“It’s what I do.”
Teffinger turned his attention to Katie Baxter. “Give me something good and you win,” Teffinger said.
“I’ve run a pretty solid background check on Ripley,” she said. “So far, nothing of interest has popped out. And I can’t find any social, economic, or other connection between him and any of the four victims. No common friends, jobs, clubs, or anything. None of Tonya Obenchain’s family or friends recognize Ripley’s name or face.”
Teffinger looked at the coffee and then took a sip.
“If I didn’t know better,” he said, “based on what you’ve said so far, I’d probably conclude that Tonya Obenchain was just a random, spur-of-the-moment pick.”
Sydney raised an eyebrow.
“Meaning what? That you do know better?”
Teffinger nodded.
“We found a day planner at his office,” he said. “He had April 3rd and 4th set aside to SAVE, in red ink. Tonya disappeared on April 3rd. But more interesting is the fact that the only other red-ink notation occurs on March 15th. My guess is that both entries were made at the same time, meaning on March 15th. So in mid-March he knew he was going to kill her on April 3rd or 4th.”
Sydney cocked her head.
“I think you might be going a tad too far,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he knew he was going to kill her. It could just mean he knew he was going to kill someone.”
Teffinger understood her reasoning but didn’t buy it.
“I really don’t see him planning a future date for a random target,” he said. “But I do see him planning a future date for a specific target.”
“Possibly,” Sydney said. “But maybe his specific target petered out for some reason and he went to Plan B.”
Teffinger hadn’t thought of that.
She was right.
“Either way,” he said, “we need to recreate March 15th in the life of Brad Ripley, which is the day he knew he would kill someone two weeks later. If we have multiple killers, they obviously coordinated and communicated with each other. It looks like one of those communications took place on March 15th. So I want to know the details about every phone call he made or received on that day. I want to know everyone he met with and everywhere he went that day.”
He combed his hair back with his fingers and read the discouragement on their faces.
“I know,” he said. “We’re looking at tough, tedious work.”
After the meeting broke up, he went straight to the restroom. He was standing at the urinal when his cell phone rang, and he wasn’t sure whether to answer it or not.
He did.
The voice of FBI profiler Leigh Sandt came through. “We’re about 99 percent sure at this point that the guy in your snuff film is who you thought, Brad Ripley, based on body size and posture. We’ll know a hundred percent after we get his clothes.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate you getting to it so fast.”
She hesitated and then said, “Where are you right now?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Are you taking a piss?”
“Maybe.”
“This is so gross,” she said. “You have me in one hand and Mister Happy in the other. I feel downright violated.”
Before he could zip up, the phone rang again. This time it was the coroner, Robert Nelson. “I looked at that film like you wanted,” he said. “I don’t think the guy in there killed Catherine Carmichael or Angela Pfeiffer. As to the other woman, I don’t know one way or the other.”
“Why not Catherine Carmichael or Angela Pfeiffer?”
“Well,” Nelson said, “unless I’m totally reading things wrong, the guy in the film is left-handed. The slit on Catherine Carmichael’s throat appears to be from someone who’s right-handed. So do the stab wounds to Angela Pfeiffer.”
“What makes you think he’s left-handed?”
“That just seems to be his dominant hand,” Nelson said. “But you should be able to ask a few people who knew him and confirm it fairly easily, one way or the other.”
That was true.
But if Nelson was correct, then they were definitely dealing with more than one killer. Meaning that Rachel Ringer’s killer was still on the loose. Which also meant that Aspen Wilde was still in potential danger.
47
DAY EIGHT-SEPTEMBER 12
MONDAY
Aspen felt pretty good following her lunch meeting with Tef-finger, until he called later and told her he had a solid reason to believe that Brad Ripley hadn’t killed Rachel after all, meaning she should continue to take every safety precaution.
“Gee, you really know how to cheer a girl up,” she said.
He didn’t lose his serious edge.
“Where are you sleeping tonight?”
“At Christina Tam’s house.”
“Give me the address.” She did. “That’s actually not far from my place. I’ll try to drive by a couple of times.”
“Stop in if you do.”
She worked her little billable ass off all afternoon, intent on having the right numbers at the end of the month. Then Christina walked in shortly before five and closed the door.
“So what’s the plan?”
“The plan’s changing,” Aspen said. “Earlier today, I thought it would be best to snoop around and find out if this Brad Ripley guy had any connection to Rachel, or Derek Bennett or Cruella. But now Teffinger is thinking that Ripley isn’t Rachel’s killer.” She twirled a pencil in her fingers. “So instead I’m thinking we should focus on Derek Bennett.”
“Focus how?”
Aspen shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe we start in his office, tonight after everyone leaves.”
Christina put her hand up.
“That’s too risky.”
“Not really,” Aspen said. “I’ll go inside with my cell phone set on vibrate. You stand lookout down the hall and call me if anyone’s coming.”
Christina didn’t seem impressed.
“Bad idea,” she said. “It’s too risky. And if he actually is involved in Rachel’s death somehow, he’s not exactly going to draft a memo about it and leave it sitting on his desk.”
Aspen considered it.
Christina was probably right.
“So we need to look outside the office, is what you’re saying.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“Like a good old-fashioned stakeout or something,” she added.
