Breach of Trust

64

Chris Moody stood before a poster board that looked exactly like the kinds of flow charts the FBI used for organized crime, or we at the county attorney’s office used to make for the street-gang hierarchy. In this case, the chart bore the heading KITCHEN CABINET, and it listed the people closest to Governor Carlton Snow.

“Madison Koehler, chief of staff,” said Chris Moody. “You’ve already made her acquaintance. She’s run several political campaigns around the country. Moved here to work on the mayor’s last race. Governor Snow hired her when they took the ‘lieutenant’ off his title and he knew he’d be running for a full term. Divorced, one kid in college. She’s tough. She doesn’t suffer incompetence or disloyalty. She fires people all the time, in fact.”

“Point being,” Lee Tucker said, “play nice with her or you’ll be out on your ass and no good to anybody.”

They knew, presumably from Greg Connolly, that Madison had propositioned me for this job but they didn’t know the breadth or scope of that encounter. They didn’t know that I’d seen Madison Koehler perform feats of gymnastic agility that would make women half her age green with envy.

Below Madison, there were several people on the same level. “Brady MacAleer,” said Moody, pointing to the name in the first square. “‘Mac’ or ‘Brady Mac.’ Chief of government administration. Grew up on the north side of the city. He ran a labor union and then went to work for the city clerk’s office under Snow. Followed him to the lieutenant governor’s office. Always a paid position, always hard to pin down what it was he did to earn that paycheck. He’s one of the operators. Favors and fixes, they like to say.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, specifically. Moody seemed to pick up on my reaction.

“Fundraising. Jobs for cronies. Side deals for contributors. Opposition research. Not a lot different from Cimino, except Cimino has outside wealth. Brady Mac is no financier. You’ll probably deal with him a lot. Especially with Cimino cooling his heels a bit.”

“Got it.”

“Next: William Peshke. ‘Pesh’ to everybody. His title is ‘special adviser to the governor.’ That’s just an excuse to get him a six-figure salary on the government’s dime. He’s the policy guy. He’s known Governor Snow since college. He wanted to be running the campaign. He doesn’t get along so well with Madison Koehler but the governor likes him. So there’s a turf battle there.”

“Okay.”

After Brady MacAleer and William Peshke were three names I recognized. Greg Connolly, now deceased. Charlie Cimino. And Hector Almundo.

Moody paused only briefly over Connolly’s name. “All respect to the dead, the way we saw it, Greg was just riding coattails. He didn’t provide much value. He ran that board, but he just followed orders. Charlie, obviously-but we don’t expect much from him, right?”

“Right,” I agreed. “But you never know. I’m not sure he can help himself. I’m not sure he can stay away for long.”

“Our thinking as well,” Moody said. “Either way, we expect him to stay close to the action. You stay away too long, they forget about you, that kind of thing.”

I fully concurred in that assessment. Charlie was looking at me as one of his guys, and that’s why it was so important to him that I be near the action, if he couldn’t be.

I looked at the final name. Hector Almundo.

“You and I would have different opinions on this one,” said Moody.

I wasn’t so sure about that. My take on Hector Almundo probably didn’t vary all that much from the federal government’s view. I assumed they were right when they alleged that Hector had orchestrated that shakedown by the Columbus Street Cannibals for campaign contributions. I was relatively sure, in fact, that Hector would shake down his own mother if it suited his purposes.

“Why’s he a part of this inner circle?” I asked. I’d had my own thoughts on this question. But I wanted to hear Moody’s.

He shook his head. “A Latino face for the Latino voters, I guess? Politics is not my game,” he added, using a tone he might normally reserve for mass murderers.

“We don’t know,” said Lee Tucker. “Chris’s guess is a pretty good one. He’ll be out front getting out the vote in his community. He’s not the brightest of the bunch.”

“He’s a political animal,” said Moody. “But his utility to the governor? Not clear.”

“Why does Snow need help with the Latino vote?” I asked. “I thought that was a reliable Democratic voting bloc.”

Moody shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. But even if that’s true, there’s the primary.”

Right. That was a good point. Carlton Snow still had to win a primary. The secretary of state, a Democrat named Willie Bryant, was seeking the nomination as well. He had some money and he had name recognition. But nobody had ever called him Governor.

“Do you know what they have in mind for me?” I asked.

Moody took a seat. I could see that the answer was no. “Greg Connolly-you can probably imagine-he wasn’t the world’s greatest informant. He let on like he knew every step the governor took, but we were pretty sure he was left out of some of the meetings. The truth is,” he said, like it was a concession, “until you, we weren’t making much headway.”

