Supreme Justice (21 page)

When her phone rang, Daphne Haggard was getting ready to leave the police station to join Brett for dinner at Inverness’s only Thai restaurant before attending a student production of
Frost/Nixon
. She checked her watch and debated whether to take the call. Her sense of duty trumped her hunger pangs.

“Is this Detective Daphne Haggard?”

“Speaking.”

“I’m Jim Haynes, an orthopedic surgeon in Madison. I understand you’re looking for the name of one of my patients.”

“Does this concern an orthopedic appliance made by Orthosure?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for calling,” Daphne said excitedly. “I am
very
interested in identifying your patient.”

“What’s this all about?” the surgeon asked.

Daphne told him how the appliance was discovered.

“God, that’s terrible,” Haynes said.

“It is, and I’m hoping you can give me the information we need to identify the victim.”

“I can definitely do that.”

Dr. Haynes gave Daphne a name and said that the patient would be twenty-eight now. They talked a few minutes more before Daphne thanked the doctor and ended the conversation. It was too late to do anything tonight, but Daphne finally had a name.

Even though Kyle Peterson was dead, Brad was relieved to find a police officer sitting outside Justice Moss’s chambers. If Kyle was part of a white-supremacist group, there was nothing to prevent them from making another attempt on his boss’s life. But Brad was not convinced that Kyle was a racist. He could have been set up by the real killer, or he could have been the assassin, but his motive for trying to take out Justice Moss might have been tied to the
Woodruff
case.

“How was Texas?” Brad asked.

“I always get a kick out of talking to law students before the real world has corrupted them.”

Brad laughed. “I never knew you were such a cynic.”

“Life’s knocked me back and forth between cynicism and optimism. I prefer the latter. Then I hear about Kyle Peterson, and I want to give up on people altogether. Do you think he was the person who tried to kill us?”

Brad hesitated.

“You have some doubts?” Moss asked.

“I think it’s possible. Kyle was tall and lanky. His build is vaguely similar to the man I fought with. And they did find the clothes in his closet. What do you think?”

“I thought the man who attacked me was thinner than Peterson. I even entertained the thought that the killer might have been a woman.”

Brad frowned. “I never thought of that.”

Justice Moss shook her head. “I was looking at that gun. Then I was trying to pick it up. I only concentrated on the person who attacked me when I was trying to get off a shot, but he was up the ramp by then, some distance away. I just don’t know.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait until the investigation is complete.”

“I heard Peterson died very violently,” Justice Moss said.

“That’s what Keith—Agent Evans—told me. It sounded pretty gruesome.”

“Does the FBI have any idea who killed him?”

“Their working hypothesis is that Kyle had a falling-out with the other people in the assassination plot.”

“If Kyle was part of a white-supremacist group, it looks like I was wrong to suspect Millard of being involved with the attack. But what if Peterson isn’t the assassin? What if the clothing was planted in his apartment by the real killer?”

“Harriet saw him putting the ski mask in his attaché.”

“I forgot about that.” Justice Moss sighed. “Before Peterson was killed, I was certain of Millard’s involvement in the attempt on my life. It made sense. What goes on in conference is secret. Not even you clerks know. That means that one of the justices had to have told the people who wanted me dead that I was responsible for deferring the vote on
Woodruff
. But my theory means nothing if the attempt on my life was for reasons having nothing to do with that case.”

“That’s true, but finding those racist tracts was pretty convenient. It offers a clear-cut explanation for an attack on an African American and closes the door on any further investigation into a link between the attack and
Woodruff v. Oregon
.”

“You think Peterson was set up to derail our investigation?” Moss asked.

“He could still be the person who attacked you, but he might not be some kind of Aryan Nation, White Brotherhood assassin.”

“Why the doubts?”

“We’ve discovered a link between Justice Price and the
China Sea
.”

Brad told his boss about Dana’s investigation in Oregon and the discovery of the TA Enterprises file in the subbasement. Then he showed Justice Moss the pictures Ginny had taken with her cell phone.

