Murder in the Supreme Court (Capital Crimes Series Book 3)

by Margaret Truman

  “Have the rules changed that much?” Susanna said as she gathered things to set the table. “I’m just enough older than you to have experienced something different.” She turned, shoved her hands in her apron’s large front pocket. “I happen to think it’s okay if a woman wants to cook and bake and make a man happy. I guess I’m not much of a feminist. At least not orthodox.”

  “But you don’t live your life that way.”

  “A matter of choice, and circumstances. Laurie, I do think, though, that a woman who makes the other choice ought to be respected, not be accused of having sold out.”

  “What about abortion? It’s the hot topic even in this town, as you know. I mean the case before the Court…”

  “Well, I don’t see how anyone can be for abortion, but I also believe in a woman’s right to make a choice…”

  “I think the Court will rule in favor of a liberal position. I mean in Nidel v. Illinois.”

  “Why do you think it will go that way?”

  Laurie whipped eggs in an aluminum bowl with a whisk. “Being a clerk in the Supreme Court puts you on the inside of a lot of things, Susanna… sometimes I wish I didn’t know—”

  “Puts a burden on you, doesn’t it?”

  “You might say that… They’ve taken a preliminary vote on Nidel v. Illinois.” When Susanna said nothing, Laurie added, “It was five to four in favor of Nidel.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Should you be?”

  Laurie dropped the whisk in the bowl, turned and rubbed her hands on her apron. “Probably not, but it’s all relevant, Susanna. So many things happening in the Court are related to what happened to Clarence.”

  “Do you want to talk more about it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Susanna let it go at that during dinner. There were times when she wanted to reach out and tell Laurie how much she liked her, that she could consider her a friend, but knew she shouldn’t. She was there because Laurie had called and asked her to be there, had gotten her to the apartment with the promise of revealing further information about the Sutherland case. Stick to the ground rules, she told herself.

  “More wine?” Laurie asked when they were finished.

  “Coffee, I think.”

  They had coffee in the living room. Laurie put on a recording of Die Zauberflöte, Mozart’s Magic Flute. “He was commissioned to write it,” she said, “by a theater owner in Vienna who wanted a magic opera. Mozart approached it as light clowning but the more he worked on it the more it became a kind of serious celebration of man.”

  Susanna laughed. “If anything positive comes out of the Sutherland case it will be an education for me in opera.” Teller first and now Laurie.

  They listened to one side of the record in silence. Laurie turned over the disc and returned to the couch, where Susanna had leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Susanna asked without moving, “What did you want to tell me, Laurie?” She almost added, You can trust me, but didn’t, knowing that would be unprofessional.

  “The gun…”

  “What about it?” She opened her eyes and turned so that they faced each other.

  “Justice Conover threatened his wife with it.”

  “I’d heard that.”

  “From whom?”

  “That’s not important. Nothing stays secret very long in this town.”

  “Justice Conover threatened his wife with it because she’d been having an affair with Clarence. Did you know that too?”

  “There’s been a lot of speculation—”

  “It’s true. When Justice Conover found out about it he went sort of berserk, broke things in his chambers and…”

  “And what?”

  “And said… said he’d kill both of them.”

  “How do you know this? Were you actually there?”

  “I was close enough to hear. It was an awful scene, the judge pulled out the gun… God… for a moment I really thought he was going to shoot her.”

  “But of course he didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “What about Clarence? Did Justice Conover confront him about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you hear that conversation too, Laurie?”

  She shook her head. “Clarence told me.”

  Susanna sat up straight. “He did? Why would he do that?”

  “I never knew… unless it was another way to hurt me…”

  Susanna reached out and touched her shoulder. Damn it, she could be human, couldn’t she? “I’m sorry, Laurie, it must be very painful to drag this up.”

  “It’s all right.” Except obviously it wasn’t. In spite of herself tears formed in her eyes. “Clarence liked to make sure I knew about his other women. I wouldn’t have minded so much, I think, if he’d actually fallen in love with someone else, but that was never the case. It was always the sex he’d brag about, somebody he’d picked up in a bar or at a party, or someone…”

  “Someone like Cecily Conover.”

