Supreme Justice

Chapter Forty-seven

Ginny assumed that her workload would lessen now that she was part of the team preparing Audrey Stewart for her congressional hearing, but she soon learned that this was a false assumption. She staggered through her front door at ten o’clock to the sound of an urgent conversation coming from her living room. One of the speakers was a woman, and the voice sounded familiar. While Ginny was propping her attaché case against the wall in the entryway, the name “Millard Price” drifted toward her from the other room. She strained to hear the conversation as she took off her coat. She could detect the urgency in Brad’s voice, but not what he was saying. Then she heard the woman say, “You’ve got to tell Justice Moss that this is way too dangerous for you to stay involved.”

“What’s too dangerous?” Ginny asked as she walked into the living room and saw Dana Cutler with Brad.

They looked like startled deer caught in the headlights of a Mack truck.

“What’s up?” Ginny asked suspiciously when neither Brad nor Dana answered her question.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Brad said.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Ginny answered. “What are you two discussing?”

“Business, honey,” Brad answered, “and it’s confidential.”

“Not if you’re doing something dangerous. I live here, too. And if it concerns Millard Price, I may be able to help. He was a partner at Rankin Lusk before he went on the Court.”

“Please forget anything you may have heard,” Brad begged her.

Ginny stared daggers at her fiancé. “This has something to do with the attack on Justice Moss, doesn’t it?”

“Why would you think that?” Brad asked with a nervous laugh.

“Because, dear, I am not stupid. I distinctly heard your co-conspirator tell you that you should tell your boss that whatever you are doing is dangerous, and the attack on Justice Moss is the only dangerous thing that’s happened at the Court since you started working there.”

“We are working on something that involves the Court, and it’s something Brad can’t discuss,” Dana said. “And I just learned something that made it clear that amateurs should not be involved.”

“Is this something serious enough to require police involvement?” Ginny asked.

Dana nodded. Ginny looked frightened. “You follow her advice, Brad.”

Brad looked like he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“I mean it,” Ginny said. “You were almost killed in the garage. I love you, and I can’t stand the thought that your life might be at risk.”

Brad’s shoulders sagged and he sighed. “All right. You win. I’ll tell Justice Moss that she should talk to Keith Evans.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Dana assured Brad.

Ginny looked relieved, and Dana looked at her watch.

“It’s late,” Dana said. “I should be going.” She stood up. “It was good seeing you again, Ginny. When Jake gets back, we should get together.”

“I’d like that. Maybe we could meet for lunch before that.”

“You’re on. I’ll call you.”

Brad followed Dana into the entryway and locked the door behind her.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re involved in?” Ginny asked when they were alone.

“I really can’t. It does involve Court business, and I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone but Dana.”

“So you can tell her, but you can’t tell the woman you’re going to spend your life with?”

“It’s not like that. Dana is being paid to investigate a… a problem. This was a business conversation between a client and her employer.”

“You’re paying her?”

“I can’t answer that, and please drop this, OK? How would you feel if I asked you to reveal confidential communications between you and a client or demanded that you tell me what you and a partner discussed in a business meeting?”

Ginny could see that Brad was upset, and she knew he was right. She took his hands in hers and looked into his eyes.

“I’m worried because I love you so much, and I’d die if anything happened to you.”

Brad took her in his arms. If he had to choose between a billion dollars and hugging Ginny, he knew where his heart would lead him.

In his dream, Brad was on the deck of the China Sea, and the ship had been converted into a strip club. Brad was sitting at a table covered with a white tablecloth and lit by a candle, watching naked, busty women with large derrieres cavort on a raised stage. Millard Price was sitting next to him, and he was wearing a sombrero and a serape. A near-naked woman perched on Price’s lap. The judge was drunk, and he laughed as he stuffed hundred-dollar bills into her G-string. Then the woman turned toward Brad and thrust her breasts in his face.

“Do you want a private dance?” she asked, seconds before Brad shot up in bed and stared into the darkness.

“What’s wrong?” Ginny mumbled.

“Nothing,” he said, but the tension in his voice told her otherwise. “I’ve got to make a call.”

“It’s three in the morning,” Ginny said, fully awake now.

“I know.”

Brad grabbed his cell phone and left the bedroom. Ginny was pissed off by the secrecy. She debated staying in bed but decided that she needed to know what Brad was involved in, so she crept to the bedroom door and opened it a crack.

“I know it’s late, Dana, but this can’t wait,” Brad whispered in the mistaken belief that Ginny could not hear him. “The shell corporation that was used to purchase the China Sea was named TA Enterprises. Remember Mary Garrett told you that Sarah Woodruff asked John Finley what TA meant and he joked that it meant tits and ass? Well, that’s not it. You read Price’s bio, right? He went to Dartmouth with Masterson, and they were the stars of the championship football team. Do you remember their nickname? They were the Two Amigos! TA.

“When the incident on the China Sea took place, Dennis Masterson was the head of the CIA, and Millard Price was a senior partner at Rankin Lusk and one of Masterson’s closest friends. Smuggling hashish was an illegal operation that the CIA wouldn’t be able to get the Congress to sanction, so Masterson hired Finley, an independent contractor, to be the front man, and he also went outside the Agency and asked his best friend, Millard Price, to set up the shell company that was used to buy the ship and fund the operation. The company was called TA Enterprises because one ‘amigo’ asked the other ‘amigo’ to set it up. Proving that won’t be easy, but it does give us something to look into.”

Dana said something.

“OK, it gives Keith Evans something to look into, but if he can show Price set up the company, he’ll have a connection between Price and the China Sea, and we’ll know for certain why Price wants to kill the cert petition in Woodruff.”

Ginny listened until it was clear that the phone call was over. She crept back into bed and pulled the covers over her head. Now she knew why Brad and Dana were being secretive. They suspected that a sitting Supreme Court justice was involved in drug smuggling. It wasn’t much of a stretch for Ginny to conclude that Brad and Dana also suspected that Millard Price had something to do with the attack on Justice Moss.

Ginny decided that something must have happened recently that made Dana believe that Brad should back off. People who would try to kill a Supreme Court justice would think nothing of killing a lowly clerk, so Dana’s advice was sound. But Brad seemed convinced that they could show Price was involved with the murder attempt if they could prove he set up this TA Enterprises company. Ginny had an idea how that could be accomplished, and she didn’t think there would be any risk to her or Brad.