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

by Ben Rehder

  I turned toward the large mahogany desk and was thrilled to see a Macintosh. I’m no computer guru, but I’m much better with a Mac than I am with a PC. While Mia went to a file cabinet and began to explore, I took a seat at the desk in front of the Macintosh. The screen saver appeared to be a random slideshow of Alex Dunn’s vacation photos. I held my breath and hit the spacebar to bring the Mac out of sleep mode. Another bit of luck—no password required.

  Alex Dunn maintained a clean desktop. Instead of keeping dozens of files and folders all over the screen, he had one folder called, “Alex’s Files.” I double-clicked it and found two more folders—“Personal” and “Work”—and each of those folders contained hundreds of additional folders. I expected as much, but now I really wished Callie was willing to let me copy the hard drive.

  I spent about 15 minutes clicking through the Personal folder. Nothing jumped out at me, but then again, I was only perusing. It would take several hours to check each file within each folder.

  I spent another 15 minutes poking around in the Work folder, which had three or four times more content than the Personal folder. There were folders about various business deals, proposals, feasibility studies, market analyses, and so on. Again, nothing of interest popped up, but, admittedly, I could have been looking directly at a vital piece of evidence without knowing it, and it would have taken hours, or even days, to review it all thoroughly.

  Mia and I had been mostly quiet, focused on our searches, when she said, “Your luck as bad as mine?”

  “Yep. Too much stuff.”

  I opened the web browser, Safari. Like most people, Alex Dunn had hundreds of bookmarks contained in a dizzying assortment of folders and subfolders. I started with the Favorites list, which was mostly business-related sites, plus various financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, Capital One, and Scottrade.

  Then I saw what I was looking for—a bookmark called “Security Camera.” The camera at his front door streamed to the web, which allowed him to access it and review footage by logging in from anywhere. I clicked the link and was greeted with a sign-in page asking for a password. Crud. I tried a few random guesses but got nowhere. I was disappointed, but also kind of relieved, because how exactly would I go about reviewing what could be a month’s worth of video?

  I went back to Dunn’s bookmarks. Most were fairly self-explanatory, except for one simply called “Riley2.” I double-clicked it and was confused when I was taken to a log-in page for a Hushmail account. Again, there was a sign-in page that asked for an email address and a passphrase. Of course, I didn’t know either.

  I clicked over to Apple Mail and went to Dunn’s preferences to see if there was a Hushmail account listed. There wasn’t. That meant Dunn did not automatically receive emails from that account. He had to log in via the website.

  It appeared Alex Dunn had a secret email address.

  30

  Mia must’ve seen the expression on my face, because she said, “Got something?”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But I’m not sure.” I explained about the bookmark and where it took me.

  “Riley two?” Mia said. She was still rooting through the file cabinet.

  “Have you come across the name Riley in any of his documents?” I said.

  “Not that I recall,” Mia said, “but I wasn’t specifically looking for it.”

  “Probably nothing,” I said. Many people keep an extra email account to use as a throwaway of sorts when giving the address to some business or website that might send spam later.

  The log-in page had very little text on it. I clicked on a link that said, “Can’t remember your passphrase?”

  The resulting page informed me that the security features of Hushmail were designed in a way that even Hushmail staff members couldn’t recover a lost passphrase. Basically, if you forgot it, you were screwed. But there was a chance I might at least be able to figure out the email address itself. I typed the letter “a” into the box for the email address—and nothing happened. It did not auto-populate, meaning the email address did not start with an “a.” That, or the page had been designed to prevent auto-population—just one more layer of security.

  I deleted the “a” and entered a “b.” Still nothing.

  So I entered the remaining letters of the alphabet, one at a time, deleting the previous one before entering a new one, all to no avail. Then I did the same with the numerals from 0 to 9. Zilch. Time to give up and move on, because our hour would be up soon.

  I scanned through the remainder of Dunn’s bookmarks and found none that seemed odd or out of place.

  Fifty minutes had passed.

  Then I had one of those ingenious ideas that only comes to those with creative and razor-sharp intellects, or, occasionally, to me.

  I went to the Hushmail page where Alex Dunn, or anyone else, would sign up for an account. This was not the log-in page, it was simply the account registration page, and I wondered if the security features would be less stringent.

  In the blank where you were asked to “Choose your new email address,” I did the same thing I’d done earlier—I entered the letters of the alphabet, one at a time, deleting the previous one before I entered a new one.

  One by one, my hopes were dashed.

  Then I typed in “m” and the blank auto-populated with Alex Dunn’s Hushmail address—MaxCallieCole@hushmail.com.

  “Damn, I’m good,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I figured out the email address.”

  “Cool. Anything interesting?”

  “Well, I still don’t know the passphrase.”

  “Oh.”

  Now, of course, I tried entering letters individually into the “Create your passphrase” blank, but when you typed into that space, you didn’t see a letter, you saw a dot, because it was encrypted. I was fairly certain that meant it would not auto-populate—and I was right. My luck had run out.

