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Justin Peacock

Page 26

by Blind Man's Alley (v5)


  Nelson looked taken aback, but Candace didn’t buy it. “I do?” he asked.

  “The DA must’ve talked to you,” Candace said. “Unless of course you’re a target.”

  This got a reaction, Nelson leaning back and away from her, offering an exaggerated shake of his head. With a quick glance Nelson secured the bartender’s attention and ordered another drink. “We’re off the record,” he said.

  “Do we have to be?”

  “You’re the one who came to me,” Nelson said. “I was perfectly happy with the idea of never seeing you again, my dear.”

  “Fine, off the record,” Candace said.

  Nelson’s fresh whiskey arrived, and he bantered with the bartender for a moment and took a sip before turning back to Candace. As he did so he noticed the bandages on both of her palms. “What happened to your hands?” he asked.

  “I was mugged the other day,” Candace said. “Broad daylight.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine—I was knocked down is all, and got scraped on the pavement. All for like forty bucks too,” Candace said. To her surprise, the cops had found her purse about an hour after it’d been stolen: it’d been dumped in a trash can on Eleventh Avenue, the cash removed but everything important—her driver’s license, credit cards, even her BlackBerry—intact. “Anyway—you were saying?”

  Nelson glanced around, then leaned slightly toward Candace. “I’ve gone before the grand jury,” he said quietly.

  “Who are they looking to indict?”

  Nelson leaned closer to Candace, their shoulders touching. “Pellettieri,” he said quietly.

  “Just him?” Candace said, lowering her own voice, though it seemed silly in the crowded bar.

  “Far as I know.”

  “They don’t normally prosecute for this sort of thing, do they?”

  “If it was only negligence, then possibly not. But this was clearly deliberate.”

  “How so?”

  “Pellettieri created a paper trail for work he didn’t actually perform.”

  “Are they looking to get him for fraud?”

  Nelson shrugged, using the little red straw to stir the ice in his drink. “Three people are dead, Candace.”

  Candace felt her heart skip a beat. “They’re going to charge him on some kind of homicide?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Nelson said.

  “And you really didn’t know anything about this at the time?”

  Nelson’s discomfort was visible, and Candace knew her instinct was right: the guy was too sharp for something like this to be going on under his nose without him knowing anything about it. “Look, I’m basically middle management. That’s all a site supervisor is. I spend my days taking shit from above and below.”

  “But you knew something was wrong with Pellettieri,” Candace said, suddenly sure of it. “And you would’ve done something to stop it if it’d been up to you. So something made you let it go.”

  “I certainly didn’t say any of that,” Nelson replied, but he couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “We’re off the record, Tommy, and if you want we can make it hypothetical too. Let’s say that you had known something was wrong with Pellettieri; what would’ve made you not do anything about it?”

  “I didn’t know that Pellettieri was cutting corners on safety. I wouldn’t have stood for that, no matter what. But let’s say I did know he was overbilling, had ghost employees, that sort of shit. If I knew about that, and I didn’t do anything, that would probably be because the people I report to already knew about it as well.”

  “Who are we talking about, Tommy?”

  “I was talking hypothetically.”

  “So hypothetically, Simon Roth knew what Pellettieri was doing?”

  Nelson shook his head with a slight smile. “Simon Roth had nothing to do with the Aurora,” he said. “His son was managing it.”

  Candace leaned back, her mind whirling. She’d known that the Aurora was officially Jeremy Roth’s project, though she’d always assumed that was more for show. Candace didn’t know much about Jeremy; had never suspected that he might have a significant role in what’d happened.

  “Why would Jeremy Roth turn a blind eye to a contractor who was ripping him off?” Candace said, less as a question than as a way of thinking it through. Nelson took a sip of his drink, not bothering to offer an answer. “So Jeremy was embezzling from his own construction project through Pellettieri.”

  “That would seem to explain it, now, wouldn’t it?” Nelson said.

