Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  “Fine. When?”

  “I’ll be up there in half an hour. Tell me something first. We found a porno DVD at your apartment.”

  “With Kelly Nine—”

  “Right. Where’d you get it?”

  “Someone came across it on the Internet,” she said. “He knew Kelly and thought it was her but he wasn’t sure. He downloaded part of it onto a DVD and sent it to me to get my opinion, which was that it was definitely her.”

  “You never told me about it,” Teffinger said.

  “She was dead,” Dandan said. “I didn’t see a need to tarnish her reputation.”

  “It has something to do with why she got marked for murder.”

  “Then you know more than me.”

  Teffinger exhaled.

  “Who’s going to help you deliver the painting this afternoon?”

  “No one.”

  “Think about whether you want me to come along.”

  He hung up.

  Del Rey wasn’t impressed.

  “You’re a homicide detective, not a stolen arts dealer.”

  “True, but I’m also all she has.”

  “Nick, listen to yourself. She’s a criminal at this point. Homicide detectives aren’t supposed to spend their days helping criminals commit their crimes. We came here to catch Rail, remember? Why? Because he killed that investigator back in Denver.”

  “And he took Susan Smith.”

  “Right. So why aren’t we focused on Rail?”

  He shoved a fry in his mouth.

  “Remember when we were at your house and it was storming out with all the lightning and you danced for me all sexy and everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was nice,” he said.

  98

  Day Ten

  July 17

  Thursday Afternoon

  At the top of Twin Peaks, Dandan pulled the Targa into one of the few empty parking spaces unclaimed by tourists, which happened to be four down from Teffinger’s 4Runner. There she got out, slipped on sunglasses and walked to the guardrail to take in the panoramic view of the relentless congestion that stretched in all directions until it got slapped to a stop by water.

  Teffinger kept his concentration on the vehicles that arrived after her.

  They were few in number.

  None looked suspicious.

  Dandan was dressed down, in Jeans, a black T and tennis shoes. Up top she wore a black baseball cap turned backwards. A breeze blew her hair, sometimes far enough that she had to brush it out of her face.

  After a few minutes she got back in the Targa, fired it up and pulled out.

  Teffinger waited ten seconds and then followed.

  A car was between them, a black BMW with tinted windows.

  “Where’d that come from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The road down twisted through grassy slopes that provided unobstructed views in all directions.

  Teffinger’s phone rang and Dandan’s voice came through.

  “There’s a bimmer behind me.”

  “I know. Who’s inside?”

  “Two men.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what, when you get down the hill to Portola put on your right turn signal. We’ll see if they do the same. Then, instead of turning right, head straight across the road into Glen Canyon. Hopefully they won’t follow and we’ll just prove to ourselves that we’re overly paranoid.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay on the phone. Don’t disconnect.”

  “I am.”

  Teffinger dropped back.

  The BMW stayed behind Dandan as she cut into a twisty canyon road with a steep incline to her left. As the bottom on the hill she did as instructed.

  It had no effect.

  Her voice was stressed when she said, “They’re still on my ass.”

  “I know. I’m closing the gap.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Don’t panic. Cut over to Market.”

  “Then what?”

  “Get into the financial district,” he said. “Pull into the first big hotel you come to. There’ll be security cameras. They won’t try anything there.”

  Suddenly something came out of the BMW’s passenger window, possibly an arm and a head.

  A bright flash of orange fired.

  Instantly the windshield of the 4Runner shattered with an explosion so deafening and so horrible that Teffinger’s entire body jerked.

  Del Rey screamed, “Nick!”

  Orange flashed again.

  A tire exploded.

  The vehicle jerked to the right.

  Teffinger fought for control.

  Then the vehicle flipped into a death roll.

  The violence of the motion prevented any sense of orientation. Up was down and down was up. Sounds tore through the air, horrific sounds of popping glass and twisting metal and things being ripped to their death. A seatbelt snagged Teffinger’s chest and pelvis time and again as airbags exploded around his head and body.

  Then almost as quickly as it began, all motion stopped.

  The crash was over.

  The vehicle was on its side.

  Teffinger wasn’t dead.

  How badly he was hurt, he had no idea, but he wasn’t dead.

  “Del Rey!”

  “Teffinger—”

  She was alive.

  A pungent odor of gas or oil invaded the air.

  “Come on!”

  His door wouldn’t open but the glass was busted. He climbed out, ignoring the damage to his body as best he could, then pulled Del Rey through behind him.

  No one was around.

  He checked his body.

  Everything worked.

  Blood came from wounds but none of them were profuse.

  Del Rey was in equal shape.

  Teffinger felt her body.

  Nothing seemed broken.

  She could stand okay.

  She could walk okay.

  She could bend to the right and to the left.

  There were no obvious injuries to her skull.

  Up the road quite some distance was the Targa, immobile and strangely angled, most likely wrecked. A black BMW was in the same vicinity, not strangely angled, not most-likely wrecked. Two men were carrying something between the two, something that was probably Dandan.

