The Rented Mule (28 page)

“Cooper, it happens.”

“She’s not havin’ an affair… at least I don’t think she is. I don’t know how I’d know if she was,” he answered. “And why are you askin’ if she’s pregnant?”

“Well, if she was pregnant and didn’t want the baby, she may have slipped off to Atlanta for an abortion.”

“No! No way in hell she’d ever have an abortion!” Cooper stated emphatically.

“These are questions I have to ask and you have to consider,” the detective responded, sipping his coffee.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay then. I’ll prepare a statement for the press. I’ll start working on it right now. Can you e-mail me a current photo of Kelly?”

“Sure. Absolutely. I’ll hafta get somebody to help me, though,” Cooper responded enthusiastically and added, “Detective, you need to know that I haven’t done anything to harm my wife. The only thing I’m guilty of is being a shitty husband.”

Obermeyer nodded, thinking for a moment, and then said, “Yeah, sure. Stand by.”

G
ates Ballenger learned of the messy situation from Cooper by phone. He had never heard Cooper sound so depressed and disoriented. He did his best to comfort his partner, insisting that he stay away from the office and take care of his family. Gates said all the right things. He promised Cooper that he would take care of the day-to-day business and told him not to worry.

Exhaling deeply, Gates stared out the window of his office at the view of downtown Montgomery. Gates was living on borrowed time, and every day, every hour, the noose was slowly getting tighter. He needed drugs, he needed cash, and he needed this business to support him, either through milking it as he had since day one or from the sale to MidState Bank, which wasn’t going to close as quickly as he had hoped.

Leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the desk, Gates smiled at the thought of a legal point that he had written into the operating agreement when he and Cooper formed their company. The language creates a chance for
Gates to own 100 percent of the Tower Agency. It was actually Gates’s father who insisted on a contractual clause providing that in the event Cooper was ever convicted of a crime and served any jail or prison time, even one day, as a result, his ownership percentage in the agency reverted wholly back to Gates on the date of his incarceration.

Years ago, Gates’s father had owned a roofing business with another man who later had been convicted of bribing a federal judge. The senior Ballenger always despised having to share profits with a man in prison. He would say, “Always have control of your business and always have a way to keep control.”

Gates smiled as he remembered Cooper laughing at the clause and naively dismissing it, saying that the clause was the absolute least of his worries. He stared at one of Cooper’s Mexican Coke bottles and wondered about his next move now that he had options.

B
y the end of the day, all of the local television stations had aired stories based on the prepared release during their news broadcasts. The Client was ecstatic. The story was finally taking shape, and it was certain to grow. It was tailor made for today’s media interests. It was hard to predict what the major cable news outlets would pick up, but this story would eventually have all the elements they craved—an attractive upper-middle-class family, the mysterious disappearance of the mother, and most important, unlimited unanswerable questions for their panels of so-called experts.

It wouldn’t be long before Cooper Dixon would be dragged through the mud and ruined.

The Client was feeling bulletproof and euphoric. For the fourth time in eleven months he decided to reward himself. He felt that he deserved it.

Detective Obermeyer’s thumbs were tired from e-mailing himself information from his tiny BlackBerry keyboard. So while he waited for the Chevrolet dealership to trace Kelly’s new Suburban through OnStar, he called his commander to bring her up to speed: “I was at the Tower Agency waitin’ to interview Mr. Gates Ballenger, when I overheard the office receptionist’s conversation with a car salesman who was sorta frantically lookin’ for Cooper.”

Obermeyer took a sip of coffee and then continued, “Kelly Dixon traded her Volvo for a brand-new silver Suburban and told the salesman to contact her husband on Monday to sort out the details. She drove it off the lot Saturday afternoon. Her Volvo’s at the dealership.”

Obermeyer’s superiors had given him a long rope several years back, and the detective had never disappointed them. Obermeyer was quirky and odd in both looks and personality, but he was capable of understanding complex fact patterns and situations. To everyone’s frustration, he would not make a quick analysis, but given a few minutes to think it through, he was spooky with accuracy in his conclusions. That’s how and why he developed the habit of saying, “stand by,” whenever he needed time to think.

“Keep me in the loop,” the commander demanded and then, without another word, hung up the phone.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied into dead air. He looked intently across the car lot at nothing in particular as he slid the phone into his pocket.

Obermeyer was in deep thought when the dealership’s general manager rushed up to him saying, “Detective? Detective! It’s at Lagoon Park Softball Complex. It hasn’t moved since Saturday night!”

TUESDAY—DAY 3

W
hen Clarence finally awoke, he felt as though he hadn’t urinated in days. He hurried to the toilet holding onto himself. After voiding his bladder and being horrified at seeing traces of blood in his urine, he dialed Jesse Ray’s cell number.

“Yo, Dog. You feelin’ better?” Jesse Ray answered on the second ring.

“Yeah, for the time being. Give me an update,” Clarence demanded.

“Pretty smooth on this end: the package is fine, vitals good, the story broke last night on the local stations… I’m expectin’ more on tonight’s news. It should start gettin’ some serious traction.”

“Good.”

“It gets better. Listenin’ to scanner chatter, it seems MPD put their best detective on it.”

“Figures. She’s rich and white. Well, this is good. It’s what the Client wanted. So how’s the crew?”

“Everybody’s good. I got two black eyes and a swollen face. J. J.’s taken over and has Mr. King jumpin’ through hoops.”

“She has a tendency to do that.”

“Yo, Dog, this place is spookin’ the shit outta me. I haven’t slept since I got here.”

“Whaddaya talkin’ ’bout?”

“It’s haunted, bro. I hear shit goin’ on all night. Sounds like somebody walkin’, marbles rollin’ around, doors openin’; it’s crazy. I’m just waitin’ on my security cameras to pick up something so I can sell it to the Discovery Channel.”

