Shadow of Power

4

At the airport, my trip from JFK in New York to Reagan International in D.C., I do the TSA drill to get through security. Partially disrobing, I take off my shoes and pull my belt from my pants as everyone in line does calisthenics with luggage in plastic boxes.

Harry has talked about forming a new airline and calling it Amistad Air. Harry’s idea is to cut through the marketing hype and achieve the ultimate goal of every American carrier: to stack human cargo on planes like cordwood, using historic schematics of old slave ships. According to Harry, if fuel prices continue to climb, they’ll be putting out oars and telling us all to pull.

In the midst of this chaos, Sarah and I part company, she on a flight home to San Diego while I head to D.C. I am chasing the grail, Bonguard’s musings that Scarborough’s mystery letter or at least some thread leading to it might be found in Washington.

I have placed three calls to the law offices of Barrett, Coal & Johnston on K Street in an effort to arrange a meeting with Trisha Scott, Scarborough’s former girlfriend. She has failed to return my calls, so I’m taking a shot that I can track her down before heading home, that maybe she will talk to me.

Time is running out on us. Next week Harry and I are in court on pretrial motions trying to keep evidence linking Carl Arnsberg to Scarborough’s murder away from the jury. Most of this is a long shot. Still, it is necessary, both for trial as well as for any appeal should he be convicted.

At trial it is the nature of the game to dot every i and cross every t. Anything omitted is conceded to the prosecution, lost to us forever. We are now less than a month from trial, and our theories of defense are thin. What is worse, they’re shifting, an ominous sign this late.

With physical evidence connecting Arnsberg to the scene, with no alibi, and with an apparent motive, I have been forced to consider the defenses of last resort, diminished capacity or possible insanity. These are inevitably a hard sell to any jury. Besides, I have had my client examined by experts, shrinks who know their stuff, and the tea leaves are not good. While Arnsberg claims to possess blanks in his memory immediately following the trauma of the murder scene, his story is always the same, that Scarborough ’s dead body and the blood were already there when he arrived in the room. His lapses of memory all come afterward. He cannot recall touching the hammer, according to the police the murder weapon. He can’t account for how his palm print became superimposed in the victim’s blood on the floor. He does remember entering the room, for which he did not have a passkey. According to Arnsberg, the door was ajar, so that when he pushed, it opened.

According to the theory advanced by the cops, Scarborough let him in, since it is established that he ordered breakfast, only to turn his back, take a seat, and be murdered.

Without evidence of another person at the scene and some overriding motive for this phantom to have murdered Scarborough, the classic SODDI defense-“some other dude did it”-is a long shot. For this reason the lure of the missing letter and its potential value has opened the possibility, fleeting as it may be. So I pursue it.

My flight lands in D.C. midmorning. Early September, eleven-thirty, and the day is beginning to heat up. I make my way to what is known by locals as Gucci Gulch, the concrete canyon that is K Street in the nation’s capital. Here high-rise offices house some of the most powerful lawyers and deal makers on earth. Twenty years ago they reveled in publicity. Books celebrated them as the “superlawyers,” until politicians, always anxious to keep the spotlight on themselves, painted the bull’s-eye of reform on their ass. Ever since, the goal has been to remain invisible, like the mob.

Law firms with two and three hundred partners are not unusual here, sometimes with offices in Singapore, London, Beijing, and Paris. These give new meaning to the term “global economy,” peddling power and influence around the world. Every politician running for office runs from these firms, except at milking time, when lobbyists jerking on the udders of the industries they represent fill pails with campaign dollars that are quietly shuttled down K Street by bucket brigades of congressional staff and hired consultants.

I have read that the Jefferson Monument is slowly sinking, settling into the ancient swamp that is now dubbed the Tidal Basin. This may be symbolic of the visionary who dreamed of America as an agricultural utopia and whom history has shown to have been so badly beaten by his nemesis, Hamilton, who favored a commercial and industrial nation run by money managers and corporate markets.

