Get Busy Dying (Roy Ballard Mysteries)

by Ben Rehder

  This morning, when we’d been brainstorming, she had said, “If Boz Gentry is hiding at the ranch and Lutz warned him we might show up out there, where would Gentry go?”

  “Uh, the Amalfi Coast? I hear it’s lovely.”

  “Think about it,” she said. “He’s an avid outdoorsman. He hunts. He fishes.”

  I saw where she was going. “He camps. He’s a camper.”

  “Exactly,” Mia said.

  “He camps just for the fun of it,” I said, getting excited. “Even when he’s not on the run. He actually enjoys spending time in a sleeping bag on the ground. Even if Lutz didn’t warn him about us, Gentry might’ve been camping on the ranch anyway, instead of staying at the ranch house. It would be like a vacation for him. The weather couldn’t be any better for it.” I pointed at her. “You, my friend, are more than a pretty face.”

  “Thanks. Does that mean you are... a happy camper?”

  “Well, see, now I have to subtract points for the bad pun.”

  There were no other vehicles approaching from either direction, so Mia pulled to the shoulder and let me out near the northeast corner of the ranch. I was wearing a dark green shirt and brown pants, so I would blend in with the heavily wooded countryside. Mia drove away while I hopped the fence and disappeared into the brush in a matter of about seven seconds. Then I simply waited to hear from her. It wouldn’t take long for her to drive to Blanco and park somewhere.

  That was the other smart idea Mia had come up with: We would stay connected via Skype while I searched the ranch, or as long as we had a signal. Mia would be on her laptop, using a screen-recording app to save the video coming from my phone. So if I should happen upon Boz Gentry, all I had to do was aim my phone at him and the evidence we needed to crack the case would be backed up, off site, immediately.

  “This way,” Mia had said, “if he should take your phone away at gunpoint or something, he won’t be able to destroy the video. I’ll have it.”

  “Yes,” I’d said, “that would be the important thing in a situation like that. Saving the video. Don’t worry about whether I might get shot or something.”

  “Hey, you’re tough, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if a bullet just bounced right off.”

  We’d chosen this particular corner of the ranch for a reason. I couldn’t search the entire ranch—not all 800 acres. So we’d tried to think like avid outdoors enthusiasts, hoping we could figure out where Gentry might set up camp. The answer was fairly easy.

  Near water.

  Google Maps revealed that a strong creek ran through Albeck’s ranch, and somebody—Albeck or a previous owner—had constructed a dam at some point. The result was a twenty- or thirty-acre pond—known as a “tank” in Texas—that was located in the middle of the ranch. Satellite view showed a small dock on the east side, complete with a jon boat. Nice little place to catch a few fish for dinner. If I were Boz Gentry, I’d be hanging out around the tank, or somewhere along the creek. And this northeast corner, where Mia had dropped me off, was less than a quarter-mile from the creek.

  I expected this outing to take no more than three hours tops. I carried only two pieces of equipment—my phone and my Glock nine-millimeter automatic, currently riding in a nylon holster on my hip. Yes, I was trespassing and I was armed, but I’d decided I didn’t want to risk encountering Boz Gentry, a man who might’ve killed Tyler Lutz yesterday morning, without a weapon.

  After twelve minutes of waiting patiently in the woods, I heard the familiar sound of an incoming Skype video call. I accepted, and there was Mia.

  “Hey, where’s the young Asian girl I asked for?” I said. “Oh, sorry. Wrong web cam.”

  “You couldn’t afford me,” Mia said.

  “No doubt. You see me all right? It’s pretty bright out here.”

  “Looks fine,” Mia said.

  “You recording?”

  “Yep,” she said.

  “I have no idea if I’ll have a good signal all over the ranch,” I said, “but if our call gets dropped, I’m going to keep going anyway.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just be careful.”

  “Okay, I’m going to turn the volume down now.” I couldn’t risk having some unexpected sound coming from my phone, announcing my presence.

  “Gotcha,” Mia said.

