Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Fallon looked like she was reaching back and had found something. “No,” she said, hesitantly.

  “You sure? You look like you’re not sure.”

  Kelly could feel her deciding. Then Fallon seemed to weaken. “There is this one thing,” she said.

  The waitress appeared from out of nowhere, placed two salads on the table and wanted to know if everything was all right.

  Yes, peachy keen.

  “Actually, I don’t know if it’s something or not,” Fallon went on. “Maybe there’s an explanation for it, but something did happen one day that I found to be out of the ordinary, to say the least.”

  “How so?”

  FALLON FINISHED CHEWING A MOUTHFUL of salad and said, “One day, Michael’s out of the office. He’s going to be gone a couple of hours. Maxine Randolph was working on something for him, helping him get ready for something or other. She calls me, desperate for a file that she thinks is in Michael’s office. So I go in to look. Usually he keeps his desk pretty clean but this particular day it was all jumbled up. So I’m digging around and come across this unlabeled expansion folder, buried under a pile of other files, and open it up.”

  Fallon paused.

  “And?”

  “And, well, inside there are pictures of a dead woman. Ten or twelve of them, of this dead woman, some from farther away, some from close up, from different angles, almost the kind of pictures you’d expect the police to take at a crime scene. And they were graphic. I mean, this poor woman was cut and stabbed and I mean a lot. There was blood all over her face and her clothes. She was such a mess that you just couldn’t believe it. I remember one picture in particular, which was a close-up of a knife sticking out of her stomach.”

  Kelly could almost see it and felt her breath stop. “Jesus.”

  Fallon nodded.

  “Tell me about it. I mean this was really sick stuff. But there were other things in the file, too, besides the pictures. There were photocopies of the kinds of things that you’d find in someone’s wallet, like a driver’s license, credit cards, stuff like that. It was like someone had taken her wallet over to a copy machine and just made a duplicate of everything.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Fallon said. “So I naturally try to relate all of this to something that Michael’s working on, a criminal case or a wrongful death or a CNN commentary or something, but I’m not coming up with any matches. And, like I said, the file was unlabeled, which I found really strange, since Michael’s such an obsessive-compulsive organizer. There were some newspaper clippings in there, too,” Fallon added. “Articles about the murder.”

  “So she was definitely dead?”

  “Oh, yes, definitely. You could just tell that by the pictures.”

  “And the pictures? What are we talking about? Three-by-fives, or what?”

  Fallon shook her head. “No. They looked more like digital pictures that had been printed out. They were almost full page size.”

  “So what was the woman’s name?”

  “I don’t know,” Fallon said. “I mean, I looked at the copies of the stuff from her wallet, close enough to tell what it was, but didn’t stop to actually read anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I wish I had.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, that’s what I was going to tell you. Here’s the weirdest part of all. In the file, there was a regular letter sized envelope, too. I look inside and there’s hair. I’m guessing from the dead woman. Now that really freaked me out.”

  “Hair?”

  “Hair, a lock of hair, not a lot, maybe fifteen or twenty strands, but actual hair.”

  “Damn. So what did Michael have to say about all of this?”

  “Nothing,” Fallon said. “I just put everything back the way I found it and waited for him to bring it up. He never did. I kept watching for signs of where it might fit into something he was working on, but never did see a connection to anything. And that was the only time I ever saw it. I made a point of keeping my eyes open when I was in his office after that but never saw it again.”

  “Is there any reason to suspect that a client gave him that file?”

  Fallon contemplated it. “It’s certainly possible. Lots of people walk into his office and the door gets closed. That file could have come from anywhere.”

  “Would you recognize this dead woman, if you saw a picture of her?”

  “Maybe but I kind of doubt it,” she said. “I mean her face was covered in blood and had hair matted on it and everything. Plus, the way I talk about it, it probably sounds like I was looking around for a long time, but in reality the whole thing probably lasted less than thirty seconds.”

  “When exactly did you come across this file?”

  Fallon scrunched her face, obviously going deep, then said, “I’m guessing sometime around a year ago, maybe April or May of last year, give or take.”

  Kelly made a mental note that the incident at Rick’s Gas Station was in May.

  “Does the name Alicia Elmblade mean anything to you?”

  Fallon shook her head negative. “No. Who’s Alicia Elmblade? Is she the dead woman?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. I’m going to try to get a photograph of someone for you to look at, and see if you can tell me whether it’s the dead woman you saw in the file. Will you be home tonight?”

  “Yes.” Then, “You look freaked out.”

  “I’m coming over tonight.”

  A HALF-HOUR LATER, KELLY WALKED down the 16th Street Mall, heading back to work, knowing that she definitely had to find out if the dead woman in Northway’s file was Alicia Elmblade.

  If she could get into Northway’s computer, she might be able to find something, maybe even the digital photos themselves. But that would be just about impossible. First she’d have to somehow get his password, then get some serious quiet time in his office. Plus, would he really be stupid enough to leave an electronic trail if he was actually involved in a murder?

