Death, Taxes, and Green Tea Ice Cream

by Diane Kelly

  Rather than accepting my findings graciously, he ranted about how the IRS had wasted his time with the audit. “It took me four hours to print out all of that data the IRS demanded. Used up a full ream of paper and two printer cartridges. My time’s important, you know. It’s harassment is what it is! It’s like the Spanish Inquisition. You auditors—”

  I’d had enough of this guy and his yapping piehole. “You want me to take a closer look at those travel expenses?”

  That shut him up.

  * * *

  On the way home from work that evening, I stopped by an Asian grocery and picked up a half gallon of green tea ice cream. After the day I’d had, I needed a treat.

  At my town house, I stuck a frozen pizza in the oven to cook while I went upstairs to bathe. I had to turn my shower massager to sandblast mode and lather, rinse, and repeat twice to get all of the heavy chocolate out of my hair, but finally I was clean again. It made me sad to see all of that chocolate going down the drain. What a waste.

  Alicia arrived home from work just as I was taking the pizza out of the oven.

  “I made dinner,” I told her.

  “Good,” she said. “I’m starved.”

  Over dinner, I told her what had taken place at Cowtown Candy Company.

  “What?” Alicia’s eyes widened as she held her pizza poised for a bite. “Chloe stole from her own father?”

  “Borrowed without asking, I guess.” I shrugged and pointed my fork at Alicia. “I hate to say I told you so—”

  “No you don’t. You love to say ‘I told you so.’”

  It was true. I liked being right. “Whatever. But I was right about Chloe.”

  “Okay. You win. Now what’s for dessert?”

  “You’ve got two choices. Green tea ice cream or chocolate poop.”

  She made a face. “I’ll go with the ice cream.”

  * * *

  Nick had taken a shuttle to the airport when he left for New Delhi, but I picked him up at DFW that evening. He looked even more beat this time than when he’d returned from Tokyo. Two international trips in one week had really taken their toll.

  As he exited the revolving door leading from the airport’s secure area into the baggage claim, he offered me a weary smile and a warm hug. He buried his face in my hair. “Lord, I’ve missed you.” He sniffed. “Did you get some kind of chocolate-scented shampoo?” He stepped back and eyed the old coat I was wearing. “And where’s the coat I bought you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “I’ll tell you on the drive home.”

  Nick managed to stay awake on the ride this time, listening to my story. “Boy howdy,” he said when I finished. “How is it that you’re a magnet for every kook out there?”

  Given my history, the question probably wasn’t intended to be merely rhetorical. Still, there was no good answer for it. Why did I seem to bring out the inner nut job in my targets? Was it just bad luck, or was there something more to it? Did I give off some kind of pheromone or something?

  We reached Nick’s town house and went inside. Nutty was thrilled to see Nick, wagging his tail so hard it threatened to come loose.

  Nick got down on his knees and wrestled with his old dog, who offered a playful growl in return.

  While Nick went upstairs to take a quick shower, I warmed him up some of the leftover pizza I’d brought with me and retrieved a beer from the fridge. Ten minutes later, he was seated at the kitchen table, digging in, while I opened yet another gift bag full of goodies he’d brought me. This one contained jasmine incense, a trio of bangle bracelets, and a pair of red curly-toed shoes embellished with fake jewel accents.

  I stood and slid my feet into the shoes. “I feel like a magic genie.”

  “Good.” Nick cast me a predatory grin. “’Cause I’ve got several wishes I hope you’ll grant me.”

  I cut him a grin right back. “Don’t you have to rub my lamp first?”

  Nick moaned. “Darlin’, I’ll rub anything you ask me to.”

  He finished his dinner, held out his plate while Nutty licked it clean, and stuck it in the dishwasher. He headed straight toward me, picked me up, and slung me over his shoulder. “Come on, woman. Let’s get started on those wishes.”

  * * *

  Brr-r. Brr-r. Brr-r.

  The vibration of Nick’s cell phone woke us at 7:15 the next morning. Nick grabbed it from the nightstand and checked the readout before accepting the call. “Eddie. Hey.”

