"Just wait," she said, putting her hand on his chest. "I'll be fine."
An elevator dinged, its green-lit arrow pointing up.
"Wait here," she said, hurrying to the elevator and stepping inside just before the doors closed.
The mustached man watched her closely for a moment, then reached toward the elevator buttons and asked, "What floor?"
"Fourteenth floor-looks like you already pushed it," Kate replied staring at the buttons. She could feel him eyeing her up and down. He smelled of cigar smoke.
The doors opened to the fourteenth floor, and the mustached man politely gestured for Kate to exit first, which she did, walking casually in front of him and not looking back when she heard him open the door to a room. When she heard the door click shut, she doubled back toward the elevator, taking note of the man's room number. Then she took the elevator back down to McKenna, who was sitting on a couch in the lobby, looking relieved to see her.
"Room 1412," she said.
"He didn't notice you following him?"
"No. He had no idea."
"Good."
Pulling out his cell phone, McKenna tried his old friend Jake Seabury and was grateful to hear him pick up. "Jake, it's me," he said. "Why'd you hang up
"Jefferson," Seabury interrupted. This would not be good. In the nearly twenty years they had been friends, Seabury had never called him by his proper name. It was always "J" or "the J-man," or "Jackass," but never "Jefferson."
"What is it?"
"I need to make this quick because I'm going to have to tell the authorities you called, and they'll check my line to see how long we talked. I've got only two things to say. First, I think you should turn yourself in. I can't help you or in any way harbor you-I hope you understand. Second, I'm going to tell the authorities to talk to an associate at my firm, a former Supreme Court law clerk named Douglas Pratt. According to the firm directory, Pratt lives at 1000 South Carolina Avenue, Southeast on the Hill. Good luck, Jefferson."The line went dead.
McKenna slipped the phone into his pocket and silently thanked his friend. Seabury had given him information and at the same time provided himself with plausible deniability that he had aided and abetted.
"Did he tell you how Pratt fits into this?" Kate asked as they left the lobby and walked back to the motorcycle.
"No. I don't think he knows." McKenna hit the switch, and the bike's engine roared. "I think you should go home-you need to distance yourself from me. You've done more than anyone could expect."
"I'm coming," she replied, her tone leaving no room for debate. McKenna let it be.
Fifteen minutes later, they motored slowly down South Carolina Avenue in Capitol Hill, looking at addresses of the row houses. A group of young men loitering on a stoop watched as they got off the bike. On the Hill, a safe, family-friendly neighborhood could sometimes be only a street away from drugs and guns.
Finding Pratt's English basement apartment, McKenna and Kate knocked on the door. A twentysomething man in khakis and a polo shirt looked at them through the side window.
"Can I help you?" he said through the window.
Kate held up her justice Department ID, and the man left from the view of the window and opened the door. "Doug Pratt?" she asked. She had told McKenna to follow her lead, and he was happy to.
"No, he isn't here."
"Where can we find him?" Kate asked in a stern tone.
"What's this about?"
"Do you know where he is?" she said, ignoring the question.
"I don't know," he said. "I barely know the guy. I just moved to town and we work at the same law firm. I'm paying him for the room until I find a place."
"What's your name?" Kate asked.
"Pierce Butler."
"Can we come in, Pierce?"
"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. What's this about?"
McKenna was growing impatient and pushed his way past the man. "Place him under arrest," he said.
"Now, wait," Pierce replied, holding his hands up in surrender. "I didn't say no. Fact is, Pratt's been nothing but a pain in my ass since I got to town. He eats all my food, and when we spoke on the phone about renting the room, he said his place was in a great neighborhood-never mentioned the open-air drug market on the same block. And he also didn't mention there wasn't a bed for me."