  The Van Gogh was still in the back area of the 4Runner.

  Teffinger pulled it out through the broken glass and handed it to Del Rey. “Take it. Head down the hill into the trees. Just keep going until you come out the other side.”

  “Okay.”

  “Grab the first cab you see,” he said. “Take it into Sausalito, get a hotel and stash the painting the best place you can find, behind the curtains or something. Then leave.”

  “To where?”

  “A coffee shop; I don’t care. Just get away from the painting. I’ll call you.”

  She took a step towards the trees then turned and said, “I need my purse.”

  It was scattered inside the vehicle.

  Her wallet, however, was intact.

  He got it for her, plus her cell phone and said, “If anyone finds you with the painting, don’t argue with them. Just give it to them.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to head up the road.”

  99

  Day Ten

  July 17

  Thursday Afternoon

  Jori-Lee’s end of the law firm turned into an orchestration of controlled chaos Thursday afternoon, caused by the Tangent case, which she wasn’t involved in. From what she gleaned the case had churned into a perfect storm of trial motions, proposed jury instructions, identification of witnesses and draft exhibit books that all needed to be filed and served by the end of the day.

  Jori-Lee kept her door open.

  She left it open because the buzz felt good; it felt like money, it felt like danger, it felt like the preparation of war.

  More importantly, she l
eft it open because people needed to know they could walk in and grab her if they needed to.

  She was available.

  She was on their team.

  She wasn’t afraid.

  Time passed.

  Then Jon Ryan walked in and said, “Can I jerk you out of whatever you’re doing?”

  “Sure.”

  He pushed a stapled set of papers across the desk and said, “This is a brief we’re filing in support of a proposed jury instruction on liability. Give it a read and see if you spot any typos or anything that needs to be changed, improved, modified, stricken or whatever. Don’t be shy. Be brutal. Make sure if the girl enters the scene wearing a red dress she doesn’t leave wearing a blue one. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. How fast?”

  “It’s due today but we’re going to file it electronically, which means midnight. So you have some time.”

  “Good.”

  “Give your changes directly to Dottie. She’ll do a redline/strikeout so I’ll be able to see what you’ve done. Again, be brutal. I want this thing to be suitable for framing. I want it hanging in the Smithsonian.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  Five minutes later Sanders called.

  The sound of his voice briefly took Jori-Lee to a moment in time with the man’s golden body before her and the sand under her feet and the sun in her eyes and a dance in her heart.

  “I’m still shadowing your apartment,” he said. “All’s quiet.”

  “Good.”

  “There was a Supreme Court case about a year-and-a-half ago called Texas vs. Certileo,” he said. “Do you remember it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it was a criminal case. The defendant, Cisco Certileo, was a young Hispanic boy, thirteen years old at the time. His father was long gone. He lived with his mother and her screwed-up boyfriend, a man named Hector. Hector wasn’t a very nice person. He beat the mother and, as it turned out, visited Cisco’s bedroom whenever his drunken cock felt like it, which was a lot. The mother knew. She did nothing to stop it. Eventually the kid snapped and murdered them both in their sleep with a butcher knife. He was tried as an adult, assigned to an incompetent public defender, found guilt and sentenced to death.”

  “I vaguely remember reading something about that.”

  “It was in all the headlines,” Sanders said. “Anyway, the case eventually made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, the issue being whether it was cruel and unusual punishment to give a death penalty to a kid who was only thirteen years old at the time of the crime, particularly given all the stressors in the kid’s life that led to the event, coupled with the questionable competence of the kid’s attorney. The Supreme Court reversed the death penalty sentence in a 5 to 4 decision. Robertson was one of the judges in the majority who voted for reversal.”

  “Okay, but I don’t get what this has to do with anything.”

  Sanders exhaled.

  “Robertson threw his vote,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I found it on the flash drive,” he said. “He’s been throwing cases for almost two years. What he has is the decision he would have written together with the decision he actually submitted.”

  “How can that be? He didn’t get blackmailed until a week or two ago.”

  “I don’t know but I do know one thing,” Sanders said. “He’s thrown eight votes so far. In five of the cases, his throw really didn’t matter. The decision ended up 6 to 3 instead of 5 to 4. In three cases the whole decision flipped. The one that concerns me is the most is the one I just told you about. If and when we ever expose him, his vote in the Certileo case will be vacated. That will leave the decision as four to four. A tie means that the lower Court’s opinion stands. It doesn’t get reversed.”

  Jori-Lee processed it.

  “That means the death penalty will stand,” she said.

  “Right,” Sanders said. “That wouldn’t be good. I would have done the thing as that kid in those circumstances.”

  Jori-Lee exhaled.

  “We’re so deep in uncharted territory that it’s not even funny,” she said. “Maybe his vote won’t be vacated.”

