by Ben Rehder
“Sounds reasonable,” Mia said.
We crossed the street and began to walk northeasterly on the sidewalk along Exposition. Here there was a four-foot chain-link fence surrounding the golf course, but it would’ve been easy for Armbruster, or anyone else, to vault the fence. The first one hundred feet of fence was lined with thick shrubs and trees, making it difficult to see the golf course on the other side.
We got to an opening in the trees, far enough north that we were now gazing across the fence to the tee box for hole number eight, where a threesome was waiting for some golfers well down the fairway to move along. But between us and the tee box was a small limestone building with a metal roof. Couldn’t have been more than ten feet square.
“Wonder what that is,” I said.
“Bathroom?” Mia said.
“That’s what I was thinking at first, but there’s no sidewalk or cart path leading up to it. Thinking more like an equipment shed or something. Hop the fence or walk all the way around to the entrance?”
“Oh, no question,” Mia said, and before I could offer her a hand, she was hoisting herself over the fence.
“You’re pretty graceful for a gangly girl,” I said.
“I prefer ‘spindly,’” she said. “You coming?”
She began to walk toward the small building, so I climbed over the fence, perhaps not quite as smoothly as she did, and followed after her.
As we got closer, I could see that the shed wasn’t actually a shed, nor was it even enclosed. It had two stone columns in front, and the back half was a semi-enclosed space similar in size and shape to a bus stop.
“Oh, I know what this is,” Mia said. “A lightning hut.”
The description was self-explanatory. I started to ask how she knew that, but I remembered that her former boyfriend Garlen, the sociopath, was a golfer, and she had probably gone with him a few times.
We stepped into the hut and looked around. I didn’t see any obvious hiding places.
“I guess you could stash a bundle of cash in here just for an hour or two, especially at night,” I said.
“Yeah, but would you? What if some kids stopped in here to party? What if a homeless person came in here to sleep? Chances are slim, but why take the risk when there are probably better hiding spots?”
She was right. I took a seat on the bench and opened my phone to look at the golf course map again.
Mia remained standing near the two stone columns at the front of the hut.
I found the little hut on the satellite view. I tried to place myself in Lennox Armbruster’s position. Where would I tell Joe Jankowski or one of his errand boys to leave the money? Behind a tree? Under a bush? Inside a golf hole? I was baffled. There were plenty of places a person could leave a small bundle of cash, but none were better or more obvious than the others. None were particularly good choices. I was losing confidence in our theory.
“I think we have way too many guesses stacked on top of each other,” I said.
Mia didn’t reply.
“It’s one thing to brainstorm a little, but we let our imaginations run wild,” I said.
Mia was watching a golfer line up a putt on the seventh green. It had turned into a gorgeous day.
“I tried to play golf a few times,” I said. “It has to be the worst—”
“In a sand trap,” Mia said abruptly. “He could’ve buried the money in a sand trap, then raked over it.”
I had to smile. She turned to face me.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re spindly, yet brilliant,” I said.
“Problem is, we’ll never know if I’m right. How can we prove any of this is accurate?”
I put my phone away and stood up. I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
“Do we agree that Jankowski could’ve looked at a map, same as we did, and figured out where Armbruster would’ve parked and where he would’ve crossed the street?”
“Definitely. There are no other logical choices.”
“So Jankowski probably would’ve also parked in the Randall’s lot and waited for Armbruster to show up. Then he nailed him. All planned out.”
“That I’m not so sure about,” Mia said.
“What’s the alternative?”
“Maybe Jankowski came out that night simply to let Armbruster know he’d been identified—to tell him his little blackmail scheme was over. Intimidate him. Threaten him. Make him stop. But not to hit him with his car. That’s not the best way to take care of a blackmailer.”
“You are harshing my buzz,” I said.
“But…” she said.
“Yes?”
“Maybe Armbruster told him to screw off. Jankowski got mad and ran him down. Spontaneous, not planned.”
“Damn, you’re good,” I said.
“Thanks. But we still can’t prove any of this is right.”
She came over and sat beside me. We both were quiet for a long moment. It was peaceful out here.
“Here’s a thought,” I said. “Jankowski would’ve put the money in the sand trap, just in case Armbruster approached from a different direction and Jankowski never saw him.”
“In that case, why wouldn’t Jankowski just hang out by the sand trap?”
“Fear of getting shot,” I said. “It’s dark out there. Armbruster might’ve been armed. A Randall’s parking lot is a safer place to confront him.”
“Okay, true.”
“So my point is, I think Jankowski would’ve put the money in place anyway, just in case he didn’t get a chance to deliver his threat to Armbruster.”
“Why?”
