Justin Peacock

by Blind Man's Alley (v5)

  “She’s the reporter who wrote a story on the Aurora Tower accident.”

  “Have you met her?”

  “Yes.”

  Duncan could feel the atmosphere in the room change with Stanton’s answer. “Did you talk to her regarding the Aurora Tower accident?”

  “Yes,” Stanton said without hesitation.

  Duncan was a little thrown by how easily Stanton had given it up, but tried not to show it. He took a moment, wanting to be careful and precise with how he phrased the next few questions. “Were you a confidential source on Candace Snow’s article in the New York Journal regarding the partial collapse of the Aurora Tower?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so? Are you saying you don’t know?”

  “‘Confidential source’ isn’t a term I use in my everyday life. I’m not sure exactly what it means. But I told her things on the condition she not use my name. If that’s what it takes for me to be a confidential source, then I was.”

  “Did you ever tell your employer that you were a source for Ms. Snow’s articles?”

  “No,” Stanton said, looking over at Sawyer, who was busy writing on a yellow legal pad. “But something tells me they’ve pretty much figured it out right about now.”

  Duncan hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that this deposition might get Stanton in trouble with the DOB. Not that it was his problem—collateral damage was part of most lawsuits. “What precisely did you tell Ms. Snow?”

  “I’m sure you’ve read the article.”

  “I’m asking for your own recollection of what you actually said, not what appeared in the article.”

  Stanton glared at Duncan, who looked back impassively. “I told her my view of the accident, that it called for a finding of willfulness, which would’ve led to substantial fines and a referral to the DA for a possible criminal prosecution. I told her that Ron Durant apparently saw it differently. I told her that a month or so later Durant left the agency and joined the Arps Keener architecture firm.”

  Duncan didn’t want to go too far with this, as it could backfire on his client. He knew that Durant was in fact now doing work for Roth Properties, and he understood that it looked bad, despite Roth’s insistence that there’d never been any quid pro quo.

  “Did you indicate to Ms. Snow that Mr. Durant’s conclusions had been influenced by some kind of arrangement whereby Roth Properties would retain him as an architect when he left the DOB?”

  “I don’t have any evidence that there was some kind of arrangement.”

  “Were you Ms. Snow’s only source within DOB for her article?”

  Stanton shrugged. “Didn’t ask, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have told.”

  “How many times have you spoken with Ms. Snow?”

  “Four, I think.”

  “Was that four different interviews for her article?”

  Stanton shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “Only one real interview,” he said. “When she called me the first time I said I’d think about whether I’d speak to her. Then I called her and we talked. Then she called me once more for a quick follow-up as they were getting ready to run the story.”

  “And the fourth time?”

  Stanton paused, glancing at first Sawyer, then Rosenstein. “I called her after I found out I was going to be doing this.”

  “You called Ms. Snow to tell her you were being deposed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Stanton’s hesitation was growing. “I didn’t want it to come out that I’d talked to her for her story. The whole idea was she was supposed to leave my name out of it. I was hoping maybe her lawyer would be able to keep me from having to do this.”

  Over the course of his answer Stanton’s attention had shifted to Rosenstein, until by the end he was openly glaring at the paper’s lawyer, who pretended not to notice.

  “Did Ms. Snow ever ask you whether you thought the developer of the Aurora, Roth Properties, had a role in causing the accident?”

  “She may have; I don’t recall for sure.”

  “Do you believe that Roth Properties played any role?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Duncan was a little surprised by this. “Why not?”

  “DOB looks at what causes an accident from a physical point of view. A developer would pretty much never play a direct part in that sense.”

  “So you didn’t investigate whether Roth Properties possibly had a role in the accident?”

  “That’s something the DA would look into, if anyone.”

  “I take it then that you never suggested to Ms. Snow that Roth Properties was responsible for the accident?”

  “No,” Stanton said. “And I don’t think any of the quotes in the article suggest otherwise.”

  “If Roth Properties wasn’t responsible, why would they seek to derail the investigation?”

  “Objection,” Sawyer said. “Calls for speculation.”

  “An investigation generally slows down work at the construction site, which in turn costs the developer money,” Stanton said. “So there’s that.”

  Duncan figured he’d pretty much gotten what he was going to get. All that was left was due diligence, making sure Stanton wouldn’t make some kind of surprise concession regarding the article’s accuracy. Duncan entered a copy of the Journal article as an exhibit and proceeded to walk Stanton through it, checking whether there was anything in it he’d disown. As expected, there wasn’t: Stanton agreed that he was the unnamed source for the most damning quotes, and that they were accurate statements of his view of the accident.

  After Duncan was finished asking questions, Rosenstein took his turn, devoting his time to gilding the lily—establishing that Stanton considered the article to be accurate based on his inside knowledge of the investigation into the accident. As Duncan had feared, uncovering Candace’s confidential source had come at the cost of that source fully backing up her article.

  Duncan went back to his office after the deposition, unable to cast off a feeling of failure. Blake had understood that outing the reporter’s source would likely tank their case, but had instructed him to go ahead regardless. Why? Duncan couldn’t answer. He couldn’t see the whole picture; that much was clear. It was a feeling he was having more and more.

