Above the Law

by J. F. Freedman

  “That’s a damaging conclusion.”

  “I know it is.” He turned to the jurors. “We’re human. We make mistakes.”

  “That’s a lalapalooza.”

  He had no comeback for that.

  I waited a moment to let that sink in—they hadn’t only disobeyed orders. They were the gang who couldn’t shoot straight. Unless Juarez had deliberately been released, which is what happened; these guys don’t make mistakes like that.

  “Let’s change subjects. You’re a good shot, aren’t you, Agent Jerome?”

  “Pretty good,” he said modestly.

  I looked at one of my notes. “You have excellent marks on the range.”

  “Like I said, I do okay.”

  “You like to shoot?”

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “You go out to the range, what, once a month?”

  “About that much.”

  “These are scheduled? It’s part of being proficient?”

  He nodded. “It’s a requirement of the job.”

  “And when you go out to the range and fire your weapon…do you use your own weapon when you go to the range?” I interrupted my own train of thought.

  “Yes. You want to make sure your weapons are in good working order.”

  “Right. Now when you go to the range, who supplies the ammunition? Do you bring your own?”

  “No. It’s given to us.”

  “The agency does that.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you don’t buy your ammunition.”

  “No.”

  “What kind of ammunition do you fire at the range, Agent? Whatever they have on hand?”

  “We fire the ammunition we would use in the field, if it were to ever come to that. You want the range work to approximate what could happen in the real world as closely as possible.”

  “And those would be hollow-point bullets?”

  “Yes. We always use hollow points.”

  “In the field and on the range.”

  “Yes.”

  I walked over to my table, picked up the testimony of Harrison, the gun shop owner, and the sales receipt he’d given me. Crossing back to Jerome, I handed the receipt to him. “What is this?”

  He read it over. “A receipt for bullets for a nine-millimeter automatic pistol.”

  “Is that the caliber of bullet you use in your personal weapon?”

  “Yes. That’s standard in the department.”

  “What kind of bullets are these?”

  He looked at the receipt again. “These would be full-metal jackets.”

  “That’s a different kind of bullet from what you use?”

  “Yes.”

  I took the receipt from him. “You purchased these bullets for your weapon.” I handed the receipt back to him, pointing out his name over the line “purchaser.”

  He stared at it, realizing the implications. “Yes. I bought them.”

  “A few days before your botched raid on the compound.”

  Very slowly: “The raid was successful. We nailed our quarry. The aftermath was the problem. But the raid itself was successful.”

  “You consider losing three men a successful raid?” I asked, my voice rising.

  “We’re in a war against drugs,” he answered, equally heated. “There are casualties in a war. That’s regrettable. No one is more unhappy than I am that those men died. I sent them to their deaths, I take responsibility for that, and it’ll be with me until the end of my life. But our raid was successful. We captured one of the most despicable criminals this country has produced.”

  “You could’ve captured him without the loss of lives, Mr. Jerome. If you hadn’t gone cowboying out there on your lonesome. Disregarding orders is normal for you. With tragic results, as we saw in this case.”

  “Fuck you.” He said it under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear, which he wanted.

  I wheeled on him. “What did you say?”

  He glared at me. “Nothing.”

  “That’s what I thought. You have nothing to say.”

  We were into our own private war now. I regained the receipt and walked away from him, so that I was standing near the grand jury box. Them and me, together, against him, alone. “Why would you buy bullets if they’re given to you free of charge, Agent Jerome? A type of bullet that’s different from what you use.”

  “I—”

  “And why would you go a hundred and fifty miles away to buy them?” I pressed on, not letting him finish. “You were in Blue River. This gun shop is at the opposite end of the county.”

  “I wanted to get away.”

  “You wanted what?”

  “This raid was about to happen. Finally. I’d spent ten years of my life chasing after Juarez. This was going to be the most important bust of my entire life. I needed to get away and clear my head. To mentally and emotionally prepare myself.”

  “And buy bullets.” I didn’t try to hide my derisiveness.

  “I had pent-up energy. Shooting my weapon is a way of releasing that.”

  “So why didn’t you buy the kind you would use if you used your weapon?”

  “When I’m shooting on my own, I prefer full-metal jackets.”

  “And why is that, pray tell?”

  He disregarded my sarcasm, although I knew it was enflaming him. “They’re cleaner. They give you a better feel of how accurate you are. Hollow points obliterate everything. I wanted to see if my aim was as true as it could be.”

  I looked at the jurors to see if they were buying this. They looked dubious.

  “You’re aware, I know, that a full-metal jacket killed Juarez, not a hollow-point bullet.”

  Jerome stared hard at me. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  I turned my back on him for a good, long beat, rummaging through papers on my table, letting him hang, letting the jurors look at him. Then I turned back.

  “You have brothers and sisters, don’t you, Agent Jerome?”

  He gave me a strange look. Haunted, almost; certainly surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “One of your sisters is named Diane Jerome? Diane Jerome Richards?”

  I’d blindsided him. “Yes,” he answered, his voice barely audible.

  “Would you repeat your answer so everyone can hear you. You have a sister named Diane Jerome Richards, that is correct?”

