Now You See Him (Roy Ballard Book 4)

by Ben Rehder

  Maybe I should talk to Randy—the friend who had noticed that Jeremy was missing from the boat. Ruelas had said that Randy was blitzed on Friday night, but maybe I could get him to remember something new, like I’d done with Jayci.

  It didn’t sound particularly promising, considering that he had already been grilled by a deputy, and then by Ruelas. Might as well arbitrarily pick some other passenger on the boat. Or maybe the leggy blond. Or one of the other women on the boat Jeremy might’ve hit on.

  I sat quietly and thought for ten minutes.

  Then I scrapped all of those possible choices and went in a different direction entirely.

  Like most hospitals, University Medical Center Brackenridge isn’t exactly a fortress of security. If you want to see a patient in a general room, you can without any difficulties. If you call ahead to get the room number, you can usually go straight to the room without any physical interaction with any staff members.

  Harvey Selberg, however, was in the ICU, so that presented a challenge. The Brack ICU, like most ICUs, had a door that could only be opened by hospital personnel. Fortunately, I’ve honed my skills over the years for situations like this. In other words, I’m practiced in the art of bullshittery. Didn’t mean it always worked, but it would be worth a shot.

  Two nurses—one male and one female—were present at the ICU desk when I approached.

  The woman, standing at a computer, looked at me over the counter and said, “May I help you?”

  The nurse behind her was seated and writing in a chart or something.

  “I’m here to see Harvey Selberg,” I said.

  “Are you a family member?” she asked.

  “I’m his cousin Roy,” I said, which was true if you accept the theory of evolution, as I do. If you go far enough back in time—billions of generations—we all have a common ancestor. That makes us all brothers and sisters, doesn’t it? Or cousins, one might say.

  She looked at her computer and poked a couple of keys. “I’m afraid you’re not on his visitor list.”

  “No surprise,” I said. “I haven’t seen him in several years. Probably fifteen, now that I think about it. But I have a feeling he’ll be glad to see me, because I still owe him some money.”

  This I offered with a big grin. She did not grin back.

  “Poker bet,” I said. “I had aces and kings, but he had three twos. Boy, did I feel dumb.”

  Now I was just flat-out lying. It happens from time to time.

  “Last time I checked,” she said, “he was asleep, so there’s not much—”

  “Any chance you could check again?” I asked. “And if he’s still asleep I don’t mind waiting. I drove in from Luling.”

  Harvey’s Facebook profile had revealed that he had family in Luling.

  The nurse pecked at her keyboard some more. I don’t know what she was looking for, and maybe it had nothing to do with my request, but eventually she stopped typing, moved around the counter, and said, “Okay, hang on a second.”

  She hit a button on the wall and went through the double doors.

  I waited.

  From where I was standing, I couldn’t see through the glass in the doors, so I couldn’t even guess what was going on back there.

  If Harvey was awake, the nurse would tell him that his cousin Roy was waiting to see him, and Harvey would respond... how? Confusion, obviously. But that didn’t necessarily spell trouble for me.

  Harvey had suffered a blow to the head. And if he was like most guys in their twenties, he wouldn’t want the nurse to think he was still loopy—even if he had no frigging idea who was wanting to visit him. He wouldn’t want to show any vulnerability or weakness. He wouldn’t want to admit that he couldn’t remember a cousin Roy. He might even start to wonder if he did have a cousin named Roy.

  Conversely, if he firmly told the nurse he had no clue who I was, she’d think there was a possibility his memory had been compromised by the concussion. In that case, I wouldn’t get in to see him, but at least she wouldn’t call security.

  I waited some more.

  The other nurse—a guy in his thirties—was still writing away, paying me no mind. Who would’ve guessed that anyone would be writing something by hand in a hospital nowadays?

  It was oddly quiet on this floor of the hospital. Very little activity going on. I saw no other visitors.

  I felt my silenced phone vibrate in my pocket. I checked it and saw an incoming text from Mia.

