3 Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray

by Diane Kelly

  “You’re right, Nick,” I said. “Whatever it takes, we’ll get this guy.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Positioning

  On Monday, Nick left his office door open a few inches. I took that as a good sign. He was no longer shutting me out completely. Of course it could also mean he was getting over me. I knew that shouldn’t hurt, but it did.

  Bad.

  I spent the better part of the day sorting through the bank records of a couple who operated a flooring store. Nothing on the statements matched the information in the store’s bookkeeping records. More than likely, the couple had a second set of books, the real ones, hidden away somewhere. How was I supposed to figure out from this jumbled mess how much they actually owed in taxes? Oh, well. If they weren’t going to help me come up with a good number, I’d pick one out of the air. Or maybe pull one out of my ass. How’s six million dollars sound?

  At four o’clock, Josh popped his head into my office. “Fischer’s on the move.” He held up his cell phone, aiming the screen my way.

  As if I could read the tiny display from eight feet away. I waved him in and held out my hand for the phone. The screen showed a feed from a GPS app, a small red dot on Interstate 20, heading east from Texas across the Louisiana border.

  I’d all but forgotten about the GPS device I’d placed on Fischer’s car.

  I stood. “Let’s show this to Nick.”

  We stepped across the hall and I rapped on Nick’s door.

  “It’s open,” he called.

  Josh followed me into Nick’s office. Nick wore navy pants and a white shirt today, the colors tied together by a red, white, and blue belt buckle designed to look like the Texas flag. I handed Nick the phone. Nick glanced down at the readout, then back up at us.

  “Fischer’s heading back to Shreveport,” Josh said.

  Nick’s brow quirked with interest. He held up the phone, pointing at the screen. “How accurate is this detail?”

  “It’s good to within a hundred yards for a moving vehicle,” Josh said.

  “What about a car that’s not moving?” Nick asked.

  “It’ll pinpoint a location for a parked car.”

  “Good to know.” Nick pulled open one of his desk drawers and retrieved a manila file. He held it out to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “I’ve done some more digging. Looks like our boat captain has a girl in every port. Or at least one in Shreveport.”

  I took the file from him and pulled one of his wing chairs up to his desk. Josh tugged the other chair over. I opened the file and began looking through the paperwork, laying each paper aside when I was finished so Josh could see them, too.

  The records included printouts of tax data for the Hustler Club, including a list of the club’s employees. Nick had apparently used the data to search for the stripper Noah Fischer had plied with his gambling winnings. The file contained a printout of a Facebook photo of a young woman with long red hair, along with Louisiana driver’s license information identifying her as Leah Michelle Dodd.

  “That’s her,” Josh said when he saw the photo. “She’s got the lip mole.”

  Sure enough, the woman in the photo had a beauty mark. Small, but big enough to be visible in the picture. She also had the double Ds we’d seen in the video. She’d generously displayed them in a tight, low-cut top for her Facebook friends. No wonder she had over four thousand of them, according to the printout. The vast majority were male. No big surprise there.

  Still, nothing in the file directly linked the woman to Fischer.

  When I mentioned this fact to Nick, he pulled out another file, a thick one I immediately recognized as part of the Ark’s financial records. He also pulled out a sheet he’d marked with a sticky note. It was a copy of a statement for Fischer’s business credit card account, which was paid each month by the Ark’s bookkeeper. He pointed to an entry on the bill. A sixty-four-dollar charge at a gas station in Shreveport.

  “So?”

  “See the address for the gas station?”

  The statement indicated it was on Blanchard Street. “Yeah?”

  He pointed to the address on Leah Dodd’s driver’s license. Apparently she lived in an apartment on Blanchard Street. An apartment located on the same block as the gas station. Hmm …

  “You don’t think he’d be stupid enough to go see her now, do you?” I asked. “He knows someone followed him around Shreveport last weekend and took photos. Surely he’s being careful.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s being careful,” Nick said, leaning forward, his body tensed. “But guys like him think they’re smarter than everyone else. Especially us ‘silly folks’ here at the IRS. He’s probably looking over his shoulder. But it’s not going to stop him from getting what he wants.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “What all men want,” Nick said. “Sex. As much as physically possible.”

