Mr. Justice (19 page)

The blowhard who had reported live from the hearing room said, “I was there this morning, gang, and I can report that you could’ve cut the tension with a knife.”

A pretty blonde who used to clerk for the chief justice and now hosted her own syndicated radio show chirped, “Thanks for the cliché, but Professor McDonald wasn’t even in the room. The hearing was about as exciting as a Washington Redskins game.”

The Redskins were suffering through yet another dismal football season. The Daniel Snyder Era was a disaster: one disappointing year after another.

The token former federal prosecutor—every law and courts TV roundtable was apparently required by statute to include one—said, “I agree.”

The pretty blonde said, “With whom?”

“Er … you.”

This guy’s fifteen minutes were up, Oates said to himself. He would never get invited back on the show. The key to being an effective talking head was
sounding
as if you knew what you were talking about. You didn’t actually have to
know
what you were talking about. The pretty blonde had made it seem as if the former federal prosecutor didn’t have a clue. He was toast on the talking head circuit.

Oates began to flip through the channels as quickly as he was popping peanut butter crackers into his mouth. He wasn’t used to being home in the afternoon and he was horrified to see what passed for entertainment these days. Apparently, Dr. Phil knockoffs were the trend of the moment. A Dr. Margaret was advising a teenage girl to listen to her mother—“She loves you, Amanda; she cares what happens to you”—and stop dating the forty-year-old man who lived across the street. A Dr. Indra was telling a couple of newlyweds to “communicate better” and to “hug at least three times a day.”

Mental health in thirty minutes or less, including commercial interruptions. Oates couldn’t stand it anymore. He also couldn’t stand another peanut butter cracker. He switched off the TV, tossed the remaining stack of crackers into the wastebasket, and headed out the door to grab a meatball sandwich at the Subway shop on the corner.

Clay Smith was waiting for him when he opened the door.

CHAPTER 66

Oates said, “Aren’t you the guy who was meeting with Senator Burton a few hours ago?”

Clay said, “Yeah.”

“Do you live in the building?”

“No.”

“Do you know someone in the building?”

“No.”

Silence filled the corridor.

Oates fidgeted with his keys.

Clay didn’t move a muscle or blink an eye.

“Why are you here, then?”

Clay reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. It was the same knife he had used to stab Kelsi Shelton. He lunged at Oates.

Oates managed to avoid the first thrust. “Hey!” he said. “What are you doing?!”

Clay said, “Akia.” A klansman I am. He lunged again at Oates. This time, he got him. Blood started to pour from underneath Oates’s shirt at a pace that would have made a surgeon squeamish. Clay had stabbed Oates in the side, just above his kidney.

Oates folded in agony, placing his hand over the wound to try to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t working. He struggled to maintain consciousness. Everything appeared to be moving in slow motion. He lifted his head to see the knife coming at him again. This time, he managed to take a step to the left, like a quarterback adjusting in the pocket to avoid an oncoming rush.

“Fuck! Hold still! Let’s get this over with.”

Oates tried to push his attacker away. He was fighting for his life. He wasn’t strong, though, and the blood he had lost because of the initial wound had drained his already marginal strength. But it was amazing the reserves human beings could draw upon when their lives depended on it. He gathered all the power that remained in his body and launched himself at his attacker.

Clay was caught by surprise. He had thought that Oates was only moments from death. Pints of blood had poured out of Oates’s wound. The jolt Oates gave Clay knocked Clay back into the wall. The impact from the wall loosened Clay’s grip on the knife. Oates noticed and swatted the knife to the ground. Oates tried to kick the knife down the stairs but missed. Clay held Oates by the neck with one hand and tried to reach down to pick up the knife with his other hand. It was just out of reach. Fortunately for Clay, Oates’s earlier attempt to fend off Clay had sapped Oates’s blood-depleted body of all its strength. Clay was able to drag Oates a few feet closer to the knife, snatch the knife from the floor, and thrust the weapon once more into Oates’s side. Oates wailed in pain and then quickly grew silent. He collapsed to the floor.

Clay dropped to his knees. He wiped sweat from his brow. He glanced over at Oates, who wasn’t moving. Clay placed his fingers on Oates’s neck to ascertain whether Oates had a pulse. He didn’t. Clay placed his fingers under Oates’s nostrils to determine if Oates was breathing. He wasn’t.