  No answer. But the silence spoke volumes. “How long did their affair last?”

  “I don’t know if it ever ended. He’d tell me… they’d meet at his apartment or a hotel or even in the Court—”

  “In the courtroom?”

  “No… in Clarence’s office. The only time I think he ever did anything like that in the actual courtroom was… I’m embarrassed to tell you… was with me. Pretty sick, right? Was this what my parents put their darling daughter through law school for…”

  Susanna’s natural reaction was sympathy, but she also wanted Laurie to go on. She didn’t have to prompt her.

  “It only happened once,” Laurie said, “and it really isn’t quite as terrible as I’ve made it sound. We didn’t go all the way in the courtroom, but we came damn close. Clarence had a pixyish—some might say quirky—side to him. He often worked late and liked to go into the courtroom and pretend to be chief justice. He’d sit in the middle chair and issue proclamations to the room, which, obviously, was empty and dark, except when I was with him.”

  “Was that often?”

  “No, just once in a while—”

  “And one night you made love there?”

  “He did become affectionate, and we, to use an old-fashioned term, necked, petted. I was worried that one of the building’s security people would come in but Clarence didn’t seem at all worried. If it had been up to him we probably would have—”

  Susanna smiled. “Another old-fashioned term… gone all the way?”

  “Right.”

  The second side of the record ended. Laurie stood up and asked, “More of the same, or something lighter?”

  “Something lighter.”

  She put on George Shearing with strings and went to her plants, touched them with exaggerated tenderness, turned and said, “I’m pretty damned frightened, Susanna.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of being there.”

  “In the Court?”

  “Yes. Oh, God, I don’t want to come off strange or nutsy, paranoid, but, after all, somewhere in the United States Supreme Court it seems there’s a murderer…”

  Susanna went to her. “Is there something you aren’t telling me? Did Clarence confide something to you—?”

  She started to deny it, then nodded. “Yes, he did…”

  “And?”

  “I think one of the justices must have done it…”

  Susanna pointed to the couch. “Let’s sit down. Now, go ahead.”

  “Clarence used to say how he had a key to every lock, to every person on the Court. He knew compromising things about the justices.”

  “How, specifically?”

  “I don’t really know, although I suppose just being close to them, listening, would account for it. He’d worked closely with Justice Poulson, and claimed Poulson was nothing but a puppet of President Jorgens and that he could prove it.”

  “Lots of people have said or implied that about Poulson, Laurie. In fact, that sort of charge has been made
about chief justices for years.”

  “I think there was more to it than that,” Laurie said. “It’s one thing for a justice to be influenced by the political philosophy of a president who’s appointed him to the bench, but it’s another to have the White House play a direct role in your decisions on specific issues.”

  “Has that happened with Poulson?”

  “Clarence claimed it had, and he told me he had documents to prove it. He said that if they were released they’d blow the lid off the Court, and maybe the Presidency too.”

  Susanna whistled. “I’d like more coffee,” she said. “And some brandy if you’ve got any.”

  “I do.”

  They continued to talk about Justice Poulson and his links to the White House. Laurie didn’t have much more to offer because she hadn’t actually seen the proof Clarence had referred to, but she seemed convinced that it represented a real threat to the Chief Justice, and even to the President. Enough to provide a motive for murder.

  “What about the other justices?” Susanna asked. “You’ve told me about Justice Conover and his wife’s affair with Clarence. Are there others whose private lives might have been compromised by Clarence?”

  “He seemed to have something on all of them, Susanna. I remember him once talking about Justice Childs. He laughed and said, ‘Some hero. He’s a phony.’”

  “Justice Childs? His heroism in Korea is well documented—”

  “I don’t have any answer for that. All I know is that I wake up in the middle of the night and see the justices’ faces. I dream that all nine of them stand in front of the bench. Clarence sits in the Chief’s chair… just like he did when he was killed. He laughs at them, calls them fools and fakes. Each justice has a pistol, and one fires and hits Clarence in the head—”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a dream, I wake up, thank God.”

  “If you had to go with your gut instinct, Laurie, which would it be?”

