by Ben Rehder
“You understand what this means?” Mia continued. “We can team up and work together. Don’t you think two plaintiffs would be more believable than one? Just ask your lawyer. Bet he agrees.”
It was a brilliant angle, when you thought about it. If the note Dennis Babcock had dropped yesterday was a prank or a red herring, there was no way anyone inside would open the door. Why would they? There was nothing to gain. They’d know why Mia was really there.
But if the note was legitimate and Dennis Babcock was being threatened—and if we were right to conclude that Roscoe was the person making the threat—how would Roscoe respond?
He might be intrigued, because Dennis’s case would be bolstered if a second person appeared to be injured by the tetanus shot, even if that person’s claim was every bit as fake as Dennis’s.
Roscoe might also be wary, because teaming up with a stranger on the scam could be risky. If this strange woman’s brother was a sloppy amateur, he could ruin everything.
Or, perhaps most likely, Roscoe might be suspicious and think Mia’s offer was a trap. She was trying to sucker him and expose the fraud. Maybe she’d been hired by the pharmaceutical company, or she was a cop of some kind.
Mia, for her part, didn’t really care about all of that. She only cared about two things: One, would someone open the door? And, two, who would it be? The answers to those two questions would shed a lot of light on the situation. Unless, of course, all of our educated guesses were way off base and nothing was as it seemed.
She knocked again.
“Dennis?” she said. “You in there? A lot of people think you’re running a con job, but that will change if a second person steps forward. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that my brother has a spotless record. He teaches seventh-grade history. You’ll never find a more reputable—”
The deadbolt popped and the door began to swing open.
Instead of walking directly up the slope to the van, I took a winding route through the trees, moving slowly, just in case the guy from the creek was still hanging around, despite the door I had heard. Looked like he was long gone.
Who the hell had that guy been? Where had he come from? I could only conclude that he must have followed me here. I decided I would think of him as Creek Guy—creative, huh?—until I knew his real name.
Okay, so what could I conclude from the fact that Creek Guy had followed me? I had come here directly from the marina, hence he had probably spotted me there and followed me over. What had he been doing at the marina? Keeping an eye out for me? Or he just happened to see me? Did it matter? Regardless, the logical conclusion was that he was connected to Gilbert Holloway or Meatball or both.
Interesting.
I reached the van and sat for a few minutes in the driver’s seat with the door open, weighing the pros and cons of my next move.
The biggest pro—assuming I was right about Creek Guy following me from the marina—was that I felt confident I could easily find a link between him and the men from the party barge. People like Meatball, Gilbert Holloway, and Creek Guy were out of their depth in this type of situation. They didn’t know how to avoid mistakes. Hell, they’d already made mistakes. The blood that Creek Guy had dripped on the way up the slope would support my story. The marina might have security cameras, which would show Creek Guy’s vehicle following me off the property.
And what about cons? The biggest one, and maybe the only one, was that I’d have to admit I’d been at the marina this morning. That wouldn’t look good, vis-à-vis my making an attempt to influence a witness.
Under normal circumstances, I would figure out who Creek Guy was and respond accordingly. But I had an assault charge hanging over my head, and Creek Guy’s lame attempt to harm me, or intimidate me, or make me quit looking into Jeremy’s death, was my ticket out of that tight spot.
So I called the sheriff’s office.
11
It was Roscoe. He was wearing cargo shorts and a stained green tank top with PARTY, SLEEP, REPEAT written on it in neon letters. He smelled of cigarettes and fried catfish.
“Dang,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of folks knock on our door, but ain’t none of ’em looked like you.” He was openly letting his eyes roam all over Mia’s body, and they came to rest on her breasts for a long moment.
“Uh,” Mia said.
Then he looked over her shoulder, out to the street, where her red Mustang was parked. “Sweet ride. Got a 289 in it?”
“It’s a 302.”
“Even better. Please tell me it ain’t no automatic.”
“Four speed.”
