Death, Taxes, and a Skinny No-Whip Latte

by Diane Kelly

  I looked at Josh. “Where should Nick and I go from here?”

  “Log in to his e-mail account. Check his inbox and the file for sent e-mails. Maybe there’s something there we can use.”

  While I watched over Nick’s shoulder, fighting a strong urge to bite into it, he logged in to Mendoza’s Gmail account. “They’re empty. Dammit! He deleted everything. Even the e-mail he just sent to Claudia.”

  Smart move. Mendoza had left a trail of bread crumbs for us to follow, but he’d left as few crumbs as possible.

  “I’ve got the history for each account pulled up now,” Josh said. “There’s a series of deposits here. Two or three each week in each account. All cash and all in the seven-thousand-dollar range. No withdrawals or transfers.”

  Nick looked thoughtful. “Sounds like Mendoza’s been saving up. That’s not his typical MO. He doesn’t normally trust his puppets enough to leave the money in their hands for long. Something’s up.”

  Nick and I continued to review the keystroke data. Farther down, the information indicated Mendoza had accessed both the American Airlines and Aeromexico Web sites. We extracted his user IDs and passwords and Nick accessed the airlines’ online systems, retrieving his account information.

  I could hardly believe my eyes. Mendoza had purchased a one-way ticket for himself from Dallas to Monterrey. His flight was scheduled to leave at noon on Tuesday. The Aeromexico records indicated he’d bought three one-way tickets from Monterrey to Nassau, Bahamas, one in his name, the others in the names of his wife and daughter. The flight from Monterrey to the Caribbean was scheduled to leave only two hours after Mendoza’s arrival in Monterrey Tuesday afternoon. His wife and daughter must have been planning to meet him at the airport.

  “Fuck!” Nick boomed.

  The bachelorettes and the coffeehouse staff glanced our way, their expressions wary.

  Nick noticed and raised a contrite palm. “’Scuse my French.” He flashed that winning smile of his and all was forgiven. The guy had charisma dripping from his pores. He lowered his voice. “Mendoza’s set to flee. We’ve got less than forty-eight hours to get him. We have to find this Claudia person. Now. It’s the only way we can nail him.”

  “Problem,” Josh replied. “I’ve been all over the banks’ Web sites but there’s nothing here showing who the authorized signatories are. I can’t find Claudia’s last name.”

  “You’re the tech expert, Josh. Find something, for shit’s sake!” Nick spat his words with far more venom than necessary and Josh shrank in his seat.

  I felt a twinge of sympathy for Josh. He was doing his best. Then again, this case wasn’t a normal investigation for Nick. This was personal. Nick’s outburst was understandable under the circumstances.

  “At least we can narrow it down,” I said. “Her e-mail address is ‘Claudia’s accounting,’ so she’s probably a CPA, right? How many CPAs can there be in Dallas named Claudia?”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Mad Scramble

  As it turned out, there were thirteen CPAs in Dallas with the first name Claudia. I jotted down a quick list from the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy’s Web site.

  Nick snatched the pen from my hand and crossed through five names on the list. “We can rule out the ones who work for major firms. Mendoza wouldn’t use one of them. Too much oversight and too many internal controls.”

  That still left us eight Claudias.

  Unfortunately, given that it was a Sunday, we couldn’t simply make the rounds of their offices. We’d have to try them at home. We didn’t want to risk contacting them by phone and having Mendoza’s puppet tip him off. We figured we’d have better luck convincing Claudia to cooperate with us if we spoke to her in person.

  Nick divvied up the list, suggesting we approach them in order of their proximity to the post office where the bank statements had been mailed, starting with the closest ones. He assigned half of the names to Josh. “Tara, you go with Josh. Okay?”

  “We could cover more ground quicker if we divided the list in three,” Josh pointed out.

  Nick put a firm hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Look, Josh. No offense, buddy, but you’re not the most intimidating guy in the world and your people skills need work. I’m not sure you could convince Claudia to work with you.”

  Josh’s eyes narrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line.

  Nick gave Josh’s shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t sweat it, man. Nobody has it all. If it weren’t for your computer skills, Tara and I would be sitting here with our heads up our asses.”

