CHAPTER TWENTY

"What's next, Jimmy," Erin asked.

"I've got a few more days before I go back to work. For now, I can't officially investigate anything. But what I can do is keep working with Marcus to improve my investigating skills. When it's time, and when it's legal, I'll go after whoever is involved in this and bring them to justice."

Across the room, Marcus said, "You're giving me too much credit, bro. You're already an experienced investigator. I'm just helping you see through some of the fog."

"It's more than that," Jimmy said. "It wasn't until we started going over stuff together, and you began sharing your ideas, that I realized how I investigated before was pretty shitty. I wouldn't listen to Eva, who spent years trying to sharpen me. I never bothered trying to learn anything because I thought I already knew everything."

"Jimmy," Erin spoke up. "None of this had anything to do with you being a good or bad cop. It was just a lot of coincidence and bad circumstances."

"It's okay, sweetie," Jimmy said. "This is how it is. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. But the truth is that, if I had been a better cop before now, a lot of this stuff might have been avoided. There are a lot of leads and evidence that I would have handled differently. And there were situations that I would have handled differently."

"Jimmy, really, I didn't tell you anything you didn't already know," Marcus offered.

"It's fine, brother. I don't have time for pride or denial right now. I just need to keep processing whatever I can before I'm officially back on the clock."

"Well, in that case," Marcus asked. "Where do we begin?"

"Sully Preston," Jimmy said. "Him, and everything about him, was fed to me on a silver platter. So, I want to clarify what I actually know about him. Then I want to take a look at every scrap of detail that was handed to me about him. Whoever is behind this took great care to make sure I stayed focused on him. So, I want to focus on where all the details about him came from."

"Okay," Marcus agreed. "So, what do we know?"

"Not much," Jimmy began explaining. "Sully Preston. Low-level weapons dealer who caters to local drug-dealers and gangbangers. He purchases weapons at gun shows, auctions, anywhere he can find a private sale, and re-sells them on the street for a profit. He sometimes sells small amounts of street drugs, a new career he's been unsuccessfully trying to get going, but apparently he can't find the right connections. Seems not too many people trust a white guy that grew up in SoHo to sell drugs in poor neighborhoods. Oh, and somebody thinks he's a pretty damn convenient scapegoat, so he's been manipulated to look like he's been running around murdering drug dealers."

"Okay, those are the facts," Marcus said. "What information has been fed to us and by whom?"

"Okay, I got the name from some low-level street dealer after a raid over in Bushwick. It was a random shot in the dark. And, the more I think about it, that kid probably gave me the name because it was a white guy that he could offer up and nobody on the street would think twice about it. The kid had some dirt on Preston, but didn't know enough about anything else to have made a real difference in the investigation. Actually, he didn't know much more than Preston's first name. I reached out all over the city for two days until I finally found that Manhattan North Narcotics had heard of him, but mostly only rumors and hearsay. They didn't even have a file on him, just his name in a few notes that they never followed up on. They doubted he was anything more than a weekend playboy whose name just happened to be known by someone else."

"Okay," Marcus said. "So, we can cross off his name as being random for now. Put that thought down in column three, not something to pursue immediately, but set it aside until we can confirm it was just random."

"Right," Jimmy agreed. "Next time something Preston-related comes up is after I track him down and follow him for a few days. Somebody over in Bronx Narcotics forwards his name over to us after they get an anonymous tip from one of their informants. They…"

"Wait," Marcus slapped both hands down on the table. "Did they get it from an interview, did they ask around on the street, did someone just call them and volunteer the information?"

"I don't know. They left a message with Eva, I got it second-hand from her. She was supposed to follow through with them, but I don't think they ever returned her call."

"Let's go deeper," Marcus prodded. "How did they present the information? What was the information? Had you talked to anyone from Bronx Narcotics prior to this about your investigation or about Preston?"

