by Dave Daren
“Could one of the Serbians you’ve hired known about Salvatore’s plans to retire?” I pressed.
The bristles on Kroger’s head seemed to stand up, but he managed to keep a rein on his temper. He took a deep breath, and I’m pretty sure he probably counted to ten, or even twenty, before he responded.
“Maybe,” he finally said.
“How?” I asked.
“If they overheard one of the phone calls,” Kroger replied. “I mean, they would have only heard my half of the conversation, but it wouldn’t be that hard to piece together what we were discussing. And I had the paperwork in my office, for the transfer of shares in the company and such. There would only be one reason why Salvatore was transferring his shares to me.”
I nodded but didn’t press for anything more. I could see how much it had cost the man just to admit that much, and though I wasn’t suddenly his BFF, I did at least have a bit more respect for him. The problem was that as good and logical as his story was, I still had a few niggling doubts about his own loyalties. He was, after all, the one who had brought the Serbians into the operation over Salvatore’s objections, and as far as I could tell, those Serbians were loyal to him rather than the Febbo family.
“Maybe you’re right about the Serbians,” he suddenly said. “Maybe it is time to clean house. But I’ve got to keep operations going.”
“So you hire guys who will do it for a bit more money,” I replied.
“That’ll eat into the profit margin,” he muttered.
“Seriously, that’s your biggest worry?” I asked.
“Hey, it’s why people don’t buy American any more,” Kroger pointed out. “It’s too damn expensive.”
I stared at the Febbo lieutenant for a moment as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that he was more worried that his clients were too cheap to pay an extra two cents for a bag of whatever than the probability that his muscle would kill him.
“But you won’t have to wonder if the Serbians are planning to kill you in your sleep if you hire American,” I pointed out.
“I worry about that no matter who I hire,” he replied.
I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, or if Kroger even expected a response. He looked out the window again, then stood up slowly. I stood up as well, and the two of us studied each other for a moment.
“I’ve got some calls to make tonight,” he said. “Maybe talk to some of the other families about the Serbians. Could be that it’s time to find some new muscle.”
“I think that would be wise,” I agreed.
Kroger grunted then walked slowly towards the door. He stepped into the hall and trudged towards the elevator without another word. I watched him until he stepped into the elevator, and then I waited another long minute, just to make sure some stranger with a Serbian accent didn’t arrive on my floor. When the building remained quiet except for the usual nighttime noises, I closed and locked my door, then after a moment’s hesitation, set the chair I had been sitting in directly in front of the door. I still didn’t entirely trust Kroger, and I definitely didn’t trust the Serbians.
Damn, I needed to get that gun license.
Chapter 30
I worked into the wee hours of the morning as I looked over police reports from Francine Mott’s murder as well as the bits and pieces I had from the Giorgio Marinello case. I had enough to establish that there had been evidence tampering, but I wasn’t sure if I could prove that it was the DA’s office and the NYPD that had performed the dirty deed. Hopefully, it was enough to convince the judge that I shouldn’t be dismissed based on the word of the DA.
I only slept a few fitful hours, and then I was up early and ready to tackle the task ahead of me. I got my endorphins flowing with a trip to the gym and picked up a pair of bagels loaded with cream cheese and bacon and a cup of coffee on the way home. I ate quickly, showered and shaved, and settled on a dark gray suit with a somber blue tie. I looked the part of a Wall Street attorney, despite the faded bruises on my knuckles, and I hoped the DA would fall for it.
“Mr. Morgan!” the doorwoman called out as I crossed the lobby.
I looked back to see the woman waving at me from behind the desk. She held up a thick brown envelope and pointed to it. I moaned inwardly, convinced that my old firm of McHale, Parrish had found some last bit of paperwork for me to finish, though why they wouldn’t have resorted to snail mail was another question.
“Messenger dropped this off late yesterday afternoon,” the doorwoman said when I forced myself to move towards the desk. “No one saw you come in yesterday, so I was going to run it up to your apartment when I went for my break.”
“Thanks,” I replied as I took the hefty package. There was no return address, just my name and apartment number in a looping hand I didn’t recognize.
“Sure,” the doorwoman said with a smile.
I started to walk away, then stopped as I considered the possbility that the Serbians, or anyone else opposed to the Febbos, had sent me something. I started to feel the package, and was relieved to discover that there didn’t seem to be anything more than paper inside. I opened my briefcase, tossed the envelope inside, then decided that wasn’t such a great idea either. My paranoia at full steam, I thought the mystery package might be something that would destroy my evidence. So I pulled the envelope back out, closed my briefcase, and headed for the subway.
I found a seat on the G, squashed between the wall and a woman with a chihuahua in her purse. The dog peered at me from the depths of its leather prison, as if it hoped I might reach in and rescue it. I gave it a sympathetic look, then turned my attention to the envelope. Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I opened the package slowly. Nothing exploded and no white powder poured out, so I peered carefully inside.
