The Jury Master

by Robert Dugoni

  Sloane removed the package from his briefcase but did not immediately rip it open like a child tearing through presents on Christmas morning. Four people had died because of the package. They deserved reflection. Melda deserved reflection. Then, with the beat of the car stereos and din of the people on the street corner silent, it was time. He redirected the cone of the lamp so the light would not shine in Tina’s eyes, and turned the switch. He held the package beneath the dull, somber light, studying the handwriting. Though thin, the envelope felt heavier than he recalled—weighted, perhaps, by sorrow and circumstance. With that thought he turned the package over, lifted the metal tabs, unsealed the flap, and pulled out the pages.

  45

  Ex-Convento de Churubusco,

  Coyoacán, Mexico

  MIGUEL IBARóN PLANTED the rubber tip of his gold-handled cane on the cracked and uneven stones and leaned into his next step. His face displayed no outward sign of the familiar pain splintering from his ankles, knees, and back and shooting through his bones like an electric current. He could do nothing to hide the physical effects of the tumors on his once muscular body, now withered like a flower in the hot sun, but he could will himself to control his emotions, silently enduring the pain.

  The cancer had taken inches from his height and thinned his body and once full head of rich, dark hair, leaving it a bleak white, but it would not take what remained of the dignified statesman. Tall and light-skinned, likely the result of Spanish blood in his ancestry, Ibarón remained over six feet tall, with a broad-shouldered frame that had once comfortably carried 210 pounds but now held just 175.

  The woman at the entrance to the museum greeted him with a smile, refusing his money as she did on each visit.

  “No sirve aqui” (It is no good here), she said. “For me to take money from you would be a great dishonor. You honor us here with your presence.”

  It was the reception accorded a man who had devoted his entire life to Mexico and to its people. Since joining the PRI, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Ibarón had been the epitome of a Prista—a party member. During a thirty-year career he had served Mexico as a diputado in the lower chamber of congress and as a senador in the upper chamber. Twice he had been one of the tapados, the “veiled ones,” picked by the party as a potential presidential successor, but on neither occasion had he been deemed verdadero tapado, “the real veiled one.”

  Midday on a Saturday, Ibarón shuffled through the museum’s seventeen rooms, the cracked terra-cotta floor sloping beneath his feet. Like most of the buildings in Mexico City and its surrounding area, the museum sank millimeters each year as the city’s twenty-five million residents sucked the water from the soft soil that had once been the bed of the great lake, Lago de Texcoco.

  The Ex-Convento de Churubusco stood on a place of great honor, filled with artifacts of great disgrace. Constructed on the site where the Aztec warriors had offered throbbing human hearts to appease their war god, Hummingbird, the building had been a fortress from which Mexican soldiers fiercely battled the United States Army advancing from Veracruz to Mexico City in 1847. The soldiers had expended every bullet to keep U.S. General David Twiggs at bay. When Twiggs finally entered the fortress and demanded that General Pedro Anaya surrender the remainder of their ammunition, Anaya had replied, “Si hubiera cualquiera, usted no estaría aquí.” (If there were any, you wouldn’t be here.)

  And yet, on a site of such honor and dignity had arisen a museum of ignominy. The stucco walls and red-tiled corridors were lined with faded photographs, yellowed documents, and memorabilia chronicling each foreign invasion from the Spanish to the French, to the Norteamericanos.

  Ibarón stopped to consider the Monroe Doctrine from behind the glass. As he did, a man approached, a rolled newspaper in his right hand. “The arrogance of those Republicans does not allow them to see us as equals but as inferiors.” The man read the comments of José Manuel Zozaya, Mexico’s first ambassador to Washington.

  “With time they will become our sworn enemies,” Ibarón said, finishing the statement, each man letting the other know he was free to talk.

