The Nominee

by Alan P Woodruff

Horse shook his head slowly suggesting that he, like White, was feeling a sense of disbelief. “We may never know the whole story, but we’re finished with our investigation.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Leslie said. She put down her glass, curled her legs on the sofa and leaned against White like a child eagerly waiting to hear a bedtime story.

  White stared at his drink with unseeing eyes. Horse squeezed the bridge of his nose and slowly, almost methodically, shook his head again. Leslie watched, and waited, with growing anticipation. Finally, the silence became too much.

  “Are you guys going to let me in on the secret?”

  White rolled his shoulders and neck and sat up. His eyes seemed to be focused on something that remained just out of sight. When he finally spoke, his voice had a mixture of frustration and disbelief. “I should never have trusted Graham. He took advantage of me the whole time.”

  Leslie waited silently for White to continue.

  After a minute, White said. “David Shepard isn’t Graham’s son. He’s an agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency.”

  Leslie snapped upright and turned to face White.

  “The whole thing was a lie… one big fucking lie.”

  Leslie reached for White and took his hand.

  White shook his head slowly. “And I walked right into the middle of it… and kept on going.”

  For a minute, neither of them said anything. Finally, Leslie asked, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “The beginning is usually a good spot.”

  “I’m not even sure where that is.” White drained his glass and went to the bar where he poured himself another scotch — a full glass. With a wave of the bottle, he asked if Leslie was ready for more. She shook her head, and White returned to the sofa.

  For a minute, White focused his attention on his glass as if it was an oracle from which he could draw wisdom. When he eventually spoke, his voice was tainted with his continuing sense of rage at having been so blatantly misled by Brochette.

  “They did arrange for David Shepard, or whatever his real name is, to connect with Tom Jackson down in Marathon. But the story about David having been arrested and being given a choice of going to jail or going undercover was a complete fabrication.”

  Leslie gasped and gripped White’s arm. In a halting voice, she said, “All of it was a lie?”

  “Not all of it. The State’s attorney for the Keys was making an increasing number of heroin arrests… they did think Jackson could lead them some of the big dealers… and they did need someone to go undercover. David — and his first name really is David — was loaned to them as part of a joint operation. An arrest record for David ‘Shepard’ was fabricated and he and Jackson were locked up together — and eventually released together. Unfortunately, nothing came of the original plan because it was supposed to ferret out drug dealers in the Keys and Shepard and Jackson moved to Matlacha soon after they got out of jail. Once they left Monroe County, the prosecutor in Marathon didn’t have any interest in them. As far as I know, the Marathon prosecutor didn’t know where they had gone, so he couldn’t even tell Paul Parker about them or the arrangement he had made with ‘Shepard.’”

  Leslie seemed to anticipate where White was going. “But, if ‘Shepard’ was a DEA agent, wouldn’t he have told someone where they had moved to?”

  “Apparently he told his own superiors because the DEA called Graham and told him they had an undercover agent working in the district.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “Graham told me. I’d told Graham that his nomination was being held up because of some problem with his past financial disclosures. When he disclosed his relationship to ‘Shepard,’ someone must have investigated and found out that he hadn’t reported having any child support obligations. For some people, that apparently raised questions about his fitness for his new position. Graham wanted me to talk to Jack Lancaster about helping clean up the problem. That’s why he finally told me the whole story.”

  Leslie nodded but appeared to remain perplexed. “Why did the DEA leave ‘Shepard’ with Jackson when Jackson moved to Matlacha?”

  “That was Graham’s idea. He was investigating drug-related corruption in the Southern District. They had planned to set up a sting with their own undercover agent. When ‘Shepard’ and Jackson were put together in the Keys, he decided to piggy-back his investigation with the one set up by the State’s attorney. They could do that because the Keys are in the Southern District.”

  Leslie seemed to deduce from White’s demeanor what was coming next. “But that plan fell apart when Shepard and Jackson moved to Matlacha.”

  “Yes… temporarily,” White said before taking another swallow of scotch. “Graham ran a background check and found out that Jackson was from West Palm Beach, which is in the Southern District. He probably assumed that Jackson would eventually go back to West Palm and could be used in his investigation of corruption in the Southern District.”

  “But why?” Leslie asked. “He didn’t have any real reason for thinking that Jackson would go back to the east coast — or do anything that could help his investigation.”

  White suppressed a yawn as he strained to recall precisely what Brochette had told him. “Graham’s investigation in the Southern District was being conducted at the request of the Attorney General himself. The investigation itself was real, but it was also a sort of test. The Attorney General had plans to reorganize functions within the Department of Justice. Offices responsible for the investigation of federal attorneys and judges and both state and federal public officials will all report to one deputy assistant attorney general. That will be Graham if his nomination is confirmed.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “I think so too. But the proposed reorganization wasn’t a popular move in the Senate. As we dug deeper into our case, we found problems that would justify investigation by multiple offices of the DOJ. Graham used what we had discovered to focus on his investigation of corruption in the Southern District. He wanted to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed reorganization of DOJ functions. But that spread his resources pretty thin, and he missed some things. I think he may have let his personal aspirations color some of his decisions.”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption. But what did he miss?”

