Dead Man's Rule (6 page)

Ben decided to try one more time. “All she’s asking is that we send her publicly available documents. That seems pretty innocent.”

“Nothing the secret police does is all innocent,” Dr. Ivanovsky persisted. “I do not know everything they could do with these documents. Do you? Also, if we give them these papers now, it will be harder to say no to them the next time they are asking for information, and who is to say they will be innocent then? No, Ben, it is better not to walk into the den of a tiger in the first place.”

The tiger’s-den analogy obviously was well established in Dr. Ivanovsky’s mind—and probably had been for decades. Ben realized it gave the old scientist a comfortable and clear-cut reason to avoid potential entanglements with law enforcement where he might find himself in over his head. There was little chance he would rethink it based solely on the suggestion of a young lawyer whom he had known for only a few days. “Okay, I’ll tell her we can’t help her.”

Ivanovsky released a breath. “Thank you, Ben.”

As Ben hung up the phone, he suddenly felt very tired. He had worked until ten o’clock last night and had headed out the door again at six forty-five that morning. He was beginning to feel it. “Maybe the big-firm life wasn’t so bad after all,” he muttered as he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

He got up and walked over to the coffeemaker in the file room. The pot held about two inches of poisonous-looking black sludge. “Oops!” said a voice from behind him. “Would you like me to make a fresh pot?”

Ben turned and saw Susan Molfino, his office manager/receptionist/secretary/file clerk, bustling in, nearly hidden by a large stack of folders. Susan was a tiny and tirelessly perky woman with the energy of a toddler on espresso. She never drank coffee and therefore didn’t always keep as close an eye on the coffeemaker as she should. She was an otherwise-outstanding employee, however, so Ben and Noelle forgave this flaw—though Ben in particular occasionally suffered for it. Fortunately, there was a good coffee shop less than a block away, and it was open late.

“That’s okay,” said Ben as he flipped off the machine and poured the syrupy mess into the sink. “I’ll just go down to the Mud Hole. I could use a little fresh air anyway.”

On his way out of the office, Ben stuck his head into Noelle’s doorway and saw that she was back at her desk. “Hey, I’m about to make a Mud run. Want to come with?”

She looked up from a pile of financial printouts and smiled. “Sure. I haven’t seen you all day.”

The Mud Hole had only three small tables, but it did a brisk takeout business among Chicagoans who knew their coffee. The two brothers from Seattle who ran the place were as passionate and expert in the art of making caffeine-based drinks as any sculptor or painter was at his art. They had even built a hot-sand pit in the back of their kitchen to make true Turkish and Greek coffee. “Hello, Ben. Hello, Noelle,” said Brett, the younger brother, as the Corbins walked in. “What would you like this afternoon?”

“I’ll have a decaf mocha,” said Noelle.

“And I’ll have a double Turkish Hammer,” said Ben.

“That’ll keep you up until midnight,” Noelle warned. “Or is that the point?”

Ben sighed. “I’ve got a mediation statement due tomorrow in the
Bock
case, and I haven’t even started it. It’s going to be another long night for me.”

“That’s two in a row, Ben. Is it going to let up anytime soon?”

He shook his head. “I’m overcommitted this month. It seems like I’ll be spending half my time on
Circuit Dynamics
, half on
Ivanovsky
, and half on all my other cases.”

“Do you need to head back to the office?”

“Not quite yet. Something just happened that I’d like your thoughts on. Are you up for a quick walk in Grant Park?”

“Sure,” said Noelle, looking at him with curiosity. “I’ve been stuck inside all day.”

Grant Park is a long strip of green between downtown Chicago and the lakefront. It’s bordered on the north by a cluster of upscale apartment buildings, on the south by Soldier Field, and on the west by the business district. To the east are the wide waters of Lake Michigan. The park is a favorite spot for joggers, bikers, open-air-concert organizers, and anyone who wants to escape from the constant rush of business in the Loop. As Ben and Noelle turned from the crowded sidewalk onto a quiet, maple-lined path, Noelle turned to Ben and said, “Okay, so what’s up?”

Ben described his conversations with Elena and Dr. Ivanovsky. “And now I know why he’s ‘a person of interest’ to the FBI. He’s hiding something, but I’m not sure what,” he concluded.

They walked along in silence for several seconds, the fallen leaves crunching under their feet. “Well, do you think he’s hiding something problematic?” Noelle asked.

