Ballencoa’s van came back onto the block from the opposite direction and pulled over and parked maybe twenty yards from the Toyota.
Neither Mendez nor Tanner said anything. They waited. They held their breath. They waited for Ballencoa to get out of the van, to approach the little square house the Toyota had parked in front of.
“Do you think he made us?” Tanner asked softly, as if there was some chance of Ballencoa hearing her a block away.
“I don’t think he would have stopped if he’d made us,” Mendez said.
“Or he would—just to yank our chains.”
“Maybe.”
“This is like watching one of those nature shows,” Tanner murmured. “Watching the tiger stalk some poor unsuspecting whatever the hell tigers stalk.”
They sat there for nearly ten minutes before Ballencoa pulled away from the curb and came toward them. Shit, Mendez thought. He was going to come right past them. No way he wouldn’t see them. Tanner slid down in her seat and ducked her head. Mendez twisted around and pretended to look for something in the backseat.
But Ballencoa turned left at the corner just in front of them, never looking their way.
Tanner and Mendez exhaled together. They waited another ten minutes to make sure he didn’t come back, then went to knock on the door of the nurse with the red Toyota.
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.