Supreme Justice

Chapter Fifty-one

A shell company with offices in Dubai rented Dennis Masterson’s penthouse under the name Ivan Karpinsky. Masterson used the penthouse for sexual encounters with women other than his wife and for clandestine meetings. When Masterson responded to his doorbell, he found Millard Price standing on his welcome mat wearing a heavy black overcoat with the collar turned up and a fedora with the brim pulled low. The hat served the dual purpose of a disguise and protection from the heavy rain that was inundating the metropolitan area.

“You look like a private eye, Millie,” Masterson joked, using the nickname Price had acquired at Dartmouth, where the effeminate moniker was the exact opposite of his violent play on the football field.

“There’s nothing funny about this situation, Dennis,” Price said as he brushed by his bemused friend.

“Let me fix you a drink,” Masterson said while Price was tossing his hat, scarf, and overcoat onto a chair.

“Scotch. The good stuff. You owe me.”

“Calm down,” Masterson said as he stepped behind his wet bar. “The file is gone.” He didn’t tell his friend about the attempt to make the person who’d photographed it vanish too. Price was squeamish, and the less he knew, the better off everyone was. “What I’d like to know is why there was a file in the first place.”

“It was an oversight. And you were never very clear about why I was incorporating the damn company. If I’d known…”

Masterson handed his friend a glass three-quarters full of twenty-five-year-old single-malt liquor.

“I told you it was covert. If it was even remotely legit, I wouldn’t have needed you to incorporate the company. In any event, there’s no harm done.”

Price gulped down a quarter of the scotch. “She’s Miller’s girlfriend, Dennis. Why is Miller’s girlfriend looking into the company that purchased the China Sea? Felicia’s got to be behind this.”

“Moss is unquestionably the problem,” Masterson said quietly.

“You cannot go after her again,” Price said emphatically. “I can’t believe you tried to kill her.”

“You’ll be singing a different tune if cert is granted and every investigative reporter in the country starts looking into the China Sea.”

“She’s a justice of the United States Supreme Court.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Promise me there will be no more violence.”

“I won’t lie to you, Millie. We go back too far. I am not going to let that case destroy my life, or yours. Did you know that Dana Cutler has been nosing around in Oregon?”

“The investigator who helped bring down Farrington?”

Masterson nodded. “Our mole in the Court bugged Moss’s chambers, and I’ve had someone on Miller since Moss told him to look into the case. He met with Cutler, and a few days later she flew to Oregon.”

“Did she find anything?”

“She must have figured out your connection with the case if Ginny Striker was looking for the TA Enterprises file.”

“What are you going to do now?” Price asked.

“I’m going to devote my efforts to putting Audrey on the Court so we can bury that damn case forever and never again have to think about that fucking ship.”

Following Dennis Masterson was the only way Dana could think of to find The Swede or Thomas Bergstrom or whoever the fuck he really was, so she staked out his law offices. Masterson was driven to and from work in black chauffeured town cars outfitted with tinted windows. A major problem was presented by the fact that Rankin Lusk contracted with a company that had a fleet of identical cars. Anyone at Rankin Lusk who wanted to use the service got into the town car in the parking garage in the basement of the building. Since Dana did not have X-ray vision, she would have no way of knowing which car Masterson was using, but she solved this problem by bribing one of the garage attendants, who called her with the information minutes before one of the town cars pulled out of the underground garage.

The heavy rain played havoc with visibility and helped disguise the fact that Dana was tailing the limo. When the car stopped in front of a high-rise apartment building, Dana parked across the street and watched the driver escort Masterson to the front door while shielding him from the downpour with a large black umbrella. Dana knew where Masterson lived and she knew this apartment house wasn’t it. Since she had no plan, she decided to stay in her parking space and see if anyone interesting turned up. She wasn’t disappointed.

Forty minutes after Masterson was dropped off, Millard Price arrived in another town car. Dana didn’t make him at first, but the justice took off his hat to shake off the rain when he got under the overhang that protected the front door.

Price came out an hour later and got into his waiting car. Dana didn’t see any reason to follow him so she stayed put. She was glad she did. Thirty minutes after Price left, Thomas Bergstrom entered the building. Half an hour later, he, too, drove away. Dana followed The Swede across the state line into Virginia. If she expected Masterson’s strongman to live someplace exotic like a houseboat or gated mansion, she was disappointed. Bergstrom lived in an upper-middle-class housing development in a house designed to look like it should have been in a New England village. Dana concentrated her binoculars on the front window and saw Bergstrom embrace an attractive brunette, who had gotten off her living room couch when the garage door opened. Dana panned across the front of the house and saw a tricycle and a soccer ball on the front porch.

Thomas Bergstrom seemed to live a modern-day version of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, only Ozzie never threatened Dana’s friends. If Ozzie had done that, there would have been a good chance that Ricky and David would have grown up without a dad.