Death, Taxes, and Silver Spurs

by Diane Kelly

  I nodded again, tossed the petition onto his desk, and fell back into his wing chair. He picked up the petition and thumbed through it, skimming the pages. When I finally caught my breath, I told him what I’d learned.

  “Judge Craven? Taking a bribe?” Eddie shook his head and frowned. “Dang. I voted for her.”

  “What should we do?” I asked. “How do we prove that she’s accepting money under the table from PPE?”

  At this point, although I was 99.9 percent sure I was right about the bribe, we had no actual proof. We needed to amass incontrovertible evidence that Burkett had left the cash for Cobb, that Cobb had picked up the cash, and that Cobb had delivered the cash to Judge Craven. We had to prove all three steps in the process to win the case.

  Eddie leaned back in his chair and stared up in thought at the ceiling. A moment later, he looked back down at me. “This sounds like a job for Inspector Gadget.”

  “You’re right.”

  Inspector Gadget was one of our many nicknames for Josh Schmidt, a fellow special agent who was the office’s tech guru. The guy not only knew computers and tablets inside out and backward, but he also had a slew of spy tools in his arsenal.

  Eddie punched the button on his phone to ring Josh’s office and put the device on speaker.

  When Josh answered, I said, “Come down to Eddie’s office, and bring all of your spy doohickeys and thingamabobs with you.”

  Eddie punched the button to end the call. “Doohickeys and thingamabobs? Are those technical terms?”

  As amusing as Eddie sometimes found my country ways, I wasn’t ashamed of my rural roots. “Yep. I hope he remembers the whatchamacallits and the gizmos and the doodads, too.”

  Eddie merely groaned in reply.

  Josh appeared in Eddie’s doorway. Josh was a short guy, standing around five feet five. With his fair curls and baby blue eyes, he looked more like a Boy Scout than a member of federal law enforcement. He held a large cardboard box in his hand. “What’s up?”

  “You got plans tonight?” I asked.

  “Kira and I are going to the movies.”

  “Cancel,” I said. “We’re gonna play spy.”

  * * *

  At 6:30 that evening, I cut my lights, cruised up to the historical marker and climbed out of my car. Dressed in black boots, exercise leggings, and a hoodie, I was more shadow than person. One hand clasped a tiny digital video camera, the other a roll of duct tape.

  The goats wandered up to watch, greeting me with a series of baaas that might as well have been sirens in the quiet night.

  “Shhhhhh!” I tucked the duct tape under my arm, pulled a handful of raw peanuts from my pocket, and tossed them over the fence.

  The goats quieted down, emitting only snuffling and crunching noises as they found the peanuts amid the dead, dry grass and ate them, shell and all.

  Taking a quick glance left and right, I scurried up to the historical marker. I turned the camera on and shined my cell phone light onto the front of the historical marker, taking footage of the plaque. Once I’d documented the location, I affixed the camera to the backside of the marker, making sure the lens stuck out from the bottom so that it could record Burkett dropping off the cash envelope and Cobb picking it up.

  I punched the button to begin recording and scurried back to my car. There were two cars in the lot at the feed store and a light on inside. Looked like the owner was doing some inventory. Damn! His timing stank.

  Rather than hide out at the feed store again, this time I drove down the road, just past PPE. I turned around and parked on the shoulder. I climbed out again, hurried to my trunk, and removed the spare tire. I leaned the spare against my front wheel, creating the illusion that my car had broken down and been abandoned on the side of the road. I slid down in the seat and pulled out a second video camera, this one a larger handheld model.

  My chest vibrated with a rapid pulse as I waited, watching the PPE building for Burkett to emerge. At two minutes after seven, he came out the front door. I hit the record button and zoomed in on the man. Though the night was dark, the outside light next to the door of the headquarters provided enough light to show that Burkett had an envelope tucked under his arm.

  I filmed him walking to his car, climbing in, and driving to the marker. When he turned off his headlights to drop the envelope, the camera attempted to refocus but it was too dark for it to pick anything up. Luckily, the smaller camera I’d attached to the marker would take footage to fill in the blanks.

