CHAPTER 7

A RAW WIND WAS blowing when Ned Mahoney and I reached the George Washington University Law School at Twentieth and H Streets in Northwest DC.

A security guard told us we would find Professor Willa Whelan’s office on the third floor, rear of the building. When we reached her door, we saw a sign reading WRITING! DO NOT DISTURB!

I knocked anyway. Inside, we heard her shout, “Are you illiterate or an imbecile?”

“Just the FBI, Professor Whelan,” Mahoney said, causing a passing group of students to turn their heads.

We heard a chair push back and the door opened a crack, revealing a thin woman with short blond hair and a suspicious look on her face. She was in her forties and wearing a running outfit that looked a whole lot like the killer’s.

“Credentials?” Professor Whelan said.

Mahoney showed her his FBI ID and badge. I showed her my identification as a consultant to the Bureau.

“How does that work?” she asked, opening the door a little wider. We saw a cluttered office with stacks of books and files everywhere. “Consultant to the Bureau?”

“It works well, actually,” Mahoney said. “Dr. Cross used to be with us full-time in the Behavioral Science Unit.”

“A profiler?” she asked, sounding impressed.

“Among other things,” I replied. “Can we come in?”

“For?”

“We’d like to talk about the late Emma Franklin.”

The law professor’s face lost color. “Yes, I heard this morning. It’s … unthinkable that she’s gone. Emma was a rare talent.”

We stood there in silence until she opened the door all the way. “One of you will have to stand,” she said. “This is where I write and there’s not much room.”

“Standing is fine,” I said and stepped inside.

Professor Whelan went around the back of her desk, jiggled the mouse on her computer, and closed a text file she was working on. Mahoney took the overstuffed chair. I stood with my back to a wall of law books.

“How can I help, Mr. Mahoney?” she said finally, turning to face Ned.

“We heard you had a long-standing beef with Judge Franklin, possibly going back to your Harvard days,” Mahoney said.

Whelan laughed caustically. “And, what, you think because Emma and I never got along, I was involved in her death? C’mon.”

I said, “Out of curiosity, what was the problem between you two?”

The professor squirmed a little.

“The truth will set you free,” Mahoney said.

Whelan sighed. “I’d call it more a rivalry than a problem. At Harvard, we both wanted to make Law Review, and we did. Emma became the editor, then a Supreme Court justice’s clerk. Because of my associate editor status and, frankly, the way she treated me on the Review, I didn’t even get an interview to clerk for a justice.”

I said, “But you clerked for a Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals judge.”

“I did,” she said. “And worked ten years as an assistant U.S. attorney, so again the idea that I was involved in Emma’s death is, well, preposterous.”

“Probably,” Mahoney said. “But as a former federal prosecutor, you know how the FBI works. We have to ask you certain questions.”

“Asked and answered,” Whelan said.

“Not quite,” I said. “We were told about an altercation you had with Judge Franklin two weeks ago at a fundraiser at the Hilton.”

She scowled. “Altercation? I’ve never been in an altercation in my life. Who said something like that?”

I said, “A witness puts you in a corridor off a banquet hall at the Hilton with Judge Franklin. You were described as drunk, confrontational, and belligerent.”

“That’s not—”

Mahoney cut her off. “You evidently insinuated that Judge Franklin had attained her lofty status in life because of her skin color.”

The professor glanced at me. I said nothing, just stared at her.

“I don’t think that at all, I really don’t,” she said, looking a little trapped.

“But you said it,” Mahoney said.

Whelan chewed the air a little, looking off into the distance as if disgusted by something. “I really don’t know what I said to Emma that night. I … I don’t drink at home, but I get extreme social anxiety in crowds, and I always drink too much. Honestly, the only thing I remember is seeing Emma and wanting to offer my condolences about her husband’s death. What happened, what I said after that, is…unclear to me.”

“Our witness says that as the judge was walking away after your racist comments, she told you to get help,” I said. “And then you evidently yelled at her that you would ruin her someday, take her down.”

There was suddenly something very sad about the professor. “I don’t remember.”

Mahoney said, “You’re a runner, aren’t you?”