Breach of Trust

by David Ellis

  I had three glasses of their homemade brew—a red ale—and then Shauna and I had the wonderful idea of staying out a bit longer. We found a tavern down the street, I switched to vodka, and sometime around midnight, I found myself staggering out of a cab. I was bloated and dizzy and thinking about Talia, but otherwise I felt great.

  Great, that is, until I saw the car parked in the driveway of my townhouse.

  They got out of the sedan in tandem, all four of them, moving in sync, smoothing out their coats, heads darting side to side—all they were lacking were the trademark sunglasses, as it was midnight.

  “Jason Kolarich?” One of the four men, from the driver’s-side rear door, approached me. He didn’t need to bother with the credentials. I’d made them before I had two feet out of the cab. “Special Agent Lee Tucker, FBI.”

  “How nice for you.” I kept walking to my door, trying to mentally steel myself through my intoxication.

  “We’ll need a minute of your time, sir.”

  “Not now. I promised my hamster a bath.”

  “It’ll have to be now,” said the man behind him. I recognized the voice, and as he approached, his soft Irish features came into focus. It was Christopher Moody, lead prosecutor on U.S. v. Hector Almundo. These were serious customers, all four of them, most of all the humorless Moody, but I swore I saw the seeds of a smile cross his face.

  25

  THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAD DESCENDED ON MY living room. Four agents, all of them straight-faced with faux solemnity, when underneath it all this was what they loved most about the job. A standard deployment, two to the right, two to the left, as I sat on the couch, staring at a laptop computer resting on an ottoman in the center of the room.

  When Chris Moody hit “play” on the computer, dialing up the disk drive, the volume popped too loudly, and he quickly adjusted it. The first voice I heard was easy enough to recognize. It was Charlie Cimino, coming in loud and clear in a conversation that had been intercepted by the FBI:

  “Okay, what’s next . . . oh, the bus contract. Board of Education. That’s the one for Lenny Swift. Okay, here’s the problem with that one. The kid—the new guy, Hector’s lawyer—he says there’s no way to say this is a sole-source and just give it to Lenny’s company. No way to claim there’s something unique about buses. So what he says is, the only way to get around the requirement of competitive bids is to break the contract into pieces, so each piece is small enough to stay below the ten-thousand-dollar threshold.”

  “Very creative,” Chris Moody commented as the tape continued.

  I didn’t answer. My internal thermometer was rising, but I wanted to see Moody’s entire hand before I said anything.

  “How do you do that?” came a second voice over the recording. “How do you take a hundred-thousand-dollar contract and break it down to increments of ten thousand?”

  “That voice is Greg Connolly,” said Chris Moody. “The man you met today,” he added, letting me understand how deeply the feds had sunk their fingers.

  Cimino’s voice again:

  “Break it up by school, the kid says. Give each school a separate bus contract, instead of going through the Board of Ed.”

  I shook my head. Cimino was trying to reassure Connolly by invoking my name—the lawyer had said it was okay. The thing was, I hadn’t.

  “Yeah, we could do it by school. That would work.” It was a third voice, and it was unmistakable. It was Patrick Lemke. “It would be, like, a dozen contracts, all under ten thousand.”

  “Then we’ll do it that way, by school,” said Cimino. “And Lenny gets all of them.”

  “He’s talking about Leonard Swift,” said Chris Moody. “Swift Transportation. The same Leonard Swift who’s donated more than thirty thousand dollars to Governor Snow in the last twelve months.”

  “I didn’t give Cimino that advice,” I said. “I never said anything about breaking the contract up to circumvent the law.” I was at the boiling point, and without a clear head—I knew better than to be talking to the feds without a sober brain, or a lawyer. My mouth had gone painfully dry, and the buzz I had been enjoying was now an annoying migraine that prevented me from fully focusing on the problem at hand.

  Chris Moody, who was now leaning casually against the bookcase, looked at me with amusement. The other agents sat stone-faced on the couch.

  Moody nodded to the agent who was now manning the laptop. One click and we were listening to the second installment of my nightmare.

