A Tooth for a Tooth

by Ben Rehder

“She did,” I said. “But she might not have known what Jankowski was planning to do. Maybe he told her he really was going to arrange a deal with Brent.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said.

  “I don’t blame you. If she knew Jankowski’s real intentions, there’s almost zero chance she’ll admit it, and it will be hard to prove otherwise. The problem is, when you have three or four people involved, each of them will tell the story in a way that minimizes their own involvement as much as possible. Brandi will blame Jankowski, and he’ll blame the Tates, or just Damon, since he’s dead. At that point, you just have to hope the cops can figure it out from the evidence.”

  She nodded and remained quiet for a long moment. “I need some tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Be right back,” she said, rising to go into the kitchen.

  I sat quietly and gazed out her picture windows at the amazing view of the Austin skyline. So much new construction in the past decade. I couldn’t tell you what most of the new high-rises were. I found it all depressing. Sometimes change sweeps through our lives and there’s not a damn thing we can do to stop it.

  “You’re off today,” Doris said, back in the room.

  “Pardon?”

  She took her seat again and placed a tumbler filled with iced tea on the table. “You’re not quite yourself. Something’s bothering you.”

  It was weird—I started to dismiss it. Fake a smile, crack a joke, and move on. But I couldn’t. In fact, I started to speak, but my throat caught. I was getting emotional. Doris waited as I gathered myself, and then I told her what had caused the recent distance between Mia and me. Funny thing is, I didn’t feel awkward or embarrassed at all. Doris was the kind of woman who wanted to help you however she could. She simply listened.

  Then she said, “I haven’t known you long, Roy, but I suspect you and Mia will work it out, and later you’ll wonder why you worried about this at all. You’re a creative guy. Look at what you did with that trail camera. You’re a problem solver. You’ll come up with something.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And I would bet Mia is not thinking about leaving you. She just needs more time to accept what you told her. This is something you’ve been carrying around for quite a while, but she’s only just learned about it, and now she’s also dealing with the aftermath from killing Damon Tate. I can’t even imagine what she’s going through right now.”

  “She’s thinking of seeing a therapist,” I said.

  “About the shooting?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. You know what else might make her feel better?”

  “Cookies?” I said.

  She laughed and pointed at me. “Exactly. Cookies. I’m going to bag some up for you to take home to her.”

  When I went out to the van, I checked my phone and saw that I had a voicemail from Randy Wolfe, the investigator who’d interviewed me after I’d shot Nathaniel Tate.

  He was informing me that Nathaniel Tate had been released from the hospital and was free on bond for the charges against him for attempting to shoot me. Great. Wolfe also mentioned that the concerns about Nathaniel suffering paralysis had turned out to be unfounded. In fact, at this point, he was moving around fairly well. The subtext was obvious. Watch your back, because you might have to deal with him again.

  Damn nice of him to give me that heads-up. I immediately texted Mia and let her know what was happening. This wasn’t going to help her stress levels any, so I went straight home.

  I found her relaxing in a hot bath, with a layer of bubbles hiding some of her best parts. Mostly. She had a single votive candle burning in a corner where the backsplash meets the wall. Classical music played softly from a Bluetooth speaker resting on the vanity.

  “Hey,” I said quietly.

  “Hey.”

  “You’re having some peace and quiet. Want me to come back later?”

  “No, that’s okay. How’s Doris?”

  “She’s doing fine,” I said. “She sent you some cookies.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then where are they?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “They’re not doing me much good in there,” she said.

  So I retrieved the plastic bag and brought it to her. Then I slid the Bluetooth speaker aside and took a seat on the vanity, between our twin sinks.

  “Sweet Jesus, these are good,” Mia said.

  Watching a drop-dead gorgeous woman eat chocolate chip cookies in a bubble bath should be on everyone’s bucket list.

  “Want a glass of milk?” I asked.

  “Absolutely yes.”

  So I got her a small glass of whole milk and rested it on the edge of the tub.

  “Thank you.”

  “You bet. Anything else?”

  “Yes. No snide comments if I eat half this bag.”

  “I would never.”

  “Want one?”

  “I already ate about five.”

  I took my seat again.

  Mia finished a cookie and said, “So…Nathaniel Tate is loose.”

  “Yeah. We knew this was a possibility.”

  “Think he’ll do anything?”

  “I really don’t,” I said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to relax, knowing he’s out there.”

  “One of many,” she said, referring to the scores of disgruntled individuals who held a grudge against us.

  Yeah, I thought, but we haven’t shot any of those people, or killed one of their brothers.

  “I sent the photos of Brandi Sloan to APD,” I said. “Some young whippersnapper on the case tried to lay some guilt on me for holding on to them until now. He sounded about twelve.”

  “So probably twenty-six, twenty-seven.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I should inform you that some of your bubbles are popping, and I can see some things I couldn’t see earlier.”

