Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller) Read online

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  After changing into casual—and in Connelly’s case, blood-free, clothes—they walked through a courtyard to the Poste Brasserie, the restaurant on the ground floor of the building adjacent to the hotel. The bar was a little too light and airy for Sasha’s liking. Lots of blonde wood and modern light fixtures, with sufficient wattage to let the equally blonde crowd see and be seen. The music was loud and frenetic, and the conversations ran together in a buzz.

  She led Connelly to a booth on the far end of the bar, near the windows and away from the mingling crowd. A boyish waiter in a white shirt and black vest hustled over and took their drink orders. A Yuengling for Sasha and a mineral water for Connelly. They waved off the small plates menu.

  “You don’t drink?”

  “I drink. But, first I need to satisfy myself that you’re not a problem.”

  “A problem?”

  “Problem, suspect, choose your word.” Connelly planted his forearms on the highly polished table and leaned in toward her. “Sasha, tell me what’s going on.” He watched her face.

  “It’s not that easy, Agent Connelly. I have a duty to my client . . .”

  “Hemisphere Air? Who you represent in connection with the crash?”

  “Right.”

  “So Warner’s death is related to the crash.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Sasha protested.

  She couldn’t tell Connelly about the RAGS link. If she could confirm he already knew about it, she could discuss it with him.

  Metz had said the feds didn’t know the system had been installed on the downed plane. But why else would Connelly be interested in Patriotech?

  “Look,” she continued, “I don’t mean to be unhelpful. I really don’t. But I am boxed in by my ethical obligations. Why don’t you help me out here?”

  “Help you out how?”

  “If you could answer some questions for me, I would have a better sense of what I can and cannot share with you.”

  Connelly’s lips tightened into a slash, but he kept his tone neutral. “This isn’t a game.”

  “I know it’s not a game. I just helped you unearth a corpse from a dumpster. I want to cooperate with you and your agency. But I’m constrained by the rules of professional responsibility. I can’t divulge any confidences that my client shared and I can’t tell you anything that would be detrimental to my client. It’s not that I won’t or don’t want to, I can’t.”

  Sasha stopped talking as the waiter came back with their drinks and two glasses. He poured Connelly’s water into one and looked at Sasha. “Would the lady care for a glass for her beer?”

  “No thanks, the lady’s not that classy.”

  She took a long pull on the beer. It was perfect. Cold and bitter.

  She waited until the server had moved on with the unused glass to continue. “I do want to help you, and I might be able to, if we can figure out the parameters together.”

  Connelly made a show of placing his big hands on the table, palms up, like he was saying here are all my cards. “Ask your questions.”

  “What were you doing at Warner’s place?”

  Connelly shook his head. “That’s classified.”

  “Why are you interested in Patriotech?”

  “Classified.”

  Sasha stared at him. Connelly shrugged.

  She switched tacks. “It was awfully easy to disarm you. Don’t you guys get any kind of training? I mean, they let you carry a weapon on a plane even though a girl my size can take it away? Doesn’t make me feel very confident as a member of the flying masses.” She raised her bottle to hide her smile.

  His face showed no reaction, not even a flicker. But his hands involuntarily, slightly, began to curl into fists. Then he caught himself and stopped them, wincing because he’d tried to bend his busted finger.

  “One,” he told her, “I am not a field agent anymore. I am a special investigator with the OIA, temporarily assigned to the Pittsburgh office. So, no need to worry about my abilities to protect you in the air. Two, you seem quite capable of protecting yourself. What was that, Krav Maga?”

  Sasha nodded.

  He continued, “Thought so. I admit when I saw you, I made a series of assumptions based on your gender, size, and status as a law-abiding citizen and officer of the court. I obviously miscalculated the danger you posed. But, three, as a federal air marshal, I have qualified with the highest degree of marksmanship and am also proficient in hand-to-hand combat. You got very lucky today.”

  “If you say so. OIA, that’s Office of Internal Affairs?”

  “Correct.”

  “Internal Affairs is investigating a commercial airline crash?”

  Connelly looked at her. She watched him deciding whether he could tell her. He was trying to assess if she could help him.

  She waited.

  He made up his mind. “I had been in Pittsburgh investigating anonymous comments someone out of that office has been making on the internet. Someone is divulging SSI.”

  “SSI?”

  “Sensitive security information. Unclassified, but not for public dissemination.”

  “And this SSI leak is related to the crash?”

  He drained his water glass before answering. “No. I don’t think so, but there was an air marshal on that flight, so I have to be sure. Because if there is a link, the leaker just went from facing a reprimand to being screwed. Life in prison screwed, if he’s lucky. Death penalty screwed, if he’s not.”

  “So what were you doing at Warner’s? And how’d you get in?”

  “I imagine I got in the same way as you. Some kind resident held the door for me.” Connelly paused, then he said, “Okay. I’ll show you mine. Warner’s name popped through the SAR initiative.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “Suspicious Activity Reporting. You know, ‘if you see something, say something.’”

