Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (24 page)

The little shit.

Teffinger couldn’t believe how dismal the investigation of Kelly’s disappearance had been so far. They went through her loft with a fine-tooth comb and found nothing. Her car was not in its assigned spot in her parking garage. A BOLO had been put out on it but so far it may as well have spun off the face of the earth. She hadn’t shown up at the Paramount Café for the law firm function. Nor was her car parked in the street, or in any of the parking garages, within three blocks of that venue. Nobody had seen or heard from her all night. She wasn’t answering her cell phone, nor had any calls been made from it.

He didn’t even want to think about what might be happening to her right now.

But think about it he did.

In fact, that’s about all he could think about. Against his will, he found himself making up horrible little scenarios and filling in the details.

Then his phone rang.

“Teffinger?” He recognized the voice as Sydney’s. She sounded like she just stepped off a roller coaster. “Somebody used Megan Bennett’s credit card at a gas station. South of town, way down south, almost to Castle Rock.”

“When?”

“Now, tonight.”

TEFFINGER SWUNG OVER TO PICK UP HEATHERWOOD,
shot over to I-25 and headed south, bringing the speedometer up to 95. Exits shot by—Evans, Yale, Hampton. Before long they were through the Tech Center and then leaving County Line Road in their wake. Heatherwood leaned forward in her seat and studied the traffic, visibly apprehensive of their speed.

“Want me to slow down?” he questioned.

She shook her head. “It’s okay. But if you kill me I’m never going to speak to you again.” Then. “I can’t believe this guy would be stupid enough to use the woman’s credit card. I thought he was supposed to be Mr. Careful. It doesn’t add up.”

“Or subtract down,” Teffinger agreed. “Which reminds me, to be politically correct we probably ought to give our FBI friends an invite. We owe them that much, at least, for coming all the way out here to Denver.”

“You got a number?”

He didn’t and tried to think where he could get one. “They’re at the Brown Palace, downtown.”

“I know where the Brown Palace is, Teffinger. It’s that place where I can’t even afford to buy lunch. How do they rate the Brown Palace?”

Teffinger shook his head. He never thought about it and now wondered why.

“I don’t know, good question.”

Sydney nodded.

“Damn right, good question. Hell, that’s where Elvis stayed.”

“And the Beatles,” Teffinger added.

She got the number of the hotel from dispatch and then talked the desk clerk into patching her through to Agent Charles Miller’s room. From what she could tell, he just about popped right out of bed with a major erection for the action.

“They’re coming,” she warned. Then added, “Got to hand it to ’em.”

Teffinger nodded.

“They’re hunters, those three. They’re not your normal bureaucrats.”

Twenty minutes later they cut off the freeway and headed west, on a winding road that neither of them had ever been on before.

The lights and activity of civilization disappeared.

TEN MINUTES LATER THEY PULLED INTO A SINCLAIR
station, an outdated building with only two pumps. There was only one other car there, parked on the side, an old Chevy sinking low on weak springs and bad shocks, which Teffinger surmised to be the attendant’s.

They paused at the pumps. A credit card receipt hung there, printed but not taken. Teffinger left it in place as part of the crime scene but bent over close enough to read to name on the paper.

Megan Bennett.

Good.

This was for real.

Inside, the place reminded Teffinger more of an old general store than a gas station, stocked with the obligatory junk food but also lots of real food, and liquor, plenty of liquor. One of the walls displayed a couple of hundred movies for rent, in their original video boxes, now tattered and handled. For some reason one of the boxes caught his eye, Body Double, and he made a mental note that he really needed to rent that again someday, if for no other reason than to watch the “Relax” scene, where they play the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song.

The place was huge, as if it once had old service bays that had been turned into part of the store.

THE STORE ATTENDANT TURNED OUT TO BE A KID,
probably no more than a year out of high school, who was actually stocking the shelves rather than staring into space when they walked in. He had an innocent face, shaggy blond hair and eyes that, well, fixed on Detective Heatherwood. Teffinger had almost forgotten that she could have that kind of effect on people, he was so used to her.

“This is your lucky night,” Teffinger said, flashing his badge. “You get to talk to two homicide detectives, at no charge, and maybe get to say something that ends up saving someone’s life.”

The kid was stunned. It was all over his face. He’d even gone so far as to take his eyes off the female and give Teffinger his full attention.

“What’s you name, buddy?”

“Jason.”

“You got a last name, Jason?”

“Windermere.”

“Well, Jason Windermere, someone used a credit card here about an hour ago,” Teffinger continued. “For $15.22.”

The kid looked relieved, like he knew exactly what Teffinger was talking about. “That was at the pump,” the kid said. “Outside.”

Teffinger nodded.

He already knew that.

“Did they come inside?”

The kid shook his head. “No.”

“Okay,” Teffinger said. “Play it back for me. Tell me what happened.”

The kid furrowed his brow. “It was a girl on a motorcycle, a Harley, I think. Major loud.”

“A girl?”

“Yes, I mean, a woman. Older, you know, early thirties, maybe.”

Sydney jumped in. “So ancient, is what you’re saying.”

The kid laughed. “No. Come on.”

Teffinger pulled a picture of Megan Bennett out of his shirt pocket.

“Is this the woman you saw?”

The expression on the kid’s face told Teffinger immediately that it wasn’t. “No. No way.”

“Okay.”

“Not even close.”

Teffinger nodded.