  Burkett turned his headlights back on and flashed them three times. He hooked a U-turn and headed back in my direction. Quickly, I positioned the camera on the dashboard, leaving it running. I ducked down in the seat so I wouldn’t be visible from the outside.

  My heart beat faster as I heard the sound of his car approaching on the highway. It began pounding when the car seemed to be slowing.

  Burkett’s car was so close now that his headlights lit up the top half of my car. I made myself as flat as I could on the seat. There was a crunch of gravel as his tires rolled across the shoulder, then the crunching ceased.

  Holy shit! Has he stopped?

  When I heard the sounds of Burkett switching his car into park and engaging the brake, I reached up, yanked the camera from the dash and the keys from the ignition, and scrambled to the passenger side. I tucked the camera against my chest and rolled onto the floorboard, pulling the hood over my head and my legs up in a fetal position, trying to make myself as small and invisible as possible. With any luck, I’d be too dark in these black clothes for him to make me out. If he shined a flashlight into the car, though, I’d be shit out of luck.

  I heard footsteps in the gravel around my car and a ping as a stray pebble hit the bumper. Frantic, I squinted my eyes until they were mere slits. Given that I was facing the front of the car, I couldn’t tell whether Burkett was looking in at me or not. But at least I didn’t see any telltale signs of a flashlight playing around inside the car.

  Approximately ten million heartbeats later, the sound of crunching footsteps sounded again, though this time they started loud and grew fainter. Burkett’s car door slammed, the brake was released, and the gearshift engaged. The light that had filled the upper regions of my car moved off.

  Thank God!

  I gulped in air, realizing now that I’d been holding my breath. Tentatively, I peeked my head up over the seat. The red taillights of Burkett’s Yukon grew smaller as he drove away, disappearing over a small rise.

  I climbed into the seat, set the camera back on the dash, and pulled my night-vision scope from the glove compartment. Putting the scope to my eye, I took a look. Sure enough, the envelope had already been picked up from the marker while I’d been hiding from Burkett. I hadn’t been able to catch the Toyota with my camera, but I hoped the one at the monument had picked it up.

  I stuck the key in the ignition, started the car, and pulled forward. The spare tire flopped to the ground and I ran it over, my car bouncing for a few seconds before stabilizing. Uh-oh. Looked like the accounting department would be docking my next paycheck.

  I’d made it only a quarter mile down the road before a patrol car from the Palo Pinto County Sheriff’s Department came up from the opposite direction. When it passed, I spotted the same white-haired deputy who’d shooed me away from the Merriweathers’ ranch sitting behind the wheel. In my rearview mirror I saw his brake lights flash as he slowed just past the PPE headquarters. Had Burkett called in to report the abandoned car? I could only hope the deputy didn’t tell him the car had magically disappeared.

  I slowed until the deputy’s car, too, disappeared over the rise, then I hurriedly pulled aside and retrieved the camera from the marker.

  When I set off again, I dialed Eddie on my cell phone. “Cobb’s headed your way.”

  “We’re ready for him.”

  Eddie and Josh were in the long-term parking garage at DFW. Josh had attached a tracking device to Cobb’s Mercedes, one that would record his movem
ents, showing he’d traveled from the garage to the judge’s house. He also had a camera ready to take still shots of Cobb getting into the Mercedes. Eddie was parked near the entrance to the garage, ready to film Cobb as he arrived in and ditched the Toyota.

  While the two of them would attempt to film continuous footage of Cobb traveling from the airport to Judge Craven’s house, I would already be in position on her street, ready to document Cobb’s arrival with the envelope containing the bribe money.

  As I made the long drive back to Dallas, my cell phone rang. It was the U.S. Marshal’s office calling. I jabbed the button to accept the call. “Did you track him down?”

  After Trish had given me Brazos’s new cell phone number, I’d called the marshal’s office and asked for their help. They’d agreed to try to find the singer for me.

  “We found him,” the male marshal said through the phone. “Problem is, he’s south of the border.”

  “Mexico?”