“Praise the Lord. I bet you get guys running off the road tryin’ to catch up with you. How many miles on her?”
He had the accent of a man trying as hard as possible to sound like a redneck. Some of it might have been authentic.
“About a hundred and sixty thousand,” Mia said. “Still runs great.”
“AC, too?”
“Fortunately.”
She’d talk about the car all day if it would get her a few minutes with Dennis Babcock. She was hoping Dennis or his sister might show up behind Roscoe, but Mia couldn’t see very far into the darkened interior of the house. She could feel cool air flowing outward.
“I love that fastback look,” Roscoe said. “Straight outta Bullitt. What year is it?”
He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
“Sixty-eight,” Mia said.
“I prefer sixty-nine, if you know what I mean.” He grinned at her with yellow, crooked teeth.
“You should write comedy for a living,” Mia said.
He pointed at her, like she’d nailed it. “You know, people have told me that before. I wonder how a guy gets started in that bidness.”
“With your level of talent, you should just drive out to Hollywood and knock on some doors.”
He squinted at her. “Now you’re jerking my chain.”
“Just a little,” Mia said. “Hey, is Dennis around?”
“Who’re you?”
“My name is Mia Madison.”
He waited, but Mia offered nothing else.
“So what’s your deal, Mia?” Roscoe asked. “Selling Tupperware?”
“I was hoping to speak to Dennis.”
“About what?”
“Did you hear what I was saying earlier?” Mia asked.
“About going to Hollywood?”
When I first embarked on my career as a legal videographer, I made the mistake of thinking most insurance scammers would stack up as cunning and worthwhile quarry. I was pleased to learn in short order that most of them are about as smart as a wheel of cheese. The only reason some of them ever get away with their scams is dumb luck and limited manpower—and willpower—at the insurance agencies they rip off. Sometimes it’s easier and less expensive to pay the scammers off. Sad state of affairs.
“No, I mean before that,” Mia said. “Before you opened the door.”
“Yup,” Roscoe said. “I heard it. And you must think I’m a friggin’ idiot.”
“Not at all. Why do you say that?”
“Who ya work for?”
“A flower shop,” Mia said.
“Bullshit.”
“Pardon?”
“You don’t work for no flower shop.”
“I really do.”
“What’s it called?”
“R&M Flowers,” she said.
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Which flower shops have you heard of?” Mia asked.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“See?” Mia said. “Besides, we don’t do any advertising. We’re a small shop.”
“So small it don’t exist,” Roscoe said, and he followed it with a knowing snort.
Mia shrugged and said, “Okay, hang on a minute.”
She walked out to the Mustang, feeling Roscoe’s eyes on her backside the entire time, and returned with a business card. She could have kept one of the cards on her, but it
appeared more convincing to get it from the car—like she wasn’t expecting to have to prove who she was, but when pushed, she certainly could.
She handed the card to Roscoe and he looked at it closely. Then he looked at her again and said, “Name some flowers for me. Ones I ain’t never heard of.”
Mia pretended to suddenly understand Roscoe’s reluctance. “Oh, you think I’m a reporter or something? Is that what this is about?”
“More like a TV lady, looking the way you do,” he said. “Trying to arrange an interview or something.” He stuck the card into his pocket.
Mia smiled, and I knew from experience that the smile alone would be enough to make Roscoe believe just about anything she was about to say. He’d want to believe. “Okay, flowers you’ve never heard of. Let’s see. Bluebonnet. Daisy. Yellow rose.”
He was frowning, totally puzzled.
“Kidding,” Mia said. “There’s the Dutch amaryllis, which is one of my favorites. Calatheas are nice. Frangiponi. Heliconias. Cryptopodium...”
“Yeah, okay,” Roscoe said.
Of course, she had practiced for just such a question. We both had, because we used this cover, and others, on a regular basis. We even had metallic signs we could stick on the side of the van during a surveillance job, and we had a separate cell phone to service that number. If you called it and we didn’t answer, you’d get a bubbly voicemail for R&M Flowers. We’re busy with a customer at the moment, but please leave a message and we’ll call you right back!
