by Diane Kelly
I pulled the pillow off his head. “I wasn’t even being myself, anyway. It’s not me he found unattractive and boring. It’s Sara Galloway. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with her.”
He reached for me. “Hi, Sara. How about you give me a peek at your general ledger?”
I slapped his hands away. “If we’re going to engage in role play, I want to be Catwoman, not a bookkeeper.”
Nick grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I snatched my clothes from the floor and dressed. Nick slid back into his boxer briefs and a pair of lounge pants.
We went downstairs to his living room, Daffodil trotting down the steps behind us. While Nick got down on all fours and wrestled playfully with Daffodil on the rug, I took a seat on the couch, logged into my laptop, and pulled up the Oklahoma motor vehicle department Web site to run a search on the Mercedes’ license plate.
“A-ha!” I said when the site spit up the data. “The car Morgan Walker was driving is a rental. The records show it’s owned by Hertz.”
Nick looked up from the floor. “They rent fancy cars like that?”
“They must.” I logged on to the Hertz site and took a look. “Yep. They’ve got something they call the Prestige line. They offer Infinitis and Lincolns for rent, too.”
To Daffodil’s disappointment, Nick pushed himself up from the floor and came over to flop down next to me on the couch. Though much too big to be a lapdog, Daffodil nonetheless leaped onto Nick, settling her front paws over his legs and giving him a loving lick under the chin.
Nick ran a hand down his dog’s back. “So this catfisher is spending money, to look like he’s got money, so that the women he plans to steal from won’t think he needs money?”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
“Seems like a lot of work. Why not just rob a liquor store like everyone else?”
“Maybe he doesn’t own a ski mask.” I searched online for the Omni hotel’s phone number and dialed it on my cell. “Morgan Walker’s room, please,” I said when the receptionist answered.
A few seconds of silence ensued as the woman apparently attempted to pull up the guest account. “Could you repeat that name?”
“Morgan Walker,” I said slowly, enunciating as clearly as I could.
“Hm-m, I don’t see a guest by the name Morgan Walker. Could the reservation be under another name?”
“Try ‘Jack Smirnoff,’” I said, spelling the last name for her. “S-m-i-r-n-o-f-f. Like the vodka.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. There’s no guest listed under that name, either.”
“All right,” I told her. “Thanks for checking.”
“No luck?” Nick asked when I ended the call.
“No luck.”
A few minutes later, he walked me out to my car. He leaned in to kiss me but pulled back at the last second. “That bastard didn’t kiss you good night, did he?”
I sighed. “Don’t worry. You won’t catch his cooties. He planned our next date for a Tuesday, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nick said. “We’re good to go, then.”
He leaned in and gave me a long, warm kiss, making it clear he found me irresistible even if Morgan Walker didn’t. And that was all I needed to know.
* * *
Thursday started off as a total bust.
When I looked into the cell phone number listed on Morgan’s business card, I discovered it was another untraceable prepaid phone, another dead end.
My e-mail in-box was filled with messages from the dating sites. While I was flattered so many men had expressed interest in me, I was frustrated that none of the men had a client profile pic that matched Morgan Walker’s new head shot. I banged a closed fist on my desk. “Damn!”
If I couldn’t track down more victims, the guy would get off easy. There were more victims, weren’t there? Surely there had to be, right? If not, he’d gone to an awful lot of trouble and expense to make a few bucks.
It took me fifteen minutes and three transfers to reach the proper person in the legal department at the car rental company. Except I didn’t actually get the person. I got his voice mail.
“Your call is very important to me,” his disembodied voice told me over the airwaves. “Please leave a detailed message and I will return your call.”
I left a message explaining that I needed to know who had rented the Mercedes. “He’s been involved in criminal activity. Please get back to me as soon as possible.”
I spent the rest of the morning phoning thirty-six businesses Flo had mentioned on air but had no luck there, either.
Some played dumb. “KCSH? Never heard of it.” “Flo who?”
Others proclaimed their innocence while at the same time covering their asses in case they were later proved to have lied. “I can’t recall ever making payment to Flo Cash or agreeing to any kind of exchange. Of course we’re so busy here everything’s a blur.”
One even feigned outrage. “How dare you imply I’d involve myself in unethical behavior!”
Some played the same old, tired card. “We’d be happy to comply with a court order.” Happy, my ass.
None of them gave me anything to go on. Problem was, I couldn’t get a court to issue an order until I convinced some of these people to testify that Flo had made trades with them. It was a vicious circle, a hamster wheel, and I was nothing more than a tiny, ineffective rodent running with all my might yet getting nowhere. The least someone could do was toss me a piece of cheese.
I was just about to head out to lunch when my phone rang. It was the paralegal from Hertz.
“I’d be happy to provide the information,” the paralegal told me.
“Great!”
“Of course we’ll need a court order first. Without that, I can’t release anything.”
My Lord, it was like everyone had become pull-string dolls, fitted with the same pre-recorded message: No court order, no cooperation. I’d like to yank out their strings and choke the puppets with them.
“I’ll get you an order,” I said on a sigh, putting a hand to my eyes. This is not my day, is it?
