Courting Death

by Paul Heald

  Arthur shook his head slowly. He could have saved Jefferson.

  The Judge offered a weak smile in return.

  “Don’t let this get to you. You’re a good clerk. Just forget about it and plow ahead.” With that unsatisfactory benediction, he slipped out the door.

  For a moment, Arthur’s stomach cramped as forcefully as it had the previous morning, and for the first time, he regretted coming south. Slowly, the wave of nausea passed and a strange calm fell over him. He looked from where he had fallen and understood that there would be no climbing back this time. With the realization came no desire to reflect on his present desolation, nor how he had gotten there. His passion for the bench memos dissipated, replaced by the need to be seated in the Wild Boar consuming large amounts of beer and multiple shots of rye whiskey. He strode down the hallway purposefully to make his appetite for destruction known to Phil.

  Ms. Stillwater watched Arthur emerge from his office and lock it. “He’s not there, Arthur,” she said brightly. “He got stuck in that Atlanta traffic and won’t be back until later.”

  “Well, shoot,” he replied with equal brightness. “I was going to convince him to leave early today and be bad.” He grinned wickedly. “Maybe I can corrupt Melanie?”

  “She’s still in her office.” She made it sound like Melanie was in a highly guarded bunker. “She’s working real hard on something. I know that she got here extra early this morning.”

  He looked up at the clock. “It’s four o’clock. Maybe she’d like to take a break.” Without waiting for a response, he walked down the hall and rapped on Melanie’s closed door.

  “Pizza World,” he announced, sticking his head into her office, “I’ve got a proofread opinion to deliver.”

  “What do I owe you?” Melanie pushed her chair back from her computer, a movement that revealed the neat tailoring of her lightweight spring dress.

  “If you buy me a pitcher of beer at the Wild Boar, we could go over my edit.”

  “When?”

  “How ’bout right now?”

  “I’ll tell you what.” She looked at her watch. “Save a window seat and I’ll meet you in an hour. I’ve got to finish this and get it on the Judge’s desk before I leave.”

  “Deal.” Arthur gave her a broad smile and walked down the corridor to the elevators.

  * * *

  As she drove to the college an hour later, Melanie wondered about Arthur’s invitation. The dangerous look in his eyes suggested that his intention was not entirely businesslike, but given his cool response to her flirtation on Friday, it seemed unlikely he was looking for anything more than a drinking buddy. She wondered about the ambiguous nature of her relationship with him. Never without a steady boyfriend since the age of fourteen, she had dedicated herself so completely to work in Clarkeston that her love life had degenerated into a breezy weekly phone call to her last law school beau. Arthur, who sometimes seemed disdainful of her, was not a likely prospect to improve even that tepid situation. To be fair, his attitude had improved over the year. He had been very nice since Christmas and was especially cute on Friday afternoon. And it was hard not to notice those striking dark eyes, when he bothered to make eye contact, that is.

  As she approached the tavern, she saw him at a window table with a basket of popcorn, a glistening glass of beer, and a nearly empty pitcher. He held up the pitcher and communicated with raised eyebrows that she should immediately visit the bartender. She nodded and tried to decide whether she preferred straightforwardness in a man or a more gentlemanly style. It was always a choice between Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes for southern girls.

  When she got to the table, she moved the empty pitcher to the window ledge and replaced it with a fresh one. “I don’t think I’ve been out on a Monday night since I started law school. Do you want to go over my draft?”

  “Sure, but have a sip of this draught first.”

  “Clever.”

  He poured her mug at an expert angle designed to minimize the head on her beer.

  “Are you always this bad on Mondays?”

  “Only when I’ve lost a client in the morning.” Arthur leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes disconcertingly on hers.

  “A client? Oh, you mean Jefferson.” She took a sip and sat back in her chair. “Ms. Stillwater told me that he was executed this morning.” She squinted at him and wrinkled her nose. “I remember you telling us about the case. Should I be sorry?”

  “Don’t be sorry about anything.” He gestured expansively. “It’s a beautiful day, and you’ve written an excellent opinion that should settle important areas of uncertainty in the messy world of qualified immunity.” He pulled out her draft from his briefcase. “I’ll show you the few comments I have.”

  He took her work out of a manila folder. She scrutinized him for any sign of irony, but he was sincere. His suggestions for improvement were all rhetorical, made with evident appreciation for the tight structure of her logic. She sometimes doubted herself, and she was surprised to get so much praise from someone whom she had referred to in her more bitchy moments as Mr. Perfect.

  “Thanks for the suggestions, Arthur.” She topped off his glass with a smile.

  “You’re welcome.” He shut the briefcase and turned his attention back to her. “Have you decided yet where you’re working next year?”

  “It’s between McKittrick Brown or Schiarra Wildenthal in Washington, although I do have an interview with Cravath in a couple of weeks.” She had not told Arthur about her conversation with Jennifer Huffman or her plans to see her in New York. “Do you know what you’re doing yet?”

  Arthur looked startled and then slightly embarrassed, as if he forgotten something important. “Actually, I took a job at the Office of Legal Counsel a couple of days ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anybody?” she said, barely managing to keep from squealing. “That’s amazing! We’ve got something to celebrate now. I’m really impressed. Will you introduce me to the president next fall?”

