Die Laughing 2: Five More Comic Crime Novels

by Ben Rehder

  In the elevator, Mia said, “That was a very odd encounter, don’t you think?”

  But I was busy with my phone.

  She said, “I couldn’t tell what to believe and what not to believe. The man was like a robot.”

  No time to talk. I was opening the folder that contained sent texts. Now I held my phone up for her to see. “Tell me what this text says.”

  She looked at me, puzzled, then looked at my phone and read, “‘Three days ago, I was attacked at Pierce’s place.’”

  I clicked to the next text. “And this one.”

  “‘A man abducted me, interrogated me, then let me go.’”

  I snapped my phone shut. “Five minutes ago, Hanrahan asked me about being attacked on the side of the road.”

  It took Mia about a nanosecond to process the relevance of that remark, and then she smiled broadly. “How would he know it happened on the side of the road?”

  36

  She wouldn’t stop.

  Asking for her mommy.

  Asking for her daddy.

  Saying she wanted to go home.

  Crying for no discernible reason.

  It weighed on him. Kept him up at night. Why couldn’t she simply forget those things? Everything would be perfect if she would just forget.

  It finally reached a point where he knew he couldn’t wait for her to change, but would instead have to take action. Make her change. Make her forget.

  He had also known that, eventually, he’d have to leave the house with her, once she had proven that she could behave. He had been playing it by ear, gauging her emotional state, and trying to decide how much he could trust her in public. Now he realized he could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

  “Do you like McDonald’s?” he asked her late one morning.

  She nodded, but didn’t make eye contact.

  “How about if we go have lunch there today?”

  “Okay.”

  “And I have a surprise for you. Your mother is going to meet us.”

  Her head immediately popped up, her eyes more lively than he had seen them in days, but he could tell that she was suspicious.

  “Would you like that? To see your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll go.”

  On the drive over, he said, “I’m counting on you to behave yourself, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “No temper tantrums. No screaming or crying.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think sometimes you forget how much I do for you, and how I take care of you.”

  Emily didn’t reply.

  “Now I’m taking you to see your mother, so I want you to be grateful. No more of that bratty stuff, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t speak to anyone except me or your mother. Is that understood?”

  She nodded.

  Later, when he pulled into the parking lot, Emily craned her head left and right, looking for the family car, no doubt. Of course, it was nowhere to be seen.

  “She’s not here yet. We’re a few minutes early, so we’ll go inside and order.”

  His heart was beating wildly as he took her by the hand and they began to walk into the restaurant. He had to remind himself that there were thousands of little girls all over the city who looked like Emily. And time had passed since she had gone missing. In today’s world, it was already old news. Nobody would be paying attention.

  They went inside and Emily stuck close to his side, just as he had hoped she would. They looked just like any other dad and his daughter, stopping off for a burger. He ordered cheeseburgers with no onions, fries, and two Cokes. Then they sat at a booth in a corner and began to eat.

  Emily kept watching the door.

  Waiting for mommy.

  Anxious. Excited.

  “She’ll be here in a little bit. Go ahead and eat.”

  She did, reluctantly. One small nibble at a time.

  This was going to be as cruel as anything he’d ever done, but there was no avoiding it.

  Finally, when Emily had eaten most of her meal and it was plain she wanted no more, he said, “Tell you what. Let’s go wait outside. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute.”

  On the way out, they took a few last slurps from their Cokes, then tossed their trash into the garbage can.

  “Let’s wait in the car.”

  And once he got her all buckled in, he acted as if his cell phone had vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket and pretended to take a call. “Oh, hi…Yeah, we’re here…We already finished eating…I see…Really?…I understand…No, I’ll tell her…Okay, bye.”

  When he hung up, she looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t say anything right away. Not yet. Too many people coming and going from the parking lot.

  He waited until he’d started the car and pulled out. Then he said, “That was your mother calling. She can’t make it.”

  And Emily was already beginning to cry. Just like that.

  “She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to see you again. Maybe never. She said it might be best if you forgot about her and your father.”

  Now Emily was taking a tremendous gulp of air, followed by an ear-splitting scream that drilled to the very center of his brain.

  He gritted his teeth and rode it out.

  “It’s just you and me, Emily. Just you and me.”

  37

  This time, Mia didn’t cajole me into calling Ruelas and telling him what we had learned. Maybe it was because she was starting to think we could do a better job ourselves, or maybe she understood that the cops couldn’t do much with that information as long as Hanrahan refused to talk, or maybe she was just hooked on the rush that came from learning what we had just learned.

  Patrick Hanrahan was involved. He had to be.

  She drove as we talked.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  I said, “He knows that Tracy was at Pierce’s place. They are all working together—Hanrahan, Pierce, Erica Kerwick, and The Guy. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “But what are they working on? Why is he hiding his own daughter?”

  I didn’t have a solid answer. All I could do was speculate. “If Kathleen Hanrahan was planning to divorce him, chances are good she’d get custody, despite her problems with alcohol.”

