each of the four murders. Three of them contained blood-soaked bed sheets. Later, they’d run DNA tests to confirm that the blood belonged to Angela Pfeiffer, Rachel Ringer and Catherine Carmichael, but no one had a doubt at this point.
The bed sheet in the fourth trash bag didn’t have blood and no doubt correlated to Tonya Obenchain, who had been suffocated. With any luck, they’d find Brad Ripley’s DNA on it and confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that he was the masked person in the snuff film.
From what Teffinger could tell, each woman was brought into the murder room separately. After each killing the sheets were changed and the space was cleaned up, at least cosmetically, in preparation for the next session.
Very well organized.
By who?
With too much pizza in the gut, Teffinger walked over to the Tundra and brushed his teeth. Sydney joined him just as he spit toothpaste onto the ground.
“Lovely,” she said.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what’s going on with that Pueblo woman? Has she shown up yet or anything?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t know. I haven’t touched base down there for a couple of days.” He must have had an unhappy look on his face, because she added, “I’ll put it on my to-do list. Which reminds me, by the way, we might have someone else missing too.”
Teffinger didn’t like the sound of that.
“Who?”
“Emphasis on the might. A woman by the name of Samantha Stamp,” she said. “She’s a stripper at some place out north on Federal called Cheeks. One of the other dancers reported her missing this afternoon. Supposedly she hasn’t shown up for work for the last couple of evenings and isn’t answering her cell phone.”
“Probably strung out somewhere,” Teffinger said. “But keep it on your radar screen, just in case.”
They worked the scene until the streetlights came on and the rain plummeted down, and then called it a night. Teffinger drove straight to Davica’s. She was waiting for him with dimmed lights, cold white wine, a stomach-to-stomach body hug, and a long, deep kiss.
“I’m your slave,” she said. “Command me.”
She wore a long-sleeve white shirt. She must have sensed his question-whether she wore anything underneath-and pulled the ends up and tied them together, just under her breasts.
Question answered.
In the affirmative.
A white thong.
He raised an eyebrow and sipped the wine.
“My slave, huh.”
“Utterly and completely.”
“What are the boundaries?”
“Only your imagination.”
He cocked his head.
“Okay,” he said. “But no turning back.”
“Yes, master.”
Lightning crackled. He grabbed the bottle of wine and two glasses, and then led her out the front door, into the back seat of the Tundra. The rain pelted the roof and, in the dark, seemed louder than it probably was. He filled their glasses, put his arm around her shoulders and leaned back.
“Now this is perfect.”
She stayed quiet and snuggled in.
“You’re always full of surprises.”
They talked about whatever came to mind, with no subject too big or too small. The rain didn’t let up. Not a bit. In fact, if anything, it got stronger.
“Tell me about Sydney Heatherwood,” Davica said.
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Just something.”
“Something, huh?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“She said you were testing me this morning, to see if I’d put you above me,” he said. “By the way, was she right?”
“Maybe a little.”
“But she wouldn’t help me figure out the answer,” he said. “She said that would be cheating.”
Davica smiled.
“I’m starting to like this woman,” she said.
“There’s a lot to like.”
“But you never screwed her?”
He shook his head. “I bounced a quarter off her ass a couple of times at a bar once when we were all drunk,” he said. “But that’s about it.”
“How high did it go?”
“What?”
“The quarter.”
He laughed. “I don’t know. I think it knocked down a chandelier or something. All I remember is, there was a lot of damage.”
She punched him in the arm.
“Actually, I handpicked her out of vice last year and brought her over to homicide. There are still a few people over in vice who won’t talk to me because of that. Anyway, it started out that I was going to take her under my wing and show her the ropes. Now she’s showing them to me.”
“She seems competent.”
“Take a good look,” he said. “She’s the first female chief.”
Then his cell phone rang. He reached for it but she grabbed his hand. He pulled it out anyway and looked at the incoming number. It was Aspen Wilde. “This is the attorney whose face I put on the news and turned into a target,” he said. “The one whose apartment got ransacked. I better see what she wants.”
67
DAY TEN-SEPTEMBER 14
WEDNESDAY NIGHT
The lights at the Old Town tavern never did come back on, not after a minute, or ten or even fifteen. Incredibly, almost no one left, apparently determined to drink the beer they’d paid for. Lighters ignited everywhere, reminding Aspen of the final scene in Frankenstein. The band pulled out acoustical guitars and sang without mics. Aspen and Christina stayed in the booth until their beer was gone and then muscled through the crowd to the front door, alive and without incident, except for a few invisible hands that managed to grope them pretty good. The umbrella, of course, was long gone, and the storm outside now plummeted down even more intensely than before.
They ran through the weather.
Cold, tipsy and incredibly alive.
Feeling like wild animals.
Thirty minutes later, in dry clothes and sipping hot chocolate, they settled in on the couch to watch TV for a
