The Last Justice (3 page)

beige ten-year-old Buick Century pulled into the dark gravel lot of Squaw's Smoke Shop and parked under a scraggly stand of trees.' "shop" was nothing more than a dilapidated trailer covered with faded cardboard signs advertising "tax free" cigarettes.

A tall man with black, lifeless eyes and a pockmarked face got out of the car and scanned the lot. He wore a camouflage hunting jacket and his heavy boots thumped loudly as he walked up the wooden steps to the trailer's door. He knocked and a few moments later Bobby Ray Cherry's unshaven face peered out the window, and then broke into a toothy grin.

"I been waitin' on you," Bobby Ray said, beaming, as he opened the door. "It went perfect."

The visitor with the pockmarked face took another quick look around him, then followed Bobby Ray inside. The trailer was divided roughly in half. To the right, a beat-up cash register sat on top of a long counter, behind it stood rusted metal shelves filled with cigarette cartons. To the left, a frayed green curtain hung from the ceiling. A handwritten sign taped to the curtain read "EMPLOYEES ONLY." Bobby Ray led the man through the curtain, then plopped down on the ripped sofa and put his feet up on the coffee table. Also on the table, next to a rumpled copy of Hustler, was a laptop computer, a wallet, and a plastic security badge with a photo and the caption "LAw CLERK-PARKER SINCLAIR."

Without a word, the pockmarked-face visitor slid Bobby Ray's feet aside, picked up the wallet and rifled through the cards and bills, then opened and closed the laptop without turning it on. He nodded approvingly then reached into his back pocket, pulled out an envelope, and threw it on the table next to Sinclair's wallet.

"Here's the rest of what I owe you."

Bobby Ray smiled as he picked up the envelope, ripped it open with his thumb, and sank back into the sofa.

The visitor gave a dry cough. "You got something to drink?"

"Help yourself," said Bobby Ray, pointing to a small refrigerator, not looking up from counting his money.

Going over to the refrigerator, the visitor made some rummaging sounds while pulling a small bottle and a folded bandanna from his jacket. He quietly poured the liquid from the bottle onto the bandanna.

An instant later, he had Bobby Ray in a choke hold, with the bandanna clamped over his mouth and nose. He held on while Bobby Ray let out a muffled yell, bucked and kicked, and went limp.

When he woke up, Bobby Ray found himself duct-taped to a chair.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" he sputtered.

"Who knows about me?" the pockmarked-face visitor said in a calm tone. "Who did you tell about me?"

"I didn't say nothin'to nobody!"

"Tell me the truth, and nobody has a problem." From his ankle he unsheathed a short, double-edged hunting knife.

Bobby Ray's eyes widened. "I didn't say shit!" He struggled to free his arms and began rocking the chair from side-to-side.

The pockmarked-face visitor walked slowly to the chair, casting a shadow over his frightened prisoner. When Bobby Ray continued to thrash about, the visitor placed the tip of the blade at the center of his forehead. Bobby Ray instantly froze.

"Who'd you talk to about me?"

"I told you, I didn't say a word, I swear-"

The visitor cut around Bobby Ray's left eye, down his cheek to the center of his chin. He liked to start with the face because there was always a lot of blood.

Bobby Ray screamed in agony.

"Who'd you tell about me?"

"No one," Bobby Ray screamed. His face was soaked in blood and he started to cry.

"Who?" the visitor's gravelly voice boomed.

Bobby Ray just sat limp in the chair and whimpered.

The visitor crouched down, so the two were eye-level. Bobby Ray held his gaze for a moment then looked down at his lap.

"Look at me," the visitor demanded. When Bobby Ray did not comply, he grabbed a fistful of his stringy hair and jerked his head up. The visitor's black eyes stared intently into Bobby Ray's.

"I'm gonna give you one more chance, Bobby Ray. Who'd you tell?"

"I... didn't ... tell... nobody."

the visitor stood and gave an exasperated shake of the head. "How about your girlfriend? Did you tell her?"

"She don't know nothin' about you!" Bobby Ray said in a desperate tone, spittles of blood shooting from his mouth.

"That's not quite true," the visitor said. "Britney and I go way back. She didn't tell you about when we were kids?"

Bobby Ray gave him a puzzled look.

"You know what, Bobby Ray? I believe you. You know why?"

Slumped over in the chair, his face and shirt drenched in blood, Bobby Ray just looked at the man.

"I believe you because it's the same thing that whore Britney told me a hour ago right before I cut her throat." He then walked over to Bobby Ray, placed the blade at his neck, and slit the flesh from ear-to-ear. After carefully wiping the blade on Bobby Ray's shirt, he resheathed the knife in his boot.