  I began my trek, holding the phone loosely at my waist, but pointing the screen forward. The only problem with being on Skype was that I couldn’t simultaneously use Google’s satellite view to guide my progress. Not a huge drawback, because all I had to do was follow the fence line until I came to the creek. I was no trailblazer, but that wouldn’t be difficult at all.

  Except it was.

  After less than one hundred yards, I hit a grove of cedar trees so thick, it was almost impossible to walk through them without a machete. I struggled forward for about five minutes, gaining some nasty scratches on my arms and face, before I gave up and went back the way I’d come. Why bother? Much easier to go around the grove, knowing it was extremely unlikely that Boz Gentry would be camping inside that grove.

  I checked my phone and Mia was still there. Even though my volume was down, she could still hear me, so I whispered, “Going around the trees.”

  She gave me a thumbs-up.

  I walked in a westerly direction, following the edge of the grove. There was an obvious trail here, worn down to caliche—loose limestone soil and small rocks—by generations of wild animals. They didn’t like going through the trees, either, apparently. Path of least resistance and all that.

  I was moving slowly, quietly, but after walking for just a few minutes, the trees became less dense. In fact, a second trail branched off from the first one and headed north. I followed it. White-winged doves were calling from nearby trees. A light breeze was at my back. It would have been a pleasant hike if I hadn’t been looking for a man who might be a murderer.

  I kept moving, and after another eighty or ninety yards, I began to hear the faint sounds of water gurgling over rocks. This deer trail was leading straight to the creek, which wasn’t surprising. Animals are smart enough to live near water.

  I pressed on, through another thin copse of cedar and oak trees, and over a small rise, and when I crested it, I could see down into a wide draw, where the creek was flowing from right to left in front of me. It was actually a very beautiful scene. The water must have been fifteen yards across at its widest point, but it narrowed between two low bluffs and tumbled down a limestone-studded hillside.

  Then I spotted the tent.

  Seventy yards away. Maybe eighty, at the most. It was constructed from camouflage fabric, and it was tucked between two bush-like cedars, so it would’ve been easy to miss. Plus, I was almost too startled to realize that, yes, it was really a tent, and it was right there near the water’s edge, where we’d speculated it might be. I mean, Mia and I frequently have to take action based on nothing but hunches or guesses, but it’s not often that one pays off so quickly and accurately.

  I was frozen in place at the top of the hill, and I realized I wasn’t aiming my phone in front of me, as I was supposed to. I pointed it down the hill, toward the tent.

  And I simply waited. Watching. Looking for any movement. I saw nothing. If Boz Gentry was around, I didn’t see him.

  It was past noon now, but Gentry could be inside the tent, sleeping. What else was he going to do during the day? He might enjoy camping, but after a few weeks, wouldn’t it get a bit tedious? How do you fill your time? Even worse—how do you fill your time when you can’t use any sort of electronic device that might lead the authorities to you? No cell phone. No tablet. Maybe he was a reader. Maybe he had a battery-operated TV.

  I waited some more, until I felt comfortable moving forward again. Fortunately, the tent was on my side of the creek. I wouldn’t have to wade across to check it out.

  I slowly turned my phone and checked the screen. Mia’s eyes were big and she was nodding. She had seen the tent, too. I turned the phone forward again.
r />   There was no use putting this off. I would have to go down there eventually. If Gentry was in that tent, he’d have the advantage. He could see me coming. In fact, he might be watching me right now. Through binoculars. Or through a rifle scope. I suddenly felt very vulnerable.

  I started down the hill toward the tent, picking my steps carefully. Step on a dry cedar stick and it would crack loudly, giving Gentry a warning. Fortunately, the sound of the water flowing through the creek would provide some cover.

  Should I pull my Glock from its holster? No. Absolutely not. If I were Gentry and I spotted some trespasser approaching with a drawn weapon, I’d probably feel justified to fire a shot in self-defense.

  I continued down the hill. It was steeper than I had originally thought. The ground was mostly caliche, so I had to be careful not to slip.

