While Justice Sleeps

by Stacey Abrams

  The man checked his phone, noting that he still had no signal in this blacked-out area of the hospital, which had left him dark for nearly thirty minutes as he waited for the attendants to return Wynn to his room. The woman he had assigned to track Avery had last reported her heading out to lunch from the Court. Sufficient time to accomplish his task.

  He approached the desk and folded his hands behind his back. If asked to describe him later, the nurse would recall a man with dark brown hair, muddy brown eyes, a ruddy, almost sunburned complexion, a tick in his upper lip, and a paunch that belied the military insignia on his jacket.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “Corporal Randall?” he read from the placard on the desk. “I am here to see Senator Wayne Stafford, please.”

  “I’ll need to scan your identification and verify that you are an authorized visitor.”

  “Of course,” he said. He reached inside his jacket and proffered a billfold with a photo and the appropriate credentials. The name on this badge read Ethan James, and if pressed, he could produce a matching passport and credit cards. As well as a handful of other fully vetted identities.

  “Thank you, sir.” She returned the billfold. “Now I’ll need to take your photo and thumbprint.”

  He gave a slight frown. “I believe I have been cleared.”

  She typed his assumed name into the database. A green stripe indicated that he’d been given permission to bypass their security protocols. Looking up, she said, “Yes, sir. Room 9112.”

  “Thank you.”

  He entered Stafford’s room, where the U.S. senator lay sedated. He’d been diagnosed with a rabid strain of venereal disease contracted on a trade mission to Thailand that required routine hospitalization and intensive treatments. The male prostitute who had transmitted the disease had died a year earlier, unable to access the care available to the legislator. Stafford would remain hospitalized for another week before discharge.

  Stafford’s misfortune had earned him a rare moment of utility. His well-appointed hospice shared a wall with Room 9113. According to the rotation, no one would be checking on Stafford for another twenty-three minutes. Working quickly, he locked the door as a precaution. He removed his jacket, button-down shirt, and pants, revealing a fitted tactical suit beneath, and tucked his clothes into a drawer. Then he quietly positioned the dresser to give him access to the subceiling, opened the panel, and levered himself up and into the crawl space.

  On the other side, he lowered himself down, landing lightly on the floor. Like his neighbor, Justice Wynn had an IV dripping fluids into his arm, while a monitor beeped his vitals in a steady pattern. Advancing on the bed, the man removed a needle and vial from his pocket. With the ease of repetition, he prepped the needle with the synthesized dose of saxitoxin. A paralytic, the injection would result in respiratory failure, a not uncommon side effect of Boursin’s syndrome. At Justice Wynn’s bedside, he reached for the tube that snaked its way down to the comatose man’s arm. The raised voices came through an instant before the door began to open.

  “Ms. Keene, Dr. Knox does not want him to have visitors.”

  “I’m not a visitor. I’m his guardian, as I explained to Lance Corporal Randall. That’s why she let me into the ward. Now I’m going inside to see him. If you have a problem with that, please call Dr. Toca.”

  Dropping the tube, the intruder swiftly crossed the room and slipped into the bathroom seconds before the visitors entered.

  “If you insist on violating doctor’s orders, I will contact security, Ms. Keene.”

  Avery walked over to the bed where Justice Wynn lay pale and still. “Please do. In fact, please ask the head of the security staff to meet me up here.”

  The nurse remained in the open doorway and glanced over her shoulder at the desk attendant, who lifted the phone and shrugged. “Lance Corporal Randall has already contacted them.”

  “Good.” Avery turned away from the nurse and back to Justice Wynn. “I’ll be here.”

  Hidden in the bathroom, he cataloged the space. In a ward designed for long stays, the bathroom came equipped with a shower and tub, as well as a shallow linen closet. With no real options, he entered the shower stall and drew the curtain.

