“No, for crying out loud, Will.”
“Did she slap you?”
“Are you quite finished?”
“I’ll be good.”
“Doubtful. You’re mediocre at pretty much everything.”
“False. Case in point: I excel at driving you nuts.”
She could hear the pride in his voice and groaned. “That you do.”
“Seriously, what happened?”
“Nothing. She’s arguing the gay marriage case before the Court, so I can’t talk to her. I left.”
“You left? She’s going to think that’s all you do.”
“Don’t start.”
“Start? Haven’t we been at this for five minutes?”
“How was work today, William?”
“Normally I wouldn’t let you off that easy—”
“You call this easy?”
“—but I can tell you really don’t want to talk about it. So I’ll just brag about myself for a while. I’m going to win an award from the Arlington city council for the best design of public space in the city.”
“Wow, that’s fantastic, Will! I guess you excel at things after all.”
“Just trying to be like my big sister, you know.”
“See, and then you go and say things like that and I forget how annoying you are.”
He laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll remind you soon enough.”
“Congratulations, Will. I’m proud of you.”
“So there’s going to be a ceremony a week from Saturday…”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, sis.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ll email you the details. See you this weekend?”
“Sure, I’ll stop by on Saturday.”
“Great! See you then.”
“Love you.”
“Love you more. Cuz I’m the better sibling.”
Victoria paused. “Shouldn’t we have outgrown this kind of juvenile behavior by now?”
He chuckled. “Are you kidding? When we’re eighty, we’ll be competing about who glides better in a rocking chair.”
“That’s a skill?”
“It is the way I plan on doing it.”
“Oh, brother.”
Chapter Five
It took three days for one of her decoy cell phones to ring. She had almost gotten over worrying about them. Almost.
She was seated at her kitchen island, eating a fajita, when one of the devices on her sideboard vibrated and rang. She put down her food and the tortilla unwrapped itself, salsa and green pepper spilling out. She would need a fork now, assuming she was still hungry after this phone call. She checked the clock on her microwave, which read 6:56. Crossing to the sideboard, she grabbed the vibrating phone. Her professional persona slid on like a well-worn sweater and she said hello.
“Justice Willoughby, it’s Damien. Just calling to see how everything is progressing with the habeas case.”
His information was certainly up-to-date. Victoria’s blood felt like ice in her veins and it took an extra beat before she could come up with a reply. “I thought you were interested in the DOMA case, Mr. Fitzpatrick.”
“Oh, I am, of course, Madam Justice. Can I call you Victoria? I’m interested in both cases. You see, there have been calls for you to recuse yourself from both, so it seems to me they’re related.”
“Excuse me? Why on earth would I step down from the habeas case?”
“Ah, so you agree that the DOMA case is different—that there might be some merit to those calls for recusal.”
Victoria clamped her mouth shut, furious that she was being played—and so effectively. She knew better.
Unfortunately, she had to keep him on the line or the calls would continue. Pollard needed ninety seconds to trace the call, and the microwave clock read 6:57.
“What do you want, Mr. Fitzpatrick?”
“Please, Damien is fine. I want to show the world the real you. How about an exclusive interview? I could come to your chambers.”
“That is quite out of the question, Mr. Fitzpatrick. You have very questionable ethics for a reporter, you know that?”
“Many would say you have questionable ethics for a judge. If you disagree, giving me an exclusive would be the perfect way to set the record straight.”
The clock changed to 6:58 and Victoria exhaled. “That won’t be necessary. I will thank you to stop calling me. Good day.”
She clicked the phone off and returned it to its home between the eighth and tenth phones. Shaking her head at the number of devices in her life, she fetched the SC Police phone from her purse and dialed Pollard.
“Excellent work, Madam Justice. We traced the call and I believe we have some good information.”
“When can I expect your report?”
“Give my team a day or two. I’ll call you when we have something.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
She hung up and put that cell phone on an end table before heading into the kitchen to eat away her anxiety.
Glancing at the remains of her dinner, she recognized immediately that it wasn’t going to cut it—not when her hands were still shaking. So, dressed in a charcoal suit with a white blouse and stilettos, she leaned against the countertop and ate slow-churned chocolate ice cream from the container.
This was not how she wanted to spend her Friday night.
She removed Sonya’s business card from her wallet and twirled it between her fingers. She had been meaning to call and apologize for leaving the cookout so abruptly. She turned the card on the diagonal, trapped two corners between her index finger and the countertop, and flicked it. It landed with the text up, which she interpreted as a sign. She stored Sonya’s number on her personal phone and dialed.
Sonya picked up on the third ring.
“Hi, Sonya, it’s—”
“Victoria Willoughby. I was hoping you’d call. I wanted to apologize that Tara and I didn’t cross-check our guest lists—we certainly didn’t mean to put you in an awkward situation.”
“No need to apologize. These things happen.”
“Well, I’m sorry this thing happened before we broke out the badminton set. It was pretty raucous.”
