by R. J. Jagger
The darkness was cool water on Teffinger’s brain.
“You might have a point about leaving,” he said. “We could wipe the place clean of my fingerprints and then leave. You could come home in an hour or so and find the body. Then you’d call 911.”
Tangiers laid down next to Teffinger and draped an arm across his chest.
“You would do that for me?”
He exhaled.
“I’m 99 percent sure that I’m the one who killed him and that we could simply make the 911 call right now and tell the truth,” he said. “But I have to admit I’m not a hundred percent sure. There’s no use taking a chance on your future.”
She kissed him.
“Thank you.”
“We’re inside the Denver city limits,” he said. “When you make the call it’s going to end up going to my department. A detective by the name of Sydney Heatherwood is on duty tonight. She’ll get the assignment but she’ll call me. That’s standard practice. I can show up to back her up on the investigation. What I’ll do when I get here is forget to put my gloves on. That way if my fingerprints end up getting lifted off something, there’ll be an explanation. The secret though is to not let that happen. We need to be really careful and wipe down anything and everything that I might have touched.”
He edged up into a sitting position.
“Is that our plan?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Okay,” he said. “But going forward we need to be real clear on our story that neither one of us was here. If I end up getting caught in a lie, my career as a detective is over. I might also be facing obstruction of justice charges; you too for that matter. That won’t look so hot on your resume.”
She frowned.
“Teffinger, I don’t know if I can put you in that position. Maybe we should just tell the truth and hope the autopsy comes out the right way.”
“Look,” he said. “It took a lot of guts for you to play the bait tonight. This asshole would be walking the streets tomorrow if it wasn’t for you. So now you get a little respect in return, okay?”
A beat then, “Okay.”
“Good. Let’s get busy.”
8
Day Two
July 27
Thursday Morning
Lots of women had paraded in and out of Teffinger’s life over the years. Tangiers was the latest to parade in and Teffinger was already to a point where it would hurt if she paraded out. He could see spending time with her, not just for a few sex-infused weeks or months, but well after the initial exhilaration wore off and they were left with their more naked souls.
It was 1:18 a.m. when his home phone rang and Sydney’s voice came through. “Got some job security,” she said. “A woman came home and found a dead man in her bedroom. I’m on my way over. You want to join me?”
Sure.
Why not?
“Give me the address.”
She did.
It was Tangiers’ house.
Outside the storm still raged.
He swung by the all-night Conoco on Simms long enough to get a thermos of coffee and mentally retraced the interior of the house as he drove, searching for a place his fingerprints might have been left.
He couldn’t find any.
When he got to the scene, several cop cars were parked in the street, busy throwing eerie red and blue jabs of light into the weather.
He checked in with the scribe and headed upstairs, forgetting to put his gloves on.
The dead man was as Teffinger had left him.
He hadn’t been moved.
Sydney was at the body studying the wounds. She was 27, athletic and the only female African-American in the department. Technically she was still the newbie although she’d already cut her teeth on Denver’s worst. Teffinger personally stole her last year out of the vice department. He handed her a disposable cup and filled it from the thermos.
“What happened to your face?” she asked.
“I had a little incident in a bar. It was sort of a Bad Bad Leroy Brown situation.”
“Bad who?”
“Leroy Brown, you know, the Jim Croce song.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It involves the wife of a jealous man. In my defense, I didn’t know she was married. She wasn’t wearing a ring. And I wasn’t the one who approached her. She approached me.” He nodded towards the body. “So what’s your theory?”
“My theory is that he’s a lot like you. He lost the fight.”
Teffinger smiled.
“The fight with who?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. According to the owner, she came home and voila, there he was. She says she’s never seen him before in her life. It’s like he just dropped out of the sky and landed here.”
“He’s not an old boyfriend or anything?”
“Not according to her.” She took a sip of coffee and said, “It’s possible this was a robbery that started out with two people. They got into an argument for whatever reason smack dab in the middle of it.”
Teffinger nodded.
It was possible
“Who’s the owner?”
“She’s a single female. They got her out in one of the cars.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t hit on her.”
He grinned.
“Never.”
“She’s pretty.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He headed downstairs, got directed to the car where the owner was being held and slipped inside.
The person in the back seat was a woman.
She was pretty but she wasn’t Tangiers.
“Sorry,” Teffinger said. “I was looking for the owner.”
“That’s me.”
The words took him by surprise.
“That’s you?”
“Right.” She extended her hand. “Jamie Parker.”
“Let me see if I have this right,” Teffinger said. “You own this house?”
“Correct.”
“And do you live in it?”
“Also correct.”
“Do you have any roommates?”
“No.”
Teffinger’s heart raced.
“Do you have any guests staying with you or anything like that?”