  “Yes.” His voice was firmer—he was trying to recover. “Diane Richards is my sister.”

  “She attended Stanford University for one year. Her freshman year. Is that also correct?”

  He stared straight ahead. Not looking at the jurors, not looking at me. “Yes.”

  “And while she was there, she had a romantic relationship with another freshman student, is that right? A male student?”

  “I…guess she did.”

  “You know she did. Don’t you?”

  Very slowly he answered, “Yes.”

  I asked my next question while facing the grand jurors. “What was the name of the boy your sister fell in love with, Mr. Jerome?”

  A deep breath, from the bottom of his gut. “Reynaldo Juarez.”

  His breath was reverberated by the dozen and a half from behind me.

  “Is that the same Reynaldo Juarez who was killed after the raid that you led on the compound here in Muir County?”

  “Yes.”

  “The same Reynaldo Juarez you had relentlessly pursued for over a decade.”

  “Yes.”

  “When you found out that your sister was dating Reynaldo Juarez, back there at Stanford, did you do anything about that?”

  “How do you mean?” he asked cagily, trying to figure a way out.

  “Did you and some of your brothers go to Stanford, kidnap Mr. Juarez, drive him to a deserted area, and beat him within an inch of his life?”

  He took his time before answering. “No.”

  “You didn’t?” I asked incredulously, the tone of my voice clearl
y telling the jurors I knew he was lying.

  “We went out there to talk to him.”

  “Talk to him. What about?”

  “We didn’t want him seeing our sister.”

  “Because he was a drug dealer? You didn’t want your sister having a love affair with a drug dealer?”

  “Yes,” he answered firmly.

  I took a moment to let all this sink in; we’d been moving at breakneck speed, on a subject for which the jurors hadn’t been prepped.

  “How did you know he was a dealer?” I challenged him. “You weren’t with the DEA then. You were barely into your twenties, isn’t that true?”

  “I was not yet working for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

  I moved closer to him. “You had no idea of any of that at the time, did you? All you knew was that your sister was in love with a Mexican boy, isn’t that the truth of it? You didn’t want a Chicano for a possible future brother-in-law, did you. That’s why you and your brothers went to Palo Alto—to stop him from ever seeing your sister. Isn’t it, Agent Jerome!”

  He was holding steady—it was a struggle, but he was managing to stand up to my fusillade. So far.

  “We felt they were wrong for each other. It had nothing to do with him being Mexican. I’ve got plenty of friends who are Mexican-Americans.”

  “Bully for you,” I complimented him sarcastically. “How very tolerant. So his being Mexican had nothing to do with your beating him half to death? It was simply the wrong choice for Diane, is that what you’re telling us?”

  “We didn’t do that. I’ve told you that.”

  “You’re under oath, Mr. Jerome. You know what the penalty for perjuring yourself before a grand jury is, don’t you? You’ve appeared before grand juries before.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “What if I produced hospital records?”

  “They wouldn’t say who messed him up.”

  “If you didn’t beat him up, how did you know he was?”

  “You’re trying to trick me,” he complained. “I’m not here as a hostile witness.”

  “You’re acting hostile, as far as I’m concerned. Please answer the question.”

  “I know it because you just told me. I didn’t know it otherwise.”

  “Even if I produced an affidavit from your sister that says you did beat him, you and your brothers? How would you respond to that?”

  “I’d have to say she was mistaken.” He was fighting hard, not giving an inch. “We never beat up on the guy.”

  “But you were obsessed with him, weren’t you? You were so obsessed with him that for the rest of your life you conducted a personal vendetta against him, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You hated him so much you even took money to kill him, didn’t you?”

  He almost came out of his chair. “What are you talking about?” he screamed. “I never took money from anybody. That’s outrageous!” He was fighting for self-control, and losing. “All right. I did hate him. Why shouldn’t I? The man was a cowardly bastard. He was a murderer, a drug dealer. I’m proud to hate someone like that. Everyone should be.” He was really spewing now. “So what if he had known my sister? That makes my going after the son of a bitch better, not worse.” He turned now and stared at the jurors. “Okay. I knew him, I admit it. I didn’t want my sister seeing this scumbag, I admit it. I’m glad as hell he’s dead. I’m suffering no remorse about that whatsoever. But I didn’t kill him. I had orders not to, and I obeyed them.”

  “Like you obeyed the orders not to raid the compound unless the drug deal you set up went down,” I shot back.

  He shook his head; but he didn’t answer.

  “You wanted Juarez dead. You’d wanted him dead forever. You were in a position to make that happen—for all we know, the reason you joined the DEA was to have proximity to him. You set that raid up to look legitimate, then after you couldn’t murder him during the raid and had to take him prisoner, you snuck in and unshackled him and told him you’d give him one last chance to get out of your life, out of this country. He could take his chance and run, or you’d kill him there, on the spot. Didn’t you—Agent Jerome?”

  “You’re crazy.” He turned to the jurors, beseeching them. “This is insane, all of it. I’m a federal agent, I would never do what he’s saying. I’m not a murderer!”