  The pneumatic door to the bathroom opened. Avery entered, flipped on the faucet, and began to wash her hands. She leaned her forehead against the mirror and whispered, “What have you pulled me into, Justice Wynn?”

  “Ms. Keene?”

  Avery shut off the water and shakily dried her hands. She opened the door and let it swing wide. Behind her, the man moved from the shower and caught the door before it fully closed.

  Dr. Knox and Dr. Toca stood together at the foot of Justice Wynn’s bed. Avery approached them and said, “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  Dr. Toca nodded. “The nurse was quite anxious about your visit. However, I was going to contact you. We’ve run additional tests on Justice Wynn.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re not sure what Justice Wynn took or if he intended to commit suicide,” Dr. Knox answered. “The pills he took may have caused his coma, but they were not the ones in the bottle brought in with him.”

  “I don’t understand. He didn’t overdose?”

  “We’re not sure. Several of the pills from his seizure medication are missing, but that’s not what’s in his system.”

  Dr. Toca added, “As soon as Justice Wynn was admitted, we conducted a toxicology screening based on Nurse Lewis’s report. From the bottle that was brought in with him, the effect should have been a cardiac episode preceding death. A coma was possible, but not likely. But there’s no evidence of a heart attack or stroke, so he couldn’t have taken the seizure medication.”

  “Then what did he take?”

  “The initial findings were inconclusive. Apparently, the lab found an anomaly in the blood analysis and ordered another round of tests. We’re still waiting for the results.”

  “How soon will you know what he took?”

  “Hopefully by the end of the day. Tomorrow at the latest.” Dr. Toca hesitated. “I asked that a second sample be sent out to Quantico for analysis. Our techs are good, but they raised concerns. In addition, we’ve contacted Nurse Lewis, but we haven’t heard from her.”

  Avery barely flinched. “Anything else?”

  Dr. Toca pointed to the papers he held. “The chemicals he ingested would have mimicked the effect of a slow-motion aneurysm.”

  “What would do that?”

  The doctors looked at each other before shaking their heads. Dr. Knox answered, “No one here can identify the drug. It has recognizable markers, but there’s no manufactured medication that has this effect.”

  Dr. Knox studied her patient, adding, “Avery, based on our initial analysis, he has put himself in a coma, but he’s not at risk of death.”

  Avery considered the new information, her eyes fixed on the man in the hospital bed. “He faked a suicide attempt?”

  “We simply don’t know.”

  Crazy bastard. Avery cleared her throat. “Until you know exactly what happened, I would like a twenty-four-hour guard placed on his room. I also want to restrict access. For now, other than medical personnel, I am his only visitor.”

  Nodding, Dr. Toca reached out a hand to take her elbow. “I’ll take you to the security office myself and alert the U.S. Marshals. I’ve asked one of our officers to stay outside his door until the marshals set up their rotation. He won’t be alone.”

  “I will wait with him. Someone must be in here with him at all times.”

  Dr. Toca hesitated, then nodded again. “Dr. Knox will be in touch with you as soon as we have the full toxicology report. Take as much time as you like. We’ll make sure he’s kept safe.”

  When the physicians exited the room, Avery reached for the bedside phone. After
the first ring, Mary Gonzalez answered.

  “It’s Avery. I need to speak with the Chief.”

  A few seconds later, she was connected. “Avery, is everything okay?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s not.” Avery paused, then said in a rush, “I went to see his nurse this afternoon. Someone shot Jamie Lewis, and my DNA is at the scene. I fled because I’m afraid that Justice Wynn might be in danger. Right now, I’m at the hospital, but I don’t know what to do next.”

  “Where are you? Exactly.”

  “I’m in Justice Wynn’s room.”

  “I’ll alert the marshals to join you there immediately, and one of them will bring you to the Court.”

  “I have my car.”

  “Leave it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Inside the bathroom, the man cursed silently and considered the syringe in his hand. He could kill Justice Wynn now and execute a hit on the girl, but with the marshals inbound, his likelihood of escape was slim. Not impossible, but an unnecessary risk.