It was a large stack of paper, and as I pulled it out, I realized it was bills and paperwork. I was convinced that McHale, Parrish had indeed sent me a last task to complete until I spotted the letter that had been clipped to the top of the stack. It was heavy stock with a watermark and the name of the Febbo family law firm embossed at the top. I spotted Lyle Landis’ cramped signature at the bottom and sighed, both in relief and frustration. I read the note and chuckled, which drew a yip from the chihuahua.
“You’re right about that,” I informed the dog as the owner brushed a meaty palm over his head to soothe him.
According to Landis’ note, since I was now Anthony Febbo’s personal attorney, I was now responsible for handling his personal affairs that had been previously handled by the family firm. This included, but was not limited to, insurance, both medical and automotive, trust management, storage fees, credit card payments, and a laundry list of other items that needed tending. The rest of the stack were current updates, statements and bills that would require immediate attention.
I tucked Landis’ note back in the envelope and started to pick through the stack. I have to admit, I wasn’t feeling especially enthusiastic about it. One of the reasons I’d been so happy to leave McHale, Parrish was to get away from the dull paperwork. But apparently, there was no way to escape it completely, because even the son of a Mafia capo needed to deal with things like wi-fi access and roaming charges.
Despite what he said about wanting separation, I had always suspected that many of my client’s bills were still being paid by his father because there was no way he could pay for everything on the salary he earned at the brewery. Just the car alone, I knew from personal experience, would eat up a hefty portion of a month’s pay. And once Liz and I had started investigating, we’d quickly discovered that the car had been registered not to Anthony but to one of his father’s many businesses and that all of the associated bills had been paid by the company.
Still, it was a bit shocking to see just how much was covered by the Febbo companies, and I shook my head as I remembered how desperately Anthony had insisted he had cut all ties to his family. He clearly still relied heavily on his father’s wealth, even for some things he probably
wasn’t even aware of. It wasn’t that Anthony was lying to me so much as a lack of awareness of how much support he was really receiving. I was willing to bet that Salvatore had told him the car was a birthday present, and Anthony still didn’t understand that it was little more than a gold chain that kept him tied to his father.
With nothing else to do on the trip to Queens other than rehearse my argument for the thousandth time, I started to organize the various documents. A few had post it notes stuck to them, like the health insurance that was due to expire at the end of next month. The note mentioned that the law firm would not automatically renew coverage for Anthony, since he was no longer a client, though he was certainly welcome to do so on his own.
I plowed through documents related to a family trust that Salvatore and Gulia had set up. I was interested to see that Anthony wasn’t yet receiving any payments, though under the terms of the trust agreement, he would start receiving a monthly income on his next birthday. I wondered if that was yet another reason Salvatore had decided to retire, with all of his children taken care of and receiving enough money to live on for the rest of their lives. I also wondered if that’s why Anthony had announced that he wanted to start his own brewery.
As intriguing as that was, I noticed that I was getting close to my stop, so I returned the trust documents to the envelope and did a quick scan through the rest of the material. Most of it related to the car that Anthony drove, including receipts for monthly insurance payments, made by the company, as well as a couple of parking tickets that the law firm had paid on the company’s behalf in the last six months. They were both in Queens, near Anthony’s apartment, and both listed the reason for the ticket as wrong side of the street parking.
Near the bottom was an opened envelope from the MTA. There was another post-it note stuck to the envelope with a message that the penalty hadn’t been paid yet, and the EZ Pass account had yet to be refilled. I snorted and shook my head. Liz and I had subpoenaed the MTA records for Anthony’s EZ Pass on the night of Francine Mott’s murder in the hopes of showing that he had been somewhere else at the time. But without the authority of the NYPD to back us up, our request was added to a long queue of other requests that the agency would eventually answer when it had enough time and people to deal with it. Secretly, I’d hoped that the detectives had asked for the same information and that it would be included in the file we’d requested, but that had proven to be a false hope.
I sighed and pulled out the missive from the MTA. It was a standard form letter from the agency, notifying the registered owner of the vehicle that there hadn’t been enough money in the account to pay the full toll for the crossing on an MTA operated bridge or tunnel. Payment of the remaining two dollars and twenty cents was to be made within thirty days of receipt of the letter. A picture of the vehicle taken by the EZ Pass system was included as verification of the crossing.
I flipped to the next two pages, which clearly showed the car that Anthony drove, front and back. On the front shot, I could actually see through the windshield and I recognized Anthony’s face. He looked angry, and I’m pretty sure that his knuckles had gone white from the death grip he had on the steering wheel. I pondered the picture for a moment, then checked the computer tag at the bottom of the image.
And there it was. My final piece of evidence. At the time Francie was being beaten to death, the MTA had captured my client on camera entering the Queens Midtown Tunnel on the Manhattan side of the tunnel. There was no way he could have made it back to her apartment before she was dead, no matter how fast the traffic had been moving. And traffic in the Queens Midtown Tunnel never moved quickly.
