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And at worst, of course, as a sophisticated criminal.
And all this before it got personal. “Mr. Schermer.” Stier had put away the latest graph and now stood again in front of the witness in the center of the courtroom. “At the time of Mr. Vogler’s murder, what a
“Ninety thousand dollars.”
Though jurors had heard about the salary before in Stier’s opening statement, still this number seemed to nearly knock a couple of the jurors out of their chairs, and sent a ripple of noise through the gallery as well.
Stier, knowing he was on to some juicy testimony, pressed ahead. “And what was the approximate gross income of the coffee shop over the past fiscal year?”
“Well, going on the tax records the business filed, the shop brought in, gross, four hundred sixty-one thousand ninety-two dollars and fourteen cents.”
“Now, Mr. Schermer, was the salary of Mr. Vogler typical of other employers working similar jobs in the same business?”
“No. It was approximately double the city average.”
“Double. And were other employees at BBW similarly compensated, in terms of multiples of the city’s average pay for those jobs?”
“No. They made about the norm, which was essentially an hourly rate slightly above minimum wage.”
“Let’s take the assistant manager, for example, Mr. Schermer, an employee named Eugenio Ruiz. Did he work for an hourly rate, or was he on salary?”
“He was hourly, making twelve dollars and eighty cents an hour, plus tips. About five hundred dollars a week at forty hours.”
“So two thousand a month, about twenty-four thousand dollars a year? As opposed to Mr. Vogler’s ninety thousand dollars?”
“Yes, that’s about right.”
“Mr. Schermer, in your professional opinion, was Mr. Vogler’s salary as a percentage of the coffee shop’s gross income defensible as a viable business practice?”
Hardy knew he could object, but also knew that it wouldn’t do him any good. Schermer, with the credentials of a recognized expert witness, was allowed to give his opinion. The jury didn’t have to believe it, but the court would permit the testimony. He sat, his hand on Maya’s arm, and both of them seethed.
“No,” Schermer said. “It was an irregularity of a dramatic nature.”
“So would the business ru
“In my opinion, no. Not given the business’s gross income and this salary.”
“And as a forensic accountant, does this type of irregularity raise a red flag for you of a certain kind of financial malfeasance?”
“Yes, it does.”
“And what is that?”
“Most commonly, it would be money laundering.”
“Could you explain to the jury how that works?”
“Certainly.” Schermer turned in his chair to face the panel. “Let’s say that there is an unreported source of illicit income in a coffee shop such as BBW, such as the sale of marijuana, for example. An employee can ring up any number of coffee drinks on the cash register and not actually pour any of these drinks. So that in the course of a day you might have an extra two or three hundred dollars, or more, or less, on the till. Then you simply supply the cash into the register that you’ve made on your illicit business and entered as regular coffee income, and it becomes part of the business’s legitimate cash flow. Now the dirty money is so-called clean, or laundered, money, and since you can account for the income, it can be redistributed as dividends, profit sharing, or salary.”
“Or salary,” Stier repeated, loving this. And so, it seemed, was the jury. “Now, Mr. Schermer,” he went on, “is there any way to reliably identify the existence of this sort of money-laundering scheme?”
“Yes, there is. That’s what my work essentially entails.”
“Can you explain?”
“Well, in our example above, I think we can all see that there is actually less coffee poured than there is a record of. So by comparing the amount of raw coffee beans actually bought by the business with the income that would be produced by the sale of that coffee, cup by cup, we can pretty accurately determine if there is a discrepancy.”
“And did you find such a discrepancy in your analysis of BBW?”
“Yes.”
“And to what extent?”
“Well, based on the actual amount of coffee beans bought, by weight-we’ve seen this on one of our graphs, if you remember-the maximum gross income from the sale of coffee drinks over the past fiscal year should have been no greater than about three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, as opposed to a reported four hundred and sixty-two thousand.”
“So, a difference of ninety-two thousand dollars? Almost precisely Dylan Vogler’s salary?”
“That’s correct.”
“Thank you, Mr. Schermer, no further questions.” He turned to Hardy. “Your witness.”
But Braun interrupted. “Mr. Hardy, as it’s getting close to noon, I suggest we hold off begi
“That’s fine, Your Honor.”
“All right, then.” Braun tapped her gavel. “Court’s adjourned until one-thirty.”
35
Stier might have simply decided to ignore the Ruiz murder as a factor in Maya’s case, but as head of homicide, Glitsky could not do that, even if he was of a mind to. Which he most assuredly was not.
Over the past several months, while Abe had been perpetually brooding over his son’s accident and ultimate prognosis and his own karma, Hardy had grown unhappily accustomed to his new, low-affect persona, to the point that now-meeting with him behind a curtain in a private booth at Sam’s-the full flower of evident rage emanating from his friend’s demeanor struck him as perhaps actually dangerous. To Abe’s own health, maybe, but more to his inspectors, the source of this anger.
“And, if you can imagine,” he was saying with a guttural intensity, “now Schiff is all bent out of shape because I didn’t put them on Ruiz. After what they’ve done to Vogler and Preslee, they should be happy they’re not busted down to robbery, or even patrol. Learn a few of the basics over again.”
Hardy smeared butter on some sourdough. “Maybe you could drop by the courtroom after we’re done here and share some of these thoughts with Braun. She needs to hear them.”
“I’m not saying your client’s i
“No. Of course not. You just asked me here to talk secretly because no one else would have lunch with you. And I can’t say that I blame them. Although I’m a little surprised about Treya. You’d think, being your wife and all, she’d at least feel sorry for you.” He popped the bread into his mouth. “Why did Schiff want Ruiz? And Bracco, too, I assume.”
“Why do you think?”
“Obviously, because it’s BBW again. And if that’s the case, they’ve got doubts about Maya.”
“No, they don’t. Not even one. Don’t even ask them.”
“How about you?”
“Not so much doubt about Maya, Diz.” Glitsky tipped up his water glass and chewed some ice. “I just don’t know how they moved the case even this far along.”
“You don’t know? I know. It’s Jerry Glass and Schiff. They got the whole thing out of whack. As a righteous murder, much less two, it hasn’t made any sense from the begi
“Well, at least I’m thinking it now. I just wonder what else is going to pop that’s going to make the detail look even more incompetent.”
“You mean like Lori Bradford?”
“Close enough. Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet, but Wyatt Hunt did. I put her on my witness list, which is great for the good guys, but not for you.”
“Schiff and Bracco knew all about her and decided she wasn’t important.”