Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  Teffinger was excited.

  “Hey, listen,” Teffinger said, “thanks for getting back to me. We have a killer in common, namely the one from your Melinda Russell case. We have reason to believe he’s out here in Denver and that he murdered a young woman named D’endra Vaughn. It’s a long story and I’ll fill you in, but let me ask you one thing, what’s your file like on this case, good, bad, ugly or what?”

  “Our file sucks. We got nothing, basically.”

  Ouch.

  “That’s not good.”

  “No forensics, no eye witnesses, no motive, no nothing.”

  Teffinger paused.

  “Could we look at it anyway?”

  “Sure but you’re wasting your time.”

  “I’m going to fly someone down there this afternoon.”

  “Whatever. I’ll be here.”

  “Thanks,” Teffinger said. “By the way, do you guys still have all those blues clubs down there, on Beale Street or wherever it is?”

  “Let me put it this way. Do you guys still have all those mountains out there?”

  Teffinger smiled.

  “Touché. Listen, this person I’m sending down, his name is Richardson. He loves that stuff, just for your information.”

  Teffinger spent the next half hour bringing Detective Peterson up to speed as to what was going on in Denver. Even with that, Peterson couldn’t think of anything in his file that would help.

  After he hung up, Teffinger pulled out photocopies of the dead woman obtained yesterday from Northway’s bedroom. He spread them out on his desk and studied them.

  Who are you, darling?

  If he could find out her name, he’d be able to track down yet another case file to look at. Somehow he had to get some direct face time with Northway’s client.

  Right now he had the Megan Bennett case to worry about.

  Yesterday, FBI profiler Dr. Leigh Sandt made a comment that Teffinger couldn’t get out of his head. She’d suggested that extended abductions, like the one involving Megan Bennett, followed a modified bell curve. The abductor’s interest initially rises fast as things start off fascinating and intoxicating, then holds at a steady level for a time, and then falls straight down when everything turns dull and familiar and high maintenance. Right now, in her opinion, they were standing at the edge of that cliff, if they hadn’t fallen over it already.

  He called her about nine-thirty.

  “Leigh,” he said, “it’s me, Teffinger. I’m starting to panic here. Are you free for lunch?”

  She was.

  “I just want to pick your brain, one on one,” he explained, “without all the group dynamics to worry about.”

  That wasn’t a problem.

  BY MID-MORNING TEFFINGER HATED HIS DESK and found himself heading outside and taking a walk on the path next to the South Platte River, dodging inline skaters, dog walkers and homeless people pushing shopping carts. On the Megan Bennett case, he thought about going back to the two farmhouses and revisiting the crime scenes, on the chance there was a neon sign he hadn’t seen before, but in the end he wasn’t convinced that was the best way to spend the day.

  The morning’s coffee propelled him further than he intended, then he remembered lunch with Leigh Sandt. When he got back his office it was already 12:10 and Dr. Sandt was sitting at his desk, waiting for him.

  “I am so sorry,” he apologized.

  She ignored it and instead picked up one of the photographs from his desk, the ones he obtained from Northway’s bedroom. “Where did you get these?”

  Her voice was tense, as were her eyes.

  “Why?” he questioned. Then, “I have another case going on, involving the murder of a woman by the name of D’endra Vaughn. We have reason to believe that the person who killed the Vaughn woman also killed the woman in these photographs.”

  “Do you know who this is?” she questioned, waving the picture.

  “No.”

  “No?” Dr. Sandt said. “Then let me tell you. This is Dana Frost. Remember when we were talking before, about the two OSU students from the psychology class who disappeared after Beth Williamson, but were never found?”

  Teffinger remembered, but vaguely, and tried to bring it to the surface. Beth Williamson was the OSU student who had been stuffed into the 55-gallon drum and left out in the woods to rot. She had been in a psychology class and had described the barrel as the way she’d most hate to die. Two other girls from that same psychology class later disappeared, one six months later, and one about a year later. Neither of them had ever been found. Megan Bennett had also been in that psychology class. It was the FBI’s theory that the person who killed Beth Williamson also killed the two missing students and is the same person who abducted Megan Bennett. In fact, that’s why the FBI was out there in Denver right now, trying to find Megan Bennett’s abductor.

  “Yeah, I remember,” he told her.

  “Well,” Dr. Sandt said, “This dead woman is Dana Frost, who is one of the two OSU students who disappeared and were never found. So where did you get these photos?”

  Teffinger waved her off for a second.

  He had to think.

  There was only one conclusion he could reach and when he did he was flabbergasted.

  The Megan Bennett case and the D’endra Vaughn case, which he had always viewed as separate and distinct, were actually connected.

  Whoever the OSU killer was—the one who abducted Megan Bennett—he was the same person who killed D’endra Vaughn.

  Teffinger looked at Dr. Sandt.

