Death, Taxes, and a Shotgun Wedding

by Diane Kelly

  Great! I wrote back. See you at 7.

  I noticed that Sebastian Rivera’s sister had also returned her affidavit in the meantime, along with the application she’d used to apply for the insurance. I printed the documents out to have ready for court and called Ross. “Can you meet me at the courthouse in fifteen minutes to get a search warrant?”

  “It’s a date.”

  I shoved the affidavits into my briefcase. Before heading out, I looked up the owner information for the Peavy Road property on the Dallas County Appraisal District Web site. It listed a woman’s name. I found a number for her and dialed it as I headed down the hall. If I were working as a private CPA, this type of multitasking would enable me to double bill. But since I worked for Uncle Sam, my efficiency earned me only the usual paycheck.

  The phone rang three times before going to voice mail. Jeez Louise! Does nobody answer their phones these days? I left a message. After identifying myself, I said, “I’m working an investigation with the Dallas Police Department. We’re hoping you might have some information that could help us. Please call me back immediately. It’s urgent.” I left my cell number so she’d be able to reach me while I was on the go.

  Josh was my backup for the day. He and I met Ross at the courthouse with the documentation.

  While Josh stood with his back to us, keeping an eye on the people in the gallery and the door to the courtroom, Ross made a plea to the judge on my behalf for the search warrant. “Special Agent Holloway was able to determine that Metroplex Mutual is the common link among the victims. This fact gives us reason to believe the culprit works at the insurance company.”

  Judge Trumbull looked down at me and raised a gray brow. “This guy’s taken unsuspecting young people for over a hundred grand?”

  “Yes, he has, Your Honor. Including a young couple with a baby.” I was going for sympathy points there. What kind of bastard would leave a little baby homeless?

  She signed the order with a flourish and handed it down to me. “Go get ’em, Tara.”

  chapter twenty-six

  Temporarily Trans

  “Why are you skipping?” Josh asked on the way back to the office.

  “I can’t help it!” I cried, executing a twirl on the sidewalk. “I might finally solve this case!”

  Two men in business suits gave me odd looks as I skipped past them. Dallas can be such a pretentious place.

  “I’m embarrassed to be seen with you,” Josh said.

  I skipped in a circle around him. “Get over it.”

  Back at the federal building, I returned to my office, scanned the search warrant, and sent the file off to Metroplex Mutual’s legal department. Now they’d have no choice but to provide me with the names of their employees who’d had access to the subject files. Even if the guy tonight turned out to be legit, at least I was making progress.

  Nick had to stay late at the office to finish some administrative paperwork that he, as the new codirector of Criminal Investigations, was now responsible for. He was concerned about me going out to the appointment without him. He frowned when I told him my plans. “You won’t just have the potential target to contend with, you might be followed again. What if the two from Neiman’s follow you to the rental house and confront you inside?”

  “Chances are this will be another dead end,” I told him. “I’ll be in and out in five minutes tops. Besides, I’ll have Josh with me.”

  Nick’s grunt said what his mouth wouldn’t. Josh, though brilliant when it came to technical matters, was not the most physically formidable agent in the office. He also wasn’t as adept with his weapons as the rest of us. If I were being honest, I’d admit I wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, either. But under the circumstances, we didn’t have much choice.

  I reached out a hand to squeeze Nick’s forearm in reassurance. “I’ll watch my back. I’ll be fine.”

  “You better be,” Nick said. “Because if you get killed, I’m going to take Trish LeGrande as my date to your funeral.”

  “That skank?” I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “Just for that I’m going to be extra careful.”

  He cut me a pointed look. “That was exactly what I was going for.”

  Josh and I rode in separate cars over to the property. As we drew near, I realized that, on the off chance the guy really was the one I’d given a ride to before, he might look out the window, see me or my car, and put two and two together. If he realized I’d been working undercover to nab him, he might bolt out the back door and disappear into the wind.

