by Carsen Taite
Addison spoke, looking directly at her and no one else. Her rich brown eyes were sincere and her mouth twitched with sadness. “Larry contacted me after his father’s death. He believed it wasn’t an accident. That the car wreck was intentional.”
Julia listened while Addison relayed the conversation she’d had with Larry when he handed over the journal, but her mind kept wandering to the accident report of Justice Weir’s death. She’d had a copy of it in her desk, but she hadn’t taken the time to look at it. With a silent apology to Addison for her rudeness, she pulled out her phone and sent a text to Cindy, asking her to bring the file. When Addison finished talking, she said, “Did you find anything in the journal?”
“Nothing nefarious. As I said before, it seemed Justice Weir was getting pressure to consider retiring in the week before his death. He did mention a former law clerk, but it wasn’t that specific. Like it could’ve been just a clerk who worked at the court, not necessarily one of his.”
Julia glanced around the room, ready to pounce if anyone challenged Addison. “Do you have any ideas about who it might be?”
“I don’t. To be honest, I thought Larry’s grief had clouded his judgment. He did say it appeared as though the garage door at Justice Weir’s home had been tampered with, but I gather he told the police and they didn’t think it meant anything. I even went as far as trying to get a copy of the accident report, but my office was told it wasn’t being released out of deference to the family. I planned to tell Larry he should request it himself when I talked to him again, but…”
As Addison’s voice cracked, Julia wished everyone would vanish so she could take Addison in her arms, comfort her, tell her everything would be okay. The best she could do under the circumstances, was get some answers. At that moment, she was saved by a knock at the door. Cindy. She took the folder and glanced inside at the D.C. Police Department accident report, remembering Cindy’s words when she delivered it to her originally. Yep. It had been heavily redacted, more wide black lines than legible type. She handed the folder to Noah.
“Well, I’ve got a copy of the accident report, but it’s so marked up, it’s not remotely helpful. How about you show me your copy and we can get to the bottom of this.”
Noah shot a nervous glance around the room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. I saw a folder with the report on the president’s desk and you had the same folder when you were in my office last week. I’m thinking your copy wasn’t full of holes, like mine. Care to tell us why you were interested in the report?”
“I told you.”
“You told me some bullshit about road safety. Given what we’ve been told about Larry’s suspicions, I don’t believe that was your primary interest.”
Noah jerked his chin at Addison and shook his head. “Not everyone in this room has clearance to know what I know.”
“Really?” She walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. “Should we call the president? Ask him what was in the report? Because I’m pretty sure if he trusts Addison Riley to head the Supreme Court, he will trust her with this little piece of information.” She stood, holding the phone, waiting for him to call her bluff, but she was surprised at who spoke up.
“Julia, I should leave the room. Let you all talk about this. If you do go through with my appointment this could be a source of conflict someday. Separation of powers and all.”
“No, please stay. You deserve to know what happened to Justice Weir, and I’m certain the president would agree. What do you say, Noah?”
He held up his hands in defeat. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but if anyone outside these doors breathes a word of this, I’ll hold every one of you responsible.” He turned to Jed. “Tell them what you told me.”
“Basically, Justice Weir’s vehicle was rigged to explode. It was a very sophisticated mechanism, designed to go off in short bursts which caused him to wreck and his vehicle to roll before the series of blasts ended and the vehicle caught on fire.”
Addison sank in her chair, her hand over her face. Julia resisted the urge to go to her. She needed to find out the rest. “How long have you known?”
“It’s taken a while to analyze all the evidence from the wreckage.”
“Not an answer.”
Jed looked at Noah, who tapped his foot and then nodded. “We knew something was up from the witness accounts following the accident. You wouldn’t know it unless you examined them all together in close detail, but there were definitely reports of sounds that mimicked an explosion right before Justice Weir lost control of the vehicle. We would have examined the evidence from the scene carefully no matter what, but coupled with the reports, we knew we were looking at something criminal from the get-go.”
“Why would someone want to kill him?”
Julia looked over at Addison, who looked as if the one question were all she could manage. She looked back at Jed who looked at Noah before turning back to face her. “We don’t know. But this information about the journal could be helpful. Maybe someone really did want him to retire badly enough to arrange for his death. If we knew who was pressuring Weir to retire, that could lead us to the suspect or suspects.”
“But I don’t understand. Who would benefit from his death so close to a hotly contested presidential election?” Addison asked, seemingly recovered enough from the shock of the news to start weeding through its implications. “If they wanted him to be replaced with a younger version of himself, there’s no way the process could’ve been completed before the election, and we all know the election could have gone the other way.”
Julia saw Agent Reeves shake his head at Noah, and she waited for the inevitable.
“Dean Riley, I’m going to need you to leave. Julia and Gordon, you too.”