  I suppose I could’ve been angry at Nick for his comment, but I suspected he was merely being crude for effect. After all, if Nick wanted just sex, he could muster up a dozen willing partners in the federal building alone. I’d noticed the female deputy who ran the metal detector downstairs routinely took him aside for an extra frisk.

  No, Fischer might be looking for sex-without-strings, but Nick was after something more.

  And he’d likely soon find someone else who could give it to him. After all, we lived in a metro area of over three million people, half of whom were female. Surely I wasn’t the only woman in town who could make Nick happy.

  Was I?

  “Road trip?” Josh asked, looking from me to Nick.

  Nick retrieved a black camera case from his credenza and stood. “Let’s hit the highway.”

  * * *

  Since Fischer was surely being more careful, we figured we should be extra careful, too. We snagged a rental car for the trip, a sand-colored minivan so plain it was virtually invisible. Luckily for us, the thing had darkly tinted windows that would make secret surveillance easier.

  On the drive to Shreveport, we kept a close eye on the readout for the GPS gadget. The data indicated Fischer had stopped at the convenience store near the Ark’s construction site.

  “Think he’s getting gas?” I asked.

  “My money’s on condoms,” Nick said.

  Josh giggled in the driver’s seat.

  “Condoms,” Nick repeated, eyeing Josh.

  Josh giggled again.

  “Dude,” Nick said. “You so need to get laid.”

  After the convenience store, the little red dot continued down the block to the location of the future Ark Temple. It remained there for the three hours it took us to make the drive to Louisiana.

  We circled the block in our soccer mom car, passing by the construction site. We could see Noah Fischer’s Infiniti parked inside the fence, but there was no Noah Fischer in sight.

  “Think he’s in the trailer?” I asked, gesturing to the small prefab building erected at the back corner of the site.

  Nick shook his head. “I doubt it. It looks dark inside.”

  I glanced around the area. In addition to the convenience store, there were a few other shops nearby. A nail salon. A pet supply store. A barber shop. None seemed like the type of place Noah Fischer would venture into, though.

  We drove slowly around, looking for Fischer. There was no sign of him.

  “Let’s go by Leah Dodd’s apartment,” Nick suggested. “But take me to the convenience store first.”

  “For condoms?” I teased.

  Josh giggled again. Sheez. Nick was right. The guy really needed to get laid.

  “No, not condoms,” Nick said. “For a newspaper.”

  “What, you want to read the comics?” I asked.

  Nick shook his head. “You’ll see.”

  Nick stepped up to the newspaper machine on the sidewalk in front of the convenience store, stuck two quarters in the slot, and purchased the daily edition of the Shreveport Times.
He climbed back into the car and unfolded the paper, perusing the front page. Today’s cover bore a large full-color photograph of a schoolteacher who’d snatched her elderly neighbor’s schnauzer from the hungry jaws of a rampaging alligator, along with the bold headline “All Bark, No Bite.”

  “Perfect,” Nick said.

  “Perfect for what?” I asked.

  Again he said only, “You’ll see.”

  We made our way across town to Leah Dodd’s apartment complex. Just after the station where Fischer had bought gas, we turned into the development.

  The place consisted of five buildings, each of which was three stories high and contained four luxury apartments. The buildings were painted gray with white trim. Garages comprised the first story of each building. A separate staircase with a black iron banister led up to the front door of each apartment, located on the second floor of each unit.

  The landscaping was well maintained, as was the expansive pool area in which several residents relaxed on padded chaise longues. The speakers mounted on the corners of the small poolhouse filled the air with the sounds of soft jazz, presumably Kenny G. Wouldn’t he be the perfect spokesman for Preparation H?

