by David Ellis
But that was then. Having stood up to the G and actually won, Hector Almundo had become a hero of sorts to the city’s Latino community, which often felt as if it drew the short stick on law enforcement’s pursuit of justice. Statewide ambitions were probably permanently erased. No matter the result of a multiple-count felony prosecution, you’re smeared. But more locally, where Hector was within his base constituency, he undoubtedly harbored new ambitions. Certainly another run for the senate seemed in the cards. The county board, perhaps. Maybe the first Latino mayor?
“You never write, you never call.” He gave me a warm smile as the waiter filled our water glasses. The joke fell a little flat, but the gesture was nice enough. I never decided how I felt about Hector. Though he’d never outright admitted as much, I was relatively sure that Hector had enlisted the Columbus Street Cannibals to, shall we say, conduct voter outreach. I figured, at least before Ernesto Ramirez came into my life, that the Cannibals gunned down Adalbert Wozniak, but I didn’t put Hector next to that. Didn’t seem to be his style; Paul and I assumed that the Cannibals had simply taken matters into their own hands. In the end, Hector Almundo had a politician’s lust for cash and power, but I wasn’t sure that put him permanently on the side of evil. I didn’t see the world in black and white. And there is something about being someone’s defense attorney, his protector, that puts a paternalistic gloss on the entire relationship. My role was to be on his side, so the emotions tend to fall in lockstep.
“I’m doing great,” I told him, in response to his question, hoping the crisp answer indicated I wasn’t interested in elaborating. “What are you doing these days?” Hoping my return volley would underscore that point.
Whatever he was doing, he was doing relatively well. He was always a flashy dresser, today in a gray suit and light purple shirt, a pin propping up a tie only a shade darker than the shirt. I never understood the monochromatic thing.
“I’m the deputy director for the Department of Commerce and Community Services,” he said. “Say that three times fast.”
I couldn’t even say it once. I had no idea what it meant, but I wasn’t surprised that Hector had landed a bureaucratic post. I couldn’t imagine him doing an honest day’s work.
“State government,” he said. “Governor Snow tapped me for the post.”
Carlton Snow had been our governor for all of a year. The previous governor, Langdon Trotter, had resigned from office when he was appointed the U.S. attorney general. Unlike Trotter, Snow was a Democrat; in our state, the lieutenant governor runs separately from the governor, and in our typical political schizophrenia, we elected a governor and lieutenant governor from different parties. When Trotter took the federal job, Snow became the governor for the remainder of the term.
“You know,” he said, “I wouldn’t have made this offer while you were at Shaker, Riley. But since you’re out on your own and all—there are opportunities for lawyers in state government. I could work out a contract for you, if you like.”
Right. I imagined a guy in a short-sleeved shirt and polyester tie, denying a claim because someone forgot to check a box, and therules-clearly-state-that-if-you-don’t-check-the-box-we-can’t-process- the-application.
Hector seemed amused. “You can stay in private practice,” he said. “The state would just be another client you have. You have any idea how many outside law firms have contracts with the administration?” he asked me. “Litigation. Transactional work. There’s a lot of money to be made there. And some of the work is interesting.”
“I suppose. How does that work, exactly? Is there a list?”
A waiter took our orders. Hector had a chef salad. I had a turkey sandwich and soup. When the waiter left, Hector sliced open a roll and buttered it. “No list,” he said, as if that were an understatement. I didn’t catch the point and didn’t ask.
“Now, a referral from someone the governor trusts,” Hector said. “Someone who thinks you’re an excellent attorney and who would be happy to sponsor you. That would help.”
“Now I just have to find someone like that,” I quipped. It was nice of Hector to make the offer. He probably felt like he owed me. In fact, he did not. He’d paid his considerable legal fees to the firm, and that was all that was required. But I could see it from his perspective. We did more than perform good legal work. For all practical purposes, we saved his life. He surely felt the same toward Paul Riley, but Paul was wealthy beyond need and had a nomination to the federal bench pending. I, on the other hand, had just suffered a personal tragedy and, from an outside viewpoint, my life probably seemed to be off-track. Actually, that sounded pretty accurate from an inside viewpoint, too.
