Pandemic

Marisa Taylor and her partner, Sally Williams, were very ill. They were returning to Sacramento from a settlement meeting with Martha Hogan of Hogan’s Hardware in Susanville. They had informed Ms. Hogan that they intended to sell her business on behalf of the government to satisfy the tax lien against her late husband, Mr. Terrence Hogan, and herself. At noon, following the meeting, they stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. Shortly after eating, they began to experience nausea and headaches, which intensified as they drove back to the Sacramento IRS Service Center.

Taylor and Williams were delighted to be rid of the son-of-a-bitch who had withstood their efforts to intimidate him into handing over $220,000. The actual amount of the tax they felt he owed was $85,000, but with penalties and back-applied interest and other fees, they were able to dramatically increase it. His wife was so devastated by her husband’s death, she’d been docile as a lamb during the meeting. She had no spirit, said almost nothing, and signed whatever they placed in front of her. They could sense that nothing seemed important anymore, with Terrence gone, that she wished she could die, too. There were four young children still at home who depended upon her, now more than ever after their father’s abdication.

“Why did he have to do it and with such dreadful violence, just when I needed him most?” She had said, not embarrassed for them to hear.

These thoughts and the state of mind they provoked made it easy for Taylor and Williams. Mr. Hogan had been an erstwhile cunning and intimidating adversary. Once, he arrived at their offices in leathers, carrying his silver Nazi bikers’ helmet and buffalo leather gloves, having ridden his Harley-Davidson all the way to Sacramento from Susanville. His Jacket and other attire sported the Harley name and logo in various ways, even his deeply embossed, Loper biker boots. To them, he was a symbol of revolutionary resistance to all authority, always making snide comments about government in general, and taxation in particular. But they had the government power of the gun on their side, so the week before his suicide, they gave him an ultimatum: Sign an agreement, or have the case transferred to the Criminal Investigation Division.

True to form, in their minds, they felt he had conceived of a plan to loot the life insurance company the way he had looted the government to maintain his style of life before slipping from everyone’s grasp. The agents viewed his suicide not as an altruistic sacrifice, but as a cop out . . . on someone else’s nickel.