Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Nothing had changed.

  Everything looked dark and empty.

  No creepy guys were hanging around that she could see.

  “What I’m thinking,” she said, “is that if we put our heads together, maybe we can figure out what’s going on. About all I know about the night in question is that your friend was in some kind of trouble and wanted to have her abduction faked so she could disappear. Then . . .”

  “Whoa!”

  Kelly was confused.

  “What?”

  “No, no, no.”

  “No what?”

  “Alley wasn’t in any kind of trouble.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “Hell no. Who told you that?”

  Michael Northway, she thought, wondering if she should disclose his name or not, then said, “Michael Northway. He’s the one who got me involved in this whole thing in the first place. He’s the one who drove the van.”

  Dannenberg lit another cigarette and sucked in.

  “I never knew his name,” she said, blowing out smoke with the words. “Who is he, exactly?”

  “He’s a lawyer in my firm.”

  “A lawyer, huh?” Then, after a drink of beer, Dannenberg said, “Here’s the deal. Alley was living here with me and stripping at Cheeks. One night she comes home, I’m sleeping of course, and she starts jumping up and down on the bed, all excited, waking me up and shit. Some guy had come into the club and offered her a hundred thousand dollars if she’d agree to fake her abduction and then disappear from Denver.”

  “Who?”

  “I have no idea,” Dannenberg said. “Alley wouldn’t say. But the man was serious, he had the whole thing planned out and she was convinced he had the money.”

  “It had to have been Michael Northway.”

  Dannenberg looked vacant.

  “Makes sense.”

  “He has that kind of money.”

  She nodded.

  “So then what happened?”

  “Okay,” Dannenberg continued. “The man wanted a witness or two to be with her when it happened, you know, someone to be there when the abduction took place, to tell the police that they saw an Asian man take her. We were supposed to say Asian, just to keep any heat off him in case the police actually caught up with him or something.”

  That was the same explanation Northway had given her.

  Dannenberg continued, “Alley told him about me and D’endra as the possible witnesses. We were kind of a Three Musketeers back then. The guy was going to pay us ten thousand each to participate.”

  “Did you get paid?”

  “In cash, sweetheart, every last penny. So did D’endra.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least.”

  Dannenberg shrugged.

  “It didn’t last long.”

  “So, did you know that I was going to be there too?”

  “Yeah,” Dannenberg said. “Not you specifically, but Alley told us there’d be a third witness, to give the whole thing even more credibility. She told us that the third witness, you, would tell the cops the same thing as us, namely that she just saw an Asian man abduct someone.”

  “So where did Alicia go, after that night?”

  “L.A. as far as I know,” Dannenberg said. “That was her plan, anyway.”

  “What? You’re not sure?”

  “I’d say L.A.”

  “What do you mean, you’d say L.A.? You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  That was weird.

  “Are you telling me that you never heard from her after that night?”

  “No, not really.”

  Kelly felt a chill.

  “Don’t you find that strange?”

  Dannenberg considered it, seemed to tense for a second, then relaxed.

  “Not really. She told us ahead of time that the guy was absolutely serious that she had to vanish as if she was actually dead. She said for a hundred thousand dollars he deserved to get what he paid for. It was her intent to actually start a brand new life with a different name and everything. He had it all set up for her in LA. A new name, a driver’s license, everything.”

  “What name?”

  Dannenberg shrugged.

  Kelly got a feeling that she couldn’t shake. “Still, I think if I was her, I’d sneak in at least one little call, just between friends.”

  “You sound like she really is dead.”

  Kelly stared at her.

  “No. I’m sure she’s okay.”

  Chapter Six

  Day Two - April 17

  Tuesday Night

  ____________

  AT ONE POINT IN TEFFINGER’S LIFE, the oversized country-western bar would have been perfect. The smoke and beer and drunk women reminded him of the getting-laid days. But now, tonight at least, he found the band too loud, the bodies too many, the air too thick and the hour too late. There had to be at least a thousand sweaty people in here circling around. He elbowed his way to the bar, flagged down the bartender with his badge and got pointed to a fat man standing at the end, chatting it up with a couple of guys in the second or third stage of disrepair.

