While Justice Sleeps Read online

  Also by Stacey Abrams

  Our Time Is Now

  Lead from the Outside

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Stacey Y. Abrams

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.doubleday.com

  doubleday and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Cover photograph by cmcderm1 / iStock / Getty Images; background from Shutterstock

  Cover design by Emily Mahon

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Abrams, Stacey, author.

  Title: While justice sleeps : a novel / Stacey Y. Abrams.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Doubleday, [2021]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020046349 (print) | LCCN 2020046350 (ebook) | ISBN 9780385546577 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780385546584 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Law clerks—Fiction. | United States. Supreme Court—Fiction. | Washington (D.C.)—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | LCGFT: Political fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3601.B746 W45 2021 (print) | LCC PS3601.B746 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020046349

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2020046350

  Ebook ISBN 9780385546584

  ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Stacey Abrams

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To the ones who taught me to love a good story, my parents, Carolyn and Robert Abrams. To those who help me tell the new stories, my siblings, Andrea, Leslie, Richard, Walter, and Jeanine. And to my nephews and nieces, Jorden, Faith, Cameron, Riyan, Ayren, and Devin, whose stories are yet to be told.

  Chess grips its exponent, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom and independence of even the strongest character cannot remain unaffected.

  —attributed to albert einstein

  PROLOGUE

  Sunday, June 18

  His brain died at 11:47 p.m.

  At nine o’clock on Sunday night, Supreme Court justice Howard Wynn shifted testily in his favorite leather chair, the high-backed Chesterfield purportedly commissioned by Chief Justice William Howard Taft. The wide seat resembled a settee more than a chair, but the latter Howard appreciated the capacious width. Unlike the robust former president, Justice Wynn was built along trimmer lines, a sleek sloop to the fearsome cargo ship of a man who preceded him on the bench. But he enjoyed the chair for its unexpected utility. Extra space at his hip for the books he habitually tucked to his side, on the off chance the chosen tome for his nightly read bored him.

  Howard Wynn did not suffer boredom or mediocrity well.

  He felt equally dismissive of willful ignorance—his description of the modern press—and smug stupidity, his bon mot for politicians. To his mind, they were a gang of vapid and arrogant thugs all, who greedily snatched their information from one another like disappearing crumbs as society spiraled merrily toward hell. With the current crop of pundits, bureaucrats, and hired guns in charge, America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

  “A righteous flood, that’s what we need,” he muttered into the dimly lit study. “Drown the bastards out.”

  Behind him, a chessboard stood in mid-play, the antique wooden pieces beginning to attract particles of dust from disuse. Once, he’d played the game with a ferocity that rivaled that of grandmasters, a prodigy in his youth. Careful maneuvers and contemplations of endgames had been sufficient until he learned that he could do the same in real life, when his mind became destined for the law. The game in progress was with a man he’d never met, who lived half a world away. But even his new friend had deserted him to this last room of refuge.

  The door to the study had been shut tight for hours, leaving him alone in his sanctuary. Beyond the study, an early summer storm rattled the windows. White flashed in the distance, and then came the inevitable bark of thunder. Wynn nodded in weary recognition of the tumult. To drown the thunder, he turned on the small television he kept in the room. As a rule, he despised the idiot box, but now he reluctantly acknowledged its utility. Tonight, it would tell him if he’d destroyed his life’s mission or saved it.

  A commercial offered discount car insurance, followed by the opening graphics for a popular evening talk show of comedic and political invective. Wynn watched with hawkish eyes as the host wasted no time before launching his shtick. “And earlier today…the epic meltdown at American University by Justice Howard Wynn…or, perhaps he should be called Justice ‘Where the Hell Am I?’ ”

  The studio audience roared with laughter as the screen flickered to a shot of Wynn speaking that afternoon at the university’s commencement ceremony. He’d done this countless times, offering pithy lies
about the promise of the next generation. The clip caught him as he leaned over the podium, clad in his academic regalia—simply another meaningless black robe. A tight shot of his face flashed on-screen, mouth sneering.