  I snuggled closer to Nick, laying my head on his chest, partly because it felt good and partly because I was being nosey and hoped that by moving closer I’d be able to listen in on the conversation.

  “He did?” Nick said. “Well, he ought to be here in Dallas any time then.” He paused a moment. “All righty. See you at the office.”

  I sat up as Nick ended the call. “Is that about Sundaram?”

  “Yup,” Nick said. “He just used his card at a convenience store in Vegas.”

  He was headed this way, obviously, though there was no way of telling how long he might stay in Sin City.

  “Someone’s checking the boardinghouses in Vegas, right?”

  “They’ve already sent an agent out to make the rounds.”

  “Good.”

  Nick looked down at me. “I’m scheduled to meet with your attorney this afternoon to talk about my testimony.”

  “Ugh.” I sat up and threw the covers back as I climbed out of bed. “Did you have to remind me about the trial?”

  “Sorry,” Nick said. “I just thought you might like to know.”

  We got out of bed and began our day. Luckily, it was Friday. Thank goodness. It had been a long, hard week. I needed some fun.

  * * *

  Nick and I made the most of the weekend. Though neither of us came right out and said it, we both knew this might be one of our last weekends together for a long while.

  We went to see a movie, out for dinner, dancing at a country-western bar. With my life spinning out of my control, it was nice to feel Nick’s strong arms around me, guiding me in safe, controlled turns as we twirled our way around the floor. We made love so many times I lost count. I found myself wondering how long a prisoner was given for a conjugal visit. Fifteen minutes? Thirty? A full hour? Would there be time for foreplay, maybe a cigarette afterward? Not that I smoked, but I might be able to trade the cigarette for something else, like a shiv made from a toothbrush.

  On Sunday evening, just as I was about to head back to my town house, Nick’s cell phone rang again. He glanced at the screen and looked up at me, a flash of excitement in his eyes. “It’s Cindy Allen.”

  My heart kicked up to a thousand RPMs. A call from Cindy could only mean one thing. Sundaram, or whoever the hell he was, had returned to Dallas.

  Nick took the call. “Hello, Miss Allen.” A pause. “He did?” Another pause. “Uh-huh. My partner and I will be there ASAP. Thanks.”

  As soon as Nick ended the call, I squealed in delight and clapped my hands. “Let’s go get him!”

  We hopped into Nick’s truck. I drove so that he could call Eddie on the way. Given that Eddie lived in the northern suburbs, he’d likely arrive at the House of the Seven Fables before us. “Wait for us around the corner,” Nick told Eddie. “We don’t want to take any chances that Sundaram might see you waiting and drive off.”

  Nick had run a search under all of Sundaram’s aliases and found no guns registered in any of the names. That didn’t mean much, though. Not all guns sales were registered, and we had no idea whether Sundaram might have additional aliases. It was always best to assume the worst, that a target could be armed and dangerous.

  I drove as fast as I dared to McKinney. We drove slowly down the street behind the house, noting only one car parked in the B and B’s back lot. A silver Ford Taurus with California plates and a rental car sticker on the back windshield.

  Bingo.

  We found Eddie parked on a side street. He hopped into Nick’s truck with us, and I drove a
round the corner to the front of the bed-and-breakfast. It was early evening now and dark outside. Only the porch light was on at Seven Fables. The gas lamp sat dark upon its post.

  A white king-cab pickup with a handyman logo was parked in the driveway of the house. Two men worked their way down the front porch, unwinding the strands of Christmas lights from the railings and packing them into cardboard boxes. They’d already removed the lights from the roof. All that remained was the strands of green lights angling down from the top of the gas lamp. Like the lamp, the strands were not lit.

  Nick phoned Cindy from the street. “Can you come to the door to let us in? I’d rather not knock and risk alerting Mr. Sundaram.”

  With that, Nick ended the call.

  While Nick exited the driver’s side, Eddie and I slid out through the passenger door and walked up the sidewalk.