  “Even though the investigation of corruption in the Southern District was important, he had other responsibilities that he let suffer.”

  “Like what?”

  “For starters, everything we know about ‘Shepard’ and Jackson happened in the Middle District, which is Graham’s district. Once the DEA told him that ‘Shepard’ and Jackson moved to Matlacha, they became his problem, and he had responsibility for investigating their activities.

  “One of his assistants is in charge of the Fort Myers office, which is responsible for federal cases in all of southwest Florida… including Matlacha. Graham left it up to him to follow up with ‘Shepard’ and keep track of anything ‘Shepard’ and Jackson were involved in. Otherwise, Graham didn’t do anything. When ‘Shepard’ and Jackson were arrested, his office should have taken over the case. All he had to do was recuse himself from anything involving ‘Shepard.’ When Jackson was murdered, he should have taken jurisdiction.”

  Leslie took a sip of wine and swirled her glass. Her eyes focused on the legs that formed on the inside of her glass, and if she would find the answer to a troubling question in the burgundy liquid. Whatever she was hoping to find, it alluded her. She shook her head, as if dismissing the mental search, and asked, “What was Graham doing in the meantime.”

  “He was focused on the investigation of corruption in the Southern District. He still didn’t know whether the problem was in the state or federal courts. But he did do one thing right.”

  “Until Jackson was murdered, Graham still expected him to move back into the Southern District sooner or later, so he ran a more comprehensive background check
on him. That revealed that Jackson’s step-father was Richard Barlow. Then Graham ran a background check on the father and found out that he was the attorney of choice in the local world of illegal substances. A little more looking and it turned out that Horse’s contact over in West Palm Beach was right. Barlow had been a suspect in the heroin trade a few years ago, and the FBI had tapped his phones.”

  “And no one knew this before Graham’s investigation started?”

  White made a quiet snorting sound and shook his head. “It was an old investigation that hadn’t gone anywhere, and the wiretaps had been illegal. The investigation had been terminated and the file closed. But Graham had the file re-opened.”

  Leslie seemed to know where this discussion was going and guessed, “And the old taps were the key to solving the problem.”

  White shook his head. His weak, enigmatic smile implied that he had hoped she would guess correctly. “I’m afraid not. The original investigation was looking for evidence of Barlow’s involvement in the heroin trade. But the wiretaps didn’t come up with any evidence to support that theory. I couldn’t tell Graham everything we were finding in our investigation, but I was able to tell him enough for him the develop a new theory for the old Barlow investigation, so he had the recordings reexamine.”

  Leslie listened with rapt attention and fidgeted whenever White stopped. “And!”

  “The wire-taps contained enough to prove that Barlow was getting certain drug users out of jail at the request of dealers. But because the original wire-taps were illegal, Graham couldn’t use anything they had learned about Barlow.”

  “What they found is starting to sound familiar.”

  “It should,” White said. “They were still a long way from understanding what Barlow had been doing. There were hints that Barlow has some involvement in the drug trade, but that’s all they were, only hints. Then I told Brochette about Horse’s interview with the private investigator, Peter Gordon. That gave him the insight he needed to refocus his investigation. His team put beaucoup hours looking into Barlow’s record in Palm County and started putting together a complete picture of what Barlow had been doing.

  Leslie bit her lip. “And was Barlow involved in drug trafficking.”

  “Yes, at one time he was involved in drug trafficking. When his practice was limited to immigration law, he arranged for people from southeast Asia to get into the country with small quantities of heroin. He brought it in, and the Cambodian who worked for him distributed it. It wasn’t a huge operation, but it was big enough to get the attention of the local authorities.”

  “What about the federal law enforcement agencies?”

  White shrugged and finished his drink. “Heroin was still a big concern up north. Cocaine related investigations took most of the resources of the local authorities, but the state and federal agencies don’t seem to have been on speaking terms. But the state put together the task force to deal with the heroin problem in Florida.”

  “That’s the task force I heard about from the private investigator in West Palm Beach,” Horse said.

  “Right. When the U.S. Attorney’s found out about the state task force, they decided to look into the trade. That’s what lead to the wire-taps. But that’s also what got Barlow out of the business. The state task force was beginning to put pressure on his operation. But then things happened that changed his whole operation.”

  White laid his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes as if he was finished with his story. Leslie sat up squarer and poked him playfully in the ribs. “You can’t stop now. What happened next.”

  White rolled his head lazily and looked at Leslie. “When did you become a five-year-old?”

  Leslie sighed. “You wouldn’t have to tell me the story if you’d let me be more involved in the case.”

  Horse chuckled. “She has you there, Lucius.”

  White rolled his eyes. “We can finish the story in the morning.”

  Leslie pouted and gave White a pleading look.

  White shook his head. “Why am I beginning to feel like a kinder garden teacher?”

  Leslie laughed and clapped her hands. “Please! Please!”

  “All right,” White said before reluctantly returning to the story. “About the time the state task-force was beginning to make inroads into the heroin trafficking, Barlow’s step-son—”

  “Jackson?”

