by Diane Kelly
Because the e-mails requested no money from them, many people failed to perceive the threat. The general public was much more susceptible to scams that merely asked for information rather than money. Unfortunately, a con artist armed with a name, address, bank account number, and signature could cause substantial damage. This particular con artist had made withdrawals at the victims’ banks, relieving the duped parties of more than $85,000.
The IRS had first become aware of the problem when a man named Roy Larabee barged into his local office in Farmer’s Branch and demanded a return of the $1,800 withdrawn from his checking account shortly after he’d provided his banking information via e-mail to an IRS staff member named S. Teal. After being informed that no such employee existed, that the IRS does not send such letters by e-mail, and that he’d been duped, the enraged man had removed his size-ten loafer and lobbed it at the counter clerk. Fortunately, IRS counter clerks are used to dealing with all manner of crazies and the clerk ducked in time to avoid injury. The loafer did knock over a full coffee cup, however, spilling its contents onto a printer, which spewed sparks and smoke and activated the building’s automatic sprinkler system before expiring.
Larabee was charged with assault on a government employee and destruction of government property. Since he had no prior record, his attorney had been able to plead the charges down to criminal mischief and an agreed punishment of twenty hours of community service. I phoned Larabee’s attorney to get permission to speak directly with his client.
After identifying myself, I said, “I need to speak with Mr. Larabee about the fraudulent e-mail he received. Could you tell me where I might reach him?”
“He’s completing his community service as we speak,” his attorney said. “He’s working with a cleanup crew from the city parks department at White Rock Lake.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“When you see him,” the lawyer replied, “tell him my bill is past due.”
“Will do.”
I rounded up my purse and briefcase and headed out to my G-ride, sliding my cheap red sunglasses onto my face. Twenty minutes later, I turned into the park and took a spot in the lot near the playground. It was a bright but unusually chilly day. Given that no children were scampering about, it looked like the area moms had decided to keep their tykes inside today, where they could keep warm.
The cleanup crew, in their bright orange safety vests, were concentrated along the bank of a narrow, boggy creek that emptied into the lake. Some of the men worked with pincer-type devices while others, presumably nonviolent offenders, used pointed metal sticks to spear the trash.
I made my way over and checked in with a man who, judging from the fact that he was reclining on the yellow plastic playground slide with his eyes closed, appeared to be in charge. His mouth hung open, emitting an odd gagging, snoring sound. Sleep apnea, I supposed.
I stepped up to him. “Hello, there.”
Startled, the man jerked awake, throwing out his arms in an instinctive defensive gesture. My instincts kicked in, too, causing me to turn my head reflexively to avoid his flailing arms. The momentum caused my cheap, lightweight sunglasses to fly off my face. They hit the metal support pole of the nearby swings with a plink and fell to the ground, the left lens popping out of the frames. Great.
As the man sat up, I wiped dirt from the lens and tried to finagle it back into the frame. No luck. I tossed the lens in a trash can, slipped the damaged sunglasses into the breast pocket of my blazer, and handed the man my business card. “I’m with the IRS. I need to speak with Roy Larabee.”
The man used my business card to gesture at a short, portly man with a bowl haircut using his pincers to fish a used condom out of the brush. “That’s Roy right there.”
“Thanks.” I walked over, keeping an eye on the man lest he remove a shoe and lob it at me for an encore of his previous performance. “Mr. Larabee?”
The man looked up. When he spoke, his voice was equal parts anger and sad resignation. “That’s me. Who are you and what do you want?”
“I’m Special Agent Tara Holloway from the IRS.” I didn’t bother extending my hand for a shake since both of Larabee’s were occupied, one with the pincers, the other with a clear garbage bag. Also, since condom cooties were in the vicinity, I didn’t want to risk catching them.
Larabee glowered at me for a moment before dropping the condom in the bag and turning back to poke around in the debris. “You’ve established who you are. Still waiting to hear what you want.”
Jeez. What a crankypants. Besides, he should know better than to ask a compound question. This was America, where the average attention span is 2.3 seconds. Now where was I again? Oh, yeah. “What do I want? I want to catch the guy that stole from you.”
He stopped poking around and looked up at me. “You for real?”
“Absolutely. You weren’t the only victim. There are dozens of others like you in the area.” The con artist had scammed over seventy-five innocent taxpayers.
Larabee issued a grunt. “Good to know I wasn’t the only one dumb enough to fall for that stupid e-mail trick.”
“You weren’t dumb,” I said, trying to assuage his self-loathing. This guy was a sad sack if ever I’d seen one. “You were just … naïve.” Naïve and short-tempered, which was why he was out here today rounding up trash.
He snagged a beer can with the pincers and turned to call to one of the other men. “Hey! You with the bin. Come over here.”
The man scurried over with a special bin for recyclables. Larabee dropped the can inside with a tinny thunk and the man scurried off again.
Though my case file had contained copies of the e-mails he and some of the other victims had received, it hadn’t given me a complete picture or a clear place to start my investigation. I hoped that by speaking with some of the victims and the bank tellers who’d handled the withdrawals, I’d have a well-defined plan of attack by the end of the day.
“I have a few questions for you,” I said.
