Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli (A Tara Holloway Novel) by Diane Kelly Page A

service representative would give me no information. She was, however, generous with the attitude. “People buy prepaid phones for a reason, you know. They don’t want the government listening in on their phone calls.”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fine. How do I get in touch with your legal department?”
    She gave me the legal department’s phone number and I jotted it on my pad. I didn’t bother thanking her. If she was going to dish it out, she’d have to take, it, too. “Later, dude.”
    Her snotty voice came through the line one last time. “You’re wel—”
    Click.
    I phoned the legal department. While the representative there was pleasant, she was just as tight-lipped. “We’ll need a court order before we can release private information.”
    I’d gone as far as I could with Triple 7’s phone number at the moment. Next, I tried the Web site. Still down. My “Who Is” search showed the domain was registered in the name of Tripp Sevin, clearly a play on the business name. The address was also clearly fictional: 333 Anystreet, Somewhere, SD 12345. Urgh. This guy wasn’t making things easy. He also wasn’t fooling me with the alleged South Dakota address. Given that he’d targeted a local retirement home and offered trips to casinos in the neighboring states of Oklahoma and Louisiana, he was likely based somewhere in north Texas. For now, at least. Con artists often hit hard in a particular area, moving on to a new region once they’d milked a location dry or to avoid apprehension by law enforcement.
    Though I was fairly sure the name Tripp Sevin was made up, due diligence required me to run a search to be certain. My query for a driver’s license in the name of Tripp Sevin came up with only two licenses issued in the United States with that combination. The first belonged to a seventeen-year-old boy in Salem, Oregon. The other belonged to a thirty-six-year-old Asian man in Oakland, California.
    Searches of business filings got me nowhere, too. While there were several businesses with the words Triple Seven or the combination word/numeric Triple 7 in their name, none included the word Adventure and none listed an owner or director named Tripp Sevin.
    I phoned the domain registry and explained the situation to an assistant in the legal department.
    She offered me a few pertinent details. “The customer who bought the domain name also purchased a month-to-month do-it-yourself Web site package. Looks like the site was only up for four months.”
    “How were the fees paid?”
    “By credit card.”
    Finally! Someone was giving me something to move on. “What was the name and number on the card?”
    “Sorry,” she said. “We can’t disclose that information without a court order.”
    Gee, that sounds familiar. “I’ll get you one.”
    As soon as we were off the phone, I dialed Ross O’Donnell, an attorney at the Department of Justice who represented the IRS on a regular basis.
    “I’d be happy to help,” he said. “But I’ll need affidavits from the men to show to Judge Trumbull. You know how she is.”
    I knew all too well how Judge Alice Trumbull was. She was a rare left-winger in a state that leaned so far right it was a wonder Texas didn’t topple over on top of Louisiana and sink into its swamps. Still, I respected the judge. She didn’t issue search warrants willy-nilly. She made us government agents prove our cases, do our jobs right. She kept us honest. Not that we needed anyone to keep us honest, but she made sure we never even thought about doing otherwise.
    “Thanks, Ross. I’ll get the affidavits to you ASAP.”

 
    chapter twelve
    S ign Here
    I pulled out the notes I’d taken during yesterday morning’s discussion with Harold, Jeb, and Isaiah and typed up an affidavit for each of them. When I finished, I printed them out and headed back down the hall to Lu’s office. I held up the documents. “I’m going out to Whispering Pines to get these signed.”
    She