Death, Taxes, and a Skinny No-Whip Latte Read online

  Although the two of us were tough, capable, and clever, our similarities ended there. I was petite with a lean figure while she was tall and voluptuous. My chestnut brown hair was cut in a conservative shoulder-length style, while Christina sported long black tresses. My facial features were delicate, whereas hers were dramatic. She was the yin to my yang.

  Christina wore a teeny pair of denim shorts, a sleeveless yellow top, and beaded flip-flops, looking nothing like the hard-hitting DEA agent she was. She unrolled her window, her gaze roving over my tiny compact car. “I can’t believe they expect you to run surveillance from this piece of caca.” She eyed the driver’s window. “Weird. That smudge on the glass is shaped like a penis.”

  “That’s because it was a penis.”

  “Oh.” She, too, was unfazed. Nothing surprises a federal agent.

  Christina kept an eye on the post office box while I drove to a residential area a few blocks away and parked the rental car. If whoever picked up the mail realized the post office was being watched, he might not go through with the pickup. Best to shuffle the vehicles around a bit.

  I walked back to the post office lot, enjoying the brief exercise. Christina pushed her passenger door open from inside and I climbed into her car, thankful to be able to stretch out my legs. She’d brought me a sub sandwich and yet another caramel latte, extra whipped cream, heavy on the drizzle, sprinkle of cinnamon. Yum. I was addicted to the things.

  I took a sip of my coffee. She took a sip of her antioxidant vitamin-infused karma-enhancing herbal tea. Like I said, yin and yang.

  “So,” she asked, “who we stalking here?”

  “Don’t have a clue. Just know which box to watch.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the box, sipping our drinks.

  Christina finished her tea and slid the empty cup into a holder. “You and me on a stakeout. Reminds me of old times.”

  “Old times?” I repeated, glancing her way. “You mean last month in the roach motel?” We’d recently spent a few weeks on a stakeout in a former crack house, waiting to bust the aforementioned drug-dealing, tax-cheating ice cream man.

  “Last month is old times to rookies like us.”

  “True.” I unwrapped my sub, releasing the scents of onion, mustard, and banana peppers. I took a huge, ravenous bite.

  Christina crinkled her nose and fanned the air with her hand. “I should’ve told them to hold the onions.”

  I held my field glasses to my eyes each time I saw movement inside the post office. No luck. Nobody stopped at box 1216.

  An elderly man supported by a four-pronged metal cane stopped at a box a few rows over and removed several magazines in brown wrap. Girlie mags, no doubt, delivered to the post office so the missus wouldn’t know her husband was yet another disgusting perv, getting his jollies ogling nude, big-busted girls young enough to be his granddaughters.

  When he emerged from the building, I couldn’t help myself. I stuck my head out the window. “Those girlie mags, Grandpa?”

  The man looked at me, his eyes wide and wild. He clutched his mail to his chest and shuffled to his car as fast as his skinny, arthritic legs and cane would take him.

  Christina snorted. “You’re going to give that old fart a heart attack.”

  “Would serve the skeeve right.” Then again, in these hospital scrubs, I might be expected to perform CPR on the guy. I was in no mood for mouth-to-mouth, especially when it would likely be mouth-to-dentures. I could go without the taste of Polident, thank you very much.

  The last of the post office employees left soon thereafter, the parking lot emptying, making our presence more conspicuous. We decided to drive next door to park at the elementary school.

  The marquee in front advertised SPRING SHOW TONIGHT. Cars streamed into the lot, which was nearly full. We found a spot in the shade of the building and pulled in. We sat quietly for a few more moments, the faint, off-key sound of children singing audible when a late-arriving parent opened the front door of the school.

  “What do you do to entertain yourself when you’re alone on a stakeout?” I asked Christina. Maybe she’d thought of something I hadn’t.

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I do crossword puzzles.”

  “I don’t like crosswords.” Mostly because I could never fully complete one and hated the sense of failure. I mean, really. Who knew the Russian city of Volgograd used to be called Stalingrad? Come on!

