by R. J. Jagger
There were no streetlights.
The only light came from the neon signs of club or the cut of headlights.
Yardley killed the engine.
Madison stuffed a gun in her purse.
“Don’t leave the club,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“Even if he sticks a barrel or a knife in your ribs, don’t leave the club. He won’t kill you inside no matter how much he might pretend to.”
Yardley nodded.
“Where are you going to be?”
“Somewhere across the street where I can see the exit,” she said. “Do you know if the club has any security cameras?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Look around when you get near,” Madison said. “See if there’s anything mounted on the side of the building shining on the entrance or the parking lots. If there is, call me when you get inside. If I don’t hear from you I’ll assume the negative.”
“Okay.”
Yardley got out, walked up the road to the club and paid ten dollars at the door.
Inside, “Paint it Black” pounded through the air.
Yardley made her way to the bar, squeezed in and ordered a rum and coke.
The place was jammed to the walls with bodies.
She looked around for Cave.
His James Dean face didn’t appear.
She was ten minutes early.
Knowing Cave, he’d show up at exactly the appointed minute.
Ten minutes passed.
Yardley stayed put.
Cave would find her.
She ordered another rum and coke. Time passed, Cave’s face wasn’t appearing. Thirty minutes later, Cave would have had plenty of time to scout every corner of the club.
Where was he?
Yardley called Madison and said, “There’s no sign of Cave. Did you see him come in?”
“No.”
“So what do we do?”
“Let’s give him a little more time.”
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
Yardley’s phone rang. She expected it to be Madison telling her to call it off. She was half right; it was Madison. The message wasn’t what she expected though.
“There’s a bunch of cop cars down the road, on the other end from where we parked. Something’s going on down there. Any sign of Cave yet?”
“No.”
“We’ll give him another ten minutes then call it quits,” Madison said. “I’m going to stroll down the road and see what’s going on.”
“Don’t let anyone see your face.”
“I won’t.”
Five minutes later Yardley’s phone rang and Madison’s voice came through.
“There’s a dead woman on the ground,” she said. “That’s what all the commotion is about.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, I kept my distance; it could be a hit-and-run or a drug overdose or something like that. The important thing from our perspective is that there’s going to be flashing lights there for hours,” she said. “I doubt Cave will show with anything like that going on. Give me five minutes to get back up the road, then come out. I’ll meet you across the street and escort you back to the car.”
“Okay. I wonder why Cave didn’t show?”
“Maybe he did and he’s out here in the shadows somewhere waiting for you to leave,” Madison said. “We need to be careful. Do you want me to come in and get the car keys from you? I can pick you up in front with the car if you want.”
“No, we can walk it. Even Cave wouldn’t make a move with so many cops around.”
55
Day Three
July 20
Wednesday Night
From the Concrete Flower Factory, Pantage and Renn-Jaa headed for the gladiator’s loft with plans to tail him to the mysterious ten-thirty “Sweeton” meeting. They made a pass at 9:53 to find his space dark.
“Damn it, he’s already left.”
“Maybe he’ll bounce back. You want to hang for a while or call it a night?”
“Let’s hang. It can’t hurt.”
They found a parking space with a view and waited with the radio on rap, not saying much. Pantage took the opportunity to call Teffinger, got pushed into his voice mail and left a message, “It’s me, I’m with Renn-Jaa, no problems, everything’s fine. Can I spend the night at your house? Let me know. Call me.”
“Me too,” Renn-Jaa said.
Pantage slapped her thigh.
A solitary figure walked down the sidewalk in their direction, nothing but a dark silhouette at this distance. The motion was erratic.
“Someone’s had too much to drink.”
“Been there.”
Pantage focused on the figure but used most of her concentration on the mysterious pieces of her past. She killed Chiara out in California. There was no question about it. The more she pictured dumping the body off the cliff, the clearer it became. She could feel the weight of the body as she pushed it with her foot. She could hear the scraping of the body on the ground. She could smell the decay.
She killed Jackie Lake, too, she knew that, not just because of the flashbacks, but because it was vibrating way down in her bones.
There were others too, other murders.
She could feel them out there in the night, standing there and watching her like dark shapes, waiting for her to look in their direction.
As the figure got nearer, it took shape as a woman, a young black woman, drunk or drugged to the point of hardly being able to walk. She was singing. The words were sloppy and incoherent.
Suddenly figures appeared behind her.
There were three of them.
They were bigger.
“Hey, baby, where you going?”
The voice was deep.
It belonged to a man.
In no time they were up to her, then had her in a circle.
