pepper hair, a life-long bachelor and friend of William Kerrigan, Tim's father--a hard-driving businessman and a perfectionist whom Tim had never been able to please. 'Uncle' Harvey had been Tim's confidant since he was little, and he'd become Tim's mentor as soon as Kerrigan had made the decision to go to law school.
Normally, the judge attracted little notice when he was not wearing his robes. At the moment, however, he was preparing to make a key putt, and the other golfers in his foursome were focusing every ounce of their mental energy on him. Grant stroked his ball, and it rolled slowly toward the hole on the eighteenth green of the Westmont Country Club course. The putt looked good until the moment the ball stopped on the rim of the cup. Grant's shoulders sagged; Tim Kerrigan, Grant's partner, let out a pent up breath; and Harold Travis pumped a clenched fist. He'd played terribly all day and he needed the missed putt to bail him out.
'I believe you gentlemen owe Harold and me five bucks apiece,' Frank Jaffe told Grant and Kerrigan.
'I'll pay you, Frank,' Grant grumbled as he and Kerrigan handed portraits of Abraham Lincoln to their opponents, 'but I shouldn't have to pay a penny to Harold. You carried him all day. How you made that bunker shot on seventeen I'll never know.'
Travis laughed and clapped Grant on the back.
'To show that I'm a compassionate guy I'll buy the first round,' the senator said.
'Now that's the only good thing that's happened to me since the first tee,' answered Kerrigan.
'He's just trying to buy your vote, Tim,' Grant grumbled good-naturedly.
'What vote?' Travis asked with a sly grin.
The Westmont was the most exclusive country club in Portland. Its clubhouse was a sprawling fieldstone structure that had started in 1925 with a small central building and had grown larger and more imposing as membership in the club grew in prestige. The men were stopped several times by other members as they crossed the wide flagstone patio on their way to a table shaded by a forest green umbrella where Carl Rittenhouse, the senator's administrative assistant, waited.
'How'd it go?' Rittenhouse asked the senator.
'Frank did all the work and I rode his coattails,' Travis answered.
'Same way you rode the president's in your last election,' Grant joked. The men laughed.
A waitress took their order and Grant, Kerrigan, and Jaffe reminisced about the round while Senator Travis stared contentedly into space.
'You're awfully quiet,' Jaffe told Travis.
'Sorry. I've got a problem with my farm bill. Two senators are threatening to keep it in committee if I don't vote against an army-base closure.'
'Being a judge has its upside,' Grant said. 'If someone gives me a hard time I can hold him in contempt and toss his butt in jail.'
'I'm definitely in the wrong business,' Travis said. 'I don't know about jail, though. Civil commitment would probably be more appropriate for some of my colleagues.'
'Being a senator is a bit like being an inmate in a fancy asylum,' Rittenhouse chimed in.
'I don't think I could win an insanity defense for a politician, Carl,' Jaffe said. 'They're crafty, not crazy.'
'Yes,' the judge said. 'Look at the way Harold tricked us into letting him partner with you.'
'I did read somewhere that not all sociopaths are serial killers,' Jaffe said. 'A lot of them become successful businessmen and politicians.'
'Imagine what an asset it would be in business and politics to be free of your conscience,' Kerrigan mused.
'Do you think guilt is innate or is it taught?' Travis asked.
'Nature versus nurture,' Jaffe answered with a shrug of his shoulders. 'The eternal question.'
'I believe the potential to experience guilt is part of God's design,' Grant said. 'It's what makes us human.'
Harvey Grant was a devout Catholic. He and the Kerrigans attended the same church, and Tim knew that the judge never missed a Sunday.
'But serial killers, professional criminals and, as Frank pointed out, some politicians and businessmen, don't seem to have a conscience. If we're born with one, where does it go?' Kerrigan asked.
'And what if there is no God?' Travis asked.
'Hey,' Rittenhouse interjected with mock alarm, 'let's not say that too loudly. All we need is a headline in the Oregonian : senator travis questions the existence of god.'
But Travis wasn't finished. 'If there is no God then morality becomes relative. Whoever runs the show sets the rules.'
'The point is moot, Harold,' Frank said. 'The fact that the judge missed that putt on eighteen proves beyond question that there is a God.'
Everyone laughed and Travis stood up.
'On that note, I'll leave you gentlemen. Thanks for the game. It was a welcome break from work and campaigning.'
'Our pleasure,' Grant told him. 'Let me know when you can sneak away again so I can win back my money.'
Frank Jaffe stood, too. 'Thanks for inviting me, Harvey. I love the course.'
