McCabe swiveled around to face Paxton and curtly asked, “Well?”
“I sent you an email with my report,” Paxton said. The report she had emailed was little more than a vague summary of the detailed one she had typed on the plane.
“What’s in it?”
“Not much,” Paxton conceded. “Except, in my opinion, I believe that the hit and run death of Zachary Evans was done by professionals.”
“Oh? Your vast years of experience in crime outside of the military led you to that conclusion did it?” McCabe sarcastically asked.
Knowing this was McCabe’s way of treating not only subordinates but inferiors, Paxton did not let it bother her. Instead, she looked at her boss and as impassively as possible said, “No, that is the opinion of the lead investigator who has almost thirty years’ experience, including over twenty with the Duluth PD.”
McCabe waved the statement off with a flick of her left hand and said, “Local cops couldn’t find their dicks with a map and a flashlight.”
McCabe sighed, folded her hands and placed them on her desk blotter. She smiled slightly and as softly as she could say said, “Paxton, I think you’re an exceptional lawyer. Your years with the JAG Corps and the reputation you bring certainly suggests that.”
Here it comes, Paxton thought.
“But I don’t see a case here. You’ve been looking into Calvin Simpson for months, and you don’t have squat. So the man is rich and politically connected. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are. Are they all criminals?”
“Probably,” Paxton said.
McCabe fixed her with a serious glare before continuing. “You have other cases…”
“I am absolutely on top of every one of them,” Paxton said.
“…and if you need more work I can see you get it. Bring me something or wrap this thing up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Paxton quietly said.
“Paxton,” McCabe said more softly again, “I admire your ambition. We could use a little more of that around here.”
TWENTY-TWO
Paxton removed an inexpensive flip-phone from her briefcase. She was back in the tiny office she shared with Prakesh Kumar. Prakesh was a second generation Pakistani graduate of Michigan Law. If Paxton had to have an officemate, she was delighted it was him. He was hardworking, eager to learn and doing his best to hide the fact he was struggling with being gay. This morning Prakesh was in court acting as the second chair for a drug prosecution.
Paxton flipped open the phone, but before making the call thought about it for a moment. Word around the office, or at least rumors among staff and attorneys, was that the Dragon Lady in the big, corner office, had spies everywhere. There were also those who believed the place was wired. That one, Paxton did not believe. Still, she was careful what she said, even around Prakesh. She decided to make the call but be short and say as little as possible.
“Hi, Sean,” she said when a man answered her call. “Are you going to be home this evening?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” the older man replied.
“Can you have your friend there?”
“Probably,” he answered. “I’ll give him a call, and if he can’t make it, I’ll call you back.”
“Don’t bother,” Paxton told him. “I’ll come either way. Is 7:00-7:30 okay?”
“Sure, anytime,” Sean replied.
“Great, see you then.”
Sean was Sean O’Rourke, Paxton’s uncle and her dad’s brother; a sixty-two-year-old, twice-divorced, retired FBI agent. He had started out as a cop with the Chicago police at age twenty-two. A tenacious investigator, the FBI had enticed him away from the CPD by age thirty. Two years ago, Sean had called it quits and retired after five years as a Deputy Executive Assistant for Intelligence. Sean had loved the job and the people. It was the political ass-kissing that finally drove him out.
Sean had a three-bedroom brick mini-colonial house in Schaumberg that he shared with a lady friend, Helen Gregg. Helen was also retired from the Bureau and had a couple of not-so-successful marriages under her belt. Both vowed to never walk down the aisle again, even at the point of a gun.
They were both originally from the Midwest and leaving the East Coast, especially Washington, was not a tough decision. Schaumberg is a suburb slightly northwest of Chicago with a median income of eighty-five-thousand-dollars. Perfect for a two-income government pension couple and basically, home for both.
The friend Paxton briefly referred to was the exact opposite of Paxton’s favorite uncle. His name was Lester Snelling. Since around age eleven or twelve, Lester had been in and out of one scrape after another with the law, until eight years ago.