The men were black.
They moved with agility.
Words got exchanged but they were too muddled to make out.
“This isn’t good,” Pantage said.
“No.”
Then with lighting speed, the men dragged the woman into a parking lot. They were holding her down, ripping her clothes off, slapping her face. Words came from her mouth, trying to be screams but coming out muffled and inarticulate.
“They’re raping her.”
Pantage reached for her phone.
Suddenly another figure raced at the scene, screaming some kind of war cry.
The men got up.
They spread out.
A blade flashed.
The charging figure stopped just short.
“Go,” he said.
Pantage recognized the voice and the posture.
It was the gladiator, Evan Starry.
The men stepped closer.
One of them said, “Fuck you asshole!”
Then they sprang.
It took time but the gladiator dropped two of them to the ground.
The third escaped.
One of the men on the ground started to move, contorted, broken. The woman brought a rock down on his head. He dropped to the ground and didn’t move again.
The gladiator snatched up the woman’s clothes and grabbed her hand.
“Come on!”
They got the hell out of there.
56
Day Three
July 20
Wednesday Night
Kelly didn’t have much to say about the lipstick on Teffinger’s mirror other than, “So you’ve had it up there all this time and never wiped it off?”
True.
“Do you have a picture of her?”
No.
He didn’t.
In the Tundra heading east on 6th Avenue en route to the gladiator’s loft, Kelly kept her face pointed out the windshield and said in a voice almost too quiet to be heard, “Do you love her?” Her face was serious. She clearly didn’t want the wrong answer but
was braced for it. She turned long enough to catch Teffinger’s eyes, then looked away.
“I don’t know.”
“What about me?”
He exhaled.
“Same answer.”
“Well that’s interesting.”
“Interesting isn’t the word I’d use. You were both in my past, you both left, now you’re both back—ironically, almost at the exact same second,” he said. “Assuming you’re back, which might be incorrect.”
“It’s not incorrect, as far as I can tell so far.”
“Well that’s good to hear.”
“Is it?”
“Actually, yes.”
Kelly put her hand on his knee.
“I’m going to be honest with you Nick,” she said. “Every minute you spend deciding isn’t going to be easy for me. That said, whichever way you go, I want you to be absolutely sure it’s the right way.”
“I’ll be honest right back,” he said. “I’m not enjoying this. I know it sounds like every guy’s dream but it isn’t mine.”
“Does she know about me?”
Teffinger shook his head.
“There was no you until noon,” he said. “I haven’t even seen her since then.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Of course.”
Right after they passed Wadsworth, Teffinger’s phone rang. It was Barb from dispatch, the proud owner of new breast implants and a few new gentlemen callers. “Got some job security for you,” she said.
“Who’s on call?”
“Sydney.”
“Call her and put her on it,” he said. “If she doesn’t confirm that she’s on it, tell her she’s fired and then call me back.”
The woman chuckled.
“I heard about that little spat you two are having,” she said. “What’s that all about?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Yes.
She did.
“Do you promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, here it is,” Teffinger said. “There was one cup of coffee left in the pot this morning. Sydney took it just as I was walking over to get it.”
The woman smiled.
“May she rot in hell.”
“She will,” he said. “What’s the location of the body?”
“It’s at the Rikki.”
Teffinger knew the place.
He’d gotten more than his fair share of sin there back in the day.
“I’m en route,” he said. “Call Sydney like I said, but don’t tell her I’m going.”
To Kelly, “This is the gladiator’s lucky night. I got a body at the Rikki. Do you want me to drop you off or do you want to hang around.”
“I’ll hang around,” she said.
The scene was roped off when Teffinger got there, not as large as he would have liked, but not bad. Kelly said, “If I’m not here in the truck when you get back, I’m inside the club having a drink.”
Fine.
No problem.
He headed over.
The body belonged to an attractive young woman. Her face was alive, even in death. Teffinger pulled up an image of her driving a little too fast with the windows down, singing to a song that was playing a little too loud.
She wore jeans and a blouse.
Her hands were tied behind her back.
The knot of a rope was in her mouth with the ends of the rope stretched tightly to the back and tied, in the nature of a poor-man’s gag.
A screwdriver was pounded into her brain through the ear, buried all the way up to the handle.
Blood was on her blouse and on the ground, meaning she was killed here and not just dumped. A purse was on the ground next to her.
Teffinger touched nothing.
He let the crime unit document the scene.
Sydney showed up ten minutes later.
She walked over to him, all business and said, “Nice.”
Teffinger nodded.
Right.
Nice.
