Supreme Justice (4 page)

Several inches shorter than Reeder, Sloan wore a charcoal pinstripe Brooks Brothers suit he usually reserved for federal court appearances.

“You must’ve announced the task force to the media,” Reeder said casually, grabbing a bottle from the six-pack before slipping into his chair. He muted the TV.

Sloan nodded, his side-parted blond hair a shade that hid any encroaching gray. Though they were about the same age, the white-haired Reeder had always looked older, until a family tragedy had taken a toll on Sloan.

While they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, the two had been close since before their girls were born, having met on a joint Secret Service–FBI job. Their two families had spent much time together, and when Sloan’s daughter, Kathy, died, Amy—who’d viewed Kath as a sort of big sister—took it hard.

Kathy Sloan had found herself pregnant, and—hoping her conservative parents would never know—had gone sub rosa to a “doctor” who turned out to be a flunked-out med student who left her with an infection that turned septic. Gabe Sloan had never really recovered from the loss of his child, and he’d wound up losing his marriage as well.

Reeder found it frustrating that his friend remained such a hardline conservative after so obvious an indictment of the radical right’s antiabortion stand. But this was too touchy an area to explore, even with so close a friend. Or was that
because
Gabe was so close a friend?

“Yeah, we made the announcement this morning,” the FBI agent said. “Since when do you watch the news?”

“You’re wearing your ‘testifying’ suit.”

After loosening his silver-striped navy tie, Sloan undid his collar button. He had lively blue eyes and an easy smile that showed lots of white teeth. Well, not as easy as it had once been.

Sloan said, “You don’t miss a damn thing, do you, Peep?”

“Trained professional. Don’t try this at home, kids.”

“So how’s my goddaughter doing?”

“She’s trying to talk me into funding a getaway for her and that commie boyfriend of hers.”

Sloan snorted a laugh that sent beer out his nose. “You’re starting to sound like me! . . . How’re the Nats doing tonight?”

“Two to nothing, bad guys.”

“Strasburg still in?”

“Yeah,” Reeder said. “He’s only given up three hits and a walk . . . but one of the hits was a homer.”

Sloan took another swig of beer, turned away from the ball game. “So what’s this crazy shit you foisted on Bishop about Venter trying to run? A hit on the
judge
? Are you kidding? Looking to embarrass us federal boys?”

“If I wanted to do that,” Reeder said, “I’d have kept my mouth shut.”

Sloan waved a hand in the air, swallowed some more beer. “So let’s say Venter tried to run. That’s a good motive for a panicky stickup guy to blast him, am I right?”

“You are right as far as it goes, Gabe. But this was an assassination, no doubt about it. Did you look at the footage?”

“Yeah!”

“And what did you see?”

“I saw a robber pointing a gun at Nicky Blount, and I saw Justice Venter getting up—to intervene, looks like. Then the robber shot the Justice.”

“Which is exactly,” Reeder replied calmly, “what somebody wanted you to see.”

Sloan blew a Bronx cheer. “Peep, stop spotting a conspiracy behind every tree, already. How did you dream up this half-assed crapola, anyway?”

“By watching the footage.”

“Same as me.”

“No. You saw it, buddy, but you didn’t
watch
it.” Reeder sat up, turned away from the screen. “Ever hear of cognitive dissonance?”

“I had Psych 101, thank you,” Sloan said, a little testy.

“Prove it.”

“It’s when you hold on to a belief when all the facts say the opposite.”

“A-plus, Mr. Sloan,” Reeder said. “Outside the classroom, the practical application is simpler—it’s called overlooking the obvious . . . Come upstairs.”

Moments later, in his home office, Reeder used the already booted computer at his desk to load the e-mail and run the video on his wall-mounted forty-six-inch monitor between bookcases.

The second time they went through the video, Reeder froze it as Venter made his first movement to rise. “What do you see?”

Sloan studied the frame for several seconds. “The Blount kid has a gun in his face. The robber is threatening him . . . and Justice Venter is getting up to try to stop the guy from shooting his clerk.”

“Okay, here’s what I see,” Reeder said, approaching the screen. “Let’s start with Venter. He’s rising, with a clear path to the holdup man, right?”

Sloan said, “Yeah—a straight shot. So to speak.”

“Then why is the judge’s left foot cocked away from the holdup guy?”

The FBI agent stepped closer, squinting at the screen.

Reeder pressed: “Justice Venter played football, right?”

Sloan nodded, straightened. “Yeah, in college, if I remember.”

“So, he could just drop his shoulder, charge ahead, tackle the guy. Take him down.”

“I suppose.”

“Yet his left foot is angled away—toward the door, wouldn’t you say?”

“Could be . . .”

