Death and Taxes

by Susan Dunlap

  “What?” She stared at me. “This isn’t the fifties. Cars are cars, just transportation. If I weren’t a detective, I wouldn’t remember it was red.”

  California, car capital of the nation, and I had to find the one person who couldn’t tell a Mercedes from a Morris Minor. So much for Herman Ott’s detective tutorage. But Maria was a young single woman; she might not differentiate between cars, but she would between men. “The guy driving the car—what did he look like? Young, old, big, small …?”

  She shrugged. “He was too short.”

  My shoulders tightened in anticipation. “Then you must have gotten a good view of his hair? Dark? Blond? Straight?”

  “Brown and slicked back, like he was walking into a gust of wind.”

  The muscles across my shoulders clenched tight. Rick Lamott. No wonder he was so anxious to keep in touch with me, or more accurately to keep up on the progress of the investigation. Bastard!

  We were coming onto the lower level of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge now. Twice in the last couple of years drivers had gotten out of their stalled cars on the top level and been knocked over the railing to their deaths. I glanced uncomfortably out the window at the icy Bay water two hundred feet below. Turning back to Maria, I put out my hand for the ticket. She hesitated, then sighed and turned it over. I didn’t have to look at it to know it would be for Philippa Drem. “How did you get this?”

  “I didn’t kill him, honest. I shouldn’t have taken it. I know that. But I couldn’t not go to Samoa, could I? I mean just because I was afraid?” She had been nervous before, but clearly this was what she’d been worried about. Now her words poured out frantically. “I mean, I am a detective.”

  “Stealing—”

  “I didn’t steal it. It was on my bed.”

  “Whoa. How did it get there? And when? And why?”

  “The night you and I talked at the Swallow. I was really upset. You saw that. I didn’t know Phil had been killed.”

  Was it possible that Maria Zalles, would-be detective, was one of the few people on the Avenue not to know about Drem? I had to admit it was. “So you were unnerved. What did you do?”

  “I went home. To the hotel. I guess I was babbling. I told everyone there Phil was dead.”

  “Everyone? Who?”

  “A couple of guys who were going to do some work, and all the owners—they were in the lobby fussing about how long the repairs were taking.”

  “And you told them Phil had been murdered? How did they react?”

  “I don’t know. I was upset. They didn’t know Phil like I did. They could see how upset I was. Somebody got me a drink. I was crying. I just remember having my head in my hands and then stumbling down the hall to the bathroom to wash my face.”

  “Down the hall?”

  “They’d taken out the sink in my room,” she said. In spite of all that had happened since, she was clearly still put out about that. “After that, I went to my room. The ticket was on the bed.”

  I stared at her, forcing her to stop and see my disbelief. “The ticket just turned up on your bed?”

  “Well, somebody must have put it there while I was washing up.”

  I swallowed sarcastic comments. Sarcasm’s an easy route to losing a witness. “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “No. I figured if someone wanted me to know—”

  “And you call yourself a detective!” I said, exasperated.

  “I’d had enough of detecting, with Phil dead and all. I just wanted to get away. I took the ticket, and I left.”

  I asked who she thought might have given it to her. I rephrased the question three times, but the only thing I learned was that Maria Zalles had thought about only one person that night—herself.

  I left her at the station with Leonard. But I couldn’t overcome a queasy spot of fear about it. I still didn’t know who had stolen the briefcase, still couldn’t swear it hadn’t been the cop that Sierra fingered, Sierra, whom Leonard couldn’t find. It was ludicrous to consider Leonard. Unreasonable. And he was the one who’d heard the whole Zalles interview. He’d go over her statement once more, then get it in writing. He’d make sure the process took long enough to keep her there in case I needed another go at her. She’d be safe with him, surely …

  I considered rounding up Scookie Hogan, Ethan Simonov, Mason Moon, and Lyn Takai, but there was no reason for any of them to admit having Drem’s ticket. And they were all savvy enough to realize that. If I didn’t come up with something solid, they could stonewall me into the twenty-first century.

