Teffinger closed the picture on the computer and realized that the little fellow was in a half-happy state.
“Hey,” he said, trying to appear normal.
“Getting anything good?” she questioned.
“This is all old stuff and none of it’s from Bangkok,” he said. “We need to find the new stuff.”
“You think there’s more?”
He nodded.
“This isn’t tap water. You don’t just turn the knob and shut it off.”
SUDDENLY HIS CELL PHONE RANG and the voice of the FBI profiler, Dr. Leanne Sanders, came through. “You called,” she said.
He did.
He did indeed.
“Did you hear about Mark Remington?”
No.
She hadn’t.
“The word is he hung himself in his hotel room,” Teffinger said.
“In Bangkok?”
“Right.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” she said. “Talk to you later, I’m already late for ten things. Every weirdo in the world is suddenly bubbling to the surface.”
The line went dead.
Thirty seconds later she called back.
“How did you find out?”
“Venta Devenelle told me,” Teffinger said.
“Your girlfriend Venta Devenelle?”
“Right.”
“How did she know?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well I want to hear it, but not this second. What’s the name of the hotel?”
Teffinger didn’t know.
“Can you find out?”
He could.
“Let me know,” she said. “If I don’t answer, leave it on my voice mail.”
TEFFINGER LOOKED AT SYDNEY and asked, “So what’s going on?”
She handed him a pile of papers. “These are English’s flight manifests for his Bangkok trips. I cross-referenced the dates to his bank account statements.” She frowned. “It’s not good.”
Teffinger braced himself.
“Give it to me,” he said.
“It seems he took a lot of cash with him every time he went,” she said. “Three or four thousand at least. Nothing ever got re-deposited after he got back.”
“Damn.”
Sydney looked sympathetic.
“We have the names and numbers of all his passengers,” she added. “I didn’t know if you wanted to contact them or wanted me to.”
He thought about it.
“Neither right at the moment,” he said. “First, let’s head to English’s house and find the rest of his bondage pictures.”
“You want me to go with you?”
He nodded.
Reluctantly.
“We’re getting dangerously close to Venta being an official person of interest,” he said. “As soon as we cross that line I’m going to have to take myself off the case, meaning you’ll be in charge.”
Sydney cocked her head.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near that line,” she said. “Remember, the neighbor across the street from English saw a man casing the place. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Venta isn’t a man—is she?”
“Not the last time I checked,” he said.
She grinned.
“And you’ve been checking a lot, I assume.”
“I have but remember she’s a P.I.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that if she’s going to stalk someone and kill him, she’s going to be smart enough to wear a disguise.”
Sydney didn’t seem impressed and punched him in the arm to prove it.
“You are so full of conspiracy theories sometimes,” she said. “Come on. Let’s find the rest of English’s pictures, confirm that none of them are from Bangkok, and move on.”
Right.
Good idea.
70
Day Nine—June 19
Tuesday Afternoon
ON THE WAY TO THE BOXCARS, JEKKER stopped at a carwash and sprayed the underside of the Audi. A lot more chunks of flesh came off than he anticipated. He thought that the rain last night would have splashed up and cleaned the vehicle pretty well. That assumption had clearly been wrong.
When he finished, he pulled the Audi out of the stall and inspected the ground. To his dismay, a couple of dozen hunks of flesh were on the concrete.
They weren’t large.
Most were no bigger than a finger but with so many of them, they were clearly noticeable.
He put more quarters in the meter and washed the carnage down the drain.
A man walked past, on his way to the change machine, and gave Jekker a weird look as if he was nuts for spraying the ground.
Jekker tried to think of something to say, a quick explanation, but nothing came to mind so he turned his back to the man and continued working.
Then he hopped in the Audi and got the hell out of there.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror showed the man staring at him as he drove off.
He got to the freeway and brought the Audi up to speed.
A sinking feeling lodged in his gut.
His mind kept playing a movie. In it, the man stood in Jekker’s stall, talking into a cell phone. Two minutes later a cop car pulled into the carwash. The man waved at it. Two cops got out. Then all three of them stooped down and looked at something on the ground in Jekker’s stall. Then one of the cops said, “Let’s get the grate off this drain and see what’s in there.”
Jekker got off the freeway and doubled back to the carwash. He parked the Audi on a side street three blocks short of the place and then hoofed the rest of the way on foot.
The man was gone.
There were no cop cars.
Everything was normal.
Jekker exhaled and got back on the freeway.
WHEN HE GOT OFF C-470 at the Morrison exit, a Conoco appeared immediately on his right, one of the last stops for travelers heading into the canyon. The sight made him check his gauge. What he saw he could hardly believe.
The tank was almost empty.