  Mexico’s intelligence chief, Ignacio López Ruíz, adjusted the collar of his jacket and straightened his tie, a habit that made it look as if the piece of cloth were choking him. A taut ball of muscle, Ruíz stood no more than five feet five but had forearms as thick as anvils, and a barrel chest developed from working during his formative years in his father’s rock quarries. He was balding, a fact he tried to hide by growing his hair long and combing it across his head. His face was flat from years of boxing, and as tough as shoe leather. What Ruíz lacked in height and beauty he made up for in energy, stamina, and initiative. It had propelled him quickly through the police ranks, his swift ascent aided in no small measure by Miguel Ibarón.

  Ruíz patted the comb-over with his fingers in a futile attempt to cover the crown of his head. “I received a call from the CIA station chief. With the consent of the PFP and the director, I have been requested to provide a complete analysis of my files,” he said, referring to the Federal Preventive Police and the head of the Directorate for Intelligence, the two organizations that had become the umbrella for Mexico’s intelligence service. They intensively tracked the activities of guerrilla and revolutionary groups.

  “I was asked about the Popular Revolutionary Army, EPRI, the Zapatistas, the Revolutionary Army of the People . . . and the Mexican Liberation Front.”

  Ibarón nodded, showing no outward sign of emotion.

  “They said only that they wanted the information to be thorough,” Ruíz continued. “I have called my most reliable sources. No one knows the purpose of this request, Miguel. Beto knows nothing, nor does Toño,” he said, referring by nickname to Alberto Castañeda and to Antonio Martínez, Mexico’s police minister.

  Ibarón contemplated the information with no more emotion than he showed for the faded pieces of paper in the glass case. “Who made the request of the CIA station chief?” he asked.

  “An American in Washington, Joseph Branick.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “No, but I do know that this man is dead.”

  Ibarón turned his head. “Dead?”

  “The American papers have reported it to be so.”

  Ibarón walked past an exhibit depicting General Antonio López de Santa Anna signing the Gadsden Purchase, the document that forced Mexico to sell what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico. “What do we know of him?”

  “Joseph Branick?” Ruíz shook his head. “Nothing. There appears to be no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He killed himself. Shot himself in the head.”

  Ibarón considered Ruíz out of the corner of his eye but otherwise showed no response. “And you do not consider a friend of the president taking his own life to be out of the ordinary?” He, too, had read the papers. “Has not the president canceled the meeting here this weekend and chosen to stay in Washington for this man’s funeral?”

  “We have been assured this will not affect the progress of the negotiations.”

  “We cannot take that chance,” Ibarón said. “Determine all that you can about this man Joe Branick.”

  “And what of the negotiations?”

  “If Robert Peak will not come to us, we will go to Robert Peak.” Ibarón turned without further comment, retrieved his white straw hat from the woman at the entrance, and left the building, leaving Ruíz standing alone.

  Outside, he replaced his hat to protect his head from the hot summer sun. The air was thick and heavy, sodden, but not from the layer of smog that hung over the valley and choked Mexico City and its people during the humid summer months.

  Ibarón smelled a storm.

  46

  Berryville,

  Virginia

  LEAVING TINA AT the hotel was as difficult as anything Sloane had ever done, but he also knew she could not come with him. Aside from the danger, this w
as his life to figure out. He retrieved his laptop computer from his office, and holed up in a hotel under a false name. He spent the day searching the Internet, making airline, hotel, and rental car reservations, and calling Foster & Bane’s Los Angeles office. His cases started much the same way. A client came to him with a problem. He needed to find a solution. Before he could decide on a course of action, he needed to know the facts—every detail, no matter how small or trivial. Those facts became puzzle pieces that, when put in the correct positions, revealed a story. The only difference was, this time he was both the lawyer and the client. He hoped the saying about the lawyer who represents himself having a fool for a client didn’t hold true.

