Lawyer Trap

4





DAY ONE–SEPTEMBER 5

MONDAY AFTERNOON


Back at headquarters, Teffinger sat through a series of afternoon meetings drinking decaf while his thoughts wandered to Davica. He liked her eyes, her voice, and the way she tossed her hair.

He needed to see her again, soon.

If not again today, then tomorrow for sure.

There was something between them, unspoken but yet tangible. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman’s pull had so strong a grip on him, especially right from the start.

After the last meeting, he swung by Sydney Heatherwood’s desk. At age twenty-seven, she was the newest detective in the Unit, personally stolen by Teffinger from vice a year ago. But she had already cut her teeth on two of the scariest guys to ever hit Denver.

“Want to take a ride?” he asked.

She looked relieved at the opportunity.

They were headed to the stairwell, almost past the elevators, when Sydney jumped in front of him waving a bill.

“Ten dollars if you take the elevator,” she said.

He stopped.

“Why?”

“Just to see if you’re capable.”

“I am,” he said, trying to walk around her.

She blocked him again.

“Ten bucks says you’re not,” she said.

He studied her.

“Remember, I’m the cheapest guy on the face of the earth,” he said.

“I already know that.”

He grabbed the bill and pressed the down button. When the elevator doors opened, he hesitated, then stepped inside and pressed the button for the parking garage. Sydney—visibly startled—stepped inside with him.

Before the doors shut he jumped out.

He returned the bill down in the parking garage.

“Try me again tomorrow with a twenty,” he said.

They headed north on Broadway in his Tundra, with the windows cracked just enough to let in air but not noise. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, eighty and sunny. He flicked the radio stations, finally stopping at “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.”

“Does this car even get black music?” Sydney asked.

He raised an eyebrow and realized that sometimes he actually forgot that she was African American, born and raised in Five-Points.

“What? You don’t like Meat Loaf?”

“No, I like steak,” she said.

He smiled and added, “He was in Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“Who?”

“Meat Loaf. He was in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“What’s that?”

“What do you mean—what’s that? You never saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

“No, what is it?”

“Have you ever danced the Time Warp?”

She looked at him weird. “No more coffee for you,” she said. “Tell me about your meeting with Davica Holland this morning.”

He did.

Leaving out the bedroom scene.

“She did everything she could to incriminate herself,” he said. “Either because she’s innocent and doesn’t care what we find, or because she’s guilty and wants to appear so innocent that she doesn’t care what we find.”

“So which is it?”

“I don’t know. I need more time with her.”

Fifteen minutes later, they ended up driving through weeds and dirt down an old abandoned BNSF railroad spur north of downtown. Teffinger parked the vehicle and they hoofed it down the tracks for about fifty steps. Then they walked north for thirty yards until they came to the shallow grave where Angela Pfeiffer’s body had been found.

“What are we looking for, exactly?” Sydney asked.

Teffinger shrugged and raked his hair back with his fingers. It immediately flopped back down over his forehead.

“Whatever we missed the first time,” he said.

Three geese flew overhead.

The grave had been shallow; in fact, not more than six inches deep. Either the digger tired easily—say, a woman—or didn’t really care how deep the grave was, just so long as the body was hidden from sight.

Ten yards farther past the gravesite was a concrete retaining wall, about four feet high. Teffinger got on top and scouted around. The ground on the other side came up to about two feet from the top of the wall.

Teffinger jumped back down on the track side of the wall and called Sydney over.

“How much do you weigh?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Just indulge me,” he said. “How much?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “One twenty-five, maybe.”

Good.

That was about the same weight as the dead woman.

“Do me a favor and lay down on the ground,” he said. “I’m going to see how hard it is to lift you up and get you over this wall.”

She looked at him as if he was crazy.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s for the case. If I was going to dump a body here, I would have put it on the other side of this wall if I could.” Still, she hesitated. “Come on, lay down and be dead.”

She did.

“Okay, here we go,” he said. “Stay limp.” Then he reached down, picked her up and muscled her to the top of the retaining wall, finding it more difficult than he at first thought, but not an all-out effort.

She hopped down and brushed herself off.

“Satisfied?”

He was.

“Most women wouldn’t be able to do that,” he said. “Most men would.”

Sydney continued to brush the dust off her ass and said, “That doesn’t mean it was necessarily a woman. It could still be a guy. Maybe he just didn’t see the wall because it was night, or saw it but could care less.”

That was true.

But he found himself saying, “The best place to bury the body is on the other side of the wall. A man would have gone to the bother. A woman might not have.”

“So the position of the grave points to Davica as the killer?” she asked.

“It’s a strike against her.”

From the railroad spur they headed to Femme, which turned out to be an upscale lesbian bar in Glendale, not far from Shotgun Willies.

The bar was closed but they rapped on the door until someone answered.

The woman they were looking for, in fact.

Natalie.

Teffinger explained the situation, including the fact that Davica herself had suggested that they talk to her.

“I don’t know why she’d do that,” Natalie said. “I’m not going to lie about what happened.”

They ended up sitting in a booth, drinking diet Cokes.

Teffinger asked if the place had a men’s room, was told, “Of course, that’s city code,” and then used it. When he came back, Sydney and Natalie were chatting like old friends. Natalie was soft and curvy and reminded Teffinger of Sophia Loren, back in her early days, say the Man of La Mancha era.

“Okay,” Natalie said, “Angela Pfeiffer was your basic hardcore slut, except in a classy, upscale package. She’d come in here alone about twice a month, pick out whoever she wanted, take her home and screw her brains out. Then dump her and start all over again. She openly bragged about having some rich lover wrapped around her little finger, someone she milked for money.”

“So she had lots of enemies,”Teffinger said. “Meaning the women she dumped.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Natalie said. “Getting dumped was sort of understood when it came to Angela. Most of the women accepted it going in.”

Teffinger nodded.

Okay.

“So what happened with Davica?”

“Well,” Natalie said, “one night Angela’s in here, drunk out of her mind, and has about three or four women hovering around, trying to get in her pants. In walks another woman, a striking, exotic woman.”

“Davica,” Teffinger said.

Natalie nodded.

“Yes,” she said, “although I didn’t know her name at the time. They immediately got into an argument. It escalated and they ended up in a catfight, and I’m not talking about some dainty little slap and cry, I’m talking about a serious confrontation. They wound up wrestling on the ground with everyone in the place crowded around, hooting and hollering and egging them on.”

“Does that happen often here?” Sydney asked.

Natalie looked shocked.

“No, never—this is a class place. Anyway,” she said, “Angela got the upper hand. She got the other woman—Davica—on her back and then straddled her and pinned her arms up above her head. Now the crowd was going nuts and shouting for her to sit on her face. So she scooted up and ground her crotch on the woman’s face. That’s when the woman, Davica, started shouting that she was going to kill her. That went on for a long time, five minutes or maybe even longer. Finally the bouncers pulled them apart.”

“So Davica definitely said she was going to kill her?” Teffinger asked.

Natalie nodded.

“Yes, absolutely.”

“You heard it yourself?”

“Yes, I did. And I saw her face. She meant it. There’s no question about it, not in my mind at least.”