The Justice Game

45

Kelly slept very little on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, she spent a little extra time on makeup, lipstick, accessories, and what she should wear, but still she was unable to remove all evidence of the dark circles that had formed under her eyes. After three outfit changes, appraising herself in the mirror each time, she settled on a modest gray suit and matching silver earrings. She chastised herself for caring at all about how she looked. When was the last time she had stressed out this much over which outfit to wear?

It seemed fitting that the day was one of the coldest and windiest of the entire D.C. winter. Banks of clouds blocked a sun that seemed to have lost all its heat in those rare moments when it did break free.

Kelly’s car was parked nearly a block from her apartment-the price of getting home late from the office the night before. She buttoned the top button on her overcoat and pulled up the collar, but her face still stung from the biting wind by the time she reached the shelter of her Toyota.

She arrived at the federal courthouse about fifteen minutes early, carrying a thin briefcase as if she had an important motion to argue. She slid into the last row of benches in Judge Shaver’s courtroom and watched him preside over a discovery dispute between two experienced litigators. His eyes caught hers momentarily, a greeting so subtle it would have been lost on anyone else, and then he turned his attention back to the proceedings.

His face was still square and handsome with the perpetual five-o’clock shadow that Kelly had always found alluring. He had a touch of gray around the temples and wore half-moon reading glasses that were a new addition since the days of Kelly’s clerkship. The glasses alone added ten years to his face.

She could remember watching him seven years ago presiding over cases, the aphrodisiac of power weaving its spell. She could still recall, with no small amount of shame, how she had marveled at the thought of being a confidant to a man this powerful. Lawyers would jump through hoops to curry favor with him, yet the judge would ask Kelly, in the solitude of his car in front of her apartment, how she thought the most important cases on his docket should come out. They normally saw things the same way, so much so that Kelly had convinced herself they might have been soul mates under different circumstances. A different time. A different place. A younger and unmarried Judge Shaver.

Her standards had been raised just by being around him.

She tried to remember when her guilt about the two of them spending so much time together had left her. That was the problem with this type of thing-it was all so gradual. There was no single defining moment, although the night she learned about his wife’s affair was surely a turning point. From then on, Kelly no longer felt she was breaking up a marriage. The ugly truth was that the marriage had been over long before Kelly arrived on the scene.

How long had it been after that night? A week? Two weeks? Events blurred together between the night of their first touch and the night he asked to come in. Somehow, she had known he was going to ask that night. She had promised herself that she would say no, but she had cleaned the apartment anyway. At the time, it all just seemed so natural, one emotion leading to the next, the excited beat of her own heart, the judge’s sensitivity. They talked for a half hour, and Kelly knew he wasn’t going to leave.

She didn’t want him to leave. They both knew how it was going to end.

When he leaned over to kiss her, she closed her eyes and didn’t resist. Later that evening, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

When he left at midnight, guilt arrived in waves.

He must have been able to read her face the next morning. He called her into his office, shut the door, and told her that the night before had been the most incredible night of his life.

“It was wrong,” Kelly said in response. “We both know it. We can never let it happen again.”

He looked devastated. “Are you sure about this, Kelly?” He was thinking about a future together. Somehow, he would make it work.

It had taken every ounce of moral fiber she had left, but Kelly did not let him dissuade her. She could still picture it clearly in her mind-the look on his face, his quiet pleading, his apologies, and ultimately his pledge to accept her decision.

To his credit, the judge never raised the issue again during her clerkship. She began taking the Metro. They never spent another unguarded moment alone together. Judge Shaver treated her with professional courtesy and worked hard at rehabilitating his own marriage.

Two years later, he had called. “They’re talking about a spot on the Fourth Circuit again,” he told Kelly.

“You deserve it,” she had said. And she meant it.

“If I’m nominated, they’ll do a careful vetting. They’ll talk to all my former clerks, try to find out whether I’ve done anything that could be used to blackmail me. There’s a chance they might ask about affairs.”

The thought of it stunned Kelly. FBI agents asking questions about Judge Shaver’s private life. The wrong answers could destroy his chances. “I can’t lie, Judge.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t ask you to lie.”

“Then why did you call?”

The judge inhaled deeply on the other end of the phone. “Kelly, you know how sorry I am about what happened. Lynda and I are still together and trying hard to make it work. I’m just saying, anything you can do short of lying, I would really appreciate.”

“Maybe you should pull your name,” Kelly suggested. “Family reasons. Not wanting the spotlight. You like being a trial judge. There could be a million reasons.”

Shaver didn’t respond right away. “I know I could,” he eventually said. “But Kelly, the things you and I believe in are the right things. The right causes. We need judges on our highest courts who are willing to stand up for the most vulnerable in our society. I can’t sell them out just to save myself some potential embarrassment.”

No longer blinded by her infatuation, the words sounded hollow. The president could find a hundred other judges who shared Shaver’s judicial philosophy. This was about his ego, his opportunity to go as far as he could go.

“I’ll do what I can,” Kelly had said.

“That’s all I can ask.”