If I Had A Nickel (Roy Ballard Mysteries Book 3)

by Ben Rehder

  We’d bought Mia a used Chevy Tahoe for this type of situation, because she couldn’t tail a subject discreetly in her classic Mustang fastback.

  “Yeah. I’ll keep working on this other thing.”

  Kiersten came back into the bedroom with a mug of coffee and set it on the nightstand. She was wearing a royal blue kimono-style robe that she casually slipped from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Her naked body was stunning in the morning light—taut and toned in all the right places. Any self-consciousness from last night had disappeared. She got under the sheets and snuggled up beside me.

  “If I have any luck, I’ll get some video tonight,” Mia said. “The coworker says they’re supposed to play softball at seven. That’s how he knows the guy is faking—he saw him playing two nights ago.”

  Kiersten began to rub the hair on my chest.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Okay, then,” Mia said. “I’ll touch base later and see if you’re making any headway.”

  Kiersten slowly ran a finger downward and began to circle my navel. Playful. She was intentionally trying to distract me.

  “Roy?” Mia said.

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  “What does?”

  “The softball game.”

  “Are you surfing the Web right now?”

  She got annoyed when I didn’t give her my full attention. Bad habit of mine.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “I’ll let you go now.”

  “Hang on a second,” she said. “What did you do last night? Anything interesting?” Her tone of voice was teasing, as if she knew exactly where I’d been and what I’d done. Had she seen me at dinner with Kiersten?

  “Not a lot,” I said. “Why?”

  “Nothing in particular you want to tell me about?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, come on, Roy. How was it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Now Kiersten’s hand went further downward and firmly gripped my erection. It was all I could do to stop from making a small moan of pleasure.

  “I saw the van parked outside the house on Raleigh,” Mia said.

  Well, duh. Of course.

  “Oh,” I said, relieved. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

  “Remember, I am a trained surveillance professional,” she said. “How was it? Did you like the place?”

  Kiersten began to slide her hand up and down. My concentration was totally shot. “Hey, I got another call coming in,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later, okay?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  I hung up.

  “You little minx,” I said to Kiersten.

  “Can’t help myself,” she said.

  “And I thought you were a respectable member of the real-estate community,” I said.

  “Speaking of which, I have a showing in one hour,” she said. “So you’d better stop talking and start using this time wisely.”

  I showered at her place, and because I keep a spare set of fresh clothes in the van, I didn’t need to go home before I started working for the day. So I went to a coffee shop on the ground floor of Kiersten’s condo building and sat down to make a list of ways I might possibly move the Dunn case forward.

  Ten minutes later I had nothing, which is a pretty short list.

  I began to wonder if I should write an email to Heidi explaining that we’d put our best efforts into it and we didn’t see much hope of finding the coin collection. Bail out. There wouldn’t be any shame in it. Heidi would understand. Then I could take the day off, and maybe even meet Kiersten upstairs at noon so she could interrupt some more of my phone calls.

  I liked her a lot. What wasn’t to like?

  I had learned that she was 28 years old, originally from Plano, but her family had moved here when she was four years old. She was a big college football fan. She read at least one novel per week—actual printed books, although she was tempted to buy a Kindle. She loved to travel and had most recently been to Mumbai for something called the Banganga music festival. She had a small scar on the back of her upper left thigh from when, at the age of eleven, she tried to vault over a chain-link fence and got snagged.

  Admittedly, I hadn’t been quite as forthcoming. Sure, I’d told her what I did for a living, but I hadn’t fully explained my dealings with Max Dunn. I hadn’t revealed that he was connected to one of my cases, because then she might have thought I’d only contacted her to fish for information about the Dunns. And that wasn’t the reason. Nope. Not completely. When I texted her the first time, my primary purpose was to request a showing at the Raleigh house. Honest. But I figured if I happened to learn something about Max Dunn in the process, that would merely be a bonus.

  I got up and got a second cup of coffee. This little shop wasn’t as crowded as one would expect it to be, considering all the pedestrian traffic downtown.

  I sat back down and continued working on my list.

  Thirty minutes passed. Still nothing.

  Time to change gears. Switch tactics. Come at it from a different angle.

  Sometimes instead of trying to prove who did it, your best course was to prove who didn’t do it. Rule the suspects out, one by one, until only one remained. Or maybe, in this case, nobody would remain, because all the suspects were innocent, and we’d never know who stole the coins. It could have been some random burglar, or maybe Alex Dunn had sold the entire collection without telling anyone.

  So be it.

  Who should I rule out first? And how would I do it?

  I had Leo Pitts’s address from the background check I’d done on him two days earlier, and it was only a fifteen-minute drive to his home in South Austin, so I swung by. His gold Mazda truck was parked in the driveway.

  The house was nicer than I’d been expecting, considering who lived there. Nothing fancy—just a small frame home—but the paint was fresh and the lawn was mowed.

  I parked along the curb and got out. Quiet street. The curtains on Leo’s front windows were drawn tight. I walked up the driveway, and as I passed the passenger side of his truck, I dropped my keys. As I scooped them off the ground with my right hand, I used my left hand to quickly tuck a small magnetic “slap and track” GPS device under the wheel well of his rear tire. It was a smooth and practiced motion, and the truck itself shielded the view anyone might have from inside Pitts’s house, so I had no qualms about taking a risk like this in broad daylight.

