Vindication- Ties That Bind

  The wind whipped through her hair and smacked her in the face, the freezing snowing piercing her skin. She pulled her knitted turquoise scarf up and took a deep breath into it, before saying, “What’s so funny, and what are you doing here? I thought I was calling you after I checked in.”

  “First off, the fact that I got here before you, and yeah, you were going to call me, but I figured we’d take one car. I wouldn’t have to be waiting for you in Camden.”

  “I just need to check in, and we can get going.” She popped the trunk and pulled out her overnight bag, grabbed her file folder case and slammed the trunk closed. Travis reached over to take the bag from her.

  “I can get it,” she said.

  “I am sure you can, but I got it," he said with a smirk as he grabbed the bag.

  When they walked through the front doors of the hotel, she heard a low whistle from Travis. They walked into a grand entrance, stepping onto an ice blue floor. There was an enormous dome that occupied the center of the ceiling five stories up. The sunlight that flooded the landing beneath, cast a massive geometric sphere onto it, giving the illusion of crystal clear water. She loved the way the circumference of the sphere had an array of furniture that made up the seven different conversation areas. A grand staircase was positioned towards the back of the room, ascending to the fifth floor. The railing was crafted in a geometric pattern, much like the shadows the sunlight cast onto the floor.

  “Fancy, schmancy. Isn’t it nice to be loaded?”

  “This isn’t on my dime; my brother-in-law Tom is footing the bill. Remember? He told me as long as it takes, it’s mine.”

  “Nice!”

  “I’m just going to check in, go up to my room and drop off my stuff. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “I’ll stay down here and wait. No need for us both to go up.” Looking directly into her eyes, he raised one eyebrow, laughed and said, “Besides, what would people say?”

  She caught him off balance when she walked away, looking over her shoulder and saying, “Let them say whatever they want.”

  When she saw the look on his face, it was her turn to laugh. “I’ll be right down.”

  When she opened the door, she shook her head and rolled her eyes upward. Tom did it again. She walked into a kitchenette with white marbled granite counters, a small stainless steel fridge, microwave, sink and glass door cabinets full of dishes, bowls, and utensils. A fully stocked wine fridge stood under a hanging rack full of sparkling crystal wine glasses. Walking through, she ran her hand over a large black and chrome workstation sat under a panoramic picture window, that looked out upon the courtyard. There was a soft gray sofa, chair, and ottoman arranged opposite a wall mounted flat screen smart TV. As she pushed open a set of French doors that opened to a spacious master suite, sitting in the center of the room sat an inviting king size fluffy cloud of a bed, covered with a gray comforter accented with black and turquoise, the color of her scarf, seemed to be calling to her. Looking through a short hall, she could see there was a bathroom that was the size of her apartment living room, complete, with all the amenities.

  Dropping her case on the luggage rack and leaving her files on the desk she reluctantly headed back down to the lobby. When the elevators doors opened she spotted Travis, he was at the check-in counter talking up the receptionist. As she approached, he turned and started to walk to the exit.

  “That took forever, what, did you take a nap?”

  “Very funny, I had to take the tour. My brother-in-law did it again, everything he does is in a big way. I walked into an apartment, not a hotel room. You know you could have left, I do have my car.”

  “I’m just bustin’ your hump. It gave me time to talk up that redhead.”

  “Priorities,” she said, her voice oozing with sarcasm.

  “Yep, priorities.”

  They walked out of the hotel, back into the frigid weather. As they headed towards the parking lot, he said, “On a serious note, I have a lead I want to follow, what were you thinking?”

  “Since I can’t get in to see Evan until Monday, I want to canvas the area, talk to people and see what I can find. I’d like to get into the building and have a look around.”

  “I can get you into the building but, Krista you need to remember, you may not like what you find. I’m not saying Evan is guilty, but you need to keep an open mind. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be nosing around. It won’t help him at all.”

  “I get that. I just can’t wrap my head around Evan hurting anyone. I need to find out what happened down there. None of this adds up.”

  “I’ve seen some crazy shit working for the DEA. Nothing surprises me anymore. Drugs can turn daddy’s little girl into a whore and a mommy’s little man into a dirt bag.”

  “I know, I’ve seen my share too. I am not naive. You should know that. When it came to me and mine, I just really didn’t think our lives would get any nastier after my Mother and Father’s death.”

  “What do you mean nastier?”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear. I figured every department in every agency had heard about what they said my father did, especially the DEA. I thought you just didn’t bring it up because you didn’t want to stir the up a hornets nest. I know some people think I’m delusional, it’s written all over their faces, when they talk to me.”

  “I don’t get involved with all the office bullshit. It’s a waste of time. You still didn’t answer my question, only makes me more curious,” Travis said.

  “My parents were killed in what they said was a hit and run “accident.” During the investigation, they found evidence that my father was money laundering and drug trafficking. I don’t believe it for a minute. Not that it was an accident and especially the laundering and trafficking. I believe they were murdered.”

