The Divine Appointment, page 12
As soon as Eli and the other three exited the courtroom, two Davidson County sheriff’s deputies appeared and directed them toward the building’s back entrance. It was used often by litigants who desired an escape from the building without having to battle the media.
“Mr. Faulkner,” one of the deputies said, “if you’ll have someone bring a car to the portico at the rear of the building, we can get the four of you out through the back door.”
Eli removed his car keys from his pocket and gave them to Jill. He motioned for her to do as the deputy had suggested, and she left the group to retrieve Eli’s car.
“You can wait in here until she gets back.” The deputy pointed to a conference room at the end of the hall.
Eli, Tag, and Anna entered the room, and Eli placed his briefcase on the table. The deputy closed the door behind them.
“You’re pretty confident that you can’t be the father of Ms. Caldwell’s child,” Eli directed at Tag. “But when I met with you at your house the other day, you told me that you had been intimate with Ms. Caldwell.”
“We had been,” Tag admitted without looking at his wife.
The admission was in a conquering, bragging tone. Eli glanced at Anna and noticed a stiff upper lip as she peered straight ahead, not looking at either Eli or Tag.
“Then how can you be so confident?” Eli demanded.
Tag glanced at Anna, who returned the glance.
Was that an inquisitive look on Anna’s face? Eli wondered.
After a couple of seconds of eerie silence, Tag responded, “Because I’m sterile.”
Chapter Twelve
The Oval Office, the White House, Washington DC
“Am I interrupting?” Porter asked as the president’s secretary admitted him to the room. It was just before noon on Thursday.
“I was just finishing.” President Wallace closed his tattered Bible and slid it into the top-left-hand drawer of his desk. “A few minutes with God every day does wonders for the soul, Porter.”
“I agree, sir.”
“Come in and sit down.” President Wallace waved for Porter to come farther into the room. “What’s on your mind?”
Porter sat in a leather chair near the front of the president’s desk. “I thought we should talk more about the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Shelton.”
“I trust everything is still on track with Senator Proctor’s office.”
“Everything is still on track. I spoke with Cooper Harrington yesterday afternoon, and he confirmed that they are lining up enough votes for Judge Shelton.”
“Good. Sounds like everything is going according to plan, then.”
“Everything except Stella Hanover.”
President Wallace noticed the anxiety on Porter’s face. Stella Hanover made Porter nervous.
“Stella Hanover? Why am I not surprised? She gave us quite a fight during the election because of my position on abortion. What is she up to?”
“Rumor is that she made an appearance at Senator Proctor’s office on Monday and gave him an earful over Judge Shelton’s nomination.”
“But you’ve talked to Cooper and our deal with Proctor is still in place, right?”
“That’s right, but I’m worried about Stella. She’s tenacious and will do anything she can to derail the confirmation. She has demanded a meeting with every senator who was supported by her organization in the last two elections. I’ve also heard that she has hired a team of private investigators to uncover everything they can possibly find on Judge Shelton.”
President Wallace reclined in his chair and thoughtfully considered the ceiling. He rubbed his chin with his right hand. “We may need to get the committee hearings moved up so he can be confirmed before Stella’s people have time to do any damage. I’m confident, based on our own investigations, they won’t find anything on Judge Shelton, but there’s no reason to make any mistakes at this point.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I talked to Cooper about that yesterday. He said the earliest the committee could begin is the last week of this month. But they’ll have to adjourn for the Fourth of July. Several committee members will be traveling to their home states for parades and other events where they can be seen by their constituents.”
“I’d hate for them to miss a baby-kissing opportunity,” President Wallace said sarcastically.
Porter chuckled politely. “If things go well, we could get to a vote on the Senate floor before the August recess. But any delays will put the vote into September.”
“Let’s get everything arranged to make it easy on the committee. We need to have the vote before the recess.”
“I agree,” Porter replied. “I’ll continue to work on it.”
“How’s Judge Shelton performing in the mock committee hearings?”
“He’s doing great. He can quote the Ginsburg rule with ease—no hints, no forecasts, no previews.”
En route to Jackson, Tennessee
They had been driving for fifteen minutes, and Jill could no longer tolerate the silence. Eli hadn’t said good-bye to either Tag or Anna when they’d deposited them at their waiting car in the parking lot near the courthouse. And he hadn’t said a word to her since then either. His lips were pressed together and his jaw was flexing rapidly. Jill now wished she had remained in the driver’s seat after she retrieved the car. But Eli had insisted—demanded—and she had moved to the passenger seat. She could see anger in his body language. He even gripped the steering wheel with both hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
She had seen that look before. Not often, but she had seen it. The last time she recalled seeing it was when a client had lied to him. Jill could tell that Eli was mad and the gears in his brain were grinding.
“Okay,” Jill said. “What’s wrong?”
When Eli shook his head, she knew she’d have to drag it out of him. But she had to be careful. He was her boss, and she didn’t need his anger directed at her.
