Breach of Trust

76

After the clemency meeting, I went back to suite 410. I was pretty stirred up about what had just happened, but it was the furthest thing from the minds of Lee Tucker and Christopher Moody. They wanted to know about my meeting with Judge George Ippolito. As eager as Tucker was to hear the news when I walked in, he made himself wait until he could locate Moody by phone. He spoke softly into the receiver and I got the hint: I wasn’t supposed to know where Moody was. When Tucker got him on the phone, he hit the speakerphone button so we could all talk together.

“Ippolito didn’t come out and say it,” I told them. “But he might as well have. We didn’t discuss a single substantive thing. We killed about ten minutes, and then Ippolito asked if he could see my written recommendation for him once it was finished. I mean, he clearly knows it’s a fix for him. But there wasn’t a direct admission.”

Lee Tucker worked the plug of tobacco in his cheek and played the whole thing over in his mind. He was booting up the conversation from FeeBee on his computer.

“Pretty obvious, you think, in context?” Chris Moody asked me over the speakerphone.

“It was clearly a sham interview. I mean, he didn’t even try to hide it.”

“And you’re back with them tonight?”

“Right. I’m meeting someone for dinner and then I’ll hook up with them.”

“And you’ll talk about Ippolito?”

“I’ll try.”

“Try to talk about the other stuff, too. Cimino’s stuff and the pro-choice groups paying up.”

“I never would have thought of that, Chris. Your direction has been invaluable.”

On one of the walls, Tucker had taped up makeshift diagrams of the various scandals and the players involved. One sheet of paper was entitled UNION JOBS, meaning our efforts to evade veterans’ preference laws to get that union guy’s cronies on the state payroll in exchange for one union’s endorsement. Madison Koehler and Brady MacAleer were listed. Rick Harmoning, the head of SLEU, was listed with a question mark next to him. Presumably, they didn’t have him on tape yet agreeing to the illegal deal. SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENT was another sheet of paper, involving Madison and Mac as well, with union boss Gary Gardner and Judge George Ippolito as question marks. HOUSE BILL I00 concerned the abortion bill and the governor’s mention of payout money from the pro-choice groups in exchange for a veto. It was the one place where the name Governor Carlton Snow appeared. It was the only thing they had directly on Snow, and nothing had even happened yet.

I could almost smell the palpable hunger in Christopher Moody’s gut. He wanted the governor. But he didn’t have him. Not yet.

But I could sense what was happening now. They wouldn’t tell me, but I had no doubt that the moment Christopher Moody heard that tape of the governor suggesting a shakedown of the pro-choice groups, he was drafting affidavits and preparing applications for Title III intercepts all over the place. It’s not easy to place a bug in someone’s office, or to tap their phones-to eavesdrop without anyone’s knowledge. If one party consents-like me wearing FeeBee-it can be done quickly. But any time the overhear is done without anyone’s knowledge, the process is rigorous. Chris Moody could very well be in Washington, D.C., right now, making his case at the various levels of the Department of Justice to allow him to tap the phones of the governor, Madison Koehler, Brady Mac, and others, and to bug the campaign headquarters and even their homes. Presumably, one day soon the U.S. attorney general himself-ironically, Carlton Snow’s predecessor, former governor Lang Trotter-would be listening to the tape that I procured of the governor.

Things were moving fast. Probably they wanted to make arrests before George Ippolito could be seated on the supreme court. Possibly, out of some sense of conscience that I might attribute to people over Moody’s head-but not to Moody himself-they wanted Governor Snow exposed before the primary, before the voters bestowed on him the nomination heading into the general election. Regardless, soon enough, they would have a lot more than me as weapons in their search. They would be listening in on all sorts of conversations to which I wasn’t privy.

The question was whether “soon” was soon enough. If they had the primary election and the Ippolito appointment as deadlines, they were pushing it. I didn’t know exactly how long this process took to secure the Title III warrants-through the various levels of the Justice Department and then to the chief federal district judge in our city. Five days? Twenty? They might not have enough time. I might be their only source of information.

“I’ll do my best to raise the topics,” I said. “Obviously I can’t force it.”

“I notice you’re steering your former client, Senator Almundo, away from those topics,” Moody said to me, static from the speakerphone punctuating his words.

