“Come on,” he said. “Two miles.”
She got out of bed.
“I guess I owe you that.”
“I’ll go slow,” he added.
She laughed.
“As if you have any other speed.”
They actually ended up doing three miles, and showered together afterwards. Then Teffinger ate a bowl of cereal in the Tundra as he drove to headquarters.
Mid-morning he got a very unexpected and strange phone call. When he hung up, he swung by Sydney’s desk and said, “You got time to take a ride?”
“No, not really.”
“Good, come on.”
“Why, what’s going on?”
“Fresh blood.”
They took the 6th Avenue freeway west into Golden, then headed north on Highway 93, riding parallel to the Rocky Mountain foothills under a cloudless Colorado sky. Five miles later, in unincorporated Jefferson County, they turned west on a gravel road that rolled toward the mountains through a treeless terrain.
A mile or so later, they came to where they were headed.
Six or seven police cars punctuated the spot.
Teffinger pulled in at the end of the line and killed the engine.
They checked in with a scribe and then got escorted by a small but serious-looking sheriff by the name of Ben Baxter out to the gravesite, which was about fifty yards off the road.
“The dumb shit buried her in an arroyo,” Baxter said. “The rain last night uncovered her.”
Teffinger nodded.
The gravesite, so far, hadn’t been disturbed.
The woman still laid in the ravine, her face sticking out, plus one hand and part of an arm. The rest of her still lay under the dirt, which would have been mud last night, but had mostly dried at this point.
A nail had been pounded into her forehead.
“Looks like he buried her about eight or twelve inches down, is all,” Teffinger said.
“Right. Not too deep,” Baxter said, “which is one of the reasons we called you.”
“This is our guy,” Teffinger said. “No question in my mind.”
Baxter nodded.
“It’s your case if you want to take the lead,” Baxter said. “You guys are better equipped for this stuff anyway. We don’t get much of this out here.”
“Lucky you,” Teffinger said. “Sure, we’ll take it. You want us to process the scene?”
Baxter shrugged.
“You may as well. We’ll support you, of course-whatever you want, just holler.”
“Fine,” Teffinger said. “The first thing I want is everyone back on the road and then move a half mile down, people and vehicles. We’ll need casts of everyone’s boots, so don’t let anyone go anywhere.” He looked at a hawk, circling high, riding a wind current. “The interesting thing will be whether there’s another body stacked underneath.”
“Or nearby,” Sydney added.
Paul Kwak came out with a crime unit and processed the scene in that slow, methodical way of his. As near as they could tell, the body had been buried last night before the rain started, meaning that none of the countless boot marks now in the area were likely to be relevant.
No stacked body was found underneath.
No other gravesites were found nearby.
No pop cans, cigarettes, or other such items were discovered in the vicinity.
The grave had been dug with a shovel.
The shovel was no longer there.
With any luck, it got put into the trunk of a car or the back of an SUV after the event, dropping residue. Kwak took several soil samples to use for comparison later if the opportunity ever arose.
Watching, off to the side, Teffinger told Sydney, “The victim’s got a good body. I wouldn’t doubt it a bit if she’s that stripper you were telling me about.”
“Agreed.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but I have it written down.”
“Where?”
She tilted her head, thinking. “In a notepad, on my desk.”
“Call headquarters and see if someone can find it,” Teffinger said. “Then have them run a background check on her.”
She wandered off and talked into a cell phone.
Five minutes later she came back. “The stripper’s name is Samantha Stamp-stage name Chase,” she said. “I called the club to see if she’d shown up for work yet. When I told the guy I was a detective he muttered ‘bitch’ under his breath and hung up.”
Teffinger frowned.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
70
DAY ELEVEN-SEPTEMBER 15
THURSDAY MORNING
When Aspen got to work at 7:15 Thursday morning, she found an envelope on her chair. Inside was an unsigned piece of paper that said: Go to the Starbucks on the 16th Street Mall at 9:00 a.m. Come alone and don’t tell anyone.
She suspected the note came from the same person who accused Christina Tam of being a spy.
Fine.
Let’s find out who it was.
She showed up five minutes early, didn’t see anyone she knew, ordered a latte, and took a table by the wall. A Billie Holiday song dripped down from ceiling speakers, painful and lamenting. A few minutes later, a man walked over and sat down. He looked vaguely familiar and wore an expensive gray pinstriped suit over a red silk power tie. He looked to be in his early thirties, thin set, and balder than he should be.
“I’m Conrad Conrad,” he said.
She recognized the name.
He was an attorney in the firm.
In the environmental section.
“Sorry to be so mysterious,” he said, “but I felt it best that we met somewhere away from the firm. I hope you don’t mind.”
She shook her head.
“No, this is fine. So what’s going on?”
The man looked around, apparently saw no one of interest, and refocused on her. “The word’s going around that you’re asking questions about Rachel,” he said. “Maybe even doing an ad hoc investigation of some sort.”
She didn’t know whether to admit it or not.
But did.
“Of some sort,” she said. “Maybe.”
“I have some information for you,” he said. “But first you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone that I
