Now You See Him (Roy Ballard Book 4) Read online

  As the other man approached, I saw that he was about forty years old, with a red face, a round belly, and four or five days’ worth of beard. He was wearing one of those corny captain’s hats with an embroidered anchor patch above the shortened bill. He looked at me with some suspicion.

  “Help you with something?” he asked.

  “You the captain?” I asked.

  “I am. Who’re you?”

  “Roy Ballard. I was hoping to ask you some questions about Friday night.”

  “You a reporter?”

  “Even better. I’m a legal videographer. Jeremy Sawyer’s aunt asked me to—”

  “Nope,” the captain said. “No questions,” and he reached toward me, as if to escort me along the pier, toward the shore.

  I stayed where I was.

  “Just trying to figure out what happened to Jeremy,” I said.

  “He obviously drowned,” the captain said, and now he grabbed me by the right biceps, again trying to get me moving away from the boat. He had a firm grip. I didn’t budge.

  “You know something?” I said. “I don’t like it when short, tubby guys try to manhandle me. Not without any prior intimacy.”

  His face got even redder.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said.

  “There are no signs,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I’m informing you personally, which is better than any sign.”

  “You own this marina?” I asked.

  He looked tongue-tied, which meant the answer was no.

  “That’s a nice hat, by the way,” I said. “Did you borrow it from Thurston Howell?”

  He gripped my arm tighter. “You need to leave right now.”

  He tried to move me, but I stayed where I was.

  Meatball had come back to this side of the boat and was watching us. He looked uncomfortable with the situation.

  I said, “You don’t own this dock, and you don’t own the marina, so you don’t have any legal standing to ask me to leave. Now you need to remove your hand, because I promise you don’t want me to do it for you.”

  5

  “What did he do?” Mia asked.

  “He waited about three seconds—just to prove he’s tough, you know—and then he removed it,” I said.

  I was giving her an update by phone, while I sat in the air-conditioned comfort of my Dodge Caravan, still in the parking lot above the marina.

  “Did he say anything else?” she asked.

  “We set up a date for tonight. He has dreamy eyes. Other than that, no. Sure makes me wonder, though. Seemed like an overreaction on his part.”

  “He could be worried about a lawsuit,” Mia said. “Or bad press. Or maybe he just feels guilty that one of his passengers drowned. So he’s touchy.”

  Even from this distance, I could see Meatball and the captain on the upper deck, having an animated conversation. For all I knew, the captain was bitching about Meatball’s mopping techniques—but I doubted that was the topic.

  “But if you were me,” I said, “you wouldn’t drop it just yet, would you?”

  “Oh, hell, no,” Mia said.

  I had a quick lunch at Rosie’s Tamale House on Highway 71—the #4 plate—and then I met a young lady named Jayci Lewis at a coffee shop on William Cannon Drive in South Austin. It was busy, but not so busy that we couldn’t get a corner table where we could chat with some privacy.

  I guessed that Jayci was in her early twenties. Reddish-brown hair to her shoulders. Blue eyes. Looking cute in khaki shorts, sandals, and a turquoise tank top. She also looked great in a bikini. I knew that because I had seen photos on her Facebook page. Lots of them. They were unavoidable. Plus other photos of her in various low-cut tops or clingy dresses. And the privacy settings were such that anybody—even a skeevy older dude like me who wasn’t friends with her—could see them. I think that was the point. She was a Kardashian wannabe. The more likes, the better.

  My research earlier at Mia’s place had revealed that Jayci had been on the Island Hopper on Friday night. It wasn’t hard to find past passengers, because if you posted a photo on social media while you were on the boat, along with the hashtag #islandhopper, they gave you a ten dollar bill when you disembarked at the end of the cruise. Clever marketing.

  I had messaged Jayci, explaining that I was looking into Jeremy’s death, and asking if we could meet up and talk. I didn’t think she would even answer, but she did. I found her reply after my phone call with Mia. Turned out she was in Jeremy’s loose group of friends who had signed up for the cruise together. You got a better price if you bought ten tickets at once—more smart marketing.

