Supreme Justice Read Free Page B

United States.
    Venter’s kind of despotic conservatism would have disgusted Reeder’s late father, who bragged that his first vote for president had been Ronald Reagan.
    “How did it go down?” Reeder asked. “Shot going in or coming out, I’d guess.”
    “You’d guess wrong. Right at his table, having a drink with one of his clerks—Senator Wilson Blount’s son Nicholas.”
    A callow waste of skin , Reeder thought.
    “Two armed holdup men came in and terrorized the place,” Bishop was saying, “and evidently Venter went after one of them. Got shot to death for his trouble. TV news crews are proclaiming Venter a hero. He’ll be James Bond by the end of the news cycle.”
    Reeder knew how the media worked and that his friend was right—Venter would wind up canonized. “So why call me about it?”
    “ABC handles security for the Verdict, right?”
    ABC Security was Reeder’s company. The ABC didn’t stand for anything, other than “easy as.”
    “Yeah, they’re a client,” Reeder said with a shrug in his voice.
    “Well, you got eyes that see shit other people’s eyes don’t, or can’t. Help out a poor DC homicide cop, why don’t you, and take a look at your own security video.”
    Reeder’s Secret Service–schooled ability to read people, as well as his expertise in the field of kinesics—the science of facial expressions and body language—was well known. It made a major selling point for his firm—a good deal of his income came from consulting with law enforcement agencies nationwide.
    Reeder sighed. “Where is it?”
    “I’m sending a copy to your e-mail.”
    “Why isn’t the FBI handling this?”
    He could almost hear Bishop grimace.
    “They are, or will be,” the cop said. “But right now DC Homicide has it. Joint task force is coming together, or will be before the end of the day.”
    “Lucky you.”
    “Peep, I just want to get out ahead of this while we’re still in charge. By lunch, hell, by nine- thirty , we’ll be warming the bench in this game. The Feds’ll march in here, tell us they’re going to cooperate, then I won’t see any of them until the press conference where they announce they caught the killers. I’d like to for once have half a shot at beating them to the punch. You going to help me out or not? I still have pics of you drunk at our Christmas party three years ago, y’know.”
    Smirking to himself, Reeder considered the request. Normally, he would gladly help his friend, but knowing that the FBI, and every other agency in the federal alphabet soup, would be on this made him hesitate. Nobody in that world had anything to say to him, except maybe “Who farted?” when he entered the room.
    If he was going to assist Bishop, Reeder needed to get right on it.
    “Okay, Bish. I’ll get to the office as soon as I can, then I’ll give you a call.”
    “You are a god among men,” Bishop said.
    “That’s what my mother always said.”
    “I would never contradict a man’s mother.”
    Quick good-byes, and they clicked off.
    Reeder made the short commute from Arlington to his company’s headquarters in Georgetown in under half an hour. His casual attire surprised no one, since he avoided suit-and-tie unless he had business appointments. He grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room, spoke briefly with Janine (his assistant), then shut himself in his private office.
    For the CEO of a high-profile security company, Reeder boasted a surprisingly modest work space. His oak desk sat toward the back, two client chairs in front of it, a large window behind it. One wall was consumed by bookshelves filled with everything from manuals to studies to paperback novels, with trophy-style awards serving as decorative bookends.
    The opposite wall held a fifty-inch video monitor, currently off, bordered by citations and plaques ABC had earned for helping law enforcement in communities all around the US, but chiefly on the East Coast.
    Conspicuous in their absence were any