CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The dinner trash was still on the conference room table when Miles called the number to Harold Gallagher’s home.
Styrofoam containers, crumpled napkins, and mostly empty soda cups sat in the middle of it all in an accidental cluster near the center.
Nobody had bothered to clear it in the excitement of this latest break.
Miles set his phone face-up in the middle of the mess, placing it on speaker mode.
Kowalski stood with his arms crossed near the door, watching. Vic sat across from Miles with her laptop open to Owen Gallagher's DMV record, the photo pulled up small in the corner of the screen. She absently reached out for what remained of her soda and sipped from the straw.
The line rang four times before it was answered. The voice that greeted them was male, flat and slightly wary. It was the tone of a man who had picked up a number he didn't recognize.
“Hello?”
"Is this Harold Gallagher?" Miles said.
"Yes. Who's this?"
"My name is Miles Sterling. I'm a special agent with the FBI, working out of Austin on a case. I'm calling about your son, Owen. I want to assure you that he's not in any trouble, and we're not calling to alarm you. We just have a few questions we're hoping you can help us with."
There was a silence on the other end that lasted long enough to be uncomfortable. "What kind of questions? If he’s in trouble and in no harm, why the call?"
“We’re putting some pieces together for an active case. And if you could answer just a few questions for us, it would help tremendously.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said doubtfully. “What do you need?”
"When did you last have contact with Owen?" Miles asked
"Months ago. Why? What's he done?"
"Maybe nothing, sir. Like I said, right now…we’re just asking questions. Have you spoken with him recently? Phone calls, texts, anything like that?"
"No." The word was short and flat. "He doesn't reach out. I don't push it."
Vic leaned slightly forward. "Mr. Gallagher, this is Agent Sterling’s partner, Agent Stone. Can you tell us a little about Owen? What he's been like in recent years?"
There was another silence and this one felt heavy.
When Harold Gallagher spoke again, his voice had taken on a different register, something lower and more contained.
To Miles, it sounded as if he were choosing each word with deliberate effort.
"He changed. After Rachel. I assume you know about her?”
“Yes, sir,” Miles said.
“Well, after she died, he became impossible to be around.
He was just angry at everything, shutting everyone out.
I tried to maintain a relationship with him, but he didn't want it. He blamed me. He blamed his mother, and she wasn’t even here.
She passed away about ten years ago. He blamed anyone he could blame. "
"What did he blame you for?" Vic said.
"For not stopping it." Gallagher's voice went tight. "As if I could have stopped it. As if any of us knew. She hid how bad it was. She was good at that. I’m ashamed to say I never had any idea she was struggling and…well, I’ll never know if I could have made any difference."
"I understand," Vic said. "I'm sorry."
"What's he done?" Gallagher said again. He wasn’t asking out of concern, Miles noticed. The question had an edge to it, the tone of a man who had been braced for bad news about his son for long enough that the bracing had become permanent.
"We're trying to locate him," Miles said. "We're not able to go into the specifics of why, but it's important that we speak with him. Is there anyone he was still in contact with? Friends, former colleagues, anyone like that?"
"Not that I know of. He cut himself off from everyone after Rachel. That's what I mean when I say he changed. He wasn't just grieving. He became someone I didn't recognize. As far as I know, he’s not even working anymore."
"Before she died," Vic said carefully, "did Rachel ever mention anyone she was seeing for counseling? A spiritual advisor, a life coach, someone like that?"
Gallagher made a short sound that was not quite a laugh, more like an irritated grunt.
"She went through a phase like that, yeah. A spiritual phase,” he said, and Miles could practically hear the man’s eyes rolling.
“She was always looking for something to hold onto, even before things got bad.
I didn't take it seriously enough, probably. "
"Do you remember who she saw? Specifically?"
"There were a few of them. There was the fortune teller over on South Congress, the one with the big neon sign in the window.
And a pastor who did outreach work at bars, of all places.
She talked about him a few times." He paused, thinking.
"And there was a man. A speaker, one of those life coach types who runs seminars.
She paid a lot of money for one of his programs. I told her it was a waste, which was probably not the most helpful thing to say. "
Miles looked at Vic across the table. "Do you remember his name?"
"Timothy something. Lansing? Lowery?”
Miles recalled a name he’d seen on their list that sounded very similar. He glanced over to it, spotted the name, and said, “Laurence?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Laurence, maybe. He's well known, apparently.
Has his own YouTube channel and does retreats.
Rachel spent a few thousand dollars on some intensive course he offered.
She said it changed her life. But in the end, I guess it didn't." He said it all with an edge of anger rather than sorrow, making Miles wonder how long the man had lived with this bitterness.
Ever since the day his daughter had killed herself in such a bizarre and unique way, perhaps?
Miles looked back to the name on the list, a name that had survived the weeding out they’d already done: Timothy Laurence, listed under motivational and spiritual life coaching. There was no Austin address in their notes, but there was a website and a contact number.
"Mr. Gallagher," Miles said, "thank you for your time. You've been very helpful."
"Hold on…is my son in danger?"
It was the third time he’d asked the question or some version of it, and Miles felt a bit guilty for withholding the truth. He chose his words with care when he said: "We want to find Owen so we can talk with him. That's the truth of where we are right now."
Harold Gallagher was quiet for a moment, and Miles could imagine him on the other end, trying to figure out if he should keep pushing or not. "All right," he said finally. He didn't sound reassured, and Miles didn't try to make him feel that way.
“Thanks, Mr. Gallagher,” Vic said, reaching out and ending the call.
The phone sat quiet in the center of the takeout containers. Nobody said anything for a second as the weight of their discovery settled in.
"Laurence," Kowalski said.
"He's on the list, right there," Miles said, pointing. "Life coaching, spiritual seminars. No storefront, but a website and a contact number."
“And a YouTube channel, apparently, according to Mr. Gallagher,” Vic said.
Miles called the number listed by the name, again leaving it on speaker mode.
It rang through to an outgoing message from a woman identifying herself as an assistant named Jo.
She asked callers to leave their name, contact information, and the nature of their inquiry.
Miles left a brief message and a callback number, then waited, not expecting much.
When he looked at the clock on his phone when he ended the call, he saw that it had somehow come to be 6:35.
Miles stood and stretched his back, thinking. He was about to say something else when Vic spoke up. “Shit. He’s unavailable because he’s at a speaking engagement this evening.”
Miles turned to her and saw that she was on his website and had navigated to the Calendar and Events page.
“Is it a local event?” he asked.
“It is. Right here in Austin.” She looked over to Kowalski and asked, “Do you know where the Paramount Theatre is?”
“Yeah, I do. And you know…” Kowalski's expression shifted. Something had crossed his face, gone still, and then settled into something that looked like a man who had just put two things together. "The Paramount," he said. “Damn it.”
"You know it?" Vic said.
"Everyone in Austin knows it." He looked at both of them. "It's one of the most famous venues in the city. Historic. It's been standing since 1915." He stopped, and his voice came out quieter than before. "It's known for a lot of things. One of them is its neon."
Miles was already on his feet. “Explain, please.”
"The whole facade," Kowalski said. "It's covered in it.
Elaborate art deco installations. The marquee, the sign work across the front of the building.
It's some of the most elaborate neon in the city. But it’s sort of…
classy, you know?" He moved away from the door, growing tense as dark understanding came over him.
"And if Owen Gallagher spent three years installing custom commercial neon for a living, then he would know that building.
Hell, he could be familiar with every transformer in it. "
Miles grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. Vic closed her laptop in a single motion and stood. Just like that, they were on the move again, off to their next stop without even discussing it.