  His words may have appeased Josh, but now it was my eyes that narrowed, my lips that pressed into a thin line. Head up my ass. Who did Nick think he was?

  I glared at him. As soon as Josh turned his attention back to his computer, Nick shot me a wink, the gesture communicating what he couldn’t say. All of that BS about me and Nick having our heads up our butts was solely to keep Josh from getting his tightie whities in a bunch.

  We headed out to the parking lot and I handed Nick my keys, admonishing him not to put a single scratch on my baby. I’d worked hard for my BMW.

  I climbed into the passenger side of Josh’s rental and off we went in search of Claudia.

  * * *

  The first Claudia we visited was Claudia Smith, a stay-at-home mom with a moody two-year-old daughter. The current mood was psycho-on-a-bad-acid-trip. Claudia Smith stood in her doorway, her red-faced toddler clinging to her right leg and projecting a bloodcurdling scream at a million decibels. “I don’t do accounting work anymore,” Claudia shouted over the din. “But I’ll tell you, there are days when I miss going to a quiet office.”

  According to the board’s records, the next Claudia, Claudia Morecki, worked as the controller for a utility company. She shook her head when we asked if she did any work on the side, particularly for a man named Mendoza. “No. My position pays well. There’s no reason for me to take on extra work.”

  There was also no reason for me and Josh to doubt her story. There’d been no uneasiness on her part, no flicker of apprehension in her eyes when I’d said Mendoza’s name.

  The third Claudia was Claudia Andrews. She wasn’t home, or at least she wasn’t at the home address listed in the licensing records. Her estranged husband answered the door in a mismatched pair of socks, a wrinkled pair of Bermuda shorts, and a foul mood. “I have no idea where that bitch went. But if you find her, tell her I want my big-screen TV back and that she was right, I did love that thing more than her.”

  As we walked back to Josh’s car, he asked, “Think his Claudia is the one we’re looking for?”

  “Probably not. The post office box on the bank accounts is way on the other side of the city. But we can always go by her office tomorrow if we have to.”

  The final Claudia on our list was Claudia Fryberg, an older woman in her late fifties. “No,” she said when we asked if she had a client named Mendoza. “I used to do taxes for quite a few people, but I’m easing myself into retirement now. I haven’t taken on a new client in years.”

  Josh and I had struck out. We could only hope Nick’s search would turn up the Claudia we sought.

  * * *

  We drove back to my town house to wait for Nick to complete his rounds.

  The minute we walked in my door, Josh began sneezing. “You have cats?”

  “Yep. Two. You allergic?”

  He nodded once before launching into another sneeze.

  “Let’s wait for Nick on the patio then.”

  We were sitting in plastic lawn chairs on my back patio a half hour later, eating the last of Mom’s pecan pralines, when Nick showed. He slid the glass door open and stepped outside. I could tell from his pissed-off expression he hadn’t had any luck, either.

  Nick threw his hands in the air. “I’m at a loss.”

  “Maybe she’s not a CPA.” I turned to Josh. It wasn’t so hard for someone to hide in the real world, but given the scope of the Internet, it was much harder to hide online. �
��Can we run another Internet search? Maybe see if this Claudia person has a Web site or something?”

  Josh booted up his computer and ran several Internet searches, trying to find a Claudia’s Accounting Service in Dallas. No luck. “She doesn’t seem to have a Web site and she’s not listed on any of the business referral sites.”

  “Either she’s really small or she’s not legit.” Nick put his hands behind his head, angled his face upward, and closed his eyes, thinking. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes again. “What about the county clerk’s assumed names office?”

  “Good idea,” I said. Anyone who operated a sole proprietorship doing business under another name had to register their business with the clerk.

  Josh logged on to the county’s searchable database. A few seconds later, his face brightened. “That did it. I’ve got a physical address for Claudia’s Accounting Service. The name was registered six years ago by a Claudia R. Dominguez.”

