I shrugged. “I will if you’d like, but maybe we can make more progress if we stick to our plan and pursue different angles on this, at least at first.”
“That’s why I wanted a partnership,” he said. “Saves time, makes us more efficient, and allows us to kill off bad leads without losing a week on it.”
“And it allows me to go chasing Russian thugs around the city while you drive out to Sandusky to interview some guy over a latte.”
“I don’t drink lattes.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that makes all the difference.”
Joe left for the drive to Sandusky, and I grabbed a legal pad and pencil and headed downtown. I went to the county clerk’s office, used the computer to look up the cause number for the robbery trial, and then requested the file. I reviewed it quickly. It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for. A deputy prosecutor named James Sellers had handled the case. I wrote his name on my pad and returned to the office.
James Sellers was still a prosecutor. I was transferred to his extension without hassle, and I explained who I was.
“Is this about a current case?” he said. “I can’t talk to you about cases. I’m prohibited from doing that by the prosecutorial code of ethics.”
Prosecutorial code of ethics? Ethics, among attorneys? It was an interesting notion.
“It’s not about a current case,” I said. I told him quickly what case I was interested in, hoping he wouldn’t blow me off before I’d even completed the request. It turned out to be a wasted concern.
“Hell, yes, I’ll talk to you about those bastards,” he said. “I’ve got plenty to say about them. What are they into now?”
I’d already decided I wanted to keep Weston’s name out of it if possible. Gossip spreads quickly anywhere, and the prosecutor’s office was certainly no exception. I told him I was working on a case in which the Russians had come up, but I didn’t specify its nature.
“I’d been on staff for maybe six months when I got that case,” he said. “The evidence was shit, though, just eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony sounds great until you’re in court with no forensic evidence and the defense attorney finds out your witness is a recovering heroin addict. Besides, those guys had Adam Benson representing them, and that meant big money. I was just a rookie, so I asked a couple of the veterans down at my office what they thought of my chances.”
“And?”
“And they laughed at me. Told me there was no way I’d beat Benson with the evidence I had.” He cleared his throat. “You ever heard of Dainius Belov?”
“Say it again?”
He did, and I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I thought you might have, since you were a cop. Supposedly he’s some sort of Russian mob kingpin. At least that’s what I was told.”
“These guys are affiliated with him?”
“One of our senior prosecutors—a woman named Winters, if you care—told me the FBI had tagged those three as low-level foot soldiers for Belov. And, to clinch the deal, guess who Belov’s attorney of choice is?”
“Adam Benson.”
“Circumstantial evidence might not hold you in court, but I find that’s pretty convincing.”
I knew a little about the Russian mobs, but not much. The Italian Mafia, while still being glorified in movies and shows like The Sopranos, has been severely crippled—not just in New York but across the country. The Cleveland families, reasonably powerful in the Pizza Connection days of the seventies and eighties, have pretty well disappeared. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian mobs have become a far more powerful force in American organized crime. I knew the local FBI had an organized crime task force that worked with some of the Cleveland police detectives, but I’d never been among them. If I’d ever heard the name Dainius Belov, it hadn’t stuck with me.
“You know anything about these guys?” I asked. “When they came here, who they associate with, things like that?”
“Not really. The case was a while ago, and like I said, we dropped charges fast.”
I hesitated then, wondering what else I could try to get from Sellers. I wanted to ask if he’d ever heard of a connection between Jeremiah Hubbard and Belov, but I didn’t want to be responsible for sending that rumor ricocheting through the corridors of City Hall. If the Russians didn’t kill me for it, Hubbard would probably suffocate me under a pile of hundred-dollar bills. I thanked Sellers for his time and hung up.
Joe and I had worked an insurance fraud case shortly before signing on with John Weston, and I spent the afternoon completing that report and sending it out along with a bill. I had the feeling we’d need to clear the deck as completely as possible for the Weston case. Joe got back late that evening, and he came by my apartment to talk. Apparently, the Sandusky trip hadn’t been a total waste.
“Turns out Kinkaid didn’t leave Weston by choice,” Joe said, looking around my apartment and frowning as if the décor didn’t please him. I knew that wasn’t it, though. I’d moved some things around, and he sensed the change and was trying to place it. That’s how Joe is—incredibly observant, and incredibly irritated by anything that doesn’t match his expectations and memory. Once he notices something that doesn’t fit, he won’t let it out of his mind until he has determined the source of the irritation.
“Weston fired him?” I asked, trying to bring his focus back.
“I don’t know if you can call one partner asking the other to leave a ‘firing,’ but, yeah, Weston bailed on him. After three years in the business together, Weston suddenly decided he wanted to run it solo. Kinkaid was pissed, because they’d built-up a decent client base and were making money, but Weston bought him out and let him take all the clients he’d handled. Kinkaid isn’t investigating anymore. He’s more focused on security now, runs a guard company up in Sandusky. But he still has some hard feelings for Weston.”
“He must not have put up much of a fight.”
“Would you really want to stick with a partner who said he didn’t want you?” His eyes were locked on a brass floor lamp with a round glass table that sat next to the couch.
“Good point.”
“So I started out by asking him about Weston, you know, just basic things about their relationship and how long he was with him—” He cut himself off in midsentence and pointed at the lamp. “You moved that, didn’t you?”
Since Joe’s last visit, I’d rotated the lamp maybe two feet, moving it just enough to eliminate the glare it had placed on the television screen.
“Yeah, I moved it, maybe a year ago,” I lied. “You’re getting old, Joe. Memory’s starting to fade.”
He gave me a look that let me know he wasn’t buying it, then continued. “So, anyhow, I kept it to the basics for a while, but then I decided to go ahead and ask him about the gambling and the Russians.”
“He know anything?”
“He’d never heard of the Russians, and he said if the cops are really buying this gambling theory they’ve got their heads up their asses. According to him, Weston was anything but a serious gambler. Liked going up to Windsor for the shows and the atmosphere of the casino but never gambled much. Bet on sports just because he was a big fan, always thought he should have been a broadcaster or a sportswriter—you know, another armchair expert. Kinkaid said the guy actually was pretty good when it came to picking winners, but he never put up big money.”
“Maybe he got carried away in the last few years.”
Joe shook his head. “I threw the same question at Kinkaid, and he blew it off. He said Weston was too much of an accountant, too fussy about budgets. Said the guy used to check his bank accounts daily and review the company books every week. And he apparently was never more aware of his money than when he was gambling. Always allotted a certain amount of what he called ‘mad money’ for betting and vacations, that type of thing.”