The Justice Game

41

Kelly spent most of her time on Saturday morning staring out her office window, thinking about Judge Shaver. Perhaps this person named Luthor had intended merely to distract her from preparing for the deposition of Melissa Davids. If so, it was working.

In a naive way, she thought she had put the Shaver chapter of her life firmly behind her. There were scars, to be sure. There was also a type of relentless shame that never seemed to take a minute off, always lingering just below the thin film of the surface. But she had always assumed that these matters were private ones, requiring penance and atonement before God, affecting no one but her.

The e-mail yesterday had shattered that assumption. Somebody else knew. And worse, that person was intent on using this knowledge to manipulate Kelly on the Crawford case.

She was not going to let that happen. Blake Crawford had entrusted her with the most important matter in his life. She would represent him well, even if it meant public exposure and humiliation. She couldn’t waver on that, couldn’t even allow herself to entertain alternatives. Life might be hell for the next few months. But at least she would be able to look herself in the mirror when it was over.

In some ways, she worried more about Judge Shaver than herself.

She could honestly say she was not bitter or vengeful toward the man. It had been her fault as much as his. If the press found out, they would undoubtedly condemn him as the predator-a powerful federal judge holding sway over a smitten law clerk. Not that Kelly would be unscathed. Though Shaver would bear the brunt of the media scorn, she would be portrayed as an opportunistic manipulator, willing to trade her body for power, mindless of the toll it would take on an innocent wife and children. Her name would be mentioned in the same breath as Monica Lewinsky.

In truth, it was nothing like that.

It began as an emotional attachment. Sure, the man was good-looking, but Kelly had first been attracted to his heart. He championed the causes of the poor and helpless, risking reversal on appeal to rule in favor of justice. He had listened to Kelly’s dreams and sympathized with her disenchantment with the political process. In retrospect, she realized that the dynamics had changed when the judge started sharing his own struggles-the pressures of the job, a marriage gone cold, a teenage daughter who no longer wanted to spend time with him.

His vulnerability had only elevated him in Kelly’s eyes. He was authentic and transparent, confident enough to break with judicial conventions, secure enough to share his struggles with a law clerk. Kelly had worked harder for Judge Shaver than she had for anyone or anything in her entire life. He inspired her. He helped her regain a respect for the law as a vehicle for changing people’s lives, something she had lost in the cynical atmosphere of law school.

Late working nights led to shared dinners and the judge providing Kelly with rides back to her apartment. He didn’t want her riding the Metro, D.C.’s subway system, alone late at night.

Sometimes they sat in his car while it idled at the curb for nearly an hour before she finally said good night. Confidences were shared. The judge’s struggle to make his marriage work, the way his wife had turned the kids against him. Kelly had met Lynda Shaver, a hard-charging partner at a large D.C. law firm, at a social event. Kelly had no idea why the judge had ever been attracted to the woman in the first place.

Judge Shaver still loved his wife and believed the marriage could work. But as Kelly listened to the judge share, it became clear that Lynda Shaver had divorced him emotionally years before.

The turning point came on a cold night in January. Earlier that day, Judge Shaver, who had been on a short list for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, had been told it was not yet his turn. He had done his job that day with his normal enthusiasm, never saying a word to Kelly about the disappointment. She only found out through his assistant.

Late that evening, in his car outside Kelly’s apartment, tears welled up in the judge’s eyes. Not because he had been passed over-he still hadn’t breathed a word about his professional disappointment-but because his wife, in a fit of anger the night before, had admitted to an affair with another partner in her firm. The affair had been going on for nearly a year.

“We’ve haven’t had a real marriage for a long time,” Lynda Shaver had told the judge. “If we want to stay together for the kids and your career, that’s one thing. But let’s at least be honest about it.”

That night, Kelly reached over and touched his hand.