  “The thing at Wal-Mart, where they tell you to report anything unusual?”

  “No way do you shop at Wal-Mart.”

  It was true. She was a Target woman.

  “Whatever. That spy on your neighbors program?”

  “It’s not a spying program, Sasha. It’s a program designed to harness the eyes and ears of the citizenry to aid the government in responding to threats. The program crosses multiple agencies, and, in addition to asking everyday Americans to be alert, it contains a specific financial crimes component that asks bankers and others to report suspicious activities. Mostly money laundering, tax evasion, that sort of thing.”

  It sounded exactly like spying on your neighbors to Sasha, but she just nodded.

  “Once the victim list started coming in on the crash, we ran it through the SAR. The system flagged Angelo Calvaruso’s name.”

  She interrupted. “The system? I thought there is no system—just a mishmash of different agencies’ databases that don’t talk to each other.”

  Connelly nodded. “That used to be true. Since 9/11, we’ve made a lot of headway in cross-referencing information, particularly with the nationwide Guardian database. That’s how Mr. Calvaruso’s name came up. An insurance broker had submitted a tip to the Maryland database when Patriotech purchased keyman insurance on him.”

  “Why?” I think it’s insane for a tech company to buy keyman insurance on a retired snowplow driver, but if an insurer was willing to write the policy, how could they turn around and say it’s suspect?”

  “Who knows why? The notes just say the broker thought it was odd Patriotech bought keyman and life insurance, but no health insurance. Apparently the three usually come as a package. And, also, the broker noted that Mr. Calvaruso had an Italian-sounding name.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “What? The Mafia?”

  “The tips aren’t always of the highest quality, I’ll grant you, but information is always good to have.”

  The bar was emptying out. The noise level had dropped, so she lowered her voice. “Whatever. How’d you get
from Calvaruso to Warner?”

  “He was listed as the contact at Patriotech. When the name popped, I called him. He had already left for the day. I hadn’t heard back from Peterson—or you, I might add. The first twenty-four hours of an investigation are make it, break it time, so I figured I’d pay Mr. Warner a personal visit at home. We were probably on the same flight, because I hadn’t been there more than a few minutes when you walked in and attacked me. Your turn. What were you really doing at Warner’s apartment?”

  He moved his water glass two inches to the left so it lined up exactly with her bottle.

  “Attacked you. Nice revisionist history, Agent Connelly.” Sasha took her time phrasing her story. She wanted to come across as forthright and open without actually revealing too much.

  “Okay. Something about Calvaruso didn’t sit right with me. The news reports said he was a retired city laborer who had been working as a consultant for a defense tech company. I mean, that’s strange right there. Then, plaintiff’s counsel didn’t name him as the class rep. For a lot of boring legal strategy reasons, he was the obvious choice. It just seemed weird. So, I had a choice. Call and bother his widow or try to get more info about him some other way. I figured I would try his employer first. I spoke to Warner, who agreed to send me a copy of Mr. Calvaruso’s personnel file.”

  She stopped to finish her beer. Put the bottle back on the table two inches off center of Connelly’s glass and watched his face. His right eye twitched but he resisted the urge to move it.

  “He just offered to send you the file?”

  “I have my ways.” She smiled.

  “What? You reach through the phone and punch him in the nose?”

  She rolled her eyes but continued, “I suggested it would be better to give it to me informally than to make me get a subpoena.”

  Now he arched an eyebrow. “You think you could get a subpoena for that?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. He thought I could.”

  “So, you decided to pick up the file in person?”

  She took a minute. Replayed the voicemail in her head. “No. Not long after I got your message, I got one from Warner, calling from his cell phone. He wanted to ... actually, I think he was asking me out. Said he was coming to Pittsburgh for Calvaruso’s funeral and maybe we could get together. Then, there was a knock on his door and I heard, I guess, an altercation.”

  “What kind of altercation?”

  Sasha looked at him. “I think I heard him getting beaten to death.”

  She took her phone out, called her voicemail system, skipped over the eight new messages that had piled up in her box, and retrieved Warner’s message. Then, she hit the button to turn on the speakerphone and laid the phone on the table. She kept the volume low, so they both leaned in and hunched over the phone to hear. They sat there in silence and listened to Warner’s recorded screams.

  Just like a black box, she thought, pressing 7 to save the message. She turned off the phone and looked back at Connelly.

  He was still leaning forward, tense. Ready to spring into action. “Irwin had his own employee killed?”

  Sasha shook her head. “I have no idea. Sounds that way.”

  The cell phone rang. They both jumped.

  She glanced at the display. It was Naya. She answered, and Naya started to talk immediately. Sasha listened for a long time. She didn’t interrupt. She glanced once at Connelly, then said, “Okay. I’m leaving now.”

  She hung up and looked across the table at the federal agent. “Noah Peterson is dead.”