The Divine Appointment (14 page)

“You got me there.” Holland smiled and removed a business card from his wallet and handed it to Tiffany. “If something comes up that you want to talk about, give me a call. I’m going to work on this story for a few more days. How can I reach you if I want to talk to you again?”

“You can call the operator here in the building and she will connect you.” She glanced at her watch. “I really need to get back to work.”

He had hoped for a home number, but no such luck. They stood and walked to the exit that opened onto First Street. Holland departed for his dented Camry and hoped Tiffany didn’t see him in it.

Holland drove back to the
Post
headquarters and told his editor he was working on something big. He changed clothes at his apartment, put on a baseball cap and sunglasses, and was back on First Street by 2:30 p.m. He grabbed some lunch along the way. He parked one and a half blocks from the Supreme Court employees’ secure parking lot and waited.

And waited.

At about 4:30 p.m. he saw her. She was unmistakable. A cover girl.

When he was in college, Holland and his fraternity brothers had used a ten-point scale to measure the appearance of girls on campus. It was shallow and chauvinistic, he knew, but it gave them something to talk about. Holland continued to use the rating system and had tried to date women who were at least a seven. But most of the time he found himself with a five or a six. He decided that Tiffany was at least an eight. She exited the Supreme Court building through the employees’ entrance and waved good-bye to the security officer. The officer followed her with his eyes—evidently he liked what he saw—until she sat down in a dark green Volvo C70 convertible.

Holland’s Camry had difficulty following her. She drove fast and dangerously, west on Constitution Avenue, then Virginia Avenue NW. Her dark blond hair blew in the wind. He lost her briefly on Twenty-third Street, but the red light at the Pennsylvania Avenue intersection saved him. He was stopped four cars behind her, and she didn’t see him. When the light changed to green, he stayed close but not too close as she zigged and zagged along M Street NW and then Wisconsin Avenue. She finally parked in front of a town house on tree-lined Thirty-seventh Street NW, closed the top to the convertible, and used a key to enter through the front door.

After Tiffany was safely inside, Holland drove past the front of the building and memorized the number on the door of the town house. One-half block northwest of Tiffany Ramsey’s town house a black Mercedes-Benz S65 pulled away from the curb and fell in behind him. He glanced at it in his rearview mirror. The windows were tinted, and he couldn’t see the driver clearly. That made him nervous. It trailed him for six blocks until he turned right on Van Ness Street and the Mercedes turned left. He exhaled deeply.

“You’re being paranoid, Fletcher,” he told himself.

The Shelton residence, Vicksburg, Mississippi

During the two weeks after his nomination, Dunbar Shelton made the rounds on Capitol Hill and the obligatory handshaking with all the senators. He met individually with each one. It was less than pleasant but necessary. One of the hazards of being nominated. He spent the next week in mock Judiciary Committee hearings orchestrated by Porter McIntosh. He hadn’t been home since the Rose Garden press conference. His wife had been home once and then returned to DC, but he had stayed in Washington.

It was Wednesday, the second week of June, and he was glad to be on his way to Vicksburg for some rest and relaxation before the confirmation hearings began. Life was much slower in the Mississippi delta than in DC.

Judge Shelton performed well during the mock hearings and would go through another round of simulated questioning before the real hearings began next week. But he needed to get away from Washington for a few days to recover.

He and Victoria—Vicki, he affectionately called her—flew on a chartered Gulfstream jet from Reagan Washington National to Jackson International Airport in Jackson, Mississippi. A limousine was waiting to take them to Vicksburg. Two FBI agents met them at the airport and escorted their limousine on the fifty-mile trek. Judge Shelton and Vicki were both exhausted from the whirlwind of activities that went along with the nomination. He dozed during the flight, and neither said much during the ride from the airport. But it was a comfortable, relaxing silence.

They arrived at their house on Fayette Street about 9:30 p.m. The sky was completely dark except for the stars glistening overhead. The FBI agents parked at the curb across the street from the Sheltons’ house.

The house had been in Judge Shelton’s family for generations. It was only six blocks from the court square. When he had been in private practice, he’d walked to his downtown office some days. He and Vicki had reared their four children here: three daughters and a son. Vicki had aged well despite four kids. She was five feet six and slim. Her black hair held only flecks of gray. Margaret, their oldest daughter, practiced with a one-hundred-lawyer firm in Jackson, Mississippi. John Edward, named for Judge Shelton’s paternal grandfather, coached high school football in Hattiesburg. Vivian and Melissa—the family called her Missy—were sorority girls at Mississippi State University.

Judge Shelton and Vicki exited the car and entered the house. The driver carried their luggage and set it inside the door. Their part-time housekeeper, Florence, had stacked the mail and copies of the
Vicksburg Post
on the solid-oak kitchen table. Judge Shelton scanned the headlines while Vicki thumbed through the mail.

“That’s a tragedy,” Judge Shelton commented. He held up the previous day’s edition of the newspaper and read the full article.

“What’s that, dear?”