  FYI, just saw on the news that the dive team found Jeremy’s body.

  My heart sank, even though I hadn’t even known Jeremy. Poor kid. I guess I’d been holding out some small bit of hope that he had swum to shore on Friday night and rambled into the darkness. Some stupid prank. Stranger things had happened. Much stranger.

  I texted back: That’s a shame. I’ll call Heidi later.

  Just as I slipped my phone back into my pocket, here came the nurse through the double doors. But instead of returning to the nurses station, she stayed where she was, holding one of the doors open.

  “You can come on back,” she said.

  7

  GPS trackers aren’t just for cops, detectives, fleet managers, and ethically challenged legal videographers anymore. Smart engineers and product developers realized the potential for a much larger market, and now the general public uses them to track their pets, kids, vehicles, and spouses. I heard about one woman who put a unit on her husband’s SUV—not because she suspected him of cheating, but because she was, and she wanted to have plenty of time to get her boyfriend out of the house before hubby got home.

  The benefit for Mia and me is that trackers are cheaper, more accurate, and have longer battery life than they used to. We don’t need to order our supplies from some obscure specialty shop, but instead we can buy some damn good trackers on Amazon at bargain prices. What used to cost five hundred bucks now costs seventy-five. Who cares if that unit was designed to attach to Rover’s collar? It’s just as easy to clip it to the underside of a fraudster’s Nissan.

  That’s what Dennis Babcock owned—a Nissan Frontier. Brand new. Dual cab. Arctic blue. Nice ride. Mia, I learned later, caught up with Dennis Babcock’s truck and followed him and his brother-in-law, Roscoe, to a Bill Miller Bar-B-Q on Ben White, where they went through the drive-through lane. Roscoe was driving, because Babcock’s license had been suspended.

  After that, the blue Frontier proceeded to the Academy store on Brodie Lane, where both Babcock and Roscoe got out and went inside. Babcock walked with his arms straight above his head, which earned some stares from passersby. Mia noticed one woman snapping a photo of Babcock, most likely because she recognized him from the news stories. She’d post it on Facebook or Instagram: Hey, look, it’s that guy that got screwed up from the tetanus shot! Hands up, mister! Gimme your wallet! Ha ha ha!

  The parking lot was fairly crowded, but Mia managed to find a decent spot for her Chevy Tahoe not far from Babcock’s Frontier. Then she sat and waited. She didn’t follow Dennis Babcock inside, and here’s why: She can drive a plain-vanilla SUV that won’t attract attention, but under no circumstances can Mia pass herself off as plain vanilla. No matter what she wears or how she presents herself, she’s going to turn some heads. That’s just a fact. Of course, sometimes we want her to turn heads—like when we’re trying to sucker some dude into carrying a heavy object out to her vehicle. But in this case, she didn’t want to get noticed by the subject.

  So she waited, camera ready, AC running.

  Twenty minutes passed. Could be a long wait. Maybe they were trying on every pair of shoes available. Or buying a hunting license. That would probably take a while. Probably more time than it would take to buy a hunting rifle.

  Finally, after ten more minutes, here they came—Dennis Babcock with his arms over his head, Roscoe carrying a sack filled with whatever they’d bought. Mia realized that they were going to pass directly in front of her SUV, but that was okay. She lowered the camera before they could spot
it through her tinted windows.

  Mia didn’t expect what happened next. How could she? Later, when she told me, I thought she was having a laugh—seeing if she could sucker me.

  Dennis and Roscoe were passing in front of Mia’s Chevy when Dennis made eye contact with Mia. It wasn’t random. It wasn’t chance. He found her eyes and he locked in, holding her gaze, with an expression of pleading desperation on his face.

  Then he dropped something from his raised right hand. Something small and white that fluttered gently downward, past Mia’s hood and out of her line of sight.

  One second later, the strange moment was over. Dennis and Roscoe climbed into the Nissan Frontier and drove away.

