Lawyer Trap (7 page)

She fell and ended up with an ass full of it.

Then fell again.

And again.

Now she had mud all over her arms.

And in her hair.

“Goddamn rain.”

Her legs ached and her eyelids were raw from rubbing the rain out of her eyes. She'd been at it for what seemed like forever when she finally finished the grid.

Still nothing.

“Shit.”

Enough.

She went back to the car and rested against it, wondering what to do. If she got in this muddy, she'd ruin the interior, or at least end up having to clean it for an hour.

No thanks, either way.

Maybe she should just take her jeans off and throw them in the trunk. The evening was getting on, darker by the second. There was no one around. It was doubtful that anyone would see her. But still, she wasn't wearing panties, and the thought of being bare-ass naked out here in the middle of nowhere creeped her out.

Then she remembered the gravesites, filling with water.

She headed over to the nearest one and found it half filled.

She stepped over the yellow tape and waded into the pool of water. Then she leaned backwards and put her hands down, like a crab, and wiggled her ass back and forth in the water.

She felt the mud coming off.

Good.

This was working just fine.

She wiggled more.

Her left hand suddenly sank down.

Twelve inches or more, almost up to her elbow.

As if she had slipped into a shaft.

Her fingers felt something weird.

Soft.

Silky.

Definitely not dirt.

She pulled herself up, turned around, kneeled down and then dug. In a few minutes she found the silky stuff again. She tugged at it and found it still firm, but on the verge of breaking loose. She dug even more, scooping out mud and throwing it over the side of the hole.

This time when she grabbed the silky stuff something gave way and pulled up. She fell backwards on her ass with a splash, still gripping whatever it was that she had found.

She studied it—something about the size of a small basketball—and then dunked it in the water and swished it around.

When she pulled it up, she was holding a head.

Rachel Ringer's head.

18

DAY THREE–SEPTEMBER 7

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

A
fter dark, Draven drove around Pueblo with Gretchen seated next to him, her leg pressed against his. Country-western played on the radio. She showed him where each of the bikers lived. Draven wasn't sure yet whether he'd kill them, screw them up, or just leave them alone.

Maybe he'd let Gretchen decide.

“Do you want them dead or just messed up?” he asked.

She pondered it.

“Dead,” she said. “I've pictured it in my mind a hundred times. I don't know if that's such a good idea, though.”

Draven considered the pros and cons both ways.

“It probably isn't,” he said. “At least not right off the bat. But if we don't kill them, they can't know you're involved.”

She exhaled and fidgeted in the seat.

“I'm not afraid of them,” she said.

“Well, you should be. Which one do you hate the most?”

She answered immediately.

“Two Bits,” she said. “The guy you flushed.”

“Fine. We'll start with him.”

They parked down the street from Two-Bits' crappy little rental house and drank Jack Daniels from Draven's flask in the dark as they waited for the asshole to return home.

Lightning crackled in the distance and then it rained.

Gretchen ran her finger down the scar on Draven's face.

“So how'd you get this?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“Hell if I know,” he said.

She kissed it.

“I like it,” she said.

He smiled.

“Good, because I don't think it's going to wash off or anything.” He played with her hair. “What about you? You got any scars?”

“I'm not telling,” she said. “You have to check for yourself.”

“Careful,” he said. “I will.”

She unbuttoned her blouse.

“Do it then.”

He laughed.

“It's too dark,” he said. “I can't see anything.”

She took his hand and put it on her breast.

“Just feel for them, then.”

Not more than ten seconds later a headlight came down the street, jiggling and bobbing, unmistakably a motorcycle. Then the deep roar of the engine cut through the rain.

“Company,” Draven said.

Draven waited until the asshole killed the engine and stepped off the bike. Then he walked out of the shadows and cut the jerk off before he reached the front door.

“You pissed all over my carpet,” Draven said. “That wasn't very nice.”

The biker tried to focus.

Too drunk to place him.

Then the confusion dropped off his face and he charged.

Even in the rain he smelled like alcohol and smoke.

Draven punched him in the face repeatedly until he fell to the ground. Then he straddled him and punched him another ten times, until his knuckles bled. The man withered under him, hardly able to even moan.

“This is your only warning,” Draven said. “Tell your friends too.”

He was standing up when a figure appeared.

Gretchen.

Carrying a rock in her right hand, the size of a softball.

She brought it down on the biker's head as hard as she could.

The guy's skull cracked.

Then he gurgled and stopped moving.

“Shit!” Draven said. “What are you doing?”

Gretchen just stood there, frozen.

He looked around.

Then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the car.

“Come on!” he said.

She dropped the rock.

He stopped long enough to pick it up.

Ten miles away, out in the sticks, he threw it out the window.

19

DAY FOUR–SEPTEMBER 8

THURSDAY MORNING

T
effinger got up at his usual time, before dawn, even though he had been up half the night at Marilyn Black's bedside and the other half of the night fishing a head out of the gravesite down by the railroad spur.

Coffee.

He needed coffee.

Lots and lots of coffee.

He also needed a jog in the worst way but was too tired. So instead he showered, popped in his contacts, and ate a bowl of cereal in the Tundra as he drove to work. Being the first one there, as usual, he fired up the coffee machine and then headed over to his desk to see what additional work had landed on it while he hadn't been around to fend it off.

He pulled Marilyn Black up on the computer.

She had a couple of prostitution arrests and some minor drug charges but luckily hadn't gotten herself into any major trouble yet.

Maybe she could actually turn her life around.

She must be terribly alone to call Teffinger in her hour of need. He only met her that one time. He needed to find out if she had any friends or relatives. He'd personally spring for the plane ticket if she had somewhere healthy to go.

