Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Ganjon muscled his way up.

  As he predicted, the deck came off the bedroom. The sliding glass door was open a couple of inches, no doubt to let out the afternoon heat buildup. Oh yeah. He opened it, stepped inside and stood there taking deep, controlled breaths.

  No sound or vibration came from anywhere.

  There were no illuminated lights in any of the second floor rooms. He quickly checked each space just to confirm that someone wasn’t up there sleeping. They were all empty.

  Ganjon couldn’t help but note how spectacular the interior finishes were. The master bathroom was right out of a magazine.

  The lawyer certainly lived large.

  He spent the next twenty minutes checking out the rest of the house. The place had to be at least ten thousand square feet, with all the necessities of life, including an indoor hot-tub, a sauna, a media room, bedrooms and bathrooms galore, wet-bars, a game room, fireplaces, and a massive kitchen with the obligatory granite countertops, distressed cabinets and stainless steel appliances.

  He eventually settled into a chair in the study, in the dark, where he could see the street.

  ABOUT A HALF HOUR LATER A WHITE MERCEDES sedan pulled into the driveway. Ganjon could see that Northway was alone and heard the garage door open.

  A moment later he saw his target walk to the mailbox, unlock it, grab a handful of mail and thumb through it as he headed back towards the house. He wore a suit with an expensive hang to it.

  Ganjon stayed in the den, in the sweet darkness, put the ski mask back on, pulled the knife out of its sheath and set it in his lap.

  He could hear Northway in the house now. He was in the kitchen, messing with something in the Sub Zero.

  A couple of minutes later Northway walked by the open double doors of the den.

  “Hello,” Ganjon said without getting up.

  Northway jumped.

  There was just enough light on his face for Ganjon to see his expression.

  It was priceless.

  The fear.

  The exploding brain cells.

  Ganjon knew that Northway wouldn’t run. Northway would feel mentally superior to just about anyone and would probably feel that his best chance was to talk his way out of the situation. But if he did run, so much the sweeter.

  “Do you know who I am?” Ganjon questioned.

  Northway didn’t answer at first, but instead took off his suit jacket and draped it over his arm, and walked into the den.

  “I have an idea,” he answered.

  Ganjon looked at him and felt the hate rise.

  “We’re going to spend a little time together and decide whether you’re going to live or die.”

  Northway nodded.

  “Fair enough.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Day Six - April 21

  Saturday Morning

  _____________

  TEFFINGER WOKE TO A JET-BLACK ROOM slightly before six, flipped onto his back with his eyes still closed, and let the thoughts roll into his head while his body took another few minutes to get used to the idea of getting up.

  Kelly lay next to him, sound asleep on top of the covers, wearing nothing.

  One thing he knew, right now, this minute. He wanted to spend a lot more time with her. He wanted to do things with her and find out all about her.

  But today wasn’t his.

  He owed today to Megan Bennett.

  He showered and dressed on the lower level so he wouldn’t wake Kelly, took one last look at her, left a note on the kitchen table and headed out the door, making sure it locked.

  He was at his desk, with the lights on and coffee in hand, by seven o’clock. At this point Megan Bennett had been missing fifty-four hours. Charles Miller and Sam Dakota from the FBI had been scheduled to take a red-eye into Denver last night and, if things were still on track, should be showing up sometime around nine this morning.

  DETECTIVE HEATHERWOOD WANDERED IN about eight o’clock, said “’Morning, darling,” and headed for the coffee. Teffinger walked over, needing a refill. Needing lots of refills, in fact.

  “Where do I know the name Jeannie Dannenberg from?” he asked.

  Sydney was searching around the coffee area and looked stressed. “I thought you were supposed to bring donuts and bagels.”

  Shit.

  He’d forgotten all about that.

  “Who delivers?” he questioned. “Anyone?”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  “I didn’t eat breakfast this morning because there was supposed to be donuts here.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  He’d screwed up.

  She looked at him as if she were bailing him out yet another one. “Okay, I’m going to go get them, because I’m too starved to do anything else.” Then, “God.”

  He pulled two twenties out of his wallet, handed them over, hugged her and told her he wouldn’t trade her for two good mules. She stuck her tongue out and headed towards the door. Then she turned around.

  “Remember when you asked me to find out who was in D’endra Vaughn’s life a year ago, to get a lead on where that mystery money came from?”

  He did indeed remember that, very well. In fact, he’d been hoping to get some time to talk to her about that.

  “Yes.”

  “Jeannie Dannenberg is on that list,” Heatherwood said.

  “She is?”

  “Yep. Don’t you remember?”

  “So she was a friend of D’endra Vaughn?”

  “Yep.”

  Teffinger didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, but did know that it meant something.

  “Have you talked to her yet?”

  “It’s on my list of things to do,” Sydney said. “Why?”

  “I met her last night,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “She’s a dancer. She works at B.T.’s.”

  “B.T.’s the strip-club?”

  “Right.”

  “Let me get this straight. You were on the six o’clock news and then at a strip-club, on the same night?” She looked incredulous. “Tell me it was for work.”

