Judgment Read online

  Juliana shook her head.

  “One day you step into the elevator and it’s just a shaft,” he said. “One day you take a slip and fall and you hit your head, right? And you’re never the same. Or one day that little tiny filament in your head just pops, right? And for the rest of your life you’re dragging the left side of your body around like it’s a corpse.”

  “It’s always possible.”

  “Friend of mine, a lovely man, woke up one day with the worst headache he’d ever had. And when he went to the hospital he learned he had inoperable brain cancer.” He shrugged. “How do you explain that?”

  “Shit happens.”

  “That’s the reality of it.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yep. That’s the reality. Which is that we’re all standing on a thin, fraying crust above a deep pool of magma. We’re one random fissure away from being incinerated. One day the car behind you doesn’t stop and you’re smashing your windshield with your skull. A sniper in a hotel room with an assault rifle and a grudge, half a block away, starts shooting out the window. Whatever. Shit happens, and complete control is always an illusion, the way I figure. There’s always magma underfoot.”

  “O-kaay,” she said.

  “But what do I know?”

  “And how is this supposed to help?”

  “Thing is, you can’t live this way,” Hersh said, a little more softly. “The only way we get through life is by looking away. Wresting our attention away from the fact that there’s always sharks in the water. Or the hellmouth might open right in front of you. You can’t think about it. You have to will yourself not to know.”

  “Thanks for the inspirational lecture,” she said.

  “Now, in answer to your question. Should you be afraid? Damned if I know. I mean, I assume Sanchez was a risk that had to be eliminated.”

  “Because?”

  “Maybe they were afraid he wasn’t reliable. That he might tell you too much.”

  She didn’t like thinking this way, but it couldn’t be avoided. “So . . . what does that mean for me or for my family?”

  “I think you know how I feel.”

  “Great,” she said with a bitter twist of a smile. “What about that guy who threatened me—the janitor?”

  “He’s an ex-Marine sergeant, dishonorably discharged.”

  “Okay.”

  “Name is Donald Greaves. Certified level two in Russian kettlebells.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He’s a beast. Employed as a contractor for Fidelis.”

  “Fidelis?”

  “One of the big security companies. Fidelis Integrated Security.”

  “So he’s hired muscle.”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Hired by Wheelz.”

  He shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

  “Then can you find out who he’s working for?”

  “All I can do is try.”

  “You said dishonorably discharged. Any idea why?”

  “Not yet. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  “I want everything you can get on this guy.”

  “Everything? Like where he went to high school? Instagram pictures of his dog?”

  “Everything.”

  “Do my best.”

  She gave him a long, steady look. “You say there’s no guarantees, you can’t promise, you may fail—I don’t like hearing that.”

  Another shrug. “I’m not going to lie. I never lie to a client. This isn’t someone you want to mess with.”

  32

  Martie Connolly had sent down for dinner from the Ritz kitchen: beef tenderloin with braised leeks and mashed potatoes served in silver domes. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to have company for dinner,” she said.

  “If I have to be kicked out of my own house, I can’t think of a better crash pad,” Juliana said.

  But it was more than a crash pad. It felt like a sanctuary. Up here on the twenty-third floor, with security guards at the entrance, she decided she was safe, for the moment. But she didn’t feel safe. In some part of her mind, a shadow-puppet theater was playing out scenes in which faceless figures menaced her kids, her husband, anybody she cared about. Really, it was more like one of those endlessly repeating GIFs: she imagined black-clad figures emerging with outstretched, taloned claws.

  When she became a mother, she realized that her children would always be phantom limbs. That wherever they were, however far away, they’d feel attached to her, a source of vulnerability. Being a mom meant she could never turn off the phone. And now she herself had raised the family’s threat level. To come after her, her enemies could well come after them. She felt her mind eddying in anxiety.

  “As long as you want, honey, as long as you want.” She poured them each a glass of pinot noir. “So has Philip found you a way out of this?”

  “No. Not yet. But it’s become clear to me that the documents Wheelz is trying to suppress have to do with the ownership of the company.”

  “They’re trying to conceal it for some reason?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Why is it a big secret?”

  “I don’t know. Philip doesn’t know. He’s looking into it.”

  Martie looked off into some middle distance and spoke almost to herself. “So if you allow them to exclude the chats, or some of the chats, whatever they want, you’re off the hook. But if you don’t, they’re going to release that little movie.”

