Mr. Justice (21 page)

Professor Scott, who taught at a small law school in the Midwest that didn’t have a trace of ivy on its walls or a single cabinet secretary on its governing board, argued in his book that the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted in light of the natural rights political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence and that the Supreme Court was the institution of American government that should be primarily responsible for identifying and applying that philosophy in American life.

McDonald wasn’t completely convinced by Scott’s book, preferring instead the conventional account that the Declaration of Independence had no
legal
significance—that it was merely an eloquent pronouncement to the world that the United States was a free and independent nation—but he had to admit that he found Scott’s thesis difficult to resist. McDonald was particularly taken with Scott’s claim that the theory advanced in the book—what Scott called “liberal originalism”—was neither consistently liberal nor consistently conservative in the modern conception of those terms. Rather, the theory was liberal in the classic sense of viewing the basic purpose of government to be safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration itself, “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” In essence, Scott maintained that the Declaration articulated the philosophical ends of our nation and that the Constitution embodied the means to effectuate those ends.

McDonald had asked Mrs. Jacobs to schedule a lunch with the young professor just before he received the call from the White House nominating him to the Supreme Court. Now that McDonald was on the Court, he still hoped to meet Professor Scott.

But the most important mementos in McDonald’s Supreme Court office remained what they had been in his UVA faculty office: photographs of his family. A half dozen pictures of McDonald’s wife and daughter were displayed on an antique table immediately behind his desk. McDonald leaned forward in his chair and studied each and every one—the wedding photo in which Jenny resembled a young Nicole Kidman; the picture of McDonald and Jenny on their honeymoon in Ireland; the smiling couple in front of their first home in Charlottesville; the photograph from the hospital on the morning that Megan was born; Megan’s first day at school; and the family’s most recent Christmas card in which McDonald was dressed as Santa Claus, Jenny as Mrs. Claus, and Megan as a tiny elf.

McDonald stared lovingly at the photographs and desperately missed the life he had led. However, before he had a chance to become too sentimental, Mrs. Jacobs buzzed him and said, “Your law clerks are waiting for you in the Harlan Room.”

A law clerk was a recent law school graduate who provided assistance to a judge in researching and writing opinions. All federal judges were entitled to law clerks, and most state court judges were too. Being a law clerk to a U.S. Supreme Court justice was the most prestigious position a young lawyer could attain. Supreme Court clerks usually had graduated number one in their respective law school class, held a high-ranking position on the law review, and clerked for a year with a prominent U.S. court of appeals judge. McDonald had certainly done all of those things before he had clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist. So, too, had the three young men and the one young woman who had agreed to clerk for him.

Technically, they had agreed to clerk for Justice Crandall, but McDonald had decided to retain Crandall’s clerks, both as a courtesy to them—Supreme Court clerkships were difficult to get, and it would have been unfair to them to lose their positions after only three months on the job—and so he could benefit from their time at the Court. However, Justice McDonald already knew who his first pick would be for next year: Kelsi Shelton.

CHAPTER 73

The spring semester was already three weeks along by the time Kelsi Shelton was strong enough to return to school. Everyone at UVA had been wonderful during her time away. Her classmates had made sure that she received copies of the notes she needed, and her professors had taped the lectures she missed so that she could listen to them at her convenience.

Kelsi smiled and said hello to a steady stream of well-wishers as she scrambled for a seat in Federal Courts class. She spotted a familiar face waving her in like a flagman on an airport runway.

“Hi, gorgeous,” Sue Plant said as Kelsi squeezed into the chair in the fourth row. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Kelsi wiped away a tear. “Thanks for the care packages. They always made my day.”

Kelsi and Sue hugged for what seemed like forever.

“Get a room!” one of the class clowns said.

Kelsi laughed. It felt good to be one of the gang again.

She turned on her notebook computer, opened the file that contained her Fed Courts outline, and watched in wonder as her professor became animated about the
Pullman
abstention doctrine, arguably the dullest Supreme Court rule in the history of American law.