  “You’ll probably meet him first,” he said generously. “Didn’t McKittrick Brown represent all of his friends during the last campaign contribution scandal?”

  Arthur turned the conversation back to her, and as the afternoon wore on, he continually deflected any attempt she made to talk about Jefferson or his new job.

  “Didn’t you clerk in LA last summer?” he asked after he brought another pitcher to the table.

  “Yeah, at the LA office of a big New York firm. You wouldn’t believe what went on out there! The big summer party was a cruise out to Catalina Island, and I saw one of the partners lighting up a joint with some of the summer associates. It was unreal.”

  “Was it good dope?”

  “No!”

  “Home grown, huh?”

  “No,” she sputtered. “I didn’t have any! I was just watching.”

  “I’ll bet the New York office was a little more uptight.” He smiled and poured them both another glass. “How come you didn’t just commit to them after your clerkship?”

  “I really didn’t like the firm. And when I discovered that McKittrick Brown and Schiarra Wildenthal had two of the highest ratios of women partners in the country, I decided to think harder about going to Washington.”

  “Lots of women?” He slapped the table and grinned. “Excellent! I’ll need to go somewhere for after OLC, you know.”

  “You pig! I’ll tell them not to hire you.” She smiled at him and sipped her drink. “I just want to go to a place that will give me an honest chance. McKittrick Brown also has a great pro bono program. They don’t penalize you for taking on public interest work.”

  “As long as you bill your two thousand hours.”

  “Probably.”

  “What led you to law school in the first place?”

  Melanie had not thought about this for a while, and she surprised herself by admitting that it was initially just to please her parents and to change the minds of people who saw her only as
some sort of empty-headed beauty queen. Arthur kept asking questions, mining deeper into her past as the crowd in the bar forced them closer and closer together. He seemed fascinated by what she had to say, watching her intently and punctuating his own comments with a brief touch of the hand or tap on the knee. She had never seen him like this before, never felt this boundless energy focused solely on her.

  Between the beer and Arthur’s unexpected charm, she felt a little disoriented as she got up to visit the ladies’ room to check her makeup and collect her wits. She was not used to drinking so much and so quickly. They had to work together for three more months, and she promised herself not to do anything stupid as she vigorously brushed her hair. If there was really something going on, it could wait until they both got to Washington. Frowning into the mirror, she stuck her tongue out and headed back to the table.

  * * *

  While she was gone, Arthur stared across the road toward the college. Between the Administration building and the Alumni Affairs office, he could see a shady spot under a large oak tree where a guitarist played for a small group of students. It was too far away for Arthur to hear the music. He could see the right hand strumming chords and the left moving gracefully up and down the neck of the instrument, but no sound penetrated the barrier of traffic noise and the buzz of conversation in the tavern. He was deaf to the music. He averted his gaze, suppressed all thought of song, and drained the rest of his glass with a smile as Melanie approached the table.

  By the third pitcher, Arthur and Melanie were leaning shoulder to shoulder, and by the fourth, her hand was resting casually on the top of his thigh. He pulled her closer so he could be heard above the din in the bar. “Want to go somewhere for dinner?”

  “Sure. Pizza?”

  “Had it for lunch.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve got some pasta salad in my fridge and some fresh bread.” She looked straight into his dark eyes. “We could just go back to my place.”

  “Sure.”

  He gave no hint of the destructive nature of his appetite.

  They had both driven to the bar, but neither gave thought to the dangers of driving while intoxicated. Arthur followed her car through downtown, past the perimeter road and into the vast parking lot of her apartment complex. The upstairs apartments had balconies, while the first-floor units had small patios populated by cheap lawn furniture, bicycles, and rusty barbecue grills. Arthur and Julia had lived in a similar complex in law school. He put his arm lightly against Melanie’s back as they ascended to the second floor.

  “Well, here it is, in all its rattan glory.” She waved at the beach decor surrounding them. “I swear, this is not my taste in furniture, but the students snapped up the better places before I got down here to look.” Before Arthur could comment, she ducked into the kitchen and kicked her shoes off into the hallway. “Could you put on some music while I get the food?”

  Arthur found her stereo on the bottom shelf of a tippy wicker entertainment unit and put on a greatest hits collection by Sade. Within moments, “Smooth Operator” was filling the room with its languid rhythm, and he stood up to study her bookshelves.

  Half of the space was filled with pictures, including a couple of sexy swimsuit shots taken during her days as a pageant contestant.

  What the fuck was he doing there? Melanie was a nice person—there was reason to treat her like a whore or a mental punching bag or a convenient means of self-flagellation. But fine points of ethics mattered little in a world where there could be no life with Suzanne and no reprieves for Jefferson or for his father or for a child pushed away years ago.

  She emerged with a couple of plates and silverware, and set them on her small dining room table before gliding smoothly behind him.

  “I don’t think I could fit in that suit anymore.” She rested her chin on his shoulder.

