I feel a tremor run through my body. “May I have the cup of tea from my desk?”
“Yes,” says the ponytailed woman. “I will get it for you.” She walks out of the kitchen and across the wooden floor in the great room and around the corner toward the basement stairs.
From the wide breakfast nook, I can see agents with purple rubber gloves rummaging through the kitchen drawers. One looks into the flour and sugar canisters on the granite countertop near the stove. She moves to the sink at the kitchen island and picks up and reads the label on the hand lotion. Someone else is in the dining room, checking out the liquor cabinet and studying family photos on shelves. I feel sick. They are inspecting every inch! My purse. Of course, they are going through my purse. I rub my chest. Breathe…breathe…Listen…
I hear two of the invaders head toward the garage. The back door creaks open. The car keys by the back door jingle. Footsteps scuff the concrete. They are going through Reggie’s red 2007 Corvette convertible. The sound of car doors and the trunk tells me I am right.
The ponytailed woman enters the kitchen with my cup of cold Chai Black tea in her right hand and an accordion file of tabbed manila folders in the crook of her left arm. I see my full name on one of the tabs.
“You have a file on me already?” I ask in surprise. She ignores my question and puts the accordion folder face down on the table, hiding the tabs. I wonder if they ran my name and Social Security number already. Bet they did. Bet she knows about my history with them. For sure they found my practice sheets for forging Reggie and Odyna’s signatures. Crap!
She sits to my left. “I’m Taylor Emmings, the case manager for this investigation,” she says. She opens a black billfold with a gold badge to show her photo ID. I look at the picture and the text. I cannot make sense of the words, but it looks official. Ms. Emmings turns her head toward the thin agent to my right. “This is Solomon,” she says. I manage a slight smile as I nod to him.
“You can leave while we make our investigation, and we will call you when we are done,” she offers, but I sense a trap.
“My commute is an hour and a quarter, so it doesn’t make sense for me to leave and come back.” I grasp my mug. The tea is cold, but I chug it. “Can I make a call?”
“You can, but you have to leave, and if you leave, you are not allowed to come back until we are done searching the house,” explains Solomon.
“Then I’m not going anywhere,” I reply firmly. Fuckers! I’m not going to let them go through Reggie and Odyna’s house with no accountability. Fuckers! Goddam IRS!
The office phone extension on the granite counter rings. It must be Jimmy. He’s supposed to call.
“Can I answer that?” I ask.
“No,” says Ms. Emmings.
“May I have my purse?”
“Yes, after we check it for security purposes,” Emmings informs me in her authoritarian tone. Fuckers!
“I have a lot of work to do,” I remind my uninvited guests.
“We would like to interview you to ask you some questions about what you do and about the business. Then we will ask for your contact information, as well as a little background information.” Taylor Emmings declares. They were not going to let me get away.
I nod and feel sick again. This is a federal criminal investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, and it is important for me to cooperate and to tell the truth. I rub my chest again. Breathe…breathe…
“I’d like to make another cup of tea since that one was cold. It will help calm me.”
“Fine,” the case manager says. She follows me across the kitchen. She stays in unwelcome intimacy at my elbow. I open the cabinet next to the refrigerator, take out my box of tea and small container of sweetener, fill my cup with water, and cross the kitchen to the microwave. I put a tiny spoonful of white stevia powder into my cup. She takes a breath. I am suddenly aware of how much it looks like I’m scooping cocaine with a cocaine spoon.
“Oh, you use stevia? How do you like it?” she asks.
“It takes a little getting used to, but it’s so much healthier than anything else.” And I would like to elbow you really hard for trying to be chatty and friendly during a goddam raid, and you thought of cocaine too, didn’t you? I carry my tea back to the table.
“Your cooperation will allow us to leave sooner,” intones Solomon, face serious. “So you can get back to your work faster.” Each of them had a legal pad and a pen. They began to write as they started with their questions.
“Why aren’t the owners here?”
“They are away on travel, in Greece.”
“They were supposed to be back yesterday.” How did they know this? Of course, they are the IRS.
“They called Friday and said they were staying another week.”
“Did they say why?”
“Because Reggie’s father is sick.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“About three-and-a-half months.”
The case manager looks incredulous. “They left you in charge of the office after such a short time?”
“Yes. They know they can trust me,” I said, indignant.
“How did you come to work here?”
“Through a mutual friend, who thought I would be able to shape up the office and help the company grow. The friend convinced them that their relatives were ruining the business and they should be replaced with a professional.”
“What were the job interviews like?”
