Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray (3 page)

“Any furs?”

From her seat, Betty leaned over and opened a lower cabinet. She pulled out three tan pelts, each of which looked to be the size and color of a tabby cat.

I gasped. “Are those—”

“Squirrels.” Mrs. Buchmeyer solved the mystery. “I make a mean squirrel stew.”

Urk. My stomach seized at the thought.

Jenkins’s gaze wandered around the room. “Any collectibles?”

“Not unless you count dust bunnies.”

“Antiques?”

“Look around you,” Betty said, sweeping her arm. “The whole damn place is full of antiques.”

Jenkins ignored the jibe. “Cash?”

The old woman chuckled and shook her head. “Hon, any cash comes in goes right back out. The IRS ain’t the only ones after us. We got no money. We keep telling everyone that but nobody wants to believe us.”

“How do you afford the satellite TV?”

“Our son pays for that.”

Jenkins stood up. “I’m going to poke around a bit.” She motioned for Nick to follow her, leaving me alone with Betty.

The two of us sat in awkward silence for a few moments, the only interruption being the occasional sound of Jenkins pulling open a drawer or rummaging through a closet, searching for undisclosed valuables or cash.

Despite the fact that they’d neglected to pay their fair share to the government, my heart felt for the Buchmeyers. Obviously, they were barely getting by these days, any profits from their chicken-farming operation spent on basic necessities, yet here we were, snooping through their closets.

Mrs. Buchmeyer eyed the name badge on my chest, then looked up at me. “What do you carry, Agent Holloway?”

“Excuse me?”

She pointed to the bulge under my blazer. “Your gun. What kind is it?”

“Glock,” I said. “Forty caliber.”

“Long or short barrel?”

So the woman knew her guns, huh? “The twenty-two model,” I said. “I like the longer barrel. It’s more accurate.” The longer barrel also made the gun somewhat heavier, which is why my workouts at the downtown YMCA always included several reps on the bicep and tricep machines.

Her gaze ran over my petite form. “I saw what you did out there, shooting that rifle out of August’s hands. You’re a good shot.”

My eyes met hers. “They don’t call me the Annie Oakley of the IRS for nothing.” I didn’t bother telling her the appellation had been recently replaced by a new one after I’d relieved Mendoza of his nut. My coworkers now deemed me the Sperminator.

Jenkins and Nick returned to the kitchen.

“Nothing in the house,” Jenkins said. “Let’s check the barns.”

CHAPTER THREE

Preparing for Armageddon

Nick, Jenkins, and I stepped outside to find Buchmeyer and the deputy sitting on the lowered tailgate of Buchmeyer’s old pickup, both of them with a bulge of snuff inside their lower lips. His arms still shackled behind him, Mr. Buchmeyer aimed a stream of mucus-coated tobacco at our feet as we walked past. Fortunately none landed on my shoes. While I owned a pair or two of fuck-me heels, my work shoes were more of the fuck-you variety, leather loafers with thick soles and steel toes, perfect for preventing a stubborn target from shutting a door or for disabling an attacker with a quick kick to the nads.

I settled for shooting Buchmeyer a nasty look this time instead of a bullet and continued on. A duo of filthy but friendly coonhounds wriggled out from under the trailer, following as we gingerly picked our way to the chicken barns through a minefield of doggie droppings, some fresh, some dried.

Off in the distance, a cloud of dust rose as a pickup drove across the back of the property.

Nick must have noticed it, too. He turned to Jenkins. “Is there an easement on this land?”

She waved a pesky horsefly out of her face. “Not that I recall. There is a back gate, though. It exits onto a fire road.”

We reached the first barn. A black-and-white-speckled chicken strutted up to the wire fencing and cocked her head, looking up at me with her innocent, shiny black eyes.

While Nick and Jenkins took a cursory glance inside the barns, I knelt down next to the fence. “Hey, there, little speckled hen.”

She tilted her head to the other side.

“You’re kinda cute.”

She spread her wings and flapped them once, as if trying to communicate with me.

I made my best clucking sound at her.

She clucked back.

That was it. I’d never eat chicken again.

“Hey,” Nick called. “Quit flirting with that bird and come here.”

