If I Had A Nickel (Roy Ballard Mysteries Book 3)

by Ben Rehder

  Mia grinned. A full minute passed as we sat in silence. I could hear a car starting in the lot to the rear of my apartment.

  “When was this?” she asked.

  “A long time ago,” I said. “I think I was 19.”

  “Why did you break up with her?” Mia asked.

  “Because she had the type of friends who actually played croquet,” I said.

  Mia laughed, but said, “No, really. How was she under the impression that living together might be a possibility, and at the same time, you were ready to cut her loose?”

  I didn’t really want to talk about it, but if it kept her from thinking about Garlen...

  “Well, for one thing, we had only been dating for about three months.”

  “And for another... ” Mia said.

  “On paper, we should’ve been a great match,” I said. “But I just didn’t feel it.”

  Her expression revealed that she knew exactly what I was talking about. Maybe she felt that way about Garlen, or about any of the dozens of men who had pursued her.

  I gulped down the last of my beer. “Want another?” I said.

  “No, thanks. I should go. It’s nearly midnight.”

  “Let’s, uh, blow off the Alex Dunn thing for a few days,” I said. “I’m sure you don’t want to—”

  “Forget it, Roy. There’s no reason to wait. I’ll call Albert Strauss first thing in the morning and let you know how it goes.”

  She rose off the couch, so I stood, too.

  We stared at each other, and now I couldn’t read her expression. Exhaustion? Stress? She suddenly came toward me and wrapped me in a hug. I hugged her back, and we both just held it for several long seconds. On one hand, it felt wonderful to have her body pressed against mine, but on the other, I wasn’t sure how long I could stand it. There was a melancholy pain to wanting more than friendship and a hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she murmured into my ear. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Then, before I could respond, she let me go, turned, and was out the door.

  34

  At nine o’clock the next morning, I called the Blanco County chief deputy—a woman named Lauren Gilchrist I’d met at the scene of the crash—but I got voicemail. I left a message saying I wanted to make sure they’d been able to download and view the footage from my dash cams. That video would be the nail in Garlen’s coffin. It would provide incontrovertible evidence that I had not baited him in any way. I hadn’t even retaliated once he’d begun to hit my car.

  I realized I hadn’t called Kiersten yesterday as promised, so I texted her. Hey there.

  A couple of minutes later, she replied: Showing a house.

  I’d decided to come right out and tell her I’d seen her on a date, but I wasn’t going to do it by text. I wanted to talk, even if only by phone. I didn’t know where the conversation would go from there, but I suspected that we were done, and if I were honest with myself, I’d admit that Mia’s breakup with Garlen likely had an impact on my attitude.

  I replied: Good luck. Talk to you later.

  I ate two hardboiled eggs, took a shower, and when I got out, Mia had sent a text: Albert Strauss, 11:00, his office on Barton Springs. Pick me up in the van?

  “Not everyone cares about our past,” Strauss said. “Most people drive past older homes in Tarrytown or Hancock or Old Enfield and they have no idea they are driving past history. These are the roots of our city. These old homes and buildings can speak to us if we listen. They can tell us stories about our cultural heritage.”

  I got the sense that Strauss had used some of those phrases, or maybe those complete sentences, in previous conversations or speeches, every bit as passionately as he had just now. He was a short, slender man with rimless glasses, medium-length gray hair, and a well-groomed goatee. He wore khakis and a black silk shirt. I judged him to be in his early fifties, and his accent told me he had been born and raised in central Texas.

  Earlier, on the phone, Mia had told Strauss that we were working for a large insurance firm and we were looking into the death of Alex Dunn. That was all true, of course, but Strauss might’ve gotten the impression we were licensed investigators trying to legitimize a life insurance claim, rather than videographers who had no real authority to nose around in a homicide. Oops. Naughty Mia.

  “I’m a Tarrytown resident myself,” Mia said. “I live in a house that’s been in my family since the 1920s.” She told him the address.

  “Oh, I know that home! It’s darling. Didn’t you have a fire not long ago?”

  “I did, yes, but it wasn’t major, thank God.”

  “It was arson, if I recall correctly,” Strauss said.

  “It was, yes, and we caught the woman who did it. She was a suspect in one of our investigations.”

  “Well, that’s positively frightening. My job is stressful, but not like that. I’m glad everything worked out okay.”

  We’d agreed on the way over here that Mia would do most of the talking, because she’d done more research on this landmark home stuff than I had, and because men often responded to her more positively than they would to me. Go figure.

  Mia said. “Thanks. Do you live nearby?”

  “In Bryker Woods,” Strauss said. “We bought a small cottage there in the early nineties. Love it. There’s no way we could afford to buy the same house now.”

  The small talk was making me antsy, but I cleverly covered my impatience by gazing out the window. Strauss’s office was relatively small, but he was on the fifth floor of the One Texas Center building and had a nice view of the lake.

  “What can you tell us about Callie Dunn’s house?” Mia said. “From what I read, it sounded like a great candidate for landmark status.”