  Once I was on the porch, I pushed the doorbell button, but it made no sound, so I knocked. No response in thirty seconds, so I knocked harder. I heard movement inside, so I stepped back about three feet. Then Leo opened the door and recognized me instantly.

  “What the fuck?” he said, and he began to close the door.

  I held up my hands. “Relax, okay? I came to apologize.”

  He looked skeptical. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I was wrong the other day,” I said. “I know enough about this case now to know you didn’t steal the coins, so I wanted to say sorry for hassling you. I don’t blame you for punching me. Nice shot, by the way. Totally had me sucking for air. You related to Jake LaMotta?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Anyway, like I said, sorry for the static, and there’s one other thing.” I made a show of glancing over my shoulder, then spoke in a lower voice, saying, “You didn’t hear this from me, but I happen to know the cops working the case are trying hard to get search warrants. You follow me?”

  His eyes widened. “They’re gonna search my place?”

  “They’ve been hassling you, right?” I said.

  “They asked me a bunch of questions.”

  “Dickhead named Ruelas?”

  “Yeah. Exactly. Guy’s an ass.” Pitts said.

  “You tell him you got that coin at a garage sale?”

  “Nah, man, because what really happened was Cole gave it to me. He owed me some money. I didn’t want to get into all that crap with you the other day, s
o I made up that stuff about a garage sale.”

  “Hey, I don’t blame you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ruelas didn’t believe you about the money.”

  “But it’s the truth.”

  I shrugged. “All I know is, he’ll probably come after you pretty hard, so be prepared.”

  “So he is going to search my place?”

  “Hey, man, I can’t say for sure—you know what I mean?—because I could get in some serious trouble. But it never hurts to be cautious. That’s all I’m saying. And the sooner, the better.”

  I winked at him.

  He nodded like we had just shared a private message.

  I turned and started down the porch steps.

  Leo called out, “Hey, thanks, man.”

  I gave a wave over my shoulder without looking back. No big deal. Just helping a bro out.

  An hour passed and Pitts didn’t react.

  I was parked two blocks away at a shopping center, monitoring the GPS unit on my laptop, and there was no movement. I was surprised, frankly. I figured, at a minimum, he had drugs or drug paraphernalia in the house, and he’d want to stash that stuff somewhere else for the time being. But nothing happened.

  A tracking device could be tremendously helpful, albeit illegal. Cops could use them with a warrant, but a guy like me? No way. Didn’t stop me, though, because I had never heard of a case where anyone had been prosecuted for using one.

  Boredom began to set in, as it often does when you are on a stakeout.

  I thought about Kiersten. Did I want to see her again? Sure. There was nothing wrong with a little no-obligation dating and associated fooling around, was there? I sent her a text: This is your neighbor in the building next door. You need better curtains. But that gentleman last night was a genuine hunk. Kudos to you, sister.

  If she hadn’t put me into her contact list yet, she might get fooled for a second or two, and really, what more can a guy ask for?

  She didn’t answer right away. Probably at another showing. Or maybe still the first one. Or doing other realtor stuff.

  I waited some more.

  Kiersten returned my text: lol. Right about the hunk part.

  I said: Dinner tomorrow night?

  She said: Aw, can’t. The next night?

  I said: Sounds good.

  Then, just before eleven o’clock, the GPS unit began to move.

  15

  Pitts went south on Lamar Boulevard.

  I was tracking his progress via an app on my iPhone. The nice thing about the GPS unit is that I didn’t have to keep him in sight. In fact, I didn’t even have to follow him in real time. I could always check the app later and see where he went. But that wasn’t ideal in this situation. What if he met with a particular person and I wasn’t there to see it? The app couldn’t tell me who that person was, of course. So I hung a few blocks back, knowing that when he eventually arrived at his destination, I would try to get a glimpse without Pitts seeing me first.

  He came to Manchaca Road and took a left. He followed that down to Stassney, where he took another left. He drove for another minute or so, and then the GPS unit stopped moving. Several minutes passed, and he was still stopped, so I knew he wasn’t waiting at a traffic light. I parked at a medical clinic and quickly hopped out of the van carrying a backpack. I was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap—a master of disguise!

  I followed the sidewalk east for forty feet, then stopped to check my phone. I looked just like any other douche bag who’d stop in the middle of a public sidewalk to check his phone. That was the idea.

  According to the app, the GPS device was approximately 112 feet away, ahead and to my right. What was the next business I was coming to? I saw two matching stone buildings, but I didn’t know what they were. Very few windows, so they weren’t offices. I started walking again, and as I neared the end of the first stone building, I could see that there was a rolling gate between the two buildings, and now I could read the sign at the far end of the second building: Stassney Self Storage.

  The app was showing that the GPS device was directly to my right, beyond the rolling gate. Pitts had entered this complex to access a rental storage unit. He had already been in there for several minutes, so now I had to act fast.

