I just couldn’t go with her.
I sighed, picked up the new file on Calvin Gardner from my desk, and absently flipped through it. We jumped the gun a little on the indictment, but given the suddenness of John Carson’s death, we couldn’t risk losing the last thread that held the operation together. We had been lucky Gardner’s lawyers had waived their right to a speedy trial in favor of a lengthy discovery process. We had sixty days, said the judge, but based on the obliqueness of the information so far, I was guessing we’d end up asking for sixty more.
His life was confusing, to say the least. Derek Kingston, the special investigator with the Bureau of Organized Crime, hadn’t been able to determine his exact relationship to the safe house where he had been spotted, and neither had I. Carson was identified as the owner of that particular house, and it was still empty. But girls from Cypress Hills, the nearby housing project, were still disappearing. Twenty so far, with a lot of other leads in other neighborhoods too. With Carson and Letour out of the equation, that had to mean Gardner was in charge of that scheme, or he was working with someone else.
The problem was finding out who, and where, they were. And if it was outside Brooklyn—outside of our jurisdiction. As yet, the U.S. attorney, once on John Carson’s payroll, had been unwilling to tap into the investigation. Carson’s ability to cover up the crimes of his cronies seemed to extend beyond the grave.
A knock at the door pulled me out of my misery. Derek, in his typical street clothes of jeans, a faded Yankees jacket, and a backwards baseball hat, stood in the doorway, one sneaker crossed over the other. He didn’t exactly fit in with the suited lawyers here on Jay Street, but what made Derek the best investigator we had was his ability to blend in everywhere else.
Today, though, he didn’t look like he was particularly enjoying his job.
“Be honest,” I said as I swiveled in my chair. “You wish you were writing traffic tickets right now, don’t you?”
Derek snorted as he walked in. It was a frequent joke between us, actually. He’d been about ten seconds from leaving the NYPD when he was called up for the special investigator position, right when I was also ready to abandon the DA for some private-sector contract bullshit. Derek and I ended up saving each other’s careers, and we’d been friends ever since.
“Different jobs, same dead ends,” he said, flopping into the other chair in my small office. He shook his head. “We’re getting outside our jurisdiction, Zo.”
“You’ve been saying that for months.”
“This is different.”
I frowned, glancing at the still-open door. Derek turned in his chair and kicked it shut before swiveling back to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “The Pantheon filing was a dead end too?”
I’d asked Derek to investigate the LLC that was technically on the lease of the house. We already knew Carson owned it, but I was betting there were other names associated with it too. There had to be if the operation was still in effect after the man was dead.
“The LLC was registered in Delaware,” Derek said. “A no-name shell corporation, of course. That tiny fuckin’ state has more corporations than people, did you know that?”
I nodded. I did actually know that—most of the legit corporations in New York were registered in Delaware for the tax and anonymity benefits, not to mention the underground operations I made my living going after. So, the fact that the LLC listed as the lessee for the safe house was registered in one of four states that allowed anonymous ownership wasn’t particularly surprising.
“Well, John Carson was a criminal mastermind, not an idiot,” I said. “We thought this might happen. He made the mistake of putting his name on one deed, but the others are someone else’s problem now. I just need the documents. Somewhere, there’s a name. Who’s associated with the LLC?” Delaware state law required that an anonymous LLC must name someone who knows the owner, even if that name wasn’t the owner himself.
Derek shook his head. “Dead end. It was John Carson.”
I raised a brow. “Shit. So we don’t even know if he was the owner. The utilities, maybe?”
Derek shook his head. “Garbage, water, sewer. All the same LLC.”
I drummed my fingers on the desk. “But the job hasn’t stopped. Girls are still disappearing. Someone else besides Carson owns that company.”
“Fuck, Zola, I know that.”
I frowned but ignored my friend’s sharp tone. Given the fact that he was from East New York himself, I wondered if this case was more personal for him than most.
He seemed to feel it too, because when he spoke next, it was a bit more measured. “Look. We only found two other houses in New York owned outright by Pantheon, and they’ve both been cleared out too. If Gardner is still moving anything—girls or guns—he’s doing it outside of where we can get to them.”
“So let’s look. No harm in that. Nothing says we can’t snoop around, even if we can’t make an arrest.”
“What do you want me to do, Zo? Call the Delaware staties?” Derek snorted again at just the thought of it. “Tell them to be on the lookout for a masked company zooming down the highway? You want me to go driving around with them too?”
I rolled my eyes. “Give me a break, man. That’s not what I meant.”
“This is a job for the Feds, Zola. It’s across state lines. We’re not voyeurs.”
“And if we give it back to the Feds, you know exactly what’s going to happen,” I retorted. “You, me, Cardozo, and anyone else working this case are suddenly targets.”
I frowned toward the door, like somehow looking in that direction could get me closer to the gun safe in the bottom of the building, where my Beretta and its holster were stowed along with those belonging to other people like me working for the Kings County District Attorney. We were some of the lucky ones. Not all district or state’s attorneys allowed their prosecutors to carry to and from work, despite the fact that prosecutors faced consistent death threats as a result of just doing their damn jobs. But the reality was, when you went after bad guys for a living, sometimes the bad guys came after you.
It got complicated when the bad guys were supposed to be on your side.
“I just need the documents,” I said again. “Something that shows Gardner’s involvement beyond a shadow of a doubt. Right now, we don’t have enough for a conviction beyond accessory, and that’s only a year tops, more likely just a fine. Keep following the money, King. Here’s what I think: you keep nosing around Brooklyn, and I’ll contact a few people I know in Newark. Not everyone’s a crook. There have to be a few good eggs out there.”
Derek didn’t look particularly pleased by this idea. I understood. If the crimes we were looking for had in fact moved someplace like New Jersey, we were basically turning over a year-long investigation free and clear, allowing for another prosecutor to run off with the conviction. It was painful. But not as painful as Calvin Gardner getting off scot-free.
“Someone is going to turn up,” I said. “And I’ll bet my last dollar it’s Calvin Gardner.”
Derek continued to study me. “Zola, don’t take this the wrong way, but…did you ever think that maybe he’s not actually the guy?”