by Diane Kelly
“I’ll take these,” I told the clerk, gingerly placing them on the counter next to the cash register along with a bag of Skittles. “And a scratch-off.”
When I returned to the car, Eddie smirked. “You trying to look like a motorcycle cop? Or a fighter pilot?”
“I’m just trying not to go blind.” I handed him the scratch-off. “Here. A little something to thank you for driving all the way out here with me.”
Eddie took the lottery ticket from me and fished a penny out of my cup holder to rub off the adhesive. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” He waved the ticket in the air. “I won fifty bucks.”
“Damn. Should’ve kept that ticket for myself.”
“Too late now.” Eddie slid the ticket into his wallet and glanced over at me. “You gonna share those Skittles?”
“You’ve got fifty bucks. Go buy your own.”
He snatched the bag out of my hand, poured a dozen or so of the colorful candies into his palm, then held the package out to me.
I snatched it back from him. “You stink.”
“I’ll split my winnings with you. How’s that?”
“Better.” I could use the $25 to upgrade to a nicer pair of shades once we returned to Dallas.
We made our way through the small town of Kemp, then turned south on State Highway 274. As we ventured down the country road on which the sanctuary was located, I noticed the fence erected on the left side of the road was made of thicker wires than most and stood at least a dozen feet tall. No doubt the fence contained something that was either unusually big or could jump awfully high. With the trees impeding our view onto the property there was no way to tell.
I gestured to the fence. “What do you think is in there?”
Eddie cocked his head. “King Kong? Bigfoot? Dinosaurs replicated from mosquitoes stuck in tree amber?”
I had my doubts whether anything like Jurassic Park would fly in Texas, where playing God with DNA was considered a sin as treacherous as rooting for a team other than the Cowboys.
The GPS app on my phone interrupted our conversation. “In one-half mile the destination will be on your right.”
Eddie and I turned our attention away from oversized fictional creatures and back to the road in front of us. Other than trees, barbed-wire fencing, and an occasional gate, there wasn’t much to see. A couple minutes later, the disembodied voice announced, “You have arrived at your destination.”
I stopped the car and Eddie and I looked around. There was no mailbox. No numbers indicating an address. No sign marking the sanctuary property.
“You see anything?” I asked.
He pointed. “Just that rusty old gate up there.”
Thirty feet ahead a wide gate with a loose top hinge hung cockeyed from a rotted wooden post. A dirt road led back from the gate onto the property, turning left behind a copse of scraggly trees and disappearing from sight. No animals could be seen, nor was there any structure visible.
I turned back to Eddie. “Could that be the sanctuary?”
“Only one way to find out.”
We drove up to gate. I honked my horn three long times to get the attention of anyone who might be on the property. Venturing onto a rural property unexpected and unannounced was a good way to end up with buckshot in your ass, especially in Texas. Our residents loved their guns. After all, it was two guys from the Lone Star State who’d gone into a Chipotle restaurant waving their semiautomatics in a flagrant display of their rights under the state’s open-carry law. What a couple of shit-for-brains dumbasses. They were lucky someone with the sense to keep their weapon concealed hadn’t assumed they were there to rob the place and plugged them full of lead. If I’d been working the counter, those two would’ve taken a ladle of scalding refried beans to the face and a knee to their nards.
Hooonk. Hooonk. Hoooooonk.
Eddie and I waited a full minute with no response. I tried again.
Hooonk. Hooonk. Hoooooooooonk.
Still nothing.
“Do we risk it?” I asked. If it were solely up to me my answer would be yes. But after what Eddie had gone through on the earlier case, it was only right for me to give him a vote in the matter, even if I was the lead investigator on this gig.
“We’ve come all this way,” Eddie said. “Might as well go in.”
I slid my gearshift into park, hopped out of my car, and opened the gate. After I drove through, Eddie slid out of the passenger door to close the gate behind us.
