Death, Taxes, and Peach Sangria (28 page)

Magnolia shrugged. “I don’t care what it cost. It’s still ugly.”

I was with her. I’d always thought the lamp was ugly, too.

Though she tried again to conjure up an image, the woman wasn’t able to see anything
more. We thanked her for her time and the information and went next door for more
chocolate coconut cupcakes. We ate them in my car on the way home.

For the first time in days, Alicia seemed happy and optimistic. I hoped the crystal
ball was right. If Daniel didn’t come back to Alicia soon, maybe I’d have to force
fate, kick Daniel in his crystal balls until he realized what a fool he’d been to
let Alicia go.

*   *   *

Late afternoon on Tuesday, I received information via e-mail from the companies that
had issued the money orders and traveler’s checks. They’d also sent images of the
back and front of each instrument. All of them had been cashed by the same individual,
someone purportedly named Albert Strohmeyer, Jr. All of them had been cashed in the
Dallas–Fort Worth area.

“Damn!” The fact they’d been cashed locally rather than overseas meant they weren’t
related to the terrorist financing. The odds of Sakhani being the man we were looking
for now seemed slim to none. I wished the crystal ball had been able to tell me that.
It would’ve saved me some time.

According to both companies, all of the instruments had been reported by Sakhani as
stolen. The companies had issued replacements and sucked up the loss.

Had Sakhani committed some type of fraud? Was that why he hadn’t wanted me to look
at his records?

I forwarded the data to Eddie, Agent Wang, and Agent Zardooz. The next step would
be finding out something about this Albert Strohmeyer, if indeed he even existed.
For all I knew the name had been concocted as a cover.

I logged into our research system and found out that not only did Albert Strohmeyer
actually exist, but also that he was a grade-A loser. He was in his early sixties
and had been terminated from dozens of menial jobs over the years. Fry cook at a diner.
Elementary-school custodian. Garbage collector. He also had a criminal record, including
three convictions for petty thievery at retail stores, two convictions for writing
bad checks, and one for theft of services after he’d left a Supercuts without paying
for his trim.

The most interesting tidbit I learned about Albert was that he currently worked the
evening shift at JS Shipping.

I printed out Strohmeyer’s rap sheet and employment history and headed down the hall
toward Eddie’s office. I passed Josh’s digs on the way, backtracking when I realized
he had his head down on his desk.

I rapped on his door frame. “Hey, lover boy. You all right?”

Josh lifted his head. He’d removed the gold ring, but his nose still appeared inflamed.
“Kira broke up with me.”

“What?” I stepped into his office. “Why?”

By all appearances, things between the two of them had been progressing nicely. They’d
met for lunch several times, attended a book signing for their mutual favorite spy
novelist, engaged in something called geocaching that Josh described as a high-tech
scavenger hunt. Heck, they’d even begun to build some type of supercomputer together.
If that didn’t spell commitment, I don’t know what did.

“I don’t know why she dumped me,” Josh said, his face miserable. “I thought she’d
like my piercing, but she took one look at it and said she thought we should move
on.”

“Is she squeamish?” Maybe she’d been creeped out by his swollen nostril. The thing
had been quite revolting. My breakfast had turned cartwheels in my stomach when I’d
seen it.

“I don’t think so,” Josh said. “We babysat her little brother one night and she yanked
his loose tooth out with her bare hand.”

So not squeamish, then. Hmm.

“Would you talk to her for me?” Josh asked. “I really like her and I thought she liked
me, too.”

Did I really want to get in the middle of Josh and Kira’s relationship? No. But did
I want to watch Josh mope around the office for weeks? No. The twerp had grown on
me a little bit.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk to her.” I wasn’t sure whether it would do any good. I
couldn’t seem to get my own relationships in order. How was I supposed to help someone
else fix his love life?

Josh’s face brightened. “Thanks, Tara.”

I continued down the hall to Eddie’s office and plopped myself down in one of his
chairs. I handed him the paperwork and gave him a few minutes to look it over.

“Whaddya think?”

Eddie frowned. “I think there’s some monkey business going on at JS Shipping. But
I don’t think it’s the monkey business we’re interested in.”

