Untitled (33 page)

  "Come on, Kadhi," said Nessa.

  She took the boy in her arms and passed him to his father. Moses took his son and held him tight. He looked into the boy's eyes and smiled.

  "Daddy came a long way to see you," he said.

M
arshall got to the office early and worked on his opening for trial. The lists were all in, motions done, and he could tell already that the case would come down to two pieces of evidence: ballistics and DNA. There were eyewitnesses, but that kind of testimony was not very important. Most people didn't understand that eyewitness testimony was notoriously unreliable and easily cross-examined and discredited. He thought about the Johnsons. Even if they had lived, they probably would have broken on cross when he got through with them.

  He'd started the morning having breakfast with Danny, who was kind enough not to bring up the subject of Chemin being a murderer. Danny then left to attend a hearing with his attorney. He was going to try to be reinstated with pay. Marshall was kind enough not to tell him that he didn't have a snowball's chance.

  Marshall decided that today he would get to the bottom of this mystery with Chemin. He could not do a trial with these terrible thoughts in his head.

  He would need some facts on Jessica's death. The case had been put on hold by the FBI, but the locals were sure to have a file. He knew several people who could get him a case file if he needed it, including Tony Hill, the deputy chief. The only problem was they might ask why.

  Marshall looked at his desk and realized that his life in the office had stopped during the case. Piles of unopened mail and court papers filled his in box. He sifted through it. Except for the court papers, most of it was interdepartmental crap, junk mail and the like. He gathered it up and tossed it into his trash can.

  A powder blue envelope caught his eye. It was smaller than a standard envelope, and looked odd among all the other papers. Marshall fished it out of the trash and looked at the envelope, which was addressed to him. It had birds on the border and smelled of perfume. Then he saw the initials "J.C." in the return address corner.

  "Jessica," he said aloud.

  Marshall carefully opened the letter and took it out. His heart was racing as he looked at the date. It was written the very day she died.

  
I know it's stupid to write this letter, but I feel I have
to. My heart is not my own anymore. Since your wife
saw us, I have been having the most terrible thoughts.
I felt so bad for doing what I did that I went to see my
pastor and confessed to him. He was angry with me,
and made me pray with him for a half hour. I felt so
much better when it was over.

  
But I still loved you.

  
I can't help but tell the truth, that's the only way I
can get over this, you see. It's so damned pathetic to
pine away for something that's not yours, but I swear
I thought that she didn't want you anymore. I guess
maybe it was just wishful thinking.

  
It's so hard to find a man like you these days. I guess
I wanted to make sure that if you left her, I'd have a
head start on all the other women out there (smile).

  
I had a dream about us last night. We were together,
making love, I held you tight between my legs and
whispered to you all the things I wanted from life. And
you kept saying: "I'll be with you, always."

  
That was a silly dream, huh? I know it was stupid
but it's how I feel about you, like you will take care
of me if we could be together. Just so you won't
worry, you should know that I put in for a transfer to
L.A. It's some time off, but Agent Sommers said she
can help me.

  
I wasn't going to write you, but I changed my mind
because I thought you had come to the office today.
Those CIA jerks were nosing around again, so we
were all trying to make ourselves scarce. I took an
early lunch and was walking out, when I heard your
voice from behind a door. I heard your friend too, that
white man who sounds like he's black. So I knocked on
the door, and then the voices stopped. I called out your
name, but no one answered. I went to lunch, and when
I came back, the office was empty. I asked everyone if
they had seen you, but no one had. I'm sorry if I stum
bled on some secret meeting you had there, but your
voice is so distinctive.

  
Well, this letter is getting long and I have to go
home. Please don't hate me for what I did, and after
I'm gone, please don't ever forget about me.

Love,

Jess

  Marshall put the letter into his briefcase and stood. His mind was spinning, and he saw the letter shake in his hands. He'd been to FBI headquarters many times, but he'd never been there with Danny. So, if Jessica was right, how could she have heard his voice and Danny's? The only time Danny had even been in the building was—

  
When he was in his office.

  Marshall sat back down in his chair. Fear filled his heart. Jessica had heard him and Danny, but what she had heard was a r
ecording
of them in his office. That meant there was a listening device somewhere in the office. He glanced around the room at the walls, looking for a camera. No, he thought. That would be too obvious. Too much trouble to put a camera in. You'd have to run the lines to a monitor without being detected. It was probably audio. That was more likely.

  But why would his office be bugged? He thought of Jessica's letter. The "CIA jerks" as she called them were there. Van Ness, the happy-ass spook, and his pal, Easter, would be just the kind of guys to do something like this, he thought. But then there was also Sommers and the FBI, and yes, he thought, Nate and Toby.

  The only answer was the Douglas case. He always felt that someone wanted to make sure he won this case. The Johnsons' deaths had never sat well with him. Langworthy didn't make any sense because he was a liberal judge, but that might be a decoy. Even a liberal judge wouldn't spring a man who killed another judge if the evidence was airtight.

  Still why? Douglas had been killed because he was a judge who—Marshall stopped. Why had Douglas been killed? he asked himself. They all thought that it was because he was a conservative seen as a race traitor, but that was Mbutu's alleged motive. So, if Mbutu didn't kill Douglas, then whoever did had another reason. If Douglas was killed by someone else, that person had to be connected to powerful people, wealthy people, people with great resources.

  Like the government.

