The Last Justice

by Anthony J. Franze

  The agent jerked the man's hands behind his back, and within seconds he was cuffed. They pulled him to his feet and marched him outside to the command center where Pacini and Assad waited anxiously in the cold.

  "What the hell ... ?" Pacini said as they approached.

  After brief questioning, they learned that their captive, a homeless man who smelled strongly of malt liquor, had been paid one hundred dollars to sit in the library with the cell phone. He was passed out drunk, which was why he hadn't responded. Pacini was livid. McKenna and Porter must have assumed that the phone would be traceable to the library, but why lead the agents there? To distract them? From what?

  "God damn it!" Pacini muttered as he and Assad headed back to their car.

  After reviewing surveillance footage from a nearby business showing Kate giving the street person money, the agents uncuffed him and let him go. Scoob smiled to himself as he strolled away-it was the easiest grand he had ever made.

  6.45p.in. Chevy Chase neighborhood, Washington,

  cKenna and Kate got out of the cab near Lafayette Elementary School, just down the street from McKenna's house. Had Colin survived the leukemia, he would be starting first grade at the school. Isabel had fretted whether to send him to private school, given the District's notoriously poor school system, but she couldn't face the absurdity of having their preschooler take an IQtest. After much hand-wringing, she decided to give their public school a chance. So they had signed up for pre-K. By the first day of class, Colin was too sick to attend.

  The playground was at the top of a hill abutting Patterson Street, giving them a clear line of sight to McKenna's modest colonial. There were no unfamiliar vans or cars parked nearby, which meant that perhaps the library distraction had worked as planned-or else they had already pulled the agents, assuming that McKenna wouldn't be foolhardy enough to return home.

  McKenna and Kate approached the house from the alley behind his backyard fence. After easing the gate open, he led Kate through the neglected backyard and down an outdoor stairwell to an exterior basement door. The stairwell was cobwebbed, and the bottom landing was covered with leaves. McKenna peered through the door's window for a moment, then turned, braced himself, and thrust his elbow into the glass. He stuck his hand through the hole, careful not to catch it on the remaining shards, and turned the padlock, then stood at the entryway, listening. After a long moment, he nodded, and they went in.

  Once inside, McKenna eyed Kate who seemed taken aback for a moment as she scanned the room. An electric train sat on a plywood table. Stuffed animals filled a bookshelf, and brick-size cardboard blocks were stacked neatly in the corner. Pictures of a happy McKenna family filled the room. His little boy's playroom.

  They went up the basement steps to the first floor, where McKenna checked for Sinclair's package beneath the brass slot in the front door. He looked out the kitchen window-it wasn't on the porch, either. Things were out of place. The house had been searched.

  "Could it be anywhere else?" Kate asked in a nervous whisper. "With a neighbor or in a mailbox outside?"

  "No. It's not here. If it got delivered, the agents have it."

  "Where are you going?" she asked as he started up the steps to the second floor. But when she began to follow, he held up a finger and shook his head.

  Upstairs, he opened his bedroom closet. Aiden's clothes fit fine, but the sneakers were a size too big. He grabbed his running shoes from the shoe rack on the closet floor and pulled them on. Kneeling down, he tied the laces, and then, feeling his way along the closet's wood floor, he found the crack and gently pried away one of the boards. The agents hadn't searched as thoroughly as they should've. Lifting the small handgun from the hole in the floor, he tucked it in his waistband.

  He stood and was startled when Kate appeared and put her finger to her mouth.

  "I saw someone coming to the front door," she said in a panicked tone.

  Hearing the click of the front door, McKenna dropped quietly to the floor and slid under the bed, leaving room for her to squeeze in next to him.

  On their stomachs among the dust bunnies and a couple of socks, they heard someone moving around downstairs. It was quiet for a moment; then the sound of multiple footsteps caused the stairs to creak. They were coming this way.

