by Ben Rehder
Want to grab some dinner tonight?
A full minute passed. What was she doing? Sending the photo to Daniel Ivy? Or deciding whether she wanted to say yes?
Then she finally said. Sounds good.
Got something I want to discuss, I said.
And it was true. Not Garlen, either. Not anything personal.
The Raleigh Street house? she asked. Then she added: I talked to Abby, followed by a smiley face.
No, something else, I said.
What?
The Alex Dunn murder.
What about it? she asked.
I think we should try to solve it.
I picked her up at seven and took her to Salty Sow on Manor Road, because we’d driven past it a few weeks earlier and she’d said she wanted to try it sometime. They billed themselves as an “American gastropub” that served “contemporary farmhouse fare” which was “mindfully sourced,” and they also pointed out that the place was “unpretentious.” Something smelled good, I’ll give it that much.
“So... ” Mia said, scanning the menu. The place was packed.
Mia had already ordered a “Rosemary’s Piglet,” which was a drink of some sort. I’d requested a Miller beer, and our waiter informed me that they primarily focused on craft products from regional breweries. So I’d asked him to bring me whatever he liked best. He told me what it was, but I’d already forgotten the name of it, although I think it was a lager. We’d also ordered some truffled deviled eggs for starters, although Mia had expressed interest in the bacon and gruyère roasted bone marrow. I’m pretty sure she was pulling my leg. Hope so.
“So... ” I said in reply.
“The Alex Dunn thing, huh?” She was looking at me over the top of her menu.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Why not?”
“Because we aren’t being paid to solve it?” Mia said.
She was absolutely gorgeous tonight, meaning she looked like she always did. She was wearing a red-and-white striped button-down shirt, a denim skirt, and sandals.
I said, “How dare you be so profit-driven and financially responsible.”
“Gotta pay for all these meals we’ve been eating,” she said. “First the Hula Hut, and now this. You’re spoiling me.”
“You deserve to be spoiled,” I said.
“Thank you.” She looked at her menu again, but she was smiling with satisfaction.
I said, “I’m not talking about spending a massive number of man-hours on it. But we have some free time yet again, because we’re both so damn good at our jobs.”
“But, seriously,” Mia said. “Why do you want to solve it?”
“Curiosity, I guess. And just to prove we can.”
“Trying to keep me busy so I won’t think about Garlen?” she said.
Our waiter arrived just then with our drinks and the deviled eggs, which were topped with bacon and chives. “Have you decided on your entrées?” he asked.
“Just need a few more minutes,” I said.
“How’s the candied pork belly?” Mia asked.
“Divine,” said the waiter.
When he left, I pretended I hadn’t heard Mia’s question. Instead, I said, “The fried chicken looks good, but when they say ‘neck bone gravy,’ do they really mean it? Wait. Never mind. Don’t tell me.”
We put our menus down. Mia sipped her drink, nodded approvingly, and sipped again. I took a drink of my beer. Not bad, whatever it was.
“But we drop it if new work comes in, right?” Mia said. The room was loud enough that we were leaning over the table.
“Sure. Or if it appears we’re spinning our wheels.”
I gestured toward the plate of deviled eggs. Mia picked one up and took a dainty bite. I took one and popped the entire thing into my mouth.
Mia said, “You understand that Ruelas and his team have access to phone records, emails, texts, social media posts that we can’t see...”
“Yeah.”
“They’ve gotten several search warrants, and they’re the only ones who know exactly what they found... ”
“Right.”
“They’ve got the footage from Alex Dunn’s security camera... ”
“I know.”
“And they still haven’t figured out who killed him.”
“That obviously means they need our help,” I said.
Mia laughed. “Got any bright ideas how we should go about it?”
“Have you ever known me to have a bright idea?” I said. “I prefer the fumble-around-and-get-lucky method, like my junior prom. Look at it this way: there’s absolutely no pressure. If we strike out, we strike out. Damn, these eggs are good.”
“They are.”
I put another one in my mouth, and as I was chewing, I looked across the room and saw a familiar face looking right at me, before she quickly looked away.
When I was younger, and when Austin was smaller, I would always see at least one person I knew—sometimes several—almost anywhere I went. For instance, a trip to the grocery store could turn into a miniature high-school reunion. If I went to a nightclub with friends, I’d see many of the same people I’d seen the previous weekend, or the weekend before that. But that had changed as the population had grown, and now it was the norm to feel anonymous in my own hometown.
Except this time.
Kiersten was seated at a small table against the far wall.
“What?” Mia said. She looked in the direction I was looking.
Kiersten’s dinner companion was, by any standard, a handsome gentleman. Mid-forties, dressed in an expensive, well-tailored suit. He looked familiar.
“You recognize that guy?” I said.
“With the red tie?”
“Yeah.”
Mia watched him discreetly for a moment, and when he turned to look for the waiter, she said, “I think he used to be a state senator. I can’t remember his name right now. You know him?”
