moving large quantities of heroin and using his used-car businesses to launder the proceeds, he had to have kept records to account for the shipments and the money. Rowe had learned from his time on the narcotics unit that the drug trade was a cash business, and distributors like Vasiliev had suppliers and distributors to pay. If he had been executed, and it certainly appeared that way, Rowe wanted to spread a wide net to identify the man’s known business associates. Maybe someone would talk.
“Is that the search warrant?” Rowe looked up at the sound of a familiar voice and watched Rick Cerrabone make his way down the driveway wearing a blue and red Boston Red Sox cap.
Rowe made a dramatic gesture to check his watch. “Nice team spirit, Morty,” he said, borrowing a line from his favorite Bill Murray movie, Meatballs .
“Some of us need more beauty sleep,” Cerrabone said. “I’d recommend a week for you, Sparrow.”
“Everyone’s a comedian this morning.”
Cerrabone, a King County senior prosecuting attorney, was a member of the Prosecutor’s MDOP unit. The Most Dangerous Offenders Program had been started to involve the county’s most experienced prosecutors in the earliest stages of violent crime investigations.Some detectives weren’t thrilled to have an attorney peeking over their shoulders. Rowe had been one of them until a four-month stint sitting beside Cerrabone at a homicide trial gave him an appreciation of what Cerrabone and his colleagues were up against. It didn’t take much for an enterprising defense attorney to exploit even the most insignificant mistake and blow it up to look like grievous police misconduct. Involving the prosecutor early in the game was intended to minimize those mistakes.
Rowe smiled. “Yankees ever going to win another pennant, Rick?”
Cerrabone shifted the hat back, revealing a bald spot. “Fucking Red Sox.”
Cerrabone’s language became more colorful and his Brooklyn accent more distinct when he discussed anything Boston. A diehard Yankees fan who resembled the former skipper, Joe Torre, with his thinning hair, high forehead, hangdog eyes, and perpetual five o’clock shadow, Cerrabone had somehow managed to marry an equally diehard Red Sox fan—a clerk for the Superior Court.
“Dustin Pedroia? Are you kidding me? The guy had a career year. He’ll never sniff those numbers again.”
The annual bet was widely known around the courthouse. The spouse whose team finished lower in the pennant race had to wear the other team’s hat for one solid week, night and day, Cerrabone’s court appearances being the only exception.
Crosswhite provided Cerrabone with a five-minute snapshot of the crime scene and Vasiliev’s likely ties to the local heroin trade. Cerrabone reached for the laptop. “Let me take a look.”
Rowe stepped aside and stretched his back, walking out the kink in his hip, which burned despite the ibuprofen. He could feel his shirt sticking to his chest.
“Tell me something,” Crosswhite said to Rowe. “How many people in this neighborhood would know that when you call in a gunshot, especially on a night with thunder, you might get a patrol out here within the hour?”
They were starting to think alike. A common misconception among the public was that a report of gunshots would bring a cavalry of police. In reality, such calls were common and usually falsealarms. The police had become somewhat desensitized. Call in a prowler, however, and the response could be instantaneous. That and an anonymous caller on an untraceable cell phone made the situation unusual.
Cerrabone handed him the laptop. “Looks good . . . broad. I’m not sure you’ll get the computer records.”
“Who are you thinking about calling?” Rowe asked.
The judge who issued the warrant was automatically disqualified from being the trial judge on the case, if it ever got that far. So the PA ordinarily didn’t want to burn one of his first trial-judge choices.
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