Death, Taxes, and Green Tea Ice Cream

by Diane Kelly

  So I did.

  Nick picked me up and carried me to his bedroom, where we made love once again. This time, though, he took his sweet time with foreplay, jingling my bells, dashing through my snow, providing me some much-needed holiday cheer before stuffing my stocking. I won’t share all the sordid details, but suffice it to say that I came a-wassailing.

  chapter twelve

  Banging Dicks

  The next morning was Christmas Eve. Though it wasn’t an official federal government holiday, Nick had elected to use one of his accrued vacation days. I woke to find him already dressed. He pulled a couple of pairs of boxer briefs from his dresser and tossed them into a duffel bag before zipping it.

  He gestured to the nightstand. “I poured you some coffee.”

  Rubbing my eyes, I sat up and slid my legs over the side of the bed. I took the mug and sipped from it. He’d added gingerbread creamer. Yum. He’d bought the stuff just for me. The thought warmed my heart while the coffee warmed my tummy. I drank it while he finished packing; then I slipped back into the clothes I had on last night.

  I drove my car up the street to my place while Nick followed in his truck. He walked me to the door. On the porch he took my hands in his and squeezed them. “Let me know how things go today.”

  “I will.”

  He’d offered to postpone his trip to Houston for a few hours in case I needed moral support after the meeting with Troy Kerr, but I assured Nick I’d be fine. No sense letting my problems get in the way of his Christmas plans with his family.

  He gave me one last, soft kiss before heading back to his truck.

  As I stepped inside, I was hit with a lonely quiet. Since Alicia and her fiancé were Jewish, they’d taken advantage of the holiday to head for the ski slopes in Taos. It must be nice to be free to leave the state. I already felt like a prisoner. Though since my cell comprised nearly 269,000 square miles of Lone Star State soil, I supposed I couldn’t complain much.

  After showering, I dressed in a chocolate-brown suit accessorized with a salmon-pink scarf, hoping to appear professional yet feminine. Maybe Troy Kerr would go easier on me once he saw me and realized I was a petite woman. Not that I wanted sympathy just for being small and/or female, but at this point I’d take anything I could get that might help convince Kerr not to bring a criminal case against me.

  I met Anthony Giacomo at his office a half hour before our scheduled meeting with Troy Kerr. Giacomo had ditched the Santa hat today and replaced the amethyst in his ear with a small silver hoop.

  He closed his door after I stepped into his office. “Take a seat. Time for your pep talk.”

  I slid into one of his wing chairs and he took a seat in the other, angling it to face me. His gaze traveled over me. “You look great, by the way. Love the scarf.”

  “Thanks.”

  “All right, here’s the plan.” He leaned toward me, his forearms resting on his knees. “I’ll do the talking, try to convince Kerr that taking this matter to trial would be a colossal mistake. No matter how tempted you are to speak, don’t say anything. We want to feel him out, force him to show his hand, but keep him guessing about our strategy. Got it?”

  “Okay,” I said. My voice sounded tentative and unsure. Ugh. That’s what I got for wearing plain white cotton little-girl panties today. I made a mental note to buy some leopard-print underwear for the trial. Nothing like racy panties to give a girl some confidence.

  My attorney reached out and took my hand. “I know you’re scared, but you can’t show it. Prosecutors are like wild dogs. If Kerr smells fear, he’ll pounce on you and shred you limb from limb.”

  Wonderful.

  Giacomo looked me in the eye. “You are a tough, strong woman, Tara. A smart woman. While we’re meeting with Kerr, this is what I want you to think. ‘Kiss my lovely little ass, Troy Kerr.’ Can you do that?”

  I smiled. “Yep. I can do that.” Heck, I’d already been thinking that very thing.

  “Great.” He gave the back of my hand a pat and stood. “Let’s move out.”

  We rode the elevator down to the parking garage and climbed into Giacomo’s car, a two-seater Jaguar F-Type V8 in lunar-gray metallic paint. The car looked like something James Bond would drive. Anthony opened my door for me, then circled around the back to the driver’s side. Once inside, he cranked the engine and cranked up the stereo.

  Holy crap!

  My hands reflexively moved to cover my ears as the speakers spewed the most obnoxious death metal music ever made. With all the screeching and banging, it sounded as if the lead singer had stuck his head in a garbage disposal.

