David Ellis - Breach of Trust

“A red herring? Try that one again, Chris. It was true . Most everything they told you. A Latin Lord killed Wozniak, and it was to cover up a relationship with Delroy Bailey. Hard to call that a red herring when it was accurate. Maybe they were wrong on Joey Espinoza being behind it, but they still gave you almost the entire story right there.”

“Twenty-twenty hindsight,” he said.

“Okay, maybe-maybe you couldn’t be sure what he was saying was true, at that moment. But you had an ethical obligation to turn that over to us, Mr. Moody. And you know it. Instead, you threatened Ernesto and his buddy with perjury, obstruction, the whole lot. You scared them into silence.”

“Is that a fact?” said Moody.

I removed the Dictaphone from my pants pocket, the same one I used to record my conversation with Scarface in the alley that night. I hit play. Scarface’s words echoed through the quiet city air.

They said I was a liar, ese . They told me, liars go to prison. We gonna lock you up. One thousand one, they kept sayin’. The fuckin’ brownies, they pull out my sheet, they tell me, who’d believe you, convict? They tell me, ten years, man. Ten years for lying to us, the priors you got.

It was all there. “One thousand one,” the federal crime for lying to a federal agent. “Brownies,” the gangs’ nickname for federal prosecutors, owing to their hideous brown building downtown. Scarface had never said Moody’s name, but it wasn’t much of a leap. Of course the lead prosecutor in the Almundo trial would have been called in at some point, once it was clear that Ernesto and Scarface had material information to disclose. And the threats Scarface described? They had Chris Moody’s signature all over them.

Moody’s stare carried beyond the bridge. His posture had become rigid, defensive mode, as if we were about to come to blows.

“That’s not how it happened,” he said. “You have the word of some scumbag with a sheet as long as my cock, versus a decorated supervisor in the U.S. attorney’s office.”

Moody had obviously done the calculus quickly in his head. His first instinct-to deny the meeting ever took place-wouldn’t fly because of the records of the visit and the other federal agents who undoubtedly attended the interview. He went with his second instinct-admit the meeting took place but deny that it happened the way Scarface had described. He was right about his word versus Scarface’s, but Moody still had problems. Other agents had been involved in the conversation. Someone below Moody would’ve handled the intake interview and would have brought in Moody only after there appeared to be something relevant. Moody would have overpowered the situation at that point and insisted these guys were lying, maybe even kicked out everyone else when he threatened Ernesto and Scarface. But still, given that what Scarface told Moody ultimately was mostly correct, the other agents might well revisit that session and remember Moody as more of a cover-up artist than anything else. If there were ever a reason to revisit that session-if anyone beefed Moody to the Division of Attorney Discipline, and everyone was interviewed. And that was assuming that Moody wouldn’t be criminally prosecuted for misconduct; maybe a stretch but stranger things have happened.

Moody was boxed in, and we both knew it. His only defense to Attorney Discipline would be that he believed that the information was so lacking in credibility that it wasn’t even worth mentioning to Hector’s defense team. Given its ultimate accuracy, that argument wouldn’t fly. And Moody already would have lost, with the publicity surrounding the controversy. A federal prosecutor withholding evidence in a major public corruption case? A case that he lost? He cheated and still lost? This was, to say the least, the very last thing he wanted. He wanted to go out with glory, having convicted the governor and all his cronies on public corruption charges, and then march into some silk-stocking law firm and reel in the big coin. He didn’t want a very ugly ethics charge against him to stain his big moment.

And this was to say nothing of the fact that if I, the star prosecution witness in a public corruption trial that was forthcoming, filed an ethics beef against Moody, he’d probably be disqualified from trying the case against the governor. His swan song, his crowning achievement, would go out the window. He’d have to sit on the sidelines while someone else stole his glory. To Moody, that might be worse than anything else.

“So what do you want?” he asked. His posture wilted.

I exhaled, only then realizing that I’d been holding my breath. I didn’t know if he’d say these words. There was, I must admit, a small part of me that wished he hadn’t. There was a large part of me that knew he would.

“You want a walk,” he said, answering his own question. “A get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Did Moody actually believe what Scarface told him and then blatantly cover it up? I didn’t know and I never would. But I do know this much: The human inclination to believe what you want to believe runs very deep. Moody so deeply didn’t want to believe what Scarface told him that he probably convinced himself it was bullshit and swept it under the rug.

“You can’t record a conversation with that guy without his consent,” he said, but his voice had weakened. He was flailing.

“Who said it was without his consent, Chris? You want to open an investigation and find out? You want your office to handle it? Attorney Discipline?”

I pulled out my cell phone and started dialing.

“What the hell are you doing?” Moody asked.

“Tucker,” I said into the cell phone, “we’re on the Lerner Street Bridge. Come down right away.” I closed up the cell phone and put it back in my pocket.

I’d caught Moody off guard. He was losing control of the situation. “What the hell are you doing?”

I ejected the tape of Scarface’s conversation. “You can have the tape. Catch,” I said, and catch he did, wrapping it in his arms in a bear hug. He almost fell over doing so.

“That’s my only copy of that tape,” I said.

Moody stuffed it in his pocket. “Bullshit. You have a copy.” He said it like he hoped he was wrong.

“I don’t.”

“What the fuck do you want, Kolarich?”

“From you? Nothing. I think you should turn yourself in to Attorney Discipline for withholding material evidence from Hector’s defense team, but I’ll leave that up to you. I’m not going to turn you in for that. Really. Even if you prosecute me.”

“You made a copy,” he said. “You want me to pass on prosecuting you, then when it’s all over, you beef me to Attorney Discipline.”

“No. Prosecute me,” I said. “If that’s what your conscience tells you to do. I’m not going to beef you, either way, for what you withheld in Almundo. ”

Moody watched me for a long time. This didn’t make sense to him. I’d just hung this thing over his head, and now I was handing him my leverage. But all things considered, he was feeling a little better with the tape in his possession.

Finally, he let out a low chuckle.

“Okay, superstar. You’ll get your pass. But you remember this. If you decide to go to DAD later, I’ll fucking bury you. I’ll be on you like ugly on a pig. Same goes for your girlfriend, Shauna, and your brother and anyone else I can think of. I’ll be your worst fucking nightmare. Are we clear?”

“I’m not asking for a pass,” I said. “I’m not blackmailing you. I’m advising you of this and hoping you’ll do the right thing and turn yourself in to Attorney Discipline. But that’s up to you, Christopher. I’m not a threat to you.”