A Tooth for a Tooth

by Ben Rehder

  “I’d guess Brent lied, because he was trying to protect Raul.”

  “From what?”

  “Maybe Raul knows something, and Brent didn’t want him to get caught up in the mess.”

  Now she was nodding slowly. “Brent had his problems, but that sounds like something he would do. He was very loyal to his friends. What does Raul know?”

  “Maybe he knew about Brent’s fraud scheme before he did it and Brent decided he didn’t want Raul dragged into it as a witness.”

  “In that case, it would’ve been less about loyalty and more about covering his own ass,” Doris said.

  Which made me regret making the guess. “Might’ve been both,” I said. “Anyway, we really won’t know if Raul knows anything until we ask him. If he’ll come clean.”

  “Let me just call him right now,” Doris said.

  “I’m not so sure that’s the way to—”

  “Oh, he’ll tell me the truth if I put the heat on,” she said. “I can promise you that much.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Worth a shot.”

  She took out her phone and dialed his number, putting it on speakerphone so I could hear. But there was no answer, and it never went to voicemail. She finally hung up after a dozen rings.

  “You have to specifically turn voicemail off,” I said. “He doesn’t even want to let people leave messages. Either that or he no longer uses that number.”

  She set her phone on the table. “Maybe he’ll call back.”

  “Guess we’ll see,” I said, although I doubted he would.

  “Okay, then back to Brandi,” she said. “What are we going to do about her?”

  Obviously, I’d been unable to pack an extensive amount of gear into the one small suitcase I’d brought along, so I went to a small outdoors-oriented store and managed to find a cheap trail camera with an infrared flash and a camouflage pattern on the exterior designed to help it blend in. Sixty bucks.

  At the cash register, they were selling little tacky Ski Ruidoso! key chains, so I grabbed one for Mia, then I grabbed one for Doris. She was waiting back at Idle Hour, keeping an eye on Brandi’s cabin through the rear window.

  Next I stopped at a liquor store for more bourbon, because I’d noticed Doris’s supply had gotten a little low.

  I had one more stop. Doris had insisted I pick up some ground meat, tomato, spaghetti, and various spices, so that she could make us a home-cooked dinner. When I facetiously offered to stop at a McDonald’s instead, she facetiously threatened to slap me.

  When I came out of the grocery store and got back into my rental car, I texted Mia: Okay if I spend the night with another woman?

  She called immediately and said, “What kind of shenanigans are you getting into over there?”

  So I told her everything, shortening it to about five minutes.

  She said, “Doris sounds like one sharp lady.”

  “She absolutely is.”

  “What happens if Brandi is in that cabin but she won’t talk?”

  “Still working on that,” I said. “I have a plan brewing.”

  “You usually do,” she said. “Gonna tell me about it?”

  “Not yet. It’s a work in progress. How’s your case going?”

  “Done,” she said. “He went to Barton Springs Nursery and loaded about a dozen bags of potting soil into his truck this afternoon. Got it all on camera.”

  “You are awesome,” I said.

  “Don’t you ever forget it.”

  She wasn’t sounding as distant or preoccupied as she had a day or two earlier.

  If Brandi Sloan were like most people, she wouldn’t be able to stand being cooped up in a cabin 24 hours a day. She would feel the need to step outside every now and then, and she would almost certainly do that at night. She might sit out on the porch and enjoy a tasty adult beverage, or maybe just stare at the moon and wonder how in the hell she had gotten herself into such a pickle. I was counting on it.

  After dinner, which was excellent, I slipped out the front door of Doris’s cabin and went around back, through the trees, toward Brandi’s cabin. Funny, I had begun to think of it as Brandi’s cabin, even though we still had no conclusive evidence that she was in there. But we might have some soon.

  It was just after dark and the waning moon had not risen yet.

  As I got closer to Brandi’s cabin, I stopped behind a pine tree and listened. Let my eyes adjust. The porch light was not turned on, but I could see that there wasn’t anybody sitting in the chairs. There were no vehicles in front. All of the windows had blinds lowered, but light was seeping through them. Was Brandi in there?

  I chose my steps carefully and moved forward until I reached a tree roughly forty feet from the porch, off to the left side. It was an ideal location, because anyone sitting on the porch would tend to face forward, toward the short drive leading to the cabin. Therefore they would be less likely to spot the camera.

  I used the included strap to secure the camera to the tree trunk, choosing a spot where limbs hung low and would provide additional cover. Someone would have to be looking for it specifically to notice it.

  A few hours later, Doris and I sat on the porch of her cabin with another bourbon and Coke. The woman liked her bourbon, but she held it well, with no visible effects, and she nursed each drink slowly. There was a slight chill to the air, but it was just right for a light jacket, which I’d brought along.

  “I suppose you’re right about Raul,” she said at ten o’clock.

  “About him not calling back?”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe he’ll call in the morning,” I said.

  “You don’t believe that,” she said.

