Final Judgment (41 page)

Judge Carter avoided the entire process, voluntarily surrendering her law license, and was disbarred. The prosecuting attorney let her plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of theft by deception. She paid a fine and left town.

Mason appeared before the Supreme Court represented by his Aunt Claire. She argued passionately on his behalf, emphasizing the difficult burdens of criminal defense lawyers and highlighting that Mason had taken responsibility for what he’d done. She urged the court to allow him to keep his license and practice under her supervision for a period of two years. The court took his case under advisement, promising to issue its decision within four to six weeks.

Mason spent the next four weeks in limbo as the last of his clients drifted away and the phone stopped ringing. He sold his house because he needed the money. None of the neighbors helped him pack, though a few stopped in at his garage sale asking how soon he’d be gone. Emptiness grew inside him as he sealed each box of belongings, sorting through what he would keep and what he would give away, surprised at how little he wanted.

Claire kept telling him that change was invigorating and that he should embrace it. He replied that he would take it slowly, having made it a rule to hold hands before embracing. Tuffy took a final trot around the house, sniffing her favorite spots one last time. Mason rented an apartment overlooking Brush Creek on the Plaza.

Abby offered to take a leave of absence from Senator Seeley’s staff, but he convinced her to stay on the job. Sensing that his notoriety was a liability to her in high-profile Washington circles, he declined her invitations to visit and kept their telephone conversations short. His feelings for her hadn’t changed, but his capacity for their relationship was, like his future, uncertain.

He kept up on the search for Dennis Brewer and Kelly Holt through Samantha Greer and Rachel Firestone. Eventually, the FBI told the police they no longer required their assistance. The news coverage subsided until one day in March when Brewer’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in Detroit. An FBI spokesman said there were no leads or suspects and that the money taken in the robbery had not been recovered. There was no word about Kelly. Mason tried reaching Roosevelt Holmes and Pete Samuelson, but neither returned his calls.

By the time the Supreme Court decision arrived, his mail had dwindled to a trickle of bills and promotions so the official-looking envelope was easy to spot when the mail carrier shoved it through the slot in his office door. The envelope landed in the center of the floor and he stared at it from behind his desk.

He had brought Tuffy with him to the office to give her a break from confinement in the apartment. She was lying on the sofa. When the mail arrived, she climbed down and sniffed it.

“You open it,” he told the dog, who looked up at him, her tail wagging.

Mason opened the envelope and skipped to the last paragraph of the decision, knowing that’s where the ruling would be set out. After reciting the undisputed facts, the court cited Mason’s duties as an officer of the court, the corrosive effect of his conduct on the legal system, his determined efforts to keep his actions secret, and that he had only come forward when he had been duped into doing so. In light of all that, the court said, there was no alternative. He was disbarred.

Standing in the middle of his office, the court’s order dangling from his fingertips, he turned slowly around, surveying the law books lining his shelves, the empty spaces where he used to stack client files, and the dry erase board where he dissected the puzzles that were his cases. Abby’s words echoed in his mind.
Is that all you are? Some guy with a law license?
It was time to find out.

“C’mon, dog,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s shaking.”

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