by Ben Rehder
Mia began to scan Heidi’s electronic file and she said, “He lives in Rollingwood but he reported the SUV stolen from downtown.”
“Probably working under the theory that APD would have less time to spend on it than Rollingwood would. I don’t blame him. I know the chief in Rollingwood. He gets it done.”
I began to check the tax rolls in Travis County and several surrounding counties to see if Avilez owned any real estate in addition to his home. Basic stuff, but APD probably hadn’t taken this step. They are simply too overwhelmed with cases, so they have to conduct a triage of sorts to decide which cases get the most attention. For instance, my credit card was stolen once and fraudulent charges were racked up within a few hours. I reported it, and the investigator sounded plenty capable, but she also mentioned that her caseload was currently more than 400. I asked if I would ever hear from her again and she just laughed.
“No other property in Travis County,” I said, “although there are a couple of other people named Avilez. Relatives, maybe. If so, the SUV could be stashed at one of their houses.”
I gave her those names, and while I checked other tax rolls, she tried to determine if any of these people were related to Abel and Diana. For that, she logged on to a genealogy site. The information on the site wasn’t always 100% accurate, and sometimes it was incomplete, but it would be a decent starting point.
However, before she could even start, I found what we were looking for. “Abel Avilez owns 17 acres in Bastrop County.”
Mia stopped what she was doing and waited to hear more.
“In a very remote area,” I said. “Surrounded by other tracts that are as large or larger.”
I scrolled downward on the page.
“It has a small cabin on it—about eight hundred square feet. Based on the appraised value, I’d say it’s pretty rustic. The only other improvement is a barn that measures 20 feet by 30 feet.”
“A barn,” Mia said. “Outstanding.”
The only viable option—and I had to talk Mia into it—was to trespass and try to get a look inside the barn. The trick was to accomplish that without getting caught.
Or shot.
I volunteered to do the dirty work, but before I made my move, it was Mia’s job to verify Avilez’s whereabouts. She would set up outside his place of employment—a bank in south Austin where he was a loan officer—and then tail him when he left for the afternoon.
The odds were slim that Avilez would make a trip to his cabin on a weekday evening, especially since it wasn’t hunting season, but why risk it? Mia would keep her eyes on him until I was done. I didn’t know how long it would take me to sneak onto his property and check the barn, but I didn’t want to feel rushed. It might take just a few minutes, or I might run into unexpected complications.
Of course, there was always the chance that one of Avilez’s friends or relatives might be at the cabin, but that could be true at any time, on any day, and there was no real way to avoid that risk. I would simply have to be careful entering the property, and be ready with a line of bullshit to get myself out of there if I ran into trouble. I happened to be pretty good at that.
By four in the afternoon, I was waiting in the parking lot outside a small food mart in the tiny community of Red Rock in southwest Bastrop County. I’d already gone inside the store, bought a cup of coffee, and asked the disinterested cashier if he’d seen a green Honda Civic hanging around, because I was supposed to meet a guy here. He said he hadn’t. Now I could hang out for a good while without the clerk wondering what I was doing.
I’d studied Avilez’s property on Google Maps, and this was going to be a fairly straightforward operation. His cabin sat on the middle of his 17 acres, and none of his neighbors had any sort of cabin, shed, or outbuilding, within 200 yards. The area was heavily treed, which was a plus. I was wearing a dark green shirt that would help me blend in, but I had opted to forgo camo, because that would make it appear I was there to poach.
Mia texted at 4:37.
He just left the bank.
I left the food mart and drove north on Farm Road 20 for a few miles, then turned east on a small county road, then went north again on an even smaller road. This was isolated country. My biggest advantage was also my biggest problem—very few people drove this road. That meant my vehicle would stand out to the locals.
I slowed as I approached the place and saw that the dirt driveway had a chain stretched across it. Good. And no recent tire marks onto the property. Better.
I went past and found a place to turn around. On my return trip, I pulled to the shoulder near some trees close to Avilez’s driveway and killed the engine. I couldn’t see a single home or building from where the van was parked.
I quickly hopped out and deflated the front passenger tire. Later, I would inflate it with a portable pump.
Mia sent another text: Update?
About to enter. Where is he?
Stopped at a neighbor’s on Timberline. How’s it look?
All clear.
I had spent quite a bit of time at a friend’s house in Rollingwood as a kid, and I remembered exactly where Timberline was. In fact, the name of that street evoked a vague memory—something I couldn’t quite nail down, like when you’re trying to remember a song that won’t come to you, or the name of the actress you saw in a movie last month.
I locked the van and looked both ways on the county road. No cars coming. I couldn’t even hear any traffic from any direction. Nothing but birds and the wind through the trees.
I crossed the road and started up the driveway, ignoring a metal No Trespassing sign nailed to a tree. My story, if I ran into anyone, was that I had a spare tire but no jack. Could I borrow one real quick? I would be very grateful and I’d bring it right back.
