end and that you would start rolling back everything I believed in.”
“I gathered that much.”
“And I hated your – I don’t know – integrity.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”
“I didn’t know how.”
“But you talked to that reporter for the Exposure?”
Helen nodded. “Levering convinced me I had to do it. He and that Gestapo agent of his, Anne Deveraux. We ruined you.”
“I don’t feel ruined.”
“How can you not?”
Thinking of Bill Bonassi, Millie had to smile. “I’m a reverse paranoid.”
“A
“No.”
“My clerk, Rosalind Wilkes, and I are going to open an office.”
“A lawyer? You’re going to be a lawyer?”
“Why not? Maybe even be a TV star. Fox has been calling. They want me to be a commentator on national legal news. I don’t know what God has in store.”
They were near the portico now, the majestic figure of Thomas Jefferson deep in thought inside. Millie watched a group of children being led toward Jefferson by a woman who was obviously a teacher. Hope for the future, went the cliche. But she couldn’t think of a better place to start than with the author of the Declaration of Independence. Millie thought of the stirring final words of that document. “With a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
When she looked back she saw Helen with her face in her hands.
“What is it?” Millie said.
“Can you forgive me?”
Millie put her arms around Helen. It was not a natural gesture for Millie. Or maybe it was. Now.
3
Rosalind was waiting for Millie back at Millie’s house in Fairfax County. Who was it Rosalind had wanted her to meet?
It was a young, rather slight, but confident-looking African American woman who shook Millie’s hand with gusto.
“Meet Charlene Moore,” Rosalind said.
Over tea, Charlene Moore told Millie her story, up to the filing of the
“He’s formidable,” Millie said. “And your case sounds like one the Court may grant cert on.”
“Which is why I came here,” Charlene said. “I’ve been asking God who would be the right person to help me with this. I kept flashing on you.”
“I’ve never been flashed before,” Millie said.
Charlene Moore laughed. “But will you do it?”
“You don’t waste time, do you, Miss Moore?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I’ll really have to think about this,” Millie said.
“You know,” said Charlene Moore, “sometimes God kicks thinkin’ in the pants.”
Millie laughed. “The strange thing is, I think I understand exactly what you mean. Why don’t we pray, right now, and whatever God wants, we’ll do.”
“Right on,” Charlene said.
“Roz,” Millie said. “Do you mind?”
The young woman shook her head. “I’d like to join you, if I may.”
“This is very cool,” Charlene said.
Three women joined hands. And sought God.
Part Three
Upon these two foundations,
the law of nature and the law of revelation,
depend all human laws.
SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1
“Oyez, oyez, oyez.”
The Supreme Court marshal solemnly intoned the medieval French words handed down from more than a thousand years of English common law. Though Millie had heard them countless times before, she now felt them entering into her like trumpet blasts.
“The honorable, the chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States,” the marshal continued. “All persons having business before this honorable Court are admonished to draw nigh and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable Court.”
And there they stood, her former colleagues – Byrne, Facconi, Johnson, Parsons, Weiss, Velarde, and Chief Justice Atkins, along with the judge who had replaced her, Walter Saxon. And, finally, Thomas J. Riley. His face, as far as Millie could tell, was a mask of impassivity.
