R Jagger - Lawyer Trap

A contemporary abstract oil painting on the opposite side of the room kept drawing his eye, so he wandered over past the leather chairs, the coffee tables, and the fresh flower arrangements to take a look at it. The signature said RABBY. The paint was scooped on with a pallet knife, a half-inch thick in some places. Most of the canvas was fairly smooth and earth toned, a backdrop for the strategically placed pops and rivers of thick bright colors.

A lot of thought had gone into it.

And passion.

It was the kind of piece where the average Joe Blow on the street would look at it and say, I could do that.

It was that deceptively good.

Sydney walked over and checked out the signature.

“Rabby,” she said. “I’ve heard of that guy. I think his first name’s Jim.”

“I couldn’t paint like that,” Teffinger said. “Not because it’s abstract but because you can tell that he had to set it down and let some parts of it dry before going on. I need to get it done in one sitting and see if I have a dud or a keeper.”

“Men,” she said. “Instant gratification.”

He sipped coffee and said, “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

“No, it’s okay, except when you’re with a woman in the bedroom.”

He smiled, picturing it. “You don’t want it there.”

“No. Not even close.”

They finally ended up in Derek Bennett’s office with the door closed, sitting in expensive leather chairs. The man was Teffinger’s size, six-two, maybe even bigger. His suit was loose, but not so loose as to totally hide the troll-like muscles underneath. His shirt was white and stiff. His eyes protruded too far, as if someone tried to suck them out with a vacuum tube.

Paint his head green and he’d be a frog.

“Thanks for seeing us without an appointment,” Teffinger said. “I’m going to get right to the point. We’re investigating two homicides and we noticed that you have connections to both of the victims.”

Bennett looked insulted. “Are you saying I’m a suspect?”

“No, nothing like that,” Teffinger said. “We just have a few questions.”

The stress lines on Bennett’s face didn’t lighten.

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, one of the victims is Rachel Ringer, and you know her of course,” Teffinger said.

“Everyone who works here knows her,” Bennett said.

“I appreciate that.”

“Meaning I’m one person of about two hundred and fifty.”

Teffinger nodded and fought the urge to bring up the other connectors-someone, probably Bennett, half raped Rachel one night; Bennett drove a silver BMW, the same kind of car in the photograph from Brad Ripley’s safe, the photograph of the building where the four women were killed; and the conversation between Bennett and Jacqueline Moore about a killing, overheard by Aspen Wilde. As fun as it would be to whip those little facts out and slap the smugness off Bennett’s face, Teffinger couldn’t do it without fear of implicating the help he’d received from Aspen Wilde. So he smiled instead and changed subjects.

“Right,” he said. “Lots of people knew Rachel. The more curious question I have involves a dead woman by the name of Samantha Stamp, also known as Chase. She was a dancer at a strip club called Cheeks. But that’s not what interests me. What interests me is that she also worked part-time at a place called Tops amp; Bottoms. Have you ever heard of that place? Tops amp; Bottoms?”

The smug expression was gone now.

Teffinger could tell that the man was trying to decide if he should lie or not.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because we talked to the proprietor of that establishment. Certain names came up during that conversation. Yours was one of them.” He sipped coffee, letting the implications hang. “The rumor is that you like to stick pins in the girls.”

Bennett shot out of his chair, his hands balled in fists, and violently pushed a pile of papers off the desk.

They landed halfway across the room.

Teffinger didn’t move.

Instead he took another sip of coffee.

“Get your ass out of my office!” Bennett said. Then he looked directly at Sydney. “That means your ass too.”

Teffinger stood up, drank the last of the coffee and set the cup gently on the desk. Then he looked Bennett directly in the eyes. “You really shouldn’t talk to ladies like that. It could come back to haunt you.”

Sydney didn’t speak much on the walk back to the car. Then, right after they almost got run over at Welton by a car bursting through the wrong end of a yellow light, she said, “I think it worked.”

Teffinger agreed.

“He’s running scared. Hopefully scared enough that he’ll think twice about doing anything else stupid. I almost decked him when he talked to you that way,” Teffinger added.

“I want to be there when we catch his ass,” she said. “I want to look him right in the eyes.”

On the drive back to the office, Teffinger flicked the radio stations as he pulled his phone out to call Aspen Wilde. He paused at a song he’d never heard before. The singer had a nasally voice that sounded like Bob Dylan. The lyrics were something about a pump that didn’t work because the handles got taken by the vandals. He waited until it finished, then dialed Aspen.

“I don’t know if you heard,” he said, “but me and Sydney were at the firm just a little bit ago, meeting with Derek Bennett. We put some heat on him.” He filled her in on the details, including the fact that he’d been careful to keep her out of it. “Here’s the reason I’m calling. The guy’s a powder keg and he’s going to start exploding. If you hear of him doing anything out of the ordinary, and want to tell us about it, that would be fine with us.”

“Done deal,” she said. “Count on it.”

“Thanks.” Teffinger almost hung up, but said, “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he added. “Just keep your ear to the ground. And don’t let anyone know you’re doing it. Things are going to start getting really dicey from this point on.”

DAY TWELVE-SEPTEMBER 16

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Aspen brought Christina Tam up to speed on the noose that Teffinger was dangling around Bennett’s neck. Then they took turns going up to the 45th floor, ostensibly to visit the dead-files room but actually to see if anything weird was happening in Derek Bennett’s neck of the woods.

Nothing was.

Nothing obvious, at least.

Bennett was in his office with the door closed.

Mid-afternoon, Aspen took a stroll down the 16th Street Mall to clear her head, hugging the sunny side of the street. The city vibrated, with lots more people around than usual, poised on the edge of the weekend.

A deep blue cloudless sky floated overhead.

She ended up sitting on a bench by California Street.

Someone sat down next to her.

When she looked over, she couldn’t believe who it was.

Jacqueline Moore.

Cruella.

Clearly this wasn’t a chance encounter. The power lawyer must have discovered that Aspen was feeding information to Teffinger. She was here to fire her.

“We need to talk,” Moore said. The tone of her voice was serious. Aspen bit her lower lip and tried to appear as if she wasn’t afraid.

“Sure,” she said. “What’s up?”

Moore didn’t answer.

Instead she looked around. Her hair appeared to be slightly disheveled and her makeup wasn’t as crisp and sharp as normal. Her blouse sagged out of her skirt and could have been tucked in better. The normal confident look in her eyes wasn’t there.

“I’m leaving the firm,” she said.

Aspen studied her, to see if this was some kind of a joke, but found no lies.