Snippet #6 Here Lies a Wicked Man
Maybe it was the job that sapped him of the energy to make a successful marriage. He enjoyed work, had spent long hours at it until the bullet gave him a less-than-gentle reminder that time could slip away faster than iced tea through a sieve. If he was ever to slow down and smell the catfish, the time was now.
Booker scratched the gnat from his beard and noticed the sheriff glaring impatiently.
“Guess I just like living on the water,” Booker said. “Since I already owned the property, moving here seemed reasonable.” He folded the tripod, carried it to the opposite side of the pier and sighed in grateful relief when he realized the new angle brought him a spot of shade.
“You were involved in that savings and loan mess some years back, weren’t you?” Ringhoffer turned on his heel to face Booker.
“Part of the clean-up process, Sheriff. I didn’t create the mess.”
“I say, put your money in a sock,” Emaline yelled. “Damn sight safer than banks.”
Right, Booker thought. If a thief doesn’t find it and the house doesn’t burn down, you’ll have the same dollar in your sock after twenty years that you had when you put it in, minus inflation, which would bring the value down to about forty-nine cents. But folks who lost money during a bank crisis, and taxpayers who ultimately paid for the insured losses, could put up a good argument for socks.
“I read about you and that fellow who shot himself,” Ringhoffer said. “Never understood how a civilian got involved in a government investigation.”
“Federal investigators had their hands full,” Booker said. “The bank that hired me suffered a backwash of bad press from findings at similar institutions, and the bank’s audit committee wanted to clear the records.”
“Sweep a few items under the rug, so to speak?”
Booker straightened. Am I slave or suspect, Sheriff? Make up your damn mind. He stifled the rising desire to voice his anger and swatted the gnat trying to fly up his nose.
“Does your wife ever play Bingo, sheriff?” Bingo was big in the county, Booker had noticed.
“Sure she does, now and then.”
“Tell the truth,” Emaline piped. “Cora Lee never misses a night. Sits right there across from me playing twenty cards at a lick. Fastest hands at the table.”
“Let’s say your wife hit a winning streak,” Booker suggested. “Over the course of a year, she takes home a few hundred dollars. Maybe she doesn’t mention it to you, the money being her personal winnings, and maybe she’s also been knitting doilies or canning jelly, which she sells at local fairs. Maybe she squirrels away all this cash, planning to surprise you with a trip to Hawaii or some such.”
“Crochets fancy dolls,” Emaline said. “Big bonnets, scrunchy little faces. You see those dolls all over Texas. If you ask me, Cora Lee needs a kid of her own to crochet those dolls for.
Virgo with moon in Pisces, she’ll end up frustrated and twitchy unless you give her a couple of kids to do for, Sheriff.”
Booker took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his neck again. He noticed Ringhoffer’s khaki trousers looked as neatly pressed as they’d been that morning. Maybe little guys had tiny sweat glands.
“Then one day, Sheriff, you find the money sock, and you realize the income had not been included on your tax return. Would you call the IRS first? Or your own accountant?”
The sheriff’s chin jutted. “That money’s not like real income.”
“The IRS would argue the point. From every nickel earned above the personal exemption allowance, whatever the source, Uncle Sam expects his percentage.”
Ringhoffer’s polar-chip eyes leveled at Booker. “What’s my wife’s Bingo got to do with you causing a man to shoot himself in the head? A man who hired you, as you say, to help him out of a jam?”
“The bank’s audit committee hired me. What I found was a chief financial officer operating much like your wife earning a few bucks at Bingo or the county fair, only he was playing with federally insured depositor funds in the range of millions.”
“Pluto in Scorpio,” Emaline shouted. “Whole dang economic industry went through a transformation when Pluto traipsed through Scorpio. Power structures overthrown—”
“Stop that!” Ringhoffer’s silver pointer sliced the air, snapping leaves off an overhanging branch and striking the wooden pier near his shoe. “Stop spouting that nonsense when sensible men are trying to talk sensibly.”
Booker’s astonishment nearly lost him his footing. The sheriff had raised his voice.
