The House on Xenia

by Rita Moreau

  “IRS problems? You came to the right place. Charles La-Fleur knows the ins and outs of the IRS and can get you out of your jam. Leave a number, and we will call you back within 24 hours—BING.”

  Here we go, phone tag. “Charles La-Fleur—this is Josie Yanni. I am trying to reach my cousin MC—”

  “Tax Office,” a real person picked up the phone and answered.

  “Yes hello. This is Josie Yanni. I am calling to speak to my cousin MC. I just spoke to her Aunt Anna, and she said she was heading to the office. Is she in?”

  “Josie this is Velma. We met at MC’s wedding.”

  “Oh yes, how are you?” Josie remembered Velma from the wedding. She was a larger-than-life personality with a handsome husband and twin daughters a little younger than Annie who kept in touch on Twitface or something like that. Annie was going to show her that one day, but she knew she did not have the patience. She had all the Twitface she needed with her family members.

  “MC is heading into the office this morning. She should be here any minute.”

  They spent a few more seconds with the small talk and then Velma asked,

  “So what’s up? Are you calling for tax help? IRS audit?”

  “No, nothing like that, thank goodness. I’m calling because, well, it’s a little odd but you know, MC is good at finding things and Gabby, a mutual friend, suggested I call and talk to her.”

  Velma was silent for a moment and then jumped into another minute and a half of chitchat about Gabby and then said, “Yeah, she can find things all right. Bank accounts, long lost jewels, and people. What are you looking for?”

  “Ah,” Josie was not quick on her feet when someone asked her a direct question. She had learned to stall for time so she wouldn’t say anything she later regretted. She would be eaten alive if she was ever in a courtroom. She also was not one to confide in other women. She felt they were all gossips.

  Velma was silent on the other end waiting for her answer. Josie looked out the window as another news truck pulled up, and decided to tell her what she was looking for. After all, MC and Velma were longtime friends so Velma was more like a member of the family which meant she would find out sooner or later. She went ahead and confided in Velma.

  “A computer chip. A really old one.”

  “How old?” Velma asked.

  “Maybe more than 50 years old – the 1950s.”

  “Hmmm,” Velma said. “That sounds like it would be the chicken before the egg?”

  “It belonged to my mother.”

  “Your mother.”

  “Yes, Velma, I usually don’t confide stuff to other women.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it has been my experience that most women are gossips.”

  “You have to be careful, but you do need to talk to someone from time to time.”

  Josie to her surprise was finding it easy to talk to Velma, and so she continued.

  “It’s just that I remember how women treated my mother, making fun of her because she was divorced and overweight. Looking down their noses at her and speaking to her in their condescending tones. Their daughters followed suit and took the same attitude with me. My mother could care less and told me to ignore it. It was important to my mother that her daughters got a good education, so my sister and I were sent to Catholic schools in Dayton. I felt the sting from the rich girls I went to school with. Alexi like my mother ignored it and reminded me that our mother worked two jobs to make sure we went to a good school.”

  “Josie, today they would call that bullying,” Velma said. “For someone who doesn’t share you just shared a lot.”

  “Well for some reason I find you are very easy to talk to.”

  “That’s because I’m black. White women love to talk to black women. That’s why we make such great nanny’s,” Velma said with a chuckle.

  Josie found herself also laughing out loud.

  “That’s better. Now tell me some more. Where did your mother work?”

  “She worked at Wright-Patt.”

  “Oh, the air force base in Dayton where they hid the aliens. I get it now.”

  “Goodness Velma, you sound like you are part of my family,” Josie said. “I think my mother may have hidden it somewhere and more than likely told my older sister Alexi. She probably knows where it is, but since her stroke, her memory is in and out.”

  “Well, MC is pretty good at finding things,” Velma said.

  “She never talks about it to the family. We hear about it through my Aunt Toolou who talks all the time with Aunt Anna,” Josie said.

  “Trust me on this one, I’ve been there up front and center,” Velma said.

