Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli (A Tara Holloway Novel) (19 page)

Josh pulled a manila folder from his briefcase and handed each of us a printout that included reports downloaded from the bistro’s bookkeeping system. The paperwork also included copies of relevant portions of the restaurant’s tax returns. The rest of us flipped through the pages while Josh explained his findings.

“The revenue and expenses reported on the returns coincide with the figures in their internal records,” he said.

“Which begs the question,” Hana replied, looking up from her copy, “are those numbers accurate or have they been inflated?”

I pulled the cash register sales printouts from my purse. “I snagged some data from the cash register. Let’s see if it matches up.”

I called out the figures, while Josh compared them to the entries in the bookkeeping system. “They all match.”

Eddie raised his palms. “But that doesn’t necessarily prove anything, does it? Benedetta or her daughters could be ringing up false sales to inflate the numbers. That would be an easy way to launder funds.”

“True,” I agreed, “but they’d have to ring up a lot of fake sales for it to amount to anything.”

The Cyber-Shield salesman had attempted to extort two grand a month from Alex Harris, the former bar owner. I had no idea whether the amount was typical, or how many clients might be involved, but it would take a significant number of falsified cash sales transactions to add up to tens of thousands of dollars per month. Besides, the register printout broke down the sales between credit and cash. The percentage of cash sales didn’t appear to be unusually high.

Hana took another look at the financials. “Maybe the money’s being laundered through the catering account.”

I looked at the data. Hana had a point. The catering revenue was substantial, over $300,000 last year.

Will cocked his head. “Wouldn’t that be a bad strategy for laundering funds? It would be much easier to verify a few large catering sales than it would smaller cash transactions by anonymous customers. Besides, big catering events would likely be paid for by credit card or check, which would leave a paper trail.”

In today’s world
paper trail
was a bit of a misnomer.
Electronic trail
would be more appropriate given that most financial transactions were processed electronically. But Will had a point, too. Money was typically laundered via some type of untraceable cash transaction. Cash didn’t leave a trail.

Nick posed another possibility. “Tino might be transferring cash to a straw man posing as a catering client, and in return the straw man could pay for bogus catering services via credit card.”

“Good point,” Josh said. “I’ll see if I can find catering invoices on Benedetta’s system. If I can figure out who the clients were, I might be able to do some discreet digging and see if things look legit.”

“Any luck hacking into Cyber-Shield?” I asked him.

“None.” Josh’s jaw clenched in frustration. “I’ve never seen a system as well protected as theirs.”

“So Cyber-Shield’s system is totally separate from the restaurant’s?” I asked.

He nodded. “Different servers. Different routers.”

Darn.
I’d hoped the restaurant’s system might somehow be a back door into Cyber-Shield’s. I looked down at the floor and thought for a moment. “What about Kira? You think she could help?”

Kira was both Josh’s girlfriend and an expert hacker, the only person I knew whose technical skills rivaled Josh’s. I’d once seen her remotely open the CD drive on an unsuspecting person’s laptop at a coffeehouse. It had been both impressive and creepy at the same time.

Josh shrugged. “Can’t hurt to have her take a second look.”

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Lu for authorization to hire Kira, putting our boss on speaker.

Lu had two questions. “Will she work for seventy-five bucks an hour and can she keep her mouth shut?”

After texting Kira to see if she was okay with the rate, Josh responded to both questions in the affirmative.

“All right,” Lu said. “But give her information on a need-to-know basis only and cap her at twenty hours. If she can’t get in by then, y’all will have to find another way to get the information you need.”

I thanked Lu and ended the call.

Josh looked down at his phone, typing again with his thumbs. “I’ll see when Kira can start.”
Ping.
He read her message and paraphrased it to the group. “She can be at the gallery by ten tomorrow morning.”

Good.
Things needed to keep moving …
before someone else stopped breathing.

chapter twenty-three

T
eam Effort

Forcing the thought from my head, I said, “Someone in a white pickup followed me home from the bistro on Thursday evening.” My eyes went from Hana to Will. “Any luck figuring out who it was?”