  He grinned. “Actually, I was butterfly hunting, or vice versa, I’m not sure exactly which.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And did you get them flapping, or what?”

  He shrugged.

  “Can’t say.”

  “That means you did,” she said, turning to leave. Then over her shoulder, “Donut man.”

  WHEN SYDNEY LEFT, TEFFINGER TURNED ON his computer and found that Jeannie Dannenberg was in the system, with a misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession two years ago. The interesting thing was her photo. This was definitely the woman he met last night.

  Oasis.

  Okay.

  So Jeannie Dannenberg was a friend of the dead woman, D’endra Vaughn. And Jeannie Dannenberg was a friend of Kelly, apparently a pretty good friend, judging by the events of last night.

  So does that mean Kelly knows D’endra Vaughn? If yes, she lied to him, back in her office Monday, when she said she didn’t know anything about the dead woman.

  If that was the case, what was she hiding?

  One thing he knew for sure.

  Kelly was going to get some very pointed questions coming her way.

  THE FBI ARRIVED RIGHT ON TIME, a little before nine.

  Charles Miller, the man Teffinger talked to on the phone yesterday, was a stately man with white hair and white teeth, somewhere in his early sixties, with the friendly air of a good people-person. He was focused and extremely interested in the case, but not fanatic, more like someone who had half-an-eye on retirement. He was the Assistant Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Field Office.

  With him was Special Agent Sam Dakota, a bodybuilder type, in his early thirties, with a hungry look in his eyes. He wasn’t just here for the hunt, he was here for the catch, no doubt about it. Don’t let the suit fool you.

  Teffinger noted t
hat he might be a problem.

  Most of the work they’d be reviewing was his.

  Teffinger wasn’t sure how well he’d take to outsiders looking in.

  The third member of the group turned out to be Dr. Leigh Sandt, Ph.D., an attractive woman in her late forties, wearing nylons over step-master legs, dressed to impress, with a wedding ring on her left hand the size of a small basketball. She clearly wasn’t working for the money. She was a Supervisory Special Agent assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) at Quantico, Virginia; a profiler, and apparently one of some repute within the agency, based on the way Miller deferred to her. Her doctorate degree was in Behavioral Sciences.

  After donuts, coffee and chitchat, they got down to business. Teffinger had called in half the Homicide Unit and every person, without exception, was glad to be there, even on Saturday morning. The Megan Bennett case was something new to them. It wasn’t often that they had a chance to actually save someone. There must have been at least fifteen people in the room.

  The meeting was designed to be a show-and-tell by both sides, a swapping of brain trusts.

  SPECIAL AGENT SAM DAKOTA TOOK THE LEAD, since he was the nuts-and-bolts guy from the FBI’s side of the equation.

  “First,” he said, “and some of you already know this, but just so the record’s clear, we’ve established that the person you’re looking for, and the one we’re looking for, are indeed one and the same. Apparently your guy had an altercation outside Ms. Bennett’s house with three other gentlemen and ended up leaving us quite a few good blood pools. You were fortunate, because this guy, in our experience, has been extremely careful about forensic evidence. In our first case, the one involving the murder of Beth Williamson, we were able to come up with a few stray hair roots, and that was it as far as trace evidence goes. The DNA from the blood of your guy and from our hair root do in fact match. We were able to get a solid confirmation of that late last night.” He added, “It really helped that you had the foresight to get that blood typified right away. That eliminated downtime.”

  For the next hour, Special Agent Sam Dakota outlined the highlights of the investigation that the FBI had undertaken with respect to the three OSU cases that they believed to be related. “We have reason to believe that the suspect lives within driving distance of Columbus,” he noted at one point, “or at least did at that time.”

  “Why do you say that?” Katie Baxter questioned.

  “Good question,” Dakota said. “The three crimes happened approximately six months apart from one another. We spent more hours than we’d like to admit obtaining and then cross-referencing airline manifests, rental car records and hotel records, to try to find the same person coming into town more than once in the relevant time frames. We were never able to find a match.” He must have seen Baxter about to ask a follow-up question, because he quickly added, “That doesn’t mean that he isn’t using aliases, of course. And it’s certainly possible that he drove in every time from somewhere far away. But our better guess is that he lives somewhere in Ohio, maybe Cleveland or Cincinnati. Maybe even Columbus.”

  Teffinger perked up.

  “This could be our big break,” he said. “He doesn’t know we’ve connected the Denver and Ohio cases. We need airline manifests going back—let’s be overly conservative, say a month—and find out who’s flown into DIA or Colorado Springs from Ohio. We need to get into the local rental car records too and find out if anyone from Ohio has rented a Toyota Camry.”

  “Why a Toyota Camry?” Miller questioned.

  Teffinger filled him in on the work that led to that particular finding.

  Everyone agreed that the airline manifests and rental car records should be given the highest priority. That work could lead them to a name, which, with any luck, might even lead them to a hotel room, or a photograph that they could blast all over the news.

  Teffinger felt cautiously optimistic.

  There was a chance that a net was actually being thrown.

  “Let’s also get a BOLO out on a Toyota Camry with Ohio plates, too, just in case he drove out here,” Teffinger added. “That way we’ll have all the bases covered.”

