Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  In this case, fortunately, there was a possible solution. About one hundred yards southwest of Pierce’s driveway, on the other side of the road, was an old clapboard church with a caliche parking lot. I’d even set foot in that church on a couple of occasions, way back when, because my grandparents had been parishioners there.

  I slapped together a couple of ham sandwiches, stuck them in an ice chest with three bottles of Gatorade, and headed out.

  ***

  My grandfather, who’d been a professor at the University of Texas, had the foresight to buy fifty-seven acres off Thomas Springs Road in 1954. The tract included one of the highest points in Travis County, and at the top of that hill stood a home like a bomb shelter. Rock walls, concrete ceiling, a flat roof of tar and gravel. Back then, many of the locals lived in crude shacks tucked in the woods. Goat herders. Cedar choppers. Rednecks whose forebears had run whiskey during Prohibition.

  The area west of Austin still had a rural feel to it—or parts of it did. But as I drove out Bee Cave Road, then waited for the light at Highway 71, I realized how much things had changed in the past decade. To my left was a strip center that included an HEB, a Starbucks, and a bunch of other chain shops. To my right was a retail shopping complex—massive in size— named the Hill Country Galleria. The developers called it a “lifestyle center,” as if that would disguise its true nature. It had a Dillard’s, a Barnes & Noble, a fourteen-screen movie theater. Yippee. Who needs trees and cattle when you can replace them with a Banana Republic? I suddenly felt guilty that I hadn’t driven out this way in so long. My grandparents’ old stomping grounds were being razed, paved, and homogenized.

  The one bit of solace came five minutes later, four miles down the road, when I turned right on Thomas Springs and saw many of the same old homes that had been there since I was a kid.

  Just out of curiosity, I drove the length of Thomas Springs Road—past the entrance to my grandparents’ old place, past Pierce’s driveway, with its No Trespassing sign on the locked gate, past the volunteer fire station, all the way down to Circle Drive, where I made a U and came back to the church, which hadn’t changed a bit. I pulled into the parking lot, backed into a patch of shade, and killed the engine. Sometimes I wonder about what happened next. Maybe it was fate.

  Normally, when you start surveillance on a subject, you’re prepared for the long haul. At least a day or two. Sometimes a week. Sometimes you have to cry uncle and give up. Hell, sometimes the subject really is injured, and the entire effort—watching him, and following him around—is a waste of time.

  But considering where Pierce’s house was located—and the privacy it afforded him—I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least see what I could see from the roadway. Take a quick walk along the shoulder and determine whether his house or even his yard was visible from the road. It was unlikely that would help me much, because it would be difficult to set up anywhere along the shoulder, but I wanted to know if it was even a possibility, in case Pierce didn’t leave his property for several days.

  So a quick wardrobe change was in order. I switched from jeans and a polo shirt to gym shorts and a ratty T-shirt. Put on some running shoes. Slipped an elastic iPod holder around my bicep. Now I looked like a guy out for a jog. The only giveaway would be the very small pair of binoculars I’d carry along.

  I left the Caravan where it was and walked along the edge of road as if I belonged there, past mailboxes and gravel driveways. At one point, a truck drove past; the driver raised two fingers off the steering wheel, and I gave him a nod in return, hands on my hips, like I was catching my breath in the middle of my jog.

  I came to the near corner of Pierce’s acreage and it didn’t look promising. Thick cedar all along the property line formed a natural barrier. I kept going, and after about thirty yards, I caught a glimpse of blue—probably the siding on his house, well over a hundred yards away. I raised the binoculars and took a quick peek, but I couldn’t see much. I needed a bigger gap in the tree line. I kept walking, hoping there wasn’t a neighbor somewhere watching me through a window, wondering what I was doing. Maybe this was a stupid move.

  I was thinking about retreating to the van, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I took a few more steps and suddenly I had it. A small but very useful gap in the brush. A sliver of unobstructed view to Pierce’s house.