“So,” Mia said, “can I talk to Dennis?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“He don’t wanna talk to nobody. I handle all of it for him, so he don’t have to deal with it. He’s sick of all the bullshit—people calling him a freak or a liar. People are just mean, you know?”
“I understand, but I would totally be cool.”
“Cain’t do it,” he said.
Mia waited, because she sensed Roscoe had more to say.
He pulled a pack of Marlboro reds from his cargo shorts and shook one loose. He lit up and said, “Your brother got the tetanus shot?”
“He did, yeah.”
“What for?”
“Got bit by a ferret.”
“A what?”
“A ferret.”
Roscoe was obviously entertained by that possibility. “One of them weaselly sons a bitches?”
“Exactly.”
“Damn. That’s friggin’ crazy. Why was he messing around with a ferret?”
“Fun and games, mostly,” Mia said. “Drinking beer and things got out of hand. You know how it goes. Suddenly the ferret was out of the cage and that was all she wrote. Never poke a ferret. That’s the bottom line.”
He looked at her as if he didn’t know whether she was pulling his leg or not.
“Sheesh,” he said. “A friggin’ ferret.”
“I know, right?” she said. “Here’s the important thing: my brother got the shot a few days before Dennis made the national news. Anybody who got the shot after—and then claims to have a similar neurological problem—well, people are going to wonder if they’re just trying to jump on the bandwagon. Know what I mean?”
“Got video of him walking?” he asked.
“I do, yeah, but his lawyer said I shouldn’t show it to anybody yet.”
Roscoe took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out his nose. “Y’all got a lawyer? What’s he saying?”
“She,” Mia said. “She’s saying we got a good case, but that we should team up with Dennis. She said she couldn’t contact Dennis directly because that would be a breach of ethics. That made me laugh—a lawyer worrying about ethics.”
Mia had no idea if it was true that her imaginary brother’s imaginary lawyer couldn’t contact Dennis, but it sounded convincing.
Roscoe flicked some ashes but didn’t reply.
“My lawyer could talk to your lawyer and work out the details,” Mia said.
“We ain’t got a lawyer,” Roscoe said.
“You still don’t have a lawyer?” she said with disbelief. “I thought for sure you’d have one by now.”
“Thought about it,” Roscoe said. “Don’t see why we need one.”
What an idiot. Then again, a guy like Roscoe would think he could single-handedly negotiate an amazingly complicated legal settlement. Fine by us.
“Fair enough,” Mia said.
Roscoe took another drag of his cigarette, then flipped the butt into the yard.
“Way I look at it,” Roscoe said, “Dennis got sick first, so he deserves a bigger slice of the pie. Know what I mean?”
This was his way of saying, We both know it’s a scam, but your brother is a copycat, so he doesn’t get half. Agreed?
“I’d have to talk to his lawyer about that,” Mia said. “But I’d really like to talk to Dennis first.”
“Why?”
“No offense,” Mia said, “but I have no way of knowing if you really do speak for him, and—”
“I do,” Roscoe said.
“—it only makes sense to hear it from him. Wouldn’t you do the same thing if you were me?”
“If I were you,” Roscoe said, “I’d look at myself in the mirror all day. Among other things.”
Mia wasn’t above flirting to gain an advantage, but this guy was just a total creep, and she suspected she wasn’t going to get any more out of him today. So she did what she had to do.
She said, “Okay, well, you should think about it. Here, let me give you my cell number.”
He returned her business card. She wrote the number on it and handed it back.
He looked at it and grinned. “I bet you can get pictures on your phone, huh?”
“You bet,” she said. “What kind of pictures would you be sending me, Roscoe?”
“Oh, this and that,” he said, grinning.
“Roscoe?”
“Yeah?”