Right. I knew that conversation wouldn’t be lost on Moody, when Hector asked what I’d been up to and I stiff-armed him.

“Emphasis on ‘former’ client,” he continued. “You don’t owe him anything.”

“It’s not just me,” I noted. “No one seems to talk to Hector about this stuff. Besides, Chris, if you reindicted Hector, you’d look spiteful.”

“Is that your problem or mine?”

“Hector’s a hanger-on. The governor likes having him around but he’s not the brains of the outfit. Hell, he wasn’t even the brains of his own office, back when he was senator. Your good friend Joey Espinoza was the one who really called the shots in the senator’s office. Remember?”

Lee Tucker made a face and slashed a finger across his throat. Abort. Bad idea.

He was probably right. And we were done, anyway. I didn’t need Chris Moody to tell me that I should try to get incriminating statements on tape.

“Good luck,” Tucker said to me, tossing me another F-Bird.

I tossed it back. “I have dinner first,” I reminded him. “You don’t get to listen to that.”

That really made Lee’s night. It meant he had to wait around for me until after dinner to hand off FeeBee.

I took the short elevator ride down, thinking about the dwindling number of days I had to solve three murders. I’d never considered failure an option. I always figured I would sit tight and strike when the moment came. Now I was beginning to wonder if time would run out.

I also realized I was looking forward to seeing Essie Ramirez for dinner tonight.

And then the elevator door opened, and who was exiting another elevator but one Shauna Tasker. She was doubly surprised, first because we hadn’t seen much of each other lately, and second because she obviously had come from our office, and I hadn’t. She first raised her eyebrows in mock surprise and then wrinkled her brow in confusion.

“Hey,” I said. Then, “Met with a new client.”

“Oh? Who?”

It then occurred to me that I’d have to name someone in this building-not necessarily on the fourth floor, from where I’d come, but somewhere. And I had almost no idea who else was in this building. I can bob and weave with the best of them, but I didn’t want to do it with Shauna.

I paused, made a face and waved off the question for a stall, hoping that she’d let it go. She can read me pretty well, but she blew it off. “We saw you on TV the other night,” she said. “Governor Snow was speaking at some rally?”

“Oh. Right.”

“Getting into politics now?” she asked.

“Oh, not really. Just thought it would be fun to see it. What are you up to tonight?”

Then I thought of what I was doing tonight, dinner with Essie Ramirez, and for some reason I didn’t want to share that with her.

“Having dinner with Roger,” she said. “Want to come?”

“I’ll pass. But I need to meet him soon.”

She seemed to find that statement odd, probably the lack of a sarcastic jab. We were becoming more formal, and it felt weird.

“Nice coat,” I said. She was wearing a white winter coat that I hadn’t seen before. I was losing track of this lady.

“Roger,” she said.

“Ah, okay,” I said, teasing. “And was there an occasion for such an extravagant gesture?”

“Oh. . ” She seemed reluctant to answer. For a moment I thought she was going to tell me they’d gotten engaged or something. And then it hit me.

“Oh, shit,” I said, smacking my palm against my head. “Oh, Shauna-”

“No worries.”

Her birthday. Two days ago. I’d forgotten Shauna’s birthday. Now I felt like a complete putz.

“You’ve been busy,” she said. “And gone. We had to sweep your office for cobwebs.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Jesus, Shauna, am I an asshole.” “I won’t argue. But I forgive you.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ll make sure of that.” She winked at me and we walked through the doors, into the cool evening air. She stopped and appraised me. “You okay in there?” she asked.

“Just grand.”

She still had those probing eyes that could see through whatever roadblocks I threw up. But she wasn’t going to challenge me. She kissed my cheek and was off.

I suddenly felt hollow. I felt alone. I’d more or less completely lost touch with Shauna. It was excusable. Hell, it was necessary, I thought. I needed to keep her as far away from what I was doing as possible. And it was reparable, at least in theory-I’d make it up to her when this undercover gig was over. Problem was, this guy Roger was filling the void in the interim.

The other problem was, Shauna didn’t appear to be as bothered about it as I was. She seemed to be moving on, with Roger’s hand in hers.