“It says Trooper Rusty Jones was shot and killed Monday night during a traffic stop on I-20 near Clinton. I knew him.”

“Does it say what happened?”

“Just that he was killed and the motorist fled.” He put down that newspaper and picked up the next day’s edition. “Today’s
Post
says that the authorities are still trying to find the motorist who shot Trooper Jones. I hope they catch him or her, whoever did it. Rusty was a good man.”

“You want me to send flowers to the funeral?”

Judge Shelton had by now flipped to the obituaries in the back of the newspaper. “The obit says that a college fund for his children has been established at First National Bank. Let’s make a donation to that instead of flowers.”

“I’ll do that tomorrow. Let’s go to bed,” Vicki urged. “I’m exhausted. Florence left a note that Billy Ray is coming to get your car in the morning for its regular servicing. He thought that might be easier than your driving it to his garage. The note said to leave the keys under the mat, and that way he won’t have to disturb us in the morning.”

Judge Shelton laid the newspaper on the kitchen table and yawned and stretched. “That sounds like a good idea. And I’ll tell the guys out front to be expecting him.”

The Shelton residence, Vicksburg, Mississippi

The next morning at 7:00 a.m. Agent Brian Cole and Agent Fred Michaels sat across the street from the Sheltons’ house in an unmarked, dark-colored sedan. Agent Cole was in the driver’s seat. The sun was still low in the eastern sky, and clouds were nowhere to be seen. The two FBI agents were drinking coffee and eating doughnuts delivered by a patrol officer with the Vicksburg City Police.

A dented white Chevy pickup approached and parked at the curb in front of the Shelton house. A sign on the driver’s door of the truck read Bolton’s Garage. A middle-aged, wiry man with closely cropped red hair exited the truck wearing a grimy uniform of navy blue pants and a gray-and-blue-
striped shirt with buttons down the front. He waved at the FBI agents.

“That must be Billy Ray,” Agent Cole said and gave a stiff wave back.

Agent Michaels held a chocolate-glazed doughnut in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. His mouth was too full to respond verbally, so he nodded his agreement.

Billy Ray walked up the driveway to the carport where Judge Shelton’s Lexus LS was parked beside Vicki’s Cadillac STS. He opened the driver’s-side door and bent over to look for the keys under the floor mat. Then he eased himself into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

The explosion knocked both Judge Shelton and Vicki from their bed. He landed facedown. He was dazed but not unconscious. He didn’t know what had happened but knew that something was terribly wrong. He was quickly aware of the heat and billowing smoke.

“Vicki!” he called out. “Vicki!”

“I’m over here.” Her voice was faint.

He lifted himself onto the side of the bed. “Where?”

“On the floor by the bed.”

He crawled over the top of the bed and peered down at her lying on the floor. She was in peach-colored silk pajamas and the bedcovers were tangled around her. He slid off the bed onto the floor beside her. The room was filling with thick, black smoke.

“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m not sure,” she mumbled. “What happened?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to get out of here. Can you move?”

“I think so,” she said and tried to sit up.

“Judge Shelton!” an anxious voice yelled from somewhere in the house. “Judge Shelton!”

“We’re in here!”

He was trying to untangle Vicki from the bedcovers when Agents Cole and Michaels crawled into the room.

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Agent Cole said. “But stay on all fours. The smoke will rise to the ceiling.”

“I’m not leaving without Vicki.”

“Michaels will take care of her. C’mon.”

Agent Cole grabbed Judge Shelton and practically dragged him toward the front door. Judge Shelton could hear sirens wailing at him from a distance. The closer to the front of the house he got, the hotter the air felt. He could hear a popping noise and smelled fire. It seemed like an eternity before he and Agent Cole finally reached the front door. The fresh air felt good.

“Can you walk?”

“I think so. Where’s Vicki?”

“They’re right behind us, sir.”

Judge Shelton got to his feet with assistance, and Agent Cole grabbed him by the elbow. He stumbled through the door onto the porch and then into the yard. He supported himself against Agent Cole. Vicki and Agent Michaels were on their heels. Two ambulances screamed to a stop in front of the house, and paramedics raced to Judge Shelton and Vicki. Red and white lights flashed from both vehicles and sirens blared. The first fire truck came to a stop behind the ambulances and firemen scrambled in all directions.

The paramedics placed Judge Shelton in the rear of one of the ambulances and Vicki in the other. His burgundy-and-white-striped pajamas and face were covered in soot, and his left arm and hand were covered in blood. Agent Cole stood beside the open rear door of the ambulance. He stared toward the house.

The paramedics put an oxygen mask over Judge Shelton’s face and began to examine him. The female paramedic wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his right biceps. She sterilized the contusion on his forehead and bandaged an abrasion on his left forearm. His knees were bruised, and he could feel them begin to swell.

“I think you’re going to be all right,” the female paramedic said. A stethoscope was draped around her neck. She looked into Judge Shelton’s eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. “You and your wife are very lucky.”