“You seem like a decent guy,” Mia said, stretching the truth to its breaking point, “but if you send me pictures of your dick, I’ll come back over here and kick your ass.” That last part wasn’t stretching the truth at all.
“Jeez,” Roscoe said. “It was just a damn joke.”
“Don’t forget that the cops might get a warrant to search your cell phone some day,” Mia said.
“My phone?” Roscoe asked. Obviously that possibility had not occurred to him.
“Absolutely. And whatever they find will make the news. You don’t want to come across as some sort of letch or weirdo, right? You want to look trustworthy. Normal. In case it ever gets to trial. You want a jury to see dick pics you sent? See, this is why you need a good attorney, who can warn you about stuff like this. Maybe my brother’s lawyer could represent Dennis, too. A team effort.” She could tell that Roscoe was overwhelmed by everything she was throwing at him, and still somewhat suspicious. “Think about it. Call me.”
“We’ll see,” Roscoe said.
Mia nodded, then walked out to her car. Before she pulled away, she looked toward the porch and saw Roscoe still there, watching her.
To his right, in one of the windows, there stood Dennis. He was holding a sign that said: NO COPS!
12
All social media is helpful, but Facebook is the undisputed king if you want to snoop into a person’s life. Or if you simply want to identify someone. Like, say, after some dude randomly assaults you on your own property in a fairly remote location.
It was nine o’clock that evening when I decided to hunt for Creek Guy online. I was on the far right end of Mia’s couch. She was stretched out, occupying the remainder—the soles of her feet pressed against my left thigh, her head on a pillow at the other end, already dozing.
The TV was tuned to a rerun of COPS. A trucker had parked in a lot for the night and gotten robbed by a woman he’d invited into his cab. Not unusual, except the trucker was dressed in a black teddy and high heels. His legs were pretty good, actually, and I had to hand it to him
for not appearing embarrassed at all. He just wanted his wallet back.
I started by searching for Gilbert Holloway and found a handful of people by that name, but none were in the Austin area. So I searched for Adam Dudley, known affectionately by friends and family as “Meatball.” Lots of results. Scrolled downward. And downward still.
There he was, the burly bastard.
I checked his timeline and didn’t see much. Either he rarely posted, or he had his privacy settings tightened up. His friends list was hidden.
By default, every Facebook user’s current profile and cover photos are viewable by the general public, and so are previous profile and cover photos, unless you remember to change the setting for those. That’s what Meatball had done. I could see just one profile and cover photo, and there were no comments underneath them. Made me think he had deleted them.
Anyone wanting privacy and security—like Meatball, apparently—would be better advised to deactivate the account until it was safe to go online again. Deactivation didn’t delete the account, it simply made the account dormant—and thus invisible to everybody on Facebook, including friends. I knew some people who were such sticklers for privacy, they deactivated their accounts every night and reactivated in the morning.
I was logged in as Linda Patterson, a fake profile I’d created a few years earlier. She was attractive and friendly, or that’s how she appeared in the stock photos I’d gotten from a site somewhere in eastern Europe. She lived in Austin, but she didn’t say where she went to school, where she worked, or whether she was married. Linda frequently sent friend requests to people just like Meatball. And she would do that in a minute. But first...
I wrote a status update for her that everybody would be able to see, including Meatball, even if he didn’t accept the friend request: Such a tragedy what happened on the lake this weekend. So close to home. Prayers for the family. I added a crying-face emoji. Nice touch, right?
This would make Meatball wonder if Linda Patterson had some connection to the barge party. Did she know Jeremy Sawyer? Had she been on the cruise? Why did she want to be friends? I sent the friend request.
I jumped over to the profile for Jayci Lewis, the young woman I’d interviewed at the coffee shop. She had already given me all the photos she had taken on the party barge, but maybe someone else had posted photos and tagged her in them. Sadly, there was only one new photo—a selfie of Jayci in a tight dress when she’d gone out to dinner last night. I studied it diligently for several minutes but didn’t see any clues.