Julia had expected he wouldn’t allow this conversation to go much further in front of Addison, but she hadn’t anticipated she would be dismissed as well. She started to argue the point, tell him she had a right to know anything that could affect her ability to get Addison confirmed, but she decided it would be pointless. She would find out what was going on, but she wasn’t going to beg Noah for the right to information. To encourage Addison not to press the point, she stood and motioned to her and Gordon. Addison followed her to the door, but stopped and turned back to Noah before she exited the room.
“Mr. Davy, I have every confidence if there was foul play, you will make sure whoever was responsible will be brought to justice. In the light of day.”
After a few beats of silence, he nodded curtly, and Addison followed her out of the room. Julia walked beside her, noting Addison was tall and proud. Like she belonged in important places. Like she was in charge. She’d read the ballsy subtext of Addison’s message to Noah: if he tried to cover up whatever happened to Justice Weir, she would go public with the conversation she’d just witnessed. Julia knew she meant it and she couldn’t respect her more.
Respect was a safe enough emotion.
*
When they reached Julia’s office, Addison leaned against the door, but she didn’t follow Gordon and Julia inside. She desperately wanted to escape this place, where controversy and conflict were the norm. As she watched Julia settle in at her desk, looking like she was raring for a fight, she wondered how she’d ever thought they could start a relationship in the midst of a political battle during which no one could be trusted and everyone put up a front to get what they wanted. Where did her wants, her desires figure in?
“Addison, please come in and shut the door.”
Julia’s invitation was gentle, but she stayed put. “I’m going to head home. It’s been a long day already.” She considered her next words and then edited them due to Gordon’s presence. “And to top it all off, I didn’t really get any sleep last night.”
“Excited about the nomination?” This from Gordon.
“Something like that.” She avoided Julia’s gaze. “But today, lack of sleep and the news of Larry’s death, has
taken its toll. I need a little time to rest and reflect.”
“Gordon, could we have a moment?”
Julia’s question was more a command, and Addison acted swiftly to avoid the awkward moment. Unsure of what she might say or what she might do, she couldn’t, wouldn’t be alone with Julia right now. She edged away from the door. “I really have to go.” She looked over at the desk outside Julia’s door. Cindy was deeply engaged in untangling a pile of paperclips. “Cindy, would you walk me out?”
With a furtive look at her boss’s office, Cindy nodded.
They walked in silence down the corridors of the West Wing. Unlike her offices back at the law school, the halls here were bustling with activity despite the fact it was a weekend. Politics never took a day off. No, that wasn’t fair. The people here were working for policies, not just politics. Without a doubt, the majority of them were passionate about making the world a better place. Unfortunately, most of their efforts would be compromised, if not thwarted, by the power of opposing forces and the rush of time until their party was inevitably voted out of office.
If she was confirmed, she’d be a Supreme Court justice for the rest of her life, and there would be no ticking clock on her ability to make a difference. No matter what she might say in public about the duty of a judge not being able to affect change, she knew the reality. The person who sat in that seat made a difference. Look at Weir. Without his take no prisoners style of liberalism, the body of law styled by his term as chief justice would not have made the inroads it had on civil rights issues.
She was ready to take up his mantle. She only wished she didn’t have this gauntlet to traverse before she could carry on his tradition.
Thankful she lived in a fairly secure building, she parked her car in the garage underneath and made it into her apartment free from encounters with reporters. The crowd of protestors on Pennsylvania Avenue had been disconcerting enough. She kicked off her shoes and turned on her TV, determined to find something silly and distracting to take her mind off the events of the last two days.
No sooner had she settled on an episode of Southpark, when her phone pinged to signal an incoming text message. Tempted to ignore it, she was drawn to the device, hopeful even. It wasn’t Julia. It was Jack.
Hey, sis. Skype?
Gladly trading her solitude for the rare chance to see Jack’s face, she typed yes, and then reached for her laptop and signed on, impatiently waiting for the line to connect. When he finally appeared on the screen, she breathed a sigh of relief to see her brother, whole and smiling.
“You have no idea how much I needed to talk to you right now.”
“Guess you’ve had a big week, Madam Justice. Don’t even try to tell me this wasn’t in the works when I saw you at Thanksgiving.”
“It sort of was and it sort of wasn’t. It’s a long story, and I promise I’ll tell you everything when we can talk in person.”
“This is probably as in person as it gets for a while, and I can see by the look on your face, everything”—he formed air quotes to emphasize the word—“isn’t fine.”
He knew her too well. She couldn’t exactly tell him everything that had gone on in her meeting at the White House over an unsecured line, but she desperately wanted to. She settled on a vague summary of her current circumstances. “Yesterday was fantastic. Today sucked. And I have no idea what tomorrow holds.”
“Dad says you have a girlfriend.”
Vowing to beat her father next time she saw him, she shook her head. “Not hardly.”
“He said she’s pretty.”
