By ten, Hauck made it back to the station. He went straight upstairs and knocked on the door of the chief’s office. “Must be important, huh, Ty? You got that look in your eye…”
“Yeah, Vern, it is.”
The chief waved him in with his mug of coffee; Hauck pulled up a seat across from him. “So what happened up there?” He laughed. “You get lucky or something, Ty?”
“You could say.”
Hauck told him about Raines and the video he had shown Hauck of David Sanger at the table. The conspiracy Raines had mapped out about the prosecutor and his inside friend. And what might have befallen them.
“You’re suggesting Vega and this DR-17 were merely acting out a hit for the Pequot Woods?” Fitzpatrick looked up at him and asked.
“I’m suggesting Sanger and Kramer may not have been as innocent as they appeared. Raines tossed out the possibility that people up there might’ve been handling things in their own way.”
“A gambling scam? This ‘false shuffle’? An up-and-coming federal prosecutor? With everything going for him?”
Hauck shrugged. “I know what you’re saying, but there’s the bank account he kept secret from his wife. Several of the deposits seemed to match up. Everyone’s got their vices, Vern. I saw the guy walk away with a sizable pile of chips.”
“Which proves he had a gambling bug, that’s all. This Raines, he implied this was how the resort took care of it? How they ‘balanced their books’?”
“He threw it out. Among many possibilities…”
“But I can see you’re not exactly giddy about his explanation.”
Hauck shrugged. “I’d like to shoot a fucking missile through it, if it’s okay with you.”
Fitzpatrick shifted back in thought. He tapped his fingers against his lips. “You’re not taking on a bunch of Wall Street people here, Ty. You have any idea what type of interests you’re stepping into?”
“Funny, Raines asked the same thing to me.”
“Well, that’s because you don’t. You don’t even have a goddamn clue. And I’m not even talking the general scum who are usually a part of this kind of business operation.” Vern looked at him. “Those casinos up there are the principal reason we have a balanced budget in this state. That new thruway they’re widening, between here and Fairfield? You think it’s the declining real estate tax pool that’s ponying up the funding for that? Or the new sports arena they’re building up near Hartford? Trying to attract an NBA team? Half the goddamn high schools in this state—all those science labs and fancy new gyms and scoreboards…Who do you think’s paying for all that, Ty? Or how we can support one hundred and twenty officers on our own force? Just what is it you think those billions in gambling revenue actually buy?”
“Three people are dead, Vern. Some piece of shit who empties his gun at a state trooper has his case mysteriously dropped. Makes you think they might be covering something up.”
Fitzpatrick directed a stern look into Hauck’s eyes. “You think there was pressure from Hartford when this drive-by initially took place, you don’t even know the meaning of ‘pressure’ if we start looking into the Pequot Woods. Besides the obvious question of jurisdiction. Every politician in the state has their hands out to them.”
Hauck stared in the chief’s steady blue eyes, which, for the first time since Hauck had known him, looked haggard, even a bit afraid. Vern was going on seventy. He’d had the job as chief in Greenwich for almost twenty years, well past what anyone expected. Eighty percent of their job here was waving traffic down Greenwich Avenue, smoothing out spats at the high school or a fender bender between BMWs and Mercedes. Complaints between neighbors who could buy and sell them in a single trade.
“You asking me to back off, Vern?”
“I’m asking you to know what the hell you’re doing, Ty!” Fitzpatrick pushed back in his chair, ran a hand through his wavy white hair. “Listen, son, what do I have—maybe two years left on my term? Then what? You’d be the logical choice to take over. You’ve got the experience. Everybody’s behind you. You can build a good life here.”
Hauck knew that was always the plan.
“But you step into this, Ty, you step into things you’re better off just letting go. There’s no telling where it takes you or who you may piss off. Ninety percent of what I do”—the chief winked with a modest grin—“is just not pissing the right people off.”
“Too late for that,” Hauck said with a halting smile of his own.
He opened the manila envelope he’d been keeping on his lap and laid out the series of photos of him and Josie.
Fitzpatrick groaned. The color in his cheeks waned. “Looks like you did get a little lucky up there…”
“I wanted you to see these, Vern. I should’ve known better. I just got careless.”
Fitz put them back down on the desk. “So I would know the kind of headlines we’re about to receive?”
Hauck winced. That had already crossed his mind. LOCAL COP INTERROGATING WITNESS ON CASINO LINK TO SHOOTINGS.
“To know what kind of people we’re dealing with, Vern.”
“I damn well already know what kind of people we’re dealing with, Ty.”
“This was all just a threat, Vern. To get me to back off. They’d never dare use it. The whole thing would explode right back in their faces.”
Fitzpatrick stood up. He came over to the edge of his desk and sat, leaning over Hauck. He looked at the photos one more time and began to rip them into tiny pieces. Then he tossed the piles into his trash. “You’re a smart man, Ty—generally…It’s just that sometimes you can be a bit naïve. Good people generally are. Seems to me you’re still carrying a small reminder of what kind of people we’re dealing with in your own right leg.”
“Yeah.” Hauck nodded. “I am.”
“These types are far worse, Ty.”
Hauck’s eyes glanced to the torn-up photos in the can. “You want me to back off, Vern, I will. You want me to step aside on the case, I’ll do that too.”
“I’m not telling you to stop!” Fitzpatrick looked back at him, gritting his teeth. “I just want to make sure you know what the hell you’re dragging us into here. I’m telling you to be careful, son.” He placed his hand on Hauck’s shoulder. “If they already killed a federal attorney, that badge won’t protect you much. I’m telling you to watch your ass, Ty.”