Tax Cut (15 page)

Audience members cheered and clapped after each speech. The tension in the room was fierce to begin with, but it tripled when
Marc called for a vote on the adoption of the zoning ordinance. I noticed nail-biting, legs shaking, and sweat dripping among various audience members, as they awaited the fate of the R1 district. Winifred made the motion and John seconded it. Marc asked me to call the roll.

“Ms. Brooks?” I asked.

“No,” she said. The audience burst into a fit of cheer. I had to wait until everyone calmed down before I called the next name.

“Mr. Paparazzo?”

“Aye,” he responded as the crowd booed him. Again, I waited for quiet in the room.

“Mr. Ravens?”

“Nay,” he said. The sound of applause permeated the room.

“Ms. Strega?”

“Yes,” she said, which was confronted with obscenities and more booing.

“Mr. Coglione?”
With baited breath, they waited for Marc’s answer. It was a two-two vote and Marc was the tiebreaker. He hesitated.

“Yes,” he said.

The masses went wild, enraged at what just happened. They rushed the dais. The police screamed out warnings. I backed myself up as far as I could. I was overly sensitive to angry residents, given my history with one who turned out to be a murderer. Old memories brought back grave fears. I stood paralyzed until the police came and threatened to arrest anyone who didn’t back off. The police chief stood up and made an announcement that the meeting was finished and he told everyone to leave. Police officers escorted the board members out, while I stayed back to clean up a little.

Once most
everyone had left the room, and all was calm, a woman in her late sixties rushed toward me and started screaming.

“You should have voted no!” she yelled.
Evidently, she wasn’t paying attention because if she had been, she would have known I didn’t get a vote.

“I’m
only the secretary. I didn’t vote,” I explained to her as calmly as I could.

“Then you should have convinced them!” she shouted.

This woman obviously was not aware I had no ability to convince any board member of anything. And not only that, there was no way I was going to try. Marc hadn’t even allowed to me ask a question in the short time I knew him. I knew he wouldn’t put up with me telling him how to vote on something. I looked around the room for a police officer, but there were none. I didn’t know what else to say or how to disarm the woman, so I said, “I’m sorry.”

She turned around and spat at me.
I jumped back. Luckily, I did not get hit. She stormed out of the room. I noticed a police officer reentered at that moment.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked.

“I’m fine, but I’m not cleaning that up!” I announced.

This garnered a chuckle.

“May I walk you to your car, ma’am?”

“Yes, please, but if you call me ma’am one more time…” I stopped. I was about to give him a “bonnieism” about kicking him in areas held tight in place by his “whities,” but I stopped myself before I was accused of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The officer walked me out to my car and I drove home.

Chapter 1
5

The next morning,
I admired the daffodils that had begun to bloom outside of my house. Spring was in the air. A time for new beginnings, although my new beginning at work wasn’t going so well thus far. Neither was my new beginning with Kris. I sighed. I stopped for a cappuccino on the way into work to lift my spirits.

One by one, various employees stopped in my office to hear about the crazy meeting from the night before.
If nothing else, employees of Coral Beach were gossipmongers. When Bryce came by to ask about the meeting too, I asked him if he knew why Gino Righetti was in Dingo’s office so late in the evening. His best guess was that it had something to do with the taxes on all the properties he owned. I didn’t think that was much of an explanation. Gino could have called during regular business hours for that.

“
Is Gino looking to purchase more homes?” I asked with a confused look on my face—not truly confused, but trying to dig for information in a nonchalant way. “I thought the board was going to condemn the land for Gino’s Village Pier project.”

“This
village doesn’t have enough money to condemn all the land that Righetti wants for his project. That’s why the ordinance was only for the beach club,” Bryce explained.

“Oh, that makes sense.
I guess now I understand why all those people were angry at the meeting. I was so confused last night.”

“Righetti already owns some of the homes
, but he needs to get all of the beachfront homes in that zone.”

“
I guess some people didn’t mind selling out?”

“Well, one was a short-sale
and one house was already up for sale. Then there was one that had burnt to the ground, so I guess the owner didn’t feel like rebuilding. Oh, and he got a bunch of them after Hurricane Sandy a year and a half ago. They were all homes that were significantly damaged. I heard he was offering more money than the insurance companies.”

“Makes sense.
My parents had a tough time with the insurance company after that hurricane. Their first floor was ruined.” Without giving Bryce a chance to respond, I said, “Bryce, do you mind if I ask you a question. Just between you and me?”

He looked a little nervous about what I was going to ask
and he said, “Sure,” as if it was more of a question than a statement.

“What do you think of the board members?
I mean, Marc and Winifred are kind of mean to me. Are they like that with everyone, or do I just put them off?”

Bryce stared at me with his deep brown eyes for a full sixty seconds before responding.
It seemed more like a half hour. It was surprisingly uncomfortable. I had thought since Bryce was a nice guy and since we seemed to be becoming work friends, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to ask him his opinion. I suddenly regretted having asked during the minute of silence.

“Well, I don’t have many direct dealings with them, but from what I have heard, you are not alone in how they treat you.
I know this sounds kind of ‘high schoolish,’ but those in their clique are treated nicely. Everyone else…not so much.”

“Oh, I see.
I guess I’m not invited to play in the sandbox with them!” I said jokingly.

“Don’t worry
, Chelsey; that invite never arrived in my mailbox either.”

“Is it the same for John, Aspen, and Jamie?”

“John’s actually a nice guy. He’s owned the bakery in the village for years. He is very charismatic with his customers and gives away a lot of free stuff. Supplies a lot of rolls and bread for the food pantry and other good causes,” Bryce said.

