Murder in the Supreme Court (Capital Crimes Series Book 3)

by Margaret Truman

  He stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the Supreme Court’s massive front doors and watched her go up to terrace level, then veer left to a visitor-and-staff entrance at the side of the building. He looked at his watch—6:50.

  ***

  Laurie Rawls left Justice Conover’s area and walked down the long, wide corridor toward Justice Poulson’s chambers. As she came abreast of Justice Childs’s chambers he came through the door. “Hello, Miss Rawls,” Childs said. “Working late?”

  “Yes,” she replied pleasantly. “You too?”

  “Afraid so. I’ve got some time to put in before the conference in the morning on Bain v. Paley.”

  “Well, not too late, Mr. Justice.”

  “I’ll try not to. Have a nice night.”

  She headed toward Chief Justice Poulson’s chambers.

  ***

  Moments earlier the Chief had left his chambers, carrying with him a set of legal briefs and a law book. A guard at the end of the hall greeted him.

  “Hello, John,” he said.

  “Be here late, Mr. Chief Justice?”

  “Not too late, I hope.”

  He continued walking until he reached the doors that led to the main courtroom. They were open; a guard who usually stood in front of them was at the far end of the corridor drinking from a public fountain. Poulson stepped into the courtroom. It was dark except for lights playing off the fountains in the courtyard that cast flickering, erratic flashes of white across the huge chamber.

  ***

  Laurie Rawls saw Vera Jones standing outside the entrance to Poulson’s office suite. She had never actually met her before but recognized her from descriptions Clarence had given her… “looks like a bird… Miss Prim… a hatchet face… not bad in the sack, though….” Laurie’s face, and stomach, tightened at the memory of these last words.

  Vera turned at the sound of Laurie’s shoes on the marble floor.

  “Miss Jones?” Laurie asked.

  “Yes… I have an appointment, with Chief Justice Poulson…”

  “Yes, I know. I’m Laurie Rawls, a law clerk here.”

  Vera gave no sign that she knew about Laurie through Clarence. She stood stiffly, without expression, as Laurie offered her hand and said, “Actually, I’m afraid Justice Poulson won’t be able to be here for your meeting. He was called away, but I can fill in, with his approval.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Please, come in.” Laurie entered the outer office and flipped on the overhead lights.

  Vera remained in the hallway. Laurie turned. “Come on in, Miss Jones, it’s just like any other office. No dragons.”

  Vera still did not move.

  “Miss Jones,” Laurie said, hands on hips, “I really don’t have all night. If you’ll just come in I’ll get to the point right away.”

  Vera looked to her left and right before moving across the threshold.

  “Have a seat,” Laurie said, pointing to a leather chair against the wall.

  “I’ll stand. I’m not sure I approve of this. Justice Poulson said nothing about you—”

  “It’s okay, Miss Jones, I assure you. Justice Poulson and I discussed it at length this afternoon. What I’m about to suggest, as I said, has his approval.”

  When Vera still didn’t take the chair Laurie shrugged, leaned back against a desk and said, “I have something you need, and you have something we need.”

  “We?”

  “Here, at the Court.”

  “What could I possibly have that—”

  “The file on Dan Brazier.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “Oh, of course you do. Dan Brazier was a patient of your boss, Dr. Sutherland, just as Chief Justice Poulson was. I don’t intend to beat about the bush, Miss Jones. The fact that you and Clarence had an affair… an amusing word for something between people of such different ages… is not my concern now, nor is your reason for allowing Clarence to take certain files from his father’s office. What is important is that I’ve come into possession of Justice Poulson’s file. I assume you’d like to have it back. At the same time, there are things in Mr. Brazier’s file that are of interest to—”

  “You are sick, Miss Rawls.”

  “Only of you and your posturing, Miss Jones. Let’s get down to it… I’m offering you an even swap that will benefit everyone—”

  “Everyone? You mean you.”

  “I mean everyone. I’m not at liberty to discuss Court business, but the importance to this Court of having Mr. Brazier’s file, the importance to the administration itself and to the nation is substantial, I assure you. It is not just a matter of individuals. There’s a greater good—”

  “Greater good?” Vera said, shaking her head and now sitting on the edge of the chair. “My God, what would you or Clarence know about a greater good, or any good? Those files represent a sacred trust—”

  “You should have thought of that when you gave them to him.”

  “I didn’t give Clarence anything. He took advantage of a situation—”

  “Yes,”—Laurie smiled—“he was very good at that, wasn’t he? What did he do, Miss Jones, steal the keys while you lay next to him on the office couch—?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Please, let us be ladies… now, back to business. You give me Brazier’s files, or a true copy of them, and I’ll return Justice Poulson’s files.”

  “After you’ve copied them?”

  “Trust me.”

  The laugh burst from her.

  “What choice do you have, Miss Jones?”

  “…I’ll have to think about it—”

  “After consulting with your employer?”

  “Leave Dr. Sutherland out of this. He was as much a victim of his son as I was.”

  “A convenient way to get off the hook.”

  “Think what you will—” Suddenly Vera felt an intense, enveloping heat. She took off her cap and unbuttoned the top of her coat.

