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.