  Cindy opened the front door as we stepped onto the porch. “He’s in his room,” she whispered. “The door’s closed.”

  Eddie, Nick, and I played rock-paper-scissors to see who would go inside, who would stay out front, and who would watch the back door in case Sundaram made a run for it. Chances were the guy would surrender willingly, but we’d learned to hedge our bets.

  Nick won round one and would be going inside. I won round two, which gave Eddie the back door and me the front.

  “Good luck,” I told Nick as he headed in.

  I waited on the porch for several minutes, making small talk with the men taking down the lights. A brisk wind kicked in, and I started to shiver in the frigid air. What the heck was taking Nick so long?

  chapter thirty-five

  The Night the Lights Went Out in Dallas

  I stepped off the porch. Maybe a little exercise would warm me up.

  I paced back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the bed-and-breakfast, flapping my arms around myself, my steamy breath visible in the air. Several more minutes passed. By this time, the guys from the handyman service were nearly done removing the lights from the railing. One of them crouched at either end of the wide porch, unwrapping the last strands.

  I stopped at the end of the walk that led to the porch and stared at the house, wishing I had Superman’s X-ray vision so I could see what was going on inside. Was Nick talking things over with Sundaram, negotiating a peaceful surrender? Or were they grappling in the Snow White Suite while Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, Happy, and Doc looked on?

  Bam!

  The front door swung open, hard, the panel slamming back against the house, causing the windows to shake.

  What the heck?

  A naked and dripping and nicely built Indian man ran out onto the porch. Looked like those workouts had paid off. Through the open door, I could see both Nick and Eddie in pursuit, the two of them elbowing each other aside in their attempts to the be one to nab Sundaram. Men. Sheesh. Always so competitive.

  With a quick glance behind him, Sundaram leaped over the two steps that led down to the sidewalk and headed toward me at an amazing speed, his exposed junk flapping with his efforts.

  Normally, I’d pull a weapon to encourage an uncooperative target to rethink his attempt to escape. At the moment, though, I had no weapon to pull. Instinctively I spread my arms out to each side and bent my knees a little. It was the same stance I used to help my father round up a stray barn chicken.

  The man careened to his right to avoid being clotheslined by me. In the dark and in his haste, he didn’t see the remaining strands of holiday lights affixed to the gas lamp. He ran right through the strings, the first hitting him across the throat, the next across the belly, the third across his calves, tripping him.

  “Yi-i-i!” He fell to the ground and rolled to the side in an attempt to free himself from the unexpected web of lights. Unfortunately for him, his twisting and turning only managed to entangle him further. Even his junk was tangled in lights now.

  Nick reached out to try to grab the guy’s legs, but the man kicked Nick’s arm away. Eddie had no better luck trying to seize an arm, especially since it was dark in the yard.

  Cindy stepped onto the porch, reached back inside to flip a switch, and an instant later the flickering electronic flame in the gas lamp ignited. The switch for the gas lamp apparently also controlled the outside outlet. The Christmas lights wrapped around Sundaram came to life, bathing him in an eerie green glow.

  Zap!

  A shower of golden sparks shot out from a frayed spot on the strand of lights.

  Zap! Zap!

  More sparks sprayed out of the cord, like a defective firework going off on the ground.

  Zap-zap-zap!

  Sundaram shrieked and began to twitch on the ground as electricity surged through his wet body. His junk continued to flap as he twitched.

  “Uh-oh,” Eddie said. “This isn’t good.”

  From her porch, Cindy put her hands over the mouth and issued a stifled scream.

  Nick ran back to the porch and yanked the cord from the socket. “Call an ambulance!”

  Cindy nodded frantically and ran back inside to get her phone.

  Eddie and I stood over the Indian man as he continued to convulse involuntarily at our feet.

  “Should we do something?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Eddie said. “If we touch him will we get electrocuted, too?”

  “I have no idea.” I’d always stunk at science.

  One of the workers rushed over and pulled the strands of lights from Sundaram. Nick went back into the house, returning a moment later with a crocheted blanket. He draped it over the wet man, probably as much to cover his still-twitching junk as to prevent him from freezing to death.

