by Diane Kelly
I headed across the field, using the flashlight app on my cell phone to light my way. As I drew close to the house, I noticed a man and woman sitting on the front porch, sipping white wine from sparkling stem glasses.
The two looked nothing at all like the parents of a country-western star. The woman was dark haired and olive skinned, with a voluptuous build à la Sophia Vergara. She wore a loose-fitting tunic top over fitted pants with ridiculously high heels. She looked to be in her mid-forties. The man was noticeably older, around sixty or so. He was tall and trim, with white hair and pale skin. He wore a starched dress shirt and dress pants with sleek polished dress shoes. The two seemed unusually chic for country folk.
I stepped up to the porch railing. “Hello. Mr. and Mrs. Merriweather?”
Brazos’s mother let out a scream and reflexively raised her arm, inadvertently tossing most of her wine over her shoulder.
Brazos’s father flew out of his seat, stepping in front of his wife in a protective gesture. “Leave these premises now or I’ll summon the police!”
Wait a minute. His words were neither Southern nor spoken with a Texas accent. A Texan would’ve said, Get your sorry ass off my property or I’ll fill you with lead. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this man’s accent had come from somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon line.
I raised both hands. “No need. I’m federal law enforcement.” I could understand their reaction. No doubt an overzealous fan or two had stalked their son out here. I pulled my badge from my pocket and displayed it. “I’m Special Agent Tara Holloway from the IRS. You’re Winthrop and Marcella Merriweather, right? I left you a voice-mail message a few days ago.”
The two exchanged glances but said nothing.
“Brazos and I have been in negotiations regarding his taxes. I have something I need to discuss with him in person. I was hoping to catch him here.”
Marcella stood, raising a finger to point at the sky. “Our son just left in his jet.”
Her accent was neither Southern nor Yankee. Rather, it sounded foreign. Like Spanish but not quite. Italian, probably, given her first name. How could this be? Brazos dressed in boots and jeans and sang songs about Southern life and Southern people, yet his father sounded like a New England WASP and his mother sounded like a character from The Sopranos.
I looked from one of them to the other. “When will Brazos be back?”
The two exchanged glances again.
“I’m not certain,” his father said.
I stepped closer to the rail and rested my hands on it. “Why didn’t you return my phone call?”
“We didn’t get your message,” Winthrop VI replied at the exact same time Marcella said, “We accidentally erased your number.”
“Which is it?” I gave first one, then the other a pointed look. “Did you not get it or did you erase it?”
Neither responded for a moment. When Winthrop finally did, it was without conviction and didn’t answer my question. “You’re trespassing.”
“And you’re not shooting straight with me.”
We stood in silence for a moment.
“Look,” I said, “your son’s account is accruing interest of over two grand per day. That’s not exactly chump change. If Brazos agrees to get his returns filed and his taxes paid, I can work with him, maybe get some of the penalties waived. But he’s got to cooperate. First he told me his agent was supposed to file his returns, but that turned out to be false. Then he told me that his manager was supposed to file his returns, but I’ve left her multiple messages and she hasn’t called me back. It’s starting to look like he’s jerking me around. You don’t want him to get in trouble, do you? Maybe end up in jail?”
The two said nothing. Sheesh. What would it take to break these people? Sleep deprivation? Thumb screws? Waterboarding? Unfortunately, none of those techniques was legal now that a Democrat was in the White House. Perhaps I could contact the NSA, though, see if they had any of the Merriweathers’ e-mails in their databanks. Surely they would. After all, they had recordings of Angela Merkel calling out for a delivery of schnitzel and strudel. If that didn’t work, maybe I could order up a drone, have it buzz the house occasionally, scanning for Brazos.
“Unless you two want to be implicated for obstruction of justice,” I said, adding some bluster, “you’ll give me your son’s current cell phone number.”
