by Ben Rehder
Here came a gold Mazda truck that parked underneath the Walmart sign. Silver toolbox? Yep. I used my Canon super-zoom camera to take a closer look at the driver. White guy. Late twenties or early thirties. Ragged hair. Needed a shave. I snapped a few photos.
Earlier I had asked for his cell number, and he had surprised me by giving it, so now I sent a text: Hit some traffic. Be there soon.
I watched as he checked his cell phone, then put it down and lit a cigarette.
I got the truck’s license plate number. Used my laptop to access a website that identified the vehicle’s owner as Leopold Julius Pitts. Leo.
In less than two minutes, I’d accessed his criminal history, and it was fairly impressive. Several drug charges, along with a long history of theft and burglary. Very typical pattern of behavior for a user desperately trying to raise cash for his next fix.
Sometimes, when I feel the need, I carry a handgun, but I wasn’t today. I couldn’t imagine I’d need one in the parking lot of a Walmart, with cars passing by just twenty feet away.
I waited one more minute, then drove over and parked on the driver’s side of the Mazda truck. I came around the rear of my Toyota just as he was getting out of the truck.
“Leo?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “You Bruce?”
I hadn’t been entirely forthcoming with him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for meeting me.”
We shook hands. He was a slight man—slender and no more than five foot seven. He appeared nervous. He would meet my eyes, but only for a moment.
“You got the money?” he said.
“Yep,” I said, pulling the cash from my pocket. “You got the coin?”
Why did this feel like a drug deal?
He pulled it from his pocket. The coin was inside a small plastic sleeve for protection.
“May I see it?” I said.
He handed the hobo nickel to me, but I didn’t give him the cash just yet. The sleeve had a funky chemical smell to it—something familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Your old man is a collector?” he said.
“Oh, you bet,” I said. “He started about ten years ago. I’d never even heard of hobo nickels before that. Are you a collector?”
“Not really.”
“So where did you get this one?”
“Bought it at a garage sale for fifty cents because it was kinda cool. Then I figured out it was worth some money.”
“That’s pretty lucky,” I said. “How long ago was this?”
“Last year.”
“Any idea who carved it?” I said.
“No way of knowing,” he said. “I got in touch with some expert on the Internet, but he wasn’t able to tell me for sure.”
I turned it over and inspected the back. Nothing I hadn’t already seen in the photos.
“Know when it was carved?”
“Nope. I’m no expert on these things. You’re here to buy it, right? I didn’t expect a bunch of questions.”
“Sorry, yeah, I am,” I said. “I just thought you might be able to tell me something about it, so I could pass that information along to my dad.”
“That’s cool, but I need to take off, so... ”
He held his hand out for the cash.
I didn’t move. I hadn’t arrived here intending to provoke or confront him, but now I was thinking that might be wiser than letting him go. Did it really matter if I ruffled a few of his feathers?
“You know Cole Dunn?” I said.
I could see him deflate both physically and mentally. “Fuck, man. Are you a cop?”
That meant he did know Cole Dunn.
“Not a cop,” I said. “Alex Dunn’s insurance company hired me to find the coin collection.”
“If you’re a cop, you have to tell me,” he said. “It’s the law.”
That wasn’t true, but I didn’t argue with him about it.
“Did you get the coin from Cole before he died?” I asked.
“None of your damn business,” Leo said.
“Was he a friend of yours?”
“I got it at a garage sale,” he said.
“Let me put your mind at ease,” I said. “I’m going to give you the cash because I plan to keep the coin. And all I really care about is finding the rest of the collection. That’s what I was hired to do.”
I didn’t mention that everything I had learned would be shared with the police.
“Okay, then give me the cash,” Leo said.
“Just a few more questions,” I said. “Did you get the coin from Cole?”
“I’m not answering your damn questions,” Leo said. “I want the money.”
“You realize this coin might be stolen, right? You could be in possession of stolen merchandise.”
“Fuck if it is,” he said. “Either give me the money or give me the coin back, asshole.”
He was getting worked up.
“Did you steal the collection from Alex Dunn? Maybe you and Cole were working together?”
“You think I’m a thief?” Leo said.
I was just about to make a mistake.
“I know you’re a thief, Leo,” I said. “And a burglar. And a drug user. I already checked your record. The only thing that—”
Before I finished that last sentence, Leo hauled off and punched me hard right in the solar plexus. I hadn’t seen it coming. The air shot out of my lungs and I doubled over. I couldn’t speak. Hell, I could hardly breathe. Leo grabbed the cash from my hand, got into his truck, and drove away.
Slowly, my breath came back to me.
I decided I would not be leaving favorable feedback for TexasLeo on eBay.
8
By now, it was nearly five o’clock, and I was tempted to call it a day. Not that we keep regular hours, because we don’t. But getting sucker punched sort of robs you of the motivation to work into the evening.
Screw it, I thought. Might as well plow forward. That way I could impress Mia with my industriousness when I saw her in the morning.
