The man running the task force, an FBI agent named Dobbs, vowed at a press conference that the “perpetrator of these heinous robberies” would be caught.
Ballou thought Dobbs was an arrogant ass. It would be a pleasure to prove the man wrong and make him look like a fool. He was the same type of jerk as the chief of police who had promised to catch him when he was a kid committing acts of vandalism. Dobbs would have no more luck than that cop did.
Ballou read a story about the man online where it was revealed that Dobbs was the son and grandson of FBI agents. A third-generation Fed.
Ballou was so pissed that he was considering moving up his timetable and hitting another armored car just to prove that he could do it and get away. And that was exactly the reaction that Agent Dobbs had been hoping to elicit. Ballou calmed himself once he figured that out.
Looking at things from their point of view, a long time had passed without them having anything to show for it. Dobbs and the other members of the task force were desperate to catch him. And how much longer could they continue without being shut down by their superiors?
Ballou kept living the simple life of a handyman/janitor and never did anything to draw attention to himself. The police dropped by yet again. They looked bored, spoke to him for a few minutes, then drew a line through his name, which was written down on a sheet they carried. They were checking up on anyone with a record who might possibly be their man. He had been arrested for committing burglaries and the false accusation of being a murderous kidnapper. Armed robbery wasn’t on his list of crimes and yet they kept coming back to him. He could only imagine how much of a hassle they were giving ex-cons who had actually robbed an armored car in the past.
The task force was disbanded six months after it had been formed. Ballou smiled when he heard that on the news. He would have loved to have seen the look on Dobb’s smug face when he was told that he had failed.
Every time Ballou unclogged a toilet or performed some other task he felt was beneath him, he thought about the fortune he had stashed away. More than once he decided to take the money and head off to Mexico or somewhere in South America, but then he’d remember all the time he had already invested and changed his mind.
The plan was to let eight months pass before striking again. When the time was right and he had his targets chosen, then he would do the unexpected.
The day arrived and Ballou felt nervous. As far as he knew, what he was about to attempt had never been done before. He planned to rob two armored cars on the same day and at the same time. The Smoke Bandit was back. Sort of.
The double robbery would be his finale whether he came away with a million more or less than a hundred grand. To keep going would be pressing his luck. He knew he might already be doing that, but he tried not to think about it.
His plan was a good one and relied on human nature more than his others. He had spent the time between robberies looking for targets that weren’t connected to his previous ones. Of the three robberies he’d committed, two had involved the same bank corporation and all three concerned the same armored car company. It was time to switch things up.
He had driven to a neighboring state and spent time watching banks and armored cars. He was surprised to learn that there was an armored car company that sent out a single man in their trucks. Doing research online, Ballou found a forum where the drivers and other employees griped about the working conditions and low pay. The drivers made little and were expected to work twelve-to-fourteen-hour shifts. The fact that they were alone made them more vulnerable than they would be if they had a partner.
As for the company itself, it was doing fine, by paying their employees less and keeping one guard to a truck, they’d been able to undercut their competition and were taking market share away from them. Ballou decided that he had found the company to rob. While stalking one of their drivers, he made a happy discovery.
The driver stopped at a fast-food restaurant every day as soon as the place opened. He would grab a meal from the drive-thru window. Afterward, he would pull into the rear of the lot and park to eat his early lunch. Ballou noticed that another armored car would sometimes join him within minutes. The driver of that armored car was older and had a hint of white in his beard. When both men had lunch there, the two would leave their vehicles and walk over to one of three picnic tables the restaurant had available.
The men weren’t only fellow workers or friends, they were brothers. If not for the fact that one of them looked a few years older than the other, Ballou might have thought they were twins.
He began following the older brother. That way, when the man headed toward the fast-food restaurant, he would know that he was meeting the other driver. Unlike his brother whose route was in that area, the older driver only went into that region occasionally. Before meeting for lunch, he always made a pickup at a bank nearby. This occurred about once every six days.
Ballou missed two opportunities to make his move on them because he had work to do at the rooming house. On more than a dozen days, over a period of two months, he followed the driver without him heading to the fast-food restaurant. Ballou’s patience served him well, and he stayed persistent. His fortitude and determination paid off on a brilliantly sunny day when the brothers had lunch together.
Ballou walked over to the picnic table and sat with them. He was holding a black gym bag. He had approached them with a big smile showing and with mirrored sunglasses and a baseball cap on. He also wore a phony beard that looked real and for which he had paid a good sum of money. On his right arm was a tattoo that was in the shape of a heart. It had the names John and Jenny written within the heart. They were two of the most common male and female names. It was a temporary tattoo that he could scrub off. Later on, when the FBI reviewed the video taken by the cameras of the fast-food restaurant, they would waste time searching for a man with such a tattoo. If he were ever suspected of being the Smoke Bandit, his lack of a tattoo might rule him out. It could certainly raise reasonable doubt in the minds of a jury.
