David Ellis - Breach of Trust

I closed the phone. I didn’t enjoy turning my back, but it was the only option. Funny, it had never occurred to me that, in this dire moment, the governor would be calling his lawyer.

For some reason, I felt bad walking away from his call. It felt cruel. It was, I realized, a very curious reaction, given all the things I’d done to make this day happen.

I left the state building and headed back to my law office.

Marie, my receptionist extraordinaire, opted to forgo the typical comment about my absenteeism in favor of this: “Did you hear the governor was arrested?”

I walked down the hall to my office and dropped onto my couch. Shauna was in my doorway moments later.

“Did you hear about the governor?” she said.

I turned my head slowly in her direction.

“Was it the governor or just some of his aides? They’re saying both things. Nobody seems to know.”

“Not the governor,” I said. “Not yet.”

“People you know? These were people you worked with?”

I sighed. I dropped my head against the couch and closed my eyes. My head was suddenly ringing. Everything started draining out of my body, all the tension and anger and worry and revulsion. All of that being gone, there was little of me remaining.

“I’m so tired,” I said.

When I heard Shauna’s voice again, she was closer. I felt the couch cushion depress next to me, and then her warm hand on my arm.

“You’re shaking,” she said. “Tell me. Jason, you never tell me anymore.”

“I. . miss that.” I thought of all of the people with whom I’d come into contact over the last six months, almost all of them poison, ravenous, and unethical. Liars. Cheaters. I needed a hot shower that would last the rest of my life. I wanted to scrub and cleanse and purge all of the venom. I wanted to be anybody but me, anywhere but here.

I reached out for Shauna and found her hand. She covered it with her other hand. I must have fallen asleep there, awakening several hours later with a coat over my shoulder. I didn’t remember letting go of her hand.

“This is a sad day for government and for this state. The complaint unsealed today exposes crimes in state government ranging from extortion and pay-to-play allegations to murder of a federal undercover witness. The complaint alleges that these crimes were committed at the highest levels of state government in Governor Carlton Snow’s administration. Only hours ago, federal agents arrested Madison Koehler, chief of staff to the governor; Hector Almundo, deputy director of the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs; Brady MacAleer, chief of government administration; Ciriaco Cimino, Governor Snow’s chief fundraiser. .”

The U.S. attorney looked visibly angry as he spoke to reporters, the tremor in his voice unmistakable. He was flanked by Christopher Moody and other prosecutors, as well as other federal agents, including Lee Tucker.

Chris Moody was playing the sober part, but unlike his boss, I doubted he was truly angry. That wasn’t how he operated. He was thrilled, exhilarated. It was all about personal ambition to him. I wondered if he worried about me at all, if last night was occupying his thoughts. After all, I had an F-Bird in my possession in which Moody had offered to decline to prosecute me if I kept quiet about his indiscretion during Hector’s trial.

I’d never use it, and if he knew me better, he’d have known that. But he didn’t. He lived in a black-and-white world. You were an ally or an enemy, a good guy or a bad one. He would always assume the worst about me. That probably suited my purposes. I would never be charged with a crime for anything related to this, nor had I taken a plea. I’d never admitted to wrongdoing. I would be the one whom they praised for coming forward, for risking my life, all to expose government corruption. I would be the star witness at trial, but I wouldn’t be Joey Espinoza; I wouldn’t be a flipper. I was a voluntary cooperator. I would come out of this better than anyone, at least on paper.

Shauna had found the complaint for the arrest warrant on the Internet and downloaded it. Although I told them they could use my name if they wished-“I don’t give a rat’s ass” was my official position-I wasn’t identified by name in the complaint. Few people other than the defendants, whose names appeared always in all caps, would be named. I was “Private Attorney A” in the complaint. Shauna had already asked me if it was okay to use that as my nickname now.

Governor Snow, Madison, Hector, Charlie, MacAleer-they’d probably come up with other nicknames for me by now. Surely they’d put two and two together by this point. There were at least a dozen people in this city now who wished for nothing more than my violent death.

That might be viscerally pleasing to them but not tactically advantageous. Virtually everything I contributed to the case was caught on tape. The tapes would be the star witness. If I fell off the face of the earth, the United States could still bury everyone they’d charged.

Everyone, by the way, included more than the four top aides to the governor. Patrick Lemke, the nervous Nellie staffer at the Procurement and Construction Board, had been arrested. Top union officials Gary Gardner and Rick Harmoning were arrested. Judge George Ippolito was walked out of his courtroom in handcuffs. Four other men were charged for the murder of Greg Connolly and the assault committed on me, one of whom was Paul Patrino-Paulie, one of the guys who’d worked me over. Another of those guys surely was Leather Jacket, but I didn’t know him by name.

Federico Hurtado-Kiko-was not named in this arrest warrant. Apparently he hadn’t been involved in Greg Connolly’s murder. But the feds would be looking at him hard on Ernesto Ramirez’s murder, itself the murder of a potential government witness, but one that hadn’t been charged yet. That could, theoretically, mean that Kiko would view me as a threat, but it would be a misplaced notion. The evidence against Kiko came, at the end of the day, principally from one man. If I were Hector Almundo, waiting in lockup on a federal murder charge, I’d be watching my back.

“I would like to add one more thing,” said the U.S. attorney. “Greg Connolly was not the only person willing to cooperate with us to uncover corruption. Another individual agreed to cooperate with us at the early stages of this investigation and granted us windows into this political corruption that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. He did so at great personal risk to himself, on one occasion narrowly escaping the same fate as Mr. Connolly. It’s fair to say that we wouldn’t be here today were it not for this individual. The people of this state owe him a debt of gratitude.”

“Hey, look at you.” Shauna flipped the back of her hand against my arm.

I almost laughed. That platitude to me, no doubt, was at the insistence of a certain assistant U.S. attorney who wanted to make sure I understood that we were still pals, and I wouldn’t ever need to use that F-Bird I still kept from our friendly chat on the Lerner Street Bridge.

“I’m going home,” I said, forcing myself out of a chair in Shauna’s office.

“You probably need a lot of sleep.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” I said. “I need to pack.”

Five o’clock the following day. I’d just returned from my second run of the day, the first taking place in the morning-a 10K, give or take-this follow-up shorter but more punishing. But still good, the cleansing from the cold fresh air and sweat and adrenaline.

Essie Ramirez was standing at my front door. Still with that sky-blue puffy coat, but this time no hat. Her silky hair was pulled back into a ponytail.