  A nervous laugh. “I wouldn’t know, Susanna, but if I had to narrow it down, I’d say Conover, Poulson or Childs. From what I know, they had real motives. I know how much has been made of Clarence’s relationships with women, but I don’t think a woman killed him. I’d turn the old saying around, look for the man, Susanna…”

  Twenty minutes later Susanna sat in her car. She started the engine, gripped the wheel and said to herself, “Look for the man. Look for the woman. Look somewhere else but, of course, don’t look at me…”

  ***

  In Chevy Chase, a two-man team finished searching Dr. Chester Sutherland’s offices.

  “That’s it,” one of them said.

  “Right,” said the other. “We’ve got the MKULTRA files. Whatever the hell they are. That’s what they wanted. Let’s go”

  CHAPTER 22

  “I’m certain of it,” Vera Jones told Dr. Chester Sutherland the following morning. “Look…”

  He looked over her shoulder at an unlocked file drawer with the label MNOP. “Are you sure you locked it last night before you left?” he asked.

  She looked at him. “I have locked and checked these files for twenty-two years, doctor, and last night was not an exception.”

  “Yes, of course, I’m sorry. Have you found out whether anything is missing?”

  “Not yet. I thought you should know before I did anything.”

  “Have you checked my office?”

  “No.”

  Sutherland, who’d been eating breakfast when she called from the office, and who still wore a robe over silk pajamas, entered his private office, Vera at his heels.

  “Everything looks in order,” he said. “Have you gone through the unlocked file?”

  “I told you—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Why don’t you do that now. I want to check in here.”

  She started to leave, then turned, hands on hips. “Should I call the police?” she asked.

  “No. First let’s see what’s missing, if anything.”

  She closed the door behind her. Sutherland went to the paneled wall behind the curved couch, touched a spot and a section opened. Built into the wall behind the concealed door was a safe and two locked, wood-grained file cabinets. He turned the dial on the safe; it was secure. So were the cabinets. He fished a key from a pocket in his robe and inserted it into the top cabinet. The drawer slid out easily on nylon casters, and a row of red plastic file folders with typed labels stared at him. He did not have to touch them to know some were missing. The supporting bracket behind them had always been in the right position to hold them erect and neat. Now they slumped against one another.

  “Damn it, goddamn it.”

  Vera knocked.

  “Just a minute,” he said, locking the file and closing the wall’s hinged panel. “Come in.”

  “I’ve checked,” she said. “Nothing seems to be missing. Perhaps I did forget to lock it after all.”

  “That would be uncharacteristic of you.”

  “I’m human.”

  He took a step toward her, then stiffened and went to the glass coffee table that was his desk.

  “Was anything disturbed in here?” she asked.

  “No… no, nothing at all. Are you sure everything outside is secure?”

  “Yes.”

  “That file that was unlocked… it contained the Ps. Was Justice Poulson’s file there?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Vera, perhaps we should talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About Clarence’s murder.”

  “Why? What is there to discuss?”

  “I’d call that denial and resistance.”

  “Please doctor… Clarence’s death was a tragic blow to us all. We grieve, we try to recover, retrench and get on with our lives.”

  “Come, sit down.” He patted a spot on the couch next to him. “Please, sit a minute.”

  She uneasily joined him on the couch, long, slender fingers smoothing her skirt over her knees. He put a hand over one of hers and smiled. “We’ve been together a long time, Vera, been through a good deal…”

  She said nothing.

  “People who share as we have tend, inevitably, to become close, sometimes closer than even blood relations.” She continued to look straight ahead, her breasts rising and falling beneath her blouse that was buttoned to her neck, her hand, though, rested perfectly still on her knee beneath his hand.

  “Life is an accumulation of episodes, Vera. We all tend to function day by day, and what we do is shared by a limited number of people that we let into our lives. These are the people we most trust with our secrets.”

  She turned now so that she faced him. “If this is your way of finding out whether my loyalty to you and to your secrets is intact, I must say I resent it—”

  He started to say something but she went on quickly. “No, Chester, you don’t have to worry about me, and I think you know that. We’ve been sucked into something that ended up destroying Clarence. It’s over now. His death, as tragic as it was, has at least seen to that.”