  I was now forty yards from the tent.

  And I was having second thoughts. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to set up a surveillance camera instead and come back for it later, as we had planned to do at Albeck’s house?

  Thirty yards.

  No movement anywhere in the draw. Not even a bird.

  Twenty yards.

  I had now reached the more level ground of the creek bank. The tent was to my left, downstream.

  I moved closer. Ten yards.

  The tent flaps suddenly flew outward. A man in full camo burst out of the tent and marched directly toward me, pointing a handgun, and shouting.

  “Get down! On the ground, motherfucker! Right now!”

  27

  You know what you should do when a man pointing a gun screams at you to get down? You should get down. That’s my advice, anyway. Especially if you’re trespassing. Especially if you’re carrying a gun yourself, and he can later claim that you went for it, even if you didn’t. And even more especially if the man might’ve killed someone else the day before.

  So I did get down. I placed my hands on the damp soil and took a prone position on my stomach, attempting to keep the phone in my hand aimed discreetly at the man. Not that it would do much good, because in the two or three seconds before I lay down, as he came toward me, I saw that he had his face streaked with brown and green camo paint. It, in effect, concealed his identity. Was this Boz Gentry? Honestly, I had no idea.

  And then I felt him place his hiking boot roughly on the back of my neck.

  “Got you this time, numbnut,” the man said.

  What did that mean? Got me this time?

  He leaned over me and I felt him remove my handgun from its holster. I heard him pop the magazine loose, then rack the slide. In my peripheral vision, I saw him fling my gun toward the creek. I heard a splash.

  “You owe me five hundred dollars,” I said. My voice sounded odd—probably because of the aforementioned boot.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said. “I should pop one in the back of your head and toss you in after it.”

  “Do that and I’ll strike you from my Christmas card list.” I have a tendency to be a smartass when I’m nervous. Other times, too.

  “Think this is a great time to crack jokes, numbnut?” I felt cold steel on my temple. “How about now? Hilarious, huh? It’s just you and me out here. Remember that. All alone.”

  “Don’t forget the wonders of modern technology,” I said. “I’m on a Skype call right now. Everything you’re saying and doing is being recorded.”

  I wanted him to know there was a witness to everything that had happened so far, including his threats, and that he’d have to be really stupid to take it any further. Of course, I knew he’d take my phone away—and he did. I felt him grab it roughly from my hand. The boot was still on my neck.

  “Yeah, nice try,” he said.

  He held the phone down low, in my line of sight. The Skype app was still open, but the call had disconnected. I must have lost the signal when I came down into the draw. This, needless to say, was a disappointment. I could only hope that the signal had lasted long enough that Mia had seen the man coming toward me with the gun. If she had, she would have called the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office and told them what was happening. If the call had dropped before the man had come out of the tent, then Mia would simply be waiting to hear back from me again. Which would suck.

  I said, “My partner knows—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Valid point,” I said. “Were you on the debate team?”

  “Don’t push me, numbnut. You’re a trespasser, and in Texas, that means I can just shoot you if I want to.”

  “I’m pretty sure that isn’t a realistic interpretation of the law,” I said.

  “Sure is,” he said.

  “Okay, then. Far be it from me to question the quality of your ninth-grade education.”

  “This is a nice phone,” he said. “Maybe I’ll keep it.”

  “That, plus the Glock, and you’ll owe me about twelve hundred bucks,” I said. “Of course, that doesn’t include airtime, state and local taxes, or my usual handling fee. I can mail you an invoice.” I wasn’t happy that I continued to sound as if I’d inhaled helium.

  “Then maybe I’ll just throw it in the creek, too,” he said, “and you can suck it. Besides, I told you to shut up.”

  Unfortunately, since the phone had been active, with the Skype app open, he didn’t need to enter my passcode to gain access to my phone. I couldn’t do anything but lay there while he explored my personal information.

  “Roy Ballard,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing out here, Roy Ballard? Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m a nudist,” I said. “I was seconds away from stripping down. Imagine what you missed.”