  “Woo-hoo!” I jumped onto my laptop and ran a search of the driver’s license records. Though a license had existed in that name years ago with a Dallas address, there was no current license issued to a Claudia R. Dominguez anywhere in the Dallas vicinity. “What does this mean?”

  Josh raised his palms. “Who knows? I checked the address on her expired license. She and a Ricardo Dominguez used to own the house at that address, but they sold it a few years ago.”

  “There’s just one thing we can do.” Nick grabbed my keys from the table. “Let’s roll.”

  The three of us loaded into my car, Nick at the wheel. He plugged the address for Claudia’s Accounting Service into his phone’s GPS and drove like a bat out of hell all the way there.

  * * *

  Claudia’s office was located in a small strip mall that had seen better days but hadn’t yet given up on itself. The stucco building bore a fresh coat of green paint and the park benches placed on the sidewalk were relatively new. Although the light fixtures were outdated, hi-tech security cameras perched on the corners of the roof, aimed to take in the parking lot and sidewalks.

  Claudia’s Accounting Service sat in the middle of the mall, in a narrow space only twelve feet wide. A karate studio flanked the office on the left, a pawn shop to the right. Claudia’s window bore white stick-on lettering with the name of her business, as well as BOOKKEEPING, TAX, AND NOTARY SERVICES, along with SE HABLA ESPAÑOL and the word NOTARIO. Dark window tinting lined the inside of the windows, making it difficult to see inside the office from this distance.

  We climbed out of the car, stepped to the window, and peered inside. Up close, visibility was better. The space was small and crowded, yet nevertheless clean and tidy.

  A series of metal file cabinets lined the side and back walls. A large L-shaped wooden desk faced the front door, a banker’s lamp with a green glass shade placed to one side. A clear plastic water cooler topped with a stack of cone-shaped paper cups stood in a corner next to a brass coat tree. Four wooden chairs sat in a row next to the front door, the small coffee table in front of them bearing copies of Money magazine and Fortune.

  The space wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but it wasn’t exactly the digs of a highly successful financial whiz, either.

  Josh cupped his hands around his eyes to better see into the dark space. “She’s got a stack of business cards on her desk but I can’t read them from here.”

  I darted back to my BMW and retrieved Dad’s field glasses from the glove box. “Try these.” I handed them to Josh.

  He held them to the window. “Pulido,” he said. “Claudia’s using the last name Pulido now.”

  Nick grabbed Josh by the shoulders, just as he’d done with me in the bed of the pickup after I’d sprung him from Mexico. I wondered for a second if he was going to embrace Josh, too.

  Nick smiled. “If you were a woman, Josh, I’d kiss you.”

  Josh smiled back. “If I were a woman,” he began, “I … um…” His face contorted as he realized he’d backed himself into a very awkward corner.

  Nick released Josh’s shoulders, letting him off the hook. “Let’s find Miss Pulido.”

  We returned to my car and both Josh and I logged on to our laptops, running searches for a Claudia Pulido who lived in the vicinity.

  “There’s nothing in the property tax records,” I told Josh after I’d run a search.

  “I’ll try the motor vehicle registrations,” he said. Several clicks later, Josh looked up. “Found her.”

  Nick raised a palm for a high five. “Way to go, Josh!”

  Grinning from ear to ear, Josh slapped Nick’s hand.

  While Josh read the address aloud, Nick plugged it into his new phone. He consulted the readout on the GPS when the map popped up. “She lives just a few blocks from here.”

  Less than a minute later, we pulled up in front of a modest one-story brick home. One of the shutters was missing a slat, a balsa-wood airplane lay on the roof, and the lawn, though mowed, lacked the crisp edge that comes from regular trimming. Apparently there wasn’t a man in the picture or, if there was, he was a lazy man. An older model blue minivan was parked in the driveway, the back hatch open, several bags of groceries visible in the cargo bay.

  We parked at the curb and climbed out of the car. I brought my briefcase with me, all of the documentation on the Mendoza case inside.

  As we made our way up the driveway, a Hispanic woman in her mid-thirties emerged from the front door of the house. She was pretty, with smooth brown skin and dark hair that hung in loose curls down to her shoulders. She was petite, about my size, though her figure was much curvier than mine, even with my latte-enhanced cleavage. She wore a red short-sleeved dress in a soft fabric with low-heeled black sandals.

