by Diane Kelly
Not bad work if you can get it, huh?
Ross called Pachuco out. “Those boots and hard hat are brand-new, aren’t they?”
Brunwald objected to the question, claiming the matter was irrelevant.
“I’ll allow it,” Trumbull said. She might be a bleeding heart, but she also had zero tolerance for deception, especially when it took place in her courtroom. “I’d like to know myself why he’s parading around here dressed like one of the Village People.”
Pachuco’s cheeks flared red. “I’ve got some yard work to do when I get home.”
As if.
In the jury box, Clip-On openly frowned while Knitter harrumphed. Like McKayla Maroney at the 2012 Summer Olympics, they were not impressed.
Ross pulled a series of eight-by-ten color photos from his file. Each photo depicted a vacant lot. He handed a copy of each photo to the defense attorneys, another to the judge, and another to Pachuco. After moving to admit them to evidence, he provided copies to the jury, handing them to Clip-On, who took a quick look at each photograph and passed them on to his fellow jurors.
Ross resumed his questioning. “As you can see from the photos, there has been no construction whatsoever on these lots. Despite that fact, your company requested progress payments totaling over six million dollars on housing construction purportedly completed on these lots, isn’t that true?”
Pachuco’s face flamed. “Someone else signed my name to the requests for progress payments. I’m as much a victim in all of this as anyone else.”
I snorted. I hoped the court reporter put that in her record. IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway emitted a well-deserved derisive snort.
Ross showed Pachuco the requests for progress payments, each of which contained Pachuco’s signature and each of which Pachuco claimed was a forgery. Ditto for his purported signature on the back of the checks issued by the banks.
Ross passed the witness. The other defense attorneys continued to tear Pachuco apart, though their tack was slightly different. They asked questions designed to take the blame off their clients and put it on Pachuco. They did a good job of it, too.
Once Pachuco had been ripped to pieces, he left the witness box, not daring a glance at the jury.
Ross called the FBI’s handwriting expert to the stand. The expert had compared the signatures on the checks and requests for progress payments to documents obtained from third parties and known to contain valid signatures. Ackerman and Ross had been strategic in choosing the documents for comparison, using Pachuco’s application for membership at the Lakewood Country Club, the sales agreement for the purchase of his Ferrari, and his signature on a tuition agreement for his three daughters to attend the prestigious Hockaday School. At twenty grand a year per student, the sixty thousand in total annual tuition added up to more than many people earned in an entire year, probably more than any of the jurors earned.
After providing a quick lesson in handwriting-analysis techniques, the expert issued his opinion. “I have no doubt the checks and requests for progress payments were signed by Jeffrey Pachuco.”
The defense attorneys asked no questions, happy to let blame fall on Pachuco’s shoulders. Pachuco sat next to his attorney, staring at his knees. Things had not gone well for him today. The hard hat would be of no help when the hammer came down.
chapter thirty
Diversionary Tactics
Trumbull dismissed the jury for a ten-minute break. I’d worn my leg warmers to court this morning and, as the knitter left the jury box, I noted she wore a pair of newly knitted pink leg warmers, too. I’m sure the people from What Not to Wear would have a field day with us, but to heck with them. We might not be fashionable, but at least we weren’t freezing.
Behind us, the courtroom door opened and a woman I recognized as Louis Featherstone’s wife came in, wrangling a brown-haired boy who looked to be about four years old. He yanked his hand, trying to pull it out of her grasp. When she refused to let him go, he pulled her hand to his mouth and bit down as hard as he could.
“Braden!” Mrs. Featherstone cried, jerking her hand out of his teeth.
Braden took advantage of his newfound freedom to kick the end of a nearby bench. Unfortunately, he’d underestimated his own strength and smashed his toes in the process. Sending up a nerve-shattering screech, he now grabbed for the hand he’d only just been taste-testing and reached his other arm up to grab the belt of his mother’s tasteful salmon-colored suit. The screech morphed to an eye-popping wail as Braden attempted to scale his mother.
I leaned back to get a better look at the woman’s ass. Not bad. She’d gotten her money’s worth out of the butt lift run through GSM’s account.
Mrs. Feathersone reached down and pulled her son into her arms, carrying him to a seat in the front row. She pacified the boy with a grape Tootsie Pop pulled from her purse, plugged earbuds into his tiny ears, and pulled up what I assumed was a children’s movie on her phone to keep him occupied.
Back from the break, the bailiff reentered the room, turned the temperature down from frigid to absolutely arctic, and instructed us to rise as Judge Trumbull flounced back through the door.
Once everyone had resumed their places, Ross called the loan officer to the stand.
“Hi, Daddy!” Braden called, standing on the bench and waving his sucker frantically at his father, a purple-toothed smile on the boy’s face.
The jurors, some of whom had witnessed Braden’s earlier outburst, seemed to find the kid’s behavior more disruptive than cute. If Featherstone’s wife or attorney had thought bringing the boy into the courtroom would help portray Featherstone as a family man, they’d overestimated the kid’s appeal.