  “We need a task force meeting immediately. We have a new wrinkle. A big new wrinkle that I need to fill everyone in on.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday Afternoon

  ____________

  GANJON FOLLOWED THE biker woman down Lincoln Avenue, sixty steps behind, wearing dark sunglasses, a Rockies baseball cap, jeans and tennis shoes.

  She needed to die.

  He’d follow her all day if he had to but she’d be dead by midnight, guaranteed. She’d be sorry she ever screwed with him. Unlike Megan Bennett—who was in the death process even at this very moment—she actually deserved to die, and die she would.

  Today.

  Maybe even in the next ten minutes.

  Then he was going to get out of this old cow town. Get away so fast and far that no one would ever find him again in a million years. In fact, he wasn’t even going to go back to Cleveland. Screw that place and screw his entire previous life. He was going to go to California and get a whole new identity. He could find more than enough work in the car business to keep the rent paid until he was able to build up a new network of clients.

  Yes, a clean break.

  That’s exactly what he needed to do and exactly what he was going to do.

  He hung back as the biker bitch stopped to buy a late lunch at a hot dog cart at the corner of Lincoln and Colfax, across the street from the Colorado State Capitol. From there she walked west on Colfax for a block and then headed into the Civic Center Park, eating as she walked.

  He felt the excitement rise.

  She was finally getting out of the crowds and into more grassy and garden type areas. This is the place he would take her down. He started closing the gap, walking past bums curled up asleep under trees.

  Squirrels scampered about everywhere, millions of them.

  The biker bitch wandered around the grounds. Ganjon lost sight of her now and then but was always able to pick her up again without too much trouble.

  He closed the gap even farther.

  Then he slipped the knife out of its sheath. He cupped it in his hand, upside down, with the blade pointed towards the sky, hidden between his forearm and body.

  He would stick it as far as he could into her head or heart or back, all the way up to the handle if he could, and then twist.

  He lost her again.

  No big deal.

  She’d show up.

 
; He swung around to the right.

  She wasn’t there.

  Where are you biker bitch?

  He was trolling now.

  Looking everywhere.

  Hoping he wasn’t going the wrong way.

  He came around a small utility building at a half trot. Then, bingo, right in front of him, five men sat on a concrete ledge and the biker bitch was standing in front of them with her shirt lifted up, showing off her stomach tattoos.

  She looked straight at him.

  Then she screamed.

  “Get that guy!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday Afternoon

  ____________

  FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE THE task force meeting was scheduled to begin, Teffinger filled Sydney in on the fact that the D’endra Vaughn and Megan Bennett cases were related. Both women were victims of the killer from OSU that the FBI had been hunting for years.

  She scratched her head.

  “And he’s the one who kidnapped Kelly, too?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you say that because . . . ?”

  “Because he used D’endra Vaughn’s phone to give her a warning call the next day. Whoever killed D’endra went after Kelly, that’s clear.”

  “So one person did all this, is what you’re saying?”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong.”

  The word startled Teffinger.

  “What do you mean, wrong?”

  “Think about it,” Sydney said. “Kelly was abducted last Saturday night at about eight o’clock. That’s the same time the bikers got killed at the farmhouse, if you believe Catherine Higgins.”

  Teffinger instinctively walked over to the coffee machine and filled up, his brain racing.

  “She didn’t give us an exact time,” he said. “It still fits.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Sydney insisted.

  “Why not?”

  “Okay,” she said, “play it out. You’re the bad guy. You abduct Kelly about eight. You drive all the way up Clear Creek, which is what? A good twenty miles west of here? You break a tie-rod and then push the car off an embankment into the river. Now you’re out there in the middle of nowhere with no car. You got to get from there all the way back to the farmhouse, which is a good twenty-five or thirty miles south of Denver, to kill the bikers. Even if you hitched a ride off the mountain and got picked up right away, you’re talking about some serious travel time.”

  “But . . .”

  “Hours,” she added.

  Shit.

  She was right.

  Now, suddenly, it didn’t make sense again.

  Damn it!

  He looked at his watch.

  Two minutes until the Task Force meeting started.

  He drained the coffee cup and then refilled.

  “Okay,” he said. “What am I missing here?”

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t know. But something, that’s for sure.”

  SUDDENLY HIS CELL PHONE RANG. He answered it, pissed at the distraction when he needed it least.

  “God, I am so glad I got you!” someone said. He recognized the voice, a woman’s, but couldn’t quite place it.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s me, Catherine Higgins,” the woman said. “I just saw him! He was following me! He was going to kill me! He has a knife! Five men chased him but he got away!”

  “Where?”

  “At the Civic Center Park.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, five minutes maybe. I had to find a payphone to call you.”

  “Which way was he headed?”

  “Towards downtown.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  He felt her pause, trying to get a better visual, then said, “A baseball cap, sunglasses, jeans, a long-sleeve shirt—blue—and tennis shoes.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Outside a Subway store, on Lincoln, near Colfax.”

  “Get inside the store and stay there. A police officer will be there to get you.”

  “Okay.”

  Then, “Did the baseball cap say anything?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Okay, stay there.”