“It looks like Justice Price was upset about the possibility of
Woodruff
being granted cert because he’s afraid that his part in the drug-smuggling operation will become public knowledge,” Brad said.

“After seeing the pictures of the TA Enterprises file, I’m almost positive that Justice Price was involved with the
China Sea
in some capacity,” Moss said.

“Proving his involvement or anything else that happened that night may be impossible, Judge. The ship is gone, along with the dead men and whatever was in the hold. Oswald and Swanson are dead, and God knows where the night watchman is or if he’s alive. They’re the only people who could give eyewitness testimony about the murders, and Oswald is the only person who had an opinion about the hashish. There’s still Oswald’s report about the hashish and the dead men, but that’s also worthless as evidence without Oswald.

“And as far as the file in the subbasement is concerned, I’d be shocked if Dennis Masterson hasn’t taken care of it. Our photos prove that Justice Price created the TA Enterprises shell corporation but there’s nothing in the pictures that proves why he did it or ties the file to the
China Sea
.

“Finally, John Finley is dead, and his statements to Sarah Woodruff are hearsay. And, not to put too fine a point on it, a person facing execution is not the best witness if you are trying to prove someone else committed the crime.”

“This is very disturbing,” Felicia Moss said when he was done.

“Dana has gone as far with this as she can, and I think it’s too dangerous for me to continue working on the matter. Dennis Masterson knows Ginny was poking around in the TA Enterprises file. The day she took the pictures, a man tried to kill her.”

“Oh, my God,” Moss said.

Brad told Justice Moss about the incident at the law firm. She looked grim as she listened.

“I should never have involved you,” Moss said when Brad was done. “I don’t know what I was thinking, especially when I thought Millard might have been behind the attack.”

“It’s time to confide in Keith Evans, Judge,” Brad said. “We can trust him to be discreet. We’re not detectives. Let Keith do his job. Dana’s right. It’s time for the amateurs to step down and let the professionals take over.”

“I agree. You have no idea how grateful I am for your help, Brad, but in light of what you’ve told me, I definitely want you to cease any involvement in the matter.”

“I will after I do one more thing. I don’t think you should have any contact with the FBI. When we started this, you told me how much trouble you could get in if anyone found out that you were going outside the record to investigate a case that was in front of the Court. Let me brief Keith. I’ll tell him that everything was my idea.”

“How will you explain knowing about my motion to defer voting on the
Woodruff
cert petition and Millard’s actions in the conference?”

Brad’s brow furrowed. Then he brightened. “Wilhelmina Horst and Kyle Peterson both talked to me about the way Justice Price acted when he came back from the conference. I’ll just say that Kyle told me. No one will be able to find out what he really did.”

“All right, but as soon as you’ve briefed Agent Evans, you will shed your secret identity as an ace detective and revert to being a mild-mannered law clerk. That’s an order. And until this is over, I’m giving you and Ms. Striker police protection.”

Brad didn’t make a single complaint about the order, and he was grateful that Ginny was going to be protected. He was anxious to back away from their investigation of international drug dealing and intrigue and go back to his peaceful humdrum existence.

All during dinner and the play, Daphne’s brain was swamped with ideas for discovering the identity of the person who had dismembered her victim. The body parts had been found in the forest surrounding the campus. That didn’t mean that the victim had to be a student at Inverness, but she was young, so Daphne decided that the college registrar’s office was not a bad place to start.

As soon as she got to work the next morning, Daphne placed the call and asked if the victim had been a student at the school. After some hemming and hawing about the confidentiality of student records and a few transfers to people further up the food chain, she learned that no one by that name had been a student at Inverness University. Daphne was disappointed until she remembered that the law school had a separate registrar’s office. She slapped her palm against her forehead. “Of course, dummy,” she murmured. “A twenty-eight-year-old would be in graduate school.”

Rather than put up with the obstruction she knew she’d encounter from the registrar, Daphne decided to pay a visit to the dean of the law school. Daphne had met Tom Ostgard on a number of occasions since moving to Inverness, and her Ivy League degree had given her the credibility she’d needed to convince him to let her co-teach a course in the law school’s clinical program.

