Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (11 page)

Colder tensed.

“I don’t know how you got pointed in the wrong direction but you did,” he said. “Now let me explain something to you. A firm like this is built on reputation. If I hear even a whisper of a rumor that you’re saying even the smallest thing out there in the world to hurt this firm’s reputation, I’ll slap a defamation suit on you so big that you’ll think you’re under attack by a pack of brainsick gorillas. Am I clear?”

Teffinger tossed his card on the desk and headed for the door.

Halfway through he turned and said, “Call me. You have until five o’clock. Then I get on a plane to D.C. and have a little chat with Oscar Benderfield. I’ll bet he ends up being smarter than you.”

Down at street level
under a bright Colorado sky he called Sydney and said, “I just put a serious rattle on Jack Colder’s cage. What I need is for you to get down here to his law firm and see if he leads us anywhere.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Can’t,” he said. “I’ve got something else going on.”

“Like what?”

“Rattling more cages. Colder might head home and put together a care package and then head for the airport. If he does, arrest him right after he buys a ticket.”

“Okay.”

“Be careful of him. He’s a rat in a corner.”

31

Day Five

July 12

Saturday Morning

Jori-Lee
tossed with a demonic possession all Friday night, hardly able to sleep, instead replying over and over the sounds of the mystery jogger getting murdered on the other end of the phone.

She didn’t call the police, at least not yet.

She didn’t need to be sitting in a room talking to them, not after breaking into Robertson’s house. There were too many ways things could twist back on her. If she could give them some concrete information on the killer it might be different; but she’d only heard a few words. The voice could belong to anyone.

Tracing the dead woman’s phone number wasn’t hard.

It belonged to one T’amara Alder, a Miami woman.

Jori-Lee pulled the woman’s house up on Google earth.

It was in a crowed Miami neighborhood west of downtown, just south of an airport. The more Jori-Lee stared at it the more she knew she should get down there before the police did. So far there was no news report of a local murder, meaning the police didn’t know what happened, meaning they wouldn’t be snooping around down in Miami yet. The window of opportunity was there.

She should take it.

She should take it now, this second.

She realization hit her so hard that she grabbed her purse, called a taxi and paced outside next to the curb until it came.

“Dulles,” she said.

Two hours later
she was in a window seat of a bumpy jet six miles above the earth, trying to figure out if the man who killed T’amara Alder perceived her to be a threat. He knew she’d heard his voice but it was only a couple of words.

Shut up bitch!

Don’t fight me!

Would he be worried that she’d be able to recognize it?

Her incoming number would be indelibly etched in Alder’s phone. From that the killer could figure out who she was and, in fact, probably already had.

She hardened her gut.

There was no time to think about it right now.

Right now she needed to concentrate on the task at hand once the landing gears touched earth.

At first
she was scared to break into the dead woman’s house.

The prospect still made her palms sweat but now she was equally resolved.

She’d rent a car, scope it out during the day and make her move after dark.

She’d need a flashlight.

She’d need dark clothing.

She’d need a hotel room.

She’d need an excuse for being in Miami in case it ever became an issue.

She’d need a fair share of luck.

Most importantly, she’d need to be invisible.

She’d need to be the ghost that never was.

32

Day Five

July 12

Saturday Afternoon

Colder wouldn’t crack.
He’d flee the country, either that or lawyer-up and bide his time to make sure that fleeing was his only remaining viable option. He wasn’t the weak link. That honor went to Oscar Benderfield.

That was fine.

In fact, that’s the way Teffinger preferred it.

Benderfield was the smallest fish.

Strategically it would be more satisfying to use him to bring down the bigger ones.

Teffinger headed to DIA, bought a ticket for D.C. and paced in Concourse C next to the wall-to-ceiling glass with a nervous eye on the mountains of winged metal falling in and out of the sky.

Flying wasn’t natural.

It was nothing more than an act of luck.

Luck was something that could run out at any random moment. He’d flown a number of times before and had only crashed once. That was on the Nile in a puddle-jumper so he wasn’t sure if it really counted. Even if it did, at this point he was still pressing whatever few ounces of luck he had left.

His phone rang
and Sydney’s voice came through. “Colder just walked past Susan Smith’s place and gave her apartment the finger.”

“Her or her apartment?”

“The apartment,” Sydney said. “Susan wasn’t around as far as I could tell.”

Teffinger chewed on it.

Colder’s hate was so livid that he had to manifest it. He was unhinging. The hate was overpowering the need to stay concealed.

“Where is he now?”

“Walking towards the financial district. He has a leather briefcase in his hand.”

“Stay with him.”

“Okay but if he hasn’t busted me yet he will soon. He looks over his shoulder every twenty seconds.”

A calm voice
dropping out of ceiling speakers announced the boarding of Teffinger’s flight. People stood up, grabbed bags and kids, and headed for the gate.

