Now You See Him (Roy Ballard Book 4)

by Ben Rehder

  She said, “The thing is, he’d like to make amends to you, too.”

  “Not a chance,” I said immediately, pulling my hand from hers.

  “Roy.”

  “Do you remember everything he did? Do you remember that he basically stalked you, and you had to threaten him with physical violence if he didn’t stop?”

  “I remember.”

  “And that he could’ve easily killed me on that little jaunt west of town?”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “I’ll damn well be sarcastic if I want to be.”

  She held both hands up, palms facing me. “We can talk about this later,” she said.

  “My answer isn’t going to be any different,” I said.

  “Maybe not, but I’m hoping you’ll be less angry then.”

  “I have a right to be angry, and so do you.”

  “I was,” she said, “but I’ve gotten past it. There’s no use in holding on to it forever.”

  “You deal with it your way, I’ll deal with it mine. My opinion is that a guy like Garlen says whatever it takes to fool people a second time. Or a third, or a fourth. Anything, he’ll say it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I may have had my issues,” I said, “but it’s not even close to what he pulled.”

  “I know that,” Mia said, “and I was never implying it was. I’m just talking about second chances. If he screws up again, fine, then I’ll know for sure what kind of person he is. But he hasn’t had his second chance yet.”

  That wasn’t true.

  At one point, he had come over to my apartment, fairly drunk, and grilled me about the canoe ride Mia and I had taken together. He was plainly worried—correctly, I’ll admit—that I was interested in Mia. When he left, he’d had a minor fender bender, and he told Mia it had happened on his way home from work. He’d supposedly swerved to miss a deer and ended up hitting a small tree instead. He omitted the part about being drunk and coming to see me. So I’d told her. She deserved to know. She then revealed that she had caught him in some lies before, or what she called “bending the truth.”

  But it hadn’t stopped there. My telling Mia the truth prompted her to break up with him, which in turn caused him to come after me in a rage outside my apartment. He threw some clumsy punches, which I ducked, and I bloodied his nose.

  After that, he continued to call and text Mia, begging her to let him back into her life. Then he began to drive past her house, keeping tabs on her, until she finally had to threaten to press charges.

  The last straw came when he tailed me in traffic one day. He actually bumped my Toyota with his Audi, then followed me on a long and winding chase west of town. Later, he hit me even harder from behind, and then harder still. I knew that he had a concealed-carry permit, so I was taking it very seriously. I tried to call 911 but had no cell signal.

  So I used my superior driving skills and knowledge of the road to evade him. He tried to keep up—but he lost control and rolled his car several times. Wound up in the hospital, lucky he hadn’t died. Now his case was slowly working its way through the system. I realized he would probably take a plea bargain and serve very little time, or none at all. Rehab would be mandatory, so his joining AA could be seen as nothing more than a feeble attempt to impress a judge.

  Mia knew all this, and she could see the cynical expression on my face now.

  She said, “What I mean is, he hasn’t had a second chance after making the decision to stop drinking.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. Do you realize how that sounds?

  “That is a legitimate distinction,” she said.

  “I don’t know why we’re even discussing this,” I said, “because I don’t want to see him—don’t want to hear his apologies—and I don’t intend to change my mind.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And I wish you wouldn’t have seen him, either.”

  “I’m a big girl, Roy. I can take care of myself.”

  Then I said something so amazingly stupid, it could have gotten me into the Hall of Fame for dumb comments. I said, “Apparently not.”

  The temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees. Maybe I was more inclined toward self-destructive behavior than I’d thought.

  “Did you really just say that?” Mia asked.

  “Yeah, but in my defense, I’m a patronizing ass sometimes.”

  “You need to leave.”

  “I apologize. That was a ridiculous thing to say, and you know I didn’t mean it.”

  “Roy, seriously, just go. I’m not in the mood for this right now.”

  “I’m sorry, Mia.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’ll call you later,” I said.

  Still nothing.

  So I left.

  As I was walking to the curb, I heard a voice.

  “Hey, there, Roy.”

  I turned and saw Regina, Mia’s neighbor, watering some hanging plants on her front porch.

  “How you doing, Regina?”

  “Not bad. Everything okay?”

  Her tone of voice—a slight hint of concern—suggested that she had seen Garlen yesterday morning. Regina knew the situation. She and Mia had developed a friendship after Regina had extinguished the flames when a lowlife scumbag had tried to set Mia’s house on fire.

  I walked closer.

  “I hope so,” I said. I also hoped that Mia wasn’t watching us through the window.

  “You know about the, uh, visitor she had yesterday morning?” Regina asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I almost called you.”

  I wanted to say, I wish you had, but that would’ve made her feel bad.

  “We just had a talk,” I said. “It didn’t go well.”

  “Please tell me she isn’t getting back together with him,” Regina said.

  “No, not that. He wanted to make amends.”

  “Oh. Well. Was he allowed to do that? To make contact?”

  “Nope.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “Nothing. She didn’t report him for the violation.”

