No Truth Left to Tell

by Michael McAuliffe

  “Two people know the answer. Have you confronted the detective?”

  “Not yet. Without talking about the wire, what leverage do I have to get the truth out of him?”

  Hall thought for a moment, trying to balance the load of bricks Rush had just dumped onto his otherwise uneventful bureaucratic afternoon.

  “Why do you want to know the truth?”

  “I know the truth. The guy burned the crosses,” Rush said. “He did. Did the Klansman confess? Yep. Did an elderly black woman have a heart attack when she saw the cross? Absolutely. Would the Klan have gone on to more violence? One hundred percent yes. Did the conviction stop it all? It did. That’s the truth I know.”

  “But you’re not finished with your list. So I repeat my question: Why do you want to get to the truth? The truth of the detective’s story?”

  “His testimony was too packaged when I heard it in the grand jury. I should’ve confronted him then,” Rush said. After a pause, he added, “To answer you: I need to know whether the detective lied.”

  “Want, need, hope. It all gets mixed up in real life, doesn’t it? I do know you got to meet with the detective. Is it possible he’s a braggadocio on the wire and not lying in court? Hear him out. If he’ll talk.”

  Rush looked unhappy, like he had just bitten into a lemon. “So I meet with him, then what?”

  “I just know you got to talk to the guy before you decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Whether knowing the truth convinces you to do something.”

  “The Klansman’s confession broke open the case. Most everything we introduced as evidence in trial is tied one way or another to that confession. If it’s out, we’re gutted. Most all the evidence gets suppressed, and the grand dragon goes free.”

  “And maybe your girlfriend goes too. How’s she going to take this?” Hall then said aloud what Rush had been thinking. “A damn high price to protect a Klansman’s civil rights.”

  “Too high,” Rush admitted. Rush was caught in a trap he had created with his self-righteous pronouncements of principles and rules. He knew it, but couldn’t escape. “Could the defendant’s racial insults excuse what the detective did?”

  “I’m not a member of the tribe, but I’d be careful about excusing over words—even when it’s the N word.”

  “I’m trying to be careful. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Who else knows about the detective’s call on the wire?”

  “The monitor, but she doesn’t know the backstory or how it impacts the Klan case. Mercer, the case agent, also knows, but he almost didn’t tell me about it in the first place. He’d be OK forgetting about it.”

  “Who else?”

  “And now Father Hall,” Rush said. “Any absolution?”

  “You got my silence, but absolution isn’t something I can give you before you commit the sin.”

  38

  ANOTHER CONFESSION

  Rush sat alone in the bureau’s conference room in Lynwood. He had the detective’s grand jury and trial testimonies splayed across the table with the transcript of the detective’s brief conversation captured on the wire. Odd, he thought, how the short statement said so much more than the long ones. Maybe there was some fantastical explanation about how the detective’s bragging was all a misunderstanding, one that would allow the secret to stay in the room, but that hope was hanging by a thin, frayed thread.

  FBI protocol required Mercer to take notes during the meeting because it was, technically, a witness interview. However, Rush and Mercer agreed to ignore the rule. They didn’t want any record about what was said in the room.

  Mercer escorted Batiste through the FBI office labyrinth and into the conference room without the usual small talk. Rush stood and leaned across the table to greet the detective.

  “Detective. It’s been awhile.”

  “Yeah. A year. Maybe more. Not sure what you want, but Lee here said we needed to talk, so I’m here.”

  “Yes, thanks for coming. Let’s sit. Coffee? Water?”

  “Nah, I’m good. What’s it you need from me?”

  “You still assigned to the narcotics unit?” Mercer asked.

  “No. In RAID now, and should get my sergeant stripes soon.”

  “Detective, we wanted to have a private conversation—just us—about the Klan case.”

  “What about it?”

  Rush started off. “You’ve described to us the grand dragon’s confession many times. I want to revisit it. As I remember, the defendant threatened you, and that led you to arrest him, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did Daniels get to the station after you arrested him?” Rush asked.

  “Why we talking about this? The case is over and done. The idiot’s locked up and meeting new friends in prison. A win–win, don’t you agree?”

  “We’re damn glad Daniels is a convicted felon,” Mercer said. “Rush here is particularly thankful because the Bureau of Prisons now reviews Daniels’s outgoing mail.”

  “I remember. That was some interesting shit goin’ down,” the detective said, “but you don’t need worry about it anymore.”

  “Did you go straight to the station from the defendant’s vehicle after the arrest?”

  “I don’t remember. The guy was fucking with me.”

  “He was fucking with you or threatening you?” Rush asked.

  “We never asked you about the trip to the station,” Mercer added. “But we need to ask about it now.”

  “What you guys want me to say?”

  “We need some answers about the confession.”

  “You keep saying you ‘need.’ Why all of a sudden you got the need?”

  All three were on the edges of their seats leaning into the table’s beveled edge. Rush and Mercer were trying not to talk about the intercept. Legalities aside, telling the detective that his conversations had been recorded would shut down the police corruption investigation within minutes of the meeting.