A major chunk of the business done from K Street is lobbying, hustling the 535 members of the Congress, the Senate with its legions of staff, and the hundreds of administrative agencies that crank out regulations governing everything from milk price supports to Social Security. It has long been known that if you want to talk, you go to Congress. If you want something done, you go to K Street.

The men who crafted the Constitution must be doing wheelies in their graves. To the eighteenth-century mind in the Age of Reason, an American government obsessed with controlling every aspect of individual existence, with its hands in every pocket up to its national armpits, would be a greater source of terror than the atom bomb. Had they known, the Bill of Rights would not have ended with ten amendments. It would be a perpetual work in progress with periodic political lynchings made part of the fabric of government.

The cab drops me in front of a smoked-glass high-rise. I pay the cabbie, and a minute later I’m in the air-conditioned lobby, leaving the oppressive humidity of Washington outside. I check the building’s directory. Barrett, Coal & Johnston takes up the top three floors of the twelve-story office building. Those entering have to clear security at a desk in order to access the elevators.

As I edge across the lobby toward the main desk, I feel the vibration at my belt. I take out my cell phone. It’s Harry. I flip it open.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” says Harry.

“In D.C. The law office,” I tell him. From our telephone conversation last night, Harry already knows where I’m headed and why.

“Then I caught you before you found this Scott woman?”

“Yes. Why?”

“If you catch up with her, press her on Ginnis,” says Harry.

“Any particular reason?”

“I’m still digging for all the details,” says Harry, “but it’s starting to look like Ginnis could be the lead to the letter.”

“Can you give me specifics?”

“Not right now,” says Harry. “Trust me. Just see if you can find some way to get to him. But call me before you talk to him. By then I should have more information.”

“You got it,” I tell him.

“Talk to you later.” Harry hangs up.

Juggling my briefcase in one hand, I pocket my phone and hand the guard at the desk one of my business cards. I tell him I have an appointment with Trisha Scott at B, C & J. This lie gets me a phone call to reception upstairs. Four minutes later I am treated to the officious click of heels on the hard terrazzo. A woman, blond, blue-eyed, in her late twenties, dressed in a dark business suit. She collects my card from the guard and approaches.

“Mr. Madre…”

“Madriani,” I help her out.

“I understand you have an appointment with Ms. Scott?” The lilt in her voice leads me to think that she has already searched Scott’s calendar and not found my name on it.

“I called twice and left messages. I was in New York on my way back to my office in California and wanted to stop in and see her. It would only take a moment and would save us both an immense amount of time.”

“Does she know what it regards?”

“It’s a personal matter. I’m sure that if she knew the details, she would want to see me.”

This stumps her. She looks at my card again: “attorney-at-law.” If it said “salesman,” I’d be out on the street looking back through the glass by now.

“If you’ll follow me,” she says. “I’m not sure whether Ms. Scott is in.”

We head to the elevator. A minute and a half later, I’ve made it to the next level, the reception area upstairs. Here there are deep plush carpets and floor-to-ceiling windows of smoked glass with shaded views out over the city. Across the street lies Farragut Square. One block beyond lies the squat Roman temple that is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building. Over the top and beyond is Lafayette Square, and in the distance behind the park is the White House. Toward the southeast the Capitol dome sprouts like a half-hatched Easter egg in the noonday sun. The executive offices of Barrett, Coal & Johnston possess an eagle’s-nest view of all the power spots in town.

“If you’ll take a seat,” she says, “I will check with Ms. Scott’s assistant.”

As the phalanx of gatekeepers grows, the mesh of their screen becomes finer. I may be wasting my time. By now Scott would surely be following the news reports of Arnsberg’s trial. If so, she will have seen my name. What I am banking on is her curiosity. A lawyer, she would know that I could subpoena her to the trial, put her on a witness list, and let her cool her heels. What is more difficult would be to get her to talk to me. If she refuses, there is little I can do, and to put her on the stand at trial and ask questions to which I do not already know the answers would be its own form of Russian roulette.

