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

by Ben Rehder

  “Did you see anyone coming or going from his apartment that day?”

  “Just that man Leo. I saw him come out from Cole’s place and walk straight to Doug’s apartment, and then Doug hurried over to Cole’s apartment, and then the EMTs and police officers arrived. It was easy to see that something unusual was happening.”

  “Did you see Leo arrive at Cole’s earlier, or was that the first time you saw him, when he came out of Cole’s apartment?” I asked.

  Her answers came quickly, because she had already been asked the same questions by the police. “I didn’t see him arrive. I don’t know when he got there. He could have been there all morning, for all I know.”

  “Did you see anyone else coming or going from Cole’s apartment other than Leo and Doug?” I asked.

  She shook her head emphatically. “They were the only ones.” Then her eyes widened and she half-turned toward the interior of her apartment, raising a hand into the air. She was smiling. “Feel that? Cold air. Praise the Lord.”

  Doug had come through.

  “What now?” Mia asked.

  Driving again—heading south on Loop 1. Amazing how much traffic there was at 11:37 in the morning.

  I said, “I’m operating under the theory that our little exercise in deductive reasoning this morning was spot on, and that Cole did steal the coin collection. Now I’m further concluding that Leo Pitts was there when Cole shot up—because he’d sold him the dope—and he took off because he didn’t want to get busted. And the kicker. He took the coin collection with him. Maybe the box was sitting right there on the coffee table, and Leo had gotten enough of the coins as payment from Cole to know he was looking at some serious money. So he grabbed it. Maybe he figured that even if Cole recovered, he wouldn’t know who took the collection. Could’ve been one of the other residents, or the landlord, or even one of the EMTs. You on board with all that?”

  “I am,” Mia said. “It’s a lot of guessing, but it all makes sense. Which would mean he’s the one who planted the curio box at Serenity’s place.”

  “Yep. He’s seen her mentioned in the newspaper and it’s obvious she’s a suspect, so he tried to frame her.”

  One mile to the Enfield exit. Back to Mia’s house. Home base.

  Mia said, “When Leo stashed his drugs in the storage unit, why didn’t he put the coins there, too?”

  I moved into the right-hand lane and took the exit.

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  “You searched the unit well enough to know for sure the coins weren’t there?”

  “Yes.” Then I added. “I think so. I mean, why would he stick the drugs in a drawer, but hide the coins better than that? Makes no sense.”

  “But you did look in other places, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how sure are you that the coins weren’t there?”

  “About ninety-eight percent.”

  She didn’t give me any static for not being 100% sure. Now I was wishing I had checked every square inch of that storage unit.

  “So where are they now?” she asked. “Where did he hide them?”

  We were just a few blocks from Mia’s house now. As we passed the house on Raleigh, two cars were parked in the driveway. The for-sale sign was still in place.

  Mia made a show of noticing the cars, then looked at me. “Got some competition, Roy,” she said. “Better get on it.”

  25

  We sat quietly in the conference room again. I had written a sentence on the dry-erase board:

  Why didn’t Leo stash the coins in the storage unit?

  If we could answer that question, we’d be on the verge of a breakthrough.

  Possibly.

  Unless our theory was off base. And it very well might be.

  Mia checked her phone for the second time in five minutes. Incoming texts, I assumed, but she had the volume turned off, so there was no audible alert. She tapped out a brief reply, then placed her phone flat on her thigh, screen downward. Her mood was souring again.

  A question was on my lips, dying to be asked. I held back. Instead, I focused on the more important question.

  Why didn’t Leo stash the coins in the storage unit?

  The AC shut off for the moment, and now it was dead quiet in the room.

  There was an obvious answer to the question; we just hadn’t figured it out yet.

  I glanced at Mia, and she just looked so sad, I couldn’t help myself.

  “How’s Garlen?” I asked.

  She shook her head. Don’t ask.

  I nodded back.

  A minute passed.

  “You deserve to be treated right, Mia,” I said. “That’s all I really want to say. Other than that, I’ll keep my nose out of it.”

  “Thank you, Roy.”

  Another minute passed.

  I said, “Were you thanking me for saying you deserved to be treated right, or for keeping my nose out of it?”

  “Both,” she said.

  I grinned at her. “Okay.” Then I looked at the board and recited the question: “Why didn’t Leo stash the coins in the storage unit?”

  Mia said, “Maybe he didn’t stick the coins in the storage unit because he already had them tucked away someplace he considered safe.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “Like where?”

  “Don’t know,” Mia said. “Obviously not in his house or his truck.”

  “Why would he keep the drugs at home, but not the coins?” I asked.

  “Don’t know that, either,” she said. “But we don’t need to know. We can only hope we’re right that Leo took the coins after Cole died, and if that’s what happened, then it doesn’t matter why he didn’t keep them at his house. All that matters is where they are now.”

  She was right, of course.

  But where? I had gone back and checked all of his movements from the moment I’d attached the GPS tracker to his vehicle, and there was nothing in his travel history beyond what we already knew.

  I said, “Maybe he gave the coins to one of his friends to hold. Or even one of his customers.”

