Millie had to smile. How many times had she heard that voice, now eighty-four years young, plow right into the heart of an issue?
As the lawyer for the high school student stammered a reply, Millie once again found her gaze pulled, almost magnetically, to the frieze and the rendition of evil. There seemed to be something new about it, though that was absurd. Her legal mind clicked a notch and informed her that there couldn’t be anything new about artwork that had been in place nearly seventy years.
“Public schools have some sort of mandate to prepare students for life, don’t they?” Justice Byrne asked the lawyer. Raymond Byrne was the Court’s most conservative member – the polar opposite of Tom Riley – and often asked soft follow-up questions after Riley had skewered some hapless lawyer.
Millie knew it was all part of the dance. The two most extreme justices were really trying to pull the middle three swing votes – herself, Valarde, and Parsons – to their side of the fence. Millie almost always came out on Riley’s side. Thus her label as a moderate liberal in the popular press.
And on this issue, the role of religion in schools, Millie had long made her position clear – no role. Strict separation of church and state.
“… so yes, Your Honor,” the lawyer for the student said, “we must allow the free discussion of the most important issue in any student’s life, as – ”
“But, Counsel,” Millie said, “isn’t the Establishment Clause’s very purpose to prevent any governmental stance on a religious issue?”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “I believe, Your Honor, that to allow discussion is not really a ‘stance’ on a religious issue, it is a – ”
“But it’s happening on school grounds, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it – ”
“And students are compelled to be there by law, aren’t they?”
“That’s true, Your Honor, but – ”
“Then what you are arguing for is tantamount to legal coercion, is it not?”
“I don’t believe it is,” the lawyer said, his voice warbling a bit. Millie was about to tell him that the only thing that mattered was what the Constitution declared, but let it go. The man had suffered enough.
Ten minutes later, Chief Justice Pavel announced the adjournment of the Court for the last time this term. The nine justices rose to make their magisterial exit through the burgundy velvet curtains behind the bench.
Just before she did, Millie took one more look at the frieze. There was that sense again, of something from the evil side moving toward her. That was enough. She told herself to get a very serious grip.
Then she looked down from the frieze to the packed gallery, and immediately locked eyes with someone in the back row.
The eyes belonged to a United States senator, one the New York Times had recently named the most powerful politician of the last twenty-five years. And Senator Samuel T. Levering, D-Oklahoma, was giving Justice Millicent Mannings Hollander a very enthusiastic thumbs-up sign.
Not something she usually got from politicians. But she knew this was no ordinary time. In two hours she would be meeting with Levering, at his request. She also knew he was probably going to offer her the dream of a lifetime.
2
Charlene Moore closed her eyes and sang.
Oh, God, don’t let me mess up, no no. Her voice was a whisper in the elevator. Oh, God, don’t let me sweat. Oh, God, this is my one good suit! Ain’t got money for a new one, Lord. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
At least the elevator air was cool. As the elevator charged toward the thirtieth floor, Charlene wondered what would happen if she just stayed in the car, rode it back to ground level, and ran from the building.
She sang again, which was how she prayed when she was nervous. Lord, take my feet and make ’em walk on fire.
A fire it would be, going up to Winsor & Grimes! Little Charlene Moore, born twenty-seven years ago in Mobile, Alabama, the great-granddaughter of a slave. A girl who wanted nothing more than to sing like Patti LaBelle. What was she doing here, a lone, unmarried lawyer with only one client and a very large tiger by the tail?
Because God had spoken to her?
The elevator bell rang, startling Charlene. She smoothed her skirt and checked the clasp on her briefcase. The doors opened. With one last prayer, Charlene stepped into the largest reception area she had ever seen. At just over five feet tall, she felt a little like Frodo Baggins looking up at Mount Doom.
Over a desk the size of an aircraft carrier were huge brass letters: Winsor & Grimes. Founded just before World War I, it had prospered even through the Great Depression. A Spanish American War veteran, Captain Beauregard Winsor, was the legendary founder. Malcolm Grimes was an equally storied personality who had joined the firm in 1920.
Though both names were now part of regional legal lore, neither had achieved the stature of the man Charlene was about to meet. Beau Winsor III, who many said had engineered the election of the current president of the United States, was the one who had summoned her here.
After a cursory check-in with the receptionist, Charlene was ushered into a conference room by a young woman who looked as if she could gnaw metal. Winsor & Grimes was known for toughness, even in its assistants.
Ten minutes later the door to the conference room opened. A lean square-chinned man in an impeccable navy blue suit, with a full head of graying hair and a blindingly white smile, extended his hand. “Beau Winsor,” he said.
Charlene swallowed. “Charlene Moore.”
“Welcome.” He spun the chair next to her so he could sit down. Charlene was unnerved. She had anticipated he would sit across from her, like an adversary. “You get up here to Mobile much?” he said.
“No, actually,” Charlene said, certain her throbbing pulse could be heard by everyone on the thirtieth floor.
“How I envy you,” Winsor said.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, that simple life down in Dudley. The way things move, easy and nice. Not like up here, where things are a bit more hurried, more harsh.”
He drawled that last word in a rich, honeyed tone. And his was the smile of a killer. Hardly a word had been spoken and already Charlene felt like a plug of red meat dangling by a thread over a lion’s cage.
Charlene cleared her throat. “I’m sure it could be a little dangerous to come to the city unless a person knew exactly what was going on.”
“Words of wisdom, Ms. Moore. It’d be more than a little dangerous. A person could get hurt pretty bad. And I hate to see people get hurt.”
He nodded at her, like an uncle. An uncle hiding a stiletto behind his back.
“You know,” he continued, “federal court is like the city. When you filed your case it was in state court. Nice, easy-going judges and juries. When we moved it to federal court, well, it’s a whole new world. You ever tried a case in federal court?”
Charlene had never even been inside a federal courthouse. “This will be my first,” she said.
“Can’t say as I’d recommend this case to be your debut.”
She could feel him circling her, looking for cracks in her façade.
“My policy is to meet with opposing counsel face-to-face,” Winsor said, “before a trial starts. Talk some turkey. Now it seems to me you’ve invested quite a bit of time and money in this whole thing.”
How true that was. Her bank account was precariously low, her credit cards maxed out. “I believe in this case,” she said.
“’Course you do, darlin’. Mark of a good lawyer. And when I see a good lawyer, I want to make sure he – or she – gets a fair hearing. So before we go taking up a lot of time and trouble in court, how about we settle this right here and now?”