A Tooth for a Tooth

by Ben Rehder

  Now it was raining so hard I wouldn’t be able to identify Armbruster even if he walked right past the van, so I returned yet again to the case file on my laptop. Went through the reports and notes, line by line. Nothing new.

  Studied the photos from the accident scene snapped by the responding officer. It wasn’t necessarily standard operating procedure for a cop to take photos at a scene like this one, but in this case, I think he was wanting to document the distance Jankowski had driven after impact. Just in case.

  The officer had taken several photos while standing in front of Jankowski’s Land Rover, aiming back toward the spot where his marked police unit was parked. Obviously, it was nighttime, so it was difficult to gauge the distance perfectly, but however you looked at it, it was a good long way.

  The front end of Jankowski’s SUV was dented, but not as badly as one would expect.

  The heavy rain lightened up a little. Another hour passed.

  My phone chimed with an incoming text from Mia. A selfie of her standing in front of a bathroom mirror, wearing a green bikini, but cropped to show just her torso, from her collarbones to the middle of her thigh.

  Like my new suit? she asked.

  I studied it—and wow!—but hang on a second. I realized what she was doing, that little trickster. The woman in the photo wasn’t Mia. It was Leann, one of her friends with a similar build.

  That’s one hot body, I said. Almost as good as yours. And, of course, I added an obligatory laughing-face emoji.

  She sent back a kissy-face emoji and said, Off to the beach.

  I replied: Don’t break too many hearts.

  Another hour passed and I was getting restless, so I opened my laptop again, and one of the photos of Jankowski’s SUV was still on the screen.

  This time, however, I noticed something immediately—something that should’ve been obvious from my first viewing. How had I missed it? How had the cops missed it?

  Inside the SUV, suction-cupped to the windshield, was a dash cam. That meant Jankowski had likely captured the accident on video. Why wouldn’t he mention that? It should exonerate him, if everything had happened as he’d said.

  And now I remembered that Jonathan, my client, had mentioned that Jankowski had a dash cam stolen sometime before the accident, and that was ironic, because if that hadn’t happened, there would’ve been a video record, and wasn’t it a shame that Jankowski hadn’t bought a new one yet.

  But he had. And he’d apparently lied about it later.

  Why?

  At four o’clock, there was a break in the rain, so I decided to get a jump on rush hour traffic and head for home, stopping at a Home Depot along the way for a mailbox, mounting post, and bag of ready-mix concrete.

  When I got home, the rain had started again, so I couldn’t install my neighbor’s mailbox right then. Instead, I worked under the cover of my front porch, mounting a security camera directly above the front door, aiming at the steps. This time I chose a battery-powered model, so I wouldn’t have to run a power cord into the attic or through a wall. Connected it via Wi-Fi and all was good. Took about eight minutes total.

  Then I went inside and sat quietly on the couch in the living room and tried to think.

  Possibility: Jankowski’s dash cam wasn’t working when the accident happened. His failure to mention that he had a dash cam wasn’t any kind of cover-up on his part. He simply left it out because there was nothing of value on it.

  Another possibility: The accident happened exactly the way Jankowski described, but he was exceeding the speed limit, and he was afraid the video would act as evidence against him.

  One thing was for certain: If the camera was working that night and caught something good, Jankowski had deleted it long ago—probably immediately afterward.

  I took a break at seven and ate some leftover pizza.

  Tuned ESPN to a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys were having another mediocre year. No surprise.

  Billy Chang hadn’t called me back. Also no surprise.

  By eight o’clock, the rain had stopped again and the moon was rising in a clear sky.

  I texted Mia. Staying out of trouble?

  Thirty seconds later, she replied: Riding the trolley to Mango’s.

  The trolley? I said. Like common people?

  I hadn’t heard of Mango’s, but their website told me you could have “an epic party in South Beach’s most legendary nightclub” where you could “keep the excitement flowing all night.” I’m guessing the scantily-clad showgirls and enormous frozen drinks helped the party along. A page about bachelorette parties featured video of muscular bare-chested male dancers pumping and grinding for gleeful young ladies who might have had a few drinks. “A night she will never forget!” Yeah, I’ll bet.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the kind of people Mia and her group might encounter in such a hard-partying nightclub—but then she sent a photo from inside the place. It was dead. For the moment, anyway. Further reading told me it didn’t get going until late in the evenings, and not so much on weeknights. Mia and her gang would be gone by then.

  Let me know if you see Lola, I texted. Good Lord, a Barry Manilow reference. Grounds for her to call everything off.

  I was waiting for a reply, phone in hand, when an alert popped up on my screen. It was a notification from the GPS tracking app. Ah, man. I wasn’t in the mood for it, but Lennox Armbruster’s Alfa Romeo was on the move. I didn’t have to go. I could monitor him on the app and see where he stopped, and then decide if I wanted to follow. His destination might make all the difference.

