Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (29 page)

But it made no sense to have Jeannie feel bad about it. “No, forget it. Things were going to start busting open one way or the other anyway. If I end up unemployed or disbarred, though, I’m coming to live with you. You understand that, I hope.”

“That’d be okay but our lease has a No Lawyers clause.”

Kelly smiled.

“Most do,” she said.

A gas station popped up and they stopped.

TEN MINUTES LATER THEY WERE FULLY GASSED
up, with a bug-free windshield, and back on the road, sipping from Styrofoam cups filled with the best piping-hot coffee that either one of them had ever tasted. Kelly felt her brain starting to return.

They were heading to Grand Junction for a one-day trial that was scheduled to start tomorrow morning in the Mesa County District Court. No one else in the firm would have been able to jump in and handle it and wouldn’t want to in any event. Kelly had taken it pro bono. Her client, Catherine Wilson, 23, single mother of two, was being sued by her former employer for embezzlement of company funds. The only problem was, she didn’t do it, and if Kelly couldn’t get a judgment in her favor, she may as well hang up any chance of ever getting a decent job again, in this or the next two lifetimes.

They were heading west on I-70 with the cruise control of the Honda set at 78 mph, three over the speed limit. It was the same car that Kelly rented for Jeannie a few days ago.

As they left Glenwood Springs behind them the terrain lost its mountain edge, turning more arid and hilly. The traffic fell off considerably and the eighteen-wheelers began to outnumber the cars. A severe thunderhead was building up in the north, twenty miles away, maybe further, looking like it would spit lightning any second. The sky overhead, by contrast, was bright blue and dotted with solid, white, cotton-ball clouds, seriously stunning.

At certain crests in the road you could see forever in every direction.

“You know what we should do?” Jeannie suggested. “After your trial tomorrow, just keep going, all the way to California and see if we can find Alicia.”

She laughed.

“I’m a lawyer, honey, a lawyer with a mortgage. There’s more golden handcuffs on these wrists than you’d ever want to know about.”

“You’re a lawyer with a target on her back,” Jeannie said. She wore white shorts, a tank top and sandals, and looked way too feminine. “We should go to L.A. and hire a P.I.”

“We could do that from Denver.”

“Yeah but it wouldn’t be as much fun. Have you ever been to La-La Land?”

“No.”

“It’s nuts there.”

They were at a point in the road where they could only get three stations on the radio, all country. Kelly had never really listened to country before and was a little surprised to find that it wasn’t all just about pickup trucks and cheating hearts.

The scenery continued to roll by. For some reason Kelly found herself mesmerized by it. It was incredibly nice being on the road.

Plus her body needed the rest.

AT SOME POINT THE COLORADO RIVER
appeared on their right, running wide and brown and powerful, escorting them into Grand Junction. The interstate and the river funneled into a canyon and rubbed against each other. The road tightened and twisted and the speed limit dropped. When they were just a few miles from the first exit into town, Kelly’s cell phone rang. It was Teffinger. He sounded harried.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Grand Junction.”

“Grand Junction?”

“Yes, Grand Junction. I have a trial here tomorrow. You sound strange, like you’re in a tunnel or something.”

“A stairway,” he explained. “Twenty-first floor. I’m about five minutes away from peeling back Michael Northway. I thought you should know.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Day Nine - April 24

Tuesday Noon

__________

TEFFINGER WALKED UP
the twenty-five flights of stairs to the law offices of Holland, Roberts & Northway, LLC, not in the mood to mess with elevators. By the time he got up there his legs were on fire. Then he found out that the stairwell door wouldn’t open on that floor from his side. He ended up having to rap on it for several minutes before someone finally opened it to see what all the fuss was about.

Sydney was waiting for him in the law firm’s lobby, parked in an oversized leather chair, reading a Sunset magazine and looking like she’d been there for a while. She didn’t seem overly surprised when someone escorted him into the area from behind the receptionist’s desk.

“Don’t even say it,” he warned.

“It.”

“Not funny.”

She leaned forward in the chair but made no move to get up. “He’s here and he’s going to see us, as soon as the client he’s with leaves.”

“When’s that?”

She shrugged.

“When they’re done, I suppose.”

That was fine with Teffinger. It would give the lawyer additional time to build up a sweat. The main thing is that they were invading his turf, letting him know just by their presence that the golden walls of the building couldn’t protect him.

He was just about to go over to the receptionist and see if he could finagle a cup of coffee when she walked over with one.

“Shaken, not stirred,” she said. “If I remember right.”

Teffinger smiled.

“Thank you.”

OVER ON THE WALL WAS A NEW OIL PAINTING,
a large western scene that hadn’t been there last time. Teffinger walked over to it, impressed even from a distance. When he got there he couldn’t believe it and waved Sydney over.

“This is by Gerard Delano,” he explained.

“Who’s he?”

“He did a lot of western illustrations for the covers of magazines in the 1930s and 1940s,” Teffinger said. “Then he did a long series of big oil paintings like this one, almost exclusively of Navajo Indians. This one here is worth more than my house.”