  I could even see a white truck parked in front.

  And movement.

  Someone was beside the truck, with the door open. There was no traffic coming from either direction, so I quickly raised the binoculars again and took a look. I saw the person leaning into the truck, as if he’d just come outside to grab something from the vehicle. When he emerged, I saw him in profile, and I was fairly sure it was Pierce. No bandage around his right wrist, but that didn’t mean anything.

  He closed the door to the truck and bounded up the porch steps to his house—and there, behind a screen door, like an apparition, was a little blond girl wearing denim shorts and a pink top.

  6

  The girl was scared at first, he could tell, but she didn’t cry. That was a good sign. If she’d been a crier, he wasn’t sure what he would’ve done about it. But she was quiet. Meek. Shy.

  “When am I going home?”

  Barely loud enough for him to hear.

  “First thing in the morning.” A lie.

  “I don’t want to stay here. I want to see my mommy.”

  “I know you do, honey, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. You can do that, can’t you? Spend the night away from home? Like a big girl?”

  And tomorrow he’d tell her the same thing. Just one more day. Tell her that her parents wanted it this way. In fact, it was their idea. Because they needed some time to themselves. So they’d asked him to watch her. See, he was a friend of the family. Like an uncle. Eventually, she would trust him. Even start to like him. Baby steps. Much better to build a relationship on affection rather than fear.

  “Are you hungry? I’ve got a pizza in the freezer. We could make a pizza together. How about that? Wouldn’t that be fun?” Trying to make it sound like a big adventure. “Do you like pepperoni, Emily?”

  “I already told you, that’s not my name.”

  “Oh, I know. But that’s what I’m going to call you, okay? It’s a little game we’ll play. Emily is a pretty name, don’t you think?” She shook her head.

  “I’ll make a deal with you. If you’ll let me call you Emily, I’ll let you make up a name for me. That’s fair, isn’t it? Anything at all. Steve, Ted, Henry, Albert. I don’t care. You pick one. You can even call me Spongebob Squarepants if you want.”

  And finally, he saw the faintest trace of a smile on her face. Like she wanted to pout, or to continue being homesick, but she couldn’t resist this silliness, the very idea that a grown man would let her make up a name for him.

  “I bet you have a name in mind, don’t you?” She nodded.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Jimmy.”

  “Oh, that’s a good name. I like it. From now on, I am officially Jimmy. And you’re Emily. That’s the deal. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, back to the original question. Do you like pepperoni?”

  Emily nodded her head again. She had an appetite. Another good sign.

  “Well, then, let’s go make a pizza!”

  He took her by the hand and led her into the kitchen. There were windows on either side of the door to the backyard, but he’d closed the curtains and safety-pinned them together, like all of the curtains in the house. He’d disconnected the telephone line, out at the box. He’d also installed deadbolt locks on all the doors—the kind that need a key even from the inside. He’d done that when he was still in the planning stages. The same day he nailed the windows into place. He had a computer on a table in the bedroom, but he’d changed the settings so nobody could log on without his password. Couldn’t be too careful. Kids her age knew how to use computers nowadays. And cell phones. That’s why
he was keeping his cell phone on top of the refrigerator, out of reach. Just in case she wanted to call mommy.

  He pulled the pizza from the freezer and showed it to her. “Looks pretty good, huh? You want to unwrap it and put it in the oven?”

  She appeared confused. “I’m not supposed to touch the oven. Mommy says I’ll hurt myself.”

  He smiled at her. “You just have to be careful, that’s all. Here, I’ll show you how to do it.”

  7

  Lieutenant Paul Holland was a big man, maybe six-two, two-twenty. Short, sandy hair and a pale complexion. Possibly a Scandinavian background. Early forties. The other one, the detective, was Hispanic. Built like a baseball player. About my age. Last name Ruelas. I’d missed the first name. Both men wore suits. We were in a small interview room in a substation of the Travis County Sheriff’s Office on Hudson Bend Road, about fifteen minutes from Brian Pierce’s place.