  Giacomo laughed. He yelled over the shrieking voice, “Let me guess! You were expecting Michael Bublé or Celine Dion?”

  It wasn’t so much that I was stereotyping Anthony. It’s just that the guy had ears. Seriously, could he not hear this nerve-shattering cacophony? I’d bet this was the band the CIA used to break prisoners.

  “Who is this?” I hollered.

  Giacomo held up the CD cover. Attila. I’d never heard of the band. With any luck, I’d never hear them again, either. The blood vessels in my temple threatened to burst.

  “Isn’t this song great?” he asked as he slid his card through the reader to exit the garage.

  “It sure is something!” I hollered over the music. Something god-awful.

  Fifteen minutes and one shattered eardrum later, we were sitting in a small conference room at the DOJ office, the same room I’d sat in when going over the paperwork in previous cases with Ross O’Donnell. I was used to being on the same side as the prosecutor. It felt odd to be in here defending myself. Odd and wrong.

  A moment later, Troy Kerr entered the room. He was fortyish and formidable, standing well over six feet, with broad shoulders and a solid physique. His black hair bore just enough silver to give him a look of seasoned respectability. If I didn’t have the urge to leap across the room and wrap my fingers around his throat, I might even say he was attractive.

  His blue eyes touched briefly on me but didn’t linger long enough for me to get a read on him. When he spotted Giacomo sitting next to me, a flicker of apprehension crossed Kerr’s face, so quick and subtle I might not have noticed had I not been watching him so intently. As I was nearly deaf now thanks to the scream-o music, my other senses were heightened. Hm-m …

  Kerr nodded in greeting and extended his hand. “Anthony. Good to see you again.”

  Giacomo rose slowly, reaching out his hand to take Kerr’s. “Troy. Always a pleasure,” he said in a tone indicating their interactions were anything but. I stood when Giacomo turned to me. “My client, Tara Holloway.”

  I shook Kerr’s hand and nodded but said nothing. Pucker up and kiss my lovely little ass, Troy Kerr.

  When we were all seated, Kerr glanced again at me before he addressed my attorney and began banging his dick on the table, metaphorically speaking. “As you know, your client shot a man multiple times in the leg during an arrest.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Four times to be exact. Most of the shots being fired after the victim no longer had a weapon.” Bang. Bang.

  Giacomo banged back. “And?”

  Kerr stiffened. “And that’s not how a member of federal law enforcement should have handled the situation.”

  Jackass. What did he really know about these situations? Had he ever risked his life by going undercover among criminals, hoping not to be discovered? Had he ever stared down the barrel of a gun wondering if it would be the last thing he’d see? Had he ever been shot at? Of course not. For the first time, I found myself with penis envy. I wanted a dick to bang, too.

  Giacomo steepled his fingers but said nothing. He merely stared at Kerr as if waiting for him to say something of any significance.

  Kerr shifted in his seat, apparently uncomfortable to be carrying the entire conversation on his own. “I can’t let this type of abusive behavior slide.”

  “Of course not,” Giacomo said, a knowing smile spread
ing his lips. “Not when there’s a place on the federal bench up for grabs.”

  “This isn’t about me!” Kerr barked, though the red flush exploding on his cheeks said otherwise. “This is about justice.”

  “Justice?” Giacomo tsked and shook both his head and a finger. “Now-now, Troy. If this were really about justice, none of us would be sitting here.”

  Kerr’s cheek twitched as he clenched his jaw. “I have a duty to make sure the laws are upheld and to prosecute those who break them, no matter who they are.” His dick banging had become tentative now, his voice softer, his arguments flaccid.

  Giacomo remained silent but lifted a skeptical shoulder.

  Kerr tried again. “If we let our law enforcement run roughshod over our citizens, then we’re no better than a third-world government.”

  Giacomo raised a credulous brow. “You’re comparing Miss Holloway, a woman who put her life on the line every day serving the American people, to some power-hungry African warlord?” My attorney snorted. “That’s not merely over-the-top, Troy. It’s over-the-top and back again.”

  I remained quiet, though my mind was shrieking louder than Attila’s lead singer. Kiss my lovely little ass, Troy Kerr! Smooch away!