Pierce continued to rant as McKenna walked past a small living room and down a narrow hallway, leaving Kate to babysit. McKenna peered into the first bedroom, which he assumed was Pierce's because it had only a desk, a sleeping bag balled up on the floor, and three suitcases. He opened the door to the other bedroom, which he thought must be Pratt's. Inside was a bed with a Grateful Dead poster in lieu of a headboard, a dusty dresser, and dirty clothes sprawled all over the floor.
McKenna began searching the room with no real idea what he was looking for. He found nothing in the closet or under the bed. He kicked the piles of clothes on the floor, but there was nothing hidden under them. After ransacking the dresser, he was about to give up when he finally pulled out the dresser drawers and looked inside the frame.
In the shadowy space under the bottom drawer, he thought he saw something and pulled out what looked like a small makeup bag. He unzipped it to find an authentic-looking fake mustache and tubes of makeup.
After a thorough search for other hiding places-even testing the floorboards and baseboards for a telltale creak or loose nailMcKenna came back into the living room. Pierce was sitting on a stool at the small Formica kitchen bar, looking annoyed.
"Where can we find Pratt?"
"I really don't know," Pierce said. "He's always out late. He parties and he's a gambler-plays cards."
"Do you know where he hangs out?" Kate asked.
Pierce thought for a moment. "When I first moved in, he took me to Cloud Nine on U Street. It wasn't my scene. I think he's a regular, though."
"Is there a picture of him anywhere in this place?"
Pierce put his hand on his chin, thinking. He then pointed to his laptop that sat nearby on the counter. "If you let me log on to my computer I can probably get you a picture."
McKenna nodded. Pierce typed quickly, and the Harrington & Caine Web site came up. He pulled up Pratt's bio on the site, which included a picture. McKenna looked at Kate. It was the man from the Martini Park bar: George Costanza.
U Street, Washington,
loud Nine had an understated exterior, with plain black walls and no sign-a design no doubt aimed at making patrons feel that this was an exclusive club: if you needed a sign to find it, you didn't belong. But the two muscleheads at the door and the skimpily dressed young women in a long line near the entrance made it hard to miss.
McKenna and Kate walked to the front of the line and flashed their Justice Department IDs, which prompted nervous looks from the doormen but got them inside quickly. The club was pulsing with loud dance music, flashing lights, and bodies gyrating to the pounding beat.
They made their way to the crowded bar on the right side of the club. Kate showed a bartender the picture of Pratt that Pratt's roommate had printed for them, but the man rebuffed her questions and devoted his full attention to the glass he was drying. She and McKenna then walked the place from corner to corner but didn't spot Pratt anywhere. They approached a bouncer with the picture, accompanying it with a fan of twenty-dollar bills. The money disappeared in the bouncer's fist, which then extended a finger to point at the back of the club.
"Watch the wall," he said.
Before they could ask what this meant, they saw a man open a door that blended seamlessly into the wall when it closed behind him. They stood and watched from a distance for a few moments and then began to push through the crowd closer to the hidden door.
"What do you think is going on back there-drugs?" McKenna asked.
"His roommate said he's a gambler. Maybe a backroom game," Kate replied.
"Should we go in?" McKenna asked.
"No, we don't need a scene. Let's just watc
h for a while."
For the next twenty minutes they watched the door until, sure enough, Douglas Pratt appeared, looking sober but downtrodden. They followed him to the bar, watching him from behind a group of young women who were pulling shot glasses from a tray held up by a waitress. Pratt stopped, pulled out his wallet, looked inside, then returned it to his back pocket. He exchanged words with a bartender, who shrugged and then turned to attend to the other customers at the bar.
They followed Pratt outside onto the street, where he lit a cigarette and began walking in the direction of the U Street-Cardozo metro station. McKenna and Kate trailed him at a comfortable distance. The street was dark, its only light from a lamp nearly two blocks away.
As they got closer to Pratt, he seemed to sense it and took a quick look over his shoulder. When he picked up his pace, McKenna called out to him. "Douglas Pratt."
Pratt slowed and turned around. "Who wants to know?" he said, cocking his shoulders back.
