Read Online Death and Taxes by Susan Dunlap - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Susan Dunlap
Tags: Suspense
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Drem.”
“Pothole and paving roller. You got an hour?”
“It’ll take that long?”
“You look like Connie?”
“Not a bit,” I snapped.
“Okay, so I’m superficial. Slide down the surface, and you get to the bottom faster.”
“You must have a pretty raw butt.”
He laughed. “Yeah, and a flock of feds who’d like to make it a lot redder. Hey, it’s lunchtime. I’ll buy you lunch. I’ll be by in ten minutes.”
“Make it noon. Front desk. Ask for Detective Smith.” I hung up. The guy sounded like the one who made you say never again to blind dates. But he wasn’t a date; he was a source. It’s wonderful not to be a teenager anymore, to be a cop with a gun. Still, I ran him through files before he came. No priors, no warrants.
I sent Heling to reinterview Drem’s neighbors on the ground floor of his fourplex. They might have a clue about Drem’s relatives, hobbies, or habits. If Drem ended his workday at Lyn Takai’s, that still left a lot of time before he died. Maybe he’d stopped home. Maybe he’d stayed at Takai’s. That would be a good explanation of why she’d lied and why she wasn’t to be found at home now.
I tried Takai again. Still no answer. I was just about to dial Tim when he pushed open my door and poked a sheaf of papers at me. “Voila!”
“Thanks, Tim. We’re square.”
He grinned. “Which means you are once again ripe for the picking.”
I read through the report. I’d been right and wrong. Right that Lyn Takai didn’t own much. Wrong in thinking of it as nothing. She rented her studio. No reportable assets, except for one. Lyn Takai owned a property on Carleton Street called the Inspiration Hotel, in partnership with Mason Moon, a Selena Hogan, and an Ethan Simonov. The quartet had an eighty percent mortgage and a ten percent second. Nothing murder-inducing about that.
It took me a moment to recall the Inspiration, a shabby, transient-type place that was in the process of being renovated.
And as for Mason Moon being one of the co-owners, I wasn’t so surprised about that. Berkeley is the town to which the sixties retired. Aging hippie on the outside and successful entrepreneur underneath was hardly an unknown combination. There just wasn’t a catchy name for it yet. What amazed me was that Moon would be involved in a renovation project that required sustained work.
But Tim hadn’t stopped with the background on Takai. He’d also run detailed background checks on the trio and turned up a better than average number of entries. Selena Hogan had two warrants outstanding in Nevada (speeding—not uncommon for those racing up to Reno to get rid of their excess money. And having left their cash there, few rushed to pay the traffic tickets they associated with their rotten weekends). Mason Moon was the star on the Records Management System that lists citywide contacts with the department: trespassing, disturbing the peace, failure to disperse—the plop artist’s roll of honor. And Simonov had been indicted in Oregon for tax evasion. Tax evasion—now that was interesting. I moved Simonov up on my list of prospects.
A yogi, a plop artist, a racing gambler, and a felon. Just what kind of property did these people own together? I was just about to head out to find out when the phone rang. Rick Lamott was in the lobby.
Rick Lamott had probably been waiting fifteen minutes when I opened the double doors to Reception on the second floor. From the main door downstairs two wide staircases lead upward, hugging both pale-beige walls. A WPA Tara. The stairs end at a balcony-hallway that forms Reception: a row of plastic chairs facing the desk clerk’s window. The only thing that makes Reception tolerable to our guests is the knowledge that their next stop may be worse.
Now the chairs were occupied by a white teenager in a down jacket that smelled of long-term sweat and dirt, an elderly black woman with a cloth shopping bag between her feet, and a leather-jacketed
“Pothole and paving roller. You got an hour?”
“It’ll take that long?”
“You look like Connie?”
“Not a bit,” I snapped.
“Okay, so I’m superficial. Slide down the surface, and you get to the bottom faster.”
“You must have a pretty raw butt.”
He laughed. “Yeah, and a flock of feds who’d like to make it a lot redder. Hey, it’s lunchtime. I’ll buy you lunch. I’ll be by in ten minutes.”
“Make it noon. Front desk. Ask for Detective Smith.” I hung up. The guy sounded like the one who made you say never again to blind dates. But he wasn’t a date; he was a source. It’s wonderful not to be a teenager anymore, to be a cop with a gun. Still, I ran him through files before he came. No priors, no warrants.
I sent Heling to reinterview Drem’s neighbors on the ground floor of his fourplex. They might have a clue about Drem’s relatives, hobbies, or habits. If Drem ended his workday at Lyn Takai’s, that still left a lot of time before he died. Maybe he’d stopped home. Maybe he’d stayed at Takai’s. That would be a good explanation of why she’d lied and why she wasn’t to be found at home now.
I tried Takai again. Still no answer. I was just about to dial Tim when he pushed open my door and poked a sheaf of papers at me. “Voila!”
“Thanks, Tim. We’re square.”
He grinned. “Which means you are once again ripe for the picking.”
I read through the report. I’d been right and wrong. Right that Lyn Takai didn’t own much. Wrong in thinking of it as nothing. She rented her studio. No reportable assets, except for one. Lyn Takai owned a property on Carleton Street called the Inspiration Hotel, in partnership with Mason Moon, a Selena Hogan, and an Ethan Simonov. The quartet had an eighty percent mortgage and a ten percent second. Nothing murder-inducing about that.
It took me a moment to recall the Inspiration, a shabby, transient-type place that was in the process of being renovated.
And as for Mason Moon being one of the co-owners, I wasn’t so surprised about that. Berkeley is the town to which the sixties retired. Aging hippie on the outside and successful entrepreneur underneath was hardly an unknown combination. There just wasn’t a catchy name for it yet. What amazed me was that Moon would be involved in a renovation project that required sustained work.
But Tim hadn’t stopped with the background on Takai. He’d also run detailed background checks on the trio and turned up a better than average number of entries. Selena Hogan had two warrants outstanding in Nevada (speeding—not uncommon for those racing up to Reno to get rid of their excess money. And having left their cash there, few rushed to pay the traffic tickets they associated with their rotten weekends). Mason Moon was the star on the Records Management System that lists citywide contacts with the department: trespassing, disturbing the peace, failure to disperse—the plop artist’s roll of honor. And Simonov had been indicted in Oregon for tax evasion. Tax evasion—now that was interesting. I moved Simonov up on my list of prospects.
A yogi, a plop artist, a racing gambler, and a felon. Just what kind of property did these people own together? I was just about to head out to find out when the phone rang. Rick Lamott was in the lobby.
Rick Lamott had probably been waiting fifteen minutes when I opened the double doors to Reception on the second floor. From the main door downstairs two wide staircases lead upward, hugging both pale-beige walls. A WPA Tara. The stairs end at a balcony-hallway that forms Reception: a row of plastic chairs facing the desk clerk’s window. The only thing that makes Reception tolerable to our guests is the knowledge that their next stop may be worse.
Now the chairs were occupied by a white teenager in a down jacket that smelled of long-term sweat and dirt, an elderly black woman with a cloth shopping bag between her feet, and a leather-jacketed
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