  “You got it,” he replied. “Cozumel to be precise.”

  Out of the country, out of my jurisdiction. Dammit!

  “Could you pinpoint a hotel or a beach or a restaurant?” Heck, I’d be willing to make a trip down there on my own dime, see if I might be able to slip a few pesos to a desk clerk in return for information about Brazos’s plans.

  “No such luck,” the marshal said. “It looks like he’s left his phone on his boat. The system shows its location as a quarter mile offshore.”

  Knowing Brazos, he’d probably dropped the phone into the gulf. Idiot. Didn’t he have the sense to put his cell phone in his pocket? Nick was right. The guy acted like a spoiled adolescent.

  “Thanks for the information,” I said. “Can you keep checking every few hours and keep me updated?”

  “Will do.”

  I tossed my phone into the cup holder and continued on into Preston Hollow. When I reached Judge Craven’s neighborhood, I parked on one of the side streets, exchanged my black boots for sneakers, and climbed out of my car with the small digital video recorder.

  Lest I pull a muscle, I walked around the block a couple of times to warm up and performed a series of stretches. My phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was from Eddie. Cobb turning into hood.

  That was my cue. I clipped the recorder to the waist of my Lycra leggings, turned it on, and began jogging down the street.

  I was halfway down Cavendish Court when Cobb’s silver Mercedes eased past me. I slowed my pace to give him time to park and get out of the car. As I approached the judge’s house, he was exiting his vehicle, his briefcase in hand.

  Cobb glanced around as he made his way to the judge’s door. Spotting me, he offered a friendly wave as I jogged past. I raised a hand and offered a smile in return. Looked like my ruse had worked. I put my hands on my head and slowed to a walk, pretending to be at the cool-down phase of my run, angling my hip in the hope that the camera would catch Judge Craven opening the door. Cobb slipped inside the house and the door closed behind him.

  I stopped, ripped the camera from my waist, and clipped it to a barren rosebush that flanked Judge Craven’s mailbox, pricking my finger in the process. The camera in place, I jogged off down the street, passing Eddie as he drove up.

  I returned to my car to wait. Not two minutes later, Eddie texted me and Josh. Cobb has left house.

  A half hour later, the three of us met up at my town house to look over the footage. While Josh set up his superexpensive, superfast Alienware laptop, I rounded up a couple bottles of beer for the men and poured a glass of moscato for myself. Hey, we’d earned them. Besides, it was officially after hours and we were on our own time.

  Josh downloaded the digital files from each of the cameras and spliced them together into one continual stream. While the video quality wasn’t bad, due to the angle at which Cobb had parked the Toyota, the camera I’d placed at the marker picked up only the first letter of the license plate. Once he’d turned off his headlights, there was only darkness and shadow and rustling sounds until he climbed back into the car and drove off. Cobb could not be readily identified.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Is that good enough?”

  “I don’t know,” Josh replied. “How many Toyotas are there with license plates that start with the letter K?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Let’s see what else we’ve got.”

  We continued to watch the screen. The footage Eddie and Josh had taken at the airport parking garage was more promising. Eddie had been able to keep a constant bead on Cobb from the time he left the Toyota until he climbed into the Mercedes. Still, unless we could link the Toyota to the pickup at the historical marker, this footage would be useless. The same problem existed with the video we’d taken at the judge’s house. The feed contained no solid proof that Cobb had concealed the cash in his briefcase and that he’d transferred the cash to the judge. Without a clear shot of Cobb carrying the cash into the judge’s house and later leaving the premises without it, the video alone would not be enough for a conviction.

  “What do we do now?” Josh asked, one hand clenching his curls. “Try again next week?”

  “Practice makes perfect,” I said. “On the other hand, I think Burkett’s getting leery.” I told them about Burkett stopping to check out my car. I turned to Eddie. “What do you think?”

  “Hell,” Eddie said, “I’m out of ideas.”

  We sat in silence, sipping our drinks and racking our brains.

  Bingo.

  The alcohol had loosened my brain enough to allow an idea to float free.

