Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray (29 page)

Nick slid his chair closer to Josh so he could better see the computer screen. “I can’t wait to see what you got.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Caught on Tape

Josh plugged a thin, short USB cable into the side of the wristwatch, stuck the other end into his computer, and downloaded the photos to a newly created folder. When he finished, he unplugged the cable from the watch.

Mom flung her dishtowel back over her shoulder and picked up the watch, looking it over. “This watch has a built-in camera? How nifty. Did the Treasury Department supply this to you?”

Josh, Nick, and I exchanged glances.

“Not exactly,” I said.

She put a hand on her hip and frowned at me. “It is legal for you to use it, right?”

“Sure,” I replied, though in all honesty I wasn’t entirely sure. I didn’t think it was illegal to take photographs in public places. Still, legal or not, I assumed those up the chain at the IRS might not approve. Following Fischer around could be considered harassment, abuse of authority. Which was precisely why we’d have to send the photos out anonymously.

The dishes now done, I hung my towel on the stove-mounted rack and pulled my chair up on the other side of Josh so that I could see the laptop screen, too. He opened the folder and clicked on the first thumbnail image to enlarge it.

The photo showed Fischer at the blackjack table, cards in one hand, a highball in the other. The next showed him pushing a stack of chips forward to place a bet. The third showed him pulling an even bigger stack of chips back toward himself, a wide smile on his face.

“He won?” I asked. Looked like I wasn’t the only one who’d struck it big at the casinos last night.

Josh nodded. “A couple thousand, at least.”

As if the guy needed any more money. He had the Arc’s overflowing coffers at his disposal. How greedy could one person be? I bet none of his winnings were going to charity.

Unfortunately, the photos weren’t the highest quality. Despite all the bright lights on the slot machines in the casino, the overhead lighting was dim. The thick haze of cigarette smoke didn’t help, either. Add that to the disguise and it was questionable whether Fischer could be identified from the photos.

“What do you think?” I asked, leaning forward to make eye contact with Nick, who sat on the other side of Josh.

He shook his head. “They’re not the best. Fischer’d have plausible deniability.”

I nudged Josh. “What about the video?”

Josh reached into the breast pocket of his wrinkled blue button-down and retrieved the recorder pen that was still clipped there. He plugged the loose end of the USB cable into the pen now. A few clicks later, the video image popped up on the screen.

The clip showed Fischer, cards in front of him, slugging back a drink. The image captured half of the woman seated next to him, a grandmotherly type with dark gray helmet hair. The video quality wasn’t much better than the photos. Given all the noise of the slot machines in the background, the audio wasn’t all that clear, either.

“Damn,” Nick muttered.

The granny leaned in slightly, enabling us to see all of her now. Her thin lips were clenched tightly around a cigarette that had burned dangerously short. I was reminded of Lu, of her cancer treatments, of the promise I’d made to find her a strawberry-blond beehive wig. I might have to try eBay or Craigslist or pay a personal shopper an astronomical finder’s fee. But whatever it took, I’d find the right wig.

The woman tapped a finger on the felt-covered table. The gravelly words “hit me” could barely be heard above the slot-machine din.

We could see Fischer’s mouth move a moment later, but the audio didn’t pick up what he said. Crap. Since the dealer placed another card on top of Fischer’s stack, it appeared Fischer had requested another card, too. The dealer continued around the table until he reached Josh.

Given that the pen was situated just a few inches below Josh’s chin, his voice came through loud and clear. “No, thanks.”

“What are you doing, dude?” A young man’s voice barked from off camera. His voice was also clear. He must’ve been sitting next to Josh. “You’ve got a two showing, man. The best you can have is twelve. You’re not going to win with that hand. You should’ve taken another card.”

“But I might go over,” Josh whined.

The reply bore unveiled disgust. “Whatever, dude.”

Yep, a boy doing a man’s job.

The dealer went bust and Fischer won again with nineteen. Damn him.

The granny slid an irritated look at Fischer as she took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out in a glass ashtray on the table.

Fischer won the next round, too. After scooping the chips into a pile in front of him, he raised his hands. This time, his voice came through loud and clear. “To God go the glory!”