  Her tone indicated she didn’t expect an answer.

  I yawned. “I should go back to my cabin.”

  “I have an extra bedroom here,” she said.

  “Yeah, but my toothbrush and all that,” I said. “And I’ve been known to snore. Just a little. Anyway, it’s just across the road.”

  She nodded.

  “You planning to stay here for a few more days?” I asked.

  “Now I am,” she said. “I want to see how this turns out with the camera.”

  “How would you like to be in charge?” I asked.

  “You need to get back home?” she asked.

  “Well, there’s no need for both of us to be here,” I said.

  “You go,” she said. “I can sneak over there and check the camera when you think it’s time.”

  “Then I’ll take off in the morning,” I said.

  “If I understand what you do for a living correctly, you aren’t being paid for any of this,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  She turned to look at me directly. “Am I right? You aren’t being paid?”

  “I’ll get paid for the Lennox Armbruster case,” I said.

  “But your work is done on that,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Yet you came out here to find Brandi Sloan, so you can figure out what happened to Brent.”

  “I’d like to know,” I said. “It got personal when Jankowski sent the goons after me. I want to see them all locked up.”

  “I understand, but is there perhaps just a teeny bit of empathy for an old lady in there somewhere?”

  “People in my line of work don’t have empathy,” I said.

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “A lot of it. But we’ll keep that our little secret.”

  33

  My flight landed in Austin the next day at two o’clock, and I drove straight toward Raul Ablanedo’s address, which I’d dug up online. Along the way, I called him, but he didn’t answer. No voicemail greeting, same as when Doris had ca
lled last night.

  Then I texted Mia to check her status. She was waiting for me right where we’d agreed—the Whataburger parking lot just around the corner from Raul’s place. He lived in a duplex off Oltorf Street, east of Interstate 35. Not the nicest neighborhood I’d ever seen, but I didn’t see any dealers slinging dope from the curb.

  I slid the van into a spot next to Mia’s Chevy Tahoe. She hopped out, climbed into the van, and greeted me with a kiss that would’ve incapacitated many lesser men.

  “Hey,” she whispered.

  “Hey,” I said. “Nice outfit.”

  She was wearing a black leather skirt that landed at mid-thigh and an aqua V-neck T-shirt just snug enough to be a distraction. Her hair and makeup were at “date night” levels. She was wearing flats because heels would’ve rendered Raul speechless. We didn’t want speechless.

  “Think it’ll get the job done?” she asked.

  “It’s working on me and I don’t even know anything.”

  “Then let’s go close this case and move on to better things, okay?”

  I think she was speaking more broadly than just our work.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  I backed up and pulled onto Oltorf, heading east. We were three blocks from Raul’s place, and now I was worrying he might not be home. That would suck. I’d had all I could stand of this case and everyone involved. Well, not Doris. She was the one bright spot.

  I turned left onto Burton Drive, heading north, and that’s when our plan got derailed. There would be no speaking to Raul anytime soon.

  “There’s a black GMC truck behind us,” I said. “Damn it.”

  Mia glanced in the passenger-side mirror. “Nathaniel Tate is still in the hospital, right?”

  “Yeah, but it could be Damon.”

  I skipped the turn that would’ve taken us to Raul’s duplex.

  “Now is probably a good time for me to tell you that Damon followed me yesterday in his white Chevy.”

  I looked at her, then back at the road. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. He followed, but I took some turns and he stopped following.”

  “Because he knew you spotted him?”

  “I can’t be sure,” she said. “But that would explain why he switched vehicles, if that’s him back there.”

  “Jesus, Mia, why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” I asked.

  “Because you would’ve dropped everything and come home,” she said. “Which means you wouldn’t have seen Doris, so you wouldn’t have found Brandi Sloan, and you wouldn’t have learned that Raul was lying to one of you.”

  “But other than that,” I said.

  I turned left on Woodland Avenue, heading west. Most people going this way on Woodland would be headed for Interstate 35, about half a mile ahead. The truck turned, too.

  “What’s he doing?” Mia asked.

  “Still back there,” I said. “But he won’t get close enough for me to read the plate.”

  I took a quick right on Royal Crest Drive. So did the truck. This would lead to Riverside Drive, maybe half a mile ahead. There was still a small chance the person in the truck wasn’t following us, but was simply taking a shortcut.

  “Oh, turn here,” Mia said, pointing to our right before we reached Riverside. “This parking lot cuts through.”

  I did as she said, entering the south perimeter of an office complex, which would give us a straight shot back to Burton Drive. To our right was a tall concrete wall covered with some elaborate graffiti. To my left was a collection of unassuming one-story buildings painted beige. First office I saw was a cosmetology school. There were a lot of parking spaces on both sides, but very few vehicles.

  I was moving slowly and watching my rearview mirror.

  “If he turns here, it’s him. It has to be him,” I said.

  Mia swiveled in her seat to look backward.

