Bouscaran of Delaware, a former judge himself, had tried to trip her up on technicalities, only to have Pepper correct him on the actual wording of Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS. (Hayden’s people had astutely included it in the briefing book.)
Harmookian of Wisconsin wanted to know if she would have granted certiorari in Gretchen’s Frozen Pike v. Milwaukee Block Ice. Pepper cited three precedents, going back to 1956, where the Court had refused to intervene in similar cases, on the grounds that decomposing fish was simply too revolting to contemplate.
“I only thought,” Dexter said to Senator Pebblemacher, trying to sound magnanimous, “you might like to take a shot at her. It’s a low-hanging fruit.”
“Then why don’t you reach for it?” Pebblemacher said suspiciously.
“I’m holding myself in reserve,” Dexter said.
“What do you think this is? Battle of the Bulge?”
“Yeah,” said Murmelly of the great state of Idaho. “When are you going join the fight, Dexter?”
“All in good time,” Dexter said. “All in good time. People, people. Come on. Let’s keep it together.” He appealed to Pebblemacher. “Jimbo, look, you can’t miss with this one. Her father practically invited Jack Ruby to shoot Oswald.”
“For God’s sake, Dexter, she wasn’t even born in 1963. What the hell’s this got to do with her?”
“I’m not saying she was involved personally,” Dexter said. “But the whole thing stinks. And the mother. Killed by lightning? Don’t you think that’s a little bit too pat? My Riders found someone who says he was in the ER when they brought her in and he’ll swear she was still alive.”
“Proving what?” Pebblemacher said, arms crossing defiantly over his chest.
Dexter lowered his voice. “Well, our information is that they, uh, finished her off there.”
Pebblemacher snorted. “You want to make that case? Be. My. Guest.”
Dexter shrugged. “Suit yourself, Jimbo. Just thought you were a team player. Anyone?”
A half-dozen senators stared back silently at their chairman.
“All right then. But I think we’re missing an opportunity here.”
Dexter turned to Senator Ramos y Gualtapo of the great state of Florida. “Silvia,” he said. “Hit her on the commerce clause. That answer she gave Fritz yesterday on Feinhard v. Moon-she was on thin ice. I could hear it cracking.”
Senator Ramos y Gualtapo gave Chairman Mitchell a dubious look. “I didn’t hear any ice cracking.”
“Well, I think,” Dexter said, tapping the table impatiently with his pen, “that she’s vulnerable on interstate commerce.”
“When are you going to question her, Dexter?” Silvia said.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you worry,” he said calmly. “I’ve got questions for Judge Cartwright. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes.”
“Like what?”
“All in good time.”
“You haven’t said boo so far,” said Senator Bloggwell of the great state of Mississippi. “All you do is make goo-goo eyes at her.”
The senators murmured. Murmuring is one of the higher senatorial arts.
“You let her run over Harriett,” said Senator Manxzen of the great but not spacious state of Rhode Island. “Wearing cleats.”
“Harriett Shimmerman is as tough as aluminum siding,” Dexter said. “She didn’t need any help from me.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Senator Ezratty of the occasionally great state of North Carolina. “Is that why I found her sobbing in the cloakroom?”
“No, no, no, no,” Dexter said. “That was on account of her dog. It got cancer. Leukemia. Some fatal dog something.”
“That was last week.”
“Well, maybe the dog had a relapse. Look, people. I am going to hold Judge Cartwright’s little piggies to the fire, don’t you doubt it. In the meantime, I don’t think any useful purpose would be served by…”
“Telling us what you’re going to ask her?” Senator Ramos y Gualtapo said.
“No, Silvia. By broadcasting our strategy,” Dexter said. “Let’s get it together, people. She’s got us all running around in nineteen different directions.”
“Well, unless you come up with a smoking gun, Mr. Chairman,” said Senator Murfledorken of the great but somewhat pointless state of North Dakota, “I might as well tell you I’m going to vote for her.”
The senators murmured superbly.
Dexter shook his head. “Ralph, that is so… not helpful.”
“Would you like to see my mail?” Murfledorken replied. “I can’t get in the door of my office it’s piled up so high in the hall. My Web browser crashed last night from all my e-mail. I’m not going to commit hara-kiri over her. She seems all right to me. If you want to know the truth, I like her.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Ralph,” Mitchell said, “voting for that”-he was about to say woman when he caught Silvia glowering at him-“TV personality. I mean, it would go against every sacredly held principle we’re sworn to uphold. My God. Do you realize this Committee is the only thing standing between the Supreme Court of the United States and…”
“What?” Silvia said.
“Mediocrity.”
“I don’t find her so mediocre.”
“Me, neither.”
“People. People. Let’s all just take a deep breath…”
But by day three of the Cartwright hearings, it was clear that the air was going out of-not into-the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senators who had dared to ask even mildly snarky questions of Judge Cartwright were receiving death threats-the kind that specify what caliber bullet will be used. It was abundantly, pellucidly clear that the people wanted Judge Pepper. Even President Vanderdamp’s approval ratings had shot up-by almost ten points.
“President Vanderdamp,” the Financial Times commented wryly, “finally appears to have done something politically astute-almost certainly by accident.”
After the unhappy caucus had huffed and stomped its way out of Senator Mitchell’s office, Dexter summoned his chief of staff, a man named Pickerill.
“What was that stuff the Russians used on the ex-KGB guy? The radioactive poison. Do we have any? A few drops in her water pitcher… What a catastrophe. Anything from the Riders?”
“There is something, but it’s-not much.”
Dexter had been praying for some eleventh-hour smoking gun, but the Wraith Riders had come back from their investigation, shrieking and neighing and wailing, with empty hands. Pepper Cartwright had not had an abortion; had not dated anyone named bin Laden; had not distributed pamphlets calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government; snorted cocaine; called anyone by a racial epithet. She’d sniffled through the final scenes of To Kill a Mockingbird. There had been a brief, giddy moment of hope when it was learned that Cartwright and Bixby’s housekeeper was Nicaraguan, but it had been cruelly dashed when it turned out they were legally sponsoring her for a green card and citizenship.
“Let’s have it,” Dexter said.
“Senior year at her boarding school, she and another girl put shaving cream on the headmistress’s toilet seat.”
Dexter stared at his chief of staff. “Well, that’ll drive a stake through her heart.”
“Sorry, Senator. We’ll keep trying.”
And so, on the brink of the final day of the Cartwright hearings, Senator Dexter Mitchell found himself standing on a diving board above a large pool full of-nothing.
“Good morning,” he said, giving the gavel handle the lightest little tippy-tap. “Senator Ramos y Gualtapo, your witness.”