  It had been more than an hour since I’d spotted Tracy Turner and I didn’t know what the hell we were doing. As far as I knew, no action had been taken, other than requesting I come here for an interview.

  I’d called 911 immediately, of course, then waited for a deputy. He had come quickly, I’ll give him that. Pulled in next to me in the church parking lot and asked me to repeat everything I’d told the dispatcher. Ten minutes later, another cruiser showed up, and I was thinking these guys were idiots. Talk about tipping your hand.

  Then the first deputy asked me to follow him here, to the substation. It appeared the other deputy was going to stay put.

  “Can you get an unmarked unit over here?” I said at the time, nodding toward the second patrol car. “Instead of this guy?”

  “What’s the problem?” Christ.

  “Well, it seems like you ought to keep a low profile.”

  He gave me a patronizing smile. “We run radar along this road all the time. People are used to seeing us.”

  So I went with him. And now I’d just finished telling my story for a third time, to Holland and Ruelas. My heart rate was still elevated. My palms were sweaty. I could hardly sit still.

  Why, then, were Holland and Ruelas so calm? They appeared underwhelmed. Something wasn’t right.

  Ruelas had a notebook on the table in front of him—he’d been taking notes—and now he closed it, saying, “Thanks for coming in, Mr. Ballard. We appreciate it.”

  And that was all. Both men rose from their chairs. Evidently, we were done. But I didn’t get up. Instead, I said, “Can you tell me what’s going to happen now?”

  Holland checked his watch. Ruelas said, “Uh, well…” Pithy guy.

  And just like that, I knew what was happening. And I knew what was going to happen. Nothing. “Consider the source, huh?” I said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You know who I am. You know my history. You think I’m a flake. Am I correct?”

  Ruelas hesitated, shifting his notebook from one hand to the other. Yeah, he knew exactly who I was. Holland had already opened the door, ready to move on.

  “Please sit down and talk to me,” I said.

  “Mr. Ballard, I—”

  “Just give me a few more minutes. Hear me out.”

  He looked at Holland, who said, “I’m going to get some coffee.”

  Ruelas nodded, and Holland left. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him again.

  Ruelas turned back to me, and before he could speak, I said, “It was a little blond girl. Pink top and denim shorts. That’s what I saw. I’m not mistaken.”

  He placed his notebook on the table, slowly pulled out a chair, and sat back down. He seemed to be weighing exactly what to say.

  I continued. “I saw a photo of Tracy Turner on the news last night. I know what she looks like. I’m almost certain it was her.”

  But I could be wrong. I knew that from experience. I had to admit it to myself. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

  Ruelas said, “She’s been missing for eighteen hours. In that time, since the Amber Alert was issued, do you know how many people have called in, claiming they’ve seen her?”

  “I know how it works.”

  “Fifty-six. All of them positive of what they saw. Just like you.”

  “Brian Pierce doesn’t have any kids. He has no siblings, which means no nieces.”

  “Maybe he’s babysitting a friend’s kid.”

  “Okay, maybe he is. So why not check it out?”

  “How would you propose we do that? Just walk right up and knock on his door?”

  “Well, why not?”

  “What if he doesn’t answer?”

  I sat silently. I knew where he was going.

  He said, “Then…what? We can’t just bust the door down, not without a warrant, which we can’t get, not without probable cause, and we’re not even close to having that. And now—let’s just assume that you correctly identified the girl from more than a hundred yards away through a pair of binoculars, which is a damn big assumption—now we’ve tipped him off. If we knock on his door and he doesn’t answer, we gain nothing and he gains a lot.”

  The door was still open and two deputies in uniform passed by, talking loudly, on their way to the break room.

  “Are you going to set up on him?” I asked.

