Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray (22 page)

Despite his age and poor eyesight, Nutty’d proved to be a darn good watchdog. I gave him a slice of bologna to reward him.

“What about me?” Nick asked. “Wasn’t I a good boy, too?”

I tossed him a slice of bologna, too, and headed back to bed.

*   *   *

Nick had already left when I woke Friday morning. I knew I shouldn’t have been disappointed by that fact, but I was. At least the sty was gone, too. Thank heaven for small favors.

I showered, put on my makeup, and dressed in my best black pantsuit with a red silk camisole and a red and black polka-dot scarf knotted loosely around my neck. It was stylish, yet professional, the perfect outfit for the courtroom showdown scheduled for the afternoon.

As I pulled the hot rollers out of my hair, the can of Lu’s contraband hairspray beckoned from my bathroom countertop. I hadn’t planned to use the stuff, but why not? The spray might be excessively sticky, but I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair losing its sassy curl for court and maybe it would give me some of Lu’s kick-ass attitude.

Annie watched from her perch on the toilet seat while I fluffed my hair, picked up the can, and aimed it at my head. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and pushed the trigger.
Psshht.

A cloud of the stuff hung in the air. My poor cat leaped off the toilet seat, sneezing three times in quick succession before bolting from the room.

I returned the can to the countertop and touched my hair. My chestnut locks were frozen in place. Not even hurricane-force winds could move them now.

*   *   *

Nick left me alone at work that morning, going so far as to close his office door so that our eyes couldn’t meet across the hall.

I was the one who’d pushed him away.

So why did it hurt so bad that he was shutting me out?

Men were nothing but trouble. I wasn’t sure they were worth it. Maybe I should consider switching teams. We had a couple of lesbian agents. They could probably give me some pointers.

I sighed. Nope, it wouldn’t work. I was hopelessly heterosexual. As infuriating as men were, I preferred a sexual partner with guy parts.

I spent part of my morning sorting the pile of mail I’d received the day before into two separate stacks, one for mail from Ark members, the other for mail from the self-proclaimed True Texans. The clerk brought me another bag of letters, though today’s take was significantly smaller. Maybe things were looking up for me.

“Did you see your new Facebook page?” the mail clerk asked.

“What are you talking about?”

He stepped around my desk and began typing on my laptop’s keyboard, pulling up the Facebook site. He angled the laptop so I could view the screen. “See?”

The page was titled “Tara Holloway Stinks.” As if the title weren’t bad enough, they’d posted a very unflattering photo of me from my days as a member of the NRA chapter at the University of Texas. My eyes were crossed, my tongue hanging out. I held a rifle in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other. The beer bottle was empty, though you couldn’t tell that from the photo. The snapshot had been taken as a joke after I’d led a workshop on gun safety. Talk about taking something out of context. Hell, I looked as crazy as the kooks from the Lone Star Nation.

Stupid Internet. Nobody could have any secrets anymore.

Seven hundred and eighteen people had “liked” the page, and nearly as many anti-Tara comments had been posted. Most were the incoherent, rambling rants of Lone Star Nation members, but a few members of the Ark had discovered the site and chimed in, too.

A pox on the infidel who dares to steal our meat and guns! The True Texans shall triumph!

Tara Holloway must be stopped!

Repent now, Tara, or live forever in hell!

Damn. My enemies had joined forces.

On the bright side, I’d gone viral and achieved a level of popularity I’d never managed to muster in high school.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Courting Trouble

At two o’clock, Nick opened his door and stepped across the hall, leaning against my doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. He said nothing, just flicked his eyes to the clock and back.

Time to leave for the hearing on the Ark case.

I grabbed my briefcase and slung my purse over my shoulder. Together we headed down the hall.

“Sorry I jumped on you yesterday,” I said, keeping my voice low as we passed the other offices. No sense giving our coworkers any grist for the gossip mill.

Nick kept his eyes locked straight ahead. “It was my fault. I come on a little too strong sometimes.”

“A little?”

“Okay, a lot. Sometimes I’m a big old jackass.”

“A jackass who’s hung like a horse?”

