Another one of the DVDs showed Blake Gray sawing off Rachel Ringer’s head. Gray was sitting in prison right now, without bail, facing the death penalty.
“He’ll get it, too,” Teffinger told everyone.
Another one of the DVDs showed a man snuffing Angela Pfeiffer, stabbing her repeatedly. So Davica was officially off the hook for that.
Teffinger and Davica had consummated their relationship that night in celebration.
And hadn’t stopped since.
Mia Avila, the missing Pueblo woman, was found alive, chained in the cab of a tow truck, which was locked in a structure at the remote location off Highway 93 where Jack Draven had been staying.
She had suffered serious malnutrition and dehydration but in the end managed to pull herself back to normal.
The body of the tow-truck driver still hadn’t been found.
Draven had been staying at the place with a Pueblo hooker named Gretchen Smith. She disappeared the day after she learned that Draven was dead.
No one knows where she went.
She left behind a brand-new Lexus that was titled in her name.
Derek Bennett’s story checked out. He had nothing to do with the deaths of Rachel Ringer, Chase, or Jacqueline Moore. The only thing he had done of an illegal nature was to conspire with Blake Gray and Jacqueline Moore to hire Jack Draven to threaten Robert Yates.
Although that was a felony, Teffinger talked a New York prosecutor into giving Bennett a plea bargain in exchange for Bennett testifying against Blake Gray at trial.
The law firm of Hogan, Slate amp; Dover, LLC, disintegrated. Teffinger got Aspen and Christina Tam jobs in the D.A.’s office, where they were thriving.
As near as Teffinger could tell, Blake Gray was the one who had killed Brad Ripley. Teffinger’s theory was that Ripley learned from Draven that there would be more events at that same location after Ripley’s.
Ripley then kept an eye on the place.
When Blake Gray showed up, Ripley took the pictures that were found in his safe, and also wrote down the license plate number of Gray’s BMW. From there he learned who Gray was. When he lost money in Las Vegas and needed more, he blackmailed Blake Gray. But Gray traced the phone calls, found out who was blackmailing him, and shot him in the face.
Marilyn Black, the hooker, was living drug-free with her mother in Idaho, working as a cashier in a hardware store. She emailed Teffinger almost every day.
Teffinger worked the paintbrushes for almost two hours and then stopped.
He was finished.
Anything more would just mess it up.
He packed up the Tundra and headed to Davica’s.
If she liked the painting he’d get it framed and give it to her.
Otherwise he’d sell it at the gallery.
It was good enough for that.
Davica called while he was driving over and said, “Let’s get drunk tonight and then take a cab home.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care, downtown somewhere, maybe one of those places on Larimer Street, somewhere dark and cozy. I’m going to wear a short black skirt and a white thong.”
He smiled.
“You’re too wild for me. You know that, I hope.”
“You have no idea,” she said.