DEATH OF A PROSECUTOR
By
Evan Slavitt
DEATH OF A PROSECUTOR
By
Evan Slavitt
Copyright © 2012 Evan Slavitt
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All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database o retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
The events and characters in this book are fictitious. Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned, but all other characters and events described in this book are totally imaginary.
Cover art by Laura Schinn.
This book is dedicated to all Assistant U.S. Attorneys, past and present.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter
2
Chapter
3
Chapter
4
Chapter
5
Chapter
6
Chapter
7
Chapter
8
Chapter
9
Chapter
10
Chapter
11
Chapter
12
Chapter
13
Chapter
14
Chapter
15
Chapter
16
Chapter
17
Chapter
18
Chapter
19
Chapter
20
Chapter
21
Chapter
22
Chapter
23
Sounds of sex filled the office. There were quiet murmurs, moans, and the sounds of flesh on flesh. Occasionally the voice of a woman in ecstasy, or at least simulating it, drowned out the other noises.
The office was Danny Rencko’s, an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He was in his office, he was fully clothed, and he was alone sitting at his desk. In the dim late-afternoon New England winter light, he sat at his desk slowly working through a pile of spreadsheets. About three feet from his desk stood a rolling cart with a DVD player and a monitor. The screen flickered with images of naked bodies in various combinations. Rencko glanced up intermittently. Every ten minutes or so he would get up, take the DVD out, reach into a box and put another in, and return to his desk. Shortly after he put in each new disc, the sounds resumed.
Late in the afternoon, Jorge Ortiz leaned in through the doorway. Even though it was almost 5 o’clock, his shirt still looked freshly pressed and hung elegantly from his tall, slender frame. An extremely neat beard, wire rim glasses, and short salt and pepper hair completed the look of a senior government lawyer.
“Hey Danny, got a minute?”
Rencko looked up. He had done nothing more than sit at his desk , but his shirt was wrinkled and emphasized that Rencko, as he approached 40, was starting to get pudgy. “Sure J, come in.”
Ortiz moved to one of the two permitted government-issue visitor’s chairs to sit. For the first time, he noticed the sounds and what was playing on the monitor. Gesturing with his thumb as he sat down, he asked, “What the fuck?”
Rencko grinned. On most people, a grin is disarming and friendly. Somehow, on Rencko, it reminded people that wolves show teeth just before they attack. With his dark eyes and hair, Rencko never seemed to brighten any room he entered.
“I’m doing a favor for the chief of the civil section. These tapes were all seized by Customs. Customs sent them to us to get them condemned as obscene. That means some AUSA has to watch enough of each so he can sign an affidavit saying that it is obscene; and he has to do it within a short time after it was seized. One of the chief’s people left on vacation without getting around to these videos.”
“Why you?”
“I owed her.”
“So you sitting there with a woody?”
“Maybe for the first five, ten minutes. Since then, it has been mind-numbingly boring.” Rencko gestured at a complicated pile of naked men and women writhing on the monitor. “Yahtzee! That’s another winner.” He got up and changed the DVD.
Ortiz leaned back. “Have you been doing this all day?”
Rencko sat back down and automatically straightened the pile of papers in the center of his desk. “No breaks,” he said, “I even had someone bring in a sandwich.”
“So why did I think I heard you laughing a couple of hours ago when I was getting some supplies?
Rencko grinned again. “OK, so I’d been doing this for about five hours. I’m thinking that I may never get turned on again. I put in the next disc which turns out to be a porn version of ‘Alice in Wonderland.’”
Ortiz raised an eyebrow. Rencko saw it and said, “These guys are not particularly creative. They have to have something to fill the short spaces between sex scenes. Anyway, Alice meets the White Knight. Not surprisingly, she takes off her clothes and he takes off his armor. He lies down on his back and she straddles him. So far, so good. I’ve been seeing that all day. So she starts to get busy. Suddenly, four guys dressed as chess pawns appear and start to sing ‘What’s a nice girl like you doing out on a knight like this?’ I just lost it.”
Ortiz smiled and said “Singing porn. Did they dance too?”
“No, they eventually joined in. But it was the bright spot of my day. I might even let that one through.”
Ortiz’ smile vanished. “But what’s the point? You can get this stuff anywhere in the U.S.”
“You mean, why do people order this stuff from abroad? Or why do we go through this?
“Both, I guess.”
“As to the first, I suppose in places far from the city, you know, Tall Trees, Montana, people may not want to be seen going into adult stores. As to the second, we’re doing this for the same reason we do lots of things: it’s just the same old government crap. Customs can’t stop because they would be criticized by the ultra-conservatives. We can’t stop because then DOJ would be seen as the wimps. So Uncle Sam is paying me to watch dirty movies.”
“Sucks to be you.”
Rencko leaned back. He used the remote to pause the new DVD. It froze a young woman in a very uncomfortable position. “So what brings you down here from the Drug Unit?”
“I need some help.”
“J, I’ve known you since law school, but I am strictly white collar. If it ain’t numbers, it ain’t nothin’. That was the deal when the Big Man hired me. Tax fraud, bankruptcy, securities, maybe a little embezzlement, that’s it.”
Ortiz looked at the desk. It was covered in neat stacks of paper, mostly spreadsheets or other accounting documents. Each stack had a yellow sticky identifying it. Other than the obligatory green-glass shaded desk lamp in one corner and a picture of Rencko and his wife on the other, the desk was devoid of any personal touches. Rencko had not even changed the screensaver on his computer from the standard Department of Justice seal. Ortiz sighed.
“Man, when did you get so dull?”
“What are you talking about? I was dull in law school too. You just hung out with me because it made you look even better.”