“No, but he’s rubbing knees with the woman I’ve been dating lately.”
“Oh,” Mia said, in the way one says it when you hear some juicy gossip that is titillating and unexpected. Ooohhh.
“Not a big deal,” I said. “We’ve only gone out a few times.”
Kiersten was doing her absolute best not to look this way again.
“What’s her name?” Mia asked.
“Kiersten Stanley.”
“Max Dunn’s realtor?”
“Yep.”
“So you asked her out after she showed you the Raleigh house?”
“During, actually,” I said. “And I only did it because she couldn’t keep her eyes off me. It was inevitable that she was going to throw herself at me, and I wanted to help preserve her dignity.”
Mia wasn’t listening very closely. She was too busy watching Kiersten and the former senator out of the corner of her eye.
“Based on body language—and this is just a guess—I’d say he’s been seeing her a little longer than you have.”
I took another drink of my beer.
“She’s wearing a bandage dress,” Mia said, “and she’s getting away with it, too. She’s pretty hot, from what I can see.”
Mia turned her gaze back to me.
“Is that an amused grin on your face?” I said.
“No, not really,” she said.
“Looks like one.”
“Okay, maybe a little. But it’s not a big deal, right?”
I shrugged.
Over the years, Mia had teased me a little about my dating habits, and I had never figured out quite why, because she wasn’t the judgmental type, and she certainly didn’t disapprove of two consenting adults engaging in whatever behavior might please them. Was it jealousy? I’d wondered about that on occasion, but if so, why would she attempt to set me up with Abby? That didn’t make any sense.
“I’m curious,” Mia said. “Will you see her again after this?”
I was surprised to realize the answer was probably no.
“Don’t kno
w,” I said.
“Had the two of you talked about dating exclusively?”
“Nope. In fact, she doesn’t know who you are, so she might think you’re my date tonight.”
Mia said, “Wait a sec. Are you saying I’m not your date?”
Being playful.
“Well,” I said.
“I’m a really fun date,” Mia said.
“You don’t have to convince me.”
“And I don’t go floozing around with politicians,” she said.
“To be fair,” I said, “I wouldn’t say she’s floozing around.”
Mia didn’t look convinced. “I guess that depends on how your dates with her went.”
“Not as well as this one,” I said.
“So it is a date?” she asked.
“You tell me,” I said.
Our eyes met again, and we both held it for a long moment.
“Oh, Roy,” Mia said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Hey, I have an idea! Let’s set her and Garlen up on a blind date. They’d be perfect together.”
29
The next morning, at nine o’clock, we stood on a slab of limestone rock and looked down to Barton Creek, 90 feet below. I was five feet from the edge, and that was as close as I was going to get. I wasn’t scared of heights, per se, but the idea of falling gave me enough anxiety to make my palms damp. There was water in the creek below, so if a person slipped—or jumped—they might survive. Or they might not. Of course, when Alicia Potter’s sister had fallen, there hadn’t been any water in the creek because of a drought. She’d had no chance at all.
“Beautiful view,” Mia said.
Both of us were dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and running shoes. The trail to the ledge was smooth from all the foot traffic over the years, but we were the only people out here this morning. From what I’d read, climbers didn’t tackle this wall much during the summer because it was too hot and exposed. There were more enjoyable climbs nearby.
“I wonder if Alicia and her sister had ever been out here before,” I said.
It had been my idea last night at dinner to start here, because we had to start somewhere. Better than sitting around with coffee and notepads. Sometimes, as with taking an impromptu canoe ride, you had to look at things from a different perspective, both literally and figuratively.
“If they had,” Mia said, “surely she would’ve remembered that the rock tilts slightly forward. It wouldn’t take much to lose your footing, especially if the surface was damp.”
“Lose your footing or get shoved over,” I said.
We were no more than a hundred yards from houses along Bluffview Drive to our east, and we could see traffic crawling along Loop 360 and Loop 1 in the distance, but the slab felt strangely isolated.
“I gotta say it would be ridiculously easy to commit a murder here,” Mia said. “Especially if your victim trusted you.”
I sat down on the flat rock and Mia did the same. The sun was low in the sky behind us, casting our squat shadows to the edge and over the ledge. The warmth on my back felt great and was making me drowsy.
“It would still be good to know what kind of relationship Alicia Potter and Alex Dunn had after their divorce,” Mia said. “Max Dunn said they had dinner now and then, but what does that mean? Once a month? Once a year? Did she have access to his house? Did she have a key? When was the last time she was over there? We’ve never gotten good answers.”
I said, “More important, did she think she was still in the will? According to Max, she wasn’t, and if she knew that, then what motive did she have to kill Alex? What did she stand to gain?”
“Surely she was in the will when they were married, right?”
“I would assume so.”
“So Alex must’ve changed it at some point after the divorce. But when did he change it? Is it possible she came up with this scheme to kill him while she was still in the will—maybe even several months after the divorce—but he revised it before he took the poison pill?”