Ben shrugged. “He doesn’t have a lot of guile, so I think I can generally tell when he’s lying to me. I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth about why he doesn’t want to talk to the FBI, but not about what’s in the box. Do I think that overall he’s hiding something ‘problematic’?” He paused for a moment and looked out over Lake Michigan. Its slate-gray surface was broken into choppy waves capped by dirty white foam, harbingers of an approaching storm. “I doubt it. He doesn’t seem like the type who would murder the man who used to own the box or something like that. I’d say Dr. Ivanovsky is a pretty good guy, but he’s also pretty eccentric. And for some reason he doesn’t want to tell me everything about this case.”

“You’re a good judge of character,” commented Noelle. “If you think he’s clean, he probably is.”

“He’s probably clean, at least as far as this case goes. My guess is that he somehow got wind that there’s something valuable in that box. Maybe he knows what it is, maybe not. I’ll bet Nicki Zinoviev didn’t know, but he needed cash right away and he isn’t all that bright. So he sold the box to Dr. Ivanovsky without looking inside. Later, he realized that wasn’t a good idea and went to the bank to look in the box. Did he see a couple of cheap watches and some junk? No. He saw something a lot more valuable. Something he doesn’t want to tell the judge about. Maybe something that has the FBI interested in this case.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with Dr. Ivanovsky being a germ-warfare expert?”

Ben kicked a stone down the path. “Good question. That’s another thing I’m going to look into. I doubt that’s what it is, though. I mean, why would anyone put Soviet germ-warfare stuff in a bank box in Chicago? Also,
Ivanovsky
didn’t put anything in the box, and he’s the only one we know of here who has anything to do with germ warfare.

“From what Ivanovsky told me, Zinoviev’s brother was a smuggler, not a bioweapons scientist. He probably stashed something in the box—maybe extremely valuable jewelry—and died without telling his brother about it. But he told someone, and ultimately Dr. Ivanovsky heard about it. I’ll bet his Russian pension isn’t that generous, and he plans to supplement it by selling whatever’s in the box.”

“And that makes you uncomfortable,” commented Noelle. “I can see why.”

“Yeah, the whole thing makes me uncomfortable.” They came upon the stone again, and Ben kicked it hard this time, taking out his frustration on the chunk of limestone. “I’m not sure I can keep representing him under these circumstances. I’m not concerned about breaking any legal ethical rules here, but I don’t just want to do what’s ethical. I want to do what’s right. As a Christian lawyer, is it okay for me to help my client get a treasure that may well be the product of some crime?”

“Well, aren’t you just
speculating
that it would be illegal or immoral for him to own whatever’s in the box? You won’t know one way or the other until you open it.”

“True,” said Ben. “Besides, the only real alternative I’ve got is to withdraw from the case and let this Zinoviev guy win. Even if the box is full of stolen diamonds or something, it’s not like I have a choice between giving them to Dr. Ivanovsky and giving them to the true owner. As a practical matter, I have to choose between giving them to the thief’s brother and possibly giving them to an old treasure hunter.”

“And if you find anything suspicious when you open the box, you can call the police then.”

“I suppose,” said Ben, though he didn’t relish the idea of calling the cops on his own client. “It’s not like I haven’t had clients with secrets before. It just bugs me when I’ve got a case where all the pieces don’t add up as a result. It’s hard to be an effective lawyer when that happens.”

“But you can keep working on the case, right?” Noelle asked a little anxiously. “I mean, we did accept Dr. Ivanovsky’s retainer, and . . . um, we’re not really able to give any of it back.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “When do I get to start working on the real cases, the ones we opened this practice to handle? We were going to serve Almighty God, not the almighty dollar, remember? And here I am grubbing for greenbacks just to keep the doors open.”

“Is that a long way of saying, ‘Yes, I can keep working on the case’?”

He sighed. “I suppose so.”

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

D
ISCOVERY

Ben sat back and looked at the to-do list he had just typed up for the
Ivanovsky
case. It was depressingly long. Today he had to prepare formal document requests, interrogatories, deposition notices, and the rest of the opening salvo of discovery he would fire at the other side. Anthony Simeon—or, more likely, one of his junior associates—was currently readying the defense’s initial broadside, so tomorrow Ben would need to go through his client’s documents to get a head start on preparing the responses. He also had to subpoena all of American Union’s records about either the box or the Zinovievs.

Hiring a good private investigator was also high on the list. Formal discovery done through lawyers was necessary but not sufficient. It wasn’t unheard of for lawyers—or, more often, their clients—to lie or fail to produce damaging documents. An experienced detective could often catch them in their lies, and that could force quick and favorable settlements.

The PI would have to be cheap as well as good, given the size of this case. Strong connections to the Chicago Russian community were also a must. Finding someone who fit that bill could take a lot of looking.

And all of that was just the first week. Next week there would be depositions to take and defend, documents from the other side to dig through, responses to the defense’s discovery requests to prepare, and more.

