Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  Ruelas didn’t respond for a very long time. I waited. I wasn’t going to give him any additional details that could cause me problems, but maybe I could learn something from things he might say. Finally, he said, “We’ve been looking for Sean. No luck so far. He won’t answer his phone or return our calls. You got any ideas?”

  Once again, his tone had changed. Sounded like he was acknowledging what I was telling him and now he was just wanting to be practical and stop chasing dead ends. He didn’t seem bothered at all by the outright insult, but in his line of work, he had probably become immune to all sorts of abuse.

  I said, “It’s a long shot, but the Hanrahans have a place in South Padre.”

  “Already had it checked out. No luck.”

  “Then I’m out of ideas. That’s the truth.”

  Another silence followed. Then he said, “By the way, you’re not fooling anyone with that airport bullshit.”

  I reached for the mouse and closed my browser, killing the video. I said. “Fair enough. And if you ask Mia out again, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

  I heard a chuckle as he hung up.

  43

  I spent more time in front of the computer, rooting around for information about the Hanrahan brothers. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, because I didn’t know what to look for. But sometimes that approach works. You stumble on something that you couldn’t possibly have known, and it proves useful.

  Not this time, though.

  I dug through dozens of old newspaper and magazine articles about Patrick Hanrahan and his slow but steady rise to success. He wasn’t some flashy Internet genius who burst onto the scene and quickly made a zillion bucks. No, he did it the old-fashioned way, starting businesses and nurturing them with hard work and long hours. His first venture, nearly twenty years ago, was a pizza franchise. A well-known Texas brand that had been in business for two decades. That did well, so he opened two more. Started making some pretty good money.

  Then he tried something much different than pizzas. He opened a Toyota dealership. This, as far as I could tell, was his only career misstep. He had no experience in that industry, and it did not go well. Not a total disaster, but he did lose some money, so he sold it after a few years.

  Went back to restaurants. This time, he came up with an idea of his own. A place called Texas Taco. Fast food, more or less, but healthy. Lean beef and fresh vegetables. It was a big hit immediately, and before long he had three more. Pretty soon, another regional chain bought him out. Rumor was that he got about ten million in the deal. This was fourteen years ago.

  After that, he opened a high-end seafood restaurant in downtown Austin. Patrick’s Pier, it was called. I’d heard of it but hadn’t ever been there, not being a fan of seafood. And, until now, I couldn’t have told you who the Patrick in the name was.

  Then he opened Chowders—where Kathleen, Jessica, and Brian Pierce had all worked. Also seafood, and not cheap, but not quite as high-end as Patrick’s. According to the articles I found, Hanrahan realized the two places were competing with each other, so he closed Chowders.

  Then he opened La Tolteca, which was another big hit for him. There was only one in the Austin area, but there were about a dozen more scattered around the southwest. Made a rich man even richer.

  This was all very inspiring, but none of it was helpful.

  I jumped onto Facebook and went back to Curtis Hanrahan’s page. From there, I snooped from one Hanrahan page to another. I didn’t know how most of these people were related to Patrick, Sean, and Kathleen, but they were all family, I knew that much, so maybe I’d see something that would help. Maybe a mention of some other vacation home. Or some innocuous comment about Sean’s recent whereabouts. But I found nothing.

  I received a text from Mia a little after six in the evening, telling me that Erica Kerwick had just left the office. Did I want Mia to follow her? I said yes, let’s see where she goes. I was really hoping Erica would take us directly to Sean Hanrahan and Tracy Turner, but no such luck. She went straight home to a cottage in Tarrytown. Nice area. Homes more expensive than you’d expect an executive secretary to afford. Maybe Hanrahan had helped her buy it. Did that matter?

  Three hours later, I had grabbed a bite to eat and was just sitting down at the computer again when Mia called. “She hasn’t budged. Lights in the living room just went out. I think she’s in for the night.” It was nine-fifteen.

  “Is the van sticking out like a sore thumb?”

  “No, there are lots of cars parked along the curbs.”

  “Do you mind hanging around one more hour?”

  “Sure thing. What about tomorrow morning?”

  What I wanted was for Mia to be staked out and waiting at sunrise, or even earlier, or maybe even spend the night watching Erica Kerwick’s house. But Mia hadn’t signed up for this bullshit. She wasn’t even making any money on this fiasco. So I said, “Sleep late. I’ll call you when I figure out what to do next.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to burn you out and make you miss bartending.”

  “Yeah, right. Don’t worry about it. Believe it or not, I’m enjoying myself. You learning anything over there?”

  “Oh, you bet. For instance, did you know there’s a young lady named Elizabeth Hanrahan who has an unnatural fondness for unicorns? She even writes poetry about them. Really bad poetry.”

  “And you’re qualified to judge poetry?”

  “Point taken. Have you seen anyone else hanging around? Cops?”

  “No. Why?”

  I told her about my conversation with Ruelas, and how I thought they might send someone to keep tabs on Erica Kerwick. Apparently, they hadn’t done that, or they were so good at it, Mia hadn’t seen them.

  Doubtful.

  She said, “You think you’re off the hook with Ruelas?”