“Snow is the new game in town,” he said. “He’s going to run for a full term and he thinks he’s going to be president someday.”
“Is he right about that?”
Hector deferred on that. “He’s raising a helluva lot of money,” he answered, which seemed to be his way of saying, maybe. “It might not be a bad train to get on, Jason. Just as it’s leaving the station.” He nodded to me. “Are you a Democrat?”
I drew back. “Does that matter?”
“Yes, of course it does. Are you?”
“I’m a south-side Irish Catholic, Hector. It’s a prerequisite to baptism.” The real answer was, I generally dislike both political parties and don’t feel loyal to either one.
“In the primaries,” he said. “Do you pull a Republican or a Democratic ballot?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever voted in a primary.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Hector shook his head, as if I were hopeless. “Okay, well, I’ll see what I can do. This is something you’d want?”
I told him the truth: I wasn’t sure. But the clients weren’t exactly streaming through the door, and maybe Hector could find me something interesting.
I had no idea just how “interesting” it would be.
13
THAT AFTERNOON, I PUT IN A CALL TO JOEL LIGHTNER, private eye extraordinaire—just ask him—and put in for a favor. Then I stared at the ceiling and thought about Adalbert Wozniak and Ernesto Ramirez. I had to start with the safe assumption that their murders were related. And the federal government had more or less conclusively fingered Wozniak’s actual killer. It was that teenage Cannibal—Eddie Vargas was the name, if memory served. But a sixteen-year-old gangbanger didn’t commit that murder without say-so, without some direction. And that same person saw Ernesto as a threat and ordered his death.
Good. I had mastered the obvious. Also, one plus one equals two.
What had Essie said? She thought my initial visits with Ernesto had been successful. I’d appealed to him. But then one day he returned home upset. Decepcionó. Disappointed. Upset. La verdad no importa, he’d told his wife. It wasn’t worth prison, he’d told her. Prison—for Ernesto? Had he been part of something illegal? I didn’t know. But clearly, my powers of persuasion had moved him to talk to somebody. And more to the point, somebody had talked to him. Threatened him. He’d gone from wanting to come forth with his information to sealing the vault. He’d cut me off at the knees when I’d called him.
The truth doesn’t matter. It’s not worth prison.
Whatever it was, clearly someone, at that point, knew that Ernesto had information and had discouraged him, to put it mildly, from sharing it with me.
And then I’d returned. I caught him at the YMCA working out with some friends. I walked into Liberty Park and slapped a subpoena against his chest. Highly visible, each of those encounters. A mistake on my part. A fatal mistake. Born of necessity at the time, I thought.
I had three avenues of pursuit. One was to figure out who ordered the hit on Bert Wozniak. Find him and I’d find Ernesto’s killer. No problem, right? Piece of cake. Except that the federal government had marshaled all of its considerable resources and couldn’t pin it on anyone. Christ, they even knew who the shooter was, and still they couldn’t crack that nut. And that’s to say nothing of our investiga
tors, led by one Joel Lightner. We would have loved to come up with an alternate theory for Wozniak’s murder, obviously, and we’d come up dry.
The second line of pursuit was to figure out what information Ernesto possessed. Same result, if successful. But difficult. He didn’t tell his wife, presumably for her own protection. Maybe he told a friend. But if that person were any kind of friend, he would have told the policía investigating Ernesto’s murder. Even anonymously. One way or the other, he would’ve gotten the word to the cops. So it felt unlikely that Ernesto had told anyone at all.
The third avenue was to forget about Wozniak and answer this question: Who knew that I was hounding Ernesto at the end of the trial? That was a critical two-day period of time. After all, nobody killed Ernesto after I first spoke with him. It seemed, in fact, that someone gave him a stern warning. But they didn’t kill him. Then, suddenly, come Friday, June 22, they take him out in a drive-by at Liberty Park. The intervening cause was me. So they got word, somehow, that I reinitiated contact.
