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that was featured in The Oregonian after her victory in State v. Deems. Reynolds had read the article so often, he knew it word for word. A black-and-white picture of Abbie took up a third of the first page of the profile. On the inside page, there was a picture of Abbie and Justice Griffen. The judge had his arm around her shoulder.
    Abbie, her silken hair held back by a headband, snuggled against her husband as if she did not have a care in the world.
    The other articles were about other cases Abbie had won.
    They all contained pictures of the deputy district attorney. Reynolds pushed the articles aside and spread the photographs before him. He studied them. Then he reached forward and picked up one of his favorites, a black-and-white shot of Abbie in the park across from the courthouse, resting on a bench, her head back, face to the sun.
    Chapter FOUR
    When Alice Sherzer graduated from law school in 1958, she was one of three women in her class. Her job search in Portland consisted of interviews with one befuddled male after another, none of whom knew what to make of this lean, rawboned woman who insisted she wanted to be a trial lawyer. When one large firm offered her a position in its probate department, she politely declined. It was the courtroom or nothing. The partners explained that their clients would never accept a woman trial lawyer, not to mention the reactions they anticipated from judges and jurors.
    Alice Sherzer would not bend. She wanted to try cases. If that meant going into practice for herself, so be it. Alice hung out her shingle.
    Four years later, a Greyhound bus totaled a decrepit Chevy driven by one of Alice's clients, a father of three who had lost his job in a sawmill.
    Now he was a quadriplegic. Alice sued Greyhound, which happened to be represented by the law firm that had offered her the position in probate.
    Greyhound's lawyers would probably have advised the company to make a reasonable settlement offer if Alice's client was not represented by a woman, but the boys at the firm figured being represented by Alice was like not being represented at all.
    In court they ignored her, and when they spoke among themselves they made fun of her. The case was one big lark until the jury awarded four million dollars to the plaintiff, an award which stood up in the Supreme Court because the trial judge had ruled for his male buddies whenever he had the chance, leaving them nothing to appeal.
    Money talks and four million dollars was a great deal of money in 1962.
    Alice was no longer a cute curiosity. Several firms, including the firm she had vanquished, made her offers.
    No, thank you, Alice answered politely. With her fee, which was a percentage of the verdict, and the new clients the verdict attracted, she did not need an associate's salary. She needed associates.
    By 1975, Sherzer, Randolph and Picard was one of the top law firms in the state, Alice was married and the mother of two, and a seat opened on the Oregon Court of Appeals. In a private meeting, Alice told the governor that no woman had ever been appointed to an Oregon appellate court. When the governor explained the political problems inherent in making such an appointment, Alice reminded him of the large campaign contributions he had been willing to accept from a woman and the larger sums she had at her disposal for the campaign she would definitely run against any male he appointed. Seven years after her appointment to the Court of Appeals, Alice Sherzer became Oregon's first woman Supreme Court justice. She was now sixty-five.
    Every year brought new rumors of her retirement, but Alice Sherzer's mind was still in overdrive and she never gave a thought to leaving the bench.
    Justice Sherzer had a corner office with a view of the Capitol and the red-brick buildings and rolling lawns of Willamette University. When Tracy knocked on her doorjamb on the day after Matthew Reynolds's argument at the court, the judge was sitting at a large desk that