Pope looked startled and dropped his hand from Laura's shoulder.
"Laura and I have to discuss a case. I hope you don't mind, Judge,"
Tracy said, in a tone that let Pope know she had seen everything. Pope flushed. His eyes darted to Laura, then back to Tracy.
"That's the," he said, stepping around Tracy.
"Are you okay?" Tracy asked, as soon as Pope was out of sight.
"What did you hear.>" Laura asked anxiously.
"I didn't hear anything," Tracy answered, confused by the question. "It looked like Pope was coming on to you. Is he giving you a hard time?"
"No," Laura said nervously. "He was just trying to find out how Bob . .
. Justice Griffen was going to vote on a case."
"Are you being straight with me.> Because you look pretty upset."
"I'm okay, Tracy, really. Let's drop it."
"Come on, Laura. I can help you, if you'll tell me what's bothering you."
"How could you possibly help me.>" Laura exploded. "You have no idea what I'm going through."
"Laura, I . . ."
"Please, I'm sorry, but you'd never understand," Laura said.
Then she edged away from Tracy and bolted out of the stacks.
Tracy watched Laura go, stunned by her friend's reaction.
"Laura wants to see you, Judge," Justice Griffen's secretary announced over the intercom. "Send her in."
The judge was preparing for the noon conference and hoped that Laura had finished her research in a tax case the justices would be discussing.
The door opened as Griffen finished signing a letter. He looked up when the door closed and started to smile.
But the smile disappeared when he saw his law clerk's face. She appeared to be on the verge of tears.
"We have to talk," Laura said with a trembling voice.
Griffen stood up and walked around the desk. "What's wrong?"
"Everything," Laura answered. "Everything."
Then she started to cry.
The conference room of the Oregon Supreme Court was spacious, with few furnishings aside from a large conference table and some ancient glass-front bookshelves. Four former justices glowered down on their modern counterparts from portraits on the walls. Chief Justice Forbes sat at the head Of the conference table with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up and his tie loosened. Alice Sherzer put down her coffee cup and briefs at her place on Forbes's right. Vincent Lefcourt, snowy-haired and dignified, sat on Forbes's left.
Robert Griffen pushed through the door and almost ran into Mary Kelly, who was working on her first cigarette of the conference.
"Sorry," Griffen apologized.
Kelly was wearing a loose, sleeveless, forest-green dress. She brushed her honey-colored hair off her forehead and gave Griffen a casual smile.
"No damage done," Kelly said. Then she noticed Griffen's face and her smile faded. Kelly touched Griffen lightly on his forearm. He stopped.
"What's wrong?" Kelly asked in a low voice.
Griffen shook his head. "It's nothing."
Kelly shifted so her back screened their conversation from the other justices.
"Tell me what happened," she demanded.
Griffen looked away. Kelly's grip tightened. When Griffen looked at her, his face reflected his confusion. He was about to reply when Arnold Pope entered the room.
"Your wife looked terrific, Bob," he said maliciously. "Too bad you had to miss her argument."
Griffen paled, and Kelly looked at Pope as if he was an insect she'd found in her salad. At that moment, Frank Arriaga rushed in. He held up a sack from the deli across the street.
"Sorry, guys. My clerk was late with my fuel. Did I miss anything?"
"Relax, Frank." Forbes smiled. Arriaga sat next to Vincent Lefcourt, who looked on with amusement as Arriaga pulled a huge glazed jelly doughnut out of his brown paper bag.
"We're all here, so let's get started," Justice Forbes said.
"We can talk later," Mary Kelly assured Griffen.
Forbes squared the stack of briefs in front of him.
"I was going to begin with you, Frank, but you've got that monstrosity stuffed in your mouth, so how about it, Vincent?
What's your take on the State ex rel. Franklin?"
Justice Sherzer needed a memo in the morning on a probate issue, but Tracy was so upset by what had happened in the library that she had trouble concentrating. At five o'clock, she decided to take a break and finish the memo after dinner.
Tracy's garden apartment was on the second floor of a two story complex half a mile from the court. She had been a top student in college and law school, but she would have failed housekeeping. The front door opened into a living room that had not been cleaned in a week.
Newspapers and mail were strewn across the sofa. Tracy rarely watched television, and her small black-and-white set was gathering dust in a corner. Tracy's rockclimbing equipment was well cared for, but it was piled high next to the television.
The apartment came furnished. The only marks Tracy had made on the personality of the place were several photographs detailing her athletic feats. One photo in the living room showed Tracy standing on a track in front of a grandstand with her hand gently touching the shoulder of a girl who was bent over from the waist. The two women were wearing Yale track uniforms. They had finished one-two in the 1,500 meters to clinch the Ivy League title and looked exhausted but triumphant.
Another photo showed Tracy climbing a snowcapped mountain. She was wearing a parka with the hood thrown back and was brandishing an ice ax over her head. A photo in the bedroom showed Tracy hanging upside down from a rockface on one of the more difficult ascents at Smith Rocks in eastern Oregon.
As soon as she arrived at her apartment, Tracy dumped her clothes on the bedroom floor and changed into her running gear.
Then she set off along a seven-mile loop she had mapped out when she moved to Salem.
As Tracy ran, she thought about the incident in the library.
She could not understand Laura's reaction. Laura disliked Justice Pope, so why would she protect him if he had made a pass at her?
Maybe there was some other explanation for what she had seen, but Tracy could not think of one that made sense. Something was definitely going on in Laura's life. Tracy remembered how drawn and pale Laura looked when she surprised Laura reading the Deems transcript. Laura's angry outburst in the library was in keeping with the agitated state in which Tracy had observed her during the past few days, but what was causing Laura's anxiety?
After her run, Tracy showered, then ate a Caesar salad with baby shrimp and two slices of a thick-crusted sourdough bread.
She threw the dirty dishes in the sink, then walked back to the courthouse across the Willamette University campus. In the daytime, the rolling lawns and old shade trees made Willamette a pleasant place to stroll. But at dusk, during summer break, the university was deserted.
Streetlights illuminated the walking paths, and Tracy stayed on them when she could. The temperature had dropped and a cool breeze chilled her. Halfway across campus, Tracy thought she saw someone move in the shadow of a building. She froze and stared into the dying light. The wind rustled the leaves. Tracy waited a moment, then walked on, feeling silly for being so skittish.
The Supreme Court was deserted when Tracy let herself in at seven-thirty. It was eerie being alone in the empty building, but Tracy had worked at night before. The clerks' offices ran along the side of the Supreme Court building that faced the Capitol. An open area dominated by a conference table stood between their offices and the mail room. The top of the conference table was littered with staplers, plastic cups, paper plates and law books.