Crossing the Line (27 page)

TWENTY-NINE

T
he modern courtroom wasn’t very large and it was less than half-full. But what mattered to me was that it was reporters who were half-filling it. As I watched them getting out their notepads, I felt like nodding my approval and even appreciation. It was very different from the way I’d felt about them just a year earlier. Then they’d been
frigging muckrakers
and
bullshit artists
and
goddamn liars.
My Rebecca excluded, of course. Then it had been about me. Now I wanted to cheer them on as they clicked their poison pens and got ready to do their worst to Jesús Hidalgo.

Over the last few days I’d been unable to get out of my head—which was still ringing—all the reasons Mary and Tom had previously told me about why the U.S. federal government did not want to see Jesús Hidalgo prosecuted. Those fears stayed with me day and night. They shut out all other thoughts. But with the reporters closely following the case, I felt there was a chance that justice—at least the kind of justice offered by the courts—would be done.

A high-publicity case gets everyone a little worked up. The prosecutor takes his job a lot more seriously. But so does the defense. Both sides are likely to grandstand far too much for my taste—for reasons personal, political, and in the hopes of influencing any potential jurors who might see them in the papers or on the news. But they do their jobs. At least when they’re not preening for the cameras out on the courthouse steps.

This particular courtroom had a solemn dignity that Wyoming courts lacked. The flag and the seal of the United States of America were the only decorations. The walls were all dark wood. The ceiling was high. The room was furnished in a subdued, modern fashion that told the parties and the spectators alike that this wasn’t a place to be screwing around. You don’t do that before this flag, this seal—this wasn’t Mexico or any of the other corrupt narcocracies south of the border. This was America. As a result everyone acted very deliberate. Very professional. Very cool.

Except for me.

But I tried.
I am an ice cube,
I told myself repeatedly. Then I had to strain like hell not to melt all over the marble floor.

I sat behind the low oak wall that separated the gallery from the court’s well, and just behind the prosecution’s table. In front of me was a young Assistant U.S. Attorney I’d never met. He looked a little forlorn, sitting there all by himself, but I didn’t introduce myself. My focus was locked on the other side of the courtroom.

Across the aisle and over the wall, just fifteen or twenty feet away, sat El Doctor, Jesús Hidalgo. I had never before been this close, except for the time when I was lying on my face in the dirt and he was unknowingly pissing on Tom Cochran’s back. But I’d studied Mary and Tom’s pictures of him at length. And I’d seen him at a distance over the long-range camera and heard his voice on their illegal microphone.

He was, as usual, the center of attention. Dressed in orange coveralls with
INMATE
stenciled on the back in big, bold letters, he was the only one in the room who seemed like he didn’t belong. Everyone else, including me, was in a suit. A courtroom is one of the few places left where people wear them, and I was relieved that Hidalgo had not been allowed to dress as a part of our society.

His ankles were shackled together with two feet of thin steel cable. The jailhouse clothes and the chains should have taken something away from him. But Hidalgo was not hunched and defeated. Instead he was leaning back in an expensive chair, looking amused. His thick brown hair was swept back and his mustache was neatly trimmed. A retinue of attorneys surrounded him, whispering and chuckling happily when he whispered a response.

“All rise,” the clerk called.

Tom nudged me with a sharp elbow. A little late, I followed him to his feet. The judge stalked in from a door behind the bench.

I liked the look of him. Grim-faced, dark-haired, tall, broad, and cloaked entirely in black, he looked like a judge who could parcel out punishment with his own hands if he wanted to. He wore a cop’s mustache, too, thick and square, and that didn’t hurt, either.

I generally like federal judges. They’re appointed for life, so they don’t have to worry about playing up to a fickle and biased electorate. This judge immediately asserted his authority by taking his chair without a word—leaving all of us standing—and frowning intently while shuffling through a sheaf of papers he’d brought with him.

“Be seated,” the clerk said for him after a few awkward moments.

This produced some quiet laughter to which the judge, still shuffling away, appeared oblivious. I also barely noticed. I was still staring at Hidalgo. Tom tugged hard at my sleeve and I followed him back down onto the pew.