As I walked, I kept an eye out for motion-triggered trail cameras mounted on trees. Hunters used those cameras to monitor wild game, but they were also somewhat useful as security devices. I didn’t see any. I kept walking as if I had a perfectly legitimate reason for being there.
The driveway was about one hundred and fifty yards long and it curved like a boomerang. Just as I reached the curve, the cabin came into view.
I stopped for a moment and stood still. Saw nothing that worried me.
I took my phone out and texted Mia.
No vehicles. No people. No recent tracks.
She sent me a thumbs-up.
Ten seconds later, I was forty yards from the cabin.
“Hello?” I called, but not so loud that any neighbors could hear.
I walked twenty more yards, and now I could see the barn—a metal pole barn—off to my left. No vehicles parked there, either.
“Hello?”
I walked directly to the cabin, which wasn’t as rustic as I thought it would be. It was one of those little cedar-sided cabins that are hauled in piece by piece and assembled on site.
I climbed three steps onto the small porch and knocked on the door, which had three small glass panes at eye level. The interior was dark.
I knocked again.
There would be no answer. Nobody was here.
A small sticker on one of the glass panes warned me about a security system, but I recognized it as a bluff sticker you can buy online for two bucks. Better than nothing, I guess, but not a security system. He should at least mount a few dummy cameras.
I stepped down from the porch and headed for the barn.
“Helllloooo?”
The sun was below the tree line now, but there was still plenty of light.
My phone vibrated.
Okay?
Yes.
I reached the barn, which had a large, sliding metal door with a padlocked clasp. I walked counter-clockwise around the perimeter of the building. There was a window on the right side that was blocked with a hanging sheet or cloth, and the same thing on the rear side, and again on the left side. Why cover the windows?
I walked back to my van for a pair of bolt cutters and a lock that was
identical to the one on the barn door. The same trick I’d used at Leo Pitts’s storage locker.
Coming back to the barn, I walked much faster this time. No sense in being discreet now, because I couldn’t pretend I was a motorist in need of a jack.
I reached the barn and immediately popped the lock off the clasp.
Slid the big metal door to the left and saw the rear end of a Cadillac SUV.
I took a photo and texted it to Mia.
She wouldn’t answer. She knew it would be better not to distract me right now.
I stepped inside, walked to the front of the SUV, and shined my phone’s flashlight through the windshield to see the little metal plate bearing the vehicle identification number. It was a match with the missing SUV.
I took a photo of the VIN and texted it to Mia. Then I shot a video of the entire vehicle inside the barn, and I kept it rolling as I stepped outside, closed the barn door, snapped a new lock on, and walked back to the road, careful not to show my van parked on the opposite shoulder.
38
Three hours later, I was watching the Texas Rangers, enjoying some pizza and beer, and trying to simply enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from a slam-bang case like the one we’d had today. They are rare.
I was honest enough with myself to understand that many of them would be much harder to solve if I wasn’t willing to skirt various laws. “Skirt” is a more palatable way of saying “break,” as in “break the law.”
I broke the law today.
I’d do it again, too, probably fairly soon. Trespassing. Illegally attaching a GPS unit to a subject’s car. Even withholding information from the authorities, on occasion. I’d done all of these things.
They worked.
On the other hand, not only did Mia and I serve our clients—the insurance agencies—we often helped the police close their cases.
Like this one.
In this instance, sharing what I’d learned with the police had been tricky.
If Avilez had stashed the SUV on some stranger’s property, I could have simply called the cops with an anonymous tip, because the stranger would almost certainly have given permission to search. But since it was on Avilez’s property and a search would require a warrant, a tip wouldn’t work. The police would need a credible witness for them to attain probable cause, and an anonymous tipster wasn’t considered credible.
That’s why I’d shot the video.
The video was a way for me to anonymously provide the police with “reasonably trustworthy information, considered as a whole, sufficient to warrant a reasonable person to believe that a particular person has committed, or is committing, an offense.” That’s how the law is written.
Sure, it would be unclear where the video had come from, or whether the person providing it—me—had broken any laws to shoot it, but the fact that it showed Avilez’s allegedly stolen vehicle inside his own barn was indisputable, and that would be grounds for the police to get a warrant.
So when I’d gotten back to my apartment earlier, I stripped the video of any metadata that might connect it to me. Then I emailed it—using techniques to further preserve my anonymity—to an investigator I know at APD. I wasn’t sure if he was working the Avilez case, but I knew he’d pass it along to the right people.
The cops would probably search the barn tomorrow, and I was confident the SUV would still be there, because why would Avilez risk moving it? The heat was on, so he’d leave it right where it sat, with no inkling that the cops were about to get a warrant.
APD would know with 99% certainty where the video had come from. They’d know, and Heidi would know, and I’d know that they knew, but that was as far as it would go. The cops wouldn’t ask me about it, because they’d know I wouldn’t answer any questions. Heidi wouldn’t ask me about it, because she wouldn’t want confirmation that I’d committed a crime.