  “There’s always sudoku,” Christina suggested.

  “Do math for fun? Are you nuts?”

  “If we were men we’d have more choices.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We could pick our noses or scratch ourselves or … you know.” She made a fist and pumped it in a jerking motion.

  “Ew.” Thoughts of the flasher from the other day and the dirty old man with the magazines had my hands fluttering involuntarily. “Ick. Yuck.”

  “It’s what guys do.” She shrugged. “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Well, stop sayin’! And speaking of guys, how’s Ajay?”

  Due to a series of unfortunate mishaps on earlier cases, I’d come to know the doctor at the minor emergency clinic on a first-name basis. When Christina accompanied me on a visit a while back, the doctor had fallen hard for her. The two had been going strong for several weeks now.

  “Ajay’s great,” she said.

  “Tell him his favorite patient says ‘hey.’”

  We listened to the cricket song, the leaves rustling in nearby trees, the rumble of an occasional car engine. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about the case, about Mendoza, about the people whose lives he’d ended, whether more lives would end before Eddie and I could nail the guy.

  Christina must’ve sensed my tension. “This is a dangerous case, isn’t it?”

  I nodded, feeling my throat and chest tighten even further. Screw confidentiality. I needed a confidante. Christina would keep her mouth shut. I told her all about Mendoza.

  “Wow,” she said when I finished. “He sounds like a real asshole.”

  That was putting it mildly.

  I looked over at her. “Do you ever wonder what makes people turn bad?” I wasn’t thinking solely about Mendoza anymore. I was thinking about Nick Pratt, too.

  She exhaled slowly. “Greed. Power. Thrills. Stupidity. Take your pick.”

  As far as Marcos Mendoza went, my money was on greed. Maybe power, too. He didn’t seem to take many chances, so I didn’t think he was in this game for the thrills. And the guy was anything but stupid. He’d earned an MBA from the University of Texas Business School, had even been named a distinguished alumnus. I wondered if they’d repo his trophy after we busted him.

  But what made Nick Pratt turn from the office superstar into Benedict Arnold?

  Christina hung out with me for a couple more hours, during which we huddled together, watching episodes of sitcoms she’d downloaded to her cell phone. Before it grew too late, I had her watch the box again while I took a quick potty break in the restroom at the convenience store and retrieved the rental car. I parked it in the lot of the Laundromat. When I was in place, I called her from my cell. “Thanks a bunch, Christina.”

  “Any time.” She clicked off the call and flashed her lights by way of good-bye.

  Then it was just me again. Me and my boredom and my imagination, which wandered into terrifying places, wondered how many pieces Mendoza might chop me into if he found out I was after him.

  Five?

  Ten?

  An even dozen?

  CHAPTER TEN

  Shifts and Shifty People

  Over the weekend, my partner and I switched to six-hour shifts to enable each of us to have some semblance of a regular life. Eddie attended his twin daughters’ soccer game in the early afternoon, while I enjoyed a date with Brett on Saturday evening, touring the new spring displays at the Dallas Arboretum, the place where we’d first met. Brett and his crew had installed a water garden area, complete with
a pair of turtles paddling happily among the water lilies.

  Brett was disappointed when I declined his invitation to spend the night at his place. He wouldn’t like it if he knew I’d be spending the remainder of the night on a stakeout, so I fibbed and said I had some important work I needed to wrap up in the morning. It wasn’t precisely the truth, but it wasn’t a big lie, either. Just an itty-bitty, teensy-weensy white lie. Hardly more than a fib. Those don’t really count.

  How’s that for rationalizing?

  Sunday afternoon, I sat in the rental car, sweating in the late spring heat, smelling like I’d run a marathon. When I’d eyed myself in the mirror that morning, I thought I looked tough and sexy in the biker chick gear. In retrospect, the leather vest and ankle boots hadn’t been the wisest choice. Leather doesn’t exactly breathe.

  When I stepped out of the car to stretch my legs, a skinny biker dude with a dark braid hanging halfway down his back offered me a pleasure ride on his hog. I assumed he was talking about his motorcycle, but he may have meant something else entirely. Either way, I declined.