  I hooked a right onto Inadale Avenue and pulled to the curb at the edge of Ferguson Road park, rolling my window down in the process. Sticking my hand out the window, I signaled Josh to get out.

  Josh pulled in after me, climbed out of his vehicle, and walked up to my car, sliding into my passenger seat. His nose twitched and his lip quirked as he glanced around. “What is that godawful smell?”

  “Wet dog and runner’s sweat.”

  I’d wiped the seats down and hung a lemon-scented air freshener from the rearview mirror, but the stench remained. On the bright side, once you were in the car awhile, you no longer noticed it.

  I shared my concerns with him. “I don’t think I should be the one to speak with the leasing agent. If he turns out to be the guy I gave a ride to before, he might recognize me and realize it’s too much of a coincidence that his Backseat Driver and the potential tenant are the same person. He might not even open the door.”

  “But he’s expecting a woman,” Josh said. “Sara Galloway, your alias.”

  “That’s a problem.”

  Or is it?

  I reached into my purse, whipped out my plum lipstick, and yanked off the cap. When Josh opened his mouth to question me I quickly coated his lips.

  “What are you doing?” he shrieked.

  “Turning you into a passable Sara. Hold still.” I took out my mascara next and gave his lashes a couple of swipes. Finally, I reached out and fluffed his blond curls. Luckily for us, he didn’t have a five-o’clock shadow.

  He pulled down the visor and eyed himself in the mirror. Even he had to admit he could pass for female. An ugly female, but still passable.

  He gestured to his chest. “What about this?”

  I wadded up some tissue and stuffed it down his shirt.

  He looked down and shimmied his shoulders ever so slightly. The balls of tissue slid down to his belly. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “We’ll have to make it work.”

  “How?”

  Yeah, Tara. How? I thought for a moment, my mind going back to the big bazoombas on the woman at Neiman’s. Were they real or fakes? I wriggled out of my blazer and tugged at the hem of my shirt, pulling it out of my pants. “Look away,” I told Josh, pointing out his side window. Once his head was turned, I reached up under my short-sleeved shirt and unhooked my bra. I wriggled and wrestled and wrangled for a moment or two, and finally got the thing down to my waist. I held it out to him. “Put this on.”

  He eyed my bra as if he thought it might bite him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I wasn’t kidding at all. Fortunately, Josh wasn’t much bigger than me. “Do it.” I thrust it at him and gave him a pointed look. My newly released nipples pointed at him, too.

  He groaned but complied. As he took off his shirt and slid into the bra, I put my blazer back on.

  “Yuck.” He arched his back to put some distance between the bra and his skin. “It’s warm and moist.”

  “A little boob sweat never killed anyone.”

  He tried to reach behind himself to fasten the clasps, but had no luck. He turned his back to me. “You’re going to have to fasten it.”

  I pulled the straps, but Josh’s chest was bigger than mine after all. I could get the ends within a couple inches of each other, but that’s the best I could do. But I was nothing if not resourceful. I wasn’t just the Annie Oakley of the IRS, I was the MacGyver, too. “Hold on a second.”
I fished a paper clip out of my briefcase and used it as an extender, sliding one end through the hook and the other through the eye. “There. That’ll work.”

  Josh stuffed the tissue balls into the cups of the bra. When he finished, he wriggled again. The tissue stayed in place. Josh was now the proud owner of a pair of 32As. “This is uncomfortable,” he complained. “It feels itchy and confining.”

  “That’s why women rip their bras off the instant they get home from work. Welcome to our world.”

  He adjusted his breasts again. “I’ll need to work on my voice.”

  Really, there was no need. He didn’t have the most masculine voice to begin with. It was asexual. But no sense insulting the guy. “Let me hear what you’ve got.”

  “Hi,” he squeaked, sounding like Minnie Mouse. “My name is Sara.”

  I shook my head. “Too fake. Bring it down a notch.”

  He tried again. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Sara.”

  The voice still sounded fake, but maybe it’s because I knew it was. “Take it down one more notch.”