As he took his seat, Ballou freed a gun and held it beneath the table. The two armored car drivers looked startled by his appearance. They had been in the middle of discussing an incident that took place in a baseball game that had been played the day before. In that game, an umpire had made a controversial call at home plate that decided the contest. The brothers had been rooting for different teams and were arguing over the umpire’s call.
“I have a gun under the table, gentlemen. If you don’t want to die, you’ll do exactly what I say,” Ballou told them. His voice carried with it a Boston accent. He had practiced speaking that way for months in preparation for the robbery. The tattoo and the accent would lead investigators away from him. Everything about the robbery would throw them off.
The two brothers reddened with anger, but they did everything Ballou asked of them. They placed their weapons, keys, and cell phones into the open gym bag along with their wallets. By doing so, they stayed alive.
He ordered them to load bags of money into the trunk of the car he had stolen. A mother with two small kids gave them an odd look as she and the children passed by them. Ballou smiled and told her that she had adorable children. She smiled back and got into her car. She hadn’t seen the gun because Ballou had it pressed against the side of his thigh and out of her sight. Once the money was in the trunk, Ballou gave the armored car drivers new orders.
“Go back and sit down at the picnic table for a solid ten minutes before reporting this. My partner is watching you and he has a rifle. If either of you moves, he’ll shoot you. You’ve been smart and that’s why you’re still alive. Keep being smart. And remember, I have your wallets and know where you live. Goodbye, gents. It’s been wicked fun.”
Ballou walked to his car and drove away. Behind him, the brothers stayed seated. One of them checked his watch, while the other was staring at his license plate to memorize the number. The cops would find out that the plate belonged to an old station wagon that was
sitting up on blocks in the front yard of a house that was in a nearby town.
Ballou thought he could feel the difference in how the car handled because of the weight in the trunk, but maybe it was just his imagination. He drove the car to the parking lot of a supermarket where he had left another vehicle. After shoving the canvas bank bags into a garbage bag, he transferred them into the new car’s trunk and drove onto a highway. If the brothers had given him the ten minutes he asked for, they would only now be calling the cops. By the time the police responded he would be crossing the state line and headed for home.
Ballou drove to a movie theater that was near the rooming house. He’d left his van parked there after buying a ticket for a movie he’d already seen. It wasn’t much of an alibi, but since he likely wouldn’t need one, a ticket stub was good enough. Once again, he transferred the bags. There was one less than there had been because Ballou had made a stop. The gym bag containing the guards’ weapons, wallets, and cell phones had been weighted down with a twenty-five-pound dumbbell and dropped into a river from a railroad overpass.
He left the bags in the van until after midnight, then brought them inside and down into the basement. He started with the lightest of the bags. It contained just over a hundred thousand dollars. Things only got better from there. When he was finished counting, Ballou came up with a total of six million, eight hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. He was so giddy from his success that he never went to sleep that night.
The robbery had been mentioned on the eleven o’clock news and was on the front page of the newspaper in the morning. He was on the front page, a bearded man with a tattoo on his arm who spoke with a Boston accent. He thought the photo taken by the fast-food restaurant’s camera looked nothing like him.
He had received a new nickname, the Smiling Bandit. A reporter gave him that name after interviewing the young mother he had spoken to during the robbery. She had mentioned the fact that he smiled at her.
By operating in a different state and using a dissimilar M.O., Ballou had the authorities believing that he wasn’t the Smoke Bandit. The Smiling Bandit had harmed no one and he wasn’t a cop killer. That meant that there would be less of an uproar to find him.
Ballou waited until most of the tenants had gone off to their jobs for the day before digging in the basement floor beneath the old oil furnace. It thrilled him that the hole had to be made larger to accommodate the new loot, which he had sealed inside a plastic barrel.
As the cement dried, he swept the stairs, took out the trash, and fixed a broken window. By dinnertime, the money was safely hidden, and the hole covered by soot to conceal the fresh cement. He watched the news as he ate dinner and learned that the brothers he robbed were being held for questioning. Their names were Victor and Salvatore Celso.
The FBI suspected that they might be involved. They had violated their company’s policy by leaving their trucks to have lunch. A reporter wondered aloud if the men shouldn’t have resisted since there had been two of them.
Ballou laughed at that. If either man had given him trouble, he would have shot them both dead. And what was the big deal about them stopping for lunch? He knew from following the men around that they worked long hours and seldom took a break. Was having lunch with your brother such a big deal?
The FBI thought so, and that was all right with Ballou. Let them keep looking in the wrong direction. The longer they did that, the less likely it was that he would become a suspect.
He had robbed five armored cars, had over seven million dollars, and no one had any reason to seriously suspect him of being guilty. It was time to say goodbye to the old rooming house and start a new life. But as usual, fate had other plans for him.
