Read Online Lawyer Trap by R. J. Jagger - Free Book Online

additional work had landed on it while he hadn’t been around to fend it off.
    He pulled Marilyn Black up on the computer.
    She had a couple of prostitution arrests and some minor drug charges but luckily hadn’t gotten herself into any major trouble yet.
    Maybe she could actually turn her life around.
    She must be terribly alone to call Teffinger in her hour of need. He only met her that one time. He needed to find out if she had any friends or relatives. He’d personally spring for the plane ticket if she had somewhere healthy to go.
    That wasn’t even an issue.
    The coffee machine stopped gurgling. Teffinger picked yesterday’s cup off his desk, found it half filled with cold brown goop, and dumped it in the snake plant on his way over for fresh stuff.
    Sydney pushed through the door three minutes later and headed toward the pot. Teffinger glanced at the oversized industrial clock on the wall—7:12.
    â€œWhat are you doing here so early?” he asked.
    She rolled her eyes, poured coffee, stirred in cream, and then pulled up a seat in front of his desk.
    â€œYou don’t remember?” she asked.
    He didn’t.
    Then did.
    Last night he’d asked her to come in early.
    â€œOf course I remember,” he said. “I’m just messing with you.”
    She slurped the coffee, getting as much noise out of the act as she could. Then she smiled as if she’d just heard a joke.
    â€œWhat?” he asked.
    â€œSo, I heard you got some head last night,” she said.
    He grunted.
    â€œGive me the details,” she added.
    He told her what he knew so far. Some woman had made an anonymous call from a payphone last night and said she’d found a head in one of the gravesites down by the railroad spur. She’d said it belonged to Rachel Ringer, a lawyer who disappeared in April. Teffinger took it for a joke but went down to check just in case.
    â€œSure enough,” he said. “There it was, just the way she said.”
    Sydney looked puzzled.
    â€œA fresh one?” she asked.
    He shook his head.
    â€œNo, decomposed. Very decomposed, in fact.”
    â€œBut the K-9 Unit had the cadaver dogs there all afternoon,” she said. “They would have found it.”
    He nodded. “My guess is the dogs pointed out the grave, but everyone thought they were smelling the old body. No one had any reason to think that there’d be a second body stacked in the same hole.”
    â€œSo there was, then? A second body?”
    He shrugged. “We’re not exactly sure yet,” he said, “but that’s my guess. It was too muddy last night to be messing around, so I had a unit stay there to guard the scene. We should be able to dig today. In fact, we should probably head over there now.”
    â€œLet’s do it.”
    Teffinger walked over to the coffee pot and refilled for the road. “Prepare to get muddy,” he warned her.
    She looked at him.
    â€œIt’s never easy with you, Teffinger,” she said. “Stuff just finds you. It’s like that bird we hit driving back from Santa Fe.”
    He smiled, remembering the way it had come all the way through the windshield and landed in the back seat, blood and feathers everywhere. He still had a vivid picture of Sydney picking it up by one foot and tossing it into the brush.
    When they arrived at the old railroad spur, the sun cast long morning shadows and the night chill was lifting. The gravesites still had standing water, but only half as much as last night.
    â€œWe can probably get going any time,” Teffinger said.
    He called the Crime Unit, and the truck pulled up forty-five minutes later with Paul Kwak at the wheel. He got out, scratched his gut, and frowned.
    â€œLet me see if I got this straight,” he told Teffinger. “Somewhere, someone’s going to work today, and their job is to sit around in a fancy showroom and sell BMWs to smiling rich guys. My job, on the