David Ellis - Breach of Trust

I watched him from three blocks away, once he turned the corner from the federal building, coming toward me. He was walking slowly. It was late, he had an enormous amount of work left ahead of him, and the temperatures were falling, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Moody was taking his time on his approach.

His gait seemed to slow even more as he got within earshot of me. He stopped at a distance of about ten feet. I wasn’t sure why. It set the appropriate tone, I thought. Pistols and ten paces at dawn, that kind of thing.

“Okay, I’m here. All alone, as you asked. Is there some reason we had to do the hand-off on the middle of the Lerner Street Bridge?”

His distance from me, combined with the poor lighting, made it hard to distinguish his features. His face appeared to be set in a clench, like he was ready for battle. His tone was appropriately hostile but also cautious. He’d listened to my earlier F-Bird from this morning, my conversation with Hector Almundo. He had some reason to question my motives. And I had another F-Bird in my pocket right now, which was recording everything until he turned it off. That, more than anything, would make him careful with his words.

“Well?” he asked. “Do I get the F-Bird or not?”

I reached into the inner pocket of my suit coat, pulled out my little friend, and showed it to him.

Then I threw it into the river.

I never heard it splash. It just vanished into the darkness. Moody followed the arc until it disappeared into the misty gray below. He probably wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t have been totally surprised, either. And he wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of a visceral reaction. If he was angry, he figured, he’d have plenty of ways to take it out on me.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said. “Why?”

“I think you’re wrong about Snow,” I said. “He’s no saint. Maybe he’s even a criminal. Maybe. The people around him? Most definitely. But I see a guy who was in a little over his head. If someone would have just given him the right advice, he might have been able to do better.”

“That’s really sweet.”

“His people kept him in the dark, Chris. Maybe he didn’t want to know, but still-he didn’t know. Not exactly. That’s why they always kept Hector in the dark, too. Because they knew Hector would tell the governor.”

“Very touching, Jason. And what about the governor, all on his own, talking about shaking down those abortion groups? Way I heard it, that was all his idea.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out, Chris. A whole lot of nothing, that’s what. They blew off what he said. That proves my point. His people are running that program, not him.”

He was quiet a moment. “Well, you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry your little head, Chris. With the nooses you have around his people, there’ll be plenty of flippers willing to sing. You’ll get the governor. You’ll probably put him away for a long time. It’s just not going to be because of me.”

I saw a faint shaking of the head from the prosecutor. From his perspective, what I was doing didn’t make much sense-for exactly the reason I had just articulated. They were going to get Carlton Snow anyway. It would probably only take one of the dominoes-Charlie, Madison, Hector, MacAleer-to fall before the rest of them did. So why, Moody wondered, would I toss the F-Bird into the river and risk the ire of the man who held my fate in his hands, when ultimately it wouldn’t help Snow all that much, anyway?

“This is all very noble of you, Mr. Kolarich. Maybe the governor can thank you while you’re serving time together. I could recommend to the court that you serve in the same camp.”

Maybe so. Maybe not. I nodded at him. “While it’s just us girls talking,” I said, “what did you think of that tape you heard this morning? Hector’s confession.”

I thought I saw a smile, or at least some change in his expression. “We already liked Hector for Connolly’s murder. You didn’t tell us anything we didn’t know.”

He enjoyed saying that, once again having the upper hand. I only knew what they let me know. They’d worked the case from other angles and gotten to Hector on their own.

“He copped to three murders,” I said. “Wozniak, which you already fucked up, so he walks on that one. And Connolly, for which you now have a confession. But what did you think about Ernesto Ramirez, Chris?”

He paused. “I’m not sure I catch your meaning.”

“Sure you do. Ernesto Ramirez had material information about the murder of Adalbert Wozniak. He and a good friend of his.”

I didn’t know the guy’s name other than the moniker I gave him, Scarface. I wished I did, but I’d have to make do with what I had.

“I had a long talk with that friend of his,” I said. “He told me that he and Ernesto told their story to law enforcement. He said ‘cops,’ actually, but he didn’t mean cops. He meant federal agents. He meant you, Chris.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, it is. Ernesto and his friend came to see you during the Almundo trial. They told you they knew who killed Adalbert Wozniak and why. The ‘who’ was a member of the Latin Lords. Kiko. You know him. Every prosecutor’s office knows Kiko. And the ‘why’ was a relationship with Delroy Bailey. The ‘connection to Delroy.’ Wozniak was going to expose someone’s connection to Delroy and that someone had Kiko take Wozniak out.”

Moody didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t, either, if I were he. But he couldn’t deny it. The feds keep logs of all their interviews. It would be a very simple matter to prove that Ernesto Ramirez and Scarface paid them a visit, and who was in attendance. Hell, there would be surveillance cameras showing the two of them entering the federal building that day. And, above all that, surely Scarface himself-assuming I could ever find him again, but Moody didn’t know that-would identify Chris Moody as the guy who threatened him that day.

I chuckled, but I wasn’t having fun. “That must have really ruined your day, Chris.”

I would’ve enjoyed watching Moody that day, seeing the look on his face. He’d spent three months in a trial blaming Wozniak’s death on the Cannibals, when really it was the work of a rival gang, the Lords. He’d spent three months claiming that Wozniak died because he wouldn’t pay the street tax, when in reality it was to cover up the illegal steering of a contract to Delroy Bailey’s catering company-and Delroy’s gay relationship with Hector Almundo.

“Funny thing,” I said. “Ernesto and his buddy. When Kiko said he killed Wozniak to ‘cover up a connection to Delroy,’ they thought the guy doing the cover-up was your star witness, Joey Espinoza. Delroy’s former brother-in-law. Which, from your perspective, was all the more devastating, seeing as how you cut a deal with Joey for eighteen months, and now he was your star witness at Hector’s trial. How was that going to look? You’re prosecuting Hector for murder and suddenly it’s your star witness who did it?”

Moody was as still as a statue.

“Ironic,” I went on. “Turns out, the ‘connection to Delroy’ was Hector’s connection to Delroy. Ernesto and his buddy were handing you Hector on a silver platter, if you’d followed up on the evidence. But you didn’t follow up on it, Chris, did you? You didn’t do one shred of investigation. No, you buried that evidence. You withheld material evidence from the defense. You violated the first ethical rule of an honest prosecutor. Any of that ringing a bell, Chris?”

“I don’t remember anything like that,” Moody said. “And even if it happened, I’m under no obligation to chase red herrings.”