The receptionist disappears to the back behind the large ebony reception counter and the mirrored glass wall separating me from the firm’s engine room, where power is spun into gold.

Barrett, Coal & Johnston is sufficiently large that to dispense separate business cards for the many partners and associates out on the counter would require a vending machine. Instead there’s a glossy brochure that outlines the firm’s services and specialties. I pull one of these and take a look. To no one’s surprise, the firm is heavily invested in regulatory law, with a sideline in patents and appellate practice, all keyed toward business and commerce.

The firm sports two former United States senators as “of counsel,” a kind of emeritus status in which work is often not required, only the name engraved on a brass plaque on a door. The firm claims association with three former Harvard fellows, professors of law. One of these is nationally known and appears with sufficient regularity before the Supreme Court that I have heard legal pundits sometimes refer to him as “the tenth member of the Court.”

The last three pages of the brochure are taken up with fine print, the names of partners and associates. Many of these are followed by asterisks and other symbols, all keyed to honors and awards. I find Scott’s name and after it a symbol in the form of a small dagger. I check the code: “former U.S. Supreme Court clerk.” I do a quick count of these. I am beyond two dozen and counting when I’m interrupted.

“Mr. Madriani.” I turn to see a different woman. Clear hazel eyes. She holds my card in her left hand as she extends her right toward me. “Trisha Scott,” she says. “I’m told you have some personal business to discuss?”

She is blond, her hair cropped in a kind of pixie cut that gives her tall, slender body a fairy-tale elegance. Her face is angular, bearing a becoming smile. She reminds me of a taller version of Meg Ryan, a kind of bewitching look that asks questions even in silence.

“How do you do?” I take her hand, just the fingertips, and give it a gentle shake as she continues to study my card. “I’m sorry to bother you. I suspect you’re busy, but I wanted to talk with you before I headed back to the Coast.”

“Will it take long? I only have a few minutes,” she says.

“That’ll be fine.” Anything to get my foot in the door.

“How can I help you?” She wants to do it here, standing at the reception desk.

I glance over my shoulder toward the receptionist. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

“My office,” she says.

I follow her past reception and down a long corridor with offices on each side. Here the paneled mahogany walls are adorned with colonial lithographs elegantly framed and set off by small brass-covered museum lights. This is the “holy of holies,” province of former senators and senior partners, where most of the offices are double-doored with occasional cubicles carved into the elegance for minions, the obligatory personal assistant or executive secretary.

She leads me to another elevator, this one small and private. We descend one floor and exit into a rabbit warren of cubicles, clerical and other assistants in the center. Around these are arranged offices on the outside walls, where windows with views and natural light are the perks of junior partners and associates on the move, either up or out.

From the exterior appearance, these offices are not nearly as elegant as those on the level above. Still, they are large, judging by the distance between doors. Enough room to accommodate a good-size desk, filing cabinets, probably a credenza against the windows, and a view.

Halfway down the corridor, she turns to the right and enters an open office door. I follow her.

We are no sooner inside than she closes the door behind me. “San Diego,” she says, still looking at my card. “I recognize your name. You’re the lawyer representing the man who killed Terry.” Her countenance is less pleasant now.

“Carl Arnsberg. He stands accused,” I say.

“Of course. I don’t see how I can help you, but have a seat.” She offers me one of the client chairs across from her desk. The office is neat, not large, but there’s that view, what must be toward the west, as I can see a plane descending into what I assume is Dulles International in the distance.

She settles into the chair behind the desk, crosses one leg over the other, her hands set securely on the arms of the chair as if she were about to take a ride. “I figured sooner or later someone would show up. I pictured an investigator, not the lead defense counsel,” she says.

“I was in New York. I looked at our list of possible witnesses as well as those the state might call, and your name popped up,” I tell her.

