The Nominee

by Alan P Woodruff

  “Barlow/St. James scheme.”

  “Yes. Thank you. If Jackson had already told ‘Shepard’ about the scheme, why didn’t you put all the pieces together before you got Barlow’s ‘insurance policy’?”

  White smiled. “That’s a good question. You might make a half-decent criminal attorney after all.”

  Leslie started to scowl and looked as if she was about to say something but seemed to change her mind. “Then answer the question.”

  White scooped up the ingredient he was chopping and put them in a bowl before turning and leaning against the island. “It turns out that Jackson only knew what his father was doing, and that’s all he told ‘Shepard’ about. Graham investigated and confirmed what Jackson has said. But Graham knew that the arrangement was much bigger — so he kept digging.”

  “Wait a minute,” Leslie said. “How do you know the Barlow/St. James people didn’t intend to kill Jackson from the beginning?”

  “If that was all they intended, they would have just killed him — or arranged for him to be killed. But as I said, Barlow wouldn’t agree to that.”

  “Then it was the people on the east coast who planted to cocaine that got them arrested.”

  “Yes. At least indirectly.”

  “How did they do that?’

  “I’m coming to that.”

  “Well, come a little faster.”

  Horse, who was taking a drink of beer, burst out laughing. Beer came out of his nose. “Now there’s a phrase that I’ll bet you don’t say often.”

  White strained to stifle a laugh of his own. Leslie pondered his statement for a moment before blushing and giving him a playful punch on the shoulder. “You have a dirty mind.”

  Horse responded with another laugh. “You’re the one who said it.”

  “Well Hrumph to you,” Leslie said before taking another sip of wine and returning her attention to the story of the investigation. “Then what went wrong with the plan?”

  While White busied himself at the cooking island, Horse picked up the story. “The attempt to scare Jackson into keeping his mouth shut appeared to have backfired when he started trying to bargain his way out of jail. The people who ran things on the east coast had to assume he was offering to tell the authorities what he knew about the Barlow-St. James operation.

  “But you said Jackson knew that people who tried to make plea deals were being killed when they were released from jail.”

  “Jackson must have assumed that his father would never let him be killed. Besides, he probably never intended to tell anyone about his father’s operation.”

  “Then what information was he going give Paul Parker?”

  “It could have been anything.”

  Leslie took a sip of wine and returned her glass to the breakfast bar before asking, “Such as?”

  “Well, for instance, Jackson knew that his father’s organization had never framed anyone. And since he knew that he hadn’t brought any cocaine to Matlacha, he must have assumed that ‘Shepard’ had brought the cocaine to the house — or that ‘Shepard’ was the one being framed. Whatever deal Jackson was trying to make with Paul must have involved testimony against ‘Shepard’ — not his father’s organization.”

  “Or,” Horse interjected, “he might also have planned to tell what he knew about the Cambodian and the protection racket he was running.”

  “What racket was that?”

  “That’s a whole different story, but we’ll get to that.”

  “Well get a move on it!”

  “Don’t get your undies in an uproar.”

  Leslie gave White an oral razzberry.

  White narrowed his eyes and considered several responses of marginal propriety before continuing. “When Jackson offered information to Parker as part of a deal, the people on the east coast didn’t know about the other things Jackson could testify about. They must have assumed that the only thing he was ready to talk about was their operation.”

  “So, they got him bailed out.”

  “That’s right. But the fact that he had been ready to make a deal to get out of jail made it clear that he hadn’t learned his lesson. But they still had to find a way to deal with his blackmail demands.”

  “How do you know they didn’t already have a plan?”

  “Do you mean ‘Why didn’t they plan to kill him as soon as he was released?’”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s what I was thinking.”