  “Did you tell the grand jury that Jeremy Roth knew what Pellettieri was up to?”

  Nelson looked uncomfortable, his gaze losing focus. “I wasn’t asked,” he said.

  “The DA isn’t looking at Jeremy Roth?” Candace said, surprised.

  “ADA Sullivan didn’t show me his playbook. But as far as I know, the grand jury was only looking at Pellettieri.”

  “And you didn’t tell this to Sullivan?”

  “Like I said, he didn’t ask. And I’m telling you this off the record, which is a hell of a lot different from testifying about it in court. That I’m not going to do. If you’re going to strike the king you’d better be able to kill the king, right? I rat out the Roth family, I’m never working in this town again. An ADA takes a shot at them and misses, he’s never working in this town again. Same goes for you if you try and write this story.”

  Candace shrugged off the warning. “Somebody had to be between Jeremy and Pellettieri,” she said. “I mean, they weren’t sitting in a room together, counting out hundred-dollar bills.”

  Nelson smiled. “There was this private security company Roth used on site. There’s always security on the lot—not just to make sure equipment doesn’t go walking off, but also keeping an eye on the unions and so forth. There’s a lot of sausage making on a big construction site, and those are the guys that do the stuff people like me don’t want to know about.”

  Candace was doing her best to read between the lines, getting that Nelson wasn’t going to spell out any more than he had to. “So Loomis’s guys, they were the bagmen?”

  Nelson registered a flicker of surprise that Candace knew Loomis’s name. “There was one of them, yeah, who things went through. He’s not going to talk to you, though, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  “How do you know he won’t want to confess?”

  “Because he’s dead,” Nelson said.

  It came to Candace right away, and with it a feeling like her body had suddenly been doused in ice. “This is Sean Fowler we’re talking about?” she said.

  Nelson again showed surprise. “May he rest in peace,” he said after a moment. “The prick.”

  38

  GETTING A hug from Leah Roth in a public place made Duncan nervous. They were at the Algonquin Hotel’s bar, just a couple blocks from his office, and he was skittish about their being spotted by someone from the firm.

  They hadn’t seen each other since Duncan had spent the night at Leah’s apartment. Duncan didn’t particularly want to see her now: he felt numb and worn and nowhere near up to dealing with her. It was almost like the flu, the way that grief left him not just exhausted but with a dull ache in his body.

  Duncan had gotten back to town a few days ago. His aunt was handling things with his mother’s house, for which Duncan was grateful. He’d been in a hurry to get out of Michigan, had found his whole stay there almost unbearable.

  A Catholic priest had done the funeral service, though Duncan was virtually certain his mother hadn’t set foot inside a church since taking him to his first Communion. Despite his mother having worked the same job her entire professional life, only a couple of her coworkers had shown up. Duncan had come with his father’s family, although he felt sure they all resented the imposition. His mother, who had spent her life trying to help the helpless, had fewer than twenty people at her funeral.

  Duncan had spoken after the priest, his grief mixed with bitterness. It was a mixture that he still
felt, and he was nursing it by interacting with as few people as possible.

  But when Leah e-mailed suggesting a drink, Duncan had felt like he couldn’t really say no. Part of it was the lack of a line between business and personal between them. There was also the fact that Jeremy Roth’s deposition was fast approaching in the wrongful-death case, and based on their prep session the day before, Duncan had serious concerns about how Jeremy would fare.

  “I’m just so sorry about your mom,” Leah said as they sat down at a small table. “I lost my mother when I was still in my teens. She’d been the family glue. I don’t think any of us realized the extent of that until she was gone. Are you okay?”

  Duncan shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. It was so completely out of the blue that it’s still just sinking in.”

  A waiter came over; they ordered drinks. Duncan felt like he needed one. “But you’re back to work already?” Leah said, after the waiter had left. “I’m sure Steven would’ve given you more time.”

  “What would I do? It’s not going to help just sitting around my apartment feeling tragic. I’d rather keep busy.”