My thoughts exactly. Still, MSBs fell under our purview. Might as well figure out
what was going on, right?

Eddie grabbed his suit jacket and I grabbed my purse and we headed over to JS. On
the drive over, I put in calls to Agents Wang and Zardooz, letting them know Eddie
and I were on our way to JS and that it appeared to be a dead end as far as the terrorism
case was concerned.

When Eddie and I arrived, we spent several minutes interrogating Sakhani about the
missing money orders and traveler’s checks. He grew more and more enraged with each
question.

“What are you accusing me of?” he shouted, waving his hands wildly. “I do not steal.”

“Albert Strohmeyer does,” I said.

Sakhani’s head snapped my way. “What are you talking about?”

I pulled the rap sheet from my briefcase but held it close to my chest. “Did you run
a background check on Strohmeyer when you hired him?”

“Of course I did,” Sakhani said. “I run a background check on every new employee.”

Eddie jumped in now. “Any chance you’ve got a copy of it handy?”

Sakhani retrieved Strohmeyer’s employment file and showed us the background check
report. Sure enough, none of the convictions showed up on Sakhani’s document.

We spread the paperwork out on the desk and tried to make sense of the situation.

“Wait a minute,” Eddie said as he looked over the reports. “The clean background check
is for Albert Strohmeyer. Our rap sheet is for Albert Strohmeyer,
Jr.
”

Looked like Junior had used his father’s Social Security number when applying for
the job at JS in order to slip through the cracks. Naughty boy.

Sakhani began shouting in what I assumed was Urdu. I couldn’t blame him for being
upset. With seven kids to feed, the man didn’t need an employee taking advantage of
him. He explained that Strohmeyer had claimed someone came into the shop and pulled
a gun, demanding he turn over the traveler’s checks and money orders. In reality,
the man had stuffed them in his own pocket.

“Why hasn’t he been arrested?” Sakhani asked.

It was the same question every victim wanted to know. “Police departments are inundated
with these types of crimes,” I told him. “Dozens of armed robberies take place in
Dallas every night. If the issuers even bothered to contact the cops when the checks
and money orders were cashed, it’s not likely Dallas PD had enough manpower to carry
out an investigation.”

Now that Eddie and I could hand local law enforcement an open-and-shut case, however,
it was far more likely Strohmeyer would be rounded up and justice would be served.

The front door of the shop opened and an older, white-haired man walked in. Sakhani
looked up, issued what can only be described as a banshee cry, and flew across the
room, launching himself at the man.

Eddie and I exchanged glances.

“I’m guessing that dude would be Albert Strohmeyer, Jr.,” Eddie said.

By this time Sakhani had Albert on the ground and was giving the guy what for.

“Yep,” I said. “I’m guessing that, too.”

We took our sweet time making our way to the door, letting Sakhani exact a little
justice of his own before we ordered him off Strohmeyer. The thief deserved a walloping.

Sakhani stood, leaving Strohmeyer on his back on the floor. Sakhani looked at me,
ducked his head in a small bow, and thanked me for protecting his business. He offered
what was probably his first smile ever.

“Anytime,” I said.

chapter twenty-nine

Come Fly with Me

On my way to work Wednesday morning, I received the call I’d been waiting for. Jesús
Benavides had been pulled over for a broken taillight. When the police officer had
run his license, he’d noted the flag on Benavides’ record.

The officer agreed to try to hold Benavides there until I could come question him.
Without an arrest warrant, the officer couldn’t force the guy to stay put, but, fortunately,
most people were not aware of their rights and did what a police officer asked of
them without questioning the officer’s authority.

I obtained their location, plugged it into my GPS, and drove like a bat out of hell
across town.

I pulled in behind the Dallas police cruiser on the side of the highway. The officer
had sat Benavides in the back of his car, though he’d put no handcuffs on the guy.
Since he wasn’t yet under arrest, handcuffs would have been inappropriate.

I slid into the front passenger seat of the cruiser, asking the officer to give me
and Jesús some privacy. The cop shot me an annoyed look but deferred, taking his keys
and exiting the vehicle. He didn’t go far, though, stopping by the front fender and
leaning back against it.

