Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) (24 page)

I pointed to the house, which in typical SMU fashion, was traditional red brick with tall white columns. “That’s the truck, right? In front of that frat house?”

Josh looked at the plates to confirm. “That’s the one.”

I put two and two together and hoped it would lead to four. “You think Thomas Peabody had a son who lives in the frat house?”

It would make sense, after all. Parents often put a car in their own name, even when they purchased the car for their children. I doubted Thomas Peabody himself was living here. Even if he was one of those students who changed his major fifty times and only took six hours of classes per semester, he’d probably have earned a degree by now. Besides, even if Peabody had joined the frat years ago, I doubted the fraternity rules would allow a man in his upper forties to live in the house. Plus, he was the right age to have a kid in college.

“Want me to check the vital records?” Josh asked. “See if Thomas Peabody has a son?”

“Or we could just go to the door and find out.” That sounded like a better idea to me. It would be much more efficient. Besides, I was dang tired of sitting in this car and would have loved to stretch my legs.

We exited my car and walked to the door. After knocking five times and getting no answer, I tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

I swung the door open and stuck my head inside. While the outside of the house had been decently maintained, the inside seemed more like a typical bachelor pad. Or should I say
bachelors’
pad? Like Kevin Kuykendahl’s truck, the place smelled like beer and urine, though the frat house also had an overlay of bacon, pizza, and pine-scented sanitizer.

“Hello?” I called. “Anybody home?”

A young man in jeans came up the hall, a backpack slung casually over one shoulder, a cell phone in his hand. His T-shirt featured a bastardized cartoon of a
My Little Pony
character rearing up to show off his enormous equine genitalia. Under the image were the words
WILD PONY PARTY
’14
.

“Hi,” I said as the boy approached. “Can you tell me who owns the black truck parked out here?”

The boy took a glance out the door. “That’s Peabody’s.”

“He got a first name?”

“Devon.”

The boy attempted to squeeze past me to get out the door, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“Could you get him for me?”

“I’m late for class. You can go on up. His room’s on the second floor. Third door.”

I released the boy and he made his way out the door, past Josh, and down the steps with a bouncing gait.

The rules regarding search and seizure allowed an agent to search a residence or business if the owner or resident agreed. Although the boy who just left could not legally give me permission to search any bedroom other than his own, I figured that since the common areas were shared his invitation for me to go inside would legally allow me into the foyer and hallways.

I waved Josh inside. To the right of the foyer was a large, open room with a couple of worn, stained couches pushed up against the walls. To the left of the foyer was a set of stairs. We took them up to the second floor, and made our way to Peabody’s room. I rapped loudly on the door.

A groggy, froggy voice came from inside. “Come back later. I’m sleeping.”

“Hi, Devon,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”

He hesitated a moment, probably trying to identify my voice.

“Who is it?” He sounded slightly more awake now.

“Tara.” No sense giving him my last name or adding my title of special agent and risk him jumping out his window to escape. Though it felt good to stretch my legs, I wasn’t in the mood for a foot chase.

A moment later the door opened. A beefy boy stood there, a vacuous expression on his face. His dark blond hair was flat on one side, unruly on the other, in typical bed-head fashion. He wore only a jockstrap and a pink plastic clothespin on one nipple.

“Ouch.” I gestured to the clothespin. “That’s going to be one hell of a purple nurple.”

Devon looked down and issued a grunt. “Looks like I had even more fun last night than I remember.” He removed the plastic clothespin, tossed it over his shoulder, and proceeded to rub his bruised nipple.

I exchanged glances with Josh. Given Devon’s state of undress and barely conscious brain, he couldn’t be the man who’d attempted to make the withdrawal at the bank. But surely he could tell us who was, right?

“I was told by another boy that you own that black truck outside,” I said.

“Yeah? What about it?”

His defensive tone told me that he might not be forthcoming with the information if he realized I planned to bust his friend.

“Um…” I racked my brain, trying to come up with an excuse to be here asking about his truck. “I just saw the guy driving it and followed him here. And, well…”

Well,
what,
Tara? I tried to rewind my brain by several years and access the girl I’d been back in my college days.

