"Was reversing the Deems case the way you show your love?"
Griffen paled. "What are you talking about?"
"You reversed Deems to embarrass me."
"That's nonsense. I decided that case on the law. So did the justices who joined the majority. Even Arnold Pope voted with me, for Christ's sake."
"I'm not stupid, Robert. You adopted a rule that only three other states follow to reverse the conviction of a dangerous psychopath."
"The rule made sense. We felt . . ." Griffen paused. "This is ridiculous. I'm not going to sit here and justify my decision in Deems."
"That's right, Robert. You're not going to sit here. You're going to get out of my car."
"Abbie . . ."
Abigail Griffen turned in her seat and stared directly at her estranged husband. "If you're not out of my car in ten seconds, I'm going to call the police."
Griffen flushed with anger. He started to say something, then he just shook his head, opened the door and got out.
"I should have known I couldn't reason with you."
"Please shut the door."
Griffen slammed the car door and Abbie peeled out of the parking space.
When Griffen walked back toward the court he was so angry that he did not notice Matthew Reynolds watching from the doorway of the Justice building.
In 1845, two Yankee settlers staked a claim to a spot on the Willamette River in the Oregon Territory and flipped a coin to decide if their proposed town would be called Portland or Boston.
Portland was established in the most idyllic setting imaginable.
Forest stood all around, backing up onto two high hills on the west side of the river. From the west bank you could look across the Willamette past the faraway foothills of the Cascade mountain range and see snow-covered Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens pointing toward heaven.
The town had started on the water's edge at Front Street and slowly moved away from the river as it became a city. Old buildings were torn down and replaced by steel and glass. But just below Washington Park, on the outskirts of downtown Portland, there were still beautiful Victorian mansions that now served as office space for architects, doctors and attorneys.
At 10 P. M. on the day he argued before the Oregon Supreme Court, the lights were off in the law offices and library on the first two floors of Matthew Reynolds's spacious Victorian home, but they still shone in the living quarters on the third floor. The argument had been hard on Reynolds. So much time had passed since the shooting that Reynolds's experts were no longer sure of the value of examining the Franklin home.
No matter what the Supreme Court decided, Abigail Griffen's legal ploy might have cost his client the evidence that could win his case.
But that was not the only thing disturbing Reynolds. He was still shaken by his meeting with Abbie Griffen. Reynolds was captivated by Griffen's intellect. He considered her to be one of the few people who were his equal in the courtroom. But more than that, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Though he had spoken to her before in court as an adversary, it had taken all his nerve to approach Abbie in the Supreme Court chambers to thank her for standing up to Justice Pope, but her defense of his honor thrilled him and had given him the courage to speak.
Reynolds was dressed for bed, but he was not tired. On his dresser were two photographs of his father and a framed newspaper article that showed his father outside a county courthouse in South Carolina. The article was old and the paper was starting to yellow. Matthew looked at the article briefly, then stared lovingly at the photographs.
Over the dresser was a mirror. Reynolds stared at himself.
There was no way of getting around the way he looked. Time had been charitable when the magazine described him as homely. As a boy, he had been the object of a million taunts. How many times had he returned home from school in tears? How many times had he hidden in his room because of the cruelty of the children in his neighborhood?
Matthew wondered what Abigail Griffen saw when she looked at him. Could she see past his looks? Did she have any idea how often he thought of her? Did she ever think of him? He shook his head at the temerity of this last idea. A man who looked like he did in the thoughts of someone like Abigail Griffen? The notion was ridiculous.
Matthew left his bedroom and walked down the hall. The law offices and his quarters were decorated with antiques. The rolltop desk in Matthew's study once belonged to a railroad lawyer who passed on in 1897. A nineteenth-century judge famous for handing down death sentences used to sit on Matthew's slat-back wooden chair. Reynolds took a perverse pleasure in crafting his arguments against death while ensconced in it.
Next to the rolltop was a chess table composed of green and white marble squares supported by a white marble base. Reynolds had no social life.
Chess had been a refuge for Reynolds as a child and he continued to play it as an adult. He was involved in ten correspondence games with opponents in the United States and overseas. The pieces on the chessboard represented the position in his game with a Norwegian professor he had met when he spoke at an international symposium on the death penalty. The position was complicated and it was the only one of his games in which Reynolds did not have a superior position.
Reynolds bent over the board. His move could be crucial, but he was too on edge to concentrate. After a few minutes he turned off the ceiling light and seated himself at the rolltop desk. The only light in the study now came from a Tiffany lamp perched on a corner of the rolltop.
Reynolds opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a large manila envelope. Not another soul knew it existed. Inside the envelope were several newspaper articles and many photographs. He took the articles and photographs out of the envelope and laid them on the desk.
The first article was a profile of Abigail Griffen that was featured in The Oregonian after her victory in State v. Deems. Reynolds had read the article so often, he knew it word for word. A black-and-white picture of Abbie took up a third of the first page of the profile. On the inside page, there was a picture of Abbie and Justice Griffen. The judge had his arm around her shoulder.
Abbie, her silken hair held back by a headband, snuggled against her husband as if she did not have a care in the world.
The other articles were about other cases Abbie had won.
They all contained pictures of the deputy district attorney. Reynolds pushed the articles aside and spread the photographs before him. He studied them. Then he reached forward and picked up one of his favorites, a black-and-white shot of Abbie in the park across from the courthouse, resting on a bench, her head back, face to the sun.
Chapter FOUR
When Alice Sherzer graduated from law school in 1958, she was one of three women in her class. Her job search in Portland consisted of interviews with one befuddled male after another, none of whom knew what to make of this lean, rawboned woman who insisted she wanted to be a trial lawyer. When one large firm offered her a position in its probate department, she politely declined. It was the courtroom or nothing. The partners explained that their clients would never accept a woman trial lawyer, not to mention the reactions they anticipated from judges and jurors.
Alice Sherzer would not bend. She wanted to try cases. If that meant going into practice for herself, so be it. Alice hung out her shingle.
Four years later, a Greyhound bus totaled a decrepit Chevy driven by one of Alice's clients, a father of three who had lost his job in a sawmill.
Now he was a quadriplegic. Alice sued Greyhound, which happened to be represented by the law firm that had offered her the position in probate.
Greyhound's lawyers would probably have advised the company to make a reasonable settlement offer if Alice's client was not represented by a woman, but the boys at the firm figured being represented by Alice was like not being represented at all.