  “Just trying to determine whether we’ve got an issue,” Rush explained. They needed the detective to talk.

  “Issue? What issue? I got you the confession. You wanted something else, counselor?”

  “We need—we want—to get comfortable that what you told the jury was the truth.”

  “What makes you doubt now? You didn’t have a problem before.”

  “Information has come to our attention that forces us to investigate,” Mercer explained.

  “What fuckin’ information? I was your damn hero before, and now I’m dirt?”

  Rush couldn’t contain himself any longer.

  “Did you take the defendant on some secret side trip and threaten to kill him to get him to confess?”

  “Why are you drag’n this bullshit up now?” The detective was rocking in his chair. “Somebody say somethin’?”

  “We can’t tell you how the information came to us. What’s important is we have this private chat now and see if there’s an issue. We can figure a way to deal with it, but you got to be straight with us,” Mercer said.

  “Can’t or won’t tell me?” the detective demanded. “We on the same side? Until now, I thought we were. This is total bullshit.”

  Mercer tried to calm the detective down. “We know Daniels confessed to you. We know he planned and led the cross burnings. We get it. He’s a bad guy who needed to be done.”

  “But we’ve got to talk about it,” Rush said. “Did you threaten him?”

  “The guy needed an incentive to talk, so I gave him one,” Batiste replied. “So what? He didn’t tell no damn lie.”

  “But you did.” Rush returned fire.

  The detective crossed his arms and leaned back.

  “How’d you threaten him? What’d you do to him?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “That’s why we’re goddamn here!” Rush was now up and pacing the length of the conference table. “We deserve to know.”

  The detective lea
ped out of his chair to confront Rush.

  “You lawyers think you need to know everything.” The detective straightened up and stuck his face right up to Rush’s to deliver his answer. “I made the asshole worried, very worried, about his immediate future.”

  “You violated his rights.”

  “You know nothin’ about what it’s like on the street—”

  The detective’s resentment of the legal system spewed forth like foul water from a contaminated faucet.

  “Your rules are made by fuckers who don’t have to follow them. You come down here all smug to save us all from ourselves. You’ll never get shot at, never question whether you’re comin’ home because some shit could decide to waste you.” The detective’s gaze locked on Rush. “You’re not the one to preach on me.”

  “You took an oath,” Rush replied. “You don’t get to make your own set of rules. You accuse me of being a savior, but it’s really about you playing God.”

  “This conversation’s done,” announced Batiste as he disappeared from the conference room.

  Mercer hustled after the fleeing detective.

  39

  SAFETY OF THE LINE

  Rush and Mercer took the long way to the grand jury room along a winding concrete path that circumnavigated the federal courthouse complex. Reaching an open plaza, they sat on hard bench seats that were just beginning to warm with the morning sun. They bent over in a huddle and talked in hushed voices. They looked like they were planning a surprise birthday party or an armed robbery.

  “How’d we get here?” Rush asked.

  “Damn if I know,” Mercer responded. “The chances of Batiste getting picked up on the wire talkin’ trash are so remote—”

  “I thought our biggest challenge was catching corrupt cops. Seems we had one next to us all along.”

  Rush had never been that candid with an agent, particularly one who had openly doubted him, but circumstances had blurred the boundaries between collaboration and collusion. His crisis of conscience had stripped away his usual protective layers of rules and the usual lines of professional propriety. There wasn’t an accessible moral scale one used to weigh outcomes, no ethics text with illustrations to dictate the decision.

  “Not that I should have to remind you, but the defendant’s scum,” Mercer said, “and the cross victims are the only real victims we’ve got here. There’s also the Nicole DuBose factor you’ve never acknowledged.”

  “What do you mean by real victims?” asked Rush, ignoring the second issue.

  “The cross-burning victims are the innocents. Hell, they’re the best this place got,” Mercer said.

  “I’m not arguing.”

  “Don’t forget the threat to get you. Daniels had to be behind it,” Mercer added.

  “You know they’re idiots, right?”

  “They lit all the crosses without getting caught that night, and without the confession—whether we admit it or not—we’d still be waiting for their next crime,” Mercer said. “It doesn’t take much talent or skill to injure or kill—just takes doing it.”

  “I may have been followed to the Twins during the trial. Three men in a car pulled into the parking lot after I did. They were searching for someone—for me, I think.”

  “You didn’t think to tell me about that before now?”

  “Bad habit of keeping stuff to myself.”

  “Why you always trying too damn hard?”

  “Why you keep nursing that chip on your shoulder?” Rush shot back.

  The two reached an impasse.

  “What the fuck is this?” Mercer said while shaking his head.

  “How do we ignore the detective’s lies?”

  “What was the lie, really?”

  “You know what it was.”

  “But the defendant’s confession was the truth—he did what he said he did.”

  “The Klan grand dragon and his groupies burned the crosses. That’s not in dispute.”

  “So what are we really talking about?”

  “The detective violated Daniels’s constitutional rights.”