"We're with the Justice Department," McKenna said, walking even closer.
"Look, I'm happy to talk with you guys again about Black Wednesday, but I'm tired. Why don't you call my office and make an appointment with my-" Pratt stopped as McKenna and Kate came under the glow of the streetlamp. He glared at McKenna.
"We'd like to talk with you about the Hassan brothers," McKenna said.
Pratt's face turned to granite. "Never heard of them," he turned and continued walking down the street.
"You're a crappy liar," Kate said as she and McKenna sauntered over. McKenna put his hand on Pratt's shoulder, and the man pivoted back around aggressively.
"Get your goddamn hands off me!"
"Relax. We just need a couple minutes," Kate said.
Pratt looked up at them. They both towered over him by nearly a foot. "I don't have anything to say to you. I know my rights, so fuck off-both of you." Looking at McKenna, he added, "I don't think you want me to call the cops."
Suddenly McKenna grabbed him by the lapels and threw him against the graffitied wall of a drugstore. "I've had a very long day, Mr. Pratt. I would not push it if I were you."
Kate tugged lightly on McKenna's arm. "Jefferson . . . "
Pratt gave a nervous laugh. "Aren't you already in enough trouble Mr. Solicitor General?"
Before McKenna could respond, a black SUV jerked to a stop at the curb, and two burly men got out and rushed toward the group.
Without saying a word, one of them grabbed Kate and shoved a gun into her side. The other man swung at McKenna but he blocked the punch. Then the man's other hand arched around and something soft and heavy thudded into the side of his head.
Home ofJustice Gillian Carmichael, McLean, Virginia
yez, oyez, oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!"
Gillian Carmichael jerked awake. The room was dark, and her husband lay snoring beside her. She was relieved that she had awoken, and the recurring nightmare that had afflicted her since the massacre at the high court had been cut short. The nightmare was always the same. It began with the marshal's cry that opened all public sessions of the Supreme Court. She and the other justices would enter the courtroom simultaneously, in three groups of three, through openings in the heavy velvet curtains behind the bench. In well-choreographed tradition, they would then each pull out their high-backed chairs and be seated. The courtroom was crowded and, as usual, a shade too warm. She looked out toward the entrance of the chamber, where tourists were being herded through like cattle, in three-minute blocks that allowed the public at least a glimpse of one of the three branches of government in action.
In the nightmare, the spectator seats were filled to capacity until the lights flickered. Then the courtroom chamber was suddenly empty except for a lone person sitting in the center of the public pews: the chief justice's widow, Liddy Kincaid.
Liddy just stared at Carmichael. Chief Justice Kincaid, who was seated next to Carmichael on the bench, turned to her and repeated his favorite joke, borrowed from one of his predecessors: "I spent my first five years on the court wondering how I got here. I've spent the rest of the time wondering how you all did." An instant later, his face was blown off, with blood and bits spattering across Carmichael's cheek and forehead.
Liddy Kincaid smiled and wagged her finger with a loud, taunting "Tsk, tsk, tsk."
The room then filled with its usual participants, who came and went without one of them acknowledging that Kincaid sat slumped, dead and bloody, on the bench. The aides behind the justices paid the grisly scene no mind, and the clerk and the marshal seated on either side of the long winged stretch of mahogany also ignored it, as the courtroom spectators sat upright and silent, waiting for the oral argument to begin.
Carmichael looked at her husband. Gerald had known that his wife was struggling with the trauma of Black Wednesday. She had survived only because Chief Justice Kincaid had thrown her to the floor, where she was shielded by the bench. Gerald thought that therapy or even acknowledging your fears aloud was for the weak-a manifestation of the very emotional unavailability that had pushed her into Kincaid's arms.
But having learned that Liddy Kincaid was under investigation by the commission, Carmichael could no longer pretend that her nightmare meant nothing. She decided to wake her husband. It was time they had a talk.
