While Justice Sleeps(78)
“But he knew I would.” Jared crossed in front of her and went to the pine bed in which he’d spent every summer dreaming until his family fell apart. “I’m going to lift the frame.” Grunting, Jared levered the heavy bed, pulling it forward, then hoisting it aloft. “See anything?”
Avery dropped down and crawled beneath the bed frame. She clawed and tapped at the boards, hoping for a space or a sound that indicated an opening. “No luck.”
“Check between the springs. I used to hide cars there.”
She flipped onto her back and called out. “Something’s here!”
Taped below the solid frame, invisible to anyone who didn’t know to look, was an envelope bearing two words in bold, black letters:
For Avery.
THIRTY-ONE
Avery carefully peeled away the tape that held the padded envelope in place. She wriggled from beneath, and Jared lowered the bed and then himself beside her on the floor. Wordlessly, she extended the envelope to him, but Jared waved her off.
“He wrote your name on it.”
Remnants of duct tape stripped free, and silver threads dangled from the envelope as she tipped the contents into her lap. Folded white sheets and yellow legal paper fell out, the handwriting cramped with urgency and intent. Avery lifted the yellow pages into the tepid light and began to read aloud:
Dear Avery,
I offer apologies for the cloak and dagger of this excursion; however, together, you and Jared have obviously unraveled sufficient clues to have arrived here as I’d hoped. A son’s memories of a neglectful father are a thin reed on which to hang hope.
What Nature began in the weft and weave of my brain has no doubt taken its more deliberate turns. Jared has heeded my request to find you. Now it falls to the two of you to finish this. I hide this not only from myself, but those who watch, waiting to pounce and dethrone me. They will find that I controlled my last days of lucidity, not they.
I have also used my last days to hunt for answers to the disease that has ended me and threatens my son’s future. In the pursuit, I stumbled into a labyrinth of lies told by carpetbaggers and Frankensteins and lesser kings. Revelation may seem the simpler choice, but to tell the truth, I would have to abandon my boy to this damnable fate. I have deserted him once. I will not do so again. So I have left my research for your perusal, certain you will see what I saw. I could not risk discovery and not forfeit my honor, but what honor have I if I fail the law by serving it? If I fail my son by betraying his only hope for survival?
My end is close, and you will be asked what I expect of these dwindling hours. I have prepared an order, which I will also give to the viper who lay in my bed. The enclosed pages give you power but only until the end of term. If you have not accomplished what I ask, then my value is at an end and so am I.
The other half is this—my directions and final proof are hidden away, from even me. Find them. The time to untether me from Earth’s bindings will come, but not until you finish my work. Remember this: if I had accepted absurdity and given smallpox to my child, I would not be mourning him today and the atrocities would not have been. You have witnessed my truth before, and you will find it where it lies, in the space between.
Regards,
Howard Wynn
Avery passed the letter to Jared, and, tucking the manila envelope beneath her arm, she unfolded the white sheets, reading quickly.
“What does it say?” Jared demanded as he finished rereading the letter. “What other cryptic bullshit did he leave for you?”
“When I met with Noah, he showed me the revisions your father had made to his will. There was a missing codicil—number twenty-seven. He told Noah that it gave directions in case of a catastrophic event. I think this is it. Your father signed an advance medical directive. Two, actually. In the first one, he leaves the decision to remove him from life support to his guardian.”
“And the second?”
“He explicitly gives orders to disconnect him from life support when—” Avery paused to reread the instructions.
“When what?”
“He says when the term of the Supreme Court ends this year, he is to be removed from life support unless I proffer the document rescinding his order.” She met Jared’s eyes. “If I fail to solve his riddles, Celeste will be allowed to kill him.”
“Then throw the second one out.”
“I can’t.” She dropped the pages to the table. “He says he left instructions for the second one to be delivered to Celeste should I refuse to act. Lasker Bauer.”
“Who?”
“The message that Jamie Lewis left for me. It references a famous chess match from the nineteenth century. Emanuel Lasker was just starting to earn a reputation in the game. When he played against Johann Bauer, they discounted him as an upstart. In the match, he used a double bishop sacrifice that had failed in a previous tournament. But Lasker knew he could give up two critical pieces and still win.”
“What does that have to do with an advance directive?”
“In the game, he sacrifices one bishop to put the queen in play.”
“You think that’s Celeste?”
Avery replayed the game sequence in her mind’s eye. “Lasker took a pawn to expose the king, and that’s what set up the double sacrifice. That’s also what put the queen in position to set up an intermediate check—just a few steps from taking the game.”