  “So all of a sudden, the Klansman becomes the victim? You know how crazy that sounds?” Mercer asked. “The actual victims didn’t do anything wrong; the Klansman did.”

  “Can’t both be true? We’ve got the victims of the hate crimes and a detective who—”

  “Who what? You can’t even say it without gagging,” Mercer interrupted. “You can’t hold a constitutional right in your hand. Those exalted rights you talk about just sit up on some high shelf. They don’t do anything. You got to answer the question: Who’s the real victim, and who’s an imposter?”

  “Rights don’t depend on whether people are deserving,” Rush said. “Rights need keepers to protect them, not judge them.”

  “Come on! Don’t give me that lawyer talk. Do your sanctimonious rights cry? Your favorite victim does, and the others do too, ’cause they’re real people.”

  “We don’t represent individuals.”

  “You’re ignoring the injustice of it.”

  “The outcome can’t depend on your particular view of justice.”

  “What you’re telling me is the defendant’s rights trump his victims’ rights.”

  “I’m saying the Constitution protects the white supremacist the same as his victims. We don’t cut down the laws to get to the devil.”

  “You know he’ll get a new trial.”

  “Worse. We won’t be able to retry the case,” Rush admitted.

  “Jesus Christ. Did we lie?” Mercer demanded. “No!”

  “We sit on this, and we join in the lie.”

  “Who’s going to tell? No one’s asking.”

  “We’re asking each other right now.”

  “You gonna tell Nettie Wynn?” Mercer picked up a small shard of concrete and threw it across the plaza. “They deserve better.”

  “Of course they do. Lee, I’m not saying I know what we should do. I just know what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Deep down, beneath all your legalese and high-minded ethics, don’t you think it’s worth compromising principle for the right result? Maybe we can live with the lie—maybe we should live with the lie—if it preserves the truth of what happened.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Rush warned. “Once a climber becomes untethered, he loses the safety of the line and he’s on his own. I tell you this from personal experience.”

  40

  END OF THE WIRE

  Despite the district court’s extension of the wiretap from its initial thirty days to sixty, FBI supervisors pulled agents off to work other investigations—all except for Agent Gill. She made no secret of the fact that she enjoyed the calm that settled over the monitoring room after the first thirty minutes. To her, the shifts were an oasis from the frenzied activity of agents’ regular bullpen activities. Gill was disappointed when Mercer finally informed her that the intercept would end.

  Though the wire hadn’t produced the compelling evidence the feds needed to charge the RAID officers with federal civil rights crimes, it wasn’t a complete failure. Numerous dirty conversations had been captured, including the evidence-room conversation recorded by Gill, but there wasn’t the damning admission that could act as the foundation of a federal case. As is often the case, the wire’s underwhelming results didn’t have anything to do with guilt or innocence.

  The RAID officers managed their risk of exposure by taking elaborate steps to prevent outsiders from getting inside for a look around. They vetted anyone who wanted to join the unit, and they didn’t skim off every arrest, just ones they thought wouldn’t get scrutiny. They sabotaged cases that were set for trial so the officers wouldn’t have to testify in open court about their activities, and they never discussed the cases in any detail with one another. They didn’t have to—like an illicit version of a long-running Broadway show, the conspirators survived on memory, momentum, and loyalty.

  The RAID officers also had the advantage of acting as the
ir own guardians. As they pursued their list of gangs (Crips, Bloods, Top 6, MS-13) and street-level dealer networks, they amassed a trove of intelligence about the targets—leadership ranks, operations, assets, informants, recruits, territories, and histories—all the information an organization could want about its competition.

  Gill was two hours into the session with no calls. Her thoughts had wandered off to her last vacation, a trip to south Florida, when a call interrupted her daydreaming.

  The call came in on target Line 0198. She first heard the dial tone, then numbers being dialed, and then ringing.

  SUB #1: Hi. It’s Tiffany. I really want to have a good time with you, so leave your name and number. I’ll call back soon, I promise. [Beeping noise.]

  SUB #2: I need to see you. Got presents for my lady. Meet at eleven, usual spot.

  [End of call.]

  Gill recorded the whole call, but not by choice, as it was too short to deliberate over. It didn’t take a trained special agent of the FBI to know the woman was a girlfriend or a prostitute, likely both.

  Another call followed within seconds of the first.

  [Target Line 0198. Ringing.]

  SUB #1: What?

  SUB #2: We should meet.

  SUB #1: I’m off an’ need to crash.

  SUB #2: We need to meet.

  SUB #1: Man, I’m fuckin’ beat up. Playing cops and robbers is a game for young pricks, and I’m not young no more.

  SUB #2: Some issues come up.

  SUB #1: We all got issues. You want issues? How about two exes chasing my ass for my pension while I’m in goddamn debt up to my eyeballs?

  SUB #2: Listen to me. [Lowering voice.] I just had some shit shoveled into my mouth by the feds.

  SUB #1: What’d they say?

  SUB #2: Nothin’ about RAID, but out of nowhere, they’re askin’ questions about the Klan case—stuff they shouldn’t know.

  SUB #1: So what? If you worked on it, you—