  I was stalling, in case deputies were on the way to the ranch.

  “You some kind of fag?” the man asked.

  “Are there different kinds?” I said.

  “Don’t be a smartass.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, “but it’s possible that your expertise on faggery is more extensive than mine.”

  He pushed down harder on my neck with his boot.

  “You’re blowing it, numbnut,” he said. “I ain’t a big fan of the game warden, but in this case, maybe I’ll make a call.”

  Wait a second. This wasn’t making sense. Boz Gentry wouldn’t call the game warden. He wouldn’t call anyone. I used deductive reasoning to conclude that this man wasn’t Boz Gentry.

  “You think I’m a poacher?” I said. “I don’t have a rifle.”

  “You were scouting for later,” he said. “I’m about sick of poachers, I’ll tell you that.”

  This man wasn’t Boz Gentry and he had no clue why I was out here. If he called the game warden, I’d likely get arrested. So it was time to come clean.

  “I’m not a poacher,” I said. “And if you’ll take your boot off my neck, I’ll tell you what I’m doing out here.”

  “You’ll tell me anyway,” he said.

  “True. But think of all the humanitarian awards you could win if you let me up.”

  To my surprise, after a few seconds, he removed his boot. Grudgingly. I rolled over and started to stand up, but he said, “Just keep your ass on the ground there.”

  “What am I gonna do? Run?”

  “Only if you wanna get shot,” he said.

  I stayed on the ground. I could look directly at him now, and even with the camo paint on his face, I could confirm with no doubt that it wasn’t Boz Gentry. This man was at least six or seven years older than Gentry. Maybe even closer to my age. If he was one of Gentry’s friends, I didn’t recognize him. Whoever he was, he still had his gun pointed at me. Semi-automatic. Looked like a Beretta Pico .380. Not that I’m a gun expert, but I’d almost bought one myself, so I recognized it. I was surprised that a dude in the woods with his face painted wasn’t carrying something larger. Like an elephant gun.

  “Let’s hear your bullshit story,” he said.

  “Who does your make-up?” I said. Couldn’t resist. That pissed him off, so before he could reply, I said, �
��My name is Roy Ballard. I’m a freelance legal videographer. Boz Gentry’s insurance company hired me to obtain evidence that he is still alive.”

  His brow furrowed. Birds chirped. The creek gurgled. And finally he said, “You’re a what?”

  “A videographer. I try to shoot video of people who are committing insurance fraud.”

  “And you’re trying to find Boz?”

  “I am.”

  “What the fuck for? He’s supposed to be dead. Burnt up.” He wasn’t believing me yet.

  “You watch the news?” I asked.

  “Fox.”

  “Anything local?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The truth is, nobody knows for sure whether Boz is dead, and it’s looking like he probably isn’t, and I was hired to find him. Since Alex is Boz’s friend, I figured Boz might be hiding out on this ranch, and when I saw that tent...”

  He shook his head, disgusted. “It’s not a tent, numbnut. It’s a bow-hunting blind.”

  I looked at it. “But there aren’t any windows,” I said. I noticed that he wasn’t pointing his gun with as much deliberation as before.

  “You shoot through the fabric,” he said. “What’re you, stupid?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m not a hunter. Were you aware that meat can be readily purchased in stores?”

  He ignored the jab and said, “So you thought you’d just invite yourself onto the ranch?”

  “Uh, pretty much, yeah,” I said. “You friends with Boz?”

  “No, I ain’t friends with Boz,” he said, and it was clear that he didn’t want to be.

  “Can I ask who you are?” I said.

  “Good God,” he said. “They really sent the B team, didn’t they? You’re supposed to be some kind of investigator? I’m Jerry Gillespie, the ranch manager.”

  My earlier assumption—that the lack of livestock on the ranch meant there probably wouldn’t be a manager—had turned out wrong.

  “You live here on the ranch, Jerry?” If he did, that would rule out the idea of Boz hiding in the ranch house.