Page 19 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
Zhào waved her hand. “Not that way. We have a dead-letter drop.”
“Of course you do.” Russ could feel the headache starting somewhere behind his eyeballs. And no wonder—this wasClare-level insanity. He spread his hands on the table. “Ms. Zhào. Before we get lost in the thicket, could you please lay out for us what happened? Starting from when the task force investigation was canned.”
“Sure, okay. So I was brought in as Kevin’s liaison after the investigation had already started. Sort of pairing the two newbies together, you know? When he got the chance to send in reports, I would read them, and I kind of got to know him that way, at a remove.”
“Kevin was looking into possible illegal gun dealing, right?”
Zhào nodded. “The focus of the task force was on how these groups are getting funded—especially the more off-the-grid ones. Some of them straight-up accept donations through their websites like they were the Girl Scouts or something, but others we suspected of extortion, drug dealing, and, in this case, trafficked firearms.”
That, at least, made sense. New York had some of the strictest gun laws in the country; there was always a thriving market selling to those who wanted to sidestep the legal process.
“There wasn’t much happening until last August, when Kevin was approached by a guy who turned up on the FBI’s watch list. Kevin encouraged the relationship, and he had credible info about some major transactions going on that would net a ton of money for somebody. We were about to bring in Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, so you know it was big.”
Russ nodded. Locals hated to call in the staties, the state hated to call in the feds, the feds hated to call in the alphabet intelligence agencies. And so it went.
“Then all of a sudden, boom. The investigation was over, wrap things up and don’t forget your expense sheets.”
“What makes you think it was Flynn’s info that got the project cut short? Why not the drugs or the extortion?”
“Well… the timing, mostly. None of the other arms of the investigation had broken any significant leads.”
Russ looked at her.
“And I had just sent up the report from Kevin asking for permission to reach out to ATF! There wasn’t anything else meaningful going on, nothing like a corruption case like you mentioned.”
“That you know of. You’re a, what, associate state attorney? You’ve been there how long?”
Zhào pressed her lips together. “Since May.”
“And when did you pass the bar?”
“August. But—”
“How many attorneys work in the Albany office?”
She glared at Russ. “About three hundred and fifty.”
Russ flipped his hand over, as if exposing an invisible royal flush. “I’m not questioning your abilities or your passion. But there’s a lot of information and decision-making you’re simply not going to know about.”
“Look.” Zhào pressed her forefinger into the tabletop. “Let’s posit what you say is true, that there wasn’t any deliberate interference in the investigation. The fact remains Kevin made contact with the subject of a federal watch list, who was involved with the sale of unlicensed firearms, which was meant to benefit an alt-right white supremacist militia organization.”
“That could be a real and present danger,” Knox pointed out.
Russ nodded. “I agree. The trouble is, the unauthorized investigation of a cop with no authority or jurisdiction isn’t law enforcement, it’s vigilantism. How were you expecting to be able to build a case for prosecution?”
“The courts have traditionally beenverydeferential to evidence uncovered by police in the course of other activities.”
“What other activity?” Knox had the same I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-hearing strain Russ had had earlier. “Camping with the Hitler Youth?” She leaned forward. “And I hate to break it to you, but Kevin is about to becomeex–law enforcement. The Syracuse PD is going to fire him if he doesn’t show up. You can’t just take an unspecified amount of personal time without ever getting in touch with your employer.”
For the first time, Zhào’s face lost its look of passionate sincerity. She paused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Ms. Zhào.” Russ tried to make his voice as nonjudgmental as possible. “Is this your first job?”
“No! I worked as a lifeguard for several summers in college. And I had a paid clerkship with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office between my second and third years of law school.”
Russ looked at Knox, who had an expression he had seen directed at her son when he had done something endearingly stupid. Zhào caught their wordless exchange and sighed. “What do you think we should do?”
“I think we need to get in touch with Kevin and let him know he’s got to get back to Syracuse.”
