Deadlock

by James Scott Bell

  “Excuse me?”

  Bill Bonassi’s smile was moonlit. “The Scriptures make an incredible claim that, for those who follow Christ, God arranges things so that your good is the final outcome. He is out to get you, you see, but out of love. You are a reverse paranoid if you believe this.”

  Millie shook her head slightly. “Seems almost too good to be true.”

  “That’s a pretty good definition of God, isn’t it?”

  “The polls, I’m told, have been running 3-1 against me. And the newspapers and TV news – ”

  “Forget ’em!” Bonassi said. “We have truth on our side.”

  Millie flashed to the sign on Tom Riley’s desk. Vincit omnia veritas. And then, suddenly, she knew what would save the Court.

  “Riley,” she blurted.

  Bonassi looked at her.

  “Riley is the key,” she said.

  3

  Don Markey had never interrogated a senator before. He’d questioned a few members of the House, but most of them were as witnesses or sources of information for crimes that did not involve them directly.

  This was another level entirely. This time there was a strange link between the murder of Tad Levering, the senator, and Millicent Mannings Hollander.

  If one accepted that this was a murder. Markey did without question, but in the interview room, with Levering’s lawyer present, that was not a done deal.

  “His son was mentally disturbed,” the lawyer, a three-piece job named Sugden Bales, said. “That was obvious. And mentally disturbed people kill themselves.”

  “By tying cinder blocks to their own feet?” Markey asked.

  “Why not? Can you think of a better way to drown?”

  “I want to know if the senator thinks that,” Markey insisted, looking at Levering. The senator was, Markey thought, the proverbial shell of a man. His whole appearance had changed. Where he had once been almost comically belligerent, he was now folding in upon himself, as if his very bones, like fallen tent stakes, had been ripped out of him.

  “The senator is not going to say anything to you,” Bales said. “I am advising him not to say a word. You want to arrest him? Be my guest. You’ll look like an attention-grabbing fool, but that’s your call.”

  Bales was right, Markey knew. There was not enough evidence to hold Sam Levering. Markey had watched Levering closely when he IDed his son’s body. The grief in his face couldn’t have been faked, not even by a Slick Sam.

  But did he know about the killing at all? If he did, he wasn’t talking.

  “Look,” Markey said to Bales. “We know the dance. We can turn off the music and move ahead to where we’ll be in a few weeks anyway. Just have the senator answer a few questions, with you standing here, and we’ll be done with it.”

  “No,” Bales said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why don’t you ask your client?”

  “I don’t have to ask him, I know what he – ” Bales stopped when he turned to Levering.

  The senator was shaking, his head buried in his chest. Then he broke out in great sobs, deep and groaning. When he looked up at the ceiling Markey could see his eyes were bloodshot. His cheeks were streaked with wet. “Oh, God!” Levering howled at the ceiling. “Taaaad!”

  It would have taken an icy heart not to feel for the guy. Markey had seen criminals and con men, faced with overwhelming evidence, crack. Most didn’t, but some did. Usually that was sorrow over being caught. But Levering was hurting to the very depths.

  Bales, looking as uncomfortable as a bishop in a bar, made a pitiful attempt to pat his client on the shoulder.

  “Maybe,” Markey said, “we should take a short break.”

  “Maybe we should just call the whole thing off,” Bales said. “And you can just – ”

  “No,” Levering said.

  The two other men looked at him.

  “Wait,” Bales said.

  “No, I want to talk.”

  “My advice is – ”

  “I don’t care about your advice,” Levering said, the familiar belligerence flooding back to his voice. “I want to talk.”

  “Your lawyer has advised you not to,” Markey said, even as he readied the tape recorder.

  “I said I don’t care.” Levering smoothed his hair back with his hands, then used the backs of his hands to wipe his eyes. His breathing was labored.

  “Sam, please,” Bales said.

  “Go have a smoke, Sug,” Levering said.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Get out of here!”

  Sugden Bales looked as if he had been smeared with something foul. He said nothing as he snagged his Givenci briefcase and walked out the door.

  “You got that thing ready?” Levering said, nodding toward the recorder.

  “Yes, I do,” Markey said.

  “Okay then.”

  4

  At conference it was clear that the tension had gotten to everyone. Even Ray Byrne, who normally brought a light Irish wit to the discussions, had more lines on his face than Millie could ever remember seeing.

  And as the justices made their traditional handshakes around the table, eyes were averted. Especially Justice Riley’s. He did not look at Millie. His handshake was weak.

  Everyone sat, making little motions with the pens and legal pads in front of them. Justice Atkins doodled, and the normally placid Arlene Praeger Weiss tapped a drumbeat with her pen. Riley and Byrne simply looked at a spot in the center of the conference table, as if waiting for an answer to magically appear.

  “All right,” Millie said finally. “We all know what’s going on. We all know it’s affecting us. We also know that the country’s business has to continue, and we are a big part of that business. We must not allow anything to distract us.”

  Riley cleared his throat but did not look up.