  “Yeah, but would that upset him enough to stage an abduction? Why not just ask for joint custody? With all his money, he could hire an army of attorneys.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Kathleen’s problems are worse than we know, and Patrick couldn’t stand the idea of Tracy living with her even part of the time. In fact, let me check something…”

  I opened my laptop, connected my USB modem, and logged on to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s criminal records database. Didn’t take long to search.

  “Kathleen has been busted twice for DWI in the past three years,” I said.

  Mia said, “I wonder if Tracy was in the car either of those times.”

  “Even if she wasn’t, Patrick probably figured it was only a matter of time.”

  We rode quietly for a minute.

  I said, “Well, regardless of whatever reason Patrick might’ve had for grabbing Tracy, if he did do it, he’d need a place to stash her.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Jessica said Brian Pierce does all kinds of odd jobs for Patrick. So what if Patrick paid Pierce to keep Tracy at his place? Not by himself, of course. Erica Kerwick stays over there, too. It works out perfectly, because Pierce is already on leave from work because of his injury.” Then something else occurred to me. “You know what? You need to turn around.”

  “What? Why?” She moved into the left-hand lane to make a U.

  “There are only so many players in this thing. Pierce is dead. That leaves three. We need to be keeping track of them as much as possible. Hanrahan would have to be crazy to go anywhere near Tracy right now. But Erica Kerwick…”

  “We
need to keep an eye on her.”

  “Exactly.”

  Like most highrises in Austin, Hanrahan’s building had a parking garage with reserved spots on the lower levels for tenants. We spotted Erica Kerwick’s Jetta on the second floor, not far from the elevators. There were no spots for guests on that level, but, fortunately, there was only one exit out of the garage.

  “Just find a metered spot on the street and wait for her,” I said. “She goes anywhere—anywhere at all—you follow her. And if Hanrahan goes anywhere, send me a text.”

  “What does he drive?”

  That stopped me. “I don’t know. You’ll need to use binoculars and check each driver that comes out.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get a cab back to my place. I’ll need your car keys.”

  “Where you going?”

  “We got what we could out of Hanrahan. Now I want to see if his wife will talk.”

  Less than an hour and a half later, I was in Mia’s Mustang, cruising west on Bee Cave Road. Keeping it under the speed limit, because Westlake cops are fond of running radar, and they’d love to pull over a car like this one.

  I turned right on Westlake Drive, followed it through the intersection at Redbud Trail and along the twisting road into the heart of one of the most affluent areas in Austin. Lots of business hotshots lived up here in these steep, heavily wooded hills, including Michael Dell. He had something like 33 acres, complete with a thirty-thousand-square-foot mansion and a helicopter pad.

  The Hanrahans lived off a street called Toro Canyon. Easy enough to get their home address off the tax records, which showed that they owned half a dozen properties in Travis County. That’s what wealthy people did. They owned a lot of stuff.

  It didn’t surprise me when I reached their place and saw that their entire estate—four acres—was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Eight feet tall and spikes at the top.

  No news crews hanging around, but that didn’t surprise me either. The two-lane road was narrow, with no shoulders and no place to park. The cops in a little municipality like this would run those guys off in a heartbeat if they created a traffic hazard by lingering or loitering.

  I drove past, just to give myself time to think. Couldn’t simply walk up to the front door. Wasn’t about to trespass. Didn’t know Kathleen’s phone number, and I really doubted Patrick would give it to me. I wondered if he was even staying here now, after the revelation that Kathleen planned to divorce him.

  I turned around at a street called Fast Fox Trail and moseyed back to the Hanrahans’ place. I pulled into the driveway and stopped at the gate. To my left was a keypad, which would magically open the gate if I knew the right numbers to punch in. Or I could punch a button and summon someone inside the house, which I couldn’t even see from where I was idling.

  Nothing to lose. I punched the button.

  I wondered if the Hanrahans had servants of any kind. Maid. Gardener. Pool boy. Butler. Au pair. Was there somebody back there who would be shirking his or her responsibility by failing to answer the buzzer?

  So far, nothing, so I gave it another punch.

  Now I noticed a small, discreet video camera tucked into the English ivy growing to the left side of the gate. It was just me, one guy, in a Mustang, not a news van, and maybe that’s why Kathleen Hanrahan decided to see what the hell I wanted.

  “Yes?” she said through the small speaker mounted beneath the keypad. The sound was surprisingly clear—enough so that even with just that one word, I recognized her voice from the times I’d seen her on the news.

  I didn’t waste any time. “Mrs. Hanrahan, my name is Roy Ballard. I just came from a meeting with your husband and I’d like to speak to you, too, if you have a minute. I am not a police officer or a reporter of any kind.”

  “What…who is this?”

  “Roy Ballard, ma’am. I have some information I’d like to share about your daughter Tracy.”

  There was a long enough delay that I wondered if she was there, or if she was going to answer.

  Finally, she said, “Are you one of the news people?”

  I was tempted to believe that she couldn’t hear me well, but I could hear a telltale sign in her voice. Slight confusion. A hint of a slur. She’d been drinking, or taking pills, or something. Which could make my job a whole lot harder or a whole lot easier.

