by R. J. Jagger
Confidential
Prey
R.J. JAGGER
1
Day One
August 3
Wednesday Night
A wicked storm fell out of an evil night sky. Nick Teffinger, the 34-year-old head of Denver’s homicide unit, was in the thick of it with the Tundra’s wipers swishing back and forth to a demonic beat. From the radio Mick was screaming that he couldn’t get no satisfaction and Teffinger was screaming right along with him.
’Cause I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried …
Traffic was minimal.
A woman appeared up ahead at the side of the road, hunched against the weather. Her thumb came out; she was trying to get a ride. Teffinger edged over and powered down the passenger window.
The woman was in her early thirties with dark exotic features. Heavy drenched clothes clung to her body.
Her chest was ample.
She wore no bra.
Her face was serious.
Teffinger unlocked the door and said, “Get in.”
She did.
“Thanks, mister.”
Her voice was timid and laced with stress.
“Where you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you need a ride home?”
“Sure if you’re going to Seattle.”
Her name was Atasha and her story was simple. She and her boyfriend were passing through Colorado on their way from New York to Seattle. Two hours ago they had a fight, not one of those normal ones, a mean one where things got said. He dragged her out of the car and told her to have nice life. Then he was gone. To his credit, it wasn’t raining that badly out at the time.
Now it was.
She had less than $30 in her purse.
She had no cell phone.
She was a stray cat out in a stray night.
“I’ll get you a hotel room,” Teffinger said. “My treat. Then we can touch base in the morning and figure out how to get you back home.”
“Thanks but I don’t take charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s just one person helping another.”
“I can’t take money.”
“You can pay it back later if that makes you feel better.”
“I don’t like owing people either,” she said. “Just drop me off anywhere I can get out of the weather. I’ll take it from there.”
Teffinger argued.
He lost.
He did, however, talk her into at least sleeping on his couch.
His neighborhood was in total darkness when they got there. Not a streetlight was on and not a single light came from inside a house. The storm had defaulted the neighborhood back to its prehistoric days.
Inside, Teffinger got a flashlight for the woman, gave her the best dry clothes he scrounge up—a T, a fresh pair of boxer shorts and white cotton gym socks—and showed her where to dry off.
“I’ll be in the garage,” he said. “You want some wine or a beer?”
She did.
A beer.
In fact, a beer would be perfect.
“No problem,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t look under my mattress.”
“Why, what’s under your mattress?”
“Nothing. Just don’t look there, okay?”
He had the garage door open and his six-two frame was behind the wheel of the ’67 Corvette, watching the lightning show, when she showed up. She slid into the passenger seat and flicked the flashlight off.
He popped the top of a blue can and passed it to her.
“This is better than TV,” she said.
“Way better.” The pounding of the water was so powerful on the ground that it resonated into the garage and up the tires. “Tomorrow morning I’m going to drive you to the airport and get you on a plane back home.”
“I told you—”
“I know,” he said. “No charity and all that. The problem is there’s no way to solve this without getting money involved. I’m not just going to let you wander out into the world with thirty dollars in your pocket.”
She took a long swallow.
“We’ll see.”
He clinked his can on hers.
They talked.
She was sophisticated, educated and, most surprisingly, an ex-marine with two years of her tenure in the Middle East.
“I don’t get it,” Teffinger said. “How does someone like you end up in a storm with only thirty dollars?”
“It’s a long story,” she said.
He shrugged.
“I have time.”
“It also a private story.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“You know what I mean.”
He did.
He did indeed.
“So at least we’re agreed on the airport tomorrow?” he said.
“Only if I can pay you back.”
“You can.”
“I’ll make you breakfast in the morning,” she said. “What do you like?”
He swallowed what was left in the can.
“If you feel like working up some pancakes, I have fresh strawberries and whipped cream.”
She shook his hand.
“Deal.” A beat then, “I think I’m ready for that couch now.”
He checked his watch.
It was 11:02.
It took a solid argument but Teffinger convinced her to take the bed and let him take the couch. He got his frame as comfortable as he could on the cushions, sunk his head into the pillow and closed his eyes.
The intensity of the storm hadn’t let up.
The walls creaked and the fireplace whistled.
It was music.
He was almost asleep when he sensed a presence in the room. Then a warm naked body was snuggling up next to him.
Atasha’s voice whispered in his ear, “Hi there.”
Teffinger’s instinct was to screw her so hard there’d be nothing left. He shut it down and said, “You don’t need to do this.”
“This is for me, not you.”
That might be true.