“So Armbruster wouldn’t arrive at the drop spot and get suspicious when the money wasn’t there.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“You guess? Work with me, people,” I said.
“Okay, it makes total sense, and you are a genius.”
“Attagirl. So Jankowski puts the money in place, then waits at Randall’s. He sees Armbruster and delivers the threat. But Armbruster tells him to take a walk. So then Jankowski loses his cool and hits Armbruster with his SUV. Then what?”
“He had to hang around and deal with the cops.”
“Right. And would he risk going back to the golf course later to recover the money? What if a cop or security guard saw him wandering around out there? It was probably just a few thousand dollars. Wouldn’t he just write that off as a loss and move on?”
“How do you know it was just a few thousand dollars?”
“If Armbruster was a smart blackmailer, he started by asking for a small amount and promising that would be the only payment. And then he went back again and again, until Jankowski had had enough and wanted to put a stop to it. So he figured out who Armbruster was and the rest is history.”
I stood now, getting excited.
“So many what-ifs,” Mia said.
“But where’s the weakness in it?” I asked. “It all fits.”
“Maybe,” Mia said.
“And I think that money is either still in that bunker or, more likely, someone found it. If Jankowski didn’t go to retrieve that money, somebody got it.”
“Okay, but who?” Mia asked. “Some golfer who hit into the trap and got lucky? What’s that look on your face?”
“Are you Tad?” I asked a young man twenty minutes later. We’d gotten his name and location from a woman working at the clubhouse. She’d checked in with him via a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
“Yeah?” Tad said. He was in his early twenties. Slender. Extremely blond hair. Had a tan from working outdoors all the time. He was working on what appeared to be some sort of pump that was part of the sprink
ler system.
I said, “If I left a club in a sand trap last night, right before dark, I understand you would’ve been the person to find it, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t find anything this morning.”
“That’s because I didn’t actually lose a club. I just wondered who would’ve found it if I had lost one.”
He looked at me, puzzled. “Well, that’s weird, but okay.”
“The point is, you tend the traps every morning, right?”
“I do, yeah.”
“That includes raking them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“About four years. I’m not sure what this is about. Did you really lose something?”
“I lost my sense of wonder years ago, if that counts. But let’s not worry about that right now. Instead, I need to ask you one more question, and if you answer it honestly, no matter what the answer is, I promise we’ll leave and you’ll never see us again. No cops, either. Just tell the truth and we’re gone. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Not really.”
“But if you lie, things will not go well.”
“Lie about what? Dude, I’ve got no idea what you’re even—”
“The cash you found in the sand trap.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then said, “Oh.”
22
“Good man,” I said. “You’ve chosen to be honest. And we’ll stay true to our part of the deal. How much was there?”
“You said just one more question,” Tad said.
“Exactly. Just one more question. How much was there?”
Tad let out a sigh and glanced around, as if to make sure nobody else would overhear.
“Four thousand dollars. All in hundreds. Are y’all cops?”
“You worried about cops?” I said.
“Where was the money, exactly?” Mia asked. “Which bunker?”
“God, how many questions are you people gonna ask?” Tad said.
“Come on, Tad,” Mia said. “Don’t be like that. We promise not to tell.”
Tad looked at her. I could see the resistance in his eyes fading.
“It was near the seventh green,” he said.
The map had shown me that there were two bunkers on that par-three hole—one just before the green and one just past it. I knew which bunker it would be.
“There are two over there,” I said. “Which one?”
“The one more to the east,” Tad said.
Bingo.
Just so there was no confusion or mistake, I said, “The one closer to Exposition, right?”
“Right.”
“Not far from that little lightning hut,” I said.
“Yeah,” Tad said.
Easy access for Lennox Armbruster. Just hop the fence and trot over to the bunker. Probably in and out in less than a minute—unless you get hit by a car.
“What was the money in?” Mia asked. “A sack or what?”
“It was loose in a white envelope,” Tad said. “Somebody had obviously put it there for some reason. It wasn’t like they lost it. They hid it. Buried it.”
He was rationalizing—insinuating that he would’ve turned it in if someone had lost it.
“And you never told anybody you found it?” I asked.
“No, and nobody ever came looking for it. Plus, there’s no law that says I had to report that money.”
“Actually, yeah, there is,” I said.
“Well, there shouldn’t be. What about finders keepers? I figured it was like drug money or something like that. Or from a robbery or something. Who buries money in a sand trap?”
“You never saw anyone hanging around that green, looking like they lost something?”
“Nope.”
“Never saw any evidence that anyone was digging around in that trap?”
“Never.”
“Was the envelope sealed?” Mia asked.
“Yeah.”
“Did you save it, by chance?” I asked.