Kelsi’s first day of classes passed in a blur. She had managed to discern that
Pullman
abstention permitted a federal court to stay a plaintiff’s claim that a state law violated the U.S. Constitution until the state’s judiciary had been afforded an opportunity to apply the law to the plaintiff’s case. But she hadn’t figured out why it had taken her professor fifty minutes to make that simple point, let alone why her professor seemed so enthralled by it. To each her own, as the saying went.

Employment Discrimination class was a different story altogether. Kelsi had no idea what her professor was talking about in there. The three-step burden-shifting framework of
McDonnell-Douglas
made her head spin. At least it was nice outside, which explained why she had decided to take a walk on the Lawn on an early February afternoon.

Throughout its history, the University of Virginia had won praise for Thomas Jefferson’s architectural design. The American Institute of Architects, for one, called Jefferson’s work “the proudest achievement of American architecture.” Jefferson’s plan revolved around the Lawn, a breathtaking terraced green space surrounded by residential and academic buildings. Technically, no one was supposed to walk on the Lawn, but that didn’t stop students from doing so. In fact, rare was a sunny day
without
students studying under trees, sunbathing on towels, lunching from takeout diners, and playing ultimate Frisbee. The only activity in which students didn’t engage was pitching golf balls. Some drunken fool had tried that once and was nearly expelled after the divots were discovered.

“A little help!” one of the ultimate Frisbee players called out. His disc had flown wildly off course and landed at Kelsi’s feet.

Kelsi retrieved the Frisbee and executed a perfect scoober to the grateful player.

“Rad toss,” the Frisbee player said, jogging toward her. “Wanna play?”

Newcomers were always welcome at pickup games or whenever people were throwing.

“I can’t,” Kelsi said. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do for tomorrow.”

The Frisbee player—a freshman, or sophomore, tops—stared at Kelsi in disbelief. “Blow it off. I always do.”

But before Kelsi could answer, the player was summoned back to the huddle.

Thirty seconds later, he called out, “Sorry! Game’s called on account of darkness.”

Kelsi waved and kept walking. The Lawn emptied. She enjoyed the solitude. She sat on the stairs of the Rotunda and thought about the last several months, especially about working for Professor McDonald and, of course, getting stabbed by Clay Smith. She tried to figure out why Clay had wanted to kill her, but before she could give it much consideration, he stepped out of the gloaming.

“Hello.”

Kelsi stood and started to back away. “Wh … what are you doing here? St … stay away from me. St … stay away.”

“Relax,” Clay said, with a reassuring smile. “I wanted to find out how you’re feeling. You look good.” He inched closer.

“I said stay away!” Kelsi’s face tensed with fear.

“I’m sorry, you know. That’s what I came to say—that I’m sorry.” Clay flashed his soulful brown eyes. That had worked on Kelsi once; perhaps it would again.

It didn’t. “Sorry?!
Sorry?!
You tried to kill me!”

“I know. Like I said, I’m sorry.”

Resisting her better judgment—suppressing every lesson she had ever learned about human nature—Kelsi asked Clay the question that had occupied her mind since the day it had happened: “Why?” Simply, “Why?”

After a brief silence, Clay said, “I don’t know. Believe me, a day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t asked myself that same question.”

“I don’t believe you. I mean, a person doesn’t try to kill another person and not know why, especially after, you know …”

“After we slept together.”

“Y … yes.”

Clay said nothing.

Kelsi didn’t either.

The Lawn grew eerily quiet. It was almost as if they had stepped back in time to the days when Edgar Allan Poe had been a student at the university.

Finally, Clay said, “I wish I could take it back. I wish I could undo what I did. But I can’t.”

Kelsi said, with tears streaking her cheeks, “I need to know why, Clay. I need to know
why
.”

Clay stared into the darkness. The wind rustled the trees. Crickets began to sound. Then he said, as if reminding himself, “I’m not allowed to say.”