Ben went through his list and put a time estimate next to each task. He had at least twenty hours’ worth of work to do this week and thirty-five hours’ next week. It was Wednesday evening, so that meant he would have to spend long days on Thursday and Friday just working on
Ivanovsky
.

He pulled out his to-do lists for
Circuit Dynamics
and his other active cases and did time estimates for them as well.
Circuit Dynamics
was going to take about ten hours of his time this week and twenty next week. His other cases needed around five hours of work before Monday and ten hours or more next week. He put down his pen and ran his fingers through his hair. It took at least thirteen hours in the office to get ten hours of billable work done, so that meant that he would have to work from eight in the morning until after nine at night every day until next Friday. He could handle that, assuming everything went smoothly and there were no surprises, but neither of those were safe assumptions in the practice of law. If something went wrong, he would be in deep trouble.

“What’s up?” Noelle’s voice broke into his deliberations. Ben looked up and saw her standing in his doorway.

“Too much. I was just figuring out how much work I’ve got to do over the next week and a half. It’s not pretty.”

“Will it get better after that?”

Ben thought for a moment. “No.”

Noelle looked down and shuffled her feet guiltily. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Ben was about to say no—after all, she wasn’t a lawyer—when an idea hit him. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Actually, there is. What’s your time like over the next few weeks?”

“I’ve got a stack of spreadsheets to go through and I need to update our books, but other than that I’m pretty free. What do you have in mind?”

“You don’t have a law license, so you can’t handle depositions, court appearances, and stuff like that. But there are other things you can do. For starters, you can go through documents and interview witnesses, which would be a big help. You can also help me put together discovery requests. We can bill you as a paralegal at, say, a hundred dollars an hour. It would really help me, and Dr. Ivanovsky shouldn’t mind. You’ll be doing work I otherwise would do, and you’ll be doing it at half my rate. Also, I could boss you around, which would be fun.”

Noelle smiled and arched her eyebrows. “There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? Actually, I like your idea. It’ll mean more revenue, which we can always use. Besides, if you’re going to be working late every night, I might as well do something useful to stay busy. I’ve been getting a little sick of doing reconciliations or bookkeeping for half the day and being bored the other half.”

Later that afternoon, Ben struck gold. A former colleague gave him a lead on a private investigator, and now he was sitting across the conference-room table from a former FBI agent named Sergei Spassky. The private eye was about six foot two and had a lean, sinewy build that looked almost skinny if he stooped his shoulders. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that hid his dark, quick eyes and made him look more scholarly than streetwise. His short flattop haircut and open face also looked a little out of place for an experienced special agent—which Ben guessed was at least partially intentional.

Spassky’s resume was impressive. He had received several commendations from the Bureau and had been the lead agent on several high-profile cases. His references—two of whom Ben knew personally and respected—spoke quite highly of him. He had only recently left the FBI to start his own agency, and his rates were well within the budget Ben and Dr. Ivanovsky had discussed. He seemed like a good candidate.

“Sure I know Elena Kamenev,” Spassky said in response to Ben’s question. “She and I never worked together, but she had a reputation as a good agent. She’s a great shot. Two years ago she beat me out for the Chicago shotgun-marksmanship title. She’s also a SWAT-certified sniper.”

“But I see you beat her in the handgun category,” Ben replied, looking at the man’s resume. “What’s this ‘Possible Club’ you’re a member of?”

“That means I got a perfect score on the handgun range at the FBI National Academy.”

“Pretty impressive,” said Ben. “Hopefully that’s not a skill you’ll need on this case. How many investigations did you handle involving Russian immigrants?”

“At least two dozen. There weren’t too many of us who could speak Russian without an accent, so we tended to get a lot of Russian crime cases.”

“You don’t have an accent in English either,” observed Ben. “How did you manage that?”

“I was born and raised in America, but my parents came over from Russia in the sixties and we always spoke Russian at home.”

Ben checked the language item off his list. “Ever hear of Nikolai Zinoviev?”

“No.”

“How about Dr. Mikhail Ivanovsky?”

“No.”

Ben looked over his resume again and decided to hire him. “Congratulations, Sergei. We’re going with your agency for this investigation. Dr. Ivanovsky will be your employer on this case, and Mr. Zinoviev is the target of your investigation.” Ben went on to briefly explain the case. “Any questions?”

Spassky shook his head. “The case seems pretty straightforward. You want me to do a background check on Zinoviev, right? Pull his criminal record, credit reports, that kind of thing?”

“Right. I’d also like you to try to identify Zinoviev’s new buyers and those guys in the back of the courtroom. We’ll need to hit them with subpoenas in the next few days.”

