Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels Page 6

  Wade Gruley was one of those people. During the first few weeks of his government-sponsored vacation, he’d called me up a couple of times and made veiled threats. How dumb is that, calling from jail? Those calls were recorded. He said things like, “When I get out of here, I’m going to look you up and let you know how much I appreciate what you did for me.” Very stupid to make the calls, but not quite stupid enough to say anything that would result in additional charges.

  The good thing is, these people are insurance cheats, not murderers or gangbangers, so none of them have ever come after me directly. Instead, they go after my vehicle. Flat tires are always popular. Sugar in the gas tank. Acid on the paint job. A hammer to the windshield. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. The van has a high-dollar alarm and security system, which prevents anyone from stealing it or its contents, but it doesn’t prevent this sort of petty vandalism.

  Most of the time, I suspect who the culprit is, but I never know for sure. That’s because they usually strike once and that’s it. For most of these losers, that’s enough. Sure, in jail, they might’ve vowed to themselves that they would hound me to my dying day, but after they’re released, their keen sense of focus wanes. They key my car door or snap my antenna and that seems to fulfill their need for payback. Their anger fades, then they get distracted and move on to other things, like, you know, day-to-day life.

  Doesn’t mean I’m not careful.

  I looked all around the parking lot, making sure Wade Gruley—who was a pretty big guy, if memory serves—wasn’t lurking behind a vehicle, and then I approached the van for a closer inspection. The left front tire had an inch-long slit in the sidewall. Someone had plunged a knife into it. Same with the other three. That kind of damage can’t be repaired, so I’d need four new tires.

  Know who pays for it? My insurance company, of course. So, assuming the vandalism had indeed been committed by Gruley or one of my other past targets, once again an insurance company would be coughing up cash to pay for his illegal transgressions.

  I called the non-emergency number for the Austin Police Department and asked them to send a unit. My insurance company would want a police report. Then I called to arrange a tow truck. I’d be good to go in a couple of hours. Which was just as well, because I was going to need my van quite a bit in the coming days.

  14

  The deputy wasn’t on Thomas Springs Road at seven o’clock the next morning. This was getting confusing. Were they checking Pierce out or not? I didn’t really need to know, but I sure wanted to know. I pulled over and placed a call that was answered by an actual live human being.

  “This is Ruelas.”

  “Good morning, Detective, this is Roy Ballard.” Silence.

  I said, “Remember? Tall, good-looking guy with a staggering intellect?”

  “You need something?”

  “Absolutely. A minute with the lieutenant. Holland?”

  “He’s on vacation.”

  “You mean, like, literally?”

  “Florida. Left this morning.”

  “Okay, then I’ll ask you instead. Yesterday morning there was a deputy parked at the church on Thomas Springs Road. Today he’s not there—at least, not right now. I know better than to ask what he was doing there, but you know what I do for a living, and I need to go about my business without interfering with your business. I’m sure you understand what I’m getting at.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t hear the question.”

  “Fair enough. My question is, do I need to stay away from the Thomas Springs Road area?”

  My assumption was that he wouldn’t tell me if they were watching Pierce, but he would tip me off if they weren’t, just as he had at the substation.

  What he said was, “Do whatever the hell you want. Makes no difference to me at all.” Good enough.

  “Thank you. So the deputy yesterday was simply running radar?”

  “Mr. Ballard, let me make a suggestion. Assume that everyone at the sheriff’s department knows exactly what they are doing. That way, you won’t have to lay awake at night wondering if we need your help.”

  “Good tip. Are you a Capricorn, by chance?”

  “What?”

  “With Mars in retrograde, that might explain your current irritability.”

  Dial tone.

  I saw an interesting newspaper ad once for one of the local news outfits. They liked to take credit for always getting the big scoop, no matter how hard the digging might be. The ad featured neatly arranged rows of ten-digit numbers—hundreds of them, or maybe thousands. The headline said something like, “If you want to know how exciting investigative reporting is, find the number listed twice on this page.”

  Same thing is true in my line of work. People think it’s a non-stop thrill ride, or that it’s at least mildly entertaining.

  Silly, silly fools.

  Sure, there are moments. But the rest of the time, it’s just a job, like any other. Repetitive. Not particularly challenging. Sometimes downright boring. More about grunt work than brain work. Show up, be persistent, and wait for your long hours to pay off.

  So that’s what I did. Had no choice, really, considering where Brian Pierce lived, way back in the woods. I couldn’t trespass, so I had to stake him out and hope he left the property.

  Friday morning passed slowly. I was tempted to park along the shoulder of the road, where I could see Pierce’s house through the small gap in the trees, but I couldn’t run the risk that he’d notice me. So I parked in the church parking lot again. Sat. Waited. Got bored, so I checked Pierce’s Facebook page, but didn’t see any activity. It’s times like this when your confidence begins to drop. You start to doubt that your subject is even in the house. Last thing you want is for him or her to suddenly come home, after having been out and about for hours without you knowing it. But it happens sometimes, because you can’t conduct surveillance 24 hours a day, by yourself, for a prolonged stretch.