I was so excited by my discovery that I nearly missed my stop. I glanced up when the lady with chihuahua stood up and I realized I was at Court Square. I shoved everything back into the envelope and followed the woman off the subway. The dog gave another yip as I squeezed around her on the platform and then I was doing a fast jog for the exit because I suddenly had a ton of energy to burn. I was up the stairs and moving towards the court complex while my fellow commuters were still pushing their way towards the exit, and I had to restrain myself from letting out a whoop when I reached clean air. I darted across the street towards the courthouse and spotted Liz’s secretary on the steps, dressed in a pale pink suit.
“You look like you’re ready for battle!” Asha exclaimed when I arrived at her side.
“I am,” I agreed. “And I think I’ve found the evidence that will force the DA to drop the case once and for all.”
“Wonderful!’ she replied as she handed me the material she had printed. “I’d stay and watch, but my other attorney has an early meeting this morning, and I have to make sure he has his coffee and vitamin gummies before it starts.”
“Sounds delicious,” I laughed as I accepted the packet.
Asha laughed as well, then gave me a thumbs up before she started back down the steps. I did a quick check of the second envelope, then joined the queue for the courthouse.
The guards on scanner duty looked at me warily as I made my way through the security check, no doubt because I was still grinning like a madman. I was actually very polite to them as I moved through the line, and waved when I was told I could continue to the courtroom. I could feel one of the guards watching me as I sauntered over to the elevators, but I really didn’t care. If I played it right, I could get my client’s case tossed today, and maybe even bring a reprimand down on the DA.
My hearing wasn’t the first one that morning, and the previous hearing was still going full tilt when I arrived. I eased inside as quietly as I could and took a spot on one of the back benches. The judge, a square-jawed man with a head that looked like a fire hydrant, was squinting at several sheets of paper that were spread across his bench while one of the attorneys discussed the reflective properties of various fabrics. The other attorney, a woman with a pinched expression, kept shaking her head though she never actually spoke.
“Just give me the short version,” the judge interjected.
“Your honor, the tests conducted by the city are flawed,” the defense attorney replied. “Clearly, their so-called evidence does not indicate what they say it does.”
“Your honor,” the woman with the pinched face cut in, “that’s really a matter for the jury to decide.”
“I tend to agree with you,” the judge said. “You can both bring your experts in and let them duke it out in court. I don’t see any reason why the results of the city’s tests should be excluded.”
“Your honor, the law provides that if an egregious error--” the defense attorney protested.
“This hardly qualifies as an egregious error,” the judge snapped. “And I’m not tossing the test results.”
There was a quieter conference between the judge and the attorneys after that, but I didn’t listen to the rest of the matter. The door had opened again and Ordman stepped inside. He was tall, deeply tanned, and wore a pair of gold wire-rim glasses whose lenses were too thin to actually be useful for improving his vision. He had gone with a lighter shade of gray for his suit and a dark green tie with a gold Brooks Brothers emblem. He nodded to me as he took a seat on the bench opposite me, then turned to watch the drama at the bench.
The judge reiterated that both sides could call their experts during trial, refused to extend the discovery phase any longer, and told both attorneys to reach an agreement on how much time would be needed for the trial or he would squeeze it in whenever he found the room in his schedule. Both attorneys retreated to their own tables and began to collect their materials. I saw Ordman nod to the pinched face woman, who gave him a small nod in return.
The judge, meanwhile, sifted through the papers on his bench and finally handed them to his paralegal. The two had a whispered conversation, and then the paralegal handed the judge a folder before slipping away with the pages. The prosecutor and defense attorney finally moved away from their respective tables, and passed between me and Ordman as they left the courtroom.
“I’ve got a motion in the Febbo case next,” the judge declared as he looked up and scanned the room.
Ordman and I stood up at the same time and made our way to the tables. We took our assigned spots, then waited for the judge to signal his okay.
“Go ahead and sit,” the judge ordered.
Ordman and I both opened our briefcases and started to remove our exhibits before we sat down. I heard the judge sigh and a quick glance revealed the look of disappointment on his face as he took in all the paper that the two of us had dragged into court.
“This is a motion hearing,” he noted. “Not an actual trial.”
“This won’t take long,” Ordman assured the judge.
“Then let’s get started,” the judge replied. “Mr. Ordman, you’re accusing defendant’s counsel of evidence tampering.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Ordman replied as he started forward with a handful of documents. “As you can see from the affidavits we filed, Mr. Morgan here was found in the defendant’s apartment before it was searched by the police.”
“He is defendant’s counsel,” the judge pointed out.
“He is,” Ordman agreed. “But we have good reason to suspect that Mr. Morgan removed evidence of his client’s guilt from the scene.”
“What evidence?” the judge asked in a bored voice.
“Clothes with the victim’s blood,” Ordman declared.
The charge was so ludicrous that I actually laughed out loud.
“Mr. Morgan,” the judge reprimanded.
I managed to contain myself and simply shook my head.
“Your honor, my client’s clothes were collected by the police and taken into evidence the night of the crime,” I replied. “There were no bloody clothes in the apartment to remove.”
“On the contrary,” Ordman said, “This was evidence of an earlier assault, and it serves as evidence of the true nature of the relationship between the victim and the defendant.”
“What earlier assault?” I demanded angrily.
