Witness Chase (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (7 page)

“Yeah,” Teffinger said. “You’re in mourning, I can tell. You smell like a brewery. That’s serious.”

“This is harassment. I’ve already spent more than two hours with you guys . . . I’ve cooperated . . .”

“Let me tell you how a DUI works, in case you’ve never had the pleasure,” Teffinger said. “I call a special unit on the radio and we sit here and squirm in our seats until they arrive. When they get here, they set up a video camera and you’re the star actor in something called a roadside sobriety test. When you fail that, which you will, things start to get really fun. You can take a breathalyzer test and then be arrested, or you can decline, and we arrest you anyway. Either way, you’re now the proud owner of free room and board. We book you in, take your clothes, do a full cavity search, give you some lovely orange coveralls and then take you to a place with concrete and steel to meet some new and exciting friends. You’re going to love it.”

“What is it you want?” Whitecliff questioned, the words thick with frustration.

“What is it I want?” he echoed, as if considering every possible answer in the world. “I want world peace, I want a giant, big-ass sailboat, but most of all, to be honest with you, I just want to go home and go to bed, which is something you’ll understand better in ten years. But I can’t, because I’m standing out here in the middle of the night jerking-off with you.”

Aaron Whitecliff frowned. He was five-eleven with shoulder-length blond hair, a former high school track star and all around good guy, just ask anyone.

“Detective Teffinger,” he said, “I’ve . . .”

“Lieutenant,” Teffinger corrected him.

“Lieutenant Teffinger, I’ve cooperated fully. You’ve asked me a thousand questions. I’ve given you a thousand honest and straightforward answers. You know where I was the night D’endra got killed, every minute of it. I don’t know what it is that you want.”

“Stay where you are,” Teffinger said, all patience gone, now walking back to his car and letting Whitecliff track him in his rearview mirror. He picked up the dispatch radio, talked into it, then sat there with his arm strung over the back of the seat and his head cocked, putting on a show.

HE DIDN’T MOVE FOR A FEW MINUTES,
looked at his watch, saw it was five minutes to ten, noted he was flirting with danger, then thought Screw it and picked up the cell phone to call Katie Baxter.

“Katie, Teffinger.”

She sounded grumpy.

“Hey.”

“You’re in a lovely mood,” he said.

“I’m in bed,” she said, “as in, some of us actually sleep. Where are you, anyway?”

“Squeezing D’endra Vaughn’s boyfriend,” Teffinger said. “I wanted to touch base real quick, to see if you had anything new on him that I should know about.”

“Aaron Whitecliff? Nothing definite one way or the other yet,” Baxter noted. “That strip-club that he claims to have gone to after he left D’endra’s, I spent some time there this afternoon. Nobody remembers seeing Whitecliff on Saturday, or any night for that matter, based on his picture, at least.”

“What about surveillance cameras?”

“The manager, a guy named Morrison or Mortenson or something, it’s in my notes, said he’d give us copies of the tapes from that night, provided we agree not to use them outside the investigation.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Baxter said, “he’s a tad concerned that if they got in the wrong hands, they might show the girls getting a little too friendly at times, which might not look so dandy to the liquor board.”

Teffinger nodded.

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Otherwise,” she said, “he’s going to have to run it by his lawyers.”

“Screw the lawyers,” Teffinger said. “I’ll swing by there on my way home and give him my personal word that nothing’s going to come of it.” Then, “Unless the D.A.’s already got his nose in it.”

Baxter laughed.

“I saw it as our call.”

“Right,” Teffinger said. “Okay, got to go. Whitecliff’s holding something back and he’s either going to tell me what it is or wish he had.”

HE SAT THERE FOR ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES
, then a police car pulled up behind him and turned the bubbles on. A second layer of red and blue light bounced around with a jagged eerie motion. Teffinger got out of his car, walked back to the police car and leaned in the window. Pickard, a veteran with an unsubstantiated bribe allegation in his file, sat behind the wheel. Next to him was a new guy, his face still an eager one, with no visible signs of bureaucratic scar tissue yet.

“Pickard,” Teffinger acknowledged, ducking down to get a look at the new face. “Who’s your co-conspirator?”

The passenger responded for himself, extending a hand. “Adam Foster, sir. I’ve been hoping to meet you. It was the Patterson case that got me interested in joining the force.”

“Mister freaking whoop-de-do,” Pickard said, referring to Teffinger.

“That was pretty amazing,” the new guy said.

Teffinger’s eyes darted, a flash behind them for a nanosecond, rapid images of hours and hours at his desk, the hunch, working his way through the dark, the blood pumping through his veins, the sudden movement behind him . . .

“That was a team effort,” he said.

“Mister freaking modest,” Pickard said. Then to the passenger, “Don’t try this at home, boys and girls.” Back to Teffinger, “So what are we doing here, exactly?”

Teffinger filled them in, then walked over to Whitecliff’s car and leaned on it, wearing his most severe face. “Okay, the DUI guys are here. Once they begin, I won’t have any power to stop them,” he said grimly.

Then he waited.

Nothing.

He started to walk back, screw him.

“Wait,” Whitecliff said.

Teffinger was almost in the mood to let it pass, to let the son-of-a-bitch take a little trip downtown, but found himself walking back and putting his hands on the door.

“What?”

“There’s only one thing I can think of,” Whitecliff said. “When I first met D’endra, this was maybe a year ago, she kept a lot of cash in the house. She used it to pay for all kinds of stuff: groceries, car repairs, everything. Then it ran out and she started using checks and plastic like everyone else.”