“The thing is, we’ve been doing a bunch of work to bust a pretty big drug business. They’re not just street punks or gangs., It’s taken a lot of work. Any way, one of our agents got his hands on a ledger but we can’t figure out what is going on. If we can’t tie this up, we may lose our case against everyone except the street guys and a few runners.” Ortiz steepled his fingers as if in prayer and leaned towards Rencko’s desk. “God will love you for this.”
“Fine, but just remember to call my rabbi to remind him when Yom Kippur rolls around.”
Rencko got up and turned off the monitor and DVD player. He straightened and capped all the pens on his desk. Flicking an invisible piece of dust off the glass of the desk lamp, he turned it off. Ortiz, having seen Rencko’s ritual many times before, waited patiently at the door. He knew better than to try to rush or interrupt him. After one last appraising glance, Rencko joined Ortiz and the two walked out into the corridor.
The building, fairly new, had been preposterously expensive, even for a government building. Somehow, the corridor still had that institutional feel, as if haunted by the spirit of lime green paint and linoleum. Other than their footsteps, the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights and the occasional ring of a phone.
After a few moments, Ortiz said, “You know, only boring white people play Yahtzee.”
“My parents thought it would help my math skills.”
Ortiz gestured as if to an invisible jury. “It just proves my point. You are a total dork.”
“Putz.”
“Schmuck.”
Rencko held up one hand. “Whoa, there. You get Spanish. I get Yiddish. We both get English.”
“Schmuck is universal.”
Rencko paused and waggled his left hand. “Maybe.”
As they turned the corner, Rencko said “You know, I remember a few Saturday nights before you met Maria when you and I played Monopoly.”
“True. But when you weren’t looking, I took extra money from the bank.”
“I won anyway.” Ortiz made a bowing gesture.
They turned into the Drug Unit and entered Ortiz’ office. The contrast was remarkable. Rencko looked rumpled and kept his office fanatically organized. Ortiz always looked great, but his office was a natural disaster. Every surface was covered in files, loose papers, discs, video tapes, and uncountable paper coffee cups of varying ages. Rencko even had to look hard to find the phone. Ortiz’ desktop was filled with family pictures, plaster with little handprints, framed drawings of indeterminate animals, and several pipe cleaner devices.
Rencko gingerly removed a precariously stacked pile of papers from a chair and sat down. “OK, hit me.”
Ortiz rooted around on his desk for a moment and then handed Rencko a sheaf of photocopies clipped together in a manila folder. “One of our guys managed to get a copy of a ledger kept by the drug organization. We have done five controlled buys. Here are the dates.” He handed Rencko a sheet of paper. “The problem is that we can’t find any entries that match up. Without those, I can’t confirm the reliability of the ledger and it doesn’t get admitted into evidence.”
Rencko scanned the pages. “Well, I give them points for neatness. Let me see what I can do.” He leaned back in the chair and became absorbed in the documents. After a few minutes, Ortiz turned to his computer and began to type.
A half an hour passed quietly. Finally, Rencko looked up and said, “I’m done.”
Ortiz turned toward Rencko and started touching coffee cups searching for one that was not stone cold. “So?”
“The accounts are kept in euros.”
“What?”
“You know, the currency they are using in Europe.”
Ortiz frowned. “I know what euros are, smartass. I mean, how did you get that?”
“I took a chance and assumed that you and the FBI didn’t totally screw up. That means that the numbers in here actually reflect the controlled buys. So I started by calculating the conversion factor.”
Ortiz raised an eyebrow. Rencko continued, “I mean the number you multiply the dollar amounts of the buys by to get the number written in the ledger. Once I had that, I just had to figure out what that conversion factor corresponded to, and interestingly, the dollar/euro exchange rate is an exact match.”
Ortiz nodded in understanding. “Well, now that you explain it, it seems pretty straightforward. So why did it take you half an hour?”
“First, I got it when you and the FBI had bupkes. Second, I figured that out in the first five minutes.”
“Then what were you doing for the rest of the time?”
Rencko handed back the folder. He leaned back and explained, “It took me another fifteen minutes to figure out that the guy keeping the books started to skim a bit off the top. That gives you something to deal with if you get him. My guess is he’ll rather cooperate for p.c. than stay on the street with some bad people deeply pissed off at him.”
Ortiz looked at some of the pages for a few minutes. Then he looked up and asked “How did you get that?”
Rencko leaned the chair back on two legs and looked up at the ceiling as he spoke. “I was lucky that he started in the middle of things or I never would have seen it. What I did was I looked at the early months in the ledger, and that gave me a trend line for the business. I assumed they used FIFO for their calculations since they clearly were not worrying about taxes. That gave me a feel for the later months. Next, . . . .”
Ortiz interrupted, “Please. Let’s cut to the chase. Are you sure?”
“To a high degree of probability, yes.”
“Then you can explain it to me another time.”
Rencko looked affronted. Ortiz continued in a soothing tone. “Remember the time in second year when we were just starting to room together and I almost punched you?” Rencko nodded and Ortiz continued, “Do you remember why?”
“I was just trying to explain the infield fly rule to you.”
“No, you explained the rule in detail, gave me numerous examples demonstrating its application, reviewed the rule, and were just in the process of giving me several citations to authorities. That’s when I got mad.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “I was over-explaining again?”
Ortiz sighed. He knew Rencko was a decent and warm man underneath these habits, but sometimes he just wanted to hit him with a tire iron. “What was the second thing?”
Rencko paused a moment to shorten his answer. “Well, there are a series of regular payments out of the profits that seem… that I can’t understand. Drug cartels have only a limited amount of overhead, and this is way too much. I just can’t figure it out.”