  “Mourning is healthy, you know. It may not feel like it, but it is.”

  “I’m mourning, don’t worry,” Duncan said. “I just don’t want to do it twenty-four/seven.”

  “Work can be a consolation, or at least a distraction, sure.”

  Duncan wanted to change the subject. “But I hear I’m not going to have the libel suit to occupy my time any longer,” he said, nodding thanks as the waiter placed a Manhattan before him.

  “I tried to keep Dad from ever filing that damn case,” Leah said, surprising Duncan by how bitterly she said it. “All it did was make that awful reporter even more obsessed with going after us. And Dad made his point, I think, about people telling tales about our business to reporters.”

  Duncan wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but decided not to ask. He picked up his drink but didn’t sip from it. “She confronted me, actually,” he said instead. “The reporter.”

  Worry passed across Leah’s face. “Candace Snow did?”

  “She came up to me out of the blue on the street a couple of weeks ago. She had some crazy conspiracy theory about the Nazario case.”

  Duncan had thought this a minor anecdote, but he could tell Leah was taking it far more seriously. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “She was suspicious that I was defending Nazario when you guys were doing the Riis project. She seemed to think I was part of some cover-up.”

  “Cover-up of what?”

  Duncan was surprised by how agitated Leah seemed. “She basically just thought it was suspicious that I’d be representing somebody who was a Jacob Riis tenant, because you’re doing the mixed-income thing. I explained to her how it wasn’t a conflict; how you guys had nothing to do with the eviction.”

  “I don’t want you to ever speak to her again,” Leah said sharply. “She’s on a vendetta against us, and as you said, she’s conspiracy-minded. She was doing a story on the murder?”

  “I think I was able to talk her down. She wasn’t really interested in the murder itself, just on whether she could somehow loop you guys into it.”

  Leah leaned back, clearly trying to calm herself down. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but she really is digging into every single thing we do and everybody who we do business with, looking for something she can try to turn into a scandal.”

  “I don’t like talking to reporters anyway,” Duncan said. “Though it wouldn’t shock me if somebody from her paper is at the Nazario hearing next week.”

  “What’s the hearing?”

  “I’m challenging the gunshot residue evidence.”

  Leah cocked her head. “You really have a basis?”

  “My expert seems to think so. We just got the lab notes from the police expert, and they’ve got my guy jumping up and down.”

  “What would it mean for the case if you won on the residue?”

  “It certainly wouldn’t be game-over,” Duncan said. “But it’d be big.”

  Leah smiled thinly, but something still seemed to be troubling her. “How did it go with my brother the other day?”

  Duncan hesitated, knowing he was on thin ice.

  “Be honest,” Leah said.

  “How honest?” Duncan replied.

  “That bad?”

  “It was more that he wasn’t interested than anything else,” Duncan said, deciding that was as close to the truth as he was comfortable getting. “I’m sure he’ll be more focused at the actual depo.”

  “We’ve made a settlement offer, you know. Not us, but Pellettieri has. But enough—I didn’t mean for us to be talking about any of this tonight. I meant to be talking about you.”

  “It’s better for me to think about work, honestly.”

  “Did you spend time with your father while you were back?”

  Duncan nodded, thinking that this was an opportunity to clue Leah in on his father. It was past time for him to mention his racial background to Leah, but he found himself hesitating. Normally he assumed it wouldn’t faze people, at least not cosmopolitan New Yorkers. But in this instance he didn’t have that feeling, though he couldn’t put his finger on why not. It came out of her wealth somehow, the idea that he didn’t belong in her world.

  Perhaps he was just being paranoid. Leah was Jewish; her grandfather had immigrated from Eastern Europe: she was far from a conventional blue blood. They’d never spoken of religion either; Duncan had no idea if it mattered to her that he wasn’t a Jew. Duncan had navigated these things in other relationships; it’d never been that big a deal, and he had no basis for assuming that it would be here. He was being unfair to Leah. The world had changed enough that he was probably the one guilty of sustaining old prejudices. And yet he didn’t say it.

