Among Thieves

“John Co

“You really think Hewitt’s mobbed up?” Stone whistled doubtfully. “I ran a check on him; he’s got a solid rep, even with our people. He doesn’t seem like the type.”

Sanchez looked back up the driveway. Hewitt was nearly to the end of it now. The flashlights had been turned off as the sun came up, and the property had lost the otherworldly feeling to it. Now the dead men outside had the full edge of reality to them. “I don’t know. I’m just saying there’s something bad going on here, and I don’t trust them.” She looked up at Stone. “Now, are you ready to deal with the mess inside?”

Stone nodded.

“Good. Let’s get this done.” She walked back into the building.

As Stone followed her, he took one last look down the driveway. Hewitt had disappeared now. That was for the best, he thought. Given Sanchez’s opinions, they would never be able to be productive as long as he was there. Still, in his heart, Stone couldn’t accept the notion that Hewitt and the FBI might be involved.

Chapter Seventeen

The morning of Devon ’s arraignment, Fi

Fi

Fortunately, Fi

He was shortening a brief in a civil case for one of the few corporate clients he had when the phone rang. He picked it up. “Fi

“Mr. Fi

“Detective,” Fi

“We’d like you to come down to the station today to have a talk.”

“We?” Fi

“Me and my partner. Any chance you could make it this morning?”

“Today’s a little busy for me,” Fi

“It’s about Eddie Ballick. We understand you talked to him yesterday.”

“I did.”

“We’d like to know what about.”

Fi

“We’d still like you to come down.”

Fi

“Because he was murdered last night.”

Fi

“He was murdered, Mr. Fi

Fi

“That was about Eddie Ballick. He was murdered last night. Apparently he b-”

Lissa raised her hand to stop Fi

A moment later, Kozlowski emerged. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“That was Detective Stone on the phone.”

“Stone? What did he want?”

“Ballick was murdered last night.”

Kozlowski stopped. He turned and looked at Fi

“No, I wouldn’t think. They found him early this morning. Four of his boys, too. Stone didn’t give me all the details, but from the sound of it, it wasn’t pretty.”

Kozlowski sat on the chair in front of Fi

“I put them off; told them I was too busy today, and that I’d get back to them as soon as I could. Devon ’s being arraigned this morning.”

“You think he’s caught up in all this?”

“If not, it seems like one hell of a coincidence. Either way, I want to have a long talk with Devon before I deal with the police. And that talk will be a lot easier to have once he’s out on bail.”

The courthouse was a twenty-story slab of gray concrete in Center Square, downtown. It was cut in an unadorned, utilitarian style that seemed calculated to betray the mechanical nature of the judicial system.

Fi

Fi

Arraignments are short affairs. They’re designed to advise defendants of all the charges against them, ensure that they have legal assistance, obtain initial pleas, and set bail if appropriate. In a few misdemeanor cases, plea agreements will have been worked out even before the arraignment, but in most serious matters an initial plea of not guilty is entered, and plea arrangements are reached through negotiations afterward.

On that day, the Honorable Myron Platt was presiding over the arraignments. Platt was in his mid-fifties, with a slight paunch and a receding hairline. He had been appointed a few years before in the final days of an outgoing gubernatorial administration as a reward to a loyal political hack. The bench was not the dream job he’d hoped for, and he let his boredom show. In most other respects, however, he was reasonable-even if that reason was primarily a by-product of disinterest.

Two assistant district attorneys sat at the prosecutors’ table, alternating on cases as they were brought up for preliminary dispositions. One was a young man Fi