  Now I was just coasting. Waiting. Hoping the truck would drive past the entrance. I wasn’t in the mood for this right now. I passed a CrossFit studio that appeared to be closed, then a print shop.

  “Here he comes,” Mia said.

  I glanced in the rearview again and sure enough, the black truck was still following.

  “Any ideas?” I said. “Keep driving or finally deal with this head on?”

  She knew as well as I did that the person in the truck—whether it was Damon Tate or someone else—had done nothing illegal at this point.

  “Stop for a minute,” Mia said. “Let’s see what he does.”

  I noticed that she had grabbed her purse off the floorboard and was holding it in her lap now. I stopped the van exactly where we were.

  I said, “If he starts to go around us…”

  “Can’t let him do that,” she said. “We’d be sitting ducks.”

  “Doesn’t matter, because he’s stopping,” I said.

  He was eighty or ninety feet behind us. There wasn’t another person to be seen coming or going from any of the offices.

  “Got a good camera in here?” Mia asked.

  A super-zoom camera or a decent pair of binoculars would give us a good look at the driver.

  “Nope,” I said. “Didn’t want to leave anything good in here while the van was parked at the airport.”

  Unfortunately, that included the front and rear dash cams. The van has an expensive security system, but that can’t stop a quick smash-and-grab burglary.

  We waited a few seconds, both of us looking in the mirrors. Now he knew without question that we knew he was back there. Fine by me.

  “He’s just trying to intimidate us,” Mia said.

  “He needs to try harder,” I said. “Should I back up?”

  “I don’t think so. He could claim later that it was an aggressive move.”

  We waited a few more seconds.

  “Then I say we keep driving and see if we can confirm that it’s Damon Tate.”

  “Works for me.”

  I began to ease forward slowly—not realizing I was about to make perhaps the biggest mistake I’d made in this profession. Stupid. Wasn’t evaluating all possible risks.

  The truck began moving again, too, just as slowly.

  All of the doors on our left were unmarked—rear entry doors to offices that fronted on the other side of the building. No vehicles down at this end at all. We rounded the corner, went twenty yards, then turned right, which placed us at the exit onto Burton Drive.

  The truck rounded the corner, too, and Mia said, “It’s him. It’s Damon Tate. I can see him now.”

  I looked to my left and saw an eighteen-wheeler coming this way, driving too fast for this particular street.

  “Roy!” Mia said.

  That’s when I felt the impact of the truck’s front bumper on the rear of the van.

  I couldn’t move forward. Couldn’t move backward. I had only one choice—push the brake down as hard as I could.

  Everything that followed took place in less than four seconds…

  Tate obviously floored the gas in his truck, because I could hear his tires squealing as they spun and the van began to inch forward.

  “Get out!” I said to Mia.

  The front of the van was about to enter the street. The driver of the eighteen-wheeler laid on his horn.

  Mia opened her door and hopped out.

  Now I had one more option. Do the same. Open my door, bail out, and let the van get crushed.

  Just as I reached for the door handle, I heard gunshots—four or five, or maybe more. Rapid fire. Loud.

  The squealing of Tate’s tires came to an abrupt halt. The speed of his roaring engine dropped.

  I pulled the parking brake and killed the engine. Then I looked through the open passenger d
oor at Mia. She was just lowering her .38 Special from the firing position. She appeared stunned, but not panicked. Not freaking out.

  “Mia,” I said. “I’m getting out. You hear me?”

  She nodded.

  I exited the van, breathing heavily, and began moving toward the black truck. The smell of burning rubber was overwhelming.

  The bullet holes—five of them—were grouped in a tight cluster in the windshield. I saw no movement from Tate. His head was tipped backward. When I reached the driver’s-side window, I saw that one of the rounds had caught him in the hollow spot below his Adam’s apple. At least two more had entered his chest. It was remarkable shooting under pressure.

  I started to reach in to turn his engine off, but I thought better of it. Don’t touch anything.

  I circled the rear of the truck and came toward Mia. The gun was dangling from her right hand. When I reached her, I gently took the revolver from her hand and placed it inside the van’s glove compartment for now.

  “Jesus, Roy,” she said.

  “It’s okay.”

  Not a soul had exited any of the shops or come from anywhere else to see what had happened. The big rig had continued south on Burton. Either he hadn’t heard the gunshots or he’d decided he didn’t want to get involved. Maybe he was calling the police right now.

  “Is he dead?” Mia asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t move, except for a slight tremble. I was doing my best to remain calm, for her sake, but I could feel my heart hammering.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “That was crazy.”

  “You did the right thing. He gave you no choice. I need to call 911 now. You understand?

  She nodded.

  “We tell them exactly what happened,” I said. “Leave nothing out. He tried to kill both of us. We just tell the truth.”

  She nodded again. We were still alone. Cars passed and some of the people looked at us, but they didn’t seem to understand what had just taken place.