Solar Flares & Tax Snares

by Rachel Ford

  “She wasn’t there yesterday.”

  “Maybe she was off. But I’ll call Harlow anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  The thought put rather a bee in Alfred’s bonnet. Figuratively speaking, of course, as there were neither bees nor bonnets involved. But they were looking for an inside man, weren’t they? That had been their tentative theory. Why assume the killer would be an actual man, though?

  Couldn’t it have been Dianne Godsey as readily as anyone else? Indeed, more readily, as she would have been far more likely to have access to her boss – especially access to get behind him in order to cut his throat.

  A quick perusal of the IRS systems for Dianne’s demographic information revealed that she was a widow in her late fifties. And though he neither had, nor desired, any experience with throat cutting, Alfred didn’t assume it required much strength. He figured a widow in her late fifties would be able to cut a throat if she put her mind to it.

  Rodriguez, of course, was a different matter. In the case of her boss, Dianne would be able to come and go without much notice. She probably did, on a semi-regular basis.

  But why would Agent Rodriguez let a stranger into his house – or, worse, a suspected embezzler or tax cheat? That, though, only opened up more questions than it answered. Why would Rodriguez let any stranger – a suspect or otherwise – into his house and turn his back to them?

  No, Alfred decided: the killer must have entered stealthily, and crept up on the agent while he worked. In truth, he did struggle a little to cast a fifty-something year old widow into the role of housebreaker and elite assassin. Then, though, he reminded himself that he was making assumptions. There were plenty of people in their fifties who were fitter and more active than he was; and plenty of them were women. Maybe Dianne would prove to be one, and maybe she wouldn’t. But he couldn’t rule her out.

  He’d just started to review her financials when his office phone rang. He glanced at the screen and saw Casperson’s number. Lifting the receiver, he asked, “Director?”

  “I just had a conversation with Harlow. A short one, because there’s nothing to tell, really. They don’t know where she is. Her car’s missing, and so are her purse and phone.”

  For a short window of time, Alfred allowed himself to hope that they’d got their man. Or, woman, in this case.

  But then he started reviewing the financials he’d pulled. Dianne Godsey made a modest middleclass salary, and lived in a modestly middleclass home she and her husband had purchased twenty years earlier. She still had ten years left on her mortgage. She owned no stocks or bonds directly, and had a very modest 401k retirement account, a health savings plan, and a checking account. The latest form from her bank indicated that she’d earned less than a dollar in interest on her checking account last year. Presumably, the taxman figured, because she lived paycheck to paycheck, so there wasn’t a significant balance to accrue interest.

  She lived within her means, though. A little more digging pulled a car registration for an eight-year-old vehicle, and a solid credit score with one outstanding balance: a hundred some dollars on an in-store credit card for a beauty store chain.

  What’s more, Godsey had no passport, no arrest record, or anything else that might suggest extravagance or vices. Her husband and only child had died in a car crash together years ago, and she had no near relatives – which ruled out familial obligations. Her social media accounts were full of pictures, seemingly of her own garden and strangers’ cats, with no mention of a boyfriend or any expensive hobbies or pets. Indeed, gardening seemed to be both the only hobby she had and the only thing she spent money on. She listed membership in the local master gardener’s association on her social media profiles and had uploaded photos of her yard during the area’s annual garden tour. Which confirmed for the taxman that, while she must have devoted every spare moment to the upkeep of her property, it was a very average home of smallish size on a fairly smallish lot. Her green thumb had transformed the place into something remarkable, but that was nothing more than a product of her hard work.

  At which point of realization, a sinking feeling settled into the pit of the taxman’s stomach. Dianne Godsey wasn’t their guy. She was just a middle-aged widow of modest means who lived a quiet, uneventful life, and spent her time at work or in her garden. This wasn’t a woman who’d embezzled money from her workplace, or blackmailed her boss, or anything else. This was a woman who had just enough money to pay her bills and buy some perennials now and then.