From the stand, Louis Featherstone smiled at his son, but motioned for him to sit back down. The kid was slightly more obedient for his father than his mother. He dropped down on the bench, but not before sticking his finger up his nose and asking his mother in a loud voice, “Is Daddy in twouble?”
Yes, dear. Daddy’s in big trouble and he’ll be in time-out for the next decade or so. I hope my butt lift holds up until I find a new daddy for you.
Mrs. Featherstone’s attempts to quiet her son only led to him screaming and banging his bratty little fists on the bench. As Featherstone’s wife carried her squirming, shrieking son out of the courtroom, the bailiff swore Featherstone in and Ross launched into his questions.
A mere three questions in I found myself yawning. The one cup of coffee I’d slurped down that morning was not enough to keep me awake today.
When I yawned for the fourth time in a minute, Eddie leaned over to me. “Hit the snack bar and get some java. My treat.” He handed me a couple of dollars.
Did I have the best partner or what?
As quietly as I could, I sneaked out of the courtroom. After downing a twelve-ounce cup in ten seconds flat, I bypassed the elevator and took the stairs back up to the courtroom, hoping the exertion would further help invigorate me.
I slipped back into the courtroom, noting Braden was now asleep on the bench. His mother had probably doped him up with Benadryl. I had to admit I was a little envious. I’d love to curl up and take a nap, too, but duty called.
Ross clasped his hands behind his back as he continued to question Featherstone. “You were fired from your job as a mortgage-loan officer as a result of the questionable loans. Isn’t that correct?”
A dark look passed over Featherstone’s face. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “But I relied on the misrepresentations of the other defendants. I thought the loan applicants were qualified and the houses were correctly priced. I had no way of knowing the paperwork contained false information.”
Ross went off in a different direction now, launching into a line of questions about the untaxed profits diverted into his son’s college fund. Eddie dug the relevant documentation out of the box and handed it to Ross, offering me a smile. I’d been the one to discover this particular piece of financial hanky-panky.
The prosecutor hande
d a copy of the statements to the witness. “Mr. Featherstone, isn’t it true that the funds for every one of these deposits came directly from the GSM bank account?”
Featherstone squirmed like a sperm under a microscope. Gross, I know, but my high school biology teacher made us watch a film about reproduction and I’d never been able to dislodge the image of those wiggling worms from my mind. For something that had everything to do with sex, those wigglers were very unsexy.
The witness had no choice but to agree with Ross. Immediately preceding each deposit into Braden’s college fund was a withdrawal from the GSM account in the exact same amount. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know the funds were one and the same. I was proud my work was being used to nail this jerk.
Ross turned to the matter of bookkeeping. “Despite the fact that you took multiple accounting classes in college, you classified the transfers to your son’s college account and the amount paid for your wife’s cosmetic surgery as tax-deductible charitable contributions. Isn’t that right?”
“I may have made some errors,” the witness said, “but they were honest mistakes.”
In the jury box, the knitter rolled her eyes while the oil tech crossed his arms over his chest as if to shield himself from the crap Featherstone was tossing out.
After a short lunch break, the other defense attorneys spent the early afternoon poking more holes in the loan officer’s testimony, reducing him to a blubbering mess.
“I’m innocent!” he cried, tears in his eyes as he turned to the jury. “You’ve got to believe me!”
Knitter issued another eye roll. Clip-On harrumphed. Quickie Slickie openly snickered, while the curvy Indian woman shook her head. The hipster showed his or her first sign of life. A subtle, nearly imperceptible lip twitch.
Featherstone put his hands to his face and began to sob as he walked back to his wife and son in the gallery.
Next to me, Eddie muttered, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time, dude.”
I glanced over at Darren Williams and Julian Vanderhagen. Things had not gone well for the other three defendants. I wondered if they regretted not following up with Ackerman on the plea deal.
chapter thirty-one
Tara Takes the Stand
Darren Williams asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege, electing not to take the stand. No problem. Ross had an appraiser lined up to testify about the ridiculously inflated property values Williams had put in his appraisal reports.
The woman detailed the standard procedures for appraising a property, showed how Williams had failed time and time again to follow well-established protocols, and offered her own estimates of the properties’ values, all of which were far less than that Williams had come up with. Her testimony was clear, easy to follow, and perhaps the most damning evidence that had yet been offered.
Trumbull dismissed court at four. The mortgage fraud and racketeering evidence now completed, the rest of the show would belong to me and Eddie.
“You’re up first thing tomorrow,” Ross told me as we made our way out of the building.
“I’m ready.” Hell, I was way past ready. I wanted the Tennis Racketeers convicted and behind bars yesterday.
* * *
I had time for only a quick workout before heading off to Guys & Dolls. Valley Produce made its usual Thursday delivery, a delivery that likely included crystal meth. But we weren’t quite ready to make a move just yet. We had to get all of our ducks in a row first.
The evening passed much like the other nights, though I was able to enjoy another frisking from Nick and garnered some striptease tips from a couple of the dancers while I was on break. One of them even showed me how to moonwalk, which wasn’t sexy but was nonetheless kind of fun.