“I think he’s the same guy I met in a bar a couple of weeks ago. He asked me to call him but I lost his number. I’d sure like to see him again. We really connected.” I hoped that excuse sounded plausible.

Devon simply stared at me. “What was that guy’s name?”

“Um … I don’t remember that, either.” I took a cue from him, rolling my eyes and faking a giggle. “It was a crazy night.”

Devon tugged on the waistband of the jockstrap and let it go with a snap. “I don’t remember anyone saying they hooked up with a cougar.”

A cougar!
I was only in my late twenties, hardly old enough to qualify as a cougar. But given that I was dressed in work clothes, I probably looked a lot more mature than the college girls. At least that’s what I told myself. I sure as hell didn’t want to admit I was beginning to age.

“Look,” I said, my patience running thin. “Can you just tell me who’s been driving your truck?”

Another tug, another snap. “Hell, I don’t know,” he said. “I leave my keys right here.” He opened the door farther, showing me a hook on the wall just inside the door with a set of keys hanging from it. “The guys just come and borrow the truck when they need to move things or whatever.”

I was tempted to ask whether his parents knew he was lending his truck out willy-nilly, but that was a mature, adult thing to say. It would get me nowhere and would raise his suspicions that I wasn’t the love-struck bar-hopper I claimed to be.

Devon cocked his head. “What did the guy look like?”

“Brown hair,” I said. “A little bit of beard stubble.” A paltry amount, really, when compared to those crazy-eyed Kuykendahls. “Average height.”

“Brown hair? Average height?” He grunted again. “That doesn’t really narrow it down much.”

Damn.
He had a point. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to identify the thief even if he was standing right in front of me. “He mentioned something about being into computers,” I said, assuming anyone who’d be able to pull off the phishing scam and use that onion router thingy Josh mentioned had to be a computer geek. “Does that help?”

“Not really.” Tug, snap! “Everybody around here’s got computers and laptops.”

Turning my head, I glanced down the hall. There appeared to be five rooms on this floor, and there were likely just as many on the third floor. I didn’t have probable cause to go into all of the rooms, yet I still didn’t know which one belonged to the driver. Walking down the hall and knocking on doors would likely get me thrown out. If any of these boys figured out I was law enforcement, they’d surely demand that Josh and I leave. With all the hazing pranks and underage drinking that went on at frat houses, these boys learned quickly how to keep cops out of their hair, demanding to see search warrants before they’d let law enforcement officers inside. It was also possible that the driver was a member of the frat, but lived elsewhere. He might have returned the truck and left the house.

I was trying to figure out where to go next with my questions, when—tug, snap!—Devon solved the problem for me.

“We’re having an open party here Friday night,” he said. “Classic toga theme. All the guys will be here. Why don’t you come back then?”

Why not, indeed?

chapter twenty-five

C
ome Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

On the drive back to the office, I zipped into a car wash, hoping the place might sell sunglasses along with the pine-scented air fresheners and polishing cloths. With all the squinting I’d been doing all day, it was a wonder my eyeballs hadn’t popped out of their sockets. I was in luck. A display on the counter by the register offered six or seven styles, though all were in standard black or brown. The sunglasses were even on sale, two pairs for twelve bucks. I selected a black pair with large, round lenses, along with a brown rectangular pair. As many pairs as I’d gone through lately, I figured it couldn’t hurt to double up.

“Need any oil?” the male clerk asked. “Maybe some wiper fluid?”

“Nope,” I replied. “Just the sunglasses.”

He rang up my purchase, I swiped my debit card, typed in my PIN, and was on my merry way.

After Josh and I returned to the office Wednesday afternoon, Eddie stopped by my office.

“I cashed in that lottery ticket.” He held out a twenty-dollar bill and five singles. “Here’s your share.”

“Thanks, buddy.” I took the bills from him. As soon as my schedule slowed down—if it
ever
slowed down—I’d swing by the Brighton store and treat myself to the designer pair of sunglasses I’d earned.

As Eddie left the room, an idea popped into my mind. I hopped onto Facebook and typed up a post.