  “Next is this thing with Marymount. The prison contract.” Cimino’s voice started the second tape as well.

  “Yeah, the, uh, what’s it—sanitation?” said Greg Connolly. “Janitor work?”

  “Right, right. Bobby Higgins’s company,” said Cimino.

  “Yeah, and what was the deal there? Someone outbid him?”

  “Two companies were lower,” said Patrick Lemke.

  “Right, but the kid, Kola—what’s it, Kolarich, right?” Cimino asked.

  “Jason Kolarich,” said Lemke.

  “Yeah, Kolarich.” Cimino coughed loudly, a prolonged, phlegmy gag. “Yeah, the kid did a number on ’em. DQ’d both of ’em.”

  Bullshit again. I didn’t disqualify either of those bidders. I wrote a memo doing just the opposite, for God’s sake. It was all I could do to sit silently, fists clenched, struggling to keep my legs still.

  “This Kolarich is the one—this was Hector’s lawyer?” Connolly asked.

  “Right, right. Sent the G packin’,” said Cimino. “Why?”

  “No, I’m just saying,” said Connolly. “This is a pretty smart kid, right? He did a good job on this thing for Higgins. I mean, he could be useful, is all I’m saying.”

  “Remains to be seen. Smart enough, yeah, sure. I mean, he pulled Hector’s head out of his ass, and we know how hard that can be.”

  Everyone on the tape got a good chuckle out of that. Moody nodded to one of the agents, who turned off the tape. He could have turned off the tape a few sentences earlier, but he wanted me to hear Charlie Cimino diss Hector, as if, being Hector’s former counsel, I would be offended. Under the circumstances, it didn’t even hit the top ten list of things bothering me.

  Chris Moody, for his part, was absolutely enjoying this entire affair. He must have been bouncing around all day, awaiting this visit, thinking of all the smart one-liners he’d throw my way.

  “My word against Cimino’s,” I said. “And I’ve got paper to back it up.”

  “Paper? You mean this paper?” Moody nodded to one of the agents, who handed me a document. It was a memorandum about the school bus contract that bore my name and looked a heck of a lot like the one I wrote. But a few paragraphs had been inserted at the end, with this conclusion:Thus, provided that the Board of Education contract were reduced to smaller contracts of ten thousand dollars in value or less, the competitive bidding law would not apply, and the contract could be awarded to whatever company the PCB desired.

  “I didn’t write that memo,” I said, realizing I should probably keep my mouth shut.

  “I see,” said Moody with mock sympathy. “You probably didn’t write this one, either.”

  On Moody’s cue, an agent handed me a second document, this one a legal memorandum bearing my name on the prison sanitation contract—once again different in its conclusion:Neither of the two lowest bidders on the Marymount Penitentiary sanitation contract should be considered “responsible” bidders. Accordingly, the contract should be awarded to the next lowest bidder, Higgins Sanitation.

  It was like Cimino had said on the tape. DQ’d both of ’em. But I hadn’t, of course.

  “These have been doctored,” I said.

  “You’ve been framed?” Moody asked, the question dripping with sarcasm. “Railroaded?”

  I didn’t answer. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of baiting me. I didn’t know if “frame-up” was the right phrase here. More likely, Cimino was just using me as legal cover to justify what he wanted to do.
r />   But to the federal government listening in, it sure looked like I was playing right along with Charlie.

  “Oh, we’re not done, Jason.” Moody nodded to the agent manning the computer. “Play the next one,” he said.

  26

  CHRIS MOODY KEPT HIS EYES ON ME AS THE FBI AGENT played the next intercepted conversation.

  “You’ve done good work so far. I’ve seen your work product. The memo on the DOC sanitation project—the two bidders who underbid Higgins Sanitation.”

  I did a slow burn. It was the voice of Greg Connolly, speaking to me in his office earlier today.

  “Those bidders were well qualified,” I said in response.

  “Course they were,” Connolly said. “Course they were. That’s why I’m saying, good job.”

