Supreme Justice Read Free Page A

house that had been too small for Tom and his ex-wife and still seemed too small even with Linda out of his life. The house was dark and melancholy and held few good memories. Oswald had been depressed when he was discharged from the army, and his hasty marriage to a woman with a bipolar disorder and a drinking problem had not been the smartest of moves. The house was haunted by heated words and angry silences, and Oswald stayed away from it whenever he could.
    Instead of going home when his shift ended, Oswald drove to the trailer park where Dave Fletcher lived. He stopped his car in front of Fletcher’s trailer and knocked on the door.
    “If you’re looking for Dave, he’s gone.”
    Oswald turned toward the voice. A heavyset woman in a housecoat was standing in the door of the next trailer. Her hair was in rollers and a lit cigarette dangled from the fingers of her left hand. Oswald crossed the yard between the mobile homes.
    “I’m Tom Oswald. I’m with Shelby PD, Mrs. . . .”
    “Dora Frankel.”
    “Where did Dave go, Mrs. Frankel?”
    The woman took a drag of her cigarette and shrugged. “I got no idea.”
    “Can you remember when you saw him last?”
    Frankel stared into space. “I saw him head out the day before, but his car ain’t been parked by the trailer since then. Has something happened to him?”
    “Not that I know. I just needed to talk to him about a case.”
    “He hasn’t done anything wrong, has he?”
    “He’s a witness. He’s not in any trouble.”
    “That’s a relief. Dave’s always been a good neighbor.”
    Oswald handed the woman his card. “If Dave comes back, ask him to call me.”
    “Sure thing,” Frankel said. “I got to go in now. My program’s starting.”
    When he got back in his car, Oswald made a mental note to talk to Fletcher’s employers, but he didn’t think they would be able to tell him what happened to Dave. His gut told him that the night watchman had disappeared along with the ship, the dead men, and the hashish. He hoped he was wrong about another victim being added to the body count, but nothing about the China Sea affair smelled right.
    Oswald drove on automatic pilot while he thought about what the incident had taught him. He now knew that the inhabitants of Shelby, Oregon, were very little fish in a gigantic ocean where people, holds full of drugs, and entire ships could be made to disappear without any effort at all. He did not appreciate being pissed on by the big fish, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that, especially after Chief Miles had told him to forget everything he’d seen.
    Oswald was halfway home when he conceived of a small act of defiance. He turned his car around and headed back to the station. He had the fingerprints he’d hidden from the goons from Homeland Security. It wasn’t much, but he could scan those fingerprints into AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and see if he could get a match. He had no idea what he would do if he identified the person who’d left the latents. His satisfaction would come simply from doing something he’d been ordered not to do.

Part II

The Court of Last Resort
    2012

Chapter Four
    When Brad Miller checked his tie in the mirror, he noticed that a few silver strands had insinuated themselves in his curly black hair. This was not surprising, given what had happened last year. But that was last year, this was now, and Brad smiled as he adjusted the knot.
    Brad had several reasons to be happy, the biggest being Ginny Striker, his fiancée, who was standing next to him applying her makeup. Ginny was a few years older than Brad—a tall, slender Midwestern blonde with large blue eyes, whom he’d thought of as a commercial for Kansas when they’d met a year and a half ago as first-year associates at a law firm in Portland, Oregon. Ginny had moved to Washington, D.C., with Brad seven months ago when retired United States Supreme Court justice Roy Kineer helped her get an