  “By the time Jackson was in jail, the organization that was operating on the east coast involved more than just Barlow and St. James. Like all organizations, sometimes it takes time to make decisions. Some of the people in the organization must have believed that Jackson could never be trusted and had to be eliminated. If Jackson had been anyone else, they would have just had them killed. But Barlow wouldn’t have wanted to let his step-son be killed, so the others had to find another way to deal with him.”

  Leslie swirled her wine and watched absently as its legs formed on the inside of the glass. She seemed to want to say something but was unable to decide what it was. Finally, she asked, “Wasn’t one of our problems that we couldn’t figure who would be willing, or able, to use two kilograms of pure cocaine just to frame ‘Shepard’ and Jackson. I mean, we’ve always assumed that it was a frame-up. And we’ve always assumed that no dealer would use that much cocaine to frame anyone. That meant that the drugs had to be from a supply controlled by law enforcement authorities.”

  White chuckled as he removed plates from the oak cabinets.

  “What’s so funny.”

  White turned and leaned against the kitchen island. “I can’t prove it now, but I don’t think there ever was any cocaine.”

  “What! What makes you think that?”

  “Whatever was supposedly recovered in the raid was never tested, so there is no proof of what it was. And since the plan was only to arrest Jackson, and hold him for a few days to scare him, there was never going to be a trial. To do what they wanted to do, which was scare Jackson, all they needed was something that looked like cocaine.

  “I always had my doubts about the amount of cocaine that was found. We got the charges against ‘Shepard’ dismissed at the probable cause hearing, so I never had to make the state prove that their evidence was really cocaine. But that would have been my next challenge.”

  Leslie made a “T” with her hands and said, “Timeout. If the east coast people had so much control over things in Miami, why were ‘Shepard’ and Jackson even arrested over here?”

  Horse looked toward White who said, “You’re doing fine.”

  Horse turned his bar stool so that he was facing Leslie. “The whole point of having Jackson arrested was to scare him. If he’d been arrested in Miami, he would have known his case could be fixed. That’s why he was hoping that his case would be taken over by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.

  “Didn’t he tell Diane Lindsey that he had something he could bargain with in the Southern District?”

  “He didn’t get that specific. All he said was that he expected the case to be taken over by the U.S. Attorney. Then, when he was told he was in the Middle District, he wanted to try to make a deal with Paul Parker. Besides, what else would you expect him to tell Diane: ‘My father can fix my case if it’s in the Southern District.’”

  “I get your point. But what was he going to tell Paul?”

  “As Lucius said, there are a number of things he could have offered Paul without talking about the Barlow-St. James operation. But the people on the east coast didn’t know that. In fact, neither Diane nor Paul knew what he was going to offer in exchange for bail and his release. But the east coast people feared the worst.”

  “So they hired Diane to get Jackson out on bail. And Jackson’s efforts to plea bargain his way out of jail ended up getting him murdered.”

  “I don’t think that a decision about Jackson’s immediate future had been made by the time he was released. But a unique opportunity presented itse
lf, and someone decided to act.”

  “What was the unique opportunity?”

  “Jackson was bailed out on a Wednesday morning, and ‘Shepard’ got out on bail that same afternoon. When ‘Shepard’ was released, someone, or maybe more than one person, decided that Jackson could be killed and the blame put on ‘Shepard.’ That way. Barlow wouldn’t blame his death on anyone in the organization. And they got lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “To get ‘Shepard’ released, we claimed that he was Graham Brochette’s son.”

  “That must have shaken them up!” Leslie said.

  White stood at the cooking island patting the elk meat into thick uniform patties. Without looking at the others, he said, “I’m sure it did. And since Jackson had been threatening to expose their operation, they had to assume that Jackson had talked about it to ‘Shepard.’ They didn’t know how much ‘Shepard’ had learned, but it didn’t matter. As far as the Barlow/St. James people were concerned it was enough that he was the son of a U.S. Attorney. I don’t think they had a plan for ‘Shepard’ at first. But—”

  Leslie’s eyes brightened as she appeared to realize how the next part of the story must have unfolded. “The people who ran the operation knew they had to do something about ‘Shepard.’ But no one was ready to kill the son of a U.S. attorney. So, they did the next best thing. They tried to destroy ‘Shepard’ credibility as a witness against them by framing him for murdering Jackson.”

