Blowout

as a reporter, sir. I’m here as part of my stepfather’s family.”
    Slowly, Justice Wallace rose, walked to Callie, and took her in his arms. She was nearly as tall as he was. He felt strong as an ox, she thought as she hugged him tightly. “Stewart was a fine man, a fine Justice,” he said, his voice choking. “Dear God, I will miss him.” He hugged her more tightly.
    Callie wanted to cry; it was odd, but what held her back was the thought that this man had actually made a pass at her mother, the wife of another Justice who was supposed to be his best friend. So she merely comforted him as best she could, wondering if he was bitterly sorry now for what he’d done.
    After a few more moments, Justice Wallace straightened. His shoulders went back. His bearing was once again that of a Justice of the Supreme Court, strong and in control.
    He turned to Ben. “Won’t you sit down, Detective? Beth, would you please get us coffee?”
    Callie didn’t want any coffee, but Mrs. Wallace had already turned away.
    “Why are you here, Detective? Where is the FBI? As you saw, we already have two federal marshals to guard us. From a murder attempt or to protect us from the media, I don’t know. Do you?”
    “I would say both, sir,” Ben said. “As for the FBI, they’ll be here to talk to you, Justice Wallace. I’m part of the team put together by the Bureau. I really appreciate you seeing me. If you don’t mind, sir, any information you could give me about Justice Califano would be helpful.”
    Justice Wallace sighed. “So many guards, so much security assigned to keep us safe. How could this have happened? In the Supreme Court Building, the bedrock of the rule of law in our nation, the symbol of freedom and balance in our government?”
    Now that was eloquent, Ben thought, a lot more statesmanlike than hitting on Margaret Califano. Ben decided there was no reason for him not to tell him. “It appears that the killer knew one of the guards would go outside for a smoke. He hit him on the head, took his uniform, and came right back in. It was after midnight, quiet, and unfortunately he succeeded.” It was a lousy excuse, Ben knew, but it was the truth. “Justice Wallace, I understand you were Justice Califano’s closest friend. Did you notice anything different about him on Friday? Or during the past week? Did Justice Califano appear distracted, perhaps worried about something?”
    “No, not at all. Stewart appeared the same as always on Friday, and throughout the week as well. I knew he didn’t want to revisit the death penalty in the upcoming case, but then again, neither did I.”
    “Why would that be, sir?”
    “He believed it wasn’t a good case for the anti-death-penalty people to use since this sixteen-year-old boy had murdered three people in a particularly brutal manner. Still, he hadn’t made up his mind about overturning the ruling they’d made in 1989. The liberal Justices wanted to swing him around to their way of thinking to gain a plurality. There was lots of maneuvering. I don’t know what Stewart would have ended up deciding to do.”
    “But you don’t believe he was in the Supreme Court Library to think about this particular case?”
    “It’s possible. Whenever Stewart wanted to be alone to think, to study a case or a contentious issue like this one, he went to the library. He simply felt an affinity for it. He enjoyed being among those thousands of books that give us the roots of what we are as a people. They helped focus his mind, he said, on the meaning of his work.”
    “Do you have any idea who could have killed him?”
    Justice Wallace began rubbing his hands together, like Lady MacBeth, Callie thought, and wasn’t that a strange image to appear in her mind? He said finally, his voice slow and thoughtful, very much like a Justice rendering an opinion, “No, there was no one, either in his past or in the present, that I know of.”
    “Do you know of anything on a more personal level that was bothering Justice Califano? Some disagreement he’d recently had? Some argument?”
    “No, naturally not. Stewart was very well liked. He was happily married. He had a stepdaughter everybody likes.” He sent something close to a smile in Callie’s direction.
    “You were his best friend, sir?”
    “For many years. We both went to Harvard Law. In those years, we drank too much, spent too much time in clubs.” He fell silent, sighed.
    For the good old days? Ben had to remind