by Dave Daren
I didn’t recognize the name, and I stared at it suspiciously for a moment.
The sender’s name was X. Pohs. What the hell kind of--
“Ahhhh,” I sighed aloud.
Expose. Clever.
I clicked the email, unencrypted the file, and nearly fell off my couch. This guy had found everything. Morrow had opened a separate account under his middle name, and the bank records showed multiple cash deposits of exactly three thousand dollars every two weeks over the last three months. The timing of the payments may have been set up to look like a cash-paying job, but if Morrow was making six grand a month legally, he could have afforded a suit that fit him.
Then I read the text messages and immediately dialed Anthony’s number.
“You’ll never believe this,” I nearly whispered as his groggy voice mumbled a greeting.
“What?” He seemed to perk up.
“Morrow’s ex-wife is Serbian,” I said excitedly. “She’s the one who set him up to do the job for her cousin, a guy named Petar Kostic. They were texting in Serbian, but your private investigator had it translated.”
As Anthony processed the information, I did a quick search on Kostic. He’d been charged a few times for racketeering, but nothing had ever stuck.
“I know him,” Anthony murmured. “Kostic was a Bonnano lieutenant until the shooting at Pietro’s. After all the Serbians got exposed, he was dumped from the family.”
“I’m guessing he went back to his Serbian family,” I mused. “Listen to this. ‘Once you’re done, I’ll see you at Brookhaven.’ His ex-wife was in on the whole plan for him to act crazy. I’d venture a guess that’s why they got divorced. They didn’t want such a clear tie to the Serbian family.”
“So, wait, he was directly communicating with one of the Serbs, right?” Anthony pointed out. “That means the Mayor might not have even known about this plot.”
“He didn’t,” I groaned. “This one says ‘that lawyer bitch has it coming for sleeping with a murderer. He can’t kill two of our people and get away with it.’ I think I know what this was really about.”
“What?” Anthony wondered.
“The guys I shot at Pietro’s,” I muttered. “It was self-defense, but these guys don’t care. They were going to kill Alessia to get back at me.”
“Ohhhh.” My client whistled in surprise. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Me either,” I sighed. “Now, what do I do? Just let him plead out with the insanity defense? That doesn’t feel right.”
“Hell no!” Anthony exclaimed. “You tell the press.”
“Tell them what?” I retorted. “That I’m sleeping with Alessia, so these guys tried to get revenge on me by killing her like I killed their buddies? I’m sure that will go over well.”
“You don’t have to lay out all the details,” he reminded me. “You give them what you want them to know.”
“That Morrow has Serbian ties who paid him to shoot her,” I said slowly.
“Exactly,” he confirmed. “Let the public sort out the reasons. That will do more damage than the full truth anyway.”
“You’re right,” I murmured.
“I know,” he replied, and I pictured his arrogant grin.
“Okay, okay, I know who to call,” I said. “Just be ready for the incoming shit storm.”
“I’ve got an umbrella,” Anthony laughed.
I hung up with him and dialed Brenda Borowski. She answered the phone with her schoolgirl voice, and I took a deep breath.
“I’ve got a hell of a story for you.”
Chapter 14
“Why are we doing this again?” Alessia groaned as she tossed a pile of letters on my coffee table.
“Reading your incoming mail is a great way to prepare for the questions that come at a debate,” Bear insisted. “These are things that people want to know, and since they’re allowed to send in their questions for the debate, the moderator could ask any one of them.”
“We’ve watched hours and hours of old debates already,” she sighed. “I just need a break from all these politics.”
“Let’s order a pie,” I suggested. “We can take a break when it gets here.”
“Okay,” the ADA agreed as I pulled out my phone to place the order. “I just don’t know how many more scribbles I can stare at before I go blind.”
“Just be glad the volunteers already sorted out the ones that wouldn’t help you,” Bear chuckled. “This is only about a tenth of what you’ve received in the last month.”
I stared at the piles of papers strewn about my living room with wide eyes. There had to be at least a couple hundred letters and printed emails in my apartment right now. I had no idea so many people wrote to Alessia about the campaign, and it was just as impressive that the volunteers had taken the time to read and categorize them for her to go through.
“What do we do with the other ninety percent?” Alessia wondered as she cocked her head to the side. “Are they just ignored or what?”
“They still get read,” Bear assured her. “We just didn’t want you to read fifty letters that all asked the same question just because they were from different people. This is how the questions can still get answered and saves you the most time.”
“Wow,” I breathed. “So, how many of them are like this? This woman gave an entire account of a criminal scenario and asks what charge Alessia would use to prosecute it.”
“Those are a dime a dozen,” he replied with a shrug. “Most of them come from Riker’s, so I assume they’re hoping to get some kind of support for an appeal in the future if Alessia is elected.”
“Probably because her prison reform platform has so much support,” I agreed. “I’m sure these aren’t all people who have been wrongly prosecuted, but there could be a few.”
“If they are, I know who to blame,” Alessia muttered as she wrote a few notes on her legal pad and set another letter to the side. “Jordan and his no-balls approach has probably sent multiple people to prison that don’t belong there.”