  “Are you all right?” Laurie said. “Would you like some water?”

  “No, I feel fine… Is that all you have to say to me?”

  “That’s all. Brazier for Poulson. I need to know first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Why?”

  “Not your concern, Miss Jones.”

  Vera stood, touched the back of the chair for support. She felt light-headed, her legs were weak. She clenched her cap at her side, squeezed it as hard as she could, her long, sinewy fingers pushing through the loosely knitted fabric.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Laurie said.

  Vera’s body seemed to go rigid, as though the words had physically touched her. “No, stay away from me. You’re no different than he was—”

  “Oh, we’re very different, Miss Jones. We’re in the same business, of course, but Clarence is dead and I’m alive. Quite a difference, I’d say. I intend to carry on in Clarence’s memory at the White House… I’ve been offered the position Clarence would have had… if he’d lived. Isn’t that good news?”

  “God, you are so vile—”

  “Miss Jones, I’ll be at my desk in Justice Conover’s chambers by eight in the morning. Here’s my extension.” She scribbled a number on a slip of paper.

  “Go to hell.”

  “Whatever you say, Miss Jones. Good night….”

  Laurie waited a few moments, then turned off the lights and stepped into the hall. Vera was gone. She returned to Conover’s chambers, where a shaft of light came from beneath the door to the justice’s private chambers. Laurie was sure she had turned off all the lights before meeting with Vera Jones. She thought of calling the security office, then decided to investigate for herself. She went to the door, listened, heard something slam shut. She opened the door.

  Cecily Conover was hunched over her husband’s desk. She jumped to attention, lost her balance and fell into her husband’s large leather chair.

  “What are you doing here?” Laur
ie demanded.

  “I was… God, you scared me. I was looking for that file—”

  “How dare you search through his desk.”

  Cecily got to her feet. “I called and asked you to help me find that file. It has nothing to do with the Court, with government, with anything except my life… can’t you understand that? I’m trying to survive, just like he is.”

  “And it looks like he will?”

  “Yes, it does, enough to make sure of a divorce that will strip from me everything that’s rightfully mine—”

  “Since when does a wife who sleeps around deserve anything in a divorce?”

  “Coming from you—”

  “Get out.”

  “Please, Miss Rawls… I’ll pay you. If I have that file at least the settlement will be decent for me. I’ll share it with you, I promise… I’ll do anything you want, only get it for me—”

  Laurie snapped off the lights and went to the outer office, leaving Cecily standing in the dark next to the desk. Slowly Cecily crossed the carpeted room and joined Laurie. “Won’t you listen to reason, Miss Rawls? Clarence told me you were the brightest female he’d ever met—”

  Laurie, whose back had been to Cecily, quickly turned. “Clarence told you that?”

  “Yes. I suppose it was his way of making me feel stupid. He used to tell me I was dumb—”

  “I know,” Laurie said, taking satisfaction in the look on Cecily’s face. “Mrs. Conover… I suppose I can call you that a little while longer… the record your husband collected about you is very safe—”

  “It is? Where is it?”

  “I have it. Clarence gave it to me.”

  “Then for God’s sake give it to me. What good is it to you?”

  “Maybe we can work something out. Meanwhile, be assured that we share what’s in it, just you and me and, of course, your husband. But it really isn’t of much value to him unless he has it, now is it?”

  “You’re blackmailing me.”

  “It was your suggestion. Look, all you have to do is make sense with me from time to time… We could have lunch, perhaps even dinner. Relax, Mrs. Conover, we can be good friends. We have quite a lot in common.”

  Yes… we have Clarence—”

  “No, we don’t have him in common, Mrs. Conover. Clarence loved me. For him, you were just a temporary diversion. Good night, Mrs. Conover, you know the way out.”

  ***

  He entered the darkened courtroom and stood next to the bench, his fingertips resting lightly on it. Here was America’s highest concilium, where in daylight eight men and one woman decided the various fates of millions of people. Their power was as great as the tons of lactescent marble used to create the arena. Greater.

  Words. Millions of words spoken here on behalf of men condemned to die, the disenfranchised seeking justice, corporations in conflict with individuals, the issues always more important than the individuals bringing them for adjudication. For here, truly, was the court of last resort.

  It was operatic, he thought, the room a slumbering giant, sated with that day’s offerings and waiting for another sun to rise, for another case to be debated and decided in favor of plaintiff or defendant, hero or villain, Christian or lion.

  Above him the justices’ nine chairs, each a different height and shape, stood empty and facing in different directions. He smiled. The Court ran with precision, yet the chairs were never lined up. Appropriate. There were few unanimous, orderly decisions either.

  He climbed the few steps leading to the bench and slowly walked behind the chairs until he reached the middle one. It faced to its left. He sat in it, not turning, simply accepting the direction in which it pointed him, toward the windows and fountains. The chair did not feel comfortable to him….

  She entered the courtroom and stood just inside the door. Light from the fountains played across pews and benches, off the long brass rail and silent microphones, occasionally reaching the ceiling.