  “Yeah? I guess you’ll just have to look away.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Let’s see how much self control you have,” she said. “By the way, since we’re talking about stuff, I found a therapist.”

  Mia hadn’t mentioned this topic in several days, but I knew she still hadn’t been sleeping well since the shooting, and I’d noticed she’d been avoiding violent shows on TV.

  “That’s great,” I said. “Who is it?”

  “My friend Dana sees her. Says she’s great, and that’s good enough for me. Her first appointment was in three weeks, so she’s obviously in demand. Maybe I’ll change my mind by then.”

  “I’ll support your decision no matter what it is,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  Half a minute passed. Some more bubbles popped.

  “What time is it?” Mia asked.

  “About two-thirty,” I said. “Why?”

  “The milk was fine,” she said, holding the half-filled glass toward me, “but can I trade this in for a glass of white wine?”

  “You bet.”

  “And when you come back, I’m thinking you should climb in here with me. I need someone to wash my back. Might as well be you.”

  For the first time in ten days, I was beginning to think everything was going to be okay.

  36

  The wheels of justice turn slowly, especially when a witness or person of interest in a case refuses to speak to the cops. That’s what Brandi Sloan did.

  The day after I shared those photos of Brandi with the whippersnapper, someone from APD made a call to the Ruidoso Police Department and asked for a favor. A few hours later, one of their investigators, a man named Peacock, drove out to Ingrid
Sloan’s house and knocked on the door. Ingrid answered and Peacock immediately showed her the photos. Why play around? Then he asked to speak to Brandi.

  She came to the door but refused to answer any questions. Not much the cop could do. It was Brandi’s right to keep her mouth shut. Damn Constitution.

  That same afternoon, I drove over to JMJ Construction and found yet another young, attractive woman acting as the receptionist, this one a platinum blonde with severe black eyebrows. I gave her a big smile—which she did not return—and asked to speak to Joe Jankowksi.

  “May I tell him who’s here?”

  “Roy Ballard.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, but I’m hoping he’ll see me. I have something urgent to discuss.”

  “Please have a seat and I’ll let him know you’re here as soon as he gets off the phone.”

  She had an air about her that suggested she was doing extremely important work and I was lucky to have a few minutes of her attention.

  “Always talking to someone, isn’t he?” I said with a phony chuckle. “Quite the wheeler-dealer and go-getter.”

  “There’s coffee over there if you’d like some,” she said, pointing toward the waiting area behind me.

  “Is it still over there if I don’t want any?” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll try some,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Twelve minutes later, she led me back to Jankowski’s office and closed the door to his office as she left. He was standing behind his desk, backlit by the big window behind him.

  “You got some cojones coming over here again,” he said.

  So we were abandoning any pretense about the situation. He knew that I’d shot one Tate brother and Mia had killed the other, and he certainly assumed that I knew he was behind those attacks and the murder of Brent Donovan.

  I said, “Two, actually. I don’t know if that counts as some. Do you have more than two? Because maybe you should see a doctor.”

  “What do you want?” he said. “Make it quick.”

  I didn’t know if Jankowski was smart enough to be recording this conversation, but he’d had time to think of it, and his phone was lying on top of his desk. For that matter, he could be recording it with his computer. Easy enough to do.

  “Nathaniel Tate got out of the hospital yesterday,” I said.

  “So what?”

  “He tried to shoot me through my bedroom window a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I heard about that,” he said, grinning.

  “Apparently you think that’s amusing,” I said.

  “A little bit,” he said.

  “I guess I need to tighten the choke on my twelve gauge,” I said. “Anyway, now that his brother is dead, which is probably a bummer for ol’ Nate, it makes me wonder if he might try something else.”

  “Why talk to me about it?”

  “Do you remember what you said to Lennox Armbruster in his hospital room?”

  “The fuck’re you talking about? I never saw him in the hospital.”

  Which is what I expected him to say.

  “You can deny it, but that thing you said to him—what you told him might happen to his nephew—that’s what will happen to you if Nathaniel Tate doesn’t stay out of our lives.”

  He tried to laugh. “Oh, really? So you’re making a threat?”

  “How can I be making a threat if you never said anything to Armbruster?”

  “You’re a punk,” he said, “with a smart mouth.”

  “Yeah, probably. But you’re the kind of scum that threatens kids.”

  “Get out of my office.”

  “You had Brent Donovan killed.”

  “Prove it.”

  “And everybody knows who you sent to pick him up at his apartment.”

  “I didn’t send nobody to do nothing. Get the fuck out.”

  I could tell he was rattled. Now I wanted to push it further.

  “Hang on a sec. Has she not even told you the police found her?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Think she’ll spill the beans? I think she will, because there’s something you don’t know. There’s a witness.”

  He snorted. “A witness to what?”

  “To this particular young lady picking up Brent. So she’ll talk, and the witness will back up her story, and that means you’re totally screwed.”

  His face was getting bright red.

