License to Die (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  “You found it?”

  “We found it,” Teffinger said.

  “Well I’ll be damned.”

  “That’s true but not relevant right now.”

  Teffinger walked toward his truck.

  “Hey,” Kwak shouted, “What’s the bad news?”

  “The bad news is I have to piss like you can’t believe, so turn your back.”

  “Just don’t turn up any more bodies.”

  63

  Day Ten—September 14

  Wednesday Afternoon

  Aspen almost walked into Christina Tam’s office fifteen different times to tell her someone was running around accusing her of being a spy. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she continued to think it through.

  If she was a spy, who for? Clearly not Derek Bennett. Christina’s disgust at what they found at Tops & Bottoms was genuine. No one can fake those kinds of facial expressions.

  As for Jacqueline Moore, Christina’s personality conflict with the woman was on record. Plus Cruella wouldn’t ever help anyone other than herself. She particularly wouldn’t go out of her way to help Aspen after the blow-up last Wednesday, even though things had supposedly smoothed over.

  So rule her out too.

  What about Blake Gray?

  He had, after all, saved Christina’s ass after she botched a case by failing to timely disclose an expert. So, technically, she owed him big-time. Plus Blake is the kind of guy who wants to know what’s going on in his little kingdom. Still, even though the pieces could technically fit, it didn’t feel right. And, now that she thought about it more, Aspen had been with Blake at lunch when the envelope got put on her chair.

  So rule him out.

  Who, then?

  Either someone else altogether or—more likely—Christina wasn’t a spy at all. Maybe someone was just trying to drive a wedge between Aspen and her.

  Who would want to keep them apart?—the person who had the most to lose by them being together, meaning the person who they had their sights on, namely Derek Bennett.

  Did that mean he knew what they’d been doing?

  Did he see them at Tops & Bottoms, or in his office?

  He was just the kind of guy who would be clever enough to sneak through the back door and try to drive them apart instead of confronting them head on.

  If he knew what they were up to, and his wedge plan didn’t work, maybe he had something more sinister up his sleeve. Maybe both she and Christina were in his crosshairs. If that was the case, then Christina deserved to know.

  So confusing.

  For now, she decided to not tell Christina about the note, but to watch her back for her, especially as to Derek Bennett.

  That evening, shortly after dark, it rained—starting as a light drizzle but quickly taking on a harder edge, pounding against the windows. Christina got a weird look on her face, grabbed an umbrella from the closet, pointed it at Aspen, and opened and closed it as if flapping a wing.

  “I’m taking a walk. You want to come?”

  Aspen studied her, decided she was actually serious, and listened to the storm.

  “We’ll get drenched,” she said.

  “That’s the point.”

  They headed outside, jammed under the one umbrella, keeping their heads dry but not much else. After five blocks, when they were near Colfax, Christina said, “I have an idea.”

  They walked to Colfax and then south for a couple of hundred yards, ending up at the Old Town Tavern. Although the place didn’t seem that big from the outside, cars filled the parking lot and the surrounding streets. A sign announced “Live Music Every Wednesday.” As they walked toward the entrance, Aspen said, “I didn’t bring a wallet.”

  That didn’t slow Christina, who said, “Me either.”

  At the door, the bouncer hugged Christina, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around. Then he kissed her on the lips, cupped her ass with a strong hand, and squeezed. Christina said, “Do you have enough beer here to get me drunk?” He laughed, waved them through the five-dollar cover charge and said, “Probably not. But go ahead and try.”

  “You’re too sweet.”

  “You have no idea,” he said. “Maybe some day you’ll want to find out.”

  “You never know.”

  Inside, everyone was on the move, elbowing through the crowd, on the hunt for the night’s catch. A stage band belted out a country-western song with a let’s-get-drunk attitude. The singer—a blond cowgirl wearing Daisy Dukes—looked and sounded like she’d just gotten off the bus from Texas. Countless half-empty bottles of beer sat on black Fender amps.

  Christina grabbed Aspen’s hand and started to muscle her way to the bar.

  “Are you going to get drunk with me, girlfriend, or what?”

  “We don’t have any money,” Aspen said.

  “We don’t need any. The owner’s a client of mine.”

  An hour later, beers in hand—their third—and exhausted from dancing, they got lucky enough to be standing near a booth just as bodies were leaving. They jumped in and leaned back, stretching their legs.

  “God, that feels good.”

  They clanked glasses.

  Aspen’s mind wandered to Robert Yates, knifed down in Central Park, in the middle of a private takeover of Omega. “Got a question for you,” she said. “About Robert Yates. What would happen to Omega if he’d succeeded in buying enough stock to get control?”

  Christina looked puzzled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just looking for a motive, in case he didn’t get killed by a random robbery.”

  “A motive?”

  “Right.”

  Christina laughed. “Is your grandmother Nancy Drew or something? Give it a rest, girlfriend.”

