Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (16 page)

“Nuts, isn’t it? But trust me. For this guy, that’s pocket change.”

“Umm.”

“Saturday night fun money.”

HE LOOKED LIKE HE REMEMBERED SOMETHING,
then reached into his inner suit pocket and pulled out a black device about the size of a cell phone. “Got a present for you,” he said, handing it to her.

She looked at it. It was a black box with a large button on it and a small red light, and the imprint of a company name, Anderson Security Services.

“It’s a GPS security alarm,” Michael said. “If you’re in trouble, you press this button. It sends a signal back to the security company and feeds them your exact location using GPS. They then call the police.”

“GPS?”

“Global Positioning System,” he explained. “Based on latitude and longitude, supposedly accurate to within twenty feet. And the signal is registered to you, so when you press it, the security company can tell the police who they should be looking for.”

“Interesting.”

“Compliments of the client,” he added. “He also wants to get you a bodyguard.”

Kelly shook her head no.

“We already talked about that,” she said.

“I told him you’d say no. But remember that the offer remains open if you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh,” he said. “He also wants to get you a gun, if you want one.”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

“I told him you’d say that.”

“I’ve never touched a gun in my life,” she emphasized.

They were on 17th Street now, walking in the heart of downtown, almost at the firm’s building.

“So, what now?” she questioned.

Michael considered it. “Now we just be careful, keep our eyes open and let the client continue his investigation. The one thing we can’t do is get the police involved. There’s nothing we can do or say to help them, anyway. And if they ever do find out about Rick’s Gas Station, a lot of damage is going to result.” He paused and looked at her. “You understand that, I assume.”

“Of course I do.”

He must have seen something in her face, because he added, “And stop thinking bad thoughts about the client. I can guarantee you that he’s not involved in any wrongdoing.”

She felt herself nod.

“And neither am I, for that matter,” he added. “So stop worrying. This whole thing’s going to settle out and everything’s going to get back to normal. Trust me.”

“Trust a lawyer?”

“No, trust a friend.”

Chapter Seventeen

Day Five - April 20

Friday Morning

___________

TEFFINGER’S ALARM CLOCK
pulled him out of sleep with all the subtleness of a freight train. It sat safely on the other side of the bedroom, on the dresser, where he couldn’t smash it with his fist—an old college trick.

It was only four in the morning.

Why’d he set it so early?

Then he remembered.

Megan Bennett.

He washed his face, popped in his contacts, and then checked to see if anyone left any messages on his home phone, office phone or cell phone. Fifteen different people had been told to call him immediately if Megan Bennett showed up.

No messages meant that she was still missing.

Not good.

Today would be critical.

He ruffled his hair with his fingers, threw on gray sweats and jogged out into the chill of the night. He lived in a split-level house near the top of Green Mountain, third house from the end, backing to open space. That meant that flat streets were scarce, which meant that if you wanted to run around here you’d either be going up or down.

He didn’t particularly like either.

He started off too fast, as usual, but then eased into a sustainable pace as he began to wake up. The rest of the world still slept. Cats prowled and the occasional backyard dog, which would have completely ignored him by light of day, let out a good stiff warning bark just in case he was thinking about doing something stupid. Every once in a while he caught a whiff of pine scent, which reminded him of camping trips when he was a kid.

He ran through the darkness, clicking off the streetlights, letting his legs stretch and his lungs burn, thinking about how to find Megan Bennett.

One hour later he was showered and shaved and sitting at his desk downtown, the only living being in the room, with a cup of very hot, incredibly good coffee in front of him. He was wide-awake. The lack of sleep last night might start to weigh on him sometime this afternoon, but right now the caffeine was moving him forward just fine.

Megan Bennett.

Most missing persons turn out to be statistics if they don’t turn up in the first thirty-six hours or so.

The oversized industrial clock on the wall said 5:45 in the morning and continued to twitch the seconds off even as he looked at it. Megan Bennett had been missing about thirty hours at this point.

The hour of truth was coming.

He grabbed a fresh notepad and uncapped a blue pen. Then he jotted down the things that needed to be done today on the case, in no particular order of priority.

PAUL KWAK, WHO TEFFINGER CALLED AT HOME
last night and asked to come in early this morning, showed up at the requested time, six-thirty. He had a half-eaten donut in one hand and a white bag in the other, presumably with more of the same.

He looked grumpy.

“You owe me one,” he warned.

“I owe you ten,” Teffinger agreed. “Thanks for coming.”

Kwak extended the bag.

“Donut?”

Teffinger paused, seriously considering it.

“They low-cal?”

“Absolutely,” Kwak said, patting his big old truck-driver’s gut. “That’s how I keep this baby looking so fine.”

Teffinger grinned, pulled one out, white cake with chocolate frosting, and took a bite. Delicious. “So you can do this?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Kwak said. “You got the tape?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s have a look.”

Kwak cued up the videotape that Teffinger obtained from the Total last night, the one that showed the car pulling up to the pay phone that someone had used to call Megan Bennett from the night she disappeared. He downloaded it into a computer and then manipulated it with some type of software. What started out as a vague moving vehicle in the rain now showed up as a fairly clear stationary picture of a car on a 20” flat-panel screen.

“Looks like a Toyota,” Kwak offered, printing out a copy for reference.

Teffinger nodded, not really knowing one way or the other. “They all look the same to me,” he said, which was true.