  “How’s it going in here?” Callie Dunn said, appearing in the doorway to the library. She was her typical friendly self, but her tone had just a hint of Are you done yet?

  “Does the name ‘Riley’ mean anything to you?” I asked.

  Callie thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. Should it?”

  “Just a name I stumbled across,” I said. “Actually your dad bookmarked an email account with that name, which doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the site he marked.”

  Callie was shaking her head. She had no idea.

  “He didn’t have any friends or business associates named Riley?” I asked.

  “None that I know of,” Callie said. “Sorry.”

  “I’m curious,” I said. “Did the police ask you that same question?”

  “About someone named Riley?” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Nope. They asked me a lot of questions, but not that one. Do you think you found something important?”

  I didn’t want to get her hopes up, only to dash them later, and I had no idea whether I had actually found a clue, so I said, “Probably not. But if you think of any connection between your dad and that name, please let us know.”

  “Will do.”

  She stood in the doorway, and it was obvious we had reached our time limit.

  “Okay, then,” I said, standing up from the desk. “We really appreciate your cooperation.”

  “Feeling pretty good about yourself, huh?” Mia said as we got into her Mustang.

  “Because of my brilliant find?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It didn’t lead anywhere, though,” I said.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she said.

  “Oh, you mean the fact that I found something that Ruelas and his team of rank amateurs overlooked? Yes, that is somewhat rewarding, but not surprising, given my history of surpassing him in every measurable way.”

  “Including ego,” Mia said. She was backing onto the street now.

  “Sure, I’m self-confiden
t,” I said. “It’s simply the result of my many achievements over the years.”

  “Okay, Mr. Achiever. Where are we going now?”

  She put the car into gear and began to ease forward.

  “Did you see anything in his files about the McMansion brouhaha?” I asked.

  “When he built Callie’s house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Some letters from attorneys, but nothing I wouldn’t expect. Some neighborhood groups threatened to sue, but nobody ever did. I’m sure Alex Dunn could afford more legal firepower than any of the neighbors would’ve been willing to match, and it appears Dunn did everything aboveboard anyway. He ultimately had a right to build that house, whether anyone liked it or not.”

  “I need to go over this in my head, to make sure I remember all the details,” I said. “Alex Dunn bought an existing house in Tarrytown, and as far as the owners knew, he was planning to renovate the house. But instead, he demolished it and built Callie’s McMansion. That sums it up, right?”

  “Right. The owners thought he deceived them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have sold. Where are we going? My house?”

  “How about we just drive for a while?”

  “Sounds good.” She headed east, back toward town.

  My phone vibrated with a text. Kiersten said: How’s it going, stud?

  I wasn’t sure how to react. Was she going to pretend she hadn’t seen me at Salty Sow last night? I wasn’t going to play that game. I said: Will call you later.

  She replied with a thumbs-up emoji.

  I put my phone back into my pocket.

  “What is the process for demolishing a house like that?” I asked Mia. “What are the specific steps? Because you can’t just do it, obviously. It has to be approved.”

  “If the home is more than 50 years old—and this one was—the demolition permit has to be sent to the Historic Preservation Office for review. They decide whether or not the home is historically significant. If they think it is, they can put a hold on demolition.”

  “What does ‘historically significant’ mean, exactly? That’s pretty vague.”

  “It usually means there is something unique about it, like it was designed by some well-known architect, or something important happened there, or somebody famous lived in the house.”

  “So what happens if the preservation office decides the house is significant?”

  “They pass the demolition permit—along with a recommendation, I think—to a city commission that deals with historic landmarks.”

  “And the commission decides whether the home gets demolished?” I asked.

  “They vote on whether to give the house landmark status, which would halt demolition, and then pass their recommendation along to the city council.”

  She went north on Loop 1.

  I said, “So the commission can decide that a house does or does not deserve landmark status, but ultimately the city council has to bless their decision?”

  “Yes, because it’s a zoning change. That’s what the council has to approve—the zoning change—and I gather that some people think the council is less worried about the historical aspect and more worried about giving away too many tax breaks. See, historical homes get a tax break. Some critics say it’s just another way for wealthy people to dodge taxes.”

  The issue of a tax break didn’t apply to Callie Dunn’s situation, because tearing down the old house meant she lost the break—and I doubted she was too concerned about the difference in taxes anyway.

  Mia continued: “Another thing that happens is, when these old homes are bulldozed and a new home is built, not only are they taxed at full value, they’re usually worth a lot more than the previous home. So property taxes can skyrocket—not just for the owner of the new home, but for everyone in the neighborhood.”

  That hadn’t occurred to me. “Which is another reason for neighbors to be angry at the Dunns and anyone else who builds a McMansion,” I said. “So that means the pool of possible suspects includes just about everyone in Tarrytown. Wonderful.”

