by Ben Rehder
He cupped his jaw again. All this talking was probably giving him some pain.
“Want some ice water or something?” I asked.
“Nah, I’m good, thanks. I can take another pain pill pretty soon. Anyway, I start running down the hallway and bam! Somebody decks me hard.”
“With their fist or an object?”
“Check this out,” he said, and he lifted the hair off his forehead. I leaned in closer and saw a diamond-shaped pattern in the bruising above his eye.
“No idea what they used?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Think it was anything from inside your house?”
“I don’t think so. I started to get up and they hit me again, this time across the side of my face. That time I stayed down.”
“Did it knock you out?”
“Man, I don’t know for sure, but I think so, because I suddenly realized the house was quiet and the dude was gone.”
“Any idea how he got in?”
“I left a sliding-glass door unlocked. Bad habit.”
“How long have you lived in that house?”
“Three years.”
“You own or rent?”
“Well, rent, kinda. My parents own it.”
“Got any roommates?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Ever had any?”
“No.”
“Anybody have any reason to be mad at you?”
A bungled burglary would be a good cover for someone who wanted to kick Harvey’s ass. I’ve seen people concoct more elaborate schemes for payback.
“Not that I know of,” Harvey said.
“No enemies?” I asked. “You’re not sleeping with someone’s wife or anything like that?”
“No, I’m generally against doing things that might get me killed.”
“Wise choice,” I said. “So let me ask you this: Does it seem odd that you’d get assaulted just a few hours after you were on a boat where someone drowned?”
Harvey had a blank expression. “Odd how?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said.
“Okay, but now I’m curious? You saying there might be some kind of connection?”
“Not really,” I said. “I’m just shooting in the dark.”
The disappointment he felt was obvious. He wanted to be part of a conspiracy.
“I’d give my left nut to find out who sucker-punched me,” he said.
I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket again. I ignored it for the moment and the vibration stopped.
“Dreaming about revenge?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you be?” he said.
I started to give him the trite reply about letting the cops handle it, knowing he probably wouldn’t—and who could blame him?—but my phone began to vibrate again, which meant something urgent was happening.
“Excuse me a minute,” I said to Harvey. “My pimp is calling.”
8
“I have no idea what to think,” I said, because Mia had just explained about the note from Dennis Babcock and asked me what I thought. I had left Harvey’s room and found a small waiting room nearby with nobody in it. A TV mounted on the wall was tuned to a rerun of That ’70s Show. “I have to ask—are you positive he dropped the note?”
“Absolutely. And the eye contact was unmistakable. He wanted to make sure I saw him drop it.”
I took a seat in one of the padded chairs facing the doorway to the waiting room. There was a coffee maker nearby, but no coffee in the pot.
“For the first time in a long time,” I said, “I’m at a loss for words.”
“You’ve never let that stop you,” Mia said.
I laughed.
Mia said, “You think he picked me at random?”
“Don’t know,” I said.
The truth is, no matter how skilled you are at surveillance, there is always the chance your subject will spot you. After all, we don’t have an unlimited budget, so we have to use the same vehicles again and again. Eventually, even your average civilian will wonder why he keeps seeing a Dodge Caravan or Chevy Tahoe everywhere he goes.
“Has to be the brother-in-law, Roscoe,” I said. “He’s the ‘he’ in the note.”
“Agreed,” Mia said. “But the question is, is it legitimate? What if Dennis is just having a laugh at my expense?”
And she was right to consider that possibility. Fraudsters didn’t like being watched, and they could be unpredictable in their responses. Some simply came after us with threats or actual violence. Others tried to lose us. And a small percentage would come up with something really unexpected—even a practical joke.
“So do I call the cops?” Mia asked. “Even though the note specifically says not to?”
“Good question,” I said.
“You’re not helping much.”
“I rarely do.”
“We don’t know what the situation is in that house,” Mia said. “What if I call the cops and something bad happens to Dennis later as a result?”
“Don’t want that,” I said.
“But what if I don’t call the cops and something happens to him?”
“Don’t want that, either,” I said.
“Your insight is breathtaking,” Mia said.
“I think he’s just jerking your chain,” I said. “Wanting to throw you off.”
“Yeah, and if I call the cops in that situation, I’d look like an idiot,” she said.
“A beautiful idiot,” I said. “But, yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“With a drop-dead gorgeous face,” I said.
“You’re sweet.”
“And a body that would give a—”
“Focus, Roy,” she said.
“Sorry.”
A nurse trotted past in the hallway.
“I need to do some background on Roscoe,” Mia said.
“I think so,” I said. “Anything more on Jeremy?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Did they say where they found him?”
“About three hundred yards east of Devil’s Cove,” he said.
Another nurse rushed past. Somebody was having a bad day in the ICU. I was glad they weren’t going toward Harvey’s room.
