Death, Taxes, and Hot-Pink Leg Warmers

by Diane Kelly

  I opened the door for him and took the drink he offered me. “Thanks. This looks great.”

  Bernice giggled like a schoolgirl when she noticed the other drink had two straws. She and Merle sat at his desk, both sipping through their straws with their heads only inches apart, gazing at each other like goggle-eyed adolescents. The scene was both cute and sad at the same time. It was sad to think what might have been for the two of them if things had worked out differently.

  But maybe it was better to think positively, to think of what might be. I knew I’d much rather look ahead than look back.

  Back was Brett.

  Ahead was Nick.

  chapter twenty-eight

  Frisky

  Wesley Prescott oozed into the club around eight o’clock, bringing with him a dangerous air that was virtually palpable. He hung back along the wall, watching, waiting for a seat to open up in Christina’s section.

  Despite the initial flub with her engagement ring, Christina played her role as “Christie the Cocktail Waitress” perfectly, flirting with the customers, bending over as she set their drinks on the table, treating them to a close-up view of her cleavage. As a result, she’d become one of the customers’ favorite servers. Her station was always packed and she raked in more tips than any other two waitresses combined. Of course, her popularity with the customers made her unpopular with the other cocktail waitresses, who had to step things up a notch so as not to lose ground.

  When two men stood and reached for their wallets to settle up their bar tab, Prescott emerged from the shadows to claim their table. Christina looked up and greeted him with what I knew was a forced smile. The smile he offered in return was sincere but sinister, as if he were baring teeth he wanted to sink into her soft, brown flesh.

  Despite the bare breasts bouncing all about, Prescott’s eyes were on Christina all night. They followed her to the bar, to the tables, to the dressing room when she went on break. They even followed her to the cash office when she came to drop off her tips.

  I’d pulled the red plastic sword from the pineapple-chunk garnish in my drink and challenged Merle to a duel. “En garde.”

  He’d been up to the challenge, whipping his sword to and fro as he circled me in his rolling chair. “Take that, Sara!”

  Christina knocked on the door, forcing us to declare our duel a draw.

  I opened the door for her. “I see your big tipper is back.”

  She stepped into the cash office, set her tray on my desk, and pulled a fifty-dollar bill from her till, waving it about. “He’s upped the ante.”

  “I think he’s trying to get up in your ante.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever. All I know is he just paid my cable bill.”

  I took her small plastic till from her tray and dumped the contents onto my desktop.

  “I’ll say it again,” Merle said. “Sara is right. That guy is bad news. Watch yourself, Christie. Better yet, keep a close eye on him.”

  She gave Merle a patronizing sigh that I knew was part of her act. “Don’t be such a worrywart.”

  “Don’t be stupid!” he barked, his chest heaving with a sudden, intense anger. “Listen to me, Christie. Men like that expect something in return for those big tips.”

  “Well,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s not going to get it from me.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Merle said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Merle looked down at his desk, his shoulders slumping as if in defeat. After a moment, he looked back up at Christina. His voice was soft now. “I’ve seen what money can do. It can change people, change their minds. It never changes them for the better, either.”

  Christina eyed him for a moment before saying, “I suppose you’re right.” She may have broken character, but Merle’s statement was so full of heartache and concern and truth that she couldn’t deny him his due. She stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for looking out for me, Merle. I appreciate it.”

  I returned her tray to her as she headed for the door. When she opened it to step out of the office, she let out an involuntary gasp. Wesley Prescott was in the hall. Donald Geils stood behind Prescott in the open doorway of his office.

  “Christie.” Geils motioned with his head for her to come his way. “Step into my office for a minute.”

  Christina hesitated a split second, her natural instinct of self-preservation warring with her sense of duty. “Um … okay.”

  As the cash office door swung shut behind her, I realized I’d instinctively risen to my feet. I looked back to see that Merle, too, had stood.