  A Supreme Court justice is like the president in that his vote can shake the foundations of society. And sometimes people don't want the foundation shaken. Now, he suspected everyone. Anyone involved in the case could be the culprit.

  Suddenly, he realized that if Jessica had stumbled onto an illegal recording, then that was why she was killed that night. He felt a weight lift from his mind. Chemin was innocent. But if the killers had murdered Jessica just for hear ing his voice, what would they do to him if he found out their identity?

  He had to find the device, he told himself. That was the only way he could be sure he was right and flush out the spy. Marshall looked around the office and tried to remember where he was when Danny was there. He checked his desk and credenza, nothing. The FBI's new listening devices were so small that it could be anywhere. He went under his desk and inspected the underside.

  If someone came in they would probably think that he'd lost it. Marshall got on his back and looked up at the desk. Still nothing. Then he took out the drawers one by one, carefully so as not to make any noise. Nothing. He stood up and looked up at the ceiling, but it was clean. He was not thinking right. He had to think like the killers behind all this. He walked to the front of his office and looked at the room. Where could a microphone be so as to catch a conversation no matter where you were?

  In his vista, in the middle of the room, he saw the two bookshelves behind his desk. Slowly, he walked toward them. He checked them carefully. On the middle shelf near the back was a small silver microphone. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than a quarter. Because it was under a shelf and near the back, there was no way you would ever see it just getting a book or casually looking for something.

  Marshall backed away from it. "Muthafucka," he whispered. What kind of trouble had he gotten himself into? His lawyer's mind quickly listed the crimes committed by putting the device in his office. Then he had a more disturbing thought. Whoever had done this probably had his indiscretion with Jessica and confrontation with Chemin on tape. He was enraged and embarrassed by the thought, but there were more pressing things to consider. The time had come to make an aggressive move in this game.

  He wrote out an opening for the case. This took an hour, but he waited to be sure no one suspected that it was a decoy. Ironically, the words came easily under this pressure. When he was finished, he got on the phone and started calling everyone.

* * *

Bob Ryder, Roberta, and Walter all filed in ten minutes later. Marshall told them that he wanted to practice an opening on them. He got up and paced before them; after a moment, he looked at the bookcase and went over to it and took down a book from the shelf with the microphone in it. He pretended to check a quote then put it back, looking curiously at the shelf and making sure they saw him looking. Then he finished the statement.

  "So what do you think?" asked Marshall when he was finished.

  "Not bad," said Bob Ryder. "But it should be longer."

  "No way," said Walter. "A long opening makes a jury think you haven't pinpointed the issue."

  "It needs more facts," said Roberta. "You should hit on the proof more, but otherwise, it's great."

  Marshall watched them as they spoke. They all seemed calm, except Walter, who was his normal edgy self. It could be him, Marshall thought. Walter had a checkered past and a bad history in the office. He pondered Walter's substance abuse problems.

  Marshall gave them all copies of the opening and told them to write out all of their suggestions for him. It was unorthodox, but he was sure they didn't know what was going on.

  Later, Agent Sommers came in, and Marshall gave her a bullshit story about wanting tighter security on Mbutu. He felt that once the trial started his life might be in danger. Sommers seemed to buy it but showed no reaction when he seemed to notice something in the bookcase.

  Agents Van Ness and Easter showed up around quitting time. Van Ness was his old happy self. Marshall told them that he wanted to make sure that Mbutu didn't have any radical connections that might make the trial dangerous. Van Ness agreed and said that they had already checked out the various antigovernment groups and so far found nothing. But he agreed that maybe they should look again. The last thing anyone wanted was an oversight that ended in a fatality.

  They never flinched as he took a moment to straighten out the books on the shelf, not once, but twice. Marshall talked to them for a few more minutes then let the agents go and started to pack his briefcase.

  He was about to leave when Nate Williams came in. Marshall had almost forgotten that he was on the list. Nate was his friend and mentor, and he felt bad deceiving him, but he told him the story about the stacked jury pool and how he suspected that Kelly had gotten to someone. Marshall made sure to go to the bookcase and notice something amiss. Nate showed no emotion. He didn't really expect Nate to show anything. He'd been in government for a long time and was a cool customer.

  Nate said that he would look into the matter, then he left, saying that he was going home. But when Marshall walked out of his office, he heard Nate talking urgently to someone on the phone. Nate's door was open.

  Marshall was excited and sad about this. Nate had found a reason not to go home, and it could be connected to the bug in Marshall's office. If Nate was reacting to Marshall's discovery of the microphone, it was foolish for him to have left his office door open. Marshall wanted to eavesdrop, but that was not part of the plan.

  He walked out of the office but did not leave the building. He went down a floor and waited for a while, then he doubled back onto the U.S. attorney's floor and hid in an office across from his own.

  He couldn't hide in his own office because his confrontation with the spy would be caught on audio. He waited and watched the office lights go out. Then he heard a noise from outside the room he was in. Marshall peeked out the door in time to see someone go into his office. He didn't get a good look, but the game was on, he thought. He'd wait until they came out, then confront them.

  Then he realized that if someone came in he would be defenseless. If it were Sommers or Van Ness, he'd be at their mercy if they pulled a weapon. He was foolish. He was dealing with murderers, and here he was sitting in a dark room with nothing more than a briefcase to protect himself. Then he had an idea. There was a code for security that could be dialed from any phone. The guards would get the code and come to wherever the code originated from. Marshall took the phone in the office and got ready.