I opened the door. Rusty hustled out and set to hosing the red barberry bushes at the front of the house.
“You said that all you were doing was insurance work.”
“Your mother and her crew collared a coke dealer and busted a floating crap game at the paper mill last month.”
“She didn’t bring them home.”
Rusty galloped across the yard into the garden and jumped a rabbit. The race was on. A silver Taurus turned into the drive.
I walked into the kitchen and retrieved the Colt from the top of the refrigerator. “Cover me through the window,” I said, “but keep the shotgun low unless you need it.”
“You haven’t heard a thing I said.”
“Heard it all, son.” I punched out the magazine and locked the slide to the rear. “And I think I listened very politely.” I oiled the slide rails with a can of oil also kept on the top of the refrigerator. “And slide the window open. Don’t mind about the screen. Your mother’s cat has it all clawed up anyway.” I banged the magazine home, let the slide fall, and eased the hammer down. The Taurus crunched up on the gravel and stopped in front of the door. I slid the pistol into my waistband just behind my right hip and made my face into a smile. Too late to find shoes, I went out the door in my socks.
Elizabeth, the late Mr. Van Pelham’s receptionist, sat at the wheel of the Taurus. I walked around the back of the car to the driver’s window. Nobody in the back seat. The trunk was tightly closed, and I read the plate. I did a quick scan of the yard—no other cars or pedestrians on the road. Rusty dug furiously at the side of the shed. The driver’s window slid down. “By golly, good morning, Elizabeth,” I said. “What brings you out here so early in the morning?”
She wore slacks, a sweatshirt, and looked as if she hadn’t slept. “You know what happened to Martin,” she said, the words choked. She turned to dig in her purse.
I bent at the waist, rested my left hand on the window opening, and slid my right hand—just the tips of my fingers—into my hip pocket. “Yes. What an awful thing.”
Elizabeth produced a hanky and wiped her eyes, then her nose. “Martin made some stills from the security camera in the reception office and told me to mail them to you. There’s no letter, just the pictures. Given the circumstances, I thought it best to deliver them myself.”
“That’s very kind of you. You had my address?”
“Martin had it,” she said. She handed me an envelope. “They are pictures of a man who came to see him yesterday afternoon. He said his name was Vladimir. He didn’t give me a last name. Martin was very upset when he left.” Elizabeth’s eyes welled up and she sobbed into her hanky.
I opened the envelope. Mr. Van Pelham’s visitor wore a rather bad wig and horn-rimmed glasses; nonetheless, I recognized him—Colonel Volody Rosenko, GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence.
18
“So who’s this?” said Jim as he inspected the pictures.
“Beats me,” I said. “Some fella who visited Martin Van Pelham just before his car blew up. I’ll turn the pictures over to the police when I’m in town today.”
“Finally!”
“Leave me the shotgun and go home and get some rest. You have a wife and two little girls to take care of.”
Jim laid the shotgun on the counter. “You were family first,” he said.
I hugged him. He hugged back. I patted him on the back. “And now I’m family second,” I said. “Go home and take care of the people that depend on you. I have to go check on Karen.”
“She’s out on the deck. I pulled the curtain so the light wouldn’t wake you up.”
“Oh, happy day.”
“It’s all right. She’s wearing mom’s robe and that dopey straw hat you wear on the lawn mower. Besides, Walt’s already out there in the weeds somewhere.”
“Walt’s outside?”
“He got here when the sun came up. He said that you’d know where to find him, and that he didn’t care if he got paid.”
“Denny come by?”
“Walt said Denny had an exam today.”
Jim left. I stumbled into the shower. When I emerged with a fresh shave and my teeth brushed, I could hear Rusty working on the screen door. I put a cup of water into the microwave and let the dog in while I still had some screen left.
My sinuses reminded me that I lived by the lake, so I stepped over to the kitchen cupboard for a decongestant and took my daily multiple vitamin as well. Rusty walked over and sat at my feet, looking up with expectant eyes. He got a treat every morning when I took my vitamin. Unfortunately for him, it was monthly heartworm pill day. Heartworm pills come in flavors, both chewy and hard. We’d tried them all, and Rusty hated all of them.
I shook out the aspirin-sized pill, and he wagged his tail.
“Okay, meatball,” I said, “open da woof.”
He looked away.
I patted Rusty on the head, then lifted his chin to a point.
“Say aaaawff,” I told him and wormed my right thumb between his massive molars. Rusty conceded the point, but lolled his tongue back to cover his throat. I flattened out his tongue with the fingers of my left hand. With the path open, I dropped the pill to the back of his throat, gave it a push with my finger, then held his mouth shut. He swallowed.
“That’s a good boy,” I said and scratched him behind his ears. He stood up, sneezed, and shook his head, making his ears flap loudly. His tail wagged so vigorously that his butt swayed, as he stepped up to the refrigerator. I rinsed my hands in the sink and dried them with a paper towel. From the refrigerator I flipped him a slice of bologna. He snatched it deftly from the air and scarfed it down.