  “I think so, yeah. Guy’s an asshole, and I told him that, but he’s smart enough to know I didn’t kill Pierce.”

  “Good. I was worried. A pretty boy like you would be eaten alive in prison.”

  “It’s my high cheekbones,” I said. “Irresistible.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  At that moment, I would not have believed I was six hours away from blowing this case wide open.

  Once, while waiting in my dentist’s office, I read an article about “dream incubation,” which was first researched by some smart professor at Harvard. Supposedly, you can use your dreams to solve problems. Sort of similar to lucid dreaming, the topic for the movie Inception, but a little different.

  You start by focusing your mind on a particular issue right before you go to sleep. Maybe even write the problem down on a piece of paper, and then, when you lie down, visualize the problem as a concrete image. Focus on it intensely. Then, when you wake up—presto!—you have a new perspective. Fresh ideas. A smarter way of approaching the problem. That was the gist of it, but it sounded like a truckload of horseshit to me.

  But maybe it works, because when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t think of anything other than finding Tracy Turner—I was obsessed, bordering on frantic—and when I woke up just after one in the morning, I realized I’d overlooked something.

  Not South Padre.

  But the same train of thought.

  When I’d accessed the tax records to get the Hanrahans’ address earlier today—actually, it was yesterday now—I’d noticed they owned half a dozen properties in Travis County. I hadn’t looked at the records closely, or at all, really. I didn’t even think about the implications, because it wasn’t unusual for wealthy people to own all kinds of real estate.

  But now I was wondering: What were these properties? Business real estate owned by PAH, Hanrahan’s corporation? Nope. Those wouldn’t have shown up under the name Hanrahan. Those would be kept separate. No, instead, those listings in the records would be for homes, condos, townhomes, raw acreage, maybe a ranch in the rural part of the county. That sort of thing.

  I
sat up in bed. Wide awake now.

  Went to my computer and clicked the bookmark for the county tax records. Typed in his name. Seven listings in total for Patrick and Kathleen Hanrahan. One, of course, was the home in Westlake Hills. The other six?

  One was a small condo in a high-dollar high-rise downtown. Date of the deed was just three years ago. I was willing to wager that Hanrahan had purchased it simply to have a nice little getaway in the heart of the city.

  Another listing was for an empty lot, and I realized it was simply a tract adjoining the tract on which their home was built. They’d bought two tracts and combined them into one homesite.

  But the remaining four listings? Homes in various neighborhoods throughout the city. The oldest date of deed was twenty-two years ago. The newest was six years ago. If you plotted the value of these four homes on a chart, along with the home in Westlake Hills, you’d notice a steady rise in size and value.

  I got a chill down my spine as I realized what this meant.

  These were the homes Hanrahan had owned and lived in as his wealth slowly grew. He hadn’t ever sold them. He had almost certainly held onto them as an investment, recognizing—correctly—that real estate in the Austin area would pay off very well. No doubt he hired a property-management company to lease those homes out for him.

  The big question running through my mind right then, as I sat in front of my computer in my underwear in the middle of the night…

  What if one of those homes was empty?

  44

  I printed the addresses of all four homes, along with a map to the one house that was in an area I didn’t know well—Great Hills, in the northwestern part of town. But the remaining three were out west, in either Rollingwood or West Lake Hills. It wouldn’t take long to check them all out.

  I debated calling Mia and letting her know where I was going, but why wake her up? I was jazzed that I’d had this idea, but now that I was good and awake, I knew that the odds were slim. Sure, look into it, but don’t expect too much. That’s what the rational part of my brain was saying. But the rest was pumped by the possibilities. Buzzing. Adrenaline was flowing as I got dressed, grabbed the keys to the Mustang, and headed for the door.

  And froze.

  I heard a noise. Right outside my apartment. Not much of a noise, but enough. Hard to describe. A buzz, or a hiss. Then it stopped. And started again.

  I stepped softly to my door and listened. Whatever it was, it was literally right outside, just a few feet away. My door is one of four in a breezeway between two buildings in the complex. Very private, without much foot traffic. I looked through the peephole and saw movement, but nothing that I could identify. My porch light was off. There was some ambient light—maybe from a neighbor’s porch light—but it wasn’t enough to let me see what was happening.

  Ruelas.

  That’s what I was thinking. Maybe I hadn’t really convinced him that I shouldn’t be a suspect in Brian Pierce’s murder. Anyone who watches real-life cop shows knows that arrest warrants are often served in the middle of the night. Catch the suspect off guard, in bed, confused. Was that happening here? If so, I had no place to go. There would be no getaway.

  More hissing.

  I looked through the peephole again, but it didn’t help much. Still saw movement, but there could have been one person out there or an entire SWAT team. No voices. No lights. No muted crackle of radio communication.

  The hissing stopped.

  So strange. No idea what was happening out there, but I was damn sure going to find out. In one quick movement, I reached out with both hands, unlocked the deadbolt, and yanked the door open.

