to know once and for all what had happened to her daughter . . . or die trying.
51
Michael Craig Houston had been released from the minimum security section of the California Men’s Colony prison in San Luis Obispo in January after serving two years of a six-year sentence for larceny. His rap sheet was long. Mostly, it seemed he liked to swindle women, but he wasn’t above burglary, and he had been known to carry a gun and to use it as a threat.
Even in his mug shot he exuded the cockiness of a guy who believed he could get by on his looks alone. Just another smart-ass would-be mastermind con man too lazy to do real work. The only thing significant about Michael Craig Houston’s life as far as Mendez was concerned was his connection to Roland Ballencoa.
They had served time together in the Humboldt County jail in Eureka, California, and had both been questioned in the death of Ballencoa’s aunt. They had given each other alibis for the weekend the woman had died.
Because of Ballencoa’s personal proclivities for solitary perversion, Mendez hadn’t given any serious thought to the prior partnership. The name Houston had never come up again after Ballencoa had moved to San Diego. He figured the murder of the aunt had probably been a one-off for the money. Ballencoa wasn’t the sort of man to have friends. Yet Michael Craig Houston was here in Oak Knoll. He had left a photograph of Lauren Lawton on the windshield of her car.
“I’ll contact the Men’s Colony and have them check the visitation records,” Hicks said. “Ballencoa has been in San Luis for the past two years. Let’s see if he was in contact with Houston before he got out.”
“How the hell does he figure into this?” Mendez wondered aloud, pacing up and down the length of the time line they had stretched across the whiteboard at the front of the room.
“Crime makes strange bedfellows. Could be they stay connected through the money from the aunt,” Hicks offered. “If Houston killed the aunt or helped Ballencoa kill the aunt, that’s a tricky partnership. Ballencoa couldn’t just say thanks and good-bye. The other guy knows the truth. They’ll always be connected.”
“Maybe Houston is like one of those remora fish that hang on sharks,” Tanner suggested. “They’re not exactly friends, but it’s a symbiotic relationship.”
“But how would Houston benefit from stalking Lauren Lawton?” Mendez asked.
“He’s a con man,” Hicks pointed out. “He must see an angle to play. There has to be money in it for him one way or another.”
“There’s a reward,” Tanner said. “The Lawtons established it early on in the investigation. Fifty grand for information leading to the recovery of Leslie and the prosecution of her abductor.”
“Houston knows Ballencoa did it and he’s going to rat him out? Set him up?” Mendez said. “Why not just pick up the phone and call your department, Danni? Why the charade?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You asked for money. There it is. Fifty thousand reasons for somebody to do something.”
Mendez rubbed the back of his neck where the muscles had gone as hard as petrified wood. “Forget the money. Ballencoa likes to play games. How does Houston fit in to that scenario?”
“Maybe Houston is Ballencoa’s beard,” Tanner offered. “Houston does the dirty work so Ballencoa can alibi himself. He can say he’s not stalking Lauren. He wasn’t anywhere near her at the time this or that happened. Now you’ve got a fingerprint on a photograph, but it’s not Roland’s fingerprint. You’ve got nothing on him even though you know he’s behind it.”
“It’s just a fucking game,” Mendez muttered.
“It’s payback,” Tanner said. “Lauren kept the spotlight turned up on him the whole time in Santa Barbara. First she made it impossible for him to leave because he would have looked guilty. Then she made it impossible for him to stay because she wouldn’t let it alone.”
“I don’t care what he calls it,” Mendez said. “We need to shut it down.”
He went back to the phone and dialed Lauren’s number again, tapping his foot impatiently while he listened to the phone ring unanswered on the other end. He needed to find her. He needed to show her Michael Craig Houston’s mug shot.
“If Houston went onto Mrs. Lawton’s property and planted that photograph, we can pick him up on the trespassing charge,” Hicks said.
“If we can find him,” Mendez said. “We need to find out what he’s driving, where he’s staying. Let’s get Trammell and Hamilton on that.”
If they could find Michael Craig Houston and question him, maybe they could pluck loose a thread to connect Ballencoa—although Tanner was right: Having Houston’s print on the photograph only served to distance Ballencoa from a stalking charge—which brought him right back to the idea that Ballencoa was playing a game. And Michael Craig Houston was his ringer.
52
Lauren looked at her watch, nervous at the time. She needed to call Maria Gracida and ask her to keep Leah, make up some kind of plausible excuse for being late to pick her up.
What would she say?
She told herself she couldn’t think that way. For once, she had the upper hand. She was the one with the leverage—and the gun.
She went back to the 7-Eleven and used the same pay phone Ballencoa had used to make his mystery phone call, wiping the receiver off with the tail of her T-shirt, grimacing at the idea that he had held it in his hand and put it to his face.
The phone at the Gracida stables rang and rang. Lauren listened impatiently. She’d spent enough time in working barns to know there was no receptionist to take calls. The priority of the staff was the horses. If someone who spoke English happened to be near the phone, it would get answered. If Maria was teaching or riding, or there was no English-speaking groom, or a client kind enough to pick up nearby, the call would eventually be picked up by the answering machine in the office.
“Rancho Gracida, Maria speaking.”
“Maria, it’s Lauren Lawton.”
“Oh, Lauren, you’re home. I’m so glad.”
“I’m not home, actually,” Lauren said. “I was just calling to let you know—to let Leah know—I might be late.”
“Oh . . . well . . . I took Leah home a while ago,” Maria said. “She wasn’t feeling well. I told her I would wait with her until you got back, but she just wanted to go to bed. I made sure she locked the door behind me.”
A strange, cold sensation went through Lauren. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t been so hasty in turning down Greg Hewitt’s suggestion that he keep an eye on Leah. She felt her daughter was safe at the Gracidas’s; there were so many people around that nothing could happen and go unnoticed. And Ballencoa wouldn’t know to go there, anyway. Home alone was another matter.
“I tried to call you before I took her home,” Maria said.
“I wish you hadn’t left her,” Lauren said with an edge in her voice as fear seeped through the chill within her.
“I asked her if she wanted me to stay. She said she would be fine.”
“She’s
“We thought you’d probably just run downtown for something. With the doors locked and the gate, she should be fine—”
“Her sister was
“I was thinking she would be fine inside a locked house behind a gate—”
