The Outsider Read online

  “I have a delivery for Keir Landon.”

  “The clerks are getting breakfast,” she said in her clipped Eastern European accent.

  “Do you know where?”

  “Breakfast. Where do you think?”

  Gray forced a smile, then headed back downstairs to the court’s cafeteria. He marched past the assembly line of trays and the public seating area and into the private room reserved for the law clerks. A group of four were sitting at the long table.

  Gray cleared his throat when they didn’t look up. When that didn’t work: “Excuse me. I have a delivery for Keir Landon.”

  The guy from last night who looked like JFK popped his head up. He walked over to Gray and plucked the envelope from his hand.

  “What’s up, Greg?” Mike said from the group.

  Before Gray could correct him again on the name, Gray’s phone pinged. A text from Martin, another rush delivery.

  Gray hurried out, tapping a text to Martin as he paced quickly through the cafeteria. He didn’t look up until he bumped into someone. A tiny woman in her seventies. It was only when the elderly woman’s food tray hit the floor that Gray recognized her: Justice Rose Fitzgerald Yorke. She looked different without the black robe. Always weird seeing the teacher out of school. Yorke was one of the most beloved members of the court. Gray had read that when Yorke graduated from Harvard in the fifties, the only woman and number one in her class, none of the white-shoe law firms would hire a woman as a lawyer. A few had offered to make her a secretary. Maybe that explained why she ate in the public cafeteria rather than the justices’ private dining room, or why she organized the office birthday celebrations for every single employee at the court. She knew what it was like to be an outsider. She brought what some would derisively call empathy to her jurisprudence.

  Justice Yorke bent over to pick up her spilled plate and silverware.

  “Justice Yorke, I’m so sorry. Please, let me clean this up.” Gray lightly put a hand on the justice’s arm.

  “It’s no problem, young man, I can clean up after myself.”

  “No, really, it’s my fault. Please.”

  The manager of the cafeteria was standing there now, looking annoyed. He gestured for Justice Yorke to come with him to get a new plate. The manager shot Gray a hard look as he spirited the justice away.

  So there he was on the first Monday in October—the opening day of the term—on hands and knees wiping up the floor, the clerks passing by on their way back to chambers.

  You just gotta pay your dues, Grayson.

  CHAPTER 3

  At the end of his shift, Gray headed down to the court’s garage to get his bike. In the elevator, he contemplated his dinner options. He wasn’t sure if he could take another night of ramen or SpaghettiOs. Maybe he’d go to the pizza shop. Or to his parents’ apartment. Mom could always be counted on for a good meal, and he could bring some laundry. The elevator doors spread open to a field of gray concrete. The bike rack was empty but for his beat-up Schwinn. As he unlocked the chain, he heard a commotion. In the back, behind one of the support beams.

  Gray stepped toward the sound. Next to an SUV parked in a reserved spot he saw two men: one had fallen on the ground, the other standing over him. The guy must have slipped. Was he hurt? Something about how he didn’t try to get up and the stance of the other man didn’t seem quite right.

  “Everything okay?” Gray said.

  The man who was standing whirled his head around. That’s when Gray noticed the ski mask.

  Before Gray could process the situation, the assailant had kicked the man on the ground and charged Gray.

  Gray’s father had taught him that when someone is coming at you, in the boxing ring or on the street, time slows. Nature’s way to give you a chance to evade the predator. That was how Gray dodged the blade that lashed in a wide arc, grazing his abdomen.

  A panic washed over Gray. And when the attacker came at him again, it wasn’t one of Dad’s bob-and-weaves that saved him, but a crude kick—more Jason Statham than Cassius Clay—that connected to Ski Mask’s chest. The guy slammed into a car, but he didn’t go down. He roared forward at Gray again. Gray did a bullfighter’s move and pushed the attacker past him, but felt a bite in his side. Ski Mask then jammed something into the small of Gray’s back. He felt a jolt of electricity burning into him—a shockwave up his spine—causing him to spasm and gasp for air. Gray went black for a moment, then he was flat on the cold concrete.