  Brooklyn, New York

  he man with the pockmarked face and camouflage hunting jacket sat parked in a stolen Hyundai on Driggs Avenue. He wasn't in the mood for this. The plan was supposed to have him on a beach in Los Cabos by now, sipping on a drink with an umbrella sticking out of it, and enjoying some female companionship. During his years traveling in the military, he had acquired a taste for impoverished women. Nothing was better than a woman who would do anything to escape her circumstances-particularly one whom the language barrier prevented from talking too much. On a furlough in Thailand, they had let him beat them and burn them with cigarettes, and afterward they still cooked him dinner, all on the false promise of a new life in America. It sure beat the American women he despised, with their shameful superficiality and need for pampering.

  This could be fun after all, he thought as he watched Judge Petrov's law clerk, Dakota Cameron, approach the front of her walkup. Bogged down with a briefcase and full backpack, she labored to the door, fumbling for her keys.

  He sat low in his seat, watching. As the evening faded to darkness and the streetlights blinked on, he slipped on his gloves. It was time.

  He was about to get out of the car when he saw Dakota reappear from the front steps of the building. Then she walked across the street to a take-out pizza man weighed his options.

  Minutes later, she came back out with a small pizza box and a fountain drink. She waited at the curb, and when the light changed, she started across, careful not to spill her drink.

  The man with the pockmarked face pushed the accelerator to the floor and drove straight towards Dakota. Without a moment to glance over at the car, she slammed into the windshield, the force creating a spider web of shattered glass. Her limp body then rolled over the roof and onto the hard blacktop. As he sped away, the man with the pockmarked face watched in the rearview mirror. The girl was not moving and no one appeared to be following him. He gave a satisfied smile. One more job to go, and then it was hello, senoritas.

  Memorial Hospital, Long Island, New York

  ilstein sat watching her father, who looked peaceful in the dim light of the hospital room. She held his hand and talked to him, but he was unresponsive.

  A nurse came into the room and smiled sympathetically at her. Milstein had promised herself she wouldn't lose it, but she was having a hard time. "I think he seems a little better, do you?" she asked the nurse.

  The nurse hesitated. "We'll know more when the doctor gets back the test results. He'll be making rounds soon."

  To keep her mind occupied, Milstein continued to go through the commission's "CB lead chart," which summarized the tips received about the mark on the assassin's neck, but it was just so hard to concentrate. Assad hadn't called her back since she told him about the call from McKenna. She knew he wouldn't want to trouble her with work right now, but she wished he would. If only to hear his voice.

  The nurse brought in a food tray for her, and she bit into an apple, the only thing that seemed remotely edible at the moment. Under the tray was the local Long Island newspaper the hospital provided to patients with their meals. The front page headline caught her eye: "Two MISSING FROM POOSPATUCK RESERVATION."

  She read the story about a couple who had been reported missing yesterday. The woman, who danced at a strip club located near the reservation, had not been seen since her last shift at the club, the same night Parker Sinclair was killed. The police and the tribe wouldn't comment on the specifics, saying only that there were signs of foul play.

  "Poospatuck" rang a bell. Grabbing the lead chart, Milstein ran her finger down a column, stopping at a tip from a caller on the Poospatuck Reservation. the caller was a Britney Goodhart. She checked the ne
wspaper article to be sure-it was the missing woman.

  Milstein jolted as the room filled with loud beeps and warning buzzes from her father's monitors. In seconds, a team of nurses and doctors rushed into the room.

  Capitol Hill, Washington,

  ucker Thornberry, the Washington Post reporter who broke the McKenna story, walked briskly along North Capitol Street. The evening had turned even colder and windier, and his scarf, which he wore more for style than for warmth, flapped behind him. He was late for an interview with a potential source, Tonya Cushing, a legislative assistant on the Hill. Her cubicle at the Russell Senate Building didn't lend itself to private conversations, so she had agreed to meet for a drink at Johnny's Half Shell, a Chesapeake seafood bar.

