Above the Law (50 page)

Winston Kim was a hostile witness. He was testifying under subpoena, which meant I could question him more aggressively than is normally allowed. (He was slated to be a friendly witness for the defense, so John Q. stipulated in advance that he wouldn’t be cross-examining him.)

“Agent Kim,” I started out, “you are the man in charge of the DEA’s investigation into the killing of Reynaldo Juarez?”

“I am the agent in charge, yes.”

He wasn’t going to be a good witness for me, so I wanted to get him on and off.

“Did Agent Jerome violate departmental procedures when he authorized the raid on that compound? Wasn’t he supposed to be breaking up a drug deal, and capturing the people involved in the process?”

“Yes,” Kim said reluctantly. He was scrupulously avoiding looking at Jerome. Jerome wasn’t looking at him, either. There was no love lost between them—Jerome had disgraced the agency—but Kim didn’t want to help me, either. We had tramped his investigation, and that made him look bad.

“He shouldn’t have gone in there the way he did, should he?”

“I can’t answer that categorically. I wasn’t there.”

“Going by the reports, if you had been there, would you have gone in?”

“I can’t say. Judgments are made in the field. They’re made fast. You go with the best information you have.”

“Then why was Agent Jerome transferred to a lesser position? Isn’t he being punished?”

“Punished
isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Banished? Gotten out of the way? Don’t bother answering that question.” I moved on. “Going strictly by the book, taking the human factor out of play, meaning emotion or sentiment towards the defendant, were Agent Jerome’s actions on that night grounds for discipline?”

“We don’t make decisions strictly by the book. These are human beings, not robots.”

“Grounds for dismissal? Again, by the written rules under which you operate.”

Again, with reluctance: “Possibly.”

“So he did screw up.”

“He didn’t follow the exact directions he was given. But he was the leader in the field, it was his call. He captured a man who had been on our ten-most-wanted list,” Kim said in Jerome’s defense. “That was important to us.”

His agency suspends the man internally, but defends him to the world externally. The bureaucracy at its worst.

“Are DEA agents issued ammunition, Agent Kim?”

“Yes, they are.”

“They don’t have to buy it. It’s provided for them, free of charge.”

“Yes.”

I glanced at my notes. “The ammunition of choice for automatic weapons in such a situation as this one was are 147-grain hydroshocks. Federal hollow points. Is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Under these circumstances, would an agent use a full-metal-jacket-type bullet?”

“No.”

“Would an agent ever use a full-metal-jacket bullet?”

Kim nodded. “For his own personal use, perhaps.”

“His own personal use? Like shooting somebody when he isn’t on the job? Like what, moonlighting?”

“For target practice,” Kim answered angrily, stung by my accusation. “Range qualifying, that sort of thing.”

“But you would provide that ammunition to him for those purposes, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Kim admitted. “We would.”

My next witness, Neil Cohen, had been Jerome’s personal trainer in L.A. A tall man in his late twenties, he wore his long hair in a ponytail, sported hoop earrings in both ears, and was built along the lean, sinewy lines of a championship beach volleyballer, rather than having the bulkiness of a weight lifter.

“How many days did you work out with Mr. Jerome?” I asked.

“Six days a week, unless he was unavailable.”

“How long a session?”

“Two hours. Sometimes more. If we went on a long ride, or a long run, it could go as long as four hours.”

“That’s a lot of working out.”

“He was dedicated.”

“Sterling Jerome was in good shape.”

“Good shape?” Cohen scoffed at that description. “He was in awesome shape.”

“Was he training for something specific, or did he just want to be in great shape?”

“Both. He was a physical-fitness freak, like me, and we were training for the Ironman.”

“That’s a triathlon?”

Cohen nodded. “In Hawaii. It’s the Super Bowl of triathlons.”

“What does it cover?”

“It starts out with a two-and-a-half-mile ocean swim—no wet suits, fins, or anything artificial that can help—then that’s followed by a hundred-and-twelve-mile bike ride, finishing off with a marathon.”

