Chapter 22 – The IRS
Lynn was back at her CSIC desk writing up the report on the stalker case when Dave knocked on her door jam. “Good job on identifying the stalker, Lynn. I’m disappointed that there wasn’t enough evidence to get him arrested, but apparently he has given up his stalking of Mrs. Stevens. Any chance he will start stalking her again?”
“I don’t think so. I took some measures to ensure that wouldn’t happen.”
“Do I want to know about those measures?”
“Probably not.”
“Okay, I’ll leave it at that.”
“Have you got a new assignment for me yet?”
“I have something, but I’m worried that it’s too risky for you.”
“What do you mean by that! You don’t think I can take care of myself?”
“No, the last two cases demonstrated that you can take care of yourself just fine.”
“What then? Is it because I’m a woman?”
“No. A woman would be just what I need for this case. It’s just that . . . Jack was a good friend of mine. He would expect me to keep you out of danger.”
“No he wouldn’t. I was in more danger with him than I’ll see for the rest of my life.”
“I’ll think about it. We’ll talk again tomorrow. Finish up that report for now. . . . And don’t mention the ‘measures’ you took to keep the stalker away.”
Lynn had just completed the report and was wondering what to do next when her personal cell phone rang. She opened it and answered “This is Lynn.”
After a short silence a woman’s voice said “I’m sorry, I was trying to reach Cindy. I must have dialed the wrong number.”
“Nancy? Is that you?”
“Yes, but I want to talk to Cindy.”
“I am Cindy. That was my undercover identity for the U. S. Munitions assignment.”
“Wow. I knew there was more to you than met the eye. I’m calling to ask a question. Do you remember when you said you might be able to help me get revenge on my second husband?”
“Sure. And the offer is still good.”
“Well, he’s harassing me again. He calls me up and says he wants me back, and shows up in front of my apartment when I get home from work. I told him there’s no way we would ever get back together, but he won’t quit. Then last night he pushed his way into my apartment and started pulling my clothes off. ”
“Did he hurt you . . . or worse?”
“No. I told him if he didn’t leave I would start screaming so the neighbors would come and check on me. He pushed me away and left.”
“Are you free for lunch? We can talk about how to put an end to that.”
“Great! Where can we meet?”
“I’ll pick you up at the factory gate and take you to that Chili’s restaurant on 16th street.”
“Okay, see you then. You don’t know what a relief it is to have you on my side.”
Lynn and Nancy had finished their lunch before Lynn said, “Let’s get down to business. Tell me everything you can about your second husband, starting with his name.”
“Derek Dalton. He’s a branch manager for the First National Bank. He started there several years ago as a teller and worked his way up. He likes the power and prestige that he thinks goes with the position.”
“Do you know how much he makes?”
“No, he handled the finances.”
“How about credit cards – does he use them a lot?”
“I don’t know; he wouldn’t let me get one or use his.”
“Where does he live?”
“He got the house in the divorce . . . I had a lousy lawyer.”
“Does he have a mortgage on it?”
“Yes, we had a mortgage but I don’t know any of the details. . . . Oh, wait. I saw some mail from Capitol County Mortgage, so that’s probably where it is.”
“How about a car loan?”
“Definitely. He always drives the latest model Mercedes Benz and finances it through First National.”
“How about affairs? Did he have a mistress on the side.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t on the side. He openly flaunted her to me – bragging about how she was a better lover than me, telling me when he was going out with her, and putting her framed picture on his bed stand.”
“He’s a very cruel person to do that to you. He must have enjoyed torturing you about her. Do you know her name?”
“No, I asked several times but he wouldn’t tell me. He was probably afraid I’d confront her. I told him that the woman must not be real if he couldn’t give me her name; that he just made her up to torment me.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He dragged me into his study and played a video on his computer showing him and the woman making love.”
“Are you sure it was him? He could have found a video on the internet where the man looked something like him.”
“Oh, it was him all right. He has a birthmark on his shoulder.”
“Okay, I have the idea. But now I need some details, like account numbers for credit cards, banking, and loans. If I had a picture of the mistress I might be able to identify her. Of course her fingerprints would be even better. Is there any way you could get this information for me?”
Nancy thought for a few minutes, then replied “I still have a key to his house that he doesn’t know about. I suppose I could go in sometime when he’s at work and get what you need.”
“That’s pretty risky, Nancy. What if he comes home early? Like if he’s sick or something?”
“He’s never taken a sick day in his life. And it won’t take me long – I know where he keeps his files with this sort of stuff. If he does come home I can go out the back way.”
Lynn gave this some thought. I don’t like the risk involved, but if she’s my accomplice she can’t have a change of heart and turn me in.
“Alright, I’ll let you do it. But don’t remove any documents. Use your cell phone to take pictures then put them back. When can you get off work to do this?”
