Blowout ft-9

by Catherine Coulter

  “What time did Danny go into Justice Califano’s office?”

  Fleurette looked perfectly blank. “I don’t remember that. No, wait, yes, I remember I had to go to the bathroom, but Danny still wasn’t at his desk when I got back. Eliza waved toward the door when I asked where Danny was.

  “I raised my eyebrows, but she just shrugged, then the phone began ringing. The secretaries always forward the calls to Eliza if the caller doesn’t ask specifically for either Danny or me. Then both of us were tied up for a good half hour.”

  “So you don’t know how long Danny was in the office?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Oh God, poor Danny. Why would he do what you’re suggesting? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. He wasn’t stupid. He wanted a recommendation from Justice Califano that would make the New York law firms sit up and beg for him. It didn’t matter that both of us were second fiddle to Eliza. She’s really brilliant, and even better, when Danny and I came last July, she knew the ropes since she’d already been there a year.”

  Fleurette looked toward the open drapes that gave onto the street in front of the brownstone. “Now it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “No,” Sherlock said. “No, it doesn’t matter now. Did Danny give you any hint at all of what he’d spoken to Justice Califano about?”

  Fleurette slowly shook her head. “No, but now that I picture his face in my mind, he looked—smug, yeah, that’s it, Danny looked kind of smug. I hadn’t seen that expression on his face before, so it struck me. I remember wondering, now what’s going on here?”

  “But he looked smug—like he’d found out something and rubbed Justice Califano’s nose in it?”

  “I didn’t think that then, but it could have been something like that, I suppose. Oh goodness, it was only two days ago—and now Danny’s dead.”

  “Do you remember seeing any papers on Justice Califano’s desk, see him put any papers in his breast pocket, hear him on the phone?”

  Fleurette slowly shook her head. “Wait—when he came out to run off to Chief Justice Abrams’s meeting, he was sticking something in his breast pocket, and then patted the pocket. But he was always doing that.”

  “Any ideas about what the papers were?”

  “No, not a clue.”

  “Did you ever hear of Justice Califano being involved with anyone at the Court?”

  Fleurette rocked back with surprise. “Oh my, no, Agent Sherlock. He’s old, and all sorts of proper and married, for God’s sake.” She paused a moment. “On the other hand, Justice Wallace has a reputation, if you know what I mean. He’s a grandfather as well as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Isn’t that disgusting?”

  Sherlock patted her hand.

  That was interesting, Savich thought. He looked over at Ben who’d taken Callie’s hand to keep her still. Eliza Vickers and Justice Califano were indeed good actors if the law clerks hadn’t known. But Justice Xavier-Foxx had noticed.

  Sherlock rose, and everyone rose with her. She gave Fleurette her card and told her exactly what Savich had told Eliza Vickers. “Anything, doesn’t matter if you think it’s silly, you call me. We’ll catch this guy, Fleurette, you can take that to the bank.”

  They drove six blocks over to Indiana, only a block from the Daly Building, to the Beau Monde Coffee Shop. Savich took his chances and ordered tea, the other three, coffee.

  “So, Callie, tell me what you think of Fleurette,” Sherlock said.

  “She’s really scared.”

  Ben slowly nodded. “You’re right. I realize that now, but I didn’t pick up on it when we were with her.”

  Savich said, “Do you think she was holding back?”

  “She sure didn’t seem like she was,” Callie said. “I have to tell you, though, I’m surprised that she hadn’t picked up on the affair Eliza was having with my stepfather. Such close quarters, in each other’s faces every day. And yet Justice Xavier-Foxx, who’s not around them that much, picked up on what Eliza felt for him.”

  “Yes, I was surprised, too,” Ben said.

  Callie sat back in the booth, fiddled with her fork. “I still can’t come to grips with it. He wanted to marry my mom so much. I don’t understand how that can be. My poor mother. Do you think she knew? Maybe guessed?”

  “I hope not,” Savich said. “Fleurette was scared,” Savich continued as he selected a bag of Earl Grey tea from a box the waitress held out to him. “I wonder if she has something specific to be scared about.”

  “Justice Califano and Daniel O’Malley are dead,” Ben said. “If I were Vickers or LaFleurette, I’d be scared on general principles.”

