Free Tara Holloway 01 - Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure by Diane Kelly

stoops with sagging faces, as if waiting for someone or something they never really expected to come.
    “This is depressing.”
    “This is the ’hood,” Christina shot back. “What did you expect?”
    I was used to a higher class of criminal, if there was such a thing. In order for someone to evade their taxes, the person first had to have income. Most of the income in this neighborhood probably came in the form of food stamps and housing assistance.
    Christina took a few more turns before pulling into the dirt driveway of a single-story wood house surrounded by a chain-link fence, the steel wires bent in several places. The gate had been torn off its hinges and lay next to the drive. What little paint remained on the house was the yellow-brown color of mustard jar crust. I hoped it wasn’t lead based. A slumped porch spanned the front of the house as if too lazy to sit up straight. Miniblinds missing several slats hung crookedly in the few windows not covered with plywood. The yard was mostly bare, with a dozen or so dandelions serving as a lawn. Behind the house sat a detached garage that leaned precariously to the right against an oak, having given up the will to live.
    Christina cut the engine. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”
    I stared at the dump. “The ‘Condemned’ sign must have fallen off.”
    We climbed out of the car and headed to the porch, stepping on it tentatively lest it collapse under our weight. Christina unlocked the door and we stepped inside. A foul stench greeted us.
    I pinched my nose shut. “It smells like something died in here.”
    “Or someone .” Christina waved her hand in front of her face. “I’ll get the windows. You find out what that smell is.”
    “Wimp.”
    The den was small and dusty, containing only a filthy rust-colored corduroy couch with duct tape holding the cushions together. A few cigarette butts and an old tattered phone book lay on the floor. Christina stepped over to open the windows, while I continued into the kitchen. The countertops and linoleum were a hopelessly outdated avocado green, the countertops nicked and dull, the flooring splitting at the seams and curling up at the edges. A white fridge with a Rent-2-Own sticker on it stood next to the stove. No doubt the rent was past due. Against the back wall sat two large black trash bags oozing moldy, rotten garbage. Flies swarmed through the air above the bags while their maggot spawn wriggled among the debris. I suppose I should have been glad it was only garbage and not a decaying corpse.
    Bile came up in my throat but I forced it back down. “I’m a big girl,” I told myself. “I’m a federal agent. I’m tough. I can do this.” I pulled my skimpy T-shirt up over my nose, grabbed the bags, and yanked them out the back door, sending the roaches that had been hiding under them scurrying under the cabinets and refrigerator. The screen door slammed shut behind me with a loud thwack .
    I let my shirt down and gulped in a breath of the fresher outside air, then pulled the bags around the side of the house and out to the curb as fast as my legs would go. So much for being a diva. When I went back inside the house, Christina had all but the plywood-covered windows open and the odor had begun to clear out.
    The two of us looked around. The house had two bedrooms with horribly marred walls, one bearing three fist-sized holes. The small bath sported a cracked mirror, a tub with a three-inch scum ring, and a toilet with no seat.
    “This is disgusting.” I yanked the mildew-covered plastic shower curtain off its rings. “How can people live like this?”
    Christina shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.” She opened the cabinet under the sink and bent down to look inside. She shrieked and scrambled backward, knocking me into the tub. Leaping in after me, she yanked her gun from her purse, shoved a clip into it, and aimed it at the cabinet. “Something’s in there!”
    “What do you mean something’s in