  “Science is the greatest trick the Devil ever played on man!” he pronounced to the undergraduates squirming uncomfortably in their metal chairs. The man he watched on-screen lifted his fist in anger. “He let us believe we could control our destiny, but we’ve only built our demise. Breaking the laws of nature to construct a shrine to Satan’s handiwork. We must be stopped!”

  The television screen filled to frame a shot of a stone-faced Brandon Stokes, the president of the United States, staring stoically ahead as Justice Wynn raged on. The graduation of the president’s youngest daughter had brought him to the festivities, and he’d graciously agreed to share the podium with the jurist who reveled in swatting down his initiatives and eviscerating the laws signed by his administration. The animus between the men had been the source of great debate at the college—one brought to a head by Zoe Stokes’s unexpected early graduation, fulfilled by a recalculation of her study-abroad hours. With the invitation to the Supreme Court justice already accepted, the college had no graceful way to rescind his speaking engagement.

  Wynn stared at the crowd, his face frozen in irascibility. In the next image, clearly realizing her grave error, the college’s president warily approached from the side of the podium, extending her hand in the universal gesture of nice doggy. Her voice was faint but clearly heard by the cameraman. “Justice Wynn? Are you okay?”

  Wynn spun around and swatted at the proffered hand, his voice dismissive. “Of course I’m not. I’m trying to warn you of the coming apocalypse, and you want me to tell these children that the world awaits them. What waits is death. It will come for the others first, but the Devil will have his due.”

  At that point, uncomfortable murmurs spread through the crowd, peppered with chuckles of derision, and Wynn turned back once more. “Laugh if you will, you carrion of society. But mark my words—hell has come to earth, and your parents have elected its offspring.”

  With that, he shoved his hand into his pocket and glared at President Stokes, then marched toward him. Yanking his hand free from his pocket, Justice Wynn stopped in front of Stokes and extended his right hand. The president came awkwardly to his feet and accepted the gesture, and the justice muttered something near his ear.

  The video played the strained handshake before the justice stalked offstage, trailed by the clearly distraught college president.

  “Not sure what Justice Wynn whispered there, but I think it’s safe to say he won’t be endorsing the president for reelection,” deadpanned the late-night host, to raucous applause. “They call Justice Wynn the ‘Voice of the People,’ but now everyone is wondering if he’s the one hearing voices. He’s known for riding the subway in DC, but this makes me wonder if he’ll be living in the tunnels soon. Scary that he’s the swing vote on some big decisions the Court will make this month. And even scarier is that he’s probably not the worst one. I wonder if they’ll give him his own reality show, Crazy Justice.” Laughter followed, and Wynn flicked off the television.

  “Funny man,” he muttered to himself, staring again at the storm raging beyond the windows. “Thoreau had it right about nature versus man. Nature always wins.” As he spoke in the empty room, his voice held no venom, only resignation. Nature, he knew, was a crafty adversary. While a man slept peacefully in his bed, Nature rummaged through tissue and cell down to chromosomes so slight as to be invisible. With a capricious flick, it switched on the time bomb that would explode a man’s life. A man’s brain.

  “Leaving me a mewling, puking shadow of myself for others to feed upon like viscera,” he acknowledged morosely. No one replied. Too often, these days, his conversations spun out to meet no response.

  They’d all left him. One wife dead, another deserted. His only son despised him.

  The Court was no better. A collection of sycophants and despisers, plotting against him. Pretending to care about him. But he’d discovered the way to do what must be done, and the few to whom he could entrust the tasks ahead.

  Wynn struggled from the chair and crossed to a bookshelf. He shifted the books to the carpet. The task was harder than it should have been. With a glance over his shoulder, he checked that the door was still closed.

  “Don’t want that sneaky viper to creep up on me and steal more of my secrets,” he muttered. Wynn entered the combination to the safe. The lock popped quietly and flashed its green entry signal. He tugged at the handle.

  Inside, the contents were exactly as he’d left them. Soon, though, he’d forget what lay inside. Worse, he’d forget that he even had a safe and the other hiding places he’d set across the whorish town. Places that might betray him by refusing to be found. Such was his fated end. From brilliant jurist to a hollowed-out shell of a man chased by shadows, betrayed by memory.

