She and Declan exchanged brief knowing looks as they took their places along with the seven other justices. She caught the faint grin. Declan had been looking better than he had in a while. He no longer gave off a reek of mint.
His lightness of mood was not reciprocated by the other justices. He’d barely gotten off a cheery “Good morning” before Justice Haro bitterly complained that his clerks were being harassed by the FBI about the Swayle business.
“Could we discuss it after the conference, Mike?”
“No. I’d like to talk about it now. Calling in the gestapo is-”
Justice Santamaria groaned. “Gestapo? Did you actually say gestapo?”
“Call them whatever you want,” Haro snapped. “But having them in here prowling the halls… it’s infra dig.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Santamaria scowled. “But your language is inappropriate. No. That’s not quite strong enough a word. Vile…”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Declan said. “Please. As to infra dig, let’s all agree that leaking Court decisions defines infra dignitatem. Meanwhile we can discuss it all after conference. But as we’re on the subject of the FBI, why don’t we begin with Peester? You were the first to grant cert, Mike, as I recall. So, shall we begin?”
Peester v. Spendo-Max Corp was a knotty case. Security personnel at a Spendo-Max megastore outside Reno, Nevada, had noticed a female customer dressed head to toe in a Muslim abaya acting in a “suspicious manner.” They called the Reno police, who discerned geometric-shaped bulges under her robes and deduced that she was a suicide bomber. They evacuated the store and called in the FBI, who arrived with a tactical unit, dogs, helicopters, and a robotic bomb disposal unit. They cornered her in the Bathroom Fixtures section. In due course the Muslim woman turned out to be one Dwight Robert Peester, neither female nor Muslim, but a career shoplifter. The suspicious bulges turned out to be CDs and DVDs secreted in pouches under the abaya. Mr. Peester was arrested and prosecuted but a jury acquitted him on the grounds that he had not yet exited the store and therefore had not yet technically shoplifted. A tsunami of lawyers rushed in. Mr. Peester sued Spendo-Max, the Reno Police Department, and the FBI agents on grounds of racial and religious profiling. He was asking for twenty million dollars for various psychic traumas, “plus dry cleaning costs.” The nub of the issue-so far as Pepper, scratching her head as she read the brief, could discern-was whether you in fact had to actually belong to the particular race or religion in order to be a victim of discrimination against it.
The justices went around the table in order of seniority, splitting 4-4. Once again, all eyes turned to the juniormost justice. Pepper inwardly groaned. She daydreamed that she was back on Courtroom Six. Dwight Robert Peester stood before her, wearing bright orange, in chains. Mr. Peester, it is the sentence of this court that you be taken from here to the place of execution…
“Justice Cartwright?” Declan said.
“Uh…” Pepper said.
“How do you vote?”
“I’m kind of… down the middle on this one,” she said. “He was obviously planning to boost the stuff-”
“That’s not the issue,” Haro said.
“Well, it oughta be,” Pepper said. “But there was prima facie evidence of profiling… Still…”
The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner sounded to Pepper like Big Ben striking noon.
“Anyone got a quarter?” she said.
“Sorry?” Declan said.
“Heads he wins, tails he loses?”
“That’s an enlightened way of interpreting the Constitution,” Justice Gotbaum muttered.
Justice Santamaria let out a sigh like a breaching humpback whale.
“All right,” Pepper said. “Let’s strike a blow for female Muslim-impersonating shoplifters. Vote to grant in favor of Peester.”
As the justices left, Pepper overheard Santamaria saying to Jacoby in a voice calculatedly audible, “Pray God nothing critical comes before us in the next, say, thirty years.” Haro, looking greatly peeved, followed Declan into his chambers.
That night over dinner at an Italian restaurant, Declan said to Pepper, “Haro’s as hot as a tamale over the FBI investigation. ‘Jackbooted thugs,’ ‘Storm troopers.’ He made it sound like I’ve ushered in the Fourth Reich. Me-the Court’s reliable liberal!”
“I always did suspect you were a closet fascist,” Pepper said, forking up a bit of linguine alla vongole. “Look, if it’s making everyone miserable, call it off. Let it go, Chiefy.”
“I can’t do that,” Declan said. “It’s beyond the pale. An impending Court ruling was leaked to the media. From within the Court. Incidentally, in no small part to embarrass you.”
“I’m not asking for special protection,” Pepper said. “I’m a big girl. I got a pistol. Know how to use it, too.”
“That’s certainly not the issue, either,” he said sternly.
Pepper sipped her Chianti. “As for embarrassment, I am way beyond that. On the other side of the wall of humiliation is liberation.”
Declan stared. “Kahlil Gibran or refrigerator magnet?”
Pepper got a good, close-up look at the Wall of Humiliation a few days later when an item appeared in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column:
Sightings: Supreme Court Justice Pepper Cartwright and Chief Justice Declan Hardwether enjoying a cozy dinner-for-two at Stare Decisis. Our source reports that the Supremes appeared to be in close agreement over whatever weighty legal issues were being discussed, and at various points held hands. Oyez, oyez! Both are in the midst of divorces. If their cases end up before the high court, look for a 2-0 vote…
Within hours, hundreds of Web sites and legal blogs were fizzing with speculation over the question of whether a romantically linked pair of Supreme Court justices could be relied upon to render independent decisions. Outrage, calls for impeachment, an affront to the dignity of the Court…
Late that afternoon, Crispus knocked on the door of Pepper’s chambers.
“I recall asking you to extend the CJ a friendly word,” he said. “But dear me…”
“Oh, hush,” Pepper said.
“I will say,” Crispus said, taking a seat, “he seems much more relaxed of late. Less minty. I congratulate you. You have saved a soul in distress. Have you considered a career in personal counseling?”
“I’m better at that than constitutional law, apparently.”
Crispus pursed his lips. “Since you brought it up…”
“Go ahead,” Pepper said.
“Your vote on Peester? Honestly, Justice Cartwright. Have you taken leave of your senses? Or have the senses taken leave of you?”
“Four other justices voted with me.”
“Is that your rationale? Majority is the last refuge of scoundrels. Your poor sheriff grandfather must be spinning. And he not even in the grave.”
“Did you come in here just to bitch-slap me?”
“Such elegant language. Are you familiar with the works of Mr. William Shakespeare?”
“I’m named for one of his characters.”
“Pepper? I recall no Pepper in the bardic canon.”
“Perdita. Let’s see if you know your Shakespeare.”
“Winter’s Tale.”
“Two points. Very good.”
“I was thinking more of Polonius.” [27]
“Let me guess. ‘To thine own self be true.’ How original.”
“My, but we’re testy today. Did we sleep on a cactus last night? And here I thought love was an emollient.”
“Who said anything about love? We had dinner.”
“I was attempting, O Wicked Witch of the Wild West, to clarify something you yourself were on the verge of admitting, but, being a lawyer, couldn’t quite bring yourself to stipulate, namely that with these hyper-legalistic rulings you’re handing down, you’ve been trying to act like a Supreme Court Justice, instead of just rendering your own best judgment. You used to be a pretty good judge, back when you stood astride the vast wasteland like a giant. At least in Courtroom Six your rulings had some heart.”