“Good morning,” I said to Jesús, eyeing him through the metal mesh partition that
separated the front seat from the back. He was much younger than I’d expected, hardly
more than a kid, and small, only about four inches taller than me and perhaps twenty
pounds heavier.

He simply stared at me, fear in his dark eyes.

“I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“English not so good,” he said, his words thickly accented.

He didn’t speak English? I could see that his Spanish could come in handy at the liquor
store given that their customers were largely Latino. But if he wasn’t fluent in English,
how the heck had he taught history in Houston?

I pulled out my cell phone and called Christina, asking her to translate for me. I
put the phone on speaker and asked her to ask him if he could tell me about the money
transfers to Honduras, who had sent them, why he hadn’t filed a Suspicious Activity
Report.

He seemed hesitant to answer at first but finally looked into my eyes and said something
I didn’t understand.

Christina translated. “He says he was the one who sent the money to Honduras. It took
him over a year to save it up. He was sending it back home to his family.”

I looked at the terrified young man. All of a sudden everything made sense. No doubt
the man was an illegal alien using a stolen identity, trying to stay off the grid
and under the radar. He hadn’t helped the terrorists funnel their money overseas.
He’d simply sent money back home to his family and done it in a way he thought would
help him avoid detection.

But crap. This put me in a very awkward position. I mean, I felt for the kid, sure,
but he was breaking the law by being here. What was I supposed to do? Report him to
ICE? I’d never faced this situation before and wasn’t sure how to handle it.

My concerns immediately became a moot point. The young man looked into my eyes and
must have read my thoughts. He opened the back door of the cruiser, leaped out, and
took off running at warp speed, probably breaking all kinds of records. The officer
and I gave chase but quickly lost sight of him when he zigzagged through an apartment
complex.

I stopped running and bent over, my hands on my knees as I gasped for air. I eventually
caught my breath, but I was beginning to think we’d never catch the person who’d helped
the terrorists send their funds overseas. I was nearly to the end of my list of MSBs.

*   *   *

Mid-morning I received a call from an attorney at the Justice Department. Despite
the fact that the Tax Wizard had been found wandering the halls of the jail, his cell
still somehow locked tight, all charges against Winston Wisbrock had been dropped.
His daughter had been contacted and planned to apply for guardianship. Apparently
the Wiz was on some type of antipsychotic meds but wasn’t good about taking them consistently.
When he didn’t, he lost touch with reality.

I couldn’t much blame him for resisting the meds. What was so great about reality,
anyway? My reality had pretty much sucked lately.

Eddie accompanied me on my visits to the last two MSBs on my list. One was a cash-for-car-titles
place, the other a precious metals dealer. Both were clean.

“What now?” I asked as we drove back to the office that afternoon. “Lu told us to
come up with a new plan.”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Eddie said. “It’s frustrating. It’s like trying to track down
ghosts.”

Ghosts, huh? That gave me an idea. Ghost hunters went to the source, right? They set
up cameras and looked around the places where the ghosts purportedly lived.

“Why don’t we take a look at their houses and cars and workplaces? Visit their mosques?
Talk to their neighbors and coworkers?”

Eddie glanced over at me. “Wang and Zardooz have already done all that.”

“I know,” I said, “but it can’t hurt to run a fresh set of eyes over things.” Sometimes
a small but critical detail that didn’t seem important to one person would catch the
attention of another and lead to a resolution. That’s why cold-case files were often
handed over to another investigator for a second look.

Eddie’s expression was skeptical, but he shrugged. “What the heck. Give them a call.
See what you can set up.”

I phoned Zardooz. He was tied up today but said he could take us on the grand tour
tomorrow. We arranged to meet at one of the mosques early the next morning when the
members would be on-site for their Fajr, or predawn prayer time.

Eddie and I returned to the office. I took advantage of the short lull to catch up
on a few things, including my e-mails. As I backed my way through them, I stumbled
upon the e-mails I’d forwarded to myself from Richard Beauregard’s computer when we’d
raided his office. I hadn’t bothered to go through them in detail since we didn’t
have him in custody yet and the terrorism case had taken precedence.