  “How long had you known Jeremy?” I asked Jayci.

  “Since high school,” she said. “I moved here my sophomore year from Nebraska.”

  “So you were pretty good friends?”

  “We were sort of in the same circle,” Jayci said. “We never hooked up, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Uh, I wasn’t going to—”

  “You know how you have some friends that you only see if you’re hanging with the other friend you both know? He was one of those. Like, we wouldn’t do stuff together, just the two of us, but in a group, yeah. I usually saw him when there were a lot of us doing something together. Maybe once or twice a year.”

  “Who was your mutual friend?” I asked.

  “My what?”

  “The friend you and Jeremy both knew.”

  “Caroline. Have you talked to her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “They were together for a while, but they broke up. They were still cool, though, you know? It wasn’t like an ugly situation or anything. They both just knew it was better to move on.”

  “Caroline and Jeremy?”

  “Yeah. So are you like a cop or something?”

  “No, I’m a legal videographer.”

  She nodded as if she knew exactly what that was, even though I was sure she didn’t.

  “I figured a cop wouldn’t message me on Facebook,” she said.

  “Probably not.”

  “How old are you?” she asked, tilting her head to one side, assessing me.

  “More than thirty,” I said.

  “But not more than forty, right?” she asked, and now she had a coy grin on her face.

  I’m no idiot. I knew what was happening. She was flirting—but not because she liked me. She was the type of young lady who flirted because it earned her attention. It was the real-world equivalent of likes on Facebook. I could probably use that to my advantage.

  “Of course not,” I said. “I’m a long way from forty. Days and days.”

  “Really?”

  “Okay, months. Years, even.”

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  “But only in a humorous way,” I said. “So Caroline was on the boat, too?”

  “Actually, no. She was supposed to be, but she got sick and had to stay home.”

  “How big was your group?”

  “Thirteen of us.”

  “And you didn’t know anybody else on the boat?”

  “Uh-uh. I mean, we all got to know each other as the night went on, because we were all talking and stuff. But at first, no.”

  “What did you think of the captain and the deckhand?”

  She shrugged. “Fine, I guess. They gave us some safety instructions, but other than that, we didn’t really, like, socialize with them.”

  “So all of the passengers were just drinking and having fun,” I said.

  “Pretty much,” Jayci said.

  “Everybody was pretty drunk?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “Some a little more than others. Or I guess a lot more. Some people were doing Jell-O shots.”

  “Including you?” I asked.

  “Who, me?” she said playfully.

  “Heaven forbid,” I said.

  “I try not to overdo it, because I make bad choices when I get drunk.” She said it in a way that meant, Oh, the stories I
could tell! I’m so naughty!

  “Really?” I said. “You seem like such a demure young lady.”

  “I am!” she said with mock outrage. “But it’s not my fault what happens when alcohol is involved. Everybody makes mistakes.”

  “True,” I said.

  “A couple of my mistakes were over thirty,” she said, eyeing me closely.

  Subtle.

  “That’s weird,” I said, “because all of my mistakes were under thirty.”

  She laughed, but I could tell she didn’t know how to take that.

  “I bet,” she finally said.

  “So how about Jeremy?” I asked. “Was he drinking?”

  She made a face then—not quite an eye roll, but close, combined with a little rueful shake of her head. “He was toasted, yeah, but I think most of it was because he doesn’t drink very often. And we mixed up this big batch of punch that was pretty strong. Had, like, vodka and rum and some other stuff in it. The kind where it doesn’t taste that strong, but it is, and before you know it...”

  “Another mistake is on the horizon?” I said.

  “Basically, yeah,” she said. “That’s how it happens. But, honestly, I wasn’t too wasted. I remember everything. Seriously.”

  “How could you tell that Jeremy was drunk?” I asked.

