Down the Darkest Road

14

The Scum Lord, as Mavis Whitaker called him, was a wide-framed, stooped man in his seventies in baggy green shorts that looked to have at one time been a pair of dress slacks. Below his knobby knees, dark dress socks came halfway up his calves and were anchored in place by a pair of black sock garters. His shoes were brown oxfords, polished to a shine.

“Mavis Whitaker,” the old man growled, scowling at a spark plug he held pinched between a thumb and forefinger. His thick, red lower lip curved into a horseshoe of disapproval. “Nosy old bat. It’s none of her damned business who I rent property to.”

They stood in a shed that reeked of gasoline and oil out behind Carl Eddard’s modest home, only a few blocks from the house he rented to Roland Ballencoa.

“The man’s money is as good as anyone’s,” he said.

“Were you aware of the problems Mr. Ballencoa had had in Santa Barbara?” Mendez asked.

“Not interested. He paid first and last month’s rent up front. He pays on time. Never asks me for anything. Has never caused any trouble.”

“He was accused of abducting a sixteen-year-old girl,” Mendez pointed out.

“If he’d done it, then he’d be sitting in prison, wouldn’t he?” Mr. Eddard declared. “Nobody wanted to rent to him here, he said. He was willing to pay me nearly half again what I normally rent that place for.”

A premium for the choice hunting ground across the street, Mendez thought, disgusted by Carl Eddard’s disregard for the public safety.

“When did he move out?” Hicks asked.

Eddard wiped the dirty spark plug off with a dirtier rag, then shoved it back in its place on the lawn mower motor.

“I don’t know,” the old man said, irritated, pulling his head down between his shoulders like a turtle, like it physically pained him to be put upon this way. “I don’t know that he has moved out.”

“Do you have a phone number for Mr. Ballencoa?” Hicks asked, pen poised to jot the number in his notebook.

“No. He doesn’t keep a phone.”

“Can you tell us what bank he used?” Hicks asked.

“He didn’t. He always paid with a money order.”

“That seems strange.”

“Better than a check as far as I’m concerned,” the old man said. “You know it’s good.”

He made his way to a bench at the back of the shed, his bowed legs giving him an odd gait.

“When did he stop paying his rent?” Mendez asked, following.

“He hasn’t,” Eddard said, selecting a wrench from a hook on the pegboard above the workbench. “He’s paid up.”

“Through when?”

“End of the month.”

“He hasn’t given notice?” Hicks asked.

The old man crabbed his way back and fitted the wrench over a rust-caked nut on the old lawn mower. “No.”

Mendez exchanged a glance with his partner. According to Mavis Whitaker, Ballencoa had moved out sometime between the end of April and the beginning of June. But he had paid his rent through the month of July. Because he didn’t want anyone to know he had moved? Mendez wondered. Or had his exodus been so hasty he simply hadn’t bothered to try to get his money back?

“Has it occurred to any of you geniuses that maybe he hasn’t moved at all?” Carl Eddard asked, struggling to loosen the nut. “Maybe the man has just gone somewhere. People travel, you know.”

“Would it be possible to go into the house?” Mendez asked, ignoring the raised eyebrows Hicks gave him.

Carl Eddard gave him the stink eye. “Do you have a warrant, young man?”

“We don’t need one,” Mendez said. “You’re the landlord. You have the right to enter the property. We aren’t searching for anything other than evidence of whether or not Mr. Ballencoa is still using the house as his primary residence.”

Eddard scowled. “I’m a busy man.”

“We won’t take more than twenty minutes of your time, Mr. Eddard. And we won’t have to bother you again. It’s important that we establish whether or not Mr. Ballencoa has left town. If he has, then we’ll take our business elsewhere.”

The old man growled and grumbled, phlegm rattling in his throat. He wrung his hands in the greasy rag, then threw it at the lawn mower in disgust. “Oh, all right.”

Mendez and Hicks waited in their car for Carl Eddard to retrieve his house keys.

“Are you out of your mind?” Hicks asked as soon as they had closed their car doors.

Mendez pretended ignorance. “For what?”

“If Detective Neri gets wind of this, he’ll bellyache to his boss, who will bellyache to our boss. You’ll get both our asses in a sling.”

“For what?” Mendez asked again. “We’re not doing anything but having a look around. It’s not an illegal search because we’re not searching for anything. We won’t touch anything. We won’t take anything.”

“You’d better hope he hasn’t written a murder confession on the bathroom wall.”

“We came all the way up here to find this clown,” Mendez said. “I want to know if he’s packed his bags and gone. If all his shirts are still hanging in the closet, then he probably hasn’t moved to Oak Knoll and we don’t have to worry about it.

“If he’s gone out of that house lock, stock, and barrel with no notice to anybody . . . I’m not going to like that, are you?” he asked.

“I’m still not convinced there’s a lot of reason for us to care one way or the other,” Hicks said. “The guy’s got no wants, no warrants. The only person who claims to have seen him in Oak Knoll is arguably unstable.”

“Tell me this,” Mendez said. “Who sets up house one place, gets his mail someplace else, doesn’t keep a bank account, doesn’t have a telephone, leaves town in the dead of night without telling anybody . . . ?”

“A criminal,” Hicks conceded.

“A criminal that might be in our sandbox now. Maybe Mr. Eddard here doesn’t care about a convicted child predator living across the street from the high school. I do. You should. You’re the one with daughters.”

“I don’t want him in my backyard,” Hicks admitted, giving in as Carl Eddard made his way down the sidewalk to his red 1978 El Dorado.

“Let’s get on with it,” Hicks said. “You’re buying lunch after. I at least want to get my ass chewed on a full stomach.”