“Why would you want to call me-as a witness, I mean?”

“I don’t know that I do.”

“I see. The police did talk to me. An investigator from San Diego. That was about…” She thinks for a moment, then riffles some pages on her desk calendar. “About two months ago now. What took you so long?” she asks.

I could say it was the absence of a good defense theory, but I don’t. “Can you tell me what they wanted to talk about?”

“Hmm?”

“The cops.”

“Oh.” She smiles. “Three guesses, and the first two don’t count,” she tells me.

“Your relationship with Scarborough.”

She nods. “Were we lovers?” she says. “I told them what I’m telling you, that the bloom was already off that particular rose. At one time we were what you might call an item, but that ended more than a year ago. I’ve been seeing other men, and I assume that Terry had someone else. We were still friends. I saw him occasionally at social events. We ran in the same circles. But that was all.”

“So you weren’t seeing each other at the time he was killed?”

“No.”

“Do you mind telling me how the two of you met?”

She has to think about this. “I believe it was at a dinner. A judicial affair, the circuit court if I remember right. That must have been three or four years ago now. Someone introduced us. One thing led to another, Terry called me up, and we started seeing each other.”

“You dated? How long?”

“What is this, a sequel to the Kinsey Report?”

“I have to think the cops would have asked,” I tell her.

“We lived together for a while. We had an apartment in Georgetown. It wasn’t much. Given Terry’s traveling schedule, he was never there. You have to understand that with Terry there was only one person who mattered in life, and that was Terry. The live-in thing lasted about seven months. In the end I decided that living alone in Terry’s apartment wasn’t what I had in mind. I found other people, another life. So I moved out and got my own place. That’s the long and short of it.”

“No angry words? No late-night disagreements?”

She shakes her head. “I can give you the address, and you can check with the neighbors if you like,” she says. “The parting was quite amicable. I left. When Terry got back from his latest fling on Court TV or CNN or whatever it was, I was gone. Simple as that. Sorry to disappoint,” she says. “No big blowup, if that’s what you’re thinking. I sometimes wondered when he returned whether Terry even noticed that I was gone. That was Terry.” She smiles. “You had to love him. I guess you could say the relationship just sort of ran its course. In the end we simply went our separate ways. There’s a lot of that in this town, politics and human ambition being what they are.”

“And when was this parting of the ways?”

“About a year ago. We still talked every once in a while.”

“When was the last time?”

“That we talked?”

I nod.

“I’d have to think.” She does. “It must have been last Christmas.” She toys with the fingers of one hand at the arm of the chair. “Yes, it was Christmas. We had some mutual friends who’d invited us to a Christmas party. I don’t think they’d gotten the word that we weren’t living together any longer. Terry got the invitation and wanted to know what to do with it. He called me, and we talked for a while.”

“Mind if I ask what you talked about?”

“What do two former live-ins talk about? The weather, our health, mutual friends we’ve seen…”

“Did you happen to discuss Justice Ginnis?”

With the mention of his name, she looks up directly at me. “No. Not that I recall.”

“You did clerk for him?”

“Yes.”

“I’d been told that Mr. Scarborough and he were friends.”

She laughs at this. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to or what you’ve been reading, but they weren’t friends. I mean, they knew each other. They were acquainted, but they operated in different orbits. Terry was a hanger-on around the Court. Arthur Ginnis is the genuine article, a member of the Court.”

“That’s funny.”

“Why?”

“I’d gotten the sense that they were quite close, that in fact Justice Ginnis may have been the impetus for Mr. Scarborough’s book.”

“You mean Perpetual Slaves?”

I nod.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what I heard.”