  “Well, he was just, like, being all goofy and everything. Cranking up the music real loud and dancing around all crazy. That’s not how he normally is.”

  Jayci had surprised me earlier by ordering plain old black coffee, instead of some sort of caramel waffle cone blended crème Frappuccino topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. Good for her.

  “How is he normally?” I asked.

  “Kinda quiet. I mean, not like shy or anything, but he’s not a loud guy. He’s never the center of attention. He’s the kind that suddenly makes a great joke or wise-ass remark out of nowhere.”

  “But Friday night he was different?”

  I wanted to see if she would confirm what Meatball had said about Jeremy and the ladies on board.

  “Totally,” Jayci said. “Talking to everybody, including the other people who weren’t in our group. He was all over the place—especially with the other girls.”

  “Oh, yeah? Hitting on ’em?”

  “Well, yeah, but in a totally cute and harmless way. Everybody knew he was just drunk.”

  “Everybody did?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “So nobody got mad at him—like maybe some of the other guys who didn’t know him?”

  She started to answer, then stopped. Her expression became more serious. She said, “Oh, crap. I forgot about that.”

  “About what?”

  She took a moment, staring at some blank point in space, as if waiting for the memory to firm up in her mind. “At one point,” she said, “when the boat hit a wave, Jeremy lost his balance and stumbled into this other guy at the railing. Big guy. So this dude totally shoved Jeremy and he almost fell down. He dropped his drink, I remember that. It was a totally uncool moment, but it was just a couple of seconds. I don’t even know if anyone else saw it.”

  “So how did Jeremy respond?”

  “He said he was sorry, and the other guy was just, like, ‘Watch what you’re doing!’”

  “Was this other guy with a girl?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a really hot one, too. Blond girl with the longest legs I’ve ever seen. And, like, great boobs.”

  “Any chance Jeremy flirted with her earlier?”

  “Yep,” she said, nodding with certainty. “He absolutely did. I remember that for sure.”

  “Could you hear what he said?”

  “No, but she was laughing. She seemed to like it.”

  “And where was her boyfriend at the time?”

  “I don’t know. Not with the girl. Somewhere else on the boat. Probably getting a drink or going to the bathroom. Or maybe swimming.”

  “What time of day was this?”

  “Still daylight. Probably late afternoon. That’s as close as I can get.”

  “Any chance the boyfriend’s name was Harvey?” I asked. A shot in the dark.

  “No, I remember talking to Harvey, and it wasn’t him.”

  “Do you remember the name of the blond’s boyfriend—or the blond’s name, for that matter?”

  “I don’t think I ever heard their names,” Jayci said.

  “If you looked at some pictures from the cruise,” I said, “you think you could pick them out?”

  “Oh, duh,” she said, and she was already getting her phone out of her purse.

  6

  While this cute young lady was surprising me with helpful information, Mia was hoping to start working on the one active case we had at the moment. The Babcock case—and it was a doozy.

  Some background to set the stage: A few years back, a woman made the news when she suddenly began to walk with highly erratic jerks and twitches, arms constricted and held close to her torso, like she was imitating a tyrannosaur. It was some sort of neurological malady, she claimed, and she’d found a doctor to back her up. Oh, and she—this woman from Mobile, Alabama—suddenly had a Scottish accent.

  What caused all these problems? According to her, it was a routine flu shot. Vicious side effects, you see? If only she hadn’t listened to the mainstream medical establishment. That’s what she said later—and she added that the flu shot was nothing but a scam designed to generate money for Big Pharma. But now her eyes were open and she was no longer one of the sheeple.

  Her story went viral pretty quickly, and then it disappeared just as fast. I have no idea what happened to her—or her lawsuits. Yes, she sued the manufacturer of the vaccine, because shouldn’t they have warned her that she would end up walking like John Cleese and talking like a bad Sean Connery impersonator? She also sued the national drugstore chain where she got the shot, and she sued her doctor for recommending she get the shot. And, of course, it was the insurance companies for these three defendants that ultimately had to foot the legal bill.

