Guilty Minds Read Online Free

client!”
    “He called you a bitch?”
    She nodded. “I’m sorry, Nick, if I screwed up.”
    “Can you put me through to Shearing in two minutes?”
    She nodded again.
    I went to the coffee station. Dorothy was already at the Keurig, filling a mug that said JESUS SAVES, I SPEND . She was wearing a turquoise raw-silk blouse and black pants and very high heels. She always dressed well, though she didn’t have to—as my tech, she rarely met with clients. She could wear jeans if she wanted to. But she usually didn’t want to.
    She gave me a questioning look. She knew I’d just come from a supersecret meeting with a potential client and wanted to know what happened. The answer wasn’t as simple as thumbs up or thumbs down. I wasn’t sure I was going to take this new client on. “Meet me in my office in five, okay?”
    She nodded. “Uh-oh.”
    In my office—I have the corner office with a view of the street and a glimpse of the waterfront—the phone was buzzing. Jillian’s voice came over the intercom: “I have Mr. Shearing on hold on line one.”
    I picked up the phone. “Bob, it’s Nick Heller.”
    “There you are, Heller. Your damned secretary wouldn’t give me your goddamned mobile phone number.”
    “She told me.”
    “I need the word on Kleinschmidt today,” he said.
    “Did you call my receptionist a ‘bitch’?”
    “I told her it was urgent but she kept saying she wasn’t allowed to give out your number. I said, ‘Hey, I’m the client here.’ You gotta train your girls better.”
    “Well, Bob, I’m afraid I can’t help you either.”
    “What are you talking . . . ?”
    “With Herr Kleinschmidt, I mean. I’m too busy to take on your case.”
    “Too busy? You already took the goddamned case.”
    “My schedule has gotten crowded all of a sudden. I don’t really have time to work for assholes.” And I hung up.
    I noticed Dorothy lingering at the threshold of my office. She entered, eyes wide. “Am I hearing correctly? Did you just fire a client?”
    I nodded. “I never liked the guy anyway,” I said.
    “Nick, our clients are a little thin on the ground. Can we really afford to lose one?”
    “Dorothy,” I began, but then my mobile phone rang.
    It was Gideon Parnell. “The chief justice has agreed to meet,” he said. “Can you be in DC this afternoon?”
    “Absolutely,” I said.
    “He’ll see you at four o’clock. Your name will be on a visitor’s list at the court.”
    I ended the call and looked at Dorothy. “Looks like we just may have a new client,” I said.

5
    T he Supreme Court is, I think, the most beautiful building in Washington. It’s a gleaming Greek temple, its exterior bright white Vermont marble, chosen because it was so much whiter than the marble of the buildings that surround it, including the US Capitol. It was modeled after the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, with its frieze and the Corinthian columns and such.
    But mostly I’ve always thought of the Supreme Court building as a triumph of branding.
    It was built fairly recently, in 1935. Prior to that, the justices were jammed into close quarters in the basement of the Capitol building. They got no respect. But once they got their own temple of justice, they had a clubhouse, a headquarters, a logo, and a mystique. And along with that mystique came power.
    A big chunk of that power and legitimacy, after all, is based on perception and persuasion. So you had a glistening marble landmark, quite prominent, in which nine invisible judges deliberated in absolute secrecy. Like the great and powerful Oz, with the smoke and green fire, and a small man behind the curtain working the props.
    When I first moved to Washington, working covert intel for the Defense Department, you could walk right up the grand front steps of the Supreme Court and enter through the heavy bronze doors. But ever since 9/11, the front entrance has been closed off. You have to enter through a