Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  Instead I said, “She referred to herself as ‘Aunt Erica’ on a Facebook post by your nephew Curtis.”

  It took her a minute to decipher what I was saying. Bringing up her nephew seemed to have puzzled her. Then she said, “What she meant was—you know how you might refer to an old family friend as an aunt or uncle? Like that. She’s not his aunt, but she’s known him since he was just a kid, so he calls her Aunt Erica. So does Tracy.”

  Why would Hanrahan lie to me about that? Protecting Erica? Protecting himself? Whatever the reason, it was more evidence that he was hiding something, and that he was involved with the disappearance of his own daughter.

  I said, “Is she a family friend or just an employee?”

  Kathleen let out a sharp, cynical laugh—almost like a quick bark—but then, in an instant, her face crumpled with emotion. After a few moments, she regained her composure enough to say, “Patrick has been fucking her for years.”

  38

  I didn’t push her. I just sat quietly and let her sob for a minute. It didn’t seem right to put my hand on her shoulder or make any other comforting gesture, so I didn’t.

  Meanwhile, of course, my mind was racing. I was wondering how much money it would take to get a guy like Pierce—living on a dishwasher’s paycheck, with property taxes to pay on 20 acres every year—to go along with an abduction scheme. Whatever the amount, Hanrahan could likely afford it a hundred times over. Or a thousand.

  And since Patrick and Pierce didn’t have a friendship—just an employer/employee relationship—the cops would have no reason to check Pierce out. Not any more than they’d have reason to check out all of Hanrahan’s employees, and he likely had hundreds, or even thousands.

  The ‘why?’ was still puzzling me. Was the threat of divorce enough of a motivator? Sometimes, in the middle of divorce proceedings, or after custody had been granted, the losing parent would grab the kids and hide them, or just take off, never with much of a plan in place. Just an angry or fearful reaction, which made it even harder for that parent to have access to the kids afterwards. But rich, successful, intelligent men like Patrick Hanrahan didn’t do it that way. They didn’t run, they did the opposite. They hired lawyers and went on the attack. They used the full weight of their financial resources to tear their spouses to shreds. We had to be missing an important piece of the puzzle.

  Kathleen had just said something.

  “Pardon?”

  “He denies it now, but it’s true. I caught him, and he admitted it, and he said he ended it, but he didn’t. It makes me so mad. He doesn’t have the guts to admit what he’s still doing.”

  Now I was confused enough that I had to wonder whether she was even right about the affair. Maybe it was just the paranoid delusions of an alcohol-soaked brain.

  “You caught him? How did you find out?”

  She sniffled and gave me a grim smile. “It sounds so cliché, but I hired a detective. I had suspected the cheating for several years, and I finally couldn’t stand it anymore, so I hired a man to tell me if it was true.”

  “When was this?”

  “Three or four years ago.”

  “And what did you learn?”

  “That I was right. He was cheating. I threatened to leave, but he said he’d end it, and he begged me to stay. So I did. But he didn’t end it. He lies about it, only now he knows he has to be more careful.”

  It was ironic to hear this woman complaining about her cheating husband, when, according to Jessica, Kathleen had cheated on her first husband with Patrick. What a hypocrite.

  “That’s what you meant when you said he denies it. He denies that it’s happening now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But he admitted it four years ago.”

  “He had to. I had photos.”

  “What sort of photos?”

  Another short, barking laugh. “Patrick and Erica having sex in Erica’s house. The detective took pictures through a window.”

  This just kept getting better and better. And maybe this was the piece we were looking for. Sure, Kathleen was a drunk, complete with multiple DWI arrests, and Patrick could use that against her in a divorce. But would Patrick be willing to have those photos entered as evidence in court? Kathleen’s lawyer would stress that Patrick was a cheater who couldn’t be trusted, and was that the type of man who should raise a child?

  But I had to wonder why Kathleen hadn’t demanded that Patrick fire Erica Kerwick. So, trying to be tactful, I said, “I’m a little surprised she still works for Patrick. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  Kathleen looked like she didn’t want to respond to that, but she eventually did. “Everyone else in Patrick’s family is close to her. She wasn’t just going to go away. She’d still be around.”