The two exchanged a final glance before Marcella went inside and returned with her mobile phone. She dialed up her son’s name on her contacts list. I noticed she’d entered his name as “Winnie.” A cute name for a girl, but the only male Winnie I knew was the pantless bear whose oversized butt got stuck in the window after he’d indulged in too much honey, whose raspy voice and slow, halting speech made him sound as if he’d smoked too many funny little cigarettes out there in the Hundred Acre Wood. It made sense. After all, that donkey he hung out with was obviously hooked on downers. And that bouncing tiger? A speed freak if ever there was one.
I entered Brazos’s number into the contacts list on my phone and forced a smile and nod at the Merriweathers. “Thanks for your cooperation. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
I’d made it ten steps before I realized I’d have to jump the gate again to get out. “Any chance you can open the gate for me?” I asked as I turned back. But it was too late. The Merriweathers had gone back inside. I’d have to scale the thing one more time.
After stalking back across the field, praying there were no rattlesnakes out and about tonight, I pulled myself up and over the gate once again.
“Dang it!” I landed hard, jamming my left ankle and falling back on my rear, scraping my palms on the asphalt. I pushed myself to a stand, leaving a layer of my skin on the pavement, and kicked the gate. The jangling of the iron bars only jangled my nerves all the more.
The instant I was seated in my car I placed a call to Brazos. My call went straight to voice mail. Had his parents already warned him I’d be calling? Maybe. Maybe not. I supposed it wasn’t necessarily suspicious that the call went to the messaging system. After all, he was airborne. Any use of his cell phone could screw up the pilot’s controls and send them crashing into Possum Kingdom Lake. Brazos wouldn’t be the first famous singer to die in a plane crash. But I wasn’t so sure we’d be singing bye-bye to American pie this time. In the case of Winnie Merriweather, perhaps an Italian pizza pie would be more appropriate.
Who the hell is Brazos Rivers?
chapter sixteen
Mission Possible
I sat in my car for a few moments, thinking, frustration setting me on edge. My efforts to collect from Brazos had all been for naught so far. All I had to show for my efforts was a silver spur and a sprained ankle. I hadn’t gotten anywhere in the PPE investigation, either. Heck, I still wasn’t even sure Larry Burkett had done anything illegal. I’d looked over PPE’s and the Burketts’ personal tax returns and nothing had immediately jumped out at me as unusual. Was he spending the cash on drill bits or not?
There was only one way to know for certain. I needed to get into the PPE warehouse, determine if bits had, in fact, been delivered. And there were only two ways to get into the warehouse. One, I could break in. Or, two, I could use the spare key Burkett had given to Katie.
Breaking in held little appeal. I’d set off the alarm and have only limited time to look over the bit inventory before the sheriff’s department would send someone out. Besides, like Katie, I knew nothing about drill bits. How would I be able to tell one from another? Was there even a way to distinguish what company had made a particular drill bit? I had no idea. And what if I got caught doing an illegal B and E? I’d be fired and any evidence I found would be inadmissible in a court case against Burkett.
Spare key it was.
I drove to Katie’s house and phoned her from the driveway. “That’s me outside,” I said, flashing my lights. “Can I come in for a minute?”
She sounded surprised and tentative. “Okay.”
Again she met me at t
he door, putting a finger to her lips, indicating I should speak quietly. “The boys are already in bed.”
“I’ll be quick,” I whispered, following her inside.
As she closed the door behind me, Doug emerged from a bedroom dressed in a pair of pajamas that were two inches too short in both the legs and sleeves, an old pair he’d obviously outgrown but still found comfortable. Their fluffy white dog followed him.
“Have you found out anything?” Katie asked, keeping her voice low.
I shook my head and knelt to give the dog a scratch behind the ears. “I followed a lead, but it appears to be a dead end.” I stood and the dog sauntered off, jumping up onto the couch. I told Katie and Doug about the envelope Burkett had left at the historical marker, that it had been picked up by someone driving a black Toyota, and that my attempt to identify the driver hadn’t panned out. “Any idea who the driver of the car could be?”
