Criminal Justice

by Parker, Barbara

  “Another thing I want you to do,” Vince said, “is keep an eye on Kelly Dorff. Be careful. Don’t give her a chance to suspect who you are.”

  “I know.”

  As Vince talked, he had been breaking a plastic stir stick into pieces. He tossed them into the ashtray. “Galindo came close to seeing me tonight. If he gets any closer, it’s Barrios all over again.” Vince finished his drink, then signaled the bartender for two more.

  Scott waved his off. His glass was only halfway down. “One’s enough. I have to be in court in the morning.”

  “In court.” Vince smiled. “What do they do, give you a sobriety test at the door? Learn to hold your liquor, my friend—”

  “I can hold my liquor just fine.”

  “Because you’re going to be in a situation, believe me, where you have to drink with the enemy, and if you don’t know how to stay in control, you could be in trouble.” He laughed. “It takes years of practice.”

  The bartender set down Vincent’s drink, picked up his empty, and wiped the bar. He went back down to watch the game, crossing his big arms over his stomach. The light from the TV flickered on his face.

  Scott said, “How did you know that Galindo threw the Barrios case?”

  Watching the television, Vincent said, “I didn’t. That’s the truth. At the time I highly suspected.” He picked up his drink. “Dan Galindo was an experienced prosecutor. It’s like a top contender slipping on the mat, going down. You can’t believe it could go that way. Galindo said the C.I. was dirty. No snitch is lily white, he knew that. A prosecutor has a duty, and that duty is not to be the judge or jury. That’s the problem, see. The worst traitors aren’t the ones who have the guts to draw down on you. You know where you stand with them. No, you have to watch out for the ones who whine about truth and justice and the American way, then complain when we have to take up the slack.”

  Vincent took a swallow from his glass, then said, “Barrios. As I say, when Luis Barrios walked, thanks to Galindo, it just didn’t smell right, and I’ve operated on gut instinct so many years that I believed he threw the case, and I came out of that courtroom wanting to kill him for it. Well, not literally. I would have done some damage, you might say. After I cooled down, I could’ve let it go. Sure. But now?” Vincent shook his head, smiling. “Don’t ever believe in coincidence. You’ll live longer.”

  Scott pivoted around on his stool and put his elbows on the bar. “Barrios did some deals with Miguel Salazar, did you hear about that? The FBI seized documents from the Bank of Quito, and there it was.”

  “Yes, indeed. Let’s give the Feebies their due on that one,” Vince said. “Consider. Barrios, Salazar … Galindo. No, I can’t prove anything. I don’t know, in the strict sense of the word, but it does give me pause. Indeed it does.”

  Scott caught the bartender’s attention and pointed at his glass.

  The clock over the bar said 11:15. Vince had told Elaine McHale he might be by tonight, but don’t wait up. Now it was too late. He would go home, catch a few hours, then be up early. He had to give a deposition in the morning, meet with a federal prosecutor about another case, then go back to the office and do paperwork. And tomorrow night, a stakeout in Key Largo. The schedule had killed his first marriage and was putting a strain on his second. He didn’t know what could be done about it.

  When Scott lit a cigarette, the match flared, and Vince noticed his hand.

  “What’d you do?”

  The flesh on his fingertips was ripped open. Blood had dried under his nails. Scott flexed his fingers. “This is from playing guitar for four hours. Bleeding for the cause, Vince.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Vince coughed on some smoke, then laughed. “Playing a guitar. Wait till you take a bullet, then talk to me about bleeding for the fucking cause.” He unbuttoned his cuff and pushed up the sleeve, working the fabric over his bicep, turning his arm around. “Mexico, August 1991. I got another one in my back, just missed my kidney. We were tracking a shipment through Quintana Roo, and the Mexican federales in the area were working for the dopers. Customs knew it. The CIA knew it. Did they tell us? Fuck, no. And after we limped home, did Congress raise hell? No way. Don’t disturb NAFTA. Don’t piss off our trading partner, even if half the government of Mexico is paid off by the cartels. Look at Salinas, the fucking president. You think our government didn’t know what he was doing? Not only do you have to fight the bad guys, you have to dodge the morons in your own agency.”