  “Anybody want to buy Boardwalk?”

  chapter thirty

  Full-court Press

  Monday morning, I slipped into Judge Craven’s courtroom at the Dallas County Courthouse. Given that the case against PPE was a class-action lawsuit with dozens of plaintiffs, the place was as packed as the beer stand at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium during halftime. That fact worked in my favor, making my presence among the hundred or so others in the courtroom less noticeable.

  On the off chance that Judge Craven might recognize me as the jogger who’d been running by her house last Friday night, I’d borrowed a reddish-blond wig from my boss, one I’d bought for her when she’d lost her hair to chemo a few months before. I’d also slipped on a pair of plastic dollar-store reading glasses. Though I’d selected a pair with the minimum magnification, the glasses nonetheless distorted my vision. Everyone seemed very close, their pores enormous. The guy standing next to me had missed a spot on his chin when he’d shaved that morning, and the overlooked whisker looked as long as a cat’s. Also, there was some type of small growth behind his ear that he really ought to get looked at.

  Why was I in Judge Craven’s courtroom? To listen to the testimony, to keep tabs on the trial, to see if there were any legitimate grounds for her to rule in favor of PPE. There was always a small chance I’d been wrong about the cash, that the PR man had kept every penny for himself, and that Trudy Craven was in no way involved with whatever was going on between Larry Burkett and Russell Cobb. I highly doubted that, though. One trip from the historical marker to Judge Craven’s house could have been written off as coincidence, but the fact that Cobb had driven straight from picking up the cash to her residence two Fridays in a row told me that he was playing delivery boy, acting as an intermediary between PPE and the judge. It would have been far too risky for both the judge and Burkett to deal directly with each other. Heck, if I had to guess, I’d say it might have been Cobb himself who’d negotiated this clandestine arrangement. He’d probably realized he could do more to help PPE—and get a bigger slice of the pie—by helping them buy a favorable verdict than by writing up some one-sided PR pieces and hope that someone would not only read them but believe them.

  My eyes surveyed the room. I recognized his wrinkled mug the instant I saw it. He sat at the defense table, flanked by PPE’s team of lawyers, two men and one woman. All four wore business suits and serious expressions, though Burkett’s was likely
just for show. He had this case in the bag. He was probably smirking on the inside.

  If what I believed was true, that Judge Craven had been paid to find in PPE’s favor, the attorneys were mere props in Burkett’s stage play. I wondered if any of them suspected that their client was up to no good, that he’d bought the as-yet-to-be-rendered verdict. Judging from the stacks of paper in front of them, the accordion files at their feet, and the banker’s boxes stacked behind them, I presumed not. The attorneys appeared to have spent a good deal of time gathering evidence and preparing for the case. All that work for nothing. And, when they received a verdict in their favor, they’d mistakenly believe it was their clever argumentation that had won the case when, in fact, their hollow victory had been purchased with dirty money.

  At the other table sat the plaintiffs’ primary attorney, a seasoned bigwig from one of the largest and most prestigious downtown firms. At his side was his second chair, a fortyish male attorney who appeared a little less seasoned but no less determined. With them were two women in their twenties, presumably junior associates getting their feet wet assisting with the paperwork and corralling the multiple witnesses.

  In the front two rows of the gallery sat a bevy of reporters. Newspaper reporters. Television reporters. Radio reporters. Reporters for online news sources. Trish LeGrande sat among them, flirting with a couple of the more attractive male reporters. Sheesh. Wasn’t Brazos Rivers enough man for her? Then again, she and the singer probably hadn’t forged a deep connection. After all, he’d taken off for Mexico without her. Besides, Trish might look like a twit, but she wasn’t stupid. She had to know she was merely another notch in Brazos’s belt. Heck, he was probably just another notch in hers, as well.

  The bailiff stepped in front of the vacant judge’s bench and bellowed, “All rise.”

  Those who’d been lucky enough to snag a seat in the gallery rose. The rest of us gathered around the perimeter merely continued to stand.

  The bailiff continued his spiel. “Dallas County district court is now in session. The Honorable Trudy Craven presiding.”