Ortiz relaxed back into his chair. “It probably doesn’t matter. You got the important stuff. Don’t let it bother you.”
Rencko stood up. He walked around his chair and leaned on the back. He pointed at the copies of the ledger pages. “You know, some businesses don’t keep their books that carefully. These guys are pretty sophisticated.”
Ortiz waved that comment away. “Don’t worry, we got them covered. Next year at this time, I’ll be doing my victory dance in the hallway.”
“You get all the fun.”
Ortiz smiled and said, “Not my fault that most of yours plead out.”
Rencko walked to the door. “It’s been fun, but I have about another two hours of humping before I’m done with that box. Oh joy.”
Ortiz gave the thumbs up. “That reminds me, say hello to Leah for me.”
“Blow me.” With that, Rencko turned and left. He probably would have been nicer if he had known that within forty-eight hours, Ortiz would be dead.
II
Thursday morning, Rencko was sitting at his desk. The video equipment was gone. Some of the piles that had been there Tuesday were gone. They were replaced by new ones. In all other respects, the room was unchanged. There was one government-issue photograph on the wall showing the exterior of the very building in which Rencko was currently sitting. The only other thing on the wall was Rencko’s commission as an Assistant United States Attorney signed by the Attorney General. Five gunmetal gray filing cabinets filled most of the wall space. On top of the middle cabinet was a long-dead plant, a present from Rencko’s wife when he started the job five years earlier. Rencko’s suit jacket hung on a wooden hanger on the back of the door. The only non-regulation item in the room was his wastebasket. It was wooden, and Rencko was only entitled to a metal one. He had scavenged it from a departing senior attorney when he left. It was the regular practice when anyone announced his or her departure for other AUSA’s to stake their claim on anything other than the desk, desk chair, and two visitor chairs. Yellow stickies showed who had claimed what. Usually Rencko forgot or learned too late to claim anything. He suspected that the wastebasket had been left for him out of pity that time.
Rencko had just finished cross-checking the accounts of a company that was to be indicted for securities fraud when the chief of the white collar section called to him from his doorway. Karen Massimo had been chief the entire time Rencko had worked there. She was a heavy-set woman of indeterminate middle age. Her best feature was her eyes. When she wasn’t frowning, they were large and very blue. Unfortunately, she frowned most of the time.
“Hey Rencko, the Big Man wants all staff to come up to the auditorium.”
“C’mon Karen, I’m too busy to watch someone get a five-year pin or some such. Give them my regards.”
Karen’s frown deepened. “Off your ass. He called all senior staff personally and told them everyone and he meant everyone was to show up. The meeting is timed to hit the mid-morning recess for any trials going on.”
“I’m going to lose my train of thought.”
“As if. The next time you lose your train of thought will be the first. Now stop being a whiny bitch and get a move on.”
Rencko got up from his chair. Karen looked on impatiently as he squared the piles and checked his pens. He turned off his desk lamp, paused, and then reached for his jacket. It was better to be safe than sorry. Two years ago he had been called to the Big Man’s office and had gone up without a tie or jacket. He was clearly out of place when he walked in and saw the Massachusetts Attorney General, his first assistant, and several State Troopers all sitting there.
He walked with Massimo as she collected all the AUSA’s in her section. Rencko was not the only one who tried to beg off. “It’s like herding sheep.” she muttered. Rencko said “You mean cats. It’s easy to herd sheep. They are, after all, sheep. On the other hand, it’s hard to herd cats. Cats are not herd animals, unlike sheep, goats, and cows.” Rencko stopped abruptly when he saw the look on her face. “I’m just saying.”
“Well I’m just saying ‘enough already.’”
When they got to the auditorium, Rencko saw that, indeed, every AUSA was there except one out on maternity and one on assignment in Europe. Given the size of the office, it was very rare to have such attendance. Their section was the last to come in.
“Perhaps we should get started.” This came from the man standing on the raised platform. It was Cabot White, the United States Attorney, known to his office as the Big Man. He was two inches over six feet, but seemed taller by several inches. He wore an expensive suit that was just a bit out of style and slightly worn at the cuffs. Evidently, he was so rich and so important that he could wear an old suit, or even his father’s suit, without caring whether it looked perfect. White came from two of the oldest families in New England. They may not have come over on the Mayflower, but they probably owned it and were waiting for the end of pheasant season.
White had the air of someone who was accustomed to being important. On the other hand, he gave the impression that while he could be a future president, he could also decide that the whole “political thing” had gotten boring and go off to Greece to retire. This attitude tended to discomfit his fellow important people. They simply could not understand someone who was not totally focused on advancement.
Three other things kept him from being insufferable. Unlike many appointees to the position of United States Attorney, he was extremely smart in a casual, low-key way. At every school he attended – Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School – he did well enough to show he had mastered the material, but not so well that anyone would think he was trying hard. Second, he was loyal to his AUSAs and backed them when they made the tough calls. Finally, he had a strange but good sense of humor. For example, there was a story circulating that last Christmas, for the entire meeting with the GSA administrator about office space, he wore felt antlers with small blinking colored lights. The administrator had no idea what to say, and, of course, White never said anything either.
Once the room had gotten quiet, White straightened. “I have some very bad news. Jorge Ortiz died last night in an automobile accident. I am told that he died instantly and did not suffer. He was a good man and I am sure he will be missed.”
When he paused, there was murmuring throughout the room. Rencko froze. It was as if everything was at a distance, or filtered through gauze. He felt short of breath. He had seen Ortiz the other day. How could someone so alive be dead? Rencko realized that White had started speaking again.