I realized I probably should call Ross O’Donnell first, but frankly, if I spent one more second with my phone to my ear my brain was likely to explode. I traipsed over to the Department of Justice armed with the women’s affidavits and the computer printout showing the new dating profile for Jack Smirnoff, aka Morgan Walker, aka King of the Doo-Doo Heads. Unfortunately, Ross O’Donnell was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in his office, the library, the break room, or the file room.
I stopped at the desk of a harried administrative assistant. She consulted a log. “Ross signed out twenty minutes ago. Looks like he’s in Judge Trumbull’s court.”
Should’ve called first, huh? At least with him already at the courthouse maybe he’d be able to slip my matter in between calling witnesses.
I hurried over to the courthouse, made my way through security and up to Judge Trumbull’s courtroom. As quietly as possible, I slipped through the door and took a seat in the front row behind the prosecution table.
I glanced up at the bench. Judge Trumbull was a tough old broad, with a round physique under her billowy black robe and the saggy jowls of a bulldog. Still, despite being tough, she was undeniably fair. Nobody could complain that she always sided with the government, nor could they complain that she always sided against the government. She kept an open mind, and she made sure everyone did the job they were supposed to do.
The judge looked down at me and raised her brows in question. All I had to do was hold up my stack of paperwork for her to realize I had a quick matter that needed her attention as soon as there was a break in the current case over which she was presiding.
Judging from the stack of DVDs on Ross’ counsel table, he was trying the video piracy case today. On the witness stand was a production expert, who described the telltale differences between an authentic copy of the children’s cartoons and the pirated copy. “The pirated DVD,�
�� he said, holding up the fake, “is printed on a gold disc, as you can see. The authentic product is printed on a silver disc.” He held up the silver disc to compare. “The packaging is also inconsistent with the authentic product. The version offered by the defendants came with no security seal and lacked the clear wrap.” He held up two new DVD cases to show the difference.
Ross continued his questions for a couple more minutes before turning the witness over to defense counsel.
“Tell you what,” Judge Trumbull said, cutting her eyes to her clock. “Let’s hold the cross-examination for this afternoon and break for lunch now.” She advised everyone to be back in their places by one o’clock. Using her gavel, she gestured to me. “Mr. O’Donnell, I believe Special Agent Holloway has a matter for us.”
Ross turned around at his table. “Oh. Hey, Tara. What do you have?”
I stood and met him at his table, giving him a ten-second version. Catfisher. Rental car. Desperate for information about Smirnoff/Walker.
“All right,” he said softly. “Let’s give it a go.”
With that, we stepped up to the bench and the waiting judge.
Ross addressed her first. “Agent Holloway would like an order requiring a rental car company to provide the name, contact information, and credit card number of a customer who is under investigation for criminal fraud and tax evasion.”
Judge Trumbull waggled her fingers. “Give me details and give them quick. Mama’s hungry for lunch and today’s special is chimichangas.”
I handed her the documentation and, as quickly as possible, ran through the events of the last few days. My meeting with the three women who’d filed complaints. My later meeting with J.B., the owner of Big D Dating Service. “The man known as Jack Smirnoff failed to respond to the service’s e-mails,” I told the judge. “The phone number he’d provided to the women and the dating service had been disconnected, too.”
“Sure sounds like he was trying to hide,” Judge Trumbull said, flipping through the pages in her hand. “Go on.”
I told her how Josh had been able to search for the photograph online and identify the photographer and how a visit to Savannah Goode had led me to finding the new listing on PerfectCouple.com. “The photographer provided digital files of the catfisher’s more recent head shots, and Special Agent Schmidt ran a search on them. They turned up on a dating site that was running a free trial period. I made up a profile for myself, contacted the target to express interest in meeting him, and went on a date with him last night.”
“A date?” She tilted her head, her jowls jiggling with the movement. “How’d it go?”
“Good,” I told her. “He asked me out again for Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” she scoffed. “Unless things have changed since my dating years, being asked out for a weeknight isn’t a good sign, especially for a second date.”
“Objection,” I said. “That’s irrelevant.”
She tossed me a look of pity. “You can’t object to something a judge says, and you can’t object if you’re not an attorney.”
“Noted,” I said through gritted teeth. “Anyway, Special Agent Bardin and I tried to follow the guy, but we lost him in a construction zone. I phoned the hotel where he’d claimed he was staying, but they told me they had no guest under the name Morgan Walker.”
Trumbull’s brows drew together. “Why didn’t you just arrest this creep last night and be done with it?”
In hindsight, maybe that would have been the smarter move. “Because all we’ve got on him at this point is six grand in thefts. That’ll get him a slap on the wrist at best. But if I can catch him trying to pass more bad checks, that’ll raise the odds of him getting some real time. I suspect he’s also ripped off women he’s met on other dating sites, but since we don’t know the guy’s real name or what other aliases or profile pictures he’s been using, there’s no way to shut him down. If I can get some information from the car rental company, though, it could take me right to him.”
“All right. You’ve convinced me.” She signed the order with a flourish and handed it to me. “Got get ’im. Hopefully before Tuesday.”