He pulled in and filled up, paying with a VISA at the pump. Then he went inside to get a cup of coffee. As he waited in a line four deep to pay, the TV on the wall showed a man talking to a female truck driver at a rest stop. The man looked vaguely familiar. So did the woman. Then the man and the woman got in the truck and drove off. The newscaster said that anyone having any knowledge of who the man or woman was should contact the number at the bottom of the screen. Then a picture of Brandy Zucker, the missing woman, filled the screen.
Jekker kept his face calm, paid for the coffee and walked out. The police must have found Brandy Zucker’s car at Vail Pass. They must have figured out that she didn’t drive it there. When they found videotape of Jekker leaving with a trucker, they must have concluded that he was the one who ditched the victim’s car and then hit the trucker up for a ride.
Unfortunately for the cops, the videotape was extremely poor quality. No one would be able to recognize either Jekker or the driver.
It was nothing to worry about.
HE HEADED INTO BEAR CREEK CANYON with a full tank of gas, punched the radio stations, stopped when he got “I’ll Melt With You,” and sang along. In twenty minutes or so he’d be at the boxcars.
It was time to kill Tessa Blake, end of story.
Four miles later, in the heart of the canyon, he came around a twist in the road and slammed on his brakes to avoid running into the last vehicle of a long string of cars that had come to a stop.
What the hell?
Suddenly a cop car and an ambulance approached from behind with their lights on, swung around him, and disappeared up the road, driving the wrong way in the oncoming lane.
A minute later a pickup truck came around the twist, going too fast, and slammed on the brakes.
By some miracle it stopped before it rear-ended the Audi.
The d
river immediately jumped out, ran down the road and waved his arms to warn the other drivers. It worked, because six more cars pulled up into the line without a single crash. Another cop car came and told everyone to stay where they were and to not turn around. They were keeping the opposite lane open for emergency equipment.
Jekker killed the engine.
People were out of their cars now, talking trying to figure out what was going on and how long the jam would last.
Jekker stepped out.
The truck driver immediately walked over and complained about the delay.
Then the word of what happened started to spread. A boulder the size of a bus dislodged from the canyon wall, probably because of the rain last night. It landed on the front end of a car, squashing the engine compartment and most of the interior. There were two adults and four children inside. Three of the kids were still alive. Rescue teams were frantically trying to extract them.
Suddenly a deep rumble bounced through the canyon and a news helicopter passed overhead.
71
Day Nine—June 19
Tuesday Afternoon
HANNAH TRENT DISAPPEARED on a food hunt, leaving London and Venta to hold up the fort. Five minutes later an Asian man emerged from the elevator bank and walked across the lobby of the Republic Plaza Building swinging an expensive leather briefcase. He had short black hair, a wide mouth and a very distinctive look.
“I know that guy!” Venta said. “Come on!”
They followed, thirty steps behind.
“From where?” London asked.
“Bangkok.”
“You mean the dungeon?”
“I don’t remember where exactly,” she said. “Maybe the dungeon, but not because of a session with me. That I would remember.”
The man led them to P-2 where he got into a white Porsche 911 coupe and drove off. They didn’t need to write down his license plate number. There was no forgetting HUNTR. Back in the lobby they found Hannah holding a white bag.
Venta took it, looked inside and told London, “Salads.”
They ate outside by the fountain under a perfect Colorado sky while Denver bustled around them. Every man that walked by stared at Venta.
Then Hannah.
As for London, she may as well have been invisible.
She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and shook it loose, then raked it out with her fingers.
There.
Better.
She wasn’t quite so invisible.
Hannah pulled a brush out of her purse, ran it through London’s hair and said to Venta, “She’s a cutie, this lawyer of yours.”
“Yes she is.”
London only half heard the words, too focused on the case. “I’m really glad we held off on suing V&B,” she said. “I’m starting to get more and more convinced that V&B may end up being our best friend and that this Thung firm may end up being the real culprit.”
THEY HEADED TO LONDON’S APARTMENT, fired up the Gateway and settled back to see what cyberspace had to say about their new friend.
HUNTR.
The Porsche was registered to one of the Thung firm’s Denver partners, Virotte Pattaya, who lived in upscale Greenwood Village. He was the same person who London initially followed into the elevator and got a strange look from. According to the photos on the firm’s website, though, the man driving the Porsche wasn’t Pattaya, but was a 42-year-old named Kiet, a partner in the firm’s Bangkok office. He must be borrowing the vehicle while he was here in the States.
Suddenly Venta beamed.
“What?”
“I remember where I saw Kiet,” she said. “He was in the bar, the one that I followed Bob Copeland into the night I got abducted.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Good.
Very good.
“He was in a booth,” she added. “He had three or four women wrapped around him and he had his hands all over them. They were having a good time.”
Hannah frowned.
“I’ll bet the little freak was watching you the whole time to be sure everything went as planned,” she said.
Venta nodded.
“That’s my guess,” she said.
“He needs to be held accountable,” Hannah added.
“Yes he does.”