“Was this woman by herself or with a guy?”

“Herself.”

“Herself, huh? So she was driving the motorcycle, the Harley?”

The kid nodded.

“Yeah, she wasn’t having any problems, that’s for sure. She was definitely a biker chick. You could probably put her in a business suit and still tell.”

“So what happened? Outside?”

The kid shrugged. “Nothing, really. I mean, she pulled up at the pump, filled the tank and then left. That’s about it.”

“So she never came inside?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No, I was inside.”

“Watching her.”

A pause. “Yeah, I guess. That’s part of my job, to keep an eye on things. I would have helped her, if she needed it. But she wasn’t having any problems.”

“So you didn’t end up going out.”

“No.”

“You just stayed inside and watched.”

“Basically, yeah, stocking the shelves.”

Teffinger shifted a little, looked around the store, and then back at the kid. “I noticed a video camera outside, pointed at the pumps. It looks like a fake.”

The kid nodded, obviously impressed. “It is a fake. The owner calls it a decoy but I’m not too sure that it actually decoys anyone.” He pointed up to the ceiling, at a camera pointed down at the cash register area. “That one’s real,” he said. “But not the one outside.”

Teffinger nodded. “So basically what we have to go on is what you saw and that’s pretty much it.”

The kid shrugged. “I guess so.” Then added, “Plus her fingerprints on the pump, I suppose.”

“No one’s used that pump since?”

“No.”

Teffinger looked outside at the pumps, momentarily excited, and then remembered that the handle would have oil residue, counterproductive to printing.

He paused, found himself about to ask another question, then changed gears and asked the one thing that had been on his mind since he walked into the store. “Is that coffee over there fresh, or is it going to hold up a spoon if I stick one in?”

“Maybe a plastic spoon but not a real one,” the kid said.

Teffinger grinned and walked in that direction. “Close enough.” He took his time, pulling out a large Styrofoam cup, opening up two creamers and dumping them in, then topping it off with piping-hot coffee. He took a sip, found it a little too thick for his taste, but what the hell, then walked back over to where the kid and Sydney were chatting.

“Fingerprinting the pump was a good observation,” Teffinger noted. “You’re pretty smart.”

The kid brightened up, as if in territory where he could brag a little. “I get by.”

“You in college?”

The kid shook his head. “I’m saving up for it, though, that’s why I’m working here. I have another job too, at a scrap yard.”

“Two jobs,” Teffinger said.

“My mom has some health problems, so things are a little tight.”

“Is that car outside yours?”

The kid smiled. “Yeah, a beauty, right?”

Teffinger smiled.

“I’ve had a couple of beauties myself, although, I have to admit, not quite as beautiful as yours.” He pulled one of his business cards out of his wallet, wrote a name on the back and handed it to the kid. “You ever thought about going to Metro, down at the Auraria campus?”

“Not really.”

“The name that I wrote down there for you,” Teffinger said, “Jerald Woodfield, is the head of the admissions department at Metro. He also handles some special scholarships. I’d consider it a personal favor if you would give him a call. Tell him that I sent you down. My bet is that he’s going to find a way to get you into classes next semester, if you’re interested.”

The kid looked like he wasn’t quite sure whether to believe Teffinger or not.

“You’re jerking me around, right?”

“I don’t know. I guess you’re going to have to call and find out.”

Teffinger took another sip of coffee and looked around the store, then back at the kid.

“Which way did the motorcycle come from?”

The kid pointed to the north. “That way.”

“And which way did it go when it left?”

The kid pointed the other way, south.

“That way.”

“Mmm.”

TEFFINGER SPOTTED TWO CARS
outside speeding in their direction, their headlights bouncing up and down on the country road. He pulled a twenty out of his pocket and handed it to the kid. “For the coffee,” he said. “Keep the change. The two cars coming this way are FBI. Nice people. They’re going to interview you in a lot more detail than we have. Then we’re going to take you downtown to meet with a composite artist. You’re going to want to call the owner of this place and tell him what’s going on, so you can get relieved.”

The kid grinned.

“He’s going to crap.”

Teffinger walked over to refill the cup, almost empty already. “I assume you didn’t get a license plate number on that motorcycle.”

“No, I sure didn’t.”

“No reason you would have.”

“It wasn’t a Colorado plate, though. I don’t know what state it was but it wasn’t Colorado.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Huh, well that’s interesting.”

Very interesting.

The kid cocked his head. “What exactly did this woman do?”

“We don’t know yet. Maybe nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

OUTSIDE, TEFFINGER AND SYDNEY
intercepted the FBI at the pump, filled them in and jointly developed a plan.

They would flood the area with law enforcement vehicles, from the Denver Police Department, the Denver office of the FBI and the local police force. Everyone was to be on the lookout for not only the biker woman but also a dark blue or black Camry. Baxter would get the Crime Lab up here to process the scene. They’d alert all the major police departments up and down the interstates, on the chance that the biker woman was on the run, meaning, north on I-25 up to the Wyoming border, south on I-25 down to the New Mexico border, east on I-70 to the Kansas border and west on I-70 to the Utah border. They’d get an FBI chopper down here at the first ray of dawn, to see what they could view from the sky, or at least keep the guy pinned down a little better, if he was in the neighborhood. They’d get a better statement from the gas station attendant, Jason. If they were lucky enough to get a composite of the biker woman, Teffinger would quarterback getting it on the news and keeping it there.