“And his left shoulder?”

Sloan, studying the screen, said nothing.

Reeder said, “It should be
lowered
, right? But it’s
not
—it’s open, his arm flung to his left, like his foot . . . toward the fire exit.”

The FBI agent said nothing.

Reeder put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Venter wasn’t going to play hero, Gabe. He saw an opening and was going to take it, to try to save his ass.”

“Maybe. But even so, how does that change anything? Or maybe you’d just like to see a conservative icon painted a coward.”

“Gabe, Venter getting wrongly tagged a hero is hardly the biggest issue here.”

Back at his desk, Reeder started the video in slow motion. “Watch how your ‘robber’ takes his time. This isn’t a panicked reaction to an unruly stickup victim. The killer abandons his attention on Blount. The kid, had he wanted to, could have picked up something off the table, a knife, a fork, hell, his glass,
anything
, and attacked the killer at this point . . . but the shooter doesn’t give Blount a second thought. He turns, sets his feet, takes his time, then . . .”

They both watched as the pistol fired in slow motion, Venter engulfed in a pink cloud and going down.

“. . . and then,” Sloan said in a hushed voice that implied he could hardly believe he was saying it, “executes Judge Henry Venter.”

Reeder nodded. “
Now
you’ve ‘watched’ the video, Gabe. Now you’re
not
overlooking the obvious.”

Sloan turned to his host. “Are you, Peep?”

“You mean that, for the first time in American history somebody has assassinated a Supreme Court justice? No, Gabe. No, I noticed that, all right.”

“If Columbus had an advisory committee, he would probably still be at the dock.”

Arthur J. Goldberg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 1962–1965, United States Secretary of Labor, United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Section 21, Lot S-35, Grid M-20.5, Arlington National Cemetery.

FOUR

Every flag in DC was flying at half-mast this morning, and the one outside the trapezoidal building with its severe lines and many windows was no exception—the J. Edgar Hoover Building, headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In his lightweight light gray suit with a powder-blue dress shirt and a dark blue tie, Reeder might have been just another agent reporting in. But this was reluctant duty: Only after Gabe Sloan had done much arm-twisting last night had Reeder agreed to meet with him now, for a session with the Bureau’s Assistant Director, Margery Fisk.

Meeting Sloan just inside, Reeder accepted the visitor’s badge from his friend, clipped it on his breast pocket, and said, “If you think the FBI is gonna add me to this task force, you’re ready for premature retirement.”

Sloan waved that off. He was in the Brooks Brothers pinstripe again—or maybe he was
still
in it. “Just tag along and behave yourself, Peep. I’ll take the lead.”

They walked toward the security station.

Reeder said, “I’m only putting up with this because you’re Amy’s godfather.”

“Here I thought it was because you’re a patriot. Did you catch the President’s speech this morning?”

“Heard it on the car radio.”

Sloan grunted a laugh. “You’d think Venter was his goddamn daddy.”

Reeder grunted one back. “And you’d also think Venter was the greatest American hero since John Wayne played Davy Crockett. Busy morning so far?”

As they went through security, Sloan said, “You have no idea.”

“I’d bet your buddies on the Bureau just can’t wait to see me come around.”

“Well, Patti might.”

“Who’s Patti?”

“My partner. You remember. I told you about her.”

“Oh yeah . . . the kid.”

“She’s thirty-five, Peep.”

“Yeah, well,
we
aren’t.”

They entered an elevator.

Sloan said, “I’ve talked you up around her, gramps. She thinks
you’re
John Wayne.”

“Please.”

On the top floor, Reeder followed Sloan down a typically anonymous corridor. At the AD’s office, they entered a reception area larger than Reeder’s office.

A redhead in wire-framed glasses and a dark gray suit said to Sloan, “Go right in, Agent Sloan—the Assistant Director is expecting you.” Despite her businesslike appearance, she looked barely older than Amy. She did not acknowledge Reeder in any way.

Sloan went in first, pausing to close the door behind them. The office was spacious, dark-paneled, wall-to-wall-carpeted, with a mini conference area and framed wall hangings ranging from diplomas and citations to photos of the last several presidents, including the one whose life Reeder had saved.

Assistant Director Margery Fisk rose from behind her aircraft carrier of a desk but did not come around to greet them; she just gestured toward waiting chairs and offered a slice of a smile before returning to her swivel chair. Tall, slender, in a navy business suit, her dark straight hair a lacquered helmet, Fisk had the high cheekbones of a model and the hard dark eyes of a cheetah about to spring.

Reeder had never met Fisk, who’d been AD for less than a year, but he knew her by reputation, all right. She was tough and smart and, it was said, a little bit ruthless. Cross her and she would smile and nod even as she began to plot your career’s demise.