  21

  DUNCAN WAS back at the DA’s office on Hogan Place, this time waiting for a meeting with the ADAs handling Rafael Nazario’s case. He was no stranger to negotiating with opposing lawyers, but this felt different: Duncan was used to fighting about money, not over a person’s freedom. These ADAs, Danielle Castelluccio and Andrew Bream, pled out criminal cases as their bread and butter; they would be fully aware that this was their world and not his.

  Duncan’s only previous encounter with the prosecutors had been with ADA Bream at the arraignment. He’d never met the lead prosecutor, but he’d done his due diligence on her. A couple of years older than Duncan, Castelluccio, a Columbia Law grad, had gone straight to the DA after graduation, and had been prosecuting homicides for a few years, already having handled a couple of the office’s highest-profile cases.

  Bream came and got Duncan from the front waiting area, leading him to a conference room where Castelluccio was already at the head of the table. She rose to shake Duncan’s hand. Castelluccio was tall, with a rangy, athletic look. She had long dark hair, matched by a black suit with the jacket buttoned over a white shirt. She didn’t smile as they said hello.

  “How’s life at Blake and Wolcott?” she asked.

  “Can’t complain,” Duncan said, sitting down on one side of the table as Bream sat on the other.

  “A couple of people I know from law school went there,” Castelluccio said. “Including a good friend. Karen Cleary. Did you know her?”

  Duncan hoped his face hadn’t betrayed his response. “Yeah, I knew Karen. How’s she doing?”

  Castelluccio shrugged. “The corporate law thing was never for me, but Karen was one of tho
se people, that’s really what she wanted. What happened with the firm wasn’t easy for her. Though I think she feels good about standing up for herself with the lawsuit.”

  “I probably shouldn’t really talk about it,” Duncan said, pretty much positive that Castelluccio had brought up Cleary just to fuck with him. “The case is still pending and all.”

  “I guess you want to talk about Rafael Nazario, then,” Castelluccio said.

  Her tactic had worked; Duncan felt off balance. She was going to be a worthy opponent. “Indeed. I’m going to challenge the gunshot residue.”

  “Based on what?”

  Duncan wasn’t about to give Castelluccio a full preview of what he had to attack the GSR, but he’d come to the meeting expecting to give her a thumbnail. “The police stuck Rafael in the back of a cop car without bagging his hands, then checked for gunshot residue a couple of hours later, found just a handful of particles,” he said. “He could’ve picked it up from the backseat just as easily as he could’ve from firing a gun.”

  Castelluccio frowned, glancing quickly over at Bream. “We get this sort of GSR evidence admitted all the time,” she said. “This doesn’t sound like an issue to me.”

  “My expert feels differently. I’m going to need to get the lab notes underlying the GSR report,” Duncan said, taking a letter out of his Kenneth Cole attaché case. “I’ve put it in writing, just to, you know, put it in writing.”

  “I don’t think we have the notes,” Castelluccio said, looking a question at Bream, who nodded. “We just get the report, same as you.”

  Duncan was in the habit of getting as much of the other side’s experts’ underlying material as he could; it was always a mistake to take an expert report at face value. “My guy wants the notes,” Duncan said. “They’re Brady material. I’m happy to take this to the Court if it’s going to be a problem getting them turned over.”

  “We don’t need to fight about the lab notes,” Castelluccio said irritably. “We’ll collect them and turn them over.”

  “Great,” Duncan said. “So listen, you don’t know me personally, and I’m sure you deal with some defense lawyers who’ll file frivolous motions they know they’re not going to win. But I’m not filing this just to file it. Before I do, maybe get a different kind of light shining on this case, I thought I’d see what you were inclined to put on the table.”

  “Your client wasn’t arrested because of the GSR. We have motive, an eyewitness. Far as I’m concerned, though, even if your motion was a winner, all it does is knock your guy’s conviction chances down to ninety-seven percent from ninety-nine.”

  “Which is why I’m not asking you to drop the charges,” Duncan said with a smile. “I’m asking what your offer is.”

  Castelluccio made a show of thinking, though Duncan suspected that it was only a show, and that whatever she was about to say was what she’d planned on before he’d walked into the room. “I’ll take life without parole off the table, give him twenty-five years.”

  While Duncan knew little about the practice of criminal law, he knew a thing or two about negotiating with opposing counsel. “This was always really murder two—that’s what you were going to offer if I’d just said Rafael was a nice kid.”

  “No,” Castelluccio said. “Good kid doesn’t take life without off the table. Your client killed Fowler because of his role in the previous case, which makes this textbook murder one. I’m a straight shooter too—ask around, if you haven’t. Way I figure it, Blake and Wolcott can make my life miserable with two years of pretrial motions if you want to. You won’t win them but you’ll keep me away from all my other cases, so I’m willing to go twenty-five as a reward for your coming to me early. You make me go through a hearing, the deal is off the table.”

  “I think we understand each other,” Duncan said. “Sounds like we both have a little work to do; then we can see where we are.”

