Deadlock

Her other clerk, Rosalind, knocked on her door and entered. Her face had an ashen, faraway look.

“What is it?” Millie asked.

“You’d better come,” Rosalind said.

Both of her clerks had workstations in the antechamber. Paul, the bespectacled Law Review editor from Stanford, sat before his terminal in silence. The glow from the screen reflected off his glasses. He did not look up to make eye contact with Millie. His blank stare made her think of an accident scene, as if he were seeing a dead body sprawled on a patch of asphalt somewhere.

“Did somebody die?” Millie asked. Perhaps the president? A fellow justice? She felt her heart quicken.

Rosalind shook her head, her blond hair framing her concerned face, and indicated Millie should take her seat in front of Rosalind’s screen.

Millie sat and looked at the screen. Big block letters spelled out the Burrow Bulletin. And just below that a headline read “Supreme Court Chief Gets Religion!”

Millie read the article in silence.

Gimme that old-time religion! That’s a song you may hear coming from a most unlikely place – the chambers of a certain chief justice of the United States Supreme Court!

Did I say chief justice? Yes, I did. Looks like the cat’s out of the bag, the chickens have flown the coop, the bloom is off the rose. Somebody stop me!

The Burrow Bulletin has learned that Millicent Ma

Not only is she now a professing Christian, but she’s already reversed herself in the first major case of her tenure, soon to be decided! The case involves the Establishment Clause and government interference in matters of religion.

Insiders tell the Burrow Bulletin that Hollander is going to rule that the government of Ohio can go holy roller and inject God right into their public life! This is a complete reversal of how Hollander has ruled in the past!

What next? This reporter is betting abortion will be the next domino to fall. With Hollander now the fifth in a conservative majority, the whole balance of the Supreme Court has been thrown off! Never in our history have we seen a Supreme Court justice change so completely in one fell swoop.

Your intrepid correspondent is in touch with some members of Congress, who are vowing to look into this. One even called it a “fraud” on the American people!

Stay tuned! In the next few days, you are bound to see the reverberations of this bombshell across the nation!

Burrowing…

As if from a distance, Millie heard Rosalind’s voice. “Justice Hollander, are you all right?”

Millie did not answer. The inside of her head felt like a collapsing building, a chaos of rubble and dust, imploding upon itself. For a long, sickening moment she thought she might stop breathing.

“Madame Chief Justice?” Rosalind said.

“I’m sorry,” Millie said.

“Is it…”

Millie looked at Rosalind. Her face was like that of a child whose mother has just been accused of a terrible crime. Now she was asking, not wanting to believe it.

“Rosalind, Paul,” Millie said. “I need to tell you what has happened.”

Rosalind still looked like the waiting child. Paul, in contrast, was the petulant one. He did not look up from his screen.

“Paul?” Millie said.

Finally, he looked at her. His eyes were almost tearful.

“Please,” Millie said. “Let me tell you both what this is about.”

The phone on Paul’s desk rang. Millie waited as he picked up and inquired.

Paul’s eyes shot to Millie while the receiver was still at his ear. Then he put the receiver to his chest. “It’s ABC News,” he said. “They want to have a word with you.”

5

For Senator Sam Levering, breaking news was like Prozac – an instant respite from depression. He was, in fact, a news junkie.

That was why his limo had not only two TV monitors, but also a special remote so he could jump immediately to any of five news outlets – CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS.

This morning he was concentrating on ABC. The reporter was standing in front of the White House delivering his report. The “strange conversion” of Chief Justice Hollander had reached the top of the Washington news food chain.

When the limo phone rang, Levering knew exactly who it would be.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” Levering said.

“What’s good about it?” Francis said.

“You’ve heard.”

“Of course I’ve heard. It’s all over the place. You’d think we’d had a terrorist attack with all the reporters.”

Levering mused that this felt very much like an attack. Surprising, potentially debilitating.

“What are you going to do about it?” Francis demanded.

“I’m on it.”

“Were you on it when you forced Hollander down my throat?”

Levering felt like cussing out the president of the United States. Instead he said, “I will take care of it.”

“Get her off the bench,” the president said.

“She’s a Supreme Court justice,” Levering snapped. “She either has to retire, die, or get impeached.”

“Choose one,” Francis said.

Was he serious? “Mr. President, let me assure you. I can deal with Hollander. I will get her to play ball, as they say, or force her to resign.”

“How?”

“Leave that to me.”

“I already did that,” Francis shot back. “I just better not see a rollback on women’s rights, gay rights, every other kind of rights. What a nightmare. You know what they’ll say about me? That I made the worst pick for chief justice ever. Should have seen it coming. This could change the Court for twenty years.”

“Shall we meet?” Levering said. “I’m free this afternoon.”

“No,” Francis said. “I’m golfing with the CEO of GE. Just do something and get back to me.”

Click.

Levering looked out the window and saw the Washington Monument rising into a fog.

He poured himself a shot of bourbon and called A

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1

Charlene woke up just before the train hit her.

The locomotive bore down on her, its horn blaring. She was stuck on the tracks, unable to move. No restraints held her. Her feet simply would not take her away from certain death.

The nightmare ended, as they most often do, before impact. But the train whistle sounded again, and this time Charlene recognized it. It was the prolonged beep of her fax machine.

She had fallen asleep on the couch. Last night she could not sleep at all, her stomach in a knot. The decision from the Court of Appeals was late, and there was no word from the clerk when it would come in.

No matter how much Charlene prayed for sleep, it was denied her. She took that as a sign that God did not want her to sleep, but to continue praying. She did so, starting with prayers for Sarah Mae and Aggie Sherman, then for the case to be resolved in their favor.

But that was not all. Charlene found herself praying for Millicent Ma

She had been stu

But would Hollander’s faith lead her to adopt a different view of the law than she’d had before? What would that do to the balance of the Court?

Charlene had a sudden wild thought. What if Sarah Mae’s case actually got to the high Court? How would Hollander rule? Graebner and Winsor believed strongly she would be on their side, and Charlene had to agree. But what now? She prayed for God’s will, not her own, and finally fell asleep around four in the morning.

The fax beeped again. Charlene rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. 11 a.m.

She jumped up and snatched the page that had just been cut from her ancient thermal-roll machine. The cover page made her heart jerk. It read “United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.” Ten pages to come.