Victoria couldn’t tell if Sonya was being sarcastic. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
“Indeed you are. You can make it up to us by coming over to play doubles this weekend.”
“Doubles? In badminton?”
“You have no idea. Tara is very competitive. In most matters I am too, but I can’t really take a game seriously if it’s got equipment called a shuttlecock.”
“Fair enough. I suspect I’d be in your camp.”
“Excellent. We can pair up to take on Bethie and Tara. It’s best if they win or lose together. Sibling rivalry and whatnot.”
“Understandable. So when is this happening? Do I need a racquet?”
“Nope, we’ve got you covered. Just wear athletic clothes. Or garden party attire. Bethany once kicked my ass while playing in a white gingham dress.”
The conflicting messages were making Victoria’s head spin. “What are you wearing?”
There was a brief pause before both women cracked up.
“Gotta admit, it’s been years since a woman asked me that on the phone,” Sonya said.
“I’m not sure a woman has ever asked me that on the phone. I’m certain I’ve never said it.”
“Well, I’m honored to be your first.”
“And you’re taking my badminton virginity.”
“There will definitely be loud noises and sweating, and the way Tara does it, you’ll probably need a nap afterward.”
Victoria blinked. “Wow, I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“You’ve got until tomorrow at three to think of a good comeback. Bring a change of clothes and stay for dinner.”
“I guess it’s settled then. What else can I bring?”
�
�Just your sense of humor.”
“You’re in luck. It seems to follow me wherever I go.”
“See you at three then.”
Victoria smiled as she hung up the phone. She glanced at her left thumb, where the scar from her clumsy knife handling was already fading, and was glad her injury had brought Sonya into her life.
Chapter Six
The next morning, Victoria carried her tea and a binder on the habeas case to her back patio. The sunshine had been deceptive and she soon retrieved an afghan from her couch to wrap around her shoulders while she worked. She could feel the change of seasons in the crisp October breeze.
Consensus building had never been one of her strengths. But her first year on the bench taught her the importance of convincing the other members of the Court to join opinions. Certainly managing personalities was as much an indicator of a successful chief justice as jurisprudence. Kellen deftly delegated authorship of opinions and subtly massaged any bruised egos. Victoria sensed that he had given her the habeas case for a reason and she suspected it had something to do with learning how to finesse her fellow justices. She wondered, too, if he might be testing her mettle. She needed to craft a strongly-worded opinion while still appealing to a reticent colleague. A watered-down opinion ran the risk of losing members of the majority to concurring opinions—decisions which reached the same conclusion as hers, but articulated different reasons for doing so.
The binder contained a draft of the decision, along with the briefs filed by the two sides and supporting case materials. Wallace had written a good draft. She wanted to make it excellent. For the next three hours she combed through it with two colored pens and a highlighter. She drew arrows rearranging sections and paragraphs, and dropped Post-its as placeholders for additional cases to cite and text she would generate before Monday.
When she completed her first read-through, she shrugged off her blanket and walked around her backyard. The kale and squashes in her little vegetable garden needed harvesting, and once again the rosemary seemed hell-bent on overtaking all the other herbs nearby, many of which were shrinking along with the days. She plucked a sprig, thinking she would bring a pitcher of rosemary mojitos to the badminton extravaganza.
She was walking back toward the wrought iron table and ice cream chairs when she heard the unmistakable click of an SLR camera.
The sound came from the viburnums lining the left side of her property. Other ambient noises she had been ignoring suddenly flooded her consciousness: her own breath, the music of the birds in her cherry trees, the hum of a lawnmower from down the block.
Her field of vision narrowed, everything becoming blurry but one object that now seemed magnified, sharp and larger than it had any business being. The habeas binder. It was open to a case on the legality of military tribunals for civilians. The two sides submitted briefs with vastly different interpretations about an earlier case and its relevance to the present situation. She had written notes on the printout about whose interpretation maintained. It was not information she wanted leaked to the press.
She thought back to Lincoln’s time, to an era before the Secret Service and paparazzi, when the president could walk around town unmolested. She cast her mind back even further, to the John Marshall Court when the justices roomed together in Washington boarding houses. In the early years of this country, its leaders felt free to go about their lives much like normal citizens, without fearing for their privacy.
This was her home. Her personal backyard. That someone with a camera could be spying on her, could be a security threat to her, was beyond frustrating, beyond infuriating. It was violating.
All this flashed through her mind in an instant. She squared her shoulders and walked slowly back to her patio, trying to convey to anyone watching that she was simply going about her business, that she hadn’t heard the camera, that she wasn’t trembling. When she reached the table she closed the binder to hide her notes from the zoom lens and tucked it into the crook of her arm. After grabbing her tea, she eased open the sliding glass door, stepped through, and shut it harder than she had intended. With a sigh of relief, she pulled the blinds closed.
Grabbing one of the eighty-nine cell phones now in her possession, she walked upstairs to her bedroom, dropped into a chair, and pulled her legs to her chest. Her fingers shook as she dialed.