  To make things worse, that annoying itch at the hairline on the back of my neck had returned. Maybe I should buy some dry scalp shampoo.

  I called Brett on my cell phone. It was a poor substitute for seeing him in person, especially since we couldn’t snog and snuggle while watching BBC America.

  I contemplated the pros and cons of offering him phone sex. Pros: no risk of pregnancy, no chafing, no vying for position, wrangling to see who gets to be on top. Cons: I wasn’t exactly sure what phone sex entailed. Was it just talking dirty to each other? Or was there more to it? I could toss out a few oohs and aahs, but no way could I do something that was, essentially, um … er … masturbation. Sheez, I could hardly even say the word! Besides, I didn’t find myself sexually attractive. I had the wrong parts. It’s not you, I told myself, it’s me. I hope we can still be friends.

  My cell phone bleeped, indicating an incoming call.

  “Do you need to take that?” Brett asked.

  I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the readout. The call came from the 401 area code. The number didn’t ring any bells. Probably my credit card company calling to pester me about buying credit insurance. How many times did I have to tell them no? I put the phone back to my ear. “It can go to voice mail.”

  The two of us discussed our upcoming trip to Florida.

  “I reserved the hotel room,” Brett said. “Got us one with an ocean view and a balcony.”

  How utterly romantic! “That sounds wonderful.”

  “You’re bringing your new bikini, right?”

  “Yep.” And the beautiful chiffon dress and the sexy lingerie with the clip thingies. But no sense telling him and spoiling the surprise, right?

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Me, neither.” Beautiful beaches, yummy seafood, the company of a sweet, sexy man. What more could a girl ask for?

  Then it hit me. If Eddie and I didn’t bust Mendoza in the next few days, there would be no trip to Fort Lauderdale with Brett. Dammit! My heart drooped in my chest. The Society of Landscape Architects was to present Brett with a major award at the banquet. This trip represented a significant event in his life. I needed to be there with him, to cheer him on, to show my support. To be ravished in my flirty new lingerie.

  No. No way. I sat up straight, fortified with fresh resolve. I’d be damned if I’d let some tax-cheating loan shark keep me from fresh shrimp scampi and hot lovin’ in a beachfront hotel. No matter what, we’d bust Mendoza before the trip to Florida. Yessiree, Bob!

  When Brett and I ended our call, I dialed into my voice mail. It was another odd message. Blaring mariachi music in the background and a deep male voice that sounded much like the one who’d left the “fuck” message at my office number. “Jesus Christ, don’t you ever answer your damn phones?”

  At first I thought it was another wrong number. But how would the same caller have misdialed both my office number and my cell number? It didn’t make sense. And the irritation in the caller’s voice was strange. If the caller and I didn’t know each other, what reason did he have to be angry with me? I suppose it could have been one of the taxpayers I’d investigated, or maybe one of their attorneys, but if so, wouldn’t the caller have identified himself?

  Curious, I dialed the number from which the call had been placed. Unfortunately, all I got was a computer-generated voice inviting me to leave a message. Looked like my mystery caller and I were going to engage in a game of phone tag.

  “This is Tara Holloway returning your call,” I said after the beep. “Call me back. If I don’t answer, leave your name and a good time to reach you.”

  The caller, whoever he was, was now “it.”

  * * *

  On Sunday night, I changed into a thrift shop T-shirt and set up shop inside the Laundromat where I could stretch my legs and get a change of scenery. I was tired of staring over a plastic dashboard. So as not to raise suspicions, I’d brought along some dirty laundry to wash. I stepped inside and looked around. Only a couple of people were in the place, a large black man asleep in a chair and a cute Asian girl, probably a college student, engrossed in sending text messages from her cell phone, giggling at the apparently witty textual repartee.

  Oh, to be so carefree.

