Tami Hoag - Down the Darkest Road

Even as she said yes he pushed the door open with a finger.

“Well,” she said, flustered. “Sometimes I forget that one. I have to be more careful, I know. My mom is always harping at me about locking my doors. I accidentally left it open the other night. Stupid.”

“Did you?” Mendez asked, looking at Tanner. “Are you sure you forgot to close it?”

The girl looked puzzled by the question. “I thought I closed it. It was open when I got home. You don’t think . . . ?”

“Did anything seem disturbed?” Tanner asked. “Is anything missing?”

“No . . . I don’t think so . . .” Now she seemed unsure of everything as she tried to recall. “My friend Candace came over in the afternoon. We cooked out. I was late leaving for work. I was in a hurry. I figured I just didn’t remember to close the door.”

“Do you have a washing machine?” Tanner asked.

Now every question sounded strange and sinister to her. “No. Why?”

“Have you noticed any articles of your clothing missing?”

“No. What kind of question is that?” she asked, getting more agitated by the second.

A drawing on the counter between the kitchen and living area caught the eye of Mendez as he came back toward the front door. A pencil drawing. A cartoon. A caricature of a group of nurses, Denise Garland with her heart-shaped face among them. The artist had signed it in the lower right-hand corner: ROB.

A memory scratched at him. From the afternoon Ballencoa had come to the SO to file his complaint. Him asking Hicks what had been in Ballencoa’s messenger bag. A sketch pad, a notebook, a couple of rolls of film . . .

“Ms. Garland,” he said, “do you know a man named Roland Ballencoa?”

“No.”

He picked up the drawing and held it so Tanner could see it. “Where did you get this?”

“Oh, that’s from Rob,” the girl said, relaxing. This was something that wasn’t scary to her. A pleasant memory.

“Who’s Rob?”

“The guy at the diner,” she explained, finding a little smile. “He’s always there for breakfast. He does those and gives them to people. Just for fun. He’s nice.”

“Nice,” Tanner said.

“Nice,” Mendez repeated.

Denise Garland didn’t know whether she was supposed to be happy or cry.

Mendez took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her.

“Miss Garland,” Tanner said. “I have to be careful how I word this, but I want you to know that man has been a person of interest in a felony investigation in Santa Barbara.”

The girl’s eyes went impossibly wide. “Oh my God. What did he do? Do you think he broke into my house?”

“Double-check your locks,” Mendez suggested.

“And check your underwear drawer,” Tanner suggested. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Garland.”

“You’re late,” Cal Dixon said sharply as Mendez walked into his office.

“Roland Ballencoa is stalking a nurse from Mercy General Hospital,” Mendez returned.

Dixon sat back. “What?”

Mendez told him what had happened, weathering the scowl that came when he told the sheriff about tailing Ballencoa away from the diner. In this case, he felt the end more than justified the means.

“You’re sure he didn’t see you?” Dixon asked.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent. I think he would have already called you and raised a stink if he’d made me for a tail.”

Dixon cursed under his breath. That spot between the rock and the hard place was never comfortable. They had no legitimate call to tail Roland Ballencoa. They had nothing on him to link him to any of the B&Es. He had in fact been a victim of a crime with Lauren Lawton attacking him at the tennis courts. While they may have had their suspicions, he was not officially a suspect in anything.

Mendez had followed him to Denise Garland’s street, but they had nothing to link him to any crime committed against the nurse. As far as Denise Garland knew, there had been no crime committed. She couldn’t say anyone had been in her home without her consent. She couldn’t even swear that she hadn’t left her patio door open herself. And yet Mendez would have bet a week’s pay Ballencoa had been the one to leave that door open.

They couldn’t even follow Ballencoa on the excuse that he was a known predator because nothing had ever been proven against him in the Leslie Lawton case. They had no legitimate call to follow him, and yet in following him they now had every reason to find his behavior suspicious.

Hicks had pegged it right the day they had gone up to San Luis Obispo to begin their investigation into Roland Ballencoa: This isn’t even a whodunit. This is a what-the-hell?

Dixon huffed a sigh, got up from his chair, and paced behind his desk. He was a politician more by necessity than nature. By nature he was a cop first, a detective with a storied record in LA County. Yet he had to balance the two aspects of his job, Mendez knew. He didn’t envy his boss.

“We’ve got to run our investigation like we know he’s already done something,” Mendez said.

“But we can’t make a move against him without probable cause to believe he’s committed a crime,” Dixon countered. “I’ve already been on the phone with his attorney this morning. He wants to know what charges are going to be brought against Lauren Lawton.”

“He’s got balls,” Mendez grumbled. “He comes here to stalk the woman and make her life a misery, and he wants her in jail on top of it.”

“Vince is right,” Dixon said. “It’s a game to him.”

“The DA won’t charge her, will she?”

“I brought Kathryn Worth up to speed already,” Dixon said. “She’s not inclined to do anything, but she’s got a plan if Ballencoa presses the issue. The most Mrs. Lawton would be charged with is a petty misdemeanor. She’d plead out and get probation. A day or two of community service.”

Mendez bobbed his eyebrows but held his tongue. No part of that would sit well with Lauren. He had to hope, for everyone’s sake, Ballencoa let the issue die on the vine.

Dixon gave Mendez a sharp look. “What’s your plan, detective ?”

“We’ve got to link him to the B and Es.”

“Yes,” Dixon said drily. “Those non-crimes you didn’t want to bother with.”

“Lesson learned,” he conceded. “I’ve got Tanner here for the day from SB. She and Bill and I are going over everything. We’ll lay it all out and hope he’s left a loose thread dangling somewhere.”

“Yes,” Dixon said. “And we’ll hope it’s long enough Roland Ballencoa can hang himself with it.”

43

They moved around each other like two ghosts, each floating on their own plane, never touching, never speaking.

Leah ate a hard-boiled egg and half a grapefruit, went and brushed her teeth, came back to the kitchen, and sat down in silence.

Lauren drank a cup of coffee, picked at a blueberry muffin, took a couple of Tylenol, and sat at the table, silent.

She thought she should have been trying to draw her daughter out of her shell, into conversation, but every scenario she ran through in her head ended badly so she didn’t even try. The effort would have come across as desperate and phony. She didn’t want to put either of them through the awkwardness.

Leah had every right to be upset. Lauren had no words of wisdom. She had put the two of them in this place. She had no excuses. She had no solutions. She had made all of her promises and had promptly broken most of them. What was there to say?

She desperately wished she could think of something. She found herself absurdly thinking of the black-and-white wisdom of the television moms she had grown up on—Donna Reed and June Cleaver—who always managed to come up with some pearl of wisdom by the end of the half hour to reassure their children that all was right with the world.