  No.

  Forget that for now.

  It would also be interesting to know if someone took a lock of the dead teacher’s hair, the D’endra Vaughn woman, since her death was obviously connected to Alicia Elmblade somehow. If both women had a lock of hair taken, that would point to a common killer.

  That would be worth knowing.

  Teffinger would know about D’endra Vaughn’s hair. In fact, he was the only one she could think of to tap for that information, except maybe Sydney Heatherwood.

  She spotted an empty bench as she approached California Street, headed in that direction and sat down. She pulled Teffinger’s card out of her wallet and called him on his cell phone. He answered almost immediately.

  “Lieutenant Teffinger,” she said. “This is Kelly Ravenfield, the lawyer.”

  “Kelly,” he said. “Right. What’s going on?” He sounded like he was glad she called. That was good. She pictured his face and almost felt him there with her.

  “Nothing, really. I just thought I’d touch base, see if there was anything else I could do to help you or Detective Heatherwood.”

  He paused and she could tell he was thinking about it. “There was something I wanted to ask you,” he said. “But it’s not floating to the surface. Maybe I’ll think of it in a second. How’ve you been? Anyone following you around or anything?”

  Was the man outside the bar worth mentioning?

  Or would he just think she had an overactive imagination?

  “You know, I’m not sure,” she finally said. “But Tuesday night, I was in this place, a bar, and there was a guy walking around outside in the rain. For some reason it creeped me out.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Mmm. Was he big, small, young, old, black, white?”

  “He was big, that much I could tell. And muscular, you could tell by the way he moved.”

  “A big guy, huh?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  “And muscular?”

  “I’m guessing so.”

  “Interesting.”

  “How so?”

  He paused and said, “Nothing in particular,” but she could tell that something had struck a cord with him.

  “Oh,” she said, as if surprising herself with an afterthought. “Maybe you could help me with something. I was talking to another lawyer in the firm about D’endra Vaughn, he used to do some criminal law work, and he asked me if a lock of her hair had been cut off. I know you showed me the pictures but I couldn’t remember looking at her hair that close one way or the other. It’s just been bugging me ever since he asked.”

  “No, no hair missing,” Teffinger said.

  “So that’s something that you look for, then?”

  “Not always, necessarily. But in this case, there was enough strangeness involved to suggest that we might be dealing with a souvenir collector, so we paid pretty close attention to the possibility of things like missing hair, missing fingernails, missing jewelry and the like.”

  “Well,” she said, “that answers that.”

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER WORK, SHE DROVE over to Jeannie Dannenberg’s apartment to pick up the one and only photograph that Dannenberg had with Alicia Elmblade in it. While she was there, Jeannie—who was obviously feeling no pain—took the opportunity to report that she’d been able to track down quite a few of Alicia Elmblade’s old friends, thanks to the use of the rental. Not a single one of them has heard from Alicia since last May.

  Kelly drove the photograph of Alicia Elmblade straight over to Fallon’s house in Cherry Creek and showed it to her.

  “Is this the woman you saw in Michael Northway’s file?”

  Fallon studied it hard and shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Could it be the same woman?”

  “It could be but it could not be, too,” Fallon corrected her. “This woman does strike me as being about the right age and the general level of attractiveness. Other than that, though, it’s impossible to tell. Remember, I only saw that file for a few seconds and that was a year ago.”

  Kelly felt her frustration level push towards the limit.

  “Look harder. Is this the woman in the pictures or not? Just give me your best guess.”

  “My best guess?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, that’s her.”

  “It is?”

  “I don’t know. That’s my best guess.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s what you asked for, my best guess.”

  “I know.”

  “If you want my best guess, that’s her. If you want me to say if it actually is her or not, then I don’t know.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Four - April 19

  Thursday Morning

  _____________

  GANJON REALIZED there was a good amount of light in the room and that he had slept into the day. The thought immediately troubled him on some deep level but he didn’t know why. He opened his eyes enough to look at his watch without letting enough brightness in to hurt—eight-thirty in the morning, way past six. He closed his eyes, rolled onto his back, and felt every muscle in his body burn.

  Then the events of last night jumped into his brain.

  He remembered Megan Bennett turning the car into him, her loosing control of the vehicle, sliding sideways off the road in the mud and then slamming to a stop. Then she was out of the car, running into the night. She was damn fast. He remembered the burning in his lungs and the fear that his oxygen would run out before he could catch her. He remembered being scared to death that she’d get far enough ahead to lose him in the darkness, and that he’d somehow have to get the hell out of there and back to the city. Then he was on her and, wham, he had her on the ground.

  He remembered pounding her with closed fists.

  Teaching her a lesson for screwing with him.

