04 The Simple Truth by David Baldacci

Author:David Baldacci [Baldacci, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The flag at the United States Supreme Court was flying at half-mast. Newspaper, TV and radio reports nationwide were filled with accounts of the two murdered clerks. The phones in the Court’s Public Information Office refused to stop ringing. The adjoining press room was standing room only. Major TV and radio networks were broadcasting live from booths on the ground floor of the Court. Supreme Court police, reinforced by fifty D.C. police officers, National Guardsmen and FBI agents, ringed the Court’s perimeter.

The private hallways outside the justices’chambers were filled with clusters of people nervously talking. Most of the justices were secluded inside their chambers, having barely made it through the oral argument sessions, their minds far from the advocates and issues before them. The young faces of the law clerks too bore the terror inspired by the killings.

The small first-floor room normally used for the justices’ conferences was filled. The walls were dark-paneled and lined with bookshelves containing the bound volumes of two hundred years of the Court’s decisions. Another wall held a fireplace, unlit on this very warm day. A grand chandelier hung overhead. Ramsey sat at the head of the table. Justices Knight and Murphy sat in their regular chairs.

While Knight’s gaze darted around the table, Murphy, fiddling with an old pocket watch strung on a chain across his puffy middle, kept his eyes downcast. Also present were Chandler, Fiske, Perkins, Ron Klaus, and McKenna. Fiske and McKenna occasionally made eye contact, but Fiske had kept his temper under control.

Wright had been found in a park a half dozen blocks from his Capitol Hills apartment, with a single gunshot wound to the head. His wallet, like Michael Fiske’s, was missing. Robbery was the superficial motive, although no one in the room believed the answer could be that simple. Preliminary indications were that Wright had been killed between midnight and two in the morning.

On the ride over to the Court, Chandler had filled Fiske in on recent developments. He had had Michael Fiske’s autopsy expedited, although he was still awaiting the official report and the exact time of death. The cause of Michael Fiske’s death, however, had definitely been a single gunshot to the head. Chandler had tracked down the northern Virginia Wal-Mart where Fiske had had his car serviced, but no one there could give them any useful information.

Fiske had had one thought that prompted him and Chandler to make a short detour on the way to the Court: They had returned to the car impoundment lot to have another look at Michael’s Honda. Fiske had looked in the back pockets of the front seat.

“He kept a map in here, always did. He had this weird fear of getting lost. Had to plot out his whole trip before he set foot on the road. There’s no map here, but there is this.” He held up a couple of yellow Post-its that he had found wadded up at the bottom of the seat pocket. There was writing on

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