“Mr. Reeder,” she said, extending her hand and requiring him to lean in over her work-stacked desk to accept, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

He retrieved his hand, smiled at the ambiguity of that, and took his chair—Sloan already had taken his. “I’ve heard enough about you, Director Fisk, to know not to rise to that bait.”

She seemed to like the sound of that—an unintimidated response but not a disrespectful one.

In an alto with no music in it, Fisk said, “Special Agent Sloan has already made a case for putting you on this task force. Part of that was showing me—and walking me through—the security footage . . . with your kinesics read on Justice Venter’s behavior.” She gestured to the monitor of the computer that was to her left on the endless desktop. She had no framed family photos on display, Reeder noted.

He said, “Kinesics is as much an art as a science. What it comes down to, Director, is my opinion.”

“Understood. And I respect that opinion. But you’ve been a player in the DC game long enough to know that there’s no way I can put a private citizen on an FBI task force, regardless of his background.”

“I do,” Reeder said. “And I agree with you. Anyway, the ill will toward me could hamper the investigation. I’ve given you a nudge in the right direction, and I’m sure the Bureau can run with it.”

He gave her another smile and a respectful nod and was getting up when she raised a hand that was halfway between traffic cop and pope.

Reeder sat back down.

“Joe,” she began, then politely, pleasantly asked, “May I call you Joe?”

“Certainly, Director.” He wasn’t about to ask if he could call her Margery.

“I agree,” she said, “that you’re on to something here. And I’m not inclined to send a first-team player back to the bench who may have turned this investigation around before it even began. You’re not just a citizen with impressive credentials in federal law enforcement. You’re head of a prestigious and well-respected security company.”

“Well . . . thank you.”

“So . . . what I can offer you is an advisory position. Given that you’ve provided advice to us already, I need hardly justify to anyone adding you to the task force as a consultant.”

Reeder glanced at Sloan, who gave him nothing.

She was saying, “You’ll have no real authority, which is the bad news. The good news, however, is that you will only have to answer to Special Agent Sloan . . . and to me.”

“Director Fisk,” Reeder said, “a lot of people are going to be unhappy with you.”

She shrugged. “Only behind my back.”

That got a grin out of Reeder. “It would be a pleasure working for you, Director Fisk. An honor.”

“Good. As you may know, SAIC Sloan is heading up the task force.”

Sloan said to Reeder, “Every agency in DC wants a piece of this—a chance to grab the credit for bringing in this killer.”

Fisk said, “The FBI—thanks to you, Joe—is at the top of this particular food chain, having been in on the investigation at the start.”

Actually,
he thought,
by that logic,
DC Homicide
would be at the top of the food chain. Not damn likely.

She was saying, “Homeland Security, your old colleagues at Secret Service, the Supreme Court Police, DC Homicide . . .”

She’d finally gotten to them.

“Why, by the end of the week, I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t have NCIS and Coast Guard representation.”

Sloan laughed at that—more than it deserved, but she
was
the boss.

The SAIC said, “Director Fisk, the first question that comes to mind is the one any homicide investigator would ask in this situation: Who might want this victim dead?”

She folded her hands as if about to say grace. “Joe—what’s your response to that?”

Reeder shrugged. “How about white supremacists? Killing an African American justice wins their cockeyed cause a hell of a lot of attention.”

With a glance at the Director, Sloan said, “Including unwanted attention from us.”

“Well worth the hassle,” Reeder countered, “because others with the same racist outlook will see the murder as a victory.”

“All right,” Fisk said. The fingers of one hand drummed quietly. “Who else?”

Reeder opened his hands. “How about far-leftists fed up with Venter’s extreme right-wing stance?”

She nodded.

He pressed on: “Or antigovernment terrorists? And God only knows what there might be in Venter’s personal life.”

“You might have something there,” Fisk said with a finely arched eyebrow. “Inappropriate behavior with female office clerks was an issue in Justice Venter’s confirmation hearings.”

“Not the makings of a murder motive, though,” Reeder said. “Not the way this one went down, anyway.”

Fisk said, “You’re missing the most obvious explanation, Joe.”

“Religious extremists,” Sloan put in.

Nobody wanted to say
Muslim
anymore, even behind closed doors.

But Reeder came close: “Islamic fundamentalists. I agree—high on the list of possibles. Venter made no secret of his Born-Again Christianity. That makes him an excellent candidate for al-Qaeda attention.”

Fisk asked Reeder, “Is that your instinct here?”

“Not necessarily. Whoever pulled this off . . .” He shrugged again. “. . . a lot of planning went into the thing. Starting with knowing where and when Venter would be in a very public place.”

