Free Murder in the Supreme Court (Capital Crimes Series Book 3) by Margaret Truman Page A

home.”
    “I’m sorry to ruin the evening.”
    They pulled up in front of her building. Teller put his hand on the ignition key but didn’t turn off the engine. “I’ll walk you in.”
    “No, please don’t. I’ll be fine. Thank you for a really wonderful evening.”
    “I just wish you felt better.” He turned, leaned close. “I’d like to kiss you.”
    “Well, then, Lieutenant, for God’s sake
do
it.”

CHAPTER 13
    Temple Conover sat in his chambers wearing an old, loose, nubby gray sweater. He’d changed from black shoes to worn carpet slippers as soon as he arrived that morning. It was almost noon. He was to attend a luncheon at the British Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, known as Washington’s “Embassy Row,” at which he was to receive a plaque from England’s equivalent of the American Bar Association for his years of “dedication to upholding the principles of freedom and justice.” Cecily would join him there, and after lunch she was to drive him to the airport for a flight to Dallas, where he would address the Texas Bar Association’s annual formal dinner.
    He turned to his typewriter and quickly wrote a memo to Chief Justice Poulson.
    Jonathan—Despite my consistent harping that we have too many clerks as it is, taking Miss Rawls from me at the peak time of cert petitions is intolerable. I know you lost Sutherland, but I’d appreciate your reconsideration of the transfer, as “temporary” as it might be. —Temple C.
    He called out the open door to his senior secretary, a heavy, middle-aged woman named Joan who’d been with him for six years. She stepped into his chambers.
    “Have this envelope delivered right away to the chief.” He handed it to her. “Where’s Bill and Marisa?” he asked, referring to two of three remaining clerks on his staff.
    “In the library.”
    “Get them down here right away.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    They arrived minutes later and took seats across the desk from him. He waved a hand over piles of petitions for certiorari, requests to the Supreme Court to review decisions handed down by lower courts. Of five thousand such requests received each year, only about two hundred were accepted for review. Each justice was expected to analyze the five thousand petitions, then vote on which of them to accept. A minimum of four out of the nine justices was necessary for a cert to be granted.
    Shortly after becoming Chief, Poulson had attempted to establish a cert pool, ostensibly to relieve the workload on each justice, but he’d been voted down, with Conover leading the opposition. The senior justice felt it had been a move on Poulson’s part to gain additional control of the Court, something he felt had been happening with regularity.
    In reality, it was the clerks who reviewed most petitions for cert and condensed them to one- or two-page summaries for their justices.
    Conover picked up a thick file of cert reviews his clerksfelt warranted his special consideration. “I’ve read these and agree with your views, but what good are they if we can’t get three of the others to go along with us?”
    “I think we can, sir, on the job discrimination and ecology petitions,” Bill said. “I spoke this morning with Justice Tilling-Masters’s clerks, and they feel she’ll be in favor of accepting them this term. We know the Chief’s position. Justice Childs won’t bend, but…”
    The other clerk added, “Peg O’Malley, who works for Justice Sims, told me that he might go along with us on the job discrimination case if it’s narrowed to the pension issue and doesn’t include sexual discrimination.”
    Conover twisted in his high-backed leather chair and groaned as a sharp pain shot from his hip to his shoulder. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said, his voice mirroring his discomfort.
    “I’ll keep working on her,” Marisa said.
    “Don’t bother. I’d rather press on the ecology issue and the two petitions on church and state.”
    “Yes,