“I’ll get him for you.”
The room was like a hundred other interview rooms Tomasetti had been in over the years. Twelve feet square. Gray walls. Windowless. Not even an observation window. Institutional tile floor. Air temp hovering somewhere around sixty-two degrees. Discomfort helped to thwart stonewalling. The table was four feet long and a couple of feet wide with an off-white Formica surface that was etched with scratches from lawyer’s briefcases. A single Fuck You was carved into the corner. Three cheap blue sled chairs covered with stain-resistant fabric that wasn’t that stain resistant surrounded the table.
There was a camera mounted in the corner, just below ceiling level. No glowing eye, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t have video running. But there was no intercom. No phone. No visible wires. None of those things guaranteed the conversation he was about to have with Vince Kinnamon was private or wouldn’t be secretly recorded. Tomasetti wasn’t exactly the trusting type, but there was no way around the risk.
McCaskill didn’t keep him waiting. Tomasetti had barely settled in when the door opened and the corrections officer produced Kinnamon. “Step inside,” he said.
Tomasetti took the other man’s measure as he shuffled in. Orange prison jumpsuit. Off-brand sneakers. No chains or restraints. Tomasetti had met him a couple of times over the years, but if it hadn’t been for the name tag embroidered into the fabric, he would have been hard-pressed to recognize him. The inmate shuffling into the interview room looked nothing like the man who’d once owned a five-thousand-square-foot house in Edgewater. Three months in jail had taken a heavy toll. He’d dropped sixty pounds. His once-tanned face had the telltale prison pallor. The only thing that was the same were his eyes. They were black as tar and radiated a cunning that could raise the hairs on the necks of even the most seasoned cops. Today, those eyes revealed nothing of what he was thinking as they latched on to Tomasetti.
Up until his arrest, Vince Kinnamon had been a dangerous man. A killer with a weakness for hard drugs, a penchant for violence, and no conscience to keep him from acting on the most primal of urges. The Cleveland PD suspected him in a plethora of crimes ranging from heroin distribution to murder. Kinnamon’s luck ran out three months ago, when he’d been busted by the feds for laundering money through his Downtown Cleveland bar, The Red Monkey. He’d been put before a federal grand jury, which had quickly handed down an indictment. He’d been incarcerated and, deemed a flight risk, denied bail while he awaited trial. Rumor had it that even in prison, Kinnamon was still connected. Still powerful. Tomasetti was counting on both those things.
McCaskill gestured toward the chair on the opposite side of the table from where Tomasetti was sitting. “Kinnamon. Sit down. There.” He turned his attention to Tomasetti. “How much time you need?”
“Ten minutes max.”
The corrections officer pointed at a button that resembled a doorbell set into the wall. “Just hit the buzzer when you’re through, and we’ll come get him.”
“Thanks again.”
The door clicked shut. Without looking at Kinnamon, Tomasetti opened the file and looked down at the blur of black and white that had nothing to do with the purpose of his visit today.
“You don’t look like a fed,” Kinnamon said.
“They treating you okay here at County?” Tomasetti asked the question without looking up.
“Fucking hacks. They treat all the inmates like shit. What’s it to you?”
“When’s your trial?” Tomasetti flipped a paper. “May?”
“June.”
He looked away from the file, made eye contact with Kinnamon. “Looks like the feds have you by the balls this time, Vince. Money laundering. They take that shit seriously.”
Kinnamon regarded him across the table, saying nothing.
“How did they get you, anyway?” he asked.
“Some fucking rat.” Kinnamon waved off the question. “I still don’t know who you are.”
“Let’s just say I’m the bearer of interesting news.”
Kinnamon stared at him, saying nothing at first, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of concealing his interest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You heard Joey Ferguson’s conviction was overturned, didn’t you?”
“I heard. Good for him. What does that have to do with me?”
“How do you think he managed that?”
“The Cleveland cops are a bunch of fuckups.”