“Randy would have just beaten the dog and left it screaming,” said Karen from behind me as she shuffled in from the deck, the robe we had put on her the previous morning over the terry robe from the guest room.
“You get mellower as you get older,” I said.
“No,” she said. “That wasn’t it. It was the steroids. They made him mean, crazy. It’s like he was always looking for a reason to go off.” She rubbed her forehead with her hand.
I didn’t have a tactful reply, so I said, “Well, you’re up early. Can I get you a cup of coffee? tea? toast?”
“What happened to my face?”
“You choked on something while you were out. The little capillaries in your face broke while you were straining to breathe. My oldest son tried to swallow a whole cookie when he was two. I couldn’t shake or jar it loose. Wendy finally pried it out with her finger. He looked just like you. It’ll fade away in a week or so.”
Karen smiled. “Coffee!” she said.
“Instant all right?”
“Perfect,” she said.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Hot and black,” she said and shuffled back out to the deck.
I toasted her an English muffin—put it on a plate with a butter knife and some cream cheese—and delivered it with the coffee. The sun had not yet defeated the night mist that hung like a halo about the shoreline of the lake. A mallard couple and their ducklings paddled about near the dock.
Karen set the coffee on the deck next to the chaise lounge where she’d curled up. With the plate on her lap she set to the muffin with the butter knife. I left her at peace and got my own cup of coffee.
I found the latex gloves I bought the night before lying on the counter. I snapped on a pair and picked up the shotgun, still damp from the steam in the bathroom. I wiped it dry and retired to the laundry room to tackle the bags of trash that Fay’s wife had been so intent on discarding.
The first bag was not a total surprise, not like it might have been. This is often a truly nasty detail—hypodermic needles, dildos, and fish guts. This one was just filled with bundles of sports betting cards.
They listed college and professional basketball teams and the point spreads set by the Las Vegas sports books. At the bottom of each card was a notice that they were novelty items and not meant for gambling purposes. They
also said that the player had to make at least five picks for no less than one dollar a pick. I found a sports section among the papers that I’d brought down to spread on the floor. The listed picks on the cards were for the upcoming week.
Tax returns tumbled out of the next bag. They went back several years. None for Arnold Fay. I sorted them by name and found that none of them had returns for this past year. All of the returns were for people who claimed earnings of more than eight or nine thousand dollars but none had earned more than eleven thousand dollars. Virtually all of them had been employed by Furniture City Temporary Service at the same small group of service businesses and job shops—the ones that we had discovered belonged to Campbell, Van Pelham, and Fay on our trip to the County Clerk’s Office. I got a telephone book and attempted to locate the businesses. None of them were listed.
The next bag discharged the same type of records but included two large stacks of tax forms, all numbered 8453 and bundled together with giant rubber bands. The forms indicated that they were an authorization to electronically transmit a tax return.
The names on the 8453s matched the tax records that I had already sorted into stacks. I went back to the telephone book but located only a half dozen of the names. The addresses in the telephone book did not match those on the tax returns.
I picked up the telephone extension in the laundry room and dialed up Virginia Dean. She had it in three rings.
“Hi,” I said. “This is Bart Smith from A-Line Tax Service. I’ve called to ask if you have been satisfied with our service.”
“There has got to be a mistake,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was trying to reach Virginia Dean.”
“That’s me,” she said, “but my daughter does my taxes.”
“Yes,” I said, “I see that we have not done your taxes this year. That’s the reason I’m calling. We value your business.”
“Young man,” she said—right there, she’d won me over. “I’ll have you know that I have never used a tax service. Not this year. Not last year. I think it’s a waste of money.”
“I’m sorry to have troubled you,” I said, “but I would like to read you a Social Security number, and ask you if it’s yours.”
“I don’t give my Social Security number to strangers on the telephone,” she said.
“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “I was going to read you a number and ask you to simply say yes or no.”
“I don’t want to do that,” she said, “and I want—”
“Perhaps there’s a different way,” I said. “Can you tell me if you ever worked for Furniture City Temporary Service?”
“I certainly did not!” she said.
“Well,” I said, “I suppose it’s possible that your name and Social Security number were used by someone else. The address I have for you is on Beekious Court.”
“You read me that number, young man!”
I read her the Social Security number. It was not hers. She wanted my telephone number. I gave her the telephone number for Quick Check Payroll Service.
“Thank you for your help,” I said. “I could send you a discount coupon for our service.”
She said that she didn’t think so and hung up.
Three attempts at Joe Klien and two attempts at Richard Chambers netted the same type results except two of them said they would try the service if I’d send them a coupon.
I opened another bag. The tax returns for several businesses tumbled out. Among them were the payroll service, the temporary outfit, the tax service, and Pronto Check Cashing Service on Grandville Avenue.
The bag also contained the tax returns for the businesses that used Furniture City Temporary Service. The partners in those businesses were the usual suspects: Fay, Van Pelham, and Campbell. Sometimes it was all three, sometimes just one or two of the three musketeers.
The telephone book chase revealed only an address and telephone number for Pronto Check Cashing Service. I dialed.
