Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (6 page)

“Diet coke and Absolute?”

“Fine.”

He explained
the situation, namely that the killer—a woman who went by the name of Portia Montrachet— came to take her mark last night. Luckily for Susan, the woman ended up in an encounter that left her dead. “The important thing is that whoever hired her will have another go at it. You’re not off the hook.” He took a hard swallow and added, “You need to be honest with me tell me what’s going on. If I don’t have the information to stop this at the source, it won’t stop. So tell me, what’s the source?”

The woman pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, tapped two loose and extended the pack towards Teffinger.

He declined.

She lit up.

“There is no source.”

Teffinger frowned.

“Don’t play this game. It’s dangerous.”

She blew smoke.

“I’m a big girl, Mr. Teffinger. I can take care of myself, if there was even something to take care of, which there isn’t.” She tapped ashes into a tray, read the expression on his face and leaned back. “I’ll make you a deal. You can take me out tonight and ply me with drinks. You can pick my brain while my defenses are down.”

He considered it.

It was wrong.

It was stupid.

It wasn’t the way investigations worked.

It wasn’t the way to maintain professional boundaries.

He stood up and headed for the door. Halfway through he turned and said, “I’ll pick up you up nine.”

“Perfect.”

15

Day Three

July 10

Thursday Afternoon

The afternoon
was a flurry of motion, but whether that motion was forward, sideways or backwards, only time would tell. A search warrant for Portia’s hotel room turned up the suitcase and the money. Unfortunately, though, the photo of the mark--Susan Smith--wasn’t inside or anywhere to be found, either in the room or in the woman’s rental vehicle.

As for her murder, none of the private security cameras in the area shinned on the location in question. The cameras in the fringe areas where Portia may have walked en route contained no footage of her. No witnesses came forward. The alley contained a lot of junk ranging from empty cans to spent cigarette packs to who knows what. The fresher pieces were meticulously collected and bagged on the chance one belonged to the killer. Still, it wouldn’t lead to the person’s identity, it would only tie him to the scene after they knew who he was. Two stray pieces of trash, however, rose above the others; not in the alley but just outside on the sidewalk. The first was a spent book of matches, burnt amber in color with a black abstract dragon on the front, somewhat in the nature of a tribal tattoo. The second was a discarded cigarette, thrown down after only a few puffs and then burnt to the filter.

Neither contained prints.

“Find out where the matches came from,” Teffinger told Sydney.

“You’re not serious.”

He was; very, in fact.

“The guy could have lit the butt in the first few moments when he was talking to Portia, then threw it down when things escalated. That’s why it was hardly smoked.” He raked his hair back, focused on the matchbook and said, “It could be from a tattoo shop. Maybe our guy’s an ink nut. Go back over the tapes and mark anyone and everyone with tattoos, male and female, or even tattoo-looking, even if you can’t see anything visible.”

“Tattoo-looking?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Not really.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“I’ll take a short shot if you have one.”

She screwed
a serious expression on her face and said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said before, about how Susan Smith told you she was a big girl and could take care of herself.”

“Well, she is, but she can’t,” Teffinger said. “She doesn’t really appreciate the depth of the problem.”

“That’s not what I’m getting at,” Sydney said. “What I’m getting at is that maybe she already took care of the problem. That’s why she’s so relaxed, at least short-term.”

Teffinger raked his hair back.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that maybe she was laying in wait.”

The words landed with the force of a two-by-four, not because they were farfetched, which they were, but because Teffinger should have come to the theory himself. “Are you saying Susan Smith killed Portia?”

Sydney shrugged.

“Obviously I don’t know,” she said. “It’s possible though, you have to admit. I mean, I’ve been in contact with her. She knew she was a target. She knew to be on the lookout for Portia—an attractive female with a tattoo on her neck—who I described to her. She discounted the whole situation to my face like I was out of my mind, but maybe all the while she knew she was the target. Rather than let that fact on to us—because we’d press her to tell us all the hows and whys, which is something she’d no doubt rather keep secret—she laid in wait.”

Teffinger leaned forward.

“Or had someone lay in wait on her behalf,” he said.

“Right, she could have hired someone, or had a friend, or maybe even some type of accomplice involved. Then she, or they, made it look like some kind of a sex thing gone wrong.”

Teffinger chewed on it.

It made sense, logically speaking.

Down in his gut, though, it didn’t resonate.

It was thin.

It was watery.

“Store it away as a theory,” he said. “We’ll drag it out later if we need to.”

Sydney shook her head.

“It’s a mistake to take her out tonight,” she said. “If she killed Portia, you’ll be tainting the investigation.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my new MO.”

“Plus there’s the danger to you.”

He smiled.

“That’s cute. I’m going to get some more coffee. You want some?”

Time passed.
Clouds rolled in late afternoon. Instead of vaporizing and blowing to Kansas, they grew mean black bellies and put on a bad attitude. At twilight they cleared up without dropping a drop.

Teffinger and Sydney were the only ones left in homicide.

A pizza box with three pieces sat on the corner of Teffinger’s desk.

