The Summons (23 page)

A letter from the Internal Revenue Service, addressed to Mr. Ray Atlee, Executor of the Estate of Rueben V. Atlee, and postmarked in Atlanta two days earlier. He studied it carefully before opening it slowly. A single sheet of official stationery, from one Martin Gage, Office of Criminal Investigations, in the Atlanta office. It read:

Dear Mr. Atlee:

As executor of your father’s estate, you are required by law to include all assets for valuation and taxation purposes. Concealment of assets may constitute tax fraud. The unauthorized disbursement of assets is a violation of the laws of Mississippi and possible federal laws as well.

Martin Gage
Criminal Investigator

His first instinct was to call Harry Rex to see what notice had been given to the IRS. As executor, he had a year from the date of death to file the final return, and, according to the accountant, extensions were liberally granted.

The letter was postmarked the day after he and Harry Rex went to court to open the estate. Why would the IRS be so quick to respond? How would they even know about the death of Reuben Atlee?

Instead, he called the office number on the letterhead. The recorded message welcomed him to the world of the IRS, Atlanta office, but he would have to call back later because it was a Saturday. He went online and in the Atlanta directory found three Martin Gages. The first one he called was out of town, but his wife said he did not work for the IRS, thank heavens. The second call went unanswered. The third found a Mr. Gage eating dinner.

“Do you work for the IRS?” Ray asked, after cordially introducing himself as a professor of law and apologizing for the intrusion.

“Yes, I do.”

“Criminal Investigations?”

“Yep, that’s me. Fourteen years now.”

Ray described the letter, then read it verbatim.

“I didn’t write that,” Gage said.

“Then who did?” Ray snapped, and immediately wished he had not.

“How am I supposed to know? Can you fax it to me?”

Ray stared at his fax machine, and, thinking quickly, said, “Sure, but my machine is at the office. I can do it Monday.”

“Scan it and e-mail it,” Gage said.

“Uh, my scanner’s broken right now. I’ll just fax it to you Monday.”

“Okay, but somebody’s pulling your leg, pal. That’s not my letter.”

Ray was suddenly anxious to rid himself of the IRS, but Gage was now fully involved. “I’ll tell you something else,” he continued. “Impersonating an IRS agent is a federal offense, and we prosecute vigorously. Any idea who it is?”

“I have no idea.”

“Probably got my name from our online directory, worst thing we ever did. Freedom of Information and all that crap.”

“Probably so.”

“When was the estate opened?”

“Three days ago.”

“Three days ago! The return’s not due for a year.”

“I know.”

“What’s in the estate?”

“Nothing. An old house.”

“Just some crackpot. Fax it Monday and I’ll give you a call.”

“Thanks.”

Ray put the phone on the coffee table and asked himself why, exactly, had he called the IRS?

To verify the letter.

Gage would never get a copy of it. And in a month or so he would forget about it. And in a year he wouldn’t recall it if anyone mentioned it.

Perhaps not the smartest move so far.

______

Forrest had settled into the routine of Alcorn Village. He was allowed two calls a day and they were subject to being recorded, he explained. “They don’t want us calling our dealers.”

“Not funny,” Ray said. It was the sober Forrest, with the soft drawl and clear mind.

“Why are you in Virginia?” he asked.

“It’s my home.”

“Thought you were visiting some friends around here, old buddies from law school.”

“I’ll be back shortly. How’s the food?”

“Like a nursing home, Jell-O three times a day but always a different color. Really lousy stuff. For three hundred bucks plus a day it’s a rip-off.”

“Any cute girls?”

“One, but she’s fourteen, daughter of a judge, if you can believe that. Really some sad people. We have these group bitch meetings once a day where everyone lashes out at whoever got them started on drugs. We talk through our problems. We help one another. Hell, I know more than the counselors. This is my eighth detox, Bro, can you believe it?”

“Seems like more than that,” Ray said.

“Thanks for helping me. You know what’s sick?”

“What?”

“I’m happiest when I’m clean. I feel great, I feel smart, I can do anything. Then I hate myself when I’m on the streets doing all that stupid stuff like the other scumbags. I don’t know why I do it.”