“Hi,” I said. “This is Elmer Pierce. I just moved up here from Tennessee. I got my tax refund check, but I don’t have no driver’s license up here yet. I was wondering if you could cash the check for me?”
“How much is it for?”
“Four hundred and seventy-four dollars.”
“Do you have any identification at all?”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Credit cards, state ID card, food stamp card, something like that.”
“Well,” I said, “I got my Social Security card and a card they gave me down at the blood plasma place.”
“How about a telephone bill or some other utility bill?”
“I got a bail receipt,” I said.
He laughed. “You didn’t get busted for bad checks, did you?”
“No,” I said. “It was for soliciting a prostitute that turned out to be a cop.”
“Bring that down,” he said, “and anything else you’ve got with your name on it. Have you got a regular address?”
“Yeah,” I said, “but if I don’t pay the fine by Friday, it’s going to be the county jail.”
“Come on down,” he said, “we do a lot of tax refund checks.”
“Right, man,” I said. “I’ll check you later.” He was laughing when I hung up.
The last bag consisted mostly of desk litter, calendars, memo pads, and the like—also the large bundle of tractor paper that Fay had rescued from the trash bin after his run-in with Lieutenant Emmery. It was a list of names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers. The names were all for children under the age of eighteen; all were listed as deceased.
I looked up and reached for my coffee. I found Wendy standing behind me in her robe and with her notes in her hand.
“I think I can help you make sense out of this,” she said.
“Good,” I said, “because I don’t have any chicken bones to read.”
“When it started out, Karen got the job with Campbell through her uncle. Basically, she just entered payroll information sorted, and stuffed checks. Randy came around to visit and brought his friends, Chuck and Paulie. Campbell introduced them to Fay, and the whole group did some pretty serious partying. Randy and Paulie were already doing a lot of steroids to bulk up. Fay introduced cocaine and paid for some trips to Chicago and Las Vegas.
“Karen figured out that Randy and his pals were involved in some kind of business with Fay. They got so wild and scary she was afraid to ask anything. She just tried to get along and not make any trouble. About that time, she started up with Campbell, because he seemed to at least be sane, and he was kind to her.
“At the end of last year, Campbell told her that Fay, her husband, and his friends were involved in illegal sports betting and had threatened to kill him if he didn’t help launder the money. He said that he had put money aside and that they could go away and start over. She filed for divorce. She said she tried to talk to her uncle about it, but he just kept telling her to keep her mouth shut and try to work it out with Randy.”
“There’s a pretty intricate web of businesses here that didn’t just start up,” I said. “I’ve got records stacked up here that go back for years.”
“She found that out later,” said Wendy. “She was waiting for Campbell at Lake Tahoe, and Arnold Fay showed up. He apparently flew out there on Campbell’s ticket. He took her up to her room and told her that the sports betting had been going on for well over a decade, long before her husband and his friends got involved. Arnold Fay said they laundered the money through the payroll check business and all the little pretend companies that it serviced.”
“That’s a pretty expensive way to launder money,” I said. “There are a lot of payroll taxes to pay. I mean, it explains the check-cashing business, but the government had to be beating their brains out.”
“Not really,” said Wendy. “They did only enough payroll to cover billing by the temporary outfit, and the check-cashing company took a big and profitable fee for handling the checks. They
took the profits from the various businesses as income so the money was nice and tidy. The payroll checks went through the check-cashing business and that money went in their pockets.”
“It’s sure not a scam that the feds would be looking for, but the payroll taxes had to be heavy duty.”
“Karen says that they made money on it. Campbell had a thing called an”—she squinted at her notes and finally held them at arm’s length—“an E-FIN number. It authorizes a tax preparation business to transmit tax returns electronically. All of the names and Social Security numbers they used to issue payroll checks were for dead people. They paid them just enough to qualify them for the maximum earned income credit. Campbell used an ‘instant refund’ set up through a bank, and he not only charged a hefty fee for the service, but got authorization to print the refund checks himself. The government paid the refund money to the bank, so Campbell’s hands were clean.”
“Did this guy do anything legit, or was his life one long felony? I mean, it sounds like he got up in the morning, ripped the tags off his mattress, pulled on his ski mask, and plundered society until he was exhausted.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Wendy, “they really did do payrolls for some of the small custom-furniture companies and for that outfit that makes the bus seats. Their payrolls accounted for most of the money that disappeared the day that Campbell was killed.”
“These guys were flying,” I said. “It’s hard to believe that they stumbled over their own feet.”
“Fay told Karen that a couple of years ago the IRS started matching the names of children listed on the earned-income credit form with Social Security numbers on file with the Social Security Administration. That’s when the trouble started, because the IRS rejected all of the fake returns Campbell submitted. The other partners wouldn’t give up any money to cover Campbell for the money he was out. He started delaying the tax withholding payments to give them a little nudge, and all the partners started getting ugly mail from the IRS.”
“And that’s what generated the heated arguments a neighbor of the payroll firm told us about,” I said.
“Fay told Karen that there were other partners, you know, silent and ‘connected’ partners.”
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