She sits upright in her chair, hands gripping the arms until her knuckles turn white. “I don’t know who told you that,” she says. “But I can say with certainty that Arthur-Justice Ginnis-had nothing to do with that book, and in fact he believed that the entire concept of dredging up dead-letter law from the Constitution and using it in that way was, in a word, despicable. It would have been an embarrassment for him. A sitting Supreme Court justice. No. It was part of the reason he distanced himself from Terry. He was concerned about Terry’s lust for publicity. The fact that Terry was constantly on television, flogging his books and trying to pretend that he was some kind of a Court insider, when he wasn’t.”

As I listen to Scott, she confirms one of Harry’s witticisms: that there are two classes of people who wield immense power and who shun the public light-mobsters if they have a brain and members of the Supreme Court.

“Do you know how the two of them met, Scarborough and Ginnis?” I ask.

“As a matter of fact, I do. I introduced them. I don’t know if they’d ever actually spoken before that. It was at a reception when I was clerking. At the time I didn’t fully understand why Justice Ginnis was so reticent. But he was gracious. Arthur is always the gentleman. Terry was my date. They shook hands and talked. Briefly,” she says. “Why is all of this so important?”

“I’m looking for information regarding a letter that belonged to Mr. Scarborough. Actually, I don’t know if it was his or if he was just borrowing it.”

“A letter. What letter?”

“It could be an important historical piece, correspondence dating back to the time of the Constitution, late eighteenth century. I’m told that Scarborough had this letter in his possession when he was killed.”

“Go on.” There’s a look in her eyes. Perhaps it’s the way they’re darting at the moment, taking in everything in the room except me.

“It’s possible that the police found it. Except for one thing: It hasn’t shown up on any of the lists of evidence that they’ve produced. You wouldn’t know anything about it? This letter, I mean?”

“No.”

“Well, you lived with Scarborough for a while. I thought maybe you might have seen it?”

“Oh, I understand. No. I don’t know anything about a letter.”

“Then I guess you wouldn’t know whether Scarborough might have obtained it from Justice Ginnis?”

“What? What makes you think that?” she says.

“Some people think he might have gotten the letter from the justice.”

“Who?”

“Some people,” I tell her. “But since you don’t know anything about the letter, perhaps you would know how I might get ahold of Justice Ginnis? While I’m here in Washington, that is.”

“Why would you want to talk to him?”

“To see if he knows anything about the letter.”

“Why is this letter so important? I mean, what does it have to do with Terry’s murder?”

“I’m not sure. But that’s what I’d like to find out.”

“No!” This seems to light a spark, a point of ignition deep inside her. “I’m sure there’s nothing he could possibly tell you-Justice Ginnis. He wouldn’t know anything about any letter. He barely knew Terry. I think they met only once or twice. At social functions. They hardly knew each other.”

“Still. Is there any chance I could talk to him? I figured you being a former clerk, you might be able to open some doors for me. Just a brief conversation is all I’m looking for. Five minutes of his time. I could truck on over to the Supreme Court building alone. But getting through the phalanx of marshals downstairs is another matter.”

She laughs. “You’re right. You wouldn’t get in.”

“I suppose I could call over there, talk to one of his clerks, mention the letter…”

“You’d be wasting your time,” she says. “I’ll tell you what I will do. I can make a phone call. But he’s a very busy man. I really don’t think he’s going to appreciate being bothered by all this. In fact, I’m not even sure he’s in town. The Court’s in recess, and Justice Ginnis is recuperating from hip surgery.”

“I understand. But if you could check, make a phone call. Perhaps he’d agree to see me. Just a very brief conversation. I really would appreciate it.”

She looks at the phone on her desk, then at me. “Where are you staying?” she asks.

“The Mayflower.” I give her my cell-phone number in case I’m out when she calls.

“It’ll take me a few minutes. I am busy this afternoon. But let me make a few phone calls. I’ll get ahold of you either at your hotel or by cell. I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. Justice Ginnis is almost always out of town when the Court’s in recess.”

I thank her. She shows me back to the elevator, and five minutes later I’m standing on the hot concrete of the sidewalk waiting for a taxi.