  I walked to the cash office door and opened it. Merle came up behind me. The door from the club opened a fraction of a second later. A loud blast of music came in, Sheena Easton singing her raunchy eighties classic, promising to take listeners places they’d never been, show them things they’d never seen, inviting them to come spend the night inside her “Sugar Walls.” Given that nearly three decades had passed since the song was released, Sheena’s walls were probably less sugary and more like drywall these days.

  Nick stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. We exchanged glances. I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t give us away. Fortunately, Nick was better at thinking on his feet than I was.

  “I saw that customer follow Christie back here,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I don’t like the way he’s been looking at her.”

  Merle eased past me. “It’s nice to know at least one member of the security team is concerned with the girls’ safety.”

  The two men stepped closer to Geils’s door. Nick put an ear to it, listening. He held up a finger to let us know things were okay. A minute later, he jerked his head from the door, hustled me and Merle back into the cash office and stepped over to our door, leaning against the jamb in feigned nonchalance.

  Geils’s door opened behind Nick. Christina came out, followed by Prescott, whose eyes were on her ass. Christina and Prescott walked down the hallway and out into the club, but Geils remained in his doorway. “What are you doing back here, Mitch?”

  Again, Nick was quick on his feet. “I’m talking to Merle about the schedule,” he said. “I need off the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I’ve got special plans.”

  I felt another twitch in my nether regions. Those special plans involved me.

  “I don’t give a shit about your plans,” Geils said. “I need everyone here the weekend after Thanksgiving. All that time with their wives and families, men need a fucking break afterward. This place will be standing room only.”

  With any luck, this case would be wrapped up by Thanksgiving. Still, if it wasn’t, there was no way Nick and I would wait a second longer than absolutely necessary to be together, even if it meant we’d have to wait until after our shifts were over in the wee hours of the morning.

  “Get back to work.” Geils thumped Nick on the chest. “Now.”

  It was a good thing Geils closed the door to his office, because the way Nick’s amber eyes blazed with fire it was obvious his fury was barely restrained. Without another word, Nick turned and left.

  An hour later I returned from my break to find Nick guarding the door to the administrative wing. I gave him a coy smile. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “I know, right?” His eyes blazed again, but this time it was with desire rather than anger. He gestured for me to turn to the wall. “I need to check you over, make sure you’re clean.”

  I stepped closer to him. “Wouldn’t you rather I be dirty?”

  He offered both a smile and a tortured groan.

  I turned around, put my hands on the wall over my head, and leaned in.

  Nick stepped up behind me, running his hands slowly and thoroughly over my sides, reaching up under my blazer for a closer inspection. I arched my back, moving my butt back a few inches, pushing against his groin. A naughty move, sure, but nobody was paying any attention to this corner of the club.

&
nbsp; “Oh, Sara,” he hissed, his breath hot in my ear. “You’re a naughty little bookkeeper.”

  He lowered himself to run his hands first down the outside of my legs, then the inside. Unlike the lecherous Cyclops, he didn’t cup my crotch.

  Darn.

  I glanced back at him. “You missed a spot.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. My G-spot.”

  He stepped back. “I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I have no idea where the G-spot is.”

  I shrugged. “Me, neither.” One day I’d figure it out. I glanced around the club. “Where’s Prescott?”

  “In the VIP room,” Nick said.

  “With the Daisy Dukes?”

  He shook his head. “The snake charmer.”

  The sound of rapid-fire sneezing came from somewhere nearby. A-choo-choo-choo!

  Wait a minute. I knew that sneeze. My head snapped toward the source of the sound. Sure enough, there was the spectacled Asian man from the jury, sitting at a table fifteen feet away. A young woman half his age and twice his size was performing a lap dance for him. She turned and thrust her breasts close to his face. His head bent slightly back and he let loose another round of sneezes aimed right at the girl’s boobs. A-choo-choo-choo! A-choo-choo-choo! He must have been allergic to her perfume or shampoo.