  Enraged by Giacomo’s composure and losing his own again, Kerr said, “It takes courage to do what’s right, you know.”

  “It certainly does,” Giacomo replied. “And ‘discretion is the better part of valor.’”

  Flustered, Kerr threw up his hands. “Cut to the chase, Anthony. What are you saying?”

  Giacomo offered a small smile belied by his incendiary gaze. “What I’m saying, Troy dear, is that using my client as a pawn in your political game would be a very unwise move.”

  Kerr sprang up from his seat and jabbed a finger in my direction. “She shot a man four times in the leg! This is a cut-and-dried case of excessive force.”

  Giacomo ducked his head and quietly gazed up at Kerr until the man realized he was standing and reclaimed his seat. “In the legal world,” Giacomo said, “nothing is ever cut-and-dried. You know that as well as I do. Besides, you know my track record.”

  The hangdog expression on Kerr’s face told me that he was indeed familiar with Giacomo’s courtroom successes. Perhaps that explained the flicker of concern I’d seen skitter across his face earlier.

  “Miss Holloway didn’t break the law,” Giacomo said. “She did the world a tremendous favor by taking a pimp and drug dealer off the streets.”

  “A jury would never see it that way.”

  “Mm-m-m…” Giacomo cocked his head. “You sure about that? Sure enough to bet a place on the bench?”

  “Absolutely,” Kerr spat, though there was uncertainty in his eyes.

  Ha!

  “Be patient, Troy,” Giacomo said. “A bigger, better case will come along in a year or two. You can make your mark then.”

  Now it was Kerr’s turn to be silent. I hoped he was thinking about dropping the charges. Please, Troy. Please, I mentally begged. No ass kissing required. Heck, I’ll even kiss yours! I wanted this over. Now. I wanted to get on with my life.

  Giacomo continued, lowering his voice, speaking softly and soothingly like a parent attempting to placate a child. “This case will be headline news, Troy. When you lose at trial, everyone will know. You’ll forfeit any chance of a judicial appointment. Who wants to put a loser on the bench?”

  Kerr broke eye contact with Giacomo and looked away for a long moment before turning back. “Look,” he said. “I’ve got Geils’ attorney breathing down my neck, insisting I do something about this.”

  “So, what?” Giacomo said. “You’re going to let his attorney push you around?”

  “I don’t let anyone push me around,” Kerr said, a distinctively defensive tone in his voice. So we were back to the dick banging. Great.

  “That’s not what it looks like,” Giacomo said. “It looks to me like you’re letting his attorney call the shots.”

  Kerr seemed at a loss, as if realizing that, no matter what he did, it might look as if he’d given in to one side or the other. “I’ll take it to the grand jury,” he said, “let them decide whether this case should go to trial.”

  “That’s a coward’s way out,” Giacomo volleyed. “You can choose not to pursue this.”

  As I’d learned during my tenure with the IRS, a case only went to trial if both the grand jury deemed there to be sufficient evidence to warrant a trial and the prosecutor chose to pursue a case. A grand jury was presented only with evidence against the defendant. No exculpatory evidence would be introduced and, in fact, neither the defendant nor the defense attorney was permitted to attend the proceedings. The threshold for determining whether to proceed to trial was quite low.

  Kerr glared across the table. “I’m not a coward.”

  Giacomo sighed. “Ah, but you are. A regular old yellow belly. A wimp.” He paused for a brief moment before hammering the point home. “A pussy.”

  Kerr’s face contorted in rage. “And what would you know about pussies, you little—!” He stopped himself just in time and turned his head away as if to avoid the stench of his words.

  Giacomo laughed as he stood. “Expedite the proceedings. Miss Holloway doesn’t need this silly matter hanging over her.”

  That’s for sure.

  Kerr nodded. “I’ll put the case first on the list for Friday.”

  Giacomo gestured for me to follow him out. At the doorway, he turned back to Kerr. “If you happen to grow a pair, Troy, let me know.”

  With that, we went out the door.

  chapter thirteen

  Naughty or Nice?

  We passed Ross O’Donnell on our way out of the building. He took me aside. “For what it’s worth, Tara, I think Troy Kerr is out of line.”

  Gee. Dirty news travels fast, huh?