  But stonewalling was one thing Rick Lamott was not going to do.

  CHAPTER 23

  I COULD HAVE CALLED around for Pereira. But to get answers to the questions I was going to ask, I didn’t need esoteric tax knowledge.

  I didn’t turn on the pulsers, but I might as well have, as fast as I was driving. They would have suited my frame of mind. By the time I pulled into Rick Lamott’s driveway behind his red Lotus Elan SE, I was steaming.

  No wonder the man had made a point of coming to the station, asking me out for a drink, calling me. God, I hate to be a patsy. I had a lot to make clear to him, and I wasn’t about to have Pereira witness that. Much less provide commentary on it for weeks afterward.

  I walked around the Lotus in the driveway. I was surprised Lamott didn’t keep it in the garage. But of course that would mean it would be out of sight. And what’s the point of having a red sports car if no one sees it?

  Lamott’s house was just what I would have expected—a glassy modern job hanging down off the hillside. Nothing special in itself, downright precarious in earthquake country, but with a view of the Bay, the San Francisco skyline, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It seemed fitting for Lamott that the appeal of his house would be external.

  As I walked past the Lotus, I couldn’t resist a glance down at the black leather interior and all the red gauges on the dashboard. And the driver’s seat on the right. Like most Berkeleyans, I found the car bourgeois and superficial, but still, well, there was something so Scott Fitzgerald about it all.

  Jazz poured through the door, and I had to ring the bell three times before Rick Lamott opened it. He was wearing a forest-green sweatshirt with a collar and acid-washed jeans—one of those processes that contribute to killing the rain forests. His light-brown hair was a bit ruffled, and his narrow face and sharp features seemed less sleek than they had in the Lotus. Even his eyes now looked closer to hazel than cat-yellow. But he was still idling faster than normal.

  He grinned, giving those hazel-yellow eyes a slitty quality. “So, Jill, you found me. I’m flattered. Should I credit this to the lure of my charm or to your detective training, or both?”

  Now that half-egotistical banter that had amused me before irritated me. “Tell me about the TCMP and DIF again.”

  He shrugged, a movement closer to a bounce of the collarbones than an expressive lift and c'est-la-vie drop. A nervous gesture, even for Lamott. He ushered me into the living room, which indeed was essentially an anteroom to the view of the lights of Oakland and the San Francisco skyline. It smelled of particularly sweet incense. Sitting on a beige leather chair, I refused the offer of wine and repeated my question about the TCMP and DIF.

  In the middle of the glass coffee table was a clay sculpture of the Lotus sports car. Rick Lamott moved to the other side of the table and poised on the edge of the sofa. To be farther from me, he’d have to have been out the window. Any question whether the TCMP and DIF were the issue, Lamott’s suddenly wary behavior answered.

  He was already tapping a foot when he said, “I’m sure you remember, but I’ll tell you again, Jill. The TCMP is the Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program. Key info IRS’s got on TPs, taxpayers. Dragged a bunch of people through audit, made them verify every cent of every deduction. Took the average. Put it together with their discriminant-function methodology, and voila! You claim too far above the local
average, you get points against you. The more points, the more likely you are to be audited.” He grinned and held his feet still. “Unless, of course, you’re my client.”

  “Tell me about the local adjustments to the TCMP.”

  Both feet started, alternating. “They’d waste a bunch of time if they held Angelenos to car-expense standards they have for Boston. A Bean Town guy drives forty miles round trip, he’s putting in a lot of miles. In LA, a hundred’s good. IRS doesn’t want to haul in half of Los Angeles and find those folks can prove every mile. Makes ’em look bad. Also wastes a lot of time, and time’s money.”

  The clay sculpture looked as if it had half-melted. Like a deflated tire. A sculpture that said “I can laugh about my status symbol.” Or maybe “I can give the appearance of laughing about my status symbol.” We’d see how good a laugher Rick Lamott was. The concept of melted appealed to me. I said, “Give me Philip Drem’s TCMP figures.”

