Blood of My Brother

by James Lepore

  “So what is it you wanted to tell me?” Markey asked.

  “What’s the status of your investigation?” Jay replied.

  “What investigation are you talking about?”

  “Dan Del Colliano.”

  “What was his relation to you?”

  “We were good friends.”

  “Did you know he was six months behind in his child support?”

  Jay took his time answering. In ten minutes, Markey had made three implied threats: one, by referring to Dick Mahoney, he let it be known that he could reach into Jay’s past and stir up trouble if necessary; two, although Jay knew that the Powers girls could have criminal problems, a federal prosecution was a surprise. His very unprofessional link to Melissa Powers would be something that the United States Attorney’s Office in Newark would not hesitate to use to its advantage if it could; and three, by mentioning Danny’s child support problems Markey was saying, in effect, that he could smear Danny publicly if he had to.

  “Dan took care of his kids,” Jay finally said.

  Markey did not reply. He got up and walked to the wall to his right, and looked at a framed picture hanging there: a line drawing of Jay catching a pass, done by an artist for the Newark Star-Ledger in 1979, when Jay had been named New Jersey schoolboy football player of the year by the paper.

  “We have something in common, Jay,” said Markey, turning toward him.

  “What’s that?” said Jay.

  “My daughter died in a plane crash two years ago. She was seventeen. I’d hate for us to be adversaries.”

  A pause followed this statement, in which Jay could feel the quickening of his heartbeat. Nothing he had ever been able to do or say or think had succeeded in preventing the visual of his parents’ last moments from appearing unbidden, and often unprovoked, in his mind. This time of course it had been provoked and, it seemed, provoked deliberately.

  “Why should we be adversaries?” Jay asked, looking Markey squarely in the eye, keeping his voice steady.

  “What is it you want to tell me?”

  “First I need to know the status of the investigation.”

  “How did you get my name?”

  “I got it from Bill Davis.”

  “I don’t know a Bill Davis.”

  “I talked to the guy. He described you. He says you were in his apartment.”

  “I read that in the paper, but it’s not true. If you want, we can call Davis now, and he can confirm that he was mistaken.”

  “Look, Agent Markey,” said Jay, “I’m sure you have your reasons for denying your involvement, but I’m not asking for any information that might be confidential. I just want to know if your office is investigating Danny’s murder. I think I’m entitled to know that.”

  “First I have to have your information.”

  Jay said nothing.

  “It’s not a good idea for a private citizen to pursue a murder investigation,” Markey continued.

  “Is that my civics lesson for today?”

  “It could lead to a federal prosecution.”

  “That’s refreshing,” said Jay. “An explicit threat.”

  Before leaving, Markey presented Jay with a search warrant for the Powers v. Powers file, which Jay handed to him without a fuss. He had a copy of the entire file at home, and Kate Powers’s letters he would give to Markey when he felt like it, if ever.

  17.

  3:30 PM, December 9, 2004, Newark

  When Markey left, Cheryl buzzed Jay to tell him that a Fran Kaplan had called—identifying herself as Melissa and Marcy Powers’s new lawyer—and asked that Jay call her. Jay looked Kaplan up in his Lawyer’s Diary, a directory listing all of the attorneys practicing in New Jersey, and saw that she was with Chandler and Roth, one of the state’s handful of three-hundred-plus-lawyer megafirms. He went through the switchboard, her secretary, and her paralegal before being allowed to speak to her.

  “Mr. Cassio,” Kaplan said, “thank you for returning my call. I was retained this morning by Marcy and Melissa Powers.”

  “Good. I’m sure they’ll be in good hands. You want my file, I take it?”

  “Yes. Can I send somebody to pick it up this afternoon?”

  “Tomorrow morning would be better. I need to copy it, and do a final bill.”

  “Fine. Can I ask a couple of questions?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you tell me your reasons for not wanting to handle the case any longer?”

  Kaplan’s tone had been cool but civil, but now Jay detected a change in her attitude, as if she expected a confrontation.

  “A good friend of mine was killed,” Jay said, “while working for a woman who claimed to be connected to Bryce Powers.”

  “Right, I read about that in the paper. How is that a conflict for you?”

  “I explained all this to Melissa and Marcy.”

  “They’re confused, so I’d appreciate it if you’d explain it to me.”

  “The conflict was emotional, not legal. There were too many reminders of my friend’s murder.”

  “You represented Kate Powers in the divorce?”

  “I did.”

  “Did Marcy and Melissa come up?’

  “Their phony contracts with Plaza I and Plaza II came up.”

  “Phony contracts? They tell me they operated legitimate cleaning service companies.”

  Jay did not respond. Having been educated, by Jay, about the extreme weakness of their case, Melissa and Marcy had apparently lied to their new attorney about their nonexistent role in the “cleaning service companies” set up by Bryce as covers for paying their personal living expenses. Kaplan would, he was certain, learn about the true character of her clients in due course.