  “Seriously,” Aspen said. “Suppose Robert Yates goes on breathing, buys up a boatload of Omega stock, and then gets control.”

  Christina leaned back and studied her.

  “So you’re asking who would suffer, if everything had gone according to plan.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, let’s play it through.” Christina said. “First, he’d fire everyone on the board of Omega and set up his own puppets. Then he’d have them elect new officers—president, VPs, etc. Most of those people would bring in their own upper-level support staff, meaning the old ones go bye-bye. Then, of course, the operations of the two companies would be consolidated to cut costs, not immediately but at some point down the road. Lots of upper management types at both companies would end up losing their jobs. So if you’re looking for someone who wouldn’t want the takeover to go though, you have a couple of hundred faces right there.”

  Aspen frowned.

  “That’s a lot of people.”

  “Right.”

  “No wonder the police just went with a robbery theory.”

  “That’s what I would have done.”

  Thunder cracked as if it was right on them.

  A bright flash exploded at the windows and disappeared just as fast.

  The building rattled.

  Then the lights went out.

  Hundreds of drunken voices simultaneously howled and cheered. Aspen couldn’t see two feet in front of her nose.

  She said, “Someone told me you’re a spy.”

  But Christina didn’t hear.

  And Aspen changed her mind about saying it again.

  64

  Day Ten—September 14

  Wednesday

  With the 3” galvanized nail in his left hand and the hammer in his right, Draven looked into his victim’s face one last time. She struggled beneath him and pulled wildly at her bonds, but it did no good.

  She was stuck.

  There was nothing she could do to avoid the ugliness that was upon her.

  There were no magic words she could say.

  There was no hero racing through the door to save her.

  Draven knew that he should feel remorse,
or excitement, or something. But if he felt anything, it was curiosity—seeing what it looked like to be on the ragged edge of death with absolutely no way out.

  Her life wasn’t passing before her eyes. She wasn’t remembering loved ones, or good times, or any shit like that. The horror on her face clearly said otherwise. No, she’d fallen into a first-rate adrenaline panic.

  Draven recognized the look.

  He knew the feeling.

  He’d been there a few times himself, although not to this extreme of course, fighting for his life in the cold waters of Clear Creek after getting thrown out of a tube and being bashed in rocky rapids. At times like that, you don’t think about anything but survival, pure and simple.

  He positioned the nail on her forehead, with the tip against her skin, as if he was about to drive it into a two-by-four. He raised the hammer, looked in her eyes, and said, “See you in hell.”

  At that moment his cell phone rang.

  He almost drove the nail into her skull but instead got off and answered the phone. Swofford’s voice came through.

  “Is that tattooed woman still alive?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Good,” Swofford said. “Keep her that way. The client’s going to come back into town and finish the job.”

  “He is?”

  “Yeah. He called me, just to be sure everything was being taken care of, and I told him what happened.”

  Draven paced.

  “That’s going to screw everything up,” he said. “I already got plans to bury her and the stripper today.”

  “So the stripper’s dead—”

  “Right. No problems there.”

  “Okay, do this,” Swofford said. “Bury the stripper somewhere today so we have her wrapped up. Leave the tattooed woman tied up in the cabin. The client should be there by nightfall. Just be absolutely sure she can’t get away. I’ll call you tomorrow when the coast is clear.”

  Draven felt his voice rising.

  “Look,” he said. “I need to get out of town, today. I’m too hot right now. Yesterday I had a complication.”

  “What kind of complication?”

  “The car I was using broke down,” he said. “I had to call a tow truck. The tattoo woman was in the back and apparently woke up during the tow. The driver—a female—saw her and stopped. She said she couldn’t have a passenger in a car that was being towed. I had no choice but to kill her.”

  Swofford breathed into the phone, thinking.

  “Is that the case all over the news?”

  “I don’t know,” Draven said. “I haven’t been watching the news. But here’s the problem. When I was broken down, lots of people saw me, including a couple of cops. I’m going to get tied to the tow truck real quick. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a composite sketch of me on the news before the day’s over.”

  Swofford said nothing, thinking it through.

  “Where are you staying?”

  Draven explained and then added, “Luckily, a woman I’ve been seeing is the one who rented the place. The owner never saw me.”

  “Good,” Swofford said. “Just lie low there, it’s as good a place as any for right now. We have to let the client finish up with the tattoo woman, so you need to stay in town at least that long. Just keep your eyes open.”

  Draven said, “Fine,” hung up, and kicked a chair.

  An hour later Swofford called again. “We have another client. He wants a specific person. Have you still got enough balls to hang around and make some more money?”

  Money.

  Right.

  There was nothing wrong with money.

  “Who’s the person?” he asked.

  “Someone by the name of Davica Holland, apparently some rich bitch. So are you up for it, or should I get someone else to do it?”

  Someone else?

  Screw that.

  Someone else this time might turn into someone else every time.