  Gray watched as Ski Mask turned his attention to the other man who was on his feet now. It was only then that Gray got a good look at the victim: Chief Justice Douglas. The chief had scurried behind a car and was frantically thumbing a key fob, his panic button. The elevator dinged and Gray heard the slap of dress shoes on concrete, the court’s police.

  Still on the ground, Gray shifted his eyes toward the man in the ski mask, but he was gone. Gray’s vision blurred. He heard yelling. Then things went dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  Gray awoke to the scent of disinfectant and the presence of a crowd in the small hospital room. He must’ve been given painkillers because it was like watching a sitcom, one of those Latino family comedies written by white guys from Harvard. There was Mom, hovering over him, wiping his brow, pushing the giant plastic jug of hospital water at him. Dad, looking tired and too thin, wearing a flour-stained apron, staring at the old box television mounted from the ceiling. And big sis, Miranda, wrangling Gray’s seven-year-old nephew, Emilio.

  When they noticed his eyes open, they called for a doctor, and soon an intern was checking Gray’s pupils with a penlight.

  Gray never got into drugs, but as he sat back in the relaxed haze, he started to understand the fascination. And for the next hour, or maybe it was longer, his family kept talking to him—asking about the garage attack—and he gave woozy responses. God knows what he said.

  Sometime later, Gray’s attention turned to a familiar voice at the doorway.

  “Always gotta be the hero.”

  One of his oldest friends, Samantha. When they were in elementary school, Gray had intervened to save Sam from a schoolyard bully, only to have the kid pummel Gray until Sam put an end to it by giving the kid the worst wedgie Gray had ever seen. Sam still gave him shit for it.

  As Sam hugged everyone hello, Gray’s father shadowboxed and said, “He used the moves I taught him.”

  Gray didn’t have the heart to tell him that most of the credit went to Jason Statham.

  Sam came to his bedside and punched him in the arm.

  “What was that for?”

  “For being so stupid. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “That’s what I said to him,” Mom said.

  The room grew loud again with his family talking over one another. Gray watched as his nephew reenacted Gray’s confrontation with the mugger. He was feeling the pull of sleep, more drugs they’d put in the IV, and closed his eyes. He was just about to drift off when the room went suddenly quiet, a rarity at any Hernandez gathering.

  His eyes popped open at another voice.

  “I owe you a thank you.”

  A tall man was standing at his bedside. He wore a sports jacket, shirt open at the collar. It took Gray a moment to realize it wasn’t the drugs, it was really him. Chief Justice Douglas.

  “It was nothing,” was all Gray managed in response.

  “No, if you hadn’t arrived when you did, then…” the chief’s voice trailed off.

  Gray introduced the chief justice to his family. He noticed the chief hold Sam’s gaze a beat longer than comfortable when they shook hands. Sam had that effect on men, and Gray supposed Supreme Court justices were not immune to her beauty. To Gray, she was still the flat-chested tomboy he used to play dodgeball and video games with.

  After the introductions, the chief pulled up a chair next to Gray’s bed. It was awkward to talk because the room was compact and his family wasn’t too subtle about the gawking.

  “Someone at the court told m
e you’re a lawyer?” the chief said.

  “Top of his class,” Gray’s mother said.

  “Mom, please.” Gray felt his face flush.

  The chief justice smiled. “The doctors said you’ll be out of commission for a few days.”

  “That’s what they said, but I don’t think it’ll be more than a day. I’m already feeling—” He stopped when he saw the hard look his mother was giving him.

  “It’s always wise to listen to your mother,” the chief said with a dry chuckle.

  His mom nodded, giving a satisfied smile.

  “But do me a favor, would you?” the chief continued.

  “Of course.”

