[Marc Kadella 06.0] Delayed Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  “It’s an ongoing investigation, Carvelli. I’m not going to tell you anything about it,” Owen Jefferson said.

  It was Monday morning and Carvelli was seated next to Jefferson’s desk. As a former cop, Carvelli knew every entrance into the Old City Hall building. Once inside it was easy for him to back-slap friends he knew into letting him into Jefferson’s squad room.

  “Who said anything about any investigation? In fact, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d drop by and say hello,” Carvelli answered putting on the most insincere innocent look he could.

  “Uh huh,” Jefferson drolly replied. “And I just stepped off the bus from Hicksville.”

  “Tell you what,” Carvelli continued looking at his watch, “how about I buy you an early lunch. We can catch up. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  Owen Jefferson and his partner, Marcie Sterling, had their desks pushed together back-to-back so they could converse across them. Marcie was at her desk, Carvelli’s back to her, watching with an amused expression.

  “Sounds innocent enough to me,” Marcie said. “I’d tag along but I have plans.”

  Jefferson turned back to Carvelli and said, “You’re not going to leave me alone are you?”

  Carvelli did not bother to answer him. He simply smiled and the two men stood and left.

  “Thanks, Bonnie,” Carvelli smiled at the waitress as she took their menus and left. The two detectives had walked the block and a half to Peterson’s on Fourth across from the government center.

  Carvelli placed his left hand on top of his right and rested them on the table. He looked at Jefferson with a blank expression without saying a word.

  “No,” Jefferson said.

  “Yes,” Carvelli replied.

  “No, Carvelli,” Jefferson said shaking his head. “I can’t tell you…”

  “You need to and you know it. What’s going on with the CAR Securities case?”

  “No,” Jefferson told him again.

  “Then I’ve been told to tell you to watch Gabriella Shriqui’s show this afternoon. She’s been bugging Kadella to go on for a while now.”

  “Aw, shit,” Jefferson said with disgust. “Tony, I can’t…”

  “Yes, you can. Owen. Here’s what we know,” Carvelli said. “Maddy Rivers is innocent. These guys at CAR hired a hitman to kill Robert Judd…”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Not telling you. Just take my word for it. Now, what the hell happened? What do you have?”

  “Okay,” Jefferson said with a resigned sigh. “You’ll find out anyway. But you didn’t get it from me.”

  “Of course,” Carvelli innocently replied holding up his hands. “You know me. The soul of discretion.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Jefferson said but repressed a smile while he said it. “It looks like one of them, Walter Pascal, popped three of them. Corbin Reed, the head guy, Jordan Kemp and Ethan Rask, who has a list of aliases as long as my leg.”

  “Walter Pascal?” Carvelli asked. “Are you sure? Walter Pascal? He didn’t look like he could chase off a mouse.”

  “We’re ninety-nine percent sure. He did the three of them then someone else did him with the same gun. Then whoever did Pascal bagged Pascal’s hands to preserve the gunshot residue on them. It was all over both hands and his clothes. Unless Pascal bagged his own hands then shot himself in the forehead and carefully placed the gun on the coffee table in front of him after he did it.”

  “That would be a good trick,” Carvelli conceded. “There’s another guy…”

  “Victor Espinosa,” Jefferson said. “The feds have him on tape getting on a plane at 7:22, before any of this happened. They also have him changing planes in Houston heading to Cancun. They got a BOLO out with the Mexicans to pick him up.”

  “Why are the feds in this?”

  The waitress brought their meals and Jefferson sat back against the booth while she set the plates down. He waited for her to get out of earshot before continuing.

  “Why are the feds involved?” Carvelli repeated.

  Jefferson took a bite of his turkey club sandwich and while chewing said, “There’s a shit storm going on with the feds this morning.” He paused to take a drink of water then continued. “They were investigating CAR Securities. I think Pascal was their snitch. Two of them were at his house pounding on his door when our car rolled up. To cut to the chase, they threw a net over CAR Securities on Saturday and grabbed everything. The word is all of the money CAR was holding for investors is gone.”