That wasn't even an issue.

The coffee machine stopped gurgling. Teffinger picked yesterday's cup off his desk, found it half filled with cold brown goop, and dumped it in the snake plant on his way over for fresh stuff.

Sydney pushed through the door three minutes later and headed toward the pot. Teffinger glanced at the oversized industrial clock on the wall—7:12.

“What are you doing here so early?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, poured coffee, stirred in cream, and then pulled up a seat in front of his desk.

“You don't remember?” she asked.

He didn't.

Then did.

Last night he'd asked her to come in early.

“Of course I remember,” he said. “I'm just messing with you.”

She slurped the coffee, getting as much noise out of the act as she could. Then she smiled as if she'd just heard a joke.

“What?” he asked.

“So, I heard you got some head last night,” she said.

He grunted.

“Give me the details,” she added.

He told her what he knew so far. Some woman had made an anonymous call from a payphone last night and said she'd found a head in one of the gravesites down by the railroad spur. She'd said it belonged to Rachel Ringer, a lawyer who disappeared in April. Teffinger took it for a joke but went down to check just in case.

“Sure enough,” he said. “There it was, just the way she said.”

Sydney looked puzzled.

“A fresh one?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“No, decomposed. Very decomposed, in fact.”

“But the K-9 Unit had the cadaver dogs there all afternoon,” she said. “They would have found it.”

He nodded. “My guess is the dogs pointed out the grave, but everyone thought they were smelling the old body. No one had any reason to think that there'd be a second body stacked in the same hole.”

“So there was, then? A second body?”

He shrugged. “We're not exactly sure yet,” he said, “but that's my guess. It was too muddy last night to be messing around, so I had a unit stay there to guard the scene. We should be able to dig today. In fact, we should probably head over there now.”

“Let's do it.”

Teffinger walked over to the coffee pot and refilled for the road. “Prepare to get muddy,” he warned her.

She looked at him.

“It's never easy with you, Teffinger,” she said. “Stuff just finds you. It's like that bird we hit driving back from Santa Fe.”

He smiled, remembering the way it had come all the way through the windshield and landed in the back seat, blood and feathers everywhere. He still had a vivid picture of Sydney picking it up by one foot and tossing it into the brush.

When they arrived at the old railroad spur, the sun cast long morning shadows and the night chill was lifting. The gravesites still had standing water, but only half as much as last night.

“We can probably get going any time,” Teffinger said.

He called the Crime Unit, and the truck pulled up forty-five minutes later with Paul Kwak at the wheel. He got out, scratched his gut, and frowned.

“Let me see if I got this straight,” he told Teffinger. “Somewhere, someone's going to work today, and their job is to sit around in a fancy showroom and sell BMWs to smiling rich guys. My job, on the other hand, is to dig a body out of mud.”

Teffinger nodded.

Then said, “Two bodies.”

Kwak looked confused.

“Two?”

“Well, maybe two,” Teffinger corrected himself. “We're going to check the other hole too.”

“You think …?”

Teffinger held his hands up in surrender. “I don't know. But we're going to find out. I'm hoping not.”

In the first hole they did in fact find a body—a body without a head.

Then they checked the second hole.

And found another body.

The fourth.

A woman.

Her eyes were gouged out.

Kwak looked at Teffinger. “I hate it when you're right.”

“Me too,” Teffinger said.

“Good thing it doesn't happen that often,” Kwak added.

Teffinger nodded. “See if you can find her eyes,” he said. “If you can't, get some kind of sifter out here and go through every inch of dirt. In fact, do that anyway, for both gravesites. Find whatever it is we haven't found so far.”

Teffinger pulled Sydney to the side. “We need to find out who made that call last night. She knows something we don't. Dispatch told me it came from a payphone. What I need you to do is check with them and find out which one, then go down there and see if there are any security cameras around that might help.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “That's top priority.”

“Okay.”

“Even topper than top.”

20

DAY FOUR–SEPTEMBER 8

THURSDAY MORNING

O
n Thursday morning, Aspen's fourth day of work, every attorney in the firm must have found out that she existed, because they paraded through her door with big smiles on their faces and dropped files on her desk.

“It's called getting rid of your dogs,” Christina Tam warned. “Everyone's dumping their crap on you, either because the client's a no-pay or a slow-pay, or because they finally figured out the case is a loser. The end result is that you'll work tons of hours but won't bring any money through the door. That's not good. No matter what anyone tells you, this firm is driven by the bottom line, so the sooner you learn to say no, the better off you're going to be.”

More work landed on her desk.

More dogs.

Dogs with fleas.

She didn't say no, though, not wanting to burn bridges. So instead she smiled and said thanks for the work.

Then Christina walked in shortly before noon. “Want to get some lunch?”

Aspen couldn't afford it.

Not with only $82 in her account.

But couldn't afford to not have friends, either.

“Great,” she said.

They milled through the crowd down the 16th Street Mall under a perfect Colorado sky and ended up at the Hard Rock Café, eating salads at the bar.

“So what's the scoop with Jacqueline Moore?” Aspen asked at one point.

“Cruella?” Christina asked. “Don't even think anything bad about her. She has radar. And definitely don't cross swords with her. She'll gut you like a fish.”

Aspen frowned.

“I may have already done that.”

“Already?” Christina said, slapping Aspen on the back. “Congratulations girl, that's a new law firm record.”

“Lucky me.”

“Why, what'd you do?”

Aspen explained about how she contacted Dr. Beverly Twenhofel and then got a tongue-lashing from Moore, after which Christina said, “Yeah, you're on her short list, all right. If I were you, I'd snuggle up to Blake Gray. He's the only known antidote to Cruella.”