  “The Walton home,” Strauss said. “The original resident was named Walton. And, yes, it would have been,” Strauss said, “because it had been left largely untouched over the years. Some older homes go through various stages of remodeling, and before you know it, it’s not even the same house it was originally. You walk into a home like that and it feels... modern. That’s not the type of property landmark status is intended to protect. But the Walton home was largely unmodified—almost identical to the day it was built. It had been maintained, but not greatly altered.”

  “So you recommended landmark status?” Mia asked.

  “I did. See, there are generally two ways that can happen. The owner can submit an application himself or herself, or I can open a case myself, usually over the owner’s objections.”

  “And that’s what happened here?”

  “Exactly. Alex Dunn had applied for a demolition permit, and I was trying to stave that off by filing for landmark status, which is very often a losing battle. As you know, in this state, private property rights are treated as sacrosanct, in most cases. And, to some degree, I can understand that. This office has to strike a delicate balance. We have to know when to push and when to recognize that the owner is just that—the owner.” He paused for a moment, frowned, then added, “I have to say, I’m having a tough time understanding how this could be related to Mr. Dunn’s death. Of course, I’m sure you can’t share much information with me about that.”

  “That’s true,” Mia said, “but trust me when I say this information is helpful, and we appreciate it. So you initiated the application for landmark status, and then what?”

  “It goes to the commission, where they generally have three options: they can approve the application, deny it, or pass it to the council with no recommendation. That’s what happened with this one.”

  “They simply passed it along?” Mia asked.

  “Yes, exactly, and then it goes to the council, and don’t get me started on that. Some of those people—this is just between us, please—some of those people have no understanding at all of what we do and why we do it. They make their decisions based on politics, not on the merits of the application. Anyway, even with some friendly faces on the council, an application that is opposed by th
e owner has to be approved by a supermajority, and that doesn’t happen very often—especially when the commission hasn’t favored landmark status.”

  I said, “A supermajority is... ”

  “Nine out of ten council members.”

  “Yikes.”

  “When can you get nine out of ten people to agree on anything?” Strauss said. “My wife and I can’t even agree on where to go to dinner.”

  “So the council rejected the zoning change?” Mia said.

  “They certainly did. The vote was seven to three.”

  “Seven voted in favor?” Mia asked.

  “Ha. One would hope. I would consider that great progress. But, no, seven voted against, and that cleared the way for Dunn to demolish the home.”

  “I assume the vote is a matter of public record,” I said. “So we can go online and see which members voted against it.”

  “Yes, definitely, but you don’t need to bother with that,” Strauss said. “Here, I’ll make you a list.”

  We went back to Mia’s place and studied the seven names on the list.

  Kathy Burton

  Eric Keselowski

  Ignacia Gonzalez

  Kerri Holt

  Scott Easley

  Marcus Hardy

  Alejandra Solis

  I started with Kathy Burton and Mia took Eric Keselowski. We were on the couch, using our laptops, surfing in relative silence.

  After five minutes, Mia said, “This is interesting. Keselowski’s little bio says he used to be the marketing director for McMahon Homes.”

  McMahon Homes was a high-end custom homebuilder that served central Texas, and it wasn’t a stretch to presume anyone who worked for an outfit like that would side with a landowner in a fight against any arm of government.

  A few minutes later, I said. “Kathy Burton was a school teacher in Giddings when she first got out of college. She moved here eighteen years ago. Her husband is a firefighter.”

  More silence. I researched Kathy Burton further to make sure I wasn’t overlooking something before I ruled her out. All I saw was glowing information about her charity work and other efforts for the public good.

  Mia said, “Here we go. Keselowski ran his own development company in Houston before he went over to McMahon, and he was once investigated for allegedly bribing a councilman.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Uh-uh. Hold on.” She read some more while I waited. “The investigation was ultimately dropped for lack of evidence.”

  “So he used to give bribes, allegedly, and now maybe he’s receiving them.”

  She continued to look for more information about the case in Houston, but she found little of relevance. Keselowski had eventually sold his real-estate company and moved to Austin nine years ago.

  “So we have a prime suspect right off the bat,” I said.

  I moved on to Ignacia Gonzalez and Mia went to work on Kerri Holt. Fifteen minutes later, we’d found nothing suspicious in the least about either of them.

  Scott Easley was next for me, and Mia began to research Marcus Hardy. No sooner had she clicked on his profile page on the city website that she said, “Oh. My. God.”

  “What?”

  She swung her laptop around, saying, “He has a beard here, but picture him without it. Tell me who that is.”

  I was, quite simply, stunned. I had seen Marcus Hardy two nights earlier. He’d been Kiersten’s date at Salty Sow.

  Hardy wasn’t a former state senator. He was a current city council member.

  35

  “What does this mean?” Mia asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But it means something. No way is this a coincidence.”

  I moved closer to Mia to get a better look at her computer screen.