  “No shit?” Carvelli asked. “How much?”

  “They’re not sure yet. Maybe as much as three or four billion.”

  “Billion with a ‘B’?”

  “Yeah,” Jefferson nodded. “Billions.”

  “And they’re all dead except for Espinosa?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s connected to a cartel in Mexico,” Carvelli told him. “CAR was likely washing money for them.”

  “That I hadn’t heard,” Jefferson said. “Makes sense, though.”

  “The feds probably know it,” Carvelli replied. “Who are the feds?”

  “Mike Anderson and Holly Byrnes,” Jefferson told him. “You know them?”

  “I know Mike, vaguely. I met him once or twice. The other one, Holly, I don’t know,” Carvelli said.

  “There’s going to be a lot of fallout over this. I hear some powerful people had money with them and now it’s gone.”

  “Holy shit,” Carvelli said. “I just remembered. I have to make a call.”

  At that precise moment, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and checked the number.

  “Wow,” he quietly said. “That’s timing. Hi,” he continued, “I was just about to call you.”

  “Why, what do you need?” Vivian Donahue asked.

  “Did your nephew get his money out of CAR Securities?”

  “Yes, at least five or six months ago. Why?”

  “Oh good,” Carvelli said with obvious relief.

  Jefferson was anxiously shaking his head at him.

  “What?” Carvelli asked as he covered the phone with his hand.

  “You can’t say anything about…”

  “I got it,” Carvelli replied as he held up a hand to stop Jefferson.

  “What’s up?” Carvelli said into the phone.

  “I received the FedEx I told you about. I think we should get together with Marc and Julian. They need to see this,” Vivian told him.

  “Okay. I’ll call Marc and get the ball rolling. Then I’ll come out and get you,” Carvelli said.

  Carvelli and Vivian sat patiently at the conference room table waiting for Marc, Julian and Connie to finish reading what Vivian brought with her. They were sitting with their backs to the exterior windows, facing the office common area. While they waited, Carvelli playfully flirted with Carolyn and Sandy through the conference room window by blowing kisses at them and making them laugh.

  “You’re incorrigible,” Vivian laughed when she noticed him doing it.

  Connie finished and placed her copy of the document on the table. She looked at Carvelli and Vivian.

  “Very interesting,” she said. “And where is it from?”

  “It’s a transcript from a federal wiretap placed on a Russian mob in New York,” Carvelli told her.

  By this time both Marc and Julian were finished reading and were also listening.

  “Is it a legal wiretap?” Julian asked.

  “I assume so,” Carvelli said. “The feds don’t usually do that stuff without a court approval.”

  “Can we use this?” Marc asked Julian.

  “Not without some authentication. We need proof of its accuracy. Right now it’s just words typed on paper,” Julian told Marc. He turned to Tony and asked, “Who is this ‘Plastic Man’, they refer to?”

  “I checked online. They made reference to him being found
dead in a park in the Bronx. I found a name in a newspaper article about a guy found hung up in a tree in that park. Even New York doesn’t get too many of those so it’s probably him, a guy by the name of Andrei Dernov. Obviously a Russian. Could be him,” Carvelli replied.

  “Why do they call him…?” Connie started to ask.

  “Plastic Man? Don’t know,” Carvelli shrugged.

  “We need to go to New York,” Vivian interjected. “Are you up for a little trip?” she asked looking at Marc.

  “You driving?” Marc asked referring to her private plane.

  “I think we can squeeze you in,” Vivian replied. “What will we need?” she asked turning to Julian.

  “An affidavit from the FBI agent in charge of this wiretap to authenticate it,” Julian said. “Something along those lines.”

  “How about an NYPD detective?” Vivian asked. “I don’t think the feds are going to cooperate.”

  “Get what you can,” Julian said. “In the meantime, while you’re doing that, I’ll request an expedited appeal based on newly discovered evidence.”