“No, I live here by myself,” she said. “I was at a club with a girlfriend and when I came home there was a dead man in my bedroom.” A beat then, “I don’t understand why I have to wait out here in a car.”
“It’s standard procedure to remove all civilians from the scene,” he said. “That keeps it from getting contaminated. It doesn’t mean you’re in trouble or anything.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll take you downtown and get your statement,” he said. “Then you’ll be free to go.”
“Back home?”
He frowned.
“We’ll probably have the place sealed for at least three or four days. Do you have any idea what happened?”
She shook her head.
“Negative,” she said. “I came home to a body. That’s all I know.”
Teffinger said his goodbyes and stepped out into the weather.
Tangiers had lied to him.
It wasn’t her house at all.
What the hell was going on?
9
Day Two
July 27
Thursday Morning
Teffinger worked the crime scene until four in the morning and then left Sydney to wrap up. He was exhausted enough to sleep for two days but Tangiers’ lie had his brain on fire. The more he thought about it the more ominous it became. He twitched and turned hour after hour in that nowhere state that wasn’t quite sleep and wasn’t quite awake, then pulled himself out of bed shortly after eight, showered and hopped in the Tundra, heading east towards Denver on the 6th Avenue freeway.
In his left hand was a cup of coffee.
In his lap was a bowl of cereal.
In his blood wa
s a steady stream of acid.
The fact that Tangiers didn’t live in the house like she said she did was only one of two little surprises from last night. The other was that the dead man carried no wallet or identification. As of this point in time he was John Doe. If Teffinger was the one who killed him, he didn’t even know the man’s name.
It was 9:02 a.m. when Teffinger got to Tangiers’ place of employment, namely Grashnee, Dodge & White, P.C. on Welton Street. The office was a renovated two-story wooden structure that had the architecture of the early 1900’s. It might have been a private mansion or a store in its past life. Now it was something ancient with fresh paint, awash in a sea of things that were taller and newer.
The walkway from the street to the front door was paved brick.
The door was wooden, heavy and painted a rust color.
Matching awnings hung over all the front-facing windows.
Immediately inside the front door was a reception area.
Behind the reception desk was a mature woman with a nice smile. Behind her was a fern.
Teffinger put on his best smile and said, “I’m here to see Tangiers Vendora.”
The woman scrunched her face.
“Who?”
“Tangiers Vendora.”
“There’s nobody here by that name,” she said.
“She’s one of your lawyers.”
“No, we have no lawyers here by that name.”
Teffinger shuffled his feet.
“She’s blond, late-twenties and fairly attractive.”
The woman frowned.
“I’m sorry but I don’t think you’re in the right place. The firm only has one female attorney. She has black hair and is in her forties.”
He said, “Thanks.’
Then he was gone.
The Colorado sun was bright and snapped into his eyes. Ordinarily it went straight to his brain and made everything right.
This time it didn’t.
From the law firm Teffinger headed to Market Street to talk to the private investigator, Charlene Banta, who Tangiers hired to find out who her mystery client “John” was.
The investigator existed but was genuinely confused.
“I’ve never had a client by the name of Tangiers Vendora.”
Teffinger described her appearance.
Banta never had a client by that description.
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“If I did in fact do work for such a person, I might or might not disclose it depending on the nature of the case,” she said. “But if I never had such a client, I don’t have a problem affirmatively stating that I never had such a client. It’s not an ethical breach to admit that you never had a client that you in fact never had. In this case, I’m telling you point blank that I never had a client named Tangiers Vendora, I never had a case for a woman by the physical description that you gave me, and I never had a case for a lawyer trying to find out who her client was.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“I’m sorry.”
If there had been any doubt before there was none now. Tangiers, if in fact that was even her real name, had set him up from the start to kill a man.
He’d fallen prey to her pretty little face and her pretty little white dress so innocently hiked up to her panties. He’d put his hand on her heart. He’d watched the water cascade down her curvy little body in the shower.
Where was she right now at this moment?
Who was the man she got him to kill?
Why did she want him dead?
Suddenly a dark thought twisted into Teffinger’s brain.
Maybe she didn’t set him up to kill someone after all.
Maybe she set him up to be the one who got killed.
Maybe he was the one who was supposed to die in the fight. Maybe that’s why the guy was already in the house and got a jump on him.
Maybe Tangiers was out there right now thinking of a way to finish what she started.
10
Day Two
July 27
Thursday Morning
At homicide he called the Medical Examiner, Bob Nelson, a man with a perpetual patina of liquor on his breath, to see if he’d had a chance to take a look at the body yet.
He hadn’t.
“When you get to it, I’m curious about that blow to the head that smashed the guy’s skull in,” Teffinger said.
