"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 resumes 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 resumes 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 resumes?"
"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 resume 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 resume. 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."
Chapter Fifty-six
Brad waved to Keith Evans as soon as he spotted the FBI agent. Brad had asked Keith to meet him in a neighborhood Greek restaurant a few blocks off Dupont Circle because he didn't want anyone at the Court to know about the meeting.
"Thanks for coming," Brad said as soon as Keith was seated across from him.
"I'll do anything for a free meal," Keith joked.
"On my salary?" Brad said. "And you'll be buying me dinner when you
hear what I have to tell you."
The waiter appeared and Keith ordered Chicken Vasilikos with a side of Dolmathes. Brad asked for Spanakopita and a Greek Salad.
"I want to be up-front with you," Brad said as soon as the waiter left. "I can't prove what I'm going to tell you with evidence that would be admissible in court. I'm also going to ask you to promise to keep a few things I tell you to yourself and out of any report you write and to stop asking questions about any area I tell you I can't go into."
"OK."
"You know how a state criminal case gets a hearing in my court, right?"
"I think so. When someone is convicted, they file appeals and keep filing them until they are turned down at the highest state level, usually the state supreme court. If they think there's a federal issue, they file a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. How did I do?"
"A-plus. We've got a case out of Oregon that raises a very tricky federal issue. The defendant is on death row. She was convicted of murdering her boyfriend. While the case was in the state trial court, the defendant's attorney tried to get evidence that would establish an alternative theory of the crime, that drug dealers and the CIA had reasons to kill the boyfriend. As part of her strategy, she issued subpoenas for the records of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The feds blocked the attempts by invoking the state-secrets privilege. That's the issue in the Court. Can the state-secrets privilege be invoked to prevent a defendant in a death-penalty case from securing exculpatory evidence? Are you with me so far?"
"Yes, Professor Miller."
Brad leaned across the table. "I think Justice Moss was attacked because she interfered with an attempt by Justice Millard Price to deny the petition for cert."
A look of incredulity spread across Keith's face, and he put down his fork.
"Let me get this straight. You're accusing a Supreme Court justice of hiring a hit man to kill another justice?"
"I think there's a good possibility Justice Price had some involvement in the assassination attempt. And I think Dennis Masterson is behind the plot."
Evans's mouth dropped open. Then he laughed. "You are fucking kidding me! Masterson is one of the most powerful men in this town."
"And he was the head of the CIA when the events in Oregon took place. Let me tell you everything we've found out."
Keith listened intently as Brad laid out what he, Dana, and Ginny had learned about the China Sea incident and TA Enterprises.
"You've been a busy beaver," the agent said when Brad finished.
"You've got to admit that I had a good reason for asking Dana to look into the Woodruff case."
Keith was about to respond when his cell phone rang. He checked the caller.
"I have to take this," he said. Keith got up and walked into the narrow hall that led to the restrooms.
"What's up?" Keith asked Tyrone Bagley, his supervisor.
"Daphne Haggard, a homicide detective in Inverness, Wisconsin, called for the agent in charge of the investigation into the assassination attempt on Justice Moss. She was driving to the airport in Milwaukee to catch a flight to D.C. I'm going to give you her flight number and time of arrival. I want you to meet her at the airport in the morning."
Keith fished out a pen and wrote down the information.
"What's this about?"
"A receptionist took the message. She was going to wait to give it to you but she decided it might be important so she brought it to me."
"And?" Keith asked.
"The message says that Haggard believes there is a good possibility that one of the clerks at the United States Supreme Court is an impostor."
Chapter Fifty-seven
Justice Moss called Brad minutes after his alarm went off to tell him that she wanted him in her chambers as soon as he got in. The judge hadn't told him why she wanted to meet, but Brad remembered that the justices were in conference later in the morning to decide the fate of petitions for writs of certiorari. He wondered if Woodruff was among the petitions that would be discussed.
When Brad arrived at the Court, Harriet was already at her desk.
"I'm off to see the Wizard," Brad said, in case someone needed him.
Harriet grunted but didn't look up from her monitor.
Until the attempt on her life, Felicia Moss had been one of the more spirited justices, and the energy with which she attacked her job had made Brad forget her age. This morning, she was slumped in her chair looking every bit like a woman in her seventies.
"We're discussing the petitions for cert this morning," the judge said as soon as Brad shut the door. "I've asked Millard to meet with me before the conference starts."
"Why are you doing that?" Brad asked, worried that he knew what his boss was going to answer.