  A dark figure was standing in front of me—surprised, I think—with his right arm raised and an object pointing at my face. Could’ve been a gun, a knife, but I didn’t wait to find out. I launched myself at the figure, wrapping both arms around his torso and tackling him to the ground. I could tell it was a male, but, fortunately, this was not a large man. Didn’t mean he wasn’t strong, or driven by adrenaline.

  He fought back. Hard.

  We were on the concrete, wrestling, and neither of us had an advantage yet. Too dark to get a look at the guy. I had his left arm clasped around the wrist, so he couldn’t get up and run away, but his right arm was still free. When I’d taken him down, I’d been aware of a clattering sound—something metal hitting the walkway. A strange tinny sound, with a rattle to it. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it meant that I’d knocked loose whatever he’d been holding in his hand. In any case, I didn’t feel the steely blade of a knife plunging into my back. What I felt instead was him flailing at the side of my head, trying to hit me, but not doing a very good job.

  “Stop!” I said.

  Yeah, like that would work. He kept whacking away, grunting with the effort, but his punching skills were poor. Of course, since one of his arms was free, that meant one of mine was, too. My left. Luckily, I’ve always been a bit ambidextrous. Not a lot of room to draw back and throw an effective punch, so I used my open palm to give him a quick, firm smack on the underside of his jaw. His teeth slammed together with an audible crack. You might be surprised how quickly this can take the fight out of someone.

  Then I raised my arm high, fist straight up, and brought my elbow down directly on the bridge of his nose. I could feel the cartilage give, and he squealed in pain. While he was dazed, I quickly grabbed his right arm and held it tight, then straddled his chest. I had him pinned. Right then, the porch light went on at the apartment directly across the breezeway from mine, which allowed me to get a good look at him. And I recognized the son of a bitch.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He’d grown a goatee and put on a few pounds, but there was no mistaking his identity.

  Ernie Crenshaw. Ernie fucking Crenshaw. My old boss. The one who’d pressed charges when I’d broken his nose. I hadn’t seen him since.

  “Ernie, you idiot.” I was short of breath. Amazing how thirty seconds of close combat can wear you out.

  I looked to my left to see what he’d been holding in his hand. A can of spray paint. I twisted around to see my apartment door. He’d painted the word “ASS” in bright orange letters. He’d been in the process of writing “HOLE” beneath that, but he’d only gotten as far as the H and the O.

  I heard the neighbor’s door open. She was peeking out from behind a security chain.

  “Rita?”

  “Are you okay, Roy?”

  “Yeah. Have you called the cops?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Please don’t, okay? Everything’s fine. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”

  “You sure?”

  “We were just goofing around and it got a little rough. Sorry to wake you.”

  She lingered in the doorway for a few more seconds, then closed the door.

  Ernie still had not said a word.

  “You flattened my tires on Sunday, didn’t you? And on Thursday of last week.”

  He turned his head and spat out a fairly generous amount of blood. But his breathing seemed to be okay.

  “It’s always been you, right? All those times my tires got flattened. The broken antennas and smashed windshields. I thought I had a lot of enemies, but it was just you.”

  He said, “You broke my goddamn nose. Again.”

  “Jesus, Ernie, it’s been three years. Isn’t it time to move on?”

  My thighs were starting to burn from sitting on top of him. I let go of his wrists. He wouldn’t have the guts to try anything.

  “I could call the cops,” I said. “Tell them what you did tonight. But I’d say we’re even now. You need to leave my van alone. And leave me alone. Otherwise, I’m coming at you hard, without the cops.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You understand, Ernie?”

  After a few seconds. He nodded.

  “I have to go somewhere,” I said. “And while I’m gone, you’d better figure out a way to clean that paint off my
door.”

  I started with the address in Great Hills.

  Cruised past slowly and immediately saw signs of inhabitants. The lawn had been mowed recently. I could tell that much from the sweep of my headlights. Even more obvious, there was a car in the driveway.

  And the clincher? There was light coming from a couple of different windows. Not a lot of light, with people still awake inside, but the faint light from a small lamp or even a computer’s screen saver. There was always some amount of light in a home, even when everyone was sleeping.

  Sean Hanrahan and Tracy Turner were not in there. If they’d decided to hide in one of the homes, that meant the home wasn’t leased, which in turn meant that the electricity would not be turned on. The juice got turned off and back on between residents. That was standard.

  A new renter had to arrange for the electricity to be turned on and put down a deposit. And if Patrick was hiding Tracy at one of these houses, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to turn the electricity on. Big red flag.

  I wasn’t discouraged. Still had three houses to go.

  At the second one, on Hatley Drive in Rollingwood, it was the same thing. Car in the driveway, light in the house. They weren’t here either.

  So I moved on to the third home, a few blocks away on Pickwick Lane. On first pass, it seemed to have possibilities. No cars. No lights. The lawn was a bit scruffy. It appeared to be empty. I drove past in both directions, slowly, looking for the slightest hint of light from any window that I could see. Nothing.

  So I parked down the street, along the curb in front of an empty lot. Walked back toward the home. Turned onto the sidewalk near the mailbox and walked straight up the steps to the front door, as if I belonged there. Yeah, it’s the middle of the night, but don’t mind me. I’m supposed to be here.