The Nominee

by Alan P Woodruff

  “You mean the prosecutor offered a bail reduction in exchange for a bribe?” Leslie said.

  “That would be the legal term for it. His client was desperate to get out of jail, so Barlow paid the bribe and arranged for bail. But Barlow also reported the arrangement to the person who was the subject of his client’s proposed testimony. This time the client was also found shot in the head after he had been bailed out.”

  “But,” Horse added while adding logs to the growing fire, “Barlow had discovered a new way to get his clients out of jail — bribe the prosecutor. He started slowly, with the prosecutor who had first approached him. But that only helped him in one county. That was fine for him, but it wasn’t good enough for his new clients who had problems all over southeast Florida.”

  “So what did he do about it?”

  “The only thing he could,” White said. “Barlow had to find a way to bribe other prosecutors who wanted high bail for people his clients wanted to get out of jail. But that, alone, didn’t solve his problems. He knew that some of the people he bailed out were going to be killed. But unless there was proof that they were dead, and hadn’t simply run from the jurisdiction, the bail bondsman was liable for the whole amount of the bond. All of a sudden, no one was willing to issue bonds for his clients. He had to find a way to ensure that the bodies were found.”

  “And that is where Franklin St. James, Congressman St. James, comes into the picture.”

  Leslie’s hands shot to her mouth. When her initial surprise dissipated and she was able to speak, she asked, “How did Barlow go from managing his little scheme in West Palm Beach to being connected with St. James.”

  “They were connected by a drug smuggler in Miami. This was back when St James was a narcotics detective with the Miami PD. But he was a crooked cop. St. James was taking bribes from dealers to avoid being arrested, and he was taking money from distributors to keep their dealers in line by arresting the ones who made any trouble.

  “Okay. But how did St. James connect with Barlow.”

  “One of the distributors who was using Barlow was also bribing St. James. He must have seen the benefit of having both a narcotics cop and an unethical defense attorney on the payroll. He brought Barlow and St. James together.”

  Leslie’s eyes narrowed, and her face took on a quizzical look, “Let me get this straight. A narcotics detective in Miami arrests someone… then he refers that person to an attorney and bail bondsman who can get him out of jail.”

  White nodded. “Yes. Of course, there were a lot of people being arrested by other cops. Some of those cops were recruited to join in the scheme. In the end, there were a couple dozen cops involved.”

  “And how many drug distributors?”

  “That’s hard to say.”

  “For that matter, how did drug distributors benefit from the arrangement?”

  “For them, it was a dream come true. First of all, users and petty dealers could get out of jail cheaply. That kept the dealers’ businesses going. But if anyone didn’t want to play along with their plan and tried to get out of jail by making a deal with prosecutors—”

  “Those higher up in the system would find out about it.”

  “Right. Then they would arrange for the wayward prisoner to be released on bail, and they would be persuaded not to testify — or they’d be eliminated.”

  “Killed?”

  “That’s right.”

  Leslie tugged on a strand of her hair. “It’s hard to believe. The police and prosecutors were actually helping the drug lords keep their people in line?”

  “Exactly!” White said. “And it wasn’t long before the major players in the trade knew how the arrangement was working. But I couldn’t figure out how so much money was moving around without it becoming obvious that some prosecutors were being bought off.”

  Leslie continued to play with her hair. “I don’t get it. Why was that a problem?”

  White leaned forward until he was resting his elbows on his thighs and turned his head to face Leslie. “The first indicator of corruption is usually when a public official starts spending a lot more than they’re supposed to be earning. But Horse couldn’t find any obvious evidence of that. I didn’t put it all together until Graham told me about Congressman St. James’ brother, Bobby the Saint.”

  “What about him?”

  “Bobby had been convicted of bribery of a public official in connection with some federal construction projects. If someone that he was bribing hadn’t been caught and agreed to testify against him, Bobby would probably still be in business.”

  Leslie pulled her knee to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “What was Bobby doing that was so interesting.”

  “Bobby was set up three-way and four-way bribes. Instead of bribing anyone directly, he arranged for officials to get favors from a third or fourth party, someone Bobby was paying to provide whatever the target wanted. Whoever wanted a favor paid Bobby, Bobby paid the middle-man, and there was never any link from the target to Bobby or whoever wanted the target to do something.”

  Leslie closed her eyes and pursed her lips as she seemed to struggle to keep track of the mounting collection of facts. “And what did Barlow and St. James do.”

  White took a deep breath and exhaled. It was one thing to know the individual facts. It was quite another to see what they meant when they were all put together. Even as he was explaining the facts to Leslie, pieces were falling into place.

  “It took a while, but eventually they put together a network of crooked prosecutors in all the counties along the east coast that were in the Southern District of the federal court. Barlow was the conduit for the money. He got paid by drug dealers and distributors, and he used Bobby’s model to pay prosecutors, and maybe even some judges. He’d find out something they needed, and then he’d arrange through some third party to provide it. Then he and St. James would split the remainder of whatever they collect for their efforts.”

