Mr. Justice

by Scott Douglas Gerber

  Wells’s reference to his granddaughter drew smiles from his colleagues. The little girl was only seven years old. Wells had introduced her to the members of the Judiciary Committee on several occasions in the past.

  Burton said, “I’m not so sure conducting the hearing by video is such a good idea. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “This is the twenty-first century, Alexandra. I think we should give it a try.” The Republican senator from New Mexico had done a 180 in his stance about whether the committee should continue to press forward with Peter McDonald’s confirmation hearing.

  Senator Burton—Imperial Wizard Burton—knew that sealed the deal.

  CHAPTER 56

  Cat Wilson pulled her cell phone from her purse. She had the ringtone set to Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again. She hated the song, but it was Earl Smith’s favorite. She had never heard it before she met him. She downloaded it at his insistence as a remembrance of him. “What do ya got to remember me by?” she had said at the time. Smith had smiled and grabbed her ass.

  “Hello,” Cat said as she snapped open the phone. Smith had promised to call when he reached D.C. and Cat was hoping it was him. It wasn’t. It was her manager at the Waffle House. He wanted to know whether she could come in at midnight to work an extra shift. She said she would let him know after she tried to find a babysitter.

  Cat normally tried to avoid babysitters, both because they were expensive and because she had seen an episode of the Tyra Banks Show a couple of months earlier entitled Babysitters Who Kill. The program had scared her to death. She was grateful to Tyra for airing it, though. Tyra cared about regular folks like Cat. Oprah only talked about things rich women liked.

  Cat’s dislike of babysitters notwithstanding, she needed to figure out a way to work the extra shift. She was desperate for money. Kids were expensive. And even though Cat avoided buying her daughter fancy toys, the child needed to be clothed and fed. Cat pushed the button for her contacts list and dialed her mom.

  Cat hadn’t been on speaking terms with her mom for years. Her mom seemed to resent the fact that Cat—an unexpected pregnancy from an unexpected man—had disrupted her dreams of becoming a nurse. High school students with a baby on the way weren’t attractive candidates to college admissions officers—at least not in South Carolina. So Cat’s mom, Beth, had foregone college for a life as a chambermaid at the Charleston Holiday Inn. Beth loved her daughter, obviously, but it was too much to bear when Cat repeated her own mistake: an unexpected pregnancy from an unexpected man. But all was forgiven when Isabel Tamara Wilson entered the world on a sun-splashed Tuesday in March at 9:22 A.M.

  “Hi, Momma, it’s me,” Cat said into the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” Beth Wilson said. “Is Bella all right?”

  Bella was Isabel’s nickname.

  “Bella’s fine, Momma. But she is why I’m callin’.”

  “Let me guess,” Beth said next. “You need me to babysit, and you need me to babysit now.”

  “Yes, Momma. Sorry I didn’t give you more notice, but my manager just called. He needs for me to pick up an extra shift at the diner. I need the money, but I don’t need to tell you that.”

  Indeed, Cat didn’t need to tell her mother about how short she was on cash at the moment. She was always short on cash. And that was why Beth Wilson had hoped that Cat Wilson would go back to school—so her daughter, and granddaughter, could stop the cycle of poverty.

  Beth said, “You know how much I love that baby doll. Of course I’ll babysit Bella. But don’t forget to bring me a couple of them waffles when you come to pick her up after your shift’s over. I love them things, too.”

  Cat said, smiling, “I’ll remember. I always do.” She terminated the phone call by snapping her cell phone shut and headed to Bella’s room to get her daughter ready for yet another night at grandma’s house. She called her manager to tell him she was on her way.

  Cat turned into the Waffle House’s parking lot. A knot formed in her stomach, as it always did when she arrived. Working a dead-end job in a decaying part of town in the middle of the night wasn’t how she expected her life to turn out. But after Bella was born, she had to put food in her daughter’s mouth, and waitressing was the only job she could get with a GED.