  “Yeah, Jackson. He was arrested for heroin possession. Barlow represented his son and got him probation. But that also seemed to have gotten him interested in doing more work drug related to charges. According to the records Graham dug up, Barlow initially only represented users who had been arrested. But that must have been enough to let him see how law enforcement was going after drug smugglers and dealers. What he learned must have made him realize how vulnerable his heroin network was. With the state task-force starting to make inroads into his heroin business, and with a growing practice in defending drug cases, he got out of the heroin business.”

  Horse interrupted and said, “That’s consistent with what my private investigator friend said. He said that the heroin trafficking took a nose-dive over-night.”

  White stood, put down his drink and started to walk away.

  Leslie frowned in an apparent show of annoyance until she realized where White was going. She shifted her position on the sofa so that she could look at White and said, “It’s the second door on the left, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  White made a rude gesture and trotted down the hall.

  “Okay, Horse,” Leslie said. “Tell me the rest before the Grouch gets back.”

  Horse took another swig of beer and closed his eyes. He seemed to be trying to sort the facts of the story to be sure that they were in the proper order. Finally, he returned his attention to Leslie, “It turns out that Barlow was a surprisingly good negotiator. His clients were either getting probation or minimum jail time. He actually represented his clients well, and pretty soon he was the ‘go to’ attorney for Palm County for petty drug arrests. He was still only representing users and a few small-time dealers, but their money was green, and business was good. Then he started getting approached by people who had been arrested in other counties. Barlow was happy to oblige them and pretty soon he had clients from West Palm Beach to Key West.”

  “Then he started getting greedy,” White called from down the hall.

  “And stupid,” Horse said.

  “Yes. Very stupid.”

  “Very, very stupid.” Horse said.

  Leslie pursed her lips, and her expression began to show her impatience. “I get it! He was stupid. But what was he doing?”

  Horse looked at White who shrugged and nodded. Horse settled back in his recliner and seemed to think for a moment before continuing. “At some point, Barlow decided that the information his clients were willing to give up in plea bargains was also worth money to the dealers he represented. Not surprisingly, they were willing to pay Barlow for what he knew. All of a sudden, clients who had made plea deals and been bailed out were changing their minds or were getting amnesia. Of course, Barlow could tell from his client’s casts and bruises what form the persuasion had taken, but no one was getting killed.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Leslie said. “Barlow was negotiating plea deals… then he was telling the person who was named in the plea that Barlow’s own client was ready to testify against him.”

  “That’s about it. But he was only selling information to dealers who were also his clients.”

  Leslie shook her head. “I can’t believe it. He was pond scum.”

  “No doubt,” White muttered. “He had a highly questionable grasp of legal ethics.”

  Leslie moved to the edge of the sofa and leaned toward Horse. “What happened then.”

  “Then fate reared its ugly head,” White said as he reclaimed his place on the sofa beside Leslie. “A couple of Barlow’s clients got real sweetheart deals by becoming informants or testifying against someone hi
gher in one of the cartels. This, of course, did not make distributors happy. So they approached Barlow with an offer—

  “The kind of offer that can’t be refused,” Horse said from in front of the fireplace where he was beginning the stack kindling.

  Leslie leaned forward as though getting closer to Horse would get information to her faster. “And what was the offer.”

  “When Barlow was negotiating a deal that involved testifying against someone in the drug network, all he had to do was tell the subject of the plea deal about expected testimony and get his client bailed out before he testified.”

  “And since this was an offer that he couldn’t refuse, he started doing what he was told to do.”

  “But isn’t that what he was already doing.”

  “Yes, he wasn’t only reporting to dealers who were also his clients. Now he was working for people at the top of the drug cartels, and the people he was getting out of jail were never seen again.”

  Leslie rolled her eyes. “So now Barlow was himself a felon — an accomplice to the murder.”

  “I’m sure that fact was obvious to Barlow. But the money he got was more than enough to assuage his conscience.

  “Was that all there was to it?”

  “No, there was one more piece,” White said. “And it wasn’t even something Barlow did.”

  Leslie was becoming more and more impatient. Complex criminal cases were not new to White, but to Leslie the sorting out of facts was taking on all the features of a television drama. White had barely finished talking when she was demanding, “What was it?”

  “Patience, dear,”

  “Patience, my ass. What happened next?

  “‘Patience your ass.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Leslie frowned and gave White her most serious look. “It’s what you won’t be getting any of if you don’t hurry up.”

  “Ah. Well now that you’ve explained the benefits.” White cracked his knuckles and put on his best ‘I’m thinking’ look before continuing.

  “About this time Barlow made a deal for a client to testify against a major dealer from Miami who had been arrested in Palm Beach. But the prosecutor wouldn’t let Barlow’s client out until after he had testified. And the prosecutor demanded some absurdly high bail — cash only, no bond — so Barlow couldn’t get his clients out of jail. For a while, Barlow was in a quandary. Then the prosecutor approached Barlow and explained that he was a ‘reasonable’ man and, for a price, the prosecutor would reduce his bail demand.”