  Regina was searching my face, looking for answers, but I had none.

  “That sucks,” she said.

  “Yeah, it does,” I said.

  19

  Ever wanted to get in your car and drive to another state?

  Or park at the airport and grab the next available flight to an attractive destination?

  That’s where my mind was at the moment.

  Get the hell out of town and take a break.

  Everything was going to hell.

  Instead, I put the Toyota into gear and drove east, then south on Exposition.

  Had to distract myself.

  Gilbert Holloway was the key. Of course, I’d suspected that for a while now. But I’d made almost no progress in finding out what he was trying to cover up or what had really happened on that party barge.

  I stopped at a traffic light and checked my phone real quick. I was hoping to see a text from Mia. Something along the lines of: I’m sorry. You’re right. Come back and let’s go to breakfast.

  Nope. Nothing.

  I continued straight ahead when the light changed, just driving.

  And a new idea occurred to me. What if something else had happened on the Island Hopper—something unrelated to Jeremy Sawyer’s death—that was freaking Holloway out? But what? I couldn’t even imagine. I spent ten minutes trying to come up with any sort of scenario that would cause Holloway to send a tough-guy wannabe after me, but I got nowhere.

  Hard to think straight. I was in a truly foul mood.

  I thought of a question I should’ve asked Mia. Did Garlen ask if you were seeing anyone? If he had, that would’ve given some insight into his true intentions. And how would she have answered? None of your business? A simple yes? Or would she have told him she was seeing me and was happy as can be?

  I was vaci
llating between anger and indignation. Didn’t I have the right to be concerned for Mia, and to be upset that she’d agreed to see a man who had caused us both so much trouble?

  Maybe so, but it was the “Apparently not” that got me.

  She was using that—my one little rude comment—to turn the tables and be mad at me, instead of having a conversation to address the problem at hand, which was Garlen. Now that she’d allowed him to make contact without reporting him, he could use that to justify contact in the future, and he could very well avoid prosecution that way. If she ever did file a report, he would say that she’d set a precedent by allowing him to come over to her house. She knew all that, too, which is what made it even more frustrating.

  A driver behind me honked his horn. I’d been sitting at another red light, which had since turned green. I squealed my tires, then took a random left on Woodmont Avenue. I pulled to the curb in front of a gray two-story home.

  Still no text from Mia, so I sent her one: It was just concern, that’s all.

  Waited a full two minutes. No reply.

  Some older guy with white hair and glasses was watching me from the porch of the home.

  I got on my phone and Googled Eric Moss, the owner of the Island Hopper. It didn’t take me long to uncover the name of the corporation he’d created to support his party barge business, and after that, I was able to find a phone number fairly quickly. Not his personal number, of course, but a number that would be answered by someone who could contact him.

  No more screwing around.

  I was just about to dial, but now the white-haired man was coming down the steps of the porch toward my car. He came to the passenger window, so I lowered it.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said. He was plainly expecting me to say more, but I didn’t.

  “Is there a reason you’re parked at my curb?” he asked.

  “Because it’s my curb, too,” I said.

  “How so?” He had a condescending manner about him that, at that particular moment, pushed my buttons—not unlike my encounter with Gilbert Holloway.

  “I can explain it to you,” I said, “but I should warn you that I am in a bad mood and I don’t have time for any shenanigans or tomfoolery.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  It was a dare—like nothing I said could possibly justify the gall I had for parking right there at that particular moment.

  “It’s a public street,” I said. “I pay taxes for it, same as you. And parking is allowed here.”

  “But this street is too narrow for—”

  “I’ll be here for about five more minutes,” I said, talking over his protest. “Maybe ten. If you want to turn this into a conflict, bring it on. Otherwise, why don’t you turn your cranky old ass around and get back on your porch?”

  He glared at me—then retreated.

  I raised the window and dialed the number. A young-sounding guy answered on the second ring. “Moss Enterprises.”

  I was either going to blow the case open or crash and burn entirely.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Ernie.”

  Okay, Ernie,” I said. “My name is Roy Ballard. I need you to listen very closely to what I am about to say. While you’re at it, grab a pen.”

  About that same time, the line for the fictitious flower shop rang. The screen listed the caller as UNKNOWN.

  “R&M Flowers,” Mia said. “What can we arrange for you?”

  “Can we talk on this line?”

  “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  “Roscoe. Jeez. Who did you expect?”

  “I get dozens of calls every day,” Mia said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s me.”

  “What’s going on? Coming to your senses?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He sounded nervous. Wound too tight.

  “I was just wondering if you and Dennis were ready to move forward and meet with my brother’s attorney,” Mia said.

  “Okay, yeah,” he said. “Let’s go ahead and do it.”

  “And Dennis will be there, right?”

  “Yeah, fine. But there’s gonna be some ground rules.”

  “Like what?”

  “First of all, we meet here, at the house, not at some fancy office.”

  “Okay. I’m sure she’ll be fine with that.”

  “No cameras. No recorders. Nothing like that.”

  “No problem,” Mia said.

