In due course, the memo she was about to write would, with Caroline Masters's approval, circulate to the other justices' chambers for discussion between each justice and his clerks. A memo in a capital case would receive special scrutiny—a series of abrasive and close decisions, with bruising dissents, had left both wings of the Court raw and angry beneath its surface politesse. But the Supreme Court did not grant petitions for the purpose of settling scores, or even correcting legal error: the issue to be addressed by Callista's memo was whether this case presented unresolved questions of constitutional law which resonated far beyond the fate of Rennell Price.
The authors of the State's petition and Price's response, Callista saw, understood this well—depending on whose argument she accepted, the opinion of the two Ninth Circuit judges was either a massive affront to AEDPA or the routine parsing of facts specific to Rennell Price. This divide was complicated by another factor, which made Callista's task harder: the vehemence of Judge Nhu's dissent—a virtual open letter to Justices Fini, Kelly, and Ware—whose weight Callista could not ignore.
But Janie Hill's daughter was not a fool, and neither were Rennell Price's lawyers. They had given her much to work with—which was precisely what Callista intended to do.
* * *
At a little after ten on the East Coast, when Callista went home, but three hours earlier in San Francisco, the Paget family, including Carlo, gathered around their candlelit dining room table.
The conversation was unexceptional—a review of Elena's and Kit's days; a discussion among the three older Pagets of whom they preferred for President—until Elena asked her mother abruptly, "Whatever happened to that man, the one you kept alive?"
Beneath her daughter's cool phrasing, Terri heard a marked disapproval. "He's right where he was," she answered calmly. "On death row. We're waiting to hear if the Supreme Court wants to take the case. We hope they don't."
Elena's expressive eyes lit with challenge. "What would happen then?"
"He goes free."
Elena folded her arms. "Because of you. They'll just let him out there again, to do to people whatever he wants to do."
Terri hesitated, reluctant to answer.
"Or," Carlo interjected gently, "to have people do to him whatever they want to."
Gratefully, Terri realized that Carlo was placing his credibility, sometimes greater than Terri's own, in the service of her relationship with Elena and, perhaps, with her seven-year-old son. She watched Kit's eyes flicker from Elena to Carlo.
"Rennell Price," Carlo told his stepsister, "is retarded, passive, and pretty close to helpless. For his entire life, he depended on a brother who's been executed. For the last fifteen years, he's been on death row. Whatever limited coping skills he had have eroded, and the only other place he's ever known is Bayview and the drug culture.
"Even though we're confident he's innocent, Rennell is a marked man. The cops may be after him. So may a lot of pretty tough guys. If Rennell ends up in the Bayview, he'll be dead in a year. Probably sooner."
The matter-of-factness in Carlo's tone, Terri perceived, combined with treating her as an adult to keep Elena from snapping back. "So where's he going to live?" she asked, and then Terri saw a sudden jolt of fear and suspicion turn Elena's widening eyes back to her. "Not here."
"No," Terri said quietly. "Not here. But he's going to be working at our law firm."
Elena shook her head in disbelief, tears welling in her eyes. "Then I'm never coming there again," she said. Standing abruptly, she threw down her napkin and bolted from the room.
"Come on," Carlo said to a worried-looking Kit. "You and I can hide together." Scooping up his brother, Carlo took him upstairs.
Terri remained with Chris. "I don't know how I can ever dig myself out of this," she said at last. "And the worst part is that Elena's right—only about the wrong man. Eddie Fleet's still out there, and there's nobody to stop him. So Elena blames me for doing what Larry Pell is doing—making the world less safe."
"Maybe I should try to talk to her," Chris ventured.
Terri shook her head. "Leave it be, for now. I don't want Elena to feel our entire family is coming down on her."
Silent, Chris took her hand. "All these months," she murmured, "working so hard to save his life, then get him out. We're so close now—if the Supreme Court turns Pell down, we've won. And then Rennell, and all the rest of us, will have to live with it. Especially Elena."
THREE
FOR ADAM WENDT, CLERKING FOR JUSTICE ANTHONY FINI WAS more than an ideological calling—to spend time in Fini's presence was intoxicating, particularly when the justice, as he did so often, made Adam feel like a partner in reshaping the law into what the bold and unsentimental knew it should be, an instrument of clarity and order.
"Come on in," Fini called out, waving Adam to a chair.
As ever, Fini bubbled with life, his brown eyes illuminating a plump and amiable face. Even at his highest level of dudgeon, which could be considerable, some part of Tony Fini seemed always to enjoy himself. And unlike the quarters of some other justices, tending toward the monastic, Fini's inner sanctum was a testament to his numerous enthusiasms—a trophy commemorating a hole in one at a country club near Bar Harbor, site of his summer home; a wooden model of Fini's classic sailboat; an autographed baseball card of Babe Ruth, the archetypal player from Fini's beloved Yankees; a photograph of Fini with Chief Justice Roger Bannon, wryly inscribed "to my friend and fellow guardian of the law." It had been Fini's dearest wish to succeed Bannon as Chief, and but for the narrow election of the Democratic president Kerry Kilcannon, patron of Caroline Masters, Adam was certain that he, not the brash and sharp-tongued Callista Hill, would be the favored clerk of a Chief Justice. But Tony Fini was undaunted by this setback. "What's the most important rule of constitutional law?" Fini had once inquired of Adam.
Stumped, Adam could only shrug. "I'm not sure."
Fini had grinned. "Whatever five justices say it is." And, with this, Adam understood Fini's perspective on the Court: Caroline Masters might be Chief Justice, but whoever commanded a majority was king.
"So," Fini said dryly, "I take it some anomaly has bubbled up from the cert pool."
Adam nodded. "A Ninth Circuit anomaly," he answered. "Reversing a death sentence in the sexual molestation and murder of a nine-year-old girl, fifteen years after the fact. Among other things, the Court seems to recognize a claim of freestanding innocence on a second habeas corpus petition."
Fini cocked his head. "Who was on the panel?"
"They split two to one. Judges Sanders wrote the opinion, with Judge Montgomery concurring."
At the latter name, Justice Fini raised his eyebrows: in Fini's chamber, there was special scrutiny of the Ninth Circuit, the Chief Justice's former Court, especially when her mentor, Blair Montgomery, was on the panel. "Who dissented?"
"Judge Nhu."
"Montgomery versus Nhu," Fini said with a smile. "Two scorpions in a bottle." Adam heard the fondness in his voice: Viet Nhu had been Fini's clerk during his first year on the Court, and it was Fini's not-sosecret hope that, should a Republican retake the White House, Nhu would become his colleague.
"I copied the opinion," Adam said, handing it across the justice's desk. "Including the dissent."
Putting on his reading glasses, Fini scanned the pages. "From the looks of this," he said at length, "our venturesome friends in San Francisco are working some interesting variations on AEDPA. Who wrote the cert pool memo?"
Adam straightened his bow tie. "One of the Chief Justice's clerks. She tries to make the case sound humdrum, a waste of time."
"But you don't think it is."
"I think she slighted the State's petition, Mr. Justice. At the very least, there's a clear conflict on freestanding innocence between the Ninth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit in a case called Burton v. Dormire. That's a pretty important issue."