  Juliana nodded, cut a piece of tenderloin, chewed thoughtfully.

  “So the death of this lawyer gives you an opportunity to delay your decision,” Martie said. “Buy yourself more time. String this out.”

  “Yes. Good idea.” She took a sip of wine. “I got a call from that Globe columnist Austin Bream.”

  “Avoid at all costs. What does he want?”

  Juliana’s phone suddenly launched into the distinctive, bubbly, syncopated Skype ringtone. “It’s Ashley, calling me back. Hold on.” What time was it in Namibia? Six hours later, so it was after midnight. She’d been trying to reach Ashley but couldn’t get through.

  She answered the call. “Ash, is everything good with you?”

  “What do you mean? Of course.”

  “I—I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Mom, what happened?”

  “What happened what?”

  “Jake told me you moved out!”

  “Sweetie, it’s nothing permanent.”

  “That’s not what it sounds like. Are you and Dad getting divorced?”

  “Oh, sweetie, no, no . . . We just needed to take some time apart.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing serious. We’ll talk when the time is right, you and me, okay? Who’s that in the background?” She’d heard a male voice, sounding close by.

  “That’s Jens.”

  “And who’s Jens?”

  “He’s the director of the mission. He’s Danish. He’s amazing.”

  “Are you—seeing him?”

  “‘Seeing him’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Are you two a couple?”

  “I guess. Sort of.” Ashley paused. “When the time is right, we’ll talk.”

  “Fair enough,” she said, smiling. “Just be careful.”

  “About what?”

  After a long pause, she said, “Men.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to offer me relationship advice?” Ashley said. “That’s hilarious, Mom.”

  * * *

  —

  In the morning, when she got to work, she found a note tented upside down atop her keyboard in her lobby. It was a message left by Kaitlyn, printed in architect-style all caps, her neat hand.

  TROOPER MARKOWSKI/STATE POLICE

/>   WANTS YOU TO CALL.

  She didn’t return the call.

  In the afternoon, both sides in Meyers v. Wheelz were seated in their usual spots in her courtroom. They were there for a status conference, scheduled long in advance. Administrative, nothing more.

  “I want to start off today by expressing my condolences on the untimely death of your colleague,” Juliana said to Harlan Madden.

  “Thank you, Your Honor. It, uh, came as a shock.”

  “Obviously, this is going to create some difficulty for the defense.”

  “Actually, no,” Madden said. “We’re okay.”

  That she hadn’t expected. “Well, I want to make sure the defendant is adequately represented. I know you’re doing a very capable job of representing the defendant, Mr. Madden, but I can’t ignore the upheaval this must have caused.”

  “But, Your Honor—”

  “So out of an abundance of caution, I think we ought to put the brakes on a bit. Why don’t we push out the tracking order ninety days to give everyone time to catch their breath? Make sure you all have adequate time to process this and get things in order.”

  “We actually don’t need more time, Your Honor,” Madden said.

  The door to the courtroom opened, and a couple of middle-aged men entered and took seats at the back. She could tell right away that they were cops, despite their civilian attire.

  “Your Honor,” said Glenda Craft, “we would rather move forward with the schedule already agreed upon. Respectfully, the defense counsel here before you is more than capable, and they’re not asking for more time. So I don’t think there’s any basis for the court to delay. Both sides are in agreement on this.”

  “I understand,” Juliana said, “but I have to take into account this is obviously a significant and troubling event, and I don’t want anyone to look back on this a year from now and feel that we rushed.”

  “Both sides want to keep moving full steam ahead,” said Madden.

  “All right,” Juliana said reluctantly. She couldn’t push any harder.

  Shortly after she returned to her lobby, there was a knock on the outside door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The door opened. It was the two men from the back of the courtroom.

  “Judge Brody,” one of the men said, tall with swept-back gray hair and a gray goatee. “I’m Trooper Markowski from the State Police, with the Attorney General’s office, and this is Detective Krieger, with the Boston Police. We’re sorry to bother you, but we have a serious matter to discuss.”

  33

  Juliana showed the two cops into her lobby. She sat behind her desk while the men pulled up chairs.

  “Detective Markowski, is it? Or Trooper?”