  “It does create a lot of resentment,” Mia said.

  She took the 35th Street exit and went west.

  I said, “I don’t want to sound like a cynic, but wouldn’t the people in charge of approving or denying landmark status or granting a zoning change be ripe targets for a certain type of financial inducement?”

  “My heavens, Roy Ballard, are you suggesting bribery?”

  “Just thinking out loud, for now.”

  The road forked at the water treatment plant and Mia stayed to the left, went several hundred yards, and turned right.

  “Mount Bonnell?” I said.

  “Why not?” said Mia. “I’d like to enjoy a view without fear of falling off a cliff.”

  31

  The Historic Landmark Commission had twelve appointed members and the Historic Preservation Office had three staff members.

  “I guess I don’t totally understand the difference between the commission and the office,” I said, looking at my phone. “But I’m also not certain it matters. This page says the office ‘protects and enhances neighborhoods, buildings, and sites that reflect elements of Austin’s cultural, social, economic, political, and architectural history.’ Doesn’t the commission do that, too? Because this other page—hold on—this page says the commission ‘promotes historic preservation activities in Austin.’ Sounds redundant to me.”

  We were seated around a concrete picnic table, enjoying one of the finest panoramas in Travis County. It made the ledge above Barton Creek look like amateur hour, quite frankly. Mount Bonnell is a prominent point high above Lake Austin, providing sweeping views up- and downstream. I hadn’t been up here in several years, and the increased development to the west was noticeable. We were the only visitors here at the moment. I could see a dozen boats zooming along the narrow lake below, with at least half of them pulling skiers.

  “I’m no expert,” Mia said, “but I think the office has much broader duties than the commission. I think the staff reviews all the applications that come in and handles all the administrative stuff. And only some of the cases have to go to the commission.”

  “Bottom line,” I said, “it sounds like anyone wanting a house designated as historical—or wanting to demolish a house that might be historical—has to jump through quite a few hoops, starting with the historic preservation officer. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “So who is that? The preservation officer.”

  She grabbed her phone and we were both silent for a moment as she surfed. She was cupping the screen so she could see it better.

  “A man named Albert Strauss. It appears he’s been in that position for about ten years.”

  She kept reading and I sat waiting.

  “Here’s an article about a house that was up for a vote on historical zoning, and it sure sounds like the commission decides what is designated as a historical landmark. The preservation officer presents them with an application, and then they decide, and the city council votes whether to approve the zoning change.”

  “Is it the same way with demolitions?” I asked.

  She kept reading. I was glad our table was in the shade. It was getting muggy up here. “I think so,” she said. “There are dozens of articles about all this stuff—McMansions, the landmark commission, Albert Strauss, taxes, and so on. Lots of controversy, or at least some debate about, well, just about everything. Then you have residents who feel the same way Alex Dunn did—meaning they don’t want the city telling them what they can or can’t do with their own property.” She began shaking her head. “Too much to read right now.”

  She put her phone down on the table. A cloud was blocking the sun at the moment, and I noticed, before the screen went dark, that she still had a photo of Garlen as her wallpaper. He was smiling at the camera, looking like a typical jerk. I was hoping she’d simply been too busy lately to change the photo, or perhaps it had been on there long enough that she didn’t even not
ice it anymore. It also made me think of Kiersten, who had texted me earlier in the afternoon. I hadn’t replied yet, because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

  I pushed all that from my mind and said, “I think we need to talk to that Strauss guy and maybe some of the commissioners.”

  “Maybe, but if we’re exploring the possibility of bribery, how would that have resulted in Dunn’s murder?” Mia said. “I mean, if Dunn bribed someone, or several people, what happened after that? He got his demolition permit, so if there were bribes involved, it would appear they worked. None of the people bribed would have a motive to kill him. Right?”

  I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know.

  “Now, if Dunn offered a bribe and then didn’t pay up, that might be different,” Mia said.

  “I think,” I said slowly, “when a couple of people begin to conspire, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.”

  “Such as?”

  “One of them gets paranoid and thinks they’re about to be busted. Decides to kill the one person who can implicate them.”

  “Not bad. What else?” Mia said.

  I could hear voices carrying in the breeze—several people coming up the long concrete staircase to the top of the lookout point.

  “Did I say ‘a lot’?” I said. “I meant at least one.”

  “What about Nathan Potter?” Mia asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Dunn hired him to buy the old house, demolish it, and build the new one, so wouldn’t he have to be right in the thick of any type of bribery situation?”

  A group of seven people—all in their fifties and sixties—reached the top of the staircase, and now I could tell they weren’t speaking English. German, possibly, or Dutch. A couple of them glanced in our direction, and one man smiled and gave a small wave. Mia waved back. I noticed that none of them were out of breath, or overweight, for that matter. Damn foreigners. The group gravitated toward the little viewing pavilion twenty yards uphill from where we were sitting, and then they emitted the requisite oohs and aahs as the lake below came into view.