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Her eyes dart from me to the floor to the wall back to me. Her brow’s furrowed as she thinks.
“He dies today despite pleading guilty, and we’re nearly blown up not that long after. Was I the target, and you would have been collateral damage? Was this about his case? Or was this about you, and I was collateral damage because of your case? Or was it about both of us and Cohenour?”
“I have no idea.”
She looks down at her phone, then up at me.
“One reason NYPD and the feds have nothing on the syndicates is because they can’t get any wire taps or pick up anything via cellular. Do you have frequency jammers or something? I don’t know what they’re called.”
“Yes. All our homes do, and we have features added to the cars we share.”
“So, if I make some calls, would the NYPD be able to trace it to here? If I turn my location services off, could they still find me here?”
“No.”
“I have some calls I want to make. I have questions, but are there any you’d want me to ask? I know people on pretty much every team that could be even remotely connected to you or Cohenour.”
“Let’s think about it and write them down.”
I grab a notepad and a pen before we head back to the living room. We spend the next ten minutes coming up with general questions and ones specific to each cop’s assignment. I listen as she makes one call after another, shocked at some cops she knows. Most are clean, but some are on our payroll or another syndicate’s. A few are probably working for more than one of us. She knows which are dirty, and she uses that to her advantage. She plants little seeds we hope will grow when they run to tell their bosses or other syndicate heads. Then we’ll know who they are.
While she talks, I replay in my mind what we know about the night the site exploded. I think about the men who died who’d worked for me in one of my hardware stores. Who could have gotten to them and convinced them to set the explosives? Did they make those guys think they were doing it on my behalf?
I have more questions than I have answers. I picture the men, how they dressed, any jewelry they wore, the cars they drove. Had anything changed recently? Did they start wearing stuff they hadn’t before? Did their stuff get better?
After Sinead makes her last call, I have a question for her.
“Were any cell phones entered into evidence? I don’t remember seeing any on the list.”
“Not that I know of. I guess the fire incinerated any the men had.”
“One guy drove for a rideshare company. I don’t know if he worked that night, but I think some record their different customers. I think some have dashcams that look out.”
“The police impounded one car, but the other was too close to the explosion and caught fire.”
“Was the one that survived a small Honda coupe?”
“Yes. A red two-door.”
“That’s the one Marcus owned and used for his rideshare. We need to know if there was a dashcam. It might have recorded what happened.”
“If anything existed, the prosecution had to hand it over.”
“I know. But this is a case about a Cosa Nostra member. I have little faith the NYPD handed over any evidence that might exonerate me. If the camera exists, it must have something on there that clears me.”
“But the crime scene investigators would have logged everything. Even if they didn’t want to share it, it would have been in the report. I’ve read it four times, Gabe. I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary, nothing redacted.”
“Call your friend from forensics back. Ask where the two mounts were.”
“Okay.”
Her brow furrows, but she does what I ask. Well, not ask. Told. But she does it and puts the call on speaker again.
“Hey, Ryan. It’s me again. I forgot to ask you something. Where were the two mounts?”
“What mounts?”
“The ones on the dashboard or display?”