I’d run into Tom out in the hallway. The hallway was modern too, with an all-glass wall that looked out on the mountains as well as steel pillars and white marble benches. I hadn’t expected to see Tom, and I was a little confused as to how I should feel about him. It wasn’t something I’d really considered—it was just that when he came walking toward me, I wasn’t sure if I should punch him or hug him. In the end I stuck out my hand.

I’d said, “Hey, Tom, I’ve been meaning to tell you something. . . . I’m sorry I was such an asshole up at the mine.”

He looked at my hand and then at me. It was the same look of distaste he’d given me the first time I met him, in the hotel room in Salt Lake. Only a week and a half earlier. I didn’t understand why he should be so bitter—he had gotten his man, after all, that head he’d always been talking about—but I was too wrapped up in my own world to pay much attention.

He took my hand reluctantly.

“Sure,” he’d said, letting go after an instant without returning my grip.

He was looking at me like he blamed me for something. Like I had done something wrong. It should have been the other way around. I’d wanted to punch him then. But I didn’t. I was still too weak, too fragile, plus I was storing up all my hate. Instead we ended up sitting next to each other on the bench behind the prosecution table, the one that’s reserved for victims’ families and cops. I was twice entitled.

“
United States v. Jesús Hidalgo-Paez,
” the clerk called out in a booming voice, hoping to get the judge’s attention.

“Counsel, enter your appearances,” he ordered while he continued with his papers.

A defense attorney beat out the prosecutor, even though the A.U.S.A. stood up first.

“Jeremy Horton, for the defense.”

The young prosecutor started to speak but he was beaten again.

“Julie Watts, also for the defense.”

It happened twice again. Two more defense attorneys chimed in before the A.U.S.A. got to say, “Mike Davadou, for the United States.”

In the silence that followed, there were a few more quiet chuckles from around the room. I noticed that Hidalgo smiled.

The lonely prosecutor added, “I’m afraid it’s just me, Your Honor.”

I hoped that he was speaking with low-key confidence instead of embarrassment. I seemed to be worrying—obsessing—about every little thing. I was placing all my chips on a number I knew from eight years of hard, demoralizing experience only occasionally paid off. I was counting on the court and the law to do justice. I felt like an atheist prostrating himself before a god he long ago stopped believing in. Begging for salvation. If only I could summon up the righteous passion I’d felt in those early years.

“Who will be serving as lead counsel for the defense? I don’t intend to have you all responding on the record.”

More quiet chuckles, although there was no humor in what the judge had said.

Horton said, “I will, Judge. If none of my colleagues here objects.”

There were smiles and nods and bows from the other members of the defense to their leader. I didn’t know why, or at what, and I felt my aggravation grow. Horton talked with a bullshit country accent and he stood slouching with his hands in his pockets like some folksy politician. He had long, gray, blow-dried hair and wore a bow tie instead of a necktie. I wondered if that was intentional, just for this case and client. All three of Hidalgo’s male attorneys wore bow ties. I suspected they didn’t want anyone looking at them and thinking about what Hidalgo and his
sicarios
did to the people and their families who were suspected of informing on him.

The judge began the advisement by asking Mr. Hidalgo to please stand. Horton pulled back Hidalgo’s chair and gave him a courtly wave to rise.

“Do you speak English, Mr. Hidalgo?”

“I do. Thank you.”

It was said with an appreciative little smile. Hidalgo’s eyebrows were slightly raised. There was a polite smile on his bland face. To me it looked superior and condescending, as if he were humoring the judge and all of us by taking part in this bit of theater.

“Are you aware of the complaint against you?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.”

“Have you received a copy as well as the affidavits filed with it?”

“Mr. Davadou was good enough to provide them,” Horton answered for Hidalgo. “My client will waive a formal reading.”

The judge nodded approvingly. “Very well.”

Our dad, the former commander of Special Forces commandos, had taught Roberto and me never to hit with our fists.
Always use a knee or an elbow or, better yet, a weapon.
But my spare gun had been taken away from me by courthouse security, and all I could think of was what it would feel like to bury my fist in Jesús Hidalgo’s mouth.