  He felt his pager buzzing and reached into his pocket. “Somebody—don’t ask me who because I can’t remember—said the greatest danger to a republic is the absence of war. Well, we are in a war, my friend. We are in a fucking war here, don’t doubt that for a minute.”

  Looking at the screen, Vince expected to see Elaine McHale’s number—again. She would want him to call her back, tell her where the hell he was, when he was coming. He frowned, turning the pager more toward the light.

  “Who is it?”

  “Our favorite C.I., Kelly Dorff. You have any idea what this is about?”

  Scott shook his head. “Call her.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The task force on Operation Manatee met every other Friday at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami—prosecutors, DEA, FBI, and representatives from four local police departments. There were coffee and donuts on a side table. Four dozen donuts—two dozen glazed, one jelly-filled, one plain. In six months it had never varied.

  The smell of sugar and grease made Elaine McHale want to gag. She sat at one end of the long conference table with a bitch of a hangover and tried not to breathe.

  Everybody was arguing over when to serve arrest warrants. DEA and FBI disagreed—as usual. Leaning back in her chair, Elaine doodled in the margin of her legal pad, staying out of Vincent Hooper’s line of sight. She couldn’t bear to look at him. Last night she’d had too much to drink and made a perfect ass of herself on his voice mail. Finally he called. Five seconds to tell her he wouldn’t be there, stop calling. Elaine woke up at dawn on the sofa, fully dressed, with her drink overturned on the floor. Not a weekend. A workday. It had scared the hell out of her.

  The agent who ran the show for the FBI was a guy named Tom Braslow. She didn’t like him. He had a red, ugly face and a tight collar. She drew a caricature of him on her legal pad.

  He was saying, “Any more delay, there’s going to be a leak somewhere. You’ll start seeing these guys take the next Avianca flight south, and it’s hell trying to extradite them back here.”

  “No, let’s nail Miguel Salazar first.” Vincent Hooper’s voice came from over by the windows. “He’s being coy, but he’s interested. If we start busting his contacts now, we could lose him.” Elaine could guess what Vince was thinking. Damned Feebies. Out to run the show and claim the credit.

  “Salazar’s not the only target in this operation, Hooper. We’ve got a list of Brickell Avenue bankers and major narcotics traffickers to take down.”

  “We need him,” Vince said. “The cartel he works for has run over a hundred million dollars in drug money through South Florida in the past five years. Salazar goes after legitimate businesses. When he’s finished with them, they fold. The man is a cancer.”

  “We’re aware of the statistics.” Braslow’s face had become even redder. “While you’re busy running after Salazar, we could lose the major dealers and distributors.”

  “We’re not going to lose them,” John Paxton said. This was Paxton’s meeting. He was the senior prosecutor on the operation. “We have time. This office wants Salazar along with the others, but we need more evidence. Most of it has been supplied by informants. Dopers and couriers. Guys trying to keep their asses out of prison, if they’re not there already. Any defense lawyer who isn’t asleep at the wheel would try to make every one of those witnesses look like the self-serving scumbags that they probably are—truthful scumbags, but the jury won’t see that, will they?”

  Vince said, “As soon as we put this deal together with S
alazar, he’s ours. What about his bank accounts? Do we have a subpoena?”

  “We’ll have that early next week, I should think.” There was a pause. “Elaine?”

  She sat forward until she could see Paxton at the other end of the table. “I’ll ask the grand jury for the subpoena this afternoon.”

  “Excellent.”

  For the past month Elaine had been presenting evidence to a federal grand jury, and so far the government had obtained indictments on sixteen targets of the investigation, including drug dealers, bankers, and a variety of couriers and go-betweens. She was still working on Miguel Salazar. Much of the cartel’s income was routed through his hands.

  Braslow turned around in his chair and eyed Scott Irwin, the DEA agent standing by the windows next to Vincent. “You’re the one in the band? The guitar player.”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, my goodness,” Braslow said. “We can’t move on the warrants till after the show. Agent Irwin is having a debut with a rock band. I heard you dyed your hair blue. Take the hat off, let’s see it.”

