Mr. Justice (5 page)

CHAPTER 13

Kelsi Shelton tucked her hair behind her ears so that she could see what she was doing. She owned only two business suits, and she couldn’t afford to spill coffee on either of them. The dry cleaning bill alone would put a serious dent in her already paltry bank account. Law school research assistants might be future lawyers, but they were paid like grocery store clerks.

Kelsi removed the carafe from the four-cup coffeemaker that came with the room and filled two plastic cups with steaming joe. She added a packet of Carnation Non-Dairy Creamer to one of them and then carried both cups to the small wooden table near the window at which Peter McDonald was working.

“Sorry they only had the chalky stuff,” she said as she placed the cup with the artificial creamer in front of her favorite professor. “I guess the budget cuts are affecting everything.”

McDonald chuckled at Kelsi’s remark. “I don’t think it’s that,” he said. “I think the Republicans are trying to send me a message: stay in academia, Professor; the coffee’s better there.”

Kelsi chuckled this time.

McDonald motioned for her to take the seat across from him. “How do you think it went today?” He stirred his coffee with the top half of a plastic hotel pen.

Kelsi sat. “I think it went really well.” She took a sip of her coffee. She liked hers black. “You certainly showed that you know a lot about the law and that you’re not an ideologue.”

McDonald said, “Thanks.”

Kelsi said, “That wasn’t the best part, though. You know what was?”

“What?”

“What you said at the end about Senator Burton. Her face got so red that I thought she was having a heart attack.”

McDonald smiled. “I know. I probably shouldn’t have said it, but I couldn’t help myself. Shoot, I’d bet the farm that Burton’s staff wrote the questions that Senator Carpenter was asking.”

“That would be a good bet.” Kelsi glanced at the notepad in front of her professor. “Do you need any help with that?”

McDonald was working on his closing statement. Given how tight the vote on his confirmation was likely going to be, he had been spending even more time on it than he otherwise might have spent.

Peter McDonald had always been one of those last-minute wonders—someone who could wait until the deadline to get started and then manage to produce a work product that was better than that of anyone else. His law school classmates used to tease him about it. His law faculty colleagues resented him for it.

He said to Kelsi, “Aren’t you missing too many classes as it is? I feel guilty about that, you know.”

“Don’t. I’ve learned more about the law in the two and a half days we’ve been here than I’ve learned in two and a half years of law school.” Kelsi blushed and then said, “Except in your class, of course.”

“Good save, kiddo.” McDonald smiled. He seemed to be smiling a lot lately, and it always seemed to be when Kelsi Shelton was around. “Then maybe I could read my closing statement to you when I’ve finished with it, and you can tell me what you think.”

“I’d love that,” Kelsi said. She glanced out the window and wondered what it meant.

CHAPTER 14

Jeffrey Oates decided to walk to the Hilton Hotel. Traffic in the nation’s capital was almost always a nightmare, and he didn’t want to get caught up in a high-speed chase with the D.C. metro police in the middle of DuPont Circle. Evading local cops through the back roads of rural Virginia had been difficult enough. He wasn’t a cat. He didn’t have nine lives. After failing to take out Peter McDonald in Charlottesville, Oates was thankful that he still had one. He knew how vindictive Senator Burton could be. He also knew the rumors about the senator’s alleged KKK connections. He didn’t believe them, but he couldn’t take the chance that they might be true. If they were, he might be dead soon. Unless he took out McDonald …

Oates could have taken a taxi from his Georgetown apartment to the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, where the Hilton was located, but he didn’t want to risk being identified by the cab driver after the fact. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the D.C. police wouldn’t be the only ones turning over every stone to try to discover who had just assassinated a Supreme Court nominee. The FBI, the Secret Service, and perhaps even the CIA itself almost certainly would devote their vast resources to the investigation.

The weather had turned for the season. The wind blew hard from the east, and snowflakes frosted the cityscape. Oates picked up the pace as he drew closer to his destination. The cold air—not to mention the adrenaline rushing through his body—propelled him forward like a power walker during a morning workout. He zigzagged through the sea of cars that converged around the many traffic circles that made D.C. such a hazardous city to navigate. More than a few horns blared as he dashed in front of more than a few irate drivers.