  Johnny's was crowded, and Thornberry made his way past the small groups waiting near the entrance for tables. He noticed an attractive woman in her late twenties sitting alone at the corner of the long L-shaped bar.

  "Tonya?" he said, approaching her.

  "Hi," she said. "You look younger than your picture on the paper's Web site."

  "Thanks,"Thornberry said, taking off his overcoat and sitting on the stool next to her, "I think." He was in his mid-forties, and his wire-rim glasses and jacket with no tie made him look like a handsome, tweedy college professor.

  After the requisite small talk and ordering drinks from an effeminate young barman,lhornberry dived into the interview.

  "So, you dated Parker Sinclair?"

  "For a year," she replied.

  "You said you had something to tell me about him?"

  Cushing looked around. The restaurant was loud, and no one seemed to be paying them any mind. "I read your story on Parker," she said. "I know you all think his murder may have something to do with the solicitor general or Black Wednesday. I also read all the great things his coworkers and others said about him. But there was another side of him. I doubt it's relevant, which is why I thought twice about calling you."

  "But I'm pretty persuasive," lhornberry said, noticing her nervousness and trying to lighten the mood.

  "Yes." She looked down at her drink. She was gorgeous, he thought, but she exuded insecurity.

  "Tonya, you don't have to worry. No one will know you spoke

  "He hit me," she interrupted. Her tone was unemotional and matter-of-fact but in his years working with sources, Thornberry had developed an instinct about when someone was telling the truth. He believed her.

  "Parker abused you?"

  Cushing took a drink of her beer, not looking at Thornberry. "He was so smart, and he could be so charming-you met him; you know what I mean."

  "Actually, we never met in person. We had only one call, the rest e-mail. Not sure how he got my name, but a detective on the case told me my business card was in his desk."

  "Well, anyway," Cushing said, "anyone who spent time with him would tell you he was charming. But when he got mad or jealous, he was different."

  "How long did this go on?"

  "Until I got up the courage to leave. One night he choked me until I passed out. That's when reality sank in, and I left."

  "Did you ever call the police?"Thornberry asked.

  "Not at first," she said. "But after the breakup, he started making harassing calls and showing up at my apartment. He tried to force his way in one night, so I got an order of protection from the D.C. Superior Court. I also called his law firm. Those two things seemed to help. Then he got his clerkship in New York, I changed my number, and I didn't see him again."

  "I'm sorry," Thornberry said, not really knowing what else to say. His mind raced about, plotting how he might use this for his story.

  "I'm better now," she replied, "but it took a while. I don't want to hurt his family-that's not why I called you. But a few months ago I met another former girlfriend of Parker's. We danced around the subject for a while, but we got to talking, and it turned out he'd done the same thing to her. I doubt this has any bearing on his death or the reports about the solicitor general, but I wanted to tell someone."

  "Have you told anyone else about this-the investigators?" Thornberry asked. He detected no hidden agenda, but contacting a reporter without first calling the authorities would raise a red flag.

  "I left a message on the Supreme Court Commission hotline, but they haven't called me back."

  "I suspect they've been inundated with calls in the past week since they released the information about the shooter,"lhornberry said.

  They finished their drinks, and he thanked Cushing for her help. In the morning, he would call his contact at the D.C. court and try to get a copy of the order of protection. Parker Sinclair was not what he seemed, and this intrigued him.

  FBI Field Office, Fourth Street Northwest, Washington,

  fter the false alarm at the library, Pacini and Assad ate pizza in a field office conference room, leaving Douglas Pratt to sit and stew in isolation. An agent entered the room and handed Pacini enhanced hard copies of the photos McKenna had e-mailed to Milstein.

  "We confirmed that the pictures were taken injustice Carmichael's chambers at the Supreme Court," the agent said, taking a slice of pizza from one of the three boxes spread out on the table nearby. "They match publicly available photographs of her chambers, and we showed them to a former clerk who works at DOJ, blacking out the images of the justices on the desk. He had no doubt it was her chambers. The pictures are taken from an angle that doesn't fit any of the windows. Someone had access to the room."