Northeast Washington,
hen McKenna regained consciousness, he was in a moving vehicle. His ankles and wrists were bound and his eyes and mouth taped shut. The vehicle slowed, and he could hear and feel when the road surface changed to rocks and gravel. His head was throbbing, and he had no clear idea of how long he had been riding.
The vehicle stopped, and McKenna and Kate were dragged out and stood clumsily in their hobbles.
"On your knees," a voice said.
When he didn't follow the order, McKenna felt a foot slam into the back of his knee, collapsing him to the ground. He gritted his teeth at the sharp pain when his other knee slammed down onto the gravel. Beside him he could hear Kate's muffled screams. He could not make out the words, though even gagged, her terror was unmistakable.
From just behind his head, he heard the dry metallic click of a gun hammer being cocked. Then the only remaining sound was the loud thumping of his heart as the wave of terror washed over him. Then, unexpectedly, a sense of rage crowded out his fear, replaced a moment later by profound remorse at having gotten Kate involved.
Forgive me, Kate. Please forgive me.
New Jersey Turnpike
etective Milstein sat upright after dozing off in the backseat of Frank Pacini's Volvo, en route to Washington, D.C. It was dark, and the soft beat of the windshield wipers had a hypnotic effect. She listened to Assad and Pacini natter on about nothing. Assad's sister, seventeen years his junior, his parents' miracle baby, was the same age as Pacini's daughter, and both girls were going off to college. That led to a conversation about their own undergrad years and their shared love of college football.
"Deputy Director Pacini?" Milstein said from the backseat, interrupting in the hope of changing the subject.
"Please, just `Frank."'
"Okay, Frank. I was just wondering, do you always drive rather than fly to D.C.?"
"I'll be honest-most people think I'm crazy to drive. But I find that by the time you get through airport security, deal with canceled flights and weather delays, get your bags, and get in line to rent a car, this is just as fast. And I thought it would give us time to talk in private. We're making good time, so it should only be another couple of hours or so. We'll cross our fingers for light traffic on the Beltway-that's the only wild card."
"So can you tell us where we're going yet?" Milstein replied, taking Pacini up on the invitation to discuss business.
"The West Wing."
It took a moment to register.
"the Whi
te House?" Assad said. He seemed to sit up a little straighter at the mere thought.
Pacini nodded. "The chief of staff requested a meeting to discuss Griffin Nash's murder and the solicitor general situation," he said. "We're gonna stop off at the FBI building, which we're using as the law enforcement command center for the commission; then we'll go to the White House. I'll introduce you to the team first. You left your firearms at home, right?"
"No worries. We both are unarmed," Assad said. "Thanks for including us in all this, Frank."
"Actually, the White House liaison said they also want to talk about Parker Sinclair, and we thought you two were the most up to speed-particularly since you've had a chance to interview Judge Petrov and some of Sinclair's coworkers."
For the next hour, Pacini set out the principal leads that had not yet been made public. He told them about the Hassan brothers, suspicions about the chief justice's widow, and progress on tips pertaining to the "CB" on the assassin's neck. He then explained McKenna's report on the Nevel Industries case, and its connection to Nash and the bribery allegation against McKenna.
"Do you really think McKenna had some part in the assassinations?" Assad asked. "Bribery is a long way from murder."
"I agree," Pacini said. "But he's running. And right now it is the best lead we've got."
Milstein's cell phone rang. She answered quickly. A call this early rarely brought good news, and she was concerned it was about her ailing father.
"Detective," a woman said timidly on the other end.
"Yes," Milstein said trying to place the voice.
"This is Mary Sinclair, Parker's mom. I'm sorry to call this early, but I couldn't sleep and I just couldn't wait. . ."
"It's no problem at all, Mrs. Sinclair. I'm actually on duty."
"You said if I thought of anything, I should call you."
"Absolutely," Milstein replied. "You have something that may help the investigation?"
The Last Justice Page 8