Above the Law

by J. F. Freedman

  Besides having the maps, I had commissioned a large three-dimensional model of the area to scale, which was set up on a ten-foot-by-ten-foot table, placed in the center of the room. There were also blowups of the scene, where the body had been found, the tree where the killing bullet lodged. The grand jurors’ chairs, elevated on risers so they could see down onto the exhibits, ringed the table. I also had each man’s weapons brought in: his personal automatics, any rifle or other longbarreled gun that had been deployed, plus any other piece of equipment he had used—binoculars, night-vision glasses, his uniform, radio, watch, the works. Everything and anything that had been physically at that compound that night.

  Getting responses out of these men was like pulling teeth on a battlefield with a pair of pliers. They answered each question precisely, giving me no more information than what I specifically asked for, volunteering nothing. They were angry at being here—they felt disrespected and were scornful. They had been through this already, with their own agency—but not in such detail, which pissed them off even more, that we would be delving more deeply, as if we did really think one of them did it. They were also scared, although they wouldn’t admit it. What if it had been one of them? What if something they said incriminated a fellow agent?

  That was my main purpose—to discover conflicts in testimony that would lead to something significant, help make a case.

  One thing became obvious, from the first witness. Once the raid started, and didn’t go exactly to plan, the situation on the ground turned to shit, a complete snafu. People were running around in the dark, not knowing where they were going, where shots were coming from, who was shooting back. Some of the casualties had almost certainly come from friendly fire. For a few minutes, before the backup artillery started, and they were able to retreat to some half-assed safety, the rain of fire was incredibly intense. They were exposed, out in the open. Men had panicked—they had never been trained for this, this was like fighting an unseen enemy in some unknown jungle.

  “Tell me who were the half dozen men closest to you when the firing started,” I asked the first witness.

  “I…” He stammered, then clammed up.

  Patiently, I showed him the list of agents who had been there that night. He looked at it like he was reading Chinese, or Martian. He didn’t have a clue—they hadn’t known each other long enough, having been brought in from different places.

  I walked over to the model. “Where were you?”

  He got up from his chair and used the pointer to place himself, tentatively.

  “Not here?” I asked, moving the pointer a few inches, which translated to about twenty feet away from where he’d pointed.

  “Maybe,” he conceded. “It was dark. None of us had ever been inside the place.” He was flustered; and he had been a peripheral player, he wasn’t one of the bunch going in the door with Jerome, and he had escaped the closest direct fire.

  If this man was disoriented, I thought, how had it been for the others, closer to the center? They were lucky more of them hadn’t been killed—they hadn’t planned for a counterattack of the ferocity they had faced. It wasn’t The Red Badge of Courage, but it wasn’t Iwo Jima, either.

  What I also realized, which gave me a real jolt, was that they’d all been in denial for the past six months. Buried deep down, they all thought, and feared, that one of them might really have done the killing, despite their uniform denials to the contrary. And that denial and fear had to be tearing them up.

  I needed to figure out how to use that emotion.

  Near the end of the second week’s questioning, I tried a gambit. The witness was one of the men who had been at the center of the action, both during the raid and after, when Juarez was being held prisoner, before his escape. This man had been near the trailer, close enough to walk in without attracting undue attention.

  “Agent Wilkes,” I said, “you went in the trailer when the prisoner was inside, isn’t that true?”

  “No,” he corrected me, “I didn’t.”

  I frowned, as if something wasn’t right, suddenly.

  “Of course you did.” I picked up a document from my desk, looked it over. The document had nothing to do with this line of questioning, but he didn’t know that; nor did the members of the grand jury, who perked up at this.

  “No, I never did,” he protested.

  “Well, that’s strange. That’s very strange. Other agents who were there, right by you, have testified in their sworn written statements that you did.”

  “No,” he said, starting to get nervous, “they couldn’t have. I didn’t.”

  “Are you saying they’re lying?”

  He was flustered now. “No, I’m not saying that.”

  “Then you’re lying.”

  “No!”

  “Well, someone is.”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I…I was never in that trailer, so I’m not lying. I swear it, I was never in there.”

  “So these men who said you were, they’re the ones that’re lying.”

  “I…”

  “Or maybe they were mistaken,” I said, giving him a little slack.

  “Yes,” he said, jumping on it, “they must’ve been. Because I never was inside the trailer.”

  “Okay,” I told him. “I’ll accept that.”

  He exhaled like a man coming up from fifty feet below the surface.

  “For now. But let me caution you—if others come into this room and reiterate that you did go inside there, I’m going to have to indict you for perjury. You understand that, Agent Wilkes, don’t you?”

  He went white. “Perjury?”

  “Lying under oath.”

  “But I haven’t.”

  “That’s why we have trials, and juries. To find out who’s lying, and who isn’t.”

  “I’m not lying. I swear it.”

  “I hope not. You’re already in enough trouble.” I gathered up my papers. “You’re excused—for now.”

  He started to get up from the witness chair, but I put but hand up to detain him.

