Lawyer Trap

19





DAY FOUR–SEPTEMBER 8

THURSDAY MORNING


Teffinger 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.”