David Ellis - Breach of Trust

“Charlie Cimino for Norman,” he said into his cell phone. “Tell him to call as soon as possible. He has my number.” He closed his phone. “Don’t worry about this.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Maybe you should be,” he said.

“You’re not making any sense, Charlie.”

“Shit. Shit.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “We’ll get together and talk to Norm. We’ll put our heads together.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said.

“Norm’s good,” Charlie said. “Norm’s good.”

We skipped lunch. Charlie was in no mood to eat. I went back to my office.

But first, I stopped in at Suite 410.

“Norman Hudzik,” I said to Lee Tucker. “Now try not to fuck this up.”

Norman Hudzik had spent thirty years representing criminals, mostly of the white-collar and organized-crime variety. He was large in every way: Tall, heavy, with a baritone voice and a charismatic confidence. His hair was a mess of gray and black, a swooping part and too long in the back.

Circumstances notwithstanding, I liked him. I found myself more inclined toward the defense bar these days, probably because I was now a member. Something about standing up to power and being a contrarian found a safe harbor in my soul.

I’d told Norman that the prosecutor who had phoned me was Brian Ridgeway, someone with whom I wasn’t acquainted. Norm had lit up at the mention of the name. “I go back with Brian. We tried Capparelli together. Brian’s a dear friend. I can handle Brian.”

That’s why Chris Moody had picked Brian. We wanted someone Hudzik knew, someone with whom he would feel comfortable. The way I’d heard it, Brian Ridgeway did not exactly consider Norm a “dear” friend, but the relationship was cordial. Good enough. It made Hudzik happy and it made Charlie happy, as the three of us had sat in Norm’s office yesterday. We’d spent several hours, during which time Norm Hudzik had given me about twenty ways to say, “I don’t recall.”

Now we sat in the U.S. attorney’s reception area, Norm and I, waiting for the meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Ridgeway.

“I think I know this guy!” Norm bellowed, as Ridgeway appeared from a doorway.

“Norm! Good to see you. Good morning, Mr. Kolarich. Brian Ridgeway.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

We went back to a conference room, where prosecutor and defense attorney spent ten minutes catching up, while I bided my time. Norm did most of the talking, which was good, because I wasn’t sure this guy Ridgeway was a very good bullshit artist.

“Jason and I were a little surprised by the call,” Norm said, settling in. “What does Jason Kolarich have to tell you?”

“Well, it’s just one of those things I gotta say I did.” Ridgeway waved a conciliatory hand. “Well, here.” He slid a document in front of me. It was the memo I had written for Charlie, disqualifying the two bidders who should have received the sanitation contract instead of Higgins. It was the final version, the one I rewrote to impress Charlie and gain his trust.

“Mr. Kolarich, did you write this memo?”

“Call me Jason.”

“I’d prefer to call you Mr. Kolarich.”

“I’d prefer you called me Jason.”

Ridgeway looked over at Hudzik, like What the hell?

“The answer is yes,” I said. “I gave this to the chairman of the PCB, my client. That makes this privileged, last I checked.”

Ridgeway hemmed and hawed a moment for good measure. “Greg Connolly gave it to us. So don’t worry about a privilege.”

“Well, Brian, I’m a lawyer, so I’m going to worry about little things like attorney-client privilege, if it’s okay with you.”

Ridgeway paused, shooting another look at Hudzik.

“He told you that the client gave the document to him,” Norm said, putting a hand on my arm. “So let’s go ahead and answer.”

I thought for a moment, or more accurately, I pretended to think. “Okay,” I said. “Yes, I wrote it.”

“Who told you to write it?”

I shrugged. “It would have been a normal part of my job. I was an outside counsel to the PCB.”

“Did anyone-well, here. Did anyone talk to you about your conclusions?”

I shrugged again. “Not that I can remember. You mean, someone disagreeing with something I wrote?”

“Or discussing your conclusions before you made them?”

“ Before I reached my conclusion?” I drew back. “You mean, like, telling me what to say?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I would quit first.” I explained to him, briefly, how it was my job to review the qualifications for winning bidders and to memorialize my conclusions in writing. I told him that we had a file on every bidder, including its history with the state, any previous lawsuits or other concerns related to their work, and the like.

“After reviewing everything,” I said, “I reached my conclusion entirely on my own. One of the bidders that was DQ’d might disagree with it, but they always disagree, and they usually sue. But nobody whispered in my ear. Nobody told me to say this or that. I stand completely by what I’ve written here, and the decision was mine and only mine.”

Ridgeway nodded, like that was what he expected me to say. “Okay, good enough. I appreciate you coming in.”

I looked at my lawyer and back at Ridgeway. “That’s it?” I asked.

Norm said, “This is why he came down here?”

“Oh, you know how it goes,” said Ridgeway. “Gotta play out every string.”

“What’s the string?” I asked. “I don’t like anyone questioning my integrity.”

“No, no, it’s nothing like-” Ridgeway raised his hands. He looked at both of us, like he wanted to say more.

“Any chance you can enlighten us?” Norm asked. “It doesn’t sound like there’s much to this.”

Ridgeway let out a laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

“Oh, c’mon, Brian. You brought us all the way down here.”

Ridgeway paused, then out of the corner of his mouth, he said to Norm, “Off the record?”

“Sure, of course.”

“This guy who runs this state board-Connolly? Greg Connolly? You guys friends?”

“Hardly knew him,” I said.

“Well, my take? He’s one of these Johnny-come-lately crusaders. I mean, off the record.”

“No problem,” said Norm. “Completely off the record.”

“I think he didn’t like how he was treated over there, for some reason. So he comes to us and shows us this thing and tells us he wants to be a whistle-blower. He tells us there might be something screwy with this contract. What he didn’t tell us is that an outside lawyer had performed a legal analysis of the whole thing and signed off.” He nodded in my direction. “A lawyer who we know around here as being pretty good, even if some people are mad about the outcome of a particular case.”

I thought he was laying it on a little thick. But as I thought about it, this guy was vouching for my credibility by referencing Hector’s trial. The feds thought that my word counted for something, he was telling Norm Hudzik, which of course would get back to Charlie. It would make me more valuable still.

“Anyway,” Ridgeway said, “this guy Connolly, he’s something else. He wants to wear a wire and be the guy who shakes up the system. Meanwhile,” he said, nodding toward me, because he figured I already heard the news, “on his way home from work, Mr. Crusader likes to go over to Seagram Hill and get yanked off for five dollars a pop. He gets jumped out there and killed.”

Norm, who of course knew of Connolly’s demise, feigned surprise.

“So,” Ridgeway said, “not that there ever really was anything here, but with Connolly gone-I mean, I had to follow up. Now I have. Sorry for your troubles. You can keep the memo if you like. I won’t be needing it.”