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"There’s a reason she came to you, Dillon You’ll have to act But sleep is the best thing for you now"
He caainst hi He kneould have to investigate what happened to this woman, even if he never convinced himself that what had happened was real But he didn’t lie there staring at the dark ceiling as he fully expected He fell into a dreamless sleep in three , Savich’s cell phone played the opening of Chariots of Fire His first thoughts were of Sah
"Savich" He listened a ently, "What’s wrong? What’s happened?"
Savich flipped off his cell phone, then turned on the bedside la a helicopter to take us back to Washington"
Sherlock said, "Goodness, it’s so we can’t even build one snoith Sean?"
"Yeah You’re not going to believe this"
CHAPTER 3
SUPREME COURT BUILDING
FIRST STREET NE AND EAST CAPITOL STREET
WASHINGTON, DC
LATE FRIDAY NIGHT
ASSOCIATEJUSTICE Stewart Quinn Califano stepped out of the underground garage, bent his head against the cold wind blowing in his face, and walked around to the front of the Supre He paused to look up at the sixteen marble columns at the west entrance that supported the famous pediment and the words incised on the architrave above: Equal Justice Under Law He loved the neoclassical style of this , one that would be his ho he couldn’t begin to i into a Greek teuards at the west entrance security checkpoint, ia, and Toate, and stepped into the ive a little salute to the closed-circuit TV cah the Hall, his footsteps echoing loudly on the uard on duty tonight already kneas here, alerted since he entered the garage Not a single one would be surprised at his presence close on to ht in January It was his habit to come here at all hours
He paused a moment, as he always did, to admire theThe first ti he’d been twenty-two years old, in his first year at Harvard Law School, and he’d stood there staring at the Great Hall’s incredible beauty and opulent detail, its acres of creauards never dared ask hi hours Truth be told, this was his refuge, a place he found utterly and completely private in the hours when most everyone was safely ho or looking, the one place where he was safe fro, and Eliza, he thought, s the Court Chamber at the end of the Great Hall only a cursory look He walked to the right and paused in front of his cha loudly He looked back at the rouards in their rubber-soled shoes His hand was already on the doorknob, his eyes on the personalized placard that had been placed there seventeen years before, when he realized he would prefer to be in the library tonight His inner office would feel too close, too full of recent conversations with Eliza, Fleurette, and Danny, his law clerks, and the tears of one of his secretaries, Mary, as retiring come March
Justice Califano turned and walked quickly to the elevators that took him to the third floor and the 500,000-volume library He heaved a deep satisfied breath as he entered theroom He loved this place, with its hand-carved oak-paneled walls, its soul-deep warany but from all the books that surrounded him Here there were no cameras, no electronic eyes to monitor his activities He took off his coat, his cashloves and laid them on a chair at his favorite study table He took his ti fixture He paused a moment and looked toward the beautiful arches He sat down, leaned back in his chair, and thought about Jackson v Texas, a death penalty case the four liberal justices had voted to hear that was co up on Tuesday They wanted to revisit the Stanford v Kentucky case of 1989 that allowed by a five-to-four decision the execution of juvenile offenders age sixteen and over They were hoping to swing hiain a plurality and do aith the death penalty for all minors It probably wasn’t the best case to push into the court, Stewart thought, since the sixteen-year-old boy had co to his father during his original trial, a psychopath, exhibiting all the classic syht years old The father had tried to have hient, and the psychiatrists and social workers had failed to see through it Then came the murders Now he faced a death sentence in Bluff, Texas