Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (26 page)

He couldn’t help but reflect on just how breathtaking the countryside was from up here. He’d always been a fan of the early morning sun and the way it amplified colors. But this morning, from up here, with the long dark shadows next to the crisp strikes of sunlight, everything was more pronounced and vivid than he could have ever imagined.

Suddenly there it was.

Teffinger was the first to see it.

A body lying on the ground, splayed out, motionless.

It was about fifty yards off the road, over a crest, where you wouldn’t be able to see it from a car in a million years.

“Look there,” he said pointing.

He could feel Baxter take in the view and gasp. “Looks like we’re too late.”

Teffinger kept his eyes on the body as Agent Miller directed the pilot to take them over. Then Baxter said, “That’s a man.”

Teffinger knew her eyes were better than his. Actually, he was nearsighted as hell, and wore contacts. The left eye was fitted for distance and the right one for reading. He studied the body and, now that Baxter mentioned it, he could tell she was right. It was a man.

It wasn’t Megan Bennett.

“There’s another one,” Baxter said.

True enough, another body came into view as they approached the area, lying in the long shadow of rabbit brush, with a red shirt.

“That’s a man too,” Baxter said.

THE PILOT WAS BRINGING THEM IN
for a better look when Teffinger’s cell phone abruptly rang. He answered it as he concentrated on the bodies.

“Teffinger,” he said.

It was Richardson. “Nick, we just got another hit on Megan Bennett’s credit card. At a truck stop between Colorado Springs and Pueblo.”

What to do?

He leaned in towards the pilot. “Have you got enough gas to get us to Pueblo?” The pilot studied the gauges and wrinkled his forehead as if calculating the distance.

“A hundred miles, roughly,” Teffinger added.

The pilot nodded but not all that confidently. “I suppose, if you’re talking one way.”

THEY TOUCHED DOWN ON THE ROAD
just long enough to drop Agent Miller off with the two bodies. A heartbeat later, Teffinger and Baxter shot back into the sky.

Teffinger was somewhat surprised that he was comfortable with the movement now and in fact even liking it to a point. The pilot brought the aircraft close to full throttle and followed I-25 south, which snaked like a flat black river parallel to the foothills. To the left, the east, the sun rose over terrain that lay mostly flat, much of which was undeveloped and some of which was checkered with farms. To the right, the west, the foothills lifted out of the flatlands with a wave-like motion and then bumped into the Rocky Mountains, which looked like they had been pushed up with incredible force from underneath.

“You’re thinking,” Baxter observed.

He was indeed.

“I’m thinking that our biker woman must have pulled off the road somewhere last night to get some sleep, maybe a rest-stop or something, probably because it was too cold to ride,” Teffinger said. “Otherwise she’d be a lot farther than Pueblo by now. If she’s headed south to Santa Fe or Albuquerque, I really want to reel her in before she gets to the border.”

Baxter nodded.

“The two bodies, they looked like bikers,” Baxter said.

Teffinger nodded.

That was true.

“Friends of the biker woman, I’m sure,” Teffinger said. He stopped looking out the window and turned to her. “Did you notice there were no motorcycles, in the area of the two bodies, I mean?”

“I did, now that you mention it.”

“Bikers without bikes, what’s wrong with that picture?” he added. “My guess is that this biker woman is riding one of them, but where’s the other one? She’s got the answers to Megan Bennett’s credit card plus two dead bikers.”

“The plot thickens.”

AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE A LONG FLIGHT
they spotted a lone Harley rider about twenty miles south of Pueblo, in the high-speed lane, clicking off the miles with a serious twist on the throttle. Teffinger tried to get in close with the binoculars but the movement of the aircraft kept jacking him up. Finally he got it in his sight, just for the briefest of moments, but long enough to tell that the rider was a woman and that the license plate wasn’t from Colorado.

“That’s her,” he said. “We got her. Piece-of-cake.”

The pilot looked grim.

“We’re getting low on fuel, just for your piece-of-cake information.”

Teffinger scratched his head.

“How fast is she going?” he questioned.

“About eighty.”

He pondered the options and then turned to Baxter. “Katie, see if you can get the Pueblo P.D. on the line and get them to pull her over.” He paused and found himself thinking out loud. “The problem is, at the RPMs she’s turning, it’ll take them some time to catch her from behind.”

“We don’t have some time,” the pilot said.

Teffinger felt a pressure in his forehead. “Okay, drop back, I don’t want to spook her into going any faster than she already is.”

Baxter called for assistance and explained their situation.

A few minutes later Teffinger saw one of the most beautiful things in the world. A Colorado State Patrol car had come out of nowhere and was closing the gap on the motorcycle with the light bar flashing.

“That guy is flying,” he noted. “He’s got that sucker floored.” Then, “Remind me to buy this guy a gift certificate to the Outback.”

Baxter chuckled.

“Teffinger, you’re the cheapest guy on the face of the earth, in case you forgot.”

“No, I’m serious, twenty-five bucks worth. This guy’s my hero.”

THEN SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED.
The motorcycle slowed down, bounded across the median, crossed the other side of the freeway, and was now heading due east, down a dirt road. Somehow the patrol car managed to hang with her, bouncing and bucking like a thing possessed.

They both threw pretty impressive rooster tails as they headed into the sun.

What happened next, Teffinger could hardly believe.

Railroad tracks crossed the road. The motorcycle slammed on the brakes, almost got rear-ended by the patrol car, made a hard right turn and took off down the tracks between the rails, bouncing violently off the timbers. The woman had to slow down considerably, and was probably doing no more than twenty miles an hour now, but the patrol car couldn’t follow. The tracks pointed deeper and deeper into the arid topography of southern Colorado. She kept her speed steady, fighting to maintain control of the bike but doing pretty good so far.