  Mia looked doubtful. “He’d have to have friends he could trust, and they’d have to trust him, too. Doesn’t seem likely for a sleazebag dope dealer.”

  “True,” I said.

  “Let’s be honest,” Mia said. “We’ve made so many assumptions and guesses, the chances are slim that we’re right.”

  I didn’t want to give up, but only because I didn’t want to leave Mia here to mope. Or to give Garlen a chance to come over and try to make up.

  “Leo has those coins,” I said. “I know it.”

  Mia didn’t bother telling me I was full of crap. We both knew it. It was another frustrating moment in a case that was filled with them. It was a lesson I hadn’t been taught in quite some time—that some cases can’t be solved, and some criminals get away.

  And then, in the blink of an eye—or, more accurately, in the half-second it took for Mia’s expression to transform completely—everything changed.

  “Roy,” she said. “I think I’ve got it. I think I know where the coins are.”

  I was beginning to suspect that Callie Dunn had a limitless collection of black yoga pants, but who was I to question her wardrobe choices? Go with what works, right? The only difference this time, when she answered the door, was that the pants featured a floral-print waistband, and her tank top was a color of purple that the marketing people probably called Evening Eggplant or Rippling Ruby or Perfectly Plum.

  We had called in advance, so she wasn’t surprised to see us, but she was curious, because we hadn’t said what we wanted. I’m sure Mia’s tone of voice on the phone had sounded mysterious, despite her best efforts to conceal her excitement.

  “Hi, again,” Callie said. “Come on in.”

  We followed her inside, and before she offered drinks or a chance to sit down, Mia said, “Callie, from the very beginning of this investigation, you’ve been very helpful, and we’re going to ask
for your cooperation one more time.”

  “Okaaay.” She drew the word out, apparently somewhat puzzled and wondering what might come next.

  “This might sound like an odd request,” Mia said, “but can we search your pump house?”

  It was basically a small shed, measuring roughly six feet by six feet, but it was designed and built to complement the house. Same limestone exterior walls, same bronze-colored standing-seam metal roof. Not many homes were built to those specs.

  The door—stained hardwood—had a keyed knob, but it wasn’t locked. Mia swung it open and I stood next to her. The floor was plain concrete, and the left- and right-hand walls each had three built-in shelves that were crowded with various lidded plastic jugs, tubs, bottles, and buckets. Pool chemicals. The place smelled funny—like bleach combined with the mustiness of old books.

  The rear wall had no shelves, but instead featured a medium-sized window that allowed plenty of light into the pump house. Just below the window was the pump itself, purring away. The unit comprised a round, gray cylinder about two feet tall, plus two smaller black cylinders attached at the bottom, and some PVC pipe exiting through the wall behind it. On the floor next to the pump was a coiled hose about two inches in diameter and maybe twenty feet long. For vacuuming the bottom of the pool, I guessed. Leaning in a corner was one of the nets guys like Leo use to scoop leaves out of the center of a pool.

  Callie was ten feet behind me, standing not far from the pool itself, just watching.

  Mia’s theory—and it was a good one—was that Leo Pitts would’ve stashed the coins here because he knew that if they were discovered, the cops might think Callie had taken them. But if the coins were found in some other customer’s pump house, that would implicate Leo and only Leo.

  Mia entered the shed itself and I remained in the doorway. This was her moment. If the coins were in here, she deserved to find them. I can’t tell you how much I was hoping she’d hit pay dirt.

  Mia turned and spoke over me to Callie. “Does anybody else come in here?”

  “No, just Leo. That’s all pool maintenance stuff.”

  “What about these blow-up rafts?”

  “I think I used those once when I first moved in, but not since then. I forgot they were in there.”

  Mia moved to the shelf on the left side and reached toward a square plastic bucket with a red lid. She jostled it. “Powdered chlorine, but it’s empty.” There were three identical buckets on the same shelf. Two were empty, one was half full. She lifted the lid and peeked inside. Nothing but powder.

  On the shelf above that were five more plastic buckets, but these were round and had blue lids. From where I stood, I could read the label on the nearest bucket. It contained 35 pounds of three-inch chlorine tablets.

  Mia checked the first bucket. Empty. Same with the second and third. Leo Pitts wasn’t big on disposing of empties. The fourth bucket was full with tablets all the way to the top. Mia waved a hand in front of her face to disperse the odor. “Reminds me of your cologne,” she said.

  “I call it Eau de Michael Phelps,” I said.

  She checked the fifth bucket. It was filled halfway with chlorine tablets.

  I was beginning to lose heart, because there weren’t many other containers that could hold several hundred coins in plastic sleeves. Actually, there weren’t any.

  Mia spent a few minutes lifting various jugs and tubs, shaking them, and finding them full of liquid. No coins. She rattled the plastic two-inch hose. Empty. She got on her tiptoes and checked the highest shelf, just to make sure the sleeved coins weren’t lying flat, individually, just out of sight. Nope.

  “Anything behind the pump?” I said.

  Mia leaned over, looked behind it, and shook her head.