  If he went to a movie theater or a restaurant, for instance, it was unlikely I would document any strenuous physical activities on his part. But if he went to a gym, or a Home Depot, or a driving range, then he might do something worthy of capturing on video. Problem was, he might hit a bucket of balls and be gone before I could get there.

  I reluctantly pulled my shoes on and went out to the van.

  Ten minutes later, before I’d caught up with the Alfa Romeo, it was already parked in a residential area in east Austin, along a short street called E.M. Franklin Avenue, which ran north-south between East 12th Street and Manor Road.

  Odd to be making a social call at 9:33 in the evening, but not everyone keeps regular hours. Some people work evenings or overnight shifts. It also meant this trip was probably going to be a waste of time. Armbruster would be inside someone’s home at nighttime, meaning I probably wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing. They could be swinging from the chandeliers in there and I wouldn’t be able to see it or film it.

  I drove a few blocks past E.M. Franklin and hit a red light at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Springdale Road. When the light changed, I pulled into a Valero and tried to decide how to proceed.

  The Alfa Romeo hadn’t moved. I was reluctant to drive past the home where it was parked. I didn’t want Armbruster to see the van, even as nondescript as it was. I was wishing I’d brought my Toyota Camry—my secondary surveillance vehicle—but the van had some of my best surveillance gear in it.

  The tracker is accurate to within twenty or thirty feet, so, out of curiosity, I checked for an exact address. It appeared the Alfa was parked at the curb in front of a house on the west side of E.M. Franklin, just a few doors down and across from the Austin Moose Lodge.

  So then I checked the tax rolls to see who owned that home—and I nearly choked on my Dr Pepper.

  Holy hell.

  It was Brandi Sloan.

  Joe Jankowski’s receptionist.

  8

  “There’s no way it’s a coincidence,” I said to Mia on the phone the next morning. “Jankowski didn’t just randomly run down some guy who happened to know his receptionist.”

&nb
sp; It was just past eight o’clock and I was drinking coffee on the back porch. The neighborhood was quiet, although I could hear traffic in the distance. Still hadn’t heard back from my neighbors regarding the note I’d left about their mailbox.

  “And if he did,” Mia said, “that’s something he would’ve mentioned to somebody by now. The receptionist—”

  “Brandi,” I said. “With an i.”

  “Really?” Mia said.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, well, Brandi with an i would’ve pointed out that she knows the guy.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How long did Armbruster stay there?”

  “About nine minutes. Then he went back to his apartment. Hasn’t moved since.”

  Earlier, when Mia had woken up, she’d texted me a photo of herself in bed. I won’t go into detail, but the photo managed to be exceedingly erotic without being lewd or obscene, and I would treasure it until the day I died.

  “You sure it was Armbruster?” she asked.

  “Yup. I got a good look when he walked from his car to his apartment.”

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  “I bet you have some theories,” she said.

  “Yup.”

  “The most obvious one being that Brandi and Armbruster are pulling a scam together. Ripping off Jankowski.”

  “That’s in the lead right now,” I said. “Mostly because it’s the only one I have. You got some others?”

  “Let me think,” she said. Then, a moment later, she added, “Nope. That’s it.”

  “You think Armbruster knew Brandi before she started working for Jankowski?”

  “Hey, I’m on vacation,” Mia said. “This is too much thinking right now.”

  “How does it benefit them that Brandi works for Jankowski?” I asked. “I mean, couldn’t Armbruster just as easily have jumped in front of some other wealthy dude’s car?”

  “I hear some of the other girls getting up,” Mia said.

  “In fact, doesn’t the fact that she works for him make the risk that much greater—because some genius like me will come along and figure out the connection?” I said. “Assuming Brandi and Armbruster really are working together. But I can’t think of what else it might be. Why would he be going over there if they weren’t working together?”

  If Brandi Sloan and Lennox Armbruster had a relationship prior to the accident on Exposition Boulevard, I would need to find solid evidence confirming it.

  “I smell coffee,” Mia said.

  I said, “Now I’m wondering if Brandi Sloan applied for a job at Jankowski’s place specifically to rip him off. Now, granted, that would be some long-range planning, but I’ve seen more elaborate scams. Then the question is…why? Would she and Armbruster go to that much trouble just so he could jump in front of Jankowski’s car?”

  I was just brainstorming and throwing out possibilities, which was often very helpful. It opened your mind to all kinds of scenarios you might not otherwise envision.

  “Hey, I have an idea,” Mia said.

  “Excellent. What is it?”

  “Solve this whole business before I get home, and then we can spend my first day home in bed together.”

  “That’s a fantastic idea,” I said. “But can’t we do that anyway?”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “Will you wear the same item you’re wearing in this picture?” I asked.

  “We’ll see,” she said. “And delete that, by the way.”

  “After I have a poster made,” I said.

