A Butler Summer Read online

  Hands shot up in the air. Naim consulted his seating chart and picked one of the twenty-eight students. “Irene?”

  She stood and said, ‘Then, First Lady, McClintock called African American criminals ‘super-predators’ that needed to be brought to their heels. And they were in the form of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, sharpening a federal sentencing scheme that forced judges to hand-down mandatory sentences for crimes that targeted criminal acts primarily committed in urban communities and essentially by Latinos and African-Americans.”

  “I couldn’t have put that any more eloquent,” Naim said, smiling. “Thank you. Any questions before we continue? I’m going to have a few of your present your sentencing strategies from the podium. We’re going to ascertain how you grow over the course of the semester.”

  A lone hand was raised. Naim consulted the seating chart, and said, “Jake?” He pointed at the gold-haired, green-eyed, Jake Franta like the President shooting on index fingers at a member of the White House press Corp in the Rose Garden during a press conference.

  “Why’d you request we dress in courtroom attire?” Jake asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “And do we have to for every class this semester?”

  “Great questions. I wanted you all to get a feel for getting up early and racing off to an early morning courtroom appearance. Dressed and ready to perform,” Naim said, pacing across the stage. “This is only today, for now. I will ask again twice more. Once with advance notice and once without to prepare you for an emergency in-chambers appearance. I will e-mail you between three and six a.m. the day I’d like you dressed for an emergency. And expect a surprise. Jake, I’d like you to come up and present your sentencing position for your client.” Jake stood and made his way to the stage, and then Naim said, “Class, I’d like you to take notes identifying the good and bad of his argument. Please do nitpick with regard to his delivery, word choice, and any other factor. Especially his ability to tell a story.”

  And Naim was off. His first day working towards molding young men and women into fine attorneys had commenced. His efforts wouldn’t make the news, but undoubtedly, some prosecutor across America would loathe the criminal-defense-chimeras he set out to create.

  C H A P T E R 4

  9:45 A.M.

  Georgetown, Washington D.C.—Residence of Percy Weston

  Mere coincidence brought David Thurman into a ritzy, small area of D.C. at the same time as the stranger. He and his father, Carson Thurman, moved into a Tudor-style home adjacent to a church with his father’s latest bimbo, a bust-heavy college professor named, Connie, who drank too much beer and loved sports. The stranger came to Georgetown three days later, settling into the cottage on the property of the area’s only Mormon church.

  Thurman was bored with life that spring—when Connie and his father weren’t making rambunctious love with her belting out cringe-worthy pleas to God, they were spending his alimony catering to Connie’s physical beauty and taking walks along the nearby Potomac River—so he used his time learning all about the stranger residing on the grounds of the church. Thurman had decided his first act was to surveil. Watch the man’s every move. Because Thurman was ten-years-old and the only child of divorcees, he was well-trained in the art of watching adults. Investigating and observing them. To begin with, like any surveillance, he needed a watch station. No place better than his bedroom window; it had an unrivaled view over-looking the stranger’s cottage. In his father’s army duffel he found a pair of modern binoculars, and at the Georgetown University school store, he stole a composition book and pack of ballpoint pens to log the movement of his target. His first misdemeanor for which he wasn’t arrested.

  The first thing Thurman noticed was the stranger kept odd hours. He cleaned the church grounds during the day. By seven p.m. he left the cottage with a book bag, riding a bicycle, the same one that he had come to town on. He was a man that kept a strict schedule. Punctual. A man of great repetition.

  Three months into Thurman’s investigation the stranger’s cottage was raided by Metropolitan P.D. He was accused of peddling cocaine and reefer on the Georgetown U campus. Later that night, Thurman stole one of his father’s guns and hid it under his pillow. He feared the stranger had caught him surveilling his moves and thought that he reported them to the authorities, bringing about his arrest. Bored even more thanks to his subject’s arrest, though, Thurman ratcheted up his mischievousness. He was caught swiping a camcorder from an electronics shop on the area’s main shopping track. Connie conspired with his father and sentenced him to two weeks of solitary confinement in his bedroom.