“Thanks, Your Honor.” And gr-r-r.
When I returned to the IRS office, things began to look up even more. Morgan had sent a message to Sara Galloway’s e-mail address: Had a great time last night. You seem like a very accomplished and intelligent woman, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you better. Maybe someday we can even introduce Marmalade to Anastasia and Hank. Did you decide on a sushi place?
I ran a search for sushi restaurants in Lewisville, chose the one that had the highest reviews, and included the name and address in my response: I had a nice time, too. Looking forward to Tuesday. [Jackass.] See you there!
I scanned the court order and e-mailed a copy to the car rental company. Until I heard back from Hertz, the case was at a standstill, so I returned to the list of KCSH advertisers. Next in line was Mister Sandman’s Mattresses and More.
I dialed the number. “May I speak to Mr. Sandman?”
“He’s busy bringing sweet dreams to another customer,” the male voice on the phone said. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so. I’m Special Agent Tara Holloway with the Internal Revenue Service. I need to talk to the person in charge.”
“You already are,” he said. “Is this about KCSH? Flo Cash?”
Obviously, he’d been expecting my call. “I take it she’s been in touch with you.”
“She called a few days ago. Said the IRS was on a witch hunt and that the smartest thing I could do was keep my mouth shut. She said you’d eventually back off if I didn’t cooperate.”
Flo Cash had clearly underestimated me. If anything, her attempts to thwart me only fueled my determination to bring the woman down.
“Yeah, she’s a peach!” I snapped. “So are you telling me that you won’t talk?”
“Let me ask you something first,” he said. “Has anyone else agreed to speak with you?”
I wasn’t sure whether I should admit to this man that I was having a hell of a time getting anyone to confess anything. But something told me that he wasn’t merely fishing for information. He was negotiating. After all, he’d been very upfront about getting the call from Flo.
“You’d be the first to come clean,” I said. “That could work to your advantage.”
“Ah,” he said. “You see where I’m going with this.”
“Do you want to get your CPA or attorney on the phone with us?”
“I’ve been in business twenty years and have yet to hire an attorney for anything.”
That made him either very smart or very stupid. I wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.
“What can you tell me?” I asked.
“Lots,” he said, “but I want something in writing first that says I won’t be prosecuted and if I end up owing any taxes the IRS will waive all penalties.”
It was a small price to pay. “Consider it done.”
“All right. You bring a waiver to my store tomorrow afternoon and we’ll talk.”
“Can we do it sooner?” I wanted to move this case along. Now.
“No can do,” he said. “I’ve got a truck due to arrive with a big delivery any minute and tomorrow morning I’m getting a root canal.”
“Ouch.”
“Between the dentist and the IRS, it’s shaping up to be fun day.”
“It could be worse,” I told him. “You could be getting a colonoscopy.”
“Now that’s thinking positive,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
chapter twenty
The Other Woman
Thursday evening, Nick and I camped out in a parking lot across the street from the Addison Chili’s a half hour before Morgan Walker and Hana Kim, posing as Kim Huang, were to have their date. While we were far enough away that nobody could have easily identified me from the restaurant, I’d nonetheless tucked my hair up under a Texas Rangers baseball cap and donned dark sunglasses to disguise
myself. An agent could never be too careful. The last thing I wanted to do was blow this case after all the work I’d put into it over the past few days.
As we waited, we listened to KCSH. As usual, pre-recorded messages by Flo Cash played in the commercial breaks built into the syndicated show now playing.
“Are you in the mood for some delicioso Mexican food?” Flo asked over the airwaves. “Be sure to try the Guadalajara Grill in Garland. Children under ten eat free on Thursdays. Bring the entire family! Guadalajara Grill is conveniently located on Forest Lane near Shiloh Road.”
I cast a glance at Nick. “If that’s not a commercial, I’ll eat my hat.”
He cut a look back at me. “I just might eat your hat regardless. It’s dinnertime and I’m starved.”
“I thought you might say that.” I reached into the bag I’d brought with me, pulled out a plastic container, and handed it to him.
He pulled off the lid. “Fried-baloney sandwiches? I knew there was a reason I loved you.”
“If that’s the reason, I feel obligated to tell you that any woman with a frying pan could do the same.”
“Maybe.” He took an enormous bite of one of the sandwiches. “But I’d only want to eat yours.”
Flo continued to promote businesses on KCSH: “Folks, the heat of the summer will be here before you know it. Why not make sure your air conditioner gives a peak performance by having it serviced? Call Milligan’s Heating and Air today to schedule a maintenance appointment.” She followed her words with their phone number.
“You still thinking over Lu’s offer?” I asked. “You gonna take her job?”
“What do you think I should do?”
Admittedly, I had mixed feelings about it myself. If Nick become the director of Criminal Investigations, he and I couldn’t work cases together anymore. I’d miss that. On the other hand, as he’d pointed out previously, the director job would have more regular hours. That could be a big plus if the two of us settled down and had children, which was a real possibility. I raised my shoulders. “Honestly? I don’t know. Maybe talk to Eddie about it. Find out where he stands. That might help you make up your mind.”