  Again, a hesitation, and I knew the answer. Then he said, “Mr. Ballard, I can’t tell you what we are or are not going to do. Let me say that I do believe you saw a girl. I do. But the odds of that girl being Tracy Turner…you know how many little blond girls are running around Austin right now wearing pink tops?”

  “And denim shorts,” I said.

  He didn’t reply. He was done talking.

  I’d already told him what I did for a living, and that Pierce was my latest subject, so now I said, “I still have a job to do. Pierce is suspected of insurance fraud.”

  It was a clever way to force Ruelas’s hand. If he was planning to put Pierce under surveillance, he wouldn’t want me doing the same thing.

  But all he said was, “I understand, Mr. Ballard. Thanks again for coming in.”

  8

  I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life. The mullet I sported in high school. Getting married at twenty-one. Betting on the Astros.

  All of those things are nothing—absolutely meaningless—compared to what I did on a cool spring day nine years ago. A Saturday. Laura had gone to an aerobics class, with plans to stop by the grocery store afterward, so I decided to take Hannah to the dog park near our house. We’d been talking about getting a Labrador, and I wanted to see how Hannah would handle herself around large dogs. Would she be nervous? Excited? Frightened?

  The park was crowded. Maybe thirty or forty owners and their dogs in two fenced acres. No leashes were required inside the fence, so dogs of all sizes and shapes were sprinting and bounding and leaping all over the place. Plenty of barking, too, of course, but no growling, because a sign said that dogs who caused problems weren’t allowed to come back. These were all friendly, playful dogs, and most of the owners were, too.

  Hannah and I sat on one of the many shaded benches away from everybody else and simply watched. She seemed a bit nervous when some of the larger dogs came near us, but she also seemed intrigued.

  When a tan-and-white pit bull came up and nuzzled her leg, Hannah giggled hysterically.

  “That’s Belle,” said the owner, a woman I had seen a few times in the neighborhood before. A jogger. Slender and very pretty. Great legs. Medium-length blond hair. About my age. Not the stereotypical pit bull owner, that’s for sure.

  “Say hi to Belle, Hannah,” I said. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant about it. “Is Belle friendly?” I asked.

  “Oh, God, yes,” the woman said. “She’s a sixty-pound lap dog.”

  “Can I pet her?” Hannah asked. That was a great sign.

  “You bet. She’d love it,” the woman replied. Then, to me, she said, “I’m Susan Tate.”

  “Roy Ballard,” I said, “and my daughter Hannah.”

  Hannah was
petting Belle’s head cautiously, and I may be wrong, but Belle appeared to be smiling.

  “What a cutie,” Susan said. “How old are you, Hannah? Wait, let me guess. Are you five?”

  Hannah was too busy with Belle to pay any attention to Susan.

  “She’ll be five next month,” I said.

  “I know this sounds like a standard comment from a parent, but wow, she is really pretty.”

  I’d heard it dozens of times, but I still beamed when anybody said it. Hey, it was true. Hannah was an exceptionally beautiful child. Who was I to argue?

  “We ordered her from a catalog,” I said.

  “You did not,” Hannah said automatically, without looking up, because she’d heard me use that line before.

  “Must be quite a catalog,” Susan said, smiling. Great smile. “Where can I get a copy?”

  “Well, I’m afraid the factory closed down. They ran out of perfect little girls.”

  “Darn it. I would’ve ordered three.”

  Hannah looked up at us both, just for a second, and the look on her face said she thought both of us were as silly as could be.

  “How old is Belle?” I asked.

  “Eight. Got her from my brother. He raises Staffordshire terriers.”

  “Oh, I thought she was a pit bull.”

  “Well…they’re closely related. Some people say they’re basically the same breed.”

  “We’re getting a dog soon!” Hannah said.

  “Oh, you are? What kind?”

  “I want one just like this.”

  Susan looked at me. I’m sure she saw a certain look on my face. No, I did not want a pit bull—or a Staffordshire terrier—but I didn’t want to offend her. “We’re thinking maybe a Lab,” I said.