  “Will you get it?” Connie asked.

  “Not to brag, but for me, I think so,” Julian smiled.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Joel Dylan, with Mike Anderson next to him, could see his boss, Winston Paine, through the glass of Paine’s office door. Over the last two days, Dylan had spent almost as much time in Paine’s office as he had his own. Or so it seemed. Dylan rapped once on the door and Paine, holding his phone to his ear, waved the two men inside.

  “Yes, sir,” they heard Paine say as they sat in the chairs in front of his desk. “Yes, sir,” Paine repeated. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  Paine listened for a moment then said, “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir. As soon as I know something.”

  Paine hung up the phone, leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He looked tired and worn out from lack of sleep as did Dylan and Anderson. The past few days had been a nightmare and it was far from over.

  “Okay,” Paine wearily said. “That was the assistant A.G. again. I feel like he’s developed quite a taste for my ass over the last two days.” He leaned forward and quietly asked, “Where are we, Joel?”

  Both Dylan and Anderson had expressed surprise to each other at the change in Paine’s attitude. The normally imperious U.S. Attorney was handling the crisis well. A ton of bricks had fallen on him from Washington because of the missing money from CAR Securities, but he was handling it like a professional.

  “The accountants figure there’s just shy of three billion missing,” Dylan quietly answered him.

  Anderson, not wanting to make eye contact with Paine, looked around the office and noticed the bodyguard was not in attendance.

  “Mike?” Paine said to Anderson.

  “We don’t know, Winston. There’s no point in trying to sugarcoat this. It’s a clusterfuck of huge proportions. We don’t know where the money is…”

  “And it will take weeks, if not months, to track it down,” Dylan said.

  “We got played,” Anderson admitted. “We, meaning mostly me, let Pascal get away with using us. I let him have too much rope. I should have kept a much tighter control of him.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ll be plenty of time for recrimination. And believe me, that will come down on all of us. Especially if this money ends up in the hands of a drug cartel,” Paine softly said. “It will be all three of our asses.” He looked at Anderson and said, “You can at least retire…”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Winston,” Anderson said.

  “It looks like, or so the computer guys and accountants tell us, the money went out divided evenly to five separate accounts,” Dylan said.

  “One for each of them, including Espinosa, the guy still unaccounted for,” Anderson interjected.

  “The money was wired into banks in different countries in Africa and Asia with banking laws that are not too friendly to us,” Dylan continued.

  “We have no reason to believe Espinosa has the expertise…” Anderson started to add.

  “Or access,” Dylan said.

  “…to jump this money around the world then pull it all together for the cartel,” Anderson finished his thought.

  “Or any reason to believe he would do that,” Dylan added.

  “But Pascal could have done it. He’s been in the business long enough to know how to pull that off. We believe…” Anderson continued.

  “Speculate,” Paine corrected him.

  “Yeah, okay,” Anderson agreed. “Speculate that Pascal set up his partners to grab it all. He probably figured if he didn’t do it to them, they’d do it to him. He probably sent the money around the world a couple times then had it set up to go into an account for him alone. It’s not likely with the cartel.”

  “Who killed Pascal?” Paine asked.

  “We have no idea,” Dylan admitted.

  “What about Minneapolis?” Paine asked referring to the local police investigation.

  “Their investigation, so far, has come to the same conclusion. Pascal killed the three of them, then someone snatched him at Corbin Reed’s townhouse. The cops found a rental car in the lot that they traced. It was rented by Pascal using a fake I.D.,” Anderson said.

  “They’re sure?”

  “Yeah. They found the I.D. on him,” Anderson answered him.

  Paine looked at Dylan and asked, “You think I can call Washington and tell them we’re almost positive the money is still out there? It didn’t go to this drug cartel?”

  Dylan and Anderson looked at each other for guidance then Dylan looked back at Paine and said, “Yes. And you can use my name.”