We proceeded slowly along the dirt road, bouncing in our seats as we hit the ruts caused by recent rains. As we rounded the bend, a small trailer came into view. It was a basic beige model with metal stairs and no ornamentation, the type often used as a temporary office on construction sites. Its windows were covered in a thick layer of dust. One of them was cracked. An enormous black barrel grill stood off to the side, the top gaping open like a mouth ready to take a big bite. The grill was dirty, chunks of burnt meat stuck to the surface, flies swarming about. Bones of various shapes littered the ground around the grill, some of them surprisingly large. What the heck had these Kuykendahls been cooking out here? Antelope? Feral hogs? Tyrannosaurs?
Eddie snorted. “This is paradise?”
“Definitely not what I envisioned, either.”
A muddy army-green ragtop Hummer was parked in front of the trailer. Behind the building sat a dilapidated wooden shed probably used to store animal feed and supplies. Next to the shed was a rusty horse trailer that had been modified to include metal bars over the windows. The trailer must be used for more than horses.
I gave my horn one more quick push to announce our arrival. Honk!
Seconds later a hairy face appeared in the dusty, cracked window.
“I was wrong,” Eddie said. “Bigfoot doesn’t live back at that other ranch. He lives here.”
chapter seven
What Kind of Game Are They Playing?
The front door opened, giving us a better look at the man. While it was clear now that he wasn’t an ape, the amount of coarse, dark facial hair he sported put him on par with those furry-faced dudes from Duck Dynasty. He had crazy eyes, too, the wide, wandering kind that seem to be taking in something surprising no one else could see. It was clear now why the auditor had compared him to Charles Manson. There was definitely a likeness, though he was too far away for me to tell whether he sported Charlie’s forehead swastika tattoo.
Long-limbed and lanky, this man wore a khaki canvas hat with a chin tie that disappeared under his beard, a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, camouflage pants, and black rubber boots. A hunting knife that looked big enough to fillet a rhino was strapped to his belt next to a walkie-talkie. Looked like El Cuchillo wasn’t the only one with a blade fetish. Two orange and white hunting dogs stepped up on either side of him and began barking in stereo. Woof! Woof-woof!
“Hello!” I called, raising a hand in a friendly wave. “Is this Paradise Park?”
The guy eyed me, then ran his gaze over my car, his eyes narrowing as he apparently realized it was a government vehicle. “Who wants to know?”
“We’re from the IRS. Just need to talk to you a bit.”
“Is that so.” It was a challenge rather than a question. The man cocked a wild and woolly brow. “’Bout what?”
“About your financial records,” I said, easing myself from the car. More precisely, I was here to talk about their lack of financial records. Every business should keep good documentation regarding their income and expenses, but recordkeeping was even more important for nonprofits, the records of which were required by law to be open for public inspection. What’s more, these guys had filed only the electronic postcard return, intended for small nonprofits. Without records, it wasn’t clear whether their organization qualified for the simplified form or whether they should have filed a full-fledged report detailing their board members, programs, and activities.
“We already done talked to the IRS.” His crazy eyes narrowed so that they virtua
lly disappeared between his brows and beard. “I thought we was all done with you folks.”
I closed my car door behind me. “We have a few follow-up questions.”
Eddie followed me and we stepped up to the trailer with our briefcases in our hands. At this range, I noted the man had worked up quite a stench. I also noticed that the man’s lips were dry and cracked, as were his knuckles. The guy must spend a lot of time outside and neglect to properly hydrate. I was tempted to offer him a swipe of my Plum Perfect gloss and a squirt of the vanilla-scented hand lotion I always kept in my purse, but figured he’d turn me down. Or worse, that he wouldn’t. No way would I use the products again if he touched them. I wasn’t about to risk getting his stinky cooties.
I pulled a business card from my breast pocket and held it out to the man. “I’m IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway.” I tilted my head to indicate Eddie. “This is my partner, Eddie Bardin. Are you Quentin or Kevin Kuykendahl?”