  “I knew about the drug trafficking, that’s all anyone talked about for a while. Philsin, he’s the one who closed the case.”

  “Closed my ass, he slammed it shut so that the truth wouldn’t get out. I said it at least a thousand times, and I’ll say it a thousand more. My father was not a drug trafficker, and into money laundering, he made enough of his own. They were murdered, not killed in a hit and run. I will prove it.”

  “You seem to believe what you are saying. My guess is, no one wanted to listen to you. There must have been proof. Weren’t you able to get a hold of it? Didn’t you see why they he was convicted?”

  “After the accident, I was hell-bent on proving it was no accident. It just didn’t and still doesn’t make sense to me. During the investigation, I was told that evidence was found incriminating my father of the money laundering and drug trafficking. If you knew my father, you’d understand.”

  “What I don’t get is why did people think you were delusional?”

  “I wouldn’t let it go. I didn’t believe all the allegations, still, don’t, on top of the fact they stopped investigating the hit and run. They focused on everything else.”

  “They had to have solid evidence like I said, they had to have proof or they would never have pursued it.”

  “Philsin presented what he had to the court, but I can’t get a handle on it. I was going to law school when everything happened. I finished up with a degree in criminal justice and then applied to the FBI. I wasn’t sure if I would be accepted or not because of my father.”

  “You must have kicked ass in there because they don’t offer Manhattan to just anyone.”

  “I knew that going in, either I end up top of the class or all of it was for nothing. It was the only way to have access to my father's case files.”

  “Well, you accomplished that. Did you find what you were looking for”?

  “I am still not sure what I am looking for. I need to connect the pieces. There was a lot of information, but the one connection that kept popping up was the Russian Bratva.”

  “What would the Bratva have to do with your father?”

  “There’s a paper trail that connects him to t
he money laundering and drug trafficking. They found communication on both his home office computer as well as at work.”

  “Any wiretaps?”

  “They had tapped our home phone, his office phones, and his cell phone. There wasn’t anything I could find. There were hundreds of files I went through, I couldn’t find anything other than normal business dealings.”

  “You have to figure what they did find, was enough to seize all of his property, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished that they had stayed in his thoughts.”

  Travis waited as Krista took her hands and rubbed her face, as she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes saying, “You sound like everyone else.”

  “It’s just my opinion, just the sum of what you are telling me.”

  Almost as if she didn’t even hear what he was saying, she answered, “You know, that’s when Evan started to spin out of control. He was grieving after we lost our parents, but when they locked the house and took everything that belonged to us, to our parents, that was the beginning of all this. That’s the how, to the why, we are where we are now. The one piece I will never understand is, why he went down to Camden? It’s not like a place we visited or even heard about for that matter. At least I didn’t until I was in the FBI.”

  Travis didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He just stared out the windshield and was grateful when they turned onto York Street.

  As Travis pulled the car over to the side of the road, Krista scanned the area. There were some locals hurrying up and down the street, but nothing that looked out of the norm.

  “Krista, I need to meet my informant in an hour, three blocks from here. The sweepers finished up last night so we can go in and have a look around. One of the items they found was a grocery bag from a local bodega. We’ll be following up on that. It might just have been from your brother.”

  “Do you know which bodega? I could check it out, see if they have security cameras.”

  “No, I’ll know more after everything is checked into evidence and sent to the lab.”

  “It’s not checked in yet?”

  “It wasn’t the last I checked, for all I know it is now. I’ll check when I get back.”

  “Okay, in the meantime I’ll see what I can find here.”

  Krista shuddered as she opened the door to get out. Seeing the building again brought a vivid picture of her brother standing there covered in blood. The curbs looked as if there were mounds of salt sprinkled heavily with pepper and laced with trash. It struck her so different from the blanket of snow that covered the grounds surrounding the hotel.

  Slices of light were filtering in through the grime covered windows as they entered the building. She covered her nose with her hand trying not breathe in the moldy smell that permeated the air. The sweepers had stripped the floors of everything; not knowing what would be evidence. There was fingerprint powder trailing down the broken banister that was heading to the second floor and every other surface.

  “I wish I would have thought to take a face mask, this place reeks. I don’t know what I will possibly find here. It looks to me as if the sweepers took everything.”

  “I don’t know Krista, I’ve had luck in the past, sometimes they do miss something. I’ll look too.”

  “Lets’ get to it.”

  Krista looked at her watch and realized they had been searching the building for forty-five minutes already. Grinding her teeth and raking her hands through her hair in frustration, her watch caught her coat collar, the clasp opened, and it fell to the floor. As she went to pick it up, she spotted a spent round wedged under the stairwell. With a gloved hand and penknife, she yanked it out.

  “Hey Travis, I got something.”

  Travis made his way down the stairs and over to Krista. “It looks like a .45 caliber casing. I read the pathologist report. It was a .38 that killed the Vic. I don’t know if they recovered both bullets. I’ll take it into forensics.”

