Yoko set the phone on the counter and started to squeeze oranges. When the crystal pitcher was almost full, she added crushed ice and set the juice in the refrigerator. She was mixing the dough for sticky buns, Charles’s favorite, when he walked into the room.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asked, smiling.
“I couldn’t sleep. Listen, Charles, it’s all wrong. I spoke to Harry, and he and the others agree. But it was Harry who figured it out. I was a little slower.”
“I know, dear. I couldn’t sleep, either, so I’ve been over at the command center, working on things. I figured after breakfast was time enough to alert the girls. By the time they get here, they might have all figured it out themselves.”
“I don’t think we should tell Lizzie, at least not yet. But we need to vote on that, and it is just my opinion. Harry said they were all going to try to come to the mountain tonight or tomorrow.” Yoko’s expression was bland as she watched Charles mix pancake batter. “We should have figured it out right away,” she grumbled.
“How so?”
“Harry figured it out. It felt wrong from the beginning. I’m the first to admit I know very little about politics, but if it was so, what would Kathryn have said? Out of the box, and yet none of us picked up on it. We all just ran with it.”
“It’s only a matter of hours, dear. We know now, and that’s all that matters. Always remember one thing. Everything happens for a reason. I hear the girls. Remember, we do not discuss business until breakfast is over.”
Yoko laughed as she slid the tray of sticky buns into the oven. “I’ll set the table now.”
Maggie stared at her star reporter and star photographer. While they were neat and clean, their hair slicked back, it was obvious they hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Not that she cared. “I have a rather cushy job for you two.” If she was hoping for delighted smiles and a gung ho attitude, she didn’t get either.
“You have that look, Maggie,” Ted said. “Who do we have to kill? I hope to hell you aren’t planning on sending us to Iraq or some such place.”
“Nothing that exciting, boys. I have here,” Maggie announced, waving a thick stack of papers in the air, “all you will need to make my day a happy one.”
“Highlights please,” Ted said. “Do we have time for breakfast?”
“You do have time for breakfast, and pay for it yourself today. These,” she said, waving the papers in the air, “contain the current address of Justice Douglas Leonard and his wife, Florence. As you can see, they reside on Connecticut Avenue when court is in session, although Mrs. Leonard goes back and forth to Vermont quite often. She stays a week or ten days at a time. They were both in Vermont during the holidays. The Leonards’ financial records are all here. At one time they had a robust brokerage account, but it is very anemic right now. Another twelve months, and that account will be nothing more than a memory. And it has nothing to do with the economy. Justice Leonard was diversified, and the account held steady until two years ago. In the last two years, there have been many, many things sold and converted to cash. This is just a wild guess on my part, and I am no accountant, but from what I’m seeing here, the Leonards are living paycheck to paycheck at the moment. Mrs. Leonard does not work.
“We were told—oops, you boys were told—by Cosmo Cricket that Mrs. Leonard had health issues and that’s why Justice Leonard was going to retire. Not true, according to these medical records. Florence Leonard is healthy as a horse. Ditto for Justice Leonard. The kiddies, of whom there are four, are all grown and have thriving careers. The family meets over the holidays, and the rest of the year, they all go their separate ways. Neither Justice Leonard nor his wife appears to be a doting parent or grandparent.
“Where did all that money in the brokerage account go? I’m thinking, and again, this is a guess on my part. Mrs. Leonard has a gambling problem. She can do it right from her own home. Or else the justice himself is into some heavy-duty porn on the Internet, or they could both be secret gamblers. The third choice is that someone is blackmailing them, but I’m not buying into that. That’s it, boys. Come up with some cover story and run with it. Do not, I repeat, do not, come back empty-handed.”
Ted reached for the papers in Maggie’s hand and shoved them into his backpack. An idea was already forming deep inside his head as he and Espinosa made their way to the elevator.
Over a huge breakfast, the kind Maggie had cooked for Harry and Jack, Ted ran his idea past Espinosa. “We just march up to the door, hold out our IDs, and say we’re doing a feature article on the justices’ wives to run in the Sunday edition. We lead her to believe she’s the most important wife, and if she’s as vain as most women are, she’ll jump at the chance to be featured first. What do you think, Joe?”