  SAM DAKOTA EVENTUALLY RELINQUISHED the floor to Dr. Leigh Sandt, for a summary of her profile of the suspect. “Let me just jump to the conclusions,” she said, “without all the whys and wherefores, unless you want them. Male, white, twenty-two to thirty-eight, well educated and exceptionally well versed in criminal investigation and forensic science.”

  “Meaning a cop?” Sydney questioned.

  “Possibly,” Dr. Sandt confirmed. “It’s interesting that when he talked to Megan Bennett the day or two before he took her, he told her he was an FBI agent. He wouldn’t have any reason to believe, at that time, that that statement could come back to haunt him. So maybe he is, or was, one of ours, or applied to be one of ours. We’ll search our files; it helps to know he’s six-four or so.”

  Detective Richardson, who had been eying the box of donuts all morning, finally gave in and grabbed one. Teffinger smiled inside, amazed that the detective had managed to hold out as long as he did.

  Dr. Sandt continued.

  “He hates women, deep down, that’s a given.” She then changed the tone of her voice from an analytical one to a hopeful one. “But here’s the weird thing. Put yourself in his shoes. He’s out there in the night, stalking Megan Bennett. He sees three men breaking into her house. He could have just scared them off. But instead, he attacks. And I mean he violently attacks. Why?”

  Teffinger could see everyone pondering the question but no one answered.

  “It could be that he was protecting her,” she said. “Now it’s possible that he simply viewed Megan Bennett as his property at that time and wasn’t about to put up with anyone messing around with what was his. But he could have done that without killing them.”

  Teffinger raised an eyebrow.

  “Protecting her so he could personally kill her, or protecting her because he had feelings for her?”

  The woman wrinkled her forehead.

  “Either. But my guess is a little of both. I think he had some kind of bond to that woman before he attacked those three men, possibly from the meeting he had with her the day or two before. From what I understand, her coworker said that she would have gone out with him. She obviously liked him to some extent, and he would have picked up on that and liked her back. And then, after he attacks the three intruders, that bond would have become even stronger. He starts to see himself as her knight in shinning armor. She owes him her life which in turn makes his life worth more.”

  “So, what does this mean, to us?” Sergeant Baxter questioned. “In concrete terms.”

  “To cut to the chase,” Dr. Sandt answered, “it could mean that Megan Bennett is still alive. I’m hoping that she’s thinking clearly enough to be able to tell that he has some kind of emotional attachment to her and then be able to play on that to keep herself alive.” She paused and then added, “But that’s temporary, at best. Sooner or later this guy is going to take her down hard and ugly. The only question is when.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Day Six - April 21

  Saturday Evening

  ____________

  KELLY RAVENFIELD’S JOB TONIGHT was to be a sexy yet sophisticated vision of nylons, smiles and Giorgio, and hang on the every word of Paul Robbins and Andrew Dinger for an hour or so over drinks.

  They were two VPs from the target client, Satellite Omega, a Fortune One Hundred conglomerate in the business of providing satellite communication services.

  They were in town to be schmoozed.

  Michael Northway had chosen her to be a part of the schmoozing team.

  According to Michael, Satellite Omega recently lost a major antitrust suit based on predatory pricing designed to drive a competitor out of business in the expanding Arizona and Nevada markets. The company wound up on the wrong end of a fifty-nine million dollar jury verdict and wa
s, quite understandably, in the process of severing relationships with its existing law firm. Holland, Roberts & Northway, LLC, was in a beauty contest for a good chunk of the work, meaning several million dollars in billable hours a year.

  Client development.

  It reminded her of a meeting that she had with Northway on her second day with the firm, a long time ago. He walked into her office and closed the door.

  “Kelly,” he said, “I have what I call simple rules for surviving life in a big law firm. Here’s one of them, for what it’s worth. Every big law firm wants every client that exists.

  Grow your client base.

  Grow your firm.

  Grow your wallet.

  Lots of young lawyers who come into the established firms think their career will move forward exactly as planned by simply coming out of Harvard Law School, billing an ungodly number of hours, doing a damn good job and not crossing swords with upper management types like me. They become good little worker bees with no time for client development, and then wonder seven years into their career why everything is suddenly stalling.

  Be smarter than they are.

  Work hard on the work that’s already in the door but work harder at getting the work in the door in the first place. Write articles, teach CLEs, get on a board or two. Get your face out there and schmooze everyone in sight. And that includes lawyers from other firms. Never forget that referrals are one of the best sources of business.

  Schmooze.

  Schmooze.

  Schmooze.”

  SHE TOOK ONE LAST LOOK AT HERSELF in the bathroom mirror, decided “Good enough,” and headed for the elevator, making sure that the door to her loft was locked good and tight behind her. She was supposed to be at the Paramount Café in twenty minutes for introductions and drinks. Reportedly the firm had a section of the bar area roped off.

  The elevator bottomed out at the parking garage level, the doors opened and she stepped out, car keys in hand and purse over her shoulder. Her 3-Series BMW was parked in its designated spot over near the far corner of the garage.