  “If you can’t,” he murmured as he turned slowly and put both hands on her hips, “then it’s for some very sexy reasons.” He kissed her fully while he traced the curves of her body from her waist until he held her face in his hands and felt her own hands begin to unbutton his shirt.

  They never got to the pasta salad. Or the bread.

  * * *

  A little before 2:00 a.m., Arthur crawled shakily out of bed and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Melanie, wide awake, studied him as he bent over the sink. She wanted him to spend the night, to feel his lean body finally at rest, but the length of time he was spending staring into the mirror meant he was contemplating leaving. He walked back into the bedroom and sat on the bed with his back to her.

  “I need to go home and sleep in my own bed tonight.” No question or apology, just a brief statement of fact.

  “I suppose it would look a little strange if we came in to work together in the morning.” With two cars, this was pretty lame, but she wondered if he would use the excuse as an escape hatch.

  “You don’t want to see the look on Phil’s face if we walked in all rumpled and wasted?” He laughed for the first time that night. “I just don’t want to cause any problems with Suzanne back at the house.”

  “Well, I’ll see you at work then.” She laid on a little guilt with her voice, but not too much. She understood his situation. After the beach trip, Phil had said that Arthur and Suzanne had something going on. She probably had a crush on him, and Arthur generously saw no need to stimulate any jealousy. That problem would come up all too soon, she supposed.

  * * *

  Arthur left the bedroom without another word and gathered the clothes strewn on the living room floor. This is how Grover must feel, he thought as he tied his shoes. See a beautiful girl, then fuck her and go home. He cast a good-bye in the direction of Melanie’s bedroom and walked out into the night.

  The drive home through the cool night kept him alert, and he wound his way through the town listening to the radio, gliding through the flashing yellow lights that hurried late-night travelers along the main thoroughfares. He delayed his arrival, criss-crossing the downtown streets a half a dozen times before turning into his adopted neighborhood.

  “I’m back from the ’burbs,” he said to the tree-lined avenue as he slowed to make his final turn. “It’s a jungle out there.”

  When Arthur appeared at the breakfast table later that morning, Suzanne commented on his frayed appearance and his late night.

  He leaned over his bowl of cold cereal, shoveling Wheat Chex into his mouth for a moment before responding. “I told everyone about the job at OLC, and we stayed out late celebrating … I think I’ll go in and then have a little nap.” He looked up and saw Suzanne smile at him. A tidal wave of remorse washed over him. He forced a smile in return and refocused on spooning the cereal into his mouth.

  As he walked to work, he made a weak attempt to rationalize what he had done, but soon gave up. His list of regrets was now too long for an extra demerit to claim his undivided attention, but he did vow not to tell Suzanne. He owed her at least that much.

  Arthur sat motionless at his desk for most of the morning, catatonic but for a sporadic and unsuccessful attempt to tackle the memos he had started the day before. The encounter with Melanie had intensified rather than erased the memory of his last conversation with the Judge. Jefferson was just one victim of his failure. Had the Judge accepted Arthur’s argument and convinced at least one of his colleagues, their opinion would have been groundbreaking, the first definition of what it meant to be “actually innocent” of a death sentence. That meant likely Supreme Court review and a lost opportunity for the ultimate court to throw a lifeline to dozens of others like Jefferson. No stay had meant no new precedent.

  XXVII.

  DAVID, THE KING

  The Judge sat at his desk reading Seneca’s De Ira for the third time in as many years. After finishing the first chapter, he looked up from the text, rubbed his eyes, and fought off the urge to finish the pack of Camel non-filters hidden in the bottom of his des
k. Several years earlier, he had given a speech at a prominent law school and observed that the criminal justice system was more an expression of society’s anger than its inclination toward mercy. Afterward, a classics professor in the audience had suggested that he read Seneca. Since then, he had been trying unsuccessfully to harmonize what he admired about Roman stoicism with his role as a judge.

  He understood what Seneca was saying: Punishment inflicted in anger or for purposes of retribution ultimately rebounded on the punisher. One must eradicate retributive motive from the criminal justice system, not out of pity or weakness, but to protect those who administer the system. The Judge had succeeded in purging his own anger at the murderers who populated his docket, but he knew that the public had not. His fellow citizens favored the death penalty and, more significantly, believed that retribution provided the soundest rationale for maintaining it. He had seen what happened when Mike Dukakis failed to get angry about crime. He lost votes for failing to sin; that would be Seneca’s conclusion.

  He found Seneca’s writings on the death penalty to be fascinating. In general, the Roman was against capital punishment. It was too likely to be an expression of retribution, of collective anger, with a corrosive effect on all those responsible for the death. Institutionalizing retributive feelings in law meant institutionalizing the most dangerous emotion. Not only would anger then rebound upon the executioner, but upon the collective mental health of the society itself. Seneca only approved of capital punishment in a rare class of cases where the execution was a kindness to the accused. The Judge remembered a habeas petition filed years earlier by the mother of an inmate on death row. The murderer himself wanted to die, and the petition included an extraordinary document confessing both the inmate’s remorse and his continuing uncontrollable impulse to kill young boys. Being alive was pure agony for him. The inmate’s own words echoed Seneca’s rationale: Let me die out of your sense of mercy.