by Chris Bauer
This arm’s length, public view of the Court from the outside, this is the reason.
“She’s anti-abortion, but…” Mildred said, thinking out loud.
“Aren’t we all, Mildred?”
“…but she has no idea what is about to happen.”
Larinda Jordan aka The Church Hammer knew only what the public knew, that a liberal feminist was now on the bench as the potential swing vote that could overturn Texas’ Babineau v Turbin at the Supreme Court level. Overturning Babineau meant Roe v Wade would again survive intact. Like the rest of the public, this was Ms. Jordan’s worldview.
“Could she get to her?” Mildred asked.
“To whom?”
“Our new Supreme Court justice.”
“She’s a force to be reckoned with, Mildred. It’s possible.”
The senator took another drag from her cigarette, held the lit end up and pondered it. Smoke slipped through her lips, rose languidly in front of her eyes.
“Our Church Hammer needs to be found, Higby, or she’ll ruin everything. Someone needs to hand her an angel harp. Immediately.”
One oral argument was scheduled for the afternoon, with new presenting attorneys and new Court guests. When everyone had settled in, Naomi picked out Deputy Trenton in the Court’s guest section, prearranged per her invitation, and here as her guest, not her bodyguard, or at least that was how she viewed it. Edward sat stiffly in his seat with the other invitees, the seat a bit too confining for him. Upon closer inspection, the U.S. Marshal’s Office had apparently decided on similar treatment for all the justices. Many of this session’s Court guests gave the appearance of bodyguards.
Naomi scanned the audience again, located another small pocket of Native Americans, a copper-skinned man and woman sitting together. A few seats removed from them sat a third, the woman’s dark hair straight and long, tucked behind her ear on one side to expose a distinctive southwestern earring with feathers, reminiscent of bygone days on the sunny plains. A younger version of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Naomi told herself, now feeling warm and smiley inside at the thought, until the woman retrieved a pair of sunglasses from her pocket and put them on. A no-no in the courtroom, like cameras, radios, phones, other electronic equipment, and weapons. A court officer arrived at the end of the row and gestured for her to remove the sunglasses. She returned them to her pocket.
TWENTY-THREE
Judge eyed the middle building, one of three arranged in a triangle, the floor where the Planned Parenthood office was. Or used to be. A hook and ladder engine, some police vehicles and one emergency van still sat helter-skelter in the parking lot, close to one of the entrances. Firemen continued pouring water into the gap that was once a large portion of the building’s third floor, damaged as bad as if a small plane had hit it. The brick corner was missing, blown out from the intense fire, all the windows on this side of the floor gone, the tan brick above them discolored by black fingers of smoke that reached up and connected with the floor above. They reconned the perimeter, staying on the blacktop and away from snaked fire hoses, Judge holding his leashed deputies, Owen alongside them. More fire equipment plus an unmarked cop car in the rear parking lot, where crime scene tape surrounded a yellow Hyundai sedan, the body removed. Here they were able to get close enough to see between the buildings, where the carnage had gone down.
Wall-to-wall scorched black earth. Yellow tape sealed off the sidewalk, keeping bystanders from the corridor, in it a tiny paver patio, a charcoal barbecue sitting amid metal picnic benches on more pavers, and the skeletal remains of a Corona umbrella sprouting from a circular stone table. The shrubs and grass and everything at ground level were gone, the black from the fire creeping up one wall. For Judge, a throwback to a crazier place and time, in Iraq, where occasional scorched earth initiatives produced similar results. He coped with it, stayed in control. At the base of the blackened wall, on landscape mulch tamped down by heavy-footed firemen, a pink spray-painted outline stood out. More spray-painted grass and sidewalk were in evidence beyond it amid the char-broiled scenery: three fluorescent pink amoebic outlines that looked vaguely human in shape. The remains of these people had been removed. Judge found a fireman and volunteered his services and those of his deputies.
“They’re trained as military working dogs. Explosives detection and fugitive tracking. Need any help?” He did the introduction up right, badging the fireman with IDs.