  A fluorescent light flickered behind a cracked plastic fixture overhead, a valiant bulb not yet willing to give up the fight. The place smelled simultaneously and somewhat ironically of both dirty socks and soap. Washers churned noisily, creating humidity in the warm air generated by the spinning dryers. Before long my hair would frizz. On the upside, maybe the steam would clear my pores.

  I opened the lid of a washer at the end of the row closest to the front windows, set my wicker laundry basket on top of the adjacent machine, and began sorting through it, tossing in my whites. I had more than usual given I hadn’t seen much of Brett lately and had therefore opted to wear my comfy cotton granny panties rather than the red lace models. I stuck eight quarters in the slots, slid the mechanism forward, and the machine kicked in, the tinny sound of water filling the basin adding to the white noise created by the other washers and dryers.

  Taking a seat in a hard plastic chair in the corner, I stared out the window, waiting and watching. The glass reflected the word on my thrift shop T-shirt, the image backward, spelling SRETOOH.

  When a car drove into the post office parking lot, I slipped outside to get a better view. I’d concerned myself unnecessarily. The driver came nowhere near box 1216. Back inside I went.

  I retook my seat, fighting feelings of frustration and failure. When Nick Pratt had been on the case, he’d gotten the goods on Mendoza. But Eddie and I were spinning our wheels. Was Nick a better agent than us?

  Nah. I refused to believe that. When Nick first started his investigation, Mendoza’d had no idea the Treasury was on his trail and had probably been less careful. Things had been different then, easier. That was my story and I was sticking to it.

  And speaking of Nick …

  I’d brought my laptop along and booted up the machine, logging in to the Treasury Department network. I ran a search for his name. Several documents popped up.

  The first was a memo drafted by Lu and circulated to the staff, commending Nick for taking down a tax evader who’d embezzled four hundred thousand dollars from the car dealership where he worked as an accountant.

  A second memo congratulated Nick for leading the Treasury Department’s softball team to a win in the championship game of the interagency softball tournament. Thanks to Nick’s three home runs, Treasury’s team had beaten the pants off the dweebs from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  I-R-S! We’re the best!

  When our opponents tried Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar, we jeered them with Your little team ain’t nothin’ but a joke! We’ll tax that dollar and leave you broke!

  The Treasury team hadn’t won a game since Nick left.

  The Lobo had is
sued a final memo, dated shortly after Nick’s aborted investigation at AmeriMex. The memo informed the staff that Nick had resigned and that his large caseload would be reassigned. Prepare to work your asses off, Lu noted.

  As long as I was in the system, I figured I might as well take a look at Nick’s tax returns. I logged in to the taxpayer filings next. I didn’t know Nick’s Social Security number, so I had to search by name. I skipped over returns for several Nicholas Pratts, including a Nicholas A. Pratt who was a self-employed plumber in Boise and a Nicholas J. Pratt who drove a school bus in Walla Walla. After some searching, I found the Nick Pratt I was looking for.

  My eyes skimmed over his return information for the year he’d disappeared. Whoa. In addition to his wages from the IRS—which far exceeded my salary, by the way—he’d reported some dividends, a few hundred in interest income, and a three-million-dollar “buyout.”

  That entry must be Mendoza’s bribe.

  The records indicated that Nick had mailed in a check for the full amount of the taxes owed. In the subsequent years, he’d reported sizable amounts of interest income paid to him by a Mexican bank, no doubt the place where he’d deposited his bribe money. The records showed he’d paid all taxes due on the interest, also.

  Why would a double-crossing traitor report a bribe and pay taxes on it? Especially when he was out of the country and beyond the reach of American law enforcement?

  Once again, things didn’t add up.

  I logged off the system, returned my laptop to its bag, and resumed my surveillance of the post office. The Asian girl finished her laundry and left, texting single-handed as she made her way to her silver Honda, her pink plastic basket perched on her slim hip. Other than the sleeping man I was all alone now, staring out into the growing darkness, watching the post office and trying to make sense of things that made no sense.

  Sometime later, out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a young Caucasian man enter the place. He didn’t have any laundry with him. An eerie tingle crept up my spine. Instinct kicking in and kicking hard.