  Thirty seconds later Teffinger busted into the task force room, drawing the startled stares or twenty or more people.

  “He’s just been spotted!” Teffinger said. “He’s somewhere downtown, right now! Pay attention because I’m handing out assignments.”

  A BOLO WAS IMMEDIATELY SENT OUT to every Denver cop with a description of the suspect. All officers not performing essential duties were directed to report immediately to the downtown area and sweep the major streets, especially the 16th Street Mall, 17th Street, Lincoln Avenue, Colfax Avenue, Broadway and LoDo.

  Patrol cars were rushed into position to watch every major corridor out of the city with instructions to stop every black or dark blue late model Camry that went by.

  Notifications were sent to Amtrack, rental car companies, Yellow Cab and DIA. The chopper—Air One—was positioned over downtown.

  A team was dispatched to start with the shelter as the center of a circle, and search the surrounding parking lots and side streets, looking for a parked Camry.

  Sydney was assigned to interview Catherine Higgins, as soon as she was brought in, to find out where she had been walking prior to the encounter, in an effort to locate any video cameras that might have recorded her stalker.

  People scattered.

  Forty-five minutes later, Richardson called. “Nick?”

  “Yeah, talk to me.”

  “We have a black Camry parked in the lot at Broadway and 20th,” he said, obviously excited. “It’s a rental. We can see some rope on the floor under the back seat.”

  “Okay, good,” Teffinger said. “What company?”

  “Avis.”

  “All right, here’s what we need to do,” he said. “Call Avis and get the location where he rented it. They should have a copy of his driver’s license. Get that faxed down to me. The biker woman’s here and if she identifies him, we’ll have his picture up and running on every TV station in minutes.”

  “Done.”

  Teffinger slapped his hands together.

  “Oh, yeah, baby!”

  He paced back and forth in the war room, a spider frantically weaving a web, knowing that if this guy did manage to escape then Megan Bennett was a dead woman. The little asshole would either abandon her in-place to rot to death or he would kill her as baggage that he could no longer afford to carry.

  Either way she was dead unless they nailed his ass quick.

  This was it.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday Afternoon

  ____________

  GANJON HAD TO GET THE HELL OUT of downtown.

  He took 16th Street east to Logan and then cut north, walking as fast as he could without looking like a freaking maniac on the run. He dumped the baseball cap in a first trashcan he came to, then peeled off the long sleeve shirt and the knife sheath as he continued walking, getting down to a red T-shirt underneath. He found an abandoned newspaper, slipped the knife inside and carried it in his right hand. He dumped the long sleeve shirt and the sheath in the next trashcan.

  Helicopters buzzed overhead

  Cop cars were everywhere, billions of them.

  Every time one came by he would duck in a building, or look in a storefront window, or bend down to tie his shoe, or do whatever else he could.

  The main thing at this point was to get back to the Camry and then weave out of downtown using the secondary streets.

  He was almost at the car now and starting to calm down.

  Then, damn it!

  Some dickhead was standing right in front of it talking into a cell phone. Now the jerk was taking out a small spiral notebook and writing down the license plate number. Now he was back on the cell phone again. />
  Damn it to hell!

  He needed a refuge.

  Someplace safe.

  A corner where he could hole up until it got dark.

  Then he had an even better idea.

  He turned and walked south down Logan, away from the Camry, pulled his cell phone out of his front pants pocket and called Michael Northway.

  “It’s me, now listen very carefully. I’m downtown and have a bit of a situation going on. Where is your car parked?”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t screw with me!” Ganjon said. “If I go down, you’re coming with me, I guarantee it. Where is your car parked?”

  The lawyer paused but finally said, “In the building.”

  “I know that. What parking level?”

  “P-3.”

  Ganjon sighed, okay, P-3.

  “All right, good. Go down there right now and wait for me by the elevator. And bring whatever cash you have, including whatever you got in your safe. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “I should be there within five or ten minutes. Don’t try anything fancy. Remember, you’ve got a shit-load of a lot further to fall than I do.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Day Twelve - April 27

  Friday Afternoon

  ____________

  KELLY DIALED NORTHWAY’S extension and got transferred to Lori Chambers when he didn’t answer. “Hey, Lori, where’s that Michael dude?”

  “He just left.”

  “You’re kidding.” She looked at her watch. It was only three-thirty. “Already?”

  “Something came up.”

  “The Friday Afternoon Club?”

  Lori sounded negative. “I don’t think so, but something not on his calendar. He looked stressed. Why, what’s up?”

  “Our brief in the Anderson case,” she said. “Our filing deadline’s Monday and Michael made me promise that he’d have a hard copy of our draft in hand before he left today, ostensibly so he can quote read it this weekend, meaning totally rewrite it.”

  “I remember that now.” Then, in a brighter tone, “Hey, you know what? He hasn’t been gone for more than a few minutes. I’ll bet you can catch him at his car before he leaves. I can call him on his cell phone, if you want, and tell him you’re on your way down.”