“Check with the federal agent over there. He’s in charge of the criminal investigation.”
Judge learned quickly the agent was Homeland Security, and like Judge, a former enlisted Marine. The agent said no, he didn’t need their help but yes, he’d share what he knew. He pointed at the third floor, “a flamethrower did that,” then at the exit corridor on the ground, where four of the five people had died, “and all this. The guy left the flame-throwing equipment behind, on the third floor.”
“It’s a woman,” Judge offered. “Here.” He handed him Ms. Jordan’s mug shot. The agent barely looked at it, handed it back, looked Judge over instead.
“We know.” The agent sniffed, his way of apologizing for having shaded the truth. He suddenly tired of Judge’s questions. “Look, sorry, Gunny. The gender info is part of the person-of-interest qualifier we’re holding back. Keep your mouth shut about it. Now go, so I can get back to work.”
Owen was doing his own thing near a transit stop, talking to two women who had just gotten off the bus. Judge checked his phone. Multiple texts had queued up.
From Geenie:
—On my way, love. Be there by eight tonight. Where to meet?
From LeVander:
—IEDs and flamethrowers and shit? For real? Cut bait dude. Feds will handle it. Bail gets settled either way, just not by you.
One of the two women Owen was speaking with, a teen, was whimpering. Owen offered her a hanky, seeming genuine about it. The older woman accepted it on the younger one’s behalf.
“Gracias,” the older one said. The girl continued crying. Owen had them sit on an empty bench inside the bus stop enclosure. Judge and his dogs kept their distance but Owen soon motioned them over. Maeby was a hit with the teen, the girl’s tears finally receding. She scratched Maeby’s brindle head, was entertained by her wiggling stubby tail. His German Shepherd deputy J.D. stayed out of it.
More Spanish between them. It was a mother-daughter thing, with Owen eventually in the middle of it, holding his own in the conversation. He sounded serious, compassionate. Their bus arrived.
Owen tucked a business card and some cash into the mother’s hand, then took down some info in return. Mother and daughter climbed aboard, peered out the window from their seats, the mother throwing a kiss in Owen’s direction. He gave her a thumb’s up.
“I’m afraid to ask,” Judge said. “What was that all about?”
“The daughter’s pregnant,” Owen said. “They have no money and can’t afford to travel to another clinic. I gave her a few bucks and my phone number, told her to call if she needed more help.”
“Generous of you, Owen, but it’s not like you live around the corner.”
“I’ll figure it out. Right now, I feel a social media rant coming on. Let’s get back to your van.”
They started back to the other side of the building. Owen stayed quiet, his silence masking a mounting anger or a resigned hopelessness, Judge not sure which. “Hey. Looks like you could use some fur.”
“That sounds so wrong, Judge, but yeah, sure, if you’ll let me walk your dog, I’d like that.”
He handed him Maeby’s leash. Owen pet her tight brindle coat, she gave him a lick on the hand, then tugged him forward.
They hadn’t had this conversation, hadn’t shared their views, pro-choice vs. pro-life, and Judge didn’t plan to. It had to have been conflicting for Owen, with him maybe even buying into his mother’s reasoning for not wanting him, knowing how things continued to be a challenge for a person his size. Judge expected the other part of him was just thankful
he got to have this discussion with himself at all. It was something this young girl might now get to do, her options maybe kept open because Owen had offered to help.
Judge texted his girlfriend Geenie as they walked:
—Find a restaurant dtown DC. Text me when you can.
He sent the next text to his bondsman buddy LeVander:
—Still out here fishing dude. She’s a cold-blooded killer. I’m in it for the duration.
TWENTY-FOUR
Naomi exited the courtroom with the other justices, the court’s police officers shadowing them step-by-step, foot echo by foot echo, the justices peeling off one by one to retire to their respective chambers.
Inside her chambers she settled in with a late afternoon cup of coffee, served in an elegantly hand-painted Johnson Brothers Wild Turkey Native American cup and saucer, part of a set her clerks had presented her in celebration of her first day. As she sipped, she thought about Babineau v Turbin. It had two prongs, the second prickly as a porcupine.
