“Rosalind, Paul,” Millie said. “I need to tell you what has happened.”
Rosalind still looked like the waiting child. Paul, in contrast, was the petulant one. He did not look up from his screen.
“Paul?” Millie said.
Finally, he looked at her. His eyes were almost tearful.
“Please,” Millie said. “Let me tell you both what this is about.”
The phone on Paul’s desk rang. Millie waited as he picked up and inquired.
Paul’s eyes shot to Millie while the receiver was still at his ear. Then he put the receiver to his chest. “It’s ABC News,” he said. “They want to have a word with you.”
5
For Senator Sam Levering, breaking news was like Prozac – an instant respite from depression. He was, in fact, a news junkie.
That was why his limo had not only two TV monitors, but also a special remote so he could jump immediately to any of five news outlets – CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS.
This morning he was concentrating on ABC. The reporter was standing in front of the White House delivering his report. The “strange conversion” of Chief Justice Hollander had reached the top of the Washington news food chain.
When the limo phone rang, Levering knew exactly who it would be.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Levering said.
“What’s good about it?” Francis said.
“You’ve heard.”
“Of course I’ve heard. It’s all over the place. You’d think we’d had a terrorist attack with all the reporters.”
Levering mused that this felt very much like an attack. Surprising, potentially debilitating.
“What are you going to do about it?” Francis demanded.
“I’m on it.”
“Were you on it when you forced Hollander down my throat?”
Levering felt like cussing out the president of the United States. Instead he said, “I will take care of it.”
“Get her off the bench,” the president said.
“She’s a Supreme Court justice,” Levering snapped. “She either has to retire, die, or get impeached.”
“Choose one,” Francis said.
Was he serious? “Mr. President, let me assure you. I can deal with Hollander. I will get her to play ball, as they say, or force her to resign.”
“How?”
“Leave that to me.”
“I already did that,” Francis shot back. “I just better not see a rollback on women’s rights, gay rights, every other kind of rights. What a nightmare. You know what they’ll say about me? That I made the worst pick for chief justice ever. Should have seen it coming. This could change the Court for twenty years.”
“Shall we meet?” Levering said. “I’m free this afternoon.”
“No,” Francis said. “I’m golfing with the CEO of GE. Just do something and get back to me.”
Click.
Levering looked out the window and saw the Washington Monument rising into a fog.
He poured himself a shot of bourbon and called Anne Deveraux.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1
Charlene woke up just before the train hit her.
The locomotive bore down on her, its horn blaring. She was stuck on the tracks, unable to move. No restraints held her. Her feet simply would not take her away from certain death.
The nightmare ended, as they most often do, before impact. But the train whistle sounded again, and this time Charlene recognized it. It was the prolonged beep of her fax machine.
She had fallen asleep on the couch. Last night she could not sleep at all, her stomach in a knot. The decision from the Court of Appeals was late, and there was no word from the clerk when it would come in.
No matter how much Charlene prayed for sleep, it was denied her. She took that as a sign that God did not want her to sleep, but to continue praying. She did so, starting with prayers for Sarah Mae and Aggie Sherman, then for the case to be resolved in their favor.
But that was not all. Charlene found herself praying for Millicent Mannings Hollander.
She had been stunned by the news. A Supreme Court justice coming to know Christ as Savior while actively serving? That was definitely a first.
But would Hollander’s faith lead her to adopt a different view of the law than she’d had before? What would that do to the balance of the Court?
Charlene had a sudden wild thought. What if Sarah Mae’s case actually got to the high Court? How would Hollander rule? Graebner and Winsor believed strongly she would be on their side, and Charlene had to agree. But what now? She prayed for God’s will, not her own, and finally fell asleep around four in the morning.
The fax beeped again. Charlene rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. 11 a.m.
She jumped up and snatched the page that had just been cut from her ancient thermal-roll machine. The cover page made her heart jerk. It read “United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.” Ten pages to come.
It was the decision.
The first page was squeezing out slower than cold molasses.
“Come on, come on!”
The page was a third of the way out of the machine. Charlene craned her neck so she could look at it. She could only read the caption, the case name, and the introductory gobbledygook that was part of every printed decision.
“Hurry up!”
With the first page halfway out, she saw the names of the three judges who had considered the case. She remembered their faces, heard their voices again as they asked questions of counsel. She heard Graebner’s confident answers, and her own stumbles as she tried to remain calm and clear.