  He worked his way over through the bodies.

  “Are you the manager?” he questioned, flashing his badge for effect and getting in close enough to be heard over the noise.

  The fleshy eyes of the fat man narrowed and Teffinger felt him running through the liquor laws, trying to find the most likely fracture.

  “Yes, Jack Lawson.”

  He shook his hand, feeling sausage fingers and too much palm. “Relax, Jack Lawson,” he said, “I’m not here to bust you. There’s a guy over there sitting at the bar. You see him?” He pointed. “White shirt, next to the blond talking to that other guy?”

  “The one with the long hair?”

  “Yeah, the rock star,” Teffinger said. “He’s peeling the bottle.”

  “Got him. That means sexual frustration.”

  “What does?”

  “Peeling the bottle.”

  “I thought chewing ice meant that.”

  “That too.”

  “Figures,” Teffinger said. “I do them both. His name’s Aaron Whitecliff. You could do me a big favor by going over there. Tell him a detective by the name of Teffinger is wandering around in here flashing a picture of him. Tell him I look real mean and serious, like maybe I have a warrant for his arrest, or want to crack in his head, which I do so you won’t be lying. Go ahead and describe me. Say whatever you want, just be sure his knees shake and he heads for the door.”

  The fat man smiled, visibly relieved that the problem belonged to someone else.

  “That could be arranged.”

  WAITING OUTSIDE IN HIS CAR, with Whitecliff’s red Explorer in line-of-sight, Teffinger made a quick call. “Bochmann, Teffinger. I’m down here at the Grizzly Flower . . . give me a break, I don’t have my hip boots on . . . listen, the manager, a guy by the name of Lawson, is doing a little favor for me . . . overlook something next time you’re in here . . . yeah, something on that scale, not too grand . . . be sure to mention my name, let him know I didn’t blow him off . . .”

  Two minutes later Aaron Whitecliff walked out of the bar, looked around, walked over to a red Explorer and slowly pulled out into the night.

  Teffinger let him get to 53rd Street then turned on the lights and pulled him over.

  Whitecliff already had the window powered down when he walked up to the door.

  “License and registration,” Teffinger said, giving the words a rough, no-nonsense edge.

  Whitecliff had a flabbergast look.

  “Teffinger? What’s going on?”

  “To begin, you ran that stop sign,” Teffinger said. “But now I think we have a bigger problem. Have you been drinking?”

  “Teffinger, I did not kill my own girlfriend.”

  “Yeah,” Teffinger said. “You’re in mourning, I can tell. You smell like a brewery. That’s serious.”

  “This is harassment. I’ve already s
pent more than two hours with you guys . . . I’ve cooperated . . .”

  “Let me tell you how a DUI works, in case you’ve never had the pleasure,” Teffinger said. “I call a special unit on the radio and we sit here and squirm in our seats until they arrive. When they get here, they set up a video camera and you’re the star actor in something called a roadside sobriety test. When you fail that, which you will, things start to get really fun. You can take a breathalyzer test and then be arrested, or you can decline, and we arrest you anyway. Either way, you’re now the proud owner of free room and board. We book you in, take your clothes, do a full cavity search, give you some lovely orange coveralls and then take you to a place with concrete and steel to meet some new and exciting friends. You’re going to love it.”

  “What is it you want?” Whitecliff questioned, the words thick with frustration.

  “What is it I want?” he echoed, as if considering every possible answer in the world. “I want world peace, I want a giant, big-ass sailboat, but most of all, to be honest with you, I just want to go home and go to bed, which is something you’ll understand better in ten years. But I can’t, because I’m standing out here in the middle of the night jerking-off with you.”

  Aaron Whitecliff frowned. He was five-eleven with shoulder-length blond hair, a former high school track star and all around good guy, just ask anyone.