Susan Smith would be murdered tonight.

Colder would either hire someone or do it himself.

The finger to her apartment was the final goodbye.

Teffinger cashed his ticket in and walked to the Tundra with a brisk stride.

Outside the terminal walls the air was an oven.

He was almost
to the Tundra, way at the west end of short-term parking on level E, when his phone rang.

“Teffinger, it’s me.”

Me
was Del Rey.

Her voice sounded like a car crash.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone broke into my place,” she said. “There’s a dead magpie on my kitchen counter. Someone ripped its wings off.”

Teffinger pulled up the image.

“Are the wings there?”

It was a stupid question.

It was also all that he could think of to say while his brain spun the possibilities.

“No, I don’t see them.”

He broke into a trot.

“Leave now,” he said. “Get in your car and get out of there. Stay on the phone so I know you’re safe.”

“I don’t think anyone’s still here. I think they’re gone.”

“I don’t care if they’re gone or not. Get out of there right now.”

Forty minutes later
he met her down at 6
^th
by the fairgrounds and held her tight. She was calm now. The initial shock was gone.

“I don’t want a police report,” she said.

“That’s not smart.”

“I don’t want the dungeon becoming public knowledge.”

“I’ll keep a cap on it.”

“You can’t and you know it.”

He frowned.

The words were true.

“Give me your key,” he said. “I’ll go up and have a look around. When I’m sure it’s safe I’ll give you a call and you can come up.”

Five minutes later
he was in her house.

No one was there.

The magpie was on the counter right where Del Rey said it was. The wings were ripped off and gone. The head was cut off and lying cockeyed with opened eyes next to the body. A kitchen knife was on the counter next to the head. Goo was on the blade.

He found the wings.

One was in the refrigerator.

The other was on Del Rey’s pillow.

He left everything as it was and called her.

“It’s clear,” he said, “come on up but be prepared.”

Four minutes later
she walked through the front door to the kitchen and asked a question Teffinger didn’t expect.

“Did you do that to the head?”

No.

He didn’t.

“It wasn’t like that before,” she said. “It was on. The head was on. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

33

Day Five

July 12

Saturday Afternoon

Teffinger’s best arguing
couldn’t convince Del Rey to report the intrusion and get an official case on file. “This is Unincorporated Jefferson County,” she said. “The sheriff’s office is right across the street from the Taj Mahal.”

“The what?”

“The courthouse. Every judge in the county would know about the dungeon within a week.”

Teffinger wasn’t impressed.

“So what?”

“So when I walk into a courtroom I need respect,” she said. “I don’t want anyone in the room with a trump card. Lawyers included for that matter.”

Teffinger leaned against the countertop, almost on the bird.

The place hadn’t been trashed.

Nothing of value had been taken.

A gold watch sat unceremoniously untouched on the bedroom dresser next to a stack of twenty-dollar bills.

He focused on Del Rey.

“So you don’t have even the faintest idea who did this?”

She shook her head.

“Like I said, my best guess is that it has something to do with my law practice because that’s the only thing in my life powerful enough to spin into something like this. But I can’t think of a single case or client or opposing counsel or opposing client that fits.”

“Well, someone’s messing with you, that’s for sure. Either that or this is some kind of a warning.”

“A warning about what?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

He photographed
the bird and the wings, getting several shots of each from different angles, and threw the parts out in the open space. Then he called Dr. Leigh Sandt, the FBI profiler from Quantico, and pulled up an image of a classy fifty-ish woman with step-master legs.

She actually answered.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Teffinger?”

“Yeah, don’t hang up.”

He explained the situation and said, “So what’s your take on it?”

“To me it’s a message,” she said. “It’s a waning. The guy is saying,
There’s death right here on your kitchen counter. You’re next
.”

Teffinger swallowed.

“You really think it’s that serious?”

“I do. If you had more information I might have a different conclusion, but looking at it with no more facts than what you told me, I’d lay my money on it being a foreshadowing of what’s to come—especially since valuables were lying in plain sight and weren’t touched. It’s a statement that this isn’t about money. She can’t buy her way out of it.”

Teffinger exhaled.

“Is there any significance to the placement of the body parts?”

“I don’t know. As for the pillow, maybe there’s nothing more behind it than the guy saw the Godfather at some point in time.”

Teffinger smiled.

“Can you do what I’m going to ask you to do?”

“Teffinger, don’t you dare. I’m slammed with fifty other things—”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “How soon can you do it?”

He didn’t need to define
it.

They both knew what he meant.

It
was to see if any other files existed with a similar MO.
It
was to see if the creep was already implicated in a prior investigation somewhere, leaving body parts of an animal as a precursor to murder.

“God, I hate you,” Leigh said.

“Hate and love are the same thing. You know that, right? Ciao.”

“Hey, you still there?”

He was.

“There’s one more option to consider.”