There had been heavy flurries that morning, and the stillness that accompanies the fall of fresh snow still cloaked Inverness. The children were in school and a lot of the townsfolk had chosen to stay indoors. The college students paid no attention to the cold and wandered across campus with red noses and cherry-colored cheeks.

The Robert M. La Follette School of Law was housed in a redbrick building that stood on the eastern edge of the campus, away from the undergraduate schools. It had been named for “Fighting Bob” La Follette, who was Wisconsin’s twentieth governor and had served the state in the House of Representatives and Senate in the early part of the twentieth century. The dean’s office was on the third floor, and Daphne climbed the stairs for the exercise, dodging students too engrossed in legal arguments to pay attention to where they were going.

Tom Ostgard, a nationally respected scholar in the area of property law, was a reed-thin man in his early sixties. He had a fringe of gray hair surrounding his shiny dome and wore wire-rimmed glasses that magnified his brown eyes.

“You’re not here to arrest me, are you?” joked Ostgard, who was fascinated by Daphne’s connection to a world of mayhem and disorder that he had never encountered.

Daphne smiled. “Have you been up to something I should know about?”

“Sadly, no. My life is still that of the dull academic. Seriously, though, what’s up? You’re going to teach next semester, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. The students are great, and I love being back in academia.”

“Then what can I do for you?”

“You know about the body parts we found in the woods?”

Ostgard sobered.

“We’ve made an identification, and I need to know if the victim was a law student. When I tried to get information out of the registrar’s office at the college, it took me forever, so I thought I’d go to the top and see if you can cut through the red tape.”

“Of course. Give me the name.”

Ostgard grabbed a pen, but he set it down as soon as Daphne identified the victim.

“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake,” Ostgard said.

“I don’t think so. My information is pretty solid.”

“Then check it again. Harriet Lezak is not only alive, but she’s a clerk at the United States Supreme Court.”

Daphne’s face showed her confusion. “That’s a very prestigious position. No offense, Tom, but I thought the justices took their clerks from schools like Harvard and Yale. Has La Follette Law ever placed anyone else on the Court?”

The dean looked torn.

“What’s the problem?” Daphne asked.

“I know something about the appointment that I swore to keep secret,” Ostgard said.

“This is a murder investigation, Tom.”

“I know. That’s the only reason I’m considering telling you, but I need your assurance that you’ll keep what I say confidential unless it’s absolutely necessary to reveal it.”

“I need to hear what you know before I can make that type of promise.”

Ostgard hesitated. Then he sighed. “I’m going to have to trust you to use discretion, because revealing what I say could have a major impact on the law school’s future.”

“Go ahead.”

“La Follette School of Law has never had a graduate selected to clerk at the Court. Even our best graduates would consider the application process a waste of time. Those positions are usually reserved for law-review students at elite law schools. Actually, it’s not that often that a student is given a clerkship right out of law school. Most of the Supreme Court clerks serve a clerkship with a federal appellate judge first.”

“So what happened this time?”

“A few months before the term ended last year, I received a visit from a man named Oscar Hagglund. Mr. Hagglund said he was representing Justice Millard Price and that everything he was going to say was in confidence. Hagglund said that Justice Price was trying an experiment. He wanted me to send him the résumés of the law-review students in the graduating class so he could select one of them to be his clerk. The purpose of the experiment was to see if there was a difference between the work performed by graduates of schools like Yale, Harvard, NYU, Stanford, and Columbia and a top graduate at a school like La Follette. Of course, I was thrilled that Justice Price had selected our school, and I sent the résumés to the address Mr. Hagglund gave me.”

“Was the address different from the address of the Court?” Daphne asked.

Ostgard nodded. “It was a post office box. Hagglund explained that Justice Price was using this address to keep his project secret.”

“What did Hagglund look like?”

“He was a big man. He looked very fit.” Ostgard closed his eyes for a moment. “Blond hair, blue eyes, very Scandinavian. I detected an accent—Swedish, Danish, I’m not certain, but my ancestors came from those parts, and he sounded a little like my grandfather.”