“They’re sure it’s him?” I asked.
She knew as well as I did what kind of condition the body would be in, and it wasn’t pretty. We’d learned more than we wanted to know about that from a case involving a lovely young woman named Erin Gentry, who had been killed and hidden in a stock tank. I’d been the one who found her, and it had left an impression on me that would likely still wash me with sadness when I was eighty years old.
A body in water for nearly forty-eight hours in the Texas heat begins to bloat and decompose quickly, and then turtles and fish begin to nibble on the softer parts. Face. Genitals. And so on. Making a positive ID wasn’t always easy without a DNA test.
“Nobody else is missing,” she said. “Maybe they used dental records.”
I nodded. “Want to do me a favor?” I asked.
“Call Ruelas?” she said.
“If you don’t mind.”
“Will do.”
We both knew he was more likely to answer if she called.
“Any luck today?” she asked.
I brought her up to speed, and she said, “So where does that leave you?”
“No idea. I guess I could talk to some more people on the boat, but I’m not sure I see the point. I have no reason to believe it was anything but a drowning.”
We were both silent for a moment, and then Mia said, “It was nice of you to look into it for Heidi.”
“Of course it was,” I said. “I’m a nice guy.”
“Don’t deflect,” she said.
“But I’m good at it.”
“You are a nice guy, Roy,” she said. “The bestest guy. My guy.”
I could feel my heart swelling and my face getting warm. That I lived in a world where a woman like Mia could feel
that way about me—well, it was more good fortune than any man deserved.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“You bet. See you at my place in a bit?”
I hadn’t thought about where I’d stay that night, but now the question was a no-brainer. I’d swing by my apartment for a change of clothes, and then maybe grab some to-go dinner to take to her house in Tarrytown.
“Absolutely,” I said.
After we hung up, I called Heidi and got voicemail.
“Hey, it’s Roy,” I said. “I heard the news today. I’m sure your brother and his wife have gotten an update from the sheriff’s office, but Mia and I are going to talk to Ruelas and see what the situation is. If we learn anything valuable, I’ll call you again. I hope that’s later tonight, but it’s almost six now, so it might be tomorrow. I’m really sorry about Jeremy, Heidi. Please give my condolences to everybody, okay?”
I sat quietly for a moment, just thinking, but nothing came of it.
I went back into Harvey’s room and saw that he was asleep. I left a short note thanking him for his help. As an afterthought, I added my phone number, but I doubted I’d talk to him again. There was nothing to investigate.
Still, though, as I walked out to the van, I kept remembering one thing he said.
Something funny and then something bad.
What did that mean?
Ruelas didn’t answer when Mia called, but he called her back shortly after. By the time I reached her house in Tarrytown with some Chinese food, he had told her what we both had expected.
The cops couldn’t say how Jeremy had died or whether he had any injuries or wounds that hadn’t occurred post-mortem. Ruelas also stressed that they had no reason to think a crime had been committed. The autopsy would take place in the next few days, and it would likely confirm that Jeremy had drowned. It would also reveal his blood alcohol content.
“Guess I should call Heidi again,” I said after we’d finished eating. We were on the couch with the television volume turned low.
“You don’t really want to, huh?”
“I feel like I let her down.”
“But why?”
“Because I didn’t really find anything out.”
“That’s because there isn’t anything to find out,” Mia said.
I didn’t reply.
“You don’t think he drowned?” Mia asked.
“I don’t know. He could’ve drowned, but that doesn’t mean something else didn’t happen.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone pushing him off the boat when he was too drunk to swim. Or punching him, and he fell overboard. He could’ve been unconscious when he went into the water.”
“But you have no reason to think that’s what happened,” Mia said.
“No reason to think it didn’t,” I said.
“Well, in that case, we have no reason to think winged monkeys didn’t pick him up, drop him in the water, and hold his head under.”
“I looked into that,” I said. “Nobody remembers any winged monkeys.”
The one thing still bothering me was the burglar in Harvey’s house just hours after Jeremy’s death. Maybe it really was a coincidence. Coincidences do happen now and then, which is why there is a word for such an occurrence.
“Want me to call Heidi for you?” Mia said.
“Thanks, but I’ll do it. First, tell me what you learned about Roscoe.”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Call Heidi, and then we’ll talk about Roscoe.”
“You’ve got something good, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me.”
“Nope.”
“You little minx.”
She just smiled.
So I called Heidi, and she answered this time. I told her what I had learned throughout the day, which wasn’t very much. But she was understanding and appreciative, anyway. That’s the way Heidi is. She and her other family members had already spoken to several different people from the sheriff’s department, including Ruelas and a victim services counselor, and they had told them the same thing Ruelas had told Mia. Looks like a drowning. Wait for the autopsy, but don’t anticipate anything surprising.