  Okay, I had an idea what that meant. It wouldn’t be possible for Patrick to fire Erica without the rest of the family wondering why. Which meant the affair would eventually come out. I’m guessing none of them—Patrick, Kathleen, or Erica—wanted that. So Kathleen had chosen to leave things as they were. She didn’t want anyone to know about the affair. Over the years, that had been more important to her than making sure her husband had no contact with his lover. Pitiful.

  “Do you see Erica often?” I asked.

  “As little as possible. I should call my attorney.”

  “About what?”

  “They can find out what the police have done about this. Patrick should be in jail. All of them should be. You’re a witness. You saw Tracy with Brian Pierce and Erica.”

  I didn’t correct her by saying that I had not seen Tracy with Erica—only with Brian. I didn’t see the point in it. The woman was far enough in the bag that she would forget in a few minutes.

  “Look,” I said. “The cops didn’t believe me, especially after they searched Pierce’s place. They think I’m a nutcase. So the best thing you can do, if you agree that it appears Patrick and Erica were involved, is start talking to the police again. Tell them about the affair Patrick had with Erica. Do it through your lawyers if you’re more comfortable that way. But share that information with the cops. You should do it as soon as I leave.”

  She was starting to bawl again. I didn’t know if that was because she thought I was reprimanding her, or if she was just overwhelmed by everything she’d been through, or if it was simply because she was drunk.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. An incoming text.

  “When does Patrick usually get home?” I asked.

  “You kidding me? He’s staying at a hotel. He’ll never sleep under this roof again.”

  I checked my phone. Mia had sent a text:

  Erica just left. I’m following.

  Which was good, and now that I knew Patrick wasn’t staying here, I was less worried about him suddenly showing up and finding me interrogating his wife. When I looked up from my phone, Kathleen was finishing the last of the wine in her glass.

  I said, “I understand you’d been thinking about a divorce for quite some time. Did something happen between you and Patrick recently? Something that set him off or freaked him out?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nothing?” I said.

  She shook her head again but didn’t make eye contact.

  “No arguments or anything? Maybe you gave him an ultimatum or something like that?”

  Another small head shake. She was holding something back, and I was tempted to push her on it, but I also didn’t want her to stop talking to me. My best guess at that point, considering what I learned, was that she had threatened to make the photos public, maybe put them on the Internet. Patrick, in a rare rash moment, responded by showing what he could do in return—take Tracy. Maybe it was just a display of power, but it got out of hand when Kathleen called the cops. Who knows? Maybe none of this was accurate.

  I hated to ask what I was about to ask, but there was no avoiding it. “Tell me about the day Tracy went missing.”

  Her face scrunched up again. I could see the pain there a
s clearly as the freckles across her cheeks.

  I said, “I know it’s not easy, but what you tell me might help me find her.”

  She nodded. “She was in her room, and then she wasn’t. Just like that. I went in to check on her because I realized it had been awfully quiet, and she wasn’t there.”

  I had noticed that the Hanrahan house was wired to the gills with a kick-ass security system.

  “No alarm went off?”

  “The system wasn’t set. We only set it at night.”

  “No video from the front gate?”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t on.”

  “So she simply…disappeared?”

  “It was my fault. I was taking a nap.”

  Or passed out? I thought.

  “Where was Patrick?”

  “Working.”

  Which meant nothing. Patrick—or someone else—could have slipped in and grabbed Tracy with no problem.

  There was only one more thing I wanted to ask about. “Kathleen, has Patrick ever hired a bodyguard or security service for any reason?”

  “Not that I know of. We’ve never had a reason to.”

  “Okay. Well, if he needed somebody to act as a bodyguard—someone he could trust without question—does that bring anybody to mind?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “His brother.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s his name?”

  “Sean.”

  “Tell me about Sean.”

  “He used to be a cop until he got fired. I don’t know what he’s doing now.”

  “You don’t keep in touch?”

  “Patrick talks to him on the phone a lot, but we only see him a couple of times a year.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He lives in Brockton.”