“. . . funeral mass will be at St. Barnabas on Monday. I have arranged with the Chief Judge to close the courthouse that day so everyone can attend. I know many of you will want to call Jorge’s wife, but I ask you to hold off until after the funeral. If you have any specific questions about the arrangements, please coordinate through your section chief.” White took a step back and it was clear the meeting was over.
Rencko still could make no sense of what had been said. Ortiz had been part of his life for almost twenty years. Ortiz had introduced him to Leah. Ortiz had nagged him until he called her up for a date and coached him through his first real relationship. Ortiz had been his best man and later convinced him to leave lucrative but unsatisfying private practice for public service.
He stood up and followed the others out of the auditorium. After a few minutes, he found himself back in his office. He sat down at his desk, turned on his lamp, and looked back at the printout. For the first time in his life, the numbers made no sense. He sat unmoving for a long time.
**********
Rencko had never felt comfortable in Catholic churches. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but the images of Jesus Christ, Mary, and the Apostles seemed so ubiquitous. He never knew quite where to look. He felt even more uncomfortable when the Catholics in the church knelt. Even though there were plenty of others who did not kneel, he felt there was a bright arrow flashing “Jew here” sign over his head.
Worst of all, the coffin was right there at the front. He couldn’t help but visualize Ortiz inside. Each time that happened, he felt a knot in his stomach. He felt ill.
The interment was almost as bad. Rencko had been to funerals before, but this was the worst. It was not an elderly relative, or a person wasted by disease, but a friend who had been abruptly cut down. It was made worse when he looked at Maria, Ortiz’s wife, their twin kindergarten-age daughters, and all of his other relatives. Rencko had seen them all so often, they seemed like his own family. Every Christmas, Easter, and July Fourth Rencko and Leah had been part of their holidays.
As the priest droned on, Rencko remembered the very first Easter he and Leah visited Ortiz’s parents’ house for the holiday. Selma, Ortiz’s mother, proudly presented their traditional baked ham. When Leah quietly avoided eating any of it, Selma said nothing, but was clearly offended. A little while later, Ortiz took his mother aside. Neither Rencko nor Leah was supposed to see, but Rencko was even more perceptive than Ortiz expected. Nothing else was said, but Selma served turkey at Easter every year afterward.
The priest had stopped talking. Based on the Jewish funerals he had attended, Rencko expected that those who wanted could shovel some dirt into the grave, but everyone simply started for their cars. It was time for the reception back at the Ortiz house.
**********
Maria looked tired. For the first time, she looked old. Rencko had been in this house countless times, but he still perched uncomfortably on the edge of a chair in the living room holding a paper cup of some kind of fruit juice in his left hand, and a plate of small pastries in his right. Others were talking in small groups, sorted more or less by status. At the dining room table, visible if he leaned forward and looked through the archway on his right, was the top group, the federal judges and magistrates. The only non-judge sitting at the table was White who was totally at his ease.
Next in the apparent pecking order were the state and local politicians. None of them could miss an important funeral like this. It was possible that a few of them felt a shred of actual grief. Rencko doubted it. One step further down the ladder were the AUSAs and a few state prosecutors Ortiz had worked with on some joint operations. They congregated in the living room and spilled into the family den, which was a couple of stairs down on the left. Mixing with them were a number of Ortiz’s parishioners.
The next group was a mixture of DEA agents, FBI agents, state troopers, New Bedford detectives who had worked with Ortiz, and, for no reason anyone could figure out, a Secret Service agent. They rotated between the front stairs, the foyer, and the front stoop. Those outside shuffled in the cold air and smoked, cupping their hands around their cigarettes. These were men and women used to being cold and uncomfortable for extended periods; it almost seemed as if they sought it out. Last were the secretaries and legal assistants from the office. They spent most of their time in the kitchen, occasionally refilling plates or punch bowls.
Rencko felt comfortable with none of them. He knew he should be talking to other AUSAs, but he just didn’t feel like the usual shop talk. For example, if he heard Sam Chan re-tell the story about the FBI agent and the DEA agent who spent three months conducting undercover operations on each other, his head would explode. Instead, he just sat there, letting the pastries harden, missing Ortiz.
As usual, the politicians left first. Their work was done. Soon thereafter, the judges and law enforcement departed, each in his own way having fulfilled his obligations. They were followed by the judges and magistrates, each walking as if still wearing robes of office. Before he left, White made a point of speaking to Maria and assuring her that he would personally be available if she needed anything. Unlike most in his position, he actually meant it.
Rencko concentrated as the prosecutors began to leave. “I can’t leave in the first half, because then it would seem like I was trying to leave early. I can’t be one of the last to leave, because then I would be one of those people who don’t know when a party’s over. Not that this is a party. That means I should try to leave in the third quartile. Since there are about seventy prosecutors left here, that means I should leave when about forty have left.” Rencko eyed the door, keeping silent count.
His plans were shattered when Maria came over to him. “Danny, could you stay for a while?”
Rencko looked up. “Sure. Leah’s in Chicago presenting a paper on Sumerian grammar or Akkadian verb forms or something.” Leah was an Ancient Near East philologist. She knew ten languages that had not been spoken aloud for three thousand years. She had designed a program to write all the different characters and symbols she needed to write her articles and books. Compared to her, Rencko felt like an illiterate idiot. Actually, almost everyone felt that way. Fortunately, Leah’s social skills were also exceptional. She was warm, outgoing and funny. Rencko was convinced that even his own friends and family liked her better.
Maria moved away and said goodbye to the guests. Her church friends and the secretaries made short work of cleaning up. Soon Rencko and Maria were alone. She sat on the couch across from Rencko’s chair.