“Ouch!” a pedestrian said.

Oates had knocked a young man to the pavement in his haste to avoid being mowed down by oncoming traffic.

Lucky for both of them, the young man was a Georgetown University undergraduate student who was used to getting knocked to the ground at weekend fraternity parties. Consequently, he knew how to take a fall.

It wasn’t all good news for Oates, though. The collision had caused his pistol to fly out of his pocket.

“Is this your
gun
, man?” the Georgetown student said as he rose to his feet. He was dangling the gun between his forefinger and thumb like it was a dirty rag.

“Uh … yeah,” Oates said.

“What the fuck are you doing with a
gun
?”

Oates’s eyes danced through the throng of passersby. The college kid had quickly returned the gun to Oates, and Oates had quickly returned it to his coat pocket. No one else seemed to have noticed the gun. One good thing about big cities, Oates knew, was that nobody seemed to notice anything.

Oates said, “D.C.’s a dangerous place. ‘Murder capital of the world.’ Or so the
Washington Post
always says. I got it for protection.”

“I guess,” the Georgetown student said. “Be careful with it, though. The fuckin’ thing could’ve gone off when it hit the sidewalk.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. But I’ve got to get going. I’m supposed to meet someone in a couple of minutes.” Oates re-buttoned his coat and left in a rush.

CHAPTER 15

Peter McDonald held the door.

Kelsi Shelton ducked under his arm. “Thank you,” she said.

“I could’ve done that, sir,” said the Secret Service agent assigned to protect McDonald. The agent pulled up the collar on his trench coat to shield himself from the freezing rain that had begun to fall.

McDonald said, “I know. But in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not too comfortable with this whole bodyguard thing. I’m not Kevin Costner.”

The Secret Service agent smiled. “Whitney Houston, sir. You’re not Whitney Houston. Kevin Costner played the bodyguard in that movie. Whitney Houston played the celebrity. But with all due respect, you had better get used to it. Once you’re confirmed, there’ll be two of us assigned to you.”

“
If
I’m confirmed,” McDonald said. “
If
…”

Kelsi Shelton spun on her heel and flashed a thousand-watt smile. It was the sort of smile that made her male classmates weak in the knees. “There’s no ‘if’ about it, Professor McDonald. You’re a shoo-in.”

“I thought I told you to call me Peter? … And how do you know I’m a ‘shoo-in’?” McDonald returned Kelsi’s smile.

She said, still smiling, “I’ve got my sources, too, you know.” She giggled.

The Secret Service agent didn’t seem to know what to make of the playful banter between his assigned “body” and the law student with the fantastic
body
. He just watched and listened. That’s what he was paid to do. But, boy, did he have stories he wished he could tell. He used to work for Bill Clinton.

Jeffrey Oates bumped into several more pedestrians in his haste to arrive at the Hilton in time to catch Peter McDonald. Fortunately for everyone involved, the scene with the Georgetown student didn’t repeat itself; no one else was knocked to the pavement, and Oates’s pistol remained securely in his pocket.

Oates turned the corner onto California Street. He hustled to the end of the block. The Hilton was in plain view across the street on Connecticut Avenue. He surveyed the area. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten the most important part of his plan:
how
he was going to get a shot off without someone seeing him do it. As anyone who had been to the nation’s capital could attest, there weren’t many moments during the day when no one else was on the sidewalk. That was especially the case around the capital’s luxury hotels.

Oates knew he had to take a chance, though. He had overheard Senator Burton say on the phone recently that she had lost faith in her top aide’s ability to finish sensitive assignments. And that meant that Oates’s opportunity to one day become White House chief of staff in a Burton administration was out the window, too—unless, of course, he could show the senator that the Charlottesville screw-up had been an isolated incident.

Oates spotted a mailbox directly in front of the hotel’s taxi stand. Cabs were lined up like yellow chicks behind their mother, but the drivers themselves were standing underneath the hotel’s canopy smoking cigarettes and trying to keep out of the rain.

