The Advocate's Daughter (29 page)

“Here they are,” the librarian said.

Sean thanked her and she scurried off. He sorted through the opinions until he found it:
United States v. Ahmed.
The case Blake Hellstrom identified in his argument to Judge Chin. He flipped to the back and found the dissenting opinion. Dissents are authored by a single justice and other justices join the opinion. He found the name and his rage boiled to the surface.

 

CHAPTER 76

Sean approached the Supreme Court officer stationed at the north corridor that separated the Great Hall from chambers. The officer was a young guy who wore a blue blazer and radio clipped to his belt. His eyes widened a trace at the sight of Sean.

“I have an appointment.”

The officer gave him a concerned look. “Mr. Serrat, I'm sorry, I wasn't told that they were expecting visitors.” He fumbled for his radio. “I'll need to call…”

Sean gave the man a long stare. “If you think you need to clear it, please, call Carl.” He'd been in D.C. long enough to know the power of the name-drop.

The officer washed a hand over his face, seeming to deliberate what would be worse, breaching protocol and letting Sean through or getting taken to task by Police Chief Martinez for daring to question a respected figure at the court, one whose daughter had been murdered on their watch. He lowered his radio and moved aside, gesturing with his arm for Sean to pass through the bronze trellis.

The secretary in chambers looked equally surprised at Sean's visit. She asked him to take a seat in the reception area, picked up the telephone, and spoke softly into the receiver. The large doors to chambers were closed, but Sean could hear the whispers of the law clerks in the adjoining offices.

Sean's mobile buzzed and he clicked open a text. It was from Emily:

Call me as soon as you're done. Jon gave me a ride home. I love you.

The intercom on the receptionist's desk buzzed and she picked up the phone, listened, and placed it back in the cradle.

“He'll see you now.”

Sean took a deep breath and opened one of the impressive mahogany doors. He walked down a corridor lined with shelves filled with old law books and into an ornate office. Oriental rugs covered the floor, and a settee and two wing chairs were placed in front of a massive fireplace. Out the window, a spectacular view of the Capitol dome. Sean recalled from his own clerkship days that the space had once been home to Justice Kagan, though she had gone with modern décor. The only modern item here was a gold football helmet placed prominently in a display cabinet.

Justice Carr, wearing a white dress shirt with the top button undone and his tie loosened, greeted Sean as he entered chambers. Carr's shirtsleeves were rolled up, showing muscular forearms.

“Sean, what a pleasant surprise.” He stuck out his hand.

Sean let it hang there.

The justice let his hand fall slowly. Less confident, he said, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He gestured for Sean to take a seat in front of the fireplace, but Sean stood.

“
United States v. Ahmed,
” Sean said.

Carr returned Sean's stare with a confused squint of the eyes.

“Your dissent,” Sean added.

Justice Carr held his stare at first, but looked away. Then, a half-hearted, “I don't understand.”

“Neither did I until I saw your draft e-mail message to my daughter.”

“I don't under—”

“Don't,”
Sean said through gritted teeth. He glared at Justice Carr until the man averted his eyes again. “Do you know how I got here today?”

Justice Carr's gaze lifted, he shook his head.

“I took a rickshaw. You know, one of those bike contraptions. Mine was operated by the brother of one of Abby's friends. A friend who lives in Adams Morgan on Kalorama Road, an address I think you're familiar with.”

Justice Carr's eyes flashed, but he didn't say anything. He walked to his large wooden desk, which was stacked with briefs—the blue, red, gray, and green little booklets Sean had spent nearly his entire adult life reading and writing. There were two phones on the desk, one red with no buttons, the panic phone, the other an ordinary office phone. The justice eyed them both, then pushed a button on the ordinary phone. A voice bellowed from the speaker. “Can I get you something, Justice Carr?”

“Yes, Kathryn. It's been an exceptionally long week. I'd like you to tell the law clerks to take the rest of the day off.”