  Castelluccio leaned back in her chair. “So,” she said, something between a smile and a sneer on her face, “how are you enjoying slumming so far?”

  “Excuse me?” Duncan said, a verbal placeholder as he adjusted to what she’d said.

  “Isn’t this what this is for you?”

  “Rafael’s my client,” Duncan finally said. He was angrier than he could ever remember being with an opposing lawyer, because as far as he was concerned Castelluccio was challenging his fundamental professional legitimacy. He spoke slowly, his voice low, but was unable to keep the tremor out of it. “It was supposed to be an eviction case; now it’s something else. But he’s still my client. This isn’t what I do, as such, but I’m a lawyer and he’s my client and this is the job. You can think of me as a dilettante as much as you like, but I know how to do my job.”

  “I’m sure you do know how to do your job, Mr. Riley. I’m just not sure that what you’re doing here now is your job.”

  “The law’s the law,” Duncan said, glaring at the ADA.

  Castelluccio offered a thin smile. “Is that what they teach at Harvard?” she said.

  22

  THE MAIN office for the city’s Housing Authority was on lower Broadway, steps from City Hall. Candace waited in the ninth-floor lobby for fifteen minutes before Forrest Garber came out to get her, apologizing for keeping her waiting.

  “So how’s Ben doing?” Forrest asked as he gestured her to a seat across from his desk.

  “I don’t actually much know,” Candace replied.

  Forrest looked at her, puzzled. Candace wondered why the hell Ben hadn’t told him. “We’re separated,” she added, not seeing that she had a choice.

  Forrest looked even more uncomfortable than Candace felt. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Not your fault,” Candace said, looking around Forrest’s office, which was utilitarian in that grim way that only government bureaucracies ever managed.

  “So anyway,” Forrest said awkwardly, “Ben told me you were interested in the switch to mixed-income over at Riis.”

  Candace nodded, noticing as she did so that Forrest appeared to be checking her out. She pulled out her digital recorder, showed it to Forrest, who gestured his approval. Candace pressed the record button, then placed the recorder on the edge of his desk. “Right. What’s your title here?”

  “I’m the deputy manager for policy planning and management analysis. So yes, that does translate into having an active role in the changes to our public housing.”

  “I understand the general idea of mixed-income housing, and I understand its appeal to your office. But I guess I’m a little surprised that the Authority chose to partner with a private for-profit developer in putting the plan into place.”

  “That’s easy to explain. In a word, money. The Authority is facing a huge budget shortfall, largely because so much of the federal funding for public housing has dried up. Most of our buildings were put up after World War Two, and they were never intended to last forever, or even for as long as they already have. You combine those two things and it becomes impossible for us to do this without the private sector.”

  Candace was skeptical. “So we end up with for-profit public housing in this country, just like we have for-profit jails and private military contractors?”

  Forrest smiled, not taking the bait. “I assure you there’re easier ways for a New York City developer to make a buck than this. Only a third of the housing will be market-rate, after all.”

  “But I assume it’s a lot less risky for the developer than conventional commercial development.”

  “Sure,” Forrest said. “But developers are happy making gambles, or they wouldn’t be in real estate.”

  Candace nodded, conceding the point. “So I was mainly curious why your office was funding the Alphabet City Community Coalition, given that the point of their organization seems to be to protest the changes at Riis.”

  Forrest nodded crisply. “Ben mentioned that, so I looked it up. The money is going through us, but it’s actually been designated by a city councilwoman.
The way it works is, the council’s allocations for this sort of nonprofit funding are then administered by the relevant city agency, depending what kind of project it is. The agency has oversight over the nonprofit, making sure the money is used the way it’s supposed to be. But who actually gets the funding isn’t our call.”

  “Who on the council allocated the money to the ACCC?”

  “Karla Serran. She chairs the committee on public housing, so she’s active on these issues.”

  Candace understood, but it still didn’t quite add up to her. “Here’s what I don’t get,” she said. “You basically have the city agency that’s in charge of remaking Jacob Riis also funding a community group whose sole purpose seems to be to protest those changes.”

  “I see the irony, or whatever you want to call it. But like I said, we didn’t actually have any role in deciding that the ACCC got the money, and the money doesn’t come out of our operating budget. It’s essentially just funneled through us. This is how all of the council’s nonprofit funding allocations work.”

  “Got it,” Candace said. “I don’t suppose you have any role in overseeing the ACCC?”

  “None whatsoever. My only day-to-day involvement in what’s going on at Riis took place in the early planning stages. But as far as I know, everything with the ACCC has checked out fine.”

  “Okay. The funding was really the part I was curious about.”

  “I understand it probably looks a little strange from the outside, but it really is quite common. Anything else I can do for you, Candace?”

  “I don’t think so,” Candace said, smiling as she picked up her recorder and turned it off.

  Forrest pulled open a desk drawer and took out a business card. “Here’s my info if you want to follow up about anything. And again, sorry to hear about you and Ben. Must be tough, being separated.”

  Candace didn’t react, though she was pretty sure she wasn’t imagining that Forrest was trying to see if she’d show any interest. “It depends what you’re comparing it to, I suppose,” she said. “Being married, for example.”