Chapter 9
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO
The woman who’d been voted Colorado’s Teacher of the Year two years ago was named Rebecca Anderson. Carly had found out that Mrs. Anderson’s maiden name had been Smith and that she had been born and raised in Fort Collins. Either Ballou had lied about having grown up with her or they had the wrong woman. A search of the current and prior year winners of the Teacher of the Year award didn’t turn up anyone who had been raised in the same Florida town as Ballou.
Visiting Rebecca Anderson seemed like a dead end, but it was the closest thing they had to a lead, and so they took the trip there.
Mrs. Anderson met with them inside an empty classroom at the high school she taught at. She was an attractive brunette of about forty with intelligent blue eyes. She had not only heard of Jessica but had read one of the two books she had written. When asked about Kent Ballou while being shown a photo of him, she sent Jessica and White a blank look.
“I’ve never heard of him or seen him before that I remember? What has he done?”
“He’s an escaped felon and a murderer,” Jessica said. “He indicated to a friend of his that he knew you when news of you winning the Teacher of the Year award had been announced.”
Mrs. Anderson stared at the photo again, then shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I don’t know him.”
Seated beside Jessica, White’s shoulders slumped. He was sure that Jimmy Kirkpatrick hadn’t made up the story about Ballou claiming to know the woman. And yet, Mrs. Anderson was clearly telling the truth. Why would Ballou lie about such a thing?
Jessica left the teacher a cell number that they could be reached at and left the school.
“Another dead-end,” White said, as they walked back to their car.
“Hmm,” Jessica said.
“What? You didn’t believe her?”
“No. It’s not that, but I think that maybe there’s something we’ve missed.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure,” Jessica said.
Mr. White was driving. In Colorado, several inches of snow had already fallen more than once. The surrounding area near the high school was blanketed with a thick coating of white.
As he was turning onto the road that would take them back to their hotel, Jessica reached into her purse for her phone.
“The Kirkpatricks said that Ballou got close to stare at the TV, didn’t you say that?”
“That’s right.”
“How big was the TV screen, do you know?”
“The one I saw through a window was huge.”
“Then why would he need to get close to see Mrs. Anderson’s face?”
“Maybe he just wanted to get a better look at her.”
“Or maybe he wanted to get a better look at someone else who had been on screen. Perhaps someone in the background that he recognized.”
“Jessica, you’re probably right, that would explain why Mrs. Anderson doesn’t know him. As usual, your instincts might be the key to finding a killer.”
“I could also be wrong, but it’s worth checking out.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Carly. I want to see a copy of the news story that spoke of Mrs. Anderson winning the award. Once we have that, we’ll know who else Ballou might have been looking at.”
White smiled. “We may find him here after all.”
Two hours later their enthusiasm dimmed after speaking to Carly. The Kirkpatricks could have been watching any one of dozens of news broadcasts about the award being handed out. Also, the footage showing Rebecca Anderson had likely concerned the national award for Teacher of the Year, which she hadn’t won. This only made sense because there would be no reason for the news outlets in Tennessee to feature a story about Colorado’s Teacher of the Year. However, they would cover a national contest.
A search revealed that Mrs. Anderson had been interviewed by four different reporters. Numerous women were seen in the background of three of the interviews. The fourth interview had been conducted in a one-on-one studio setting with a male reporter, so they disregarded that footage, at least initially.
The women seen in the background of the interviews were either award winners from other states, people involved in running the ceremony, or family members of
those vying for the national award. It totaled more than ninety possibilities, although some could be discounted because it was too difficult to make out their features. That still left sixty-three women who Ballou might have been interested in. When the men in the background of the interviews were added to the field of possibilities in an effort to be thorough, the potential candidates swelled to over a hundred.
Jessica and White contacted Lawson and asked for his assistance in identifying them. Lawson said that he would assign people to the task and get back to them when he could.
They left Colorado only eight hours after arriving, and all they had to show for their efforts was a long shot. They hoped it would pay off.
The day after returning home from their trip, Jessica went back to work researching her latest book while White spent the morning scouting out the perfect spot for the ice-skating rink and sketching out an image of how it might look. He had plans to go shopping with Brandon for supplies the next day. After figuring out what materials he would need, he went into his home office to work on an app he was developing.
In the afternoon, Jessica returned home from picking up the children to find that Dr. Elena Colt had come by to visit. The elderly psychiatrist was a mentor of sorts to Jessica and a friend of the family. Elena Colt was in her seventies, still lovely, and was the mother of Thomas Lawson.
Elena was standing by her car beside Mr. White and their dog, Stitches. It appeared as if she had arrived only moments earlier. She greeted the children with a smile and kissed Jessica on the cheek. After Liam threw a stick a few times for Stitches to fetch, everyone went inside to get out of the chilled autumn air.
Past Imperfect Page 8