Judge Shelton finally looked back at his house and saw it engulfed in flames. The once majestic oaks behind the house were ablaze, and the one-hundred-year-old magnolia tree in the front yard was stripped bare. Firefighters ran in all directions, pulling fire hoses and spraying water. He could hear instructions being yelled. The carport was completely destroyed. The two cars were nothing more than burning metal frames. The Lexus was upside down on top of the Cadillac.

Judge Shelton pulled the oxygen mask down to his chin. “What happened?” he asked Agent Cole.

Agent Cole blinked before he shifted his gaze from the house to Judge Shelton. “I don’t know for sure, sir, but it looks like a car bomb.”

The law offices of Elijah J. Faulkner,
Jackson, Tennessee

“Judge Blackwood called,” Eli told Jill as their planning session on the Grissom case began on Thursday. They were meeting in the front conference room of Eli’s office and had the file contents spread over the table. “He scheduled the trial for the third week in August.”

“That doesn’t give us much time,” Jill replied. She sat across the table from Eli, reviewing the transcript from the preliminary hearing.

“Eight weeks, to be exact. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and Judge Blackwood ordered us to have Tag available next Monday so a vial of blood can be drawn. The state crime lab is going to compare his DNA with the DNA found in the skin fragments under Ms. Caldwell’s fingernail. Can you call him later to arrange it?” Eli shuffled a stack of papers and stacked them neatly to the side.

“I don’t mind calling,” Jill said, “but have you talked to either one of them since the preliminary hearing?”

Eli spoke without looking up from the document he was reading. It was a background check on Todd Allen Grissom prepared by Jimmy English. It contained a criminal-background check, a credit report, and a job history. Most of the information was easily obtainable from the Internet. Some was harder to retrieve, but none of it revealed anything that intrigued Eli about Tag.

Todd Allen Grissom was the only child of a single mother who was now deceased. He went to a private prep school in Nashville, did his undergraduate work at Vanderbilt, and his medical degree came from Emory University in Atlanta.

How was a single mother able to pay for that type of education?
Eli wondered briefly.

Tag had never been arrested. He paid his debts. There was nothing in his background for Randy Dickerson to get excited about, Eli reasoned.

“Anna called last week and begged me not to withdraw from representing Tag. She said she would tell me sometime all that is going on, but she couldn’t right now. She assured me that it wouldn’t have an impact on the case. I think she’s lying, but I hope she’s right. I don’t like surprises.”

“Me neither,” Jill commented. “What’s next?”

“Get Jimmy English back on the case. I want him to dig up everything he can on the investigating detectives and the coroner. If there is any way to attack their credibility, I want to.”

Jill took detailed notes on a yellow notepad before looking up at Eli. “I got it. What else?”

“Let’s get discovery requests out to Dickerson’s office. We need to see everything they have on this case, particularly the detectives’ investigative notes.”

“Is that it?”

Eli had thought about his next move long and hard over the last few days. He had acquired a certain dislike for his own client, which was a weird feeling. But he finally came to the realization that he had no option. To properly represent Tag—despite his dislike of him—he had to establish that he wasn’t the father of Jessica Caldwell’s fetus.

“What do you think about asking Judge Blackwood to order the body exhumed?”

“To do what? Run DNA tests on the fetus?”

Eli stood up and stretched his legs. He peered through the window in the conference room at the three-story concrete county courthouse building across the street. “Exactly. I think I’ve got to prove that Tag didn’t father the child. That would give us an opportunity to argue that someone else had a motive for killing Ms. Caldwell.”

“That’ll be very disturbing to the Caldwell family.”

“I’ve thought about that and I’m sure it will be, but I can’t worry about it. If we’re going to do everything we can to exonerate Tag, we’ve got to obtain DNA from the fetus.”

Eli turned and eyed Jill. He could see from the determined look on her face that she was running through all the possibilities in her head. He waited for her to process them all.

“What if Tag’s lying and the DNA matches?”

“I’ve thought about that, too,” he said, “and it’s a chance I’ve got to take. And if it matches, it matches. I’ll know then that Tag was lying about being sterile and it’ll make it harder to defend him. Not impossible…but certainly harder.”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll start drafting a motion and call Dr. Grissom.”

The Grissom residence, Brentwood, Tennessee

Anna could tell from Tag’s end of the conversation only that the call was from either Eli or Jill. Tag was mostly listening and talking very little. After several minutes, Tag hung up the receiver on the phone in the kitchen and faced Anna.

“That was Jill,” he said. “Judge Blackwood has ordered me to submit to DNA testing, and Eli is going to ask the judge to exhume Jessica’s body so that he can get a DNA test on the fetus.”

Tag appeared anxious. He began to pace through the kitchen with his face down toward the floor. He appeared to be thinking.

“What are you upset about?” she asked. “Eli already told you that Judge Blackwood would likely order you to submit to testing.”

“I’m not upset about that.”

“You think exhuming the body is a bad idea?”

Tag had his back to Anna and didn’t respond.

She asked again. “Wouldn’t that prove that you’re not the father?”

Again, no response.