  “Hey, wha—”

  “I’ve got a witness who saw you and your car at PFA Friday night, when Drem was killed. Three times you stopped across the street. I’m not going to waste time here. You’ve got them. I can get a search warrant.”

  “I don’t have them.”

  Ignoring that, I went on. “And if I have to go to the hassle of getting a warrant, I’ll assume the paper is hidden somewhere in the Lotus. And, Rick, we’ll take that car apart.”

  He gulped.

  “Now get it.”

  “I don’t have any figures.”

  “We’ll start with the interior, pull out the seats, all those gauges, and the gearshift. And then—”

  “Goddammit, I don’t have anything from Philip Drem!” His sleek face was flushed. He looked as if he’d skidded into a tree.

  I let a beat pass, then said softly, “Convince me.”

  He leaned forward and made a show of fiddling with something under the table, playing for time.

  I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice as I said, “If you’re going to pretend you’re fooling with something on the floor, you’d be better off not having a glass table.” He jerked up, smacking his forearm against the table edge.

  “Okay, Rick, tell me the whole story from the top.”

  There was just a tiny twitch of head movement to indicate he was deciding between answers. “Yeah, well, see, Drem called me. He offered me the figure. I kept my options open.”

  I waited. Lamott was not a man to be comfortable with silence.

  “It made sense he’d call me. I’m known for getting the best deal for doctors.” His foot began tapping again.

  “Drem was offering you a chance to bribe a government official to give you the local TCMP/DIF figures so you could keep your clients’ deductions within the local average. So, barring a fluke, your clients would not be audited.”

  “Offers don’t matter. You can offer the lease on the Brooklyn Bridge. Point is, I didn’t buy.”

  “So you say. Go on.”

  “Okay, I was real tempted. A lot of accountants think you can get the gist of those figures from trade publications. But to have the actual figures …” Lamott inhaled slowly, covetously. He must have had just that look when he first saw the Lotus. With a small quick shake of the head, he said, “I stopped across the street from the Film Archives. I saw Drem. He didn’t know my car. I sat there as long as I could. Then …” He swallowed and said in a small voice, “Then I wimped out. The thing is, I’ve never done anything illegal, and, well, I was afraid. It was a big chance. And I was doing okay without the actual figures. So I drove on.”

  “And came back.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Three times, all together.”

  He looked more humiliated than frightened now.

  “And when he finally left, you followed him.”

  “I was going to forget the whole thing, but by the time he rode his bicycle across Durant, he looked funny. He wasn’t pedaling anymore. The bike was swaying. Then he turned down Dwight. I couldn’t follow in my car because it’s one-way east. Cars kept coming. I couldn’t even make a left. Finally I got across and turned down the next street. I almost passed Regent. I would have if I hadn’t seen Drem stumble into the street and fall.” He swallowed again, then made himself look directly at me. “If I hadn’t called nine-one-one, he could still be lying there.”

  I laughed. “So you called nine-one-one. Then you ripped off his briefcase and left.”

  “Hey, that’s a lousy suggestion. I never touched his briefcase. His bicycle was halfway down the street.”

  “The TCMP figures were a couple of hundred feet away, and you didn’t even go down and look?”

  To a game player like Lamott that idea had to sound preposterous. “Okay, I looked. It was after ten at night—dark. By the time I got to Drem, then stopped to call for help and walked down the street to the bicycle, the basket was empty.” He looked directly at me, indignation etched in his face. “The goddamned briefcase was gone.”

  “Are you saying someone else stole it?” I asked, amazed.

  “It was gone.”

  “Who took it?”

  “Don’t you think if I knew I’d tell you?”

  I had to admit I did. Nothing would have been more to Lamott’s advantage. Except having the TCMP figures himself. Still I asked, “Who else was around?”

  “No one but a cop. I—”

  “Which patrol officer? Describe him!” My throat was so tight, my voice squeaked, but Drem was too caught up in his own worries to notice. Please, I muttered silently to the powers that be, don’t say “shambling, gray-haired, middle-aged guy with wrinkled clothes.” Leonard. “Describe him!” I repeated.