“We ran the license plates,” Hana said, “but they belonged to a Kia Optima. They’d been stolen the week before.”

Damn.

“Hana and I tag-teamed the truck,” Will added. “Stayed on them for an hour before we lost them going through a sobriety checkpoint near the West End.”

Damn, again.
Ironic, too. Detective Booth would love to bust Fabrizio, but officers from her own department had inadvertently gotten in the way of our investigation. It wasn’t the first time that different branches of law enforcement had stepped on each other’s toes.

I turned the can in my hand. “Agent Hohenwald phoned me not long after I got home that night. His tech support told him that someone else was logged into my apartment’s Wi-Fi besides me. He said they could be watching me through my computer’s Webcam.”

Nick raised a brow. “They see anything good?”

I wasn’t about to admit they could’ve seen me waxing my lip, cleaning my pores, and eating food off the floor, never mind the boob scratch and burp. “No,” I lied, “but I spent nearly an hour online window-shopping for stilettos.”

“Classic Tara tactic.” Nick emitted a combination groan and chuckle. “That’ll teach ’em.”

I told the group about the silver sedan that followed me to DBU Friday morning. “It never got close enough for me to identify it.”

“Josh and I were followed, too,” Nick said. “Wednesday evening. We stayed at the gallery late to keep an eye on the comings and goings at Cyber-Shield. The car that followed us was either black or dark blue, a Chrysler maybe. The driver followed us to our new place. The FBI put us in a gated complex, so the driver couldn’t follow us inside. But we’re pretty sure he circled back by to see that we had actually pulled into a garage. I was able to sneak out later that night and get to a second car we’d parked down the street. I coordinated with Will and we tag-teamed one of Cyber-Shield’s patrolmen, but nothing looked unusual.”

Will lifted his chin in affirmation. “The guy drove a repeated route between ten Cyber-Shield clients in the Lakewood area. He’d turn on his flashing light, circle their buildings, and shine a spotlight in their bushes and behind their Dumpsters. At a couple of places he got out of his car to make sure fences and doors were locked, but it was all typical security patrol stuff.”

“Same goes for me,” Eddie said. “I followed a patrol unit last night and he made the rounds of about fifteen clients in the Wilshire Heights and Lower Greenville neighborhoods. Mostly mom-and-pop places. A doughnut shop. A small veterinary clinic. A pottery store.”

Hana set her drink on the coffee table and leaned in. “My experience was different. The patrol guy I followed Friday night didn’t stay in one area. He was all over town, different places each night. He went inside at each client’s location, too.”

“How long was he inside each place?” I asked.

“Not long. A minute or two on the short end and maybe ten minutes on the long end.”

“Did he take anything inside or bring anything out with him?”

“Only a flashlight,” Hana said. “As far as I could tell, anyway. He wore a Cyber-Shield jacket. It’s possible he could have tucked something inside it.”

“Like an envelope of cash,” Will suggested.

“Since these clients aren’t connected by location,” Hana said, “maybe the thing they have in common is that they’re all paying Tino not to hurt them or damage their businesses. These could be the clients he’s shaking down.”

I pondered the possibility. “It would make sense that Tino would have only one of his patrolmen picking up the protection money. The fewer people who know what he’s up to, the less risky it is for him.”

Josh turned to Hana. “Which patrolman were you following?”

“The big white guy with the square head,” she said. “The one who drives car number six. I looked up the W-2s for Cyber-Shield, got the names from them, and took a look at the driver’s license photos until I identified the guy. His name’s Cole Kirchner.”

“Let’s put more eyes on Kirchner,” I said. “Eventually we’ll catch them shuttling the money around.”

“Or
they’ll
catch
us,
” Hana said. “It’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re following someone late at night. Some of these areas are pretty quiet. There’s not a lot of traffic.”

What a party pooper. Still, she had a point. We couldn’t afford to blow our investigation by slipping up and letting one of Tino’s men realize the federal government was on to him.

I turned my focus back to Nick. “I saw a man from Cyber-Shield go into the gallery on Friday. What did he want?”