He waved his pincers in the air. “Ask away.” He looked around the park and issued a sigh. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
I pulled my notes and a pen from my briefcase, then set my briefcase on a bench nearby.
“Any idea where the thief might have obtained your e-mail and home addresses?” I asked.
“None,” he spat.
“Had you received any suspicious e-mails before you got the one purporting to be from the IRS?”
“Sure,” he said. “Same ones everybody else gets. The one where a friend supposedly had their wallet and passport stolen in a foreign country and needs me to wire them five grand. The ones that look like they’re from a delivery service, telling me they attempted a delivery but I wasn’t home and now they need me to click a link or open an attachment. Those ones about Asian women who want to do nasty things to my private parts or asking whether I want to meet a black woman with a big booty.”
I’d received those same bogus e-mails myself. “Did you maybe enter a contest recently? Fill out one of those paper cards to win a boat or a free month at the gym?”
“No way,” he said. “They just use that information to spam you. Besides, I’ve never won anything in my life. I’m not exactly what you’d call lucky. I was born with two undescended testicles and it’s been downhill ever since. In the past year alone my house burned down, my wife left me, and the doctors had to do emergency surgery to remove my gall bladder.”
Despite his having thrown a shoe at the IRS staff member, I was beginning to feel sorry for the guy. “I see from the documents in my file that you bank with Chase. Which branch do you normally use?”
“The one on Valley View,” he said. “It’s on my way home from work. Occasionally I go to the one on Josey, near my office.” He extracted the pincers from the brush. A stiff, flattened pair of men’s underwear was grasped between the pincers, the tighty whiteys having turned gray. With a look of disgust, Larabee dropped the undies into his bag.
/> I’d made some calls earlier and knew that the thief had made the withdrawal at the branch on Wycliff. Of course, banks required those making withdrawals to have some type of official identification. The thief must have presented the teller with a driver’s license or state ID card in Roy Larabee’s name.
“Did you lose your wallet recently?” I asked. “Or was it stolen?”
He shook his head. “That’s about the only bad thing that hasn’t happened to me.”
“What about a change of address?” I asked. “Did you get a new license after your house burned down?” Maybe an employee at the DMV had kept the old license he’d surrendered. The employee could have used the license or perhaps even sold it on the black market.
Roy shook his head. “I lived at one of those rent-by-the-month hotels until my house was rebuilt.”
So much for my DMV theory.
Out of ideas, I gave Larabee my card. “Call me if you think of anything new.”
He took my card, though he didn’t look hopeful.
“By the way,” I said. “Your attorney said your payment is late.”
Larabee’s only response was a long, sad sigh.
chapter eleven
Skin Deep
After meeting with Roy Larrabee, I climbed back in my car, put on my defective sunglasses, and drove, squinting my one uncovered eye against the bright sun, to the office of Dr. Valentina DeMarco, a dermatologist. One of her aestheticians, a woman named Jessica Weiss, had lost $900 to the phishing scam. The missing lens wreaked havoc on my depth perception. It was a miracle I didn’t have an accident on the way over.
The clinic was in a small, freestanding building two blocks down from one of the metroplex’s many hospitals. I parked and went inside to check in with the receptionist.
“Just a moment,” the woman said. She picked up her phone and held the receiver to her ear while punching a button. “There’s a Tara Holloway here to see you.” She paused a moment. “Okay. I’ll send her on back.” She hung up the phone and gestured to a door adjacent to the waiting area. “Right through there. Third door on the right.”
“Thanks.”
I went through the door and down the hall, stopping to rap on the designated door.
“Come in,” called a female voice from within.
I stepped inside to find a thirtyish woman in pink scrubs. She had hair the color of ginger snaps and the smoothest, most flawless skin I’d ever seen this side of a baby’s butt.
“Wow,” I said, momentarily forgetting why I was there. “Your skin looks fantastic.”
“Glycolics,” Jessica said. “Great stuff. Have you ever tried it?”
I said, “No,” though judging from the disgusted expression on her face as she ran her gaze over my cheeks she seemed to have already surmised the answer.
“My eleven o’clock canceled. I could give you a treatment while we talk if you’d like. It would do wonders for those bags under your eyes and those worry lines on your forehead.”
Gee. Thanks a lot. “What does it run?”
“Seventy-five dollars.”
I engaged in a quick mental debate. Seventy-five dollars seemed like a lot to spend on a skin treatment. Then again, maybe I’d earned a little pampering. I’d hardly slept last night, fighting off nightmares in which Nick and Christina disappeared forever. No ransom note. No bodies. No trace of them anywhere.
Dammit, I’ve earned this.
I hopped up onto the paper-covered examination table. “Let’s do it.”
I questioned Jessica as she pulled my hair back into a stretchy paper cap and used a moist wipe to remove my makeup. “Any guesses as to where the thief might have gotten your e-mail and home address?”
She retrieved a purple tube from a cabinet and sat on a rolling stool, using her heels to slide the seat closer to me. “I have no idea.” She squirted a generous blob of creamy lotion into her gloved hand and began to dab it onto my forehead and cheeks. “I’ve given it out so many places. Where I went to school. Friends. Family. Different places that I’ve worked. And of course my landlord has it, as well as the electric company, gas company, and water company. Cable company, too.” She lifted her palms. “Even my doctors’ offices.”