He cut his eyes and a grin my way. “Yeah.”

We rounded up Eddie and headed to the courthouse. Twenty minutes later, the three of us made our way past a crowd of Ark members in the hallway. Some of them held the signs they’d carried at the earlier protests. What the heck did they think this was, a football game? They were arguing with deputies, upset that they’d been denied seats in the courtroom.

“Full is full, folks,” the deputy said. “You can’t be standing out here in the hall. I’m going to have to ask you to head on out.” He spread his arms and walked slowly forward, effectively herding the crowd back into the elevators.

We walked into the loud, packed courtroom. Members of the Ark crowded butt cheek to butt cheek along the wooden benches, talking animatedly among themselves. As we headed up the center aisle, a woman’s voice hissed from behind us. “Jezebel!”

I turned and scanned the faces. Judy Jolly glared at me from a couple rows back. I fought the urge to respond with, “Takes one to know one, bee-otch!”

“Who’s that?” Eddie asked.

“Judy Jolly,” I said. “She’s one of the Ark’s greeters.”

“I’ll get in touch with the audit department,” Eddie said. “I’ll make sure she’s greeted with an audit notice ASAP.”

We continued to the front, taking seats at the counsel table with Ross O’Donnell. Fischer and his team of lawyers crowded around their table ten feet away, heads down in a huddle as they consulted. Former Attorney General Tim Haddocks was at least going through the motions today, his cell phone tucked away in the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

I pulled out my cell and sent a text to Daniel.
Nice tie.
I’d bought him the darn thing for his birthday.

When his phone vibrated, he pulled it out of his pocket and read the message. He sent a discreet smile my way.

I eyed Ross. No need to ask him how things looked for us. The death pall on his face said it all.

I glanced back at the crowd. Behind us sat a pack of reporters from the local television stations and newspapers, including one from the local weekly alternative magazine who sported three silver nose rings and shoulder-length blondish dreadlocks. Trish sat on the front row, dressed in a pink suit, her legs crossed, her short skirt riding up on her thighs. She was gazing in my general direction, though not directly at me. Her face bore an expression most accurately described as predatory.

I followed her line of sight, realizing she had her eyes on Nick. He was looking over the case file and hadn’t noticed her. Thank goodness. I scooted my chair back, blocking her view. If that bitch thought she’d sink her teeth into Nick, too, she had another think coming. Nick was mine. Well, not mine, exactly. But I was holding him in reserve.

Trish looked up at me. I forced a smile at her and raised a hand in greeting. She simply quirked her brows at me, then made a notation on the small pad of paper in her hand. I supposed it said something like “Die, Tara Holloway. Die!” Well, two could play that game. I uncapped my pen and wrote “butterscotch pudding sucks” on my legal pad.

Eddie cast a glance at my note, his brow scrunching in confusion.

“All rise.” The bailiff instructed us to stand as the judge came through the private door that led from her chambers into the courtroom.

Judge Alice Trumbull was one of the few liberal judges in Dallas. In her sixties now, she had the round body, loose jowls, and demeanor of a bulldog. Also a tendency to snap and snarl. She bounded up to her bench in her black robe, motioning for those in the room to sit once she’d taken her seat.

Her clerk handed her the case file. As crowded as the court schedules were these days, it was likely the first time she’d seen the paperwork.

Trumbull glanced down at the counsel tables. She nodded in greeting to Ross before turning to the defense. “Awfully crowded over there, isn’t it?”

The men looked up at her, Noah Fischer offering his most angelic smile.

Trumbull pointed a finger at him. “You’re that guy from television.”

Fischer nodded, beaming with pride. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“From that commercial, right? How in the world did you manage to turn all those cartwheels in that taco costume?”

Fischer’s expression turned from proud to perturbed. “Actually, I have a television ministry,” Fischer corrected her. “The Ark Temple of Worship. We’re on Sunday mornings at ten-thirty.”

“My mistake.” Judge Trumbull shot our table a wink before looking back down at the file. Apparently she knew exactly who Noah Fischer was. And, just as apparently, she wasn’t impressed. But impressed or not, the legal doctrine of stare decisis would require her to follow established law. Her personal feelings couldn’t enter into the equation.