A pair of ravens soared low over the creek, calling back and forth.
“I can’t remember how long ago they got divorced,” I said. “Do you remember?”
“I gathered it was near the end of last year.”
“Well, let’s find out,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket.
I surfed to a Texas public records website that included a divorce database. Fast and easy. Had the answer in about 20 seconds. “Eight months ago,” I said.
“Meaning it’s a stretch to think Alex Dunn hadn’t revised his will yet.”
“Not necessarily. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook stuff like that, especially if the divorce wasn’t particularly ugly.”
Gnats were now buzzing around my head. My shirt was starting to stick to my back. I should’ve brought a couple of bottles of water.
“Max Dunn seems like a much more likely suspect,” Mia said.
“Or the McMansion angle,” I said. “We never really looked into that. He pissed a lot of people off.”
“Again, though, it would have to be someone who had access to his home.”
“Maybe, but what if he regularly carried his heart meds with him in his car?”
“We need to do what we did that morning in the conference room last week—rule some people out, instead of trying to figure out who did it. You agree?”
“Sure. Why not? But how do we do that? We need more facts. More raw information. We have a lot of questions, but what we need is more answers, and I’m not sure where we can get them.”
Now it was Mia’s turn to reach into her pocket for her phone.
Would you believe Callie Dunn was not wearing yoga pants this time? She opened the door of her father’s house dressed in green Capri pants and a sleeveless white-and-green-striped blouse. The kind of outfit that would make her friends say, “Oh, don’t you look cute! I couldn’t get away with that.”
“Come on in,” Callie said, and we stepped into the spacious foyer, which had a marble floor and ten-foot ceilings. Stunning place. No surprise.
It was now three in the afternoon. Earlier, on the ledge above the creek, we’d had no idea how Callie would respond to Mia’s request—which was to allow us to search Alex Dunn’s home—but she had agreed. She’d only placed one condition on it: We’d get one search, just the one time, because she and Max had hired a firm to conduct an estate sale for most of the possessions in the house. Other items would be donated to charity and some stuff would simply be trashed. The firm would be starting the process in two days.
Callie closed the door behind us. “Honestly, I can’t imagine you’ll find anything useful after the police have been through everything, but you’re more than welcome to look. I owe you one for finding the coin collection.”
“Thanks, but you really don’t owe us anything,” Mia said. “That’s our job.”
“Well, I’m very grateful. Those coins meant a lot to my dad, so it’s good that we got them back. Now... ” She spread her arms in a gesture that meant, Look wherever you want.
“You mind a couple of questions first?” I asked.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Did the police get a warrant for this place, or did you and your brothers grant them permission to search?”
“We gave them permission. Max and I did.”
“Did they have you sign a document?”
“They did, yes.”
“Any chance I could see a copy of that?”
It would be important to know whether Ruelas and his team had searched Alex Dunn’s computer.
“Sure. It’s at home. I can send you a copy later.”
“Perfect. Do you know if they got warrants for your dad’s phone records?”
“They did, but I have no idea what they found. They haven’t told us much about their investigation so far, to be honest.”
“Detective Ruelas can be sort of a tyrant,” I said.
“Really?” Callie said. “I find him kind of char
ming. Like you.”
Mia let out a laugh and faux-whispered to Callie, “They don’t get along. Imagine two brothers squabbling.”
“The difference,” I said, ignoring Mia, “is that his charm is part of an evil plan.”
Callie said, “And what is the objective of his plan?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Probably world domination.”
“Sounds dastardly,” Callie said. “Do y’all want anything to drink before you start?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“We’re good,” Mia said.
“Need anything at all?”
“I assume your dad had a home office or den... ” Mia said.
“Down that hall, last room on the right,” Callie said, pointing.
“Perfect.”
“I know you already know this,” Callie said, “but I don’t want you to take anything without telling me.”
“We absolutely will not,” I said.
“And if you find anything that is unrelated to my dad’s murder—I would want you to keep that confidential.”
Mia said, “We realize it takes a great deal of trust to let two people you hardly know rummage around in your father’s possessions. I promise you we won’t violate that trust.”
Callie nodded and smiled. “I appreciate that.”
I said, “I assume your dad had a computer here at home.”
“He did. It’s still in there.”
“Would it be okay if I were to copy the hard drive?”
Now she frowned. “Quite honestly, I’m not comfortable with that.”
“No problem,” I said. “I won’t do that.”
“Surely you can understand.”
“I can.”
“Anything else?” she asked.
“I think we’re all set.”
“Okay, well, I’ll just hang out in the living room, so holler if you need anything. I need to leave in about an hour.”
We both thanked her again, and then we went down the hall to the office, which was more of a library, and an impressive one at that. Two walls were filled floor to ceiling with books in built-in shelves. Another wall, to the left, had three large windows looking to the rear of the property, which consisted of a heavily wooded and overgrown hillside sloping down to a creek. No manicured lawn and swimming pool for Alex Dunn.