  “Where is Brockton?”

  “Massachusetts.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “I don’t suppose you have any video of Sean, do you?”

  She was drunk, but not so drunk that she wasn’t curious. “Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but if you have any video, that would be very helpful.”

  She grabbed her iPad and switched it on. Opened Facebook. Then she queued up a video and held the tablet up for me to see.

  “This is Sean’s toast at our wedding. He was the best man.”

  What I saw was the man in the video from my rock camera. Sean Hanrahan, in a tux, holding up a glass of champagne. Another brick had just fallen into place.

  Patrick Hanrahan.

  Erica Kerwick.

  Brian Pierce.

  And now Sean Hanrahan.

  Those were the four players. Was there a fifth? The Guy? Or was Sean Hanrahan The Guy? Was he the son of a bitch who Tasered me?

  Kathleen hit the play button, and the moment Sean Hanrahan began to speak—saying, “Today we’re here to celebrate Kathleen and Patrick”—I knew the answer was yes.

  39

  Lynette Taylor tried her best not to spoil her five-year-old daughter, Ashley, but Randy said she was too much of a pushover. Randy was Lynette’s husband—a sweet man and a great dad, and he somehow had the ability to resist all of Ashley’s tricks. He was immune to the begging, the pleading, the whining. Even when Ashley kicked it into crying mode, which she seemed to do more and more these days, Randy didn’t give in. But Lynette did, all too often, and it was becoming a problem.

  Ashley was turning into a brat.

  Hard to admit it, but it was true. Not all the time—she was still sweet most of the time—but boy did she have her moments. Hissy fits in public. Major kicking-and-screaming meltdowns. Bad enough that Lynette had actually spoken to her pediatrician about it.

  “As long as you keep giving in,” he said, “and as long as you keep rewarding her bad behavior, then she’s going to keep right on doing it. Wouldn’t you?”

  He said Lynette needed to be firm. Don’t be manipulated. Set boundaries and expectations, and stick with them. In short, be the parent.

  Sometimes easier said than done.

  Say, for instance, you’ve had a bad day at work, and now you can feel a migraine coming on. And on your way home from preschool, Ashley starts asking for a milkshake, because you’ve stopped for a milkshake in the past. A kid her age doesn’t understand why it’s okay to stop for a milkshake on one day but not on another day. Sure, you can explain it, but come on—she’s five years old. The rational, logical part of her brain isn’t quite developed yet. You can say something like, “Honey, it’s okay to have a treat like a milkshake every now and then, as long as you don’t do it too often,” but you might as well be speaking Latin.

  The kid wants a damn milkshake.

  So what Lynette had been doing lately—and, again, she knew this wasn’t smart—was giving in before it got ugly. She rationalized it. If Ashley started screaming and Lynette gave in, that meant Ashley would scream more in the future. So on those days when Lynette just flat-out knew she didn’t have the ability to withstand Ashley’s emotional assault, Lynette would say okay before it even got that far.

  “Can I have a milkshake?”

  “Okay, but that means you can’t have another one for awhile.” Yeah, Lynette would try to sound tough—like she was in control—but bottom line, Ashley got her milkshake.

  Today was one of those days.

  Ashley asked, and Lynette was so not in the mood for a fight, so she caved immediately. Felt bad about it, but she just couldn’t handle any drama right now. Not today, after she’d felt a strange lump in her breast that morning in the shower. Probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. Going to the doctor tomorrow to get it checked, but in the meantime, it was weighing on her mind, and the last thing she wanted was a battle with Ashley. Hell, Lynette deserved to have a calm, peaceful afternoon.

  So she stopped at McDonald’s, and they weren’t sitting in the booth for two minutes when Lynette saw something that grabbed her attention. Rather, she saw someone.

  A little girl, not much older than Ashley. Sitting with a youngish man at a booth in the corner of the restaurant. Lynette looked, then looked again. She couldn’t help herself. Because the little girl in the booth looked a lot like a girl who had recently gone missing. Her photo had been all over the TV and in the newspaper. The entire nation knew about her.