  Since she had opened the door, Josie went ahead and asked, “How does she do it?”

  “She has a unique talent. In fact, it seems like your whole family has some kind of ability. Maybe you do too?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You probably do. MC fought it for a long time. She can see things. In the military, they call it remote viewing. I used to work for the government, and I’m married to a military man. Rodeo can’t tell me where he is going or for how long. I don’t even know if he is coming back. I had to get used to that before we got married. So I know a little about those things. MC has the psychic ability to see something remotely. She can sense it with her mind and then she sees it.”

  “She can?” Josie said. “So, you are saying she might be able to see where this chip is?

  “Oh, she’ll be able to see it,” Velma said. “Why is it so important?”

  “It might hold some clues as to why a body was found under a house on the property we grew up in. The news reports are that it has been there for 50 years or longer, which would put it at the time we lived there.”

  “A body under a house on the property you grew up in?” Velma said. “Wow.”

  “Actually, it was an old farmhouse which sat behind our house. It gets worse. My sister and I still own the property. It was left to us by our mother who was attached to it—with instructions never to sell it. Gabby filled me in and told me the body they found was my mother’s boss. She worked for him at Wright-Patt in a very secret department.”

  “Did she work underground? She probably saw where they hid the aliens,” Velma said. Josie was now re-thinking her policy about not opening up to women.

  “Sounds like MC is the person to help you. I’ll have her call you when she gets in the office,” Velma said. “Got to go, a client just walked in the door.”

  Josie just sat there for a while. She always felt like she was guided by someone in these moments, her guardian angel, YaYa.

  Remote viewing? I’ll have to ask Annie about that when she gets home or maybe I’ll just call Aunt Toolou. What the heck! Who knows maybe if I loosen up like I did today I might find I can see things right before my nose?

  Chapter 4

  Fish Camp, FL

  “Don’t get old MC, not worth it,” was my Aunt Sophia’s sage advice.

  I was back in Fish Camp and was staying with my two Greek aunts while my Aunt Sophia recuperated from knee surgery. My condo, one building over in my aunt’s complex of Pirate’s Cove, was rented to Limo Louie, a local attorney and friend. He picked me up today to take me over to my old tax office where my longtime friend Velma was waiting. I had sold my tax practice to Charlie La-Fleur, another old friend and almost more than a friend until my ex-husband Theo literally walked back into my life. Theo and I remarried, and we have been living on board his research vessel, the Mary Catherine, currently moored in Key West. I could drive my aunt’s car, the whale—Moby Dick—but Limo Louie offered me a ride. Plus, he had a bar in his 1975 Cadillac limousine which also served as his law office.

  “What’s the point? Don’t need the overhead,” Limo Louie said when we first met.

  “This way I can meet my clients anywhere.”

  Limo Louie is a sharp dresser and always wears a suit with a white shirt and colorful tie, no matter what the weat
her. He has a cocky nature which suits him well as a lawyer. When he is really strapped for money, he uses the Cadillac driving for Uber, hence the name, Limo Louie. Today I found myself riding up front in the shotgun seat.

  “So how is Aunt Sophia?” Limo Louie asked.

  “Oh, she is doing great. I’m glad I was able to come up and spend some time with her. She is just about able to get around without the use of a cane. I really appreciate the ride.”

  “Well, I do need to ask you a tax question. I was talking to a client who I helped with a sale of some real estate she got in her divorce,” he said.

  I had noticed he was taking the scenic route along A1A from Fish Camp over to Boca Vista where my old tax office is located. Now I knew why—he wanted to pick my brain. Practicing law in the small Florida town of Fish Camp, Limo Louie took whatever came his way to make a living and pay the rent. He had been a successful criminal attorney in Miami but got tired of looking over his shoulder after representing some Tony Soprano types who didn’t like the outcome of their defense. I guess if I wanted to collect the rent on my condo I was going to have to listen.

  “What do you remember about the tax law dealing with an innocent spouse?”

