When I returned to my office, I had several voice mails and e-mails from the dating services. All of them said the same thing. The head shot Jack Smirnoff used in his Big D Dating Service profile had appeared on none of the other sites.
What did this mean? Had he only listed a profile on the Big D site? Or had he used different head shots on other sites? If he used different head shots, had he taken photos at another photography studio in addition to Savannah’s? My lack of luck in the catfishing case was causing me no end of frustration.
I logged into my e-mail and sent copies of the new head shots to the dating sites, along with a message that read: The catfisher had additional head shots taken. Please search your site for these new pics. Thank you!
I also forwarded Smirnoff’s new head shots to Josh and dialed his office from my desk phone. “Hey, buddy,” I said when he picked up. “I just sent you some new photos.” I asked if he could mine them for data like he’d done with the earlier pic and send me the resulting links.
“I’ll get right on it.”
The only way I knew to try to find the guy was to see if he’d posted the new head shots on a public dating site somewhere, dropping the bait for his next catfishing victim. I crossed my fingers something would turn up, though I doubted it would. The free, public sites didn’t seem like places a con artist would look for financially stable victims. Anyone who couldn’t afford a membership fee at a more reputable dating site probably wouldn’t be able to successfully cash his bogus checks.
Nataya had sent me her credit card bill that showed the fraudulent charges made at The Galleria. Whoever had used her card clearly had good taste. He—or she, since it wasn’t certain Jack was the culprit—had spent hefty sums at the Armani store, Michael Kors, and the St. Croix Shop. I decided to make a trip to The Galleria and see what Security could tell me.
Twenty minutes later, I entered the mall, window-shopping as I made my way to the administrative offices. Luckily for me, the security supervisor was in his office, his round, shiny forehead reflecting the fluorescent lights above like a miner’s headlamp. Appropriate, since I was here to mine for information, hoping to hit the mother lode.
“Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to a boxy vinyl chair in front of his desk.
I jumped right in. “I’m working a check fraud case,” I told him. “One of the victims believes the man who passed the bad check also stole her credit card. It was used at a half-dozen stores here a few months ago.”
I pulled out the copy of Nataya Lawan’s MasterCard bill and laid it on his desk.
He looked it over, his eyes narrowing. “This name sounds familiar.” He raised a finger. “Give me just a second.” He logged on to his computer, tapped a few keys, and read over the screen before turning his focus back to me. “I’ve got a file on this.” He gestured toward his screen. “It says she called Security several days after the card was used here and reported the thefts. One of my men spoke with the staff at the stores and checked the security camera footage. He was able to determine which customer used the card.” He glanced at his screen again. “Says here it was a Caucasian male estimated to be around forty. Brown hair. No distinguishing characteristics of note. The outdoor feeds caught him exiting the mall but lost him at the edge of the parking lot.”
Damn.
He shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, but this is pretty typical. These credit card thieves know they’ve got a limited window to use the stolen cards, and they rack up as many charges as they can before the card gets canceled. They also know to park off-site so they can’t be identified by their license plates.”
I, too, was all too familiar with this kind of fraud. I supposed it had been too much to hope the guy would have slipped up.
I stood to go. “I appreciate your help.”
“Anytime,” he said.
I returned to my car feeling frustrated. Sometimes it seemed that my work was futile, a vain attempt to put out financial fires. While I was busting my ass trying to nab one crook, ten new crooks cropped up to take his place, taking advantage of more victims. Would it never end?
Probably not, I told myself. But that’s no excuse to stop trying. Quit your whining.
While I was out of the office, I figured I might as well follow up with some of the other businesses Flo Cash had mentioned on KCSH. The owner of Doo-Wop Donuts might have claimed she’d paid nothing in return for Flo promoting her business on the radio, but I wasn’t buying that she hadn’t bought the ads. It was doubtful Flo would take up valuable airtime extolling the virtues of a business if she weren’t being paid. Flo might not charge top advertising rates for the casual shout-outs she gave some of the businesses, but surely she wasn’t simply mentioning them out of the goodness of her heart. Somewhere, somehow, she was getting compensation. I was sure of it.
I pulled out the list of businesses Flo had mentioned yesterday and looked for ones that were in the general area of where I was now, north of downtown. I decided to spend the rest of Thursday morning visiting two of the businesses—a hair salon and a children’s consignment shop.
