It was almost noon, and Sean lingered near the cafeteria on the ground floor. As expected, at twelve sharp, bodies began appearing from the offices. Lunchtime. Sean watched the door to the police office across the hall. His mind flashed to Abby visiting the office the day she was killed.
After a group of staffers left the office, Sean headed through the door. From his days as a law clerk he knew that only one receptionist would be left behind to cover during lunch.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist smiled, seeming to recognize Sean. He was a nominee to the high court now, a celebrity in the insular world.
“Hi. Is Police Chief Martinez in?”
“The chief is actually in the courtroom for the daily security check. Can I help you, Mr. Serrat?”
Sean forced a smile. He moved quickly past the receptionist to the chief’s private office. “I left my phone in the office when I visited Carl yesterday. He told me I could stop by to pick it up.”
The receptionist stood quickly, but Sean already had rushed by and into the chief’s private office. He shut the door and locked it.
He scanned the room quickly. The receptionist was already tapping softly on the door.
“Excuse me. Mr. Serrat … Mr. Serrat…”
He didn’t have much time.
The space was meticulously organized and tidy. The desktop had no papers or clutter. Just a nameplate, a fountain pen, and a small picture frame.
“Mr. Serrat…”
And then he saw it.
Sean swallowed hard. Blake Hellstrom was right. He scooped up the small picture frame and moved quickly to the door, turning the latch.
The receptionist stood there, looking flustered.
“I’m sorry, the door must have locked behind me. I don’t see my phone. I’ll go check with Carl.”
The receptionist looked conflicted.
“You said he’s in the courtroom, right?” Sean asked, nonchalant.
The woman exhaled, then straightened herself, the concern leaving her face.
“That’s right.”
“I’ll go see him now.”
In the courtroom, Sean marched down the center aisle toward two officers who were doing a sweep with a bomb-sniffing dog. Tight security even when The Nine were off in their summer homes or frolicking abroad on all-expense-paid teaching or speaking gigs.
“I’m looking for Police Chief Martinez,” Sean said, not seeing Martinez in the gallery. His voice seemed to pinball around the twenty-four marble columns that encased the room.
“Sean,” a voice called out. In the back of the room, behind the bench. The police chief stepped through the burgundy curtains that hung from the ceiling. He was standing at the center of the bench next to the chief justice’s high-backed leather chair. Above him the famous clock, the one advocates were advised never to look up at during their oral arguments, hung from a steel cord.
Sean walked through the brass trellis to the bar-member section of the chamber. How many times had he been in this courtroom? Too many to count. But like everything else, the place didn’t feel the same anymore. Not after his confrontation with Thaddeus Carr. Not after Abby. He suspected today would be the last time he’d ever step foot in this building. It would end where it all began. At One First Street.
The police chief nodded to the officers to give them some privacy, and they scuttled out with the dog.
Sean stepped up to the counsel table, which was less than ten feet from the elevated bench. Advocates were always surprised at how close the lectern was to the justices. The proximity, and that the bench was raised and the justices lorded down on you, was what first-timers seemed to remember the most. But today it wasn’t the chief justice of the United States looking down at Sean with a black stare.
“What can I do for you?” Martinez walked the length of the bench and stepped down into the well. The two locked eyes.
“I know who you are,” Sean finally said. Sean held up the picture frame he’d taken from the chief’s desk, and displayed it to him. It was a photo of a teenage kid. The chief’s son. Sean’s boyhood friend.
Juan.
The chief gave a resigned nod. Then: “So you know who I am. Well, Sean, I know who you are too.”
Sean held his gaze. Martinez navigated around the long counsel table and stood right next to him. He calmly reached for the picture frame, and took it from Sean. He examined the photo for a moment, then said, “I know that you are the man who killed a storekeeper in cold blood. That you let an innocent boy take the blame.”
Another cold stare from the chief.
“But unlike my son,” Martinez said, his tone still calm, “you got to live your life. A perfect little life with your perfect little career and perfect little family.”
In other circumstances, Sean might pity the man. But rage was the only thing flowing through him right now. “I wasn’t alone that night in Misawa,” Sean said. “And I didn’t know that Juan would kill himself, so don’t you try to turn this on me.”
“Kill himself?” He spit out the words like they were rotten food. “Don’t you dare.”