It was the day Lester walked out of the federal prison at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Like almost every con that gets kicked loose, the first thing Lester did was to look up at the big, blue sky. While he did this, he filled his lungs with a deep, satisfying, delicious amount of free air for the first time in ten years. Lester started walking toward the bus to take him into town when he saw him. Across the street, leaning on his personal tan Chevy Tahoe was the unmistakable looking Sean Patrick O’Rourke, the man who had put him in Lewisburg. He was also the man who, today, Lester credited for saving his life. If Sean had not been standing there, Lester had no doubt he would either be in another prison somewhere or a lonely, forgotten grave.
Lester Snelling had been a member of a Northern New Jersey gang whose specialty was bank robberies. There were four members. All in their forties, all professional criminals. Over a four-year period, they had robbed over twenty banks in the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania tri-state area. Not once did the cops or the FBI get so much as a whiff of who they were because they were thorough, professional and careful. They did their research and practiced each job to get it under two minutes, the response time for police. And best of all, no one was ever injured any worse than a face slap to get cooperation from a bank manager.
It all ended when they went to the Allentown People’s Bank and Trust in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Everything was perfect. The job went exactly the way it was planned. In and out in a minute and forty-five seconds with almost eighty-thousand-dollars. Except for this time, there were forty local, state and FBI agents waiting outside with guns drawn.
The gang members each had their own lawyer who made the best deal they could. Three of them, including Lester, kept their mouths shut. One turned witness for the prosecution. The one who turned got six years at a medium-security prison in California. The leader, not Lester, got fifteen and Lester and the fourth man each ten. No parole.
The man who turned against them and got six years also got a six-inch shiv through his ribs and into his heart. No one was ever charged. The gang’s leader, a sociopath with a talent for robbery, died in prison from lung cancer; a three-pack a day cigarette habit the likely culprit. Lester lost track of the fourth man.
What brought Sean O’Rourke to Lewisburg was a problem that had puzzled him for years. Sean was the special agent in charge, SAIC, of the Philadelphia office. The bank robberies of this particular gang had been giving Sean heartburn trying to track them down. Not a whisper from a snitch or a single decent lead had arisen. Then, one day totally out of the blue, he got a call from the U.S. Attorney himself for the Eastern District of PA. A man by the name of Mason Hooper, who had a tip for Sean. A personal informant of Hooper’s, or so he claimed, told Hooper about Lester’s gang and Hooper was passing it on. Of course, Hooper would make sure he was in front of the cameras after the arrest.
Sean put the gang under surveillance and that was how they were caught. Of course, after the arrest, Mason Hooper was front and center at the press conference to make sure his office and himself personally received the lion’s share of the credit. In fact, Hooper’s nickname at the DOJ and FBI was Press Conference Hooper.
Later, rumor around the U.S. Attorney’s office and the Philadelphia FBI had it that Mason Hooper’s snitch was a criminal of huge significance who had made Hooper’s caree
r. This snitch was also alleged to be far worse than any of the bones he tossed to Hooper to get Hooper’s protection.
Sean had done a little quiet digging into this story and came up with enough information to believe it was true. He even came up with a name: Walter Kirk. Following that lead got him nowhere. Frustrated, he went to Lewisburg to get together with Lester. Fortunately, Lester Snelling knew exactly who Walter Kirk was. A big-time crook that Lester knew back when he was a kid in Boston. Unfortunately, after doing a little checking for Sean, Lester came to the conclusion that Walter Kirk was dead. A number of sources Lester had known for years confirmed it.
Because Lester had at least provided Sean with solid information about Walter, Sean got Lester employment in Chicago as a limo driver. Over the years of driving limos, he had accrued a steady list of clients. Lester had also remained clean. Then last fall, Lester had delivered a wealthy client to a Democratic fundraiser. As he held the door for the couple in his car, he saw a ghost with a much younger woman also being dropped off. The late and not so lamented Walter Kirk in the flesh.