  “I’m always up for it,” he said.

  “Good. I’m going to do a little research on the woman this afternoon and will call you later with more details.”

  65

  Day Ten—September 14

  Wednesday Afternoon

  A newly found crime scene always comes with a sense of exuberance. If you don’t contaminate it to death, it usually turns out to be the trailhead of the critical path to justice. The clues are always there. More importantly, the forensic ties are there—small, obscure, and hidden at first; then the size of mountains by the time they get paraded before the jury.

  Fingerprints.

  Fibers.

  DNA.

  But today Teffinger was looking for bigger things. “I’m not leaving this place until we find the eyes,” he said.

  Sydney studied him, as if contemplating a question.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I just don’t understand this obsession with the eyes. That’s all.”

  Teffinger kicked a rock, sending it skipping thirty feet down the asphalt driveway.

  “I keep getting an image of the guy eating them,” he said. “I need to know that didn’t happen.”

  She laughed.

  “Teffinger, no more pizza before bed for you.”

  He grunted.

  “I didn’t say a dream, I said an image.”

  But he had to admit she was right.

  The concept was stupid.

  “The guy probably didn’t like the way she was looking at him, after she was dead,” Sydney said. “So he took them out. I doubt there’s anything more to it than that.”

  He knew she was probably right but still couldn’t get the image out of his brain. “I’ll make you a bet,” he said. “If you’re right, I’ll take you out to lunch or dinner at the restaurant of your choice.”

  “Cool.”

  “If I’m right, you have to keep my coffee cup filled up for a week.”

  She shook her head.

  “No way,” she said. “That’s twenty hours of work.”

  He grinned.

  “Okay, one day then.”

  “A morning,” she said.

  “Okay. But you have to get to work when I do.”

  “No way. I’ll start at eight—eight till noon. That’s the deal.”

  After Kwak got the light stands in place, they processed the murder room, slowly and methodically. But it was the things that weren’t there that tugged harder and harder at Teffinger. For example, Brad Ripley’s snuff film showed a sheet on the mattress.

  Where was that, and the pillow, and the rope?

  He wandered outside and found a rusty dumpster in the back of the building, the old dangerous kind with the steel lid that’ll slam down and take your finger off if you give it half a chance. He muscled it up and propped it in place with a piece of wood. Inside he found several black plastic bags.

  He put his gloves back on and pulled one out. Then ripped the side open.

  Bloody sheets peeked out.

  Bingo.

  Then his cell phone rang and Davica’s voice came through. She called for no reason other than to say hi. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation this morning,” he said. “If being with a woman is important to you, then go for it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “To be honest, it’ll be a little hard. But I can handle it.”

  “Do you want to be there?”

  “Not really.”

  A pause.

  “I’m not so sure I want to anymore. But I do know one thing. I’m not going to let you fight me off much longer.”

  Teffinger smiled.

  “I’ll warn the little guy.”

  “You do that.”

  Three minutes later, Sydney appeared.

  “There you are,” she said.

  He nodded at the black plastic bag.

  “The mother lode,” he said. “There are more in the dumpster.” Then he told her
about the conversation with Davica.

  She listened patiently and then said, “Congratulations.”

  “On what?”

  “You just passed your first major test.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she was trying to find out if you’d put her happiness above your own,” she said. “And you did. I’m impressed.”

  “So this was just a big test?”

  “I thought it might have been all along.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because that would have been cheating.”

  “I thought you were on my side,” he said.

  “Not when it comes to another woman. Besides, aren’t you glad you passed fair and square?”

  He thought about it.

  Yeah.

  He was.

  “Don’t go breaking her heart, Teffinger,” she added. “If she’s testing you, that means there’s a whole lot more going on than she’s letting on.”

  “That’s fine with me,” he said, which was true.

  Then he looked at the dumpster. “If the eyes are anywhere, they’re in one of these plastic bags. If they’re not there, he ate them.”

  She cocked her head.

  “Okay, I’ll buy that, at least for the purpose of settling our bet.”

  66

  Day Ten—September 14

  Wednesday

  Teffinger ordered six large pizzas, enough to feed everyone working at the crime scene, and even paid out of his own pocket, causing Kwak to note that somewhere down below, hell just froze over. They sat on the driveway and ate, in good moods, having already processed a ton of forensic evidence with a lot more to go.

  Clouds filled the sky, black and rain-packed.

  They found four black trash bags in the dumpster, which appeared to represent separate throwaways for each of the four murders. Three of them contained blood-soaked bed sheets. Later, they’d run DNA tests to confirm that the blood belonged to Angela Pfeiffer, Rachel Ringer and Catherine Carmichael, but no one had a doubt at this point.

  The bed sheet in the fourth trash bag didn’t have blood and no doubt correlated to Tonya Obenchain, who had been suffocated. With any luck, they’d find Brad Ripley’s DNA on it and confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that he was the masked person in the snuff film.