government,” Deja said. “To me, she seems honest, but this whole thing is just so weird that I’m not sure.”

  “What are you saying?” Ringer asked. “That she’s really one of the looters? That the whole thing is a trick to get you to cooperate?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” Deja said. “But that seems to be the big question. Who the hell is this woman? Is she legit? Is there really such a thing as a map? And if I actually help her find it, what will happen to me after I outlive my usefulness?”

  Ringer paced.

  “I’m going to call a P.I. friend of mine as soon as we hang up.”

  Chapter Seven

  Day One—July 12

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  TEFFINGER HAD NO IDEA how Amanda Peterson’s killer tracked Tracy White to Paris. Something like that would require deep information. Was the guy with the FBI or the CIA or INTERPOL? And what had Tracy White done differently in recent days or weeks that would have suddenly disclosed her location after keeping it so well hidden for a year? Did she tell her real name to the wrong person? Did she use it on an employment application?

  “I’m starved,” Fallon said.

  Teffinger was too.

  They ended up at a sidewalk table in the Latin Quarter, on the sunny side of the street, eating sandwiches and fruit wedges. Fallon sipped red wine and looked better and better every time Teffinger put his eyes on her.

  “We need to get your sketch of the caveman on the news ASAP,” Fallon said.

  Teffinger shrugged.

  “Let’s talk about it,” he said.

  Talk about it?

  What was there to talk about?

  “Right now, he doesn’t know that we’ve connected him to Denver. Nor does he know that I’m in Paris,” Teffinger said. “If we use the Denver sketch, he’s going to know. He’s already seen it in the Denver newspapers.”

  “So?”

  “So, we have an element of surprise going for us and it would be to our adva
ntage to keep it that way.”

  Fallon chewed on it but wasn’t impressed.

  “That sketch is the best thing we have right now,” she said. “Nothing’s more important than getting it out. All we need is one phone call from someone who recognizes him.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “I understand that,” he said. “But suppose no one calls—then what?”

  She shrugged.

  “Then at least we tried,” she said.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “I’VE COME UP WITH A PLAN but I have to warn you upfront that it’s a little intense,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Go on.”

  “Alright,” he said. “We know the caveman will go to any lengths to get rid of a witness.”

  Fallon nodded.

  And she said, “It’s almost a good thing that we don’t have one.”

  Teffinger cocked his head.

  “Maybe we do,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that maybe we make one up,” he said.

  “I’m not following.”

  “Okay, here’s the way it goes,” Teffinger said. “We take the Denver sketch and redraw it so it looks like something from a new witness, someone from Paris. We keep the caveman’s face as true to the original as possible. Then we blast it all over the newspapers and the televisions, like you want. That way we get the full benefit of the Denver sketch without tipping our hand.”

  Fallon smiled.

  “You’re more devious than I realized,” she said.

  Teffinger nodded.

  “There’s more,” he said. “If no one calls in, we go to the next phase of the plan, which is this. We now have the caveman thinking there’s a witness. We set someone up to play the part of that witness—someone from your department, maybe. We leak the person’s name. The caveman will eventually close in, just like he did with Tracy White. What he doesn’t know is that we’ll be waiting for him.”

  Teffinger expected Fallon to react one way or the other, but instead she just chewed her food and looked at the people walking past.

  AFTER A FEW MOMENTS, she said, “You already tried something like that once, with Tracy White. You got shot and she almost ended up dead. So you don’t exactly have a good track record of saving someone when Mr. Caveman closes in.”