requesting any changes. With one more vote on Fini's side, the opinion of the United States Supreme Court would be a sweeping triumph for conservatives—strictly interpreting AEDPA, barring claims of freestanding innocence, and denying habeas corpus petitioners the right to assert mental retardation. As with the incidental effect of this— Rennell Price's execution—Glynn gave no sign of his inclinations.
'McGeorge,' Huddleston told the Chief Justice in her chambers, 'has incredible leverage over the jurisprudence of death. The worry is how he'll use it.'
Huddleston pondered this. 'What Anthony has going for him is, to me, McGeorge's frightening level of naDvete: he has far too much faith that anyone who takes an oath and puts on a robe will do the right thing. He won't want to be seen as slapping down the California Supreme Court—whatever you do, you'll have to get around that.'
Unhappily, Caroline nodded. 'He's avoiding me,' she informed her friend. 'My spies tell me he's sitting down with Fini first.'
* * *
'And so,' Caroline said to Justice Glynn.
They sat across from each other over a candlelit dinner in the formal dining room of the Chief Justice's Georgetown town house—poached salmon in a white wine cream sauce, prepared by Caroline herself, accompanied by a chill bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet.
Justice Glynn dabbed his lips. 'Delicious,' he answered. 'Or do you mean the Price case?'
Caroline smiled. 'Both, I suppose. But now I'm in suspense about only one.'
Glynn put down his napkin. 'As so often, Tony went too far in framing bold—and, to me, unnecessary— principles of law. I've told him as much. The problem with your approach is that—in the guise of caution—it, too, is revolutionary.'
Genuinely surprised, Caroline asked, 'How so?'
'It reorders the relationship between the Ninth Circuit and the State Supreme Court, not so subtly concluding that the latter is constituted of seven intellectual and moral ciphers, whose sole concern is not justice but their own reelection.'
Caroline tried to stifle her alarm. 'What a perfectly formed sentence, McGeorge. It sounds like you've been doing a little drafting of your own.'
Justice Glynn looked vaguely guilty. 'I have,' he conceded. 'But only as a way of trying out one theory.'
Once more, Caroline was struck by the degree to which Rennell Price had become a pawn, prey to legal abstractions and competing agendas. 'Then I hope you'll try another,' she answered softly. 'What about this? We don't decide retardation at all. Instead you and I craft a narrow ruling on innocence that doesn't address the adequacy of the California Supreme Court's performance. We simply find that the evidence—in this one case— satisfies AEDPA's requirement of 'clear and convincing' evidence.'
'How do we do that?'
'By stressing that the Attorney General conceded that a retrial would result in Price's acquittal. That circumstance is so unusual it has no broad implications for the law.'
'No adverse implications, you mean. Because then I haven't signed off on any of Tony's theories, and you're reserving the subject of deference for another day.'
Caroline smiled. 'It's like the Hippocratic oath, McGeorge. First do no harm—to the law, to this Court, or to Rennell Price.'
But Justice Glynn did not return her smile. 'It's a way out,' he said at last. 'There's just so much to think about.'
THIRTEEN
IN LATE JUNE, AS THE SUPREME COURT'S TERM NEARED ITS END, the Court remained silent in the case of Rennell Price.
This was a sign of trouble, Chris guessed aloud to Terri—a deeply divided Court or, perhaps, last-minute vote switching or hesitance about the scope of the opinion. Left to speculate, Chris followed the steady announcement of opinions, their authorship rotating among the justices, until with two 'opinion days'—a Tuesday and a Wednesday —left, it was possible to guess that the author of the majority opinion would be either the Chief Justice or Justice Fini. 'If I'm right,' Chris said over dinner on the weekend before, 'then we'll know whether we win or lose depending on which one of them announces the opinion.'
'I'd like to be there,' Carlo said.
Chris glanced at Terri. 'Maybe all of us could go.'
Terri hesitated. She did not know which would be more excruciating—awaiting the decision in her office or being present at the moment when the Chief Justice named the justice who would summarize the ruling and, with that, whether Rennell Price would live or die. Whatever the result, the task of informing Rennell would fall to her.
'There's Elena,' Terri said. 'And Kit.'
The comment did not need elaboration. The photograph inserted in her New York Times had yielded no fingerprints; its provenance, the police believed, was Internet pornography. And Eddie Fleet still could not be found.
'We can ask Rossella to stay with them.'
Terri pondered this. Their housekeeper, as fiercely maternal about the Pagets' children as was Terri, was a paragon of caution and good sense. And during the day, Elena would be serving as a junior counselor at the day camp Kit attended, safely surrounded by adult supervisors and other children.
'I'll think about it,' Terri told her husband.
* * *