  My random thought for the day now thunk, we located Leah’s unit, which was at the left end of the central building. Black metal numbers affixed to her door identified her apartment number, 3D.

  “Pretty swanky place for a stripper,” I noted.

  “Those girls make a shitload of money,” Nick said. “You should’ve seen their W-2s.”

  I glanced down at my 32As. If I tried stripping, I’d starve to death. Good thing I had a brain in my head.

  Josh circled the lot, searching for a spot from which we could surreptitiously keep an eye on Leah’s front door. We finally found one in the shade along the side of another building in the complex.

  Nick handed Josh the newspaper. “Go lean this against the wall by her garage,” he instructed. “Make sure the front page is showing.”

  I shot Nick a puzzled look.

  “You ever see that movie Proof of Life with Meg Ryan?” he asked.

  And Russell the-walking-orgasm Crowe? Of course I’d seen it. “Yeah?”

  “Well, we’re going to get a proof of life,” he said. “Or, more precisely, a proof of lust.”

  “You think Fischer’s in her apartment?”

  “Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me.” He grabbed his camera bag and unzipped it. “Leah could have picked Fischer up at the Ark site, or he could have taken a bus or a cab over here.”

  “Wait.” I put a hand on Josh’s arm before he exited the car. “Give me the ads before you go.”

  Josh pulled out the colorful advertising section and handed it to me before climbing out of the van.

  “Do you think Leah knows who Fischer is?” I asked Nick. “I mean, what kind of woman would fool around with a married minister?”

  Nick shot me a duh look. “Maybe the same kind of woman who’d take off her clothes and shake her breasts in men’s faces for money?”

  He had a point. Still, there had to be a special place in the lower circles of hell for people like that.

  “Besides,” Nick added, “I noticed a pattern in the financial records. Fischer always made a significant cash withdrawal a day or two before his trips to Shreveport. Usually in the four- or five-thousand-dollar range. I have a hunch Leah’s being compensated for her services.”

  “You think she’s a hooker?”

  “More or less,” Nick said. “I think Fischer’s making it worth her while to spend time with him.”

  And for five grand he was probably getting more than standard sex in the missionary position. My guess would be something kinky involving spurs and a riding crop.

  Josh weaved between cars and tiptoed up to Leah’s garage door, glancing around him to make sure there were no witnesses. He crouched down and leaned the newspaper against the wall between the bottom stair and the garage door. Luckily for us it wasn’t a windy day so we wouldn’t have to worry about the paper blowing away. Once the paper was in place, Josh walked down to the end of the row of buildings and carefully cut down the side of the parking lot before sneaking back to the van.

  Nick began assembling the camera, pulling pieces from the bag and laying them on the dashboard. The camera was a fairly intricate model with interchangeable lenses for zoom and wide focus. When he finished, he rested the camera on his lap for quick access.

  Then we waited.

  And waited, and waited, and waited.

  I looked through every ad in the paper, tearing out a few coupons and jotting down a shopping list. No Spaghetti-Os, though. I was sick of the darn things.

  Everyone had long since left the pool area and the night had grown dark. Crickets chirped nearby and an occasional mosquito flew into the open window of the van in search of dinner. I swatted the nasty bloodsuckers away with the Target circular.

  Leah’s porch light remained dark. Around the edges of her drawn curtains, however, we could see soft lights on in the apartment, along with an occasional flicker, probably from her television. Too bad we couldn’t tell whether she was alone or with someone.

  My bladder began to feel full. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “You’ll have to go to the gas station.”

  “Ew.”

  Nick shot me a look of irritation. “If you don’t want to use the gas station, go try the poolhouse.”

  I hopped out of the car and made my way to the pool area. Unfortunately, the gate required a key. I glanced around quickly and, seeing no one, pulled myself up and over the fence. Unfortunately, the poolhouse was locked, too. Looked like it was either the gas station or crouching behind a tree. I was seriously considering the tree until I remembered the mosquitoes. Not sure I wanted to bare my ass with a swarm of insects ready to sink their proboscises into it.