  Joe Branick was the primary subject of his research, and Sloane found no shortage of information about the man. Branick had graduated from Georgetown University, where his freshman roommate was a political science major named Robert Peak, known to his friends as Rob. Over the next four years the two became close friends, sharing an apartment and an interest in politics and sports. Both graduated at the top of their class. Peak followed his father to the CIA, and with the elder Robert Peak in a position to help, Robert was groomed like a show poodle, serving as the youngest station director in England, Germany, and Mexico. He became deputy director for operations at forty-five, the deputy director of the Agency at forty-eight, and director under President George Marshall, in whose cabinet his father served. Robert Peak entered mainstream politics when Marshall lost his bid for reelection to Gordon Miller, putting Peak out of a job. Four years later Peak became the vice presidential running mate of Thomas McMillan in a successful campaign to unseat Miller. Peak succeeded McMillan after two terms.

  Joe Branick’s life had been less storied. An engineer, he married his high school sweetheart and went to work for a series of national and international oil companies. Married thirty-five years, he and his wife had two daughters and a son. After a three-year project between the American oil equipment manufacturer Entarco and Mexico’s oil company, Pemex, Branick returned to the United States and moved the family back home to Boston to be near his eight siblings in an Irish Catholic enclave. He joined his four brothers in a family-owned and -operated import-export business. Life seemed set. Then his friend Robert Peak announced his intention to seek the presidency and asked—some say begged—Joe Branick to run his campaign. With his three children grown and in college, Branick accepted and was given considerable credit when Peak won. It was widely assumed that Branick would become White House chief of staff, but apparently politics intervened. The Republican party had its eye on retired three-star general Parker Madsen, a rapidly rising player in the Washington political arena. Word was, Madsen would join Peak on the Republican reelection ticket. Branick had decided to return home, but Peak again enticed him to stay, creating a position just for him: special consultant to the president. Branick was largely unheard from until park police found his body in a national park.

  Conspicuously absent from any of Sloane’s research was a rational explanation why such a seemingly well-adjusted, well-liked family man would put a loaded gun to his head and pull the trigger. Details were scarce. Branick was reported to have left his office shortly after three-thirty Thursday afternoon. No one, not even his secretary, knew where he went. His wife grew concerned when he did not call that evening, as was his routine. She was unable to reach him at an apartment he kept in Georgetown on nights he worked late and didn’t want to commute. Shortly before dawn his body was found in Black Bear National Park, a gun in his hand. The Department of Justice had taken jurisdiction, though the Washington Post was reporting that local law enforcement was none too pleased, and intimating that the DOJ was keeping a tight lid on its investigation. The DOJ said little in its defense. Rivers Jones, the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the investigation, declined comment and directed all inquiries to the DOJ press office, saying it would be inappropriate to make a statement while the investigation was ongoing. The White House had also been mum. The only statement came from Parker Madsen, who appeared in the East Wing the morning Branick’s body was discovered, and read from a prepared statement that described the president and first lady as “shocked” and “deeply saddened” at the loss of a good friend and dedicated public servant. To Sloane it sounded neatly scripted and devoid of emotion for a man who had lost his lifelong friend, but that might also be the way a public figure with a job that could not be ignored, coped.

  After getting as much information as he could from the Internet, Sloane found a men’s store in a mall, bought additional clothes, then drove around the Bay Area picking up airline boarding passes. He called Tina’s cell phone from a pay phone in the airport just before catching a red-eye to Dulles.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t say good-bye,” he said.

  “Then don’t. Tell me you’re coming back.”

  “I’m coming back,” he said, “after I find myself.”

  “David, I didn’t mean that.”

  “You couldn’t have been more right, Tina. Count on me.”

  “I will.”

  THREE MILES OUTSIDE Berryville, Sloane drove with the window of the rental car down. The air had a tranquil, undisturbed feel indicating that it would be hot, with little or no breeze. Thick groves of trees had given way to fields of summer-brown grass and a landscape of scattered farmhouses and grazing horses. After the slope in the road, a landmark, he slowed and turned onto a country road, then drove until he came to the string of mailboxes on wooden posts—his second landmark—and turned onto the dirt-and-gravel easement. Lush green lawn rolled out like carpet around a white two-story farmhouse with dormer windows, forest-green shutters, and a large wraparound porch. A red barn loomed behind it, and chestnut and bay horses grazed in an expansive pasture.

