her mouth again, he said over her, “Eliza is one of the most effective law clerks at the Court. She was always locking horns with Stewart, always debating, especially when she really cared about something. She would nearly hold him prisoner in his office when she wanted to bring him around to her way of thinking.” He sighed. “She was with him nearly a year and a half. He could speak of nothing but keeping her on with him beyond two years, something that’s very rare.”
Beth Wallace said, venom in her voice, “She disliked him, I know it for a fact.”
Now this exchange was peculiar, Callie thought. She said, “Mrs. Wallace, why do you think that?”
“It’s nonsense,” Justice Wallace said, before his wife could speak. “You rarely visited the Court. How would you know?”
“Tai Curtis, one of your own law clerks, told me, Sumner.”
Justice Wallace looked embarrassed, but he managed a dry laugh, waved his hand in dismissal. “Ah, Tai dislikes her because she’s a better law clerk than he is. Forget her, Beth.”
Mrs. Wallace looked at the coffeepot. She said nothing more.
They took a respectful leave of Justice Sumner Wallace and his wife, and shook hands with the federal marshals who were still standing near the front door. Ben was already plotting when he could speak to Mrs. Wallace alone. The reporters were still outside when they left, shouting questions, but all they got for it was a quickly pressed-together snowball that Callie hurled at one of the reporters. She hit him in the head.
“I always say to make use of what’s available to you,” Ben said. “Not a bad shot.”
Callie gave a quick bow to the laughing reporters, and got into the car. “Where are we going now?” She was staring through the veil of snow at the face of Bob Simpson of Fox, a man she’d turned down some months before, which hadn’t made him very happy. She gave him a little finger wave. “Others will come to interview Justice Wallace?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, carefully easing the Crown Vic onto the street.
Callie hung on to the chicken strap, and watched the world slide by. Fortunately there weren’t many cars out, Washingtonians evidently living up to their reputations for self-preservation.
“I’m taking you back to Colfax. Then I’m going to the Hoover Building. We’re having our first big organizational meeting. I’ve never been involved in something this explosive, but—”
He shut up like a spigot.
“But what?”
“You’re a civilian, Callie. You shouldn’t even be in this car with me.”
“Get a grip here, Detective Raven—”
“Ben,” he said mildly. “You don’t want to be formal after you’ve told me I have sexy hair.”
She wasn’t even tempted to laugh. “Ben, we’ve already been through this with Agent Savich. Get used to it. It doesn’t matter that you have sexy hair. I want to go with you to this meeting.”
He turned the Crown Vic toward Virginia.
Ben waited until Callie stomped into the Kettering house before he headed back to the Hoover Building. He wondered if Savich would ever tell her the main reason he’d let a civilian tag along on an official investigation was that, bottom line, he believed her threat to investigate on her own, and he knew that might put her in the sights of the murderer. He wanted her to keep safe. So, on top of everything else, Ben was a bodyguard for a big-mouthed reporter.
CHAPTER
9
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
MARYLAND
S AVICH LOOKED DOWN at the flaccid skin and grayish pallor of Supreme Court Police Officer Henry Biggs. His head was wrapped in a wide white bandage. Savich knew he was fifty, married, with three grown children. He was a man with a long stable career, a man who, unfortunately, hadn’t kicked the smoking habit. He was lying perfectly still on his back, an IV drip in his arm, his eyes closed, his breathing a bit labored. He looked pretty bad, but Savich could see the rise and fall of his chest through the heating bag they’d put him in to regulate his temperature after he’d been left outside in the snow for so long. He could have frozen to death. Then his eyelashes fluttered as he became aware someone was there. He slowly opened his eyes. From behind Savich, Dr. Faraday said, “Mr. Biggs, two FBI agents are here to speak to you, but only for a moment. Do you feel up to it?”
“Track the bastard down,” Officer Biggs whispered. “Fry him.”
Sherlock touched her fingertips to his forearm. “You can count on that, Officer Biggs. We’ll fry him to a crisp.”
Officer Biggs tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. “You FBI?”
“Yes, sir,” Sherlock said. “Both of us. We’d like to go over what happened to you, have you give us every detail you can remember. If you become too tired, we’ll let you rest. But we do need your help as quickly as we can get it, Officer.” She heard the doctor move restlessly behind her. She turned, gave him a sunny smile, and said, “We’re not going to put him on the rack. When he tires, Doctor, we will go. May we ask you to leave now?”
No one, Savich thought, bucked Sherlock when she used that sweet iron voice.
Officer Biggs studied Savich for a moment. “You heading this investigation, Agent Savich?”
“The FBI is heading it, Officer Biggs.”
“So the marshal of the Supreme Court Police isn’t coordinating everything?”
How could Biggs ever have thought that, Savich wondered. “Marshal Alice Halpern and her people will be involved, certainly. You’re really a lucky man, Officer Biggs. One of your friends, Officer Clendenning, wondered about you, and went looking. The man who struck you down had thrown a tarp over you, left you right there beside the wall.”
“And nobody realized when he came in that he wasn’t me.”
Savich said, “No, but we’re still speaking to all of the officers on that shift. Maybe someone noticed something, felt something wasn’t right. By the time the alarm was raised, the killer was gone.
“All right now, Officer Biggs.” Savich leaned close to his gray face, where so much pain and rage flickered in his faded eyes. “I need you to think back to this past week, particularly yesterday. Did you notice anyone who seemed to be hanging around, watching, waiting, perhaps leaving, then returning, anyone who didn’t look right, who gave you pause?”
Officer Biggs closed his eyes. Slowly, he shook his head. “We’ve got a residential neighborhood not a block behind us, and there are people hanging around all the time. I didn’t notice anyone in particular, and they’d be more noticeable at night when I’m on duty.”
“I want you to think about this after we leave. If you recall anything, call us. Now, sir, it’s a quarter of twelve last night. You haven’t had a smoke for two hours. You’re antsy, hurting. You want to skip this break since you’re trying to stop, but you had an argument with your wife, and it’s eating at you. You don’t want to go outside because it’s cold and beginning to snow, but you’ve got to have that cigarette. Tell us exactly what you did.”
“How did you know about that fight with my wife?”
“She told us,” Sherlock said. “She’s really worried about you. She wants you to forgive her.”
Those pain-faded eyes burned a bit. “It was about our oldest son. It doesn’t seem like much now. But she really made me mad,” said Officer Biggs. “Okay, so, I have my area, right there on the first floor, through the Great Hall and into the courtroom. I keep watch, always listen for any noise that shouldn’t be there, make my rounds, watch and listen. Dear God, Justice Califano is dead, he’s dead, such a nice man, and it’s all my fault.”
Sherlock put her hand on his forearm again and left it there. “Did you see Justice Califano come in?”
“No, but I heard some of the guys talking. Justice Califano was a regular, coming in at all hours of the evening. It was kind of a joke, you know? We’d lay bets on when he’d come in, laugh about fights with his old lady, about her driving him off.”
“But you have no idea why he came in last night?”
“A couple of the guys were talking—something Justice Califano said at the entrance, something about having