“I have some vacation time built up, so I’ll just take a day off next week.”
“Good. If you change your mind, just call it off. I can’t do much without the information, but I’ll figure something out.”
As Nancy drove past Derek’s house for the second time she looked for signs that someone might be there – his mistress maybe – but she saw no signs of anyone. She started to drive around the block once more, but turned into the alley that ran behind the row of houses. As she came up to Derek’s back yard she got out to open the gate. Oh oh! He has a padlock on it. I don’t want to go in the front door where someone might see me.
She got back in the car and started to leave, but then she thought of the tire iron in the trunk. She opened the trunk and rummaged around to find it. One of these days I’m going to clean up this mess. She finally found it wedged down into the spare tire compartment and started to work on the lock. She couldn’t see how it to pry the lock open, so she took a closer look at the hasp the lock went through. The wood it was screwed into looked old and cracked, so she wedged the tire iron behind it and pulled. After three tries with the screws giving a little more each time the hasp loop pulled out of the wood.
Nancy opened the back door and slipped in quietly. Derek’s office, where he kept all of his financial documents, was upstairs. As she opened the office door slowly it gave off a squeak. Was that loud enough for someone else to hear? She stepped in and quickly closed the door. She hurried over to Derek’s desk and pulled on the file drawer. Damn, it’s locked. What now? She looked around the room for something that she could use to open the drawer. I could go back to the car and get the tire iron, but that would leave signs that the desk was broken into. Maybe he hid a key somewhere. . . . but where?
She sat down in the desk chair and swiveled around. It would be a place where he can reach it without getting up from the desk. She stretched out her arm and rotated the chair in a circle. The only thi
ng within reach was an old cracked coffee mug on the window sill. When she picked it up and turned it over the key fell out in her hand. She unlocked the top desk drawer and pulled out the big file drawer. As she went through the folders looking for a likely place for the documents she stopped on one labeled Bills and Receipts. She pulled it out, put it on the desk, started paging through it for papers to photograph. Then she heard a door open and close . . .
Derek’s home! He’ll beat the crap out of me if he catches me here. . . . No wait. It wasn’t the front door, it was one of the upstairs doors. She listened intently for another noise that would tell her more. The toilet flushed, the water in the sink ran briefly, and the bathroom door opened. Whoever it is will be going back into the bedroom. I can hurry down the stairs and out the back door. When she didn’t hear the bedroom door Nancy opened the office door just enough to peek out. She saw a shapely woman in a thin negligee going down the stairs.
Crap!! Now I can’t get out. And I definitely don’t want to be caught taking pictures of the file documents. Then she heard sounds from the kitchen. She’s making coffee. I can’t get past her to the back door. The front door! I’ll have to use that. She looked at the file folder on the desk, then scooped it up and took it with her. She was halfway down the stairs when she froze. Did I close and lock the file drawer? I think so, but maybe not. I can’t risk it. I’ll have to go back.
Nancy turned and tiptoed back up the steps to the office. She pushed the door open quickly – this time and it was silent. She went around the desk and found the drawer still open. She closed and locked it and then, as an afterthought, she quickly went through the other drawers for anything useful. All she found was a framed photo of his mistress; the one she just watched walk down the stairs. She slipped it into the file folder, put the key back in the cup, and hurried down the steps to the front door.
As she closed the door behind her she wondered how long it would take Derek to realize the folder was missing. He usually did the household accounting twice a month. The end of the month was a week away, so that’s when he’s likely to find out. I hope Lynn has what she needs by then. Something that will keep his mind off the bills.
When she was on her way out of the neighborhood she called Lynn’s cell phone. She was bubbling over with excitement and talking a mile a minute. Lynn assured her that was a normal response to getting out of a fearful situation.
“Jack called it the post-mission high.” When Nancy told her the details she commented “You must have been terrified, but it sounds like you’re someone who can think clearly in a tight spot.”
“So what now? When can I hand over the files to you?”
“I’ll be off work in about an hour. Why don’t you come over to my place in say, two hours, and we can go over the papers together. I’ll bring some carry-out for supper. Will that work for you?”
“Sure. Are you still in that old motel near the factory?”
Lynn laughed. “No, that was part of my undercover operation. I’m back at my apartment in downtown Philly now.” She told Nancy the address and the code to get her into underground parking.
“Great. See you then.”
As Nancy was taking the elevator to Lynn’s floor she was amazed that the woman she knew as Cindy could live in a place like this. She must be making big bucks, but after seeing her in action she’s worth every penny. When Lynn welcomed her into the apartment she was even more amazed. “How can you afford this place. Are you a millionaire or something?”
“Oh, this isn’t my place. It belongs to the company, Cramer Security and Investigation Company. It’s a VIP suite for corporate guests. They’re letting me live in it until another apartment opens up.”
