Blind Man's Alley (48 page)

72

R
AFAEL NAZARIO’S
guilty plea was scheduled to be heard at two p.m. Rafael hadn’t been brought in yet when Duncan arrived at the courtroom at about a quarter to two. There were maybe ten people present, most of whom Duncan recognized: the ADAs; several reporters, including Costello from the
Journal;
and Rafael’s grandmother. She was sitting next to a middle-aged Hispanic woman; Duncan wondered idly if it was Rafael’s mother.

Bream spotted Duncan and muttered something to Castelluccio, who turned around, frowning. Duncan offered a nod, which she did not return. Duncan was sure Castelluccio would like him even less soon enough.

At five to two Robert Walker came hurrying in, walking past Duncan without appearing to notice him as he made his way to the defense’s table up front. A couple of minutes later Lily Vaughan walked in. She sat down in the back, then looked around the room, her gaze quickly alighting on Duncan. Lily hesitated before coming over to him.

“What’re you doing here, Dunk?” she asked by way of greeting.

“Don’t call me Dunk. And I think the better question is, what’re you doing here?”

“You probably have a better idea as to why I’m here than I do,” Lily said.

“I assume you’re here to see if I cause any trouble.”

“That certainly could be,” Lily said. “Why, will you?”

Duncan smiled. He wasn’t going to take it personally that Lily was here to spy on him. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

Lily glanced around, then lowered her voice. “The fuck is going on? What’d you get up to that the Blake would fire you? What is this all about?”

“You don’t actually want to know.”

Lily shrugged, conceding the point. “Should I be worried? About the firm, I mean.”

“I’m not going after Blake personally,” Duncan said. “But if he turns out to be collateral damage, don’t invite me to the pity party.”

Lily looked away. “I guess I should tell you—I’m in.”

It took Duncan a moment to understand. “You made partner?”

Lily nodded, pride fighting embarrassment. “It’s not official yet, but Blake’s given me his word. The competition got a little easier, I guess.”

Duncan was surprised Blake would make a commitment like that, since partnership was never guaranteed, even to the star associates. He looked over at Lily, who still wasn’t meeting his eyes. “You leveraged my getting fired, didn’t you? That and Karen Cleary—you made a move, got Blake to commit.”

Lily forced herself to look at him. “I’m sorry—I know it’s not fair.”

Duncan smiled at her, wanting her to see that he wasn’t going to harbor it. “Since when did either of us expect things to be fair?”

“Are you okay?” Lily asked, looking at him with real concern.

“Are you kidding? I sleep till ten a.m., go to the gym every day. This is the life.”

“Did you know it was going to get like this? That you’d end up out on the street over whatever was happening?”

Duncan shook his head. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I was just doing my job. That’s still all I’m doing.”

“I’m sorry, Duncan. Is there something I can do that would help?”

“You don’t owe me anything, Lily,” Duncan said. “I think of you fondly and I wish you well. I’m sorry that nothing much came out of that, but let’s part friends.”

Lily looked at him sadly for a moment, then nodded. “So what’s going to happen here now?”

“I’m kind of curious about that myself,” Duncan replied, standing as Judge Lasky entered the courtroom and took the bench.

The court officers then brought Rafael in. The case manager read the docket number, formally beginning the proceeding.

As soon as he had done so, Duncan stood and made his way into the well of the court, his heart pounding. “Your Honor,” he said, feeling every eye in the room on him. “Before you take this plea I need to bring some information to the court’s attention.”

Judge Lasky peered over his glasses at Duncan. “Mr. Riley, it is my understanding you are no longer Mr. Nazario’s attorney.”

“That’s true, Your Honor. I’m speaking now not as a lawyer for Mr. Nazario, but rather as an officer of the court. I believe the rules governing attorney conduct obligate me to come forward.”

“Mr. Riley has no standing to be addressing the court in this proceeding,” Castelluccio said angrily.

“Chambers,” Lasky said brusquely. “Lawyers only. That includes you, Mr. Riley.”

AS SOON
as they entered the chambers, Castelluccio continued her argument that the judge shouldn’t even listen to Duncan. Bream and Walker followed her in, with Duncan bringing up the rear. “Why don’t we hear from the one person in this room who actually knows what this is about,” Lasky said to Castelluccio as he sat at the head of the table, gesturing for the rest of them to sit.

Duncan sat down next to Walker, who edged away from him, not wanting even the association of physical proximity. “Your Honor,” Duncan began, “in the course of representing another client I became aware of an ongoing criminal conspiracy they were involved with. That conspiracy extended to perpetuating a fraud upon this court.”

“You’re in here planning to break attorney-client privilege?” Castelluccio demanded.

