Isn't That How They Caught Al Capone?

"Shit!"

Clutching her hands into trembling claws of suppressed rage, Veronica forced herself to exhale through clenched teeth. The little busy wheel on the screen was mocking her, taunting her, as not a goddamn thing happened on the page. "Come on, already!"

Her voice was raw and ragged from strangled snarls and shrieks, little red half-moon divots on her fists from teeth and fingernails. She wanted to tear her hair out, or punch a wall, or rip the world to shreds, but she was forced to wait, wild eyes bulging, as the slowest browser in history limped toward completion. "Fucking load!"

Finally, new words appeared on the screen. Veronica's eyes flicked toward the darkened window, still black in the early morning night. Her own reflection sent a jolt through her spine; the ghostly homunculus satanically under-lit by the LCD screen, uncanny and alien beneath a short, black wig. She remembered to breathe, and turned back to the phone.

"Did you have qualifying health care coverage for all members of your shared responsibility family for the entire year? If no, or claiming an exemption, complete Schedule HSR (see instructions)."

What? Fucking what?

"I hate this, hate this, hate this," Veronica hissed, flicking through paperwork. None of it made any sense to her, it never made any sense, and every year brought with it the same gut-wrenching dread. It poisoned her sister's birthday every April, when Veronica had to procure an affordable extravagance for the smug little bitch who had a pre-stamped envelope waiting the day she got her W2. Veronica hated trying and failing to finish the forms on her own, then having to turn to online services, which she knew meant she was helping to fund the very lobbyists keeping the tax code so inexplicable in the first place. She absolutely couldn't deny them, now, and she seethed at the inescapably Kafkaesque position it put her in.

The stakes were too high. That was why Veronica couldn't concentrate, constantly second-guessed her own conclusions. The stakes were too damn high. Even though Veronica excelled at geometry, she tapped out at statistics, when her heart beat faster as soon as a number wore a dollar sign around its neck. People cared about money, often a lot more than they cared about people.

Was that a noise from the bathroom? Veronica froze, held her breath, listening. She turned the phone away and peered into the darkness, straining for the slightest sound. The silence was thick and unrelenting, and Veronica forced herself to breathe again. She was so damn sick of holding her breath.

Tapping her stylus across the screen, Veronica felt the heat rising in her face as she scanned the penultimate page. Make sure that everything is correct, everything must be correct, absolutely correct, or you will go you prison. They, the They with a capitol 'T', have all this information anyway, and are just waiting, just gagging for you to slip up and slap the cuffs on yourself. Veronica stared at the words, but they didn't make sense, they never made any sense, and why was she doing this? She shouldn't have to do this! All this anguish and frustration and pointless, stupid pencil-pushing; it wasn't fair! She didn't even feel human anymore!

Veronica put her face in her hands, with her nails chewed to bleeding, and sobbed. It was one sob, dry, heartbreaking, and then it was over. It was all she had time for. Screwing up her courage, Veronica hit the 'continue' button one last time.

Why wouldn't it fucking load? Veronica's jaw wrenched open in a silent scream, fingers digging into her thighs as a wave of hatred ripped through her. Every nerve was raw and writhing, vibrating with the blazing intensity of her rage. And it was a putrescent miscarriage of justice that no one on Earth would ever know the depths of her violent fury.

"Return filed. Your taxes are complete."

Breathe.

Veronica stood up, her rib cage buzzing like a hornet's nest. The window was a little bit lighter now, the pitch black giving way to darkest blue. The debris of empty soda bottles and discarded clothing formed an obstacle course as Veronica did a final lap around the room, making sure nothing was left behind.

There was no way to make it look like an accident, Veronica has known that going in. What she could do was make the murder more trouble than it was worth to solve. It helped that the same cops who had utterly failed her would be just as indifferent to this case, and her victim's sad social status would do the rest. Manipulating the time of death would be easier if it took a while for the body to be found, so Veronica had made sure that nobody needed to find him, not even the IRS.

It had taken an agonizingly long time for Veronica to delete herself. He had her number, her address, her picture, several pictures. He knew where she worked, what bus she rode, what grocery store she went to. He had her shoe size, the combination to her gym locker, an uncomfortably accurate speculation of her menstrual cycle. He had a sweater she thought she'd lost. He had a clipping of her hair. Kept, Veronica discovered, on top of a single, wrapped condom. For later.

It was flushed, now, the strands swirling down the toilet. Veronica had been expecting, once she was finally in his apartment, to find evidence of other girls. She had thought, on some level, that this was just what he did, the only way he knew how to interact with women, and that Veronica just happened to be one of many in his eye line. She'd thought, because he so persistently refused to see her as a person, that his pursuit was not personal. But she was the only one. She hadn't asked, would never understand, why she was the only one.

It was time. Veronica left the apartment, pulling the door closed and locked behind her, and descended the fire escape as the pale yellow dawn was just bright enough to snuff out the street lights. She changed course and doubled back, to keep anyone from guessing where she was going, her short wig and men's clothes preventing anyone from guessing who she was. She was good at evasion, these days. So focused on her escape, Veronica didn't realize at first that she had taken something with her.

His phone.

There it was, in her hand, for his final transactions. Should she go back and plant it? Should she drop it in the river? Veronica let go of these calculating choices as she looked at the small, black thing, the ball to her invisible chain, an ugly mirror reflecting her torment. She'd deleted the photos--all the photos--of herself on that phone, and there it was, holding onto her face again.

It smashed against the soiled concrete, glass shattering as the frame bent, bouncing and striking a rusted-out dumpster, scaring a rat. The screen flickered, digital streaks of magenta and cyan bleeding over the cracked face. "Your taxes are comp--."

Veronica scooped it up and hurled it again, harder, sending it skidding down the rough road, spitting out a trail of glittering sand that would never interpret touch again. Still not enough; Veronica chucked it against a brick wall, the phone's innards shearing away from the warped frame and crunching, crumpling under Veronica's boot as she stamped down hard, again and again, blinded by berserk fury. She had said 'no' a hundred thousand times, until she was forced to change her answer, to a rib-rattling, unchained roar.

The cry echoed down the alley. Veronica put her hands on her knees, her exhausted body wracked and breathless. The tight fist of terror around her pericardium finally burst, gushing forth the sweet water of relief. It was over, now, and if she got caught, she got caught, a little sprinkling of fraud over murder. She stood up and wiped her face, checking if the coast was clear for her to remove her disguise and finally be herself again. For the first time in a long, nightmarish time, no one was watching.