Page 11 of The House of Cross

Whelan sighed. “I’d call it more a rivalry than a problem. At Harvard, we both wanted to makeLaw 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 theReview,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?”

CHAPTER 8

PROFESSOR WHELAN PERKED UPat the question.

“I love to run,” she said. “Keeps me sane and it’s another reason I don’t drink at home or alone, or even in small groups. I like getting up early and running, or sometimes I run after work, to manage stress.”

I said, “It’s the social gatherings that are the trouble.”

“The big social gatherings, yes. There were at least two hundred people in the room that night.”

“So you don’t go to big sporting events?”

“Never. Complete trigger.”

Mahoney said, “Speaking of triggers—we read that you are a competition shooter in your spare time.”

She shrugged. “My late husband got me involved. It’s fun. A way to blow off steam on the weekends.”

“You good?”

“Not bad,” she said. “I don’t practice enough to be good.”

I said, “You said you run in the evenings sometimes.”

“I will this evening. The mornings have been too cold, even for me.”

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