Lawyer Trap

44





DAY EIGHT–SEPTEMBER 12

MONDAY


Aspen cranked out billable hours Monday morning, intentionally not doing anything that could get her in trouble, except for calling Nick Teffinger to set up a meeting.

He suggested lunch and said he’d pay.

“It’ll give me a chance to dispel those nasty rumors that I’m the cheapest guy on the face of the earth,” he added. Someone in the background said, Those aren’t rumors, Teffinger. They’re etched-in-stone facts.

He suggested Wong’s, a Chinese place on Court Street, because he solved most of his cases using their fortune cookies.

She got there first, shortly before noon, and claimed a booth with her back to the wall and a good view of the entrance. Teffinger showed up a few moments later, wearing jeans, a gray cotton shirt, and a sport coat. An elderly waitress hugged him as he looked around. He spotted Aspen and, as he walked over, she decided that he was close enough to her in age, if he decided to make a move.

“You’re still alive,” he said, slipping into the booth. “I like that.”

He looked good.

Really good.

Magazine-cover good.

“That’s the first thing I check every morning when I wake up,” she said.

He grunted and picked up the menu.

“Anything you want, up to three dollars,” he said. She must have had a look on her face because he grinned and said, “Okay, four.”

They ordered.

Then he somehow got her to tell him her life story.

Halfway through the meal, she decided it was time to get to why she’d called the meeting. “I have to tell you what I’m going to tell you because you need to know,” she said. “But no one can know that I told you. If the word gets out, I’ll lose my job.”

Teffinger was okay with that.

“I think two of the lawyers in my firm might be mixed up in Rachel Ringer’s death.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Who?”

“They’re both senior partners,” she said. “One is a woman by the name of Jacqueline Moore. The other is a man named Derek Bennett.” Then she told him about the conversation she overheard in the hallway yesterday.

He seemed interested, but not as much as she expected.

“I’m working another angle,” he said. “Between you and me, we’re pretty sure we know who killed one of the four women, namely Tonya Obenchain. What we’re trying to figure out now is if he killed the other three as well.”

She stopped chewing and studied him.

“That’s not public knowledge,” he emphasized. “So keep it that way.”

She promised.

“If you give me his name I can snoop around the firm,” she said. “See if he has any connections to Rachel or the other two lawyers I just told you about.”

Teffinger hesitated, then leaned across the table and whispered in her ear: “Brad Ripley.”

Then he got a call.

He listened intently, wrinkled his brow, and stood up. “I have to run,” he said. Then, over his shoulder, “Sorry.”

After Teffinger left, Aspen realized he hadn’t paid the bill.

She checked her purse and found four dollars.

Shit.

Now what?

Two minutes later, just as she was about to flag down the waitress and explain the situation, Teffinger ran back in and put a twenty on the table. “Sorry about that. I have no idea where my mind is half the time.”