“Curious in what way?”
“I’d like to know if that’s the final blow that killed him or whether the guy continued to beat him even after that.”
“Well, that much I can already tell you,” Nelson said. “That blow was post-mortem. It caused no bleeding.”
“So he was already dead, that’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s what post-mortem means, Teffinger. He may have gotten beaten more after that, I’ll take a look, but he was already dead when that blow came.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Teffinger hung up
He was the killer, not Tangiers.
He needed air, not in ten minutes, now, and headed outside to get it, walking briskly into the guts of the city with no destination.
The sun beat down.
Sweat rolled down his face.
Tangiers.
Tangiers.
Tangiers.
Who was she?
Her story was that she was a criminal defense lawyer. It seemed so real when she talked. She knew the language. She knew the system. She knew about privilege and confidentiality. She had the hardness to defend someone she knew was guilty. When Teffinger closed his eyes he could see her standing before a jury.
“Ninety percent,” he said to himself.
That’s how sure he was that Tangiers really was a lawyer.
In the 1400 block of Larimer Street he spotted a worn bronze sign on the side of an equally worn building that said, Bryson Wilde, Private Investigator, 201.
He headed up a set of rickety wooden steps to the second floor, opened the door to 201 and stepped inside. A man was pacing next to the window with a smoke in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He had blond hair, longer than most, combed straight back.
He had the build and swagger of a ladies man.
“Are you Bryson Wilde?”
The man sized him up.
“The third, to be precise. My grandfather opened this place back in ’52.”
“I want you to find someone for me,” Teffinger said.
“Who?”
“A woman. She’s about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, five-six and drop-dead gorgeous with a body built for sin.”
Wilde smiled.
“I’ve been looking for the same woman,” he said. “If I ever find her I’m keeping her for myself.”
Teffinger knew he should smile.
He couldn’t.
“I’m about 90% sure she’s a criminal defense lawyer,” he said. “Her hair’s long and blond, but it could have been dyed.”
Wilde took a drag on the butt and blew smoke.
“What else you got on her?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No, that’s it.”
“That’s a tall drink of water,” Wilde said.
“What’s your price for drinking these days?”
Wilde frowned.
“It ain’t cheap,” he said. “A hundred an hour plus expenses.”
Teffinger pulled a check out of his wallet, filled it out for $5,000, handed it to the man and said, “Can you get started right away?”
He could.
He could indeed.
Teffinger was almost out the door when the man said, “What city does she live in?”
“Unknown.”
Then he was gone.
At street level he heard his name shouted from above. It was Wilde, leaning out the window.
“This is a long shot,” Wilde said. “I can’t give you any guarantees.”
“I understand.�
��
“I know who you are, I’ve seen you on TV.”
“Keep everything confidential.”
“That much I can guarantee.”
Teffinger headed over to the 16th Street Mall and walked on the shady side. He was ten minutes into it when he turned around and headed back to Wilde’s office.
“There’s one more piece of information,” he said.
Wilde tapped two cigarettes loose from a pack and extended one to Teffinger who declined. Wilde lit his up, blew smoke and said, “No one smokes any more. What’s the other piece?”
“Well it’s two pieces, actually. First, the woman goes by the name Tangiers Vendora.”
“Is that an alias or her real name?”
“I think it’s an alias,” Teffinger said. “I Googled it ten different ways and it never attached to anything. The second thing is that she’s somehow connected to a woman named Jamie Parker who’s a lawyer at Roberts & Morrison.”
“Connected how?”
“I don’t know,” Teffinger said. “They might be in some kind of conspiracy together.”
“Conspiracy to do what?”
Teffinger shrugged.
Then his face hardened.
“It might be a conspiracy to kill someone.”
“Who?”
“Me, possibly.”
“You?”
Teffinger nodded.
“Possibly,” he said. “That’s the key word. It may or may not be the case.”
Wilde took a deep drag, looked out the window and then back at Teffinger.
“If that’s true, I’m not going to get anything out of her face on. I’ll have to sneak up on her from behind.”
“Then do it.”
“This case is getting big,” Wilde said.
“Do what it takes,” Teffinger said. “There’s more money if you need it. Just be honest and don’t gouge me.”
“I won’t.” A beat then, “You have resources. Why aren’t you doing this yourself?”
“Because it’s off the record. Be sure it stays that way.”
11
Day Nine
August 3
Thursday Morning
A full week passed and not an iota of progress was made on any front. Tangiers remained invisible. The man Teffinger killed still hadn’t been identified. A few suspicious cars came up Teffinger’s street in the middle of the night but no one had made a direct attempt on his life. The investigator, Bryson Wilde, called on a Thursday morning and reported in a somber voice that the $5,000 retainer was gone.
