Death, Taxes, and Silver Spurs

by Diane Kelly

  “I knew you would be coming to see me,” she said. “I sensed you were troubled.”

  “You did?”

  She nodded.

  Of course, trouble was pretty much a given for me, so it was an easy guess. I wasn’t sure whether I actually believed in any of this stuff. In fact, I was 99.9 percent sure it was all a bunch of bunk designed to separate the superstitious from their savings. Yet I couldn’t deny that Madam Magnolia had been right on the money when she’d advised me before. She’d helped me track down two separate targets in earlier cases.

  “I need to find someone,” I told her.

  “Okay.” She began to move her right hand in slow circles over the glass gazing ball on the table, as if warming it up. “Who is he?”

  She’d used the word he. Hmm. Had she sensed that the person I was looking for was male? Or had she just made a lucky guess? After all, she had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right. Part of me wanted to believe she had some type of gift. Part of me thought my stopping by here had been nothing more than an excuse to get a chocolate coconut cupcake from next door. Or should I go for the Italian cream this time?

  “The man I’m looking for goes by the name Brazos Rivers,” I told her.

  Her gaze snapped to my face and her hand stopped moving, hovering over the ball. “The country-western singer? With the blond hair and blue eyes? The one who wears the chaps and silver spurs?”

  “That’s him.”

  She began moving her hand again, first in small circles, then in bigger ones. “I won’t mind looking for him at all. That sweet thing has got it going on.”

  Brazos might have it going on, but he was also young enough to be her son. Maybe even her grandson. I didn’t point that out to her, though. The psychic was prone to mood swings. If I made her angry, her visions might blur or stop altogether.

  “I’m getting something.” She stopped moving her hand and stared intently at the gazing ball. I did the same from my side, but all I saw was the reflection of the flickering candles in the glass and my eyes staring back at me. There was a hungry look in my eyes, like they wanted a cupcake. A strawberry one, maybe? French vanilla?

  “I see Brazos,” Madam Magnolia said, a smile creeping across her face. “All of him.”

  All of him? “He’s naked?”

  “He’s wearing his boots and spurs”—the smile grew even bigger—“but that’s it.” Still staring into the ball, she rubbed her lips together. “Damn, he’s fine.”

  I leaned in, squinting, desperate to know what was under the hat. Brazos might be a liar, a cheat, and an absolute jerk, but he was still nice to look at, still worthy of a late-night fantasy in which he’d come to me, confess all his sins, and make up for them by writing me a check for the full amount of his taxes due and then screwing me silly. Ugh. Looked like Brazos still had a little hold over me, huh?

  “I see another man now, too,” Madam Magnolia said. “This one is just as fine as Brazos.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “He’s tall. Dark-haired. He’s got a small scar here.” She ran her fingertip over her cheekbone. “One of his teeth is slightly chipped.”

  There was no doubt about it. The scar and the tooth belonged to one man and one man only.

  Nick.

  A prickle of unease crept along my spine and the hairs on my neck and arms stood on end. Was this woman really seeing a vision? Or was she just making things up? Or had she simply noticed Nick’s photo on my cell phone earlier?

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “Arguing.”

  Over me, perhaps?

  “Can you tell where they are?”

  “In a small bedroom,” she replied. “The man with the dark hair barely fits. His head is nearly touching the ceiling.”

  “Are they in a tour bus?” I asked. “A plane?”

  “I can’t tell,” she said. “Uh-oh. Brazos took a swing at the dark-haired man. Got him right in the jaw. They’re fighting now.” A fresh smile crept across her face. “This is kind of hot.”

  I fought the urge to reach across the table and throttle her. The thought of Brazos hitting Nick made me furious. I didn’t want anyone laying a finger on my man but me. The fact that Madam Magnolia was turned on by it ignited a hot anger in me.

