Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross Read Free Book Online Page A

in the backs of trucks.
    “But Mrs. Kagan, who already has a criminal record for Medicare fraud in Florida, wasn’t one to let time pass her by. There’s a new virtual goldmine out there, and she wasn’t about to miss out. Which was why she opened the River City Sports Bar and Grill. One of the ways cartels launder money is to clean it through otherwise legitimate businesses that work as front companies, such as restaurants.
    “The defense attorney has spent a lot of time trying to convince you that international money laundering is a complex crime that no ordinary person, especially a woman in her sixties, could pull off. But in reality, the model is almost always the same. And never very complicated.
    “Janet Kagan ran a popular restaurant. She and her son served good food at fair prices, which brought in both tourists and locals. The bar and grill would have provided a good, honest living. But that wasn’t enough. Because she’s greedy, dishonest, and doesn’t believe the law that all of you and I are expected to follow applies to her.
    “The amounts varied from month to month, but on average, for every two thousand dollars of legitimate money Mrs. Kagan brought in, she might bring in, say, thirteen thousand from drug trafficking. Then, she’d list the entire fifteen thousand as income from the restaurant on her income taxes.
    “It’s that simple. Mrs. Kagan was taking the drug cartel’s dirty money, putting it through a wash cycle, and sending it back squeaky clean. For this she charged anywhere from a one to three-percent fee. Which may not sound like much. Until you realize that millions and millions went through her laundry over a five-year period.
    “The key to the longevity was the grill being such a high cash flow business. Because if she’d claimed earnings of fifteen thousand on any given month but only had bank deposits of two thousand, that would have drawn attention, and she’d have gotten caught much sooner.
    “Just as she would have if she’d opened up a high-end restaurant, where diners typically pay with credit cards. But a bar and grill, especially one that’s open for lower-priced breakfasts in a financial neighborhood of office buildings and does a large part of its business in drink sales, brings in a significant percent of its proceeds in cash. So, there are no records to disprove whatever she might claim.”
    She paused, staring silently down at the woman for a long, pointed moment. Showing no conscience, Janet Kagan merely returned the look, meeting Tess’s gaze with not so much as a flinch.
    As she returned to stand directly before the jury, Tess slowly shook her head.
    “The defense attorney will tell you that Mrs. Kagan is an innocent victim of her son. He will ask you to believe that her only involvement in the business was to cook the meals. Which did, as you’ve heard, also included less expensive clams and oysters illegally harvested from unapproved waters, thus risking the health and even the lives of innocent diners.
    “When I proved that she was the one who kept the books and made the bank deposits, his answer was that she only wrote down the amounts her son told her. Then, as if that were too implausible, Mr. Parker tossed in a tall tale of her much larger, much younger son being so abusive she feared what would happen if she didn’t go along with his scheme.
    “I say the defense hopes you’ll believe the outrageous stories you’ve been told by Mrs. Kagan and her character witnesses,” she said, not bothering to conceal her scorn, “because he knows he cannot win this case on logic. Or truth.”
    Up until now, Tess’s presentation had been as calm and efficient as Nate supposed she herself would be. But suddenly things changed. Without warning, her dark eyes flashed with fiery indignation, and color flared in the olive skin covering high cheekbones. Fascinated, he couldn’t take his eyes off her face.
    Although his attention was riveted on Tess, Nate sensed