  So. You sit and wait. If you’re like me, there are times when you desperately want to take a nap, but you can’t do that. But you can surf the web. You can listen to the radio. You can read. You can also talk on the phone, so by mid-afternoon I decided to call the number Jessica had given me. It went straight to voicemail, so I said, “Hi, Jessica, this is Roy Ballard, your customer from yesterday. Well, just one of many customers, I assume, unless you had a really bad shift. Anyway, I forgot to mention that I represent the Texas Restaurant and Innkeepers Association and you have won a major award for your superior hospitality and luminescent smile. It is my responsibility to bestow the award upon you, so it only seems fitting that we conduct the ceremony over dinner, where we can critique the performance of our waiter and/ or waitress. At your convenience, but without any undue delay, why don’t you give me a call? I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I will say that this award is in the form of a trophy, not some cheesy plaque. Plaques are passé, and the association is well aware of that fact. Hope to hear from you soon.”

  You can also simply sit and think, but that’s not always a good idea. I did that for awhile, later in the afternoon, and unpleasant memories began to fight for my attention. This Tracy Turner thing had brought them to the forefront. I didn’t need the assistance of a therapist to arrive at that conclusion.

  Painful.

  The dog park. Walking back to my Nissan and discovering that Hannah was missing…

  Panic set in quickly, of course. I looked in every direction. Shouted her name. Screamed her name. Tried to remain calm, but that was impossible. My heart was thundering. Breathing as hard as a sprinter after a race. I started babbling at passersby, pleading for their help, seeing in their faces that they thought I had lost it. Then seeing that they finally understood. My daughter is missing! Please help me!

  I called Laura first. Don’t know why. Should’ve called the cops, but I called Laura. She couldn’t believe what I was saying. Hannah couldn’t be missing. She must have just wandered off. Now I was wande
ring with the cell phone in my hand, searching in a wooded area not far from the parking lot. Finally Laura began to understand the seriousness of the situation.

  “Please come right now,” I said.

  “I will. But you find her, Roy!”

  “I’m looking.”

  “Don’t you lose our daughter!”

  That’s when it really sank in. If I didn’t find Hannah…I didn’t want to even think about it, but if I didn’t find Hannah, not only would she be gone, which was the worst nightmare I could imagine, but I’d be to blame. It would’ve been horrible enough if Hannah had gone missing under someone else’s watch, but it had happened under mine. I couldn’t imagine shouldering that guilt.

  Laura and the first cop car arrived at the same time. We gathered in a tight circle and I immediately began telling them both what had happened. A small crowd clustered around us—people who had been looking for Hannah but had now given up. There was nowhere else to look, really.

  “I left her—I left her for just a minute,” I said.

  “You left Hannah?” Laura asked. I’ve never seen a more grotesque look on her face. “Left her where?”

  “In the car. It wasn’t more than a minute.”

  “Where did you go? Why did you leave her?”

  “There was a woman. I had to talk to her.” I told them about Susan Tate, and the conversation about dogs, and about the pit bull puppies that her brother had. It came out in a disjointed jumble and I didn’t know if any of it was making sense.

  The cop said, “So you had had an earlier conversation with this woman and you went back to speak to her again?”

  “That’s what I’m saying!” I looked around for Susan Tate in the crowd, hoping she might appear, but I didn’t see her. Not that it would have mattered.

  “What did you need to talk to her about?” the cop asked.

  “I wanted to get her phone number.”

  Laura looked like I had slapped her. “You wanted to get her phone number? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I knew what she was thinking. She had complained about my flirting in the past. Never quite trusted me.

  “It wasn’t like that, Laura.”

  She turned and walked rapidly toward the wooded area, which I had already searched, calling Hannah’s name.

  The cop told me that a detective who specialized in missing children would be here shortly.

  Obviously, it was far and away the worst day I’d ever experienced, and I was pretty sure it would remain crystal clear and sharp as glass in my head for the rest of my life.

  But now, years later, I was given a temporary reprieve. A distraction. Something important was happening. A car on Thomas Springs Road had slowed and was pulling into Brian Pierce’s driveway.

  15

  The car, a white Volkswagen Jetta, stopped at the locked gate. I already had the video camera zoomed in and recording, so I would get a decent shot of whoever emerged from the car. Unfortunately, from this angle, one hundreds yards down the road from the driveway, I wouldn’t get video of the license plate. The windows of the Jetta were tinted too dark to see how many people were inside.

  The driver’s door opened and a person stepped out. A female. The view through the binoculars revealed that it was a middle-aged woman. Pierce’s mom? No, probably not, unless she’d had him when she was a teenager. A sister? Maybe. The woman was fairly attractive. Brown hair. Slim. Dressed casually in jeans and a sleeveless top. She went straight to the gate and began to unlock the combination lock on the chain that kept the gate closed. She seemed to open it very quickly, which meant she had likely unlocked it before. That might be helpful information later, or it might not. She swung the gate open wide, drove through, hopped out, closed the gate, locked it, got back in the car, and drove onto the property, until the car was obscured by the cedar trees.