  “Detective Teffinger,” he said, “I’ve . . .”

  “Lieutenant,” Teffinger corrected him.

  “Lieutenant Teffinger, I’ve cooperated fully. You’ve asked me a thousand questions. I’ve given you a thousand honest and straightforward answers. You know where I was the night D’endra got killed, every minute of it. I don’t know what it is that you want.”

  “Stay where you are,” Teffinger said, all patience gone, now walking back to his car and letting Whitecliff track him in his rearview mirror. He picked up the dispatch radio, talked into it, then sat there with his arm strung over the back of the seat and his head cocked, putting on a show.

  HE DIDN’T MOVE FOR A FEW MINUTES, looked at his watch, saw it was five minutes to ten, noted he was flirting with danger, then thought Screw it and picked up the cell phone to call Katie Baxter.

  “Katie, Teffinger.”

  She sounded grumpy.

  “Hey.”

  “You’re in a lovely mood,” he said.

  “I’m in bed,” she said, “as in, some of us actually sleep. Where are you, anyway?”

  “Squeezing D’endra Vaughn’s boyfriend,” Teffinger said. “I wanted to touch base real quick, to see if you had anything new on him that I should know about.”

  “Aaron Whitecliff? Nothing definite one way or the other yet,” Baxter noted. “That strip-club that he claims to have gone to after he left D’endra’s, I spent some time there this afternoon. Nobody remembers seeing Whitecliff on Saturday, or any night for that matter, based on his picture, at least.”

  “What about surveillance cameras?”

  “The manager, a guy named Morrison or Mortenson or something, it’s in my notes, said he’d give us copies of the tapes from that night, provided we agree not to use them outside the investigation.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Baxter said, “he’s a tad concerned that if they got in the wrong hands, they might show the girls getting a little too friendly at times, which might not look so dandy to the liquor board.”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Otherwise,” she said, “he’s going to have to run it by his lawyers.”

  “Screw the lawyers,” Teffinger said. “I’ll swing by there on my way home and give him my personal word that nothing’s going to come of it.” Then, “Unless the D.A.’s already got his nose in it.”

  Baxter laughed.

  “I saw it as our call.”

  “Right,” Teffinger said. “Okay, got to go. Whitecliff’s holding something back and he’s either going to tell me what it is or wish he had.”

  HE SAT THERE FOR ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES, then a police car pulled up behind him and turned the bubbles on. A second layer of red and blue light bounced around with a jagged eerie motion. Teffinger got out of his car, walked back to the police car and leaned in the window. Pickard, a veteran with an unsubstantiated bribe allegation in his file, sat behind the wheel. Next to him was a new guy, his face still an eager one, with no visible signs of bureaucratic scar tissue yet.

  “Pickard,” Teffinger acknowledged, ducking down to get a look at the new face. “Who’s your co-conspirator?”

  The passenger responded for himself, extending a hand. “Adam Foster, sir. I’ve been hoping to meet you. It was the Patterson case that got me interested in joining the force.”

  “Mister freaking whoop-de-do,” Pickard said, referring to Teffinger.

  “That was pretty amazing,” the new guy said.

  Teffinger’s eyes darted, a flash behind them for a nanosecond, rapid images of hours and hours at his desk, the hunch, working his way through the dark, the blood pumping through his veins, the sudden movement behind him . . .

  “That was a team effort,” he said.

  “Mister freaking modest,” Pickard said. Then to the passenger, “Don’t try this at home, boys and girls.” Back to Teffinger, “So what are we doing here, exactly?”

  Teffinger filled them in, then walked over to Whitecliff’s car and leaned on it, wearing his most severe face. “Okay, the DUI guys are here. Once they begin, I won’t have any power to stop them,” he said grimly.

  Then he waited.

  Nothing.

  He started to walk back, screw him.

  “Wait,” Whitecliff said.

  Teffinger was almost in the mood to let it pass, to let the son-of-a-bitch take a little trip downtown, but found himself walking back and putting his hands on the door.

  “What?”

