Confidential Prey (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) Read online

  The seatbelt sign was still on. Teffinger unsnapped, got vertical and wandered back to the flight attendant’s station where a startled young woman gave him a stern look.

  “The seatbelt sign’s on,” she said.

  Teffinger sat next to her.

  “I need coffee.”

  “We’ll be serving—”

  He handed her a twenty.

  “Do me a favor, as soon as you’re authorized, get to me first and keep it topped off. Can you do that?”

  She took the bill and stuffed it in her bra.

  “Your eyes are two different colors,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “When the left one starts to turn green it means I don’t have enough caffeine in my system. That’s why this is so important.”

  She smiled.

  “Is that the CNN reporter you’re sitting next to? Raverly Phentappa?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew it.”

  Back in his seat Teffinger called the district attorney, Clay Pitcher, a barrel-chested man with yellow cigar teeth. He was five years from retirement and hard to get riled up at this point. After filling the man in on everything that was going on, Teffinger asked him the all-important question. “Can we get a search warrant for Anderson North’s phone records?”

  Clay’s reaction was quick.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s not doing anything wrong,” Clay said. “He’s passing information but he’s not committing a crime.”

  He hung up, looked at Raverly who had been listening to it all, and said, “Your turn.”

  She dialed Anderson North and caught him on his drive into work.

  “I want you to tell me who your L.A. contact is,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to talk to him.”

  “About what?”

  “About telling me the name of his client.”

  “That’s a dangerous, dangerous path, and I’m not going to let you go down it,” he said. “Besides, my marching orders are clear. No one’s supposed to try to backdoor this guy. That means me and it also means you.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” he said. “I’ve been set up to be a Chinese wall and that’s exactly what I’m going to be.” A beat then, “Look, even if I told you who my contact is, there’s no way in hell he would ever turn in his own client. I know this sucks, but that’s the way the system works and you know it.”

  That was true.

  She did know it.

  She hung up, looked at Teffinger and said, “No go.”

  The seatbelt sign went off. Ten seconds later the flight attendant showed up with coffee and a smile. “Let’s get that green eye back to blue,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  Teffinger avoided the confused look on Raverly’s face and lowered his voice. “When we get to Denver we’ll hire a P.I. I’m getting those phone records and that’s all there is to it.”

  Raverly nodded.

  “I’ll do the hiring and the paying,” she said. “That will keep you one step removed.”

  “Thanks.”

  Twenty minutes later Sydney called and said, “The woman in the dirt was definitely the lawyer, Ashlyn White. Her throat was slit just like the guy said. I don’t mean to be crass with what I’m about to say, but I don’t think she was a random hit or a spur of the moment thing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like I said, I don’t want to appear rude, but the woman’s not a looker. She’s in her mid-thirties and, well, just not all that attractive. More than that, though, she was taken late at night when the parking garage wasn’t getting much activity. It wasn’t a place to stroll. It was more of a place to hide and wait for someone you already picked out.”

  Teffinger cocked his head.

  “Lawyers know things,” she said. “Maybe she knew something and our friend wanted to get it out of her.”

  “Possibly,” Sydney said. “We’re also looking into robbery. The woman left the office with a briefcase. It wasn’t at the grave site.”

  “Does anyone know what was in it?”

  “Not at this point.”

  “Well, she’s our best connection to our little friend so keep pressing. The clock’s ticking.”

  “I understand.”

  7

  Day Fourteen

  August 16

  Tuesday Morning

  In the 1400 block of Larimer Street, Raverly walked up a rickety wooden staircase to the second floor of a turn-of-the-century building and stepped into the office of private investigator Jack Bahamas III.

  He was behind the desk studying papers, sexy as ever.

  A cigarette dangled from his lips.

  An overflowing ashtray sat to his right.

  To his left was a cup of coffee.

  He looked up, locked eyes and said, “Long time.”

  That was true, it was.

  She’d used him once before on a very delicate, very private matter. He did his job well and kept his mouth shut. He also made her thighs tingle every time she was around him.

  She hopped up on the desk and dangled her legs.

  He ran an index finger in light circles on her knee and said, “Is this business or pleasure?”

  “Business.”

  “Damn, so close—”

  “Actually, sometimes you are. I need phone records,” she said.

  “Whose?”

  “A lawyer. His name’s Anderson North.”

  Bahamas took a deep drag and blew smoke.

  “Phone records are almost impossible to get these days,” he said. “You’d think they’d be the easiest thing in the world but they’re not.” A beat then, “If you want to know who this guy’s been talking to, it’s almost easier to just steal his phone.”

  Raverly pulled an envelope out of her purse and set it on the desk.

  “I don’t care how you do it,” she said. “What I care about is that it gets done today.”

  “Today?”

  She nodded and scribbled digits on a notepad.

