Smoking gun? Maybe a whole arsenal of hot weapons!
A source close to the investigation says this is “the most incriminating stuff since Monica’s dress.”
Included in this pile of inculpatory items are several photographs taken in California during Hollander’s supposed convalescence. Instead of healing her head, she was apparently head over heels… with a fundamentalist Christian minister!
The question they’re asking on the Hill is this: Do we want the chief justice of our Supreme Court, the one who will be instrumental in decisions regarding abortion, church and state, privacy, and so on, in lip lock with a minister? Especially a minister who is rabidly anti-abortion?
That’s right. The Reverend Jack Holden once did time in the clink – after trying to shut down a family planning clinic!
But that’s not the worst of the trouble for the chief justice.
According to a reliable source, the accident then Associate Justice Hollander was involved in a few months ago was the result of alcohol abuse! The story is that Hollander was out on the town with a well-known politico, had a bit too much to drink, and ran off from the limo they were sharing – right into oncoming traffic! Apparently no one at the hospital thought to test a Supreme Court justice for blood alcohol content.
The story is confirmed by the driver of this politico’s limousine, by the way.
“The House won’t stand for this,” the source told the Exposure. “Nor will the American people. Millicent Mannings Hollander will be gone from the Supreme Court before the first snow falls.”
2
Detective Don Markey took a sip of battery-acid coffee and reached for the small Bible he kept in his metal government-issue desk. Markey tried to read at least a little bit from the Word every day. His colleagues knew his practice, and had stopped razzing him about it. His nickname, “Preacher,” had been dropped in favor of the whispered sobriquet, “Goose.” As in Wild Goose Chase.
Markey knew he took more chances than others on the force, looked under more rocks, around more corners. He even went through more dumpsters. He was relentless when he got a hunch, and for the most part his superiors let him go.
Markey took another sip of bad coffee from a Styrofoam cup and opened his Bible. He had been reading through Proverbs, seeking wisdom. Crying out for it. The whole Levering situation was bothering him to no end.
Elijah’s disappearance smelled. The odds that he had left town on his own were small. Homeless people found places to call home and tended to stick to them unless they had a very good reason to leave.
The timing was suspicious, too. No sooner had he put a little heat on the senator’s chief aide than Elijah was gone.
He only had a hunch, no hard evidence, so what could he do but ask for wisdom?
He had been quietly reading for five minutes when the phone rang.
“Markey,” he said.
“Hey,” said Phil Crane. Phil was another D.C. detective. “You need to get down here. I’m out at Key Bridge.”
“What’s up?”
“Just come down here. We have a body. Dragged out of the river.”
“Why do you need me?”
“You’ll see.”
It took just under twenty minutes for Markey to get there. The scene was taped off and a lone medical examiner waddled around a couple of uniforms, examining a body.
Phil was standing by the body’s feet. They were bare, puffy, white. A blue-black ring encircled each ankle. Markey did not see the face as the ME poked at it with something that looked like a knitting needle.
“Know who it is?” Markey said.
“Nope.”
“Why’d you want me down here?”
“Because he looks like a homeless guy, no ID, ratty clothes.”
Markey stiffened. He bolted toward the ME and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Hey!” the ME said.
“Sorry,” Markey said, looking down. There could be no doubt. The bloated face belonged to Elijah.
3
When she could stand the silence no longer, Millie walked, unannounced, into the chambers of Thomas J. Riley.
His clerk, whose name was Russell something, looked as if a terrorist had walked in. His lips moved in a soundless expression of something like shock.
“I’ll let myself in,” Millie said.
Riley looked up from his desk with a bit of the same expression as his clerk. He held his pen in midair as Millie plopped herself down in a chair. She saw on his desk the Latin phrase he loved to quote: Vincit omnia veritas.
“We have to talk,” she said.
Riley looked at the clock. “I’m preparing for argument.”
“I have to know something.”
The justice lowered his pen.
“I have to know if any leak has come out of this chamber,” she said.
“Leak?”
“Information. Inside information.”
“I don’t follow you.” He seemed cagey, like he must have been back in the courtrooms of Wyoming.
“Tom, we’ve been through a lot together over the years,” Millie said, her throat tightening. “I hope that counts for something, even though we look to be on opposite sides now.”
“Go on,” Riley said.
“Someone got to the media with my conversion.”
“You think it was me?” Riley tossed the pen on the desk.
“Maybe not intentionally – ”
“At all!” he snapped.
Millie paused, sudden regret in her heart. This was a man who had been like a father to her, a mentor, an inspiration. That they were even having this conversation was tragic in a deeply personal way. But she had to ask the questions. She had to clear the air in the Court, or she could not hope to lead it.
“If you are telling me you had nothing to do with it,” Millie said, “that’s good enough for me.”
“I’ve said all I’m going to. Now if you’ll excuse me we both have work to do.”
Millie felt dirty somehow. Like filth had been dumped into these hallowed halls, and everyone was walking in it. That saddened her most of all. That the Court, the institution she loved with all her heart, should have come to this.
“I’m sorry,” Millie said, rising. “I just hope we can find a way to be civil with each other.”
Riley held his pen but did not move it. His eyes bore into her. “Millie, I don’t like this any more than you do. But what is happening here is, in my view, a disaster. Impeachment! Do you understand what that means?”
“Of course, I – ”
“I’m not sure. And I’m not sure there aren’t grounds. Your religion is going to influence your decisions.”
Millie rocked back, a little stunned but not surprised. Tom Riley had made his reputation by getting to the meat of the issue instantly. And this was the issue. She knew it.
“It already has on Establishment,” Riley continued. “Will it continue on into other areas? If it is, you are not the same justice the Senate confirmed.”
“Tom, we both know a judge has to get to the meaning of the law as closely as possible while recognizing his biases.”
“Answer the question, please,” Riley said.
“It’s not that simple, is it?”
“Let me give you a hypothetical then. You have always upheld a woman’s right to choose. You know we have cases in the pipeline that will test that. Are you going to rule like a Bill Bonassi now?”
A ripple of anger spread through Millie. “Why is everybody trying to nail me down?”
“Because if you change your mind on that issue, the country will be torn apart.”
This truly was the heart of the issue. Millie had known Tom Riley for ten years, had joined him on most decisions, and knew he took the long view of the law. With abortion rights being the central moral question for society, Riley had long argued – and she had agreed – that its threads must be handled gently or there could be social upheaval. If Millie held a different view now, it was possible that the Court could radically alter its past decisions by way of a new 5-4 slant. That was what Riley was asking.