  “Is St. James still involved. I mean, now that he’s a congressman?”

  “By the time they had all the pieces of their plan in place, St. James had already decided to run for Congress… although God only knows why. Barlow started paying St. James’s share of the bribe money into a political action committee he set up for the Congressman. That way, there was no direct connection to the Congressman.”

  Leslie seemed to understand the essential parts of the arrangement White was describing, but she apparently wanted to know more of the details. “Why did they only do this in the Southern District.”

  White rolled his shoulders, rested his head on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. “St. James knew the narcotics detectives in all the counties in the Southern District.” He paused and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t really know the answer to Leslie’s question, at least not all of it. But he knew enough to guess. “It took him a little while, but he managed to recruit some of them to participate in their scheme.”

  Leslie stretched and wrapped another lock of hair around a finger. “But federal prosecutors can assert jurisdiction over drug cases that originate with arrests by state law enforcement officials.”

  “To keep control of the cases against the people in their organizations they needed to keep the cases in state court. So they started bribing federal prosecutors to leave cases in state court.”

  “Couldn’t they simply bribe federal prosecutors the same way they were bribing state prosecutors?”

  “They could. But it was easier to bribe them to not take jurisdiction over state cases in the first place.”

  “What about the cases that started out with arrests by federal agencies. Didn’t they have to stay in federal court.”

  “At first, there wasn’t anything they could do about that. But then Lyle Wilson transferred to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District. He could have federal drug case assigned to him. Then he would handle it the same way cases were being handled in the state courts.”

  “How coul
d he have done that with Graham investigating corruption over there?”

  “I hate to admit it, but I completely misunderstood what Graham was doing.”

  Leslie’s quizzical expressing asked her question for her.

  “When Graham first told me about his assignment, I thought he would be conducting investigations in both federal and state courts. But as soon as we stumbled onto the Barlow/St. James scheme, Graham started to put all his resources into the investigation of state cases. Then I remembered that his investigation was being conducted under the auspice of a DOJ office that only investigates corruption by state officials.”

  Leslie shook her head and sighed. Her eyes showed only confusion. “You mean he was never supposed to investigate whatever Wilson might have been doing.”

  “I don’t think so. But even if it had been part of his assignment, I doubt it would have made any difference. Graham knew Wilson from their time together in the Middle District, and he trusted him. It seems that Wilson was free to do whatever he wanted.”

  “Your analysis seems to be based on a lot of assumptions,” Leslie said. Her tone suggested that she was beginning to have doubts about White’s story.

  “I never would have put it together if Barlow hadn’t been murdered.”

  Leslie looked from White to Horse and back to White. “Are you guys having a little fun at my expense. This story is getting too crazy to be real.”

  White gave a boy-scout salute. “Scouts honor. Truth is stranger than fiction.”

  Leslie looked suspicious but settled back to hear the rest of the story.

  “Now, where was I,” White said.

  Leslie wrapped her arms around a throw-pillow and mumbled, “You were about to make up some story about Lyle Wilson.”

  “Ah yes. Well, Lyle Wilson took over the investigation of Barlow’s murder. That murder should have just been a state matter. But Wilson claimed that it was connected to his own investigation into drug trafficking. The State’s Attorney was only too happy to let him have the case.”

  “What does that have to do with your analysis of how the Barlow/St. James operation worked?”

  “When Jackson was murdered, Barlow concluded that some of the people in his organization were behind it. Jackson had already tried to get a pay-off to keep quiet about what he knew and some people in the Barlow/St. James operation had discussed eliminating him. Of course, Barlow was opposed to killing his own step-son. But when Jackson was murdered, Barlow threatened to find out who ordered it and get even.”

  “That was pretty stupid of him,” Leslie said.

  “You’re right. And that’s why he was eliminated. But what the organization didn’t know was that he had compiled an insurance policy — a detailed summary of everything. After Wilson took over the case of Barlow’s murder, he got access to Barlow’s office and found documents outlining the whole scheme. Names. Dates. Amounts paid. The whole thing. Apparently, Barlow actually was going to go to the authorities and had compiled documentation to give them. He must have thought that he could make a deal for what he knew and stay out of prison.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Wilson gave Graham what he found in Barlow’s office. Those documents filled in all the gaps in our investigation and we were able to understand everything about the operation of the Barlow/St. James organization. Graham sent me the file this evening. That’s what I’ve spent the evening analyzing.”

  “Well, way to go, boyfriend.” Leslie beamed. “You solved Graham’s corruption case for him.”

  “Not really. He did most of the work. I… Horse and I only provided some leads and filled in some gaps. I called him as soon as I put it together and he’s ready to start making arrests.”

  “But you haven’t said anything about the Matlacha arrests and Tom Jackson’s murder.”

  “All in good time, my dear.”

  “Tease!” Leslie said and playfully hit White with a pillow.