  He eased the door closed and climbed onto the toilet tank. Soundlessly, he opened the ceiling access and levered himself up through the opening. Using the crawl space above, he returned to Senator Stafford’s room.

  Dressed again in his suit, he exited the room just as the U.S. marshals got off the elevator. He passed by them and headed to his car. Once he had a clear signal, a series of messages swarmed onto his screen, including several warning him of Avery’s discovery and approach. Local police investigating Nurse Lewis’s death would mean local press and a swarm of reporters misreading every scrap of evidence uncovered, not to mention overzealous cops looking to make a name.

  He keyed in a terse response. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to go back to his boss empty-handed.

  FOURTEEN

  FBI Special Agent Robert Lee wore the plain dark gray suit and polished black shoes endemic to his kind. His mahogany cheeks tended toward jowls, saved only by the strong chin that added definition to an otherwise hangdog face.

  His expressions matched his rather dour appearance as they ranged typically between mild irritation and patent disbelief. In his line of work, which required the taking of statements and the parsing of truth, these reactions were customary. The Office of Law Enforcement Coordination, or OLEC, to which he was loosely attached, often had this range of response not only to civilians but to the other law enforcement agencies with which they reluctantly coordinated. A product of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division himself, Agent Lee found the coordination a bit of a hair shirt for all involved—a sacrifice of expertise for the illusion of cooperation.

  Time in the Bureau, especially at OLEC, had taught him to suspend his native predisposition for efficiency and honesty. He no longer expected either when he left FBI headquarters, and he had even lower expectations when he entered another government building. When Homeland Security was the other dancer in the pas de deux, he assumed everything told to him was a lie or a cover-up for a bigger lie. Still, he was unprepared for the unusual interview he was now conducting. Dinner plans with his wife would have to wait, but she’d never believe where his job had taken him today, assuming he could tell her.

  Dusk hovered over the city as he sat in the well-appointed offices of the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. It was his first time this deep inside the Court, and he had been granted entry only to interview the young woman whose grisly discovery had freed him from prepping a seminar on interagency data mining. Instead, a summons to the FBI via OLEC, necessitated by the unusual addition of Homeland Security, had allowed him to hand off the honors. En route to the Supreme Court, he had also quashed the aspirations of a homicide detective in the Tacoma Park PD by seizing jurisdiction over their case and the related files, such as they were.

  Seated at an antique table that had the high gloss of disuse, he held his pen over a notepad with precious few details to show for an hour of interrogation, despite the presence of the Homeland Security liaison, Major William Vance, who stood impassively as Agent Lee repeated his questions.

  “Let’s try it this way, Ms. Keene. Why were you at Mrs. Lewis’s apartment in the middle of the day?”

  “To visit.”

  “How’d you get inside?”

  “Door was open.”

  “I’m running out of patience, Ms. Keene. I know you picked the lock on her door.”

  She repeated flatly, “The door was open.”

  “Why did you go to her house?”

  Avery dutifully responded, “I’ve explained this several times. Jamie Lewis was Justice Wynn’s nurse. The last person to see him. I went to visit to ask her some questions.”

  “The lock on the door was clearly jimmied open,” Agent Lee insisted. “Did you do that? Will your hand match the bloody print we found next to her body?”

  “I knocked. The door was open. I found her body and checked to see if she was alive. Then I panicked and left.”

  Agent Lee capped his useless pen. “You’re lying to me, Avery. I know it, and so does everyone in this room. If you don’t tell me the truth, then I intend to book you on murder charges and let the judge figure it out.”

  “Enough.” Chief Justice Roseborough glared at the FBI agent. “She’s explained herself. Move on.”

  “We’re in your office as a courtesy,” Major Vance interjected. “Ms. Keene has committed a crime. She will answer his questions.”