When I got off the phone, Mia came back from the kitchen with two bottles of beer and handed me one. Then she sat down again.
“His full name is Roscoe Trout. Twenty-eight years old. Originally from Bastrop. Divorced, with two kids. Works as a roofer when he can get—”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I said. “Get to the good stuff.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Always in a rush, aren’t you?”
“Hey,” I said. “Not always.”
She waited a long moment to test my patience. Then she said, “He’s been busted three times for writing bad checks, once for petty theft, and three years ago... he was charged with insurance fraud.”
“There we go,” I said. “Details?”
Now she grinned.
“He set his car on fire and claimed it was an accident. The investigators detected accelerant splashed all over the inside of the car. He eventually confessed in exchange for a plea agreement. He is currently on probation.”
“This is fantastic,” I said.
“Still...” Mia said.
“Yeah, I know. We still don’t know what’s going on with Roscoe and Dennis. Whatever it is, maybe they’re in on it together.”
Repeat offenders like Roscoe would try just about anything to muddy the waters and keep their scam running. They might decide that if Mia and I were busy trying to figure out if Dennis was really in danger, we’d have less time to try to catch him walking with his arms down. And they were right. This was a distraction. It would take time to determine what was really happening. And they knew if we called the cops about it, we could end up as laughingstocks.
Then again, Dennis might not be faking. Maybe he really needed help. Or maybe the truth was somewhere in between.
Evidently, Mia was thinking the same thing, because she said, “Remember the pizza delivery guy with a bomb around his neck?”
I did. Bizarre story.
A balding, middle-aged pizza deliveryman in Erie, Pennsylvania, robbed a bank with an odd device attached around his neck. When the police found him minutes later, he claimed that the device was a bomb—which it was—and that he had been forced to rob the bank. He started to panic and say the bomb was going to explode at any minute. And it did. The pizza deliveryman died three minutes before the bomb squad arrived.
Later, however, prosecutors alleged that the pizza man had helped plan the doomed scheme. One of his alleged co-conspirators confirmed that the pizza man was indeed involved, except that he didn’t know the bomb was going to be real. They’d double-crossed him. Supposedly. But it was a confusing, tangled case, and plenty of crime experts weren’t sure it had ever been completely sorted out.
I didn’t expect the Dennis Babcock case to be that complicated, but at a minimum, it was prudent to remember that things weren’t always necessarily what they seemed.
“How can we figure out if Dennis’s note is legitimate?” I asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mia said, as she rose from the couch and went into the kitchen. I heard the snap of the dead-bolt lock on the back door.
“Maybe we should just walk right up to the front door and talk to him,” I said.
“Maybe so,” Mia said. She came out of the kitchen and went into the master bathroom off a small central hallway. This being a Tarrytown house that was nearly one hundred years old, it wasn’t nearly as large as most modern homes.
“Want to do that tomorrow?” I asked. I figured I might as well help her with the case again, now that I was done investigating Jeremy Sawyer’s death.
I heard the splash of water in the tub as Mia started to draw a bath.
“Mia?” I said. She hadn’t answered my question.
A moment later, she appeared in the bathroom doorway.
She was no longer clothed.
“Sweet Jesus,” I said. My heart was already beginning to race.
“How about we forget Dennis Babcock for the night?” she asked.
“Who?”
“That’s better,” she said. “Gonna join me?” She turned and went back into the bathroom.
9
We had just fallen asleep when Mia’s doorbell rang.
I looked through one of the small inset windows and saw two uniformed Travis County deputies on the porch. I recognized one of them—a guy named Leo Bricker, who wasn’t my biggest fan. He was one of those cops who didn’t appreciate guys like me poking around in investigations, although he would grudgingly accept any helpful information I might share with him. Come to think of it, he was a lot like Ruelas in that way, except that Bricker had zero sense of humor and no ability to roll with a joke. The other deputy was a young woman I’d never met.
I opened the door and said, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
“But you don’t even know why we’re here,” Bricker said.
See what I mean? As humorless as a pile of rocks.
“That’s true,” I said. “I guess you could be handing out good-citizenship awards.”
Bricker didn’t even smirk. “Not likely. You should answer your phone every now and then. We wasted time driving over to your apartment before we came here.”
“You called?” I said.
“About thirty minutes ago.”
“I must’ve been in the middle of my beauty regimen. What’s up?”
He said, “You know a man named Gilbert Holloway?”
“Herbert Hoover’s vice president?”
“He captains a party barge on Lake Travis.”
“Oh, that guy,” I said, wondering where this was going. “I didn’t know his name until now.”
“Did you see him at the lake earlier today?” Bricker asked.
“I did, yeah. Why?”
“Wanna tell us what happened?”
It’s never good when a law enforcement officer shows up and starts asking you questions, especially late at night.