The salon, Hair to Dye For, sat on Walnut Hill Lane, near the Dallas North Tollway, and appeared to cater to the well-heeled clientele who lived in the upscale neighborhoods nearby, including Preston Hollow, home to former president George W. Bush. A string of silver bells hung from the front door, announcing my entry with a tinkle-tinkle-tinkle. The smells of fruit-scented shampoo and styling products danced in my nose.
The receptionist sat on a stool behind an elevated counter. “Good morning. Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” I said. “No appointment.”
She turned and called back over her shoulder at the four stylists working on clients at their stations, “Can anyone take a walk-in?”
I raised a palm. “I’m not in need of services.”
She ran her gaze over my locks. “Are you sure about that?”
Okay, so maybe I’d skimped on my usual morning routine to make sure I got to the portrait studio on time. Sheesh. “I’m from the federal government,” I said. “I need to speak to the owner.”
She looked just as incredulous that I could be a federal agent as she was about my professed lack of need for styling services. Really, how many asses would I have to kick before people would start taking me seriously?
The woman stood from her seat. “Mitzi’s the owner. Give me a second.” She walked over to an attractive sixtyish blonde who was putting the finishing touches on a raven-haired thirtysomething. The receptionist pulled the stylist aside to whisper in her ear.
Mitzi’s gaze snapped from the floor to me, her posture stiffening. Once more I felt like the unwelcome magazine salesman. She said something to the receptionist, then stepped back to her client to apply a final coating of hair spray.
The receptionist returned to me. “Let me show you to the office.”
“Thanks.”
She led me to an open door at the end of a short hallway at the back of the space and gestured to a leopard-print chair inside the room. “Have a seat. Mitzi will be back as soon as she’s finished.”
My butt had barely hit the chair when Mitzi entered the room, closing the door behind her. “How can I help you?” she asked as she circled the small antique desk to take a seat behind it.
I laid my business card on the desk and nudged it toward her. “I’m with the Internal Revenue Service. I’m investigating a company that your salon advertises with.”
“D Magazine?” she asked, referencing a ritzy local rag.
“No.”
“The Dallas Morning News?” she inquired. “We buy ads in their FD magazine insert.”
The insert was a luxury lifestyle mag, a glossy supplement published ten times a year. Surely those ads cost a pretty penny.
“No,” I replied. “Not that, either.”
Parallel lines formed between her perfectly waxed brows as they drew inward. “The only other ads we run are discount coupons for first-time clients in the Dollar Deals mailers. Is that what you’re referring to?”
The mailers arrived once a month in a thick envelope that included coupons for neighborhood businesses offering anything from carpet cleaning to shoe repair. I routinely used the coupons for my dry cleaning.
“I’m not referring to print ads,” I told the woman.
“Print ads are all we do,” Mitzi replied. “Commercials on television or the radio are too expensive and not well targeted. There’s no point in paying for that type of advertising when our primary clientele are higher-income people who live within a two- or three-mile radius of the salon.”
Hm-m. Not only did this woman know Brazilian blowouts; she also knew business.
“I’m talking about your ads on KCSH Radio.”
“Like I said,” Mitzi replied with a shrug, “we don’t do radio ads.”
I eyed her closely. “Flo Cash has mentioned your salon multiple times on the air.”
“Ms. Cash is a client,” Mitzi said. “If she’s mentioned the salon on air it must mean she’s happy with our services.”
“So you’re not paying her cash for the ads?”
“Absolutely not. I need tax deductions as well as the next business. If I were paying for ads I’d want a paper trail in case my business was audited. Surely you, as an IRS agent, can understand that.”
I could. Was I off base here, or was this woman not giving me the full story? Either way, it seemed I’d get no further with her. She’d risen from her seat, clearly dismissing me.
“All right, then.” I, too, stood to go. “Thank you for your time.”
She reached over to a basket on her desk, fished out a sample of conditioner, and held it out to me. “Try this. It’ll do wonders to fight your frizz.”
Frizz? The nerve of this woman! “We can’t accept anything from taxpayers.” Other than insults, that is. Those were generously and frequently tossed our way.