Delicately, she prodded further. “Obviously something happened while I was gone to get the car. What was it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The words barely escaped through his clenched teeth.
“Well, are we still working on this case or not?”
When Eli finally exhaled deeply, Jill knew he wouldn’t stop talking until he had told her everything. She twisted her head and studied the side of his face.
Eli continued to watch the interstate ahead as he spoke. “Do you remember when Anna came to the office and I decided to take this case?”
“Sure. I remember.”
“What did I say was one of the reasons I agreed to represent Tag?”
“Because Anna was pregnant and didn’t want her child to grow up without a father.”
Eli relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel and made an emphatic up-and-down motion with his right hand. “Exactly!”
“And?”
“And today I found out that it is impossible for Tag to be the father.” The volume of Eli’s voice escalated through his statement.
Jill stared at Eli and then through the front windshield. She tucked her sleek black hair behind her ears and looked back at Eli again. She was confused. She sat quietly for several seconds as Eli steered the car into the left-hand lane and sped past a semitruck and trailer. She didn’t know what to say and her brow furrowed.
“I don’t understand,” she finally admitted.
“When the coroner said that Jessica Caldwell was twelve weeks pregnant, Tag was confident it couldn’t be his. I confronted him about it while you were getting the car because I knew their relationship had been physical. But when I questioned him, Tag told me he’s sterile.”
“Sterile? If he’s sterile, how can Anna be pregnant?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“And they said what?”
“They said nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Neither of them explained how Anna could be pregnant and Tag could be sterile. I saw an odd look on Anna’s face after Tag said he was sterile, but I can’t decide if it meant he was lying or if she was surprised he told me that. Maybe both.”
“If he really is sterile, then obviously someone else is the father of Anna’s baby.”
“I questioned Anna about an affair, and she denied it. I couldn’t tell for sure from the look on either of their faces whether she was lying or not. And Tag didn’t say anything.”
Eli loosened his necktie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He stretched his head from side to side and front to back as if he were trying to release the tension in his neck.
“Does Anna look pregnant to you?” he asked.
“Not really, now that you mention it. Has she told you when the baby is expected?”
“When I was at their house the last week of May, she said something about the due date being a little over six months away, but that’s all.”
“I don’t know anything about being pregnant,” Jill admitted. “But I think it’s possible to be nearly three months pregnant and for it to not be very noticeable.”
Eli ran his hand through his hair in anguish. “I guess you’re right. But I still don’t like being lied to.”
Jill knew that Tag’s revelation was only part of the thoughts spinning in Eli’s mind. The other part had to be the formulation of a plan. “What are you going to do?”
“I threatened to withdraw from the case. When I first met with Tag, I told him that I needed to know everything, and he assured me he would tell me everything. I reminded him of that again this morning…but still no explanation.”
“Are you going to withdraw?”
“I doubt Judge Blackwood will let me out this far into the case. We’ve already had the preliminary, and the trial will be scheduled in a couple of months.”
“This certainly puts a new light on things, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does.” He frowned. “And to think that I premised my agreement to represent Tag on a lie.”
The Hart Building, Washington DC
“I talked to Porter McIntosh earlier today,” Cooper Harrington said as he entered Senator Proctor’s office. The Senate was finished for the day, and Senator Proctor was enjoying his pipe and a glass of Scotch.
“What did he want this time?” Senator Proctor was tired of hearing from Porter McIntosh. The man always seemed to need something, and that irritated the senator. He held the pipe in his right hand with his teeth clenched around the mouthpiece. Tiny puffs of smoke rose from the pipe’s wooden bowl as he spoke.
Cooper stood and rested his hands on the back of a chair across the desk from Senator Proctor. “The president wants us to move the committee hearings up. They’re worried about Stella.”
“Stella?” Senator Proctor chuckled. “Did you tell Porter that we’re not worried about Stella?”
“I did, but President Wallace wants a vote on the Senate floor before the August recess.”
Senator Proctor took a sip from his glass of Scotch, leaned back in his chair, and resumed smoking his pipe. What a waste of time the conversation was. The president was kidding himself if he thought confirmation could be rushed.
“That may be difficult. Some of the senators may want to pacify Stella by delaying the vote until after the recess. She can be pretty…what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Ruthless?”
“Yeah, that’s it. She can be ruthless.”
“I know,” Cooper replied. “She made herself very clear the other day.”
“Walk the idea around with some of the Senate leadership and see what their thoughts are about moving the hearings up.”
Avenue of the Americas, New York City
“Move the hearings up?” Stella said when Valerie Marcom gave her the news. “They can’t move the hearings up. Who ever heard of that? I’ve heard of them being delayed before but never moved up.”
“That’s the word I got from one of my friends who works with the Judiciary Committee. Cooper Harrington is floating the idea around with the Senate leadership and the Judiciary Committee members to see if anyone is opposed. He’s telling them that Senator Proctor wants an up-or-down vote in the Senate on Judge Shelton before the August recess.”