“Hi, Uncle Sean,” Paxton said when he opened the front door for her.
Paxton followed him into the room and found Helen and Lester already waiting. After hellos and a hug from Helen, they all settled down for the news. While Sean took the accident DVD from Paxton and put it in the player, she gave a quick summary of her trip.
“Do you recognize those guys?” Paxton asked while handing two photos to Lester.
“Sure,” he replied. “That’s the Tierney brothers. This is the smart one, Ryan, although smart is open to debate. He’s called the smart one because of his younger brother, Little Mikey, here,” Lester continued passing both mugshots to Sean, “Mikey is a real moron and certified psycho. Did they do the hit and run on your friend?”
“We think so,” Paxton replied. She handed the file to her uncle. While Helen looked over his shoulder and read along, the two of them skimmed through it.
“How do you know the Tierneys?” Paxton asked Lester.
“From my Boston days,” Lester said. “In fact, I’ve known these two mutts for close to forty years. A couple of serious gangsters. If Walter Kirk, your Cal Simpson, is involved with this, it makes sense these two would be in on it.”
When Sean and Helen finished reading the file, he placed it on the coffee table. He picked up the TV remote and hit the power button.
“Do you know these Tierney guys, Sean?” Paxton asked.
“No, I don’t,” Sean answered. “Do you?” he asked Helen.
“No, never heard of them.”
“Neither one of us was ever assigned to Boston. They look to be mostly muscle for Irish gangs. Would you agree, Les?”
“Yeah, that’s them. But don’t underestimate them.”
“Let’s watch the movie,” Sean said.
A half hour later, having watched it several times at regular speed, slow and super slow motion, Sean shut it off.
“Pretty grim to watch,” Helen said.
“What do you think, Les?” Sean asked.
“The size of the driver and the shape of the head, even with the glasses and a ball cap on, it sure looks like Little Mikey,” Lester replied. “And the two guys walking through the airport together look like them.”
“You’re sure?” Paxton asked.
Lester shrugged and said, “I haven’t seen them for, I don’t know, twenty, twenty-five years. But I’d bet a paycheck it’s them.”
“Any forensics from the hit and run?” Helen asked looking at Paxton.
“No, nothing. From what my friends in Minnesota said, the van was thoroughly torched. The interior was completely burned out. The local cops traced the van and it came up as stolen from a suburb of Minneapolis a few days before.”
“Assuming this was deliberate, they got lucky,” Sean said,
“How?” Helen asked,
“They couldn’t be sure Zach Evans—and we believe he was the target—would get bail. First-degree murder, bail would not likely be given since they had the weapon and motive,” Paxton answered her.
“They didn’t have much choice. They had to try it,” Sean said. “Now we need to find them. Les, you have any contacts back in Boston you can check with?”
“Yeah, I think so. Give me a couple of days to see what I can find out,” Lester replied.
“We have another problem,” Paxton said. “Or more precisely, I have another problem. Norah McCabe wants me to drop this. She said I have enough other things to do.”
“What do you want to do?” Sean asked.
“They almost killed a man I like and respect. I’m not going to just walk away from that. Besides, I told them I’d find these Tierney brothers. We’ll just have to work on our time.”
Two nights later, while Paxton was standing over her kitchen sink eating a chicken breast from a local deli, her phone rang. She looked at the ID then quickly wiped off her hands and mouth with paper towels.
“Hi, Uncle,” she said when she answered.
“Hey, kid,” Sean said. “I think I have bad news. Lester called. He’s heard from several sources that the Tierneys are gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Paxton asked,
“Gone as in maybe not coming back because they are no longer breathing.”
“Shit,” Paxton muttered.
“We’ll keep looking. I found a couple of guys I know that are now in Boston. I talked to one just before I called you. He knows the Tierneys and he said he’d heard the rumors too. He’ll check into it and get back to me.”
“Is he FBI?”
“Yeah, but he said it would be unofficial and discreet. He’s a good guy. I trust him.”