  “I was named to this position,” Millie said, “to lead the Court. That is what I intend to do. We have cases before us right now that need our attention. I suggest we get down to work. Does anyone have anything they’d like to add?”

  There was a short pause as the justices exchanged looks. Then Byrne spoke. “Well said, Chief. We’re with you.”

  A couple of voices chimed assent. Millie thought she heard from Parsons and Velarde, and was thankful she had achieved that level of bipartisanship. Her heart ached, however, as Riley remained impassive.

  She pushed the feeling downward and said, “Let’s start with United States v. Ferguson.”

  When the conference broke at noon Millie asked Tom Riley to stay behind. The expressions of the other justices reflected that everyone sensed the tension between Millie and Riley.

  “We can’t go on like this,” Millie said when they were alone.

  Riley folded his arms and shrugged. “This is the way it is, apparently.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” She suddenly felt the eyes of John Marshall upon her. The great justice peered at them from his portrait, as if his own heart were breaking. “Tom, if you will stand with me and make a statement, along with the others, we can beat this thing back. A Court united, if not in ideology, at least in purpose. We cannot let politics infect us. If it can happen to me, it can happen to any judge, any time. Tom, will you do it?”

  She had not wanted desperation to enter her voice, but it was there. And when Tom Riley did not immediately answer, the desperation lodged itself in her, choking off breath.

  Finally, Riley said, “Why don’t you just resign?”

  Resign? Had he really said that? Of course he had. “No.”

  “Can’t you see the horrible damage you’ve done?”

  His words could not have hurt more if they had been knives cutting her skin. Then anger began to well inside her. “I was not the one who leaked the lies to the press.”

  “It was inevitable,” Riley countered. “And the damage might have been greater.”

  “Greater?”

  “How many cases might you decide if…”

  She looked at h
im coolly. “If I’m not impeached?”

  Riley did not back down. “The Court is what’s important.”

  “No,” she said. “The Court is important only if it reflects the views of Thomas J. Riley. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Justice Riley stood up and started for the door. “I have given thirty years of my life to this institution. The things I have built up…”

  “The things you have built up? This is an institution, Tom. It is greater than any one person.”

  He glared back at her. “You said it. That’s why you should step down.”

  Riley’s face was like winter stillness. His mouth twitched, as if readying to speak of its own accord. But he was silent. It was a silence of finality, like death. He walked out of the conference room.

  Millie sat several minutes without moving. She felt as if her body was incapable of emotion, lest it be consumed. And then the grief came, the stark loss, and she bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from crying.

  She felt like the walking dead as she returned to her chambers. How could this possibly go on, day after day?

  Oh God - she realized she was praying – show me what to do.

  A knock on the door. Rosalind stepped in. “May I see you a moment?”

  “Of course,” Millie said, relieved to have the company. For the last week Rosalind had been a quiet support, doing the work of two clerks. It was, Millie knew, Rosalind’s way of saying she would stick it out.

  “I have something on my mind I have to talk about,” Rosalind said. “It’s driving me crazy.”

  Rosalind looked at her hands, rubbing the palms together. “I…” She stopped suddenly, turning her head back toward the door as if she might leave.

  “Please,” Millie said. She went to Rosalind and gently guided her to one of the two leather chairs that faced her desk. It was obvious that whatever Rosalind was trying to say troubled her greatly. “It’s all right,” Millie said. “Whatever it is.”

  Rosalind took a deep breath. “I did something and I feel bad about it. I went out with Russell, Riley’s clerk.”

  That wasn’t a big deal. Clerks sometimes went out on dates, even crossing ideological lines. Still, the fact that it was Riley’s clerk made her wonder what was coming next.

  “He wanted to buy me a drink to start, and I said okay. Only I got up and went to the bathroom, and I told the waiter instead of a Seven and Seven, bring me just 7-Up with a dash of Coke in it. And keep them coming.”

  “But why?”

  Rosalind looked at her boss, eyes smoldering. “Because I can’t stand what they’re doing to you.”

  “Who is they?”

  “Everybody. The whole machine. And I had to find out what Russell knew.”

  “About what?” Millie’s whole body was starting to tense up.

  “That day Riley walked out of conference, and you went to see him in his chambers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Russell was on the other side of the door, listening to the whole thing.”

  “He was eavesdropping?”

  “He called it spying. Riley’s other clerk wasn’t even in at the time. So he did that thing with the glass on the wall. And he listened.”

  Millie recalled that conversation with absolute clarity. She had told Riley she was a Christian. He had said he would have to fight her.

  “He admitted this to you?” Millie asked.

  “We kept getting drinks. I’d finish ahead of him, he’d be amazed, we’d order another round. It finally got to the point where he actually bragged about it. He wrote a memo about your conversation with Riley. He told me he knew a guy that knew Biff Burrow, you know, of the Burrow Bulletin?”

  “I know it,” Millie said, “only too well. So Russell leaked the story?”

  “Well…”

  “There’s more?”