  “I have to tell you,” said Kaplan, “Marcy and Melissa feel abandoned and betrayed. They don’t understand your reasons for dropping the case, and neither do I, frankly, given the fact that your friend died three months ago. Marcy thinks it has something to do with your relationship with her younger sister. They’re thinking of filing an ethics complaint against you.”

  “You sound,” Jay said, “like you’ve made a huge commitment to two people you just met this morning, but you wouldn’t be the first one to buy their lies. They package them well. In a month or two you’ll know what I mean. They’ll probably file an ethics complaint against you if you lose the case. Is there anything else?”

  “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Melissa tells me her mother wrote you some letters. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d like copies of them.”

  “They’re not relevant to the claims against the girls.”

  “I’d like to make my own judgment on that.”

  “I can’t give you copies without the permission of Jack Phillips.”

  “Who’s Jack Phillips?”

  “The conservator of the Powers estate. The letters weren’t sent to me personally. They were sent to me as part of a lawsuit. The file I kept in that lawsuit would have belonged to Kate Powers. Now that she’s dead, it would be part of her estate, which is under the control of Jack Phillips.”

  “I talked to John Parker today. He knows nothing about these letters.”

  “Why should he?”

  “Chemical Bank is the executor of the estate.”

  “Talk to Judge Moran about that. He appointed Phillips.”

  Jay hung up, and almost immediately Cheryl buzzed to tell him that Linda Marshall was waiting for him on hold.

  “Hi,” he said after picking up the phone.

  “How are you?” Linda asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Anybody pissed at you?”

  “Al Garland, Melissa and Marcy Powers and their new lawyer, and Agent Markey, who just executed a search warrant for the Powers divorce file.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “That’s it for today. What’s up?”

  “The paper got a call from the
Justice Department today. We need to talk.”

  “As in the United States Justice Department?”

  “Yes. Can you meet me at the Spanish Tavern at six?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  18.

  6:00 PM, December 9, 2004, Newark

  Newark tried to dress itself up for the holidays, but it did not have the money for good clothes or accessories; the generic, politically correct decorations along Broad Street only served to deepen Jay’s dark mood as he drove through spitting snow and rain to his meeting with Linda Marshall. The Ironbound section of the city, home to the Spanish Tavern and many other Hispanic and Portuguese restaurants and bars, was a ray of hope. Bound by railroads on four sides, no public housing was built in this tightly packed neighborhood, and thus it had gotten sick in the seventies and eighties but did not die, and was now beginning to recover on its own. The Tavern had started out as a railroad-car-shaped bar, and then expanded to include twenty or so tables and a kitchen that served good, hot Spanish and Portuguese food until the early hours of the morning. Despite the weather, or maybe because of it, the place was quietly busy, with blue-collar men mingling with professional types having a drink at the bar after work and families having dinner.

  Jay made his way through the bar and spotted Linda at a table along the back wall of the dining room. He stopped for a second before going over to her. She was a good-looking woman, a few years younger than him, with a head of lustrous chestnut hair, and frank, luminous brown eyes. Her body had thickened a bit over the years, but he could see that under her tailored business suit she was all woman. He could not remember exactly when he had stopped thinking that he could find such a woman—pretty, intelligent, with a good heart—for himself, but he had, and the thought did not lighten his mood.

  “You’re late,” Linda said after Jay had taken off his coat and scarf and sat down across from her.

  “It’s bad out there,” Jay replied.

  “Did you come right from the office?”

  “No, I had to run an errand first.”

  “I ordered you a Glenlivet on the rocks. I just got here myself.”

  “Perfect,” Jay said.

  “I read the letters,” said Linda. “They’re pretty juicy.”

  “She was stoned, don’t forget.”

  “If one tenth of it is true, then I can see why Bryce Powers would find himself murdered one day.”

  “Are they in a safe place?” Jay asked. “The letters?”

  “Yes.”

  Their drinks arrived—club soda for Linda—and they both sipped.

  “So? The Justice Department,” Jay said, putting his glass down on the table in front of him.

  “Right. The publisher of the paper—he’s the owner, Sid Ironson—got a call from the number two man at the Justice Department, a guy named Ben Aranow. Aranow asked him not to run any more stories about the Powers case without talking to him first. He said it’s a matter of national security, but wouldn’t elaborate.”

  “National security?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Ironson say?”

  “He said he’d think about it, if and when the next story came up.”

  “Does he know about the letters?”

  “No. I’ve told no one, but there’s more. After I called you, the paper was served with a subpoena for my notes and background material relating to my story. Our lawyers are working on it right now.”

  “As we speak.”

  “At this very moment.”

  “What’s the paper’s position?”

  “We’re giving them nothing.”

  “Good. But you might have to go to jail for a bit.”

  “I might be better off in jail.”

  “Why?”

  “Aranow says that anyone who is thought to have information about the Powers case, even a reporter, is in serious danger. Does anyone know I have the letters?”

  “No, just me.”

  “Who knows about them, besides you and me?”

  “Bob Flynn, Frank Dunn, Melissa and Marcy, their lawyer, and a lawyer named John Parker.”

  “Who’s he?’