As I walked back through the salon, one of the stylists shook her head at something her client had just said. “What was he thinking, talking to you like that?” She pointed her scissors at her client’s reflection in the mirror. “Next time he says something so stupid, you send him my way. I’ll take care of him.” She made a snip-snip motion with her scissors, and she and her client shared a raucous laugh.
I returned to my car and headed to Hand-Me-Down Town, the children’s resale shop. I found the store’s owner wrangling a secondhand portable crib in the back corner.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Special Agent Tara Holloway with IRS Criminal Investigations.” I held out my business card.
Rather than taking it, she continued to wrestle with the crib but lifted her chin to indicate a high chair nearby. “Put it on the tray.”
I laid my card on the plastic tray attached to the chair. “I’d like to ask you about your advertising,” I said. “Specifically about payments to KCSH for radio time.”
She hardly bothered to look up as she snapped the legs into place. “I don’t pay KCSH for ads.”
Ugh-h-h-h.… “You must compensate the station somehow,” I said. After all, this was America, land of capitalists. You don’t get something for nothing here. “Airtime is valuable. They wouldn’t give it away for free.”
She put a hand on the upper rail of the crib and jiggled it to test its stability. Satisfied, she finally focused her attention on me. “Look. I already told you I don’t pay KCSH. I’m not giving you any further financial information. How do I know you’re not some scam artist trying to steal my bank account number? How do I even know you’re from the IRS?”
I gestured to my card on the high chair and pulled out my badge, holding it out to her. “Does this convince you?”
“No,” she scoffed. “I’ve got no idea what an IRS badge is supposed to look like. How do I know it’s for real?”
This wasn’t the first time my position would be questioned, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. While Americans were accustomed to hearing about armed agents from the FBI, ATF, and DEA, most people didn’t realize the Treasury Department also had a crew of criminal law enforcement agents.
“How about this?” I said, pushing back my jacket to reveal the GLOCK holstered at my waist. “Standard federal government weapon.”
The woman gasped, sputtered, and pointed to the door. “Out! Now!” she shrieked. “I don’t allow guns in my shop!”
As a federal agent, I was exempt from regulations that allowed private store owners to prohibit weapons on their premises. But there seemed no point in pressing the issue, at least not right now. The woman was agitated and continued to scream at me. “This is a family business! A children’s shop! You have no right to endanger my customers!”
I looked around the empty shop. What customers? I was tempted to ask. Nonetheless, I chose to comply, backing toward the door. “Don’t be surprised if you get a subpoena from me.”
She ushered me outside and stepped back into the shop, turning the inside knob and locking me out with a click. She issued a final glare and muffled shriek through the glass. “Don’t be surprised if you get a call from my congressman’s office telling you to stop threatening innocent people!”
She stepped away from the door without bidding me good-bye. Seriously, where are people’s manners these days?
With a deep sigh of resignation, I returned to my car. By this time, it was nearing noon and my stomach growled to remind me to fill it. But first, I decided to drive by KCSH. I didn’t expect to learn anything from merely driving past a building, of course, but I felt an instinctive urge to do it, like a shark circling its prey. Besides, part of me hoped Flo might spot me passing by and feel a little heat.
As I approached the building, a silver Toyota with a car-top sign for Szechuan Express turned into the lot. I rolled to a stop at the curb and pulled my dad’s oversized field glasses from my glove compartment. A twentyish Asian deliveryman exited the car and carried two large bags inside. Putting the binoculars to my eyes, I aimed them through the front glass door of the radio station. Through the lenses I saw the man hand the bags to the young woman I’d met when I’d come to the station before. Rather than waiting for payment or even a tip, he turned immediately around and left the building, returning to his car. Odd that he hadn’t collected payment for the food. Maybe they’d ordered online with a credit card?
The man slid into his car, closed the door, and appeared to be typing his next delivery address into the GPS system mounted on his dash. I took advantage of the time to pull up the restaurant’s Web site on my phone. While the site listed a phone number customers could call to place orders, there appeared to be no way to submit an order online. Hm-m …
The delivery driver backed out of the space. I followed the car as it turned out of the lot, stopping behind it at a red light a block down. I waved my hand behind my windshield, hoping to get the driver’s attention in his rearview mirror so I could signal him to pull over. Not easy to do without a siren or flashing lights. He failed to notice my flailing arm.