“They were more like meetings where they wanted to determine if they liked me and whether I was a good fit for the company.”
“What is your job title?”
“I don’t have an official title, but I’ve been called, or called myself, ‘office manager’ and ‘secretary.’”
“Tell me what you do, specifically.”
“I find bid opportunities, put together and submit bid packages, obtain price quotes, handle communications, notarize documents, and whatever else needs doing — except for financial things, because numbers don’t stick in my head and I don’t like them.”
“What did you do before this job?”
“I was unemployed for fourteen months.” My words come out more angrily than I intend. Taylor Emmings tilts her legal pad for better light. Girly curly handwriting. How Barbie.
“And before that?”
“I was an assistant to a county supervisor.” Solomon’s legal pad lay flat. He wrote more than the case manager, and his illegible script was bolder and more straightforward. It seemed to hint that he was probably a decent person.
“Under what conditions did you leave that job?”
“The supervisor gave my job to someone as a political favor. The former chairman was one of his top donors, her niece needed a full-time job, and I was the newest member of the team, so…” The office phone line rang. Reflexively, I moved to answer.
“Don’t,” Emmings warns. I sense she had been trained to be dictatorial. My teeth clench.
“That’s probably our foreman, Jimmy,” I told her. “He checks in with me each morning. He will be worried if I don’t answer. It could also be Reggie or Odyna, and they would be worried, too.” Agent Emmings ignored my explanation and continued with her questioning.
“How much education do you have?”
“One year of college.”
“What did you major in?” she asks.
“Horticulture, business, and graphic arts.”
“Do you have an accounting background?”
“No. I took Accounting 101 and Business Math, but that was enough to tell me that I hated it.”
The phone rang again. I had to quash the urge to answer it. It reminded me that my work was not getting done, and it was payroll reporting day. I decided to play the “Jimmy is worried” card again.
“That has to be Jimmy. He must be really worried about me since I didn’t answer before. He expects I am here because that’s what I do. Reliable, that’s me.”
“If Jimmy is worried about you, is it possible he might drive over to see if you are OK?” Solomon asks. I could not tell if he was batting for me or just playing good cop, but I recognized an opening. I wasn’t sure that Jimmy would drive to the house from the work yard in Manassas, but he might.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s kinda’ sweet on me.”
“Next time he calls, you can answer,” said Emmings, “But you must keep it short. Tell him you are alright, but you can’t talk right now, and you will call him back when you can. Do not say anything else.” I waited for the phone to ring again, feeling tense, willing it. This must be what it feels like to be held hostage when the kidnappers put you on the line for a ransom.
One of the agents brought a rubber stamp from the office. They’re going through my desk. Fuckers!
“What is this?” Emmings asks, holding it so I could see “Hila Building Material, Ltd.”
“I have no idea,” I told her. “I have seen it, and I was curious, but I never asked. It seemed insignificant, and I had too many other things to deal with. This company was a huge mess when I came here, and it took all I had to straighten it out.” Emmings gave it back to the agent who took it downstairs.
“Now we are going to ask you about the company,” Agent Emmings settled down. “How long has Skopelos Contractors been in business?”
“Twenty-eight years.”
“Would you please describe what the company does?”
“We sandblast, paint, upgrade, and repair water towers.”
“Please define ‘repairs,’” she asks. A stupid question.
“That would be things like welding plates over weakened parts of the shell wall, fixing problems with ladders, or replacing roof beams.”
“What can you say about the company’s financial standing?”
“I don’t really know. Odyna told me that before she came, the records were poorly kept by Nyfitsa and Anna, who are Reggie’s ex-niece and ex-girlfriend. She said she had found a shoebox with tax documents in it. Odyna told me that some accounts were months or years in arrears, and she has been slowly fixing that by paying them off a little every month.” The two agents’ pens worked for a few more moments before the next question.
“How is the payroll handled here? Tell us step-by-step, please.”
“I usually call the foreman for the hours for the crews and write it on a steno pad. Then either Odyna or I put down the info on a form–she by hand, and I with an electronic file–which we FAX to the CPA.
“Who is the CPA ?”
“Argo Skythropos.”
“We need his contact information.”
“It’s in a binder on the white desk. But, please, don’t take anything from there, just copy it on our machine–because I need that notebook for preparing bids.”
“OK, so, what happens next with the payroll?”