  White smiled and stood up. “I’m hungry. Would anyone like an elk-burger with all the fixin’s?”

  Horse raised his hand.

  Leslie said, “I want the rest of the story.”

  “Then you’ll have to join me in the kitchen because I feel a need to cook.”

  36.

  Horse and Leslie sat at the breakfast bar as White burrowed into the refrigerator selecting ingredients for his famous burgers: elk meat, shitake mushrooms, bacon, Vidalia onions, and blue cheese.

  At the breakfast bar, Horse’s hands were wrapped around a bottle of beer. A glass of Merlot sat untouched in front of Leslie.

  White stood by the open refrigerator contemplating something that only he understood. Finally, he reached for a can of diet Pepsi, closed the refrigerator door and moved his burger ingredients to the island in the in the middle of his gourmet kitchen. He popped the top on his can of diet Pepsi and took a long swallow. “Now, where was I,” he said to no one in particular.

  “You were about to tell me why did anyone wanted to frame ‘Shepard’ and Jackson for having cocaine in the first place?”

  “No, I was looking for this,” White said as he pulled a cutting board from the shelf under the island and selected a knife to begin preparing one of his favorite light meals. As he prepared to chop the mushrooms and onions, he returned this attention to Leslie. “Now, what was your question?”

  “Why did anyone want to frame ‘Shepard’ and Jackson?”

  White put a cast iron skillet on the stove and lit a gas burner before responding. “That’s a two-part question.”

  “Okay, then why did anyone want to frame ‘Shepard.’”

  White considered the question for a few seconds before responding. “‘Shepard’ was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn’t been home when the house was raided he would never have been arrested in the first place. But once he was in the system, they had to do something with him.”

  “Couldn’t Graham have told Parker that he was a DEA agent and gotten him released.”

  “They couldn’t do that because then ‘Shepard’ would be useless to the DEA as an undercover agent. Graham and the DEA had to protect his identity as long as they could.”

  “How is that any different than letting Graham claim that ‘Shepard’ was his son.”

  “The difference was mostly bureaucratic. Graham didn’t need the DEA’s permission to disclose that ‘Shepard’ was his son. In any event, by the time we had to disclose that fact, the risk that he might be harmed while in jail had increased.”

  “How?”

  “We think that Jackson was getting suspicious of ‘Shepard.’ He knew that the cocaine the sheriff found wasn’t his, but it was found in his room. He had started telling other inmates that he had been arrested because of something that ‘Shepard’ had done. When he heard about that Graham just didn’t think ‘Shepard’ was safe in jail.”

  As White continued to chop the onions and mushrooms, Leslie pondered his explanation. White glanced in her direction. Her brow was furrowed are her lips pursed. White concluded that she had decided to try to decipher the remaining clues herself. He smiled at the thought and waited for her to proceed.

  “Well, if ‘Shepard’s arrest was just a mistake, why was Jackson framed.”

  “Probably because he knew about the Barlow/St. James plan. Most likely he was threatening to tell the authorities about it if he didn’t get a part of the income.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  White stopped what he was doing and leaned over with his elbows on the breakfast bar. “We know Jackson knew about the Barlow/St. James scheme — at least the Palm County part of it — because he told ‘Shepard’ about it. We also know that he specifically told ‘Shepard’ that snitches got killed. That’s why, when I interviewed him in jail, ‘Shepard’ made a point of telling me that he wasn’t going to make any kind of plea agreement. He was afraid that I had been sent by someone in a drug cartel.”

  Leslie’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sayi
ng that Jackson was blackmailing his own father?”

  “And, indirectly, everyone involved in the Barlow/St. James scheme. But the other people involved in the scheme — mainly the prosecutors Barlow was bribing — had to know that money alone wouldn’t keep Jackson shut up.”

  “How could they know that?”

  “Blackmailers are rarely satisfied with that easily,” Horse said. He spoke in a voice that didn’t seem to require any thought, as though what he was saying was self-evident. “They always want more.”

  “Then what was their plan for dealing with Jackson?” Leslie said.

  White stood, chuckled and resumed preparation of the elk-burgers. As he worked, he explained, “That’s probably the only rational decision they made. They decided to have Jackson arrested and charged with something that carried a long prison sentence. That was intended to send Jackson a message. He had to know that he was being framed. They wanted him to know what they could do to punish him if he didn’t stay in line. Two kilos of cocaine would be enough to send Jackson away for a long time if he was convicted. But, more importantly, it was enough to ensure his bail would be so high that Jackson would have to stay in jail until they decided to get him out.

  “Whoever arranged for him to get arrested wanted to keep in jail for a while. Once they were satisfied that Jackson would stay in line, he’d have been released on some technicality. They thought he was smart enough to know that they, or at least his father, would eventually get him out. They hoped that by showing him that they could have him arrested the experience would be enough to scare him into keeping his mouth shut.”

  Leslie suddenly sat up straight and smiled as if she had received a divine revelation. “If Jackson had already told ‘Shepard’ about the…”