  There was one nearly constant pool of light that splashed across the lectern, causing its burnished finish to glisten. She felt calmer than she had minutes ago, although she knew it was misleading. Until her collapse, which thank God had occurred in private, she’d felt very much in control of herself. But then it had happened, as though plugs had been pulled from her body, allowing every drop of control and resolve to pour from her, leaving her drained and shaking, feeling as though she would break into a thousand pieces. Laurie Rawls… that horrible woman had been the catalyst to her coming undone… God, she was Clarence reincarnate—worse, if that was possible…

  She fixed her attention on the lectern, something to lean on. She walked to it, touched its illuminated surface, then its dark part, as though there might be a tactile difference.

  She heard something, looked up at the nine black leather chairs. Had the middle one moved? Darkness played tricks… sound was exaggerated, light created bizarre shapes.

  Another sound, this time from behind. She turned slowly and peered into the section of the courtroom reserved for the press. Nothing. She started to tremble again and gripped the lectern, head lowered, legs threatening to collapse under her. This was where it had happened…

  Another sound from the bench, metal against metal. “Is someone there?”

  No response.

  Her purse dropped to the floor. She did not pick it up….

  Teller, who sat in the shadows of the press section, wasn’t sure for a moment whether to stand up and let her see him. He had followed her to the building, used his earlier security clearance, as detective in charge of the investigation of Sutherland’s murder, to gain access and note her being met by Laurie Rawls; noted too Chief Justice Poulson leave his chambers and walk to the courtroom. Teller had decided the best he could do was to trail the Chief Justice, which he had done, followed him to the courtroom, watched him take his accustomed seat at the bench. Did he expect to see the woman who now was behaving so erratically? No, actually he had intended to wait a few minutes, see what, if anything, Poulson was up to, and then go outside the courtroom to wait for the woman who had disappeared into Poulson’s chambers with Laurie Rawls. Yet here they both were, and it was clear that the end of this bizarre, in so many ways unsavory, case was about to take place where it had begun—with the discovery of the chief clerk, dead from a gunshot wound in the chair of the highest judicial personage of the land.

  Now Teller watched, with sadness and a shivery feeling that he was somehow invading the sanctity of a very troubled human being’s innermost feelings. She struck the lectern’s side with clenched fists, muttered, barely audibly, “And what was it for? Was it all for nothing?…”

  As if in eerie answer, the leather chair at the center of the bench turned slowly to face the front. She could not make out the figure in the chair clearly, little more than a hand on the chair’s arm was clear. But Teller knew who it was… the same man who regularly occupied that chair during the proceedings of the Court… the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Both he and the woman, for reasons that obviously compelled them, had returned to the scene of the crime, and in their separate but related fashions were principal players in the final act of this crime’s resolution… Teller shook his head, reflected with some frustration but also with a sense of the appropriateness of it all, that when this murder, like so many others, was solved, it would be the principals rather than the police—whatever their contribution—that brought it to its finale. Well, at least he was here on the scene, which was more than he was able to be in most cases he’d worked on. At least he had, thanks in large part to Susanna’s digging and smart evaluations, pretty much figured out who the guilty party was, and it was what he knew and suspected that had brought him here for the denouement…

  “It was not for nothing.” The voice came from the Chief Justice’s chair. And now Chief Justice Jonathan Poulson leaned forward so that his face was illuminated by the light that came in through the windows. “But let me tell you, young lady, you
have no obligation to say anything more—”

  “I want to, though. I need to… It wasn’t just that he was so cruel to me, and he was… but he was cruel to other people too, I know that. He was so damn clever, and more than that, unscrupulous. That was really what made it all possible, his willingness to do anything, say anything to get what he wanted—”

  “I repeat,” Poulson interrupted, “you really should not say anything more. You have your rights, and you will be well defended—”

  Teller decided it was time to show himself. Leaving the shadows of the press section, he crossed halfway to the lectern, looked up at the bench. “Good evening, Mr. Chief Justice.” Poulson did not reply, only nodded to him, clearly annoyed that there was a witness to this scene, one that he felt was uniquely private, one that he and the troubled woman at the lectern had a right to share alone, at least for now.

  Teller turned to her. “Miss Jones, I’m sorry to break in on you like this. Believe that. But I’m also afraid that I have to tell you that you’re under arrest.” Feeling almost ridiculous, he proceeded to read her her rights, as he was obliged to do—after all, some judges in this very Court had prescribed them, or at least sanctioned them.

  “Listen to him,” Poulson said. “It’s in your interest—”

  But she was not yet through. Speaking slowly, as though not quite hearing either Teller or Poulson, she said, “I thought it was the right thing to do, he had hurt so many, and was threatening so many more. My God, he had things to hurt the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to ruin the reputation of another justice, a national hero even, to get to the President… he was going to use his rotten influence, influence based on filth, poking into other people’s lives… to make laws about having babies… abortion… he was an abortion… even his father, his own father, a doctor, said so…”

  Poulson came down from the bench, asked Teller to leave, that he would see that Vera Jones came to headquarters later, but Teller, much as he would have liked to go along with that, knew he could not properly do it. Sometimes Supreme Court judges, especially the Chief Justice, tended to forget the nitty-gritty of lowly police procedure. They could afford it. He couldn’t.