“Where are the kids?”
“They’re sleeping at my parents’ house. Aunt Maria will bring them back tomorrow morning.”
Rencko was puzzled. “You are Maria.”
“Actually, my sister that you call ‘Marina’ is actually named ‘Maria. She just uses that name to avoid confusion.”
“I don’t get it.”
“My mother is very religious. She called all three of us Maria.”
“You mean Marisol . . .”
“She is a Maria too. We started using different names when we went to school. I was the oldest, so I got to keep Maria.”
There was a short silence. Maria was lost in her thoughts. Rencko waited. If Leah were here, she would know what to say. He kept silent to avoid saying the wrong thing.
Rencko noticed that tears were running down Maria’s face. “Maria?”
“Danny, I miss him so much.”
Could he say that he understood? No, how could even he understand her loss? What about “I feel your pain”? No, that would sound like he was channeling Bill Clinton or Dr. Phil. Unexpectedly, he actually found himself saying “I miss him too.” That seemed okay.
Maria held out her hands with her head still bowed. Rencko came over to the couch and sat next to her. She turned to him and put her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and they just sat for some minutes. Rencko could feel her tears soaking through the shoulder of his coat into his shirt. He felt the weight of her head against him as she turned, almost burrowing into him. As his arm slid down her back, he could feel the small shudders as she wept. As his hand moved down her side, his fingertips brushed against the warm roundness of her . . . .
“Whoa there sport!” he thought. “I am way out of line. This is a widow here. What am I thinking? If Leah knew what I was thinking, she would kill me. Then bring me back to life and then kill me again on behalf of Maria. And Ortiz will come back and kill me a third time. That’s a lot of being killed. It doesn’t matter that I have always thought Maria, that is, this particular Maria, was beautiful, with her dark hair and dark eyes and . . . Dear Lord, why can’t I stop?” Rencko stiffened slightly.
Maria lifted her head. “You must want to go.”
“Not at all.”
“I just can’t be alone tonight.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch right out here.”
“You are so sweet.”
As she said that, Rencko was convicting himself of first degree lechery and swinishness. In a desperate attempt to atone, he said “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Maria was silent. Then she said, “Danny, can you think of any reason that it wasn’t just a stupid random accident?”
“Maria, the truck that . . .” Rencko began. ‘T-boned’ seemed rather graphic and callous. “ . . . hit J’s car was stolen. The thief was just trying to get away with the cargo and wasn’t paying attention. After the accident, he ran. I wish I could say more.”
“But it is so senseless. I just can’t believe it.”
Maria was a hard core Catholic. Everything that happened was divinely inspired in some way. Rencko had a much bleaker view. When he thought about God at all, he imagined an old, cranky divinity nostalgic for the old smiting days who was perfectly okay with cruel senseless tragedy. He didn’t know what to say. Where was a priest, or even a rabbi, when you really needed one?
“Can you do me a favor?” Maria continued.
At this point, Rencko felt so bad he would have doused himself with gasoline and juggled torches if Maria had asked. “Sure, anything.”
“Can you get his stuff from the office and the police?”
That was way better than the gasoline and torch situation. “Sure.”
“And could you look through it to see if there is anything out of place?”
“Um, Maria, you know I am not an investigator or anything like that.” Rencko felt churlish. “Sure, I will do what I can.”
Marie looked at him with a surprising calm. “I am sure you will Danny. Now let me get you a pillow and blanket.”
Rencko watched her go. Once again he had said the wrong thing. He just couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
III
Rencko had woken up early and gone home to shower and change. His neck hurt from the couch, his stomach was upset, and those were the least of his worries. He had spent the night alternately berating himself for his inappropriate thoughts about Maria and his improvident promise not just to pick up Ortiz’s personal possessions, but to look for anything suspicious. He worried that he was just creating more grief for Maria when he inevitably told her that the accident was just a cruel trick of fate. He worried even more that he might both hurt her and humiliate himself by making a big fuss over nothing. If that was not enough, when Leah came home he would have to avoid looking guilty. Not that he had anything to be guilty about but his thoughts, but those were bad enough. Rencko had always had a soft spot for Maria. More than ever, Rencko looked forward to his coffee and his spreadsheets.
He hung up his jacket, turned on his desk lamp, and placed his coffee on its coaster. His concerns slowly receded as he traced the flow of funds through a corporate check-kiting scheme. Within half an hour, Rencko was totally engrossed in preparing charts to explain to a jury how the crime was done. He doubted he would actually have to use them, but Rencko left little to chance.
When he looked up, it was already one p.m. He had no sense of the passage of time. Rolling his head to loosen tight shoulders, he turned to his computer and checked his email. Nothing of importance showed up; just the usual court notices and filings his paralegal would calendar. His voice messages contained several phone calls from defense counsel wanting either a meeting or access to documents. He marked those to return to that afternoon.
Rencko realized that he was just putting off the inevitable. It was time to go clean out Ortiz’s desk. There would be a series of office moves in the next few days; a senior AUSA would become the Deputy Chief of the Drug Unit and move into his office, a mid-level AUSA would move into the senior’s office, and so forth down the line. Office space was always at a premium; when Rencko first started, he had worked at a conference room table for two months.
Rencko straightened his desk and turned off his light. He picked up a few bags and boxes from the supply room, walked down to the Drug Unit and paused outside the office door.
He stopped two steps into the room. The case files were already gone. It wasn’t Ortiz’s office anymore. Rencko could see a yellow sticky on the back of the desk chair. He sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs and watched the dust motes move in the sun.
His reverie was broken when a cloud passed, darkening the room. Rencko rubbed his hands together; they seemed cold. He felt old. He felt tired.