  “But Danny was acting strange, if they’re telling the truth,” Sherlock said. “You don’t think either of those two women would be stupid enough to be in on it, do you, Dillon?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, no. The agents assigned to guard them, they’ll keep an eye on them. They should be on the job pretty soon.” Savich picked up his teacup, sipped cautiously, and sighed with pleasure. “Who knew I’d find good tea not a block from the Daly Building?”

  Sherlock laughed, patted his arm. “Since Ben hangs out here, you can make it something of a hangout yourself. Callie, did you pick up anything else?”

  Callie shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so. Did Eliza Vickers think my stepfather would divorce my mom and marry her?”

  “No. She seems philosophical about the future. I don’t doubt her, Callie. She’s a good woman, works hard, probably learns at a prodigious rate, but most of all, she enjoys being on the inside, close to power, which is one of the trimmings your stepfather provided her. But she knew that he loved your mother and you. She said so. You’ve got to let it go. It doesn’t matter now.”

  But Callie couldn’t let it go. “How could my mother not know? Not guess? I know if I were married to a man for as long as they were married, I’d know if he wasn’t faithful.”

  “She’s never given you any inkling that she had any suspicions at all?”

  “No, she hasn’t.” Callie looked at Ben, whose expression surprised her. It was austere as a monk’s, his eyes very cold. “What?”

  Ben Raven said, “I don’t approve of infidelity.”

  Savich raised his teacup and gave Sherlock’s cup a tap. “Well, neither do we.”

  “But if Callie’s right, why was Fleurette scared? Did you pick up on Eliza Vickers being scared as well?”

  Both Savich and Sherlock shook their heads.

  Savich said, “I need to get back and spend some time with MAX. We’ve got a whole crew inputting all the background information and interviews on all the players—the law clerks, the Justices, and your mother’s and stepfather’s friends and acquaintances, Callie. It’s time for me to sort through some of that.”

  “Does that include financials? Bank stuff?”

  Savich merely shrugged. “MAX went platinum a good while ago. He can find out almost anything at all. If he’s in the mood, he can data-mine in Siberia.”

  “Okay, okay, I get it. You cut corners.”

  Ben said, “You aren’t going to call that into your editor at the Post, are you, Ms. Markham? Do an exposé about misuse of federal power?”

  Callie struck a pose that Sherlock thought was very effective. It nearly put Ben Raven right under the Formica table. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you bring it up—ah, so many possibilities.”

  “To think I told this woman what an excellent butt she has,” Ben remarked to the café at large.

  Sherlock laughed and tapped Ben on the shoulder. Before she could say anything, Ben added, “She also thinks your husband is cute. What do you think of that, Sherlock?”

  “A woman of excellent eyesight and taste,” Sherlock said. “Hmm. Dillon, what do you think?”

  “I’d be stupid to disagree with you,” Savich said.

  “You know what I think, Ms. Markham?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me within the next three seconds, Detective Raven.”r />
  “I think I’ll take you to the Tidal Basin and throw your black-belt ass in the snow. No one would hear your yells over the waterfalls at the Roosevelt Memorial.”

  “You could try, Detective Raven, you could try.” She gave him a salute with her empty coffee mug.

  “You guys put on a pretty good show,” Savich said, peeling bills out of his wallet. “If you’re through sniping, we’re outta here. I want to stop off to talk to Dr. Conrad and to forensics again. Then it’s back to headquarters and MAX.”

  “You’ll want to see what MAX has turned up on Samantha Barrister’s husband and son,” Sherlock said.

  “Who is Samantha Barrister?” Callie asked, her reporter’s ears on alert.

  “Oh,” Sherlock said, and smiled at her. “She’s a ghost who desperately needs Dillon to find out who killed her thirty years ago.”

  “Yeah, okay. Right. I got that.” Callie stared from Savich back to Sherlock. But they were putting on their coats and gloves, and didn’t say anything else. Callie touched Sherlock’s sleeve. “Do you know what? I think I believe you.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  L ATER THAT AFTERNOON , the four of them drove in Ben’s Crown Vic to Bobby Fisher’s apartment on Hinton Avenue. “I wanted us to stay together today,” Savich said. “Sorry about the Porsche, Ben, but it only holds me and Sherlock.”