  Covered in sneeze spritz, the girl backed up in disgust, grabbing a napkin off the table and swiping at her chest. “This is over,” she spat, balling up the napkin and tossing it into the lap she’d just been dancing in.

  “But I paid for a full song!” he cried.

  What the hell was the juror doing here? He was supposed to be sequestered along with the rest of the jury. Judge Trumbull had given the panel strict instructions they were to go nowhere other than the hotel and the courthouse until the trial was over.

  Fortunately the man hadn’t spotted me. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and snapped a quick shot to show the judge in the morning. I hoped the guy would enjoy the rest of his time here tonight, because once Judge Trumbull got word he’d defied her orders, she’d open a big ole can of whoop ass.

  chapter twenty-nine

  Busted

  As I drove home that night, Christina called my cell. I turned down my radio so she could give me the scoop on what had taken place in Geils’s office.

  “Prescott said he’d pay big bucks for a ‘private performance’ from me.”

  “How much are we talking?” I asked.

  “Two grand.”

  “You should be flattered,” I told her. “That’s more than he paid the snake charmer or the three Daisy Dukes combined.”

  “Nice to know,” she said.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That I wasn’t as interested in cash as I was in something else.”

  “Meaning the meth?”

  “Right. But you can never come right out and say it or they get suspicious. I mentioned Theo had given me something recently and that I’d love to get my hands on a big stash for me and my friends because it was getting harder to come by these days.”

  I changed lanes as I approached my exit. “Is he going to get the drugs for you?”

  “He’s supposed to. They worked out a deal where Prescott would pay Geils in cash and Geils would pay me in drugs. I told them once I had the drugs in hand I’d perform for Prescott.”

  “Do we even need Maddie’s testimony, then?”

  “Yes. I’m not going to let that sleazeball lay a hand on me. Aaron says without proof a sex act took place in the club the DA would be forced to let Geils off with a small fine. To nail the guy, we need evidence that a sexual act was performed for money and that Geils arranged it and profited from it.”

  “When is all of this supposed to go down?”

  Christina couldn’t go alone into a dangerous situation. We’d have to make sure we agents were in place to arrest Geils and Prescott.

  “Prescott will be working in Arizona for a while, then going back to Iowa for Thanksgiving. He’ll return to Dallas the Saturday after the holiday.”

  The same night Nick and I were to have our first full-fledged romantic rendezvous. Ironic that Geils had refused to give Nick that night off.

  I signaled for my exit. “I’ll pass this information on to Nick.”

  “Great. I’ll phone Aaron.”

  * * *

  In court Thursday morning, I pulled up the photo I’d taken last night on my cell phone and showed it to Ross.

  He cocked his head. “Why are you showing me a photo of breasts?”

  “Did you say ‘breasts’?” Eddie leaned over to take a look. “Hmm. Not bad.”

  I pushed him back with an elbow. “Dude. You’re married.”

  “You don’t have to remind me. I’ve only seen one pair of breasts in the last ten years.”

  “Boo-hoo,” I said. Or perhaps it should have been “boob-hoo”? I turned back to Ross. “Look at the man looking at the breasts.”

  Ross squinted at the screen, then turned his head to look at the juror, who’d already begun his daily sneeze fest. The guy must be allergic to oxygen. “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “He sneezed all over the girl’s boobs.”

  Ross cringed. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  When the judge entered, Ross asked if he and the other attorneys might discuss a critical matter in chambers.

  Trumbull sighed. “It’s going to be one of those days, huh?”

  The defense attorneys cast me questioning looks when I followed them through the door to the judge’s chambers. Once Trumbull was seated behind her desk, Ross gestured for me to hand my phone to the judge.

  She took one look at the screen and frowned. “Why the Sam Hill are you showing me porn?”

  Needham and Vanderhagen stepped around the desk to take a look. Brunwald and Plimpton merely raised their brows.

  I squeezed in between the male defense attorneys and pointed to the man in the photo. “See that man? That’s juror number five. He was at a strip club last night.”

