LETTERS FROM HOME: DISCOVERING YOU'VE MARRIED CLAUS VON BULOW

April 17, 1997

Dear Julie,

Tax Day 1997 passed eventfully, with many last-minute conversations with our very understanding accountant, the checking of records to ferret out why we owe thousands of dollars more in taxes than we thought we would, the filling out of IRS extension forms so that we can solve the mystery.

We spent the night before trying to figure out how we could have spent those extra thousands of dollars we supposedly made but couldn't account for. I contended it must be a bookkeeping error.

DC just shook her head and stared at me as if she'd finally realized that I was a Claus Von Bulow in disguise.

"How much golf have you been playing?" she asked.

Her mother reassured her I wasn't the type to keep a mistress.

It's a bit of a shock when you are presented with evidence that you may have been living well above your means without realizing it. You start wondering if you've seen too many movies, made too many trips to Taco Bell. What are our extravagances? we asked. Or I asked. DC just kept staring at me, trying to imagine the alias on my secret checking account.

OK, I confess. Sometimes at the movies I have popcorn and a soda, which at nutritional value per ounce are probably more expensive than caviar. And I do play a lot of golf, but mostly at the no-frills course with bargain balls. And I walk, mister prosecuting attorney.

Books? I usually wait for the paperback. Clothes? Hah!

Where could the money be going? I asked DC. "You tell me," she said, squinting as if she were trying to see inside my black heart.

The reason I must be the culprit is that DC knows she didn't spend the extra money. She never carries any. I quickly learned that she can show up at a movie box office or restaurant without any means of paying. And that her habit is to hide money in car ashtrays, coat pockets and kitchen drawers for just those occasions.

The question was, could she have thousands of dollars hidden about in caches so secret even she has forgotten them?

This is what the IRS is capable of, making you wonder whether the person you think you know best is leading a secret life even she doesn't know about.

On Tax Day, DC left a strangely formal-sounding message on our answering machine. It said she and the accountant had gone over the books fruitlessly but "would be happy to have your input." I, who had been out carefreely playing golf, wondered if the next message would be from her lawyer.

We never got around to exploring that possibility. The accountant and I finally discovered what we believe to be the bookkeeping error, a case of counting the same income twice. We didn't make as much money this year as previously believed. Ironic good news, eh?

DC finally took the tax paperwork to the post office late on April 15, thinking she'd drop it into the drive-up box. Then she noticed the crowds were going inside to make sure their letters would be postmarked before midnight. Walking in in her red housecoat with the black and white Scotty dogs embroidered on the front, she was relieved to see someone there in his pajamas. Married to a Mata Hari, no doubt.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.