Standing, he moved to the desk. Pictures and fragile items he packed in bubble wrap and put in the box. Other personal items went into the bags. He saw absolutely nothing that struck him as unusual. Every one of the desk items had been there for months or years. The personal items were the usual detritus that accumulates in desk drawers: a broken cell phone, obsolete computer programs, a file of notes of commendation on various cases, restaurant coupons and menus.
So far, he had nothing. “What am I going to say to Maria?” he asked himself. “I’m sorry, there was absolutely no good reason that J died. Your husband, my friend, was just wiped out by random chance. Tough luck.” He could see how that would go. Maybe he could bring Leah along. Maybe he could just send Leah. Possibly he could just join the French Foreign Legion. He wasn’t sure if there still was a French Foreign Legion.
There was nothing more to do. He turned and left the office without looking back. As he walked through the Drug Unit, he ran into Ryan Phipps. It was that kind of day.
Phipps was a short man who had been in the Army. He acted just like a short man who had been in the Army. He stood ramrod straight trying to get the most he could out of his 5’ 7”. To Rencko, it just made him look like a strutting rooster. He kept his hair short, just short of a military buzz cut. He always wore pinstripe suits because someone had once told him they made him look taller. He was very respectful to everyone senior to him or to anyone he thought could help his career. To everyone else, he seemed to go out of his way to be abrupt. Rencko had been tempted to punch him in the nose after their rare conversations, but realized that short as he was, Phipps could still pound him into the ground.
Phipps had been married and divorced twice. He often hung around with agents off duty trying to pick up women. To Rencko’s vague annoyance, he had heard that Phipps was often successful. Given a face with weaselly eyes, a pointy nose, and thin lips, Rencko thought that Phipps had no right to ever get lucky.
“Rencko.”
“Phipps.”
“What brings you down here to the real world? Run short of pencil pushers to annoy?”
Maybe it was worth being pounded into the ground, but Rencko soldiered on. “No, I’m just cleaning out Ortiz’s office for his wife.”
“Nice of you. I hear she’s still pretty cute.”
Rencko flushed. The thoughts of last night still haunted him. “You are a dick, Phipps.”
Phipps stepped closer. “Struck a nerve?” Phipps might be a pain in the ass, but he was smart and perceptive. His cross-examination style was just like his personality, annoying but effective.
“What happened to Ortiz’s cases?”
“They got spread around. What is it to you?”
“You know that big drug conspiracy he was working up in Lawrence? Who got that?”
“Me, and it’s going to be a big one.”
Rencko gritted his teeth, but knew what he had to say. “If you need any more help with that ledger, tell me. I was working on it with Ortiz before . . . you know.”
“I haven’t seen any ledger, but I just got the file. Tell you what. If I need a numbnuts, compulsive lawyer-accountant, you’ll be the first on the list.”
Rencko paused annoyed by Phipps’ lack of interest, but decided that there was nothing more to say. He walked around Phipps, balancing the boxes and bags, and went back to his office. With the luck he was having, there would be a cobra waiting for him when he got there.
************
When the business day drew to a close, Rencko carried the boxes and bags out to his car, a seven year old maroon Honda Civic. As he put Ortiz’s possessions on the back seat, the plastic cover protecting the upholstery crinkled under their weight. The bags and boxes were all that was left of Ortiz’s years as an Assistant United States Attorney.
It was time to drive down to the police station. Rencko had to use his Garmin to get directions to District C-6, the station that had jurisdiction over the place where the accident occurred. Rencko had rarely been to South Boston. In the darkness of the December night, the waterfront area seemed deserted and creepy.
Rencko walked into the station. He knew enough to ask for the desk sergeant. When he approached the raised desk, the man was speaking on the telephone. Rencko waited as the officer painstakingly explained that the police department could do nothing about the noise coming from Logan Airport. Rencko thought the man was unusually patient for a question that he had probably answered many times before.
Finally the sergeant convinced the caller to call MassPort. Running his hand through his short grey hair, he resettled himself in his chair, straightened his tie, and looked at Rencko. “What can I do you for?”
“Remember that car accident a week ago involving the federal prosecutor? I’m here to pick up his personal effects.”
“What was his name?”
“Ortiz, Jorge.”
The sergeant looked through some papers. “Got it. But we usually only release the effects to family members. With all due respect, you don’t look like an Ortiz. You’re not, like, his life partner or his, uh, spouse are you?”
Rencko sighed. He reached into his inside breast pocket and took out his credentials. They came in a three-by-five case made out of some artificial pebbled plastic. On the front was the seal of the Department of Justice with an eagle uncomfortably standing on a shield. Inside it contained a large card with his picture, a variety of seals and labels, all of which basically stated that he was, indeed, an AUSA. He flipped it open.
“I worked with him. His widow asked me to pick it up.”
“No problem. Go through there and ask for Reilly.”
“Thanks.”
The sergeant buzzed him through with one hand as he answered another call with the other. Rencko waved at him and walked through. The room beyond was loud and confused. Rencko looked at the field of blue uniforms. There was no obvious place to start. Perhaps if he just stood there, someone would volunteer to help.
After a few minutes, he realized that this strategy was doomed to failure. He needed to make the first move. He picked out an Asian-looking police woman carrying a bunch of files. He knew it was entirely sexist to assume she would be nicer than one of the men, but he could not help himself. At least he was taller than she was.
“Excuse me officer, but I am looking for officer Reilly.”
“Which Reilly? Tim, George or Thad?”
“Uh, the one that has the personal effects of accident victims?”
“That’s Tim. Go though there.” She gestured toward a doorway a quarter of the way around the large room. “Anything else?”