  It was pretty clear how this was lining up now. From Moody’s perspective, I was admitting to Greg Connolly that I knew those bidders were well qualified, and yet there was a memo with my name on it saying the exact opposite. I was admitting, that is, to deliberately giving a false legal opinion to further a crime—directing state business to an undeserving company that had given campaign contributions to Governor Snow.

  And the recording wasn’t finished, either.

  “Charlie talked to you about the buses, too,” Connolly went on. “I saw that analysis you did.”

  “There’s no way that’s a sole-source,” I said. “Providing a bus? A hundred companies could do it.”

  “So, again, good job on that. You’ll do very well here, Jason, if you want to.”

  The tape shut off. That was all they had, but it was more than enough, if they chose to believe that I had authored those memos in the form they now appeared. And they were definitely choosing to believe that.

  “I didn’t write either of those memos,” I repeated. “Someone took those memos and changed them. Connolly may have been talking about the doctored memo when he was telling me ‘good job,’ but I didn’t know that. I thought he approved the memo that I wrote.”

  Moody raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’d believe, if you were me, Counselor?” He strolled around my living room. “It sounds to me like you impressed the chairman with your creative ways to get the favored companies their contracts, and it also sounds to me like you admitted that your legal conclusions were bogus. And that, Mr. Kolarich, sure sounds like fraud and conspiracy to me.”

  “And why would I do that?” I added. “Even if I were inclined to do that, what would I get out of it?”

  “Why would you do that . . . why would you do that . . .” Moody looked around the room at the other agents, like everyone was in on the joke except for me.

  “I see you filed an appearance in the Hauser Construction case today,” he said to me.

  My jaw did a few rotations. I couldn’t see it, not yet, but I had an idea.

  “Jack Hauser,” he said. “The guy who hired you today? Minority partner in Higgins Sanitation? His other business, the construction company, needs a lawyer and suddenly turns to a guy with absolutely no experience in construction law? And, lo and behold, the lawyer he picks is the same lawyer who just helped him bypass two lower bidders to get a sweetheart prison sanitation contract.”

  I was overcome with anger—at Cimino and at myself. Looking back, Hauser had seemed to be coming to me as if I were his only option. What had he said, when I’d quoted him three hundred an hour? Well, you’re hired, obviously, he’d said. I mean, okay, fine, I’ll hire you, but—any way to knock that number down? It was like he knew he had no choice, and he was pleading for mercy on the hourly rate.

  And when I’d asked him how he got my name, he looked at me like we both knew that answer, like he couldn’t understand why I’d be asking.

  Jack Hauser, it was now clear, had been sent to me. Cimino had told him that there would be a price to getting that prison contract—besides a campaign contribution to the governor—and that price was legal business for me, the lawyer who supposedly had made it happen. Cimino was cutting me in. This was how it worked. Everyone got a piece. Apparently, I was supposed to understand that.

  I’d just taken a kickback without even knowing it.

  Moody took the only remaining empty seat, nearest me, and leaned forward on his knees. “This is a criminal enterprise that makes Hector Almundo and the Cannibals look like the Girl Scouts of America. Connolly and Cimino are steering state contracts away from deserving companies to people who contribute to the governor’s campaign fund. I know it, Kolarich. I fucking know it. And I’m going to prove it. And you’re going to help me. Because if you don’t, you’ll be sitting next to all of them at trial. You can try to convince the jury that you’re the only honest one of the bunch of scumbags. You, the one who asked to be part of this—who used Hector Almundo to get you inside. Maybe you’ll be the one guy at the table who walks. But I wouldn’t like your chances, Counselor.”

  I watched Moody, thinking through my options.

  “What’s Cimino going to say at trial?” Moody went on. “And Connolly. ‘Advice of counsel,’ that’s what they’re going to say. They’re going to say they relied in good faith on you, their lawyer, for the actions they took. Everyone at that defense table is going to take a big dump on Jason Kolarich.”

  He was right, of course. I’d be lined up at trial with a ring of criminals, all of whom would be busy pointing the finger at me.

