CHAPTER 33

THE MORNING AFTER brEE told us what she’d discovered, she, Nana Mama, and I were having breakfast in the kitchen when John Sampson came by.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and said, “I think we owe it to ourselves to go to Nevada, Bree. I think there’s something there.”

Nana Mama said, “Vegas?”

“Elko,” Sampson said. “Northern Nevada. And then Salmon, Idaho.”

“Sounds cold, and I’m already cold,” my grandmother said and drew the lapels of her quilted day coat tighter.

Bree looked at me. I held up my hands. “I’ve got a full plate with the appellate judges’ murders.”

“I know you do,” she said. “I also think John’s right. There’s something out there.”

“Why not go? What’s the issue?”

“Work and the fact I got very little out of going to Cleveland.”

Sampson said, “Get time off. Forget Cleveland.”

“What about Willow?” I asked.

“Billie’s daughter is coming down from Philadelphia to look after her baby sister.”

“So you were planning on going even before you got here?” Bree said.

He nodded. “I figured you would go, and there was no way you were going in search of M’s origins without me, so I talked to the chief. He’s giving me time off without pay.”

Bree smiled. “So there was more kale in the old Crock-Pot.”

“Scraping the bottom, but yeah.”

I said, “It’s settled, then. When are you going?”

“ASAP,” Sampson said. “Before the trail gets colder.”

Bree pulled out her laptop and she and John were looking for flights to Reno when Ned Mahoney knocked and immediately rushed in. “What’s wrong with your phone, Alex? I’ve been calling for the last twenty minutes.”

Frowning, I checked my phone. “I had it on Do Not Disturb.”

“Let’s go,” he said. “The head of personnel for the transition team called me. Wants to see us straightaway.”

After we all promised to keep each other posted on our whereabouts, Bree and Sampson went back to finding flights, and Ned and I headed to his car. Fifteen minutes later, we were being shown into the offices of a distraught Allegra Dennison.

“I wanted to tell you this in person,” Dennison said, closing the door. “I was wrong the other day. Judge Franklin apparently was being vetted. But not by us. Not by the transition team.”

“By people in the Office of the President-Elect?” Mahoney said, sitting forward.

She shook her head. “By a group of private advisers to President-Elect Winter. Big donors. Many with law backgrounds. They were evidently charged with creating a short list of possible nominees for Winter to consider if a Supreme Court seat opened up.”

“Is that unusual?” I asked. “To have that kind of group?”

“Absolutely not,” Dennison said. “These kinds of teams are put together whenever an incoming administration prepares to take office. They’ve got panels vetting people for all the cabinet and West Wing positions as well.”

“Why didn’t the staffers in the Office of the President-Elect tell us this?” Mahoney said, his frustration showing.

“I can’t answer that. But as I understand it, the panels are supposed to be informal, a way to let big donors make recommendations and feel involved while the final decisions are made elsewhere.”

I said, “Okay, so how do you know Franklin was on the list?”

“A friend of mine who’s working with the group mentioned it.”

“Who else was on that list? Judge Pak?”

“I don’t know.”

“We need your friend’s name and the names of others on that team.”

“Geneva Roche at the Trafalgar Group on K Street. She’d know them all.”