Murder in the Supreme Court (Capital Crimes Series Book 3) (28 page)

She entered the courtroom and stood just inside the door. Light from the fountains played across pews and benches, off the long brass rail and silent microphones, occasionally reaching the ceiling.

There was one nearly constant pool of light that splashed across the lectern, causing its burnished finish to glisten. She felt calmer than she had minutes ago, although she knew it was misleading. Until her collapse, which thank God had occurred in private, she’d felt very much in control of herself. But then it had happened, as though plugs had been pulled from her body, allowing every drop of control and resolve to pour from her, leaving her drained and shaking, feeling as though she would break into a thousand pieces. Laurie Rawls… that horrible woman had been the catalyst to her coming undone… God, she was Clarence reincarnate—worse, if that was possible…

She fixed her attention on the lectern, something to lean on. She walked to it, touched its illuminated surface, then its dark part, as though there might be a tactile difference.

She heard something, looked up at the nine black leather chairs. Had the middle one moved? Darkness played tricks… sound was exaggerated, light created bizarre shapes.

Another sound, this time from behind. She turned slowly and peered into the section of the courtroom reserved for the press. Nothing. She started to tremble again and gripped the lectern, head lowered, legs threatening to collapse under her. This was where it had happened…

Another sound from the bench, metal against metal. “Is someone there?”

No response.

Her purse dropped to the floor. She did not pick it up….

Teller, who sat in the shadows of the press section, wasn’t sure for a moment whether to stand up and let her see him. He had followed her to the building, used his earlier security clearance, as detective in charge of the investigation of
Sutherland’s murder, to gain access and note her being met by Laurie Rawls; noted too Chief Justice Poulson leave his chambers and walk to the courtroom. Teller had decided the best he could do was to trail the Chief Justice, which he had done, followed him to the courtroom, watched him take his accustomed seat at the bench. Did he expect to see the woman who now was behaving so erratically? No, actually he had intended to wait a few minutes, see what, if anything, Poulson was up to, and then go outside the courtroom to wait for the woman who had disappeared into Poulson’s chambers with Laurie Rawls. Yet here they both were, and it was clear that the end of this bizarre, in so many ways unsavory, case was about to take place where it had begun—with the discovery of the chief clerk, dead from a gunshot wound in the chair of the highest judicial personage of the land.

Now Teller watched, with sadness and a shivery feeling that he was somehow invading the sanctity of a very troubled human being’s innermost feelings. She struck the lectern’s side with clenched fists, muttered, barely audibly, “And what was it for? Was it all for nothing?…”

As if in eerie answer, the leather chair at the center of the bench turned slowly to face the front. She could not make out the figure in the chair clearly, little more than a hand on the chair’s arm was clear. But Teller knew who it was… the same man who regularly occupied that chair during the proceedings of the Court… the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Both he and the woman, for reasons that obviously compelled them, had returned to the scene of the crime, and in their separate but related fashions were principal players in the final act of this crime’s resolution… Teller shook his head, reflected with some frustration but also with a sense of the appropriateness of it all, that when this murder, like so many others, was solved, it would be the principals rather than
the police—whatever their contribution—that brought it to its finale. Well, at least he was here on the scene, which was more than he was able to be in most cases he’d worked on. At least he had, thanks in large part to Susanna’s digging and smart evaluations, pretty much figured out who the guilty party was, and it was what he knew and suspected that had brought him here for the denouement…

“It was not for nothing.” The voice came from the Chief Justice’s chair. And now Chief Justice Jonathan Poulson leaned forward so that his face was illuminated by the light that came in through the windows. “But let me tell you, young lady, you have no obligation to say anything more—”

“I want to, though. I need to… It wasn’t just that he was so cruel to me, and he was… but he was cruel to other people too, I know that. He was so damn clever, and more than that, unscrupulous. That was really what made it all possible, his willingness to do anything, say anything to get what he wanted—”

“I repeat,” Poulson interrupted, “you really should not say anything more. You have your rights, and you will be well defended—”

Teller decided it was time to show himself. Leaving the shadows of the press section, he crossed halfway to the lectern, looked up at the bench. “Good evening, Mr. Chief Justice.” Poulson did not reply, only nodded to him, clearly annoyed that there was a witness to this scene, one that he felt was uniquely private, one that he and the troubled woman at the lectern had a right to share alone, at least for now.