Clay raced from the apartment building to inform the imperial wizard that the deed had been done. Clay had now killed three people in the span of two weeks.

It was time to make it four.

CHAPTER 67

Kelsi Shelton peeked out from behind her hospital room door to ascertain whether Brian Neal was nearby. She smiled. She felt like she used to feel when she was a little girl trying to sneak off to somewhere her mother had told her not to go. Kelsi could hear her mother’s voice: “Mommy needs to go downstairs for a few minutes, sweetheart. Be a good girl and play with your dolls. Stay in your bedroom, please.”

Kelsi would always say, “I will, Mommy.” And she had meant it when she said it. But hers was a soul filled with wanderlust, and she would manage to stay put for only a couple minutes before the urge to explore got the better of her.

Kelsi remained a little girl at heart as far as curiosity was concerned. She noticed that no nurse was in view, let alone a government agent with smoldering brown eyes and the cutest butt this side of a Rugby Road fraternity party. She stepped over the threshold and proceeded to saunter down the hallway as if she were a visitor on her way to check on the status of a sick aunt. There were two problems with her plan, though. First, she was wearing her hospital gown. Second, Brian Neal had been watching her the entire time.

Neal allowed Kelsi to drift about a hundred feet from her room before he said, “And where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

Kelsi’s mother used to ask her the same question… . Kelsi knew it wasn’t really a question.

She answered, “I’m stretching my legs. I’m going stir-crazy in my room. Besides, I feel fine.”

Neal smiled and shook his head. “You’ll feel fine only if the doctor says you feel fine. You don’t want to pop your stitches, do you?”

Stitches
, Kelsi said to herself. She had almost forgotten about her stitches. There went swimsuit season.  “Maybe if I pop them they’ll disappear,” she said to Neal. “I’m scarred for life now.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Your wound is only an inch long. It was deep, not long. You’re also forgetting that doctors are very careful these days to minimize scarring. We’re well past the era of the zipper scar.”

Kelsi reached for her injury. “How do you know all that?”

“Because I asked the doctor.”

“Why would you ask the doctor?”

Neal didn’t answer the
why
question. But Kelsi already knew why: he was smitten with her.

Neal changed the subject. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“The Judiciary Committee voted to confirm Professor McDonald’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The full Senate will vote on it early next week.”

Kelsi smiled.

Neal felt himself getting weak in the knees. He had never seen such a beautiful sight. Kelsi’s smile shone like a new moon on a dark night. “Good news, huh?”

“
Great
news.” Kelsi began to hop up and down like a kid in a candy store. “What was the vote?”

“Ten to nine. Burton just missed. Apparently, Senator Foley voted to confirm after all.”

Kelsi’s mood switched from ecstasy to outrage. “I’ve got a question for you: why is Senator Burton participating in the confirmation process at all, let alone chairing the Judiciary Committee’s hearing about a nominee who everyone knows holds the key to her daughter’s lawsuit that’s on the fast track to the Supreme Court?”

Kelsi’s question wasn’t really for Neal, but he happened to be in her line of sight at the moment.

“I don’t know,” Neal said. “I’m not a political scientist or a constitutional lawyer. But I
do
know that it’s probably not a good idea for you to be standing around in your hospital gown. Your little adventure is over, young lady.”

Kelsi smiled again. She thought again of her mother, who used to say the same thing about Kelsi’s “adventures” when Kelsi was caught wandering from her bedroom. Kelsi responded to Neal as she had responded to her mom: “
This
adventure might be over. But there are plenty more to come.”

CHAPTER 68

Peter McDonald listened patiently while Jim Westfall congratulated him on the Judiciary Committee’s vote to send his nomination to the full Senate with a positive recommendation. McDonald was less patient when the conversation turned to his decision to return to Charlottesville to watch the Senate debate from the comfort of his home.

Westfall said, “Dr. Tanenbaum said that you’re still not out of the woods. He recommends that you remain at Bethesda for another week or so.”

McDonald said, “I feel fine, Jim. Not a hundred percent, but fine. I haven’t been home in weeks. I need to make sure my house is still standing and that my office hasn’t burned to the ground.”