  I looked up at Nick. “I take it he was in the shower when you went inside?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Taking his sweet time about it, too. When he came out of the bathroom and saw me, he ran for the back door.”

  Eddie chimed in now. “He ran back inside when he saw me waiting and headed out front instead.”

  The earsplitting peal of the emergency siren grew louder as the ambulance approached, setting the neighborhood dogs to howling. Aroo-o! Aroo-o!

  As the vehicle pulled to a stop at the curb, the driver cut the siren but left the lights on, the spinning beams flashing across the houses, lighting the street up like a nightclub. The only things missing were overpriced drinks and a throbbing bass line.

  The back doors swung open. Two male EMTs hopped out of the bay and rushed over to Sundaram. While one of them checked his vital signs, the other returned to the ambulance, pulled a rolling gurney out of the back, and pushed it up over the curb and into the yard.

  Sundaram put a hand to his head and groaned as the paramedics gingerly maneuvered him onto the mobile bed, rolled him over to the back doors, and eased him inside the vehicle.

  “You covered the travel,” Eddie told Nick. “I’ll take it from here.”

  Eddie bade us good-bye and hurried back to his van. He followed the ambulance as it drove off. He’d keep watch at the hospital until Sundaram was released into the custody of law enforcement.

  One of the handymen tossed the defective strand of lights into a large trash can at the curb; then the two of them climbed into their truck and drove away. Nick and I thanked Cindy Allen for her help in rounding up Sundaram. At that point, all she could do was nod in bewilderment.

  The House of the Seven Fables had a new story to add to its book, this one true. And while Sundaram would surely disagree, I’d say this story had a happy ending.

  chapter thirty-six

  My Last Supper

  The remaining days before my trial passed both much too slowly and much too quickly.

  Dr. Walendzik had turned herself in to Fort Worth PD, while Dr. Barrett had been apprehended at the airport, attempting to board a flight to Ottawa. The dentists and their bookkeeper faced charges of Medicaid fraud and assault on a federal employee. The dental board had suspended all of the doctors’ licenses.

  After Sundaram was
arrested here, Nick spoke with a different agent in India and was able to convince the government to close down his call center in New Delhi. With so much business moving overseas, the government there was trying to clean up its reputation. The earlier agent who’d refused to take action was bumped down to an administrative position.

  Tokyo Discount Telecom e-mailed me to say that my shipment of phones would be delivered soon. The date was on a Saturday at the very end of January, the weekend after my trial was scheduled to begin. I’d suggested to Eddie and Nick that they arrange with one of the female special agents to take my place in case I was convicted and couldn’t be at my town house to accept the delivery. Though they assured me they had no doubts I’d be exonerated, I had a sneaking suspicion that Eddie had gone ahead and made arrangements to have one of the other women on standby.

  My stomach was in knots, my nerves on edge. As hard as I tried to concentrate on my audit work, all I could think about was the pending trial. I made little progress on my caseload. Fortunately, my new boss cut me quite a bit of slack. I supposed he figured I wouldn’t be deadweight to his department much longer. Either I’d win my case and be up to speed soon or I’d lose my case and be off to jail.

  I spent several hours with Anthony Giacomo going over not only my potential testimony but also that of my other witnesses. He’d clearly put a lot of thought and preparation into his questions and strategy. I only hoped it would be enough to convince the jury not to convict me.

  My parents arrived in Dallas on Friday night so they could spend the weekend with me before my trial began on Monday. Having them around was comforting, though I still had trouble sleeping. Too much on my mind.

  Sunday evening, Nick took me, my parents, Alicia, and Christina out to dinner, my choice of restaurants. After all, it was my last supper of sorts. I picked my favorite sushi place, savoring each delicious bite, basking in the burn of the wasabi in my sinuses, the harsh sensation forcing me to live in the moment.

  Mom tried some for the first time, coughing and sneezing and grimacing. She chugged half a glass of water. “Dear, Lord! That stuff almost killed me.”