* * *
The agent outside Victoria’s house hadn’t seen anyone, although a black hatchback parked down the block had pulled away just as she had placed her call to Pollard. Agents were doing a sweep of her yard and taking some surveillance measures she didn’t really understand, or even want to know about. Pollard informed her that they had reason to believe it was the same person who had trailed her to the Harbour Club, but he didn’t see fit to share that reason. He instructed her to report to his office first thing Monday morning to review the situation with the leak, and said it would take a few days before he could debrief her on the stalker issue.
In the face of all of this chaos, Victoria decided, the best thing to do was badminton.
Chapter Seven
On Monday, Victoria opened Pollard’s door and barely stifled a gasp. When he’d called to tell her that his office had traced the leak, she hadn’t known which of her staff members she’d expected to find—but it certainly wasn’t Wallace. She squared her shoulders and sat down across from Pollard, purposefully not looking at the young man sitting next to her. Even so, she could feel his nervousness and found it contagious. Her stomach fluttered.
“Justice Willoughby. Thank you for coming,” Pollard said. “The Supreme Court Police have conducted a thorough investigation into the leak in your office, and—”
Wallace gasped. It was clear he had no idea why he had been summoned until that moment.
“—it traces back to Wallace Young,” Pollard finished.
Wallace turned abruptly to Victoria and began to protest.
Pollard held up his hand, silencing the agitated young man. “Wallace, Justice Willoughby has the utmost respect for you, and when we embarked on this investigation she singled you out by name as a man of integrity and caution. So we dug deeper. Tell me about your roommate.”
“Byron? Wait, what does Byron—I’m sorry, I’m very confused.”
Victoria felt for him. Pollard intimidated her, and she wasn’t being accused of anything. Still unsure where this was going, she followed her instincts and reached for her clerk’s hand.
Pollard’s deep voice cut in. “Let’s forget the big picture for a moment and focus on the details. Wallace, tell us about Byron. How long have you known him?”
Wallace’s hand was clammy, and Victoria squeezed it reassuringly.
“Four months. My first roommate—a friend of mine from law school—had to move back to Maine to take care of his mother. She had cancer. But I was stuck with this lease, so I put an ad on Craigslist. Byron was one of the people I interviewed. He struck me as pretty boring, and boring people make great roommates for clerks. I’m rarely home, and when I am, I just want to sleep. He doesn’t party. He irons his shirts. He goes to church every Sunday.”
Pollard nodded, as though this description confirmed something. “And what’s his occupation?”
“Computers. Software or IT or something. I don’t really know.”
“And where is Byron from originally, Wallace?”
“Uh, I don’t know him that well.”
“California,” Pollard answered for him. “Fresno.”
It was Wallace’s turn to nod, though his was slower and more uncertain than Pollard’s.
“Justice Willoughby, who’s the reporter who keeps harassing you? The one with the insider information?”
“Damien Fitzpatrick,” she said, although she knew Pollard knew his name.
Wallace turned to her sharply. “There’s a reporter harassing you?”
Pollard cut him off with a gesture. “And do you know where Mr. Fitzpatrick went to high school?”
“I sure don’t. But
I’m betting you do.” Victoria was growing impatient with his Socratic method.
“Fresno High School. He and Byron were co-editors of the school newspaper. Wallace, is your laptop password protected?”
Wallace stared at him. “Of course.”
“Then Byron’s not just an IT expert. He’s a hacker.”
“Are you serious?” Wallace’s voice was barely audible.
Pollard leaned back in his chair. “Mystery solved.”
Victoria and Wallace exchanged shocked glances before speaking at the same time.
“How much trouble am I in, exactly?”
“What happens with this Byron character now?”
Pollard rolled his eyes at them, making Victoria feel a bit like a truant who had been called into the principal’s office. He turned to Wallace first. “I’m going to take your laptop for the next few days to dig around in there.”
Victoria wasn’t sure if he meant that his team would physically disassemble the machine, or dig around in the software, but she got the distinct impression asking for clarification would not look very impressive.
“Once we’ve analyzed the laptop, we’ll assess what’s next. In the meantime, Wallace, you’ll need to find yourself a new roommate.”
Pollard closed the binder on his desk, and Victoria realized the meeting was over. She couldn’t help but give him a quizzical look.
“The rest is details,” he said. “You needn’t trouble yourself with them. Suffice it to say, the leak will be plugged.” He stood, and Victoria and Wallace followed suit.
They closed Pollard’s office door behind them and walked down the hallway toward the elevators.
“Justice Willoughby, I am so sorry. I had no idea you were being harassed, and I can’t believe I played any part in it.”
Victoria sighed. “You didn’t Wallace, at least not wittingly. I’m just relieved that we know how the information got to Fitzpatrick. He’s—”
“A bigot and an asshole,” Wallace finished. He hit the button to call the elevator. “How much did he know?”
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