Get Busy Dying (Roy Ballard Mysteries)

  GET BUSY DYING

  BEN REHDER

  © 2014 by Ben Rehder.

  Cover art © 2014 by Bijou Graphics & Design.

  Digital design by A Thirsty Mind Book Design

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  For Uncle Chris and Aunt Suzanne, with love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am very grateful to all of the people who helped with this novel, including Tommy Blackwell, Don Gray, Greg Rosen, Helen Haught Fanick, Mary Summerall, Marsha Moyer, Becky Rehder, and Stacia Hernstrom. All errors are my own.

  1

  Where do you get a corpse when you need one? The answer was obvious, so here he was. Digging. At midnight. He’d started just after dark, which was at nearly nine o’clock this time of year. Now he was more than halfway done.

  He had prepared well, and everything was going smoothly. Faster than he’d expected. One shovelful of dirt at a time, placed carefully on a large tarp. No spillage on the surrounding grass. It was important that the gravesite look untouched when he left. He couldn’t leave any indication of what he’d done.

  Originally, he’d been worried about getting caught, but now he realized how silly that was. Way in the back of a cemetery on a quiet county road in the middle of nowhere. Maybe six vehicles had passed by in three hours, but they were more than a hundred yards away. No security cameras. No guards. No homes nearby. Just a six-foot chain link fence that wasn’t even locked. Full moon overhead, providing plenty of light, which meant he didn’t even have to use a flashlight.

  The first thing he’d done, several weeks ago, was search for the right place to stage the accident. He needed the perfect stretch of road. Curvy. Dangerous. As he’d done his scouting, he’d become aware of just how many small, private cemeteries were scattered all over the Texas Hill Country. He’d never noticed before, but damn, there were hundreds. Made sense. Dead people had to be buried. And how many people died every year around the world? Millions and millions. The more he thought about it, the more he was amazed we weren’t overrun with graveyards on every spare tract of land.

  After he’d decided on a wreck site and picked a dozen cemeteries that seemed ideal, he’d had to sit back and wait. Read the obits. Scan small-town newspaper websites. Couldn’t be just any dead body. It had to be right. Couldn’t be some little old lady, or some former basketball star. He needed someone average. About his age. About his height.

  Thirty-six days later he had his man.

  2

  Bosworth “Boz” Gentry’s death was tragic, if a bit of a Hollywood cliché. In the wee hours of a Saturday in spring, the twenty-eight-year-old construction worker plowed his truck through a guardrail on a winding road outside Austin and tumbled nearly one hundred feet into a canyon. There, it burst into flame. The odds of that happening—a vehicle catching fire—are actually quite slim, despite what you see in the movies, where exploding gas tanks are as common as breast implants. But that’s the way the accident unfolded, and I can think of several more agreeable ways to die than burning to death. Drowning in a pool of sewage, perhaps, or being seated next to our long-winded governor at a formal dinner.

  Of course, the questions were plentiful in the days after Gentry’s death. Was alcohol involved? Where was he going at that time of night? Why were there no skid marks? Had he fallen asleep at the wheel? Why had his parents cruelly named him Bosworth?

  Days passed, the accident dropped from the headlines, and I hadn’t given it any more thought since, until Heidi called on a Wednesday afternoon and said, “You been keeping up with this Boz Gentry case?”

  I was seated in my Dodge Caravan, which is beige, nondescript, and as inconspicuous as any vehicle on the road. I had a video camera at the ready, waiting for a blond gentleman to emerge from a KFC in north Austin. He was average height and weight—nothing distinguishing about him, except that he was wearing a padded neck brace. Two spaces over from his car, a stunning woman in a short skirt was trying to change the tire on a classic Mustang.

  “It’s a case?” I said.

  “It is for me. And maybe for you and your partner, if you have the time.”

  Heidi is one of my biggest clients. She works at a humongous insurance company—one that’s too dignified, or perhaps too stodgy, to use an animated gecko or an annoying duck as a spokesperson.

  “Tell me more,” I said, because I’ve found that it facilitates a conversation quite nicely.

  “The M.E. said the corpse was about right—height and gender and all that. But he wanted to confirm it with dental records, and guess what?”

  “Boz Gentry never grew teeth. He was a scientific anomaly.”

  “His dentist couldn’t find the files. He’s an old-time type of dentist—nothing is digital over there, all paper—and he said Gentry’s entire folder was missing. Not just the X-rays, everything. No explanation, just not there anymore.”

  “Did Gentry ever see any other dentists?”

  “Nope. Lived in the area all his life and saw the same guy since he was a kid.”

  “Huh,” I said. Always insightful. “DNA?”

  “The cops say the body was burned so badly, they don’t know if they’ll be able to pull any. Plus, it looks like an accelerant was used, in addition to the gasoline in the tank.”

  “‘Looks like?’”

  “They can’t be one hundred percent positive, but they’re fairly sure.”

  “This is sounding suspiciouser by the minute.”

  “And the topper: Gentry applied for a life-insurance policy just twelve weeks before the accident.”

