Kelsi Shelton entered the room. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt and nothing else. She made her way to the stereo and put on the new James Taylor CD. “He’s an old fart, but he’s dreamy,” she said.
“He’s frickin’ bald, girl. Are you nuts?” Clay’s eyes were locked on Kelsi’s.
Kelsi smiled. “His voice is like maple syrup.” She sat on the couch. “Oh. I forgot. You’re from South Carolina. You use molasses down there.” She leaned over and kissed Clay on the cheek.
Shit, Clay said to himself. This is going to be even more difficult than I thought.
The first cut was the deepest. Sheryl Crow had sung that line in a pop hit once, but she surely had something else in mind when she did.
Kelsi was too stunned to scream. Instead, she gasped and slid off the couch. Blood spotted the rug like a bug against a trucker’s windshield.
Clay said, “Sorry” and raced from the room. So much for earning a law degree from UVA, he said to himself. But his loyalty to the Klan came first. “Akia,” he said as he slammed shut the door to Kelsi’s apartment. A klansman I am.
Minutes passed like hours as Kelsi Shelton struggled for her life. She now knew what Professor McDonald must have felt like. Professor McDonald …
She should have been dead already. Clay certainly thought she was. Why would he do it? Why would he stab her?
Kelsi had known ever since the first time she had met Clay at a 1L orientation that he had a crush on her. She had finally given him what he wanted—herself—and this was how he responded? It didn’t make sense. Yes, she had heard the rumors about Clay and the Ku Klux Klan, but she had never believed them. Nobody did. But were they true? Could Clay Smith really be a member of the most hate-filled organization in U.S. history?
Kelsi knew she would never know the answer. She knew she would never know anything ever again.
She closed her eyes. For forever, she thought.
CHAPTER 39
The Ku Klux Klan had entered the twenty-first century; most klansmen now carried cell phones or Blackberries. Earl Smith certainly did, and he had forgotten to turn his off. It started ringing—an old Hank Williams Jr. hit served as the ring tone—and that stopped the FBI agents who were chasing him dead in their tracks.
“What’s that?” one of the agents asked.
“It sounds like a cell phone,” another one answered. “Is it yours?”
“No,” the first agent said. “It’s coming from over there.” He pointed to a large oak tree a hundred feet to the left of where the agents were standing.
But Earl Smith was already gone.
“Answer the phone, Uncle Earl,” Clay Smith said. “Answer your goddamn cell phone.”
Clay was driving down Emmet Street on his way to who knew where. He passed several of the local haunts he had grown to know and love: John Paul Jones Arena, where the men’s and women’s basketball teams played to capacity crowds; China Dragon, the best Chinese buffet in town; and the Emmet Street Apartments, where he shared a room with a graduate student in the American history department. Clay wondered how long it would be before his roommate—a quiet, socially awkward guy from Vermont—would notice he was missing.
He turned onto University Avenue and headed toward the Corner, the part of town where his day with Kelsi Shelton had begun. His stomach felt as if it were being attacked by fire ants as he realized that Kelsi had probably bled to death by now.
He pressed the speed dial on his cell phone again. This time, all he got was his uncle’s voicemail.
Earl Smith pushed through the brush. Vines and branches snapped against his face like switches to the bottom of a spoiled child. If he hadn’t traversed the terrain hundreds of times during his youth, he never would have made it. He knew that the Feds were probably having all sorts of difficulty keeping pace with him.
He made his way toward an abandoned moonshiner’s shack. He had frequented the shack many times over the years. He used to play hooky there as a kid. More recently, the shack had served as a hideout for when the local cops decided to make their annual raid on one of his Klan meetings. Billy Joe Collier was the only other member of the Charleston den who knew about the place. Smith could only hope that Collier hadn’t decided to make his escape there, too.
Clay Smith flipped on the radio. He tuned the dial to 93.7. He figured that the college station would be the best place to learn whether the cops had discovered Kelsi’s body.