  Lamott shook his head. “Average cop. But look, it was dark; he was in the shadows. I spotted the uniform and the gun belt. That’s it.”

  “Thin? Fat? Short? Tall? You sure it was a man?”

  Lamott threw up his hands. “Look, it was just a glance. I didn’t care about him. I just wanted him out of the way and me out of his sight, see?”

  I repeated my question.

  “Average, okay?” he yelled. “Probably a guy, but some of you broads are pretty tough. That’s it!”

  “Where was he?”

  “Down the street near the bicycle.”

  I stared at Lamott, amazed. “And you didn’t wonder why with a man lying in the street the only cop was half a block away?”

  Lamott gave a big shrug. Shrug with attitude.

  “And so you didn’t even call him back to Drem’s body. You just walked away, leaving Drem lying in the middle of the street?”

  “Hey, come on. What was I going to do? I’m not a doctor. He was damned lucky I stopped at all.”

  I shook my head. How had I ever found this man intriguing? It was so embarrassing. “Leaving the scene of an accident is a crime.” When he didn’t react, I stuck it to him. “When IRS hears about this, they’ll wonder what else you’ve been up to. If my guess is correct, they’ll feel the need to audit some of your clients’ returns for the last couple of years. Maybe all their returns. Certainly all of them for this year, wouldn’t you say?”

  It was the first time I’d seen Rick Lamott speechless. I sat a moment, savoring my small triumph. It was petty and really only managed to cover a problem caused by my own lack of perception. Later, I’d be disgusted. But for the moment I felt like a lion with its paw on a gazelle and a roar deafening the countryside. We don’t get these situations much in Homicide-Felony Assault. But I could remember them from a stint in Traffic, ticketing Mercedeses. And I could imagine the controlled delight of the IRS agent, the former accounting major who drove a used beige sedan and dated girls with pimples, as he gave the coup de grace to the adult BMOC with the red sports car.

  It was a moment before he said, “There’s no need for you to inform IRS.” It wasn’t begging, but it was close.

  “The truth?”

  “Okay. But look—I didn’t approach Drem. Who would have imagined Drem, the straight
arrow, would think of selling figures?”

  “Why did he?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “You were suspicious of him. You wouldn’t have taken his offer with no explanation. The truth!”

  “Okay. He was planning to leave the country, and he needed the money. He wanted a lot of money, fast.”

  “So he offered you more than just the TCMP figures?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “This is off the record, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll only use what I need. I’m not after your hide.”

  Lamott had no choice but to take that offer. “Okay, he offered to throw an audit. My biggest client. Audit had been going on for weeks. Me, him, and the client. Me and the client yelling at him, Drem just sitting there like a sphinx, waiting to throw a levy on my client’s assets and seize his property. Client was scared shitless, calling me in the middle of the night, worrying about jail. Good chance, too.”

  “But if you could pull it out, you’d have looked like God to that client, right? And to everyone he told.”

  Lamott nodded.

  “For how much?”

  “Hundred thousand.”

  I restrained the urge to whistle at that amount. Instead I waited Lamott out.

  “When word got around, I’d have been representing half the money in Berkeley.” He hung his head.

  I was sure his grief was not from guilt but for lost opportunity. “You were the last person to see Philip Drem alive. You followed him.”

  Suddenly the reality of my charges struck him. “But I didn’t kill him! Why would I kill him? If I’d killed him, I wouldn’t have done it in a half-assed way like that, where I had to follow him and get the briefcase. Look, he was desperate for the money. I could have arranged to meet him anywhere. He and I are accountants, not mafiosi. Accountants don’t think of murder; they worry about double entries. If I had planned to kill him, he wouldn’t have suspected. He would have come to some secluded place. I could have killed him and taken the briefcase. I wouldn’t have had to trail him all over town. I’m not a fool, Jill.”

  I probably felt worse than he did. I believed him. The best I could do was call Patrol, haul him down to the station in the cage, and make him go through the whole statement again. He was embarrassed and afraid. But I was left with a dead end.