“Damned impressive,” Teffinger said. “That bike weighs four hundred pounds, minimum.” To the pilot, “Get in front of her and set down on the tracks.”

The pilot said something, something about the fact that they were now flying on fumes, but Teffinger couldn’t focus on him. He saw something he hadn’t noticed before. From behind them, a train roared up the tracks, going the same direction as the biker woman, a freight train with three tandem engines pulling a long string of cars. It had to be going at least sixty. The biker woman obviously didn’t even know it was there; the rumble of the Harley’s engine would be masking it out.

Then Baxter said, “She’s down!”

Teffinger looked and couldn’t believe it.

The bike was down all right, on its side with the woman pinned under it. She was trying to pull herself out, frantic. The back wheel of the bike was still in gear, spinning like a madman, not to mention the chain and sprockets.

He smacked the pilot on the side of the head to be sure he had his attention.

“Get me down there, right now!”

“Okay, there’s a flat spot over there.”

“No time for flat spots! Get right over her!”

Teffinger somehow managed to open the door, climb out, and hang from his hands, ready to jump. The pilot was bringing him in right next to the woman. As soon as they got low enough to where he thought the fall wouldn’t kill him, Teffinger let go. He immediately realized that he should have waited longer.

Chapter Thirty-One

Day Seven - April 22

Sunday Morning

____________

THE SKY HAD BEEN CLEAR
of helicopter activity for more than three hours now. Still, Ganjon was stuck in a spider’s web with a million spiders lurking around. He knew that but at least right at the moment there were no flying spiders.

The farmer’s dog, a golden retriever, was named Bailey according to his collar. He tagged along as Ganjon climbed up the foothills, through the Yucca, rocks, and scraggly wind-battered pines, to try to get a better view of what was going on at the old farmhouse, if anything.

The sky was as blue as blue could get, a warm cerulean color without a puff of buildup to spoil it. The temperature had climbed to about seventy degrees and couldn’t have been more perfect.

He was a little surprised at how much he liked having the dog there with him.

He’d never had a dog before.

In fact, until today, he’d largely looked down on people who had to prop up their pathetic little lives with cats and dogs and other stupid things.

He was high enough now that he could see the farmhouse he abandoned last night. The place couldn’t have been more lifeless. Now that was interesting. If the biker bitch had gone to the police, the place would be swarming by now. That means that she’d just taken off and was probably hundreds of miles away. No doubt she had enough skeletons in her own stinky little closet that she didn’t need to start any up-close-and-personal conversations with the law enforcement types. The problem was, though, that if she got busted for something—which she would sooner or later—she’d try to use the information about him to leverage herself out of trouble.

She really screwed things up.

He found himself by a boulder, realized that he’d been walking for some time and sat down. The dog immediately lay down by his feet, looked up at him momentarily with big brown eyes, and then rested his head on his front legs.

From up here Ganjon could see only one road, the same one he’d been able to see for the last half hour, the same one that a cop car passed over every so often.

Spiders.

Spiders.

Damned spiders everywhere.

He had to get out of their web, assuming the activity was actually for him.

Of course, there was a chance it wasn’t. Maybe the cops had done nothing more than find the bodies of the two dead bikers and didn’t have a clue yet that they were connected in any way to Megan Bennett.

HE REFLECTED BACK ON THE LAST
several hours, which had been productive. Killing the old man last night had basically been a non-event, something that needed to be done, got done, and that was the end of it. His body was up in the rafters of the barn. At some point it would start stinking and be found.

Who cares?

The cops would no doubt try to locate the owner of the other farmhouse. But the farmer didn’t own it, his daughter did, and she was on vacation in Australia. The cops would eventually connect the dots and end up knocking on the farmer’s door, but that wasn’t likely to happen today or tomorrow.

The new place had plenty of food and hot water. All the windows had coverings. And, bless his heart, the one that no longer beat, the old fart was a gun lover. Ganjon picked out the best of the best, loaded them and laid them out on the bed upstairs, lined up like little soldiers.

He had the best of the lot—a 9 mm automatic—with him now, wedged in his belt, not far from the knife.

Megan Bennett had given the weapons a curious look that she tried to hide, but he’d seen it. Still, no big deal, she was overly secured and gagged in the other bedroom, with more than enough sleeping pills pumping through her veins. She wasn’t about to go anywhere until and unless he let her.

The beer fog in his head had totally dissipated at this point. Last night he had been vulnerable but today he was thinking as clearly as ever.

The Camry was hidden in the garage.

The cops could fly over a million times and never see it.

The old man’s pickup truck, a blue single-cab Ford F-150, was no spring chicken but looked to be in good-enough working order. Ganjon found the keys sitting on the kitchen counter and started it up, just for grins. No problems. The only drawback was that the stupid thing had a white aftermarket front fender and a red hood. The locals would all know it by heart and would be suspicious if they saw anyone except the old man driving it.

Ganjon would have to have a story ready, in case that scenario played out.

THE THING THAT CONCERNED HIM
more than anything else at this point was the old man’s telephone. It rang this morning, on two separate occasions, five to six rings each time. Naturally, the old fart didn’t have an answering machine, so Ganjon had no idea who was calling. It could be something totally unimportant, or it could be a friend or a relative, maybe a son or a daughter, trying to get in touch with him. If that was the case, they’d get suspicious sooner or later and end up either calling the cops or coming over to see what was going on.