She looked skeptical but said, “It’s not bad.”

He had to agree. It was a substantial painting, about three feet square, titled “Canyon de Chelly.” Three riders were emerging from a canyon on horseback. Most of the painting was in early-morning shadow, with the exception of a bright yellow ray of light that busted through the canyon walls and lay across the desert floor like a thing of beauty.

“That reminds me,” she said with a look in her eye. “I swung by the Carr-Border Gallery, when was it, Thursday I think. The plan was to go in and pretend like I didn’t know who you were and go gaga over your stuff. But they actually looked pretty good in there, your paintings, with the white walls and oak flooring and everything. I was actually impressed.”

That sounded good, and he gave her his attention.

“How many were hanging, of mine?”

“I don’t know, four, maybe. The owner walked over, he’s a horn dog by the way, and I told him you were a genius, that I wanted to know who you were so I could have your baby, blah, blah, blah.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said you were an emerging artist.”

Teffinger grinned.

“He’s nicer behind my back than he is to my face. He usually tells me to cut an ear off and see if that helps.”

“That’s been done.”

“I know.”

“I’d go for the whole head, if I was you.”

He grinned.

“Make a real statement,” she added.

Teffinger shook his head.

BEFORE LONG THEY FOUND THEMSELVES
escorted over to a winding staircase that took them up to the top level of the law firm, where Northway lived. They walked through a fascinating space that looked like Tarzan’s backyard, and got dropped off at the desk of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. They waited on a leather couch for another five minutes, watching her work, until a green light flashed on her desk and she said, “He can see you now.”

Northway turned out to be a good-looking man with an incredible energy, who greeted them warmly and openly, extending his hand and apologizing for the delay. His handshake was stronger than Teffinger anticipated.

“You’re the ones taking such good care of Kelly Ravenfield,” he said. “Come in and sit down.”

The attorney’s office was four or five times bigger than it needed to be, with a wall of glass that opened up into an incredible view of downtown Denver and the Rocky Mountains. From here you could see that most of the high distant peaks were still snow-covered. Over by the wet bar sat a conference table big enough to seat ten, inundated with files and folders.

“Thanks for seeing us without an appointment,” Teffinger said, anxious to get to it. “You’re busy and so are we, so I want to jump right to the heart of the matter. Someone killed D’endra Vaughn a week ago last Saturday. You know who she is, correct? D’endra Vaughn?”

Teffinger fully expected the lawyer to deny it, or at least get a reaction, but the attorney didn’t even flinch.

“Yes, I do.”

“And you’re not the one who killed her, of course.”

Northway laughed at such an incredible statement, and shook his head. “No, not hardly. Unless I forgot, but it seems like the kind of thing I’d remember.”

“In fact, you were actually the keynote speaker at the Top Company Awards that evening, down at the Broadmoor.”

The lawyer nodded. “Last Saturday? Keynote speaker might be a bit strong,” he said, “but I confess to mumbling a few bad jokes into the microphone that night, yes.” Then, “Although I must say that I’m a little surprised that you would even want to know that.”

Teffinger understood.

“You start wide and rule things out,” he explained. “That’s how homicide investigations work.”

“Same as in the law,” the attorney observed. “Sometimes you hear the phrase,
pick a jury
. In reality, no jury has ever been picked. Every jury in the history of mankind has been unpicked. Each side takes turns throwing out the jurors they don’t like and what remains are the unpicked.”

Sydney nodded her head and couldn’t help but say, “I never thought of it like that.”

Northway smiled at her then turned back to Teffinger.

“Sorry for the side trip.”

“We know that whoever killed D’endra Vaughn called Kelly the next day with the dead woman’s cell phone,” Teffinger continued. “As a warning. And we know that D’endra Vaughn and Kelly both participated in that little charade at Rick’s Gas Station last May.”

Teffinger paused to let the words sink in.

This time there was a reaction on Northway’s face, barely perceptible and short-lived, but there nonetheless.

“Rick’s Gas Station,” the attorney repeated.

Buying time.

“We know about that incident from Jeannie Dannenberg,” Teffinger explained. “You remember her, right?”

Again, no hesitation. “Yes I do.”

“By the way, Kelly never told us a word about Rick’s Gas Station, just so you know.”

Northway looked assured, as if that was important to him, then seemed puzzled. “How did you come across Jeannie Dannenberg’s name, just for grins?”

Teffinger wondered if he should answer that one, glanced at Sydney briefly, and saw her shrug as if she didn’t care.

“Yeah, okay,” Teffinger said. “D’endra Vaughn’s boyfriend, initially a suspect, tipped us off that D’endra had come into some mystery money. We thought that maybe she’d done something illegal, which could explain why she’d been killed, and started sniffing around to find out who was active in her life when the money showed up. Jeannie Dannenberg turned out to be on that list.”

The lawyer nodded.

“They were friends.”

“We later found out that the mystery money was ten thousand dollars that you gave to the Vaughn woman in exchange for her participation in the charade.”

“Not my money, exactly, but go on.”