  “Wait.” She ducked down, as if trying to get a better look. “Something’s happened. The vision has become distorted.” She put one hand on either side of the ball and shook it gently, as if it were a snow globe. “I don’t know what’s wrong. This has never happened before. It’s blurry. I can only catch glimpses. It’s like going through a car wash or trying to see through a windshield when it’s raining so hard the wipers can’t keep up.”

  She released the ball and sat back in her chair. “That’s it. The vision’s over.” She stretched her open palm across the table. “That’ll be one hundred dollars.”

  I reluctantly dropped five twenties into Madam Magnolia’s hand, mentally chastising myself for wasting my money. I should’ve known better. I consoled myself with a lemon cupcake from the place next door, buying half a dozen more to take home with me.

  There was nothing left to do at this point but see about getting a court order to require the phone company to give me access to the Merriweathers’ phone records. Presumably they’d be in touch with their son and, once I determined what his new cell number was, I could get the marshals to use triangulation to track him down. The method had proven useful in a recent case involving a transnational criminal organization based in Tokyo that was selling counterfeit electronics. With any luck, the method could be used now against Brazos.

  * * *

  Friday morning, I placed a call to Ross O’Donnell, an attorney at the Department of Justice who regularly represented the IRS. I gave him the scoop on my investigation. He was nice enough not to point out what an idiot I’d been to believe Winthrop 7’s lies.

  Fortunately, Ross was available to meet me at the courthouse. He said he’d draft a quick order for Judge Trumbull to sign, assuming, of course, that she’d sign it. Trumbull was a left-wing liberal, a flower child from the sixties who believed in freedom, liberty, and limited police powers. Unfortunately, I was part of the law enforcement she was trying to limit.

  I met Ross outside the doors to Judge Trumbull’s courtroom. Ross was smart and persuasive, but was he persuasive enough to convince Trumbull to sign the order? I crossed my fingers.

  We sat in the galley while she took testimony in a murder-for-hire case. The accused was a smallish white man with short hair and a stylish business suit. He appeared harmless until he turned the other way and I spotted the upper two arms of a swastika neck tattoo showing over the top of his collar. Yikes!

  When the judge dismissed the jury for a break, she waved me and Ross up to her bench. Judge Trumbull was a round woman, with poufy gray hair and a set of jiggling jowls that made her look remarkably like a bulldog. She had a bulldog personality to boot. She looked intently from me to Ross. “I take it you two aren’t just stopping by to say hello.”

  “No, Your Honor.” Ross explained the purpose of our visit.

  “Brazos Rivers?” Trumbull said. “Is he that cute young singer with the blond hair and the chaps and the silver spurs? The one that jingle-jangles all over the stage shaking his tight little tush?”

  Ross looked to me for verification. He must not listen to country music or look at any magazines while standing in the grocery store checkout line or ever watch television. Seriously, Brazos Rivers was all over the place. Did Ross live under a rock?

  “Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “The chaps and spurs and all that? That’s Brazos.”

  “He sure is a looker. And that voice…” She looked off, absentmindedly running her hand up and down the shaft of her gavel. Jeez. She was as bad as Lu and Madam Magnolia. Looked like Brazos’s charms superseded any of their concerns about age-appropriateness.

  Ross cleared his throat to get the judge’s attention.

  She turned
back to him, her expression peeved. He must’ve interrupted a fairly steamy daydream.

  “Would you like Special Agent Holloway to tell you more about this case?” he asked.

  “She better,” Trumbull replied, turning to me now. “You know I don’t like to let you folks go digging willy-nilly into everyone’s business. Convince me why I should let you have these phone records.”

  I gave her a brief history of my investigation, spinning the details a little in what I hoped would be a convincing way. “Mr. Rivers appears to have purposely misled the IRS to buy himself time to conceal his assets and to go into hiding.”

  Trumbull snorted. “Another way to look at it is that you failed on several occasions to take him or his assets into custody and let his cute little tush slip right through your fingers.” She raised an accusatory brow. “And now you want me to make things easy for you.”