His catch phrase.

If anyone had doubts whether the man at the table was Pastor Fischer, there’d be no doubt about it now. Nick and I had known Pastor Fischer was a fake and a fraud. Now the world would know it, too.

Nick leaped up from the table and pumped his fist. “We got ’im!”

Josh beamed. He might not know jack about playing blackjack, but he knew his high-tech spy gadgets.

The video played on, cutting from the casino to an image of Fischer sitting on a tall stool at a table in the Hustler Club. A barely legal topless woman performed a personal lap dance for him, moving in and out around him, shaking what her mama gave her. Her mama had been generous. The girl’s ta-tas had to be at least double Ds.

Josh leaned forward to get a closer look. Nick rolled his eyes and put out a hand, pushing him back. “Don’t drool on the keyboard. It might short out.”

On the screen, the girl swung her long, auburn hair, moving so that it draped over Fischer’s shoulder as she sidled around the back of his chair. She danced her way back in front of him and motioned for him to spread his knees. When he did, she eased in between them, gyrating, pumping, and grinding to the beat of the rock music.

“Well, well,” Nick muttered. “Noah Fischer’s got a type.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He jerked his head at the screen. “Who does that girl look like to you?”

I thought a moment. “Amber Hansen?” They both had long, straight auburn hair.

He nodded. “A little like Marissa Fischer, too. Our naughty boy has a thing for redheads.”

On the screen, we saw Noah tuck a bill into the young woman’s G-string. With this fresh encouragement, she turned her back to him, lifted her hair above her head with her hands, and let it fall, the tresses cascading over his face, which bore a horny grin.

“He really seemed to like that stripper in particular,” Josh said. “He kept putting large bills in her panties.”

Nick’s gaze sought mine. He raised a brow. “Looks like Fischer may have another plaything in Shreveport.”

I wasn’t nearly as sure as Nick whether Fischer had anything going on with the stripper or with Amber Hansen. Regardless, though, he was clearly not the pious paragon of virtue he purported to be.

On the screen, the woman backed toward Fischer and began bumping her butt against his crotch. He tucked yet another bill into her G-string.

“You think she’s reporting all those tips?” I asked.

Nick responded with a snort.

“She’s really hot,” Josh said dreamily, his eyes still locked on the screen. “She has one of those sexy moles on her upper lip. Like Cindy Crawford.”

I suggested we send the photos from a computer at one of the public libraries in Dallas where the communication couldn’t be traced to us. One of the tax evaders I’d recently nailed had done the same thing, sending e-mails from public computers at libraries and hotel lobbies. Made them darn difficult to trace.

Nick ruffled Josh’s curls. “We couldn’t have done this without you, Josh. You done good, kid.”

Josh offered a weak smile in return. “Thanks. Can I go back to bed now?”

“Sure.”

Dad returned to the kitchen dressed in his work clothes. “Ready?” he asked Nick.

“Yes, sir.”

Mom stopped my father before he and Nick headed out the door. “What time will you be back from Lufkin?”

“Around one,” Dad replied.

“That gives me just enough time to whip up chicken-fried steak for lunch,” Mom said. She pointed a finger in Nick’s face. “Best in the world. You’ll see. I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Pastor or Poser?

While Josh dozed and my mother began preparations for lunch, I drove Josh’s car out to the Baptist church my family had attended as long as I could remember.

I had to admit that, like most kids, I didn’t pay a lot of attention in church growing up. It was difficult to sit still in a hard, uncomfortable pew for a full hour, especially for a young tomboy who’d rather be climbing trees, wading in the creek, or shooting root beer cans with her BB gun. Still, I’d come away with a general sense of what the Man Upstairs expected of us.

Pastor Beasley’s sermons had contained the standard fare. Count your blessings. Respect your parents. Don’t lie, cheat, or steal. Don’t do nothin’ to nobody that you wouldn’t want them doin’ back to you. It ain’t right.

While Pastor Beasley’s sermons lacked the glitz and glamour of the Ark’s services, he’d offered our rural small-town community precisely what it needed. A practical, pragmatic form of spirituality.