THAT EVENING AFTER DARK, the three women waited down the street from Virote Pattaya’s fancy Greenwood Village estate to see if the Porsche made a move. London chuckled and said, “I’m going to rely on you two since stalking wasn’t on the Bar Exam.” Shortly after 10:00 the garage door opened, the 911 emerged with Kiet at the wheel and disappeared down the street.
They followed, north on Colorado Boulevard to a strip club in Glendale called Shotgun Willies.
“One of us needs to go in,” Venta said. “It can’t be me because he knows me.” Then to Hannah, “Give me a number between one and ten.”
“Four.”
Then to London, “Your turn.”
“Seven.”
“It was nine,” Venta said. “London goes in.”
They gave her money.
Then she headed in.
INSIDE SHE FOUND EIGHT OR NINE OR TEN STAGES, each one filled with a gyrating woman more striking than the other. None were in Venta’s league, or even Hannah’s for that matter, but any one of them could break a heart with the blink of an eyelash. Kiet sat at one of the bars, facing the stages, with two lovelies already snuggled up to him.
Money.
The women must smell it.
London walked to the end of the bar and ordered a draft. A man appeared from out of nowhere and hit on her.
He wasn’t bad looking, nicely dressed in a suit and tie, tipsy but not falling-down sloppy.
He helped her blend in so she let him stay.
KIET SPENT THE NEXT HOUR GETTING LAP DANCES and then left. London got back in the car with Venta and Hannah, and they followed him through the fringe areas of lower downtown where he pulled into a metered lot on Wazee and killed the engine. Ten minutes later a black sedan with deeply tinted windows pulled up next to him.
Kiet got in, then came back out almost immediately and took off.
Venta stayed where she was.
“You’re losing him,” Hannah said.
“I’m going to follow the sedan,” she said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Instinct I guess.”
They followed the sedan.
72
Day Nine—June 19
Tuesday Afternoon
TEFFINGER WAS SITTING AT A RED LIGHT on 8th Avenue, tapping his hand to “Dancing in the Dark” and waiting to cross Colorado Boulevard, when Barb Winters from dispatch called and said, “Are you in the mood to look at a dead guy?”
Teffinger frowned, glanced at Sydney and muttered, “Another one.” Then, into the phone, “Who is it?”
“Some guy named Porter Potter,” she said. “The responding officers said it looked like he slipped and hit his head on the bathroom floor. Kate Baxter’s on her way over.”
There was a time when Teffinger went to every scene.
Day or night.
Rain or shine.
Someone dies.
He sees them.
But he simply didn’t have that kind of time any longer, especially when first indicators pointed to nothing more than a garden-variety accident.
“Thanks for the call,” he said. “Tell Baxter I won’t be able to make it.”
“You’re not heading over?”
“Can’t,” he said. “I’m up to my eyeballs in alligators.”
“That’s supposed to be ass,” she said.
“What is?”
“The alligators,” she said. “You’re supposed to be up to your ass in ’em, not your eyeballs.”
“Yeah, well, they passed the ass a long time ago.”
Ten minutes later, with coffee in hand, Teffinger and Sydney walked in the front door of Alan English’s hou
se.
THE FRESH BONDAGE PICTURES were probably on CDs. They started in the den, where English’s computer had been found. The only CDs there appeared to be store-bought. They bagged them anyway.
They expanded the search into the bedroom.
The basement.
The garage.
Time passed.
“Maybe they don’t exist,” Sydney said.
Teffinger kept searching without looking up.
“They exist.”
An hour later they still hadn’t found anything.
“I’m starved,” Sydney said.
Teffinger was too.
They headed over to Colorado Boulevard looking for something cheap and fast—a McDonald’s or Wendy’s or something like that—with “Surf City” on the radio.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Teffinger said.
“What?”
“Some guys are Jan and Dean and spend their time checking out the parties for the surfer girls,” he said. “I’m the guy stuck in a traffic jam, spending my time trying to figure out if my girlfriend is a murderer.”
Sydney punched the up button on the radio and “Surf City” instantly turned into Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”
“There,” she said. “Problem solved.”
Teffinger grinned.
“And tell that FBI profiler friend of yours to stop messing with the stations,” Sydney added. “All she’s doing is making more work for me.”
“She thinks she has rights,” Teffinger said.
“So do you,” she said. “That doesn’t mean she does.”
He laughed.
A McDonald’s popped up on the right. The drive-thru was jammed up nearly all the way to the curb but Teffinger pulled in anyway. “Too many people in this city,” he said.
BACK AT ENGLISH’S, they found nothing. Then Teffinger discovered something interesting, namely a wall safe hiding silently behind a painting in English’s bedroom. He said, “They’re in here,” and ripped it out using a sledgehammer and crowbar from the garage.
It fell to the carpet with a thud and was every bit of eighty pounds, not to mention awkward.
Teffinger muscled it up into a bear hug, did a Frankenstein walk out to his truck and got it into the bed.
Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) Page 20