  “There’s no question that’s the same guy,” Mia said. “And now I feel like an idiot for not recognizing him the other night.”

  “You did recognize him,” I said.

  “I mean for not placing him as a councilman,” she said.

  “It’s the beard,” I said. “He looks different. Besides, it was just yesterday we realized the city council has anything to do with all this historical home stuff. We had no reason to make the connection.”

  She looked at her laptop again. We were both thinking the same thing, but she was the one who finally voiced it. “This woman you’ve been seeing—Kiersten—has ties to the Dunn family and to this city council member.”

  “I know.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Stanley.”

  I watched as Mia did a Google search for two phrases together—“kiersten stanley” and “marcus hardy.”

  The results were minimal—73 hits, and many of those were repetitive, or Kiersten and Marcus Hardy just happened to be mentioned on the same page for a fundraiser or a ribbon-cutting or that sort of event. None of the hits were particularly informative or enlightening, which wasn’t surprising. Not like we expected to find evidence of a conspiracy through a simple Internet search. One time Kiersten had addressed the city council regarding zoning laws, but it had nothing to do with historical homes or the Dunns.

  “Try ‘kiersten stanley’ with ‘alex dunn,’” I said.

  Mia typed it in and the result was zero hits.

  She changed ‘alex dunn’ to ‘max dunn’ and tried again.

  Nothing.

  She searched for ‘kiersten stanley’ with ‘callie dunn’ and got several hundred hits. The majority of them—or perhaps all—were related to the fact that Kiersten and Callie were in the Junior League of Austin together. Alicia Potter was also a member.

  “Maybe Max Dunn was looking for a realtor and Callie referred him to Kiersten,” I said. “And it’s not unlikely that a high-profile real estate professional like Kiersten might socialize with a city council member. It could all be completely innocent.”

  Mia simply looked at me.

  “But you don’t think that’s the case,” I said.

  “I think, at a minimum, we need to check it out. Don’t you?”

  “Just to be clear,” I said, “what we’re talking about is the possibility that Kiersten facilitated a bribe between Alex Dunn and Marcus Hardy.”

  “Or between Nathan Potter and Marcus Hardy. Probably a good chance she knows Nathan, since they are both in real estate and Kiersten and Alicia are both in the Junior League.”

  I was quiet for a moment, trying to remember my various conversations with Kiersten since we’d met. Had she ever said anything, even in joking, that would make me think she played it fast and loose with her business ethics? Not that I could recall.

  My phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was, of course, from Kiersten.

  Sold that house! Want to help me celebrate tonight?

  “They made an offer and the seller immediately said yes,” Kiersten said when we got together that evening. “Of course, it could still fall through, but this buyer is very well qualified, if you know what I mean.”

  She looked stunning in a clingy red sheath dress with a lace-trimmed V neck that was showing a fair amount of décolletage. I was trying not to get distracted from the reason I was here, but the four-inch heels weren’t helping with that.

  “Big bucks?” I said.

  “Right. And I could tell the house was exactly what they were looking for, so they won’t be changing their minds. I love it when a sale just falls into place like that. Makes up for the clients who look at dozens of properties and don’t end up buying any of them.”

  “It all balances out,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  We were at a small bar downtown. I’d already forgotten the name of it, but it was trendy as hell, and fairly crowded with attractive young professionals in well-tailored clothes. We had a relatively quiet two-top in a corner, away from any doors or windows. The lighting was subtle and the music was soft, when you could hear it over the occasionally boisterous c
onversations taking place at larger nearby tables.

  I hadn’t broached the topic of her date at Salty Sow, and I wasn’t going to, obviously. Not now. Was Kiersten going to pretend we hadn’t seen each other? Maybe she really hadn’t seen me. Or maybe she had been looking at something or someone behind me.

  “Well, congratulations,” I said, raising my glass of beer.

  “Thanks.” She raised her wine glass and bumped mine, and we both took a drink. My beer, whatever brand it was, wasn’t bad. When I’d asked the waitress what kind of beer they had, she’d handed me a menu with roughly sixty choices on it. I’d told her to surprise me.

  “My work is kind of the same way,” I told Kiersten. “Some cases we close in a few hours. Others can take weeks or months. Like this recent one. I can tell you about it now, since it’s over and done with.”

  “Callie told me a little,” Kiersten said. “The high points. You found her dad’s coin collection for her. Her brother had taken it, and then the pool guy stole it from him.”

  “That’s the theory,” I said, “but it took us nearly two weeks to figure that out. I won’t bore you with the details, except to say I exhibited all the cunning of Sherlock Holmes and Castle combined.”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “Actually, to be honest, my partner Mia is the one who cracked it.”

  Here was Kiersten’s chance to say, Was that Mia I saw you with the other night?

  She didn’t. Instead, she said, “How come you didn’t tell me you were working for Callie’s family?”

  “Actually, I was working for the insurance company.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, for one, I can’t discuss active cases. Plus, I didn’t know you were friends with Callie. I just knew you were listing Max’s house.”