  “There’s only one thing I can think of,” Whitecliff said. “When I first met D’endra, this was maybe a year ago, she kept a lot of cash in the house. She used it to pay for all kinds of stuff: groceries, car repairs, everything. Then it ran out and she started using checks and plastic like everyone else.”

  “How much cash?”

  Whitecliff narrowed his eyes.

  “I don’t know. A lot.”

  “One thousand? A hundred thousand?”

  “How should I know? Ten or twenty . . . a lot.”

  “Where’d she get it?”

  Whitecliff shook his head in apparent bewilderment. “It was before my time and she never said. But I got the feeling that she didn’t deposit it in a bank because she didn’t want a record of it.”

  “So something illegal?”

  Whitecliff shrugged.

  “Something secret, at least, even from me.”

  “Drug money?”

  “No, she was never into that.”

  “You sure?”

  Whitecliff nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What else you got?”

  “That’s it.”

  Teffinger paused, giving him time to reconsider, then finally said, “All right.” He looked in the direction of the police car. “I’m going to tell these guys back here that I don’t smell beer anymore, but I can’t let you drive, it’s different than it was fifteen years ago.” He paused then added, “Everything could have been a lot easier if you’d have come out with this in the first place.”

  “I didn’t think of it until now.”

  “Funny how the mind works,” Teffinger said. “Step out. Let me see you lock your keys in the car before I leave.”

  THIRTY SECONDS LATER he was on the phone to Sydney. "I know I’m a major pain in the ass calling you this late, but tomorrow I need to know who was in D’endra Vaughn’s life a year or so ago. Get what you can on them, occupations, addresses, all the usual, and run full criminal background checks. It turns out that she ended up with some mystery money in her pocket sometime around then and my gut tells me that’s connected to why
she’s dead now.”

  A pause.

  “Who is this?”

  He smiled.

  “See you in the morning. Love you.”

  “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  NO SOONER DID HE HANG UP than Barb Winters, one of the night dispatchers, a woman with new breast implants and a new wardrobe, and a few new friends, called. “Teffinger. We’ve got two dead bodies on Lafayette. Richardson is supposed to be on call but phoned in sick. Should I call Baxter or do you want it?”

  “What’s wrong with Richardson?”

  “Food poisoning,” Winters said. “That Chinese place on Court Street.”

  “Wong’s?”

  “Yep.”

  “No way,” he said. “I’ve eaten there for ten years.”

  “Did you eat there today?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then. Two dead bodies on Lafayette. You got ’em, or what?”

  Chapter Seven

  Day Two - April 17

  Tuesday Night

  ____________

  FROM THE NORTH EDGE OF THE CITY Teffinger took I-25 south to the 6th Avenue freeway and then headed east, trying to decide which was more important, heading straight to the crime scene to be sure it was properly secured or stopping for coffee. Two minutes later he screeched into the 7-Eleven on Lincoln Street, a white fluorescent oasis in an otherwise murky night. A kid at the cash register looked up from Deals on Wheels when he walked in.

  “Coffee,” Teffinger said, picturing a quarter-pot of burned brown goop.

  The kid looked startled and pointed towards the rear.

  “In the back. I just made a fresh pot.”

  “No way. My life doesn’t work like that.”

  He wished he had one of his six or seven thermoses with him, but they were all safe and sound back home, so he bought yet another new one, dumped in five French Vanilla creamers and then filled it to the top with regular. Wasted money, the thermos, but the thought of running dry after just one cup wasn’t an option. A double homicide held a distinct possibility that he’d still be working at daybreak.

  From there he went straight to the crime scene, which he recognized, pulling up, as a house with a reputation. A medium-weight drug pusher by the name of Leonard Smith was running crack out of it not more than two months ago, a fact totally unknown to anyone in the department until he managed to wander in front of an RTD bus one night at the unjust age of nineteen. The landlord, a retired police officer, took back possession and, after seeing the basement, made a proper but rather embarrassing phone call to the Narcotics Bureau.