  The instant they were gone, Mia exited her Chevy and came around to the front. She found the white object directly under her bumper. It was a small piece of paper, no larger than a matchbook cover to start with, and then folded twice.

  Mia unfolded it and saw eleven small, scrawled words.

  Please help, he’s going to kill me. Don’t call the police.

  Harvey had no clue who I was, of course.

  The door to his room closed behind me and I said, “I didn’t bring a deck of cards this time.”

  He frowned, puzzled by my remark, so I figured the nurse hadn’t relayed my highly entertaining poker anecdote. Or maybe it was a grimace, because a man in Harvey’s condition had every right to grimace. One side of his face was badly swollen and bruised. His right eye was reduced to a slit. Otherwise, he was a healthy-looking guy. Thick all over, but not fat. Probably strong as hell. Hard to tell how tall. Probably six feet. He had black hair trimmed to half an inch and four or five days’ worth of stubble for a beard.

  “I don’t have a cousin named Roy,” he said. “Only thing I could figure is maybe you’re the asshole that did this to me. So I said sure, let him in.”

  His speech was muffled, his teeth clenched, as if he couldn’t comfortably open his mouth wide enough to enunciate, like a person who had just had a dental procedure. There were no bedside machines beeping or blinking. He did not have an IV attached to his arm. I assumed he was here merely for observation, which would not be unusual with a head injury.

  “Wasn’t me,” I said. “And why would he come to your hospital room?”

  “Hell if I know,” Harvey said. “I thought it might be like returning to the scene of the crime. Wanting to see your victim, or something sick like that.”

  “I might be sick in the head,” I said, “but it’s a harmless kind of sick. I promise I wasn’t in your house that night, and I know nothing about it. In fact, that’s why I’m here—to learn more.”

  “Not a cop, though. Right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Because a cop wouldn’t have to lie to get in here,” he said.

  “Mind if I sit?” I asked. There was a padded chair beside the bed. I noticed a cluster of Dallas Cowboys helium balloons floating in the corner.

  “Knock yourself out,” Harvey said.

  I swung the chair around so we could face each other.

  “I’m friends with Jeremy’s aunt,” I said.

  “Jeremy, the guy who drowned?”

  “Right. His aunt is a client of mine.” I explained what I did for a living, being straight up and honest. And then I said that Heidi had asked me to check into the situation.

  “What for?” Harvey asked. “Last I heard it was just a drowning.”

  “And it might be,” I said. “There’s no harm in making sure, right?”

  “I guess not, but won’t the police do that?”

  “Well, sure, and they can always use an unqualified civilian watching over their shoulder, don’t you think?”

  He started to grin, and then winced and cupped his jaw with his right hand.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He shook his head, like Don’t worry about it.

  “Mind if I ask some questions?”

  “I’ve got nothing else going on.”

  “What was the evening like, in general?”

  He lowered his hand and said, “Just a party, you know, for the first few hours. Then, like I said, I don’t remember much about it.”

  “How many people did you know on the boat?”

  “It was just me and my girlfriend. We kinda decided on a whim.”

  “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Amelia.”

  I nodded. “I understand everybody was having a pretty good time with the adult beverages.”

  “Meaning everybody was getting hammered?” Harvey asked. “Absolutely.”

  “And that can screw your memory up pretty good, huh?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Harvey said. “I remember the first few hours, but after that, damn. Just bits and pieces. Guess I overdid it.”

  “Been there,” I said, because I have, and because I didn’t want him to feel self-conscious.

  “But I didn’t do anything stupid, according to Amelia.”

  “That’s lucky,” I said. “Tell me what you remember of the first few hours.”

  “Well, we all got on the boat, and we sat there at the dock for about thirty minutes, and then the crew member guy—”

  “The deckhand?”

  “Right. He ran us through a little safety drill—life jackets and all that crap—and then we took off. We took sort of a looping path up and around to Devil’s Cove.”

  “And it was crowded, I bet.”