  My frustration got the best of me. “What do you want, Judge? Would you rather I had seized him and his bus the first time I saw him without giving him a chance to explain? Without the benefit of the doubt? Is that the kind of government you want?”

  Luckily for me, Trumbull didn’t take my outburst personally. “My, my. Someone’s got a bee in her bonnet today.”

  And someone else was going to have a special agent at her throat if she didn’t give me a ruling. “So? How about it? Can we get the order?”

  “No can do, Miss Holloway. Brazos Rivers is too well-known to stay on the lam forever, if he even is on the lam. He’ll resurface at some point and you’ll get another chance to take care of things then.” She banged her sex gavel. Bang! “Order denied.”

  Ross thanked the judge for her time while I fought the urge to scale her bench, grab her jowls, and shake her silly.

  We left the courtroom, rode the elevator down to the lobby, and stepped outside.

  I shook the attorney’s hand. “Thanks for trying, Ross.”

  He shrugged. “You win some, you lose some. Good luck finding this guy.”

  “Thanks.” I had no idea where to look. Perhaps I should take a cue from Madam Magnolia and look for him in a snow globe or car wash.

  By then it was late afternoon and the sun was low in the sky. I decided to take a short walk down Commerce Street to clear my head, see if I could come up with a new strategy to nab Brazos Rivers and his assets, including his cute little tush. By the time I’d walked the five blocks between the federal courthouse at 1100 Commerce and the county courthouse at 600, I’d come up with no new strategies but I had worked up my curiosity. Vans from every local television station lined the curb in front of the courthouse and reporters stood on the steps, speaking into the microphones while their cameramen shot footage. Reporters at the courthouse was not uncommon, but it meant that something big was under way.

  I continued on until I was at the bottom of the courthouse steps. Trish LeGrande stood on the top stair, her cameraman two steps below her. She wore a black suit today, though the hem, lapel, and sleeves were trimmed in her signature pink. Her butterscotch locks were swept up into a sleek updo.

  She put her microphone to her glossy lips. “This is Trish LeGrande reporting from the steps of the Dallas County Courthouse where pretrial proceedings have just begun in a class-action lawsuit filed by north Texas farmers and ranchers against Palo Pinto Energy. The plaintiffs claim that benzene and other toxic chemicals used by the natural gas company in its fracking activities have leaked into their water wells, contaminating their water. Attorneys for PPE tell me that the company has waived its right to a jury trial. It will be up to the judge to determine whether the fracking activities caused damage and, if so, the dollar value of that damage. Attorneys for both sides expect the trial to take four or five days. Judge Craven’s decision is expected to be rendered by the end of next week.”

  Wait.

  Did Trish say Judge Craven?

  I rushed up the steps, grabbing Trish by the arm. “Did you say Judge Craven will be deciding the PPE case? Judge Trudy Craven?”

  Trish frowned—there was no love lost between us, after all—but she dipped her hand into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out an index card on which she’d jotted some notes. Her reporter’s cheat sheet, I surmised.

  Her eyes scanned the card. “Yes.” She pointed at the entry with a pink-tipped nail. “The judge’s first name is Trudy.”

  Holy guacamole!

  This tidbit was the missing piece of the puzzle. My mind quickly shuffled the puzzle pieces and assembled them to create a complete and vivid picture. Judge Craven was presiding over the PPE trial. PPE had waived its right to have a jury determine the case. Russell Cobb was in contact with both PPE and Judge Craven. Cobb had been secretly taking cash from PPE. Larry Burkett had taken pains to remove any connection to Russell Cobb from his records.

  Yep, the picture was clear now.

  PPE is bribing Trudy Craven to find in its favor in the class-action lawsuit. Larry Burkett is using his oil and gas profits to grease palms!