  Interesting that she locked the gate. Planning to stay awhile? Or just wanting to ensure that nobody could wander onto the property?

  Either way, I was glad something was happening. It had always been a possibility that I might have sat out here for several days with no activity at all.

  Thirty minutes passed. The Jetta did not come back down the driveway. It was nearly five o’clock, so I was wondering if the woman was here for the evening.

  I transferred the video from my camera to my laptop. I reviewed the video frame by frame and saved a decent still shot of the woman’s face. Then I began to scroll through Brian Pierce’s friends on Facebook, to see if I could find her. Didn’t know what I hoped to learn, but learning anything would be better than learning nothing.

  Here’s something I discovered early on in this business: Guys don’t change their appearance much, even over a period of years. Easy to recognize ol’ Joe, time after time, unless he puts on or drops an amazing amount of weight. Women, on the other hand, might look very different from one day to the next. A woman is much more likely to change the color or the length of her hair, for instance. Brown one day, blond the next. Long, flowing hair becomes an updo, or maybe even a bob. New make-up, new eyeglasses, new clothes, and suddenly the girl from yesterday has a dramatically different appearance. So it didn’t surprise me that I couldn’t positively identify the Jetta driver on Pierce’s friends list. There were about four women she might have been, but I couldn’t say for sure. Or maybe none of them were her.

  I was studying each profile closely, completely focused on what I was doing, when there was a loud rapping on my passenger-side window and I almost had a stroke.

  A woman was standing beside the van. Maybe seventy years old. And she was scowling. I regained my composure long enough to use the button in the driver’s door to lower the power window on her side. I gave her a broad smile. She elected to continue scowling. Her short gray hair was covered by a visor to keep the late-afternoon sun out of her eyes. Her cheeks were rosy from the exertion of a brisk walk.

  “Boy, you sure startled me,” I said.

  “May I ask what you are doing here?”

  I avoided the question. “Well, not much. Is there a problem?” Trying my best to sound friendly.

  “I live right down the street. I drove by this morning and noticed you parked here. And now I see that you’re still here.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am.”

  “Is your van broken down?”

  She came across as a retired high school principal, or the stereotype of one, anyway. Stern. Had heard every excuse in the book. Won’t be fooled.

  “No, ma’am, fortunately, it isn’t.”

  “We had a break-in earlier this spring, you know. One of my neighbors. That’s why we’re all keeping our eyes peeled.”

  “I understand, but I can assure you that—”

  “Anybody parked here all day like this is going to get noticed. You have business at the church?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You’re on church property, you know. I came very close to writing down your license plate number and calling the sheriff.”

  “I don’t blame you at all. It’s wise of you to be cautious. Feel free to ask for Detective Ruelas. Tell him Roy Ballard says hello.”

  Her attitude changed by precisely one nanometer. “What exactly are you doing here?”

  I knew better than to lie to a sharp old woman like her. “I’m conducting an investigation.”

  “You’re a police officer?”

  “No, I’m working for an insurance company.”

  Her nose wrinkled at those words. Insurance company. Now I noticed her eyes scanning over everything inside my van. Well, everything that was in plain sight. Some of my most valuable items were kept in a concealed compartment underneath the rear passenger bench. That includes a Glock nine-millimeter handgun, which I am not licensed to carry, because a guy with my criminal history can’t get a license.

  “You normally conduct an investigation this way? Park in the same spot all day?”

  This woman wasn’t bashful, I’ll give her that. Downright pushy, really.
She turned and looked one way down the road, then the other, as if attempting to puzzle out who or what I was investigating. Her gaze came to rest on Pierce’s gate. Damn, she was good. Then again, my van was facing in that direction, and there was nothing else down that way that I would be watching. Process of elimination. Simple logic.

  She pointed. “I know the young man who lives there. I knew his grandparents well.”

  She was feeling me out. Wanting to see if her deduction was correct.

  “Is that right?” I said. “You know, my own grandparents used to live along this road.”

  She looked at me. “What were their names?”

  “Jim and Beulah.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Oh, you’re kidding me. Jim and Beulah Ballard. They had the rock house on the hill, way back near the conservancy.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Lovely people. Salt of the earth.” Just that quickly, she was a different woman. Friendly. Not suspicious.

  “Yes, they were.”

  “Had dinner with them many times. What a smart, engaging couple.”

  “Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit that gene.”

  “Oh, go on. I remember them bragging about all their grandchildren. Which one are you?”

  “Roy.”

  “Roy Ballard! That’s what you said a minute ago but I didn’t make the connection. Roy, I’m Emma Webster.”

  I was worried that she might have recognized my name when it appeared in the newspapers way back when, and that she would remember that now, but I didn’t see any indication of it.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Webster.”

  “Please, it’s Emma.”

  “I remember my grandparents mentioning your name, but you seem way too young to have been one of their friends.”