  "One of her trusted law clerks, perhaps," Pacini said, taking a bite of pepperoni and watching Pratt on the television monitor. The guy had his head down on the table, looking more like a high school kid in detention than a person of interest in a murder investigation. It was time to take another crack at him.

  Pratt looked up when Pacini and Assad entered the interrogation room. His eyes were red, and he had obviously been crying.

  "I've told you five times now, I want a lawyer," he whined.

  "Yeah, and we want some information," Pacini replied.

  "You can't deny me a lawyer."

  "You sure about that, Doug? You're a smart, young lawyer-you must've heard of the Patriot Act."

  Pratt put his head down again and gave a little whimper.

  According to plan, it was time for Assad to speak. "Look, Doug," he said. "We don't think you had anything to do with Black Wednesday. Or, at least, you didn't intend to." Assad pulled his chair next to Pratt so they were at eye level. "But we can't help you if you don't tell us your side of things."

  "Give me immunity, and I'll tell you what I know."

  "That may be something we can discuss," Pacini replied, "but first we need to know that you have something worth making a deal for."

  Pratt was about to break when the door burst open, and a portly man with a brown beard and a tailored suit walked in.

  "Stop. Stop now. Mr. Pratt, I've been retained to represent you. Do not say another word." The lawyer looked at Pacini and Assad. "You two know better. This won't be the last either of you hear about this."

  Pacini didn't argue, and just smiled at the lawyer as he and Assad left the room. An agent approached them.

  "How the hell did Blake Hellstrom know we had Pratt here?" Pacini asked her. "And who authorized him to even get in the building?"

  "I don't know, sir," the agent replied.

  "Well, find out."

  As the agent hurried off, Assad said, "Blake Hellstrom-someone I should know?"

  "Remember I told you about the investigation into the chief justice's widow and how she hired a big-shot lawyer?" Pacini said. "That's him."

  7:50p.m. Northwest, Washington, D.C.

  cKenna and Kate spent nearly an hour under McKenna's bed, waiting for the visitors to leave. They could not make out what the visitors were saying, but they could hear distorted commands coming from what they assumed were police radios. After hearing the door slam and no further movement in the house, they slid out from under the bed.

  "We n
eed to get out of here," McKenna said. He led Kate out the backdoor and to the alley behind his backyard fence.

  "Where are we going?" Kate asked.

  "I think it's time we spoke to Liddy Kincaid. She lives not too far from here."

  Kate started to speak, but stopped, realizing that protesting would be futile.

  Ten minutes later, they both lurked behind a privet hedge alongside Liddy Kincaid's home.

  "I think we should leave, Jefferson," Kate whispered.

  "And go where?"

  Kate looked at McKenna intently. "What do you think talking to Liddy Kincaid is going to accomplish?"

  "I'm going to ask her to explain the man she met with at the horse stable," he replied.

  Before they could debate the point further, headlights approached, and Mrs. Kincaid's Mercedes pulled into the circular gravel driveway in front of the colonial mansion.

  "Maybe you should talk first," he said. "I'll just scare her if she recognizes me."

  "Fine," Kate said, and gave him an exasperated look.

  They walked up to the car with Kate in the lead. "Mrs. Kincaid?"

  Liddy Kincaid looked up, startled, as she got out of her Mercedes. She clutched her Louis Vuitton handbag and looked wide-eyed at the two visitors standing before her.

  "Can I help you?" She looked uneasily from Kate to McKenna.

  "We need to speak with you about your husband," Kate said.

  "I'm afraid I don't understand." She walked decisively to the front door and put her key in the lock. "I'm rather busy. Perhaps you can call my attorney."

  "We're not going anywhere until you talk with us," McKenna said.

  "I beg your pardon! Leave or I'm calling the police," Liddy said, holding up a cell phone.

  "Good. We can talk with them about your husband's affair with Justice Carmichael," McKenna said. "I've even got some pictures I think they'll be interested in."