Dark Money

by Larry D. Thompson

  The next morning there was silence in the Hummer when the four made their way to the courthouse. Colby was the only one to break the silence when she said that it would be good to have a three day weekend since there would be no trial on Friday when the judge handled motions in other cases on her docket.

  Walt’s name was called by Christiansen. He rose, trying to hide his nervousness, and moved to stand in front of the bench. As was her custom, Judge Jamison, swore him in. He settled into the chair, poured a cup of water and smiled at the jury before turning to face his adversary. Nice touch, Jack thought.

  “You are Walt Frazier?”

  “Actually my full name is Walter Frazier, Jr. Neither my dad nor I have middle names.”

  Knowing that Jack would like to cover his background, Christiansen elected to do it first. He established that Walt had joined the national guard upon graduation from high school. He served in Desert Storm where he met his lawyer. Upon his return he chose to remain on active duty. He was stationed at Fort Hood in Central Texas and took courses working toward a college degree. When he was discharged, he was a cop in Wharton for a number of years, finding time to complete his degree. He had been with the DPS for fifteen years, the last ten with the governor’s protective detail.

  “Sergeant Frazier, you agree that when you became a state trooper, you took an oath to protect the public?”

  Walt looked him right in the eye. “I did.”

  “Even though you were transferred into the protective detail, you did not abandon that oath, did you?”

  Walt turned to look at the jury. “No, I did not, and neither did the rest of the detail.”

  Christiansen tapped his pen on the table. “So, what you’re telling this jury is that if the governor was in danger, you could ignore your oath?”

  Walt’s face hardened. He deflected the question. “When we accepted the responsibility to protect the governor and his wife, we accepted an added responsibility. It was clear from our training that, if necessary, we had to take a bullet to protect the governor.”

  Christiansen could sense that the jurors were looking at Walt and the detail members seated behind Jack in a new light. Very few, if any, of them had agreed as part of their job description to accept death. Christiansen pondered his next question. “In your training, did you have any instruction on what to do when both the governor and citizens of this state were in danger from the same event?”

  Walt hesitated. “All we were told was that we had to use our own judgment. We were experienced law enforcement officers.”

  “Yet, you had four members of your detail in the ballroom and one out at the Suburban. Once the governor was shot, your only concern was to protect the governor and his wife, wasn’t it?”

  Walt shook his head. “Not true. Wyatt Kamin, seated there on the front row, spotted the shooter and laid down cover fire for several seconds.”

  Christiansen looked down at his watch. “Wasn’t long enough, was it, Sergeant? Took a few shots, then he hightailed it out the door at the front and met you guys back with the governor. You didn’t even need a fifth man to take the governor to the hospital. You already had four. If he had continued to shoot at the woman, maybe Edward Hale would still be alive and Kevin O’Connell wouldn’t have been shot.”

  Walt said nothing but only stared out the window, unsure how to respond.

  “I need an answer, Sergeant Frazier.”

  Walt looked at Jack and then at the jury before forcing himself to focus on Christiansen. “Sir, there were other law enforcement officers present along with armed security guards. We assumed that they would do their job.”

  “Proved to be a wrong assumption, didn’t it?”

  Walt fumbled for words. “That’s hindsight, sir. We reacted the best we could in only a matter of seconds. If we had done something different, like you suggest, the governor probably would have taken a second bullet and be dead now.”

  Christiansen stood at his table, knowing that he was finished. “You failed that night, didn’t you?”

  Walt whooshed out a breath, gripped the arms of his chair and said nothing.

  “Didn’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Sir, we saved the governor’s life.”

  Christiansen looked at the jury and turned to the judge. “No more questions for this witness.” He turned his back on Walt and walked to the window to gaze outside, as if nothing that Jack could do could possibly overcome the damage he had just inflicted.

  “Time for a morning break. See you in fifteen, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Back in their conference room, Jack shut the door.

  “I blew it, didn’t I Jack?”

  “No, you answered the questions the best you could. I’m going to play some videos. We’ll put things back in perspective. Just follow my lead.”

  While they were talking J.D. was checking his iPhone. “Dad, Nichols has sent us the cell phone records he subpoenaed. I’m going to bring my laptop back here and check them. I’ll tell you what I find at lunch.”

  “Good. Colby, you’ll be playing the videos.”

  “Your Honor, at this time we are going to ask Sergeant Frazier to describe what happened that night, using the videos from the cameras inside the ballroom. First, Sergeant Frazier, were there cameras focusing on the premises outside?”

  Walt was now more relaxed since his lawyer was doing the questioning. “Yes, sir. Only, for some reason, the outside cameras had been turned off at 3:38 that afternoon. We have no feeds from then until sometime after the shootings when we discovered they had been shut down.”

  “Let me cover that just a minute before we move on. Where were the controls to the security cameras?”

  “There was a closet off a hallway in the house. Various switches controlled the cameras.”

  “Who had access to the house at that time of the afternoon?”