“I want you to take the lead in processing the scene,” he said.
She gave him a mean look.
“Tell me something. Am I supposed to turn you in like the book says or am supposed to become an accomplice by not turning you in?”
Teffinger frowned.
He’d put her in a bad position.
There was no denying it.
Then he said, “The easy thing to do would just be to turn me in. That way you stay clean.” A beat then, “That said, I think the whole thing might end up resolved without anyone needing to know anything. Kelly came up with a plan.”
“Kelly?”
Right.
Kelly.
“Pure little sweet innocent Kelly?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe you dragged her into this.”
Time passed.
Eventually the purse got bagged and the contents processed. An envelope of cash was inside, a lot of cash. So was the victim’s driver’s license.
She was someone named Deven Devenshire.
57
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Thursday morning Yardley opened the bookstore for business and hid two guns in strategic locations. Fifteen minutes later Madison called and said, “Did you hear about the dead woman at the Rikki last night?”
No.
She didn’t.
“It was Deven,” she said. “We need to meet and decide what to do.” A beat, “Hello? Are you there?”
She was.
Her chest was tight.
The room was unfocused.
“Are you sure it was Deven?”
“Yes, it’s all over the news. Cave’s gone crazy. Where are you right now?”
The bookstore.
She was at the bookstore.
“Get out of there right now,” Madison said. “Get in your car and drive until you’re a hundred percent positive you’re not being followed. Then call me and we’ll arrange to meet somewhere.” Silence. “Are you getting this?”
“Yes.”
“Pull yourself together and do it. Do it now.”
Yardley obeyed.
She was in the car.
She was driving.
She was checking the rearview mirror.
Why didn’t Deven get on the plane like she was supposed to? That’s all she had to do, just get on the stupid plane. How hard was that?
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn it to hell.
She must have decided to stay around and watch Yardley’s back. She knew Yardley would never agree to it so she did it in secret.
Cave was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Yardley should have shot him when she had the chance.
She wound all over Denver then back into the center, parking by the library and walking over to Civic Center. She sat down in the shade and leaned against a pillar at the amphitheater, then called Madison and told her where she was.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Ten minutes later her phone rang.
She expected it to be Madison asking for more specific directions, but the voice belonged to Cave.
“Deven is your fault,” he said.
“You’re a dead man.”
“All you had to do was follow through with what you said you would do,” he said. “If you did that, I was going to let her go. That’s the honest to God truth.”
“Bullshit.”
“You shouldn’t have brought your little friend with you last night,” he said. “I saw her over there in the shadows. I drove right by her. She never even looked at me. She was staring at the club. You should have played straight with me. Instead you decided to get fancy. That’s why Deven’s dead right now. Her blood is on your hands. I hope it feels good.”
The line went dead.
Five minutes later Madison showed up.
Yardley filled her in.
They agreed that going to the police wasn’t an option. Too many people would drop, including both of them. At the end Yardley said, “I’ll fill in Marabella and see what she wants us to do.”
“She better want us to kill Cave,” Yardley said, “because that’s what’s going to happen.”
58
Day Four
July 21
Thursday Morning
Thursday morning Pantage set about summarizing a deposition because it was the most brainless thing she could do. Her world was unraveling, she could feel it. She was spiraling downward out of control and there wasn’t a thing she could do to stop it.
The incident of last night received some print in the paper but not much. Two black men were beaten to death. Police were investigating.
Renn-Jaa came in, closed the door and said, “Do you still think we did the right thing, not telling the police what we saw?”
Yes.
She did.
The men had it coming.
The drunken woman was a victim and the gladiator, at least at that particular moment in his life, was a hero. It wouldn’t do any good to drag them into it, not to mention that Pantage and Renn-Jaa wouldn’t have a good reason for being in the vicinity. There was one more consideration, too. One of the men got away. If Pantage and Renn-Jaa came forward as witnesses, the guy might think they saw him—which they did, but not his face. He might decide he didn’t need any witnesses running around.
“So what do we do after work?” Renn-Jaa said.
“I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.”
An hour later Pantage's phone rang and the voice of the California investigator, Aspen Gonzales, came through. “Okay, I have a little more information for you. The murdered woman, Chiara, died from a slit throat.”
Pantage’s blood raced.
That’s the memory she had yesterday.
“With what?”
“A knife.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know, they never found it,” Aspen said. “Something big and sharp I’m guessing. The reason it took a while for the body to show up is because it got thrown off a cliff. It ended up snagged in an outcropping ten or twenty feet above the tide line. A fisherman spotted it five or six days later.”
