it was almost midnight.
“Sorry, Katie,” he said, looking at his watch. “It looks like I worked you to death today.”
She cocked her head.
“Are you sorry enough that I should sleep in tomorrow?”
He grunted.
“Actually, I was hoping you’d come in early. Say 7:15.”
She actually rolled into the office at 7:14, gave him a dirty look, and walked over to the coffee machine. “Here’s the problem, Nick,” she said. “You love Monday mornings. Sane people, like me for instance, don’t.”
Actually, she spoke the truth.
Monday mornings meant five uninterrupted days of hunting.
He held a white bag up and dangled it. “Donuts,” he said. “White cake with chocolate frosting.”
She pulled one out, took a bite, and said, “No, thanks, I’m on a diet.”
Two minutes later, Sydney showed up, said hello to Katie, ignored Teffinger, and headed straight for the coffee.
“You look like I feel,” Katie told her.
“We need a nicer boss,” Sydney said, giving Teffinger a sideways look. “Someone who respects our First Amendment right to sleep.”
They ended up huddled at Teffinger’s desk, the only ones in the room, pounding down coffee and coming up with a game plan.
Then they split up.
Thirty minutes later, Teffinger walked down 17th Street in the heart of Denver’s financial district, holding a Styrofoam cup now empty of coffee. The city bustled around him, smelling like tar and perfume. He swung into an Einstein Bros, stood in a short line, handed the cup to the guy behind the counter, and asked for a refill.
“This isn’t our cup,” the guy said.
“Yeah, I know,” Teffinger said. “But I really need coffee.”
“Do you need it enough to pay for it?”
He shrugged and pulled out his badge.
“Einstein was my great grandfather,” he said. “He’d want me to have the coffee for free.”
The guy smiled and filled the cup.
“You should have told me right off the bat you were related.”
Teffinger nodded.
“Sorry,” he said. “I thought the resemblance was obvious. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.”
He threw a five-dollar bill into the tip jar and walked out.
Ten minutes later, he entered the lobby of the Cash Register Building on Lincoln Street, paused briefly to see if he was in the mood to get jammed into an elevator, determined he wasn’t, and opened the door to the stairwell. Seventeen stories later, with burning thighs, he entered the clean-lined contemporary lobby of Brad Ripley Concepts, a space replete with floor-to-ceiling glass, stainless steel, eclectic textures, and splashes of color.
A young blonde sat behind the reception desk.
She fluffed her hair as he walked over.
“You’re the guy from the news,” she said. “The detective working on the four women who got killed down by the railroad tracks.”
“Guilty,” Teffinger admitted. “What’s your name?”
“Tammy.”
“Well, Tammy, let me tell you why I’m here.”
Then he told her, as gently as he could, that her boss was dead. Someone had shot him in the face.
He found the kitchen, filled up with coffee, then went into Ripley’s office and closed the door while the news of the man’s death ricocheted through the halls. The name of Ripley’s snuff victim-Tonya Obenchain-didn’t seem to exist anywhere in Ripley’s office.
It wasn’t in his Rolodex.
Or day planner.
Or computer.
Or emails.
Or anywhere else.
Meaning what? That Ripley chose the woman out of the blue as a random encounter? That she just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time?
Wait.
This is interesting.
His day planner has the word SAVE written in red ink on April 3 and April 4. Tonya Obenchain disappeared on April 3. That’s when you killed her, you little shit.
He walked around the floor until he found the receptionist, Tammy, and asked her to come down to Ripley’s office. Then he shut the door behind them.
“You want to be my deputy?” he asked.
She looked at him weird.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you help me, but you don’t tell anyone what we’re doing or talking about.”
She looked stressed, but intrigued.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
Teffinger smiled.
“Good,” he said. “Now, just suppose for a minute that Brad Ripley had a dark side. A very dark side that he wanted to keep secret. Where around here would I find it?”
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