  Walt saw where he was going. “Access was limited, but included a lot of people. There were security guards at each entrance. If a person’s name wasn’t on the list, he couldn’t get in. Of course, that list was pretty long--family, O’Connell Communications staffers. Later the governor showed up, security guards, a few Fort Worth cops, cooks, caterers, waiters.”

  “Still, someone had to be on that list at 3:38 in the afternoon to switch off those outside cameras?”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Bryant.”

  Jack picked up his cane, more as a prop than a crutch and stood behind the podium. “Before we get to the videos, what were your feelings about this whole costume fundraiser even before that night?”

  “I tried to talk everyone out of it. I even went to the governor’s office at the capitol and told him that this was an impossible situation. He wouldn’t listen. I asked him to appear on closed circuit television. My advice fell on deaf ears. We had to deal with the situation.”

  “Now, I’ve got my legal assistant, Colby, rolling the video. The first one is from behind the stage. Was that your view on that night?”

  “It was.”

  The jury saw a sea of people, dressed in costumes and masks. “Any way you could pick out an assassin in that group?”

  Walt shook his head. “Impossible, sir.”

  Jack thought he could see a couple of the jurors nodding in agreement. “Now, we’re showing the video from the back of the ballroom, facing the stage. I’m eliminating everything except for a few seconds before the first shot.” Colby put up the video and paused it. “We’re looking at the stage. The governor is there. You’re to his right and Ryan Fitzpatrick is to his left. Jeff Foster is behind him just in front of the curtain. What are you doing?”

  “We’re looking for what we call tells among the crowd, any sign of a potential problem. With that crowd wearing costumes and masks, it was wasted effort.”

  “Now, we’re going to show the shooting of the governor.”

  Every juror had moved to the edge of his or her seat.

  “We hear a faint popping. Is that the shot?”

  �
�Yes, sir, a pistol doesn’t make noise a whole lot different from a popgun or even a balloon in that crowd.”

  “Now, watch the video,” Jack said, “and the timer at the top. How much time elapsed from that shot until the governor went down?

  “Looks like one and a half seconds.”

  “Then, you are there using your microphone on your sleeve.”

  “I’m saying that Wolf’s down. We need to get him and Petal out. Wolf and Petal are code names for the governor and his wife.”

  “How much time elapsed while you alerted your team to what had happened?”

  “Looks like another second and a half.”

  Jack motioned to Colby to start the video. “So, we’re down to five seconds. During that time, can you hear shots that were later identified as coming from Wyatt?”

  “I can. They cover another four seconds.”

  “So in that one second, the killer jumps up and fires two more shots, killing Edward Hale and wounding Mr. O’Connell. Could you have prevented those shots?”

  Walt turned to the jury. “In my honest opinion, no sir.”

  Jack could have done more but decided to quit.

  Christiansen spent the rest of the morning, briefly calling the other members of the detail. He elicited the same basic information. He spent only fifteen minutes each on the Hale children. Jack elected to ask no questions of the detail or the children.

  When they broke for lunch, Jack, Colby and Walt hurried back to the conference room to talk to J.D. After they shut and locked the door, Jack asked, “You find anything?”

  “Nothing in Maria’s records or the Hale children, but there’s something interesting in O’Connell’s.”

  “Keep going.”

  “There are calls by O’Connell to the New Orleans area code within a couple of days of each other last September. I called both numbers. One was a recorded voice, saying the person at the number was not available and to leave a message. I hung up. Two calls to and from that number. The second number was disconnected and no longer in service. There was also a second call from that disconnected number to O’Connell.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Colby looked at Jack. “Are you thinking that O’Connell set this up?”

  Jack tapped his cane on the floor while he thought. “Maybe.”

  “No, Jack. That makes no sense. Why would he get himself shot?”

  “Colby,” J.D, said, “He was just barely wounded. Maybe he wanted the governor and Hale killed. Hell, maybe just Hale. What better cover than for him to be wounded. We already know that Miriam was the best pistol shot in West Texas, and she was only about fifteen feet from the stage.

  “We can’t draw any conclusions right now. We’ve got to tie it together. J.D., round up Ike. You remember he said that Bernard paid his cell phone direct from his bank. You and Ike need to get back to New Orleans and sit Bernard in front of a computer to find his cell records for last September. We’re looking for O’Connell’s number. The judge won’t care that you’re not in the courtroom. Colby will cover for you.”

  After the lunch break Christiansen rose and told the judge and jury that his last witness would be William R. Ringer. When Ringer followed Bailiff Rios through the hallway door, the jury sized him up. In his sixties, he had once probably been in very good shape. No longer. He had a slight paunch that caused him to pull up on his pants as he walked the middle aisle. His hair was white. He wore gold rimmed glasses. There was little about him that was impressive until he began to talk. Then, he commanded attention with his voice.

  “I’m Bill Ringer. I retired ten years ago after a career in the Secret Service. The last twenty years I was on the presidential detail.”

  Jack glanced at the jury and found that just the mention of the Secret Service and presidential detail had their attention. Christiansen established his credentials, Texas A & M, member of the Corps, service as an officer in the military police for six years, then joined the Secret Service. Now he consulted with major corporations on matters pertaining to security.