  Rosalind looked distressed, as if this were the most painful part. “Just before Russell left with it, he printed a hard copy. He had it on his desk. He went to the bathroom. And when he got back he said Riley was standing there, reading it.”

  Millie felt an emptiness starting to swell inside her. It was getting upsettingly familiar.

  “And Russell thought he was going to get in trouble,” Rosalind said. “But then Riley threw it back on the desk and walked away.”

  Now the emptiness engulfed her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Rosalind said, and then her eyes filled with tears. “I wish I hadn’t done that. I feel dirty. And I feel dirty telling you. But I couldn’t keep it to myself.”

  Millie came to Rosalind and put her arm around her. “No, don’t. You wanted to help me. That means more to me than anything.”

  Rosalind wiped at her eyes. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  Us. That this young woman had used that word was more important to Millie than Rosalind would probably ever know. Millie squeezed Rosalind’s shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Millie whispered.

  5

  Anne could not shake the feeling that the walls were closing in. Was it just a panic attack?

  She hadn’t heard from Levering, hadn’t been able to track him down. Where was he? Off in an alcoholic stupor? It wasn’t like him to be so far removed from communication. That had to be part of it.

  Then there was Ambrosi. He was going to do something, and she didn’t know what. That wasn’t like him, either. It meant something big. She’d get caught up in it, maybe that was the thing. He was going to bring her down with him.

  But there was something else, worse than mere professional anxiety. It was a deep disquiet of some kind, a big black hole inside her, swirling, sucking up galaxies.

  Self-analysis was not something she was into. No money in it. No time for it. She usually dealt with uneasiness through action. Planning things, twisting arms. Even shopping. But this was something worse. She knew it wasn’t going to shake loose with a few purchases from Saks.

  So what was this?

  It felt like something calling to her. Searching for her.

  The knock on her apartment door jarred her back into the present. She was startled to see that detective, Markey, through her peephole.

  “What is it?” she said through the door.

  “Ms. Deveraux, open the door, please.”

  It was official-speak. She had no choice. Not to open would be like an admission of guilt.

  She let him in.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Deveraux, but you’ll have to come with me now,” Don Markey said.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she said. “Not now. I’ve got a meeting in ten – ”

  “You don’t understand. You are under arrest.”

  Her skin started to climb upward. “Arrest?”

  “For complicity in the murder of Tad Levering.”

  “Look,” she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re way off base.”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he said.

  “Wait a second, hold it. Can’t you explain all this?”

  “You have the right to an attorney – ”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Are you waiving your right to an attorney?”

  “I’m not waiving anything.”

  “Then come with me and we’ll talk about things at the station.”

  “Things?”

  “Unless you want to talk right now, tell me the whole thing. Corroborate what the senator said.”

  Anne tried to keep her face from twitching. “Senator?”

  “Levering. He’s told us quite a tale.”

  Anne’s face did not cooperate. She felt her cheeks go into weird gyrations. He knew. The guy knew it all. She could see it in his eyes. And he knew she knew. It was all over, baby. She could almost hear Ambrosi’s voice telling her that.

  With a swift precision honed over many years, Anne’s mind clicked and calculated in her moment of deepest crisis. Survival mode she sometimes called it. When the chips were down, you had to find the best way out. />
  The detective just waited, as if he knew what she was going to say.

  “What kind of deal can we work out here?” she said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  1

  Now, at last, her moment had come.

  Millie walked out of her chambers, Rosalind by her side, and proceeded through the Great Hall. Bill Bonassi was waiting for them just outside the doors.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “As I’ll ever be,” Millie said. She clutched a card that had notes for her statement. It would be respectful, but forceful. Every politician, every citizen, would know that she would stand against the onslaught. The question was whether she could hide the whirlwind inside her. She had thought peace would come with her moment. It had not.

  “Then let’s go.” Bonassi took her arm and started down the great stone steps toward the snarl of reporters below. A clump of microphones was set up on the first level, with half a dozen television cameras placed at strategic locations and angles. Behind the reporters a large crowd of the curious thrust forward, kept at bay by four uniformed D.C. police officers.

  Just before her final descent, Millie paused to look back at the Court building. The same marble figures flanked the portico, and the same immortal words, Equal Justice Under Law, moved her with their majesty. When she had first seen them she thought they had come from the mind of man. Now she knew they could only have come from the God who gave mankind the very capacity to be just.

  At the knot of microphones, Bill Bonassi put his hand up to silence the few shouted questions.

  “We have a statement to make,” he said. Cameras flashed and snapped, like hungry piranhas.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve stood here,” Bonassi said. “It was back in 1953 I first climbed these steps to make an argument before the Court. It was a free speech case. I argued on behalf of a school teacher from Nebraska. I argued that the Constitution gives every citizen the right to think and express ideas that might offend some folks, without the fear that such expression will result in being fired. And we won.”

  Millie marveled at him. His voice and carriage were magnificent, as if he had been preparing all his life for just this moment.