“I thought your anti-corruption campaign was geared toward Chatel,” Bear said in surprise. “Everyone knows he’s buddy-buddy with the Mayor, and Webber has had his pockets lined for years.”
Alessia glanced at me with uncertainty, and I knew she was contemplating whether we should tell Bear exactly who it was that was filling up Webber’s bank accounts. I nodded my agreement. I’d gotten to know Bear over the past several months, and not only did he want his employer to win, he also wanted her to do it the right way. He’d never once suggested a smear campaign or any kind of political stunt to get Alessia ahead. He had taken all of her ideas and run with them to bring her the most success possible.
When Bear had arrived this morning, he’d shown us the latest polls among Brooklyn voters, and we were shocked at how much they’d changed after Alessia’s press conference about the shooting, and then they’d skyrocketed again after Brenda broke the story about Morrow’s link to the Serbians. She spun the harrowing story into a dramatic web of lies, money, and violence that had readers on the edge of their seats. It was almost like reading a novel, but it was all true, and I’d sent her the documents to prove it. Her editor couldn’t turn that one down, and instead, it had ended up on the front page.
Bear had admitted we probably had a few sympathy votes in the latest polls, but over all, Chatel was only ahead by a few points now. I’d bet the Mayor and his cronies were sweating about this debate tonight. It could take one event like this to finish swinging the votes to Alessia’s side, and I decided it was important for Bear to know why we needed to kick ass at this debate so badly.
“So, you already know Webber is sketchy, right?” Alessia started, and he nodded. “Okay, so here’s the deal.”
We went back and forth as we told him about everything we’d uncovered about the Mayor and his Serbian cohorts, his suspicious appearances with Chief Flores in DA Jordan’s cases, and how the Serbians were trying to take over the crime rule in
New York. I purposely left out the part about the Pietro’s shootout, but Bear had already connected the dots between city hall and the Serbs.
“Holy shit,” he muttered. “Webber has really screwed things up around here.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “And it will get much worse if Chatel takes over the DA’s office. I suspect he’s actually tied in with the Serbians, not just Webber’s little servant boy like we originally thought, but I don’t have that proof just yet.”
“Why do you think that?” Bear’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “He seems so… meek.”
“I think it’s an act,” I said. “He owns property in Serbia, but I don’t know why. It’s definitely not a vacation spot. And he spent a year in Europe on a sabbatical, so I’m guessing that’s when the link started.”
“You think he has family there or something?” Bear wondered. “It seems like a big coincidence to go to Europe and suddenly come back with ties to the mob.”
I had to stifle a chuckle as I thought about the irony in his question compared to my own situation. I’d happened to take a pro bono case for a guy whose dad was a Mafia boss, and now, I was known as a mob lawyer. I wasn’t sure how Brian Chatel had ended up in this situation, but I knew he was in way over his head.
“I’m not sure what exactly ties him there,” I admitted. “I know it will come out soon, though. I was really hoping to have the information before the election, but I can’t guarantee it at this point. It’s only a few days away.”
“Damn,” Bear cursed. “I would really like to see all of them get exposed for everyone to see. It would change the course of politics in this city for decades.”
“Yes, it would,” I agreed. “But for now, we have to rely on this debate to finish putting Alessia at the top. She needs to win more than ever.”
“I can see why you’re so determined,” he murmured. “Let’s get back to--”
Bear was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Pizzaaaa!” Alessia squealed.
I laughed as I rose to my feet and grabbed my wallet. I opened the door to find a young man bouncing on the balls of his feet with a large manila envelope in his hands, which was decidedly not pizza. He wore a bicycle helmet and a large backpack that hung from his shoulders.
“Mr. Morgan?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah?” I eyed the kid with obvious suspicion and slid my wallet into the pocket of my jeans. “What can I do for you?”
“Here.” He shoved the envelope into my hands. “Special delivery.”
I froze for a moment and wondered if I was holding a bomb or something, but the kid stood in front of me and waited. If he’d brought something that would explode, I doubted he would have waited around for it to go off. Then I realized he was a courier, so he was probably waiting for a tip.
“Oh, right,” I said as I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to him. “Thank you.”
“No problem, boss,” he replied with a grin. “Have a good one!”
He skipped back down the hallway and practically leaped down the stairs before I even got the door shut.
“What’s that?” Alessia asked curiously.
“I’m not sure,” I murmured and tore the envelope open.
Then I took in a sharp breath. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and my look of shock must have been obvious.
“Are you going to share with the class?” Bear asked. “We’re on the edge of our seats here.”
I looked up with my mouth open, and I imagined I looked like a fish underwater as I tried to find the words for what I was reading.
“Wait,” Alessia gasped. “Is it…”
“What we’ve been waiting for,” I whispered.
Alessia grabbed the letters and emails from the coffee table and moved them onto the counter with lightning speed. I spread the contents of the envelope out on the table, and we all began to read. The final pieces of the puzzle had finally come together.