  I drove the van—with the new mailbox, post, and bag of concrete still in the back—to my neighbors’ house. No answer when I knocked. So I spent the next thirty minutes pulling the old mailbox out of the ground and installing the new one. Looked good as new by the time I was done. Left another note on the door asking them to call me if they were unhappy in any way.

  I went back home, showered, then grabbed my laptop and returned to the back porch. Time for some research. I started with the basics—social media and readily available public records. I quickly discovered the following:

  Brandi Sloan was 33, which was a few years older than she appeared. Good for her. Maybe she had an effective skin-care regimen.

  She had been arrested once, nine years earlier, for writing a bad check under the amount of $500. Those charges had been dismissed, meaning she had probably reimbursed the person or business to whom the check was written. Otherwise, her record was clean.

  She was not registered to vote, nor had she made any political donations, as far as I could tell.

  Prior to working at JMJ Construction, she had worked at a real-estate brokerage as an administrative assistant for several years, and prior to that, she’d worked a variety of retail customer-service jobs.

  She had gotten a bachelor’s degree from Texas State University in San Marcos, about forty-five minutes south on Interstate 35.

  None of this appeared particularly helpful.

  She was on Instagram and Twitter, with both accounts set to private, but much of the content on her Facebook account was visible to a stranger like me. I saw that she had a brother in Georgetown, a sister in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and her parents lived in Spicewood, just west of town. I assumed she was from this area originally.

  I scrolled through all of her photos—thousands of them—going back nine years. No sign of Lennox Armbruster. It was possible she had also gone through them and deleted a bunch, or set them to private, but most fraudsters weren’t smart enough to stay on top of stuff like that.

  She was a big fan of UT softball, and it appeared she ate barbecue several times a week. She regularly jogged on the hike-and-bike trail along the lake. I discovered that she’d bought the house on E.M. Franklin about four months earlier. If there was a spouse or significant other, I couldn’t find him or her, or even an ex. In that case, I could believe that she had gone in and deleted some photos, which is what a lot of people do about their exes.

  I googled “lennox armbruster” combined with “brandi sloan” and came up with nothing.

  I spent some more time studying the photo Mia had sent me this morning, just in case it held a clue. It didn’t.

  Went back online and spent another solid hour trying to find any trace of a relationship between Brandi Sloan and Lennox Armbruster. Found nada. Nothing. Zilch.

  I didn’t have a lot of options at this point except to wait, because Armbruster still hadn’t moved today.

  Patience.

  Okay, then what to do with my day? More research?

  Or should I get out and shake things up? If so, how?

  I was pondering this very matter when hell flew and pigs froze over. That’s my clever way of saying I received a call from Detective Billy Chang. As I mentioned, this gentleman wasn’t big on sharing information with anyone outside the police force.

  “That Ruger comes back as stolen,” he said. “Case was never solved, so that’s a dead end.”

  “From where?” I asked.

  “A duplex in south Austin.”

  For Chang, this was a veritable verbal avalanche, or some other more artful turn of phrase.

  “Were you able to pull any prints?” I asked, figuring I might as well try to get everything I possibly could while Chang was talking.

  “Nope. Not even a partial.”

  Okay, now I could understand the reason for the call.

  “So…” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I shouldn’t expect the guy to be identified anytime soon.”

  “Not unless something changes,” Chang said.

  “That’s disappointing,” I said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Reading between the lines, Chang wasn’t going t
o work the case anymore unless some new evidence or information fell into his lap. Guess I couldn’t blame him. Like most police investigators, he had more cases than he could possibly handle. He had to prioritize.

  “Mind telling me the person who owned the gun?” I asked.

  “So you can call her and make a pest of yourself?” Chang said.

  “No way. Of course not. I mean yes.”

  A fat squirrel jumped from a nearby oak tree and landed with a thump on the roof of the porch.

  “You think you’re gonna find something I missed?” Chang asked.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” I said. “I just know that every detective up there is absolutely buried, and that means there isn’t enough time in the day to mess around with the smaller cases, like this one. If I’d been shot, sure, it would be a priority, but getting a gun pulled on me? Happens every day, and you’ve got more important things to do.”

  “You’re a pretty good bullshitter,” he said.

  “Maybe, but it’s also the truth.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll give her your number and if she wants to call, she can.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  As I was walking outside to the van, I spotted Regina, our next-door neighbor, rolling her garbage cart up her driveway from the street.

  I walked over and said, “Manage to sleep through the fun the other night?”

  “I was watching through the window,” she said. “Halfway expected that cop to slap the cuffs on you and haul you away.”

  “But you would’ve bailed me out, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” she said. “You can always count on me.”

  I felt a special connection to Regina because there had been an incident a while back in which a suspect in one of our cases had set fire to Mia’s house. Fortunately, Regina was home and spotted the flames in time to put them out before they got completely out of hand. For that, she would have my everlasting gratitude.