Katie mulled it over for a moment. “I don’t remember seeing anyone with a Toyota.”
“Me, neither,” Doug said. “’Course I’m usually out at the drilling sites. I only go to HQ when my foreman asks for help loading equipment.”
“Keep an eye out for the car,” I advised. “Call me immediately if you see it.”
Both indicated their agreement.
I turned to Doug. “If someone went into the warehouse and took a look at the drill bit inventory, would they be able to tell whether the bits were from the usual supplier or whether they were delivered by another vendor?”
He nodded. “Every bit I’ve ever seen was from Hughley-Baker. The letters HB are engraved on the base of the bit, followed by the model number.”
“Hughley-Baker has their own in-house sales force,” Katie added. “Each sales rep has an exclusive region. Nobody else would be able to sell Hughley-Baker bits to oil and gas companies in this area.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“The sales rep had car trouble once when he’d come by to call on Mr. Burkett. I fixed him a cup of coffee and we talked briefly while he waited for roadside assistance.”
Doug cocked his head and raised a suspicious brow. “Was he good-lookin’?”
Katie tossed a flirtatious grin at her husband. “Not half as good-looking as you.”
Helpful info. The part about the exclusivity, I mean. Not the part about who was better looking than whom. “So if Mr. Burkett is buying bits from another supplier, they’d have to be from a different manufacturer?”
Katie was all business again. “Right.”
I looked from Katie to Doug, wondering whether I could convince them to let me into the warehouse to take a look around. What’s more, even if I could, I wondered if I should. What if we went in, found bits that had not be made by Hughley-Baker, and realized Burkett had been telling the truth all along? There was a chance our snooping would be discovered and the two of them would lose their jobs. Was I willing to take that risk?
After some thought, I realized it wasn’t my decision to make. Katie was obviously concerned about her exposure if she continued to make the cash withdrawals from the bank, enter unsubstantiated data into the accounting system, and affirm under penalty of perjury that PPE’s tax returns were true and correct to the best of her knowledge. It was up to her and her husband to decide.
“I have an idea,” I said. “It could put an end to this investigation right now and give you some peace of mind.”
“What is it?” Katie asked.
“Mr. Burkett gave you a key to the warehouse. And he never explicitly forbade you from using it, right?”
She gave a tentative nod of her head.
“I’m not a lawyer,” I said, pulling up what little business law I could remember from my class in college. “But it seems arguable that when Burkett gave Katie the keys without imposing specific conditions on their use, he gave her implied authority to access the warehouse and to grant access to others.”
Katie nibbled nervously at her lip, apparently mulling things over.
I looked from her to Doug. “How would you feel about you and I going to the warehouse tonight? We could take a look at the drill bits and determine whether there’s inventory that’s not from Hughley-Baker. That way we’d know whether Mr. Burkett has been telling the truth, that he’s been buying bits for cash from a second supplier, or whether he’s been lying and spending the money on something else.”
The two exchanged glances.
“It’s pretty much the only option left,” I prodded, though I supposed that wasn’t exactly the case. I could always stake out PPE again this Friday and follow the Toyota if it showed up then. But frankly I was out of patience, desperate to either move this case ahead or call it quits and move on to my other pending investigations. It took me half a day on the road just to drive out here and back, and I couldn’t continue to invest this type of time in a case that might be moot.
The sound of creaking bedsprings came from a room down the hall, drawing Katie’s attention. When she turned back, she said, “I can’t leave the boys.”
Doug looked from me to his wife. “Agent Holloway and I can go alone,” he said. “I can get the keys out of the safe if you give me the combination.”
Katie hesitated, continuing to gnaw her lip.
Doug reached out a hand and took hers in it. “I think it’s the right thing to do. This situation has been eating at you. Something’s gotta change.”
Katie exhaled sharply but stopped worrying her lip. “What about the security cameras?”
His wife now seemingly on board, Doug pulled his hand back. “I can turn off the electricity at the fuse box.” He turned to me. “I don’t think there’s any cameras on the back of the administrative building where the box is located.”