The light turned green and traffic began moving. I tried a different tack, pulling up next to the delivery driver and unrolling my window, waving again to try to get his attention. I even hollered, “Law enforcement! Pull over!”
No such luck. A throbbing bass line loud enough to reverberate through his car had drowned me out.
As the light turned green and we moved on another time, I pulled ahead of him and cut in, slowing so I could signal him to pull to the side behind me. He didn’t give me a chance. Before I could even attempt a hand gesture, he zipped around me like a NASCAR driver hell-bent on winning a race. This guy could give Jeff Gordon a run for his money.
As we approached the next intersection, the light ahead cycled to yellow. The delivery driver gunned his engine to make the light. Vroooom! I gunned mine, too—vroom!—sailing through it a couple seconds after it turned red.
Whoop-whoop! Lights flashed as a police cruiser pulled up on my tail.
“Dammit!” I slammed a palm against my steering wheel. I couldn’t manage to pull the delivery driver over, but Dallas PD had no problem getting me to pull aside. I knew better than to exit my car, which could appear to be an aggressive, threatening move, but once I’d stopped on the shoulder I put my hand out the window and gestured to hurry the cop up.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t about to be rushed. He climbed slowly from his squad car and sauntered up to my vehicle, taking his sweet time about it. Apparently he’d failed to notice my U.S. government license plates. A rookie, no doubt.
I stuck my head and badge out the window. “IRS agent on official government business!” I hollered.
He stopped in his tracks and took a couple of steps in reverse to check out my back bumper. “Sorry, ma’am!” he called, raising a conciliatory palm. “Be on your way.”
I pulled back into traffic, my eyes scanning the road ahead and the side streets for any sign of the Toyota. The Szechuan Express delivery car was nowhere to be seen. Phooey, phooey, chop suey. Still, it couldn’t hurt to go directly to the restaurant, right? It was lunchtime, after all. I could pick up an order of orange chicken while I was there and kill two birds with one stone. Then I could eat one of those birds with a side of rice.
At the next red light, I checked the Web site for the restaurant, which was still pulled up on my phone. It was only a mile from my current location. Good. Mama needs an egg roll.
A couple of minutes later, I walked into the restaurant. A Chinese woman in a pretty silk blouse waited at the hostess stand. “Just one today?” she said in perfect English.
“Actually, I need to speak to the owner or manager,” I said.
“What about?” she asked, her face drawing in alarm and her English sounding a little less perfect now.
“I’m from the IRS. I have some questions about the restaurant’s advertisements.”
Her mastery of the English language evaporated like steam from a dumpling. “I owner,” she said. “But English not good.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “All I need to know is why your deliveryman just dropped two bags of food at KCSH but collected no payment.”
“No pay?” the woman said. “Food no free. Customer must pay bill.”
“Even Flo Cash?” I asked. “Or does she get some type of special deal because your business runs commercials on her station?”
“Specials?” the woman said. “Today special Buddha’s delight.”
I lost the battle. I rolled my eyes. “So suddenly you’re going to pretend not to understand me, huh? In that case, hand me a take-out menu.” I might have gotten no answers, but I would get lunch.
I placed my order for the special. I hadn’t managed to kill the first bird, so I might as well let the other live, too. Besides, it wouldn’t kill me to eat more vegetables.
I took a seat on a padded bench next to a bamboo plant in the small foyer. While I waited for my food, I thought things over. Maybe the businesses that Flo promoted off the books weren’t paying her in cash. Maybe they were paying her in donuts and haircuts and moo goo gai pan. If only one of them would fess up. So far, all they’d been was a moo goo gai pan in the ass.
When my food was ready, the woman handed me the bag. “Thirteen eighty-five,” she said, the perfect English having returned.
After paying for my lunch, I carried the bag out to the parking lot. The Toyota I’d been following earlier pulled in. I scurried over and cornered the deliveryman as he climbed out of his car. The restaurant’s owner had been tight-lipped, but maybe I could get a confession out of this guy.
“I’m with the IRS,” I said, flashing my badge. “I need to know why you didn’t collect payment for the food you delivered to KCSH Radio.”