Mia and I had talked by phone as I’d driven back to Travis County, and we’d decided to touch base about the Alex Dunn situation in the morning. Frankly, the quick turnaround on the Avilez case highlighted just how much work had been involved with the Dunn case.
Maybe it was time to let it go. We’d found the coins. We’d done our job.
I stuck with the game until the Rangers won 2-1 in the bottom of the tenth, and then I got back online. Earlier, at Mia’s, one of the real estate listings I’d seen was a nine-acre tract off Fitzhugh Road, not far from the 57 acres my grandparents had bought in the early 1950s. Despite the massive changes out there in the past few decades, that area still felt like home. And this particular tract had one hundred feet of frontage on Barton Creek. And the price per acre reflected it. It would be an investment, though, right?
I sent a short email to the agent, asking if I could walk the property at my convenience, alone, sometime soon. Wouldn’t want to trespass, would we?
39
I slept like I’d been drugged and woke at nearly eight o’clock.
No urgent voicemails or texts were waiting for me, but I did have an email from my client telling me that Stacy, the crooked chiropractor, had filed a bogus claim for treatment he hadn’t given me. Bam. Another victory for our side.
I took a shower, then made myself some bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast tacos.
I texted Mia at 9:30.
At 9:45, I got a reply from the agent listing the Fitzhugh acreage:
You are welcome to walk the property, or I’d be happy to show it to you anytime! Please let me know if you have any questions! It’s a wonderful piece of property with fantastic building sites! And the price is competitive! Thank you for getting in touch! Take care! Clarence.
I couldn’t believe Clarence had failed to put an exclamation point after his name.
I texted Mia again at 10:05.
No reply.
By 10:30, I was starting to get concerned, so I called her. Got voicemail. Said, “This is your partner, Roy Ballard. Please call or text when you get a minute. It’s Roy Ballard, by the way. Your partner. R-O-Y. Ballard. Talk to you soon.”
At noon, still no response, so I put on some shoes to drive over to her house. That’s when I finally heard the tones of “Brick House,” her ring tone.
I said, “Hey, there.”
“Hey. Sorry.”
“About what? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just... it’s been a trying morning.”
She sounded unusually tense.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“How so?”
“Long story,” she said with an unconvincing laugh. “Let’s just not even go there.”
“You won’t even give me a hint?” I said.
Mia let out a sigh, either because she was exasperated or because she thought I was prying.
“Okay,” she said, “but take it easy on me. No judgments.”
“That sounds promising,” I said.
“No sarcasm, either,” Mia said.
“Sorry. I’ll be good.”
A long pause followed, and I knew—I knew—what she was going to say.
“I’ve been on the phone with Garlen for a couple of hours,” she said. “He called from the hospital. He wanted to apologize for everything he’s done, and to let me know he’s planning to go into treatment.”
I hung my head. I didn’t want to hear this.
“He’s not trying to get back together,” Mia said. “He just wanted to know if I forgave him.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Roy?”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I thought treatment of some kind was a good idea,” Mia said.
“It’ll probably be court-ordered anyway,” I said. “But he can say, ‘Hey, look at me. I decided to go to rehab. Look at all my progress. Look at my personal growth.’”
Mia didn’t say anything, but I could hear her breathing.
“He violated the protective order by calling you,” I said.
“I know.”
Silence.
“If you don’t report it,” I said, “that can make the protective order void. He can say he contacted you and you didn’t object.”
“I know what it means, Roy.”
“I don’t want him to hurt you anymore, Mia. You deserve better than that.”
“I’m not going to give him the chance. He just wanted to tell me what’s going on, and that’s it. I’m not taking him back, and I don’t plan to talk to him any further.”
“What if he keeps calling?” I said.
“Are you under the impression that I can’t handle this situation?” she asked.
“No, but I know how a guy like that works. He will manipulate you if he can. He’ll say once he’s clean and sober, that you and—”
“Okay, Roy. Enough.”
“Guys like him don’t change.”
“Enough. Please stop lecturing me.”
“I’m only trying to—”
“Forget it!” she said.
And she hung up on me. She’d never done that before.
I called back, of course, to apologize. She didn’t answer. Guess I couldn’t blame her.
So I gave it ten minutes, then texted.
I’m sorry. Not my place to offer advice. I will always support you whatever you do.
She didn’t reply.
I brooded most of the day—and never heard back from her—so late in the afternoon, I did what most mature adults would do.
I fixed myself a drink.
Just a light bourbon and Coke. That tasted pretty good, so I made another one. A little stronger this time.
I texted Mia again: I heard your partner is an idiot.
I had a third drink, and now I was starting to get restless. Maybe I should eat something. Too much booze on an empty stomach. As luck would have it, I received a text from Kiersten: What r u doing?
I said: Drinking bourbon.
Then I added: Want some?
A minute later, she said: Sure, and some dinner. Come over?
I hesitated. I’d had enough that I was probably past the legal limit to drive. But there was always a taxi or Uber.