By daybreak, Bobby Ray Cherry and his girlfriend, Britney Goodhart, were buried in a wooded area behind a rest stop on Montauk Highway, a mile from the reservation.

Driving back toward the city, the visitor punched a number into his disposable cell phone and calmly spoke into the speaker, "It's done."

Law offices ofDavison, Hall & Wardman, Manhattan

cKenna was running late, having fallen back to sleep after his wake-up call. He walked fast on East Forty-fifth toward the MetLife Building, his eyes tracing the skyscraper's outline upward until it disappeared into the fog. Davison, Hall & Wardman, the white-shoe law firm hosting the Supreme Court Commission meeting, had prime office space on the top floors of MetLife.

Within minutes of entering the lobby, McKenna was escorted by a uniformed security guard to the conference room on the fiftieth floor. His hopes of entering the meeting unnoticed were dashed when he opened the door and a beam of light brightened the otherwise dimly lit room. Nearly everyone seated in the rows of long tables seemed to shift their glances toward McKenna. Professor Jonathan Tweed, standing at a lectern and pointing to a PowerPoint presentation on the large screen, sniffed at him as if he were one of the professor's law students arriving late to class.

Taking a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkened room, McKenna made his way up the aisle looking for an empty seat. He recognized many of the government and law enforcement officials who were sitting behind towers of briefing books and empty bottles of water. A Justice Department lawyer caught his eye and quietly gestured that McKenna should take the lawyer's seat. McKenna declined with an appreciative smile, and found an empty spot in the back row.

Settled in, he half-listened as the professor continued the lecture: "Justice Sorenson, the youngest of six children, was raised in a small town in Nebraska."A picture of an older man appeared on the screen behind the professor. "As a boy, after a hard day working on the farm, Sorenson drew inspiration from the stories of Horatio Alger, whose heroes always rose from modest beginnings to achieve great wealth."

Soon enough, McKenna was tuning out Professor Tweed and flipping through a briefing book someone had passed to him. He glanced at the agenda on the front page:

8:30AM TO 9AM - FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR PACINI, INTRODUCTION

9AM TO IO:30AM - YALE LAW PROF. JONATHAN TWEED, BACKGROUND OF THE DECEASED JUSTICES AND THE JUDICIAL CONFIRMATION PROCESS

IO:30AM TO NOON - SOLICITOR GENERAL MCKENNA, POSSIBLE CASE CONNECTIONS

NOON TO IPM - LUNCH

IPM TO 2PM - LAW ENFORCEMENT TASK FORCE, PRINCIPAL MOTIVES AND LEADS

2PM TO 5PM - LAW ENFORCEMENT SUBGROUP MEETINGS (AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Forty minutes later, after a recitation of each slain justice's background and the history of the judicial confirmation process, Professor Tweed said, "I'd like to end by reiterating that Black Wednesday resulted in the deaths of three so-called liberal justices and three conservatives. Why does that matter? It matters because the equal split of conservative and liberals killed makes it unlikely that the assassin sought to change the outcome of a particular case or that the massacre was ideologically based. As the FBI has advised us at prior meetings, the sequence of the shots suggested that the gunman was interested more in the number of kills than in ideology. He gave tactical priority to the justices nearest him and started his rampage at the far left of the bench. He continued shooting the justices down the line, toward the center. It is quite likely that he would have killed all nine justices were it not for Chief Justice Kincaid, who started firing back."

The professor started gathering his notes. "Thus, in my opinion, the most likely motive, assuming any, relating to a particular case comes down to only one thing: delay. As I've explained, history has shown that the confirmation process for replacing even one justice can take months and prompts the worst kind of protracted partisan battles. And as you all know, the replacement of six justices has proved even more contentious. We have now gone six months without a functioning third branch of our government, yet threats of a Democratic filibuster forced the president to delay nominating his original six nominees and to cut a deal. In any event, if this turns out not to be terrorism or some personal dispute with a justice-which others will speak to today-we should be looking at who benefits from the delay. I'm sure that the solicitor general will enlighten us further."

With that segue, McKenna rose and approached the lectern.

"Good morning," he said. "I'm going to try and keep my report brief. Of course, you've all been around enough lawyers to know that when one says he'll be brief, you should get comfortable in your chairs."After a moment of subdued laughter, he said, "I'd like to begin by reminding everyone exactly what my office was asked to

Chambers ofJudge Ivan Petrov, Foley Square, Manhattan

etectives Milstein and Assad sat waiting in the reception area of Judge Ivan Petrov's chambers. - - - - -- - - - -- - - -