“Okay, Sean. Thanks,” Paxton said.
The subjects of their interest were, indeed, gone and not coming back. They had taken up permanent residence, Ryan on top of Little Mikey, in a hole in a New Hampshire forest, resting comfortably twenty miles north of the Massachusetts state line.
TWENTY-THREE
“So, where does that leave us?” Maddy asked into her phone.
Maddy, Marc, and Tony were in the library of the Corwin Mansion barely a quarter of a mile from Cal Simpson. With them was the home’s owner, Vivian Donahue. They were on a call with Paxton who had just given them the news about the Tierneys.
“Have you confirmed this?” Carvelli asked into Maddy’s phone speaker before Paxton could answer Maddy.
“Yes,” Paxton replied to Tony. “At least as best as we can without the bodies. My guy—who I’ll tell you about some other time—has good contacts in Boston. Word on the street is, they crossed someone and now they’re gone. The Boston PD is convinced. So is the Boston FBI office. Funny thing though, they can’t find out who did it.”
“How hard are they trying?” Carvelli asked. While Paxton answered him, Carvelli stole a glance at Marc who seemed a bit lost in his own thoughts.
“As in good riddance to a couple of gangster-thugs,” Maddy said. “But, I repeat, where does that leave us?”
“I need to tell you guys something,” Paxton said. “For reasons I can’t go into right now, especially over the phone, I need to tell you a little story.”
Paxton then told them, without using any names, about her uncle’s ex-con, semi-snitch, Lester Snelling. She told them about Lester seeing a man he had known from his criminal days; a man who was well-known as a politically connected crook but was supposedly dead.
“And you think this guy is Calvin Simpson?” Carvelli asked. “This guy who was known to your snitch as Walter Kirk…”
“And at least three other names,” Paxton interjected.
“…and you believe it?”
“Yeah, he is absolutely positive. My…” Paxton caught herself before she used the word “uncle”, “…my, um, other guy got a bunch of photos of Simpson. They’re sure. If I had access to the FBI’s facial recognition software, I could verify it.”
“Why can’t you take it to them?” Maddy asked.
“You’re a U.S. Attorney.”
“It’s not that easy,” Paxton replied. “With the government it never is. There’s a whole big deal with doing something like that. Plus, my boss is trying to kill my investigation. In fact, as far as she is concerned, she has.”
“Tell her, Tony,” Maddy said.
“I was wondering if maybe you could help with that,” Paxton said before Carvelli could answer Maddy.
“Ah, well, it’s your lucky day, Ms. O’Rourke. I think maybe I could get that anonymous friend of mine to take a look at your photos and see what he can come up with.”
“Great,” Paxton said. “In fact, I’m in my car in front of a FedEx Store right now. You’ll have them tomorrow.
“I’ve been thinking,” she continued. “I’m pretty much stuck on stupid on my end. I have no official case going and my boss will have my ass if she finds out I’m still at this.”
“Why?” Maddy asked.
“She says we have enough other things to do,” Paxton answered. “What I was thinking is what we need is somebody on the inside. Somebody close to Cal Simpson to find out what he’s up to.
“That sheriff’s investigator, Newkirk, he sent me copies of his case. Nice guy,” Paxton added. “In it was a list of the people who attended Simpson’s Fourth of July party. You know, the night that woman lawyer…”
“Lynn McDaniel,” Maddy said.
“Yeah, her, was murdered. There are quite a few politicians on it. Senators and Representatives. Something smells about this…”
“So how do we get to somebody on the inside?” Carvelli asked. “We don’t know who to go after.”
“Well, I was thinking,” Paxton replied, “um, this is a little difficult. Anyway, the word is that this Simpson guy likes women and is a well-known um…”
“Womanizer,” Vivian said, “and I hate that word.”
“Yeah, right,” Paxton said. “Anyway, I was thinking that maybe if you know, we could, ah, find someone with the balls and ability to, um, you know…”
Insider Justice: A Financial Thriller (Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Book 8) Page 14