  Which meant that if she’d gone missing, it wouldn’t be because she made off with stolen money or fled a crime scene – and it probably hadn’t been of her own volition, either. No, Alfred was convinced that rather than being their suspect, Dianne Godsey was the third victim.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Caspersen and Dixon took more convincing than that, not least of all because Harlow phoned in a second time. They’d just reached the conference room, and the director put the chief on speaker phone. “Go ahead.”

  “We found something interesting. Maybe nothing at all, but figured we’d pass it along anyway. Harris talked to one of Godsey’s friends. Apparently, they knew each other through some kind of gardening club or something. Anyway, there were problems at work. Godsey complained about the pay, and about her boss. Said some days he’d come in drinking on the job. I guess there were lewd comments, and some unwanted touching once. She threatened to call the police, and he fired her. Then he sobered up that afternoon and apologized. Gave her an extra week of PTO and asked her to come back. The friend said Godsey figured he was afraid of a lawsuit.”

  Dixon frowned as Caspersen ended the call. “Something’s not adding up. Why go back at all? Why not sue the shit out of him, and retire on the payout?”

  Director Caspersen, though, saw no mystery in that. “She’s almost sixty years old, with a mortgage to pay. Even if she wins that lawsuit – and that’s a big if, especially with the connections Donaldson had – it’s going to take years to see a payout.”

  Dixon nodded slowly. “So she’d need a new job in the meantime.”

  That seemed not much of an obstacle to Alfred, and he said as much. The two older people surveyed him skeptically, and so did Nance. Dixon said, “Age discrimination. It’s not legal, but neither is tax fraud; and they both happen all the time.”

  Alfred nodded slowly. That, at least, was something he could understand.

  “And,” Nance put in, “she’d be leaving her last employer with a lawsuit pending for sexual harassment. How many hiring managers are going to give her a shot after that?”

  “Also not legal,” Caspersen said. “But it happens way more often than you think. And sexual harassment suits are notoriously difficult to win. Unless she’s got some kind of evidence, it’s her word against his.”

  “And a guy like Donaldson would be too smart to put anything in writing,” Dixon mused. “His job is to find dirt like that on other people. Drunk or not, he wouldn’t make the same kind of mistakes himself.”

  “Which means we have a possible motive besides money,” Caspersen said.

  “Why kill Rodriguez, though? Even if she offed Donaldson for revenge, what would an IRS agent have to do with it?”

  “I’m not convinced it wasn’t money,” Dixon said. “It might have been revenge too, but let’s face it: Donaldson opened himself up to blackmail. Even if he didn’t put anything in writing, maybe she recorded him. All she’d have to do is bring her phone in with her and catch it on video.

  “A guy like Donaldson, he has a lot to lose. He’d pay up. Maybe not a lot, but he’s a rich guy, and she’s not. His idea of a lot is going to be a lot different than hers.”

  Caspersen nodded. “Enough to keep her quiet might just be a line item on an expense form for him.”

  But the taxman shook his head. “I don’t think so. Her filings over the last ten years haven’t changed. There’s been a few small raises – two percent one year, one and a half a few years later – b
ut that’s it.”

  “Maybe the raises are all she was asking for. Maybe that’s the smoking gun we’re looking for.”

  It seemed a pretty paltry smoking gun to the taxman. But Caspersen decided to pursue it anyway. The first order of business would be to see how Dianne’s raises compared to other employees at the firm. Two raises in ten years wasn’t much; but if she was the only one to get them, maybe it did signify something. “Compare her salary to comparable positions. There’s a few secretaries and receptionists working for his firms, right? See if any of them got raises recently.” That would be Alfred’s job.

  The second order of business was to look for mystery withdrawals or payments that didn’t make sense, that might be linked to the missing woman. Dixon would work on that. “Check expenses, too. That could be how she did it: billed her expenses to the company. And her boss is going to sign off if she’s got compromising information about him.”