  I realized Russell Cobb had likely been the one to set up the arrangement. He was probably getting a cut of the action. I also realized that the dumb thing in this situation might not be the luck. It might be me. Had I dug a little deeper into Judge Trudy Craven I might have learned on my own that she was presiding over the PPE case. Instead, I’d stopped digging too soon, assuming the fact that Cobb had performed public relations services for her was the only link she and Cobb shared. But I supposed there was no sense beating myself up about it. Regardless of how I’d learned this information, I knew it now.

  Trish’s reporter senses seemed to kick in, sniffing a potential story in the works. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why did you ask about the judge?”

  I lifted my shoulders in a mock shrug. “No reason.”

  I turned to go but was stopped by her hand on my arm now.

  “When you ask a question,” Trish said, “there’s always a reason. What’s up?”

  I was tempted to taunt her in a singsong voice with, I know something you don’t know! But then I realized she might know something I didn’t. Brazos Rivers’s current cell phone number.

  “Tit for tat?” I suggested. “You might have something I need.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “A current cell phone number for Brazos Rivers.” Given that Trish had been the only reporter allowed into Brazos’s hospital room after his latest fan attack, I had a sneaking suspicion the two might have something going on between them. A few days ago, that knowledge would have made me want to claw her eyes out. Now, however, not so much.

  The spark of excitement in her eyes told me she had what I wanted. “If I give you his number, what’s in it for me?”

  “There’s going to be some breaking news about one of my investigations soon,” I said. “Big news.”

  “And it’s related to the PPE trial.”

  It wasn’t a question. She already knew. I nodded. “I’ll call you when the shit hits the fan.”

  “And you won’t call any other reporters? You’ll give me an exclusive?”

  For a woman who looked like a bimbo, she sure knew how to negotiate.

  “Sure,” I replied. “I’ll give you an exclusive. As long as you won’t say anything to anyone involved with the PPE case and you won’t tell Brazos you gave me his cell number.”

  She held out her hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  Freeze Frame

  I went into the courthouse, found the clerk’s office, and asked for a copy of the petition that had been filed in the case against PPE.

  The man working the counter reached over to a stack of paperwork in a plastic slotted tray and pulled out a document that appeared to be about thirty pages thick. “I’ve had so many requests for this petition I decided to keep it handy.”

  “Who’s asked for it?”

  “The usual.” He stepped over to a machine behind him to run a copy. “Reporters. Attorneys working other cases aga
inst gas companies. Attorneys defending other cases against gas companies.”

  He finished running the copy, stapled it with a heavy-duty stapler, and returned to the counter. When I reached out to take it from him, he whipped it back, out of my reach. “You’ll get your petition when I get my thirty-two dollars.”

  I pulled out my badge. “I’m a special agent for the IRS.”

  “And I’m a member of the cheese-of-the-month club. That and thirty-two dollars will get you a copy of the petition.”

  Sheesh. I pulled out my credit card.

  Once our transaction was completed, I stepped aside to look the petition over. One plaintiff claimed that he’d been exposed to crystalline silica dust, resulting in respiratory problems. A female plaintiff claimed that the fracking activities led to her breast cancer. In addition to polluted water wells and the resulting health risks and costs of importing water, there were various other allegations. Several of the plaintiffs claimed that the seismic activity resulting from the drilling had cracked the foundations on their homes and caused their propane tanks to shift and leak. The plaintiffs cited numerous separate instances of run-of-the mill negligence, too. A plaintiff named Millard Blankenship alleged that PPE’s crew had driven a truck over his septic tank, causing thirty grand in damage. Another alleged that PPE employees had failed to replace a fence they’d taken down when bringing drilling equipment onto the property.

  Petition in hand, I all but ran back to my office at the IRS. Too excited to wait for the elevator, I ran up the stairs to my floor. Bad decision. By the time I reached Eddie’s office to give him the news all I could do was hang on to the edge of his desk and wheeze, trying to catch my breath.

  Eddie tilted his head. “Are you having an asthma attack? Or do you have some exciting news?”

  “News,” I wheezed out, my lungs gulping in air.

  He tilted his head the other way. “I’m guessing it might have something to do with the PPE case?”