Clay’s car sounded older than the DJ did. She said, “This is Annie Paulsen, and you’re listening to WUVA in Charlottesville. I’d like to send a shout out to the brothers at Kappa Sig. That was a slammin’ rave last night, fellas. I sure hope that Kenny Watts managed to pull his head out of the toilet!” She giggled like the sorority girl she undoubtedly was. Then, she paused. Her tone changed 180 degrees. “I’ve just been handed a bulletin,” she said, her voice cracking. “Campus police are reporting that Kelsi Shelton, a third-year law student, has been stabbed.”
“But is she dead?!” Clay shouted. “Is she dead?!” He was confused about what he wanted the answer to be.
The student DJ continued, “She’s being rushed to UVA hospital. No word yet on whether her injuries are life-threatening. No word on who her attacker was, either.” After another pause, she said, “Please say a prayer for Kelsi, people. And please be careful out there.”
Earl Smith struck a match. He lit the kerosene lamp he kept behind the door. He was pleased to see that the cabin was just as he had left it. A week’s supply of canned food, crackers, and bottled water was stacked in the corner. A tattered but functional army cot—Smith had done a tour in Iraq during the second Gulf War—looked particularly inviting at the rear of the room. Most important of all, there was no sign of Billy Joe Collier … or of anyone else.
Smith removed his left boot and shook a stone loose. It had been irritating his foot for a good quarter mile, but he couldn’t risk slowing down to get rid of it. He wiped his face dry with the blanket that covered the cot, grabbed a bottle of water from the stack in the corner, and took a long drink. He had forgotten how good water could taste.
He remembered his voicemail. He plopped down on the cot and checked it. There was a message from Clay. His nephew sounded frantic. Smith could understand why: It was the first time that Clay had been asked to kill a white person.
Clay said, “It’s me, Uncle Earl. I did it. I killed Kelsi Shelton… . At least I think I did.”
Shit, Smith said to himself. Clay “thinks” he killed her? He better have succeeded. Smith was in enough trouble as it was with the Klan. He didn’t need to piss off Senator Burton, too.
Earl Smith had never understood why Senator Burton had wanted Kelsi Shelton dead. Burton had said that it was to throw people off track. “Folks’ll think it was some love triangle gone bad,” Burton had told Smith over a secure phone line. “Everybody already thinks that McDonald is sleeping with the girl. This’ll just add more fuel to the fire. Especially if that pretty boy nephew of yours is involved.”
Of course Smith had never told his nephew that he was just a pawn in Senator Burton’s chess game. He should have told him, but he didn’t. Some things were thicker than blood.
CHAPTER 40
Senator Alexandra Burton rushed into her suite of offices.
“Good morning, Senator,” one of her legislative aides said. The aide pushed aside some draft legislation and stood to his feet.
The senator kept walking.
“Coffee?” Burton’s secretary asked. She smiled politely at her boss.
“No,” Burton answered. “And no interruptions.”
The senator entered her private office and closed the door. She flipped on all four of the television sets, which filled a space formerly occupied by books. Burton’s books—thousands of them—had been relocated to her home library.
Unlike most Americans living in the age of digital this and electronic that, Alexandra Burton still read books. But her literary sensibilities weren’t dictat
ed by Oprah Winfrey, The Today Show, or the New York Times. She had never read a James Patterson suspense novel, let alone a self-help book by Dr. Phil. She didn’t have a clue who Stephanie Meyer was. No, Burton preferred the great works of political philosophy. Her favorite—her bible—was The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.
The Prince, written in 1513 but not published until after Machiavelli’s death in 1532, was one of the most significant books ever written about the art of politics. Its essential contribution rested in Machiavelli’s assertion of the then revolutionary idea that theological and moral imperatives had no place in the political arena. “It must be understood,” Machiavelli had written, “that a prince cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state.”