“The envelope? Why would I?”
Bummer. There would be no DNA to test, if it ever came to that.
“You have any of the bills left?” Mia asked.
Tad shook his head. “I blew it all pretty quick. It was found money, you know? So I went down to Port Aransas and had a blast. Partied for a week. First real vacation I’ve ever had.”
Tad was kind of a weasel, so I couldn’t resist giving him a hard time. Just a little.
“Are you planning to report the money on your tax return?” I asked.
“Uh…what?”
“You are legally obligated to report it and pay any taxes that are due,” I said. “You think the feds are gonna miss a chance to take a slice?”
“Fuck,” he said. Then, glancing at Mia, “Excuse my language.”
“And then there’s the question of it being found on City property,” I said. “That will make things even more complicated. Wouldn’t surprise me if you lost your job for keeping it.”
“Shit!” Tad said. “Fuck! Sorry.”
“A little advice for you, Tad,” Mia said. “If the police come around someday and ask the same questions we’re asking, tell them everything and make sure it’s the truth—but get an attorney first.”
Tad was looking queasy.
A few minutes later, we reached the stretch of fence we’d crossed earlier. Once again, Mia vaulted it like a practiced athlete. I followed, but it wouldn’t have been as satisfying for any bystanders to watch. We walked to the corner and crossed Exposition.
“I’d say, at this point, our entire theory—your theory—is spot on,” I said. “It explains everything perfectly. Lennox Armbruster was blackmailing Joe Jankowski.”
“But for what?” Mia asked.
“Don’t know yet, but we’ll get there,” I said. “Enjoy the moment!”
We’d reached Mia’s 1968 Mustang fastback—a head-turning classic—and she unlocked the passenger-side door for me. No remote unlocking for this car. I climbed inside, then reached over to unlock her door.
Mia fired up the engine and the throaty rumble of the V8 gave me chills, as it usually did.
It was a good day to be alive. We had the windows down and some ZZ Top on the stereo.
You wouldn’t believe the mood-lifting rush you experience when you suddenly make big strides in a case like this one. You get downright giddy. The day suddenly improves. All of your problems seem much less significant.
Like the secret I’d been keeping. I was less than one minute from revealing it—and ruining everything.
Mia pulled out of the Randall’s parking lot and went south on MoPac expressway. We’d agreed earlier to stop at Best Buy for several more security cameras to install around the perimeter of the house.
That’s when it happened. When I blurted it out. I wasn’t planning it, and I didn’t think about it or agonize over it. I simply started talking.
“I need to tell you something I’ve never mentioned before,” I said.
“What?”
“I had a vasectomy.”
If this had been a movie, viewers would’ve heard the sound effect of a needle scratching across a record and coming to an abrupt stop.
Mia looked over at me, and I could tell she didn’t know what to think.
So I said, “I know I joke around a lot, but this isn’t a joke. I wouldn’t joke about this.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she said.
“It was years ago, after the nightmare with Hannah,” I said. “You already know I wasn’t doing real well at that point, from a psychological aspect. Dealing with the guilt and all that.”
She
nodded.
“I felt like a failure as a father, so I got a vasectomy a few months later. I figured it would be better if I didn’t have any more kids.”
She looked at me, then at the road again. I had been hoping she would allay my concerns right away—maybe laugh about it or say it was fine with her—but that wasn’t happening.
“How come you’ve never told me?” she asked. Her expression was hard to read.
“I didn’t intentionally keep it from you,” I said. “It’s just that I didn’t tell many people. It isn’t something that comes up much in conversation. If we’d ever had a discussion about birth control—which we didn’t, beyond you being on the pill—I would’ve mentioned it then.”
A long silence followed. Traffic was somewhat heavy, but still moving along at about fifty miles per hour.
I said, “There’s another topic we haven’t discussed, and that’s having kids.”
“I want kids, Roy,” she said quickly. “I’ve definitely brought that up before, because I wanted to see how you’d react.”
“You did?” I said.
She nodded.
“When was this?”
“When I was working at the bar,” she said.
Long time ago. I didn’t remember it.
She’d revealed to me not long after we’d finally gotten together that she’d been attracted to me back then, when I was her regular customer, after she’d gotten to know me and realized I wasn’t as obnoxious as I appeared. I, on the other hand, had had a crush on her from the first time we’d met. It had taken us both a good while to address those feelings.
“What I mean is, we haven’t talked about it, you know, as a couple,” I said.
“I’ve made references to it,” she said, “and you never gave me any indication that it might not happen, or that you were opposed to it in any way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you saying you don’t want any more kids, even now?” she asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I still think about Hannah. I left her alone in the car. I never should have done that. I wasn’t a good father.”
