present from hubby-face.
Mia Avila would be the one he’d take.
Assuming the opportunity presented itself.
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.