That was precisely what Burton was trying to do: “preserve the state.” Or at least that was what she kept telling herself when she arranged Ku Klux Klan hits on innocent people who got in her way.
The senator sat back in her captain’s chair. Her eyes scanned the four television screens in front of her. CNN was in the midst of what was likely its tenth story of the day about the “crisis in North Korea.” MSNBC was broadcasting some sort of political talk show hosted by a former legislative aide to a backbench congressman. CNBC was squawking about the latest insider trading scandal rocking Wall Street. Last but far from least, FOX News was busy spinning out conspiracy theories against the “liberal establishment” in general and the “liberal media” in particular.
But then everything changed in the blink of a digital eye. All four twenty-four-hour news networks cut to an anchorperson for “breaking news.” Burton turned up the volume on the television tuned to CNN. She muted the other three. She leaned forward in her chair. She cupped her chin in her hand.
“This is Marie Gonzalez in Washington,” the anchorwoman said. “CNN is reporting that Kelsi Shelton, a student assistant to Supreme Court nominee Peter McDonald, has been wounded at her apartment in Charlottesville, Virginia.” The anchorwoman, who barely looked old enough to have graduated from law school herself and who undoubtedly had landed her plum assignment as part of CNN’s diversity initiative, continued. “There’s no word yet about whether Ms. Shelton has survived the attack… . Stay tuned to CNN throughout the day for updates on this developing story.”
Burton switched off the TVs and smiled. She opened The Prince and began rereading her favorite passage. For the first time since her grandson’s suicide, she thought that her plan to capture the presidency might actually work. Burton loved her grandson, and she was being sincere when she had stated publicly that she supported her daughter and son-in-law’s lawsuit against the University of South Carolina “one hundred percent.” But she loved power more and realized soon after her grandson’s death that she might be able to parlay that tragedy into the most powerful office in the world … an office currently occupied by a black man.
CHAPTER 41
The University of Virginia Medical Center had received a fifty-million-dollar upgrade two years earlier. It was a good thing, too. Otherwise, Kelsi Shelton wouldn’t have stood a chance.
The EMT burst through the emergency room door. “Laceration to the abdomen! Massive blood loss! Patient isn’t conscious! Stat! Stat, goddamn it! Stat!” The EMT maneuvered the stretcher down the congested corridor like Jeff Gordon on a NASCAR track.
The ER doctor came running. “Excuse me!” she said as she weaved through a sea of nurses, orderlies, and hospital staff. “Excuse me, please!”
The UVA Medical Center usually wasn’t this busy. However, a school bus had slid off the road in Albemarle County, and dozens of injured teenagers were in need of medical attention.
“Geez, Doc,” the EMT said. “It’s like Foxfield in here.”
Foxfield was the annual steeplechase that drew thousands of people to the Charlottesville area every spring. That was a happy day. This wasn’t.
“I know. It’s nuts.” The ER doctor directed her attention to Kelsi Shelton. “What happened?”
“Campus police said that somebody stabbed her. Can you imagine such a thing? This is a university town, for God’s sake.” The EMT was still pushing the stretcher down the corridor. “Lucky for her, a friend came in and found her. Lucky for her, her friend had decided to skip class this afternoon.”
The ER doctor was eyeballing the location and depth of the stab wound. “Bring her to trauma five. I just hope we’re not too late.”
Dr. Morris Tanenbaum appeared on the scene almost the instant he was paged. Normally, the pressure of prior commitments would have made it difficult for him to answer a page in less than fifteen minutes, but this page concerned a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.
“Welcome back,” Dr. Tanenbaum said to his patient. “We were worried there for a while.” The doctor couldn’t hide his joy.
Peter McDonald stared up at Tanenbaum. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He said, “Where am I? Wh… what happened?”
Tanenbaum said, “You’re at Bethesda Naval Hospital. You got shot. I’m Morris Tanenbaum, the doctor in charge of your case.”
