I can't say for sure what's happening — Glendale officials are using the specter of litigation to dodge key questions. But I can tell you this: It smells pretty damn bad.

The record suggests, in fact, that Glendale City Manager Ed Beasley is trying his best to hand over the Coyotes to his friend, lobbyist John Kaites, and Kaites' Chicago buddy, Jerry Reinsdorf.

— Sarah Fenske, Phoenix New Times

Another new wrinkle in a case that hardly needed one, and another player in the form of weatherman turned politician turned lobbyist John Kaites — seen above posing with the current U.S. secretary of homeland security back in January of 2007.

When Jerry Reinsdorf first emerged as a suitor for the Coyotes, it was with Kaites's name attached as a potential partner, and at the time, I wasn't able to find all that much worth noting on the local lawyer. He has a blog here, with two entries pulled straight from the local newspaper and with his own quotes in bold, and has quietly been connected to Reinsdorf in one way or another for more than a decade.

He seemed nothing more than potential legal help, a friend in the desert on the scene to lend a hand.

That he's also friendly with Glendale city manager Ed Beasley, however, connects many of the dots that bring us to the how and the why Reinsdorf — a well-known professional sports icon in Chicago with seemingly little interest in a faraway money-losing hockey team — got involved.

According to current owner Jerry Moyes's camp, that happened long, long ago:

"While there is no doubt the Reinsdorf bid is full of material contingencies," read one recent filing, "the Court should not lose sight of the fact that Reinsdorf first started this process in the spring or summer of 2008 — essentially one year ago. The Reinsdorf Group is hardly new to this party — it has been circling this transaction for a year."

Moyes, too, asked last week why Kaites and Co. have been able to negotiate potential concessions when none were offered as the former ownership group sunk into the deep end while trying to alert the city (through Beasley):

"The current structure of our agreements with Glendale and other parties is a money loser no matter how well the team plays," Moyes said in a statement. "Simply put, the Reinsdorf bid wants to only assume the team's debt and then restructure all agreements, which is what I have been trying to do for the last year."

Moyes questioned why Glendale would make concessions for another owner but not him.

We've heard very little about Kaites to this point, but I imagine that's about to change. The optics certainly aren't good that, when the Coyotes needed a lifeline a year ago and didn't get it, a friend of the agent in charge served to benefit.

How can that be explained away?