The Last Justice (26 page)

This could be fun after all, he thought as he watched Judge Petrov's law clerk, Dakota Cameron, approach the front of her walkup. Bogged down with a briefcase and full backpack, she labored to the door, fumbling for her keys.

He sat low in his seat, watching. As the evening faded to darkness and the streetlights blinked on, he slipped on his gloves. It was time.

He was about to get out of the car when he saw Dakota reappear from the front steps of the building. Then she walked across the street to a take-out pizza man weighed his options.

Minutes later, she came back out with a small pizza box and a fountain drink. She waited at the curb, and when the light changed, she started across, careful not to spill her drink.

The man with the pockmarked face pushed the accelerator to the floor and drove straight towards Dakota. Without a moment to glance over at the car, she slammed into the windshield, the force creating a spider web of shattered glass. Her limp body then rolled over the roof and onto the hard blacktop. As he sped away, the man with the pockmarked face watched in the rearview mirror. The girl was not moving and no one appeared to be following him. He gave a satisfied smile. One more job to go, and then it was hello, senoritas.

Memorial Hospital, Long Island, New York

ilstein sat watching her father, who looked peaceful in the dim light of the hospital room. She held his hand and talked to him, but he was unresponsive.

A nurse came into the room and smiled sympathetically at her. Milstein had promised herself she wouldn't lose it, but she was having a hard time. "I think he seems a little better, do you?" she asked the nurse.

The nurse hesitated. "We'll know more when the doctor gets back the test results. He'll be making rounds soon."

To keep her mind occupied, Milstein continued to go through the commission's "CB lead chart," which summarized the tips received about the mark on the assassin's neck, but it was just so hard to concentrate. Assad hadn't called her back since she told him about the call from McKenna. She knew he wouldn't want to trouble her with work right now, but she wished he would. If only to hear his voice.

The nurse brought in a food tray for her, and she bit into an apple, the only thing that seemed remotely edible at the moment. Under the tray was the local Long Island newspaper the hospital provided to patients with their meals. The front page headline caught her eye: "Two MISSING FROM POOSPATUCK RESERVATION."

She read the story about a couple who had been reported missing yesterday. The woman, who danced at a strip club located near the reservation, had not been seen since her last shift at the club, the same night Parker Sinclair was killed. The police and the tribe wouldn't comment on the specifics, saying only that there were signs of foul play.

"Poospatuck" rang a bell. Grabbing the lead chart, Milstein ran her finger down a column, stopping at a tip from a caller on the Poospatuck Reservation. the caller was a Britney Goodhart. She checked the newspaper article to be sure-it was the missing woman.

Milstein jolted as the room filled with loud beeps and warning buzzes from her father's monitors. In seconds, a team of nurses and doctors rushed into the room.

Capitol Hill, Washington,

ucker Thornberry, the Washington Post reporter who broke the McKenna story, walked briskly along North Capitol Street. The evening had turned even colder and windier, and his scarf, which he wore more for style than for warmth, flapped behind him. He was late for an interview with a potential source, Tonya Cushing, a legislative assistant on the Hill. Her cubicle at the Russell Senate Building didn't lend itself to private conversations, so she had agreed to meet for a drink at Johnny's Half Shell, a Chesapeake seafood bar.

Johnny's was crowded, and Thornberry made his way past the small groups waiting near the entrance for tables. He noticed an attractive woman in her late twenties sitting alone at the corner of the long L-shaped bar.

"Tonya?" he said, approaching her.

"Hi," she said. "You look younger than your picture on the paper's Web site."

"Thanks,"Thornberry said, taking off his overcoat and sitting on the stool next to her, "I think." He was in his mid-forties, and his wire-rim glasses and jacket with no tie made him look like a handsome, tweedy college professor.

After the requisite small talk and ordering drinks from an effeminate young barman,lhornberry dived into the interview.

"So, you dated Parker Sinclair?"

"For a year," she replied.

"You said you had something to tell me about him?"

Cushing looked around. The restaurant was loud, and no one seemed to be paying them any mind. "I read your story on Parker," she said. "I know you all think his murder may have something to do with the solicitor general or Black Wednesday. I also read all the great things his coworkers and others said about him. But there was another side of him. I doubt it's relevant, which is why I thought twice about calling you."

"But I'm pretty persuasive," lhornberry said, noticing her nervousness and trying to lighten the mood.

"Yes." She looked down at her drink. She was gorgeous, he thought, but she exuded insecurity.

"Tonya, you don't have to worry. No one will know you spoke

"He hit me," she interrupted. Her tone was unemotional and matter-of-fact but in his years working with sources, Thornberry had developed an instinct about when someone was telling the truth. He believed her.

"Parker abused you?"

Cushing took a drink of her beer, not looking at Thornberry. "He was so smart, and he could be so charming-you met him; you know what I mean."

"Actually, we never met in person. We had only one call, the rest e-mail. Not sure how he got my name, but a detective on the case told me my business card was in his desk."

"Well, anyway," Cushing said, "anyone who spent time with him would tell you he was charming. But when he got mad or jealous, he was different."

"How long did this go on?"

"Until I got up the courage to leave. One night he choked me until I passed out. That's when reality sank in, and I left."

"Did you ever call the police?"Thornberry asked.

"Not at first," she said. "But after the breakup, he started making harassing calls and showing up at my apartment. He tried to force his way in one night, so I got an order of protection from the D.C. Superior Court. I also called his law firm. Those two things seemed to help. Then he got his clerkship in New York, I changed my number, and I didn't see him again."

"I'm sorry," Thornberry said, not really knowing what else to say. His mind raced about, plotting how he might use this for his story.

"I'm better now," she replied, "but it took a while. I don't want to hurt his family-that's not why I called you. But a few months ago I met another former girlfriend of Parker's. We danced around the subject for a while, but we got to talking, and it turned out he'd done the same thing to her. I doubt this has any bearing on his death or the reports about the solicitor general, but I wanted to tell someone."

"Have you told anyone else about this-the investigators?" Thornberry asked. He detected no hidden agenda, but contacting a reporter without first calling the authorities would raise a red flag.

"I left a message on the Supreme Court Commission hotline, but they haven't called me back."

"I suspect they've been inundated with calls in the past week since they released the information about the shooter,"lhornberry said.

They finished their drinks, and he thanked Cushing for her help. In the morning, he would call his contact at the D.C. court and try to get a copy of the order of protection. Parker Sinclair was not what he seemed, and this intrigued him.

FBI Field Office, Fourth Street Northwest, Washington,

fter the false alarm at the library, Pacini and Assad ate pizza in a field office conference room, leaving Douglas Pratt to sit and stew in isolation. An agent entered the room and handed Pacini enhanced hard copies of the photos McKenna had e-mailed to Milstein.

"We confirmed that the pictures were taken injustice Carmichael's chambers at the Supreme Court," the agent said, taking a slice of pizza from one of the three boxes spread out on the table nearby. "They match publicly available photographs of her chambers, and we showed them to a former clerk who works at DOJ, blacking out the images of the justices on the desk. He had no doubt it was her chambers. The pictures are taken from an angle that doesn't fit any of the windows. Someone had access to the room."