  Still holding my phone, I checked Google Maps and saw that there were four more buildings behind the two stone buildings. A renter could drive through the gate and pull up right to his unit. Problem was, I wanted to learn which unit was Pitts’s, but I couldn’t see him or his vehicle. And I couldn’t just walk onto the property, because it was gated.

  I began to walk around the perimeter of the complex, hoping I might get a glimpse down the rows of rental units, but the entire lot was surrounded by a privacy fence. When I got to the rear of the property, along a quiet residential road running parallel to Stassney, I stopped and check the app again. Now I was 97 feet from the GPS device. I walked eastward along the sidewalk and the distance dropped to 92... then 87... then back up to 94. I moved backward, to the spot where I was 87 feet from the device. This was as close as I could get on this side of the fence.

  I slipped my phone into my pocket and placed both hands on the top of the privacy fence. I hoisted myself up just enough to see over the fence, and there, down a row of rental units, was the gold Mazda truck. I didn’t see Pitts, but the door to a rental unit was open. There were no other vehicles or people on this row. I counted quickly. Pitts’s unit was the fifth door down on the right.

  I dropped back down to the ground and continued on my way around the block. I returned to the van and waited. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Finally the GPS unit showed movement again. Pitts had exited the storage facility and was now driving west on Stassney. I stayed put, in the parking lot of the medical clinic, and a few seconds later I saw Pitts drive past.

  Then I returned to the storage facility and rented a unit.

  Sometimes I made Mia uncomfortable by crossing legal or ethical lines. Often, instead of not crossing those lines, I chose to leave Mia in the dark. She was aware that I did that sometimes, although she didn’t know the specifics, which was the point. Sometimes she came down on me hard if she learned about my choices later, but she had never given me an ultimatum about not crossing those lines. Which was good, because that might’ve harmed our partnership. My view was that there were times when you had to push the boundaries, as long as you were prepared to live with your choices and could sleep well at night.

  Like now. It was seven hours after I had tailed Pitts to the storage facility and I was about to break the law.

  I pulled up to the gate in the van and entered the security code on the keypad. The gate rolled open and I entered, driving past the office, which was dark and unmanned at this hour. That’s why I had waited. There were three hours in the morning and three in the evening when no employee was present but renters could still access the facility.

  I drove between the two stone buildings and took a left, and then a quick right down the second of the four rows of storage units. My unit was one row over, but Leo Pitts’s unit was up ahead on the left. Luckily, the row was empty of vehicles and people. I hadn’t seen anyone else on the property yet.

  I parked the van good and tight against the door to Pitts’s unit. Before I did anything else, I checked the GPS tracking app on my phone. Pitts’s Mazda truck was parked in front of his house, just as it had been an hour ago. If it moved, the app would alert me.

  All systems go.

  I got out of the van with a pair of bolt cutters in my hands. Acted like I belonged here. Went straight to the unit’s roll-up door—which was like a garage door, but smaller—and popped the combination lock on the handle. Took the pieces of the lock and put them in the van, along with the bolt cutters.

  I rolled the door upward and wasn’t surprised to see a unit filled about halfway with dusty cardboard boxes and old furniture. Saw an exercise bicycle and a stack of obsolete stereo components. A rolled-up area rug and a washing machine. If Pitts had c
ome here earlier today with the curio box containing Alex Dunn’s coin collection, he had not left it in plain sight.

  I took three steps forward. It was important that I leave things as I’d found them. I took two latex gloves out of my pocket and put them on, which was a bit of a chore, because my hands were somewhat sweaty.

  I didn’t care about anything except the coins. Where would he hide them? Would they still be in the curio box? Logic said no. Why keep that box? It would only serve as evidence to tie him to the crime. So... no box. Which meant the coins could be stashed in spaces that wouldn’t necessarily have accommodated the box.

  My phone was turned down, but it vibrated with an incoming text.

  Mia said: I am totally busting this guy.

  Cool. She was referring to the softball player. I gave her a thumbs-up and returned to my search.

  First I tried a chest of drawers, which was shoved up against the left-hand wall of the unit. Your basic cheap dresser, about four feet high, with five drawers. The first drawer was empty. So was the second drawer. The third drawer contained what appeared to be a significant quantity of heroin. Holy crap. I glanced to my left—to the door of the unit—purely from nerves. Nobody out there. Just the van waiting there, filling up most of the space.

  I did not touch the heroin. Actually, it could have been cocaine or even speed, because it was a white powder, but I was guessing it was heroin, based on Leo Pitts’s ties to Cole Dunn, and because heroin was currently about as cheap and plentiful as it had ever been before. Maybe a narcotics investigator could identify the drug by sight alone, but I couldn’t. Whichever drug it was, it was packaged inside small twist-tied pouches contained inside a zipped sandwich bag. Probably at least 20 or 25 grams, ready for individual sales. If I were caught here right now, in the presence of this stash, I’d be in serious trouble—like get-a-lawyer-quick kind of trouble.

  I closed that drawer and checked the remaining two. Nothing.

  Finding the heroin had deflated any optimism that I might discover the coins. The drugs were the reason Pitts had thanked me for alerting him about a possible police search, and why he had come to the storage unit.