  “Well, a lot actually, since my former clients seemed to come to me with that problem. In a nutshell, it’s sort of like going to confession for someone who is recently divorced, and the IRS is auditing a joint return he or she filed with their ex.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Typically, it absolves the one claiming to be an innocent spouse of paying taxes and penalties as a result of the audit of the joint return. They are home free, and the ex is stuck with the bill from the IRS. It can be pretty contentious. Why is she being audited?” Being nosy came with my Greek genes.

  “Well, she does have a letter from the IRS,” Limo Louie said.

  “What do you mean she has a letter from the IRS? Usually, that’s not a good sign. The IRS does not send out friendly letters.”

  I knew this because, in a prior life, I worked for the IRS in a secret group of agents buried deep in the organization. We were tasked with tracking down bad guys. In the beginning, it was mostly mob but and after 9/11, the focus was on terrorists. We used the same methods the IRS used to nab Al Capone, following a paper trail. I was pretty good at it and having psychic genes didn’t hurt.

  Louie was looking straight ahead with his poker face, another thing he did on the side to make ends meet.

  “She hasn’t looked at the letter. She was going on a little vacation and called to see if she could drop by with it after she gets back from her cruise.”

  “You’re kidding? I take it she lives in Boca Vista.”

  “Yes, she does by the way.”

  Boca Vista is populated with a lot of rich and aging socialites. Many of them move to Boca Vista from Palm Beach after their divorce when they can’t afford the Mar-a-Lago lifestyle anymore. These women were the bulk of my old tax practice, and they stayed on with Charlie, a charmer and a little of a bad boy. They drove me crazy, but they did pay the bills.

  The town leaders of Boca Vista shamelessly advertise their town as a little Palm Beach without the price tag, to entice them to settle in Boca Vista. Fish Camp, on the other hand, mirrors a small small-town Nashville with several blocks of downtown honky-tonks. It’s also a popular stop for bikers heading to Bike Week in the Florida Keys or the motorhome of famous country music stars taking a break while on tour.

  Louie continued, “Her ex is a big-time plastic surgeon on the east coast. She told me he did a lot of work for people who needed a new identity if you know what I mean.”

  I knew exactly what he meant.

  “Let’s see, a plastic surgeon, a new identity. So he was good at giving his patients a new face?”

  “Yep and boob jobs for their girlfriends.”

  “Who’d he work for? The mob?”

  “I asked Mabel that same question.”

  “Mabel?”

  “Yeah and her husband’s name is Jack—Jack and Mabel,” Limo Louie said with a chuckle.

  “Anyway, Mabel told me he did a lot of work for the mob, and then the government took notice and started sending Jack more lucrative work. You know witness protection, bringing spies in from the cold, etc. Plus, with the government he wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot dead after he gave someone a brand-new look,” he said looking over at me for a split second and then back to driving with the poker face.

  “They have five grown kids. He wanted out, so she did well in the divorce. Besides cash and alimony, she got a lot of real estate. Their home in Long Island, and a beach house near a bar they own on the Jersey shore not far from Atlantic City. She sold the home in Long Island and the beach house and moved to Boca Vista. I met her when she needed a lawyer to handle the closing on the sale of some property in Fort Lauderdale. She was referred by some of my old clients from Miami. So what do you think?”

  “Louie, for your client Mabel to qualify as an innocent spouse for the IRS she has to show she was in the dark when it came to their finances. She was a stay at home wife and mother and dutifully signed the joint tax return each year. She has to show a lack of knowledge to win an innocent spouse claim,” I said.

  “Well, that might not work. She was his office manager in the medical practice. She caught him cheating, more than once. I think she knew he was a womanizer, but she had five kids. When the kids were grown, he came home and asked her for a divorce and then turned around and married a younger woman, about the same age as one of their daughters.”