“It’s not very original or even clever, Ted. What if she has to check with her husband or some crap like that? Women have to get their hair done, pick out new dresses, that kind of thing.”
“It’s that old early bird who gets the worm. If she goes that route, we tell her we can’t get back to her till the end of the week, because we have appointments with the other wives and the two husbands whose wives are justices. Or, better yet, we can say we’re going to feature the two husbands. That might get her hackles up, assuming she has hackles to get up. What’s your gut saying, Joe? Is it her and gambling or him and porn, like Maggie said? Or both?”
“I think it’s her. She’s probably bored out of her mind. Her husband is gone all day. She’s not getting any younger. She feels like she doesn’t fit in or blend in with the other wives of the justices. Maybe she hates the whole deal. Like she’s rudderless. Hey, maybe she’s the one into the porn, and the justice is the gambler! Think about that!”
“Nah. When Maggie has a gut feeling, I’ve never known her to be wrong. I think she’s on the money this time. And do not forget for one minute that the justice is the one who called Cosmo Cricket. That ties in gambling right there. Good friend that Cricket said he was, Leonard lied to him. A justice of the Supreme Court lying to his friend. I find that unconscionable,” Ted said virtuously.
“Yeah,” Espinosa said as he sopped up the last of his pancakes in the heavy syrup. “I think we should have one more cup of coffee before we tackle Mrs. Florence Leonard.”
“Spoken like a true reporter slash photographer,” Ted said, holding up his cup for a refill.
Thirty-five minutes later the driver of the Diamond Cab that Ted and Espinosa had flagged down pulled as close to the snowbanked curb as he could get outside the Leonard home on Connecticut Avenue. Ted paid him, pocketed the receipt, and eyed the imposing snowbank, all at the same time. “Either we hop it or we walk all the way down to the corner. Your call, Joe.”
Espinosa was already on the other side of the snowbank before Ted stopped speaking.
“Looks like all the other houses,” Ted said as he picked his way up the walkway, which had not been shoveled.
“Winter maintenance doesn’t seem to be a priority here at the Leonard abode,” Espinosa grumbled.
The six steps leading to the front porch hadn’t been shoveled, either, and held thick ice and globs of snow. It did look like someone had tossed handfuls of rock salt here and there. The porch was clear of snow and ice and held two caned rockers that looked as old as the historic house. A bedraggled artificial Christmas wreath hung on the door. Above the wreath was an old-fashioned bellpull. Ted gave it a hard yank and was rewarded with a two-note bong-bong sound from within.
“Why do I feel like I’m in a time warp, Joe?”
Espinosa grinned. “I think the best is yet to come.” He cackled at his own wit just as the door opened.
“Whatever it is you’re selling, I have no need of. My religion is my own, so don’t try to sell me yours.”
“Oh, no, ma’am, we’re not here to sell you anything. Mrs. Leonard, I’m Ted Robinson from the Post, and this is my partner, Joseph Espinosa.”
Both men held out their credentials as the woman pe
ered at them through the ratty screen on the door.
“We’re here to ask you to take part in a series we’re working on for the Sunday paper. It will feature all the wives and the two husbands of the Supreme Court justices. We came here first since your husband seems to be the most influential justice, aside from the chief justice,” Ted said, lying through his teeth. “Possibly an hour of your time, perhaps less. May we come in? If you feel more comfortable calling the paper to check us out, we can wait right out here until you do that.”
Florence Leonard was a stick of a woman, wearing layers and layers of clothes. Her face was made up of angles and planes and jutting bones, but she had piercing blue eyes the color of bluebells. Her hair was unfashionably long and secured on top of her head with a tortoise-shell comb of some sort. She wore no jewelry, not even a wedding ring.
She moved and held open the squeaky screen door for the two men to enter her home. “That won’t be necessary. Come in.”