Teffinger felt good about the conversation. It was unfolding the way he wanted and the attorney was being a lot more candid than he anticipated.

“It’s our understanding,” he continued, “that you set up this whole charade at the request of one of the firm’s clients, who wanted to help a particular lady friend named Alicia Elmblade, who in turn wanted to fake her death and disappear.”

Northway wrinkled his brow as if the question had suddenly strayed past the line. “That might be true but I can’t comment on the firm’s clients,” he said.

Teffinger put on his most serious face.

“That’s a shame, because everything that’s happening goes back to Rick’s Gas Station, and if you can’t help us take the next step down the trail then the trail stops at you.”

Northway said nothing.

“So we want to talk to the client,” Teffinger emphasized. “What we need from you at this point is his name.”

Northway looked like he genuinely wanted to help but said, “I can’t divulge that. Attorney-client privilege. And the privilege belongs to the client, not me.” Then he added, “You obviously think that the client is the one who killed the Vaughn woman. He’s not. The so-called trail that you’re so anxious to go down is a dead-end. Take my word for it.”

“Fine. He can tell me that himself and point me in the right direction.”

“I’ll relay the invitation,” Northway said. A pause, then, “But don’t hold your breath.”

TEFFINGER GOT UP, WALKED OVER
to the wet bar, splashed a small amount of malt whisky in a fancy crystal glass, just enough to get a taste, and swallowed it.

“Smooth,” he said, and then looked hard at Northway. “Here’s my problem. Nobody should die the way that D’endra Vaughn did. So I told her, while she was hanging there by her wrists so incredibly dead, and with so much trauma on her body that it made me want to throw up, that I would find the person who did this to her and take him down.”

Sydney nodded, almost imperceptibly, and Teffinger could tell that she was remembering the moment.

“Then,” he continued, “to make matters worse, this man, if you want to call him that, did what he did to Kelly Ravenfield, which didn’t exactly improve my opinion of him.”

Northway was staring at Teffinger with wide eyes, as serious as any human being could get.

Teffinger motioned to Heatherwood that they were leaving and she got up and stood by his side.

“You don’t want the trail to stop at your feet,” Teffinger said. “Believe me. So you sit back and think about all this, you hold your meetings, you talk to your client or your partners or whoever it is you’re going to talk to, you have a steak and a beer, you do whatever it is that you’re going to do. Just be sure you call me by noon tomorrow with something that doesn’t make the trail stop at your feet.”

He walked towards the door.

Then he stopped and turned.

“Oh, by the way, the D.A.’s office has the opinion that the attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply to situations where the lawyer and client actually conspire together to commit an illegal act, such as obstruction of justice. Then, of course, we also have the open question as to whether Alicia Elmblade ended up really dead out of all this. Rumor is, no one’s seen her since that night that you orchestrated so well. On a lighter note, please say goodbye to that gracious receptionist at the front desk for us.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Day Nine - April 24

Tuesday Night

__________

THE THING THAT FREAKED
Megan Bennett out the most, way down deep in her dark corners, was wearing the ball-gag. Every time Ganjon put it on her she went nuts and begged him with everything she had. She couldn’t breathe properly through her nose and the gag made her suffocate.

Right now she was curled up on the floor in the back of the Camry, her right ankle cuffed to the seat frame. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back.

The ball-gag was sitting on the front seat.

Ganjon picked it up and played with it, staring down at her, deciding.

“Please, no,” she pleaded. “I won’t say a word. I swear to you I will not say a single word no matter what happens.”

Ganjon continued to twist it in his hands.

Finally, he said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll leave it off for now just because I’m a nice guy. But if you do anything at all to piss me off, if you try to call out or do anything stupid like that, I’m going to put it on and never take it off again. You’ll wear it for the rest of your life. Do you understand what I just said?”

She nodded.

“Yes. Thank you. I won’t say anything. I really won’t.”

He took a thick brown blanket and covered her.

“You comfy?” he questioned.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m going to put a couple of pillows on top of you, just so you’re hidden better.”

“That’s fine.”

He got her concealed as well as he could, then started the engine, and said, “Okay, we’re going to take off now. I have the knife right here next to me. If we get stopped by the police or anything like that, and you so much as even breathe, that knife is going straight into your face. Do you understand that clearly?”

“Yes I do.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

He smiled at the fact that he hadn’t exactly given her all the information. If the police stopped him, he would deliver a blow to her head so fierce and so violent that talking would definitely not be an issue.

THE NIGHT WAS UNUSUALLY BRIGHT,
filled with yellow moonlight so intense that it actually cast shadows.

He drove down the long dirt driveway, stopped at the gravel road, saw nothing in either direction and pulled out.

He wondered if he was making a mistake sticking with the Camry rather than taking the farmer’s truck, but he didn’t think so. Initially, he pictured himself escaping in the truck. But then, when he got to thinking about it, he didn’t like the downside of the cops getting their hands on the Camry. Leaving it behind would be the equivalent of writing down his name, address and phone number on a piece of paper and taping it on the refrigerator door.