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.
In court they ignored her, and when they spoke among themselves they made fun of her. The case was one big lark until the jury awarded four million dollars to the plaintiff, an award which stood up in the Supreme Court because the trial judge had ruled for his male buddies whenever he had the chance, leaving them nothing to appeal.
Money talks and four million dollars was a great deal of money in 1962.
Alice was no longer a cute curiosity. Several firms, including the firm she had vanquished, made her offers.
No, thank you, Alice answered politely. With her fee, which was a percentage of the verdict, and the new clients the verdict attracted, she did not need an associate's salary. She needed associates.
By 1975, Sherzer, Randolph and Picard was one of the top law firms in the state, Alice was married and the mother of two, and a seat opened on the Oregon Court of Appeals. In a private meeting, Alice told the governor that no woman had ever been appointed to an Oregon appellate court. When the governor explained the political problems inherent in making such an appointment, Alice reminded him of the large campaign contributions he had been willing to accept from a woman and the larger sums she had at her disposal for the campaign she would definitely run against any male he appointed. Seven years after her appointment to the Court of Appeals, Alice Sherzer became Oregon's first woman Supreme Court justice. She was now sixty-five.
Every year brought new rumors of her retirement, but Alice Sherzer's mind was still in overdrive and she never gave a thought to leaving the bench.
Justice Sherzer had a corner office with a view of the Capitol and the red-brick buildings and rolling lawns of Willamette University. When Tracy knocked on her doorjamb on the day after Matthew Reynolds's argument at the court, the judge was sitting at a large desk that once belonged to Charles L. McNary, one of the first justices to sit in the Supreme Court building and the running mate of Wendell Willkie in the Republican's unsuccessful 1940 bid to unseat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The antique desk contrasted sharply with the abstract sculpture and paintings Justice Sherzer used to decorate her chambers.
'Your clerkship is almost over, isn't it?' the judge asked when Tracy was seated in a chair across the desk from her. 'Yes.'
'Do you have a job lined up?'
'I have several offers, but I'm not certain which one I'm taking.'
'Justice Forbes asked me to find out if you're interested in something that's opened up.'
'What is it?'
'Matthew Reynolds is looking for an associate.'
