A Stranger on the Beach(90)

“Thank you, Vern. Good morning, everybody. Yes, one moment.”

The AUSA stood up and walked to the lectern. She was early forties and confident, with sleek, dark hair, wearing a tailored dress and high-heeled leather boots—the sort of professional woman Jess wanted to be when she grew up. She put an organizational chart with photographs up on the screen. The heading read, KUNETSOV ORGANIZATION, NEW YORK CELL. Jess’s gaze was immediately drawn to a photograph of a dark-haired woman in the second row. The woman wore heavy eyeliner, and the label under her picture read, GALINA MOROZOVA. Galina. The Russian mistress. Jess’s eyes followed an arrow that led sideways from Galina’s photograph to a picture of a handsome, dark-haired man. She looked at the name printed underneath that picture, and gasped.

Mike caught Jess’s eye and shrugged. “What’s the point of this?”

“It’s Jason Stark,” Jess mouthed, pointing at the screen.

“When I saw the reports of your murder case in the papers, I immediately reached out to Vern,” AUSA Vargas said. “For the past two years, we’ve been investigating an organized cell of undocumented Russian nationals operating in the U.S. and Canada, led by a man named Victor Kunetsov. The Kunetsov organization primarily focuses on human and weapons trafficking. However, like all criminal organizations with substantial illegal proceeds, money laundering is a major part of their operation. Jason Stark, your murder victim, was one of our targets. We believe he laundered over fifty million dollars of the organization’s money through his hedge fund, working with this woman, Galina Morozova.”

Mike whistled. Jess raised her hand.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” the AUSA said.

“Caroline Stark told us that her husband had a Russian mistress named Galina. Is it possible that this was simply a romantic relationship?”

“It may also have been romantic, but we’re certain about the money laundering. Peter Mertz, who’s the head of the hedge fund that Jason Stark worked for, reported Stark to the SEC several months ago when he discovered substantial irregularities in the accounts Stark handled. The SEC brought in a forensic accountant, who made the connection to our case through a complex series of transactions that I won’t go into here. I assure you, the evidence against Jason Stark is very strong. Plus, there’s more. We surveilled him.”

The prosecutor clicked through a series of surveillance photographs. The man in the pictures was tall and handsome, with silvering dark hair and a chiseled face—far better-looking than Jess had imagined Jason Stark to be, based on Caroline’s descriptions of a marriage gone dead and sour. Then again, Caroline had not been entirely truthful, had she?

“These are surveillance photographs of Jason Stark with Galina Morozova on three separate occasions in the past month,” the prosecutor said, clicking through slides.

She stopped at a slide that showed Jason Stark getting into a blue Audi on a busy Midtown Manhattan street.

“I draw your attention to this photograph of Galina picking Jason up outside his office in Manhattan. On that day, we followed the two of them to an important meeting at an auto parts store in Queens, which you see here, and again here. Jason and Galina walked through the store to a small parking lot in the rear between the building and the garage. In that parking lot, they met with the top enforcer for the organization. We don’t have great photos from the meeting because our operative was stationed down the street and would not have been able to access the rear parking lot except on foot. But he observed Mikhail Volodin exit the auto parts store not long after Stark and Galina left the place. Here’s a photo of Volodin exiting, and here’s his mug shot where you get a good look at him. Not someone you’d want to run across in a dark alley.”

The mug shot on the screen showed a hulking bodybuilder type with a shaved head and a long, puckered scar on one cheek.

“We suspect Volodin of involvement in upwards of twenty homicides. We believe the purpose of the meeting at the warehouse was for Volodin to threaten Jason Stark’s life. Your victim stole money from the wrong people. Stark skimmed several million dollars of the Kunetsov organization’s money when it passed through the hedge fund. We intercepted phone calls between Galina Morozova and her boss indicating that they were threatening to kill him if he didn’t pay it back.”

Jess raised her hand again. “Wait, I’m confused. Are you saying these mobsters were involved in Jason Stark’s murder?”

“That possibility is exactly why we’re here. Right now, I can’t prove that the Russians killed Jason Stark, but it would certainly be consistent with their MO to whack somebody who crossed them. And Jason Stark crossed them. I’d like to hear your evidence. If your evidence is weak, or could support my Russians doing this, I’d propose adding this murder to my conspiracy and racketeering case.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Vernon Mays said. “You want to take over?”

“Jason Stark’s murder would become part of the Kunetsov case. I’d cross-designate you as a federal officer, Vern, so you could still handle the murder.”

“Work with the feds. Okay, I like that,” he said, nodding.

“Wait a minute,” Jess said. “This can’t be right. We have eyewitness testimony that Aidan Callahan murdered Jason Stark, and forensic evidence to back it up. So, Stark’s murder can’t be connected to your case.”