“You sound great, Forrest.”

“I like this place, aside from the food.”

“Good, I’m proud of you.”

“Can you come see me?”

“Of course I will. Give me a couple of days.”

He checked in with Harry Rex, who was at the office, where he usually spent the weekends. With four wives under his belt, there were good reasons he wasn’t home much.

“Do you recall the Judge hearing a case on the coast, early last year?” Ray asked.

Harry Rex was eating something and smacking into the phone. “The coast?” He hated the coast, thought they were all a bunch of redneck mafia types.

“He was paid for a trial down there, January of last year.”

“He was sick last year,” Harry Rex said, then swallowed something liquid.

“His cancer was diagnosed last July.”

“I don’t remember any case on the coast,” he said, and bit into something else. “That surprises me.”

“Me too.”

“Why are you going through his files?”

“I’m just checking his payroll records against his trial files.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the executor.”

“Forgive me. When are you coming back?”

“Couple of days.”

“Hey, I bumped into Claudia today, hadn’t seen her in months, and she gets to town early, parks a brand-new black Cadillac near the Coffee Shop so everybody can see it, then spends half the morning piddling around town. Whatta piece of work.”

Ray couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Claudia racing down to the car dealership with a pocket full of cash. The Judge would be proud.

Sleep came in short naps on the sofa. The walls cracked louder, the vents and ducts seemed more active. Things moved, then they didn’t. The night after the break-in, the entire apartment was poised for another one.

CHAPTER 27

Trying hard to be normal, Ray took a long jog on a favorite trail, along the downtown mall, down Main Street to the campus, up Observatory Hill and back, six miles in all. He had lunch with Carl Mirk at Bizou, a popular bistro three blocks from his apartment, and he drank coffee afterward at a sidewalk café. Fog had the Bonanza reserved for a 3 P.M. training session, but the mail came and everything normal went out the window.

The envelope was addressed to him by hand, nothing on the return, with a postmark in Charlottesville the day before. A stick of dynamite would not have looked more suspicious lying there on the table. Inside was a letter-size sheet of paper, trifolded, and when he spread it open all systems shut down. For a moment, he couldn’t think, breathe, feel, hear.

It was a color digital photo of the front of 14B at
Chaney’s, printed off a computer on regular copier paper. No words, no warnings, no threats. None were needed.

When he could breathe again he also started sweating, and the numbness wore off enough for a sharp pain to knife through his stomach. He was dizzy so he closed his eyes, and when he opened them and looked at the picture again, it was shaking.

His first thought, the first he could remember, was that there was nothing in the apartment he could not do without. He could leave everything. But he filled a small bag anyway.

Three hours later he stopped for gas in Roanoke, and three hours after that he pulled into a busy truck stop just east of Knoxville. He sat in the parking lot for a long time, low in his TT roadster, watching the truckers come and go, watching the movements in and out of the crowded café. There was a table he wanted in the window, and when it was available he locked the Audi and went inside. From the table, he guarded his car, fifty feet away and stuffed with three million in cash.

Because of the aroma, he guessed that grease was the cafe’s specialty. He ordered a burger and on a napkin began scribbling his options.

The safest place for the money was in a bank, in a large lock box behind thick walls, cameras, etc. He could divide the money, scatter it among several banks in several towns between Charlottesville and Clanton, and leave a complicated trail. The money could be discreetly
hauled in by briefcase. Once locked away, it would be safe forever.

The trail, though, would be extensive. Lease forms, proper ID, home address, phones, here meet our new vice president, in business with strangers, video cameras, lock box registers, and who knew what else because Ray had never hidden stuff in a bank before.

He had passed several self-storage places along the interstate. They were everywhere these days and for some reason wedged as close to the main roads as possible. Why not pick one at random, pull over, pay cash, and keep the paperwork to a minimum? He could hang around in Podunktown for a day or two, find some more fireproof boxes at a local supply house, secure his money, then sneak away. It was a brilliant idea because his tormentor would not expect it.

And it was a stupid idea because he would leave the money.

