Above the Law (53 page)

Her testimony took over four hours. Judge McBee let us go straight through, so we didn’t break for lunch until one-thirty. I had food brought in; we ate in a small waiting room next to McBee’s chambers. I assured her she had done magnificently. She smiled wanly at that, knowing she was in for some trying times. Her life was public now, she was going to be living in a fishbowl. I didn’t envy her that, and I admired her steeliness in facing the tough reality of it.

After the lunch recess we were back in court, and Diane took her seat on the witness stand. John Q. walked to the rostrum.

“Mrs. Richards…” He glanced back at Jerome, sitting at the defense table. Reflexively, her eyes followed his look, so that for the first time since she’d come into the courtroom, she was looking at her brother, which had been the cagey old lawyer’s intent.

Jerome was staring intently at her. Not with evilness or in anger, but almost soulfully, the connection heavily palpable, you could feel the vibration throughout the courtroom, two beings from the same unique source.

For a brief, heart-stopping moment it looked as if her composure would crack; then she got hold of herself, gave him one brief nod, and turned away, back to John Q. No ties bound her to him. They’d been shattered on an empty beach, over two decades ago.

Diane’s inner strength, so evident, took the wind out of John Q.’s sails before he’d had a chance to hoist them. She wasn’t going to break; she wasn’t even going to bend. He worked on her for half an hour, and then he gave it up.

Almost every day had been a good day for me, since the beginning of the trial. Today was the capper. I could see it in the jurors’ eyes as Diane Richards was excused and left the courtroom. She had won them over completely; thus, by association, I had, too.

I couldn’t have hoped for a higher note to go out on.

“The prosecution rests, Your Honor.”

C
OURT STOOD IN RECESS
until Monday morning, when John Q. would begin his defense. I reviewed his witness list and mentally checked off what I figured they’d be testifying to. There were no names on it I didn’t know about, but surprises do come up at the eleventh hour, and you try to anticipate them as best you can.

I was feeling good about the case. Not only was the evidence against Jerome compelling and comprehensive, but there were no other candidates. The only other possibility was that Jerome hadn’t been a lone wolf, that he’d roped others into his scheme. But there was no evidence of that, no rumors of that, nothing. Looking at the situation from a cold-blooded, practical level, Jerome would almost certainly have tried to cut a deal with me had that been the case. Misery loves company; also, when more than one person is involved in the commission of a crime like this one, it can be tougher for a prosecutor to get the jury to hand down the maximum penalty. But John Q. had ruled out a plea bargain from the outset, which to me was a clean signal that he didn’t have a fallback position, such as an accomplice. Either Sterling Jerome had killed Reynaldo Juarez, or it had been done by a ghost. I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

Against my better judgment, I agreed to take Riva and Bucky and Joan to Nora’s house for a Sunday afternoon swim. Nora had called Riva with the invitation, and Riva had accepted without checking with me—she had no reason to, she didn’t know what had gone on in that pool, or the subsequent arguments and veiled threats about that. But I couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse that wouldn’t raise doubts in Riva’s mind, so we threw our bathing stuff in the car and drove over.

“You have a lovely home,” Riva said after Nora had showed her around.

“Thank you,” Nora answered graciously. “My family has some money,” she explained. “When I made the decision to stay up here after Dennis died, I decided I’d live as well as I could. It’s an extravagance for a single person, but what else am I going to spend my money on?”

Nora, wearing a demure bathing suit, was on her best behavior, thankfully. We swam, lay out in the sun, tossed Frisbees on her spacious lawn, and had an easy, enjoyable time. She became an instant swimming instructor, coaxing Buck to jump off the edge into her waiting arms, accompanied by shrieks of gleeful laughter.

Late in the afternoon, when Riva had taken Buck inside to use the potty, and Joan was sunbathing a distance away, Nora came over and sat down in the deck chair next to the one I was in.

“Truce?” she asked.

With my wife at hand, she wasn’t going to try anything.

“As long as you behave yourself.”

“I will, I promise. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking,” she apologized yet again, glancing around to make sure Riva wasn’t coming up behind us. “That isn’t me, Luke, it really isn’t. I was just…I don’t know what I was. It’ll never happen again, I swear it.”