“I wasn’t flirting,” I called back. “It’s a female bird.” Not to mention that it was
a bird
.

Nick stood in front of the last barn. Unlike the others, this barn was closed up, no chickens in sight. The structure was surrounded by four-foot-high loops of barbed wire, a barrier clearly intended to discourage entry and one that just as clearly meant we had to take a look inside.

“We need wire cutters,” Nick said.

Another pickup raised a dust cloud at the back of the property while I used my cell to call the Buchmeyers’ house phone again. When Betty answered, I told her we needed to get into the back barn and asked if there were any wire cutters around.

“I plead the Fifth,” she said.

“It’s not illegal to own wire cutters,” I told her.

She hung up on me. Not feeling so sorry for her at that moment.

I snapped my phone shut. “No luck on the wire cutters. But I can guarantee there’s something in here they don’t want us to find.”

Ironically, the fact that Betty invoked the Fifth Amendment was an admission on her part. Whatever was stashed away in this barn, she knew about it.

Nick walked along the barrier, visually inspecting the coils until he found an end. Jenkins and I stepped back as he carefully reached in and grabbed the wire. He slowly pulled back on the fencing, emitting an occasional curse when an errant barb nicked him. Eventually, the sections of fencing separated and an opening appeared. The three of us stepped through and walked up to the door of the barn.

“Damn,” Nick muttered.

My partner and I exchanged glances. Like the front gate, this door was secured with padlocks. And, like the deputy, both Nick and I carried a personal weapon in addition to our Glocks. But with Jenkins there as a witness, neither of us was inclined to use our private guns. I could justify my earlier shot at Buchmeyer, but no way could I justify discharging my Glock simply to disable a lock. Internal affairs would deem it reckless. Never mind that it would save us time. Safety over efficiency.

Jenkins opened her purse and fumbled around, whipping out a .38 special. “Can you two keep a secret?”

I raised my palms and looked around innocently. “Gun? What gun?”

Nick positioned the locks and stepped back. “Be my guest.”

Bang. Bang.

Once again, two locks dropped to their deaths in the dirt. Score one for efficiency.

Nick pulled the chain off the door and swung it open. We stepped into the barn, pausing for a moment as our eyes adjusted from the bright outside sunlight to the relative darkness inside the barn. When they did, we found ourselves surrounded by a dozen wooden pallets stacked high and covered with tightly lashed blue vinyl tarps.

“What have we here?” Jenkins wondered aloud as she stepped forward and worked at a rope securing one of the tarps.

Nick pulled a Swiss army knife from the front pocket of his pants and cut through the rope. Jenkins worked the rope loose so she could lift off the tarp.

Under the covering was case after case of Spam. Why the heck would anyone need so much canned meat?

Under the next tarp sat a tall stack of economy-sized cans of baked beans. The next tarp covered a pallet stacked with toilet paper. Gotta have TP if you’re gonna have beans, right? Cases of bottled water were stacked on another pallet, while another supported radios, flashlights, and batteries, all still in boxes. Yet another pallet contained a dozen pup tents in nylon drawstring bags along with four propane-powered generators and several propane tanks.

“Reminds me of the seizures after Y2K,” Jenkins said. “We had an entire warehouse filled with survival gear.”

Nick cut the rope on one of the two remaining pallets and pulled the tarp away. “Whoa, doggie. We’ve hit the mother lode.”

Box after box of ammunition stood in tall stacks on the pallet, everything from small-gauge shotgun pellets to cartridges for long-range rifles. Nick quickly sawed through the rope and pulled the tarp off the last pallet. Guns of every size, still in the manufacturer’s packaging, lay stacked on the wood frame.

Nick’s eyes met mine. “Looks like they’ve been preparing themselves for Armageddon.”

We may have arrived just in time, which was something I didn’t want to contemplate too intently. One on one, I had no doubt I could outshoot an opponent. But if we were outnumbered? The odds wouldn’t be nearly so good.

Jenkins didn’t bat an eye. She simply pulled her cell phone out of her purse and punched some buttons. “Send a truck.”

CHAPTER FOUR

My, What a Big Cock You Have

An hour later, a young male intern arrived in a rental truck, slowly making his way over the uneven terrain to the barn. Jenkins, Nick, and I helped the college kid load the boxes into the cargo bay, then crowded into the truck’s cab to ride back to our cars at the front of the property.