  Just my imagination, Lynette thought. Couldn’t be her. No way would a child abductor waltz right in to a McDonald’s and have lunch. How stupid would that be?

  But what if it really was the missing girl? How bad would Lynette feel if she didn’t call, and then she later learned she could have saved that girl’s life? Obviously, that would make her feel a million times worse than calling the police and learning she’d been wrong.

  Either way, she had to make a decision, because the man and the little girl had gotten up from their booth and were heading toward the door. They took one last slurp from their Cokes before they tossed their trash away. Then they went outside.

  Lynette watched through the glass as they crossed the parking lot. What would Randy think if she came home babbling about seeing an abducted girl? It sounded so crazy. So unlikely. Like something out of one of those cheesy crime shows.

  Yeah, it did. But she knew what Randy would say. He’d say, “Did you write down his license plate number?”

  40

  I didn’t learn until later that Kathleen Hanrahan didn’t take my advice. She didn’t call the cops, and she didn’t call her lawyers, because her lawyers were actually her husband’s lawyers. She considered them the enemy now.

  What she did instead was continue drinking wine, until a poorly conceived plan of action blossomed in her mind.

  I was in the Mustang, now going east on Bee Cave Road, back toward town. My thoughts were spinning off in a dozen directions. I’d learned a lot, but I had no idea what to do next. So I called Mia. Got her voicemail.

  I said, “Check this out. According to Kathleen Hanrahan, her husband has been having an affair with Erica Kerwick for years
. She’s not Patrick’s cousin, she’s his goddamn mistress. I told Kathleen to tell all this stuff to the cops, but I don’t know if she will. Oh, and I know who The Guy is now: Sean Hanrahan, Patrick’s brother. Used to be a cop. You nailed it when you said it was a Boston accent. I heard him on a video. He’s lived in Massachusetts for about twenty years. Anyway, I’m heading back to my apartment right now, because I don’t know what else to do at the moment. I’m sure I’ll think of some way to make myself useful. So you stay on Erica’s ass and let me know what’s happening when you get a chance.” I paused for a second, then said, “They have her, Mia. No question about it. We just need to figure out where she is now. As far as I’m concerned, proving they did it—I don’t care about that. Let’s just find Tracy.”

  There was a certain sense of momentum that I didn’t want to lose. We were making progress. Slowly digging up facts. Putting pieces of the puzzle in place. Granted, there were still big sections missing, but I knew a hell of a lot more now than when I had gotten up this morning.

  One thing I didn’t know, as I’d mentioned to Mia, was what to do next. So I made it up as I went along.

  Back in my apartment, I sat down at my computer and started researching Sean Hanrahan. Problem was, there were a lot of hits. Nearly fifty thousand. Too many Sean Hanrahans in the country. But the one I was looking for kept a low profile. Didn’t find him on Facebook. Didn’t find him on LinkedIn or any other professional networks. No big surprise. Contrary to dire warnings about privacy issues, your average middle-aged American doesn’t have much of a record on the Internet, especially if he or she hasn’t actively participated on the Internet.

  So I narrowed down the results by searching for a combination of “sean hanrahan” plus “police officer.” That immediately dropped the number of hits to 87. First hit was a newspaper article written by a guy named Sean Hanrahan about a burglary arrest in Tucson. Nope. Unrelated. That article was repeated on about a dozen other sites. In fact, the more I dug, the more I saw that most of the hits were useless.

  But there was one that caught my eye. Sean Hanrahan, a cop in Brockton, Massachusetts, had received an award for pulling a woman out of a burning car after an accident. This was four years ago. The accompanying photo told me it was the right Sean Hanrahan, but I had already assumed as much. I read further. Hanrahan had been with the Brockton Police Department for fifteen years and had received several other awards in that time. He was quoted as saying, “I was just doing my job. This is what they train me to do, and what they expect me to do.” Then I found a more recent article. One in which Sean Hanrahan wasn’t quite so heroic. Last fall, he’d been suspended for improper conduct during an arrest. He had Tasered a guy in handcuffs.