“What happened after you sent the résumés?”

“A week later, Hagglund called and told me the justice’s choice.”

“Did the choice surprise you?” Daphne asked.

“Yes and no. Harriet was third in the class, but she had no other distinctions besides her excellent grades. If I remember correctly, she worked her way through college and did well at a small liberal-arts school. I don’t remember the school, but it was in Iowa. Then she worked as an accountant for a few years before applying to law school, so she was a little older than most of the students. Harriet received some financial aid, but she worked for her tuition here until she received a scholarship when she made law review. She had no extracurricular achievements except the review, which is understandable if you’re working your way through. Still, her résumé was rather sparse.

“Ned Randall, who graduated first, was editor of the law review. He’d been in Iraq with the Marines before applying to law school. His undergraduate record was not exceptional, but he’d been a star athlete. And Marla Jones, who graduated second in the class, is an African American who is very active politically and had a very varied résumé. Of course, given Price’s politics, that may have worked against her.”

“Can you get me Miss Lezak’s records? I’d like to ask her parents if they’ve talked with her recently.”

“Harriet is an orphan. An aunt raised her, but I think she passed away, too. That’s why she had to work her way through.”

“Did she have any close friends, a boyfriend?”

“I don’t know anything about her social life.”

“When is the last time you saw Miss Lezak?”

“At graduation, but I didn’t speak to her very much. I did have a very nice chat with her when I relayed Justice Price’s offer of the clerkship.”

“How did she react?” Daphne asked.

“She was stunned, literally speechless. I told her she would have to go to Washington and interview with Justice Price. She was very excited. She’d never been out of the Midwest. She was concerned about one thing. She’d accepted an offer from a very good firm in Chicago, but I assured her that any firm would gladly defer her job for a year if she was clerking at the Court. I even offered to call the firm. I’m a personal friend of one of the senior partners.”

“I’ll call Washington to find out if Miss Lezak is working at the Court,” Daphne said, “but I’d like to get as much background as I can before I do that. Do you think there’s anyone at the law-review office who knew her—another student or a professor?”

“Let me call the law-review office,” Ostgard said.

Ten minutes later, a tall, attractive blonde dressed in jeans and a forest green cable-stitch sweater was ushered in by the dean’s secretary.

“Ah, Gayle. Thanks for coming. Have a seat,” Ostgard said. “Detective Haggard, this is Gayle Blake, one of our shining stars.”

The young woman’s smile vanished when she heard that Daphne was with the police. Ostgard laughed.

“Not to worry,” he assured Blake. “You’re not in any trouble. Detective Haggard needs to ask you some questions about Harriet Lezak.”

“She graduated,” Blake said.

“I know that,” Daphne said. “And you don’t have to worry about getting her in hot water. This conversation will stay here. I don’t plan on writing a report about it. What I’m interested in is background. For instance, how well did you know her?”

“Not well, and I can’t think of anyone who did. Harriet worked very hard, and she always completed her assignments on time, but she didn’t socialize.”

“No beers after putting the review to bed?”

“She wasn’t a hermit. She joined the staff when we went out for a group dinner or, like you said, a beer. But she was quiet, kept to herself. I know she spoke up on occasion. She had political views. But I honestly can’t remember anything she said, not one conversation. Oh, she did run a lot. It was her way of blowing off steam. She’d run for miles on the trails behind the campus.”

“So there was nothing wrong with her legs?”

Blake’s brow furrowed. “You know, she did mention a biking accident once. We were talking about working out. I do a lot of cardio in the gym. She said she used to ride a bicycle, but she broke her leg a few years back and decided that running was safer.”

“What about boyfriends or just friends?” Daphne asked.

“I never saw her with a boy where it looked romantic. She had a study group: some of the other third-years on the review. Oh, and I did see her walking around campus with a woman on a few occasions toward the end of the term. They looked friendly. Actually, now that I think about it, Harriet and this woman looked very similar, like sisters. So maybe she was a relative.”