“We can have someone check on those things for you. With all due respect, Professor, Morris Tanenbaum is one of the best doctors in the country. He’s the
president’s
doctor. I think you should defer to his judgment.”

McDonald walked to the closet. He tried to disguise how painful even that minor activity was. He bent down to retrieve the suitcase that the Secret Service had purchased for him for precisely this occasion. He winced in pain and let out an audible “
Sss
.”

Westfall shook his head. “Jiminy Cricket, Professor, it’s still difficult for you to bend over.”

McDonald smiled. “Painful, not difficult.” He placed the suitcase on the bed and opened it. “I appreciate your concern, Jim, but my mind is made up.”

Westfall watched helplessly as McDonald packed his bag with the items he had managed to accumulate during two weeks in the hospital. Most of what the professor was placing into the suitcase was books. Westfall hadn’t read that many books during his entire lifetime, let alone in the span of two weeks. The president’s chief of staff was even more in awe when he remembered that the professor had spent a large portion of those two weeks unconscious. “Why so many books?” Westfall finally asked.

McDonald answered, “I’m an academic. I read and write for a living.”

“How do you find the time to read all of them? I mean, I barely have time to read the newspaper.”

McDonald smiled again. “In here, I have nothing but time. At work, I make the time. It’s part of my job… . The most important part.”

“Will you miss it when you’re on the Court?”

“No, because I’ll still make the time.”

“Why?”

McDonald chuckled. “Wow, Jim. I thought you vetted my nomination. I’d make the time because I think the nature of our Constitution requires me to. One of my most recent articles maintains that the founders of the American regime were steeped in the history of ideas, and the Constitution they created expressed their commitment to the power of ideas. Anyone who takes the Constitution seriously is
required
to take ideas seriously. You can’t do that by simply watching the evening news or skimming the daily paper.”

Westfall felt as if he had been scolded by his father, albeit more politely than his father used to do. He raked his hands through his hair. “You’ve just demonstrated why we nominated you.”

“Thanks.” McDonald zipped his suitcase shut. He yanked it from the bed. “Now, if you don’t mind, can you please tell the Secret Service that I’m ready for my ride to Charlottesville?”

CHAPTER 69

McDonald asked the Secret Service agent whether he would like anything to eat or drink. The agent said he was all set and then assured McDonald that he would be fine waiting outside. It was forty-five degrees.

“Are you sure?” McDonald said. “I’ve got plenty of soft drinks and snacks in the house, and the house is certainly big enough for the both of us. It’s also nice and warm. Or at least it will be once I turn the heat back on.”

The agent said, “I’m sure, Mr. Justice. I’m supposed to wait outside. I do it all the time. I can sit in the car if I get cold. I’ve got a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee in there.”

Mr. Justice
, McDonald said to himself. It’s got a nice ring to it. It’s a bit premature, but it sounds good. He said to the agent, “Well, come on in if you change your mind. I’ve got the NFL package from DirecTV if you feel the urge to see how the Redskins are doing. I think they’re playing the Cowboys today.”

The agent had confided on the drive from Bethesda that he was a diehard Redskins fan. “Thanks. But I’ve got Sirius in the car. My wife gave it to me for my birthday. It’s great.”

McDonald entered the house. The agent’s comment about the present his wife had given to him made McDonald think of all the presents
his
wife had given to him over the years. Jenny’s greatest gift had been Megan. Sweet, freckle-faced Megan. McDonald stopped in the middle of the entryway, closed his eyes, and thought of his beloved wife and daughter. His confirmation to the highest court in the land was all but certain, but sadness rushed over him like a cold breeze through a broken window.

Snap out of it, Peter, McDonald said to himself. Move on. You’ve
got
to move on. He wandered into the living room and flipped on the lights. Everything was as he remembered it being, albeit dustier after his two-week absence. In fact, everything remained as it had been when Jenny and Megan were alive. McDonald had considered redecorating—a psychologist friend with whom he occasionally played tennis had encouraged him to do so as part of the healing process—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t bear to do anything that might further remove Jenny and Megan from his memory. Time, cruel time, was doing that, no matter how hard McDonald fought against it.