She expected Stare Decisis, the been-there, done-that doctrine of precedent, as in rendered decisions reigned authoritative in future cases, to address the first prong, as long as the facts were essentially the same. Her read, and corroborated by questions and comments voiced by her peer justices, was that the fourteenth amendment’s right to privacy provision, rendered as it had been in Roe v Wade, would dictate striking down the lower court decision that had instituted mandatory ultrasound viewing. Ms. Philomena Babineau would prevail, the decision could have written itself, if this were all they’d need to address. But it wasn’t.
Called into question, and hanging as a tangent off the Texas ruling, was the pain of the fetus. Ms. Babineau had had the abortion at twenty-two weeks after fertilization, within the legal federal maximum of twenty-three weeks, but past the new legal Texas age max of twenty weeks. Twenty weeks was becoming the new pro-life cry in many states, not just Texas. Beyond that age, per some doctors’ opinions but not yet validated by science, it was posited that a fetus felt pain. If true, or if ruled as true, this could be a game-changer. This case was therefore all or nothing for both the petitioner and the prior Roe v Wade decision. To affirm the Texas ruling by accepting the twenty-week premise would change the factors used to originally decide Roe. If one undermined the facts, one undermined the decision. There’d be no recourse if the Texas statute were upheld: a new strain of Roe would rear itself, with the strong likelihood of obsoleting the 1973 decision. Abortions would return to the back alleys.
Advantage, pro-life, disadvantage, pro-choice and feminism. She admitted she disliked this prospect. The admission of this bias, in these chambers inside this hallowed courthouse, with disregard to her oath, and ignoring whether her bias did or did not play well with the Constitution, shamed her. She lowered her coffee cup to its saucer, the contents suddenly bitter and undrinkable.
“Come in,” she said, in response to a knock.
“Your Honor,” Edward closed the door behind him, “sorry to bother you. Can you tell me when you plan to leave today?”
“I’d like to stay until around eight. No need to wait for me, Edward. I’ll get a cab.”
“I’ll wait, Your Honor.”
“Senator.” Higby Hunt was on a speakerphone with Senator Folsom.
“Reverend.”
Senator Folsom sat in her Capitol Hill office awaiting delivery of a print version of the morning’s oral arguments, bootlegged by a sympathetic law clerk. Higby Hunt spoke to her from his office in Texas.
“How did she do?” the reverend asked.
“The new kid on the block. Fairly quiet as I understand it from our Texas district ADA, but that’s typical. Once I read the transcript we’ll know better.”
She watched cable news as they conversed. The names of the dead in the abortion clinic fire had been released early afternoon. No suspects had been identified per the news anchor, but there were “persons of interest. The dead include a long-time resident physician of the clinic and three medical assistants. No patients were involved.”
“Mildred, turn off your TV please,” Higby’s speakerphone voice asked. “I have an interesting development.”
She lowered the volume instead. “What is it, Higby?”
“A news item from that local anonymous Texas blogger who fashions himself an expert on state and federal court cases. You need to check it out. I’ve decided to come back to D.C. tomorrow. I think it’s necessary.”
Larinda double-parked her Tahoe SUV on a D.C. street a block from the Supreme Court Building. Binoculars raised, she watched a Lincoln Town Car limo leave from an underground garage exit, then another, then another. Two black, one charcoal. She was here to pick out one to tail, but she had no reason to select one over another. This process of elimination could take a few days. A fourth car service limo exited. Four out of nine, all within an hour of the end of today’s session.
She decided. She’d tail the last car to leave, except she hadn’t a clue how late that would be.
Funny. Some justices reveled in their freedom from needing security, well documented as to how much security was not in place. They traveled the city, the world, unnoticed, like everyday citizens. The two clinic attacks and one of the Court’s fall agenda items had changed this. If an interested party were able to uncover these security details, enhanced court police presence, U.S. marshals, car service, the anonymity these judges enjoyed on the outside would be removed. Oh, the irony. A self-fulfilling prophecy, and she liked prophecies. Prophecies were good. The Bible had many.
