43
CANDACE AND Duncan ended up at the Peking Duck House on Mott Street. Duncan had suggested it: Blake had a thing for the duck, and last year when they’d had a trial in the nearby federal courthouse the team had come here for lunch once a week. The idea of bringing Candace there—of having lunch with her at all—was strange. But he needed to find out what she knew, and he also needed to eat: it was now well past two in the afternoon.
“So,” he said, after they’d ordered. “What’s this about Fowler?”
“It’s not something for nothing,” Candace said. “So here’s what I want from you: I assume you know who David Markowitz is?”
“The politician? I’ve heard of him, sure.”
“Your firm is the agent of record on numerous campaign contributions made by various shell companies to Markowitz. I’d like to confirm where the money is actually coming from.”
Duncan didn’t much like the sound of that. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I can ask around, but no promises. Are you suggesting something illegal’s going on?”
“You’re the lawyer.”
“Can’t you just ask Markowitz?”
“He’s been avoiding me,” Candace said. “Which is not exactly the best way to get off my radar.”
“I’ll get back to you on it,” Duncan said, who had no trouble imagining that dodging Candace was a bad idea. “That’s all I can commit to. So what is it you have about Fowler?”
Candace looked at him for a moment. “I assume you know that Sean Fowler worked at the Aurora Tower before he was at Jacob Riis?”
Duncan was surprised by this—not the information itself, but that it could be going somewhere. “I didn’t know that, but it doesn’t really surprise me. The same security guys do all of Roth’s construction security work, from what I understand.”
“So you never looked at what Fowler was up to before Riis?”
“I know a thing or two about the Aurora, and I’ve never heard Fowler’s name come up. But security guards had nothing to do with the accident there, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Candace leaned back, again studying him, her arms folded across her chest. Duncan was not sure what she was looking for. “You remember the first time we talked?” Candace finally said.
Duncan grinned. “When you called me an a*shole?” he replied. “How could I forget?”
Candace looked momentarily flustered but quickly recovered. “A deposition isn’t a conversation. I’m talking about when I asked whether you could promise that you’d use anything you got that would help Nazario’s case.”
This confirmed Duncan’s suspicion that whatever Candace had regarding Fowler was going to connect to Roth Properties in some way. “I remember,” he said neutrally.
“So why don’t you know—assuming you really don’t—that Fowler was involved in what was happening at the Aurora?”
“This is the first I’ve heard Fowler’s name come up in the context of the Aurora,” Duncan said. “And I have no idea what you mean when you say there was something happening there.”
“What about Jack Pellettieri?”
“What about him?”
Candace looked annoyed. “Tell me something that’ll make me think we’re having an actual conversation.”
Duncan smiled; Candace didn’t smile back. He took a sip of green tea, which was watery and too hot. He considered telling Candace a real secret: that settlement negotiations in the wrongful-death case were nearly complete, the two sides having agreed on a number, now just working out the details of the formal settlement agreement. Roth wasn’t paying out, just Pellettieri, so his firm had no direct involvement in the negotiations. But the whole thing was confidential at this point, and Duncan decided it was too big a risk to leak it to a reporter. “Jack Pellettieri’s a dick,” was what he ultimately said instead.
“I tried to interview him for my story you sued me over,” Candace said. “I thought he was going to take a swing at me, right there on the street. But I wasn’t really looking for whether you liked the guy.”
“Off the record?” Duncan said. After a moment Candace nodded. “Say it out loud, in case you still have that tape recorder of yours running.”
“Off the record,” Candace said, rolling her eyes.
“You’re asking me whether he’s in the shit,” Duncan said. “The answer is yes.”
“And that means what exactly?”
“The Aurora. He’s on the hook. He’s the bad guy. Clear enough?”
“Clear enough but not good enough.”
Now it was Duncan’s turn to grow a little frustrated. But he figured he didn’t owe Pellettieri any protection. “Pellettieri was running a racket at the Aurora. He was overbilling, he was cutting corners, he didn’t do what he was supposed to in terms of safety.”
“And you think that’s where the buck stops?” Candace said, shaking her head. “I don’t think we can do business, Duncan.”
Duncan was surprised at his own disappointment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not stupid, and I don’t imagine you’re naive. So for you to know as little as you do, it either has to be that you’re trying not to, or that you do know, and you’re not telling. Either way, it’s not going to be a productive interaction for me.”