  Paine thought it over then said, “No, it’s my responsibility. Besides, we’re all in this together. Anything else?”

  “I’m meeting with the MPD investigator, Owen Jefferson, later today,” Anderson said. “I’ll let you know what he says.”

  “Do you know him?” Paine asked.

  “Jefferson? Sure. He’s good. He’ll do a good job with the homicides.”

  “What does he know about our investigation?”

  Anderson shrugged then said, “Nothing for sure but the man’s no fool. He’ll figure we must have been looking at CAR Securities. Why else would we be involved? He’ll also figure Pascal was our snitch.”

  “Okay, keep me informed. I think I need another ass chewing so it’s time to call D.C. again. Thank you,” Paine said.

  As Anderson and Dylan walked back to Dylan’s office the two of them quietly conversed on the transformation of Winston Paine.

  “It’s his ass and he knows it. He is right about one thing, Mike. You could retire,” Dylan said.

  “Oh, no I can’t,” Anderson sighed. “I can’t have this mess be my last case.”

  The Corwin family Gulfstream had leveled off after reaching its cruising altitude. Since taking off from Teterboro for the return flight to St. Paul, the three passengers had silently thought about their just concluded meeting.

  They had flown out of the airport in downtown St. Paul at 9:00 that morning and taxied up to the waiting limo shortly after noon, local time, at Teterboro. The pilot and copilot exited the plane and Dante Ferraro came on board. He was accompanied by an NYPD detective whose name was not given to Marc, Tony and Vivian.

  The five of them had an amiable conversation during which the detective convinced them the transcript was accurate. Because of his position with the police, he adamantly refused to go any further than that. The man did have an envelope with several good photos of Andrei Dernov and an explanation of why he was referred to as the Plastic Man. It was because the sadistic sociopath loved to butcher his victims with a knife. But when he did it he wore plastic to avoid the blood spatter. Hence the nickname, Plastic Man.

  “So Rob Judd was in witness protection? Is that what this is about? He was hiding from a Russian mob? It wasn’t the guys at CAR who had him murdered and set up Maddy?” Marc a
sked.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Tony said. “That must be him they’re referring to when they talk about the Plastic Man getting the investment guy in Minnesota and framing the girlfriend. That would explain why the U.S. Marshall service was at his building the morning he was killed. And why they took possession of his remains after the trial. Rob was working with the feds.”

  “You think he might have gone to the feds about CAR Securities?” Marc asked.

  “Probably,” Tony said. “Maybe a while ago. One way or another the feds were investigating CAR. And I’ll bet Walter Pascal was their guy. Where does this leave us, counselor?” Tony asked Marc.

  “How sick are these people?” Marc asked Tony in return. “Plastic Man? Is that some kind of joke? And who can tie someone up in a tree in a city park, naked, then use a scalpel to slice him open from his chest to his crotch? I can’t get that image out of my head. He’s left hanging there slowly dying, his mouth taped shut while his guts spill out.”

  “Thanks for bringing it up,” Vivian said.

  “Sorry,” Marc told her.

  “It’s a message from one gang to another,” Tony told him. “It is a little out there,” Tony agreed.

  “Leaving someone hanging tied to a tree branch, split open down the middle so it takes him two hours to die. That’s more than a little out there,” Marc said.

  “Where is Maddy’s case?” Tony said to move the conversation back on track.

  “I don’t know,” Marc replied. “We need some way to authenticate the transcript. We need to show that this Russian killed Rob Judd.”

  “Are we sure he did it?” Vivian asked. “All we have is a conversation from a wiretap that seems to indicate he did it.”

  ”We don’t need to prove he did it,” Marc said. “We need to show Maddy did not.”

  “Will that be enough? We’re not in trial now. It’s on appeal. They might not even look at that, at least according to Julian,” Vivian said.

  “You catch on quick,” Marc said.

  “I’ve known more lawyers over the years than you have. I have a half a dozen of them as family members,” Vivian replied.