“Watch out that you don’t get spoiled. It’ll be tough to move down to something ordinary after this.”
“I’m pretty much satisfied with anything that doesn’t have roaches. . . . I brought home a variety of stuff from P. F. Chang’s. Let’s eat before it gets cold. The dishes are up in that cabinet. You can set the table while I put the food in serving dishes.”
They chatted while they ate and Lynn filled her in on her life – meeting Jack in Junior High School then marrying him forty years later, the close calls during their attacks from Winston’s hired thugs, and their “retirement” to her place in Telluride.
“Your lives sound like a conspiracy novel. With all you’ve been through it might take two novels. When did your husband die?”
Lynn thought, Here it comes again. The pain and the crying. But she immediately diverted her mind to cross country skiing with Jack and stopped the onslaught. Should I tell her the story? . . . No reason to. I’ll tell her part of it.
“Jack was killed in a fire. My home in Telluride burned to the ground with him and my granddaughter inside.”
“Oh, how awful!”
“It was at the time. I went into a dark depression for awhile, but some friends pulled me out of my well of self-pity and brought me here to this job.”
“Everyone needs friends like that.”
Lynn wanted to change the subject before her reserve broke down, so she got up and cleared the table. With the dishes in the sink she said, “Alright, let’s get started.”
Nancy laid the accordion file folder on the dinner table and opened it up. “I don’t know what’s in here. I didn’t have much time before I had to get out of there. It looks like Derek has everything filed in subfolders – monthly bills in one, bank and credit card statements behind that, then mortgage and auto loan papers followed by tax documents. Why don’t we each take a subfolder and go through it looking for the information you need, plus anything else that might be useful. I’ll start with monthly bills and write down all the account numbers.”
“I’ll start at the other end with taxes and work toward the middle.”
Nancy was already on her third subfolder while Lynn was still focused on Dalton’s taxes. She said with a smile, “Will you look at that. You ex has been cheating on his taxes for years.”
“Like how?”
“Well, for starters he’s been claiming the marriage deduction every year since your wedding, even after the divorce. He claims you as a dependent living at home. And there are several suspicious business deductions, including motel bills that are probably from his trysts with the mistress. It looks like he forged your signature on the joint tax return. It will take me a week or two, but there may be enough here to put him in prison for tax fraud.”
“Put him in prison?”
“Yes. Is that payback a little harsher than you have in mind?”
“No, I was hoping for the electric chair.”
Lynn laughed at that. “Seriously, what level of retribution do you have in mind? We can probably put him jail for the tax issue – that would get him maybe three years. There will be some pretty hefty fines and back taxes to go along with that. Or we can create financial difficulties on various levels – overdrawn credit cards, missing mortgage payments, money missing from his bank account – that sort of thing. We could also get him demoted, or even fired, from First National Bank based on the tax fraud or some apparent embezzling.”
“What do you mean by ‘apparent embezzling?’”
“I can make some money disappear from investment accounts he manages – enough to trigger an audit – that would likely get him fired. After he’s gone, I would put the money back into the client’s account.”
“You can do that? How do you do that?”
“Sorry. Trade secret.”
“So you could do that to anybody – even me.”
“It’s possible. But I’m the good guy in this story. I make sure the target has done what he or she is accused of and that the penalty is suitable for their behavior.”
“So what do you think is suitable for Derek.?”
“Well, he should have spent some jail time for abusing you like he did, so I think the IRS legal trouble is appropriate for him.”
Nancy thought for a minute. “That?
??s good, but I want something to happen to his mistress. Nothing real bad. Just enough to remind her of what she is. . . . Oh! Wait a minute. I brought something back from his desk drawers.” She rummaged around in her oversized purse until she found it. This is the picture of her that he kept beside our bed.”
Lynn pulled a tissue from a box on her desk and took the picture from Nancy. “There may be some fingerprints of hers on this. I’ll get a friend of mine to lift some prints and try to find a match. Assuming he can identify her, what could we do that would remind her of who she is?”
“I don’t know. She’s nothing but a glorified prostitute who thinks the term mistress is somehow less revolting.”
“Let me think about her for awhile. In the meantime I’ll finish going over Mr. Dalton’s tax records to see what else I can find.”
They spent another two hours finishing up their examination of Drake’s records. Lynn had a list of several other suspicious tax deductions that she would have to check out. Nancy stretched her arms over her head and said, “Thanks for a truly enjoyable evening, Lynn. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun plotting against someone who has it coming. I’d better get back. I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
“Me too. But I don’t have to drive to work and fight the traffic. I walk to work and stop off for a Starbuck’s on the way.”
“Ahh. What a life. I’ll never get there, but I will have peace in my life because of you.”