“I’m Quent.” He took my card and looked it over, even going so far as to turn it over to see if there was anything written on the back. “This says you’re from Criminal Investigations.” He looked back up at us, and he didn’t look happy. “What the hell, man?”
“Just a routine check,” I lied. Our investigation was anything but. Still, no sense getting the guy all riled up, not when he had that knife on his belt and appeared more than capable of gutting us on the spot. “May we come in?”
He hesitated a moment, as if mulling over his options. Finally, he stepped back a foot or two to allow us inside. We headed up the rickety stairs and into the trailer, which smelled like sweat, dogs, and pork rinds thanks to an extra-large bag sitting open on a table inside next to a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew with the cap off. The air inside the building was still and stifling. Why didn’t the guy open a window? Was he trying to save electricity? Or was he just used to living like this?
The only chairs in the place were cheap folding canvas lawn chairs. Quent flopped down into one behind the table, while Eddie and I grabbed a couple situated haphazardly in the room and pulled them over to face Quent.
Seated now, I took a quick glance around the place. An ancient fridge stood along the left wall next to a short countertop housing a small stainless steel sink. A toaster oven sat on the counter. An uncovered trash can overflowed with paper plates, plastic utensils, and empty Mountain Dew bottles. Along the right wall stood a flat-screen television, what looked to be a forty-inch size. It was tuned to Let’s Make a Deal. On screen, Wayne Brady negotiated with a woman in a Little Bo Peep costume while her husband or boyfriend, dressed as a sheep, stood by her side, offering advice. “Take the box, honey! Take the baaax!”
The woman took the box. The pretty assistant lifted the lid with a smile, revealing a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Some prize. Bo Peep turned to her sheep partner and brandished her staff as if ready to beat the woolly thing to death. That would be the last time she’d listen to him.
While I opened my briefcase and pulled out my notes, Quent tugged the walkie-talkie from his belt and pushed the talk button with a dirty, jagged-nailed thumb. “Kev. Come to the office. Folks is here from the IRS criminal department wanting information.”
The radio’s speaker crackled and a man’s voice came back. “What the fu—” He stopped himself, apparently realizing we might be able to hear him. “I’m down at the crick but I’m headin’ your way.”
Quent set the radio down on the table and turned his crazy eyes back on me and Eddie.
“I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do,” I told Quent. Like bathe or get a manicure. “We might as well get started.” I pulled out a pen and clicked it open. “The auditor noted that your records were incomplete.” “Incomplete” was an understatement. The records were nonexistent.
He rocked back in his chair until he was leaning against the wall and put one mud-caked boot up on the table. In one smooth movement he pulled the knife from the sheath on his belt. Swiff. My hand instinctively went for my Glock, relaxing only when he began using the knife to dig dirt from under his nails.
He wiped the dirty blade on his pants before moving on to the next fingernail. “Incomplete how?”
“You didn’t have any.”
Though the Kuykendahls had offered not so much as a single receipt to the auditor, she had been able to scrape together some information by contacting their bank for account statements. The information contained therein had shed some light on their expenses, but provided virtually no information about their income, which consisted of sporadic cash deposits ranging from a low of $800 to a high of $9,600. The deposits were made shortly before the expenses were paid and were in commensurate amounts, as if they’d purposely deposited just enough to cover their impending debit card transactions. The average balance maintained in the operating account was a mere $63. The pattern was suspicious. Wherever the cash was coming from, it was unlikely that all of it had been deposited into the bank account.
The only indication Quent had heard me was a flexing of his foot on the table. Looked like he was expecting me to carry this conversation by myself. That or he was waiting for his cousin to show up and answer my questions instead.
“Do you take care of the financial matters, or does Kevin do it?” I asked.
“Depends,” he said.
“On what?” I asked.
“On who’s around to take care of things.”