Only problem was, plowing forward meant I had to get in touch with Ruelas, because I needed to know if the medical examiner had determined how and when Alex Dunn died. So I got back into my Toyota, still there in the Walmart parking lot, and dialed the number. It went to voicemail, just as I expected. For reasons that I can’t grasp, Ruelas seems to despise me as much as I despise him, which means he doesn’t take my calls, or return them, unless he has to. In this case, he’d have to.
I left the same kind of warm, friendly message I always leave for him. “Hey, it’s Roy Ballard. How are you? Fine, I hope. Ever get those hair plugs? A full head of hair might take the attention away from your beer belly. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. I’m wondering how Alex Dunn died, and I bet you have the answer to that by now. I’m sure you’ll want something in exchange, and I have something really good. Really good. So get back to me at your convenience.”
I drove back to my apartment, had a snack, then sat down again at my computer and opened up Facebook. Good old reliable Facebook. Almost always helpful for a guy like me who needs personal information about people he doesn’t know.
Using one of my fake accounts—a fictitious woman named Linda Peterson—I searched for Cole Dunn. Found him easy enough. The only posts visible to me on his timeline were cover photos, which meant he had tight privacy settings or he wasn’t very active on Facebook. His current cover photo, dated two and a half years ago, showed him leaning against a sharp-looking Mercedes coupe. His only comment: “Check out my new ride.” A friend had said, “Spoiled brat LOL.” The cover photo prior to that one showed him on a cigarette boat with several scantily clad women.
I clicked on his friends list. You can hide your friends from strangers, but Cole hadn’t done that. Was Leo Pitts on the list? Yep, but I’d already expected that. I went to Pitts’s profile. Quite a few of his posts were visible to me, so I scrolled back at least six months. Didn’t see anything interesting. I could confi
rm that he and Cole were close friends, but that was about it. I had to accept the possibility that Cole had given Leo the hobo nickel—maybe in exchange for drugs?—and that Leo knew nothing about the disappearance of the collection.
So now I clicked over to Callie Dunn’s account, where I found limited commentary, but plenty of photos. Callie and her friends at happy hour. Callie and her friends at various concerts. Callie and her friends at charity-related events. She led an active social life, and she enjoyed documenting it. She passed along a lot of silly memes. If she had political views, she kept them to herself.
I scrolled further downward. More photos. More memes. A few photos with her brothers, and a couple with her dad.
I couldn’t help stopping at a photo of Callie and her friends—seven of them—in swimsuits around a beautifully designed and lushly landscaped swimming pool. This looked like a wealthy person’s backyard, as opposed to a pool at a five-star hotel or resort. They were a lovely group of young women. Healthy. Happy. Not a care in the world. Callie had given it a caption: Alicia’s birthday party.
Alicia? Wasn’t that Alex Dunn’s second wife? I checked the names tagged in the photo, and sure enough, it was Alicia Potter. I clicked on the name and was taken to her Facebook page. Again, not much of a privacy screen. Always good news for me, or for any sleazebag or stalker wanting to creep on a woman’s page.
Potter had been on Facebook for about eight years, and it appeared all of her posts and photos were visible to the public. I spent an hour scrolling backwards on her timeline and learned that she and Callie Dunn were friends at least that far back, and they remained friends today. Maybe Alicia had met Alex Dunn through Callie. I saw quite a few photos of Alicia and Alex Dunn back when they were married, and I noticed that she smiled less and less in those photos as the marriage drew to its conclusion last fall. Even when she wasn’t smiling, she was quite striking, with pale skin set off by bright red lipstick. In her most recent photos, her jet-black shoulder-length hair was asymmetrical—longer on the left side, where it curled in a gentle wave under her jaw to frame her face. I don’t know why, but that hairstyle made her look European.
I wondered if Alicia Potter would be willing to speak to me. Maybe she could provide some objective insight into the dynamics of the Dunn family. Of course, I realized that even if she told me everything she knew, it probably wouldn’t lead anywhere—but that’s the way an investigation typically unfolds. It’s like panning for gold; you have to sift through a bunch of useless background noise until you find that one nugget of critical information. Sometimes you have to pan in dozens of different streams, so to speak, before your efforts pay off. So maybe I should contact Alicia Potter.
Or maybe I should accept the very real possibility that Serenity Sweet stole the collection. Perhaps Occam’s Razor—the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the right one—applied in this situation.
On the other hand, why not see if Alicia would talk? I switched from my Linda Peterson Facebook account to my real, and seldom used, Roy Ballard Facebook account, and sent her a private message. Cost me a dollar. That Mark Zuckerberg is one money-grubbing genius, isn’t he?
After all that hard work, I deserved a cold beer, and just as I popped the top, Ruelas called me back.
I answered by saying, “Is this about that pizza I ordered?”
“You got something on the Alex Dunn case?” he said.
“You have no sense of humor.”
“Only because you never say anything funny. You got something on Dunn or not?”
“Yeah, but I have no idea if it’ll be useful.”
“Surprise, surprise. What is it?”
“Well, let’s talk about Dunn’s cause of death first.”
He let out a pronounced sigh. “One of these days—and this might be the day—I’m gonna file on you for withholding evidence.”