  “How much?”

  “Three million.”

  I gave a low whistle. “Not bad for a night’s work.”

  “Of course, we haven’t paid yet—not unless the M.E. issues a death certificate. But we want to make it clear that it wasn’t Gentry in that truck.”

  “Okay, so who was it?”

  “No idea. That’s for the sheriff’s department to figure out. Ultimately, it makes no difference to us, as long as we don’t have to pay out the three mil.”

  “I think it’s your warmth and compassion that draws me to you,” I said.

  “Hey, I’m as warm as the next gal when I’m not getting fleeced.”

  I said, “Normally I’d be thinking somebody killed Gentry and tried to make it look like an accident, but no dental? No DNA? What’re the odds of that? Sounds like an episode of CSI.”

  “Exactly. The detective working the case agrees.”

  “Who’s the lead on this one?”

  “One guess,” Heidi said, and there was something in her tone I didn’t like.

  “Oh, you’re kidding me,” I said. “Ruelas?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Try not to let your bromance cloud your thinking,” she said.

  I don’t hate a lot of people, but I hated Ruelas. Smug, arrogant jerk. Pretty good at his job, but still. Cocky. Obnoxious. An astute observer might point out that I’ve had all of those same adjectives applied to me at one time or another. But there’s a difference of some kind. There has to be.

  “So you want me to find Gentry,” I said.

  “Or provide evidence that the body in the truck wasn’t Gentry. If that means finding Gentry, sure, but
whatever works. Questions?”

  “Uh, yeah. How long was the Cretaceous Period?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I can hear you grinning,” I said. “You like to pretend you’re not amused, but I know better.”

  “Questions?” she repeated.

  “Gentry was married, right?”

  “You mean ‘is.’ He is married. Yes. Wife’s name is Erin.”

  “Any indication that she was involved in this diabolical scheme?”

  “Not that we know of, but you’d think she’d have to be. I mean, if he faked his own death, and his supposed widow was his beneficiary, he’d want to enjoy the fruits of his labors, right? So she’d have to know he was alive, either before or after. Doesn’t mean she was involved, but she’d have to be an accessory after the fact, after he shows up and says, ‘Surprise, honey, I’m not really dead.’”

  “Good point.”

  “Other questions?” she said.

  “Not at the moment, but you know how slow I am. I’m sure I’ll have some later.”

  “I’ll email you a file with everything we got, but it’s not a lot.”

  “Before you do that,” I said, “I should mention that I only have ten days to wrap this one up. Then I’m off for a month. You okay with that?”

  “Vacation?”

  “Yep.”

  “For a full month?”

  “Yep.”

  “Jeez, Roy, how am I supposed to get along without you for a month?”

  “Romance novels? Besides, Mia will take over when I’m gone, if we’re not done.”

  “That’s cool,” Heidi said. “She’s even sharper than you are.”

  “No need to go overboard.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “Wait. Doesn’t matter. Just take me with you. I could use a break, too. Is it a cruise?”

  “Actually, I’m not going anywhere. Got a visitor coming to town.”

  “Some floozy, I bet.”

  “No. I source all my floozies locally,” I said.

  “Then who?”

  It felt really good to say it out loud. “Hannah. She’s coming to see me.”

  Heidi and I have a similar sense of humor, and she can banter with the best of them, but my last remark caught her by surprise. There was a short pause, and when she responded, her tone had changed entirely. She said, “Oh, Roy, that’s fantastic.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

  When you’re at a party and you say you’re a legal videographer, most people simply nod, as if they know exactly what that is. They don’t know, of course, but they’re not interested enough to pursue it any further. I don’t blame them, because “legal videographer” sounds just a little more exciting than “actuarial analyst” or “claims representative.”

  So, instead—assuming I want to further the conversation—I simply say, “I catch people who commit insurance fraud.”

  They usually say something like, “Oh, really? So you’re an investigator for an insurance company?”

  “No, I’m a freelancer. I work for myself.”

  “Like a private detective?”

  “Sort of, but I’m not licensed to be a private detective. I’m a legal videographer.” Then they look puzzled, so I say, “Legal videographers record all sorts of things on video—depositions, wills, the scenes of accidents. But all I do is insurance fraud. It’s sort of my specialty.”

  “So you follow them around with a camera? I’ve seen videos like that on YouTube.”

  “Yep,” I say.

  “That must be kind of fun.”

  “It can be. Other times, not so much.”

  Like now, waiting outside the KFC. I had been keeping a man named Jens Buerger under surveillance for more than three days, but so far, my efforts had been futile. He and three of his pals had been rear-ended by a Mercedes, allegedly resulting in various severe soft-tissue injuries to all of them, but the accident had all the hallmarks of a classic swoop-and-squat. Plus, Buerger had pulled similar stunts before, several times.

  And now here came Buerger, leaving the chicken joint, walking toward his car, carrying a red-and-white bucket. Of course, he couldn’t help but see the woman in the skirt struggling to lift a spare tire out of the trunk of her beautiful red Mustang fastback. Hard to miss.