  “Mobbed. Boats everywhere. It’s pretty wild. Ever been there?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Too many of the women there have restraining orders against me.”

  He grinned again and then said, “Ow,” returning his palm to his jaw.

  “Is it broken?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Bruised, and I got a cracked tooth.”

  I waited a moment, then said, “Did you hang out with Jeremy at all?”

  “Nah, man. We sort of kept to ourselves. Amelia gets all uptight when I start talking to strangers. Says I’m obnoxious.”

  “But you knew which one was Jeremy, right?”

  “Yeah, because he was wearing a bright-orange swimsuit. I remember that part. So when everybody was looking for him, somebody said, ‘The guy in the orange suit.’”

  “He wasn’t memorable for any other reason?”

  “Like what?”

  Usually I preferred for people to tell me what happened, rather than the other way around, but in this case, I figured prompting him with real events might jog his memory.

  “Did you see Jeremy flirting with any of the women?”

  He said, “Well, yeah. But all the guys were flirting. The single ones, anyway. There were some smoke jobs out there.”

  “Yeah?” My tone said Tell me more.

  “There was this one blond that could’ve been a friggin’ model. Maybe she is, for all I know.”

  “Tall girl?” I asked.

  “Right. Know who she is?”

  “Someone else told me about her. I hear she was there with her boyfriend.”

  “Dude, I would give my left nut for a shot at a girl like that. Not that Amelia isn’t great and everything, but this blond girl was, like, a friggin’ goddess. Even the other girls on the boat were checking her out.”

  “You talk to her?”

  I was starting to wonder if the boyfriend was the jealous type. Could that account for the intruder in Harvey’s house?

  “Not a chance,” Harvey said. “Not with Amelia around. Or even if she wasn’t, really.”

  “Did you catch her name? Or her boyfriend’s?”

  “No.”

  Dead end.

  I sat with Harvey and asked questions for ten more minutes, but nothing useful came from it. Then, finally, he offered one ambiguous, but intriguing, comment.

  I said, “So, after a couple hours, everything got a little fuzzy for you?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. But there was one thing... I remember that something funny happened, and then something bad.”

&nbs
p; “Something funny and then something bad,” I said.

  “That’s the only way I can describe it. You know when you’re really shitfaced, sometimes you only remember, like, a mood or a feeling? You wake up and go, ‘Wait a sec—something bad happened last night, but what was it?’ And you can’t remember until someone tells you. Or maybe even then you can’t remember, but you still have the feeling. It’s like this memory that won’t quite come back.”

  “Did the something bad happen to you?” I asked.

  “No, I think I was watching it happen.”

  “Does Amelia remember what it was?”

  He shook his head. “She might not have been there when it happened, though.”

  “Where were you when the funny thing happened?”

  “Probably on the upper deck, because I spent most of the cruise up there, except when I had to go downstairs to take a leak.”

  “Where on the upper deck?” I said.

  Based on photos I’d seen of the Island Hopper, the upper deck was basically an open rectangular space—except that the staircase came through the floor near the rear of the boat, and near the front, a small bar occupied one corner.

  “Probably near the bar,” Harvey said, grinning. “My usual hangout.”

  “You remember if you took any photos?” I asked.

  “I know I did early, and I bet I did later, but my phone’s gone, so...”

  “Do you store your photos on the cloud?”

  “I never got around to setting that up. My phone was just a couple weeks old. This is like my fourth phone this year and it’s getting ridiculous.”

  I was running out of questions about the barge party, so I changed topics.

  “Tell me about waking up with an intruder in your house,” I said.

  “Freaked me out, dude. I hear AC/DC blasting—that’s my alarm, ’cause I had to get up way early—but I go to grab my phone off the nightstand and it isn’t there. I’m all groggy and hungover and shit, so it takes me a minute to figure out what’s going on. Then I realize the phone is in another part of the house, and then I hear someone crashing around out there. I think the guy panicked and forgot how he came in, so he was banging against furniture. I should’ve just let him go, you know, but I went after him.”