“You serious?”

“Damn straight. I feel like somebody’s watchin’ me all the damn time. It’s okay during the day, but at night, I’m tellin’ you… this place gives me the creeps. I’m ready to get the hell outta here, Dog.”

“I’ll be there directly, and we’ll figure it out,” Clarence said and then ended the call.

Clarence’s back was hurting. He reached to the nightstand for his pain meds. He was thankful to be under cool sheets in the clean hotel room rather than suffering in a hot, haunted house.

C
ooper sat nervously in a private conference room at the police headquarters. He was relieved to be away from the constant ringing of his home telephone and the endless questioning, all thanks to the television reports. He tightly held his BlackBerry in case Kelly called. Donna and his mother were keeping the kids, trying to hold together his family.

Detective Obermeyer had informed Cooper about the vehicles—that they located Kelly’s Volvo and the Suburban. Cooper also knew that the police now considered Kelly to be the victim of a kidnapping, which was blowing Cooper’s mind. He sat there, head in his hands, trying to make sense of things. A day earlier he was convinced that she had run off and left him because she believed he had cheated on her; then he learns that she’s been kidnapped. He was worried sick about Kelly but oddly relieved that she hadn’t left him. The spectrum of emotions coursed though him.
Kidnapped!? This is insane,
he thought and buried his head in his arms, mentally and physically exhausted.

Detective Obermeyer walked in and slowly shut the door. “Okay, Cooper, what aren’t you tellin’ me?” The detective sat down and then took a sip from a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

Cooper just shook his head. After a long moment, he said, “I… I can’t think of anything.”

“Kelly intended for you to buy that Suburban. It just took a while for the salesman to get up with you. And you had no idea?”

“He called me a couple times Monday, but he always calls me when he’s tight on his monthly sales quota. That’s why I didn’t return his call.”

“And your wife
never
mentioned that she was lookin’ for a new vehicle?”

“She’s always wantin’ somethin’, you know? But we hadn’t discussed a Suburban,” Cooper explained, restlessly running his hands through his hair.

“Okay, stand by.”

“What about a ransom note? Was there one in the Suburban?” Cooper asked immediately. He was clearly not “standing by.” He wanted answers.

“No. That’s what I’m tryin’ to think through. If this is a kidnapping, you should have heard something by now. If and when you do, then we have to bring in the FBI.”

“Shit!”

Detective Obermeyer was concentrating intently. “Unless they’re trying to let you get really worked up, panicked, and then they’ll hit you with the demand… but the longer this goes on, the more likely law enforcement would become involved, and they wouldn’t want that if it was a straightforward abduction for money.” The detective paused and then asked, “Do you know why your wife went to the bank and took something out of your safety deposit box on Friday?”

“I have no idea.”

“None?”

“Hell, I didn’t even know we had a safety deposit box!” Cooper snapped back in frustration.

“This is confusing, perplexing, and not just the least bit mystifying, to say the least.”

“Well, do your stand by thing, ’cause right now, you’re all I got.”

“How liquid are you? Help me understand that… if they called with a big ransom, could you handle it?”

“I could get my hands on about a hundred thousand, but I would have to sell some investments. I’m not flush by any means.”

“Y’all look like you’re doin’ well, financially,” the detective remarked, wanting to hear the inflection in Cooper’s reply.

“Appearances can be deceivin’. I’m just like everybody else, mortgaged up to my eyeballs, and I don’t draw a big salary. I’m tryin’ to build up equity in the business.”

“Mr. Dixon, does your wife have a life insurance policy?” the detective asked, taking another hit of Pepto-Bismol and watching Cooper’s expression.

Cooper immediately looked up and made eye contact. Nothing was said for several long moments. Cooper finally said, “Look, I’m gonna say one more time: I. Haven’t. Done. Anything. To. My. Wife!”

“That doesn’t answer my question. What about it? Do you?”

“Yes. Yes, there is. There’s a million-dollar policy on her; we did it a few years ago… that’s to make sure I have some way to help take care of the kids. I didn’t really want it; our neighbor’s an insurance agent, and he talked us into it.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Well, there’s two million dollars on me! This agent… you can talk to him… he said we needed a multiple of my salary and our debts. I did what he recommended… just in case. If something happened to Kelly, I’d need help with the kids for sure. My business takes a lot of my time. I’d probably have to have live-in help. We were just tryin’ to be responsible. That’s pretty normal, I think.” Cooper paused and added, “Look, I’m not rich, but we’re not in too bad of shape either. Nobody knows this, but MidState Bank is about to purchase the Tower Agency, and I stand to make some good money.”

“I hadn’t heard that,” the detective said, looking at Cooper, trying to read his body language. He continued, “All right Cooper… go home, but be careful. I got a tip that CNN is sendin’ a crew down here.”

“Should I talk to ’em?”

“Honestly, at this point, I don’t know. They could fry you and the Montgomery Police Department, or they could shake something loose.”

“I just want my wife back,” Cooper said, almost losing control of his emotions.

A female officer walked into the room and handed Obermeyer a note, which he slowly read.

“What is it?” Cooper asked nervously.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else you wanna tell me?” the detective asked as he reread the note from a well-known private investigator, claiming to have information about Cooper Dixon and his marriage. Obermeyer smiled as a piece of the puzzle quietly dropped into place.

“I swear to you… I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” Cooper pleaded.

“Fine. If that’s how you wanna play it. Read this.” Obermeyer slid the note across the table.

Cooper’s eyes quickly scanned the note and recognized the private investigator’s name from his obnoxious advertising on late-night cable television.

“I can explain. I swear; this is all just a big misunderstandin’.”