Too bad.

She pulled out the documentation and scanned it over. “An injunction. Okeydoke.” She looked back at the defense table. “I don’t want to hear a bunch of squawking. Which one of you is going to argue?”

Daniel stood. “That would be me, Your Honor. Daniel Blowitz with Gertz, Gertz, and Schwartz.”

“All right, Danny boy. Let’s hear what you’ve got.” She sat back, her hands folded over her plump stomach, as Daniel eloquently argued the case, beginning with the purposes of the equal protection clause, summarizing the relevant case law, then offering defense exhibit number one, Alicia’s spreadsheet that listed the other megachurches and the salaries and benefits offered to their ministers.

Judge Trumbull took the document from Daniel and glanced down at it. “Numbers? I hate numbers.” She tossed the spreadsheet onto the desktop in front of her. “Tell me in words what this document says, son.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Daniel said patiently. He continued on, summarizing the data on the spreadsheet, carefully choosing his words to make it sound as if the Ark were doing nothing unusual or inappropriate. “There are thirty-four churches in the United States with congregations and annual revenues similar to those of the Ark Temple of Worship. All of them provide benefits to their pastors similar to what the Ark has provided to Reverend Fischer and his wife. However, not a single one of these churches or their ministers have been pursued for taxes, nor have any of them been threatened with revocation of their tax-exempt status.”

When Daniel finished, the judge said, “You’ve certainly done your homework, Mr. Blowhard.”

Daniel didn’t bother correcting the judge on his name.

She turned to Ross. “I hope you’ve got something good for me, too, Mr. O’Donnell.”

Ross stood and did his best, offering some information that Nick had pulled together about the number of large churches who did not provide excessive benefits to their ministers. “Clearly, not all large churches divert such enormous sums to their minister’s personal living expenses,” Ross offered. “Only a very small number of them are misusing their funds this way.”

The judge waved her arm dismissively as Daniel stood to rebut Ross’s argument. “I know what you’re going to say. Those churches are irrelevant because they’re doing the right thing with their money rather than using it to pamper their pastor, and therefore they’re not quote unquote ‘similarly situated’ to the Ark.”

Daniel glanced back at the other attorneys at his table as if unsure how to respond. “That’s not precisely how I would have put it, Your Honor,” he said tentatively. “But yes, the churches noted by Mr. O’Donnell should not be taken into consideration because they do not have similar spending patterns to the Ark.”

Trumbull shook her head before looking down at Ross. “I gotta give ’em that one, Ross.”

Strike one.

Ross tried another tack now, noting the number of churches that had had their tax-exempt status revoked after they’d engaged in proscribed political activities. Though these churches had lost their tax exemption for reasons different than our reasons for pursuing the Ark, I hoped the judge would make a broad interpretation of the law and use these churches as a basis for finding in favor of the IRS.

“Tax-exempt status is intended to be a very limited privilege,” Ross argued, “offered only to those organizations and entities that are willing to comply with the attendant restrictions, Your Honor. When a church allows its leader to use its resources for personal luxuries, those restrictions have been violated, just as those churches that have engaged in political activity have violated the legal restrictions.”

Ross called me to the witness stand. As I stood from the government’s table, both Nick and Eddie whispered words of encouragement, though Eddie’s “go get ’em, tiger” held far more decorum than Nick’s “give the bastard his due.”

All eyes were on me as I walked across the courtroom. When I climbed into the booth, Judy Jolly jumped from her seat, pointed a finger at me, and shrieked, “Whore of Babylon!”

Trumbull banged her gavel.
BAM!
She eyed her bailiff and jerked her head toward Judy. “Get that woman out of here.”

Judy Jolly struggled to pull free from the tight grip the bailiff had on her arm as she was led from the courtroom. “Get your hands off me!”

Her words only enticed a second bailiff to grab hold of her.

Once the doors closed on Judy, Trumbull pointed her gavel at the gallery. “If anyone else pulls a stunt like that, you will find your butt in jail quicker than you can say ‘Hail Mary.’ Got that?”