Kwak looked as if that was an understatement “That’s because they are,” he said. “Everyone out there building cars nowadays uses the same little cookie-cutter formula. There’s no guts in the boardroom anymore, no Carol Shelbys, that’s the problem.”

Teffinger nodded.

“You know what a donkey is?” Kwak questioned.

“No, what?”

“It’s a horse built by a committee.”

Teffinger smiled and repeated it to himself.

It was worth saving.

“There are too many committees building cars, nowadays,” Kwak went on. “It’s not like it was in the fifties and sixties when cars were actually different. When something came down the road back then, you could tell from a block away whether it was a Vette or a Mustang or a Goat or a Bird. I remember in eighth grade, I could tell you the name of every car on the street.”

Teffinger didn’t totally agree. After all, no one would mistake a Hummer for a Mini Cooper, but he understood Kwak’s point. “Those days are gone,” he offered.

Kwak nodded, returned to the computer’s main screen and clicked open another software program, something derivative of the insurance group’s Auto Theft Book.

“Okay,” he said. “Here we go.”

He pulled up a checklist and marked a few of the search items—Car, Four Doors, Passenger Side—and punched enter. The screen filled up with about thirty vehicle photos, all profiled from the passenger side, page 1 of 23.

Within five minutes Kwak matched a car to the one from the Total videotape.

“Toyota Camry,” he said. He pulled up earlier models of the same vehicle until he found a change in the body style. “Could be this year’s model, last year’s or the year before that,” he concluded. “They used the same body style for all three years.”

Teffinger was impressed.

“That’s one slick program,” he said.

“You like that, huh?” Kwak questioned, obviously pleased with himself.

He nodded.

“Very nice.”

“It sure beats the old hit-and-miss books we used to use,” Kwak said.

Then he pulled up a screen that showed the color schemes that were available for Toyota Camry for the last three years. “Okay, we’re getting a black and a dark blue exterior color available for all three years,” he said. “The car we’re looking for could be either one, it’s too hard to tell with this black-and-white video.”

“That’s good enough,” Teffinger said. Then an additional thought popped into his head. “Is there any way to tell if we’re looking for a rental?”

Kwak took a bite of donut, chewed with his mouth open, examined the reference print and shook his head negative. “Not from this,” he reported. “If we had a view of the glass, we’d probably be able to tell, since most rentals have some kind of decal on the window that tells you who to call if you lock the keys inside. It could be a rental but there’s no way to tell from what we have.”

Teffinger nodded.

“Okay. Good enough.”

He looked at his watch, almost seven. Katie Baxter should be in soon. “Thanks Paul, I owe you one.”

“Just find the woman.”

TEFFINGER REALIZED THAT HE HADN’T REFILLED
his coffee cup once since Kwak arrived a half hour ago. He walked back down the stairs to homicide, poured a fresh cup and slurped it at his desk. Katie Baxter showed up a few minutes later, before he could think of anything new to jot down, and he brought her up to speed.

They both agreed that Megan Bennett had to be the department’s priority item today.

“What I’d like to do,” Teffinger said, “is start generating a list of male drivers, six feet and taller, who own a black or dark blue Camry, no more than three years old.”

“Drivers not more than three years old? That seems improbable.”

“No, the car isn’t more than three years old.”

She smiled.

“I knew what you meant but someone has to mess with you.”

He shook his head.

Then she got serious and he watched her as she thought about it. “What we’ll need to do is get a list of Camry owners first, which is easy. But then we’ll have to pull their drivers licenses and get their heights. That’ll take a little time.”

He nodded.

“Perfect, because that’s exactly what we have—little time.”

That complete, Teffinger was ready to move on to the next subject. “I’m thinking that we also want a press conference, to get a picture of Megan Bennett and a Toyota Camry on the news, starting with the noon news today if we can move that fast.”

Baxter agreed.

“You going to be the talking head?”

He didn’t mind the cameras, in fact he liked them. Also, it might make an impression on Kelly if she saw him on TV.

Kelly Ravenfield.

Why was she so much in his thoughts lately?

“I wouldn’t care,” he said, “because I know exactly what I want to say. But if it starts getting political, and everyone starts jockeying for position, I’m not going to have time to deal with it. I’ll tell you what. Can you talk to the Public Information Officer and the Chief and get it in motion?”

“Will do.”

“If it falls into my lap without too much trouble, I’ll be happy to do it,” Teffinger said. “If it gets dramatic and starts generating a bunch of closed door meetings, just pull my name out of it.”

“Will do.”

She looked at him weird.

“What?” he questioned.

She looked down at his coffee cup and he followed her eyes to it. It sat there, empty as could be, and he just realized it had been like that for more than fifteen minutes.

He shook his head.

“I’m cutting back,” he said. “Didn’t you get the memo?”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because whole economies will get out of sync,” she said. “People in distant places are depending on you.”

He smiled.

“I never thought about that.”

“They have children to feed,” she added.

LATER THAT MORNING HE STOPPED IN
unannounced at RK Safety Consultants, where Megan Bennett worked. The offices were located on a second-floor walkup, above a bar and grill in LoDo. Only one of her coworkers was there, a man in his late twenties by the name of Andrew Andrews. He was bald on top and shaved the sides to match. He had an easygoing, friendly manner, and seemed to have just a touch of a gay edge to him. Not that Teffinger cared; live and let live as far as he was concerned.