He could take it home to Maple Run and bury it in the basement. Harry Rex could alert the sheriff and the police to watch for suspicious outsiders lurking around the town. If an agent showed up to follow him, he’d get nailed in Clanton, and Dell at the Coffee Shop would have the details by sunrise. You couldn’t cough there without three people catching your cold.

The truckers came in waves, most of them talking loudly as they entered, anxious to mix it up after miles
of solitary confinement. They all looked the same, jeans and pointed-toe boots. A pair of sneakers walked by and caught Ray’s attention. Khakis, not jeans. The man was alone and took a seat at the counter. In the mirror Ray saw his face, and it was one he’d seen before. Wide through the eyes, narrow at the chin, long flat nose, flaxen hair, thirty-five years old give or take. Somewhere around Charlottesville but impossible to place.

Or was everyone now a suspect?

Run with your loot, like a murderer with his victim in the trunk, and plenty of faces look familiar and ominous.

The burger arrived, hot and steaming, covered with fries, but he’d lost his appetite. He started on his third napkin. The first two had taken him nowhere.

His options at the moment were limited. Since he was unwilling to let the money out of his sight, he would drive all night, stopping for coffee, perhaps pulling over for a nap, and arrive at Clanton early in the morning. Once he was on his turf again, things would become clearer.

Hiding the money in the basement was a bad idea. An electrical short, a bolt of lightning, a stray match, and the house was gone. It was hardly more than kindling anyway.

The man at the counter had yet to look at Ray, and the more Ray looked at him the more convinced he was that he was wrong. It was a generic face, the kind you see every day and seldom remember. He was eating
chocolate pie and drinking coffee. Odd, at eleven o’clock at night.

______

He rolled into Clanton just after 7 A.M. He was red-eyed, ragged with exhaustion, in need of a shower and two days’ rest. Through the night, while he wasn’t watching every set of headlights behind him and slapping himself to stay awake, he’d dreamed of the solitude of Maple Run. A large, empty house, all to himself. He could sleep upstairs, downstairs, on the porch. No ringing phones, no one to bother him.

But the roofers had other plans. They were hard at work when he arrived, their trucks and ladders and tools covering the front lawn and blocking the driveway. He found Harry Rex at the Coffee Shop, eating poached eggs and reading two newspapers at once.

“What are you doing here?” he said, barely looking up. He wasn’t finished with his eggs or his papers, and didn’t appear too excited to see Ray.

“Maybe I’m hungry.”

“You look like hell.”

“Thanks. I couldn’t sleep there, so I drove here.”

“You’re cracking up.”

“Yes, I am.”

He finally lowered the newspaper and stabbed an egg that appeared to be covered with hot sauce. “You drove all night from Charlottesville?”

“It’s only fifteen hours.”

A waitress brought him coffee. “How long are those roofers planning on working?”

“They’re there?”

“Oh yes. At least a dozen of them. I wanted to sleep for the next two days.”

“It’s those Atkins boys. They’re fast unless they start drinking and fighting. Had one fall off a ladder last year, broke his neck. Got him thirty thousand in workers’ comp.”

“Anyway, why, then, did you hire them?”

“They’re cheap, same as you, Mr. Executor. Go sleep in my office. I got a hideaway on the third floor.”

“With a bed?”

Harry Rex glanced around as if the gossipmongers of Clanton were closing in. “Remember Rosetta Rhines?”

“No.”

“She was my fifth secretary and third wife. That was where it all started.”

“Are the sheets clean?”

“What sheets? Take it or leave it. It’s very quiet, but the floor shakes. That’s how we got caught.”

“Sorry I asked.” Ray took a long swig of coffee. He was hungry, but not ready for a feast. He wanted a bowl of flakes with skim milk and fruit, something sensible, but he’d be ridiculed for ordering such light fare in the Coffee Shop.

“You gonna eat?” Harry Rex growled at him.

“No. We need to store some stuff. All those boxes and furniture. You know a place?”

“We?”

“Okay, I need a place.”

“It’s nothing but crap.” A bite of a biscuit, one loaded with sausage, Cheddar, and what appeared to be mustard. “Burn it.”

“I can’t burn it, at least not now.”