“I’ll ask the questions,” Lasky snapped at her, before turning back to Duncan. “But she does ask a good one. Are you proposing to describe privileged information you received from a client?”

“The relevant information was not disclosed to me as part of my representation of this other client, no. And even if there was concern about it being privileged, it would also fall within the crime fraud exception.”

“Crime fraud is a narrow exception,” the judge countered.

“There’s also disciplinary rule 7–102(b)(1),” Duncan said. His big advantage as the only person prepared for this discussion was that it made him the only person who’d recently researched the issue. “That rule obligates a lawyer who finds out a client is perpetuating a fraud upon a court to call on the client to rectify it. I have unsuccessfully asked the client in question to do so. Since my client has refused, it is then my professional duty under that rule to notify the court.”

“Does this relate to the positional conflict your firm had in this matter?” the judge asked.

“It does, yes,” Duncan replied, though he was still fuzzy on what exactly Blake had claimed regarding that supposed conflict.

Lasky stared at Duncan for a long moment. “I don’t know if you’re right about disclosing whatever the specifics of this are, but I do know if you break privilege and I ultimately find that it was inappropriate for you to do so, I will report you to the bar. Good intentions will not be a defense.”

Although this didn’t come as a surprise to Duncan, actually hearing it said was not pleasant. But it was already way too late to retreat. “Understood, Your Honor.”

Lasky looked at Duncan with something resembling pity. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Mr. Riley. You’re obviously a talented lawyer, but I worry you may be a little too fond of making the big splash. Let’s hope you don’t drown. Without naming the client in question, tell me in broad outline—and I mean broad—what you are alleging in terms of a fraud upon this court.”

“I discovered that a former client of mine was engaged in illegal conduct, the details of which are not relevant to this case. However, I also came to discover that Sean Fowler was involved in the prior illegal conduct, and that Mr. Fowler had engaged in blackmail of my former client using what he knew about this illegal activity. In response to Mr. Fowler’s blackmail, an ongoing conspiracy was formed to kill him and to frame Rafael Nazario for the murder. My representation of Mr. Nazario in effect made me an unwitting participant in the conspiracy, since I was pressured to plead his case out quickly.”

The judge was silent after Duncan stopped speaking, but Castelluccio couldn’t contain herself. “This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life,” she said. “We have an eyewitness that the defendant shot Fowler.”

“Chris Driscoll is part of the conspiracy,” Duncan replied.

Castelluccio laughed harshly. “Have you lost your mind? Seriously, have you? I suppose I’m part of this conspiracy too?”

“No,” Duncan replied. “You’re just bullheaded and bloodthirsty.”

“Enough,” Lasky said. The judge was still staring at Duncan, eyes narrowed. “If this is some kind of stunt, you are really going to regret it. I hope it goes without saying that if you can’t back up this rather unbelievable story, your legal career may come to a very abrupt end.”

“I believe ethics, and for that matter justice, require me to do what I’m doing,” Duncan replied.

“Your Honor,” Castelluccio said, struggling to contain her anger, “even accepting the truth of everything Mr. Riley just said, all that would mean is that he is a witness for the defense in this case, although one with some pretty major hearsay and privilege issues. The defense would be free to call him at trial, assuming they could provide a sufficient offer of proof. It would be his word against, among others, Mr. Driscoll’s. I don’t see any reason to treat him differently from any other witness.”

“There isn’t going to be any trial,” Duncan said. “Rafael was supposed to plead today, and then this cover-up would be complete.”

“What evidence do you have?” Castelluccio demanded. “We’re supposed to just take your word? A defense lawyer who says his client’s innocent—haven’t heard that one before.”

Lasky looked from one of them to the other, and then over at Walker, who was sitting with his arms crossed beside Duncan. “Do you know anything about any of this?” Lasky asked him.

“Nothing whatsoever, Judge,” Walker replied.

Judge Lasky rubbed at his face, then sighed heavily. “A lawyer comes to me with a claim like this, however dubious, I can’t just ignore it,” the judge said finally. “So I suppose the question then becomes, how do you propose actually trying to establish this story of yours, Mr. Riley?”

Duncan wished he knew. “Hold a hearing,” he said. “I will question witnesses. That way I’m not presenting information myself, and I won’t be disclosing anything that’s arguably privileged.”

“You’re willing to risk your entire legal career on convincing me at a hearing of an elaborate conspiracy to frame Mr. Nazario?”

“I guess I am,” Duncan said. “If that’s what I have to be.”

They reconvened briefly in court, the judge offering a terse and inscrutable statement putting off the plea hearing. Rafael looked over at Duncan, completely in the dark, as the court officers took him out of the courtroom.

Costello was quickly over to Duncan, Lily lurking behind him. “No comment, sorry,” Duncan said before the reporter could even ask him a question.