  She parked her car in her usual spot next to the newspaper boxes. She exited her car and pushed open the door to the diner. Her manager said hello to her. He was a nice man, but she froze. Fear washed over her. “I gotta go,” she said to him. “Sorry, but I gotta go.”

  She jumped back into her car and headed north to the nation’s capital.

  CHAPTER 57

  “The senator will see you now,” the heavyset secretary said with a cheerful smile.

  Clay Smith returned the copy of The Washington Times that he was reading to the coffee table in front of him, straightened his tie, and stood.

  The secretary escorted Clay to the private office in the corner of the suite, knocked lightly on the door, and turned the knob.

  Senator Alexandra Burton greeted Clay with a warm handshake.

  The secretary exited the room.

  Burton said, “It’s nice to finally meet you, young man. Your uncle was very proud of you. You’ll have the world at your feet after you graduate from law school.”

  “Thank you, Senator. But that’s what I needed to talk to you about.”

  Burton motioned for Clay to take a seat on the couch behind them. Clay did. Burton sat in the chair across from Clay. “So this isn’t a courtesy call from a grateful constituent?” Burton knew it wasn’t.

  Clay shook his head. He studied the scuffs on his shoes. “May I speak freely? I mean, is there anyone listening?”

  “Of course there’s no one listening. You’ve seen too many movies, son. Hidden tape recorders went out the window when Richard Nixon was forced from office.”

  Well, not really. But Burton didn’t think that Clay needed to know about her recording system.

  “Thank you, Senator,” Clay said. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Akia. Kigy.”

  Burton smiled and nodded. “Akia. Kigy.”

  “Is it true, Senator? Are you who my uncle said you are?”

  For some reason, Burton had let her guard down with Clay Smith. Perhaps it was because Clay reminded her of her grandson; they were both tall, dark, and irresistibly handsome, as the cliché went. She knew what Clay was asking her. “Yes, it’s true.”

  Clay dropped to his knees and kissed the imperial wizard’s ring.

  “Come on, son. Let’s go somewhere we can really talk.” Burton stood and walked toward the bookcase. She removed a two-volume set of David Duncan Wallace’s The History of South Carolina from the shelf and pressed her palm against the marble block behind the books. The bookcase swung open and revealed a secret room.

  Clay felt as if he were witnessing an episode of 24, the over-the-top spy show that most UVA law students watched as a guilty pleasure to break the monotony of studying contracts law and the like. He glanced around the room to see if Kiefer Sutherland had somehow appeared out of nowhere, as he so often did on the TV show. Obviously, Mr. Sutherland was nowhere to be found.

  “Come on,” Burton said again.

  Clay followed the imperial wizard into the secret room behind the bookcase.

  CHAPTER 58

  Clay took a quick inventory of the room. He estimated the room’s dimensions at twelve feet by twelve feet with a ten-foot ceiling. Its walls were white marble, as were the walls in most of the rooms in the U.S. Capitol. But unlike the other rooms in the Capitol building, this particular room had a large cross in the west corner. No American flag. No South Carolina flag. Just a large wooden cross. The cross … always and forever … the fiery cross.

  Burton directed Clay to the two chairs next to the cross.

  Clay sat in the chair closest to the entryway. He noticed that both chairs were embossed with the seal of the U.S. Senate. The Senate’s seal, based on the Great Sea
l of the United States, included a scroll inscribed with the words E Pluribus Unum floating across a shield with thirteen stars on top and thirteen vertical stripes on the bottom. Olive and oak branches symbolizing peace and strength graced the sides of the shield, and a red liberty cap and crossed fasces represented freedom and authority. Blue beams of light emanated from the shield. Surrounding the seal was a legend that read, United States Senate.

  This is surreal, Clay thought. He turned to Burton but was at a loss for words.

  “What is it, son?” Burton said. “What did you need to talk to me about?” She placed her hand on Clay’s shoulder the way she used to do with her grandson.

  “It’s about my uncle.”