  “That’s my new number. Call me the minute you have something. Needless to say, this is confidential. Keep your lips as tight as they go.”

  Then she was gone.

  Ten minutes later she was back.

  “Look, if you steal it, he can’t know about it,” she said. “Write down all the incoming and outgoing numbers over the last week and then slip it back where you got it.”

  “That’s a tall drink of water,” he said.

  “Then get yourself thirsty.”

  8

  Day Fourteen

  August 16

  Tuesday Morning

  Tuesday morning was a flurry of motion but whether it was forward or backwards or sideways only time would tell. Either way the basics got done. Teffinger fully briefed the chief who planned to flood the streets with overtime and bodies tomorrow night. He also called in Clay Pitcher to get warrants to obtain flight manifests into Denver for today, tomorrow and the last two weeks, to cross-reference them to flights into San Francisco and Las Vegas when the two prior murders occurred.

  “It would be nice if we could cross-reference hotels too,” he said.

  That was true.

  It would be nice.

  It would also be impossible to do it that quickly.

  Whether they should issue a public warning for tomorrow night was a delicate matter still under evaluation.

  Mid-morning, Teffinger had a thought that wasn’t too bad of one, and dialed Dr. Leigh Sandt, the FBI profiler in Quantico, Virginia, to prove it. As the phone rang he pulled up the image of a classy woman, fiftyish, with Tina Turner legs and a rock on her wedding finger the size of a small planet.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Teffinger.”

  “If I had half a brain I’d hang up right now before you get to say another word,” she said.

  He smiled.

>   “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll give you ten seconds.”

  Silence.

  Then the line went dead.

  A minute later his phone rang and Leigh’s voice came through. “Sorry. I just had to do that.”

  “You had me going,” he said.

  “That was the plan.”

  He filled her in on what was happening and said, “If this guy’s telling the truth that he’s killed twenty-four people so far, he’s got to be on your radar screen to some degree or another.”

  “You want me to check, don’t you? That’s what you want me to do.”

  “No, I just want you to have a nice day,” he said. “The woman he’s going to kill tomorrow night, though, she wouldn’t mind if you checked.”

  Leigh exhaled.

  “You fight dirty.”

  “Glad you noticed.”

  “I’ll do it on one condition,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Next time I’m in Denver, you take me out and get me drunk.”

  “Done.”

  He was about to punch his phone off when he heard muffled talking emerge.

  “Teffinger are you still there?”

  He was.

  “I just had a thought,” Leigh said. “Maybe the L.A. attorney doesn’t really exist.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is, maybe the Denver attorney—what’d you say his name was?”

  “North.”

  “Right, North,” she said. “Maybe North doesn’t have an L.A. contact at all. Maybe the killer is actually North’s client. Maybe North just made up the part about the L.A. attorney so you wouldn’t be staking out his office to see who went in and out.”

  He took a sip of coffee.

  “You’re a dangerous woman.”

  “So I’ve been told.” A beat then, “I have an extension of that thought, too. Do you want to hear it?”

  He did.

  “Maybe North doesn’t have an L.A. contact and maybe he doesn’t have a client, either.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “What I’m saying is, maybe he’s the killer.”

  Teffinger frowned.

  “This is why I never like to call you,” he said. “You make my brain hurt.”

  He poured what was left of the coffee into the snake plant, filled up with new hot stuff. Then he headed down the stairs and north on Bannock into the guts of the city.

  Fifteen minutes later he was in the heart of the financial district, leaning against a building on the shady side of Broadway with his eyes on the revolving doors that sat at the base of North’s building.

  Almost immediately the man emerged, walking in the direction of the 16th Street Mall.

  Teffinger followed him to the burgundy awnings of Marlowe’s at 16th and Glenarm, where the man disappeared inside. It was a place to see and be seen, a frequent haunt of the rich, relevant and upwardly mobile, especially lawyers. Teffinger had eaten there only twice in his life. Both times involved women he was trying to impress.

  He hung outside for five minutes, deciding, and then headed in.

  North was in a back corner booth with a leggy blond ten years his junior.

  Teffinger slid in and said to the woman, “Can you give us a minute in private?”

  She looked at North with confusion.

  He said, “Just stay put. We’ll be right back.”

  Then he led Teffinger into the main room near the end of the bar. He put on a mean face and said, “What’s going on?”

  “A woman’s going to die tomorrow night.”

  “I know that.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “It makes me feel like the world’s a sick place,” North said. “It also makes me feel like you’re trying to pressure me.”

  “I don’t want anyone to die,” Teffinger said.

  “I’m sure you don’t.”