“To sign us up for a security package,” Nick said. “He said he’d waive the initial setup fee since there’s already a camera in place. I told him my partner and I would need to talk it over. He recommended a software package, but I told him we don’t handle a lot of sensitive data, so I thought we’d be safe enough with over-the-counter antivirus software. He also said that if someone broke into the gallery, the art pieces would be irreplaceable. I mentioned that we had insurance to cover any losses, but he pointed out that the worst part about being robbed isn’t necessarily the financial effect but the hassle of dealing with all the details.” Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a Cyber-Shield brochure. “He suggested we get one of these pull-down storefront security gates.”

I looked the brochure over. The gates came in a number of styles. Some were essentially open-weave metal screens, like the security gates used on stores inside shopping malls. Others were solid, like garage doors. Some models were designed to be mounted on the interior side of the windows, while others were designed to be mounted outside. The brochure noted that the gates were designed to prevent smash-and-grab-type thefts and acts of vandalism. Some were even hurricane resistant. Not that hurricanes were a problem in Dallas where the closest beach was a five-hour drive away. North Texas did see its share of tornadoes, though. Heck, one had hit Fort Worth recently and overturned a police cruiser. I’d worked a case once with the female cop and K-9 who’d been inside the car. Luckily, neither of them had been injured.

“If we’re trying to look legitimate,” Nick said, “it would make sense to get one of these gates for the gallery.” He pointed at one of the exterior-mounted models. “That’s one of the least expensive types. I think we should do it.”

While Lu had to approve the hiring of outside consultants, as the team leader I’d been given a budget for equipment and other expenses. I had the authority to approve the gate.

“Good call,” I told Nick. “Go ahead and make arrangements.” I stood to go, looking around the room. “Next Sunday same time, same place.”

With any luck, someone on the team would have some hard evidence against Fabrizio by then. Maybe one of my coworkers would snap a photo of one of the patrolmen walking out of a client’s business with a bag of cash. Or maybe Josh could identify a phony catering client or finally hack into Cyber-Shield’s bookkeeping system and prove that the numbers didn’t add up. Then again, maybe Fabrizio would realize he was under surveillance and shove us all into the pizza oven together, a mass cremation of sorts.

My skin felt hot just thinking about it …

chapter twenty-four

M
aking Changes

After the other members of our team had left Hana’s condo, Nick and I took a moment to sit down on Hana’s front stoop and have a private conversation. We’d had no time together since Tuesday night, and nearly a week without him was taking its toll on me. Add in that I was losing my best friend and my emotions were on the edge.

Nick, of course, picked up on it. The guy could read me like a book—a dog-eared book he could recite word by word, including the copyright page and table of contents.

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “What’s wrong, Red?”

“You know my mom and I threw Alicia’s bridal shower yesterday, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah?”

“Well.” I looked down, a little embarrassed to be getting so sentimental. “It’s just that … It feels like…”
Oh, quit being a baby and just be honest about your feelings. This is Nick you’re talking to. He doesn’t judge you.
“I’m losing my best friend.”

Nick stared at me a moment, and I was surprised to see a flicker of hurt in his eyes. “Stupid me,” he said softly. “I thought
I
was your best friend.”

Great.
Now I’d hurt
his
feelings.

As I stared into his whiskey-colored eyes, wondering what I could say to make things better, I realized that Nick was right. He and I shared a deep, romantic love, but we’d become best friends, too. He might not enjoy romantic comedies or shopping for clothes, and he flat-out refused to accompany me to the salon for a facial, but he’d become my go-to person anytime I suffered an emotional crisis, the person who convinced me of my worth when I got down on myself, the person who listened to me bitch when I’d had a bad day and needed to vent. He was the person I’d want by my side if I could only have one person there. And, obviously, he was the person who knew me better than I knew myself.

“You know what?” I said. “You are. You’re my best friend.”

“
You
know what?” he said, taking my hand. “I don’t think you’re upset about losing a friend. I think you and your friends are moving into a new phase of life and it scares you.”