“How much cash?”

Whitecliff narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t know. A lot.”

“One thousand? A hundred thousand?”

“How should I know? Ten or twenty . . . a lot.”

“Where’d she get it?”

Whitecliff shook his head in apparent bewilderment. “It was before my time and she never said. But I got the feeling that she didn’t deposit it in a bank because she didn’t want a record of it.”

“So something illegal?”

Whitecliff shrugged.

“Something secret, at least, even from me.”

“Drug money?”

“No, she was never into that.”

“You sure?”

Whitecliff nodded. “Yeah.”

“What else you got?”

“That’s it.”

Teffinger paused, giving him time to reconsider, then finally said, “All right.” He looked in the direction of the police car. “I’m going to tell these guys back here that I don’t smell beer anymore, but I can’t let you drive, it’s different than it was fifteen years ago.” He paused then added, “Everything could have been a lot easier if you’d have come out with this in the first place.”

“I didn’t think of it until now.”

“Funny how the mind works,” Teffinger said. “Step out. Let me see you lock your keys in the car before I leave.”

THIRTY SECONDS LATER
he was on the phone to Sydney. "I know I’m a major pain in the ass calling you this late, but tomorrow I need to know who was in D’endra Vaughn’s life a year or so ago. Get what you can on them, occupations, addresses, all the usual, and run full criminal background checks. It turns out that she ended up with some mystery money in her pocket sometime around then and my gut tells me that’s connected to why she’s dead now.”

A pause.

“Who is this?”

He smiled.

“See you in the morning. Love you.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

NO SOONER DID HE HANG UP
than Barb Winters, one of the night dispatchers, a woman with new breast implants and a new wardrobe, and a few new friends, called. “Teffinger. We’ve got two dead bodies on Lafayette. Richardson is supposed to be on call but phoned in sick. Should I call Baxter or do you want it?”

“What’s wrong with Richardson?”

“Food poisoning,” Winters said. “That Chinese place on Court Street.”

“Wong’s?”

“Yep.”

“No way,” he said. “I’ve eaten there for ten years.”

“Did you eat there today?”

“No.”

“Okay then. Two dead bodies on Lafayette. You got ’em, or what?”

Chapter Seven

Day Two - April 17

Tuesday Night

____________

FROM THE NORTH EDGE OF THE CITY
Teffinger took I-25 south to the 6th Avenue freeway and then headed east, trying to decide which was more important, heading straight to the crime scene to be sure it was properly secured or stopping for coffee. Two minutes later he screeched into the 7-Eleven on Lincoln Street, a white fluorescent oasis in an otherwise murky night. A kid at the cash register looked up from Deals on Wheels when he walked in.

“Coffee,” Teffinger said, picturing a quarter-pot of burned brown goop.

The kid looked startled and pointed towards the rear.

“In the back. I just made a fresh pot.”

“No way. My life doesn’t work like that.”

He wished he had one of his six or seven thermoses with him, but they were all safe and sound back home, so he bought yet another new one, dumped in five French Vanilla creamers and then filled it to the top with regular. Wasted money, the thermos, but the thought of running dry after just one cup wasn’t an option. A double homicide held a distinct possibility that he’d still be working at daybreak.

From there he went straight to the crime scene, which he recognized, pulling up, as a house with a reputation. A medium-weight drug pusher by the name of Leonard Smith was running crack out of it not more than two months ago, a fact totally unknown to anyone in the department until he managed to wander in front of an RTD bus one night at the unjust age of nineteen. The landlord, a retired police officer, took back possession and, after seeing the basement, made a proper but rather embarrassing phone call to the Narcotics Bureau.

“The new tenants will be better,” he promised.

The yellow tape was already up and three or four uniformed officers were stationed in front of the house, a good sign. The Crime Lab had apparently just arrived and was in the process of setting up halogen light-stands on the south side of the house. Teffinger checked in with the scribe, put on his gloves and headed in that direction. The auxiliary lights suddenly went on and illuminated two bodies on the ground, both black men, both with faces covered in blood.

The violence was palpable.

A HUGE FIGURE WANDERED OVER
and said, “Teffinger, have you got that five bucks you owe me or am I going to have to think unpleasant thoughts about your health.” It was Sammie Jackson, referring to the collection he was taking up to get a sixtieth birthday present for the chief.

Teffinger pulled his wallet out.

“You have change for a hundred?”

“Man . . . don’t even start that shit with me.” Jackson was a black man standing six-seven, part of the Gang Bureau, as if anyone ever started shit with him.

Teffinger handed him a five.

“Now don’t forget that I gave that to you. So what do we have here? A gang fight?”

Jackson laughed, a deep rumbling baritone from massive lungs. “Hardly. The dead brothers are both gangsters, all right—Crips actually—but they got killed by a white guy, one white guy.” Then added, “If you can imagine.”

Teffinger paused, shifted to his left foot, and thought,
Here we go.

“What do you mean, if you can imagine?”

“I mean, if you can imagine.”

“So what are you saying, that white guys can’t fight?”

“No, no,” Jackson said, “White guys fight just fine.” Then added, “In fact, in my humble opinion, every bit as good as they dance.”

Teffinger smiled.

“Oh, so now white guys can’t dance, either?”

“No, no,” Jackson said, “White guys can dance real good. In fact, as good as they play basketball.”

Teffinger grinned.

“So what you’re saying, if I have this right, is that a white guy in a fight is a lot like a black guy on a polo field.”

Jackson slapped Teffinger on the back.

“Yeah, there you go, now you’re starting to get the picture.”