Lynn stayed up half the night digging deeper into Drake’s tax records. After checking the statutes, she ended up with half a dozen actions that were definitely illegal and another ten she couldn’t be sure about. I’ll hack into the IRS computer system and tag Mr. Dalton for immediate investigation of the actions I’ve listed. She left a quick link into his IRS file so she could check back later and see how the investigation was proceeding. If necessary she could speed it up by injecting some additional violations.
By the time she rolled into bed she was dead tired. She slid between the sheets and was asleep in thirty seconds. When she woke up she was in Jack’s cabin. There was a full moon outside, but other than moonlight through the windows, the cabin was dark. She got up, walked barefoot into the living room, and peered out the big window. She thought she saw someone out there, but the image was fuzzy. She blinked to clear her eyes but it didn’t help. Whoever it was they were approaching the cabin. She rubbed her eyes to get a clear view but still couldn’t make out the details of the visitor. She turned toward the door to go outside for a better look when Jack appeared and shouted “Get down!” just before he tackled her. Lynn heard the crack of a rifle and the front window burst inward in hundreds of pieces. She looked up at the space where the window used to be to see the woman in a black combat outfit – the one from an earlier nightmare – lean in and point an M-16 at her forehead. Jack rolled in front of her just as the gun started spitting out bullets. She felt Jack’s body jerk with the impact of the bullets and screamed.
She woke up sobbing and looked around the room to make sure that she wasn’t still dreaming. She ran into the living room to see the apartment window intact and no Jack. She wailed “Who is that woman, Jack? What are you trying to tell me?”
When Lynn got to work the next morning she stopped by the lab and asked her friendly technician if he could examine the picture frame and photograph surface for identifiable finger prints. “This one is a personal favor, Ian. It’s for a friend I’m trying to help out.” She smiled at him and he blushed – like he always did around her. I think he’s sweet on me. I’ll have to let him take me out to dinner as compensation for what he’s doing for me.
Back in her office she worked on some investigations into the bank accounts of deadbeat dads – men who had left their families, were ordered by the court to pay child support, but had quit paying. Some of them had lost their jobs and couldn’t afford to pay, but most just wanted to keep more of their income. CSIC took on cases like this at no charge as a service to the community. Lynn or another investigator would get a court order to open bank accounts for a look at income and savings, then turn the information over to the court system for enforcement. Lynn had requested a warrant for two such dads, but the court was notoriously slow in issuing them. Lynn’s approach was to hack into their bank and investment accounts for the information before she had the warrant. Then, when the warrant arrived, she could immediately turn everything in to the courts.
It took her most of the day to get the account information of three deadbeats. One of them had a meager bank account with little income but owned a luxury car and condo. She dug a little deeper and found a large bank account he hadn’t reported to the court. She smiled when she thought about the worthless father being dragged into court to pay what’s due. She was about to call Ian to see how he was coming with the fingerprints when the phone rang. It was O’Malley telling her he had the results ready . . . and-oh-by-the-way- can-I-take-you-to-dinner tonight? That’s how he said it – all run together like one long sentence he had to get out before she hung up. She thanked him and asked for a rain check and said she would be down in a few minutes to get the results.
When she got home Lynn opened the envelope Ian gave her and found out that the woman’s name was Louise Wilkerson. A quick internet search provided her address and phone number. Time for payback, Louise. With that thought Lynn hacked into the Philadelphia Police Department and created a false warrant for her arrest on prostitution charges. She would spend a couple days in jail before the police could sort it all out. While she was in jail, Lynn would add a positive HIV test result to her record just for good measure.
After she was finished she called Nancy to report her success. Nancy’s gleeful response amplified Lynn’s feeling of satisfaction. She sat back and thought about this for awhile – the good feeling she got when she helped people with their problems. A thought was forming in her mind, so she carried on a discussion with herself to fill in the details.
“Maybe I could do this full time. Start my own investigation business to help those who have been wronged.”
“But how would I find people who need my help? I can’t advertise because what I do is mostly against the law.”
“Maybe word of mouth – my happy clients telling their friends about me. That would start out slowly but as my client base grows more will come.”
“I can’t do it all by myself. I would need an assistant to do all the boring paperwork stuff . . . but who do I know that I can trust? Maybe Harriet would want in on this. Her federal agent experience might come in handy.”
“No, she won’t want to leave Rick and The Farm to come here to Philly.”
“But I don’t have to work out of here; I can do my stuff from anywhere. So maybe they will let me work out of the Farm. I could even live there.”
“This line of thinking is getting interesting. What would I call my business? Preston Investigations?”
“But I do more than investigate. I help the clients get retribution against those who did them wrong.”
“How about Retribution Incorporated . . . no, Revenge Incorporated – Revenge Inc. That has a nice sound to it.”
“I’ve convinced myself. I’ll go ahead and make some plans.”
Lynn turned back to her computer and started a list of action items.