  “What about him?” Burton straightened in her chair. After all, Earl Smith was a member of the kloncilium, he was dead, and Burton had asked Clay to find out how he died. “Did you find out who killed him?”

  Klansmen didn’t die. They were killed.

  “Ye … yes …”

  “Who was it, son? Who was it?”

  “Me… . It … it was me.” Clay started to cry.

  “What? You killed your uncle? Why, son? Why?”

  “Because he was sleeping with a nigger woman.” The mere thought of such an unforgivable act had changed Clay’s demeanor from sorrow to shame. Earl Smith was Clay’s blood.

  The secret room filled with silence, although if Clay listened closely enough he could swear that he heard the wheels in Burton’s head turning. Clay was no dummy—a student didn’t get admitted to the University of Virginia School of Law unless he was at the top of his college class and scored in the ninetieth percentile or better on the Law School Admissions Test—but he knew that Burton was operating at a different level. Only a truly brilliant woman could have had the kind of career that Burton had enjoyed: sitting U.S. senator, likely Republican candidate for president, and most important of all as far as Clay was concerned, imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

  Burton said, “You did the right thing, son. I’m proud of you. Sleeping with a nigger is a sin. It’s an insult to the sacred order and a betrayal of everything that’s just and right.”

  “But he was my uncle … my blood.”

  “The Klan is your blood, son. When your uncle slept with a nigger woman, her blood became his blood. He ceased being your blood then. He ceased being your family.”

  “Thank you for saying that, Your Excellency. That makes me feel a lot better.” Clay had stopped crying. “Is there anything you need me to do? I’m here to serve. I’m here to fight for what’s just and right.”

  It took Alexandra Burton merely a moment to realize that someone as bright as Clay Smith, and someone who was willing to kill a member of his own family, could be of tremendous value to her. The senator—the imperial wizard—explained to Clay what she wanted him to do.

  CHAPTER 59

  Cat Wilson exited Interstate 95 about two miles north of Richmond and searched for somewhere to eat. She spotted the familiar yellow Scrabble-like letters and parked her dilapidated Chevy in the space closest to the door. The irony wasn’t lost on her: She had selected a Waffle House as her lunch venue. But she had never traveled outside of South Carolina before, she was nervous, and she wanted to eat at someplace she knew. Besides, she said to herself as she entered the diner, it would be fun to see how her colleagues did their jobs.

  “Sit anywhere you like, hon,” a waitress said when Cat crossed the threshold.

  “Thanks.” Cat grabbed a corner booth.

  A different waitress approached. She looked like she was in high school. “Do you need a menu?”

  Cat smiled and shook her head. “No, thanks. I work at a Waffle House in Charleston.”

  The waitress returned Cat’s smile. “You’ve got the menu memorized then, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “What would you like? Get whatever you want. This one’s on the house.”

  Cat choked up a bit. She wasn’t used to people being nice to her… . Only Earl Smith was. Earl … “Thanks. That’s sweet of you. Since it’s free, I’ll have the All-Star Special!”

  “A little thing like you?” The waitress was one to talk; she was as tiny as a teapot.

  “Yep. I haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday mornin’.”

  It took less than ten minutes for Cat’s meal to arrive, but she took her time eating it. She didn’t eat out much. She couldn’t afford to. Almost every dollar she earned she spent on her daughter. She wanted to savor the moment, even if the moment involved a couple of eggs over easy, hash browns, two slices of bacon, and a waffle.

  Fifteen minutes later, the waitress topped off Cat’s coffee. “How’s everything?”

  “Wonderful. Everything’s just wonderful.”

  “Glad to hear it.” The waitress wiped the lip of the coffeepot with the spare napkin she kept tucked in her apron. “You never mentioned why you’re in our neck of the woods. Richmond isn’t exactly Atlantic City in the fun department.”

  Cat took a sip of coffee. “Richmond’s just a pit stop on my way to D.C.”

  “D.C., huh? What are you gonna do there? Are you on vacation?”