Oates reached into his pocket to make sure the gun was still there. It was. A young mother pushing a jogging stroller dashed before his eyes. Thank God he hadn’t pulled out the gun, he said to himself. Thank God he hadn’t
fired
the gun.

The young mother smiled as she went jogging on her way.

Oates returned her smile. He double- and triple-checked Connecticut Avenue to make sure that no one else was about to flash before him. The coast was clear. Finally, the coast was clear.

Peter McDonald stepped onto the sidewalk. An attractive young woman who Oates recognized as McDonald’s research assistant was at the professor’s side. The Secret Service agent assigned to McDonald was two paces behind them.

Oates pulled the pistol from his pocket. He cupped it between his palm and forearm. He checked again to make sure that no one was about to jump into his line of fire. He took a deep breath, wiped the raindrops from his brow with the back of his hand, and raised the pistol to eye level. He pulled the trigger. The recoil caused him to stumble back a step. He regained his balance in time to see that this time he hadn’t missed: Professor Peter McDonald, the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States, collapsed to the pavement like a pile of bricks at a city-run construction site.

CHAPTER 16

John Gilstrap penned a best-selling novel a decade or so ago called
Nathan’s Run
that was essentially nothing but one long chase scene. The novel wasn’t literature, and the author wasn’t a new Charles Dickens, but the book had an engaging, plucky hero and a breakneck pace.

Jeffrey Oates felt like a much older version of twelve-year-old Nathan Bailey as he coughed and wheezed his way through the tangled streets of the nation’s capital. The cold rain had begun to fall harder, which was actually a good thing for Oates because it meant that fewer people were in his way than there ordinarily would have been.

Several people seemed curious about why Oates was in such a hurry—one soaking wet FedEx driver asked if Oates was afraid he would melt—but most Washingtonians were used to stepping aside while someone sprinted past them like George Foreman at the sound of the dinner bell. After all, D.C. was dominated by people—lawyers, lobbyists, politicians—who spent most of their lives rushing from one meeting to the next.

Oates hadn’t traveled more than three blocks before police sirens began to blare. It was far from uncommon to hear sirens on the crime-infested streets of Washington, D.C. However, these particular sirens were more numerous and louder than usual. In fact, Oates couldn’t recall hearing so much cacophony since the day President Reagan had been shot. Oates had just arrived in the nation’s capital to join Senator Burton’s legislative staff, but he remembered that day like it was yesterday. Ironically, President Reagan had been shot in front of the very same hotel at which Professor McDonald had been shot. The only difference was that Oates had pulled the trigger that felled McDonald.

Oates slowed his pace while police cruiser after police cruiser whirred past. He slowed down both because he didn’t want to appear suspicious and because he, like everyone else on the street at that moment, was transfixed by the chaos unfolding before him. He no longer felt like a character in a suspense novel; he felt like a villain in a horror movie.

What have I done? he said to himself. More importantly, where could he hide?

His eyes danced through the crowd that had formed on the sidewalk. Men in business suits caucused with shop clerks and women on their way to work. Then it hit him: the best place to hide was in plain view. He hailed a cab and told the driver to head for the Capitol.

Senator Burton would be waiting.

CHAPTER 17

Kelsi Shelton paced the crowded corridor like she was waiting for final grades to be posted. She had been keeping vigil at Bethesda Naval Hospital for more than five hours. She had changed from the blood-spattered blouse she had been wearing at the hotel into hospital scrubs that one of the nurses had kindly provided for her. The scrapes and bruises on her arms and cheek had been cleaned and bandaged, and now all she had to do was wait. But for someone whose plate was always full—the running joke at school was that Kelsi must have a secret twin because she took on so many projects—waiting was unfamiliar territory. And
what
she was waiting for made the situation unbearable: news about whether Professor McDonald had survived the shooting.

The Secret Service agent who had been assigned to protect the professor from precisely the sort of catastrophe that had transpired outside the Hilton was guzzling coffee as if it were water. He said, “Why don’t you go back to the hotel, Kelsi? There’s nothing you can do here.”