He scrunched his shoulders. “I do what my boss tells me and she says not to collect when I deliver there. That’s all I know.”
“So you take food to KCSH regularly, then?”
“At least once or twice a week.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“As long as I can remember,” the guy replied. “I started working here three years ago.”
The door to the restaurant banged open and the woman I’d spoken with a moment earlier stepped outside and shooed me away. “No time for questions! He busy! Many delivery!”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks,” I told the young man, stepping back to let him return to his job.
As I walked back to my car, I performed some mental calculations. The deliveryman had taken two large bags into KCSH, probably enough food for Flo and her three employees. Even assuming they’d chosen some of the less expensive items on the menu, their bill would be at least forty dollars. Multiply that by an estimated six meals per month and Flo had received $240 in value per month. Multiply that monthly amount by twelve and she’d received nearly three grand in food per year for at least three years. That amount warranted a quick mention or two on the air, didn’t it?
I drove back to the IRS building, parked, and carried my lunch inside.
As I returned to my office, Nick looked up from his desk. “Got enough to share?”
“Sure,” I said, angling my head in invitation toward my office. “It’s a date.”
Several minutes later, the two of us were kicked back in my wing chairs, our feet propped on my desk, chowing down.
In between bites, I told Nick about my unsuccessful morning trying to get information from the businesses Flo touted on air. “Nobody will tell me anything,” I lamented. “Even when I showed my badge and gun. Am I losing my edge?”
“Nah,” Nick said. “People just play dumb. Of course some of them don’t have to play too hard.”
He had that right. I swallowed a bite of rice. “You think Flo’s giving these businesses air time in return for services and food? That she’s got some type of off-the-books quid pro quo going on?” Or, in the case of the hair salon, curl pro quo?
“It wouldn’t surprise me.” He gave me a pointed look. “Now all you have to do is prove it.”
Easier said than done.
Having polished off my egg roll and my portion of the Buddha’s delight, I tossed my trash into my wastebasket and pulled a fortune cookie from the bag, tossing the second cookie to Nick. Of course the softball MVP snatched it easily from the air, despite my off-aim throw. I removed the clear crinkly wrap and snapped my crunchy cookie in two, stuffing the empty half into my mouth. As I chewed—crunch-crunch-crunch—I pulled the white slip of paper from the other half of the cookie and read it.
The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
Huh. I swallowed the cookie and read it aloud to Nick. “What do you think it means?”
“Heck if I know. It makes me picture some hillbilly blowing into a jug to make music.”
I doubted a jug band was what the fortune cookie manufacturer had in mind, but I supposed these cryptic fortunes were subject to all kinds of interpretation. “What’s yours say?”
He looked up from the slip in his fingers. “And they lived happily ever after.”
“That’s not a fortune,” I said. “That’s the ending to a fairy tale.”
“Maybe,” he said, a grin playing about his lips. “And maybe I’m your Prince Charming.”
“I don’t want a Prince Charming,” I said. “He didn’t earn his position; he was born into it. Anyone can do that. I’d rather have a man of action, one who’d earned his place in the world. You know, a knight in shining armor.”
Nick gathered up his things and tossed them in the trash can, too.
“Back to work?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said, his face bearing a full-on grin now. “Off to see a blacksmith for a metal suit.”
Aw. Sweet, huh? “Forget the metal suit for now,” I said. “Put on your workout gear and come with me to an MMA class tonight. I found a place that offers a free introductory class and signed us up.”
Given my small stature, my targets often underestimated me and rarely gave up without a fight. Tonight’s class could come in handy in case I tracked Jack Smirnoff down, history repeated itself, and the two of us ended up going head-to-head. While I was a sure shot with my gun, I knew I’d be up shit creek if I fired on an unarmed person, even if that unarmed person was a black belt. I’d faced one excessive force charge already, and I wasn’t about to go through that ordeal again. Of course I knew one class wouldn’t be sufficient for me to best a black belt. But maybe they’d at least teach some evasive maneuvers that could keep me from totally getting my ass kicked.
“Sounds fun.” A grin played about Nick’s lips. “I hope you and I get a chance to spar.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’d kick your butt.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d like to see you try.”
Lu flitted past in the hall, shaking a finger as she went. “I told you two no flirting on the job!”