"I'm going to confront him. I want you to be here because you know everything our investigation uncovered."
"You're making a mistake, Judge. I don't think it's wise to meet with Justice Price. What if we're right and he was involved in the plot to kill you?"
"Do you remember when Millard visited me the morning after the attack?"
Brad nodded.
"He was very upset, and I don't think he was faking. Millard is involved in some way in the Woodruff matter; the papers your fiancee discovered prove he created the Cayman Island company, and I'm convinced his opposition to Woodruff's cert petition has nothing to do with its merits. But I can't believe he would be part of a plan to murder me."
"I met with Keith last night and brought him up to speed. He knows everything I know. Let's bring him into the meeting."
"Millard won't talk freely with an FBI agent in the room."
"What makes you think he'll talk with me here?"
"I plan on having you step out as soon as you tell Millard what you know."
"You're going to be alone with him? He's a big man, Judge. He could kill you."
"I don't think he'll try to hurt me, but we'll soon know how good a judge I am of human nature."
Air traffic control had instructed the pilot of the plane carrying Daphne Haggard to let the detective off before any other passenger. Keith's credentials had gotten him through security, and he was waiting at the end of the gangway when the bleary-eyed redhead walked into the boarding area pulling her carry-on behind her.
"Detective Haggard, I'm Keith Evans, a special agent with the FBI. How was your flight?"
"As good as a red-eye can be."
"Do you have any more baggage?"
"No, this is it."
"Do you want some coffee or something to eat?"
"I don't think you'll want to waste time eating when you hear what I have to say. To tell the truth, I was afraid I wouldn't be taken seriously."
Keith smiled. "I'm the agent in charge of the investigation into the attempted murder of Justice Moss, and I can assure you that an easy way to get my attention is for a homicide detective to leave a message stating that she thinks a Supreme Court clerk is an impostor. So, what makes you think one of the clerks isn't who they're supposed to be?"
On the way to the parking garage, Daphne filled in Evans on the discovery of the missing thigh and how the victim was identified.
"What did you do after you talked to the dean and the student?" Keith asked.
"I called the Supreme Court. They told me that Harriet Lezak is clerking for Justice Moss. The problem is that pieces of Lezak are also in the Inverness city morgue."
"Have you tried a DNA match?"
"I'm on that. We sent a tissue sample to NamUs right away so they could run it through their database, but that takes three months or more, unless it's a priority case."
"This case will jump to the top of the list as soon as I get a chance to call Texas. What about using Lezak's tissue or saliva for the test?"
"I'm trying to run down something to use for a comparison. So far I haven't had any luck. Lezak is an orphan, so there's no family to contact. She did have her own apartment just off campus,
but it was cleaned when she moved out, and it's been rented for months."
"Do any of her friends have something of hers with DNA on it?"
"Everyone says she was also a loner with no real friends. One student saw her walking around campus with a woman whose description fits the woman Gayle Blake saw her with. He also thought there was a strong resemblance. But I have no leads on the identity of the woman."
"Do you think the woman who was seen with Lezak is the person who took her place?"
"That's what I'm guessing, but it's just a guess at this point."
"Did you bring Lezak's school file? I'd like to see it."
"It's in my bag," Daphne said.
"What about a picture?" he asked. "Do you have a photograph? I've talked to Lezak. I'll know right away if the person in the photo is the woman who's clerking for Justice Moss."
"There's one in her file. I'll get it out when we're in the car."
"This is terrific police work," Keith told Haggard. "Exceptional, but personally I hope you've made a terrible mistake."
"That makes two of us," Haggard said, "but I don't think I have."
Millard Price was smiling when he entered Justice Moss's chambers. Brad decided that the justice hadn't guessed why the judge wanted to talk to him, or he was a very good actor.
"What's up?" Price asked.
"Sit down, Millard. Brad and I have something to tell you."
Price looked back and forth between the justice and her clerk. Both looked somber. Price stopped smiling and took a seat across from his fellow justice.
"What's going on, Felicia?"
"I know why you've been so upset about Sarah Woodruff's petition for cert," Moss told him.
"Woodruff? What makes you think I'm upset about that case?"
"If you're not worried that we'll grant cert, you should be," the judge said. "Once the case becomes a topic of discussion in the national media, someone is going to dig up the goods on TA Enterprises, the hashish-smuggling operation, and the five dead men on the China Sea."
"I'm really not sure what you're getting at. From what I've read in the record, there's no proof that there was hashish on the ship or any dead bodies."
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