Woo-hoo! I just won $15K in the lottery! This is my chance to do some real good. Trying to decide which charity I should donate the proceeds to. I’m considering an animal sanctuary, but I’m not sure. Anyone have a suggestion?

I hit the enter button and the post popped up on my page for all the world,
and especially the daisy-fresh “Laurel Brandeis,” whoever she really was,
to see. I hoped Laurel would come to me with the suggestion that I donate the proceeds to the nonexistent U.S. Red Cross. If that didn’t work, I’d approach the U.S. Red Cross directly via a Facebook message. I didn’t want to go that route unless I had to, though. The more direct I was, the more likely the Facecrook was to become suspicious. It would be much better if I could lie low, subtly draw the bad guy out of his cyber hidey-hole.

I stayed late at the office that night, ordering dinner in for myself and the night watchman perched on his lonely stool in the building’s lobby. Josh had downloaded the video clip of the thief at the bank. As I ate, I watched it all the way through five times, freezing it several times to take a closer look at the young man. No matter how closely I looked, though, no distinguishing characteristics popped out. All of his features were proportional and average-sized. No scars. No birthmarks. No tattoos that I could see. Straight teeth.

Remembering Josh’s earlier point about organizations posting membership rosters online, I Googled the address of the frat house and learned that it belonged to Gamma Gamma Theta. Logging on to the fraternity’s Web site, I was able to search by school and find the SMU chapter’s roster. Sure enough, it included not only a list of the members’ names but also a color headshot of each boy.

My eyes slowly made their way down the column of photos. The first photo depicted a white guy with brown hair. He was a definite
maybe
. The next photo was an African-American guy.
Nope.
The third was another white guy with brown hair. Another
maybe.
White guy with blond hair.
Nope.
Another white guy with brown hair.
Maybe
.

The problem was, any guy who belonged to a frat came from a family with enough money to fix things like oversized noses or crooked teeth. You know, the things that made people unique and identifiable and even interesting. Seriously, these frat rats might as well be clones.

Nonetheless, I continued on down the list, past Devon Peabody. When I’d reached the end of the listings, I had only eight
nopes
and thirty-two
maybes.
Not a good ratio. So much for the process of elimination.

Since I’d gone as far as I could on the phishing case for now, I moved on to the Unic case. It took me until eleven
P.M.
to work up the numbers, but once I’d computed taxes, interest, and penalties, Rodney Fowler would owe over a hundred grand on the payments made to Jackson, Hunter, and Aly. Being in the highest tax bracket sure did suck when you got hit with an underpayment. I added another line showing the additional ninety grand that would be owed if Sharla’s salary were adjusted downward to the average for directors of art museums. I’d found the salary data online.
Seriously, what did people do before the Internet?

I typed up a cover letter to go with the spreadsheet I’d drafted. In the cover letter, I noted that, per our professional art consultant with the fancy degree and Guggenheim pedigree, the Unic did not quack like the duck it purported to be. If the Unic didn’t want to lose its tax exemption, it had ninety days in which to start quacking. In other words, it needed to buy more art pieces, rotate its exhibits, and serve as more than just a tax-exempt space in which Aly Pelham could throw parties and Sharla Fowler could plan her next vacation. Yawning, I e-mailed a copy of the letter and spreadsheet to Rodney and Sharla, then dropped another copy in the mail to each of them as per IRS policy.

I raised a hand to the security guard as I exited the building. “Good night, Gordon.”

“Stay safe, Agent Holloway!” he called, raising his hand as well. “And thanks again for dinner.”

*   *   *

I woke Thursday morning and did what I’d done first thing every morning since Nick had gone undercover. I checked the secret phone for a message.

Nothing.

The screen was blank.

My heart slumped inside my chest. They say sometimes that no news is good news, but such was definitely not the case here. No news was definitely
bad
news. At worst, it meant that Nick was dead. At best, it meant that Nick was so imbedded with the bad guys that he couldn’t find a moment of privacy to contact me. The thought that he was working so closely with El Cuchillo made my blood freeze in my veins. If El Cuchillo wanted to lick my blood off his knife, he’d have a plasma Popsicle.