  “And then you went after him, didn’t you? You tracked him down and you killed him with the full-metal jackets you had secretly bought a few days before, one hundred fifty miles away. Didn’t you?”

  “No!”

  I retreated to my table, picked up my last group of documents.

  “Do you know what these are?” I asked him from twenty feet away.

  “I can’t see them from here, so, no.”

  I walked to him. “Can you see them now?”

  He looked at the papers in my hand. “Yes, I can see them now,” he said venomously.

  “Do you know what they are now?”

  “No, I still don’t know what they are.” He was trying to give it back as good as I was throwing it at him.

  I showed the documents to the jurors. “They’re bank statements.” Back to Jerome: “From Mr. Jerome’s bank account in Miami, Florida.”

  “My what? I don’t have a bank account in Miami.”

  I paused, looked at the papers in my hand. “That’s interesting.” Handing him one of the papers, I asked, “Isn’t that your Visa card number at the bottom of the page? Your Social Security number? Your birthdate?”

  He read the page carefully. Looked up at me, his face registering sheer bewilderment. “Yes, they’re mine. But I don’t have a bank account in Miami,” he protested. “I don’t have a bank account anywhere in Florida.”

  “This document says you do.”

  “It’s wrong. I don’t.” He was in panic mode now, worse than when I’d hit him with his sister’s relationship with Juarez.

  “This document says you opened this account by wire five days after Reynaldo Juarez was murdered.” I ran my finger down the pertinent lines. “Take a look for yourself. Five hundred thousand dollars was wired into this account upon opening. Look at it, man! Tell me if that isn’t what’s on the page!”

  He looked at it, his hands shaking as he held it.

  “I don’t have a clue as to what any of this is,” he said, his voice shaking uncontrollably. “But I swear to you, this is not my bank account. I don’t have anything like five hundred thousand dollars.”

  I turned my back on him. It had come down to this. If he had admitted to the bank account and had a plausible reason for the money, I would still have asked for an indictment; I think. But he hadn’t. He was flat-out lying.

  I had no choice.

  “Okay,” I told him, my voice flat, as drained of emotion as he was emotional. “I’m done with you—for now. You’re excused.”

  He got up to leave. His legs were shaking, he had a difficult time with the mere act of standing.

  “Make sure my office knows where you are,” I instructed him sternly. “At all times.” He nodded. He was numb. He walked out.

  At the end of the day we celebrated, the team and I. Champagne all around. Okay, so it was domestic California sparkling, but who’s reading the label?

  When I awoke the following morning, I had come back down to earth. We had our man. The grand jury had indicted Jerome on a count of murder in the first degree. So we’d done our job, the first part.

  The unfortunate thing was, he had killed a man far worse than he. But my business is about the rule of law, which has to stand equally for everyone, tarnished white knights and scumbags alike. I believed that last year, last month, last week, last night. I believe it now. That doesn’t make applying it sweet or easy, in every circumstance.

  PART FOUR

  GIRDING FOR BATTLE

  WE TOOK A FAMILY vacation to Hawaii, Kauai, up near Hanalei Bay, a condo above the beach. It was Buck’s first time in warm ocean water—he to
ok to it like a dolphin. We swam, made sand castles, flew kites. When he napped, Riva and I hired one of the local kids to watch him while we took walks along the beach, grateful and happy to have some intimate time together. It was a peaceful, restful week, a good bonding for us as a family and a time of reenergizing for me, after the tensions and pressures of the investigation.

  Unfortunately, it had to end and I had to go back to work, preparing for the trial. Jerome’s arrest and indictment had been a front-page story on every newspaper, magazine, and television show across the country. I was duly lionized: the hero of the desert, the fearless prosecutor representing the tiny county that took on big government and brought it to its knees—all that bullshit. I hated it, both the public ass-kissing and the invasion of my privacy. I had done my job. I had no vendetta against anyone, including the DEA. They hadn’t handled their investigation satisfactorily, but they hadn’t been trying to overtly cover up, they simply couldn’t force themselves to look hard enough into that abyss. It’s tough judging your own, men you work with, live and die with.

  Winston Kim and I had lunch in L.A. shortly after the indictment was handed down. He wasn’t apologetic, but he did offer congratulations. The agency was having a hard time over this. Their procedures had been attacked in newspaper editorials, the television talking heads had castigated them, and some congressional committees launched punitive, publicity-seeking inquiries.

  None of that lasted very long; after the shouting and posturing died down, it became clear that Jerome was an aberration, a man so hellbent on personal revenge that he had crossed the line. The man was at fault, not the organization. Now that I wasn’t locking horns with them, I, too, felt that was as it should be.

  Things were dormant while I prepared my case. Jerome’s lawyer, John Q. Jones, one of the best defense lawyers in the country, an old warhorse from time immemorial, had tried unsuccessfully for a change of venue from Muir County, since its jury pool was small, and everyone knew about the case. As I expected, Judge McBee dismissed the motion—Jerome was going to stand trial where the crime had been committed. He also denied Jerome bail. This was a capital offense, and there was concern that Jerome would try to leave the country. He was held in the Muir County jail under tight security, overseen by Sheriff Miller and his staff.