Robert Andrews - A Murder of Justice

A buzzing rattle shook the door. Frank turned the knob and pushed.

In and to his right, a balding man with a frizzy fringe of iron-gray hair sat at a desk. Frank guessed late sixties, early seventies. Olive complexion, black eyes, sharp nose, the look of a fierce but weathered hawk. He wore a black suit that might have arrived at Ellis Island a hundred years ago.

“Yass?”

“I’m Detective Frank Kearney.” Frank offered his credentials and motioned to Jose. “My partner, Jose Phelps.”

The old man took in the credentials, then searched their faces. He had the suspicious eyes of an emigre.

“And you want?”

“We would like to talk with Ms. Elena Navarro,” Frank said.

The old man sat impassively for a moment, still measuring the two in front of him. Then he pointed to two armless wooden chairs against a wall.

“Sit,” he ordered. Then, almost an afterthought, “Please.”

The old man got up and opened a door behind him. Hand on the knob, he angled his head around and gave Frank and Jose a severe glance, as though to make certain they’d obeyed. He stepped through and pulled the door shut with a solid click.

Earlier that morning, Eleanor had handed Frank and Jose a thin folder.

“Elena Navarro,” she’d said, “president of the Institute for a Free Drug America. It’s a 501(c)(4) outfit.”

“A charity?” Frank asked.

“Charity’s a 501(c)(3),” Eleanor corrected. “The IRS describes a (c)(4) organization as one that is operated to promote the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.” Eleanor recited it as if reading straight from the tax code.

“Promote the common good by giving away heroin?” Jose had asked.

That had given Eleanor an opportunity to get in her second correction. “ ‘Decriminalization’ is the PC term,” she’d said primly.

The door opened. The old man thrust his head in, looking even more hawklike.

“Come,” he gestured with an impatient wave.

He led Frank and Jose down a passageway toward a closed door. On the right, a row of wire-meshed windows looked across an alley to a soot-crusted brick wall punctuated by a similar row of windows. On the left, a large bay of cubicles with what appeared to be a platoon of truant high school kids rapping on computer keyboards. A poster for Mel Gibson’s Braveheart dominated a cubicle occupied by a white kid in dreadlocks. Someone had highlighted the banner-“Every man dies, not every man really lives.” Next to Gibson, another poster, red background, with a bereted Che Guevara in black. Frank guessed that Che had been dead years before the kid at the computer was born.

“ ‘Hasta la victoria siempre,’ ” Frank muttered, reciting the call to arms beneath Che’s image.

“Ever onward to victory.” The old man rasped out his dry translation without breaking stride. He knocked at the closed door, then opened it. He stood aside and with a curt gesture motioned Frank and Jose in.

Seated at her desk, Elena Navarro glanced up at Frank and Jose over a teetering parapet of books, newspapers, and magazines. To her right, one of those giraffelike engineer drawing lamps; to her left, a telephone with a massive speed-dial keyboard that looked capable of coordinating a small war or directing a shuttle launch.

She stood, and Frank saw that she was taller than he’d thought. She wore a white silk blouse and black slacks. Her black hair was pulled behind her neck, emphasizing her high cheekbones and delicate nose.

Same dark eyes and complexion as the old man, Frank thought. Five-foot-eight, maybe five-nine… one-fifteen, at the most one-twenty… late thirties.

Navarro smiled at the old man. “Gracias, Bidari.” Her voice was a resonant contralto.

The old man stood in the doorway. He glared at Frank and Jose menacingly. When he pulled the door, his suit coat fell open. Frank thought he caught a glimpse of webbing at the left armpit.

Navarro smiled as the door finally shut. “Bidari was my father’s best friend,” she said, as if this explained something more. She pointed to a sofa, then sat down and crossed her legs.

“You are here about Kevin Gentry.”

She spoke with such assurance and in such a precise classroom-honed English that Frank felt a rebellious impulse.

No, ma’am, we’re here to sell you tickets to the policemen’s ball.

Instead he asked, “How did you meet?”

“We met just after he became Congressman Rhinelander’s staff director.”

“That would have been… what? Early ’ninety-eight?”

“January. Just after the Christmas recess.”

“And the purpose?”

“The Rhinelander subcommittee drafts and proposes narcotics legislation.” Navarro laid it out slowly, patiently. She paused, then added, “Our institute is a proponent of changes in current narcotics legislation.”

“Yeah,” Jose said, in his let’s-rumble voice, “you want to give the stuff away.”

Navarro’s eyes widened, and she cocked her head as if readjusting her initial measurement of the two men before her. She smiled, and Frank saw that she could be an attractive woman.

“No.” The tone softened. “We are market-oriented. We advocate that narcotics be sold legally”-here the smile came on, slightly mocking-“much like alcohol, tobacco, and coffee.”

“So I just drop into the Starbucks or 7-Eleven and pick up an ounce of blow?” Jose asked.

“Yes.” Like the first, provocative flick of the matador’s cape. Navarro sat back in her chair, relaxed, confident, knowing what would come next.

Frank waited for Jose to do what he knew Jose would do.

Jose thrust his head forward. “We got too many addicts now.”

“Yes,” she agreed, adroitly letting him slip by. “And if we legalize narcotics we shall probably have more.”

Realizing Navarro was using his momentum against him, Jose pulled up short. “Right,” he said, “so…”

Navarro made a small, polite “Wait” gesture with her right hand. “Please. Let me finish. We would see an increase in addiction. But we would destroy the narcotics business.” A beat. “The business,” she repeated. “Addiction is a medical disease. The illegal narcotics business is a social one. You cannot treat the two with the same medicine.

“Think about this.” She leaned forward. “How much violence… how much killing… comes not from the drugs, but from the business… the illegal business of buying, distribution, selling?”

Navarro’s cheeks had an excited flush, and her voice deepened.

“Narcotics do not corrupt. It’s the criminal business that buys politicians and even… even police. We have our ‘war on drugs.’ And we have brave and principled people fighting it. Kevin Gentry was one. But it is a war we are losing. And when you are losing a war, you change your strategy.”

“To preemptive surrender?” Frank asked.

“No. Merely rational recognition of human nature. Congress cannot outlaw sin. But it can keep evil people from making money from it.” Navarro sat back and smiled ruefully. “But you did not come here to argue the merits of legalizing narcotics.”

“You were close to Kevin Gentry,” Frank said.

“Yes.” No longer the missionary, Navarro brought her guard up.

“When he was killed, he was preparing for a subcommittee hearing.”

Navarro answered cautiously. “Yes.”

“The usual annual D.C. budget review.”

Navarro’s look said “Listen carefully.” When she seemed certain she’d be understood, she spoke quietly. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?”

“Kevin had it in mind to expose the drug business in the District.”

“You knew this?”

“We helped him build a case.”

“How?”

“I said we exist to put the illegal narcotics dealers out of business.”