appeal in the sure loser, pro bono case of Clarence Little v. Oregon, his life had consisted of one terrifying incident after another. Once his investigation into Clarence’s case brought down President Farrington, he thought he’d find peace and quiet clerking in the sedate halls of the United States Supreme Court, but once again he’d almost lost his life-twice.
So Brad was not lying when he said he craved boredom. He was madly in love with his wife, and his happiest moments were when he and Ginny, dressed in sweats, held hands while watching old movies on television.
Brad and Ginny lived on the third floor of a four-story redbrick apartment house on Capitol Hill. Their apartment was walking distance from the Senate and a longer walk or a Metro ride from the Department of Justice. They had moved in a little over a year ago, when Brad started clerking at the Supreme Court. They had been able to afford the rent because Ginny was pulling down a six-figure salary at one of D.C.’s biggest law firms. The rent was less affordable now that Ginny worked at the DOJ, but they loved the location, the exposed brick walls, and the small garden in the back.
The day after Judge Case handed down his decision, Brad was getting ready to leave for work while Ginny finished her breakfast in their roomy kitchen. Brad was slipping into his suit jacket when he saw the color drain from Ginny’s face.
“Did you know about this?” Ginny asked, holding up page 3 of the Washington Post.
Brad leaned forward and read, COURT REVERSES CLARENCE LITTLE CONVICTIONS AND DEATH SENTENCES. His stomach did a swan dive.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t been involved in Clarence’s case for over a year.”
Brad reached across the kitchen table and took the paper from his wife.
“I’m not surprised,” Brad said as soon as he finished the story. “They had to give him new trials once it became clear that he’d been framed in the Erickson case.”
“He won’t get out, will he?” Ginny asked. Brad could hear the fear in her voice.
“I don’t know. They convicted him every time he was tried. The question is how great an impact the evidence from Erickson had on the jurors in the other trials. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about even if he’s acquitted. Clarence and I got along pretty well. He knows I’m responsible for his conviction in Erickson being thrown out. I believe he thinks of me as a friend, and he has no reason to hurt us.”
“He’s an insane serial killer, Brad. He doesn’t need a reason. He was nice to you because he wanted you to work hard for him, but he’d kill either one of us without shedding a tear.”
“That’s true in the abstract, but why would he want to hurt me? Clarence kills women.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a woman.”
Brad smiled. “Actually, I have noticed. But you’re not the type of woman Clarence fixates on. All of his victims were teenagers or in their early twenties. You’re an old married woman.”
Ginny cast a stern look at Brad. “Are you’re telling me I’m over the hill?”
“I admit that I married you as a humanitarian act.”
“Oh well. Since you married me as an act of charity, I guess you won’t be interested in having mind-bending, erotic sex tonight.”
Brad couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “It’s true that I’m totally uninterested in sleeping with you, but now that we’re married, I feel I have an obligation to keep you sexually satisfied.”
Ginny cocked an eyebrow. “We’ll see about tonight, buster.” Then she got serious again.
“You really think we’ll be okay?” she asked.
Brad gave Ginny a reassuring smile. “I do. And it’s going to be a while before we have to think about Clarence Little, anyway. The state will appeal the judge’s ruling. Then, if his decision is upheld, there will be the new trials. That will take years, and he’ll probably get convicted. Don’t let Mr. Little spoil your day.”
Ginny put her plate and coffee cup in the dishwasher and went into the bathroom to finish putting on her makeup. As soon as she was out of sight, Brad’s encouraging smile disappeared. Well over a year ago, on the evening of the presidential election, he and Ginny had returned to their apartment in Portland in a raging downpour. Ginny had gone to the bathroom to dry her hair, and Brad had started to go into the kitchen to put up water for tea when he’d spotted a white envelope on the entryway floor. His name and address had been handwritten, and there had been no return address. The letter was from Clarence Little. Dear Brad, I knew I was right to trust you. I’ve just learned that my conviction for the murder of the Erickson girl is going to be set aside and that’s all due to your hard work. I’ll still be executed, but I can live with that, if you’ll pardon the pun. I’d invite you to the execution, but I know you’re squeamish. My only regret is that I didn’t get to go to court to overturn the conviction. I might have seen my lovely pinkie collection one last time. Oh well, one can’t have everything. Good luck on your new job and your marriage to the lovely Ginny. She’s a sweetheart. Too bad I won’t get a chance to know her. Your friend, Clarence.
Brad had destroyed the letter immediately. He knew Ginny would be upset if she thought Clarence was interested in her. What Brad didn’t understand was how Little was able to learn anything about Ginny. The letter had been hand-delivered, so the obvious answer was that the person who had delivered the letter had told Little about Ginny. Brad had decided against confronting his ex-client. It was better to ignore him.
Even locked up on death row, three thousand miles away, Clarence Little still scared the hell out of Brad. The idea that he might gain his freedom was terrifying. Brad hadn’t lied to Ginny when he said he believed that Little appreciated what he’d done for him. But Ginny had been right. Little was a conscienceless sociopathic serial killer whose mood changed with the wind. There was no telling what he would do if he was released from custody.
Chapter Four
Unless you’ve stood for public office, it’s almost impossible to appreciate the rigors of running for election. On Tuesday afternoon, United States Senator Jack Carson rushed from a session of the Appropriations Committee to Dulles International Airport for a three-thousand-mile cross-country trip to Oregon. As soon as the plane landed, he boarded a small plane bound for Pendleton, a city of sixteen thousand in the eastern part of the state. After the Pendleton fund-raiser, the senator brainstormed with his advisers in his hotel room before exhaustion forced him into a deep sleep. His six A.M. wake-up call shocked him into consciousness so he could be interviewed on a phone-in radio show. When the show was over, Carson vacuumed down an Egg McMuffin and a container of black coffee during a car ride to a local television station. Then it was five hours on the road, broken up by a lunch with supporters in a small Oregon town. During the rest of the ride, the senator’s cell phone was pressed to his ear as he tried to coax money from his supporters while he was driven to an evening fund-raiser in a ballroom at the downtown Hilton in Portland.
By the time Carson finished his speech, posed for photo ops, and glad-handed the guests, he was punch drunk, starving, and running on fumes. But he still had to appear enthralled by Harry Butcher’s tedious saga of his battle with the fifth hole of his country-club golf course, a tale that seemed to go on as long as an audio version of War and Peace.
“And when I climbed up out of that damn bunker and trekked up to the green, everyone was clapping,” Butcher concluded. “The ball had hopped into the hole for a par. Can you believe it?”
Carson faked a hearty laugh and clapped Butcher on the shoulder. The $2,000 Butcher had forked over to attend the fundraiser gave him the right to bore the senator to tears.
Carson looked over Butcher’s shoulder and saw Martha chatting up a wealthy doctor and her socially connected spouse under a banner with large red letters blaring SEND JACK BACK. His wife hated these dinners, but she was a trouper. Butcher asked Jack a question about business taxes that he only half heard. As he finessed an answer, he saw a woman approaching, and the fog that enshrouded his brain suddenly cleared.
Carson had been a nerd in high school and college, succeeding in the classroom but failing miserably with women. Getting laid had been one of his main reasons for getting involved in college politics, but politics had not helped his sex life much until he was elected to national office and discovered that for certain women, being with a United States senator was an aphrodisiac.
Carson was of medium height with a slender build, curly brown hair, and pale blue eyes, someone you would pass on the street without a second glance. He had met his wife in a chemistry class at Cornell. She was attractive in a pleasant sort of way, and their marriage was conventional, with two children, a golden retriever named