“That would be rude.”
“If you have something relevant to the case and you don’t—”
“I know, I know,” I said.
“You’re not a cop, understand? You’re not even a licensed PI. You’re just some guy with a camera who snoops on people.”
“I appreciate the kind words.”
“And the only reason I haven’t busted you yet is because I like your partner.”
“She’s probably flattered, while simultaneously considering a protective order.”
He knew as well as I did that he’d never follow through with his threats. Mia and I gained a lot of valuable information during our investigations, which we often shared with Ruelas and other law enforcement officers. It was only fair that Ruelas should give us something in return. If he were to bust me, or to take the information I provided and not give something back, I’d never again share what I’d learned, and that would hurt him in the long run. I’m sure it pained him to admit this to himself.
“Most of the crap you give me is worthless,” he said.
“Except for the ninety-nine percent that isn’t,” I said.
Another sigh. Then: “Okay, spit it out, hotshot.”
This was the way it usually went. He’d make me share my information first—obviously a dominance thing—but I didn’t care. Let him think he held the upper hand.
“Earlier today,” I said, “I bought a hobo nickel from an eBay seller here in Austin. Turned out to be a friend of Cole Dunn’s named Leo Pitts. I figure you recognize that name.”
“Yep.”
“It was one of the nickels photographed in Alex Dunn’s most recent inventory of his collection.”
“Doesn’t mean it was stolen with the others,” Ruelas said.
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t,” I said.
“You talk to the guy?” Ruelas said.
“Better. I met in person and bought the nickel.”
“So you might be guilty of possessing stolen merchandise.”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t be certain it was the same nickel until I had it in my hands,” I said. “Once I realized it was, I behaved like a law-abiding citizen and phoned the proper authorities, or in this case, you.”
“I’m gonna need that nickel,” he said. “ASAP.”
“I’ll drop it off tomorrow morning,” I said.
“When you saw that listing on eBay, you should’ve called me. Now my chain of evidence is for shit. Did Pitts say how he got the coin?”
“Claimed he got it at a garage sale.”
“Did he admit to knowing Cole?”
“He did not. How did Cole die, by the way?”
“That case is with APD, but they’re telling me an overdose.”
“Intentional?”
“Not as far as they can tell. He didn’t leave a note.”
“Which drug?”
“Heroin. You can get some of that shit for ten bucks a pop nowadays.”
“Did he die at home?”
“You’re gonna use up all your good will real soon.”
“Oh, come on. This doesn’t even count. Did he die at home?”
“He did.”
“I assume the coin collection wasn’t sitting there in plain sight.”
“Nope. Still missing.”
“So Serenity Sweet is still a suspect?”
“Absolutely.”
“For the theft, or for Alex Dunn’s death?”
“Right now, both.”
“Any idea how Alex Dunn died? Was he smothered?”
Ruelas paused for a moment, so I knew he had something good to tell me. “Gotta be confidential,” he said. “And I’m not bullshitting. Not a word to anyone.”
“Absolutely. Just Mia and me.”
I could hear him taking a sip of coffee and setting the paper cup down. Then he said, “Somebody fooled around with his heart meds. Emptied a couple of the capsules and filled ’em with cyanide.”
9
I kept my word and left the nickel for Ruelas at his office the next morning, and then I showed up at Mia’s house at nine o’clock. She peeked through the s
mall inset glass window, grinned when she saw the bag of donuts in my hand, and opened the front door. She was wearing jeans and a red sleeveless top. Gorgeous without makeup. Stunning. Makeup only made her look different, not prettier. Her cheeks were just slightly pink from her outing yesterday.
“Glazed?” she asked.
“No, I’m perfectly alert,” I said.
I handed her the bag. She had a weakness for glazed donuts.
“I shouldn’t,” she said.
“You should.”
“I ate all kinds of junk yesterday.”
“How was it?” I said. “Do zebras still have stripes?”
“It was fun,” she said, turning to go into the kitchen. I closed the front door and took a seat on the couch. The scent of her perfume was strong. She must’ve just put some on. “There were a bunch of kids there,” she said from the kitchen, “so it was kind of noisy. We left a little earlier than we’d planned and went down to the Riverwalk. I brought you something.”
“Oh, cool. Did you get me a drunken sorority girl?”
“See that plastic bag on the coffee table? Open it.”
I did, and inside was a T-shirt from my favorite San Antonio pub, Durty Nelly’s. It was a lively place, with a piano player banging out classic songs while the patrons sang along. The floor was always littered with shells from the buckets of peanuts on every table.
“Hey, thanks,” I said. “That was very nice.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She started the coffeemaker, then returned with four donuts on a plate and sat down beside me. She handed me a napkin, then took a bite of a donut. Her eyes rolled with pleasure. After we had each finished a donut, she said, “So... any progress?”
“Oh, just a little,” I said.
I started by telling her about my eBay discovery and subsequent meeting with Leo Pitts. I even included the part where he punched me in the gut.
“And you didn’t hit him back?” she said.
“One blow from me might’ve killed him.”