“No thanks.” Rencko threaded his way through the room. Both as a white collar defense attorney and in his current job, he had had very little contact with police officers. He still felt a little uncomfortable with them. At any moment, he expected one to turn to him and ask him about that unpaid parking ticket, or the time he snuck into the movies in college.
He managed to get to the doorway unscathed. Down a corridor, there was a room with an officer working behind a metal screen. Behind him were a variety of numbered cubby holes. “Can I help you?’
“The desk sergeant sent me back here. I’m picking up the personal effects of Jorge Ortiz.”
“You have some I. D. ?”
“Sure.” The credentials made another appearance. Officer Reilly turned to his computer and tapped for a moment. While still looking at the monitor, he said “Sorry about your guy. I heard he was ok.” With one more flourish at the computer, Reilly turned to one of the cubby holes and pulled out a plastic bag.
“Sign here.”
Rencko signed and took the bag. There was a small table on the opposite wall. It had no chair, but Rencko didn’t feel much like sitting anyway. He broke the seal on the bag and poured the contents out onto the table.
“What am I looking for?” he wondered. “I wouldn’t know a clue if it bit me in the ass. I don’t even know why I’m here. God I hate this.”
He spread the items out on the table. He recognized the keychain. It had a multicolored plastic stick from one of the kid’s places that served bad pizza, had simple rides and games, and sponsored an endless series of birthday parties. Ortiz’s daughters had their last birthday party there and Rencko and Leah had come to help. Leah helped Maria herd the kids around. Rencko and Ortiz tried to fade into the wallpaper. When one of his daughters proudly presented him with this keychain ornament as one of her prizes, Ortiz made a big deal of attaching it as his daughter squirmed in happiness. When he and Leah finally got home, Rencko needed to lie down for several hours in a darkened room listening to Gregorian Chants before he could face the world.
He focused again on the table. Nail clippers, several business cards from defense lawyers around town, a dry cleaner’s receipt. Rencko absently scanned the receipt. Nothing seemed unusual. Five shirts, several blouses, one tie, and a dress were listed. Rencko noticed that Ortiz was being overcharged. “I have to remember to tell J the next time I see him.” Then his stomach flipped. He would never see Ortiz again.
The rest of the material seemed entirely uninteresting. There was a small plastic dinosaur that Ortiz probably picked up from the stairs when he last left his house. Rencko picked up the three government-issue pens. He uncapped each in turn and could see nothing other than standard pens.
The last thing was Ortiz’s wallet. Rencko flipped it open. There was no cash at all. He turned to Reilly. Before he could even frame the question, Reilly said “We voucher the money separately. When you’re done over there, you have to sign for that on a different form.” Rencko turned back. The first thing he’d noticed out of the ordinary, and it turned out to be nothing.
He looked through the wallet. He found an ATM receipt, several credit cards, a few of Ortiz’s own business cards, Ortiz’s magnetic access card to the office, and pictures of Maria and the children. To his surprise, he also found a picture of himself and Leah together with Ortiz and Maria from last year’s July Fourth barbecue. Behind Ortiz’s driver’s license he found a library card, a gym membership, and a Wampum card from the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. There was nothing else. Rencko was refilling the wallet when he suddenly realized what he had seen.
Ortiz’s license was in his wallet. To almost anyone, that would seem quite natural. To Rencko, it seemed out of place. Ortiz, like many AUSAs including Rencko, kept his license in his credentials case. The theory was that if an AUSA was ever stopped for a traffic violation, there was a good excuse to flash the Justice Department eagle in hopes that the officer would cut some slack. Rencko had never actually had to do that, but it was a common practice.
Before he jumped to any conclusions, he turned back to Reilly. “Was there an inventory? Does it show where things were recovered?”
Reilly sighed. “Sure, give me a moment.” He tapped on the computer. “It’s running a bit slow today” he said apologetically. “Actually, it’s a piece of crap. They get the good ones out there in the main room first.
“If you don’t mind my asking, who did you piss off?” Rencko asked to fill the silence. Reilly looked way too young to be killing time until retirement.
“No problem. I’m on light duty. I was chasing a perp down an alley. Suddenly he turned on me with a gun in his hand.”
“He shot you?”
“No. It was some p.o.s. that jammed. So he threw it at me and hit me right on the kneecap. Cracked the damn thing. So I’m stuck here until the department doctor recertifies me. When my partner caught up with him, she was so mad she threw him down and just about stuck the gun up his ass.”
“She must be pretty tough.”
“She is, but you wouldn’t know it. She’s just a slip of a thing, second generation Japanese. You might have seen her when you came in.” Once again, it turned out that Rencko’s instincts had totally failed him when it came to people.
Reilly looked back at the monitor. “Got it. Want a print-out or should I just read it to you?”
“You don’t mind reading it out?”
Reilly gestured at the room. “It’s not like I’m really stacked up here.”
Rencko nodded. He turned back to the items spread out on the table. Everything matched. The contents of the wallet listed on the inventory exactly matched what Rencko had found. When Reilly stopped, Rencko looked up. “No listing of credentials or a credentials case? You know, like the ones I showed you?”
“No, but maybe it was just lost in the accident.”
“Maybe.” Rencko scooped everything back in the bag. Reilly went back to the window to pick up the money. There were eighty-three dollars and forty-three cents. Eighty dollars of that matched the ATM receipt from the day Ortiz was killed that Rencko found in his wallet. He signed a separate sheet of paper.
“Thanks officer. I hope you heal fast.”
“No problem. Take care.”