Brian Chatel had bought the property in Serbia with the intention of flipping it like he had several others during his sabbatical. It wasn’t a profitable business in that area, but he seemed to like to travel and meet new people. What started out innocently had quickly turned into a whole other story when he met a man named Mladan Dere, a seemingly normal guy who introduced Chatel to his sister, Miteja. She apparently seduced Chatel and soon became pregnant. She lived in the house in Bogojevo with their love child, and her brother revealed that he was a low-ranking member of the Serbian mob. He told Chatel he needed his help when he got back on American soil, but Chatel had decided to stay in Bogojevo with Miteja and the baby.
Unfortunately for Chatel, Dere had apparently made some big promises to his bosses that his new brother-in-law would have their backs once he returned to the States, but since he was nothing more than a real estate attorney, he didn’t hold a very high value. Instead, they told him to make himself worth their time, or they would eliminate his child, lover, and her brother to tie up any loose ends Dere had unraveled.
They put Chatel in touch with Webber, who had already done them a few favors for easy cash, and the two put together his campaign for the DA’s office. The Mayor was basically a liaison for the Serbs and Chatel, and I was disappointed that the information didn’t turn up anything that would put him in jail immediately, but it certainly shot down the anti-mob spiel he’d been spewing for months. It read like a fucking spy novel, and I could hardly believe it had led to Chatel’s run for office.
“Get this,” Bear said suddenly. “The guy who owns the security company, Robert Smithe, he’s an old college classmate of Chatel’s. Right after he signed the contract for the business, he packed up and moved his family to Switzerland. No warning, didn’t even sell their house first. Just up and left.”
“Does it say how much he got paid to sign the papers?” I wondered and leaned over Bear’s massive shoulder.
“Wow,” he whistled. “Only a lousy two million dollars. Looks like it was paid to the Swiss account before he even left, so it was ready by the time he got there. I mean, damn, this is his whole bank record. These are hard to access.”
“This is insane,” Alessia murmured. “Emails and texts between Chatel and Miteja about their son. They’re clearly in love. Why didn’t he just bring her here out of harm’s way?”
“New York is filled to the brim with them already,” I pointed out. “He would have had to disappear completely, and maybe he doesn’t know how to do that.”
“Or the money was a better option,” she groaned. “He has his own Swiss bank account with almost eight million in it. It looks like he gets transfers from it every month.”
“So, he starts out being threatened, but then he sees what all he can get out of it,” I mused. “Sure, he can save his secret girlfriend and kid, but now, he can also put cold, hard cash in his pockets. What a scumbag.”
“There’s no denying this information,” Bear said. “How did you get this?”
“You saw what I saw.” I shrugged. “Anonymous tip delivered by courier.”
“Anonymous, my ass,” he grunted. “But I won’t argue. This is a damn gold mine.”
“I’ll be right back,” I said as I rose from the table.
I grabbed my phone, rushed into my bedroom, shut the door behind me, and called Anthony.
“How’s my favorite attorney?” my client asked when he answered.
“I’m your only attorney,” I chuckled. “You fired the rest.”
“Ohhh, right,” he laughed. “What’s up?”
“Are you pretending you have no idea what just showed up at my door?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
The walls in my apartment weren’t paper thin, but I didn’t want either of the two in the living room to hear me or whatever answer Anthony gave me.
“Did you order something off Amazon?” he wondered innocently. “I hear they have a great selection of--”
“Anthony, come on,” I insisted. “The courier. He just dropped off a ton o
f dirt on Chatel, Webber, everything.”
“Oh, that!” Anthony snickered.
“Yes, that,” I muttered. “Who gave you this stuff?”
“Well, there was a guy, and you wouldn’t believe how eager he was to help us out,” my client continued in a teasing voice. “I think once we explained our position on the matter, he was on board. I think he was just really into the electoral process and honest politics, you know?”
“Who?” I asked. “How did you find him?”
“You gave me a great idea, and I ran with it,” Anthony insisted. “What’s wrong with that?”
“What idea?” I demanded.
“To find someone who wanted out,” he replied a little more seriously. “Sometimes, you just have to find out what a guy like that wants in life and dangle it in front of him. Or maybe just what he can’t afford to lose. Either way, something eventually works, and they become more… cooperative.”
“You didn’t, like, kill some guy’s family, right?” I scrunched my eyes shut as I waited for a response, and I was shocked to hear Anthony burst into laughter.
“No, man, he wanted out of the Serbian family,” he explained once he’d caught his breath. “And he also didn’t want us to tell them he wanted out. He knew if they found out we had him, they’d kill him, even if we didn’t. They wouldn’t take the chance that he’d told us everything.”
“But he did tell you everything?” I wondered. “And he’s still alive?”
“Yeah, living it up on a beach somewhere,” my client snorted. “New name, new look, and the freedom he wanted. I’m not a completely terrible guy, Hunter.”
“And you got all that from my idea?” I was more than a little surprised I’d been able to help with this side of the situation.
Normally, I was the courtroom guy. I argued my way out of every problem with logic and reasoning, and now, here I was providing a solution for a mob boss to get inside information from a competing family. I had no idea my suggestion would work.
“Yep,” Anthony answered. “You’re a pretty smart guy, even when it comes to stuff besides the law.”