“We report up to 40 hours to Argo, but write additional hours in the margin after we fax him the weekly timesheet. Then when the checks are written–usually by Odyna, but for the past two weeks, by me, since I’ve been alone in the office–we add in the overtime as straight pay, with nothing deducted.” The two agents’ energy levels spike. They focus on these details intensely, asking me the same or similar questions repeatedly, wanting every detail. That tells me that this is a key part of what they are investigating.
“So, do we understand right that the paychecks include net pay plus gross overtime pay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you work overtime, and have you also received gross overtime pay?”
“Yes, a little, at first. But then Odyna wanted me to go on comp time instead,” I answered truthfully, thinking, You don’t mess with the IRS. They can do anything they want. Anything! There is no sense in trying to hide the truth, anyway. Every bit of documentation is down in the office, so they will find it. Maybe giving them the information quickly will send them on their way faster, so I can get to work.
“For now, back to the payroll,” the case manager directs. “Who writes and signs the checks?”
“Normally, Odyna writes the checks and Reggie signs them.”
“How did you have checks for the payroll while they are away?”
“They left a bunch of signed blank checks for me to use for payroll and other needs.”
“How many checks?”
“Thirty-five.”
Taylor Emmings smirks, incredulous. “They left you thirty-five signed blank checks?”
I feel annoyed.
“They know they can trust me, OK?” I already told you that. Why don’t you get it?
“Have you ever seen anyone else sign paychecks?”
“No.”
“What happens after the checks are written?”
“We make copies of the checks with the pay stubs and staple them together with the payroll sheet that we faxed to the CPA, and also the steno pad page that I wrote down the hours on.” Solomon smiles like he’s hit the jackpot. He beams at the case manager, who kept her cool. She’s pretending that’s not a big deal, but it is. That must be what this is about, the payroll. The case manager goes on with more questions.
“Which bank is used?”
“Massif.”
“And who is authorized to sign checks?”
“As far as I know, Reggie is the only one.”
“Do you know whether there are any other banks for the business?”
“No.”
“What do you know about Reggie’s personal finances?”
“Virtually nothing, though I know they took a loan to help with company expenses since the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, is refusing to pay a million dollars it owes on a job.”
“How do Reggie and Odyna live?” she asks. I shrug. “Comfortably enough, but not outlandish. They eat well and drink a bit, usually wine.”
“Does Reggie have any expensive hobbies?”
“There is a Corvette in the garage, as I am sure you know by now.”
“Does he carry a big wad of cash, or is he a credit card kind of guy?”
“I have seen his wallet, and it seems to be what one would expect for someone in his
position.”
“Is anyone paid in cash?”
“Not that I know of.”
“This is a nice house,” notes Solomon, gazing around the room. “Do you know how big it is?”
“About 7,000 square feet.”
“It’s very clean, too. Do they have someone come clean it?”
“No, Odyna does it all. She never stops. One night, when they were going to go out, she was even cleaning windows in her cocktail dress.”
“Does Reggie have any property or financial accounts in Greece?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what this investigation is about?”
“Judging by your questions, it’s about payroll.”
“Are you surprised?”
“I thought something was fishy when Nyfitsa asked for copies of her old pay stubs last week. She’s a rotten person trying to harm the company. She’s angry because Reggie and Odyna didn’t beg her to come back after she quit in a huff. It seems to me she was guilty of neglect, even willful neglect, and maybe even purposefully trying to damage the business.”
“Did she get her pay stubs?”
“Yes.”
“How was it determined that she would get them?”
“She called me because she’d asked our CPA for them, he’d said it was up to Reggie, and Reggie had asked me to tell Argo to fax the stubs to me and then I faxed them to Nyfitsa.”
“Which period did the stubs cover?”
“March through May. That’s when she quit, in May. She didn’t ask for anything more, so that must be what she had wanted.”
“Have you discussed this gross pay with Reggie or Odyna?”
“No. I wasn’t really comfortable with it, but I didn’t want to make waves. I need my job. Like I told you, I was unemployed for fourteen months before this. I’m a single mom with two kids and an underwater mortgage.” They don’t seem to care much about that, so I ask them a question.
“Will my writing the payroll checks for the past two weeks get me in trouble?” The young case manager answers.
“Right now, you are not under investigation, but we can’t make any promises.”
“Should I consult an attorney?”
“That is up to you. We cannot make any recommendations. We appreciate your cooperation, and if you hadn’t cooperated, there would be other ways for us to seek your cooperation. We are not making a threat, just letting you know.” Not making a threat, my ass. Fuckers! Fucking IRS! I hate them!
“My Fakking HORRIBLE Greek Mafia Job,” © 2025, Shay Seaborne. All rights reserved.