Her comment about the cable company got me wondering. The guys who came out to install the equipment were obviously very technologically savvy. What’s more, they’d have access to the victim’s e-mail address. “Who’s your cable and Internet provider?” I asked.
“Charter,” she said.
I made a mental note to contact Ray Larabee to see who his provider was. If it was also Charter, I might have just found my link.
While Jessica rubbed the cream into my skin, I continued to ask her the same questions I’d asked Roy Larabee. “Any chance you’ve lost your driver’s license? Or maybe turned an old one in when you moved and gotten a new one?”
Like Larabee’s, her response was negative. She’d had the same driver’s license for three years. Also, like Larabee, she banked at branches near her home and work, with Bank of America in her case. The thief, on the other hand, had made the withdrawal from Jessica’s account at a BOA only a mile from the Chase location where he’d withdrawn funds from Larabee’s account.
My interrogation complete, I closed my eyes while the glycolics worked their magic, causing my skin to tingle. Twenty minutes later, a timer went off with a beep-beep-beep, letting us know the treatment was complete.
“Time to clean you up.” She used a fresh wipe to remove the cream from my face, plucked the paper cap from my head, and tossed both into the trash. She picked up a hand mirror from the cabinet and handed it to me. “Take a look. What do you think?”
Gazing into the mirror, I turned my face from side to side, incredulous. There wasn’t a single wrinkle, bag, or rough patch in sight. “My skin has never looked this good!”
“For best results you should get treatments at least once a month,” she suggested, taking the mirror from me. “If you decide you want another, just give me a call. You’ve got my number.”
* * *
After leaving the dermatologist’s office, I ran into a nearby drugstore for a new pair of sunglasses. I found a cute pair with black-and-white-striped frames for $6.49. This was my fourth new pair in as many days. I hoped these would last me longer than the others had.
I slid into my car. Bzzt-bzzt. The secret cell phone hidden in the inside pocket of my blazer buzzed and jiggled. Letting out an involuntary squeal, I fished the phone from my pocket. No sense checking the phone’s screen. Only one person would be calling this number.
I flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
The only response was silence.
“Hello?” I said a little louder. “Can you hear me?”
Still only silence.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it, realizing Nick hadn’t called but merely sent me a text. All it said was Miss you. Love to you and Mom.
He’d told me earlier that he wouldn’t be able to send me any details by text, just in case someone in the cartel got a hold of the phone. He couldn’t risk them thinking he’d been feeding information to law enforcement or even a civilian inside or outside the cartel. Drug lords tended to like their privacy and encouraged the members of their networks to keep their mouths shut, both literally and technologically.
While I was thrilled to know Nick was okay, the uninformative text left me with renewed anxiety. Where was he? How was the case going? Had he and Christina managed to collect any good evidence yet? Were they in danger? How much longer would this go on?
I closed the phone, clutching it tightly in my hand and holding it to my chest as if it were a lifeline. In a sense it was, my only link to Nick. A few seconds later, I’d composed myself enough to return the phone to my pocket. I grabbed my regular cell and called Bonnie.
“Tara, hi.” She sounded breathless, as if she’d run for her phone. “You’ve heard from Nick?”
“Just a few seconds ago,” I told
her.
“And?”
“He sends his love.”
“That’s it?”
The disappointment in her voice caused my heart to writhe inside me. I wished I had more to offer her. But I didn’t. “That’s it.”
She was quiet a moment. “I suppose it’s better than nothing. But I’d hoped for more.”
“Me, too. But I’m sure he did the best he could.”
“That’s right. We’ll have to be grateful that at least we know he’s alive. How are you holding up?”
“Not too good,” I replied. “I’m trying to stay busy to keep my mind off things.”
“Me, too. I’ve taken Daffodil for about a thousand walks. She doesn’t even get excited anymore when she sees me pick up the leash. Maybe I’ll do some work on my garden. It could use some weeding.”
“How about I come over this weekend and help you out?”
“That would be wonderful, Tara. I’ll make a pitcher of my famous peach sangria.”
“Great! See you then.”
After speaking with Bonnie, I made a quick detour to the minor emergency clinic where Christina’s fiancé, Ajay, worked. The guy was a good doctor, but his bedside manner could best be described as smart-ass, at least where I was concerned.
Not sure if Ajay was on duty, I circled around the back of the building. Yep, Ajay’s blue Viper sat in the back of the lot. Good. I continued on around to the other side and took a spot up front.
Kelsey, the redheaded, freckle-faced receptionist, looked up as I came in. “Good afternoon, Miss Holloway. We haven’t seen you in a while.”
For a while last year, it seemed like every time I turned around I was coming into the clinic for some type of injury or ailment. Burns on my head caused by a cigarette that had caught my hair on fire. A bloody stab wound in my thigh inflicted by a cockfighting rooster. A severe rash on my girly parts caused by a sexual enhancement product. Fortunately, I’d managed to avoid injury recently and had only seen Ajay socially.