“You run twenty-six and a quarter miles after the swim and the bicycling. One directly after the other. No breaks in between.”

“None. You power through, all the way.”

“That must be grueling.”

He laughed. “It’s brutal, man.”

“How long does it take?”

“The winner’s time’ll be under ten hours. A good time’s twelve hours.” Cohen glanced over at Jerome, who was feigning indifference. “Sterling would’ve busted that, easy.”

I was looking at the jury as I questioned Cohen. They were agog at this kind of physical prowess, and by extension, what it indicated about the powers of the man who possessed it. “You’d have to be in fabulous shape to even think about trying it.”

“It’s not for the weak at heart,” Cohen agreed.

“Or the weak in body.”

“Definitely not.”

“Jerome was in shape for something that hard? He would have finished it?”

“For sure,” Cohen said enthusiastically. “Without question. He might’ve placed in his age group.”

“What’s he best at, swimming, biking, or running?”

“He’s good at all of ’em,” Cohen said, “but running’s his main thing. He ran the half in college.”

“He was a collegiate runner?” I wanted to make sure the jury heard this.

“He sure was.”

“He’s fast, then.”

“Yeah, he’s fast on his feet. Faster at running than me over the short haul, and I’m pretty fast.”

“So if he was chasing after somebody, the average person, even a man in pretty good shape, he’d run him down quickly.”

“The average person? He’d run that sucker into the ground.”

Another hostile witness was up next—Walter Dutton, Jerome’s second-in-command on the raid. My interrogation of him was brief and to the point.

“After Reynaldo Juarez was arrested and in your custody. how many people had access to him? He was locked up in your command trailer, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Could you answer the first part of my question, too? How many people had access to him?”

“I couldn’t say exactly.”

“Every agent who was there?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Only a few of you who were in charge, and needed immediate access to him?”

“Yes.” He waited a moment, then added, “That was how it was set up.”

“What does that mean?”

“It was a mess out there, logistically. We had wounded to attend to, the other prisoners. It wasn’t a neat package.”

“So what’re you saying, anyone could’ve walked in there? This was one of the most wanted criminals in the country. What kind of security did you have, Agent Dutton?”

“The best we could, under the circumstances.”

“So to the best of your knowledge, only a few of you were allowed to be in that trailer.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

John Q. worked that one, as I knew he would.

“Only a few of you were supposed to be inside the command post with Juarez, but practically speaking, anyone might have gotten in, isn’t that true, Agent Dutton?”

Dutton was a much more responsive witness with his buddy’s lawyer than he’d been with me. “That’s absolutely right.”

“Even another member of Juarez’s gang, if one of them had managed somehow to have eluded capture during the raid.”

“Yes, that would have been possible.”

“It was dark, it was chaotic, it was impossible to keep tabs on where everyone was, isn’t that true?”

“It was bad.”

“When Juarez broke out of the trailer, where was Sterling Jerome, Agent Dutton? Was he inside with the prisoner?”

A vigorous head shake no. “He was outside, about fifteen, twenty yards away.”

“What was he doing?”

“Talking to me and some of the others about moving the convoy.”

“So Sterling Jerome was nowhere near that trailer when Juarez broke loose.”

“No.”

I faced Dutton on redirect. “Did you or any other member of your task see any suspicious person near that trailer after the arrests had been made, Agent Dutton?”

He rearranged himself in the witness chair. “I personally didn’t.”

“Did anyone else?”

“I don’t think anyone else did, either.”

“To the best of your knowledge, were all the men who were inside the drug compound accounted for after the raid was concluded? Either apprehended, or killed in the shoot-out?”

“To the best of my knowledge, that’s correct,” he said grudgingly.

“Before Juarez made his escape?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
so?”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”

“Do you know the identity of the last person who was inside that trailer with Juarez before he escaped?”

“I can’t say positively,” he said, trying his best to stonewall.

“To the best of your knowledge,” I pursued, throwing his technicality language back at him, “was it Agent Jerome?”

He looked over at Jerome, who was watching him from the defense table. Then Dutton winced. “To the best of my knowledge, that is correct.”