  “When you get back to work, come by my chambers.” Before Gray could respond, the chief added, “You’re not gonna be a messenger boy anymore.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Nothing? They found nothing?” Special Agent Emma Milstein asked. Her partner, Scott Cartwright, stood in front of Milstein’s desk in the FBI field office, staring into an open file. Cartwright wore his usual navy suit, white shirt, plain tie clamped around his thick neck.

  Cartwright shook his head.

  “A guy with a knife strolls into the Supreme Court, attacks a justice, and not one camera catches him, no one knows how he got in or out, nothing?”

  “Nada,” Cartwright said.

  “What about the kid? What’s his name again?”

  Cartwright flipped a page in the file. “Hernandez. Grayson Hernandez. The Supreme Court’s squad interviewed him. Been on the job there for about a month, well liked. They’re confident it was just wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Criminal record?”

  “No, he’s a lawyer, actually.”

  “A lawyer? I thought he was a messenger?”

  “Yeah, works in the marshal’s office. Times are tough in the law business, I guess,” Cartwright said.

  “I guess so. Our guys agree with the Supreme Court’s police? We’re sure Hernandez is clean?”

  Cartwright walked over and put the open file in front of Milstein. “We don’t think he was involved in the attack. He got into some trouble as a kid—joyriding in a stolen car with some friends. But that’s like jaywalking in Hamilton Heights.”

  “He grew up in Hamilton Heights? Don’t they call that area ‘Afghanistan’?” Milstein looked down at the file, studying the photo of Grayson Hernandez. He was a good-looking kid. Late twenties. Striking blue eyes, unusual for a Hispanic. He had a scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his ear. Jagged, no plastic surgery.

  “Yeah, he’s a regular local boy makes good,” Cartwright said, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “Any criminal associates?”

  “He was childhood friends with a real charmer, Arturo Alvarez, who’s just out of prison and already at war with a rival sect. But it appears that Hernandez left the Heights and never looked back. The report says no contact with Alvarez in years.”

  Milstein read through the rest of the file. “Does the press know he was there when the chief was attacked? I don’t need reporters sniffing around. If they find out there’s a connection to Dupont Underground they’ll—”

  “They don’t know anything,” Cartwright interrupted. “The court released a statement about the mugging, but no details. They’re pretty tight-lipped up there.”

  “What’s the Supreme Court’s police chief saying?”

  “Aaron Dowell? He’s saying we should mind our own fucking business. They’re in charge of protecting the chief.”

  “Yeah, they’re doing a great job.”

  Cartwright said nothing.

  “When can we talk to the chief justice?” Milstein asked.

  “They’re still stonewalling. I don’t think they’re taking the connection to Dupont seriously.”

  “You told them we think it’s the same perp?”

  “Of course I did. I’m working on it, Em.”

  “Work harder.” Milstein let out a loud, frustrated breath.

  “You want me to get you a snack or something?” Cartwright said. “When my kids get a little cranky, I bring them some Goldfish crackers and it—”

  “Any luck on getting the wires?” Milstein said, ignoring him.

  Cartwright made a sound of disbelief. “Neal says you’re crazy if you think you’ll get a bug anywhere near that building.” As usual, Neal Wyatt, the assistant director in charge of the field office, was being too cautious, playing politics.

  “Cowards.”

  “You need to tread lightly. This is the Supreme Court.”

  “The Franklin Theater fire was on July fifth. The Dupont Underground murders on August fifth. Now the attack on the chief October fifth. And we now know it’s the same perp. What’s it gonna take to get the Supreme Court’s squad to take this seriously?”

  Cartwright shook his head. “Hopefully not another victim on November fifth.”

  CHAPTER 6

  A week after the garage attack, Gray sat in the conference room outside the chief justice’s chambers. He’d started his first day back with everyone in the cube farm clapping when he walked into the office. That felt pretty damned good if he did say so. The court’s public information officer soon put a damper on it all, however, when she sent an e-mail explaining that the court would not be commenting further on “the incident” in the garage, and reminded everyone of their duty of confidentiality. The court’s famous omertà. So Gray got back to the grind, rushing around the building delivering interoffice envelopes and briefs.