  Scott Irwin said quietly, “I’ll get you tickets to the show if you wear your leather.”

  Braslow looked at him, then snorted a laugh. “Smart-ass.” The Metro-Dade detective next to him snickered.

  While the rest of them talked about subpoenas to be served on downtown banks, Elaine studied Vincent and his latest sidekick. They stood apart from the group, more by choice than exclusion. The same casual slouch, the same blank look that hid whatever was really going through their minds—in Vincent’s case, boredom and disdain. Elaine knew what he thought of these interminable meetings. He was ready to go out and do his Latino thing today, gold chains and a guayabera. The loose shirt would hide his semiautomatic pistol.

  She found herself doodling again and put away her pen.

  Daisy Estrada, the woman on the DEA team, was in the middle of a story. “Guess who Robbins brought to the studio? Dan Galindo—his lawyer. Oh, my God, I wish I’d been there, it must’ve been so funny. Vince was afraid Galindo would recognize him, and he had to hide in the control room.”

  Laughter went around the table.

  “And this tells me … what?” Paxton spread his hands as if she might toss him an answer.

  “Ah. Then Robbins says that Galindo knows about the deal with Salazar. This is supported by information we received last night from our C.I. at Coral Rock.”

  Paxton seemed a little stunned. He exchanged a look with Elaine. She leaned forward to see around a detective from Broward County. “What C.I.? Do you mean Kelly Dorff?”

  From his post by the window Vincent said, “Kelly Dorff corroborated what Robbins told me—what he told Victor Ramirez, rather. I talked to Ms. Dorff last night. She said she overheard a conversation between Galindo and Robbins outside the studio during a break. I had already left at this point. They were discussing Salazar’s deals through the company, Coral Rock. Galindo was asking Robbins how much he expected to make on the next one. That’s all the C.I. could hear distinctly.”

  Paxton said, “Good God. Do you think she was being truthful?”

  “She was dating Dan Galindo for a while, and she just broke up with him. In a situation like that, you always wonder if emotions are involved. I don’t think so because of the other evidence.” Vincent made a quick nod in Braslow’s direction. “The FBI has just established a connection between Miguel Salazar and Luis Barrios. Two years ago, Galindo prosecuted Barrios and threw in the towel before it got to trial. This past Tuesday night we spotted Salazar, Galindo, and Galindo’s ex-wife at a soccer field in Lakewood Village. The ex is also Rick Robbins’s sister. We trailed them to the gatehouse, then went to the surveillance position across the lake. They had a few drinks and talked until around ten o’clock.”

  Across the table, Braslow said to Paxton, “So there’s an ex-federal prosecutor in on this. Interesting, John.”

  “Wait a second before you draw conclusions,” Elaine said. “No one knows what we’ve got at this point, and we shouldn’t speculate.”

  He smiled at her. “Au contraire, Ms. McHale. If a former assistant United States attorney—who has jumped the fence to join the ranks of criminal defense lawyers—if that man is friendly with one of the biggest money launderers in South Florida, I’m going to speculate the hell out of it.”

  She smiled back. “‘Friendly’ doesn’t mean anything. And if Dan Galindo is Rick Robbins’s lawyer, he can’t inform on his client. It would be unethical.”

  Daisy Estrada took a last bite of donut. “You used to work with Dan Galindo, didn’t you?”

  Before Elaine could respond, Paxton was waving a hand at Daisy, telling her not to draw conclusions like that. “Dan had a lot of friends in the office, myself included, and we all regret what happened.”

  “Regret? Luis Barrios murdered two of our agents and dismembered their bodies.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. And Luis Barrios is dead now too. I’m trying to be philosophical here, Daisy. Let it go.”

  The conversation turned to other topics, and it was finally agreed to allow more time to see if Miguel Salazar would take the DEA’s bait. When the meeting was over, detectives and agents milled around for a few minutes talking, then slowly filed out. Elaine waited until Vincent Hooper had left to gather her notes and stand up.

  “John, could I speak to you for a minute?”

  Paxton looked back at her. “All right.” He finished what he was saying to one of the detectives, then closed the door. “What’s up?”