"I never connected with them directly about anything. But I had reached out all over the department looking for information on a possible narcotics or weapons dealer with the first name of Sully. So, they could've gotten it from anywhere, if you're asking what I think you're asking."

"I am," Marcus confirmed. "I don't like it, but the primary rule of investigating is to follow the evidence — always. So, we need to put a pin in this one and come back to it soon. We'll probably disprove any further issues or connection with them, but we can't rule out anything or anyone until we do."

"Well, that's going to go over like a random bottle of antibiotics at a swingers party. But as long as it's just between us, we can follow it."

"Good. Keep going on the Preston timeline," Marcus said.

"Well," Jimmy said. "Shit…"

"What?"

"It just seems weird now," Jimmy warned. "The tip from Bronx Narcotics was also the first independent source to mention something about Preston having a connection to the Russian mob."

"How so," Marcus pressed.

"They said it was mentioned by their anonymous tipster. But I still can't figure why some random person on the street would have that information when hardly anyone else even knows who he is."

"Agreed," said Marcus. "But that brings me back to you guys and why you found that information relevant to begin with. You guys didn't mention a single thought about the Russian mob before this tip came along."

"Well, we had…" Jimmy said and then froze. "Actually, we didn't know anything about the Russian mob before that. We had found a few random butts from a Russian cigarette brand at the scene. We sent them in for processing, but there was no usable DNA. It was something that we set aside because they didn't fit in with anything else in the case, yet."

"So, your first connection between Preston and the Russian mob came from that anonymous tip?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said grimly. "Eva was supposed to reach out to the Bronx and find out more about their informant, but I don't think they ever got back to us."

"Okay," Marcus said. "Tell me about Preston after the Bronx tip came in."

"I tailed him around the city, but he never went anywhere interesting or did anything interesting. Honestly, from any other angle, he just looked like another trust-fund kid running around wasting time and money. I thought that was an act, but maybe that's closer to who he really is. Anyway, eventually I tailed Preston to a motel in Cypress Hills. He had a business deal there, something about real estate, that turned out to be completely legitimate. But that was where I took the offensive and had him pulled over and searched by local patrol. At the time, I thought I might have blown everything by tipping him off."

"But…" Marcus prodded.

"But," Jimmy continued. "That's when the half-loaded magazine of subsonic 9mm rounds was found in his car trunk. No prints, no weapon, no other ammo. Hell, nothing to actually tie him to any of the crimes except for the ammo type. But at the time, we thought it was a gift, thought he had finally gotten careless. That magazine half-full of bullets gave us enough to get the search warrant for his apartment. Nothing of any use was found there. Just a crate of expensive imported caviar. And even then, when we confiscated it, he refused to sign a receipt, claiming that it wasn't his. He claimed that he had never seen it and that we were trying to set him up. Oddly, the caviar was just another subtle link between him and the Russians. Nothing significant, but enough to let us see exactly what we wanted to see."

"Yeah," Marcus agreed. "That's a pretty convenient fit. Magazine full of bullets that was just enough to implicate him, but not enough to prove anything. Same with the caviar. Neither thing being too obvious nor damning, yet both just subtle enough to suggest that you were on the right path. Okay, let's finish pulling this thread until we unravel the whole ball of yarn."

"Well, the day after my building gets shot up, I get a call from that fake DEA guy. He gave me a truckload of corroborating evidence, everything I was looking for. That coincidence never really crossed my mind before now."

"Yeah," Marcus said. "That whole thing about being lost in NYC, whatever, wouldn't matter. Federal agents always travel in pairs. And he would've been paired up with someone who knew the city inside and out, someone who could teach him everything he would need to know about the city. That relationship would last about a year at minimum."

"Why pairs, why always," Jimmy asked.