I didn’t want to talk about this. “Let’s act as if it never happened and move on, okay?”

“Gladly.” She shifted a bit in her chair. “Can we talk at all about the trial?”

“There’s not much to talk about now. I’m finished, except for my closing. It’s going to be completed within a couple of weeks.”

“You’ve done a wonderful job,” she gushed. “Everything I could have hoped for. I know Bill Fishell’s thrilled, too.”

“It isn’t over yet, so let’s cool it, okay?”

“It is over, Luke,” she assured me. “What could change?”

“Don’t jinx me, Nora, please. It’s one of my pet superstitions.”

“Not this time.”

I hate being hyped in advance. “Juries can be unpredictable, Nora. This could turn not on what Jerome did but who he is—all-American crime stopper—and who Juarez was—scumbag drug dealer. Anyone on that jury could vote that Juarez got his just deserts. That’s what John Q. Jones is going to hammer, you watch. And don’t for one minute underestimate him. I’ve seen him do wonders with cases that looked like worse losers than this one.”

She didn’t want to hear my concerns. “So you’ll remind them not to get confused between fact and sentiment. Juarez was an unarmed man gunned down in cold blood by a peace officer sworn to uphold the law. Use Tom Miller’s authority in your closing, the people here love him. If he’s against Jerome, they will be, too. Hammer that home, and you’ll get your verdict.”

She swept her arm, taking in her property. “I’d bet the farm on it.”

“That’s a chunk of change. Thanks for the confidence.”

“You’ve earned it.”

“Some fancy spread your lady friend has,” Riva commented on the drive home. “It reminds me of Sheriff Miller’s house, the mission style. Law enforcement pays well in Muir County,” she joked.

I laughed. “Their salaries wouldn’t buy the garages, let alone their houses. Miller made his money in a hot market, and hers is from her family.”

“They built their houses at the same time,” Joan piped up from the backseat. She could be a little chatterbox sometimes. “The reason they look like each other is because they used the same architect. He was the contractor, too. Mrs. Ray brought him up from San Francisco. The locals got their noses bent out of shape, but nobody around here could put together that quality of work. Some of our guys who were working on the jobs as subs, like carpenters and plumbers, said you couldn’t believe the amounts of money both of them put into their houses. One of my friends from the reservation did framing for the contractor, that’s how I know.”

“They’re nice,” I agreed, “but they don’t compare to Juarez’s compound. It dwarfs both those houses. You should see that place, honey,” I said to Riva. “What’s left of it. We’ll cruise by there before we go home.”

Joan spoke up again. “That one took a long time to build. Nobody knew what was going on up there. Guys with guns patrolling, it was scary. One time a bunch of us thought about sneaking in? Those guards must’ve chased us a mile. You don’t ever want to mess around drug dudes, they kill for a living.”

“And now your tribe’s trying to buy it,” I said. “It’s a small world up here in Muir County.”

“It sure is, Mr. Garrison. Too small, if you ask me.”

Joan’s remarks about the houses rattled around in my mind. After we had had dinner and put Buck to bed, I dialed Kate Blanchard. “Check on something for me. The name of the contractor who built Tom Miller’s and Nora Ray’s homes. They were done at the same time, five or six years ago. Get the histories for me, okay? How much they cost, how they were paid for, whatever.”

“What’s this about?” I could feel her getting excited over the line, like a racehorse hearing the call to the post.

“Nothing, probably. Get back to me as soon as you can on it.”

“I’ll try to have something for you end of the day tomorrow.”

Agent Dutton, a hostile witness for me, was a cooperative one for the defense.

“Mr. Dutton…” John Q. got into the specifics. “You were one of the senior agents who were assembled outside the perimeter of the Juarez drug-cartel compound in order to raid the premises on the night in question, that’s correct?”

“Yes, sir, that is correct,” Dutton declared. “We were there to raid the Juarez drug-cartel compound, take possession of the drugs that were supposed to be there, and arrest whoever was inside.”

“That was your mission. Confiscate the drugs, arrest those in possession of them.”