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Sara.”

  “That’s perfect,” I said.

  He scowled. “That’s my normal voice.”

  “Go with the second one, then.”

  His disguise taken care of, he asked about the plan. “What do I do?”

  “Snap a pic of him if you can and send it to me. See if he goes through the usual routine. If he asks for the money order, tell him that you can’t do it right away. Tell him you don’t have enough in your checking account and that your savings is at a different bank with no debit card linked to the account. Tell him the soonest you can get the money order to him is first thing tomorrow once the banks open. When he leaves the property, we’ll nab him.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  Josh returned to his car and we drove on. While I stopped a few houses down from the alleged rental, he continued on, pulling to the curb in front of the house. The driveway was empty.

  No car. This fits the con artist’s typical MO.

  My nerves began to buzz again, my body alive with prebust jitters. I pulled out my phone and turned on my Backseat Driver app, tapping the button to indicate I was available to accept riders. After stashing my phone in my cup holder, I pulled out my field glasses. Through the lenses, I saw Josh knock on the door. With the bay window blocking my view, I couldn’t tell who answered, but I’d see soon enough when Josh sent me the pic. Josh—or should I say Sara?—disappeared inside.

  My cell phone chirped. It was the owner of the house returning my call. Good. “You said to call you about an urgent investigation?”

  “That’s right. I’m working with a detective from the Dallas Police Department on a rental-property scam.”

  “Rental scam? What do you mean?”

  I explained how the scam worked. “I’m wondering about your house on Peavy Road.” The one I’ve got my eyes on at this very moment. “Are you trying to find a long-term tenant for the property?”

  “No,” she said. “I only rent it out online for a few days or weeks at a time. I’ve got it listed on Airbnb.”

  “Do you have a property manager?”

  “No,” she said. “I handle the details myself.”

  Given that the house was an easy drive to the Cotton Bowl and fairgrounds, I surmised a lot of her business would be from people coming in town for football games, concerts, or the annual state fair.

  “So you didn’t hire a leasing agent named Cliff to find a tenant?”

  “No.”

  Aha! I’d finally found the elusive guy. Woo-hoo! I did a sitting happy dance, rocking the car. Hey, I’d earned the right.

  “Is someone renting the house now?” I asked.

  “Yes. A man. He’s got it for another week.”

  No doubt the place had been rented under the identity of another poor sucker whose name and social security number had been stolen from Metroplex Mutual’s life insurance policy database. I still didn’t know the name of the man who’d been stealing the data but, with any luck, in a few minutes I would.

  I had to be careful how I handled things from here. The last thing I wanted was this woman driving out to the house to confront the con artist. We were in the middle of a sting and when the guy realized the jig was up, he could get violent. I’d hate for her to end up in the middle of things and get hurt, or worse. “I need you to agree that you will not go the property for any reason until I call you back and tell you it’s okay. It could be dangerous for you.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  A few seconds after we ended our call, a text came in from Josh with a photo of the guy.

  Suit? Check.

  Eyeglasses? Check.

  Tara Holloway’s next bust? Check, check, check!

  chapter twenty-seven

  He Can Hide but He Can’t Run

  A few minutes later, Josh came out of the house, walking slowly to his car. He’d just reached it when ping! I glanced down at my phone. A notification had come in from Backseat Driver. A pickup was requested at Bishop Lynch High School. The campus sat only a couple of blocks away. The drop-off location was at an International House of Pancakes on Central Expressway, not far from the Village.

  It’s him!

  I couldn’t help myself. I giggled in glee. “Hee-hee-hee!”

  I jabbed the button to accept the gig, started my car, and headed over to the high school. On the way, I phoned Detective Booth. “That leasing agent we’ve been after? My partner just met him at a house. He’s requested a ride from Backseat. He’s about to get into my car.”

  “Yesss!”

  I visualized her pumping her fist.

  “Should I drive him to the police headquarters?” I asked.