  “Kind of.” Cat salted her eggs. “I’m hoping to surprise my boyfriend. He’s in D.C. on business. I haven’t heard from him in a while, and I miss him.”

  “I love that sort of thing.” The waitress returned the spare napkin to her apron’s pocket. “It’s romantic. It’s like one of those old Meg Ryan movies my mom is always watching.”

  Cat thought it was romantic, too. She could only hope that Earl agreed.

  CHAPTER 60

  Peter McDonald struggled to put on his shirt and tie. It still hurt when he moved. He planned to wait until the last possible moment to twist into his jacket.

  Jim Westfall entered the room. He said, “Good morning, Professor. How are you feeling?”

  McDonald had grown tired of that question. He was asked it seemingly every hour on the hour. He understood why: he had been nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States and he had been shot. He answered as he always did: “Fine, thanks.” Then, he said something new: “I’m just looking forward to getting these hearings over with. They make a Dickens plot look simplistic. It’s Bleak House all over again.”

  Westfall said, “I know. We’re looking forward to the end zone, too. The president wanted me to pass along his best wishes. He also wanted me to say that he appreciates your continued willingness to serve our great country. He has complete confidence that you’ll be confirmed and that you’ll eventually go down in history as one of the finest justices to ever serve on the Supreme Court.”

  McDonald wiggled out of his hospital bed and inched his way to a chair in a corner of the room. “Tell the president I’m grateful for his kind words.” McDonald sat. He grimaced when he did. “Is this where I’m supposed to be?”

  “Yes. The camera’s up there.” Westfall pointed to a small TV camera hanging from a cord on the ceiling.

  McDonald combed his hair with his fingers. “Obviously, the committee will be able to see me. But how will I see them?”

  “Through the television. As you know, your hearings are being broadcast live on all the major networks. You’ll see what the nation sees.”

  The nation saw a close-up of Senator Alexandra Burton.

  The FOX News reporter said, “Good morning, America.” The reporter used to be a news reader for ABC and he often forgot that “Good morning, America” was a registered trademark of a rival television network. “After much delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Peter McDonald are about to resume. It looks like Senator Alexandra Burton, the committee’s chairwoman, is reaching for her gavel as I speak.”

  Burton sounded her gavel. “Order. Order. The hearing room will please come to order. I hereby reconvene the confirmation hearings of Peter McDonald to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

  The crowded hearing room became so q
uiet that Jim Westfall double-checked to make sure the volume on the TV was still on. It was.

  The FOX News reporter said, “I feel like I’m back in constitutional law class. Boy, was my professor strict.”

  McDonald smiled at the comment. He wasn’t a “strict” classroom teacher, but several of his colleagues were. They weren’t particularly popular with the students. If a student was caught instant-messaging or surfing the Web during class, he or she was booted unceremoniously from the room.

  The camera panned from Burton’s regal profile down the dais of her fellow Judiciary Committee members. All were sporting expressions that bespoke the solemnity of the occasion.

  Burton said, “Good morning, Professor. I was pleased to learn that you were feeling well enough to resume your confirmation hearings.”

  Of course that wasn’t true, and McDonald knew it. But the nominee merely said, “Thank you.”

  Burton said, “If memory serves, it’s Senator Foley’s turn to question you. Senator Foley …”

  CHAPTER 61

  “Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.”

  Frank Foley was a freshman senator from Massachusetts, and he was gay. He had already had several skirmishes with Alexandra Burton. None were major. They involved matters such as where Foley sat on the dais (Burton placed him on the end), whether Foley was entitled to an extra staff member to assist him with his Judiciary Committee responsibilities (Burton had said no), and whether Foley could participate by conference call in committee meetings when he was out of town (Burton had again said no). Foley could see the logic in Burton’s decisions about those protocols, but he resented the fact that the senior senator from South Carolina tried to lord over him like, say, a master over a slave, especially given who Foley was: the rising star of the Democratic Party and, probably sooner rather than later, perhaps the first openly gay president of the United States. He was so popular that Ellen DeGeneres often raised money for him.