  Perfect.

  Not a problem for Thurman who used the binoculars to spy on the church’s pastor. He watched the pastor welcome a new stranger to reside in the cottage, who kept up the same routine as the last arrested resident. To Thurman’s fresh detective-eye the new stranger looked a lot like a drug pusher. Verification arrived when the stranger was escorted to a police cruiser followed by a handcuffed, Pastor Jonathan McKee. Thurman knew it. It was the moment he began to believe in coincidence.

  That was thirty-six years ago.

  Today, forty-six-year-old, David Thurman, dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and cotton sweatpants—both with Georgetown University embellishments—jogged up to an elegant Tudor house in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. A two-man diplomatic security detail was posted at the front of the white-painted house. What about the back, brainiacs? Thurman thought. He felt sorry for the men who babysat, United States Supreme Court Chief Judge Percy Weston, a white-haired liberal appointed by former president Cotter. Their black Yukon Denali was parked between two orange cones in front of Justice Weston’s purlieu, at the ready to whisk the judge wherever he wanted to go 24/7. Thurman estimated the rent-a-cops weren’t necessary and another waste of taxpayer’s dollars. The biggest problem in Georgetown—where the murder rate was negative some-odd percentage points—was drunkard Georgetown students walking pass the judge’s home from an off-campus party. Occasionally, they taunted the judge’s security. Tired their patience. Gave them a little excitement. Most times they were ushered along, but there was a time or two a student found their faces pushed into the judge’s lawn with guns in their faces.

  Having a bonafide security team in Washington was reserved for the real players—the president and Vice President, no doubt, the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of the FBI, and the Director of the CIA. All other players were left to fend for themselves unless, like Justice Weston, a specific threat was made to take their lives. Thurman knew that Justice Weston had a credible threat on his life, because he had made it on an Internet message board used by ISIS sympathizers. The site was religiously monitored by the CIA.

  Both bodyguards had red hair and freckles. Strawberry Shortcake’s brothers, no? One had more hair than the other. When Thurman slowed in front of them and jogged in place, they pushed their blazers back, setting their hands on their pistols. Perhaps, I should have called ahead, but he wanted to surprise the justice.

  “Guys,” Thurman said politely. God, I hate political correctness. It’s loaded with lies and deceit. “I’d like to have a brief word with Justice Weston. Think you can give him a ring and ask him to come out?”

  The men gave Thurman a menacing stare, and one of them said, “Absolutely...not?”

  The way the men looked at each other screamed that they had no idea who they denied an unscheduled face-to-face with the judge.

  “Why don’t you run along,” the one with the shorter hair said. He was irritated by the request.

  Thurman shook his head and thought. How could it be that these imbeciles not respect my presence? “I won’t be, as you say running along until one of you at least advise the justice of my request.”

  Neither bodyguard replied. They stared at the man before them with an uncertain glare and wondered what kind of simpleton jogged to the front of the chief justice’s home and demanded a meeting. The number one judge in the wo
rld.

  Again, the one who was losing the hairline war spoke. “I’m going to ask you to keep it moving or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Thurman snickered.

  “You’re a real piece of work,” he said, smiling condescendingly. He was extremely pissed that some D.C. rent-a-suit had the gall to attempt to block his access to Justice Weston.

  “My work is to protect the justice, period. If I was to call him about a jogger’s request for him to appear I wouldn’t be worth a damn to this great country, would I?” the guard with the longer red hair said, smirking.