  Nance’s job was to keep going through Rodriguez’s web traffic and emails. “I want to know what he was looking for, when he was online; and who he was emailing, and about what. We’ll meet back here at eight. I know you’ve got lives, so obviously you’re not required to be here then. But if you are, be back here.”

  Alfred had no intention of going home. Not until he was too tired to lie in bed awake and thinking, anyway. But Nance took him aside as they filed out of the conference room. “What about Winthrop?”

  “Sugar cookies.” The taxman had entirely forgotten about the time travelling nuisance.

  “He’s going to be waiting for our report.”

  “And probably eating everything in the fridge in the meanwhile.”

  Nance smiled at him. “Yes, probably.”

  Alfred considered for a long moment, then he shrugged. “He’s just going to have to wait. We’ve got a murder case to solve.”

  She nodded and took his hand in hers. “Speaking of…how are you doing, babe?”

  “Me? Fine.”

  She scrutinized him for a long moment. Then, throwing a glance around to ensure that they were alone in the hall, she hugged him. “I was afraid of that.”

  “That I’m fine?”

  She snorted. “That you’d try to power your way through it by pretending your fine.”

  “I am fine.”

  “You found two dead guys in two days, babe. You’re not fine. I’d be worried if you were.”

  He nodded at that, and took a long, slow breath. “Alright. Maybe I’m not, Nance. But, I don’t want to think about it. Not now. Not when there’s still a killer on the loose.”

  She squeezed him to her. “My poor darling.”

  He closed his eyes and rested his head against hers. For a long moment, he did nothing but breathe and feel her against him. Somehow, the pressure in his soul that had been slowly building all day seemed to ease, if only a little. “We will find this guy, won’t we?”

  “You don’t think it’s Dianne, then?”

  “No. I think Dianne is probably dead too.”

  “Poor woman.” She drew back to glance at Alfred. “I think we’ll find him, babe. We’ve got the PD on it, and the best minds in the department. We’ve got Alfred Favero on it. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  He smiled. “Don’t forget Nancy Abbot. We wouldn’t get very far without her.”

  They talked for another moment, and then she kissed him. “You mind if I bring my computer to your office? I’d like to work with you.”

  “Mind? Of course not.”

  So it was decided: Nance would grab her stuff and join him. He asked if she needed help carrying anything, but she told him she’d be fine. So he returned to his office to wait for her.

  But, to his dismay, someone was already waiting for him: Justin Lyon. The other man at least had the good sense to wear a sober expression, although that’s where his sense seemed to run out. “You still here too, Freddie? I take it they reassigned you too because of the big murder case?”

  “What?”

  “Caspersen, she gave me a bunch of extra work this morning. Said she had to shift some stuff around because of that case Dixon and Rodriguez were working. Some kind of political king maker bought it downtown. You didn’t hear about that?”

  The extra work, Alfred realized, must have been his own projects – the ones Caspersen had reassigned so he could work with Dixon. But the fact that Justin hadn’t mentioned Rodriguez’s death meant the long face was because of working late, and not any knowledge of their colleague’s demise. The taxman certainly didn’t want to break that news ahead of Caspersen, much less to this particular coworker and gossip extraordinaire.

  Luckily, Justin didn’t wait for a response. He sighed a long, self-pitying sigh, and went on. “I don’t know when the hell I’m getting home.”

  “Yeah, me either. Well, I should –”

  “I heard rumors that Caspersen’s recruiting someone to take over when Dixon goes. That’s why we got all this extra work. Not sure how I feel about that. Her protégé gets to work on the big case for a big promotion, and we’re the ones getting stuck working late. You think there’ll be any bonus for us? Of course not.”

  He laughed mirthlessly, and Alfred frowned. “Look, Justin, I have a lot of work to do.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Freddie: me too. It’s kind of – well, bullshit, if you’ll pardon my French.”