“You'd like me to send them home?” the voice said from the speaker. Tentative, like perhaps she had misunderstood.

“Yes. They need a break.”

A pause. “Yes, sir.”

“And Kathryn,” Justice Carr added, “why don't you take the rest of the day off, too.” It was more of a command than a request.

“Of course, sir.”

When the phone beeped off, Justice Carr's eyes turned again to Sean, who was now standing in front of the desk. A long silence fell between them. Then, the confession: “I loved her.”

Sean took it in.
“Loved,”
he finally spat back.

“Believe what you want, but we were in love.” There was a rehearsed quality to it, acting, Sean thought.

“You loved her so much,” Sean said, “that you immediately came forward after she was killed to tell the police what you knew.”

“It wasn't that simple.”

“Actually, it was.” Sean's pulse was hammering now. “Unless you had something to do with it.”

Carr's expression hardened. “Never.”

“Then, who?”

“You know who—they've arrested him. Malik killed Abby.”

Sean gave a sharp shake of the head.

Carr continued, “I saw her that night, she was scared. It had to be Malik.”

“So you admit to being in the library?” Sean's mind jumped to Malik's testimony:
She was with a man … They were having sex.

“I met her there, yes,” Carr said. “But she was alive when I left. I swear to you.”

“What did she say? What was she scared of?”

“She wouldn't tell me. She just said she needed to speak with you. We heard the library's elevator and she told me to go. It was Malik. I left through the hidden staircase in the back. I wouldn't have left her if I knew he would…” Carr's voice trailed off.

“If you left, how do you know it was Malik?”

“Who else would it be? He was on the surveillance video. He was angry…”

“What about Mason James?” Sean knew that the senator had been out of town that night, but he wanted to see Carr's reaction.

The justice shook his head in dismissal. “James is a corrupt viper, but he didn't have any reason to hurt Abby.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know.” Carr looked down again. “They were following her after she visited that guy at the prison and must have seen us together. James's security man said if she backed off and kept quiet about whatever she'd learned about James, they'd do the same about her relationship with me. She agreed, so they had no reason to hurt her.”

“Then why did you meet with them at the Shakespeare library?”

That seemed to send a jolt through Carr. “They wanted my support for James's nomination. They threatened to expose my relationship with Abby unless I helped.”

“Or they knew you were involved in her death.”

“You're wrong.”

“So you're either a murderer or a coward who left her alone with a killer?”

At this, Carr's tone grew emotional. “You don't think I wish I would have stayed? You don't think I wish I could've saved her?”

“I don't need to know what you
think.
All I
know
is that you are the last person who was with my daughter before she was killed. You didn't go to the police after her murder. And you had a motive to kill her. To save your precious job.”

“No!”
Carr pounded his desk with a closed fist. He was an imposing figure, someone who in a fit of anger could inflict a fatal head injury on a young woman with little effort.

“We're done here.” Sean turned to leave and Justice Carr reached over the desk and grabbed his arm. Sean ripped it away and in a surge of fury swung his other arm wide and connected a fist on Justice Carr's jaw. The justice stumbled back. He clawed at the desk to prevent the fall, but managed only to bring down a pile of briefs onto the floor with him.

The justice slowly picked himself up. He gazed at Sean, then his eyes flicked to a gold letter opener that was at the edge of the desk.

“Everything okay in here?” a voice called out from the door. It was Carl Martinez. Someone must have heard the shouting and summoned him.

Sean turned to Martinez. “Everything's fine. I was just leaving.” He turned back to Justice Carr and said, “It's over for you.”

 

CHAPTER 77

But it wasn't over.

Sean sat at his dining room table amid the remnants of Thai take-out: empty cardboard boxes and plastic containers of red curry with chicken. Jack's glass of milk was smeared with handprints and kernels of white rice. The sound of the boys playing video games floated up from the basement.

Emily surveyed the wreckage. “I really need to start cooking for us again.”