It might be payment, too, or at least have a payment component to it.
“Next time,” he said.
She licked his ear and wiggled on him.
“Come on.”
“I will, but next time,” he said.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“Well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.”
Then she was gone.
It took him a long time to get to sleep. He kept making up arguments to support the fact that it really would be for her, not him. He almost convinced himself before finally conceding it was all a pile of crap.
He let the pounding of the storm rock him to sleep.
When he woke the storm was no longer audible and faint rays of dawn were washing through the windows. He got up, stretched and headed for the master bedroom to get to the shower.
Atasha was in the bed.
A knife was stuck in the side of her head and the pillow was soaked in blood.
2
Day Thirteen
August 15
Monday Morning
There was a time when Raverly Phentappa thrived on the fame. She got a secret smile deep down inside every time a stranger recognized her on the street or shouted her name. Now she did her best to keep that fame in a bag. As she walked through the heart of Denver’s financial district Monday morning, that bag consisted of oversized sunglasses, a baseball cap with an uneventful
ponytail pulled through the back, a green Aero T, jean-shorts with no designer label stitched on the back and lips with no rouge.
She was just an ordinary Joe.
She pushed through the revolving doors of the cash register building, walked across an expansive vaulted lobby and entered the elevator that served floor 42, the home of Denver’s most renowned criminal defense firm, Tristen & Day, P.C.
She was pretty.
In fact, Harvard law degree aside, she’d be the first to admit that her big break came because of her face and her body. She was the island girl that sailors searched the world for and then lost all sense of judgment once they found her. Her skin was golden brown, her eyes were green and her raven hair was thick and long. Whatever her ancestry was, it worked.
At thirty, she’d accomplished a lot.
Most people knew her as CNN’s legal commentator, smack in the middle of whatever criminal or legal mess happened to have its fingers around America’s throat. Less people knew that she was the author of three true-crime novels that were acclaimed by readers and reviewers alike.
She got out of the elevator on floor 42 and pushed through fancy glass doors into a contemporary reception area. Denver’s bare-knuckles criminal defense trial attorney, Anderson North, showed up almost immediately, introduced himself with a white smile and whisked her to a corner conference room with blue leather chairs and floor-to-ceiling windows that framed Denver below and the mountains not-so-below.
“Thanks for coming,” North said. “Nice disguise.”
She sat down.
The chair was soft but supportive.
“Actually, this is the reality,” she said. “The disguise is what you see on TV.”
He poured coffee into two cups and handed her one.
“Let me get right to the point,” he said. “You have a fan but I’m not sure it’s going to be one you want. It’s a guy who, if he’s to be believed, has killed a lot of people and isn’t done yet. He’s taken a liking to you.”
“Is he a client of yours?”
“No.”
“Then what’s your source of information?”
North got somber.
“I have a good friend who’s a lawyer out in L.A.,” he said. “The killer is his client.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
North frowned.
“He’s asked me to keep that confidential,” he said. “Here’s what’s going on. His client—let’s just call him Mr. K for a moment—wants to start a dialogue with a homicide detective here in Denver by the name of Nick Teffinger. Do you know him?”
No, she didn’t personally.
“I know of him,” she said. “I’ve seen him on TV. I also know this, if this guy really is a killer and actually starts a dialogue with Teffinger, then he’s out of his mind. Sooner or later Teffinger will find a way to rip off his head and pee in the hole.”
North smiled.
“Thanks for the visual,” he said. “The fact remains, rightly or wrongly, that Mr. K wants to communicate with Teffinger. Here’s the interesting part. He wants to do it through you.”
The words felt like ice.
“Through me?”
North nodded.
“The way Mr. K sees it happening is that he’ll communicate to his lawyer out in L.A. The communication will then be passed to me, and from me to you, and from you to Teffinger. Then vice-versa in the other direction.”
“I don’t get it. Why so complicated? Why doesn’t he just call Teffinger up anonymously on the phone? Why does he want me in the loop?”
“Let me take those questions one at a time,” North said. “First, the chain is intended to maximize the degree of separation and minimize the risk of Mr. K getting caught. It also minimizes the creation of evidence that could be used in a court of law. What we end up with is a pool of hearsay smothered under a layer of attorney-client confidentiality. Second, and more importantly, you’re in the loop because Mr. K eventually wants you to memorialize him. At some point you’re going to get an information dump of all his dirty little deeds—files, photos, evidence, details, the whole shebang. It may come after his death. He’s making arrangements with the attorney in L.A. to get everything to you. You’ll then use it to write the book of the century.”