Essie Ramirez was waiting for me at the bar, nursing a glass of wine and studying the yuppie dinner crowd. I watched her for a moment before I made my approach. She looked the part of a young professional in the city-hair pulled back, blue suit, simple jewelry-but it occurred to me that Essie was out of her element. She’d been raising two kids and hadn’t worked outside of the home for probably a decade. This could have been intimidating for her, but I got the sense that it was more exciting than anything.

She told me about her new job as a paralegal at my old firm, Paul Riley’s shop. She told me about her kids. I thought she was rebounding, now with a reliable paycheck and some time passed since Ernesto’s death. Then again, we were keeping it on fairly safe topics. She didn’t talk about how much she missed her husband. I didn’t talk about what I’d been up to.

She took the check from the waiter after we’d finished our coffee.

“You notice,” she said, “that I didn’t ask you about your search for the truth.”

“I noticed.” I smiled. “I’m going to figure it out. I’m getting close.”

She nodded, appraising me with those dark, shiny eyes. “I want you to. I do. I might have sounded like I didn’t before. I just don’t want you to get hurt doing so. That’s all.”

“I understand.”

“If I can ask,” she said. “What do you plan to do when you figure it out?”

I told her the truth. “I don’t know.”

She accepted that. She was willingly staying in the dark, not asking for details. She probably assumed, correctly, that if I’d wanted to share, I’d have done so by now.

“Another question, if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Shoot.”

“Why have you never told me that you lost your wife and daughter recently?”

It was true. I hadn’t. And I’d forgotten that Essie was now working at my former law firm, where the first mention of my name would have elicited that information.

“Well, anyway, I’m very sorry,” she said. “You’ve suffered. I had no idea. When you were standing outside my house on Christmas Day-”

“It’s not a problem, Essie.”

“This happened-near the time I lost Ernesto?” she asked.

“The same day, actually,” I said. “The reason I didn’t drive my wife and daughter to my in-laws’ house is because I was waiting for Ernesto to call me. So she drove without me.”

“Ah.” I hate pity, and I was seeing it all over Essie’s face. “So you put the two things together, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

“You blame yourself for-”

“Why don’t we just drop it, Essie,” I said, dropping my hands down on the table to indicate finality.

She placed a hand over her heart. “I have a knack for being direct.”

I blew out a breath. “It’s okay. I like that about you.”

“Oh, Jason. Jason, you can’t do that to yourself.”

I didn’t answer. An awkward span of time passed. Essie counted out cash and placed it with the check. She couldn’t have very much money to her name, but she’d be insulted if I offered to pay. This was how she wanted it.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said. “But you didn’t owe me.”

Her eyes flashed up at me. A strand of hair slipped out of her clip and curled around her cheek. She was debating whether to say something. She was searching me for a reaction, for a sign. I knew what I was thinking, but not what I was conveying. Something powerful was moving within me, a connection to Essie. Maybe it was just this joint tragedy we shared, like families who bond after losing their loved ones in a plane crash or something. I didn’t know. All I knew for certain was that she was looking into my eyes, and I was looking back, and neither of us seemed inclined to retreat.

“Do you think I asked you to dinner because I thought I owed you?”

That sounded like a dangerous question for me to answer, so I didn’t. There must have been a thousand love songs, and even more romantic comedies, built around this premise. Two people recovering from the loss of their spouses who find each other and rebuild their lives. Look, I couldn’t deny an attraction to Essie, and it appeared that the feeling was mutual. And I felt like I’d crossed a bridge recently. I could swallow the idea of another woman in my life, at least in some fashion. But not this. I couldn’t separate Essie from her husband, from guilt and anger. And I couldn’t think of her in a casual way, a one-nighter or anything even close to that.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said. “I have to go now.”

She watched me a moment, still with those studious eyes. “Will you keep in touch with me?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure this out,” I said.

Her expression told me that I’d wounded her, that she’d had more in mind than merely the imparting of information. But I couldn’t do anything about that. My thoughts and emotions were tangled up and I defaulted to the classic Kolarich option, retreat.

“It was fun seeing you again,” I said, a comment which widely missed the mark in all directions. It seemed like an appropriately awkward note on which to exit.