Down the Darkest Road

wife wouldn’t press charges.”

“She should just take a gun and shoot him next time,” Hicks suggested. “Save us all the time and money screwing around with him. The guy’s a waste of skin.”

“Right,” Mendez said. “The DA would piss all over us to make a case against her.”

“Sometimes there’s no justice.”

Mendez thought of Lauren Lawton and her Walther PPK. He wondered how good a shot she was, and how many times she had imagined plugging Roland Ballencoa in the head.

“So according to the DMV,” Hicks went back on topic, “Avis owns the car. According to the Avis office in San Luis, they’ve never had the car on their lot. All the Avis cars with California tags are registered to the corporate office in Sacramento. The car could have come from anywhere in the state.”

Mendez scratched the top of his head. “Avis can track down the rental history on the car, right?”

“Yeah, but it’ll take some time. They have offices in 122 cities in the state of California—and multiple offices in a lot of those cities. Cars get picked up at one location, dropped off at another, rented out again. The paper trail is slow to come together. It was a couple of months ago, so that’s on our side. Still, it takes time on their end, and it’s not like we’ve got a warrant or anything.”

“If they had it all coordinated somehow on computers, that would be the ticket,” Mendez said, ever frustrated that all the great technology he kept reading about seemed always just out of reach.

“That day will come,” Hicks agreed. “But not today. At any rate, if Cal isn’t that excited about us spending hours on Ballencoa, then he sure isn’t going to give a shit if someone was spying on the guy in San Luis. It might be an interesting puzzle, but what’s it got to do with us?”

“Maybe something,” Mendez said. “I got a call from Lauren Lawton at two thirty this morning. Someone came onto the property she’s renting and left a photograph on the windshield of her car—a photograph of her in a parking lot, taken yesterday.”

Hicks furrowed his brow. “Did she see anybody?”

“No, but she’s convinced it’s Ballencoa. She says he stalked her in Santa Barbara.”

“She says?”

Mendez shrugged. “The SBPD wasn’t so sure about it.”

“What do you think?”

“I think she was pretty upset last night. And she didn’t take that photo of herself,” he pointed out. “And get this: She told me Ballencoa broke into her house in Santa Barbara and hung out just to freak her out.”

“That’s crazy.”

“No. Listen. She said she knew someone had been in the house. Someone drank a glass of wine and then washed the glass and left it where she would find it. He had touched things, moved things. He did a load of laundry—”

“What?” Hicks said, incredulous. “Are you smoking crack? Is this woman smoking crack? She says he broke into her house and did his laundry?”

“No! He did her laundry,” Mendez said. “She left a basket of dirty laundry on the washing machine. Underwear.”

Hicks closed his mouth as the meaning sank in. “Oh, man. That’s disgusting.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Mendez agreed. “He goes in her house, helps himself to the wine, touches her stuff, jerks off in her underwear, and does the laundry so there’s no evidence. Does that sound familiar?”

“The B and Es,” Hicks said. “Somebody breaks in, messes with their stuff, but doesn’t take anything.”

“This could be our guy,” Mendez said. “And if it is, he’s not just some perv, he’s a predator casing his potential victims.”

“Holy crap.”

“We need to pull those case files and take another look at who’s living in those houses.”

“Right.” Hicks narrowed his eyes. “Hey. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Last night? Why? We should both get dragged out of bed on a prowler call?”

“She called you at home?”

“I gave her my card. What?” he asked at the roll of his partner’s eyes. “She’s new here. She doesn’t know anybody. She’s been to hell and back. She doesn’t think anybody gives a shit.”

“You’re a regular Welcome Wagon, Tony. Is this something new for Oak Knoll? Every newcomer gets their own personal sheriff’s detective?”

“It’s not like that,” he said, irritated. “She’s got special circumstances. I’m just trying to be a decent human being.”

“Whatever you say.”

“That’s what I say.”

Mendez got up and threw half of his doughnut in the trash and dumped the last of his coffee in the sink.

“What’s your plan?” Hicks asked.

“I handed the photograph off to Latent Prints. We’ll see what they come up with,” he said. “I’m going to start calling utility companies. Maybe Ballencoa can live without a phone, but I’m betting he’s got electricity. I’m going to track this bastard down, and we’re going to have a chat about how things are done in Oak Knoll.”

24

“Mommy, I like Leah,” Haley Leone said, looking up at her mother as they walked hand in hand on the shaded path that surrounded the playground of the Thomas Center day care facility.

The day care had been open for nearly three years now, offering a service to the community and an opportunity for women in the center’s program to work in what was truly a nurturing environment.

Anne brought her children here every morning while she saw clients or tended to other work. It was a safe, secure environment with plenty of supervision and activities for the kids.

Never shy, Antony always made a beeline for the toddler sandbox, where he immediately set about building a mountain of sand to run toy trucks into. Haley, more reserved, liked to take her walk and have a few minutes of quiet time with Anne before she joined her little girlfriends on the swings.

Anne smiled. “I like Leah too. She’s a nice girl, isn’t she?”

“She’s really nice. She showed me how to braid hair. She said when she rides in a horse show she has to braid her horse’s hair a certain way, but she knows a bunch of different ways to do it. She said different kinds of horses get their hair braided all different ways. I want to learn how to do that. Can I, Mommy?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. We don’t have any horses to practice on.”

Haley was undaunted. “Leah said she would show me on her horse. Wendy wants to learn too. Maybe we could go watch Wendy ride again and then afterward Leah could teach us.”

“Maybe,” Anne said absently, distracted by her own thoughts of Leah Lawton—so quiet, so polite, but with such a tight grip on herself Anne thought she might just shatter at the slightest touch. She seemed almost to hold herself as if she was protecting a deep, raw wound—which, Anne supposed, she was. Not a physical wound, but an emotional one.

“Maybe?” Haley said with dramatic despair. She leaned against Anne and gave her most plaintive look, although there was a sparkle in her dark eyes. “Mommy, p-l-e-a-s- e.”

Anne chuckled at her daughter’s acting talents. “We’ll see.”

“Oh, n-o-o-o-o!” Haley wailed, though a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

This had been a little joke between them for a long time. When Haley had first come into her life she had told Anne that when her biological mother had said “We’ll see,” it almost always meant no.

Anne laughed, bent down, and kissed the top of her daughter’s head, breathing deep the soft scent of baby shampoo in Haley’s thick tangle of dark curls. Haley had done her hair herself that morning, catching it up in two slightly messy, uneven pigtails. She had also chosen her own outfit—a blue-and-white sundress. Always the girly girl.

“Maybe one day next week,” Anne said. “Daddy’s coming home tonight. He told me he wants to take us someplace special tomorrow.”