FORTY-NINE
Once again I asked Judge Ezekiel Azenberg to provide the warrant.
He sat back in his ancient chair and peered at me over the top of his reading glasses. “You know I’ve heard from the Governor about this Petrov thing.”
“Critically, I presume.”
“He was a cipher. The objections are coming from above.”
“You mean the Justice Department?”
“Someone’s doing everything he or she can to protect Boris Petrov.”
“He’s guilty, Judge. He’s running an opioid lab in his house. Hidden somewhere inside the walls. I’ve arrested one of his chemists who is prepared to lead me to it. My team is prepped and ready to go. All we need is a warrant.”
Judge Azenberg sighed deeply. “You’re facing some serious opposition, Buddy. You appear to have rattled a number of compromised cages.”
“And your opinion?”
“I’m impressed. You go do what you have to do.”
“You mean you’ll issue the warrant?”
“It’s ready and signed. Pick it up from my clerk on your way out.”
“Thank you, Judge.”
“Go nail this asshole, Buddy. Show him that not everyone in America is for sale.”
We arrived at the mansion at two a.m., barreled our way through the gate, parked in front, and stormed it.
The Sheriff’s Department contingent included Al Striar, Dave Balding, Marsha Russo, and Johnny Kennerly. The forensics team came from L.A.
We shot out the lock of the front door, and with Albert Yashin in the lead, we made our way to a small first-floor pantry at the rear of the mansion, adjacent to the kitchen.
We stood facing a floor-to-ceiling wooden glassware cabinet that was painted a dark moss green. It contained all manner of crockery and specialty glasses.
Yashin looked at me, then stepped to the cabinet and pressed his thumb against a small pad, also moss green, practically invisible, on the right side of the cabinet, below one of three metal hinges attached to both the cabinet and to the wall.
Nothing happened.
He looked at me and once again pressed his thumb against the pad, this time more forcefully.
Again nothing happened.
“They’ve changed it,” he said. “This cabinet is controlled electronically, and thumbprint recognition has always been the key to opening it.”
“Is the laboratory behind the cabinet?”
“There’s a kind of anteroom behind the cabinet. The lab abuts it.”
I looked at Johnny Kennerly. “Do it.”
Johnny immediately pressed a number on his cell phone and within minutes, one of the forensics techs turned up brandishing a chainsaw.
He looked to me for approval. I nodded.
He proceeded to saw through the cabinet’s hinges, causing it to separate from the wall and fall open. He pushed it aside, allowing us access.
Inside was a large anteroom containing a desk, a leather chair, and two wooden filing cabinets. The walls were painted the same dark moss green, as was a door located to the left of the desk. The baseboard moldings and the ceiling were white.
Yashin headed for the door. We followed.
He pressed his thumb against another small pad just below the door’s top hinge. This time, the door popped open.
We stepped through it into a large, empty room, painted a glossy white.
Albert Yashin looked at me. “Welcome to the pharmacy. But as you can see, it’s been totally stripped.”
I turned to Johnny Kennerly. “Put the forensics team to work on it, regardless.”
“I’m sorry,” Yashin said. “I had no idea they would do this.”
Petrov had likely planned this little house-cleaning exercise anticipating we might find it, and had more than likely carried it out in the hours following our disruption of his shipping operation and the seizure of his goods. Which insured that whatever case we were building against him was likely no longer viable.
No evidence. No case.
I was in the throes of feeling sorry for myself when Al Striar sidled up to me. “A word?”
“Sure. What have you got?”
“An anomaly.”
“Okay.”
“Follow me,” he said and walked to a section of the wall on the right side of the room. “Listen to this.”
He started tapping on it, producing a hollow sound as if he was knocking on drywall.
“Follow me again.”
This time he stepped out of the empty lab and led me to a pair of wooden filing cabinets that stood behind the desk in the anteroom. He pointed me to the right side of the cabinet.
“You see what I see?”
“The filing cabinet is hinged to the wall.”
“Tap the wall.”
It sounded as hollow as the one in the lab.
“See the green pad located just below the top hinge?”
“I do now.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I think we should smash our way through it and find out what’s on the other side.”
“Excellent call, Buddy. We’re so lucky to have as fearless a person as you as our leader.”
He grinned and asked Johnny Kennerly to find the chainsaw guy. When he appeared, Striar pointed to the hinges and within seconds, the filing cabinet was separated from the wall.
When we moved it out of the way, we found ourselves staring into a large room filled with the haphazardly stacked equipment and furniture that had clearly been removed from the lab.
We wended our way through a dining room/kitchen and into an office complex replete with a sitting area, a work station with five computer tables, each hosting a top-of-the-line iMac.
Four oversized filing cabinets stood against one of the walls along with a pair of Browning Hells Canyon extra-wide gun safes standing side by side, their steel doors ajar, each safe packed not with guns, but with what appeared to be boxes of opioids.
Three large Picasso lithographs adorned the wall behind a large mahogany desk where in an oversized executive armchair sat none other than Boris Petrov himself.