  “Thanks, Ross.” I appreciated his support, especially when I knew he was taking a chance offering it to me. After all, Kerr was one of his superiors at the Department of Justice.

  Once Anthony and I were seated again in his Jaguar, he turned to me. “Kerr’s nervous. That’s clear.”

  Nervous or not, an attorney with a personal stake in the outcome of a case was likely to work harder on it, give it his all. Still, I knew Giacomo had done his best to convince Kerr to drop the charges. Now it was up to the grand jury. At least I’d only have to wait two days for their decision. Thank heaven for small favors.

  So many thoughts were running through my head that I hardly heard the shrieks of the metal band as we drove back to the law office.

  * * *

  When I returned home, I packed, took a shower, and dressed in fresh clothes, then loaded my cats up with food, water, and fresh litter. I gave Henry a scratch behind the ears and Annie a kiss on the head. I turned the thermostat down to sixty-five degrees. Who knew how long I’d be out of work? Might as well start watching my bills. Besides, the cats wore fur coats and if they got cold they could curl up together and keep each other warm or snuggle under the blankets on my bed, which I’d left unmade.

  I slid into the beautiful new coat Nick had given me, tossed my overnight bag and gifts into the trunk of my BMW, and headed out. I tried not to think of all my problems as I drove. It was all so overwhelming. No job. Criminal charges pending. A $10 million civil lawsuit. My sense of self still all discombobulated.

  Ugh. Some season of cheer and goodwill this was turning out to be. Merry nothing.

  As I left downtown and entered the eastern suburbs, my eyes spotted a shopping mall. I exited the freeway and pulled into the parking lot, circling up and down the rows in a desperate search for an empty spot. Looked like there were lots of last-minute shoppers.

  My favorite niece, Jesse, had a particular Breyer horse on her list, a limited-edition holiday-themed collectible model decked out in glittering bridle and a saddle with a poinsettia leaf underlay. None of us in the family had been able to find it. All of the online outlets had been out of stock, as were the
five malls I’d previously visited in my search. But if there was any way I could spare my niece disappointment, I would. Even if it meant fighting an insane holiday crowd at the mall. Just because my Christmas sucked didn’t mean hers should, too.

  A parking spot finally opened up on the outermost row. I waited for it and pulled in as soon as the minivan pulled out, beating out a Lexus whose driver had sped up in the other lane in the hopes of stealing the spot from me. The woman driving flipped me the bird even though the spot was clearly rightfully mine. What a Scrooge.

  I climbed out of my car, thankful I had my new coat to keep the chill at bay, and made my way inside. The place was packed, frenzied shoppers rushing around like fire ants from a mound that had been poked with a stick. I weaved my way through a blockade of strollers in front of a children’s clothing store and ventured farther in.

  In the center of the mall sat Santa’s village, a semi-circle with a painted north pole backdrop, outlined with artificial pine trees and oversized gift boxes topped with bows the size of basketballs. In the center sat Kris Kringle himself, decked out in his bright red suit and black boots, his booming laugh echoing off the second-floor walkway. The strains of a caroling quartet entertained those waiting in line to see the right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

  I bypassed Santa’s village and gave the carolers a smile and nod, aiming for the teeming toy store across the way. Boy howdy! The fire marshal would be none too happy with this crowd. I sucked in my gut and squeezed past frantic shoppers, winding my way up and down the aisles, past dolls and action figures and board games, until I located the Breyer horse display.

  Score!

  A frazzled employee was putting out new stock as shoppers milled around him, jostling his elbows as he placed items on the shelves. My eye caught one of the collectible horses in his stash and it had Jesse’s name on it. I snatched the toy off the cart and cradled it to my chest as if it were the Holy Grail. “Thanks! Merry Christmas!”

  I weaved my way to the cash register and paid for the purchase, trying once again not to worry about my rapidly dwindling bank account. My shopping mission accomplished, I headed back into the main part of the mall. As I approached Santa’s village, my feet slowed of their own will, then stopped moving altogether. I stood and stared at the man playing Santa as he spoke with a small brown-haired boy perched on his lap. When the boy finished rattling off his long list of Christmas wishes, Santa lifted the child off his lap and set him on the floor, offering the mother a warm smile.