"For a bunch of reasons. One being what I just said, someone that can tutor an agent on the local area. Another being for safety. We're often spread thin as it is. So, having another agent there to back you up if needed is priceless. Also, there's the legal aspect of any investigation or encounter. One Federal agent can be a powerful witness, but two agents will seal the deal on both integrity and expertise. Any action taken has to be taken in unison, so it lessens the accusations of reckless behavior, misunderstandings, or impropriety. Plus, one agent can mishear or misunderstand a statement or an observation. But two agents witnessing the same thing will set it in concrete."

"Again," Jimmy remarked. "You guys embody that whole big picture thing. Funny, I said that to the fake DEA guy when he mentioned the whole big plan for infiltrating the Mexican cartel."

"Speaking of which," Marcus offered. "He gave you way too many operational details. Not that you would know that. We, all of us at the Federal level, mistrust everyone — but we especially mistrust local law enforcement of any kind. We like to keep information compartmentalized, tell you only what you need to know, when you need to know it. No true agent would have ever disclosed all that he did to you about lunch, much less about an international operation. Shit, it's doubtful he'd even have that much of the whole picture himself. Again, we like to compartmentalize stuff."

"Well," Jimmy said. "He was also the only one to mention anything about a connection to a Mexican drug cartel. That's not something that came up at any other time. He played up Preston as being some vital part of their operation. But it doesn't make sense on any level beyond getting me worked up to raid that motel room."

"Which is something else, altogether," Marcus noted.

"What do you mean," Jimmy asked. "That's the only thing he said to me that seemed to have any validity, except for the part about who he was meeting there."

"That's what I mean, right there," Marcus said. "If this spider web really is as complex as it seems to be, then a lot of time, planning, and resources went into this thing. Also, if such a spider web does exist, it might include somebody else having prior knowledge of the affair between Sully Preston and Evelyn Dattilo. That information would not be easy to come by. But, if someone had it, it would make one hell of a way to disrupt your investigation. All they would have to do is find a convincing way to feed the information to you. An anonymous tip was not going to get the job done with that one."

"Jesus," Jimmy exclaimed. "I was so mad because I thought that the DEA had just played us in order to buy time for themselves. Then, when I learned about Eva, I just let go of everything related to that whole DEA mess. I kind of had some other things on my mind."

"That raises another question," Marcus said. "How many people in the department knew about the affair between Preston and the Chief's wife? Was that common knowledge, or did it take everyone by surprise?"

"Well," Jimmy admitted. "It certainly took me by surprise. Apparently, the fact that the Chief's wife was fooling around was pretty common knowledge for people who have been on the job for a while. Well, people besides me, because I never heard anything about it before that night. But, from what I understand, Preston being the one she was fooling around with came as a shock to everyone."

"Okay," Marcus said. "And what has been your experience with Preston and his name since that night?"

"Nothing, nada, zilch. The Chief of Detectives ordered everyone to stay as far away from him as possible. He mentioned it under the auspices of avoiding a lawsuit against the department. But everyone knows he wants that guy's face and name to be kept as far away from the department as possible. It's an election year, and the Chief of Detectives is clearly trying to get noticed by the Police Commissioner. So, he's doing his best to keep the department looking good."

"Alright," Marcus said. "That wraps up the angle on Preston and what we should now consider propaganda. I'm seeing a definite pattern here, and I think you're right on point about following up on where all the information about him came from. I'm just not sure that you're going to like what direction it points in."

"Too late," Jimmy said. "I can't stop thinking about where it points. And, true or not, if I follow that direction, then my career will officially be over. My name will be forever cursed, maybe my father's name, too. This is fucking heavy, brother."

"The weight of the world," Marcus agreed. "It could cost you everything that you've clung to for your entire life. NYPD is in your blood. And being a detective was your calling in life long before you were even born. Hell, I'm not sure that you know how to do anything else, even if you could reinvent yourself. This is a big call, Jimmy."

Jimmy just stared off into the distance, looking at nothing, for a few moments before replying. Then he said, "I don't really have a choice. No matter where it leads, I'd never be able to live with myself if I did anything except what I'm about to do."

"What are you going to do, Jimmy?"

"Follow the evidence."