  Working her over, knowing he should stop, that he was killing her but not being even close to controlling the rage. Then she went limp and stayed limp and he wasn’t sure if he killed her or not. He threw her over his shoulder and carried her lifeless, mud-soaked body for an eternity, with every step bringing a new pain to his universe. Then she regained consciousness, not fully but enough to walk on her own, and he gripped her arm like a madman and dragged her all the way back to the house. There was no way in hell he was going to let her make a break for it again.

  When they got inside the house, he stripped her naked and threw her in the shower, then got in with her. She didn’t even react. He washed the mud out of her hair and ears and they stayed there until the hot water ran out. Then he toweled her off, put her in a long-sleeve button down shirt and tied her to the bed with her arms over her head.

  Then he mounted her.

  Savagely.

  Not caring.

  Giving her what she deserved.

  That was last night.

  Now it was morning.

  HE SUDDENLY SAT BOLT UPRIGHT and looked at the bed next to his. There she was, just like he left her, flat on her back with her arms tied to the head rails.

  By the light of day she looked terrible.

  What had he done?

  Her face was so bashed up that it looked like a solid surface of black and blue with hardly any normal places left. Her lower lip was puffed up at least twice its normal size. Her right eye was swollen so bad that he doubted that she’d be able to open it for days. There was dried blood in her hair. She must have still been bleeding after he washed her.

  He swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat there, staring at what he’d done. His legs began to warm and he realized that sunlight was streaking through the window, landing on him. He had no clothes on.

  Bitch.

  Serves you right.

  Screwing with me like that.

  He remembered the car, still out in the field somewhere. He hadn’t had the strength last night to deal with it. Now he needed to get it back to the house, especially if it could be seen from the road, which he wasn’t sure of one way or the other. That was the first order of business. The last thing he needed right now was for someone to see it and start poking around.

  Damn it.

  All he wanted to do was sleep.

  This day was going to be absolutely screwed.

  He was half-tempted to smack her again, right there as she slept, for getting him in this predicament.

  He stood up, sore from head to toe, especially his lower back, and walked over to her. The ropes securing her wrists to the headboard were in good shape. No way she could escape from them. That was good. Her shirt had ridden up during the night and was now above her belly button, leaving her exposed from there down.

  The sight gave him an erection.

  He sat down next to her on the bed and started undoing the buttons.

  She opened her eyes when he climbed on top.

  “Don’t say a word,” he said. “Just enjoy it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Day Four - April 19

  Thursday Evening

  ____________

  THIS TYPE OF INVESTIGATION was way beneath Teffinger. Any first-year detective would be able to handle it just fine, but it was late on a Thursday night and if Megan Bennett had in fact been abducted last night he needed answers now, which pretty well meant that he had to get them himself.

  Pulling in from the street, the fluorescent lights shining from inside the Total seemed extra bright, emphasizing that the sun was down and the coolness of the thin night air had taken over. The pay phone was located outside on the far left corner of the store.

  He maneuvered his truck past the pumps and parked directly in front of it.

  This was the phone that someone had used to call Megan Bennett from just before midnight last night.

  There was no sense trying to fingerprint it. There’d been a ton of rain, plus it had already been exposed to the public for over eighteen hours.

&n
bsp; Someone in a Jeep Wrangler pulled in next to him, on the passenger side. He looked like a high school kid. Teffinger hated it when Wranglers parked next to his truck because their doors opened so wide and sat so high. One careless move and he’d end up with a door-ding. He walked around to the front of his vehicle and stood there staring at the driver, not in a threatening way, just a watchful one. He must have made an impression because the kid was real careful to hold onto the door as he got out. No contact with Teffinger’s truck.

  Okay.

  A door-ding avoided.

  Teffinger looked around for the surveillance cameras, spotting two, one on each side of the pumps. Only one had any potential for picking up the phone area and the way it pointed the chances seemed slim, unless it was really wide-angled.

  A 7-Eleven stood directly across the street. Later, he may as well check over there too, in case they had a camera angled in this direction.

  He could almost feel the temperature drop even farther as he looked around. He stuffed his hands in his front pants pockets and hurried inside. “You’re Going to Lose That Girl” spilled out of speakers somewhere off in the corners. Hearing it, he wondered why it never got much airtime; it had to be one of the best Beatles songs ever.

  He hadn’t planned on getting a cup of coffee but once inside it seemed like the right thing to do. Then he remembered he had a big aluminum mug in the truck, went out, got it, hurried back in, poured in five vanilla creamers, filled it to the top with decaf and immediately took a sip.

  Good stuff.

  Nice and hot.

  A young lady, no older than nineteen or twenty, with tattoos running up her neck and blue streaks in her hair, took his money at the counter. He explained who he was and told her that he wanted to check the surveillance tapes from last night.

  “I’m not supposed to let anyone do that,” she said. “That kind of stuff’s all supposed to go through corporate.” A pause, then, “But, hey, what’d corporate ever do for me, right?” She rang open the bottom drawer of the cash register, pulled out a key and handed it to him. “It’s the room in the back, by the johns.”