  If my guess was right, he had a way to contact Brandi in Ruidoso, and he’d be doing that as soon as I was gone. She’d probably paid cash for a burner phone before she’d left Austin. He would call that number in a panic, wondering if what I’d said was true.

  “You’ve got one minute before I call someone in here to throw you out,” he said.

  “One minute? Okay, cool. I’ll take it. This chair is comfortable. An extra minute is like heaven.”

  He glared at me.

  I said, “The alternative is for you to come around your desk and physically remove me yourself. Feel free to give that a try.”

  He didn’t move. I stared at him, but he wouldn’t hold eye contact.

  I was feeling charitable, so I left after half a minute. My work there was done.

  Before I got home, I pulled over and dialed the number I had for Brandi Sloan. Even if she hadn’t taken her primary cell phone with her, she was probably using her burner phone to check the voicemail on that line now and then. Voicemail is what I got.

  After the tone, I said, “Hey, Brandi, it’s me, Roy Ballard, the videographer with the dreamy eyes. I have to admit I’m concerned about you. If Joe finds out where you are and thinks you might work a deal with the cops, well, that probably would not be good. In that situation, your best option would be to do just that—ask the DA for a deal, and then tell them everything you know, before they build a stronger case against you and the deal is off the table. I’m not saying Joe is going to find out, but these things have a way of getting out. So take care of yourself, you hear? Give my best to your sister.”

  Roy Ballard, puppet master.

  It worked.

  Three days later, I learned that Brandi Sloan had lawyered up and told her story in exchange for a deal. Nothing she said came as much of a surprise…

  She had been sleeping with her boss, Joe Jankowski, for seven months, and in that time, he showered her with gifts and kind gestures. Paid many of her bills, including a new HVAC system and roof for her house. When he went to buy himself a new vehicle, instead of trading in his old Land Rover SUV, he “sold” it to her for $25,000, but no money actually changed hands. Yes, he was sort of rough around the edges, but she grew to love him. He was a different person when he was with her. Gentle. Sweet. He promised he was going to leave his wife, and then suddenly Brandi would be partners with a wealthy, high-profile businessman. It was hard to resist.

  Then the problem with Brent Donovan came up—the fake job-site accident, followed by the threat to blow the whistle about safety violations. Jankowski paid Donovan some money to shut up and go away, but he didn’t go away.

  According to Brandi Sloan, that made Jankowski furious. Brandi said she had no idea if the job-site violations actually existed, but Jankowski downplayed them. Said they were minor—no big deal—and at most his company would get a warning. “Then why not just ignore the guy?” Brandi asked. Jankowski never had a good answer for that.

  They didn’t discuss it much after that, until one day Jankowski said he was going to try to strike a deal with Brent Donovan. Give him one more payment and say that would have to be the end of it. Cheaper than trying to fight off a bunch of worthless claims in court. And he asked Brandi to do him a favor. Would she mind going
over to pick Brent up and bring him over to talk? The investigators asked her if she thought that was a strange request, and she said not at all. Joe told her she would be better at putting Brent at ease, so that he would be more open to a deal. She felt honored that Joe would trust her to do that.

  So she did go get Brent, but after that meeting, he disappeared. At first, Joe denied knowing what had happened, but then he finally told Brandi his version of events.

  Jankowski said he’d asked Damon Tate to come over to loom in the background—to intimidate Brent Donovan if he didn’t go along. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. Donovan got loud and mouthy. Started making all kinds of ridiculous demands. Then he got in Damon Tate’s face, it escalated, and Donovan threw a punch. Tate punched back hard, and it proved fatal when Donovan fell backward and hit his head on the edge of the fireplace hearth. Joe said it was purely self-defense, but who would believe him and Damon Tate? There was only one way out. They agreed that Damon Tate would dispose of the body.

  Tate happened to know the perfect place—a wooded area behind one of their job sites. Tate had explored the property a couple of times a year earlier when he’d seen a big ten-point buck on the other side of the fence. When he was looking around, he found a cave. Not a big one—the entrance wasn’t much bigger than an armadillo hole—but when he went back with a flashlight, he could see that it was plenty deep. Maybe thirty feet. Couldn’t tell how far it went horizontally, but he couldn’t see the walls in any direction. Lots of cool air rushing out.

  Caves weren’t unusual in central Texas, but he was surprised nobody had ever boarded this one over for safety. He later found out that this property was a conservancy consisting of a thousand acres, and it was doubtful anyone even knew the cave was there.

  Jankowski said fine. He didn’t want to know where the body went, as long as it would never be found. Seal the hole up permanently. And that’s exactly what happened, as far as Brandi knew.

  There was only one problem with this account—a problem for Jankowski and Damon Tate, not for Brandi. According to location data for Damon Tate’s cell phone, he went straight home after leaving Jankowski’s house, thirty-seven minutes after Brandi had dropped Brent off. Damon Tate had never gone anywhere near a wooded former job site in the days that followed. So who had gotten rid of the body?