  “If this is from yesterday then there had to be another shooter. I spoke to Craig Doltz, Evans attorney, earlier and he confirmed that they only recovered one gun. This could be from anything.”

  “I could have told you that, but it’s a start. I gotta jam. My CI is waiting for me.”

  “Go, you don’t want to be late, he’ll get spooked. I want to canvas the area. Maybe someone saw something. Find me after the meet.”

  “Good enough, just watch your back.”

  “Will do.”

  Walking out of the building Krista turned her coat collar up, lowering her head against the wind, her determination showed in her stride, strong and with purpose.

  A woman wearing a tattered green overcoat that draped around her frail frame walked towards Krista. When she looked up, her eyes darted away from Krista and she walked swiftly to the other side of the street.

  “Excuse me, do you have a minute, Ma’am, just one minute”?

  Not even looking back, she slipped into a doorway and was gone.

  Again and again, she would approach someone, and she would get the same reaction. Pulling her gloves off, she cupped her hands over her mouth and blew on them, hoping to melt the ice that had seemed to form in her veins. As she rounded the corner, Travis pulled up to the curb.

  “I am glad to see you. I thought you were going to find me leaning against a wall, frozen solid. Can it get any colder?”

  “Jump in, and I’ll turn the heat up. Did you have any luck?”

  “I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me, not one person.”

  “Well, Krista, you do look like the law.”

  “Give me a break, in my winter coat and turquoise scarf, I bet I look extremely intimidating.”

  “Have you ever seen the way you walk? Your stride alone screams cop.”

  Rubbing her hands together in front of the heater vent, and letting the warmth seep into them she said, “I need to do something, anything, Evan is getting arraigned in a day and a half, thirty six hours from now. Have you had any luck? How did your meet go?”

  “Got some major intel, if this pans out, it could be the bust of the century.”

  “Damn, sounds big. Spill, what’s happening?”

  Blowing out a long breath and slowly shaking his head, he said, “You know I’m not supposed to share info.”

  “What, do you think I’ll try a hone in, I have my own problems right now.”

  “Don’t be a smart ass, and for the record, no I don’t think you would.”

  “So?”

  “Great, fine, just keep it on the DL. Hundreds of pounds of heroin are being routed from Russia through Thailand than up through Germany into Jersey. From what I can tell, it looks like it might be the Bratva that is in control.”

  “That is major. We’ve been following the Russian Mob for years. We implicated a number of members in credit card scams. Drugs make sense, with Russia consuming about 12% of the world’s heroin, and only has about 0.5% of the world’s population. They must be making it there, selling it there and sending us the surplus.”

  “How the hell do you know that? I thought I was the DEA agent.”

  “A girls gotta keep up," she laughed.

  “And keep up, you do.”

  “When I was in training at Quantico, the Bratva was the model we used to study organized crime. It caught my attention since I am one-quarter Russian.”

  “Krista Levell doesn’t sound Russian to me, sounds more like French.”

  “My grandfather was from Russia. His name was Nikolay Vetrov. You can’t get more Russian than that.”

  “Where did Levell come from then?”

  “My father changed his name to his mother’s maiden name, which was Levell after his father disappeared.”

  “Russian huh?”

  “Yep.”

  10

  Long Island 1978

  As the door slammed behind him, he could still hear his wife, Beverly crying. She will never learn, he thought. ‘What about your son? Anton needs
shoes; we need food, I got a notice that the lights will be shut off.’ Maybe when she opens the door for the electric company, and they see her blackened eyes they’ll leave the lights on, he chuckled, and she said, ‘You don’t do anything to help.’ That bitch doesn’t realize what I do for her, he thought. It’s not my problem she got knocked up and kept that little bastard. They want to eat she can sell herself for all he cared.

  He jumped the Ronkonkoma train heading to Brooklyn. Every time he had to make the hour and a half commute, his blood boiled more, he hated living on Long Island. As the train rocked back and forth and the noise level grew with each stop, he felt the walls of the train pressing in on him, trying to suffocate all he was. Living out on the Island was not something that he would have decided to do. He would not even have stepped foot on the Island if he hadn’t been trying to hide from the brotherhood known as the Bratva, aka The Russian Mafia. He needed to come up with a plan to get his hands on a major score. That was the only way to get them off his back. I need to pay back the money I owe them, he thought.

  He had heard about a high stakes game down at the Red Bank docks. The game was held in shipping containers to fly under the radar of the authorities. All he had to do was hit it big just once. Getting his legs broken or more likely shot in the head was not something he wanted to have happen. He could pay back the money he owed and still have plenty to party with. He’d take his last paycheck and turn it into a payload.

  As he got off the train, Nikolay swore out loud. His jaw clenching and his teeth grinding, he would need more than his paycheck to enter the game he thought. Working odd jobs for that jerk down the road from him didn’t pay shit. He’d have to come up with a way to make more money if he was going to get into that game. I should have taken Beverly with me. I could have sold her for some money. Yeah, but what would she be worth? Maybe a few potatoes. The thought had barely crossed his mind when he realized what he could do.