Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (38 page)

Lots of people emerged at the end of the day.

Wendell wasn’t one of them.

He was a hard worker.

He packed a snack.

That let him work until 7:30 or even 8:00.

Tonight he came out at 7:42.

He had a spring in his step.

He’d had a productive day.

Del Rey closed the gap and said, “I’m a friend of Judge Nelson Robertson. I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute.”

The man paused.

“How do you know Judge Robertson?”

“I was the one blackmailing him,” she said. “You know he was being blackmailed to throw his vote, don’t you?”

The man took a step back.

“What’d you say your name was?”

“My real name’s Susan Smith,” she said. “I go by Del Rey, though. I’m a lawyer from Denver.”

“And you say you were blackmailing Judge Robertson?”

She nodded.

“He swung eight votes for me,” she said. “All that changed though when you killed him.”

The man looked at her with shock.

“I killed him?”

Del Rey ran a finger down his arm.

“How’d it feel when you did it, just out of curiosity?”

“You’re about one step away from me calling the police,” he said.

“I’ve been working out the pieces ever since he got murdered last week,” she said. “I’ve put a theory together. Do you want to hear it?”

“No.”

“Good because here it is,” she said. “Everything was fine until a friend of mine named T’amara Alder jumped in and wanted to blackmail him for money. That’s when he went to his good friend, you.”

“Me—”

She linked her arm through his.

“Walk with me,” she said.

He obliged.

“You knew some of his votes were off the charts so you weren’t all that surprised when he told you why, namely that he was being blackmailed. Being the good friend that you are, you told him you’d try to think of a way to get him out of his little jam. After all, the court would change if he left, and not in a way you wanted. Then you came up with a plan.”

“Which was what?”

“You went to Leland Everitt and talked to him, knowing full well the attorney-client privilege covered your conversation,” she said. “You impressed upon him that the solution needed to take place at the source, meaning that the two blackmailers—me and T’amara—needed to be eliminated. Leland, being the man of bad genes and greed that he is, told you about a little a friend he had, a friend named Oscar Benderfield, who could arrange to get things done. You told him to proceed. You wired money to the firm to cover the so-called expenses.”

Wendell
wiped his brow.

“Hot out, isn’t it?” Del Rey said. “Anyway, Robertson found out that T’amara Alder got murdered. It was in the papers. He confronted you about it. You admitted that it might have happened but it was all for the better. It was for his benefit. The world was better off. The system was back to pure.” She exhaled. “The problem was, he might be a pervert but he wasn’t a killer. With every day that passed, you got more and more concerned that he would break down and go to the police. So you followed him one night when he made one of his dirty little journeys out there to pervert-land and you put two bullets in his gut and made it look like a robbery.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Relax,” Del Rey said. “I have no plans to mention any of this to the police. My game is much bigger than that.”

Wendell looked at her with a sudden recognition of what she was after.

“You want my votes,” he said.

Del Rey nodded.

“You’re my new Robertson,” she said. “Don’t panic though. It’s actually not a bad deal. You’ll only hear from me now and then, when there’s a particular case that interests me. I really should be mad, given that you tried to have me killed. The guy who got hired by Benderfield to do that job, by the way, ended up dead.”

“You killed him?”

She nodded.

“It felt good,” she said. “How’d it feel when you killed Robertson?”

The man grunted.

“It felt like he didn’t appreciate everything that I’d done for him.”

“Meaning the whole thing that I just outlined—”

“Right.”

“We’re going to get along just fine,” she said. “In many ways you and I are exactly the same. We know how to get things done. Just for grins, where’d you get the gun that you used?”

He smiled.

“Leland Everitt gave it to me.”

“It worked well.”

“Yes it did.”

“What kind was it?”

“It was a Glock.”

She patted his arm.

“Small world,” she said. “That’s the same exact weapon I used on the man who came for me. His name was Jean-Luc Baxa, by the way. Did you know that?”

“No. I never knew his name.”

“You only knew that he’d been hired—”

“Right.”

“Well, that was his name, Jean-Luc Baxa. I’ll say one thing for Benderfield, he sure had a lot of friends in low places. I wonder how he and Leland Everitt ever got tangled up together in the first place.”

Wendell shrugged.

“It probably started small.”

“Most things do. So, do we have a deal?”

“It doesn’t look like I have a choice.”

Del Rey
studied him.

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “If you could go back in time to that night when you pumped two slugs into Robertson’s guts, would you do it differently?”

“You mean kill him differently?”

“No, I mean not kill him at all.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Not killing him wasn’t an option at that point,” he said. “He put me in a corner, not just me but Leland. He brought it on himself as far as I’m concerned. How about you? Would you not kill that man—”

“—Jean-Luc Baxa—”

“—Right, Baxa---would you not kill him if you had the chance to do it over?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I’d kill him again. I’d kill him a hundred times over. It was self-defense, that’s how I look at it. It was him or me.”

“Then you know exactly how I feel.”

“I think I do. I’ll be in touch.”