  “Ouch,” I said, but I recalled that most of my former clients stuck the landing after their divorces. After their plastic surgeries, they moved on to the Cougar phase of their lives and their boy toys. I had a handful of gay men as clients. I met them through these women. They served as escorts for some of the women who were too old for boy toys but still preferred the company of a good-looking guy. “Why it is that gay men are drop dead gorgeous,” a client once asked me. “What a waste.” She did have a point.

  “Well, I wouldn’t rule it out. Especially when she gets around to reading that letter from the IRS and finds out it’s an audit of a joint return, she filed with her ex. If he was cheating on her while they were married, then he was probably cheating on her in other ways. You know, like hiding stuff from her, offshore bank accounts, boats, planes, along with the mistresses. Sounds like the medical practice won’t qualify if she was the office manager and saw the books.”

  I felt something pop into my head from the psychic side of my brain. That’s usually how it worked. Like something you just remembered only it wasn’t a memory.

  “How about that bar on the Jersey shore? That’s a cash business. Did she have anything to do with the bar?”

  “I don’t think so. I think Mabel told me he wanted the bar in the divorce. His new wife was a waitress at that bar, so she was happy to let him keep the bar.”

  “Well, there you go. If the IRS found income from that bar and he didn’t show on their tax return, then she may very well be an innocent spouse.”

  “MC, since you are back in town and helping Charlie out, do you think you would have time to meet with Mabel and me? She gets back from the cruise tomorrow,” Limo Louie said looking at me with a pretty please look on his face. “You were trained by the best to extrapolate information. I know, for a fact, that you were pretty good at your job.”

  He was referring to the fact that the shoes I tripped over which led to the loss of my IRS job now are attached to a Senator from Florida. Word is that he is looking at running for governor in the state.

  I gave him the yeah good luck with that look but decided it wouldn’t hurt to meet Mabel since it would ensure I got my rent check for my condo on time. Plus he has been driving Aunt Sophia to the doctors when she needed a ride. He was a good friend.

  “Okay,” I said with a big sigh as he pulled up in front of my old tax office. “Have Mabel call Velma and set up an appointment.”

&
nbsp; “Actually, I already have spoken with Velma. We’ll see you later this week.”

  “Remind me never to play poker with you, Louie,” I said as I got out of his limo.

  “Say hi to Velma and that little rascal Izzy.”

  Izzy was Velma’s pet iguana. From time to time he stowed away on the Mary Catherine. We had a love-hate relationship, but I tolerated Izzy, and he did the same with me.

  As I walked in the front door, I heard the ding-dong of the chime that alerted the arrival of clients and memories came rushing back. I missed the office, and I missed the tax practice. Theo was busy with his research, and as of late I felt like a fish out of water. No purpose to my days. There was just so much yoga and Zumba one could do. My brain was going soft. Theo and I talked, and we agreed that after his latest assignment we would move the Mary Catherine back to Fish Camp. Aunt Sophia and Aunt Anna were not getting any younger. Theo understood. A long time ago when Theo and I were first married, he left his law practice and headed out to sea. I guess it was my turn now. Only I was heading back to land.

  As I walked in the front door to my old tax office for the first time in a long time, I stood there and looked around. I felt right at home. Nothing had changed. It was as if I had gone out for lunch and just returned. I saw Velma sitting behind what I called her command station, and I could tell by the look on Velma’s face she was talking to one of her twin daughters. She waived hello and motioned for me to have a seat in one of the chairs in the waiting room of the tax office. She got up and gave me a quick hug while carrying on the conversation with her teenage daughter. I sat down and saw Izzy sitting in the doorway to my old office. He looked in my direction, and I thought I could see a hint of a smile before he scooted back into the office and hopped up to his perch. I knew then I was back.

  “No, you cannot take the car tonight. I need it to go check on your grandmother and then to go to my Zumba class.”

  Velma looked up and rolled her eyes. I knew she was stalling buying a car for her two daughters. She was old school. Rodeo her soul mate, husband, and the father of the twins wanted to buy them a car. Rodeo was also a spook but still connected to the military. To keep peace Rodeo parked his wheels at the marina when he was out of town on a mission.