Teller turned to her. “Miss Jones, I’m sorry to break in on you like this. Believe that. But I’m also afraid that I have to tell you that you’re under arrest.” Feeling almost ridiculous, he proceeded to read her her rights, as he was obliged to do—after all, some judges in this very Court had prescribed them, or at least sanctioned them.

“Listen to him,” Poulson said. “It’s in your interest—”

But she was not yet through. Speaking slowly, as though not quite hearing either Teller or Poulson, she said, “I thought it was the right thing to do, he had hurt so many, and was threatening so many more. My God, he had things to hurt the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to ruin the reputation of another justice, a national hero even, to get to the President… he was going to use his rotten influence, influence based on filth, poking into other people’s lives… to make laws about having babies… abortion…
he
was an abortion… even his father, his own father, a doctor, said so…”

Poulson came down from the bench, asked Teller to leave, that he would see that Vera Jones came to headquarters later, but Teller, much as he would have liked to go along with that, knew he could not properly do it. Sometimes Supreme Court judges, especially the Chief Justice, tended to forget the nitty-gritty of lowly police procedure. They could afford it. He couldn’t.

As he began to lead Vera out of the courtroom, he asked her what she meant by saying, “Was it all for nothing?”

She shook her head. “I mean that terrible Laurie Rawls… I know people will say I hate her because we both had affairs with Clarence, but it’s not just that.” She looked at Teller now, seemed to come back from the remote state she’d been in. “Detective Teller… yes, you and Miss Pinscher were right to come to the office, to wonder about the Poulson file. God knows, I only wish I had it when you came, that I hadn’t been such a damned miserable fool as to believe him about what he said he felt for me. Did I really believe him? I’m afraid I did… because I so much
wanted
to. You never knew him, but he could be the most charming, loving, even… yes, loving… At first it was the looks, some people said a Robert Redford look-alike. He could convince you that you were the only woman alive… yes, he convinced me of that, and of course I badly wanted to believe it, like I said. I’m not the most desirable woman to most
men, I was flattered, excited, felt like a real woman for the first time since I could remember… Oh, there are no excuses, not really…”

“Well, that’s right, Vera, but there are explanations, and you’ve got them, if anybody in a case like this ever did. I don’t know what will happen, but I’m damned if I’m not going to do what I can to see that those explanations aren’t forgotten when it counts…” He was about to say “when you come to trial,” but maybe that wouldn’t happen, maybe they’d get her off on grounds of temporary insanity, which would be okay by him in one sense, but in another, damned unfair. What the lady had done was murder and nobody could say that was okay… but if ever there was a justification… and not saying there was… Vera Jones sure had it…

“Thank you,” and she almost smiled, “but there’s still Laurie Rawls. Now she has the file on the Chief Justice, just like Clarence did. She just now tried to get Justice Childs’s file too, threatening me. Well, at least she won’t get that. But Justice Poulson’s file…”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about that now,” Teller said, although he was plenty worried. Whatever Vera Jones said would be discounted by Laurie. That tough little lady would deny everything, say Vera was cracked, had gone around the bend because Clarence gave her a tumble and then dumped her, and so forth. And some might be inclined to believe her. Well, by God, Clarence hadn’t given him a tumble, and he hadn’t gone round the bend… well, not yet anyway, but if he hung around this city much longer who could predict? Sooner or later it seemed to get to everybody, even to a wonderful opera-loving gourmet cop like Martin Teller…

“But I am worried,” Vera was saying. “I know people won’t believe me. I know what they’ll say about me. And if that woman ever gets a job close to the President, like Clarence was going to do and like she says she’s after—”

“We’ll work on that, Vera… Tell me, what happened that night… I mean, if you can talk about it now, maybe it will help me to help you…”

She nodded, shrugged. “I’d called Clarence and pleaded with him to return the files on Justice Poulson that he’d gotten from me. My God, along with everything else, I’d betrayed his father, a man I’ve worked for and respected for years. Clarence told me to come to his office, we’d talk about it. When I got there he laughed at me, called me names… some of which I deserved… especially about being dumb. Anyway, after a while we came into this courtroom—”

“Why?”