The detective jotted down some notes. “What did they look like?”

Ben stared at the table for a few seconds, trying to remember. “One was a big guy with a scar on his forehead. The other one was about average height, maybe five ten. The big one had black hair and looked like he was around forty. The other one had gray hair and looked ten or fifteen years older. Their names were Anton and Josef, but I don’t know which was which.”

“How were they built? Skinny? Fat?”

“They both had on overcoats, so I couldn’t really tell. I don’t remember either of them being particularly thin or fat, but the big guy looked pretty strong.”

“Facial hair? Tattoos?”

“The smaller one had a mustache. I think the other one was clean shaven. No tattoos that I saw, but they had their coats on the whole time.”

“Were they wearing black?”

“Yeah,” said Ben in mild surprise, “and so was Zinoviev. How did you know?”

“Russian
mafiya
types and
mafiya
wannabes generally dress in black.” Spassky wrote down a few more notes. “Okay. Anything else you can tell me about either of them?”

Ben thought for a moment. “Nothing I can think of right now. If I remember something else, I’ll give you a call.”

Spassky opened his briefcase and put his pen and notebook away. “Thanks. I’ll start working on it this afternoon.”

“How long do you think it’ll take?” asked Ben. “I’d like to be able to subpoena those guys in the next couple of days.”

Spassky stared into space for a few seconds, apparently making some mental calculations. “Putting together a background file on Zinoviev shouldn’t be too hard, but getting names and addresses for everyone you want? That could be tough. With a couple of breaks, I could do it in two days. I’ll do what I can, but I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

Ben appreciated the man’s honesty. “That’s all we ask. Welcome to the team.”

Sergei Spassky made a couple of quick calls to start the processes that would produce Nikolai Zinoviev’s police file (he had no doubt there would be one), credit report, and so forth. That was so routine he could have done it in his sleep. Tracking down Zinoviev’s buyer and the two men Corbin had seen in the courtroom would be harder, and doing it in two days would be harder still. Sergei smiled. It would be a challenge, and he liked few things better than a good challenge.

His first stop was a construction site on the North Side. Workmen had gutted an old warehouse building and were now rebuilding it into a mix of small shops and expensive loft apartments. Sergei stood outside, watching the construction and listening to the men carry on loud conversations in Russian and Polish over the noise of the machinery.

After several minutes, a large man with a sport coat, tie, and improbably good hair emerged. He made a beeline for Sergei and shook his hand, saying in Russian, “Sergei Kirilovich, what brings you to see me?”

Sergei noticed the respectful use of his patronymic and caught the hint of nervousness in the man’s voice. He smiled inwardly. Yuri Filimonov had been known to hire workers whose skills were impeccable but whose immigration papers were not. Federal law-enforcement officials were generally—but not always—willing to overlook this circumstance in return for Yuri’s willingness to provide information from time to time. “What can you tell me about Nikolai Zinoviev?”

He made a dismissive gesture with his left hand. “Nicki? Small-time drug dealer, heroin from Central Asia mostly. The word is that he shoots his own smack, which is stupid and cuts into profits. He’s just a
shestyorka
doing odd jobs for some local smugglers and drug runners. He’s nothing, but his brother was something, and Nicki mostly lives off his contacts.”

“Who’s his brother?” asked Sergei, a little surprised that there was a Chicago-connected Russian criminal who was “something” but whose name he didn’t know.

“His name was Alexei. High-end smuggler. He died before your time. They found him in the Chicago River.”

Sergei made a mental note to look into that. “Who are Nicki’s contacts?”

“I don’t know,” the contractor said, his eyes darting sidelong at Sergei. “Business has been very heavy, and I don’t talk to people as much as I used to. Sorry.”

Sergei turned back to the warehouse. “It looks like business has been good to you, Yuri. I see you’ve hired a couple of new carpenters. What are their names?”

“Pasha and Janko,” he answered warily.

“What are their last names?”

“You’re not FBI anymore.”

“So? Does that mean I’ve forgotten ICE’s phone number?”

He glared at Sergei. “There can be no leaks.”

“Of course not.”

“So what happened with that investment-fraud case where those
kidali
were ripping off old ladies? It got out that I talked to you guys, and I nearly got killed!”

“You know that wasn’t me,” Sergei replied evenly. “And as you pointed out, I’m not with the Bureau anymore.” He looked at Filimonov expectantly.

The burly contractor returned Sergei’s gaze for a moment, then shook his head and muttered an oath. “Nicki works with the Brothers. They do import/export business and maybe other stuff. I don’t know much about them, but I think they’re old friends of Alexei’s. I never deal with them, and I don’t know any of their names. And that’s
it
! I don’t know anything more!”