“What is it you’re so sure I should know?”
“Why was Pellettieri able to get away with all this, before the accident?”
“You think it went higher up.”
“It did go higher up,” Candace insisted.
“And you think Fowler came into it somehow?”
“Fowler was in the mix of what was wrong at the Aurora.”
The waiter arrived with their duck, which he then commenced to carve tableside. Duncan was grateful for the interruption, trying to play this out. After the waiter left, Duncan, who was starving as well as puzzled, started right in, Candace just looking at him, making no move to touch the food. Duncan was thinking about Pellettieri’s outburst at lunch, his message about holding up his end. But that wasn’t something he could tell Candace about, not if it pointed where he thought it did.
“It’s not adding up to me,” Duncan finally said. “You’re suggesting Pellettieri had somebody’s blessing to be doing what he was doing, but why would a security guard have any role to play in that?”
“You want to move money around without certain people ever actually having to be in the same room, you look for somebody who has a license to roam.”
So Candace was suggesting that Fowler’d been a middleman. “Even if Fowler was somehow mixed up with Pellettieri, how does that help Rafael?” he said.
Candace laughed dryly. “Fowler was involved in a scam at the Aurora that led to the deaths of three people. Can’t think of any reason somebody who knew too much about that would have something bad happen to them?”
“You have anything but your suspicious mind to support that?”
“You’re the lawyer. Shouldn’t you be looking for someone other than your client to blame the murder on?”
“Gladly, but as a lawyer, unlike a reporter, I need to worry about things like, you know, actual evidence,” Duncan said. Beneath his sarcasm was a thought: if Fowler was a middleman on embezzling at the Aurora, there should be a money trail. He could subpoena Fowler’s financial records, see if there was anything out of the ordinary.
“And if you get anywhere with this, you’re gonna tell me, right?”
“You’ll be the only reporter I talk to, sure,” Duncan said. “You really think Fowler’s death has something to do with the Aurora?”
“Actually, the only reason I ever had for doubting that Nazario shot him was that you were the kid’s lawyer.”
The exchanged their first shared smile of the lunch. Duncan found himself actually liking Candace, something he hadn’t been sure of before now. “Nice to see you coming at this with an open mind.”
“It’s not like I’m prejudiced against Roth Properties. It’s just that I’ve seen how they operate.”
“That’s the thing about being a lawyer; I don’t have to pretend that I’m an impartial observer. I get to leave it to the judge to pretend that.”
“You think I pretend to be objective?”
“No, actually; I don’t think you bother to pretend. You’ve clearly got an ax to grind here.”
Candace shook her head, her expression serious. “There’s nothing about this that’s personal to me. I thought I’d gotten the whole story when I first covered the Aurora, but now I realize I didn’t have the whole thing at all, that it may have spilled out into something else entirely. I just want to get the truth, because that’s my job.”
Duncan shrugged, not wanting to push them back into confrontation. “If you say so.”
“And it’s not like I buy that lawyer bullshit about how your only concern is for your client and it’s not for you to think beyond that,” Candace said. “I know how much my father disapproved of some of the things he had to defend. It didn’t keep him from doing his job, but it bothered him. In any event, this is our second conversation where I’ve given you more than you’ve given me. That’s not how this is supposed to work.”
“I’m acting in good faith here,” Duncan protested. “I’ll look into the Fowler Aurora angle, and if something breaks you’ll get the only heads-up.”
“Plus you’ll get back to me on the LLC thing?”
“Deal,” Duncan said.
Candace reached into her purse and pulled out a business card, Duncan doing the same out of his wallet. They handed them across, which proved a somewhat awkward exchange. Duncan noticed that Candace wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
“How come you don’t wear a ring?” he asked impulsively. “You seemed pretty adamant about being called Mrs. and all.”
To his surprise, Candace promptly started blushing. “Oh, God. I don’t know what was wrong with me at that deposition. I’m actually in the middle of getting divorced.”
Duncan couldn’t resist a smile. “You know you were under oath, right?”
“I’m still technically married,” Candace said. “For another few weeks, anyway. I’m sorry I was such a bitch that day, and then when I waylaid you outside Riis.”
“Okay, then,” Duncan said. “So, truce?”
“If I find out you’ve been bullshitting me, I’ll burn you in print,” Candace replied. “Long as we’re clear on that, then yeah, truce.”