Breach of Trust

14

Bless these computers, but they’re only as good as the moron directing them, and I didn’t have much to go on other than conducting searches for the “PCB,” “IG,” and “CC” initials that Ernesto Ramirez had written on the paper. My money had been on “PCB,” because it sounded more like an acronym. What it stood for, I had no idea, and the search came up empty. I’d had a fleeting thought that it referred to that chemical that had leaked into public drinking water supplies years ago, causing death, mayhem, and barrels full of money for lawyers. I briefly warmed to the notion of a grand conspiratorial cover-up about poisoned water in our city’s sanitation system.

I tried a Google search on my office computer with the initials “PCB” and found all sorts of hits, but I didn’t think Adalbert Wozniak had been killed by the Pakistan Cricket Board or because of a printed circuit board in a video game.

My curiosity and, more to the point, stubbornness kept me in my office well past normal hours, poring through the database until I finally got lucky. I decided to look at lawsuits involving ABW Hospitality, because, by definition, those cases involve two things that can lead to murder if pushed to the extreme-hostile feelings and money. Turned out that ABW Hospitality Supplies had filed suit in April 2003 over the denial of a contract to supply beverage and vending services to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles’ affiliate offices. As a governmental contract, it was let out for public bidding, and the entity handling the bidding-also one of the defendants in the lawsuit-was the Procurement and Construction Board-the “PCB.”

These days, as someone recently reaffirmed to me, litigation is part of all public contracting. You get passed over on the government contract, you sue. Why not? Take a shot at getting the contract. You’re no worse for trying. So I didn’t see a lot of significance here.

But then I said out loud, “The government,” and it appeared to me from the recesses of my memory, my conversation with Ernesto Ramirez over the phone. I’d told him that if he talked, I’d cover him, that I’d have the government protect him as a material witness.

The government, he’d repeated, emphasis on that last word. Man, you don’t get it.

I’d meant the federal government-the U.S. attorney-not state. But maybe Ernesto wasn’t splitting that hair. Regardless, his emphasis on that word, which I hadn’t appreciated, had to be significant. He was saying the government was part of the problem here. Surely, it deserved further inquiry.

I switched back to my office computer and did some due diligence on the state’s Procurement and Construction Board. It listed all kinds of contracts for work performed throughout the state, ranging from consulting and professional services contracts to road repair work to building construction and everything in between. It was rather staggering, the number of contracts our state entered into with outside vendors (“Child Care Technology Project Manager;” “Nastrum Center Elevator Repair and Maintenance;” “PSD Foam, Mattress Core for Marymount Penitentiary”). The list reached the thousands.

Lots of money. Hundreds of millions, possibly billions. All running through the Procurement and Construction Board.

I looked up the members of this board, hoping that it would net me the initials “IG” or “CC.” No luck. Gregory Connolly was listed as board chairman. The other four members were Alex Morris, James Clark, James Hathaway, and Antonia Harris.

I read through the allegations contained in ABW’s suit against the PCB, which had been dismissed after Wozniak’s death and the close of his company. According to the complaint, ABW had been the lowest bidder on a beverage contract, but the PCB had rejected its bid and given it to the next lowest bidder, Starlight Catering.

I sent an email to Joel Lightner, asking him to take a look under the hood of Starlight Catering. Then I looked through my Rolodex-and by Rolodex, I mean a mess of business cards shoved into the drawer of my desk-and found Hector Almundo’s cell phone number. I dialed it up, not expecting him to answer, and I wasn’t disappointed. I left him a quick message.

“Hector, it’s Jason Kolarich. About that thing we discussed,” I said.