  “No, I’m a videographer,” I said. “I investigate insurance fraud.”

  Gave her a few seconds to reply. Not a peep. I really didn’t want to spill my guts out here on the intercom, but I didn’t have any choice.

  So I said, “Mrs. Hanrahan, I saw your daughter last week, the day after she went missing. I saw her at the home of a man I was investigating—a man who worked at one of your husband’s restaurants. I really think we should sit down for a few minutes and talk about it. This isn’t a joke or a trick or some sort of scam. Hear me out, and if you want me to leave, I’ll leave immediately.”

  Still nothing.

  “Mrs. Hanrahan, you have my word.”

  The gate began to swing open.

  Not quite noon and she was drunk, no question about it. Not tipsy. Not buzzed. Inebriated. I could tell from the moment she opened the door, swaying, glassy-eyed. There was also a small purple splotch on the front of her white blouse, which told me that her drink of choice was wine. This was not the well-put-together woman I’d imagined her to be.

  She looked past me, out to the parking area in front of the house, as if to make sure there hadn’t been additional people hiding in the Mustang.

  Then she looked at me again. “What was your name?”

  “Roy Ballard.”

  I stuck out a hand and she shook it. It was obvious from the circles under her eyes and a general sag to her face that the past eight days had weighed on her.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” she said, as if she’d invited me. “Come on in.”

  The Hanrahan home, which was gorgeous from the outside, was every bit as stunning inside. Very modern. The ceiling of the entryway was so high above me, I felt like I was in an auditorium. Everything was black and white, including the checkered floor.

  Kathleen led me into the living area, which had a lot more color, including a red L-shaped sectional sofa so sprawling that three matching blond-wood coffee tables served the longer side. The far wall consisted of blackened steel surrounding an immense fireplace. The artwork on the other walls—contemporary oil paintings—looked damned expensive even to a bumpkin like me. The two floor lamps looked like something a team of designers had spent months creating.

  There was no TV on the wall, no piles of mail on any of the tables, no dirty dishes or socks on the floor. Did anybody really live here? Or maybe the maid had cleaned that morning. Maybe she cleaned every morning. Maybe she never stopped cleaning. Maybe it was like painting the Golden Gate Bridge—a nonstop process. Weird the way the wealthy lived. The only hints of personalization in the room were a full glass of red wine and an iPad on one of the coffee tables. Evidently Kathleen had been sitting in here on the couch when I rang the buzzer, and this is where she now sat again, on the edge of the couch cushion, at full attention. I sat a few feet away.

  “You saw Tracy?” she asked. She appeared genuinely and pathetically desperate.

  “I am virtually positive it was her.” I recalled what her husband had asked me. “I would bet just about anything on it.”

  “Where? When was this?”

  And, for what seemed like the hundredth time, I told my story about seeing Tracy. Kathleen was my most rapt audience yet, and she appeared particularly stunned when I mentioned Pierce’s name, as if she hadn’t expected it. I saw anger flash in her eyes when I brought up Erica Kerwick. She wanted to believe everything I was telling her—that much was obvious. Before I was even done, her face was a mask of drunken confusion and pained disbelief, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. I stopped without giving the details of my conversation with her husband.

  �
��Brian Pierce and Erica have Tracy? Patrick has to be in on it. That lousy, lousy bastard. We need to tell the police.” Her voice was urgent.

  “I have already. They know all of this.”

  “What are they doing about it?” She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

  “I know they searched Brian Pierce’s house and came up with nothing. Tracy wasn’t there.”

  “Why wasn’t that on the news?”

  “Well, I don’t think cops routinely announce when they are going to search someone’s home. That could cast suspicion on a lot of innocent people. Do you need a Kleenex?”

  She nodded and pointed toward a hallway to the right of the fireplace. “There’s a bathroom…” she said.

  “Be right back.”

  I wandered down the hallway and found it easily enough. It was a guest bathroom, but it was enormous. There was a box of tissues resting on the granite countertop. I grabbed it and returned to my place on the couch, noticing that the previously full wine glass was now about half full.

  Kathleen grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her nose.

  I said, “I understand you worked with Pierce.”

  She nodded. “A long time ago. He still works for Patrick.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Patrick?”

  “Brian Pierce.”

  “I don’t know. Last year? Maybe when I was in the restaurant at some point.”

  “Doesn’t he do odd jobs for your husband?”

  “Sometimes, but it’s been awhile.”

  “Has he ever babysat your daughter?” I was thinking about what Emma Webster had told me—how she had seen Pierce with a little girl in his truck.

  She shook her head. “We have a nanny. We’ve had a couple.”

  Her breath smelled so strongly of alcohol, it was difficult not to recoil.

  “What about Patrick’s cousin?” I said. “What can you tell me about her?”

  Now Kathleen really looked confused. “His cousin?”

  “Erica Kerwick.”

  “She’s not his cousin. Where did you get that?”

  Because that’s what your husband told me.