  “I’m trying to be philosophical about this,” Ben said. “A red Porsche classic 911. I’ll bet your son’s going to go nuts when he’s old enough to drive it.”

  Savich grinned. “Possibly so, but thankfully, I can’t imagine Sean doing anything right now but pulling spaghetti apart and wrapping it around his ears.”

  They found Bobby with three other Supreme Court law clerks in his apartment, part of a big complex near George Washington University, all eating pizza and drinking Heineken. The place wasn’t a mess, but it wasn’t all that large and there were four young bodies sprawled everywhere. There were nice pieces of furniture, and that surprised Savich.

  The law clerks jumped to their feet when Bobby brought the four of them into the living room. They were all mid-twenties, dressed casually, and from their expressions it looked like they’d been talking nonstop about Justice Califano’s murder. No surprise there. Bobby Fisher stood in the archway a moment, as if uncertain what he was supposed to do.

  Savich said, “I’m Agent Savich and this is Agent Sherlock. We’re FBI—this is Detective Ben Raven, Metro, and Callie Markham. Since all of you are here, it’ll save us time.”

  “But, sir, we’ve already talked—”

  “I don’t know anything, Agent, I work for Justice Gutierrez who loved Justice Califano, loved him—”

  “I’ve been in the bathroom all day with diarrhea.”

  Savich looked impartially at the group. They looked both scared and excited, and on the buzzed side. There were a good dozen beer cans on newspaper-littered surfaces. All those empty beer cans, well, that could work in his favor. Everyone was introduced, voices subdued. Savich said, “I know all of you have already spoken to the FBI, but we’re here to tell you something you might not know yet.”

  All four of them, three men and one woman, leaned forward, their eyes glued on Savich’s face.

  He said, “Danny O’Malley is dead. He was murdered.”

  Savich, knowing that Sherlock, Ben, and Callie were watching them as closely as he was, saw the punch of surprise, then as his words sank in, the shock that showed clearly on their faces. None of them seemed particularly distraught yet, probably because of the unexpected blow they were absorbing.

  “Okay,” Ben Raven said, “let’s all sit down and talk about this.”

  Tai Curtis, a law clerk for Justice Sumner Wallace, a tall, slender, good-looking young man, the one they’d been told disliked Eliza Vickers, looked like he’d been slapped. He streaked his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Oh, not Danny. That just can’t be right, he’s—oh shit, man. You aren’t kidding us? Hey, you want one of us to confess?”

  “Actually,” Savich said, “spontaneous confessions don’t happen all that often.”

  It was Bobby Fisher who asked, “Why would someone kill Danny, Detective Raven?”

  Ben said, “Danny was murdered because he was somehow involved in this. Maybe he tried to blackmail the killer or the person who hired the killer. We’re thinking Danny might have known something that he unfortunately didn’t pass along to us. He was killed not twenty-four hours after Justice Califano.”

  There was more on the four faces now—fear, stark fear. Ben couldn’t blame them. One of their own was dead, suddenly, violently. He said, looking at each face in turn, “He paid the ultimate price for a stupid decision.” His voice sounded hard as nails, Callie thought. “We hope that none of you would now consider hiding anything from us, for your own personal gain, or for any other reason. If you know something, tell us now, for your own safety. I don’t want to see any more dead bodies. If you’ve never seen a murdered body, come with me to the morgue and I’ll let you see firsthand what could happen to you.”

  The three men looked ready to be sick.

  Sonya McGivens, another law clerk to Justice Sumner Wallace, grabbed a slice of cold pizza out of a delivery box from Pizza Heaven and began chewing on it. A long string of cheese fell over her chin but she didn’t seem to notice.

  Savich noted that she was a knockout—a tall blond with classic features—and a bare midriff down to well below her navel. She was wearing bad-girl pants that barely covered her pelvic bones, and a lacy white top. Savich wondered if one of the reasons Justice Wallace had hired her was because of her looks. He also wondered if the Justice had ever lost his head with this young woman.

  She said between frantic bites, “None of us know a thing, honest, Detective Raven.”

  Bobby picked up the last slice of pizza that looked nearly petrified. He held it out belatedly toward Callie. “No, thank you, you go ahead,” she said, and tried not to shudder.