  You know what insurers worry about in this kind of situation? Copycats. If one woman with a suspicious burr can squeeze some money out of an international conglomerate, what’s stopping others from doing the same?

  And that leads us to Dennis Babcock, a twenty-three-year-old maintenance technician for an office building in downtown Austin. A little more than three months ago, Babcock scraped his arm on a rusty air conditioning duct and was advised to get a tetanus shot.

  Two days after the shot—according to Babcock—he couldn’t walk. When he tried, he took short, clumsy steps and would quickly lose his balance and fall forward. He claimed that his legs didn’t feel any different than they had before, but somehow the wiring in his head refused to allow him to walk.

  And then he discovered that he could walk—if he held his arms straight up above his head. With his arms raised, he could walk just as smoothly and efficiently as anyone else, for great distances, but as soon as he lowered his arms, the ability vanished.

  Babcock got a lot of media attention, and much of it was the result of his sister and brother-in-law’s efforts to spread the word about Dennis’s physical impairment. His sister, Lorene, shot videos of her dear, sweet, afflicted brother trying to walk, and he couldn’t, and she became so distraught each time, she couldn’t help but break down and cry. It was heartbreaking, apparently, for thousands of Americans who voiced their support for Babcock in social media comments, many of them with the grammar and syntax of a seven-year-old. The most popular Dennis Babcock video wasn’t a monster viral hit by YouTube standards, but it had gotten close to half a million views.

  It was all bullshit, of course. Despite the fact that Babcock had found a doctor willing to diagnose him with some sort of idiopathic neurological disorder or deficit, it was all a crock. A scam. A hoax. But you know what happened in the month after Babcock’s claim? Patients across the country began to refuse the tetanus vaccine. Not a lot of them, but enough to
cause a concern, considering that tetanus kills about one in ten people who contract it.

  So, to avoid any future litigation (because juries are sometimes comprised of the same people commenting on social media), and to prove that the tetanus vaccine was as safe as it had always been, the insurance company hired us to prove that Babcock was faking.

  For the past five weeks, we had kept him under surveillance as frequently as we could, taking turns as necessary, and hoping to catch him walking normally with his arms down. No luck so far. The bigger problem was, in the past three weeks, he had become a recluse and hadn’t left his house a single time.

  Today, however, one hour after Mia and I spoke, the Honda that Babcock’s sister Lorene routinely drove left their house. A few minutes after that, Babcock’s truck also left the house. How did Mia know this? We had GPS devices attached discreetly to the underside of both vehicles.

  Strictly speaking, not legal, but damn was it effective.

  Mia climbed into her SUV and went to see what Dennis was up to on this fine Sunday afternoon.

  I had learned some good stuff, but that didn’t mean I knew how to proceed. I returned to my apartment and pondered the progress I’d made.

  Thanks to Jayci, I now had several photos that included the leggy blond and her boyfriend. In all of the photos, Jayci had randomly captured the couple in the background—she hadn’t set out to shoot them specifically—so the photos weren’t all that great. In one of the photos, the blond was wearing a captain’s hat. I figured she must’ve taken it off the captain’s head, just goofing around, having fun. Women like her could get away with antics like that. Or maybe she’d brought her own hat. One of the photos showed the boyfriend from the back, and I noticed he had a shark tattoo on his left shoulder blade.

  Jayci had also given me seven photos featuring Jeremy with various other people in his circle of friends on the boat, plus about two dozen other photos without Jeremy, the leggy blond, or her boyfriend.

  None were particularly helpful. Just basic party pics. Young drunk people mugging for the camera or caught in the background. Nobody appeared angry or belligerent. Jeremy wasn’t fondling anyone, inappropriately or otherwise. Most of the photos were taken during the daylight hours. That’s because Jayci got increasingly drunk and taking pictures slipped her mind. That was my theory.