  “Also, Dennis probably won’t talk much. He likes lawyers even less than me. Unless he’s in one of his weird moods. Then there’s no telling what he might babble about.”

  “Well, I understand, but he’ll need to answer some basic questions,” Mia said.

  She could hear Roscoe sucking on a cigarette. So gross.

  “What kind of questions?”

  “You know—height, weight, shoe size. The usual.”

  Roscoe grunted and said, “We gonna fool around all day?”

  “I can’t say for sure what she’ll ask, but the questions will be about his case. She’ll probably want to know how he feels, whether he thinks he’s getting any better—things like that.”

  “He’s liable to say just about anything,” Roscoe said.

  Roscoe seemed to be preparing her for a strange encounter with Dennis. Why? It gave her an idea. Some bait, in the form of an excuse.

  “Has he always been that way?” she asked.

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  The answer she expected.

  She said, “Are you sure the tetanus shot isn’t also affecting his mental capabilities? I mean, it if can affect him physically, why not mentally?”

  A long pause followed. Roscoe was weighing the pros and cons of his answer. Then, sounding much more upbeat, he said, “Now that you mention it, yeah, I think the shot is making him a little wacky. That’s pretty smart of you to think of something like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Like really smart,” Roscoe said. “It’s perfect.”

  Mia could tell that Roscoe was thinking she had just solved a major problem for him. Any bizarre behavior on Dennis’s part could be blamed on the shot. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  Mia said, “Okay, well, I’ll check—”

  “Those fuckers screwed up his brain, too!” Roscoe said, sounding downright giddy. “They owe him even more money for that!”

  “Slow down,” Mia said. “One step at a time. Let me talk to Roy and Adrienne and get something set up. The sooner the better.”

  “Who the hell’s Roy?”

  “My brother. I already told you.”

  “Who the hell’s Adrienne?”

  “His lawyer.”

  She waited to see if Roscoe had any other questions, but all he said was, “Poor sumbitch done got his brain fried. That just ain’t right.”

  20

  Less than two hours after talking to Ernie, who probably officed out of some cubicle downtown, I was sitting across from Eric Moss, who officed out of his home on a magnificent bluff overlooking Lake Travis. To my left was a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that must’ve provided an amazing view of sunsets over the water. I was on the visitor side of Moss’s desk, seated in a leather chair that truly cradled my butt like warm butter. If I’d been in a better mood, I might’ve appreciated it more.

  Moss was about fifty years old and maybe six-two. He’d been a star athlete back in the day, but now he was about twenty pounds overweight, with thinning hair and bags under his eyes. Still, he carried himself with the confidence of a man who had scored plenty of victories in life and knew how to get what he wanted. The kind of guy who wouldn’t feel the need to involve his lawyers in this conversation, because he was pretty damn sure he knew more than they did anyway, right? Ernie might have been intimidated by my forceful pitch earlier, but Moss plainly wasn’t.

  “Your name again?” Moss said as he took a seat behind the desk.

  Which was a l
oad of crap. He knew my name. It was a power game.

  “Roy Ballard,” I said. “But most people refer to me as Roy Ballard.” I placed a business card on the desk, but he didn’t make a move to take it or even look at it.

  “And you told Ernie you wanted to talk about a crime that Gilbert Holloway allegedly committed. Do I have that right?” He was shaking his head, as if this was all very confusing and couldn’t possibly be true.

  A small, fluffy dog—maybe a Maltese—had barked at me when I’d arrived, and now it was sniffing my shoes.

  “Well, there’s no ‘allegedly’ about it,” I said. “But we’ll get to that. The point is, I’m going to give you a chance to work with me before I get him busted. Maybe we can avoid that.”

  “Boy, you cut right to it, huh?”

  “I don’t want to waste your time, or mine.”

  “I appreciate that, but work with you how? I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

  “That’s not surprising, since I haven’t told you yet. But as soon as I tell you, then you’ll know. See how that works?”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t care for your tone,” he said.

  “Frankly, I’m not a big fan of it myself, so we’re in the same boat. Speaking of boats, let’s talk about Gilbert.”

  “I have about five minutes,” Moss said.

  Another power play, but I didn’t care to dawdle anyway. So, as succinctly as possible, I told Moss exactly who I was, what I did for a living, and why I was looking into the death of Jeremy Sawyer.

  Then I described my first visit to the marina, where I first encountered Meatball, and then Gilbert Holloway.

  “Oh, you’re that guy,” Moss said, mildly amused, or pretending to be. “From what I understand, you’re the one who committed a crime, not Gilbert, and I bet the sheriff’s office would frown on you being here.”

  “They frown on me being anywhere,” I said. “What they don’t know is that Gilbert sent a goon after me. Kid named Dirk Crider. You know him?”

  I was being facetious, but Moss actually said, “Nope. Never heard of him.”

  The dog finally gave up on my shoes and pranced out of the room.

  “That’s odd, considering that he used to work for you,” I said.

  “A lot of people have worked for me,” Moss said. “I literally cannot remember them all.”