Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

“Who?”

“Some people,” I tell her. “But since you don’t know anything about the letter, perhaps you would know how I might get ahold of Justice Ginnis? While I’m here in Washington, that is.”

“Why would you want to talk to him?”

“To see if he knows anything about the letter.”

“Why is this letter so important? I mean, what does it have to do with Terry’s murder?”

“I’m not sure. But that’s what I’d like to find out.”

“No!” This seems to light a spark, a point of ignition deep inside her. “I’m sure there’s nothing he could possibly tell you-Justice Ginnis. He wouldn’t know anything about any letter. He barely knew Terry. I think they met only once or twice. At social functions. They hardly knew each other.”

“Still. Is there any chance I could talk to him? I figured you being a former clerk, you might be able to open some doors for me. Just a brief conversation is all I’m looking for. Five minutes of his time. I could truck on over to the Supreme Court building alone. But getting through the phalanx of marshals downstairs is another matter.”

She laughs. “You’re right. You wouldn’t get in.”

“I suppose I could call over there, talk to one of his clerks, mention the letter…”

“You’d be wasting your time,” she says. “I’ll tell you what I will do. I can make a phone call. But he’s a very busy man. I really don’t think he’s going to appreciate being bothered by all this. In fact, I’m not even sure he’s in town. The Court’s in recess, and Justice Ginnis is recuperating from hip surgery.”

“I understand. But if you could check, make a phone call. Perhaps he’d agree to see me. Just a very brief conversation. I really would appreciate it.”

She looks at the phone on her desk, then at me. “Where are you staying?” she asks.

“The Mayflower.” I give her my cell-phone number in case I’m out when she calls.

“It’ll take me a few minutes. I am busy this afternoon. But let me make a few phone calls. I’ll get ahold of you either at your hotel or by cell. I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. Justice Ginnis is almost always out of town when the Court’s in recess.”

I thank her. She shows me back to the elevator, and five minutes later I’m standing on the hot concrete of the sidewalk waiting for a taxi.

I had barely entered my hotel lobby when I felt the tickle from the vibrator on my cell phone at my belt.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Madriani.” The melodious tone of her voice was still in my brain from our meeting. “Trisha Scott here. I did as you asked. I called Justice Ginnis’s chambers. As I suspected, he’s out of town, on vacation. They didn’t tell me precisely where. They never do. Just somewhere in the Caribbean.”

“Did they say when he would be back?”

“No. But it will probably be a while. The Court doesn’t reconvene until October, and as I told you, Arthur is recovering from some surgery, so he’s on light duty. He may not be back immediately at the start of the session when they reconvene.”

“You mean a member of the Court can be absent?”

“Sure, it happens. They just have to go with eight justices until the absent member returns.”

“They can’t have someone from the circuit court sit in?”

“No. Not on the Supreme Court. It’s constitutional. No one can sit on the Supreme Court until nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Arthur would have to step down, retire before that could happen. And if you knew Arthur, you’d know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, particularly in the current political climate.”

Scott’s talking about the current partisan division among members of the Court. Anyone who thinks that judges aren’t political should buy a bridge or two. At the rarefied level of the Supreme Court, this doubles down in spades. There are justices who are thought to call the White House for direction on one side and powerful members of the Senate on the other before rendering an opinion on hot issues before the Court. Some would say that the situation has worsened in the last twenty years. Many of these are suffering from a lack of perspective when it comes to history. They forget that FDR threatened to amend the Constitution in order to pack the Court with more members to get his way on New Deal legislation back in the thirties.

“So what you’re saying is that if I want to talk to him, I’m going to have to either wait or trek down to the Caribbean and try to find him?”

“That’s about the size of it,” she says. “But I’d like to suggest another alternative. That is, if you’re in town overnight?”

“Currently I have a flight out tomorrow afternoon. I was going to extend it, if needed, in the event you could reach the Justice.”

“Listen. How about dinner tonight?” she says. “I can show you some of the sights of the city. Also, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?”

“Over dinner,” she says.

“All right.”

“Then dinner at seven. I’ll pick you up at your hotel. In the lobby, at six-thirty.”

Before I can say anything more, she hangs up.

“I was a little abrupt this afternoon,” she apologizes.

I’m looking at Trisha Scott through dim lamplight over a white linen tablecloth in a Georgetown restaurant called 1789, her pick since she’s driving.

The unlit fireplace, partially covered by a summer-front, and the beamed ceiling give the décor a distinctive Colonial feel, though I’m told that the building is a nineteenth-century renovation, a town house with rooms carved into intimate dining areas accented by Early American antiques. Equestrian prints cover the walls. In the background there is the light hum of chatter at nearby tables.

“I’m sorry, but you caught me by surprise. I guess I’ve been too busy lately, under a lot of pressure,” she says. “I hope you can understand?”

“Sure.”

“Of course, I’m sitting here telling you about pressure. I can’t imagine the responsibility of trying a capital case.”

“You don’t do any criminal law?”

She shakes her head. “No. I get the jitters when large sums of money are involved, and then I only see it after all the fast trial guns have fired, the smoke has cleared, and everything’s up on appeal. I’m what you would call the law’s Monday-morning quarterback,” she says. “I can’t imagine what it would be like if someone’s life were on the line, doing it in front of a jury. The thing with Terry was enough for me. His death,” she says. “No doubt he wasn’t the best of people. In the end he was just someone I’d known. But the fact was, I had known him, shared meals, slept with him. I helped his family with the funeral arrangements when they came east with the body. There was only his mother and a sister, but they seemed lost. I’d met them a few times when we were dating, so I did what I could.”

“That was good of you.”

“What else could I do? I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

“Hmm?”

“This afternoon,” she says.

“Not at all. You were very polite.”

“But not very helpful.” She smiles at me.

“Well…” I offer her an expression of concession.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t tell you everything. In fact, I didn’t tell you the truth.”

“About what?”

“About the letter. There was a letter,” she says. “Mind you, I never actually saw it. But there were references to it.”

“References?”

“In an early version of the manuscript for Perpetual Slaves. He wanted me to proof it for him. We were still living together. He was the wordsmith writing books, I was the wordsmith writing briefs. I really didn’t have the time. I told him so. Terry never took no for an answer. It wasn’t in his lexicon. I think what he really wanted was to see if I would be shocked by the content of what he’d written.”