  “I won’t,” the taxman snapped. “And that’s not French.”

  Justin blinked at him. “Of course it’s not. It’s a saying. And there’s no point snapping at me, dude. I can’t help if Caspersen is playing favorites again. And she does have her favorites, doesn’t she? I can’t wait to find out who this one is. My money’s on Myeong. He was a cop before he landed a job at the branch.” Here, he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “And you know how management loves to fill their diversity quotas.”

  The comment surprised Alfred so much that for a long moment, he didn’t know what to say. Ted Myeong was one of the newer senior analysts at their branch, and Alfred didn’t know him very well. But the other man had taken a desk job specifically because he didn’t want to be in the field anymore. Something about a near shooting, if the taxman remembered correctly.

  Justin seemed to notice the awkward silence, because he shrugged. “I mean, I’m just saying.”

  It was now that Nance showed up, rolling a chair on which she’d piled an entire laptop set up, complete with spare monitor and docking station. Justin stared at her, an eyebrow raised. “You…moving offices, Nance? Or is Alfred getting an office buddy?”

  “No. We’re just working late –”

  “You too? Freddie and me were just talking about that.”

  “Yeah. Well, I figured it would make more sense to work together. So I brought my set up over here.” She let the words linger, but if Justin realized he was in her way, he made no move to step aside.

  “So what’s Caspersen got you working on?”

  “Same thing as Alfred: the Donaldson case.”

  Justin blinked, threw a glance at the taxman, and then returned his gaze to Nance. He let out a nervous laugh. “No kidding. You – you and Freddo are working with Dixon and Rodriguez?”

  A confused expression crossed Nancy’s face, so Alfred intervened before she could say anything. “That’s right. And we really need to get to work. And you probably want to get home. So…”

  This time, Justin took the hint. Nodding quickly, he shot the taxman a dirty look, and scurried back to his own office. Nance watched him leave with a curious expression, then stepped into Alfred’s office and shut the door. “So…what was that about?”

  “Oh, just Justin being Justin: casually racist, and predictably wrong.” He provided the long version while she set her computer up.

  Alfred’s desk ran in an L-shape against two walls. He’d chosen the wall facing the door. He didn’t like to have his back to passersby. So Nance set up on the other part of the L, across from him. She listened to his encounter with Justin, grim
acing and shaking her head as the story progressed.

  “He was right about one thing,” Alfred said when he wrapped up. “Caspersen did suggest I apply for Dixon’s job.”

  Nance’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Oh my God, that’s fantastic, Alfred.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going to get it,” he thought it proper to caution her. “It just means she thinks I should try for it.”

  Here, of course, Nance needed a full explanation, and he recounted the conversation as best as he could. It had only transpired earlier that morning, but it seemed a lifetime had passed in the interval since.

  Nance’s excitement only grew as he talked. “Oh my God,” she said again. “Alfred, there’s no maybe about it. Caspersen basically told you you’re the candidate she wants.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he demurred.

  She, though, hugged him. “Congratulations, babe.”

  “None of it’s for certain, Nance. It’s just an application right now – one I haven’t even had a chance to think about getting in yet.”

  “Not yet. But you’ll get it. I know you will.”

  He shook his head at her confidence. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but preen a little at it, and her pride in him. “Well,” he said modestly, “let’s focus on solving this case before anything else.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dianne’s raises were not outliers. On the contrary, she’d seen fewer pay increases than her peers over the same period of time. Not that any of the administrative secretaries or receptionists working for Donaldson were getting rich. But Mrs. Godsey had seen the fewest and smallest increases among any of them.

  Which, as far as the taxman was concerned, settled matters: Dianne Godsey wasn’t the killer.

  It settled the matter up until Nance unlocked Agent Rodriguez’s phone, anyway, and got into his calendar. And there, two mornings previous, was a seven o’clock appointment: Talk to D.G. about deposits, with the address of a local coffee shop in the notes section.