  “He might figure out what you’re doing and try to bail out,” she said. “I’m still at HQ. I’ll get an officer and a cruiser and we’ll come after you.”

  I told her the route we’d be taking and gave her my license-plate number.

  “Got it. See you soon!”

  I phoned Josh. “Follow me,” I said, “but keep some distance so a Dallas PD patrol car can get in between us. They’ll pull me over and then we’ll make the arrest.”

  “Got it.”

  The plan in place, I returned my phone to the cup holder and pulled to the curb in the fire lane in front of the school. As I waited, I kept an eye out for the guy, whose true identity I still didn’t know. Whoever you are, you’re about to go down. Sure enough, he emerged from the end of the block a moment later and began walking over. As before, he had his phone pressed to the side of his face.

  I glanced down at his shoes. Yep, even from this distance I could tell the heels were higher than usual. This guy was a fraud in so many ways. I couldn’t wait to bust his sorry butt!

  He was twenty yards away when he stopped in his shoe-lift-enhanced tracks. Crap! Had he recognized my car? Was his con man’s intuition telling him something was odd, that the same driver who’d picked him up before across town was picking him up now?

  I willed him forward, sending telepathic messages to his brain. Come on, my mind said to his. There’s only so many Backseat Drivers in the city. It’s not that big of a coincidence that you’ve taken a ride in this car before.

  The last thing I wanted was for him to bolt and me and Josh to have to chase him through a residential area. There’d been kids playing basketball in a driveway, others hula-hooping in a front yard, an elderly couple rocking on their front porch. I didn’t want to put those people at risk.

  When the guy made no move, I raised a hand to wave hello and offered what I hoped was a benign smile. Feigning nonchalance, I yawned, fluttering my hand in front of my mouth in a performance worthy of an Emmy. The award for the best fake yawn goes to IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway!

  When he still made no move, my mind screamed at his. Get your ass over here, you conniving crook! Now!

  He stepped forward, his mind bending to
my will. Neener-neener.

  He climbed into the backseat and closed the door. His nose wobbled on his face and he swiveled his phone upward, the microphone at eye level. A pointless gesture since nobody was really on the phone with him. “What’s that smell?”

  “Wet dog,” I explained for the second time. “Sorry. I’ve tried everything I could to get rid of the stench but nothing’s worked.” I reached over the console and opened it, retrieving a snack and holding it up. “Fortune cookie?”

  The guy cast me a strange look. “No, thanks.”

  As I pulled out of the high school’s parking lot, the guy pretended to be engaged in conversation again, reciting the same limited set of conversational snippets as before. Once again, I filled in the other side of the conversation in my head.

  Rider: That’ll work.

  Me: Me and Booth arresting you, you mean?

  Rider: Mm-hm.

  Me: Are you a total dumb ass?

  Rider: Yeah.

  Me: Is it okey dokey if we take you to the pokey?

  Rider: All right.

  As we continued on, my phone pinged. I plucked it from the cup holder and took a look at the screen. The jerk had already reviewed me on the Backseat Driver app. Car reeks. I’ll never use this driver again.

  That’s right, you won’t, I thought, fighting a smile.

  I spotted a Dallas PD cruiser waiting on the shoulder of the freeway as we approached the Mockingbird exit. It took everything in me not to throw my head back and emit an evil laugh. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

  The guy must have spotted the cruiser, too. He turned to look at it, turning even more when he saw the cruiser turn on its lights and pull out behind us.

  “Are you speeding?” he demanded, leaning forward over the seat to check my speedometer.

  I glanced down at my dash as if doing the same. “Little bit. Oops!”

  My gaze went to my rearview mirror. He’d lowered his phone, clutching it at his chest. For the first time, I could see the guy’s full face, and the look of panic on it was priceless. Ha! Why not take advantage of the situation to screw with him a little? “This is my tenth ticket this year. I could lose my license. Hold on tight. I’m going to try to outrun the cop.” I punched the gas. Vroom!