  Three boys ranging in age from five to ten trailed behind her, all three dressed in crisp gray pants and white short-sleeved dress shirts. No doubt they’d attended a late-afternoon Mass and stopped at the grocery store on their way home.

  Claudia stopped when she saw the three of us approaching, putting out a protective hand to stop her boys from walking past her. Her brow furrowed in concern. “Can I help you?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  There’s a New Puppetmaster in Town

  Nick held up both hands, one of which was holding his badge. Guess he’d gotten away with it when he fled to Mexico. “No need to worry, ma’am,” he said. “We just need to speak with you for a moment. We’re from the IRS.”

  All color drained from the woman’s face. She simply stared at us for a moment as if overcome, unable to think. Tears formed in her eyes. She quickly brushed away one that had escaped down her cheek. “Please come inside,” she said, gesturing for us to follow her. “Boys, finish bringing in the groceries.”

  The boys looked from their mother to the three of us but said nothing, doing as their mother said and heading to the van to grab the remaining bags.

  I eyed Claudia’s left hand. No ring. I’d been right. No man in the picture.

  Claudia led us inside. The décor was typical single mom, inexpensive furniture with an excess of female touches. She made her way to the kitchen and motioned to the rectangular table, which was covered with a cheap floral-print vinyl tablecloth. The four of us took seats.

  Nick, Josh, and I introduced ourselves. The hand she extended across the table was trembling. I shook her hand and gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. Sure, she’d been Mendoza’s puppet, helped him cheat the government. But, if she knew what was good for her, she’d also help us nail the bastard.

  Nick sat rigid in his chair, his entire body tensed. Only one person stood between us and Mendoza now, and that one person sat at the table with us. We were close now, so close I could taste it. Once Claudia positively identified Mendoza as the man she’d been dealing with, we’d have probable cause to arrest the guy.

  He’d never get a chance to use that one-way ticket to Monterrey.

  Neener-neener.

  Nick glanced my way before turning to Claudia. “Miss P
ulido, I get the feeling you know why we’re here.”

  She nodded.

  “If you cooperate with us,” Nick said, “we’ll go easy on you. But if you don’t, you may end up in jail and not see your boys again until they’re grown and have no use for their mother anymore. Understand?”

  Wow. That seemed a little harsh.

  I glanced at Josh. He shrugged. Nick’s words may have been harsh, but they were effective. Claudia nodded, terrified, tears openly running down her cheeks now. I grabbed a napkin from the plastic holder in front of me and handed it to her. She nodded gratefully and wiped her eyes.

  Nick’s focus locked on Claudia. “Tell us everything you know about Marcos Mendoza.”

  A mix of confusion and surprise sprang to her face. “I—I don’t know a Marcos Mendoza.”

  Nick, Josh, and I exchanged glances. She had to be lying, yet her surprise seemed sincere.

  Nick cocked his head, his eyes narrowed. “Tell us the truth, Miss Pulido.”

  She leaned forward. “I am telling you the truth.” Her voice was frantic now. “I don’t know anyone named Marcos Mendoza.” Her brown eyes were wide, scared, as they traveled from Nick’s face, to Josh’s, to mine.

  When our gazes met, I asked, “If you don’t know Mendoza, then what did you think we came here for?”

  “I thought this was about Robert Ruiz.”

  Who the heck was Robert Ruiz?

  Nick began to say something but stopped himself as Claudia’s boys came in with a load of groceries. When the three had left the room again, he turned back to Claudia. “Describe Ruiz.”

  “I don’t know what he looks like,” she said. “I’ve never seen him in person.”

  “Fuck!” Nick slammed his fists down on her table, causing everything on it to jump. The clear plastic salt shaker tipped over, spilling white granules across the flowery tablecloth.

  This was not good. Spilling salt was a bad omen. I quickly grabbed a pinch and threw it over my left shoulder to counteract the bad juju Nick had generated.

  “Hey!” Josh cried, his hand over one eye.