  “Mr. Ringer,” Christiansen said, “I have asked you to evaluate the conduct of the governor’s protective detail on the night of the Halloween attack.”

  “Correct.”

  “Did they deviate from appropriate standards in their handling of the events at the Hale house on the night of the fundraiser?”

  Ringer straightened up in his chair and swiveled to face the jury. “I can make this brief. They were sworn peace officers. That was their primary duty. They had a second duty to protect the governor. I’ve watched the videos of the event. They had four officers on the inside. Three would have been sufficient to get the wounded governor and his wife off the stage and out of danger. That would have been the three on the stage. The fourth, Kamin I believe was his name, was positioned at the back. He did the right thing to fire in the direction of the killer. He managed to get her to drop below the bar. Then, ladies and gentlemen, he took off and circled around the ballroom to meet Sgt. Frazier and the rest of the detail. That enabled the killer to rise up from behind the bar and get off two more shots. I might add that she was one helluva shot. Two shots and she killed Edward Hale and wounded O’Connell. Then she rushed out the door. Must have been just ahead of the rest of the detail who had to drag the governor down the stairs and out to the Suburban. Someone in the DPS should have trained the detail to keep up the cover fire until others could respond. They didn’t. That was negligence and caused the death of Mr. Hale and the injury to Mr. O’Connell.”

  With that he paused and looked at Christiansen.

  “No more questions, Your Honor.”

  Jack almost jumped to his feet and walked to the podium, cane in hand, a slight smile on his face. “Mr. Ringer, let’s clarify a few things. First, you’ve never worked on a protective detail where only five men had the responsibility to protect a high ranking public official, have you?”

  “I have not, sir.”

  “When you were protecting the president, you did not take an oath to protect the public. Your only duty was to the president and the first lady.”

  Ringer nodded his agreement.

  “So, if that had been the president on that stage that night, and the detail did exactly what you saw on that video, you would have no criticism, would you?”

  Ringer hesitated and finally answered, “No, sir.”

  “Another difference between you and your work in the Secret Service is that you folks would have had dozens of agents arriving days before the event and maybe even as many as a hundred on the grounds that night.”

  “You’re probably somewhere in the ballpark, Mr. Bryant. The president always travels with a large number of agents.”

  “If it had been the president up on that stage, a half a dozen agents certainly could have gotten him and the first lady out of the ballroom, leaving several dozen to lay down cover fire in the direction of the assassin, right, Mr. Ringer?”

  The witness was beginning to feel uncomfortable now. He poured a cup of water and his hand trembled slightly when he took a sip. “No doubt we would have had much more firepower than four agents.”

  Jack saw that the answer led very well into his next and last series of questions. “You agree that no matter how many agents are available to protect the president, a lone assassin can still succeed?”

  “That’s unfortunate, but true.”

  “There were three presidents, including Lincoln, gunned down in the nineteenth century. And they all had a protective detail of some kind, didn’t they?”

  Ringer rubbed his hands on his pants to wipe sweat from them. “That’s true, but I don’t know how many were protecting those presidents.”

  Jack nodded. “Then, let’s go to more modern times. President Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin even though he had a large contingent of Secret Service agents in the area and around him.”

  “Some of us believe that Oswald may have had some help, but you are correct that the official conclusion of the
Warren Commission was that he acted alone.”

  “And what about President Reagan? He had only been in office for a couple of months when John Hinckley wounded him, probably brought him close to death. He didn’t lack for protective agents, did he?”

  One of the jurors closest to the witness saw his right leg bounding up and down, obviously a nervous reaction to the questions.

  “He did not.”

  “And, in fact, three others were shot by Hinckley before he could be subdued, including James Brady, Reagan’s press secretary. That’s four people shot, all in a matter of a few seconds, one more than what happened at the Hale house, correct?”

  Ringer took in a big breath and exhaled. “That’s all true, Mr. Bryant.”

  “So the conclusion we draw is that no matter what a crew of four agents did on that night, even if Kamin had laid down that cover fire for ten more seconds, we can’t conclude that anything would have changed.”

  Ringer looked down and back up at Jack. “I can’t disagree with you, sir.”

  Jack returned to his table. “Nothing further, judge.”

  Judge Jamison looked at the clock. “I understand that this is Mr. Christiansen’s last witness. We’re making good progress. Let’s call it a day.”

  Jack jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, I have one witness. It’s is very important that I get him on today. It’s one of our experts, Calvin Cagle. I can be brief, but I need his testimony to prepare for next week.”

  The judge looked over her gold rimmed spectacles and said, “Very well. You know the jury is tired at this point. I suggest you keep your pledge. Call Mr. Cagle.”

  70

  The jury saw a string bean with a yellow polka dot bow tie just below a prominent Adam’s apple enter from the hallway. He wore a blue blazer, gray slacks and somewhat scuffed black penny loafers and carried an old soft-leather briefcase. If Hollywood wanted someone to play Ichabod Crane, he would be first choice. Clearly, he was not trying to make a fashion statement.