  “You catch on fast,” White said when he realized that Leslie had figured out the plan. “They decided to get rid of both of their problems by killing Jackson and framing ‘Shepard’ for his murder.”

  Leslie’s demeanor became more animated as she began to understand how the plan had evolved. “And they used Graham’s gun so that they could get a ballistics match and argue that ‘Shepard’ must have taken the gun from Graham’s car.”

  White smiled. There was a hint of pride in his eyes as he watched Leslie demonstrate her grasp of the abstract ideas they were working with. “That was the plan.”

  “They must have acted fast. Jackson and ‘Shepard’ were released on bail on the same day, and Jackson was killed, with Graham’s gun, sometime that night.

  White added a slab of bacon to the frying pan. While it began to sizzle, he returned his attention the Leslie. “Since you’re now so smart, tell us how they got Graham’s gun.”

  “Are we still sure that Lyle Wilson stole Graham’s gun.”

  White shook his head. “We only assumed that because Lyle Wilson was in Tampa the day the gun disappeared from Graham’s car. We know he had an opportunity to steal it, but we don’t have any proof that he did steal the gun. That’s what threw a curve into both investigations.”

  “Both?”

  “Our investigation of Jackson’s death and Graham’s investigation of corruption in the Southern District.”

  Leslie pulled her feet onto her bar stool and wrapped her arms around her knees. “How did the theft of Graham’s gun affect Graham’s investigation.”

  “At first, Graham and I were both certain that Wilson had stolen Graham’s gun. But once we thought about it, we started to question that assumption.”

  “Why was that?”

  “If Wilson had stolen Graham’s gun, that would have made him the prime suspect in Jackson’s murder. But neither of us believed that Wilson was actually involved in Jackson’s murder… so we both had a loose end. We both thought he was guilty of something, but we had different concerns. I had to find out who Wilson gave the gun to, and Graham had to investigate the extent of Wilson’s involvement in any corruption scheme on the east coast.

  “When Wilson took over the Jackson murder case, Graham questioned his motives because we still recognized that he might have stolen Graham’s gun. Then Wilson said he was ready to take the case of the drugs in Matlacha if he could wrap that into the disclosure of information he wanted from ‘Shepard.’ Graham had to know that he probably didn’t have jurisdiction over the drug case and went back to thinking that Wilson might be involved in corruption. Once he saw how the corruption was being conducted in the state courts, he realized how easily Wilson could implement the Barlow/St. James plan in the federal courts.”

  “Why would Wilson do that?”

  “Patience my dear,” White said.

  “You’re enjoying dragging this out, aren’t you?”

  “Not at all. But telling the story is cathartic, and I want to get it out.”

  “Okay, so you were talking about Graham’s investigation of Lyle Wilson. But didn’t you say that Graham was only investigating corruption in the state courts?”

  “That’s what the Attorney General had assigned him to investigate, but Graham wasn’t sure about that the problem was limited to those courts. The complaint that started his investigation wasn’t specific. The corruption it referred to could have been in the federal or state courts. It wasn’t until he understood the Barlow/St. James plan that he concluded that his initial tip concerned wrongdoing in the state system.

  “But he was still investigating Wilson, wasn’t he?”

  “No. He dropped that side of his investigation.”

  “Why? I thought you were still operating on the assumption that Wilson stole the gun that was used to kill Jackson.”

  “Because Lyle couldn’t have stolen Graham’s gun.”

  “What! Why not?”

  “Do you remember the newspaper picture you found of Wilson and Congressman St. James at the charity ball on December 1?”

  “Yes. It was a picture of the receiving line.”