  Elaine told him she wanted to talk to Kelly Dorff. “Do I have to go through the DEA for this?”

  “That question says you don’t want to.”

  “Exactly. Kelly might be more open if I spoke to her alone. Here’s my concern. This allegation about Dan Galindo and Miguel Salazar bothers me. It’s not so much a question of Dan’s guilt or innocence, but of Kelly Dorff’s veracity. They’ve been intimate. Say she’s angry and implicated him falsely. I need to know that. Or perhaps she told the truth. If so, she betrayed the man she slept with. I don’t care what anybody says, a jury would hate her for it. Before we use her testimony—or continue to use her as an informant—I’d like to know her motives.”

  “Good point.” Paxton frowned at the floor, his eyes half hidden under heavy gray brows. “You could add another ingredient to the mix. The DEA are convinced that Dan sabotaged a case they spent a year building. They could be predisposed to judge him guilty. Of course, a lying informant shouldn’t be put on the stand, but Dan refused to consider any other course of action. He went to the judge. He shot off his mouth to the media. That’s what really ticked everyone off.”

  In one intemperate blast to TV reporters after the Barrios case had been thrown out of court, Dan had criticized the policies of the DEA, the U.S. attorney in Miami, and the Justice Department. Elaine had seen him on the evening news standing on the steps of the courthouse, wind ruffling his hair. His wide brown eyes. His righteous, stupid response. The government didn’t lose today. We made the system play by the rules. Winning is never as important as defending the truth. Elaine had moaned and buried her face in a sofa pillow.

  She said to Paxton, “I can’t believe that Dan Galindo would get involved in money laundering.”

  “You don’t want to believe it, Elaine. I don’t either, but you and I both know that not every person we prosecute is a career criminal. We’ve seen good people have terrible lapses of judgment. Look at it from Dan’s point of view. He has no love for us after what happened. We kicked him in the teeth for doing his duty. His law practice is marginal. His ex-wife is probably after him for alimony and child support. He was sleeping with a girl arrested for possession of heroin. What does that tell you? Answer this: Why should a man in Dan’s position go on believing in a clear line between right and wrong? What’s it brought him so far? He ought to start looking out for himself. He trusts Rick Robbins. They’re friends. If he could do this one deal—just one—Oh, yes, Elaine. It does ha
ppen.”

  “I could find out from Kelly Dorff,” Elaine said.

  After a moment Paxton shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t advise it. She’s the DEA’s informant. Let Vince deal with her.”

  Vincent Hooper was waiting in the corridor outside, leaning a shoulder against the wall. He nodded at Paxton as he passed, then spoke quietly to Elaine. “Are you okay? You seemed a little dragged out in the meeting.”

  “I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t come over last night,” he said.

  “Forget it.”

  “What about breakfast in bed tomorrow? Sleep late. I’ll wake you up.”

  At the end of the hall the other agents were talking with one of the prosecutors. Scott Irwin glanced their way. He knew. Elaine was becoming certain that everyone knew, and it made her queasy.

  She said quietly, “Vince, if I asked you—please—to ignore my messages on your voice mail for a while, would you?”

  He drew his fingers down his beard. “Are you asking?”

  “I should.”

  “Why do you get so worked up, Elaine?”

  “Because it’s lousy. We’re lousy for each other.”

  “Well, my love. Who isn’t, when you really think about it?”

  “Don’t say that.” She made a short laugh. “Even if it is true.”

  “That’s why we get along. We understand each other.” He squeezed her arm. “See you tomorrow.”

  “No. I need to work.”

  He looked at her for a moment longer. “Whatever you say.”

  In her office, Elaine closed the door and sat down, willing herself not to go after him. If she hurried, he would still be in the lobby outside, waiting with the others to take the elevator downstairs. She counted off seconds until it was too late.

  CHAPTER 11

  Elaine met Kelly Dorff at a Denny’s restaurant near the beach in Hollywood, and they found a booth in the back. Elaine unwrapped the scarf at the neck of her suit and took a menu from the waitress. She told Kelly to order whatever she wanted.