  In one swift violent motion, Thurman put a neat hole the size of a nickel between the tough SOB’s eyes. Punishment for his grandiose insolence. Then, he sent a silence shot slicing through the partner’s scalp. “I don’t think either of you are worth a damn to this country or apparently to the good judge,” Thurman said, confiscating the dead men’s side arms. “Thank you, kindly. Just exercising my right to bear arms, fellas,” he said, walking up the narrow path towards Judge Weston’s front door. He whistled the Alfred Hitchcock Psycho score and thought, á bon chat, bon rat. To a good cat, a good rat.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  C H A P T E R 5

  NEW YORK, NY—New York Times Headquarters

  Brandy Scott settled behind a glass desk inside of her well-appointed office at the New York Times headquarters. She wasn’t senior enough to have an office facing the New York skyline, but she had a helluva view of the Hudson River overlooking New Jersey. The Statue of Liberty’s torch burned prismatically, paying homage to her freedom of speech, the Amendment to the Constitution she valued most. She’d been a stellar political editor with the newspaper giant for several years and the office, albeit a small one, applauded her profit-making articles.

  Her desktop computer was powered on. She struck a key to bring it back to life and stared at the first draft of a story that promised to cut into political programming. BREAKING NEWS. The editor had returned from reporter, Joshua Cooperman’s cubicle, having grilled him for confirmation on a source’s account of the marital separation of New York mayor, Bob Rodin, and his wife. Apparently—Johanna Rodin—had text pictures of her recent bob-job (rumored to had been paid for on the taxpayer’s dime) to New York Giants, veteran running-back, Bryant Jackson, with the message: Wait ‘till you get a taste of these. She included a smiley face with the tongue out.

  Brandy was elated about the article’s potential. A new piece to smear the mayor’s office, actively engaged in campaigning for the Democratic presidential nominee, James MacDonald, who the polls had in a dead heat with Republican nominee, Donna Lincoln. Despite the newspaper’s reputation of having a left-wing slant, she was a staunch republican that bent her articles to the right, as clandestinely as possible.

  On her desk was a loving snapshot in a crystal frame of her with her beau on a trip to San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge. She glanced at the time on the computer screen, and then, realized that he was out of class and a call from her was warranted.

  He answered on the second ring. “Good morning, Dr. Naim Butler. I so love the sound of that.”

  “I reckon, I do also beautiful. How’re you this morning?” he asked with a bright grin on his face. “I’m great. How was your first day in front of a classroom?”

  “Still can’t believe it. And it’s hardly a classroom. It’s a damn lecture hall with over a hundred seats. There are twenty-eight students enrolled in the class.”

  “Twenty-eight lucky brats,” she said, chuckling. “I miss you.”

  “It’s been three days since we’ve seen each other. But who’s counting?”

  “I am, so, dinner tonight to celebrate. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “What’re you doing here?” he said.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Pardon me, Brandy,” he said, adding, “Marco’s mother just barged into my office.”

  “Oh my,” Brandy said, chuckling sarcastically. “So much for a bright day.”

  “Trust me, that hasn’t changed one bite, babe. I’ll see you tonight, hun bun.”

  He blew her a kiss through the phone before hanging up.

  Brandy stared at a painting on her office wall, wishing Sinia crawled into a hole, and hibernated for the rest of her life. She didn’t hate the woman because she loved Marco and knew that he needed his mother. And she was confident that Naim was a faithful and didn’t romantically desire, Sinia Love. Nevertheless, she wished the woman went home to North Carolina and stayed there. Brandy e-mail alert chimed, snapping her out of her ferocious reverie. She grabbed her computer mouse and pulled up her e-mail inbox. She had one new e-mail with the subject line: Exclusive Photos Do Not Share.

  Clicking the first of five attachments, a photograph slowly appeared onto the screen. She recoiled in distaste. Each image was more heinous and demented than the last. Her heart raced uncontrollably as she picked up her desk phone and called her superior. The woman answered, and without preamble, Brandy said, “I just forwarded you an exclusive e-mail. Justice Percy Weston has been savagely slain decapitated and castrated.

  “Delightful,” Quinn Berkeley said cheerfully, looking forward to the story being the topic on that night’s dinner tables. Thanks to the Times.