  “I appreciate the help, Major Vance, but I’ve got it,” Agent Lee said, rebuking his Homeland Security counterpart. “Ms. Keene is afraid that if she admits how she got inside, she’ll hurt herself. She’s a smart young lawyer who’s watched a lot of cop shows, I bet.”

  A buzz sounded on his phone, and he glanced at the information that had come in from the coroner. Scowling, he tried a different tack. “Where were you at five this morning?”

  Knowing her answer would only lead to more questions, Avery said nothing.

  Agent Lee’s scowl deepened. “Silence isn’t your friend, Ms. Keene. Why can’t you tell me where you were at dawn?”

  A lie rose to her lips, but then she thought of the cameras installed in the Metro and along high-crime streets in DC. Streets that likely included the shooting gallery she’d pulled her mother from that morning. “I was out. But not in Maryland.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “No.”

  The Chief gave Avery an appraising look. Standing, she waited for Agent Lee to rise as well. “Thank you, Agent.”

  “I’m not done, Madam Chief,” Agent Lee said as he remained seated, ignoring the dismissal. “I’ve been more than cooperative. I agreed to interview her here, and she isn’t currently under arrest. Both situations can change.”

  Unused to the lack of deference, the Chief gave a narrow smile. “It’s been a very long day, and I’m sure you can understand that Avery is exhausted. She has told you what she can.”

  “Which is nothing. If this is about her having the power of attorney for the justice in a coma, I don’t care. What I do care about is why she’s not down at the Hoover Building being questioned in less cushy surroundings instead of being cosseted here. So what am I missing?” The last he directed at Major Vance.

  “I share your frustration, Agent Lee, but this is a delicate situation. The privacy of this investigation must be sacrosanct,” Vance replied.

  “I’m a delicate kind of man, Major, and if either of you want my help, I need to know more than her name, rank, and serial number.” He lifted his pen. “The one forensic staffer I was allowed to bring to the crime scene indicated that the bullet that killed Jamie Lewis had been dug out of the wall, and the casing was missing. Apparently, she was shot at close range, in the back. Do you own a gun, Ms. Keene?”

  “No.”

  He looked at Vance. “Is Ms. Keene under investigation by your office? Whatever the hell office that i
s. I’m still not quite clear on your jurisdiction.”

  “Ms. Keene is a person of interest to Homeland Security.”

  Agent Lee cocked his head. “A person of interest because someone might draw a conclusion from the fact that the private nurse for a comatose Supreme Court justice was shot to death hours after she accompanied him to the hospital? Or the fact that the dead woman seemed prepared to flee the jurisdiction, given the boxes in her living room and the plane ticket in her name at BWI? And the primary beneficiary of his demise is the one who conveniently discovered the body? Yeah, I consider her of interest too, Major. I recognize a hit when I see one. Do you?”

  Vance merely inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Our expectation is that you will pursue your investigation with all deliberate speed, Agent Lee, and that you will keep me apprised of your findings. Thank you for your time and discretion.”

  Lee shook his head. “This farce of an interview was a waste of my time and a bit of an insult to the dead woman, too. But until I’m told by the director himself that I need to back off, I intend to treat Ms. Keene as a suspect.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Avery asked.

  “Not yet.” He finally rose and shoved a hand into his jacket pocket. “But don’t plan on going anywhere.”

  The Chief led him to the outer office and passed him off to Debi, who would not leave until the Chief did. Avery remained in the chambers, waiting with Major Vance.

  He took a step closer to her chair. “The FBI is gone. So why were you at the nurse’s house, Ms. Keene?”

  The lie was easy. “I thought she’d want to know his prognosis. When she didn’t answer, I went inside.”

  “By picking the lock?”

  Avery shrugged. “The door was open.”

  The Chief reentered the office. “Avery, I’m sorry you had to be the one to find her.” With a warning look at Major Vance, she instructed the law clerk: “I’m sending you home. As I expressed to Agent Lee, this has been a traumatic day.”