  “Chris,” I said, “you missed a spot on your face.”

  He drew back. He fought every instinct to wipe at his face. “What?”

  “You still have a little egg on your face from blowing the Almundo case. I mean, that’s what this is all about, right? You’ve had a hard-on for me ever since the not-guilty.”

  Moody didn’t crack, not for a second; he had way too much of an upper hand here. Instead, he smiled. “If it eases the pain, Kolarich, go ahead and fantasize. But I wouldn’t want to be you right now.”

  I looked away, my mind racing. I found a picture of my wife and child on the bookcase and stared it a long time.

  “Looks like I’m going to have to beat your ass in court,” I said. “Again.”

  Moody’s eyes did that rapid-blink thing I remembered. He thought for a moment and nodded. “Hope you can say the same for that partner of yours—what’s her name, Agent Tucker?”

  “Tasker,” said the FBI agent. “Shauna Tasker.”

  “Right, Shauna Tasker. Sounds like she got a taste of that Hauser Construction work, too.” He scratched his chin in mock contemplation. “What do you think, Jason? Does that make her a co-conspirator?”

  I steeled myself, kept my voice low and even. “Keep her out of this. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “She does now.”

  We locked eyes. This was the highlight of Christopher Moody’s year, putting the screws to me. He wasn’t even trying to hide it.

  Shauna. I thought I was paying her back, for once, by including her in some legal work I had drummed up. Instead, she was possibly in the soup along with me. I wasn’t sure of that, and neither was Moody, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he could dirty her up without even prosecuting her. The same day he slapped the PCB with a federal subpoena, he’d hit Shauna with one and make sure the newspapers didn’t miss the connection. And if he had any kind of a good-faith basis to do so, he’d indict her and effectively ruin her career. Whether she was guilty or innocent would be a lost detail. He knew all of this, and he knew I knew, too.

  “Keep her out of this, Chris,” I said.

  He shrugged. “That decision isn’t mine. It’s yours.” He looked at the other agents in the room. “Let’s give Jason some time to think about this, guys.” He pushed himself out of the chair. The lot of them moved toward the front door. Moody stopped at the edge of the living room and flipped a business card in my direction. “But I better be hearing from you tomorrow, Jason,” he said. “Or you and your girlfriend will be hearing from us.”

  27

  I DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO SLEEP TH
AT NIGHT. I DID LAPS around my townhouse, pacing everywhere, even taking a long walk outside in the below-freezing temps. Throughout it, I kept telling myself that I should be afraid. Afraid of prison. Afraid of losing my law license. But I wasn’t. With each passing hour, I only grew angrier. Angry at myself, for dipping a toe into that cesspool and then being surprised when it came out dirty. But most of all, angry at Charlie Cimino. He had given me instructions to do things I shouldn’t do, and when I refused, he’d doctored documents and misrepresented my words.

  The federal government wasn’t flying blind here; this was no bluff. Clearly, they’d placed eavesdropping devices in Greg Connolly’s office and on someone’s phone—either his or Charlie Cimino’s. They were Title III intercepts, meaning the government was intercepting these conversations without the knowledge of any of the participants. That’s hard to do. It’s an easier task when one of the parties to the conversation consents to wearing a wire, but when the feds want to eavesdrop without anyone’s knowledge, they have to go under Title III and get the approval of the chief federal judge as well as the top levels at the Department of Justice. They have to clear about ten different hurdles. They have to already have a pretty solid case.

  And I was their gift-wrapped package, the insect that walked right into the spiderweb.

  Maybe you’ll be the one guy at the table who walks. Those words from Christopher Moody, more than anything else he’d said or shown me, were the essence of my problem. The evidence he had on me, at this point, wasn’t that great. And if he really thought I was dirty, he would have waited for more. He could have waited weeks, months, to catch me deeper in the soup. But he didn’t do that, because he knew I wasn’t part of this thing. Maybe he even knew I was on the verge of quitting, after getting a sniff of the stench. Maybe that’s why he was here tonight, before I got out. He was scooping me up before I left the sandbox.