  39

  SO WHAT can I do for you, Candace?” ADA Sullivan asked.

  “You can confirm for me that you’re about to indict Jack Pellettieri on homicide charges,” Candace replied.

  Sullivan’s eyes narrowed in surprise. They’d met up at Mustang Sally’s, a bar a couple of blocks south of Madison Square Garden. Candace figured Sullivan didn’t want her coming anywhere near his own office, risk anyone seeing him talking to a reporter.

  Sullivan had already been there when she’d arrived just after seven, seated at a small table in the front corner of the bar, his back against the wall, a glass of clear liquid in front of him. Candace wondered idly whether it was alcohol. Sullivan had found the most isolated spot in the room, a place where he couldn’t be overheard and from which he could keep an eye on everyone else. Paranoid, perhaps, but as head of the Manhattan DA’s Rackets Bureau, Sullivan no doubt had plenty of enemies in low places.

  “Grand jury proceedings are secret, as I’m sure you know,” Sullivan finally said.

  Candace smiled. “So you’re presenting Pellettieri to a grand jury?”

  “Did I say that?” Sullivan replied, mock innocent. “We need some ground rules here. No using my name, no direct quotes.”

  “The Aurora accident would never have been referred to you if it wasn’t for my reporting.”

  Sullivan offered a slight nod. “Why do you think I’m sitting here?” he said.

  “I’m hoping you’re here to tell me what your game plan is on prosecuting it.”

  Sullivan smiled dryly, the fingers of his right hand dancing across the table. “And why would I want to do that?”

  “I’ve got things to trade, plus you’d have a forum. You’re going up against people who know how to get their voices heard.”

  “My arena’s the courtroom,” Sullivan said stubbornly.

  “Sure, but I think we both know how the world works,” Candace replied. “Is Pellettieri the only person you’re looking to indict?”

  “I read your article on Councilwoman Serran the other day,” Sullivan said. “I hear the attorney general’s office is opening an investigation. Think she’ll survive?


  “My guess is no,” Candace said. “Are you trying to change the subject?”

  Sullivan shrugged, looking around the room. “Do we have an understanding as to the terms of our conversation?”

  “On background,” Candace offered. “Senior law enforcement with knowledge of the investigation.”

  Sullivan nodded, an old hand at this. “Pellettieri’s the first person I’m looking to indict. You build a prosecution one brick at a time, and you start with the case you’re sure you can make.”

  “So you think other people were involved?”

  “I think it’s worth finding out,” Sullivan said. “Especially given past sins.”

  “Meaning you think his company’s still connected?”

  “I prosecuted his brother, you know. Back then Pellettieri Concrete was deep into no-shows, skimming, double billing—all the ways the mob likes to bleed the construction industry. All things I’m seeing at the Aurora too.”

  Candace realized that Sullivan suspected organized crime was behind the Aurora. She thought he was on the wrong track, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Why’d you leave the company standing the first time?” she asked instead.

  “They were a real concrete company too, and we didn’t have anything on Jack. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything there, but I didn’t find it.”

  “Are you looking into whether people above Pellettieri at the Aurora knew what he was up to?”

  Sullivan seemed surprised by the question. “Pellettieri wasn’t the lowest bid on concrete for the Aurora, which was a red flag. But that also just happens—somebody’s owed a favor, the contractor doesn’t trust the low bidder to get the job done, whatever. There’s no reason for Omni to let a sub get away with shit like that. My bigger concern is whether the mob was pulling Pellettieri’s strings.”

  Sullivan gave her a look, Candace guessing he was hoping she’d offer up some confirmation that organized crime had been involved. “Are you’re hoping to flip Pellettieri?” she asked.

  “Premature to speculate about that,” Sullivan said. “So maybe now’s a good time for you to tell me something.”

 

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