“But the fuse box is padlocked,” Katie said. “The key is in the safe.”
“I’ll take my bolt cutters,” Doug said, “and my soldering iron to fix the lock afterward.”
“What about the Dobermans?” she asked. “They’ll eat you alive.”
I glanced toward the kitchen. “Got bread, mayonnaise, and baloney?”
Katie cocked her head, her eyes narrowing. “Yes. Why?”
“Dogs love my fried baloney sandwiches,” I said. “I can use the sandwiches to lure the dogs to their pen so that Doug and I can get into the warehouse safely.”
Katie exhaled a longer breath this time and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them, she said, “All right. Let’s do it.”
While Doug went to their bedroom to change into more suitable clothes, Katie led me to the kitchen. I melted butter in the frying pan while she rounded up a loaf of white bread, mayonnaise, and an open package of baloney. The baloney was a little dry around the edges, but I doubted the dogs would mind.
When the sandwiches were ready I fed one to the Dunnes’ dog, who’d hopped down from the couch and come sniffing around. Katie and I wrapped the rest of them in foil and stashed them in a plastic grocery bag.
“Ready?” I asked Doug.
He’d changed into a pair of dark coveralls and a black knit cap. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Katie looked at her husband, worry contorting her face. “You should wear some kind of disguise in case the cameras pick you up or someone drives by and sees you.” She stepped to a bedroom and slipped inside, returning a moment later with two cheap plastic masks that must have been from her boys’ Halloween costumes. One was a storm trooper from Star Wars, the other was Darth Vader.
Doug took the masks, keeping Darth Vader for himself and holding the other out to me.
I took the white and black mask from him. “Thanks.”
Katie jotted down the combination to the safe on a piece of paper. She handed her husband a set of keys and the combination, along with two pairs of yellow latex gloves she’d retrieved from under the kitchen sink. Having properly equipped the team, she followed us to the door. When she spoke, her voice was hesitant and tinged with trepidation. “Please be careful, okay?”
“Don’t worry, honey. We will.” Doug leaned in, cupped her chin, and gave her a kiss.
I hoped their next kiss wouldn’t be during a conjugal visit at the county jail. If we got caught …
Ugh. I didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
chapter seventeen
It’s a Dog-Eat-Baloney World
“Let’s take my truck,” Doug said. “I’ve got all my tools in the back.”
We climbed in and drove off. Minutes later, he pulled the truck onto the grass at the edge of PPE’s property, cutting his headlights and proceeding with only the parking lights on until he reached a couple of scrubby cedar trees. He parked the truck behind the trees for cover, cut the engine, and climbed out to retrieve the bolt cutters and soldering iron from his bed-mounted tool case. I climbed out of the passenger side and slid my mask into place. Doug followed suit. Next we donned the bright yellow latex gloves.
Doug glanced over at me. “Not exactly James Bond, are we?”
He was right. We looked like some type of costumed cleaning crew.
Still, goofy looking or not, we had an important job to do. “Time to boldly go where no man has gone before.” I’d quoted Star Trek rather than Star Wars but Doug had the graciousness not to correct me.
We picked our way across the field to the administrative building, careful to stay well out of range of the security cameras mounted on the warehouse. Masks or not, we’d rather not be videotaped if we could avoid it. No sense raising suspicions. The ankle I’d jammed jumping over the Merriweathers’ gate throbbed a little, but the pain was manageable.
I shivered in the cool air, but I think my quivering had more to do with my nerves being on edge than with the frigid winter temperatures. This mission was one of the more risky things I’d done in my job. I wasn’t entirely sure it was legal or prudent. But we’d come too far to turn back now.
While the fenced-in space around the warehouse and the parking lot of the office were lit by floodlights, the back of the office was dark. We slipped behind the structure, squinting through our masks in the dark. The Dobermans stepped to the chain-link fence behind us, watching our moves, emitting low warning growls. Grrrrr.