“He liked it here, said he’d be sitting in one of the chairs up there one day, maybe even the chair in the Oval Office. God, isn’t that scary?”

Teller nodded. “It surely is, Miss Jones… Well, what happened then?”

“I knew that there was more than idle threat in what he said. He had so much on so many people… I asked him for the file, for
my
sake… that will show you how dumb I was, all right…”

“Go back a moment, Miss Jones. That night with Clarence before you came to the courtroom. Did anything else happen there?” He was wondering about the gun.

“Yes, he had a file of material that Justice Conover had collected about his wife. Clarence had found it in Justice Conover’s chambers and took it, along with a gun. He laughed about how he had found out about the file, that Mrs. Conover had told him about it, that she was sure her husband was keeping tabs on her… she and Clarence had been… intimate… too. And so Clarence went to the judge’s office and found it, got into his locked files… and we know how he got the key, don’t we? From Laurie Rawls. Clarence brought the gun with him into the courtroom. He told me
not to worry, that he’d take good care of me, just as his father had done for years. Imagine, trying to compare himself with his father… He also laughed at Justice Conover, said how hypocritical it was for a great liberal and anti-gun-control man to keep a gun in his office. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but now I wish I had said something, that maybe a man like Justice Conover had made enemies in his career by his courageous stands, maybe he had good reason to keep a gun. Clarence, though, said it was to scare away all the men sniffing around the old boy’s… those were his words… wife. And I knew then what I’d known but never admitted to myself… that Clarence had been one of those men, that he’d had an affair with Mrs. Conover too. And then he started in about all the other stuff he had to keep other people in line… justices of this Court, his own father, even the President… Oh yes, he said, he’d be in the White House sooner than anybody thought…”

Teller stopped her just as they came to the courtroom door. He led her back, gently holding her arm, and up to the raised area of the bench. Poulson, as he expected, had gone. He followed now just behind her, letting go of her arm. He removed his .38 from its holster beneath his armpit, emptied the bullets into his pocket. He offered her the gun when she reached the middle chair, the Chief Justice’s chair. “Vera, show me what happened. Was Clarence sitting here?”

She nodded.

Leave it to paranoid Clarence to pick the Chief Justice’s chair. Crazy, but crazy like a fox… Teller sat in the chair. “Go ahead, Vera.”

She resisted taking the gun at first, then did and quickly placed it on the bench in front of Teller. “He began one of his speeches about how grateful he was for all the stupid, corrupt people who made themselves so conveniently vulnerable to him. How in a way they were all working for him, and maybe someday he’d have a reunion, when he
made it to where he was going… He went on like that, until I just couldn’t stand it. Oh yes, he included me in his group, but it was more than the awfulness of what he said, it was the way he said it so calmly, like it was already done, like nothing could stop him… it took hold of me then, my own part in what he had done and even worse what he would do… all because of my own stupidity and weakness… And then, you won’t believe this, but then he actually tried to make love to me, grabbed hold of me and I picked up that gun”—she picked up the gun now—“and… I did it…” And as she said those last words she squeezed the trigger, and the only sound in that august courtroom was the sound of metal striking metal, a sound that the late Clarence Sutherland never heard.

Gently he took the gun from her hand, returned it to his holster, and led her out of the courtroom, out of the building and into the dark Washington night.

They left the Kennedy center after a performance of Puccini’s
La Bohème
.

“It was great,” Susanna said. “So much… passion.”

“That’s Puccini,” Teller said as he let go of her hand and fumbled for his car keys. “Where to now?”

“Up to you. No, I take that back. You picked the entertainment, so far, now it’s up to me.” She looked straight ahead, and said, straight faced, “We go to your place.”