He continued.
“Aspen got involved in politics young. He’s been around for the past five years. He works full-time as an architect, so he’s not in the building much. It’s rare to see him other than at a board meeting. Jamie is quiet. I don’t know much about her. She works a full-time job too, so I don’t see her often either.”

“What about
Marc?” I asked. “What does he do for a living?”

“He runs his own
swimming pool company. That’s why you see him here a lot. He can make his own hours and plus, his busy season hasn’t started yet.”

“And
Winifred?”

“From what I understand
, she doesn’t work.”

“Retired?”

“No, a housewife.”

“Well, not for long, if her husband finds out about that video!”

“Ugh, don’t remind me about that video. That was the worst rendition of porn I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“Oh, so you watch porn?” I asked.

“Um, no, I mean…”

I laughed.
“Just joking, Bryce.”

He giggled while turning a bright shade of red.
“I’m going to go back to my desk now,” he said.

“
Thanks for the info, Bryce!”

“No problem, Chelsey
. I’ll talk to you later.”

I was relieved to know that it wasn’t
solely me who didn’t care for Marc or Winifred. I got the impression that Bryce didn’t like them much either by his tone of voice when he spoke about them. Actually, most everyone I’d talked to seemed to have a problem with Marc and Winifred. I hoped that Marc’s business would start to take off in a couple of months with his clients getting their pools open for the summer, and that I would receive a reprieve from him. Unless Nero could find some dirt to make him quit. Of course, there was also the fact that he was taking bribes from a known mobster. Perhaps the details of that would come to light without me having to get involved. It was not my desire to mess with the mob. I regarded them like bumblebees—if I left them alone, they would leave me alone. I hoped!

I had to stop thinking about
Marc and Winifred. The wild goose chase that I was on provided me with a lack of motivation to do my job. I had wasted enough time this morning already and today was the deadline for agenda items for next Wednesday’s board meeting, which meant I could not do any more procrastinating. The agenda items, plus the follow-up from last night’s meeting provided me with plenty of work to get done before I left for the evening. On the bright side, Bonnie was free of tax work today, so she could assist me.

Bonnie
took care of the legal advertisements required for the ordinance from last night’s meeting and copying, then distributing the remaining approved items from last night while I got to work on the next set of agenda items. The first on my list was a tax refund resolution. I started to type it, but I thought I already did this one at the last meeting. I pulled up the resolution for refunds that was approved last time to make sure it wasn’t a duplicate. It wasn’t. The last one was a refund of fourth-quarter taxes from last year. This one was a refund for first-quarter taxes of this year. The same people were on it—Marc, Winifred, John, and several members of the planning board. I also realized the local bakery was on both resolutions. I thought it was strange that there was an overpayment twice in a row for all the same people. I wondered if it was possible that all of them could double pay their taxes two quarters in a row. Taxes in Coral Beach were very high. I thought about the average person’s finances. The average person wouldn’t have given the government more money than it was owed...especially not twice in a row. The average person wouldn’t have that much money on hand to make a mistake like that.

I
also started to think about Marc taking money from Gino and I wondered if something more was going on. I quietly showed Bonnie that I had an identical tax refund resolution and I asked if she could look up the files and let me know who made the payments.

A short while later, Bonnie let me know that Lutz Online Loans made one payment for each person on the agenda, and the other payment was made by each homeowner.
Hypothetically, there could have been a mistake. Everyone could have refinanced and thought they were supposed to pay their own taxes and the mortgage company also paid the taxes, thinking they were supposed to pay. Despite the potential this logical explanation had, I had a feeling this wasn’t an error.

I searched for Lutz Online Loans on the internet.
I found a full website, but no useful information. No names of agents or owners of the company, just a post office box as an address. A generic email address of [email protected] was there. It was curious to me that their webpage said they were not currently taking on new loans. Something to do with the economy. I would think in a bad economy, the company would be looking for additional work to compensate for loans that were in default, but what did I know? Certainly not much about the mortgage industry.

I picked up the phone and called my c
ousin, James Primer, who happened to work for the State of New Jersey, Division of Commercial Recording. I asked him if he would do a favor for me and let me know who the people were behind the LLC. I could hear James typing something into his computer.

“Drake Taylor is the sole owner,” James reported.
He didn’t have an address other than the P.O. Box.

“Thanks
, Jay. I owe you one,” I said.

I went to the internet again, and typed in
Drake Taylor. No hits.
Maybe Bonnie could ask her Uncle Freddy about him.
I’d have to ask Bonnie later, when no one was around. I didn’t want Dingo overhearing me treading on his turf or questioning his taxpayers. My train of thought derailed when the phone rang.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Did you like your present?” Nero said.

“In what sense of the word
‘like’ do you mean?”

“I mean
, are you happy I found some dirt?”

“Oh, okay.
If you were going to ask me if I enjoyed the show, the answer would have to be no. I don’t mind that she might be embarrassed, after the way she treated me, but having an affair isn’t exactly illegal. I thought you said you could find some dirt that might make people quit?” I asked.

“Geez, oh man. I would have thought you would be grateful to me.
You don’t know what I went through to get that video. I thought it was quite a juicy secret. I personally thought I scored big,” Nero said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound unappreciative
; I was just looking for something illegal. Having an affair isn’t exactly unlawful.”

“What if she’s not involved in anything illegal?”

“I guess I have a gut feeling that she’s involved in something.”

“Something like what?”

“I’m not sure. Something criminal.” I didn’t mention my suspicions about the tax refunds and Winifred being one of the names on those resolutions.

“I’ll keep looking, but you are going to owe me more than coffee.”

Oh boy, I didn’t like the idea of owing Nero anything. “How about coffee and a bagel?” I asked.

“Deal,” Nero said, and he disconnected.

I was surprised that Nero accepted the offer so easily. Perhaps he
was
a pushover.