  “If I find out you’re dirty in this in any way, even a scintilla, you’re going down. If I even think you’re dirty, you can kiss your reputation as a defense lawyer in this town goodbye. I’ll make damn sure that any client represented by you or anyone else in your firm never gets a plea deal, not even a little one. You can tell every one of your clients the minute they walk in the door that they’re going to have to go to trial.”

  North frowned.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Tell me who your L.A. connection is.”

  “I can’t do that.” The man sighed. “Look, Teffinger, I know none of this is fair. I understand that it takes a lot of guts to try to shake someone like me down. I respect you for it, I really do. My advice to you is simple. I’m a conduit to the man you want. Think of the right questions. I’ll pass them along and get you whatever responses come back your way. The ball is in your court, not mine. If I were you I’d spent less time trying to shake me down and more time trying to figure out how to use me. Do it through Raverly, that’s the protocol. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a luncheon engagement.”

  Teffinger left.

  If North was dirty, Teffinger didn’t detect it. All he could see was a man of convictions, twisted convictions, possibly, but convictions nonetheless.

  He was five minutes into his walk back to homicide when he turned around and went back to Marlowe’s. North was in the booth with his hand under the table on the woman’s leg.

  Wine glasses were in front of them, half empty.

  Teffinger put his hands on the table and leaned his face into North’s.

  “Tell the guy no more talk. If he has something he wants to say, tell him to be a man about it and call me directly. I’m not interested in playing games with cowards.” He pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote digits on the tablecloth. “That’s my number, day or night.”

  Then he was gone.

  9

  Day Fourteen

  August 16

  Tuesday Afternoon

  Back at homicide the chief wasn’t pleased and creased every line in his 50-year-old face to prove it. “We had a direct line of communications going with the guy and you slammed it shut. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I’m tired of playing games.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  Teffinger headed for the coffee pot, filled up and took a sip.

  “Good stuff,” he said.

  “Teffinger—”

  “He’ll call.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.” He exhaled and said, “We don’t have time to do things by the book. I got a gut instinct and I acted on it and now it’s done. This guy wants to dance. Trust me, the music hasn’t stopped playing.”

  The chief scrunched his face.

  “I don’t even know what the hell that means.”

  Teffinger smiled.

  “Neither do I. It sounded pretty good though, didn’t it?”

  Teffinger’s desk was in the main homicide room, an ordinary cubical with a beat-up desk, a squeaky vinyl chair and a view out the window to the bail bond houses across the street, painted in cartoon colors. His predecessor had a real office, one with a door that shut and got as quiet as a tomb if you wanted it to. Teffinger could have had it when he was promoted to the head of homicide three years ago.

  He even tried it out for two days.

  The walls were a vice.

  The stillness of the air was a crypt.

  In the evening after everyone left, he scooped up all his papers and reclaimed his old spot. He told everyone it was because it was closer to the coffee pot, but when they paced it off it was actually three steps farther.

  He didn’t care.

  He could breathe there.

  Right now, he paced next to the window, throwing mean glances at his cell phone sitting there in the middle of his desk, as if he could will it to ring by sheer willpower.

  It didn’t ring.

  Minute after minute after minute passed and it didn’t ring.

  Then one
of the detectives from the property division walked into the room, a non-confrontational woman by the name of Joanne Lee who’d been given the dubious assignment of going through Teffinger’s old cases to see if anyone popped out as having a motive to murder him, over and above the ordinary.

  “I’ve been concentrating on release records,” she said, referring to felons who recently got paroled. “There’s none with your name tattooed on their forehead, at least that I can see.”

  He nodded.

  He also didn’t care.

  Sure, he was a target, but things had been calm for two weeks, not to mention he had bigger things on his mind.

  “I did find one thing of interest, though,” she said.

  Teffinger cocked his head.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, do you remember that guy you killed with your hands last year.”

  Teffinger winced.

  He remembered.

  Everyone remembered.

  Teffinger had been tailing the guy in connection with three recent murders. A confrontation erupted and Teffinger defended himself, choking the man to death with his bare hands in the process. Afterwards, they found out he was the wrong man.

  The killing was ruled justifiable and Teffinger was cleared following an investigation. Still, deep down in his bones in the middle of the night when no one was looking, he had to admit that he probably could have backed off.

  “I remember him,” he said.

  “Well, get this,” Joanne said. “Somehow Raverly Phentappa is connected to him. She’s that hot little CNN gal that everyone drools over.”

  The words dropped with the weight of a planet.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  No, she wasn’t.

  She wasn’t kidding at all.

  “How’s she connected?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said. “She was at his funeral though.” She handed Teffinger a photo and said, “See, that’s her right there. Do you recognize her?”

  He did.

  Just like that the ceiling was too low, the windows were too small and the walls were too close. He needed air and needed it now.

  Outside he walked at a maniac pace.

  The sun beat down and soaked into every pore of asphalt and wood and plant and bug and dog in the city.