  “Don’t forget. Agent Wilkes. You’re still under oath, and under subpoena. You are not to speak about this to anyone, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anyone. Not your wife, not any of your fellow agents. Especially not any of your fellow agents. That would be a very serious offense. You do understand the seriousness of what I’m saying, don’t you, Agent Wilkes?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay, then. You can go.”

  He hesitated before getting up again. I didn’t do anything to impede him this time, so he did.

  “Agent Wilkes,” I called out. He was almost to the door.

  He turned. He was scared now. No more of the badass swagger he’d brought in with him.

  “If you do remember anything that happened that night, that you haven’t yet remembered, you’re going to call me right away, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said with alacrity.

  “Good.” I smiled. “And once again—these proceedings are secret. What we say here, stays here. You’ve got that straight, don’t you, Agent Wilkes?”

  He nodded. “I hear you.”

  Kate strolled across the Stanford campus. God, what a life, she thought, looking at the kids in their T-shirts and shorts, riding bikes, tossing Frisbees, congregating in small groups to talk, share coffee, flirt. How great it would be to come here as a young person. They all looked so comfortable, so confident.

  She hadn’t been to college. Hers was the stereotypical working-class background of the previous generation—carried right out of high school, kids shortly after. She’d had the spunk to quit that marriage before she got in too deep, join the Oakland police department, then again when she felt compelled to leave that, to move on to what she was doing now. She had a better than okay life, after years of floundering around; she made damn good money, the work was exciting, she met interesting people. No relationshi
p, at the moment. That would come, when she was ready again—she’d been in one a few years back, a nice guy who made wine in the Santa Ynez valley, but it hadn’t gone all the way—one of those things. After two failed marriages, the last one a blistering disaster, even worse than the first, she was going to be super-cautious before making that kind of commitment again. For now she was happy living on her own.

  Her daughters would have appreciated going to a college like this. She didn’t have the kind of money to send them here, and although they were smart, they weren’t of the caliber that could win a scholarship to a Stanford. That was okay—they’d make it anyway. Still, it would be heaven to spend four years in these cloistered surroundings.

  One thing she noticed as she walked along—the racial mix. The majority of the faces were white. A goodly amount of Asians, too. Far fewer blacks and Latinos. Things had changed, but not enough.

  She thought about the object of her investigation. What was it like, twenty-some years ago, to be a minority kid on this campus? You’d definitely feel different. Especially if you came from a place like east L.A., and you weren’t the star of the basketball or football team.

  Reynaldo Juarez had great self-assurance, from the cradle, apparently. But in this kind of environment, would that have held up? Would he have been prepared to not be the center of attention, because of things over which he had no control, his background and his ethnicity? A proud young boy, already self-made (through illegal means, but still self-made), might hate a place like this. It could remind him that no matter how well he did, he would always be looked at in a certain way.

  That brought up another interesting question: Had Juarez been selling drugs while he was a student? By the time he started here as a freshman he’d been doing it for years; would he have stopped, tried to be straight, a regular college student? Dealing would have brought him popularity. It could also have gotten him into trouble.

  Maybe he’d been kicked out. That would be a plausible reason for his not coming back after the one year.

  The registrar’s office had his records ready; she’d called ahead. His grades were better than decent, mostly B’s, one A, in Spanish Lit., one C. Certainly good enough to keep him in school; flunking out wasn’t the reason he left, and he had not been expelled—he had no negative marks on his record.

  He had lived in a dorm, hadn’t joined a fraternity. They had the names of the other students in his dorm. Kate stuffed the list in her pocket—she’d check them out later. If she wanted to find out more about his life on campus, the clerk told her, she should check the library, the old yearbooks, and other publications. The woman suggested that perhaps he had joined a Latino club, or some other extracurricular activity, where he might have met someone whose path he crossed later on down the line, someone who’d kept up with him and could help her with her investigation. The registrar’s office didn’t know about things like that, they didn’t keep those records. Reynaldo Juarez had left without a trace—there had been no requests for transfer of credits to another school.

  She sat in the library, the yearbook for Juarez’s freshman (and only) year opened in front of her. She flipped through the pages, looking at the pictures. What a time. All that ugly disco stuff, the makeup, hair, clothes. She’d looked like that, she thought, smiling. An ugly decade.

  First thing, she’d gone to the pages with the freshman pictures, tiny shots of faces looking into the camera—the bulk of the yearbook was for the senior class. There he was, in the middle of the page, surrounded by other J surnames. He was a cocky bastard. And young. Only eighteen. But already a killer, and a drug dealer. Unlike the others in the pictures surrounding him. Those were the real kids. He was only their contemporary chronologically.

  There was a Latino club, a pretty big one, most of the Hispanic students in the school were members, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t on any sports teams, he wasn’t in the school band, debating society, mountaineering club, he wasn’t in any class plays, anything athletic or social. He had been a student, nothing more.

  How do you track someone who doesn’t leave footprints?

  She turned back to the single picture of him again, his class photo. He did have a different look from the other students. His hair was long, as was theirs, too, most of them, but his was slicked back, out-of-fashion style, Elvis, not Lennon. You could almost reach out and touch the grease on that hairdo. Glancing through the adjacent pages, tracing her finger down the rows, she noticed that other Spanish-surnamed students, Jaramillo, Javier, Jiminez, didn’t wear their hair the way he did—they wore it shorter, preppier. They were trying to fit in. He wasn’t.