“I think we all feel bad enough,” Sean deadpanned.

A faint smile crossed Emily's lips. There was a knock at the front door.

“Frank's here.”

The three converged in the living room. Frank Pacini sat on the couch, Sean and Emily in the chairs across from him. Each held a cup of coffee. Pacini reached for a coaster and set down his mug. “What a day,” Pacini said. “I think we won the motion to suppress. But, between us, I'm starting to question the government's case.”

“We are too, which is why I invited you over.” Sean told him about his confrontation with Justice Carr, that the justice admitted to having a relationship with Abby and to seeing her the night she was murdered.

“How did you find out about them?” Pacini asked.

“Today in court. It was the Gmail account. When Blake Hellstrom mentioned the court's decision in
Ahmed,
I remembered it was Justice Carr who wrote the dissent, spelling out how terrorists use draft e-mails to communicate. We knew from Abby's friend that she was seeing someone and that she was keeping his identity a secret. Before I confronted him, though, I wanted to make sure. The brother of Abby's friend had seen her with an older man. I showed the kid a photo, and he recognized Carr.”

Pacini rubbed his chin. “So, what's it mean? You think Carr murdered Abby?”

“I don't know. He had motive—he told me that someone knew about their relationship.” Sean left out that Senator James was blackmailing Justice Carr. The senator still had the evidence on Ryan. “And Carr admits he was at the library that night and he didn't come forward after her murder.”

“He's married, though, so that could explain his silence, right? And his job…”

Sean nodded. “He's got life tenure, but if the affair went public, he'd face insurmountable pressure to resign. What I can't figure out is something he said about that night. He said that he heard the elevator and got out of the library quickly through a back stairwell. But Malik Montgomery's testimony is inconsistent with that. Malik said that he saw Abby and a man together on the library's couch. If Justice Carr and Abby heard the elevator—which has gotta be at least a couple hundred feet from the back of the library—they wouldn't have been on the couch by the time Malik came upon them. But Malik testified that he saw them without them knowing it.”

“Someone's obviously lying.”

Emily weighed in: “Or, there was a third person in the library that night. Malik crept in and saw Abby and Justice Carr without them realizing it and left, then a third person took the elevator up there. Carr and Abby heard it and Carr took off, leaving Abby and the person there alone.”

Before Pacini responded, Ryan came into the living room.

“Yes, sweetie,” Emily said.

“Jack and I were watching TV and there was a breaking news story.”

“Yeah?” Sean said.

“It says there's police cars at a Supreme Court justice's house. The justice, the man we met at the court that day, has gone missing or something.”

 

CHAPTER 78

“Thanks for letting me come,” Sean said from the passenger seat of Pacini's car. Pacini had contacted the Supreme Court Police and learned that Justice Carr's detail had put out an alert that the justice was missing.

“No problem.” Pacini kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. “But you need to let me do all the talking.”

Pacini drove past several parked news vans and pulled up to an officer manning a sawhorse that blocked the street. Pacini flashed his credentials and the officer nodded, then waved him through. In front of Justice Carr's home were three black SUVs and a black sedan, the Supreme Court Police and an FBI team. The justice's home was a turn-of-the-century mansion in Cleveland Park. Sean followed Pacini up the porch steps. The curtain was open, and Sean could see into the place. Two men in suits sat at a formal dining table speaking to an elegant woman in her late thirties. Her hair was pulled back, and her sleeveless black dress revealed the arms of a woman who spent substantial time at the gym.

A young agent met Pacini at the door. “Justice Carr's detail got concerned when he didn't show up at home after work. His wife said they were scheduled to appear at a speaking engagement at seven o'clock, and he isn't answering his cell phone. There's a GPS tracker on the justice's phone and his car, but neither are giving off a signal. He also has an implanted device.”

“The implant isn't working?” Pacini asked. “That doesn't make sense.”

Sean looked at Pacini, not understanding.