  The woman—my partner, Mia Madison—said something to Buerger as he approached. He stopped and talked to her, listened to her pleas, but then he gestured toward the neck brace. Sorry, I can’t help. Wish I could, but my neck. Mia did the thing where she reaches out and touches his arm lightly, imploringly—but it didn’t work. Buerger wasn’t going to give up his ruse, even for the hottest babe he’d likely seen all year. He got into his own car and drove away.

  Time for Plan B: Reinflate the tire Mia had flattened earlier, and then inform her that I’d be tackling this new and interesting case while she continued surveillance on Buerger, which was somewhat tedious.

  Sure, we’re partners, but seniority has its privileges.

  3

  At eight-thirty the next morning, I was in the small town of Dripping Springs, twenty minutes west of Austin, waiting patiently in the reception area of Tyler Lutz, the insurance agent who had sold Boz Gentry his life-insurance policy. A wall of windows to my right looked over a wooded area behind the office complex.

  Meanwhile, Candice Klein—Lutz’s receptionist—was brewing coffee, straightening magazines, watering plants, and generally getting the front office in order. Candice looked to be about 25 years old. Maybe five-six in flats. She was wearing a navy skirt, a cream-colored blouse, and rimless eyeglasses.

  I had spoken to Candice the previous afternoon, when I’d arranged the appointment. Heidi had called before that, giving Lutz clearance to speak freely to me about Boz Gentry’s insurance policies.

  “Mr. Lutz should be here any minute,” Candice said at eight-forty, as she took a seat behind her desk. “He rarely runs more than a few minutes late.”

  “No hurry.”

  “I’m sure he’ll help you however he can.”

  “Great. Can he rebuild the transmission on my van? It’s been slipping lately.”

  She gave me an indulgent smile that said, You’re quite the rascal, aren’t you? Or, possibly, Are you always such an idiot?

  Before I could continue the conversation, the door opened and in walked a reasonably handsome, tanned, early middle-aged man in a suit. Candice made a gesture with her hand, like And here he is now.

  He closed the door and turned to me, grinning. “Roy Ballard?”

  “Tyler Lutz?”

  We shook hands. He said, “Now that we both remember who we are, come on into my office.”

  “I have to admit I didn’t see this one coming,” Lutz said. “Not until Heidi called yesterday afternoon. I’ve been in this business for nearly twenty years and, well, this is a first. It’s just so damn ballsy. And stupid. Who would try something like this?”

  “What, you’ve never had a client fake his own death in an elaborate scheme to collect three million dollars?” I said.

  He laughed. “Not that I know of. So they know for sure that’s what he did?”

  “Well, not one hundred percent, but everybody is sort of operating on that assumption.”

  “Cops, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nobody tells me anything,” Lutz said.

  We were in his office with the door closed. It was neither posh nor shabby. Just an office, with semi-comfortable furniture and forgettable art on the walls. How did people do this sort of work? If I had to sit in here eight hours a day, I’d probably slowly lose my sparkling personality and end up buying some wingtip shoes.

  “My job is to track Gentry down,” I said. “Provide evidence that he’s still alive. Video, preferably.”

  “That’s what Heidi said. You’re a legal videographer.”

  “I am. Try to contain your excitement.”

  “Also, I’ll be honest—I recognized your name from the
news last year, when you found that missing girl.”

  I knitted my brow. “You sure that was me?”

  He grinned. Lutz wasn’t having any of my false humility.

  “You’re a goddamn hero in my book,” he said. “You took the bull by the horns and maybe even saved that girl’s life.”

  I’d experienced my share of Lutzes since the incident—people who think what I did was so magnificent, so brave, they don’t even want me to joke about it. They’re too busy patting me on the back, literally or figuratively. I can say with absolutely no false humility at all that it becomes tiresome.

  “That’s nice of you to say. Got lucky. So you think you can help me with this?”

  “I’ll sure try.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “I need our conversation to remain confidential.”

  “No problem. I’d like to see this get resolved one way or the other. If Boz really is dead, well, I feel bad for his widow, and she deserves to receive the benefits. Right now the poor gal is in a holding pattern. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. So if you have questions, fire away.”

  “How long have you been his agent?” I asked.

  “Maybe ten years or so, going back to when he graduated high school and moved out of his parents’ house. I’ve known him a long time. We both grew up here, although I was six or seven years ahead of him. Then he married Erin and they moved to her old family homestead off Bee Caves Road. I carry the policy on that place, too.”

  “So I’m guessing you sell insurance to a lot of people you know. Other people who grew up here.”

  “Exactly. I’m pretty much the only agent in town, or I used to be. Couple of others have popped up the past few years. Boz bought all his policies from me—everything across the board. Home. Health. Disability. Auto. He had a motorcycle and a jet ski, and I covered those, too.”

  “And life insurance,” I said.

  “Well, yeah. You knew that already.”

  “Is it normal for such a young guy to be so responsible? How many guys his age have disability insurance? Who thinks about that when they’re so young?”