Ted looked around, and the only word that came to his mind was “cavernous.” He wondered what this beautiful old house would look like with furniture. His footsteps echoed off the dull pine floors as he followed his hostess in her many layers of clothing to a small room shut off from the rest of the house with pocket doors. A fire blazed in the hearth, but the room was still cold. Ted found himself shivering.
Coming up behind him, Espinosa hissed, “It’s colder in here than it is outside. And she looks like Nanook of the North. What the hell is going on here, Ted?”
“Like I know,” Ted hissed back.
“Take a seat,” the woman said.
Ted looked around. There were only two chairs, with a table in between that held a reading lamp.
“I like to sit on the hearth,” she added.
Ted sat down, pulled out his portable recorder, and announced the date, the names of the players present, and the reason for the recording. Espinosa discreetly clicked away.
“This is a lovely old house. How long have you lived here?” Ted asked.
“I hate it. It’s cold and drafty. I hate Washington. We’ve been here for the last fifteen years. I try to go home as often as I can. Vermont is home. We were there for Christmas. We…I had planned on staying longer, but Justice Leonard said we had to be back here for the New Year. We’re freezing to death in this house.”
“Doesn’t your heat work?” Espinosa asked.
“Of course it works, but you have to be a millionaire to afford to heat it,” Florence Leonard revealed. “We use this fireplace when we sit in here. We have one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, and one in Justice Leonard’s office.”
Espinosa appeared to be dumbfounded. “Don’t your pipes freeze?”
“They did the day we got back. Justice Leonard said that’s why they make duct tape. He fixed them. Now, what is it you want to know for your article?”
Ted babbled on, asking question after question. Florence Leonard jabbered about everything and anything that, as far as Ted was concerned, meant absolutely nothing.
“Would a tour of the house be possible?” Ted asked.
“If you like,” Florence said, getting up from the hearth. “Follow me.”
“The house has a temporary feel to it,” Ted said as they passed through one empty room after another.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Florence said. “We brought all our lovely antiques with us when we came here, but when I saw how humid it is here in the summers, we moved all our fine things back to Vermont. Neither Justice Leonard nor I can abide air-conditioning. This is Justice Leonard’s home office.” She stepped aside so Ted and Espinosa could look inside the tidy room with wall-to-wall bookshelves. A computer sat on a Chippendale desk, and a fire was lit in the fireplace.
Espinosa rolled his eyes as he captured the room on his digital camera.
“I never come in here. Actually, Justice Leonard forbids me to enter this room,” Florence confessed. “I don’t mind. I find the law and politics in general very boring. I have my own interests.”
“And what would they be, ma’am?” Ted asked, rising to the bait.
“Reading, TV, maneuvering around on the computer. I have my own, you know. And it is password protected. I needed to do that, considering Justice Leonard’s position,” said Florence.
“Do you socialize with or entertain the other justices’ wives and husbands?” Ted asked.
“I’m sorry to say I don’t. They’re a bunch of old biddies, and they’re all jealous of my husband and me. One of the husbands, I can’t even remember his name, likes to think he’s important and is always trying to get his name in the paper. I think it’s disgraceful.”
“Uh-huh,” Ted said.
“When do you think you’ll be going back to Vermont?” Espinosa asked.
“As soon as possible. I just get on a plane and go. I have my books and TV there and another computer,” said Florence.
“I guess when you go home, it feels like a vacation, doesn’t it?” Ted asked.
“It does, young man.”
“I’m getting ready to go on vacation myself with my girlfriend. We’re going to Las Vegas. Neither one of us has ever been there. She can’t wait to see all the shows and shop in those high-end stores. We got a package deal for six nights. They said food is very inexpensive, and you get free drinks when you gamble. Have you ever been?” Ted said all in one breath.
Ted didn’t think it was his imagination that the woman standing next to him stiffened when she said, “Once, a very long time ago, before Justice Leonard was appointed to the court. Actually, Justice Leonard has a very good friend who lives out there. I can’t think of his name right now, but it’s some kind of bug. His name, I mean.”