  Trumbull squinted at the screen. “Are you sure?” Her skepticism was understandable. With the dim light in the club and the distance between us, the photo wasn’t the highest quality.

  “I’m positive,” I said. “He sneezed all over that girl. That’s why she’s wiping her chest.”

  She leaned to the side and looked up at me. “And you know this how?”

  “Official IRS business” was all I said, but the judge had been on the bench long enough to know exactly what I meant. I was working an undercover case.

  Trumbull shooed the defense attorneys away from her desk and buzzed her secretary on the intercom, instructing her to have the bailiff bring juror number 5 into chambers.

  A minute later, the man walked through the door. He took one look at the orchid on the judge’s desk and launched into a fresh set of nosefire. A-choo-choo-choo! A-choo-choo-choo!

  “Did you leave the hotel last night?” Trumbull asked the man without preamble.

  With seven pairs of eyes on him, the man shrank back. His gaze darted among us, as if trying to figure out who might have outed him, whether he might be able to get away with a lie, whether he could survive a jump out the window.

  “I asked you a question,” Trumbull demanded, “and I want an answer. Keep in mind that lying to me will only get you in more trouble.”

  The man looked down, but finally nodded.

  “You went to a titty bar?”

  He nodded to his shoes again.

  “Do you remember me giving you and the other jurors strict instructions not to leave the courthouse or hotel while this trial was under way?”

  One quick nod.

  With that, Trumbull opened an airtight, industrial-sized can of whoop ass.

  Pop-whoosh.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Horny-man. You’ve earned yourself a week in the klink for contempt of court.”

  He looked up now, his eyes lit with shock. “Ja
il?”

  “Hope the titties were worth it.”

  The look on his face said he thought maybe he should’ve settled for buying a Hustler in the hotel gift shop and perusing two-dimensional tatas in his room.

  Trumbull pointed out her door. “You march yourself back out there and wait at my bench.”

  Head down again, the man shuffled out the door.

  “Good thing we’ve got three alternate jurors,” Trumbull said, rising from her desk chair.

  We returned to the courtroom and took our seats. Once the judge had settled back at her bench, she pointed a condemning gavel at the wayward juror. “Juror number five here thought it would be fun to ignore my orders and go to a strip club last night. He’s admitted his guilt. Haven’t you?”

  When he nodded at his shoes, the judge demanded an audible answer.

  “Yes,” he said in a soft, nearly imperceptible voice.

  “I hereby order you to a week in jail. Bailiff, get his sorry ass out of my courtroom.” The bailiff took the man to the doors of the courtroom, turning him over to the waiting sheriff’s deputy.

  The judge pointed her gavel at the jurors now. “Anybody else got any confessions to make?” When none responded, she said, “Juror number thirteen, I hope you’ve been paying attention. You’re now officially on the panel.”

  The can of whoop ass now emptied, the trial resumed. Carter took his place on the stand once again. Ross wrapped up his few remaining questions. Needham attempted to rehabilitate his client, while the other defense attorneys ripped him to shreds. It was a wonder he didn’t suffer another round of angina.

  Ross interviewed the straw buyers next, each of whom testified that Carter had approached them regarding the Wingate property, assuring them he had another buyer ready to take the house off their hands for thousands more than their purchase price, guaranteeing them a quick and easy profit.

  Ross’s next witness was Jeffrey Pachuco, who today had worn a light blue work shirt, navy pants, and steel-toed boots, no doubt attempting to portray himself as a hardworking blue-collar type whose much more sophisticated friends had unwittingly turned him into a chump. He’d even brought a white hard hat with him. His façade might have been more believable if his boots hadn’t been brand-new, bearing not even the slightest scuff. Clearly they’d never set foot on a construction site. The hard hat was likewise in mint condition. Pachuco never got his hands dirty. His job was to wine and dine potential clients looking to build custom homes, hire other men to build the homes, and collect a tidy share of the profits.