I imagined that the federal government had entertained high hopes for Mr. Gregory Connolly, being one of the governor’s oldest friends. Seems that what they got instead was a tag-along, a hanger-on. He was perfect for the role he served in the administration, a loyal follower who wielded power over the awarding of state contracts exactly in the manner he was dictated. But dictated by whom? Charlie Cimino, to be sure-but the feds were hoping the direction came from higher.

“Greg couldn’t put the governor next to all those bogus contracts, could he?” I asked. “All the stuff the PCB and Charlie were doing. You can’t link the governor to any of that, can you?”

Moody paused. He hadn’t been particularly good about sharing. I understood his thinking to a point. I’d worked with undercovers. Sometimes, it’s better they not know certain things. I would be cross-examined heavily at Charlie’s trial. Everything that Chris Moody, Lee Tucker, and I discussed would be fair game. The less information I had from the feds, the better. But there were limits.

“Listen, guys,” I said, “you’re going to have to be a little more forthcoming with me. You didn’t tell me Greg Connolly was your guy, and it could have cost me my life. You want me to do this, I’ll do it, but I need to know what you know and what you have in terms of people and resources. I need to know that.”

Moody looked over at Tucker, but this was Moody’s call. Our relationship had defrosted a little over the last week. We’d lost an informant, and that wasn’t something they took lightly. And now I was volunteering to keep going at considerable risk to my ability to continue breathing.

Moody nodded to Lee Tucker, who left the room. That made sense. Lee Tucker would be a witness at trial. He’d be an especially valuable witness if I somehow didn’t survive through trial. So it was better that Lee not be a part of this conversation, on which he could be cross-examined.

“Start with informants,” I said.

“Just you,” Moody said. “You and Connolly. Now just you.”

“Bugs,” I said.

Moody shook his head. “We had a bug in Greg Connolly’s office with his consent. He locked the door when he wasn’t in there. We tapped his cell phone with his consent. He was the only one who used that phone. That’s it, Counselor.”

“Wires,” I said.

“F-Birds,” Moody answered. “You and Connolly.”

“Tell me what you have on these guys so far.”

Moody pushed himself out of his chair. “If Greg Connolly could put Governor Snow, or Madison Koehler, or any of those people next to those shady contract awards, you think I’d let you risk your life going in there?”

“Yes,” I said.

He watched for a beat before a reluctant smile emerged on his face. “Greg was a talker. A blowhard. He answered to Cimino. Not the governor. Not the chief of staff. He talked a good game to us, but he couldn’t give us anyone else. We had some decent stuff on Cimino before you arrived and now we have Cimino over a barrel, thanks to you. I still have half a mind to pinch him right now and see if he wants to deal. At least I won’t lose another cooperator.”

That cooperator being me. I was glad to see he was viewing me as a statistic on his scorecard, as opposed to, say, a living, breathing human being.

“I don’t have them,” he concluded, drawing circles on the desk with his finger. “Not the governor or anyone else. Just a gut call-which I’d take to my grave, by the way-that there was no way Charlie Cimino and Greg Connolly were doing all this stuff without the governor’s knowledge.” He looked up at me. “You don’t think Cimino would deal with us?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe eventually. I mean, most of them do eventually, right? But his initial reaction would be to tell you to go scratch, so you’d have to arrest him and make it public, and everyone would clam up. Down the road, looking over the charges and counting the number of months he’ll spend in the pen, he might decide to cooperate and finger the governor, but you’d have no tapes, no anything but Cimino’s word against the governor’s. And they’d hire a lawyer like me and argue that Cimino and Connolly were doing this stuff for personal enrichment, getting side consulting contracts and hoping to curry favor with the governor without his direct knowledge of what they were doing. The governor would do the classic ostrich defense and even if you got an ostrich instruction-which I’m not sure a judge would give you here-the defense would have a strong argument. Cimino’s damaged goods, looking at twenty years in the pen, versus the word of public officials who have no record. That, Christopher, is why you need me.”

I wasn’t telling Moody anything he didn’t already know, that he hadn’t already calculated twenty different ways. “That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea that you do this.”

“One of those people ordered Greg Connolly’s murder,” I said. “And mine, if I hadn’t convinced them I was clean. As a general rule, I don’t take kindly to people who try to kill me.”

Moody still didn’t seem convinced, but he’d obviously decided to move forward with our plan. Because what I’d said was true. He was out of options. I was his best, and possibly only, way to move beyond Charlie Cimino.

“The minute it gets too hot, you tell us,” he said. “No foolin’.”

“You’ll be the first.”

Moody walked over to me and extended a hand. It was a gesture typically reserved for friendly acquaintances, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I decided to shake it.

“Don’t get dead,” he said.