  Ben said to Bobby, “I understand you were in Justice Califano’s chambers Friday morning, shooting the breeze with Eliza Vickers until you remembered the Chief Justice’s meeting, and took off.”

  Bobby Fisher slowly nodded. “Yeah. I wanted—” He stepped away from the other three law clerks, came close to Ben. “Okay, I don’t want you to think I’m keeping anything back. The deal is I wanted to ask her out, but Eliza was playing hard to get. There was this show at the Kennedy Center I wanted to see. I wanted her to go with me.”

  “Did she accept?” Sherlock asked.

  Bobby shook his head. “No, she never accepted. I guess that was maybe my last shot. Who cares? No tragedy. Usually she acts like a bitch to me, anyway.”

  “She was a bitch because?” This from Callie, who, if they believed she was a local cop like Ben Raven, was fine. Better yet, since she hadn’t ever met these four, they didn’t know her relationship to Justice Califano.

  Bobby shrugged his narrow shoulders, looked away from her, not meeting her eyes. “She didn’t like me. Called me Justice Alto-Thorpe’s clone, and the way she said it wasn’t nice. Sure, I usually agreed with my own Justice, she’s brilliant, you know? Why wouldn’t I want to be like her?”

  Callie said, “So, you think Eliza was a bitch because she wouldn’t go out with you? Isn’t that a bit over the top, Bobby?”

  The other three law clerks were standing, all attention. Tai Curtis and Sonya McGivens nodded in agreement. Dennis Palmer looked blank, probably an expression he’d cultivated.

  “Look, she wouldn’t go out with me, and she wasn’t very polite about it. It’s not like I’m a pauper. I could take her nice places. And being a law clerk in the Supreme Court means I’m no run-of-the-mill law school graduate.”

  Ben said, “Yeah, I hear it’s a great opportunity for all of you.”

  Bobby said, “Oh yes, it is. And when I met Justice Alto-Thorpe, I knew it would be a great year. I’m going into litigation, civil litigation in the enter
tainment industry, and I’m going to live in Malibu.”

  Ben Raven saw Tai Curtis and Dennis Palmer exchange looks that clearly said, Can you believe this idiot? Let them keep listening, Ben thought. When he got them each alone, there was no telling what would pop out of their mouths.

  “Okay,” Sherlock said, “she’s a bitch because she wouldn’t give you the time of day. Most guys move on, Bobby, they don’t get all hung up on it, don’t insult the woman who rejected them. Did she dislike you because you respected Justice Califano less than Justice Alto-Thorpe?”

  He flushed a bit. “The truth is I thought Justice Califano was pompous and overbearing, not at all like Justice Alto-Thorpe. Yeah, sure, Eliza knew what I thought. It’s the truth.” The other three law clerks were frowning, as if embarrassed to be in the same room with him.

  Savich glanced over at Dennis Palmer, one of Justice Gutierrez’s law clerks, a stocky young black man with a tough jaw and hard eyes. He was the best dressed of the four of them. He was drinking a can of Heineken, chugging it down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Bobby with something like contempt.

  Bobby picked up on it and hurried to say, “Hey, it’s just that Justice Califano and Justice Alto-Thorpe usually disagreed, and I don’t think either of them liked the other very much.”

  “How about Justice Bloomberg?” Callie asked, wanting to keep him talking. “How did he and Justice Califano get along?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Justice Bloomberg isn’t much of a talker. He sort of sits there like a big Buddha. Usually when court is in session, he nods maybe once an hour, says very little. However, he always votes with Justice Alto-Thorpe, and that’s the right way, the just way.”

  Dennis Palmer said in a beautiful, deep voice, a voice that would very likely help him win over juries in the future, “Bobby’s mainly right about Justice Bloomberg. But the fact is, he’s the most junior Justice. That means he’s the one who has to take all the notes, keep the records of all the proceedings. He doesn’t have time to ask the lawyers questions. He’s a deeply religious man, I do know that, but I’ve never seen him make any waves about it. As for my Justice—Justice Gutierrez—he and Justice Califano agreed a lot more often than they disagreed. They got along well. Actually, truth be told, the only Justice my Justice really didn’t care for was Justice Alto-Thorpe, but of course he’d never say anything bad about anyone. Face it, Bobby, you suck up to her, you never see anything but what you want to see.”