He pulls out a small notebook. “I need names.”
“Damon Bertrand. Ken Mercer. They’re part of the vice unit. Frank Monaghan is—”
“I know who he is.” He scribbles on the pad. “Tell me about the vice unit.”
“It’s an elite group. The men I mentioned are its golden boys. They’re making a lot of busts. Good busts. Getting recognized. Riding high. Making the unit—and the department—look good. They get a lot of kudos from the brass. The media loves them. They’re heroes. Untouchable.” She shakes her head. “Even before I came on board there were rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“That there are a few bad eggs in the unit. That we have patrol cops and detectives shaking down drug dealers and pimps and anyone else they have something on. We’re talking money. Property. Cars. Boats. Sex. You name it. I know a couple of cops were under investigation a while back, but it never went anywhere and the higher-ups didn’t seem to be too worried about it.”
“How do you know they were under investigation?” Tomasetti asks.
“Rumor mostly. Internal Affairs was asking a lot of questions.”
“Did IA talk to you?”
“No.”
“How involved are you?”
Her eyes skitter away from his. Not for the first time I get that scratchy sensation on the back of my neck. Something there, a little voice whispers in my ear, and with every beat of silence that follows, I can practically hear the nails being driven into her proverbial coffin.
When she doesn’t respond, I say her name. “Answer the question.” What didn’t you tell me?
“I screwed up,” she snaps. “I … took some cash. I looked the other way while other cops did the same thing—and worse.”
Tomasetti makes a sound of disgust. I feel that same sentiment burning in my chest. Tension slices the air between us. For the span of several minutes no one speaks.
She played you, that little voice whispers, but I slam the door on it, shut it up.
Gina rakes the fingers of her uninjured hand through her hair. “First time, it happened during a bust. Team went in with a warrant. It was dicey. A lot of adrenaline. There was a bunch of cash laid out on the kitchen table. Thousands of dollars. All of it unaccounted for. Instead of logging it into evidence, the cops divvied it up.”
“Who?”
“Bertrand and Mercer.”
“Did you report it?”
Her mouth tightens. “No.”
“How much did you take?”
“A couple thousand.”
“Tell me how they operate.”
“They’re tight-knit. Gung-ho. Known for pushing boundaries and getting things done. In the years since the unit was created, they’d cultivated relationships with the prostitutes and drug users, pimps, small-time dealers. They used those relationships to go after the big dogs, the traffickers, the high-volume guys. Once they got those relationships in place and the pecking order figured out, they started shaking down the guys with money.”
“So, they were extorting drug dealers.” It’s not a question.
“They extort any criminal who has something they want.”
Tomasetti stares hard at her. “And you’re willing to testify against them.”
“For immunity.”
He humphs. “Why turn on them now when you’re receiving a piece of the pie?”
“Look,” she says with heat. “I got that money shoved into my hand. Yeah, I took it. But I got sucked into this. They wanted me to commit and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Once I did, I was in. They told me to keep my mouth shut and I did.”
“Answer the question, Gina,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t look at me. “Like I told Kate, they went too far. Lying on affidavits. Getting bullshit warrants from judges.” She tells him about the couple that was killed. “I wanted no part of it after that.”
“Noble of you,” Tomasetti says. “Or maybe you realized the ship was going down and you figured you’d save your own neck.”
Temper flares in her eyes. “I’m here because I’m trying to do the right thing. I can’t do it on my own. If you’re not up to helping me out, say the word.”
“It’s interesting that the day an arrest warrant is issued for you you decide to come clean,” he says.
“That warrant is some fantasyland bullshit.” She sets her hand on the table, starts to rise, ends up wincing in pain. “If they’d gotten their hands on me, I wouldn’t have survived.”
Tomasetti stares at her, unmoved. “Is that why you murdered Eddie Cysco? Because they used his name on the warrant?”
Gina lurches to her feet, her eyes darting from Tomasetti to me and back. “What? Eddie Cysco? That’s not possible. I just talked to him. A couple days ago. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You are a suspect,” he tells her. “The weapon they confiscated from your residence is being tested. If ballistics match, you are going down for murder and a slew of other charges, and there isn’t a soul on this earth who can save you.”
“I did not kill Eddie Cysco!” Something akin to panic flashes in her eyes.
“So you say,” he mutters.
Visibly struggling for calm, she divides her attention between the two of us. “Cysco was part of this. He was the source named on the affidavit that got Louis and Sandra Garner killed. For God’s sake, he was proof that someone inside the unit lied on that affidavit, that two innocent people were killed, and that the unit covered it up.”
Tomasetti stares at her, saying nothing.
Gina continues. “Eddie Cysco had no knowledge of that couple. No connection whatsoever. He didn’t know them. Had never been to their residence. The unit needed probable cause for that warrant, so they used him.”
Gripping the side of the table with her uninjured hand, she sinks back into the chair, seeming to work through the possibilities. “They knew he was my snitch. In terms of that bogus warrant and his connection to me, he was a loose end. They didn’t trust him to keep his mouth shut, so they killed him.”
“Tell me about Cysco,” Tomasetti says.
“He was a lowlife.” Gina makes the statement without malice. “He was a small-time dealer. A junkie. Estranged from his family.” Eyes burning with conviction, she looks at Tomasetti. “No one’s going to ask questions when someone like that turns up dead.”
“Why did they turn on you when, evidently, you were content to take the cash and keep your mouth shut,” he asks.
“After the Garner fiasco, I made the mistake of letting them know I wanted out. They stopped trusting me. At some point they decided I was a liability.”
His mouth twists. “Because you had a sudden attack of conscience?”
She glares at him, saying nothing.
“You said you had an audio recording,” I say.
Reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulls out a smartphone. The screen is cracked, but it doesn’t look too damaged to function. She swipes through several pages, taps a button, and holds the phone out to me.
I take it, tap the play icon. The video is little more than a collage of monochrome shadows. The audio is scratchy and faint. A female voice.