Jeffrey Dommer
Gianni "Jonny" Manetto, Old Country Restaurant Supply, Long Island City
Carter Jepson Jr., Coca-Cola distribution
He'd never heard of any of them. Though he was amused to speculate that one in particular surely had had a tough time growing up, with a name close enough to a serial killer's for the kids to torment him mercilessly.
The cop mind was firing on all cylinders but that wasn't enough. He needed input, research. So get to work. Nick went online and began to check out the names. Google and Facebook and LinkedIn. He also logged onto the People Finder site Freddy had told him about. Jesus, there was a lot of information. When he was on the force, it would've taken him weeks, not hours, to get all this stuff. And he was astonished too at how much people posted about themselves. One guy, JJ Steptoe, was shown proudly smoking pot in a Facebook picture. A link led to a YouTube video that showed Jepson in the Caribbean, staggering around drunk and falling into a pool. Then climbing out and puking.
As for the wife of "J," Nanci, no luck there, for any of them.
But maybe Mr. "J" was divorced from Nanci. Or Nanci was a girlfriend. There were probably ways to find out, maybe programs at the NYPD that linked people even if not married or related. If "J" had done time, there might be a record of a Nanci coming to visit him in prison.
But he didn't have access to anything like that and he sure wasn't going to ask Amelia to search for him. He was already pushing the limits there.
He skimmed the data he'd downloaded. Nick had been hoping "J" was somebody involved in law enforcement, with a knowledge of the hijacking operations back when he'd been arrested. But none of the men were law enforcement. The next best thing--somebody with underworld ties (even though he knew he'd need to be very, very careful about contacting them). That didn't pan out either, though. Jenkins had been arrested--misdemeanor and a long time ago. Two others had been the subject of civil investigations--SEC in one case, IRS in the other--but nothing came of these.
Nick sat back and sipped his lukewarm coffee. A glance at the clock. The work had taken three hours. A ton of info but nothing to show for it.
Okay. Think better. Think like a gold shield. Sure, the list could be useless and Stan Von had pulled together enough random names to buy himself an over-breaded chicken Parmesan. But it's all you got, the list, so work it. Just like the flimsiest lead on the street, the way you used to do. Turn it to something sweet.
He decided to look more carefully into the businesses the men operated or were employed by; were any of them more likely than others to have a potential connection to hijacking or receiving stolen? Von's list didn't have all of their outfits but Nick was able to find most of the others. Transportation and wholesale companies were the heart of hijacking operations but there were none of those. (Battaglia's operation was used car sales and repair.) Jackie Carter, who owned a franchise of self-storage facilities, seemed like a possibility. And Jon Perone's J&K Financial Services intrigued him; they might've lent money to any number of people involved in shady deals. And Johnson's consulting business? Who knew what they were up to?
Nick took a long slug of tepid coffee. The cup froze in midair. He set it down and sat forward, staring at the list. He laughed. Oh, man. How did I miss it? How the hell did I miss it?
He read: Jon Perone, J&K Financial, Queens.
Fi NANCI al.
"Nanci" wasn't a wife or girlfriend. It was from the name of his company. The detective's faded notes were to blame for his misreading.
Nick was suddenly filled with the thrill he remembered from his days running cases, when you had a breakthrough like this.
Okay, Mr. Perone, who exactly are you? He'd found no suggestion of any criminal activity. Perone seemed to be upstanding, a legit businessman, generous, a giver-back to the community, active in the church. Still, Nick would have to be careful. He couldn't risk linking his own name with the man's if Perone were, in fact, involved in any underworld activity. He remembered his promise to Amelia.
If there's anybody who can help me and there's any risk, or even it looks like they're connected, I'll use, you know, an intermediary to contact them, a friend...
He found his phone and called Freddy Caruthers.
CHAPTER 40
Ron Pulaski stared at the Gutierrez file sitting between him and Amelia Sachs.
He fidgeted in the chair across the table from her in their war room.
Hell. Why hadn't he checked to see if Gutierrez was still around? There was an answer to that: Mostly because he believed nobody would know or care what he was up to.
Got that one wrong, didn't I?
Hell.
"Ron. Work with me here. What's going on?"
"Have you talked to IA?"
"No. Not yet. Of course not."
But he knew that if she found he'd committed a crime, she'd report him to Internal Affairs in an instant. That was something about Amelia. She'd bend regs. But when you stepped over the razor wire of the New York Penal Code, that was a sin. Unforgivable.