“Can you at least—”

“I can’t,” Duncan interrupted, moving past the reporter, who trailed after him, still asking questions.

“What the hell, Dunk?” Lily said.

Duncan smiled at her, then put his index finger to his lips.

“You’re going to make me go back to the Blake empty-handed? Come on, give me a clue, at least.”

“It’s a little late in the day to worry about a fair fight,” Duncan said, walking past her and out of the courtroom.

73

I
DIDN’T
think I’d be hearing from you,” Candace said.

ADA Sullivan shrugged from across the table at Mustang Sally’s, where the two of them had just ordered lunch. “I meant what I said before. I know your reporting is what got the Aurora referred to me in the first place. But what I’m telling you is way off the record—hell, it’s past off the record. It’ll be yours alone when you can print it, but that’s only when you have my okay. Deal?”

“If I can’t print it, why are you giving it to me now?”

“Because I’m hoping you’ll tell me what you think it means.”

Candace never turned down information, even if she couldn’t print it, though normally she fought to get things on the record, at least on background. But she was clear that Sullivan was not about to negotiate. “Fire away,” she said.

Sullivan watched as a man passed by their table on his way to the men’s room, then leaned forward. “A body—well, most of one anyway—floated out of the Atlantic and onto the coast of New Jersey a couple of days ago. Badly decomposed, so we won’t have a definite ID until the white-coat guys run some more tests. But preliminary indications are that the body formerly belonged to Jack Pellettieri.”

Candace hadn’t known what to expect, but Pellettieri’s corpse washing up hadn’t even crossed her mind. Her mind scrambled to figure out what it meant. “Murdered?”

“Can’t say that for sure,” Sullivan said. “We’re missing the head, for one thing. But nobody’s thinking fishing accident.”

“I thought there was a paper trail showing Pellettieri in Mexico and the Caribbean?”

“Exactly,” Sullivan said. “We haven’t nailed down how long he’s been in the water, but it was a while, which certainly suggests somebody was creating a fake trail for him after he was dead.”

It took Candace a moment to catch up. “That sounds like a major investment. In resources and skill.”

“Not exactly a drive-by, no.”

“A lot of effort to spend on small-time Jack Pellettieri.”

“Which, yes, is why I’m here. You told me before the Aurora didn’t end with Pellettieri; now I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

“Pellettieri was killed because he knew too much about the Roths, and they couldn’t risk his falling into your hands. But if you’ve come to me for proof of that, I don’t have any.”

Sullivan leaned back as the waitress brought their lunches. “I looked into that murder you told me about,” he said, once she was gone. “The security guard, Fowler. I talked with the DA on the case.”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s a pit bull with her jaws locked.”

“ADA Castelluccio is a talented prosecutor with a bright future in our office,” Sullivan said. “And she didn’t think there was any reason to think Fowler’s murder had anything to do with a construction accident in SoHo.”

“And so that was your attempt at investigating, and now you’re coming to me?”

“One of the detectives, however, had a slightly different perspective,” Sullivan said, ignoring Candace’s dig. “He was agnostic on the charge against Nazario. I don’t run into too many agnostic cops, not after a collar.”

“But you don’t have a link between Fowler’s murder and Pellettieri’s?”

“I don’t have a link between Pellettieri’s murder and anything. The trail’s gone massively cold, obviously, plus we barely know where the trail is. We don’t know where his body was dumped, or when. I can only keep it quiet until the ID is conclusive, so it’s a short window before the killer gets a heads-up that we know about it.”

“No wonder you’re reduced to asking me for help,” Candace said. She was uncomfortable with the idea of giving the DA’s office a lead, even if she’d had one to give. But having Sullivan as a source could pay off huge if he did break the case. She decided to give him something. “Fowler had a lot more money in the bank than he should have had. That’s something you have better tools to dig into.”

“How’d you get his bank records? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Nazario’s old lawyer, Duncan Riley. He’s the other person who’s pieced a lot of this together.”

“Riley, from Blake and Wolcott? I’ve met him, on the Aurora wrongful death. I assume that’s not a coincidence?”

“I wouldn’t think the head of the Rackets Bureau believes in coincidences,” Candace replied. “Riley’s still trying to help Nazario, even though he doesn’t officially represent him anymore. But time’s running out.”

“I can’t help a defendant who my office is prosecuting,” Sullivan said.

“You outrank Castelluccio, don’t you?”

“She doesn’t report to me, and I don’t outrank her boss. The case isn’t under my jurisdiction.”

“It is if the Fowler murder opens the door to solving Pellettieri’s murder, and goes back to the Aurora.”

“Maybe then, yes,” Sullivan said. “But I would need real evidence.”

“I could do with some of that myself,” Candace said.