Rencko retraced his steps, and waved again at the desk sergeant who seemed to be refereeing a dispute between two drunks about who had hit whom. He returned to his car and called home. Leah was still not back. That meant he had time to swing by to talk to Maria. He couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less at that particular time.
IV
When Rencko drove up, he could see Maria in the kitchen. She was doing the dishes carefully and methodically. As he usually did, Rencko walked around to the back door that opened directly into the kitchen. He made sure he made some noise going up the steps so that Maria would not be startled when he knocked on one of the door’s four windowpanes.
She looked over when he tapped and motioned him in. When he entered the kitchen, he took off his overcoat and hung it on the back of one of the chairs pushed in against the rectangular kitchen table. He pulled out another chair and sat down heavily.
“You want some coffee? I just made it.”
“Sure. That would be great.” Maria poured two mugs of coffee. One of them was blue covered in white whales. The other was green and said “Lexis/Nexis Legal Research.” Maria poured milk into each cup, and added artificial sweetener from a blue package into the one she gave Rencko. He took the mug, nodding his head in thanks.
“Mind if I finish the dishes?”
“Not at all. Is there something I can do to help?”
Maria shook her head. Her hair was pulled back with a pink hair tie. Rencko could see the tautness of her neck. It looked as if she was trying to scrub the pattern right off the plates. Finally, she wiped the counters and sat down in front of her coffee.
They sat in silence. Finally, Rencko said “Are you sleeping at all?”
“Not much.”
“What about the girls?”
“Sandra is doing ok. Gina has nightmares.”
“Leah sends her love. She will see you tomorrow if it is ok.”
“I would like that.”
Rencko could see she wanted to say something. He wasn’t sure how he could make it easier for her. Rencko couldn’t tell whether she wanted to know what he had found. He had no idea what he would tell her. The only sounds in the kitchen were the clicking of the clock on the wall, the sounds of running water, and the squeak of Rencko’s chair as he shifted position.
Suddenly, Maria looked up. “Danny, was Jorge having an affair?”
That was the last question Rencko had expected. “Absolutely not.”
Maria fixed him with her eyes. She looked at his eyes, and then into his face. Finally, she dropped her gaze back to the coffee cup. “I can’t tell.”
“Can’t tell what?”
“Whether you are lying to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought that all that work at the social center would help me know whether anyone was lying to me. But not you.”
“I’m not lying, Maria.”
“Danny, I want you to listen to me and be honest with yourself and with me. If Jorge had been having an affair, would you tell me?”
Rencko thought about this. Jorge had been his best friend. He also knew how it would hurt Maria if Jorge had been having an affair. In all fairness, he had to admit that if he faced that situation, he would probably lie.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“That’s what I thought. And even after all these years, I still can’t read you. I mean, I know you loved all of us like your own family, but you could always hide things if you wanted.”
Rencko thought to himself, “You have no idea. And even now part of me can’t help but notice that you still look great even in that apron.” He waited.
Maria started again. “I need to know. Was he having an affair?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you are not sure?”
Rencko thought for a few moments. “I can’t be certain.”
“Now I believe you. More coffee?” Maria stood up and gestured for Rencko’s cup. He handed it to her.
“Maria, you can’t distract me with coffee. I mean, you can, since you just did, but not for long. What made you think that? Jorge loved you.”
“The last couple of weeks he has been very distracted. He walked outside to make calls on his cell phone. He thought I didn’t know, but I did. And last week, I told him that I looked forward to spending more time with him this summer when he was going to take a long leave, and he didn’t answer. He just sort of turned away and I thought he was crying.”
Rencko thought for a while. He had been willing to dismiss the missing credentials as just one of those things that happens. In every case he had ever prosecuted, or defended for that matter, there were always a few things that never made sense. It could be an inconsistency in the timeline, it could be a phantom phone call or email, it could be a meeting at which there was no agreement about who attended. Mostly, these just occurred because life was messy and things happened.
He recalled one case in which some critical documents had just disappeared from the corporate records. Everyone was called before the grand jury and they all swore that they had not stolen or destroyed them. It seemed inconceivable that these critical pages just disappeared, and he and the case agent were on the warpath. Finally, after the case was over, and everyone had pleaded out, a trustee in bankruptcy took over to sell the corporate assets. Only as the office furniture was being removed were the documents discovered. They had slipped behind a filing cabinet, along with other, totally unimportant documents, a few Christmas cards from the prior year, and a desiccated mouse. It turned out that this particular filing cabinet had just been poorly installed and had been accumulating miscellaneous junk – and the missing material – ever since then.
Now he faced a different situation. In addition to the missing credentials, and the associated issue of how the license got into his wallet, he now learned that Maria thought Jorge was acting weird before the accident.
Maria sat down again and set out the mugs. “So?”
“What do you mean?” Rencko temporized.
“As Leah would say, so nu?”
“Let me put it this way.” Rencko paused. “Right now, I can’t say that I have anything specific to tell you, but I can say that there might be something to say later on.”
Maria thought for a minute. “Danny, I have no idea what you just said.”
“It means I was prepared to come here and comfort you and try to convince you that there was nothing unusual and that it was just a freak accident. I still think it probably was. Life is like that. But now I have to admit the possibility that there is more here than I thought. Maybe.”
Maria covered her mouth with one hand and looked off toward the sink. Rencko sipped his coffee. It was only lukewarm, but he needed something to do with his hands. Even he could tell that Maria was upset, but he had no real idea how he could comfort her. The table was too wide for him to reach out to pat her arm, and lunging at her was entirely out of the question. He could get up and walk around the table, but that seemed way too deliberate, not to mention the fact that he wasn’t totally sure what his motives were. He couldn’t think of anything to say that would help. So he just sat there.