“About him.”
“Right, about him,” North said. “I’ve talked to the L.A. lawyer, who’s my friend and who I trust. It’s his opinion that Mr. K is not exaggerating. He may very well be the killer of the century.”
“That doesn’t explain why he wants me in the loop,” Raverly said.
“I think that’s just his way of bonding with you,” North said. He sipped coffee and studied her over the edge of the cup. “I’ve done research on it. If all we’re doing is passing communications, we’re doing nothing wrong. We’re not encouraging him to commit crimes, we’re not becoming accessories before or after the fact, we’re not aiding or abetting. We’re functioning as telephones, in effect.”
Raverly cocked her head.
“I don’t want to encourage this guy,” she said. “I don’t want to make him feel like he’s worth a book. Between you and me he is, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing it.”
North nodded with understanding.
“There is that,” he said. “That’s why, if you don’t want to do it, I understand. Also, there’s the risk.”
“Which is what?”
“Which is getting in the guy’s universe,” he said. “You can’t pass mud along without getting some on our hands. Who knows what triggers this guy. You could end up being a target.”
Raverly walked to the windows and looked down.
The flashing lights of a police car were pulling a van to the curb.
People walked, looking like gumdrops.
She knew she was going to take the assignment.
She also knew why.
It wasn’t because of the book.
“Let’s give it a shot,” she said. “I’m curious where this is going.”
3
Day Thirteen
August 15
Monday Morning
An island girl flagged Teffinger down mid-morning on Monday as he pulled up to the department. He was in the ’67 with the top down and a Beach Boys song on the radio. Above, a Colorado sun splashed down and heated the black vinyl seats.
The woman leaned in and said, “A mid-year, lucky you.”
Teffinger unscrewed a thermos, topped off a disposable cup in his left hand and said, “The bank owns it. You’re that reporter from CNN.”
True, she was.
“Your eyes are two different colors, green and blue,” she said. “You want to take me for a ride?”
He did.
He did indeed.
They ended up at Wash Park under the shade of an oak. Two gay joggers gave Coventry the once-over as they strutted past.
“I had an interesting meeting with an attorney by the name of Anderson North this morning,” Raverly said.
Teffinger recognized the name.
They’d also been in the same courtroom a number of times.
North was one of only a handful of defense attorneys in town who had the chops to tip the scales of justice in the wrong direction. On the record, every prosecutor in the city hated the guy. Off the record, they admitted he’d be the one they called if they ever needed someone from the dark side.
“What do you think of him?” she asked.
Teffinger took a swallow of coffee and extended the cup to her, expecting a decline. To his surprise she took it and sipped.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said. “North? I think he’s a guy who has a job to do and does it. Personally, I wish his job was collecting trash, but I hold him no ill will.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
She told him.
She gave him all the details about Mr. K, his L.A. lawyer who was a friend of North’s, Mr. K’s desire to open up communicat
ions with Teffinger and the book component.
“Are you receptive?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Of course, assuming he’s legit and not just some quack out to waste my time,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “He’s got two things to tell you so far.”
“Shoot.”
“First, he’s killed twenty-four people total.”
“So he says.”
“Right, so he says. Second, He’s going to kill number twenty-five here in Denver on Wednesday night.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“What’s her name?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Did he say anything about her, where she works or whether she’s young or old or anything like that?”
“No, not a thing.”
“Why is he going to kill her?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Why does he want me to know?”
“He hasn’t said, but we could guess,” Raverly said.
Teffinger chewed on it.
Right, they could guess, with the usual suspects being that the guy wanted to turn Teffinger into a chicken with no head for the next two-and-a-half days, or that he wanted to taunt Teffinger after the fact as to how he’d been able to pull off a murder even after giving Teffinger a warning.
“So far I’m not impressed,” Teffinger said. “Tell him I don’t want to hear from him again unless he can prove he’s legit. Tell him to feed me a detail about one of his murders, something only the killer and the police would know, something that isn’t public information. If I just want to see someone stand around and beat their own chest, I’ll go watch King Kong.”
She called North and relayed the request.
Then she told Teffinger, “I don’t know how long it will take to get an answer.”
He nodded.
He understood.
“I want you to know something,” Raverly said. “If this guy turns out to be legit, it’s not about the book. That’s not what I’m after. What I’m after is for you to catch him. I’m only in it to be sure he gets enough rope to hang himself. The way I see it, the more he talks, the more we can figure out who he is.”
Teffinger cocked his head.