  Wait. A name she passed triggered something. What was it?

  She went back to the top of the J’s, started again. Jaramillo, Javier, a first name of Jesus, a common Latino boy’s name…

  A girl’s face stared out at her. A defiant look to it, like she was saying, “I don’t buy it.” Her hair was long and wavy, deep auburn, because this was an Irish face, with one of those lovely peaches-and-cream complexions. The face reminded Kate of a young Maureen O’Hara, one of her favorite actresses from the old movies. The pretty face was made more attractive because it wasn’t ordinary, there was character to it, not common in an eighteen-year-old. You could see it, even in this tiny little photograph.

  The girl was not Latina. She was Anglo, through and through.

  Her name was Diane. Diane Jerome Richards.

  Nora was kneeling on the living-room floor of my condo, playing with my son. They were building a fort with his blocks. She looked up as I came through the door.

  “Hi.” Her voice was bright, cheery.

  “Hello,” I said slowly, bending down and giving Buck a hug. What was she doing here?

  Riva came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, a picture of domesticity. “Nora’s staying for dinner.”

  “Oh?”

  “We thought it would be nice for us to get to know each other, since she’s your old friend. And your boss.” Riva smiled, winking at Nora.

  “I’m not Luke’s boss.” Nora got to her feet. She was dressed casually—she had changed before coming over. “He answers to no man—or woman.”

  “He answers to me. Don’t you, darling?” Riva gave Nora another wink, like Lucy and Ethel. Two women, already ganging up against the guy.

  “Always.”

  I shucked my jacket and made myself a vodka tonic. I needed it, and not because my workday had been hard. Sipping my drink, I walked over to Riva, put an arm around her shoulder, gave her a kiss on the cheek. Nora watched, smiling like a dear old friend.

  “Your son’s adorable,” she said. “Anytime you need a babysitter…”

  The middle-aged childless woman’s promise, and desire.

  “Not that there’s much to do around here at night. But you know, a movie or something.” Nora smiled. “Bowling’s popular.”

  “I’m sure we’ll take you up on that.” I was playing it casual, but my nerves were jingling inside. “So you invited Nora over,” I said to Riva. “That was…nice.”

  “Actually, I invited myself.” Nora turned her smile on Riva. “I wanted to meet the lucky woman who snared Luke Garrison.”

  “It’s the other way around,” I told her. “I’m the lucky one.”

  “We’re both lucky,” Riva said, “so let’s drop it, okay? We don’t need to prattle on in front of Nora, she’ll think we’re stuck-in-the-mud fogies.”

  “I wouldn’t think that,” Nora said brightly. “I think you are lucky—both of you.”

  Riva clutched my hand, hearing that. She was remembering what I’d told her about Nora’s life with Dennis. I knew that wasn’t what Nora was thinking about, but I kept that opinion to myself.

  Nora turned to me. “So—how goes the battle?” To Riva: “I only know what he deigns to tell me. Talk about your independent counselor.” She was preternaturally chipper.

  “Nothing new to report. Nobody knows anything, the party line. But I�
��m rattling them. Someone might break, if they think I’m going to bring a blanket indictment and take a bunch of them to trial.”

  “Except you’re not going to do that. We’re not chasing wild geese. Your words.”

  “I know that, and you know that. But they don’t.”

  “Well, let’s hope we catch a break. And soon. I’m getting awfully nervous about this. There’s a ton of pressure coming down from Washington. Bill Fishell calls every other day, asking what’s going on.”

  “Tell him to hold the fort.”

  “I do.” Nora turned to Riva. “Can I help you with dinner? I don’t want to talk shop anymore, it’s boring. And I never get to cook for anyone, besides myself,” she said straight-faced, not looking at me.

  “I’ve got the kid covered,” I said quickly, scooping him up and swinging him to the ceiling, which brought the usual shrieks of laughter. “We’re going to play with the horsies. Right, Buckaroo?”

  “Right, Daddy! “he screamed joyfully.

  While the women went about getting dinner ready, I cored and sliced an apple, tucked the pieces into my pocket, and carried my son outside on my shoulders, horsy-back style. The condo development had been built on the edge of a working ranch—the ranch fence came up to the edge of where we were living. Real horses grazing in the field on the other side would amble over to us and let Bucky rub their noses and give them sugar and the apple slices. Riva was taking riding lessons over there, western-style. She was getting good at it. I figured the other shoe would drop when we got home—she’d want a horse. And all the expensive crap that goes with it.

  If that’s what she wanted, she could have it. She can have anything she wants. A faithful husband, for openers.

  I did have new information about the investigation, but I wasn’t about to share it with Nora; not yet, anyway. Kate Blanchard had called and delivered the jolt about the girl named Jerome. That a girl in Juarez’s class at Stanford, more than twenty years ago, had the same uncommon last name as the leader of the group I was investigating didn’t mean anything in and of itself—there might be no connection. But the coincidence was intriguing. Kate was going to follow it up and get back to me, if there was anything to it.