Stella didn’t like the thought of that at all. Move the hearings up? Preposterous! She couldn’t let that happen.
Stella paced for a few steps before pivoting to face Valerie. “Something’s up, Val. This isn’t coming from Proctor’s office. He’s carrying Wallace’s water on this one. And Wallace wants things sped up. There must be something we’re missing about Shelton, and we need more time.”
Stella paced further before she continued talking to Valerie. Senator Montgomery was the chair of the committee. She’d start there, she decided.
“Val, get me Senator Montgomery’s number and all the numbers for the other committee members. I can’t let the hearings be moved up. We’re still turning over stones and looking for skeletons.”
Chapter Thirteen
New York City
Stella Hanover ducked into McClanahan’s Bar & Grill on the corner of Forty-sixth Street and Madison Avenue just before midnight on Friday. It was only a few blocks from her Avenue of the Americas office and a short taxi ride to her apartment on the east side of Central Park. She had been working late—like every other night since Judge Shelton’s nomination—trying to find some way to derail the inevitable.
She had talked to all the committee members several times since yesterday, when she’d first heard that the president wanted to move more quickly on Judge Shelton’s nomination. She wasn’t confident she had convinced them to hold the hearings as scheduled. Senator Montgomery was on her side, as well as six others. At least eight wanted to move them up because Senator Proctor—President Wallace, she reminded herself—had asked them to. That left three fence riders, and she wasn’t certain on which side of the fence they would fall. Desperate times demanded desperate measures.
Stella hadn’t anticipated the rain. She’d left her umbrella at home that morning. So she located a copy of the New York Times in the lobby of her office. She used it to deflect the June drizzle while dashing from the front door of her office building to the taxi and from the taxi to the door of McClanahan’s. Two seats were empty at the end of the bar, and she sat in the next to last one.
“Glass of chardonnay,” she said as the bartender approached.
She laid the damp newspaper on the bar and draped the strap of her purse over the back of the bar stool. After drying her hands with a cloth napkin the bartender provided, she nibbled at some pretzels from the nearby bowl. Soon she was sipping thoughtfully on her glass of wine.
Stella stared at herself in the mirror behind the bar. She liked the image she saw in front of her even if no one else seemed to. Unmarried, she had dedicated her entire adult life to women’s issues and the last fifteen years to NFAR. She had been instrumental in defeating legislation in several states designed to limit the accessibility and availability of abortions. Even when a law passed that restricted abortion rights, her organization successfully challenged the law in the federal court system. She knew, however, that any tilt in the balance of the Supreme Court could deteriorate over thirty years of successes on that issue. That’s why defeating Judge Dunbar Shelton’s nomination was so vitally important to Stella.
Stella had been to McClanahan’s several times but didn’t consider herself a regular. She took another sip from her glass and glanced around the room. It was about half full, but no one was present that Stella recognized.
A middle-aged man of Italian descent—strange for a place called McClanahan’s—entered through the front door. Black hair. Leather jacket. Black denim jeans. He looked out of place, but he matched perfectly the description she had been given. He was without an umbrella and dry, so it must have stopped raining.
The man sat on the stool beside Stella at the end of the bar and ordered a drink. Stella finished the last of her wine, paid her tab, and stood to leave.
“Are you finished with your newspaper?” the Italian man asked. “I haven’t had a chance to read it today.”
Stella looked at the man and lifted the newspaper from the bar. “It’s a little wet, but you’re welcome to it.” She handed the newspaper to him, grabbed her purse, and departed.
After Stella exited, the man unfolded the newspaper, revealing a white oversize envelope inside. He lifted the flap of the envelope and smiled at its contents: $25,000. He would wait until later to count the money, but he knew it was correct. His clients knew better than to stiff him for even one penny. And there would be that much again when the job was finished.
He refolded the newspaper, laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar to cover his drink, and within five minutes after Stella’s departure, he, too, was on his way.
Washington DC
Holland Fletcher drove his ancient camel-colored Toyota Camry to the Supreme Court building and parked two blocks away on First Street NE. He hadn’t washed the car in years. The floorboard was gritty and the dashboard dusty. The car had two hundred thousand miles, dents in both fenders, and fading paint, but it still got him where he needed to go.
It was barely past 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday. He was up earlier than usual, and he didn’t like it. He reminded himself that this was why he wasn’t a morning person. He looked as if he’d slept in his clothes.
He’d tried over the course of the last week to find something about the Caldwell murder that wasn’t right, but he had uncovered nothing. He read online the articles from the Tennessean that covered the preliminary hearing of Todd Allen Grissom, MD, and it certainly appeared that the authorities had the right man. Although he’d lost interest in the case, he decided he at least needed to go to the Supreme Court like she had suggested. He didn’t want her to think he hadn’t obeyed. He was scared of her…whoever she was.