Pretty wasn’t the word she would have used. Pretty was ribbons and bows, flowers and sunshine. Julia was none of those things. She was sleek and feisty, stunning and sexy. Addison ached at the memory of Julia naked and vulnerable, hers for the taking. Boiling her attraction down to a G-rated phrase, she said, “She’s like no one I’ve ever met.”
“What’s her name?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
He made a show of counting on his fingers. “It hasn’t been that many days since I saw you. Not a lot of time to get into and out of a relationship.”
Relationship. Ha. What she’d shared with Julia had been a flash in the pan. Satisfying while it lasted, but leaving both of them hungry and wanting. She’d known Julia felt the same way when she’d seen her earlier that day. She was pained too, but neither one of them was willing or able to do what it took to overcome the obstacles. The barriers were too high, the risk too fierce. She’d been a fool to think, even for a moment, that they could make it work. Last night had been a drug, but she was sober now and she could recognize the experience for what it was. Fleeting.
“Jack, I promise when I meet the one, you’ll be among the first to know. In the meantime, tell me about you. I worry.”
“You shouldn’t. I’m doing well. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for your big day, but the longer this tour, the more likely it is I get to come home for good.”
God, she hoped so. He was on his fourth tour. He’d done his part. Maybe Garrett would make good on his word and bring Jack and all his buddies home soon. Pretending it was a foregone conclusion, she said, “What will you do when you come back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m cut out for a nine to five, but if I don’t stay in, maybe I can get a job in security.”
“In Dallas?”
“Maybe. Dad could probably use the company.”
“Right. You’ll meet some pretty girl and be married off and having children within a month.”
“I don’t think so, sis.”
“Really?”
“This life…it changes you. I’ve seen things no person should ever have to see in his lifetime. The pretty girl, well, that might work out at first, but there will come a time when she hits a wall with me because there are parts of me I will never share. Wouldn’t be right to put another person through that.”
Even with a world between them and a fuzzy connection, Addison saw the pain in his eyes, and her heart ached for the life he’d chosen and what it had robbed from him. “Everything changes us, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept less because of it. Don’t give up on a full life for yourself before you’ve even given it a chance. Promise me?”
His nod was slight, but she hung on to the small sign as hope for his future. It wouldn’t be right for him to have given so much for others only to be left with nothing for himself at the end of it all.
When the call was over, she was out of sorts. She didn’t want to watch TV, she didn’t want to review materials for her Senate interviews, she didn’t want to be in her own skin. Her own words played over and over in her mind. “Don’t give up on a full life for yourself.” She was on the edge of becoming the next chief justice of the United States, but if it really happened, she had no one to share the success with, no one to toast her success. Had she given up on a full life, or was she only capable of professional success? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Julia stood outside the Oval Office, bargaining with Sue. “I swear I’ll only be a minute.”
Sue shook her head. “I can get you in first thing tomorrow. You know, before his schedule hits the rails. He’s supposed to be getting ready for dinner with the Brazilian ambassador and his wife. The first lady will have my hide if he’s late.”
Julia was only slightly afraid of Veronica Garrett. They hadn’t seen each other since the night Garrett had won the election, and she was pretty sure Veronica was just as glad about that as she was. “There’ll be press at that dinner, right?”
“There’s a photo op before, maybe a couple of questions.”
“I have to brief him before he goes to that dinner. I’ll handle Mrs. Garrett.”
“Good luck with that,” a booming voice sounded from behind.
Noah. Julia turned to face him, calculating strategy in lightning fashion. She’d hoped he was still in his office down the hall with Re
eves, plotting their response to the press explosion that was about to occur when word broke about Eva’s abortion and/or the details of Larry Weir’s death. Ostensibly, she had every right to go over his head to talk to the president, but she didn’t want to share her real reason for the urgent meeting, not with Noah. Not now. “I thought you were still busy with Reeves. What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. What is the plan? Looks like you might be hatching one on your own.”
Julia shot a look at the closed door, willing it to open. Magically, it did. President Garrett rushed out with his arms loaded with folders.
“Sue, please cull through these and send whatever can’t wait up to the residence.” He looked up, seemingly surprised to find Julia and Noah standing at the edge of Sue’s desk. “Everything all right?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Julia looked at Noah and didn’t try to control her expression of surprise. “Seriously? Do you lie to him all the time?”
Garrett looked between them and then at Sue who pretended not to be listening. “How about we take this into my office?”
“Mr. President.” Sue pointed at her watch. “You only have ten minutes before your guests arrive.”
“I’ll be done in five.” He walked into the Oval, and Noah and Julia followed him in. None of them sat down.
“It’s Saturday night. Veronica and I are hosting the ambassador from Brazil and his wife for a private dinner so I can smooth over some of this NSA mess. What have you two cooked up that’s going to ruin our plans?”
Julia so didn’t want to do this in front of Noah, but she didn’t have a choice. “Who killed Justice Weir?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Garrett’s face showed only a slight flush, but otherwise was firmly fixed in denial.