  Time had winnowed itself down to nothingness. At some point, his enemies would attempt to rush him toward death, but he knew a secret. Between the end and now lay uncharted territory that he alone had begun to map. His enemies would try to follow him, but they would fail. All except the ones who could follow the breadcrumbs.

  Each term, the U.S. Supreme Court held its hearings and issued its edicts like gods from Olympus. By law, they commenced their deliberations on the first Monday in October, parceling out times for lawyers and the wretched they represented to beg the indulgence of him and his fellow jurists. But the clock struck midnight at the end of June, shutting the door on deliverance or condemnation. By tradition, they parceled out their weightiest decisions in those final weeks, occasionally eking into July, but never during his tenure. No, June 30 was his D-Day, his Waterloo, his checkmate.

  He slammed the safe door shut and leaned heavily against the cold metal, his forehead pressed against his lifted arm. What if she couldn’t finish it? If they too got lost, like he had. Perhaps if he told the Chief what he’d done, what he’d learned, she’d be able to help him. But if she knew, she’d be honor-bound to stop him. Deny him this last act of penance.

  Part of him recognized the argument swirling in his head. A vicious tug-of-war he scarcely recalled from day to day. The neurologist had warned him that the symptoms would worsen. That the shadows in his once-clear mind would grow fangs and horns. That he would see enemies.

  No, he reminded himself. There were enemies. Enemies he had to fight. Because if he told the truth, they might not believe him. Worse, they would destroy the truth. Too many doctors whispering about his deteriorating health, about paranoia and anxiety and conspiracy brought on by neurological disease.

  It was better this way, to wait and see if his opponents accepted his King’s Gambit. An opening sacrifice to strengthen his game. The White House thought itself so clever. Use his body’s own betrayal against him. Send in a spy to watch his moves and figure out what he’d learned. Executive privilege versus the great jurist Howard Wynn? Pah!

  Filled with adrenaline, Wynn replaced the books, opened the study door, and returned to his chair. His mind was made up. Again. He would play the labyrinthine game the law demanded, and he would win. They wouldn’t stop him.

  Abruptly, the anxiety sharpened, its razor claws slicing through reason in his suddenly clouded thoughts. Wynn jerked upright and hissed into the empty room, “You want to kill me, don’t you? Silence me?” He punched the air with an angry, shaking fist. “I know what you’ve done. How you’ve lied to us! Soon enough, I’ll prove it, and even your guard dogs won’t be able to save you!”

  “Justice Wynn? Who are you talking to?” At the doorway to the study, his nurse appeared and frowned at the outburst. “Are you on the phone?”

  The clouds receded, and he snarled, “I am conversing with Nature, woman. Smartest companion I am likely to encounter in this house.”

  U
nconvinced, his nurse, Jamie Lewis, crossed the threshold. She plastered on a smile. “It’s time for your medication and for bed, Justice. You need your rest. You had a long day today, and I don’t want you too tuckered to go to work tomorrow. Busy week.”

  Wynn slapped the arm of the Chesterfield chair with a satisfying crack. “I’m not a goddamned child, Nurse Lewis. I don’t need to be coaxed into bed like a whelp in diapers. I sit on the bench of the United States Supreme Court.”

  “Yes, you do.” Jamie edged closer, her crepe-soled shoes silent on the hardwood. Only her pale yellow skirt made a whisper of sound as she closed the distance between them. With the dulcet smile that she knew would irritate, she cooed, “You’re a fine lawyer, Justice Wynn. God knows, I’ve met enough of them, thanks to Thomas.” She gave a false laugh. “Perhaps I should have married a doctor, not a salesman.”

  “A doctor? Scoundrels!” This time, the smack of his hand echoed for an instant. “Damned charlatans…refusing to do an honest day’s labor. Off golfing and finding diseases that were never lost.”

  “Doctors are important, Justice. As important as lawyers, I’d wager. They’re keeping you here, aren’t they?”

  “There’s no comparison,” he barked. “Jurisprudence is one of the last pure métiers of Western creation, like the blues or bid whist. I find modern physicians only slightly more capable than leeches and witches’ cauldrons. Eight years of training, and still they only barely practice at their craft!”