  Sutherland sat back, straightened out his fingers and examined his nails, positioning them on the palm of his other hand like a jeweler creating a scrim for his gems. Apparently satisfied with their condition, he looked at her and said, “It will all work out, won’t it, Vera?”

  “Of course it will, doctor.”

  “Thank you, Vera.”

  “There’s nothing to thank me for,” she said, going to the door. “We do what we have to do… I mean, we go on…”

  Sutherland sat on his couch after she was gone and stared at that portion of the wall where the file cabinets and safe were hidden behind. He went to the phone in his smaller office, consulted a small black book he’d taken from his desk, dialed a number. William Stalk, director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s science and technology division, who at the moment happened to be playing a video space-invader game with his son, answered. “Good morning, Chester. To what do I owe the ple
asure of this early morning call to my home?”

  “I’m sure you know why I’m calling, Bill.”

  Silence.

  “There’s been a break-in at my office. It happened last night.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Any damage?”

  “No, but my files were invaded.”

  He laughed. “I hope they didn’t snitch anything juicy about your patients. That could be embarrassing for a lot of people.”

  Sutherland started to mention the missing MKULTRA files but held back his words, saying instead, “I’d like to see you, Bill.”

  “I’ll be at home all morning. My wife reminded me a few weeks ago that I’d been spending too little time with my boy, so I blocked out part of today. We’ve been playing one of those games on TV where electronic enemy blobs keep coming at you fast and furious. He’s a lot better at it than I am, but then again he gets more practice. The damn things are addictive.”

  “When can I see you?”

  “How about this afternoon, at my office? Three o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there, count on it.”

  ***

  Vera Jones sat behind her desk. A lighted button on the telephone went out. She picked up a pencil and began writing on a pad. Moments later Sutherland came into her office. “Cancel any patients I have today,” he said.

  “All right. There were only four. I’ll call them.”

  “And you might as well go home after you’ve made the calls. I’ll be gone all day.”

  “Perhaps I will. Thank you.”

  She stayed at the office the rest of the day, rearranging files, typing dictated notes of patient sessions left for her by Sutherland and doing what was an obsession with her—retyping pages in a master telephone book that contained not a single handwritten entry or cross-out.

  At six-thirty, after washing her coffee cup, she took from a concealed compartment in her desk a file folder with a typed label at the top that read, POULSON, J., opened the cover and read the first page, then went through a dozen additional pages, each filled with lines of pristine typing. Had someone taken the time and interest to compare the pages in Poulson’s file with materials in other files, they might have wondered why his pages, presuming to cover months of sessions and resulting notes, were all freshly typed, as though they’d been done in a single sitting, which was the case. Vera was aware of the inconsistency and wished it weren’t so, but there had been no other way to duplicate the missing file. She’d typed the new pages from what she’d remembered of the originals, the doctor’s comments and analytic perceptions. It was the best she could do and, she reminded herself, the chances of it being discovered were remote. The Poulson file was a dead one. He hadn’t been a patient in a long time. There was no reason for Dr. Sutherland to review his case, which was why his asking about it concerned her. She’d kept the reconstructed file in her special hiding place ever since making it, reluctant to put it to the test in the MNOP drawer. Now, she knew she would have to. She double-checked every lock in the office, turned out the lights and went to her car, where she sat for some ten minutes, the motor running, her body trembling against the cold and inner anxiety. Once the heater had come to life she drove off to her apartment. She sat for a moment in front of it, trying to decide whether to go inside or to go on. The thought of spending a long night alone was nearly unbearable. She shifted into DRIVE and headed down the Rockville Turnpike, south on Wisconsin to Connecticut Avenue and down Connecticut to Lafayette Park, where she sat at a red light and stared at the White House. Most of its windows were alive with pale yellow light, and the porte-cochere designed for Thomas Jefferson that covered the north entrance, and that was favored by visiting heads of state, was illuminated by spotlights. The traffic light turned green; she continued to stare. A motorist behind her blew his horn. She came erect, glanced in her rearview mirror and proceeded through the intersection.