  “Well, the reason we thought that Wilson had stolen Brochette gun was that we knew that Wilson was in Tampa the day of ‘Shepard’s probable cause. We didn’t have any other suspects, and we assumed Wilson had taken the gun from Graham’s car when Graham returned to Tampa. But the last flight from Tampa that would have gotten Wilson to Miami in time to be in the receiving line left Tampa at 4:25. ‘Shepard’ and Graham didn’t leave our office until after three, so they couldn’t have been back in Tampa until after five. Wilson couldn’t have taken anything from Graham’s car, because he would have been on his way back to Miami.”

  “Maybe Wilson drove from Tampa to Miami.”

  White shook his head. “If he did, he’d have had to leave Tampa even earlier to be at the ball in time to have to his picture taken in the receiving line. Either way, he couldn’t have stolen Graham’s gun.”

  “Then who did steal Graham’s gun.”

  “We’ll get to that.”

  Leslie pressed her lips together like a child about to throw a tantrum. “You keep saying that.”

  “It’s a complicated case. If you want to hear all about it, you’re going to have to be patient.”

  Leslie pouted at White, to which he responded, “That’s not going to make us go any faster.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  White removed the bacon from the frying pan and laid the crispy strips on paper towels to drain. Then he added the chopped mushrooms and onions to the bacon fat in the frying pan and turned down the flame.

  Leslie leaned on the breakfast bar and crossed her arms. “Well?”

  “‘Well’ what?”

  “The case…”

  “Oh, yeah. What else do you want to know?”

  Leslie cocked her head and wrinkled her forehead. Finally, she said, “Lyle Wilson. There must have been some reason Lyle Wilson wanted to take over ‘Shepard’s case?”

  “There was, but it seems to be just what Wilson said it was. He claimed that he had jurisdiction because Jackson was killed in Dade County. By itself, the murder was a state court matter. But the quantity of drugs found in the raid in Matlacha was enough for federal jurisdiction. Wilson contended that the crimes were sufficiently connected to give him jurisdiction over everything related to Jackson.

  “Could he pursue the drug charges after you got them suppressed in ‘Shepard’s case.”

  “He wouldn’t have p
ursued the drug charges. All he wanted jurisdiction over the murder case. He was sure it was connected to drugs, and he wanted a reason, any reason, to investigate drug trafficking.

  “He had run the drug prosecution division of Graham’s office before transferring to Miami. Graham trusted him and let him take over after Graham had determined how the Barlow/St. James organization worked.”

  “What was left for Wilson to be investigating?”

  “Basically, nothing. Until Graham started his investigation, Wilson didn’t know any of the details about the Barlow/St. James organization. But he knew there was some such organization.”

  “And he wanted to break it up!”

  “Good guess. But he wanted just the opposite. He wanted to take over the operation.”

  “Oh my God. So he’s not one of the good guys after all.”

  “He’s not only dirty. He’s filthy. And once he found the file that Barlow had compiled before his murder, he had everything he needed.”

  “Then why did he turn the file over to Graham.”

  “He knew that Graham was investigating corruption, and he knew how valuable the files were to that investigation. He must have figured that Graham would take down the organization and leave a vacuum that he could fill. After all, who would suspect him of anything after he had helped eliminate a corruption network.”

  “Very clever.”

  Leslie emptied her glass of wine and reached for the bottle. “Go back to your analysis of Jackson’s plea negotiations. If your analysis is right, Jackson was never going to expose his father’s organization. Jackson was going to either expose the Cambodian or turn on ‘Shepard.’ Is that right?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “But he was killed because someone in his father’s organization thought Jackson was going to expose them in a plea arrangement with Paul Parker.”

  “Right, again.”

  “But how did anyone know that Jackson was talking to Parker about a deal?”

  White took a deep breath and exhaled. For a minute he stared at his Pepsi without saying anything. Then he said, “Parker was part of the Barlow/St. James operation for years.”