“Well, I think that about covers all my questions,” said Ted. “Is there anything you would like to add, Mrs. Leonard? Something of human interest.”
“I don’t think you should put down that I hate Washington. I probably shouldn’t have said that. Can you just say I prefer Vermont to this fishbowl life?”
“I can do that, certainly.” Ted slapped at his forehead. “I almost forgot. Do you see your husband retiring anytime soon? I know that justices have life tenure, but sometimes they opt out early.”
“Good Lord, no. Justice Leonard said he was going to die in the court. I don’t even bother to mention it anymore. Neither do our children. We’re stuck here, much to my dismay. When did you say this would be in the paper?”
“In one of the Sunday editions,” Ted replied. “It depends on how cooperative the other wives and those husbands are. Don’t forget, I’m going to Las Vegas. Everyone I know has given me twenty dollars to play the slots for them. My vacation might delay things a week or so. I can call you when we’re ready to run it.”
“That would be lovely, Mr. Robinson. Just out of curiosity, how much did you have to pay for your package deal to Las Vegas?” Florence asked.
“My girlfriend handled all of that, but I think she said it was seven hundred dollars a person, and that included airfare. It’s not one of the top hotels, but she said it would do, and wherever it is, you get a free breakfast,” Ted said, making things up as he went along.
“That does sound reasonable. Well, I hope you have a lovely time and win lots of money.”
“I’m pretty lucky,” Ted said, getting into it. “I always win when I gamble. My girlfriend is even luckier than I am. She won one hundred fifty thousand dollars on one of those scratch-off tickets you buy at gas stations. Just like that she won one hundred fifty thousand dollars! She’s buying a house with it. Well, a down payment actually.”
Florence Leonard’s eyes sparkled like Christmas lights. “Scratch-off tickets, and she won that much? That’s amazing.”
Ted held out his hand. “I enjoyed our interview. I hope you enjoy the article when it makes the paper. Thank you for talking to us without an appointment.”
“The pleasure is all mine, gentlemen. I don’t get many visitors. Good-bye,” Florence Leonard said as she closed
the door behind her guests.
The moment the door closed, Ted said, “Maggie was right. Five will get you ten, she hotfoots it to the nearest gas station within ten minutes.”
Espinosa guffawed. “That’s a sucker bet. She fell right into it. Here’s a bet for you, Ted. I bet she sold off all the antiques she arrived with. Wanna bet?”
“Hell, no! That is a sucker bet for sure. Let’s find a place to be invisible so we can watch and see if she does go to a gas station.”
Ted and Espinosa walked down the street, looking for an evergreen to hide behind. When they found one, they turned sideways so they weren’t visible from the Leonard residence. Thirteen minutes later the front door opened. They watched as Florence Leonard practically galloped down the steps and across the walkway.
“Now, that’s what I call a gambler. But she might be going to a gas station to buy a quart of milk,” Espinosa said.
“Well, we have to check it out, or Maggie will have our hides. So, let’s cross the street, keep our eyes peeled, and see what she does.”
Forty-five minutes later Ted sent Maggie a text that said, She bgt 150$ of scratch-off tickets. I had 2 give the kid 50$ 2 confirm the trans. U were rt. She said Just L. has no plans 2 retire in the near future & plans to die on the court. Will u marry me?
The reply came back at the speed of light. Yes. Head for Dulles. I have u booked on a flight to VT. Check in on your arrival.
“Hey, Ted, what’s wrong? You sick? Come on, what’s wrong?”
“We have to go to Vermont. Hail a cab. Maggie said yes.”
“About what? The expense account?”
“Hell, no!” Ted said, jumping up and down and waving his arms every which way. “Maggie said yes! I’m getting married!”
Chapter 12
The decision to pack up early and head home was an easy one to make for Lizzie since she was working pro bono and her desk was clear. Nothing urgent was pending; the remaining work could wait another day. Or two, even three days. She packed up her briefcase, reached for her jacket, slipped it on, and turned off the lights. It was three thirty.
17. Game Over Page 9