She lowered her binoculars. In her rearview she caught a Segway as it scooted past the end of the street. It backed up, stopped, circled in place, then changed direction. It now moved swiftly up the street, closing in on her SUV, the operator’s features more discernable the closer it got. Dark helmet, grey uniform top, navy uniform pants, fluorescent yellow vest. A black female, no weapon visible; a parking authority employee. The Segway arrived.
“You can’t park here, ma’am,” the officer said into her open window. “Move your car.”
“Yes, officer. Sorry.”
Larinda circled the block, a two-minute ride, returned to the same spot, and with the Segway gone she again double-parked, hoping she hadn’t missed any of the exiting limos. She raised her binoculars. Ten minutes passed. It was close to four p.m. Another limo exited the garage. She’d now seen five.
The limo rounded the corner just as another parking authority Segway quickly bore down on her. She lowered her binoculars to the floor before it arrived. The operator tapped on her passenger window then showed Larinda his thumb, mouthing “Move.”
Larinda again circled the block, taking a little longer this time, returning to the same spot. She was getting annoyed. Limo number six exited. Impatient, she decided to follow this one.
Another Segway arrived, this one gliding into her SUV’s path before stopping. Goodness, it was the same Segway operator who’d stopped by thirty or so minutes earlier. The operator glared at her.
“Ma’am, I gave you a chance,” she called, loud enough to better the SUV’s idle, “now I’m writing you up. Pull in over here.”
The operator pointed to a short alley in the middle of the block, with Dumpsters and a loading dock and room for maybe three vehicles, the alley surrounded on three sides by multiple stories of brick. Larinda complied, checking her mirrors. The operator dismounted the Segway and recorded her plate number. Suddenly the operator stopped writing, leaning in closer to the rear of the SUV. She squinted into the tinted window.
Larinda saw it too, in the rearview. The tarp covering her cargo had an un-tucked flap. A carton of ammo and the butt end of a rifle were visible.
She had a split second to assess the situation. Short alley lined with commercial waste containers, an empty loading dock, after hours, no witnesses. An easy decision. The second decision was pending: handgun or knife?
Larinda pushed open the driver’s door. Ambulance sirens rose and fell, chasing awa
y the white noise of a city at night.
“Ma’am, you need to stay in your vehicle,” the meter maid said, raising her voice to better the sirens.
When Larinda reached her she raised her weapon, a handgun with a suppressor. The woman’s eyes got big. “No! Wait! Please…”
“You’re just doing your job, miss. I understand, and I’m sorry. God bless you.”
She cut her down with one shot to the face, the pffft overwhelmed by a crescendo of ear-piercing sirens as they dopplered past the alley.
Larinda grunted as she hefted the body over the side of the dumpster. She leveraged the Segway, handle first then the wheels, not as heavy as she’d expected, and she deposited it with the body. The Segway ignition engaged when it hit the metal floor. It banged around inside, its wheels kicking up trays of bread loaves and cheeses and vegetables and other scrapped food, sending some of it airborne before it shut down. She tossed the woman’s electronic ticket pad into the passenger seat of her SUV, snugged up the cargo tarp, and quickly backed the SUV out of the alley.
Some luck: an empty space opened up near where she’d been double-parked. She executed a three-point turn and slipped into it. Chances were, not all of the justices had left. She raised her binoculars again and settled in.
TWENTY-FIVE
Another text from Geenie: It’s 8 pm, hot stuff. Time to make the donuts.
“She’s at a Dunkin’ Donuts,” Judge told Owen. They were still in the van, negotiating D.C. streets near the Supreme Court building.
“I like Starbucks,” Owen said.
“Geenie doesn’t. Me neither. You lose.”
At a red light he texted Geenie back and got the location. Somewhere on 23rd Street, on the George Washington University campus. They’d get something to drink, some light sandwiches, “…and then we’re checking into a D.C. bed and breakfast that accepts pets,” Judge told Owen.
“A B&B? Sweet. How’d your girlfriend know I’m a B&B kind of guy?”