  I used the gas station bathroom, buying and using a full box of antibacterial wet wipes on my hands afterward. I bought a box of Hot Tamales, too, as well as a beer for Nick and some Twinkies for Josh. I returned to the van a hero.

  Two hours later, the night was fully dark. The sugar high from the candy had peaked and I was now in the throes of a sugar crash. I yawned.

  Nick glanced back at me. “Stay with us, Tara.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat. “I will.”

  When he turned his head away again, though, I slouched. Surveillance is unbelievably boring. I had no idea how full-time spies and private detectives could do this type of work day after day.

  Another yawn escaped me. Then another.

  Shortly after midnight, the clicking sound of Nick’s camera woke me. I sat up and looked out the window, having trouble seeing much across the dimly lit parking lot. Leah still hadn’t turned on her porch light and my eyes, which had been closed for who knows how long, hadn’t yet acclimated to the darkness.

  A cab waited at the bottom of the stairs that led to Leah’s front door, the headlights on and the engine idling. Fortunately, the taxi driver had pulled up far enough that the newspaper was visible behind the car.

  Nick released a soft chuckle. “Well, hello there, Pastor Fischer.” He raised his camera to his face and snapped several more shots as a man scurried down Leah’s steps. He wore a dark hoodie pulled out around his face, shadowing his cheeks. He looked like a gangster grim reaper. We couldn’t see his face, but his build was definitely Fischer.

  He rushed up to the cab and yanked the door open. The interior light illuminated Fischer’s face for only a split second before he jumped in and slammed the door.

  But a split second was all Nick needed.

  Click.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Hell Hath No Fury like a Woman Scorned

  Just after Fischer’s cab pulled out of the complex, we sent Josh up the dark stairs to Leah’s door. He knocked three times, loudly and in quick succession, the self-assured knock of someone familiar with the resident. We hoped Leah would assume it was Noah at the doo
r, that perhaps he’d forgotten something and had come right back for it.

  She fell for it.

  She opened the door wearing only a skimpy black satin robe. Her long red hair appeared tousled and tangled, as if she’d just climbed out of bed after a rousing bout of sex. When she found Josh on her doorstep, the expectant look on her face quickly changed to confusion. Nick shot several photos of Leah in rapid succession, the apartment number 3D clearly visible on the opened door behind her, while Josh apologized for the unintended intrusion. He pretended to have mistaken her unit for another inhabited by a friend.

  After Leah shut the door, Josh descended the stairs and made his way back to the minivan. “Did you get the pictures?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Nick said, a broad smile spreading across his face as he reviewed the photos on the camera’s screen. “Noah Fischer isn’t going to know what hit him.”

  * * *

  First thing Tuesday morning, Nick and I left the federal building and walked to the downtown post office. Nick had loaded the photos he’d shot last night onto a flash drive. The twenty-six shots showed a quick but telling chronology of events.

  A cab arrives. A man, clearly trying to obscure his face with a hooded sweat jacket, emerges from a doorway marked 3D and dashes down a flight of stairs. Said man steps past a newspaper strategically positioned against the building to establish the date, opens the taxi’s back door, and climbs in, his face illuminated for one brief moment before he yanks the door closed.

  Thanks to the zoom lens, the clarity of the photos was exceptional. The identifying image contained only part of Fischer’s face and what was shown was in profile. But it was enough for our purposes. Someone close to him, someone who’d been intimate with him, could certainly recognize him from the photo.

  The photos of Leah followed, the final shot being a wide-angle picture taking in both Leah at the door and the newspaper positioned at the bottom of her staircase. Nick had cropped Josh out of the photo.

  Though we hadn’t managed to get a shot of Leah and Noah together, the message was clear. Both of them had been inside the same apartment last night.

  We had no intention of sending the photos to Fischer this time. He’d find some way to spin them in his favor. Instead, we decided to disarm him with the element of surprise and take an entirely different tack.