  She went back to the half-full bucket of chlorine tablets and removed the lid again. She tilted the bucket forward, causing some of the tablets to tumble toward the edge of the bucket, and giving her a glimpse to the bottom. Nothing.

  She left the lid off that bucket and opened the completely full bucket of tablets. Nearby was a large scoop that was obviously used to remove tablets from the buckets. She began to scoop tablets from the full bucket into the half-full bucket.

  After three scoops, she stopped. Looked inside. Shook the bucket.

  Then I saw her grin.

  She dug in with the scoop again, but this time she dumped the contents on the concrete floor, and it was a mixture of chlorine tablets and hobo nickels in plastic sleeves.

  26

  We called it in, of course, to an APD detective I knew who handled theft cases. He passed it off to a detective named Rachel Cowan, who showed up fairly quickly with her partner and a couple of crime-scene technicians.

  Neither of us had ever met either of these detectives, so we explained who we were and why we were interested in finding the coins. I knew they would end up questioning Callie Dunn pretty hard—after all, the coins had been found on her property—but we made it clear why we thought Leo Pitts had stolen the coins and hidden them in the pump house. There was an excellent chance they’d find Pitts’s fingerprints on some of the plastic sleeves.

  Finally, early in the afternoon, we were done—not just with the detectives’ questions, but with the case itself.

  While Mia drove, I called Heidi to give her the good news. She didn’t pick up, so I left a detailed voicemail. Then I called Serenity. Same thing—voicemail.

  When I hung up, I said, “Where are you headed?”

  Mia’s house was in the opposite direction.

  “This calls for a margarita, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said.

  She got on the Loop 1 feeder road and went south.

  “Oh, jeez,” I said. “I just figured something out.”

  “What?”

  “The coin I bought from Leo Pitts in the Walmart parking lot had a familiar smell to it, but I couldn’t place it.”

  “Chlorine?”

  “Exactly. If I’d been a little quicker on the uptake, we might’ve wrapped this case up earlier. That’s a pretty good clue.”

  She turned right on Lake Austin Boulevard.

  She said, “Better late than never. At least that smell ties Leo to the coins. If he says he didn’t know anything about the coins in the pump house, why did he have one in his possession that smelled like that? I bet the cops can even test the plastic sleeve for chlorine.”

  “I bet you’re right.”

  She passed the Hula Hut, a popular restaurant and bar right on the banks of Lake Austin, and turned right to park in the overflow parking lot. The place was always crowded, even now, at two in the afternoon.

  I wondered how quickly the APD detectives would be paying a visit to Pitts’s house. They would probably request—and get—a search warrant for Pitts’s house and vehicles. It would be great if they’d find some drugs. Pitts had probably provided the dope that killed Cole Dunn, and he deserved to do some serious prison time.

  “I’m proud of you,” I said as Mia pulled into a parking spot.

  “Thanks.”

  “It was brilliant.”

  “It was obvious,” she said.

  “Hell if it was.”

  “Well, thanks. Let’s go have a margarita.”

  “You’ll have to lead me to the restaurant,” I said. “I might not be able to find it on my own.”

  We ordered margaritas, along with a variety of appetizers. Chicken quesadillas. Kawaikini stuffed avocado. Your basic Texas nachos. Plus another basket of chips with hot sauce. Despite the heat, we were out on the deck that extended over the lake, but the breeze and the shade from the palapa over our table kept us relatively comfortable. About half the tables out here were full, whereas the inside of the restaurant, in the air conditioning, was packed.

  “Dare me to jump in the water?” I asked.

  “I absolutely do not,” Mia said.

  “Because you know I’ll do it.”

  “So would a ten-year-old.”


  My phone, resting on the table in front of me, lit up. Heidi had sent a text.

  You guys rock! In a long meeting. Will call later.

  I replied: Better yet, join us at Hula Hut to celebrate.

  Our waitress came around again to see if we needed anything.

  “What happens if I jump in the water?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever done that here.”

  “So I’d be a trailblazer. A trendsetter.”

  “A cautionary tale,” Mia said.

  “So... another margarita?” the waitress asked.

  I looked at Mia, who said, “Sure.”

  After the waitress left, Mia said, “Garlen and I broke up. I broke up with him.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much. I’m sorry.”

  “Can’t put up with a guy lying to me like that.”

  “And you shouldn’t.”

  She was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t tell if she was tearing up. I hoped not.

  “He keeps calling and texting,” she said.

  I held my tongue for a moment.

  “Last night, he came to my house and kept knocking on the door. I was this close to calling the cops.”

  I took a long, slow breath. I wasn’t going to allow this to get under my skin. Mia could handle herself—including physically, if it came to that.

  “You have that look on your face, Roy.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one that says you might do something you shouldn’t.”

  “I promise you,” I said, “I won’t do anything. Unless you need me to.”

  The waitress brought our fresh margaritas. “You’re still dry,” she said.

  “No, no,” Mia said. “Please. Don’t encourage him.”

  We didn’t discuss Garlen anymore after that, and we were able to enjoy the remainder of our visit. Mia asked again about the house for sale on Raleigh. I told her I still hadn’t made up my mind. Mia said I should get on it before someone else did. How true, I thought. How very true.