  Talking to surviving relatives was always delicate because their response could never be predicted, but Sloane hoped Joe Branick’s family would share something in common with a stranger: a desire to know why he was dead. He considered the burnt-orange envelope on the passenger seat beside him. As he had suspected, the information it contained generated more questions than it answered.

  A thick hedge blocked his view around a turn in the road, and he had to brake suddenly to keep from rear-ending a police cruiser parked in front of a freestanding garage. A golden retriever bounded off the porch to announce his arrival, barking, tail wagging. Sloane stuffed the package into his briefcase and turned to find the dog’s paws on the window, head in the car, tongue panting.

  “Well, how are you?” he asked. “How about letting me out?” The dog whined and got down from the window.

  Sloane stepped out and bent to let the dog smell the back of his hand, then scratched her behind the ears and under the chin. She responded by jumping up and putting her paws on his hips. It never hurt to make friends with the family pet. At worst it was a topic of conversation.

  A uniformed officer approached. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “That’s all right, Officer.” A distinguished-looking woman in khaki cotton slacks, a blue silk blouse, and flat shoes walked down from the porch. When she reached Sloane she tugged once on the dog’s collar. “Down, Sam. Sit.” She looked at Sloane. “I’m sorry. She hasn’t had much exercise lately.” She spoke with a New England accent that rolled off her tongue, ignoring the letter “r.”

  “That’s all right. She’s a beautiful dog.”

  “She was my brother’s. Are you David Sloane?”

  Sloane held out a hand. “Call me David.”

  She gripped Sloane’s hand with the firmness of a woman used to shaking men’s hands. There was nothing feminine or conciliatory about it. “Aileen Blair.”

  Sloane guessed Blair to be in her early to mid-fifties. She had a tall, athletic build, with auburn hair cut naturally to lie just past her shoulders, a streak of gray just to the left of the part. Her face remained youthful, with just the trace of crow’s-feet showing at the corners of her eyes. A strand of pearls dangled from her neck. She
was an attractive woman.

  “I have iced tea inside,” she said.

  Sloane followed Aileen Blair up two wooden steps that creaked under his weight. A porch swing hung motionless in the corner, near a wicker table. Clay pots lined the porch edge, the flowers beginning to wither. Sam followed them, but Blair would not allow her through the screen door.

  “Stay,” she directed, and the dog stopped. “She’s really a good dog. It’s a shame they can’t keep her. Do you know anyone looking for a dog?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Sloane said. He followed Blair through the screen door. It was dark inside the house, mostly from the dark oak floor and patterned wallpaper. The house smelled of dough baking—cookies or a piecrust. He heard voices in other rooms of the house, but no one came into the hall to greet them. Blair slid apart two paneled doors and stepped into a den of green walls and white-shuttered windows. Two burgundy leather couches, a glass coffee table, and a forest-green wingback chair surrounded an oak entertainment console. Behind one of the couches was a green felt pool table and, standing near it, a life-size cardboard cutout of Larry Bird, the former Boston Celtics basketball player and living legend. A basketball junkie, Sloane gravitated toward it as Blair slid the doors behind him closed. This would be a private conversation.

  “Joe loved the Celtics, especially Larry Bird,” Blair said, adjusting the shutters to let in slatted light. “He bled Celtics green. He and his brothers considered the parquet that man walked on to be sacred. They went to every game at the Garden and cried like babies when they tore it down. I’m not sure how Joe got that thing, and even less sure how he convinced his wife to let him keep it, but my brother was pretty persuasive when he wanted something.” She turned from the shutters. “So am I. ”