“Terrorists like public places,” Sloan said.

“Yeah, but Islamic terrorists want to kill
many,
not just one. The man
with the machine
gun could have mowed down everybody in the Verdict.
Why would a terrorist, wanting attention and credit, go to the trouble of making a killing look like a robbery gone out of hand?”

Fisk was nodding again.

Reeder continued: “Some fairly sophisticated surveillance on Venter is involved here. Did he go to that restaurant bar regularly? Was this his night of the week there or something?”

It was Sloan’s turn to shrug. “Unknown as yet. Still digging. But it certainly wasn’t his first time at the restaurant.”

Fisk said absently, “
I’ve
been to that restaurant.”

Sloan shifted in his chair and frowned at Reeder. “Surely you aren’t saying that Islamists aren’t capable of that type of domestic intelligence gathering?”

Reeder shook his head. “No, 9/11 proved the opposite all too well. But we’re talking about stalking a sitting Supreme Court justice in Washington, DC. You think a bunch of Middle Eastern types wouldn’t raise any suspicion in DC? As paranoid as this city is? With all this Supreme Court–sanctioned racial profiling going on? I don’t buy it.”

Fisk said, “They could have used sympathizers, or non–Middle Eastern Muslims. The Boston Marathon bombing comes to mind.”

Reeder said, “It does, but that goes to my point. These al-Qaeda types are grandstanders. That bunch likes
big
targets, lots of people. This is a single target—one important man.”

Fisk was nodding.

Reeder asked them both, “Has anyone taken credit for the killing? You know damn well that half a dozen Islamic fundamentalist groups would be bragging this up already, if they were behind it.”

Sloan said, “No. None has. Point taken.”

With another razor-blade smile, Fisk said, “It sounds to me like Mr. Reeder is just the kind of consultant our task force can use.” Her tone said the meeting was over. “Thank you for accepting this position. Do we need to talk compensation?”

“Director, I’m sure you know your history.”

That made her frown in confusion. “How so?”

“It’s a tradition that goes all the way back to President Wilson. I’ll be a dollar-a-year man on this one.”

That made her smile, and she extended her hand again. They shook, and something like warmth was in the woman’s eyes. That warmth left as she turned toward Sloan, to whom she did not offer a hand to shake.

“And Agent Sloan,” she said, “speaking of dollars? I am well aware that buck will stop at this desk. But if it stops here in a way that displeases me, do I have to tell you where that leaves the leader of this task force?”

“You do not,” Sloan said with the world’s smallest smile.

Soon Reeder and Sloan were on the third floor, Reeder following Sloan down another seemingly endless corridor as unspecific as something out of a dream—it felt like the elevator was back there somewhere, maybe a block away. Then Sloan turned into an alcove and pushed through double doors.

Reeder had expected the typical sea of cubicles, and surely this vast space had been used in that fashion at one time. But right now the expanse had been converted to a command post. Around a central conference table, agents at laptops were hunkered at phones, spiral pads nearby. Wall-mounted bulletin boards kept track of local and cable news, and bulletin boards bore pictures, maps, notes, and more.

Maybe twenty metal desks were scattered around, in no particular setup, some being used, others not. Each one had a computer and a monitor, cords and wires crisscrossing the floor like a nest of snakes.

No one looked up when Reeder and Sloan entered. The only one of a dozen or more worker bees who Reeder recognized was his pal Carl Bishop of DC Homicide. In shirtsleeves and tie, holstered gun on his hip, the brawny, bald detective stood in front of a bulletin board, studying it hopelessly like an anthropologist on Easter Island.

“I’ve seen better organized Chinese fire drills,” Reeder said.

“No argument,” Sloan said. “This is what happens when you bring all the great law enforcement agencies into one place—utter chaos. But remember, we’ve only been a team for about . . .” He looked at his watch. “. . . thirty hours.”

“Well, any group is only as good as its leader.”

Sloan grinned. “Screw you, Peep.”

The SAIC walked to the conference table, and when everyone had noticed their top dog was among them, they quieted down and looked up.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Sloan said, “this is Joe Reeder, president of ABC Security, former Secret Service agent.”

Bishop gave him a nod and a grin, but the rest seemed as unimpressed as soldiers at the front taking in their rookie replacements. One cute brunette squinted at him like she’d just spotted a flying saucer out a car window.

Sloan was saying, “You’re all old enough to know this man took a bullet for the President of the United States. He’s here to help. You may hear me call him
Peep
. It’s an old nickname. I’d suggest if you don’t have history with him, you make it
Mr. Reeder.
”

“Christ, you’re killing me,” Reeder whispered to his friend. Then to the group: “
Joe
is fine. Just don’t call me late for lunch.”