  C H A P T E R 6

  10:35 A.M.

  New York, NY—Columbia University

  Columbia University had been, Marco knew, the crème de la crème. He adored the old buildings, welcomed the pricey tuition, and understood the huge number of campus police and cameras.

  For some odd reason, to him anyways, students tried hard to mix with Morningside Heights—typical rich Upper West Side neighborhood—residents. He was there for an Ivy League education and any community efforts would be made in black and brown communities that truly needed his skill set. All grown up, he thought, walking pass a bronzed statue of a naked gentleman just sitting there apparently thinking. He was in the school’s main plaza and copped a squat in front of Low Memorial Library to pass the time away before his first class: Academic Writing & Critical Reading. Just a young man thinking about a bright future. A future with a resume that listed his undergrad studies at the university attended by the first black President of the United States. Not bad, he thought, considering I’ve only known my dad nine months and turned out quite well. Although his mother had lied to him about who his father was, she was partly responsible for his academic adeptness. The other part was inherited from Naim Butler. Since his move from North Carolina, back in January, he’d fully embraced the New York City culture, and the father he loved like he had known him his entire life. “So blessed,” he said aloud, but quietly. He faded into a daydream but was roused to reality by the soft touch of Amber’s hand to his sweaty neck. He lightly jerked causing her to smile.

  “You were really off in space,” she said, staring at him. “You didn’t even see me approaching.” Her romantic, tawny eyes flirted with him.

  He stood, hugged her and said, “Your eyes become more brownish with the sun shining on them.” His NBA forward-esque physique swallowed her svelte, ballerina frame. “I was just thinking about how far I’ve come as a New Yorker.” Pulling her closer, he said, “And how devoted I’ve been to making you the happiest woman alive.”

  “Look at you. All charm this morning,” she said, smiling.

  “Every morning.” He raised a bushy eyebrow mirroring his father’s, causing her to burst into laughter. Marco’s demeanor demonstrated an absurd level of confidence. And he was thankful for his superior qualities.

  He was equally thankful for the things shaping his future: his major (political science); his job (sales associate at 59th & Lexington Bloomingdale’s); her major (English); and her job (sales associate at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store). They had been building a committed relationship for eight months, after meeting at their prestigious Manhattan prep school, Clive Davis Hall.

  “Yes, every morning, big head,” she said, grabbing his hand. “We better ge
t to class.”

  Nineteen-year-old, Amber King, was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey currently resided Alpine, New Jersey—once deemed America’s richest zip code and home to dozens of celebrities—with her father (an obstetrician) and mother (a Wall Street broker). Today her luxuriant hair rested on her shoulders, framing an oval-shaped face, housing dark-brown eyes, slim nose, and voluptuous lips. She was enveloped in a creamy almond-complexion, tall and strutted down the streets gracefully like a catwalk destroyer.

  The campus had a Monday-morning feel to it. Most of the students were bustling about getting the semester underway. In that light, Marco had a feeling of optimism that he desired to savor, and he was unapologetically grateful.

  Taking her laptop bag in his hand, he began to escort her to the only class that they scheduled to take together.

  “Have you talked to your dad about his class, yet?” she asked genuinely. She had a high level of respect for Naim—he future father-in-law.

  “No, but I did text him. I had two dozen roses and a card sent to him, also.”

  Then a boom sound pierced the air in the distance.

  “You hear that?”

  A loud, rapid cracking followed a gunshot report; sound traveling quicker than the spray of bullets. The speed said the shots were nearby, seemingly from somewhere right inside of the school’s quad.

  “Shooter,” said Marco, squeezing Amber’s hand tighter and pulling her, quickly but not panicked, towards the Thinking Man statue. Gunshots on a college campus meant crazed lunatic. Or terrorist. There had been a lot of homegrown insanity in the United States over the past few years. Violent mass murderers. He feared he was in the crosshairs of an attack, rushing to take cover.