  “It’s fraud by a judge,” Sanders said. “Something has to happen.”

  “Well then alternatively maybe there will be new legal arguments, to the effect that it would be cruel and unusual to have a final decision holding no death penalty and then modifying that decision with the effect of reinstating the death penalty. The reversal itself would be cruel and unusual.”

  “I wouldn’t want my future hanging on that, would you?”

  She considered it.

  The pushback wasn’t kind.

  “Maybe the case will be re-submitted fresh.”

  “That leaves the original eight judges, meaning the death penalty won’t be reversed. Even if the Court was to hold the case in abeyance until a new judge is installed, who knows how the new judge would vote. In the meantime, the poor kid has to have everything hanging over his head again, not to mention that new precedent might be set. The way it is now, states basically have a red light when it comes to executing kids. That’s fine with me.”

  “So you’re saying we don’t expose him—”

  “I’m not saying that per say,” Sanders said. “All I’m saying is that if we do, a lot more than just his life will end up changed.”

  Jori-Lee’s eyes fell to the brief.

  “I can’t get my brain around this right now,” she said. “I have to work late and then me and Zahara have a little mission to complete.”

  “A mission?”

  “I’ll tell you about it after it’s done,” she said. “I’ll be home late but I’ll make it up to you. Wait up for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, promise.”

  “Hey, you still there?”

  Yes, he was.

  “Maybe Robertson just flip-flops,” she said. “Maybe instead of throwing cases he honestly wasn’t sure which way to go. To help resolve it in his mind, he wrote the opinion both ways and then figured out which version fit better.”

  Sanders wasn’t convinced.

  “I’ve never known a lawyer’s brain to work that way, to the point of actually writing it out in detail both ways. But I can’t for sure that it would be impossible.”

  “We’ll talk tonight. I want to see the flash drive.”

  “I put it back where we keep it.”

  “See you tonight.”

  100

  Day Ten

  July 17

  Thursday Afternoon

  The two men dumped Dandan into the trunk of the BMW and then squealed off long before Teffinger got his feet to the scene or his eyes to their faces. One of the Porsche’s rear tires was shredded, presumably from a well-placed slug. A long fishtail etched in the asphalt led to where the vehicle slammed into a boulder.

  The slam wasn’t hard.

  The front end was crumpled but not destroyed.

  The hood was jacked up enough that you could see inside.

  There was some blood on the interior but not a lot.

  Teffinger looked up the road.

  No vehicles were approaching from either direction.

  The men must have been operating under the assumption that the Van Gogh was in the Porsche with Dandan. Finding their assumption wrong, they then took her for interrogation.

  She wouldn’t hold up well.

  She’d tell them that Teffinger had the painting.

  Then they’d come for him.

  There was only one play left at this point, namely to swap the painting for Dandan; make an even exchange. It was doable but only if Teffinger kept the painting under his control. It wouldn’t be in his interest to let the cops know he had it. They’d take it; not just because it was stolen property, but because it would shine a worldwide spotlight on their pretty little hero faces. Keeping the pa
inting meant he needed to get out of here, now. They’d trace the 4Runner to him at some point but that would be later. He’d handle it—including the fact that he left the scene of an accident—when the time came.

  A vehicle swept around a far bend into sight, still a distance away but already slowing as it approached the 4Runner.

  Teffinger disappeared into the trees.

  He was a ghost.

  He was already gone.

  Five minutes later in the thick of the silence he did something he didn’t anticipate, namely he called Rail. The man’s phone still worked, which was a surprise.

  “Have you come to your senses?” Rail said.

  “You told me before about Yoan Foca when you didn’t have to.”

  “That’s true.”

  “I owe you something in return,” Teffinger said.

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as the ability to have the painting in your hands and place it in Foca’s hands. That would get you out from underneath him, don’t you think?”

  “It would.” Fingers tapped and then Rail said, “What’s your angle in all of this?”

  “Foca’s men took Dandan,” Teffinger said. “They didn’t get the painting, though. I have the painting.”

  “You have the painting?”

  “That’s right. I have the painting and I want to exchange it for her. I want you to help me.”

  Silence.

  Then Rail said, “That sounds reasonable. Does this mean we’re back on truce?”

  “Yes. We’ll meet tonight. I’ll call you with time and place. In the meantime call Foca and tell him an exchange will be in the works. There’s no need for his men to interrogate Dandan as to where the painting is because I have it. Dandan needs to be well and unharmed for this to work. If she’s tortured or killed, all bets are off. I’ll rip the painting to shreds with my own bare hands.”

  “Tonight,” Rail said. “No tricks.”

  “Me? I’m not smart enough to know any tricks. In fact, I’m hoping that you’ll thrown some of your old ones my way.”

  It took some logistics but he eventually made his way to Del Rey’s place in the universe, which turned out to be coffee shop down the street from Hotel Sausalito, a two-story structure with nice awnings seamlessly embedded in the middle of a happy seaside strip.