McDonald’s eyes searched the room. He still didn’t appear to know what was going on or where he was. “What do you mean, I got shot? Who would want to shoot me?”
Tanenbaum inched closer to the bed. He checked the IV bag and the heart monitor. Both were in good shape. He entered these facts onto McDonald’s chart. “The police said that it was probably someone who wanted to keep you off the Court.”
The mention of the Court snapped McDonald back to coherence. “Where’s Kelsi? Is she all right?”
Tanenbaum swallowed. “We don’t know yet. She wasn’t hurt when she was with you, but she got stabbed earlier today.”
“Stabbed! I need to see her!” McDonald swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to struggle to his feet.
“Don’t, Professor. You need to stay put. Besides, Kelsi’s not here. She’s down in Charlottesville at the UVA Medical Center.”
“Then that’s where I’m going.” McDonald pulled the tubes from his arm and scavenged through the closet for his clothes.
CHAPTER 42
The stabbing of Kelsi Shelton was receiving major play in the national media. CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and FOX News had been focusing exclusively on the story for the better part of the afternoon, while ABC, NBC, and CBS were devoting special reports to it during breaks in their regular programming. Even E! and MTV were covering the story. People got attacked every day in the United States, but they usually weren’t beautiful research assistants to telegenic Supreme Court nominees. TV journalists lived for stories such as this one.
The ER team was working feverishly to save Kelsi’s life. A doctor applied compression to try to stop the bleeding. A nurse attached an IV bag and a heart monitor. A second nurse watched Kelsi’s breathing. Both her heart and breathing were extremely weak.
“We’re losing her,” the first nurse said.
“Come on, Kelsi,” the doctor said. “Stay with us. Stay with us!”
Kelsi wasn’t responding.
The second nurse handed the doctor the defibrillator. The doctor hadn’t asked for it, but this particular ER team had worked together long enough that each member anticipated what the others needed.
“Clear!” the doctor said. She applied the paddles to Kelsi’s chest and administered a two-hundred-volt shock.
The first nurse said, “Still falling.”
“Give me three hundred.” The doctor administered another shock.
“Still falling.”
“Four hundred… . Clear!”
“Got it,” the nurse said.
The ER team issued a collective sigh of relief as the patient’s vital signs began to stabilize.
The doctor pulled her surgical mask from her face, wiped the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her scrubs, and said, “Any wo
rd on Professor McDonald?”
The second nurse said, “The news said he’s going to make it.”
The first nurse said, “They called from Bethesda to let us know that he’s on his way.”
“Here? To the hospital?” The doctor pitched her surgical mask into the wastebasket. “Tell them to stop him. Kelsi’s not ready for visitors. Kelsi’s not out of the woods.”
CHAPTER 43
“Please, get back in bed.” Secret Service Agent Brian Neal watched helplessly while his body—Supreme Court nominee Peter McDonald—struggled to pull on pants. “You’re not well enough to travel.”
Dr. Morris Tanenbaum said, “He’s right, Professor.” Dr. Tanenbaum sounded more helpless than Agent Neal did. But the doctor was hoping to play a trump card. Please, he said to himself. Ring. Ring. He stared at the telephone on the nightstand next to McDonald’s bed. Unlike the proverbial watched pot, this phone did ring.
Tanenbaum sprang across the room to answer it. “Mr. President,” he said. “Thanks for calling.”
McDonald and Neal both froze. Mere mention that the president—any president—was on the phone tended to elicit that sort of reaction. It always had, and almost certainly always would.
Tanenbaum next said, “Yes, Mr. President. He’s here.”
The doctor handed the telephone to McDonald.
The professor said, “Good afternoon, sir.”
Peter McDonald had spoken to Charles Jackson on only one prior occasion. But he would never forget that conversation because of where it had occurred and what they had discussed. The place: the Oval Office. The topic: filling a vacancy on the nation’s highest court.
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