  “Bryce Powers named Chemical Bank the executor of his will. Parker represents the bank in the suits by the Mesa group and the Plaza I and II groups.”

  “Who told him?”

  “The girls’ new lawyer, Fran Kaplan.”

  “What about Markey. I thought you said he has your file?”

  “I forgot to put the letters back into it when I took them out to make copies for you.”

  “An oversight.”

  “Markey would call it obstruction of justice. Do you want to give me your copies back?”

  “Hell, no. But the sooner I can use them the better. There’s some serious shit happening here. And dangerous. What are you waiting for?”

  “I would have given them to Markey, but he was a jerkoff, and Al Garland has turned gutless suddenly. Nobody in law enforcement seems to give a shit about Danny. Frank Dunn’s contact in Florida says the case down there is ‘open but inactive,’ whatever that means. I feel like the letters are the only card I have to play, my only leverage.”

  “Card in what game? Leverage for what?”

  “I want somebody to focus on Danny, on finding the scumbags that tortured and killed him, and to acknowledge the obvious fact that his death and the Powers deaths are connected. The Powers sisters feel betrayed, the bank has to protect its interests, some partners lost money, the lawyers are all posturing, meanwhile Danny is dead, and he died badly, Linda, and the fucking guy from the FBI acts like he was shit, telling me he owes child support, the fucking asshole.”

  Jay stopped and took a breath. He looked at Linda, who had placed her hands palm down on the white tablecloth. He saw empathy in her eyes, and something else, he could not be sure what. Could it be regret? He had wanted to ask her out when they first met eight years ago, but she was engaged. Had she wanted him to? You wouldn’t have done it, anyway, he said to himself.

  “You didn’t mention my quest for a Pulitzer,” Linda said, smiling.

  “I know you loved Danny,” Jay answered, looking down at Linda’s hands, and then back up to her eyes. “And you’re trying to help.”

  “The mysterious Donna Kelly sounds like she’s still alive,” said Linda. “A really ballsy reporter would try to find her. That would be a hell of a story.”

  Jay caught the waiter’s eye and motioned for another round. Through the window at the front of the dining room he could see snow still falling. Around him, the people in the cozy room were chatting and gesturing as they ate their dinners. For a few moments his defiance of Chris Markey had given him a sense of purpose—of being alive—that he had not felt since Danny’s death. But before meeting Linda he had driven to the suburban home of Danny’s ex-wife, Barbara, to give her the eleven thousand dollars in cash that he found in Danny’s office, and to give his dead friend’s two boys the Christmas presents that he got them every year. Barbara had refused the cash, calling it blood money, and, though she accepted the gifts, she asked Jay not to bring them in the future. Married to a cosmetic surgeon, driving a Mercedes, chairing the membership committee at her golf club, Barbara had come a long way from the streets of Newark where she and Danny met when they were thirteen. Standing on the porch of her swanky house, listening to her rant, seeing the coldness in her eyes, Jay’s sense of purpose evaporated into the chill night air.

  “Jay,” said Linda.

  “Yes?”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was thinking about Danny. He liked this place.”

  “Are we in danger, Jay?”

  “You’re not. You just wrote a story, naming me as your source. Aranow’s just trying to scare the paper into censoring itself.”

  “Are you scared?” Linda asked.

  “I suppose,” Jay answered, “if I started looking for Donna Kelly, or Herman Santaria, I might be.”

  “W
ho’s Herman Santaria?”

  Jay told her about Santaria, the subpoena he had served on him, and the aggressive reaction it had generated.

  “Can I use that?” Linda asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Santaria knows about me, but he thinks I’m a dumb lawyer. If it got in the paper he’d obviously know I was trying to connect him to the Powers case. Frank Dunn says I’d get a bullet in my head.”

  “What if I didn’t use your name?”

  “Well, if Aranow’s telling the truth, then you could be in danger. Whoever’s behind all this might come after you, to find out exactly how you got your information about Santaria. Besides, how would you confirm it?”

  “You could give me the papers with Santaria’s name on them.”

  “From the divorce file?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Let me have one of your business cards.”

  Linda extracted a card from her purse and handed it to Jay. Turning it over, he wrote on the back, “Linda, Take no prisoners. Jay.” He showed her what he had written and, putting the card in his wallet, said, “I’ll send you the Santaria documents tomorrow. You can use them and Kate Powers’s letters when you learn that I’m dead, or when you get this card in the mail, whichever comes first.”

  “You’re scaring me, Jay.”

  “I’m sorry, but the only time I’ve felt alive in the last three onths was when I banged heads with Agent Markey, and when John Parker called to threaten me on behalf of Santaria. Markey could have had the common decency to acknowledge that he was investigating Danny’s murder. I might as well do it myself. If I get in his way, or fuck things up, he’ll have only himself to blame.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I’ll have a talk with Bill Davis again. I think Markey tried to intimidate him into changing his story. I’ll ask him if that’s the case. I mean, does Markey think we’re all stupid? If Davis will talk to me, and I think he will, I’ll ask him some more questions about the Mexicans. Maybe that will lead to something.”