“I’ll wait for your call.”

She broke off.

Five steps later
she turned and said, “Hey, Judge. There’s just one more thing.”

“Which is what?”

“Have you ever heard of someone named Jori-Lee Kent? She was a law clerk for Robertson.”

His face got somber.

“What about her?”

“Well, it seems that she got onto some things, which I’m sure you already know about. What you might not know is that she eventually ended up talking to a detective in Denver by the name of Nick Teffinger, who happens to be the man who killed Benderfield. She was pretty impressed with that and felt she could trust him. Anyway, unfortunately for some people--people like you for example--Teffinger’s a pretty smart guy. Between what I was able to tell him, and what Jori-Lee was able to tell him, he started putting things together, and now, here we are. Do you see those four men coming this way? They’re with the FBI so I wouldn’t resist them too much if I were you.” She tore her blouse open. “Did I mention I was wearing a wire?”

The man
broke into a run.

He didn’t get far.

He went down hard.

Bodies were on him.

A knee went to the back of his head.

His arms got pulled roughly behind his back.

Handcuffs went on.

He got jerked to his feet.

He looked around wildly, spotted Del Rey and said, “You bitch!”

She pulled the wire off her chest and threw it at him.

“See you in hell.”

Then she left.

112

A Month Later

August 19

Tuesday Night

Tuesday night
after dark a mean thunderstorm rolled out of the mountains and unleashed a demonic fury on Denver. Teffinger watched it from the garage, through the windshield of the ’67 to be precise, with a Bud Light in his gut and another in his hand. Del Rey sat in the passenger seat sipping an iced wine.

She wore a white tank top and white shorts.

Her legs were tan and strong.

Teffinger’s phone rang.

It was someone he never expected to hear from again.

It was Rail.

“I want you to do me a favor,” the man said. “I want you to meet me in Miami tomorrow.”

“What for?”

“For something important.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t give you any details.”

Teffinger exhaled.

“That’s a pretty big commitment,” he said. “I’m in the middle of five hundred things.”

“Make it five hundred and one,” Rail said. “You trusted me once before and things worked out. Trust me a second time.”

Teffinger didn’t have the time.

He didn’t have the cash.

He didn’t have the curiosity.

“Come on,” Rail said. “You owe me.”

That was true to a point.

Last month under the Golden Gate Bridge, everything worked out exactly as Rail had orchestrated it. Dandan and Susan Smith were both delivered unharmed. Dandan since went underground on the run from Mun Yin, but that was her problem at this point. Susan Smith was back in Denver already readjusted to her life.

“Okay,” Teffinger said.

“Take the first flight you can get,” Rail said. “Call me when land and I’ll tell you where to go.”

“This better be good.”

“I will be.”

Lightning arced
across the sky immediately followed by a slap of thunder so loud and absolute that it rolled all the way to Kansas.

“I’m going to Miami tomorrow,” he said.

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Rail wants me there.”

She wrinkled her face.

“This doesn’t smell right.”

“Rail’s okay—”

“He’s a well-polished killer,” she said. “Don’t get fooled by his pretty little smile. It’s entirely possible he’s offered you up to someone.”

113

A Month Later

August 20

Wednesday Morning

Miami
was hot and humid when Teffinger touched down Wednesday morning. Rail picked him up at the airport, drove to a marina and said, “Can you drive a boat?”

“To a point.”

They rented a 32-foot Baja go-fast and headed southeast into open water with Rail at the throttle.

“Where we going?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

They went for a long ways, seventy or eight or ninety miles, until Cuba was in their sights.

“We’re still in international waters,” Rail said. “Don’t be concerned.”

“I’m not but why are we here?”

A sail was on the horizon, a mile or so off, tacking in their direction.

Rail killed the engines.

The vessel bobbed.

The waves were gentle.

The sun was magic.

The water was aqua.

“I told you about that night when I sat out in your backyard and watched you and Kelly Nine make love,” he said. “I decided to not protect her any more and left. I walked away, got in my car and drove off.”

“I remember.”

“What I didn’t tell you is what happened next,” he said.

“Why, why happened next?”

“I came back.”

Rail paused and let the words float.

“To my house?”

Rail nodded.

“I tried to leave but I couldn’t,” he said. “My hate was too much. It was in control. I broke in and walked into your room. You were sound asleep, curled up and facing the wall. The storm was beating down. I put my hand over Kelly’s mouth. She woke up. She saw me. She knew how bad things were. She knew I’d kill you if she woke you up. She got up without waking you and she left with me.”

Teffinger hardened his face.

“You’re the one?”

Rail nodded.

“I got there before Baxa,” he said. “He never touched Kelly. He might have showed up that night, I don’t know one way or the other, but she was already gone if he did.”

“You had her.”

“Right I had her,” he said. “We fought. I almost killed her but didn’t. Instead I took her to Yoan Foca. It was the perfect solution because Kelly would end up with a terrible life for betraying me and Foca would be most grateful. I’d get more work from him in the future.”