CHAPTER 74

Clay Smith had been tempted to spend the night in Charlottesville, but he knew it would be unsafe for him to do so. Although his face wasn’t plastered all over the news every hour on the hour as it had been during the first several days after Kelsi Shelton had identified him at UVA hospital as her attacker, he wasn’t foolish enough to think that the police had abandoned their search for him. He also knew there was a good chance that Kelsi would report seeing him in town, which led him to chastise himself for making contact with her. But he was being honest when he had said that he wanted to see how she was doing. He liked her. He really did. He had tried to kill her only because his loyalty to the Klan had required it.

Clay drove the two and a half hours to D.C. Fortunately for him, by the time he reached the beltway the rush-hour gridlock for which the nation’s capital was famous had dissipated.

He motored past the historical landmarks for which D.C. was also famous—the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Mall—and located a parking spot on a side street near the Kennedy Center. He walked three short blocks to the Allen Lee Hotel on the corner of F and 23
^rd
streets.

The proprietors of the Allen Lee described their establishment as an “old-fashioned hotel at old-fashioned prices.” It was more accurate to call it a fleabag. It was cheap, though—fifty dollars per night in Foggy Bottom was a quarter of the price of its closest competitor—and Clay wasn’t likely to run into anyone who might be able to identify him. Shoot, the hotel’s clientele looked more like extras in a George Romero zombie flick than residents of one of the most significant neighborhoods in the world.

Clay paid cash for a three-night stay and then informed the desk clerk that he might stay longer. He traipsed up four narrow flights of stairs and located his room at the end of a musty hallway. He was stunned to see peeling paint, broken light fixtures, and all manner of abandoned maintenance equipment. Apparently, D.C.’s overworked building inspectors hadn’t managed to fit the Allen Lee into their crowded schedules.

Clay tossed his suitcase onto the bed, which caused a cloud of dust to explode into the air. He searched in vain for a bathroom in his room. He remembered seeing a communal toilet next to the stairs and quickly headed in that direction to relieve himself after his long drive from central Virginia.

He tried to open the bathroom door. It was locked.

“Just a minute,” said a female voice from inside.

Two minutes later, a light-skinned black woman who bore a striking resemblance to Halle Berry emerged with a towel wrapped around her head. “Sorry I took so long,” she said, with a seductive smile. “I’ve been driving all night and I needed to wash the road off.”

Clay said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m in the same boat.”

The beautiful black woman smiled again. “I’m Cat … Cat Wilson.”

CHAPTER 75

The water pressure was weak. Clay Smith didn’t notice. He was preoccupied with fantasizing about Cat Wilson. As a klansman, Clay was supposed to detest black people. But Cat was so beautiful and sexy that she made his head spin. Moreover, his Uncle Earl had told him that every klansman was entitled to have sex once with a black woman, so that, as his uncle put it, “he can see what having sex with an animal is like.”

Clay turned off the shower, reached for the thin cotton towel that came with his room, and dried himself. He put on the fresh set of clothes that he had purchased at the Target store in Georgetown and headed back to his room.

He spotted Cat exiting her room. He said, “Where are you off to?”

She said, “Sightseeing.”

“Mind if I tag along? I’ll go stir-crazy if I sit around here all day.”

“I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

Clay hung his wet towel on the metal rack on the back of his door. He blow-dried his hair, snatched his jacket from his bed, and hurdled down the steps.

Cat lifted her eyes from the dated copy of
Time
magazine that she had found on the Formica coffee table in the lobby.

“Ready?” Clay said.

“Yes.” Cat tossed the magazine onto the coffee table. “I didn’t know that George Bush was running for reelection again. I didn’t think three terms was allowed.”

“According to the magazines in my room, Bill Clinton is running for a third term too.”

They laughed.

“Where to?” Cat asked.

“I don’t care,” Clay answered. “Is this your first trip to D.C.?”

Cat nodded.

“Then I suggest we start at the White House. We can see if Bill and George are in.”