Gatekeeper. The son of a bitch thought all roads led to him. Did they?
“You still with me?” Brynn said. “You look like you got lost in a train of thought. Anything you want share?”
I’d called Brynn into my office after Borkowski left. I needed objectivity that I didn’t possess right now. I was too close to it. Too filled with fear that something would happen to Cai. Too filled with anger and remorse that Michael seemed to have slipped from my life because I wasn’t ready to set my own needs aside for his. Too filled with the convoluted maze of men connected by real estate and greed to see who led the charge.
Borkowski had given me some context on the meaning and history of Zipsdefender, and it played in to this aura of Italian mobsters, but the whole group of them fit that bill. Who was the trigger man? Who did I need to expose to keep Cai safe?
“Sorry, I’m here. Just trying to make sense of something I’m too close to,” I said. She looked at me, concern in her eyes, trying to figure out how to help.
“What do you want to talk through? Use me as a sounding board. It might help if we brainstorm.”
“That’s a good idea. I was thinking about the Twitter handle of the guy coming after Cai, Zipsdefender. Borkowski said it has meaning and suggests the guy is Italian. I’m going to take that as a given. The other phrase on his account is ‘keeper of the keys.’ I think it says the guy is arrogant enough to believe everything goes through him.”
“That sounds like your buddy Panici. You described him as a narcissist,” she said.
“I think so too. All roads lead to him. In his mind and, it seems to me, in reality. But I can’t prove he is the account holder or that he is a threat to Cai.”
“We have to go to what we can prove or explore the holes that exist.”
“Find what you can on an attorney named Stephan Bruni. I know three things about him. He occasionally represents The Chicken Shack, although he hasn’t in the food inspector case; he has represented APR Holdings; and he’s not good at his job.
“I’m going to keep working my leads on APR Holdings. I need to know who owns them. Then I’m going to run over to check on Cai, bring her some lunch. She’s getting antsy already from the confinement, and I’m afraid she’s going to say the hell with it and go to work because she can’t stand her own beautiful four walls anymore.”
“Can’t your friend Michael help out with finding this guy? I don’t mean to pry, but he is a cop.”
“I won’t get into it now, but let’s just say he has declined. We have to figure this out on our own.”
“Sorry.” She looked at me as if watching for my tears to start.
Even without me saying the words, Brynn had figured out that sympathy was something I needed. But not today. My love life would need to stay in the background. We moved to our respective desks and dug in. I started with the old case, the one Bruni had lost so badly. With my legal history and the case number, I knew how to get to the details, so I started there. Going back through the various filings I fleshed out the crazy-making details that Marcus Castillo had only alluded to.
“Hey, that guy Bruni, he’s related to Orlando Gaetano.” Brynn was at my door, a big smile on her face. “He’s Gaetano’s brother-in-law. Surprise, right? Graduated in the bottom ten percent of his Western Michigan University class. I’m sure his parents are quite proud.”
“That explains a lot. Working for the family is what these people do. In my quick look into his background, it appeared he went straight into private practice out of law school. Can you confirm that?”
“Yes. Obviously I don’t have access to his client list, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the only clients he’s ever had were friends and family. I’ll keep at it and let you know if there’s anything else. I thought you’d want this right away.”
“Thanks, Brynn.”
And I imagined her “friends and family” client list was exactly right. These guys were incestuous in their business dealings.
I had just turned back to my computer screen when a text popped up.
“Hey, Andrea! It’s Marcus Castillo. I found that name for you. The guy who runs APR. I was right, we deposed him in the case. His name is Edmund Rastello.”
It was all of them. Every damn one of them was part of this.