“Yes.”

“But the drugs didn’t arrive as they were supposed to, by airplane. Weather wouldn’t permit that.”

“That’s correct.”

I got to my feet again. “Your Honor. The story of the drugs and the airplanes have already been well established. We don’t need to rehash this over and over again, do we?”

John Q. spoke up. “I’m trying to substantiate the patterns and procedures of a correct and legitimate law enforcement operation, Your Honor. The prosecution did so from their skewed perspective. Please allow the defense to try and tell it like it really was.”

“Your Honor—” I started. I didn’t like the pejorative “skewed” or the adverb “really.” Upon such subtle distinctions can trials be won or lost.

McBee put up a hand to silence me. “Let’s move on, shall we?” he told us both. “Keep the personal feelings to yourself, please.” To John Q. he said, “You may proceed along these lines, but don’t take too long, okay?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.”

John Q. favored me with a smile, a small “gotcha.” Turning back to his witness, he continued, “When you found out that the airplane containing the drug shipment could not come, in as expected, what did you do?”

“We decided to move in anyway.”

“Whose decision was that, Agent Dutton?”

“It was Jerome’s, sir. He was the commander in the field.”

“Did you concur in that decision, Agent Dutton?”

“I certainly did. Every man who was there agreed with that decision.”

“Why was that? If the drugs weren’t going to be there? Wasn’t that the reason for the raid? To intercept the drugs?”

“It was
one
of the points.” Dutton was aggressive in his clarification. “Arresting Juarez and the rest of them was equally important.”

He swiveled to face the jury. “More important, actually. These drugs coming in that night were one shipment. A huge one, of course, but one of millions of such shipments that come into this country every year. Arresting the leaders of this important gang, and permanently stopping these shipments and the selling of these dangerous drugs into the communities of America, was a more important reason for this raid. A much more important reason.”

I could have objected, but I’d wait for cross-examination.

“Good.” John Q. beamed. “I wanted to make sure we got that on the record, in its proper form—these were dangerous men inside that compound, wanted men.”

He walked back to the defense table, leaned over to Jerome, and said a few low words. Jerome nodded in the affirmative. Looking at his notes briefly, John Q. came back to the lectern again.

“Now, Agent Dutton. When the decision was made to go in and arrest the men inside the compound, were all the agents present given specific instructions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By Agent Jerome?”

“Yes.”

“What were they?”

“To take Reynaldo Juarez alive.”

“To take Juarez alive,” John Q. repeated. “Alive or dead, or alive?”

“Alive,” Dutton said firmly. “Not dead. Agent Jerome was clear and forceful on that. Juarez was to be captured and arrested. Under no circumstances was he to be killed.”

“Explain the reasons for that, please.”

“Juarez was one of the leading drug kingpins in the United States. He was a very elusive figure. It was impossible to pin him down. This was one of the few opportunities anyone had ever had to capture him. If he got away, we might never have a chance this good again.”

“But why only alive then?” John Q. asked. “If he were killed, that would stop him, too, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would stop
him,
specifically. But alive, he could give us vital information on drug dealings all over the world. The Justice Department felt he was a key to that. So we had to take him alive.”

“Those were your direct orders.”

“Yes.”

“Agent Jerome was clear on that?”

“Very clear. He impressed upon all of us that if Juarez was killed, the operation would be a failure. He had to be taken alive.”

“So if one of you did kill Juarez, that would have severe repercussions with the Justice Department.”

“Very severe.”

“If, for instance,” John Q. went on, “you had killed Juarez, Agent Dutton, you would have suffered some consequences?”

“Bad ones.”

“Even to the point of being fired?”

“Yes, definitely. This was a command order.” Dutton paused. “I already have,” he said somberly. “We all have, all of us who were there.”

“So if Agent Jerome had killed Juarez, he also would have suffered negative consequences?”

Dutton nodded his head vigorously. “He would have suffered the worst, because he was the team leader.”

“He might have been cashiered. At least demoted.”

“Yes.”

“His career destroyed.”

Dutton looked past John Q. to Jerome, watching from the defense table.