“And to the best of your knowledge, when Juarez did make his escape, who led the charge after him? Who was the leader of the pack?”

He shook his head. “It happened too fast. I couldn’t point out any particular agent for sure.”

“It wasn’t Agent Jerome?”

“I wouldn’t swear to that, no.”

“Did you chase after Juarez, Agent Dutton?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see Agent Jerome during that chase?”

“For the first part of it. Everybody got separated quick, it was dark, we were running in the trees.”

“During the time that you did see Agent Jerome, before he disappeared from your sight, was he ahead of you or behind you?”

“He was ahead of me.”

“To the best of your recollection, Agent Dutton, did you see any other agent out in front of Agent Jerome?”

He closed his eyes, trying to bring back the memory. Or hope that when he opened them, I wouldn’t be there. When after a few seconds he did open them, and answered, be had to admit that he hadn’t seen any other agent running in front of Jerome.

“So to sum up your testimony, would it be fair to say that only a few people were allowed in that command-post trailer, and no one who shouldn’t have gotten inside ever was inside?”

“Yes. I would have to say that’s true, from where I stood.”

“And Agent Jerome was the last known person to be in the trailer.”

A very muted “Yes.”

“And when Juarez did escape, Jerome was in the lead. You didn’t see anybody in front of him.”

“No. I didn’t.”

My final witness for the day was the gun-store owner, Ralph Harrison. He gave a wink and a nod to a few of the jurors as he took his seat—it’s a small county, people know each other, especially a man with an essential business such as Harrison’s. His testimony was brief and to the point: He sold Sterling Jerome a box of full-metal-jacket bullets for his Glock 17 gun less than a week before the raid on the compound. Jerome had never been in his store before, or since, nor had any of the other agents in his task force. Over John Q.’s objections, and with the help from my friendly judge, I elicited from Harrison his expert opinion that it was strange for an agent to buy ammo, stranger to buy the kind Jerome bought, and stranger still to drive three hundred miles round-trip to do so.

John Q. went after Harrison hard. “Why is it unusual for someone to buy this kind of ammunition?” he blustered.

“It isn’t,” Harrison answered easily.

“You testified that it was.”

“I said given who was buying it, it was.”

“Did you know at the time that Mr. Jerome was a DEA agent?”

“No.”

“So his buying it, in and of itself, was meaningless.”

“In a vacuum, you could say that. But, you know, you have to look at it in its totality.”

“So from the few minutes or less that Agent Jerome was in your store, you were able to ascertain that he was a federal agent, he was buying ammunition that was unusual, and that he’d driven all the way across the county to do so.”

“I figured it out later on. When I’d heard what had happened.”

“All by yourself.”

Harrison shrugged. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure something like that out.”

John Q. walked over to the defense table, leaned over to Jerome, whispered something in his ear. Jerome shook his head. John Q. walked back to the podium.

“Did Mr. Jerome identify himself as a federal agent?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did he identify himself at all?”

Harrison thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think he did.”

“How did he pay for his box of ammunition, Mr. Harrison? Credit card, check, cash?”

“He paid cash.”

“Cash. You’re sure?”

“Yes. Later on I looked up his receipt, to make sure. He paid cash.”

“So he never told you who he was, his name, or gave you anything, like a credit card or a check, that would indicate who he was, what his name was, or what he did?”

“No, sir.”

“How much ammunition do you sell a year, Mr. Harrison?”

Harrison laughed. “A lot. That’s what we do.”

“On a daily basis, how many boxes of ammunition do you think you sell?”

“It depends on the time of year. Hunting season, we sell more. Other times, not as much.”

“When Mr. Jerome bought his ammunition from you, was that during hunting season?”

“Yeah. It was at the beginning of it.”

“So you were selling plenty of ammunition that day. Is that correct?”

“We sold a lot around then, that’s right.”

“Your store was pretty crowded?”

Harrison nodded. “There were a goodly number of customers.”

“Did you wait on all of them?”

“No, I couldn’t handle that amount of traffic single-handed. I had my usual staff on.”