I remembered two gangbangers, Latin Lords, standing with Ernesto at the basketball court at Liberty Park. One stockier guy in a tank top with a scar across his forehead; one younger, scrawny kid in blue jeans. Could I remember their faces if I saw them again? Maybe. Then there was the YMCA. A handful of guys there, at least one of whom knew Ernesto well enough to be spotting him during bench presses. I didn’t know their faces well at all. But I could find them again easily enough and get their names, unless they dropped out of the Y.
And what about that diagram Ernesto had written on the back of my business card:ABW → PCB → IG → CC?
“ABW” was Wozniak’s company. “CC” probably meant the Columbus Street Cannibals. Other than that, I was at square one. I don’t like being at square one.
“Hello, Sunshine.” Joel Lightner strode into my office, pulling a wheeled cart that held three bankers’ boxes of papers bound together with a thick elastic strap. “If there’s anything, it’s in here,” he said. In the workup to Hector’s trial, we had pulled records of every phone call made by Wozniak in the six months preceding his death; every document from his corporate and personal computer; every website he’d ever visited; every contract his company, ABW Hospitality Supplies, had ever entered into. Any of that information, theoretically, could have been a lead, but only if you had some hint of what you were ultimately seeking. We didn’t. We’d taken several shots. Employee grievances at ABW. Disputes with other contractors, even a couple lawsuits over time. Nothing that panned out. Nothing worth killing over.
But now, at least, I had something. Cryptic initials on the back of a business card, but at least something.
“Say thank you to Riley for this,” said Joel, pulling a laptop computer out of his shoulder bag. “This is the database.” High-tech firm that Shaker, Riley was, we’d had a paralegal scan in every document obtained from ABW and put them on a searchable database. “The hard copies are there if you need them, but the computer should be all you need. Return it in good condition. He says hello, by the way.”
The database made my job infinitely easier. I could do word searches for the initials Ernesto had written down and see what hit.
“So, you were right about that guy Ramirez? He had some information?”
“Never felt so wrong to be right.”
Lightner nodded and appraised me. I don’t like being appraised. “You didn’t put the information in the guy’s head,” he informed me. “You just asked for it. That was your job.”
“Roger that.”
“Not your fault, I’m saying.”
“Heard you the first time. Understood you the first time.”
“Yeah, well, aren’t you full of piss and vinegar today.” He looked around the office. He didn’t look impressed. I wasn’t, either. He looked at his watch. “Let’s go have a pint across the street. My treat.”
“Joel, in contemporary American society, the phrase ‘my treat’ indicates that you are willing to pick up the tab for the other person. I realize there’s a first time for everything, but I wanted to make sure you intended to convey that message. Would you like to rephrase?”
He hitched his thumb toward the door. “Before I change my mind.”
I patted the computer lightly.
“C’mon, Kolarich. It can wait. It’s got nothing to—well, anyway.”
I could have finished the sentence for him. It’s got nothing to do with what happened to your wife and daughter. He wasn’t completely off base here. I was motivated to investigate this by Ernesto’s death, because it sure seemed like he had correctly feared retribution if he gave up his information, and I forced him past the point of no return with the subpoena. But it wasn’t lost on me that the reason Ernesto never got back to me on that fateful Friday was that someone put a few bullets into him, and that delay led to my waiting pointlessly in my office instead of traveling with my wife and daughter.
Yes, that was part of it. But not all of it. This morning, I looked into the eyes of a woman who lost the love of her life, and who would now raise her two children alone. Ernesto Ramirez had the right to keep whatever information he had to himself. But I publicly confronted him and got him killed.
“Have it your way.” Lightner stopped on his way out. “Okay, so you’ve never taken my advice before, but I’ll give it, anyway. Have that hot little partner of yours handle this matter. Let this one go.”
“That’s probably good advice,” I conceded. “And I’m sure Shauna will be flattered beyond words.”
As soon as he walked out the door, I booted up the computer.
14
BLESS THESE COMPUTERS, BUT THEY’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS the moron directing them, and I didn’t have much to go on other than conducting searches for the “PCB,” “IG,” and “CC” initials that Ernesto Ramirez had written on the paper. My money had been on “PCB,” because it sounded more like an acronym. What it stood for, I had no idea, and the search came up empty. I’d had a fleeting thought that it referred to that chemical that had leaked into public drinking water supplies years ago, causing death, mayhem, and barrels full of money for lawyers. I briefly warmed to the notion of a grand conspiratorial cover-up about poisoned water in our city’s sanitation system.