His stomach was a grease pit.

Just as he was about to leave, Sydney pulled him over to the security tape and pointed. “What do you think about this guy?”

Teffinger studied the screen.

The guy in question looked like a boxer, with a square chin, a furrowed brow and a cat-like movement. Teffinger’s first thought was that he didn’t know if he could take the guy in a fair fight. His second thought was a lot darker and a lot more relevant.

“If he can’t kill someone, no one can.”

Sydney studied his face.

“There’s no tattoos showing,” she said.

“Find out who he is.”

Two minutes later
he was in the Tundra, heading west on the 6
^th
Avenue freeway, en route to get ready for the big adventure with Susan Smith.

Del Rey called just as Teffinger exited at Union.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Investigating.”

“Till when?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’ll probably be long. Past midnight—”

“Come over when you’re done.”

He chewed on it.

The chew tasted good.

“Okay.”

Del Rey.

Del Rey.

Del Rey.

She had a hold on him again.

He didn’t care.

Even if she dumped him again, he didn’t care. It would be worth it.

“See you then,” she said. “The key will be under the front mat.”

16

Day Three

July 10

Thursday Evening

Humidity choked
the air and sucked the energy out of every pore of Jori-Lee’s body as she jogged through the twilight streets of D.C. She hoped the run and the setting sun would get the legal briefs and deadlines and daily mess of One First Street out of her head long enough to let her think.

So far it wasn’t.

So far all she could concentrate on was to not get hit by a car or trip on an uneven sidewalk or rip her face on a low hanging branch.

Still, she was alive.

She wasn’t in a cell.

She wasn’t disbarred.

She wasn’t under a swinging light bulb in a dark concrete room being battered by the FBI as to what the hell she was doing the other night and who was she working for.

A mile passed, then another.

Heavy breathing came from behind.

She turned to find a woman approaching, a woman on a jog on a hot summer night, just like her except at a faster clip.

The woman came alongside and fell into step.

She was fit, curvy and had a body built for sex.

“Nice night,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve seen you around. You work at One First Street.”

“Maybe.”

The woman pulled a piece of paper out of her bra and passed it over. A glance showed that it contained a phone number; nothing else, just a number; typed, not handwritten. The area code wasn’t local.

“Tell Mr. Robertson to call that number tomorrow at exactly seven p.m.”

“Who are you?”

“Just tell him to do it.”

The woman veered off and was gone.

17

Day Three

July 10

Thursday Evening

When the time came
Susan wasn’t in the mood for crowds, particularly drunken ones. She had two bottles of white wine and said, “Let’s just go somewhere quiet and chill.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care. Surprise me.”

Teffinger’s first thought was Red Rocks, parked up high where the lights of Denver twinkled all the way to the Kansas line. His second thought was a lot better. They ended up at Chatfield Reservoir, anchored at the west end of the lake in a 29-foot Beneteau; a friend’s from the marina, not his. The air was still and the water was glass. Five miles to the west, the foothills were a dark jagged band under a fading orange sky that would dissolve into total darkness within the next ten minutes. The oppressive heat of the day was losing its fight with the thin Rocky Mountain air, now down to 80 and sinking.

A hundred yards off, near the shore, two fishermen in an aluminum boat were working the lines.

“I used to do a lot of fishing when I was a kid,” Teffinger said. “Back then I was just an amateur baiter. But, like everything in life, I got better. Now I’m what you’d call a master baiter.”

Susan punched his arm.

“You’re terrible.”

He smiled.

“Thank you.”

The talk was small, the moon was up and the wine was a song in Teffinger’s head. Susan slipped out of her pants to cool off and stretched out on the cushions. A flash of white cotton appeared between her thighs whenever she shifted her legs, which seemed to be a lot.

Teffinger swallowed.

Don’t screw her.

Don’t jeopardize whatever it is that you have going on with Del Rey.

Don’t get stupid.

“Stupider.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“I’m serious, stupider.”

“I heard you the first time.”

He took
a long swallow of wine, looked at the Susan-silhouette and said, “It’s going to be a shame if all this disappears.”

“If all what disappears?”

“All things Susan,” he said. “Tell me who’s out to kill you. Tell me why.”

She exhaled.

“I’m not sure I’m drunk enough yet.”

“Then keep drinking.”

She drained what was left in her glass, slowly unbuttoned her blouse and set it to the side, then removed her bra and laid it on top of the blouse. She stretched out on the cushions face down, wearing only the panties, which were now nothing more than a hypnotic accent defining her curves.

“Give me a massage,” she said.

“You need to talk."

“I’ll talk during the massage. I like it rough. Dig deep.”

Teffinger laid his hands on her back.

Her skin was soft.

Her muscles were taut.

“Talk,” he said.

“Relax me first.”

He obliged.

The touch of her flesh lit a fire under his skin.

“There’s a law firm down in the financial district called Colder & Boggs,” she said. “They’re fairly big, about a hundred lawyers. They mostly do high-stakes litigation and specialize in class actions. The Colder part of the namesake comes from Jack Colder. Have you ever heard of him?”