  But at lunchtime he’d received a call from Olga Romanov that Gray should come to the chief’s chambers at one o’clock. And here he was, gazing at the long table in the oak-paneled conference room where the justices deliberated in secret. In that very space, justices of the past had voted on Brown v. Board of Education, Miranda v. Arizona, and virtually every important opinion Gray had read in law school.

  At 1:20 p.m., Chief Justice Douglas strutted into the room. “Grayson, I’m so sorry I made you wait.” He wore no jacket, white dress shirt rolled at the sleeves, tie loosened. He stuck out his hand and gave Gray’s a hard shake.

  Before Gray muttered a word, the chief said, “Don’t you love this room?” The chief sank back in the high-backed leather chair, his gaze spanning the room and stopping at the portrait of Chief Justice John Marshall above the marble fireplace. “On a tough case, sometimes I come in here and try to imagine what Marshall or Holmes would have done.” The chief looked off at nothing. After a long silence, he snapped out of it. “Enough of that. I wanted you to come by so I could thank you again.”

  “It’s really unnecessary, I just—”

  “You’re feeling better? The hospital treated you well? I called the chief of staff myself to make sure they took good care of you.”

  “Yes, I’m feeling much better, and the doctors and nurses were terrific. Thank you for asking.”

  “Your parents were just delightful. They seem like hardworking people. What do your folks do for a living, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Gray had been down this road before, but never quite knew how to proceed. Be nonchalant? Defensive? Proud? He opted for being straight. “My mom’s a maid, and my dad runs our family’s pizza shop in Hamilton Heights.”

  The chief nodded, not a flinch. He touched his chin. “It’s not Ringside Pizza, is it?”

  Gray was surprised at that. The Heights didn’t exactly seem like one of the chief’s haunts. “That’s the one.”

  “I’ve been there. Good pie.”

  Gray didn’t know whether the chief was just flattering. But his dad did make a great pizza. Not for the drunks who stumbled in for a slice after a night at the bars in the Heights. They got whatever the cheap help put together. But his father personally made the pies for the dinner crowd, mostly local families.

  “You’re from D.C., then?” the chief asked.

  “Not really from. We came here when I was a kid—from Mexico. My parents became citizens when I was eight.”

>   “Where’d you go to school?”

  “D.C. State for college and law.”

  Usually the mention of D.C. State, a fourth-tier law school—never mind that Washington, D.C., was not even a state—elicited a sad look. But not from the chief.

  “And what’s your legal experience since law school?”

  “I’ve done some pro bono work for a housing clinic, some temp work for big firms. Nothing like the experience of the lawyers who work here.”

  “Nonsense,” the chief said. “You’ve got something far more valuable: life experience outside the bubble of affluence and the Ivy League.”

  Was it a crime to give the chief justice of the United States an uninvited hug? Gray opted for a thank you. To which the chief justice stood.

  “You got time to come by my office? I want to show you something.”

  Gray followed the chief into his private office next to the conference room. Prime real estate behind the courtroom assigned to every chief justice since the building opened in the 1930s. The chief’s chambers did not disappoint. Old law books on tall shelves lining the walls. Oriental rugs. A massive fireplace. The chief walked him to a framed document hanging on the wall. It wasn’t an award or diploma or expensive piece of art. It was a wrinkled sheet of paper that had NOT YET! written on it in black Sharpie.

  “This is my latest acquisition of Supreme Court memorabilia.”

  Gray smiled. He recognized the document. “Thurgood Marshall?”

  The chief clapped his hands together, pleased. “Ah, you know it! You know the story!”

  Lore had it that when the aging Justice Marshall had fallen ill and was in the hospital, Richard Nixon had asked the doctor for a report on Marshall’s condition, not out of concern, but with the hope that the elderly justice was dying so the president could replace him with a more conservative jurist. The doctor asked Marshall if he could give the president a report. Marshall said he’d love to give Nixon an update, then took out a pen and wrote NOT YET! on his chart.