“So you two take turns? Share duties?”
The ankle flexed again. “I s’pose you could say that.”
“We’d rather not suppose anything,” I said with as much goodwill as I could muster. “We’d rather you gave us the facts straight.”
Quent’s only response was to use his knife to fish a pork rind out of the bag on his desk. He put the knife to his mouth, used his tongue to maneuver the pork rind off the blade, and proceeded to eat the fried skin. Crunch-crunch-crunch. He washed it down with a slug of Mountain Dew straight from the bottle. Glug-glug.
Eddie chimed in now. “We noticed that you two aren’t paid a salary to run the organization.”
“We both got other jobs,” Quent said. “We’re fishing guides out on the lake.”
Each of them had reported net income from their guide business of only $17,000. Barely enough for a person to live on. Whether they had accurately reported their personal income was another matter, but for now I planned to focus solely on the nonprofit organization. One step at a time.
“Besides,” Quent continued. “Kevin and I don’t run this place for the money. We do it out of the goodness of our hearts.” His dry, cracked lips curled up in what was equal parts smile and snarl.
“Of course,” I said, though I had my doubts. I might have believed him had his woolly beard and hat been paired with a tie-dye shirt and his pork rinds replaced with trail mix. But he didn’t give off that kumbayah vibe indicative of do-gooders.
“Can you tell me about the organization’s income?” I asked. “The sources and amounts?”
Quent gnawed on his chapped lower lip now. “We’ll have to hold off on this inquisition until Kevin gets here.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
Another flex of his ankle. “He can answer your questions better.”
“You seem to be doing just fine yourself.”
He pulled his boot off the table now and set it firmly on the ground. “He might think of something I missed.”
I suspected Quent wanted us to wait for Kevin more to ensure that the two of them got their story straight than to be forthcoming with additional information. But I also knew that the more I pushed, the more the guy would push back. Sometimes it was better to let the targets think they were the one in control. You can catch more flies with honey, after all. And once these flies were stuck in the honey, they’d be all mine.
We sat without speaking, the only noise coming from the game show. As we waited, a young man dressed as a frog won a Ford Fiesta, while another in a spaceman getup sacrificed five hundred dolla
rs in exchange for a plastic toy harmonica. That was a deal he should never have made.
A few minutes later, Kevin pulled up outside in a long-bed Chevy pickup. Through the dirty window I saw him hop down from the truck. He wore the same type of rubber boots as Quent. Having been raised in the country with a small herd of goats and half a dozen barn dogs, I knew rubber boots were the best thing to wear when you’d be stomping through poop. They might not be fashionable, but they hosed off easily. Like Quent, Kevin wore camo pants and a belt with a knife strapped to it. Kevin’s belt also contained a holstered handgun. I was glad I’d had the foresight to wear my hip holster for easy access to my Glock should the need arise. Instead of a black T-shirt like Quent, Kevin sported a white undershirt à la Bruce Springsteen, though Kevin’s was adorned with assorted holes and yellowed pits. Bruce Sweatstain. Like Quent, Kevin was tall, thin, and bearded beyond belief. The tangled mass of hair on his head appeared as if it hadn’t been washed or combed since the Bush administration. The first Bush administration.
The stairs clanged as Kevin stomped up them. He stepped through the door, his eyes first finding his cousin and holding a moment, then shifting to me and Eddie. At least his eyes weren’t crazy like Quent’s. Nonetheless, they didn’t quite meet mine. Instead, they seemed to focus on a spot about an inch to the left, along my temple.
A broad smile appeared in the beard as he stuck out his hand. “Hello, there.” Eddie and I introduced ourselves and shook his hand. I made a mental note to stick my hand in boiling water later to kill any germs I’d contracted.
Apparently the brains of the outfit, Kevin took over the conversation. “Quent says you’re hunting for information?”
“Routine stuff,” I said. “Gotta make sure our auditors have done their jobs right.”