I pulled into the church’s lot, glad to see the pastor’s pickup truck in place at the parsonage out back. He was an avid angler, one of the Bait Bucket’s best customers. I hadn’t been sure he’d be around on a Saturday morning when the fish might be biting.

I stepped inside, my eyes taking a moment to adjust. The lights were off, but soft, colored light streamed through the stained-glass windows that lined the sides of the chapel. I glanced up at the large cross mounted at the front of the church, wishing the thorn-crowned Jesus would speak up and tell me if what we planned was the right thing to do. But since that wasn’t likely, I looked around for Pastor Beasley.

I found him sitting halfway down a pew in the section where the youth group normally congregated. He was a short, increasingly stout man, with thick salt-and-pepper hair. He’d left his slightly-too-tight Sunday suit in the closet today, opting instead for jeans and a comfortable knit shirt. He had a stack of Bibles next to him and was going through them one by one, erasing notations and unfolding dog-eared pages back into place.

“Good morning, Pastor Beasley.”

He looked up and gave me a genuine smile. “Well, if it isn’t Tara Holloway. How are ya? Still working hard for Uncle Sam?”

“Yep.”
I’m his whore.
“You got a minute?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world.” I wasn’t sure whether he meant that literally or figuratively. Perhaps both. He patted the pew. “Come take a seat and help me out. The teenagers keep marking the naughty parts in the Bibles. I have half a mind to tear these pages out.”

I sat, picked up a Bible from the stack, and opened it to the first dog-eared page. Someone had underlined a reference to “spilled seed.” Ew. I grabbed a pencil from the rack mounted on the back of the pew in front of me, erased the line, and smoothed the page as flat as I could.

“So,” Pastor Beasley asked, “what brings you by?”

I was hesitant to broach the subject of Noah Fischer. I didn’t want to sound accusing and distrustful. Still, I needed some guidance. I wanted Fischer to get his due, but I wasn’t sure that’s what God had planned. The Big Guy seemed to be smiling down with favor on Fischer. Who was I to push fate? But surely Pastor Beasley had heard far worse confessions than what I was about to tell him.

I smoothed another page. “Everything I tell you is confidential, right?”

“I love conversations that start this way. It always leads to something juicy.” He chortled and rubbed his hands together. “Did you embezzle from the government? Lie under oath? Maybe kill someone and bury the body in your backyard?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I replied, “but no. Nothing that exciting.”

“Shucks.”

I folded another page back. “Have you ever met a minister that you thought was a phony?”

“Dozens,” he replied, nonplussed.

“How could you tell?” I asked.

“It’s the shoes,” he said. “If they’re wearing expensive shoes, they’re a phony.”

“That simple, huh?”

He shrugged. “Surprisingly, yes.”

I looked down at Pastor Beasley’s shoes. Cheap canvas sneakers, worn through on one toe, the tip of a white sweat sock visible through the hole.

I told him about our case against Fischer, how we’d lost in court, how we’d tracked him to the casino and topless bar in Shreveport.

“I’ve met Noah Fischer,” he said, a sour expression on his face.

“And?”

He dropped a Bible into the rack with a resounding
thunk
. “He was wearing the most expensive shoes I’ve ever seen on a preacher.”

His words were as close to a go-ahead from God as I’d get.

“People deserve to hear the truth,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Whether they choose to accept it will be up to them. But step lightly, Tara. Give him a chance to do the right thing, to come clean and make amends himself. The man’s made some mistakes, but he’s still one of God’s children. God loves him, even if the rest of us think he’s an arrogant, self-righteous snake oil salesman.”

Great advice. My heart felt lighter already. “Thanks.”

“Be careful, too,” he warned, giving me an intent look. “He’s not a man who likes to be crossed. He’s terminated several of his associate pastors when they didn’t agree with him.”

That might be true, but I didn’t see how Fischer could be a threat to me. I didn’t work for him.

I offered to finish the Bibles for Pastor Beasley so he could enjoy his day off.

He stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “You, my child, are an angel. I’m off to find me some bass.”

*   *   *

My cell phone chirped as I left the church a half hour later. I checked the readout. Brett.