The truck, now loaded with the spoils, bounced over the field, then rumbled slowly down the gravel drive, the loose rocks
plink-plinking
as the tires kicked them up against the undercarriage. As we drove past Buchmeyer’s pickup, the old man made one last desperate stand, diving from the tailgate into the path of the moving truck.

The intern slammed to a quick, brake-squealing stop. “Is this guy crazy?”

“Six hundred pounds of Spam tell me yes.” I opened the door to climb out.

Nick and Jenkins climbed out after me.

“You can’t take that stuff,” Buchmeyer yelled from his prone position underneath the truck’s front bumper. “It don’t belong to me. It belongs to the Lone Star Nation.”

“Not anymore.” Nick grabbed Buchmeyer’s boots and dragged the old man out from under the truck’s bumper and off the drive.

Buchmeyer rolled over onto his back in the weeds. He tried to sit up, but had trouble with his hands still cuffed behind his back. “You’ll be sorry you messed with me.” His narrowed eyes took each agent in turn. “Just you wait and see.”

Vague threats. Not the first or last time for that, either.

Nick and I turned to walk back to the bug-splattered fleet car. We’d leave the old man there for the deputy to deal with. That’ll teach the officer to question the capabilities of an IRS special agent.

Nick and I held the gate open as the intern drove the rental truck out. He gave us a honk and a wave before turning onto the county road. Jenkins thanked us for our assistance, then climbed into her vehicle and headed out, too.

Nick and I made our way to the car. He paused at the passenger door, his eyes focused on something off in the distance behind me. I turned to see what he was looking at. Though it was dusk now, it wasn’t too dark for us to see another dark dust cloud being kicked up at the back of the Buchmeyers’ place.

“Something’s going on back there,” he said.

Given that we’d just seized enough guns and ammo to arm a sizable battalion, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back there and find out what it was. Anyone there would likely be holding both a weapon and a grudge. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do if that girl’s a federal agent on duty, right?

I put on my brave face. “Let’s go check things out.”

We walked back onto the property, stopping to speak with the deputy. He’d already secured August in the back of his cruiser, but he grabbed his rifle and joined us. Given that we’d seen at least three vehicles drive onto the property, he called for backup, suggesting his fellow deputies use the fire road for access.

“You’re one helluva shot,” the deputy said, cutting his eyes my way, his tone respectful now.

He’d underestimated me. Yet another event that had happened before and would surely happen again. I was tough, smart, and capable, but I came in a deceptively petite, benign-looking package.

“Where’d you learn to handle a gun like that?” he asked.

“My father taught me,” I said. “He got me my first Daisy BB gun for my third birthday.”

Dad was a gun nut and had taught all three of his children how to handle a weapon. He’d taken my brothers deer hunting on many occasions over the years, but settled to shoot skeet with me. I couldn’t stomach the sight of a dead deer. I might be a tough federal agent, but I was still a girl at heart.

Darkness set in as we set out across the overgrown field. The deputy had a Maglite to light his way, but Nick and I had to pick our way in the dark. Too bad we hadn’t had the foresight to snag a couple flashlights from the barn for ourselves.

Ahead we could see several more cars pull onto the property, their headlights sweeping across the pasture, illuminating the dust and people, who stood in a tight group. As we drew nearer, we heard whooping, catcalls, hollering. People raised fists in the air and jumped up and down. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was at a football game or a prize fight.

We finally made our way up to the edge of the noisy group. The people gathered around were so focused on what was going on in front of them they didn’t even notice us.

I stood on tiptoe to see what had them so rapt. Then I wished I hadn’t seen what I saw.

My hand went to my chest and I felt momentarily breathless. “Oh, my God!”

The people encircled a shallow pit in which two large, colorful roosters fought, running at each other, pecking and kicking and clawing.

A cockfight.

Another thing that happens when rednecks have too much time on their hands.

The deputy grabbed one of the smaller men on the outer loop of the ring and tossed him aside. He elbowed his way into the pit, raising his rifle over his head. “Don’t none of you leave!” he shouted. “You’re all under arrest!”