I tried a Google search on my office computer with the initials “PCB” and found all sorts of hits, but I didn’t think Adalbert Wozniak had been killed by the Pakistan Cricket Board or because of a printed circuit board in a video game.
My curiosity and, more to the point, stubbornness kept me in my office well past normal hours, poring through the database until I finally got lucky. I decided to look at lawsuits involving ABW Hospitality, because, by definition, those cases involve two things that can lead to murder if pushed to the extreme—hostile feelings and money. Turned out that ABW Hospitality Supplies had filed suit in April 2003 over the denial of a contract to supply beverage and vending services to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles’ affiliate offices. As a governmental contract, it was let out for public bidding, and the entity handling the bidding—also one of the defendants in the lawsuit—was the Procurement and Construction Board—the “PCB.”
These days, as someone recently reaffirmed to me, litigation is part of all public contracting. You get passed over on the government contract, you sue. Why not? Take a shot at getting the contract. You’re no worse for trying. So I didn’t see a lot of significance here.
But then I said out loud, “The government,” and it appeared to me from the recesses of my memory, my conversation with Ernesto Ramirez over the phone. I’d told him that if he talked, I’d cover him, that I’d have the government protect him as a material witness.
The government, he’d repeated, emphasis on that last word. Man, you don’t get it.
I’d meant the federal government—the U.S. attorney—not state. But maybe Ernesto wasn’t splitting that hair. Regardless, his emphasis on that word, which I hadn’t appreciated, had to be significant. He was saying the gover
nment was part of the problem here. Surely, it deserved further inquiry.
I switched back to my office computer and did some due diligence on the state’s Procurement and Construction Board. It listed all kinds of contracts for work performed throughout the state, ranging from consulting and professional services contracts to road repair work to building construction and everything in between. It was rather staggering, the number of contracts our state entered into with outside vendors (“Child Care Technology Project Manager;” “Nastrum Center Elevator Repair and Maintenance;” “PSD Foam, Mattress Core for Marymount Penitentiary”). The list reached the thousands.
Lots of money. Hundreds of millions, possibly billions. All running through the Procurement and Construction Board.
I looked up the members of this board, hoping that it would net me the initials “IG” or “CC.” No luck. Gregory Connolly was listed as board chairman. The other four members were Alex Morris, James Clark, James Hathaway, and Antonia Harris.
I read through the allegations contained in ABW’s suit against the PCB, which had been dismissed after Wozniak’s death and the close of his company. According to the complaint, ABW had been the lowest bidder on a beverage contract, but the PCB had rejected its bid and given it to the next lowest bidder, Starlight Catering.
I sent an email to Joel Lightner, asking him to take a look under the hood of Starlight Catering. Then I looked through my Rolodex—and by Rolodex, I mean a mess of business cards shoved into the drawer of my desk—and found Hector Almundo’s cell phone number. I dialed it up, not expecting him to answer, and I wasn’t disappointed. I left him a quick message.
“Hector, it’s Jason Kolarich. About that thing we discussed,” I said.
15
I SPENT THE NIGHT IN, READING WITH THE TELEVISION on, but I spent more time simply looking out the window. A light snow had dusted everything, casting a serene blanket over my neighborhood. I don’t ordinarily welcome winter, but the change of seasons felt oddly cathartic. And I’d grown tired of summer and fall. I used to think that if grief were a color, it would be gray. Not black—too extreme, too intense. Gray is that fuzzy compromise, lacking its own identity. But after I lost my wife and child, I colored it green—vibrant, flourishing life mocking us, highlighting our irrelevance, cruel and indifferent to our pain. I wanted to cut down every tree, uproot every plant and flower. I wanted to pull the sun down out of the sky, bathing the earth in darkness. Even the orange and browns of our brief autumn disgusted me, its simple beauty a grotesque and sniggering insult.