I could see his eyes blink as my knuckles drew near. His little smile flinch. Then his lips exploding, his teeth breaking, his jaw jamming then popping.

Maybe I was breathing too hard, or beginning to froth like a rabid dog, because Tom whispered in my ear, “Cool it. If you wanted to do something about it, QuickDraw, you should have done it up in Wyoming.”

I looked at him. He was staring right back at me with his mirror-practiced gunfighter’s glare.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I whispered.

“Shh,” a reporter from behind us hissed, drawing the judge’s attention.

I received the stink eye from the bench for a moment before the proceeding continued.

“You are charged with violating 21 U.S.C. 841, conspiring to manufacture and/or distribute more than one hundred grams of methamphetamine. How do you plead?”

“Most certainly not guilty, Your Honor.”

It was said with that same assured smile.

I’d learned that the six kidnapped chemists had refused to say a word against Hidalgo. That was no surprise, really. So the only charge against him was conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine. Some of the others had been charged with possession of illegal weapons and possession of small amounts of drugs in addition to the overall conspiracy, but Hidalgo was only facing the single count. So far, anyway. Others could and would be added later. I tried to cool off by reminding myself of the stiff federal penalties. In this case a conviction would result in a ten-year minimum sentence. Hardly justice, but a start.

“Fine,” the judge said. His clerk handed him a leather-bound book. “We need to go ahead and set a trial date, then.”

He studied the book for a long time, and whispered back and forth with his clerk while covering the microphone with his hand. He lifted the hand and suggested a date. The entire defense team consulted their own smaller leather-bound books and PalmPilots and someone shook his head. An apology was offered. A new date was suggested. Another shake of a head, another apology. People began to chuckle out the apologies. I breathed deep, my head aching, my ears still ringing.

It wasn’t the judge who ended this game, but Hidalgo himself. He pulled Horton to his side, cupped a hand over his mouth, and spoke in his lawyer’s ear. Horton looked back at him, surprised, and then told the judge that an already refused date would be acceptable after all. The surprise, I guessed, was that his client wanted to expedite things rather than playing the usual defendant’s delaying game.

Hidalgo must think he has a chance.

“Could we set a date for a suppression hearing as well, Your Honor?” Horton asked. “I expect that such a hearing might even make the trial date we just set academic.”

There were more quiet laughs, but no one was really surprised by the defense attorney’s optimistic prediction. It was part of the game. They shouted out their client’s innocence and bragged that they would prove it all the way until a sentencing hearing, at which time they exaggerated their client’s sad, abusive childhood, minimized their client’s involvement in any crimes, and extolled his genuine, heartfelt remorse. Defense lawyers who lie like that should be horsewhipped.

After a similar discussion about dates—one that everyone again seemed to think was funny—one was set for an evidentiary hearing in six weeks. The attorneys were told they each had ten days to prepare motions.

“Your Honor, if we could get to the issue of pretrial release now. It would be unfair to keep my client in custody when we firmly believe the motions hearing will prove dispositive to the charges against him.”

Fuck you, Horton,
I wanted to say.

Davadou spoke up. “Your Honor, I believe that issue is moot. Warrants for Mr. Hidalgo’s arrest have been issued in Mexico, and we are holding him on those as well, pending a possible extradition.”

Good.
Hidalgo getting bailed out had been one of my biggest fears. I could imagine him just disappearing, fading away, back into Mexico. But now Mexico was seeking his extradition. That had to be good. The corrupt politicians there must have finally decided that they no longer had anything to fear from him. That the days of the Mexicali Mafia and
la corbata
had come to an end, and that they could switch their allegiance and open their pockets to another cartel.

Another hearing, in two days’ time, was set to consider the extradition issue. Then a preliminary hearing as well, to determine whether there was probable cause to keep Mr. Hidalgo in custody on the present charges. The words kept coming, all very formal, all very polite except for Horton’s good-natured grumblings that all these dates would prove unnecessary.