I went to bed giddy with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to take the stand in the morning and show the jury that the defendants were a bunch of lowdown, dirty tax cheats.
* * *
As Eddie and I approached the courthouse Friday morning, we found Trish standing on the courthouse steps with Ross, a cameraman shooting footage of them.
“Today marks the third day in the trial of the Tennis Racketeers,” Trish said in her trademark breathy voice. “What do you expect to happen in court today?” She shoved her microphone in Ross’s face.
Ross looked confidently into the camera. “Today we will be moving on to the tax-evasion charges. I will be questioning two special agents from IRS Criminal Investigations who were instrumental in performing the financial analysis in this case.”
“Thank you, Mr. O’Donnell,” Trish said, dismissing Ross and turning back to the camera. “Tune in at noon, six, and ten for updates on this important trial.”
Eddie and I caught up with Ross and the three of us went inside the courthouse together.
At the security checkpoint, the female deputy raised an eyebrow when she opened my briefcase for inspection and spotted the leg warmers. “Planning on performing some Flashdance moves?”
“They were a gift.”
“Sure they were.”
The courtroom was frigid again today. I wasted no time slipping the leg warmers on under my pants. Aaah. Nice and cozy.
The jurors filed in and took their seats, followed by the defense attorneys, defendants, and judge.
Once Trumbull settled in, she looked down at Ross. “Call your first witness.”
Ross called me to the witness stand.
Eddie leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Take these assholes to the mat.”
Gladly.
The bailiff swore me in, stepped away, and fanned herself with the Bible even though the temperature in the courtroom hovered at what felt like thirty-two.
Knitter and Clip-On cuddled under an oversized blanket she must’ve been working on over the last few evenings. The rest of the jurors wore matching knit caps and mittens to stay warm. Looked like everyone would be going home with a souvenir from the trial.
Once I’d taken a seat on the witness stand, Ross had me identify myself for the jury and list my credentials.
“I’m IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway,” I told them, noting the fact that I’d graduated from the University of Texas accounting program with honors, spent four years at a large regional CPA firm, and had been with the IRS for several months. Still a relative rookie, but one who’d quickly learned the ropes. My short tenure had been a bit like trial by fire, including one occasion actually involving a fire. I left that part out, of course.
At Ross’s expert direction, I led the jury on a short and direct path through the mountain of paperwork, showing them where I’d mined the relevant financial data relating to the mortgage-fraud scheme and tax evasion.
“The loan documents and closing statements show the various sales prices for the houses,” I said, referring them to the exhibits. “From those figures, I was able to compute the gains on the real estate sales. As for the unreported personal expenses paid by GSM on the defendants’ behalf, I extracted that data from bank statements and GSM’s own bookkeeping records.”
When Ross finished his questions he gave me a smile, letting me know I’d done a good job, before passing me to the defense attorneys.
I looked over at them. Bring it on.
The lawyers tore into me like a pack of dogs into fresh meat.
Plimpton questioned me first. “Miss Holloway, isn’t it true that you have been investigated by IRS Internal Affairs on multiple occasions in the short time you’ve been with the IRS?”
“Yes.” Ross had instructed me to keep my answers short and simple.
She arched a snotty brow. “And each of those inquiries took place due to the fact that you’d shot at someone?”
“Anytime an agent discharges a weapon there’s a mandatory review.” I glanced over at the jurors. Got that, folks? Mandatory.
“And isn’t it true that you have several nicknames among your coworkers at the agency, including being known as the Annie Oakley of the IRS?”
Who the hell had told her
that? “Yes.”
“You’re also known as the Sperminator.”
“That’s correct.” Seriously, who had spilled these beans?
She cocked her head coyly. “How, exactly, did you earn that name?”
“I relieved a target of his left testicle.”
Every man in the courtroom involuntarily flinched, including the men in the jury box. I wished I’d been watching the hipster to see whether he or she had reacted.
The attorney crossed her skinny arms over her chest. “Most special agents never fire their guns even a single time in their careers, isn’t that true?” She raised two accusing brows now. Since she couldn’t discredit my testimony or the evidence, she’d chosen to discredit me personally, instead.
I felt the heat of anger building in me. The defense attorney was attempting to paint me as a loose cannon, an agent with poor judgment who used her weapon indiscriminately. I gave her a smile. “I’m not most agents.”
Quickie Slickie snickered, Plimpton objected to my answer as nonresponsive, and Judge Trumbull ordered me to give a direct answer. I did. It was “yes.”
“So most agents never use their weapons throughout their entire careers, yet you have fired your gun multiple times in a matter of months. You’ve got quite the itchy trigger finger, don’t you?”
I admit I had an itch. But it wasn’t on my trigger finger and only Nick could scratch it. “I did what I felt was necessary under the circumstances.”
She turned her back to me, facing the jury now, her body language implying they should metaphorically turn their backs on me, too. “It’s interesting that the other agents haven’t felt the need to shoot the taxpayers they’ve investigated.”