Out of an excess of caution, she checked the law clerks’ office, the break room, and the restroom. All were deserted.
Back in the reception area, no light showed beneath the door to Judge Conroy’s private office. She tried the handle. Locked. She went back to the reception desk. In addition to answering phones, Kelsey handled things like travel vouchers and expense accounts. She kept files. Maybe there would be something revealing in them. Madison sat down and methodically searched the desk drawers. The top drawer held pens, pencils, office supplies, and a large stash of gummy candy. The second was where the files were kept. Thumbing through, she found a folder labeled “Employee Background Forms” and got a rush. She could shred hers. On closer inspection, the folder proved to be empty. Of course—Judge Conroy had it somewhere.
Madison went through page after page of copies, finding nothing at all incriminating. At the very back of Kelsey’s files, a hanging folder felt heavier than it should. She plucked it out. Voilà! A Patriots key ring with a bunch of keys. Of course. Kelsey had keys to the entire office. She tried them in the lock on the judge’s door until she found one that fit.
The office was bathed in cool blue light reflected from the skyline, bright enough that she didn’t need her flashlight. She sat down at the judge’s desk, perspiring with nerves and shrugging out of her heavy coat. The drawers were unlocked. She took a deep breath and opened the top one, the whisper of rose perfume in the air reminding her of that first interview. Judge Conroy sitting with her feet tucked under her, chatty and welcoming. She’d wanted the internship bad enough to ignore the warning voices in her head. If only she’d listened, she wouldn’t be here now, a burglar in the night, rifling through the judge’s desk. She went through the drawers methodically. A stash of official stationery with a gold seal. The judge’s favorite Uniball pens in dark blue. Some Kleenex, a tin of mints, lip balm, a nail file. In the drawer that would normally hold hanging files, there was a stash of Manolo Blahnik heels in different colors. The woman had good taste in shoes, you had to give her that.
The desk was a bust.
Behind her, a credenza gleamed in the moonlight, its dark gray enamel surface as sleek and perfect as the judge herself. The face of it was flat, without handles or pulls, but a vertical line suggested it was divided into two compartments. She pressed a spot at the top right, and a door sprang open. The cabinet was divided into two sections, each outfitted with three levels of pull-out shelves full of file folders. She spent the next half hour going through the judge’s files. They were meticulously organized, containing memos and draft opinions, all perfectly legitimate. Nothing of interest there. She stood up and looked around. There were no other filing cabinets in the office. Just rows of bookshelves lined with Federal Reporters, their spines crisp and shiny with gilded stripes. She pulled out a volume at random and rifled the pages, looking for documents tucked inside. All she got was the smell of books and a jolt of melancholy, thinking about how far she’d sunk—from learning the law to breaking it.
She’d struck out in chambers. The evidence better be in Nancy’s office, or it was hidden somewhere else entirely, and she’d never find it.
The case manager’s office was not part of chambers but was located behind the courtroom on the other side of the floor. Madison walked down the public hallway on tiptoe, trying not to make a sound. One of the keys on Kelsey’s ring opened the courtroom doors. Inside was hushed and dim, with a row of small windows placed high up on the towering outer wall, making the space feel almost like a cathedral. She walked down the center aisle with a lump in her throat. If she couldn’t figure out a way to save herself, her future as a lawyer was dead.
A door behind the judge’s bench led to a small hallway containing the jury room, a restroom, and Nancy’s office. The office was locked. She found the key on the key ring and let herself in. It was windowless and pitch-black, but she was afraid to turn on the light. Shining her phone flashlight around, she saw a narrow room sparsely furnished with a desk, a chair, and a bank of metal filing cabinets. The cabinet drawers were all locked. None of the keys fit. This was a dead end if she couldn’t get them open. Maybe the key was in Nancy’s desk? She tried the top drawer. But it was locked, too.
She couldn’t afford to abandon her search without finding the evidence. She had to get into those filing cabinets.
A glass dish full of paper clips on Nancy’s desk made her think about picking the lock. That seemed far-fetched, like something from a film that would never work in real life. Then again, this was just a desk drawer, not Fort Knox. She watched a quick how-to video on her phone. It looked simple enough but required two hands, which meant she couldn’t hold her phone flashlight. She closed the office door and flipped on the light. A gap at the bottom of the door would let the light shine through, but that shouldn’t be a problem. She highly doubted the security guards patrolled the private hallway behind the judge’s courtroom after hours.