Down the Darkest Road

42

Mendez ran the tag on the Toyota before they went to the door. It came back to Denise Marie Garland, twenty, no wants or warrants.

He checked his watch as they went up the sidewalk. He was due in Dixon’s office in seventeen minutes. He rapped his knuckles hard on the door and said, “Miss Garland? Sheriff’s office.”

Denise Garland came to the door clutching her bathrobe closed at the throat, her mousy brown hair hanging in wet strings around her head, her brown eyes wide.

Mendez showed her his badge. “Miss Garland, I’m Detective Mendez, this is Detective Tanner. We need to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”

She stepped back from the door. “Did I do something? I know I’m not supposed to park in the doctors’ lot, but I was so late—”

“You haven’t done anything, ma’am,” Mendez said. “We’re investigating a string of break-ins in your neighborhood. We’d like to ask you some questions, that’s all.”

“Break-ins?”

“Have you noticed anyone strange hanging around the neighborhood lately?” Tanner asked, drawing the girl’s attention to her, allowing Mendez to move a little farther into the room.

The kitchen was to his left, the living room to the right. The place was the size of a postage stamp. It was clean with a normal amount of clutter. A pile of mail here. A stack of magazines there. Some dishes in the sink.

“No,” she said. “But I work nights. I just got home.”

“You’re a nurse?” Tanner said.

“Yes. I work in the ER.”

Half of her furniture was white plastic. The kind that was always on display on the sidewalk outside of Ralphs market and Thrifty drugstores. He could see a small table and four chairs of the same white plastic out on a little patio area on the other side of a flimsy-looking sliding glass door.

“Have you noticed anything out of place?” Tanner asked. “Anything missing?”

Denise Garland frowned as she thought. “No.”

“Do you keep your doors locked, Ms. Garland?” Mendez asked, walking over to the patio door.

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.”