Lawyer Trap

7





DAY TWO–SEPTEMBER 6

TUESDAY MORNING


Teffinger got up early Tuesday morning, with Davica already in his thoughts. He threw on sweatpants and jogged out the front door well before the crack of dawn, letting his legs stretch and his lungs burn, while he flashed back to being in bed with her yesterday.

He could have taken her if he’d wanted.

She had him in bed for a reason and it wasn’t just to watch the DVD. They could have done that in the study. Or not done it at all.

“You definitely have some willpower,” he told himself. “Maybe too much.”

Even though September had just started, and Indian summer hadn’t yet begun, the mornings were already getting a chill.

Perfect for jogging.

He did three miles at a pretty good clip and then finished the workout with several sets of pushups and sit-ups in his front yard. Forty-five minutes later, he was at his desk downtown, the first person to work, trying to get organized while the coffee pot fired up.

He drank the entire pot and was just starting to make the second one when Sydney showed up.

“I checked the Internet to exhaustion last night,” she said. “Someone as rich as Davica Holland ought to be showing up all over the place. But Google acts like she doesn’t even exist.”

“That’s interesting.”

Sydney couldn’t wait for the pot to fill, so she pulled it out, stuck her cup under the coffee stream, and then switched back after it filled, never spilling a drop.

“Very impressive,” Teffinger said. “But can you do it behind your back?”

He then did it.

Behind his back.

Spilling coffee all over the place.

“Tell me again why I work with you?”

He smiled, mopping the counter with paper towels.

“Because you have to.”

She looked doubtful. “That couldn’t be enough. There must be more.”

Then Teffinger said something he didn’t expect.

“I might have to take myself off the Davica Holland case,” he said.

“Why?”

“I think I’m more interested in sleeping with her than finding out if she’s a murderer,” he said.

Sydney rolled her eyes.

“Even if you took yourself off, you still couldn’t sleep with her,” she said.

That was true.

“Such a dilemma,” he said.

“Here’s what you do,” she said. “A, don’t sleep with her. And B, put the little fellow back in his cage and then find out if she’s a murderer like the city’s paying you to do.”

“You’re right.”

“And C,” she added, “don’t always look so surprised when I’m right.”

He smiled, then put on a serious face: “What do you mean, ‘little fellow’?”

She sipped coffee.

“You’re not black, are you?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

He laughed, then surprised himself again, and told her about the bedroom incident yesterday.

She frowned as she listened.

“Davica has motive. And unless and until we can better pinpoint when Angela Pfeiffer disappeared, she also has opportunity. Now she’s got you off balance with this bed thing. My question is whether she’s doing it on purpose.”

It was shortly after nine o’clock when Teffinger realized he had done something really stupid.

“I left my mug down by the railroad tracks yesterday,” he told Sydney.

“The one we got you when you got promoted?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to ride down and get it. You want to tag along?”

A half hour later they were back at the scene where Angela Pfeiffer’s body had been found. The mug was still there, sitting on the top of the concrete retaining wall.

But now Teffinger had another problem.

The first pot of coffee suddenly wanted out.

Now.

Not in two minutes.

Right now.

He looked around for the best spot, decided it was behind a rusted 55-gallon drum, and told Sydney to look the other way for a few moments.

“Unbelievable,” she said. “How is it that you haven’t been fired yet?”

He laughed.

“I have no idea,” he said.

He looked around, saw no one, then pulled the so-called little fellow out and went for it. That felt so incredibly good. He aimed at a small rock, going for accuracy, hitting it pretty damn good even if he had to say so himself. By the time he finished, the rock was much more exposed.

Except it didn’t quite look like a rock any more.

He zipped up and then bent down and looked at it.

It looked like a finger.

He found a stick and moved the dirt away.

A hand appeared.