  “Either is fine,” said the taller man with the swept-back hair. “I’m a trooper with the State Police. I’m also an investigator with the Attorney General’s office, and Detective Krieger is with Boston Police homicide. Judge Brody, we’re really sorry to be taking your valuable time, but we’re investigating the death of a man named Matías Sanchez, who as you probably know is a defense attorney who had a case before you.” He sounded genuinely regretful about the imposition.

  She nodded. “I’ve heard about it. A suicide, as I understand it?”

  “An apparent suicide, yes, ma’am, but we’re treating it as a suspicious death.”

  “What sort of death was it?”

  She knew this was exactly the sort of question that homicide investigators normally would never answer. They ask the questions. But she was a judge. They had to treat her with respect. It was an awkward situation.

  “He hanged himself. If it was suicide.”

  “Hanged himself? Why is there a question about whether it’s a suicide?”

  “It’s standard procedure in cases like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, there was no note found, for one. And other aspects of the decedent’s body. It’s being treated as suspicious.”

  “How can I be of help?”

  Her brain was whirring at top speed as she spoke. How had they connected her to Sanchez? Was it just the Wheelz case? She knew they wouldn’t be talking to her, a Superior Court judge, without first having done all their homework.

  “We just want to know what type of relationship you had with the decedent.”

  “Relationship?”

  And then for an instant she froze. She realized suddenly she was at a point of no return. She could either tell the truth, or she could lie. Whatever she decided to do, the choice was irrevocable. Lying to a law enforcement officer was, for her, for an officer of the court, nearly unthinkable. She’d never done it.

  “As you said, he’s a defense attorney in a case I’m presiding over. He appeared in my courtroom for the first time about a week ago, just once, and never appeared again.”

  “Yes, Your Honor, but did you have a relationship with him outside the courtroom?”

  “Trooper Markowski, what are all these questions about?”

  “Detective Krieger?” the man with the swept-back hair said, turning to his colleague, a small, worried-looking man with advanced male-pattern baldness.

  Krieger, the Boston Police homicide investigator, spoke for the first time. “Yes, ma’am, we found a pair of glasses, sunglasses, in the decedent’s hotel room. I ran the latents myself and found your prints on them.”

  Detective Krieger paused, giving her a furtive look.

  “Sunglasses?” She looked back at him, met his eyes, furrowed her brow. For a moment, she was stymied as how to respond. She mentally tested out several replies before saying, “How bizarre.”

  “Are you missing a pair of sunglasses?”

  “I am.”

  “Were they stolen?”

  “Stolen? Not that I know of. I’m sure I just misplaced them.”

  And there it was: she’d just lied to law enforcement. But . . .

  “When did you notice they were . . . misplaced?”

  “A couple of days ago.”

  “What kind of sunglasses were they?”

  “Oliver Peoples, tortoiseshell.”

  Krieger nodded. She’d given the right answer. But what the hell else was she supposed to say?

  “How much did you pay for them?”

  “Around three hundred dollars or so.”

  “Wow.”

  “Prescription.”

  “Did you file a police report?”

  “On sunglasses? No, of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I figured they’d turn up eventually.”

  “And so they did,” said Detective Krieger pleasantly. “Were you in the decedent’s hotel room at any time?”

  Had they pulled the surveillance video from the hotel’s cameras? If they had, they’d have seen her on the tape, entering the hotel—maybe entering his room, if there were cameras in the hallways.

  She felt a single bead of sweat roll down the back of her neck. Was her perspiration visible? She hoped not.

  She shook her head.

  “That’s ‘no’?”

  “No.”

  “Were you in his hotel?”

  “No. I don’t even know which hotel he was staying in.”

  “Well, do you have any idea how your sunglasses might have ended up in his hotel room?”

  “No.”

  “No?” he repeated skeptically.

  “I wish I knew. Last I knew I had them with me in the courtroom.”

  A long, full silence followed. Krieger looked at her for five or six seconds, a puzzled expression on his face. It felt like an eternity. “Where did you last wear them?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably on my way to work, a couple of days ago.”

  “How do you get to work? Do you take the T? Do yo
u drive?”

  “What is the big mystery?” she said. “I probably left them in the courtroom, and someone, this lawyer, must have picked them up to give to me.”

  “Really?” said Markowski with a smile.

  She had lied to them, and then that lie had generated more lies, little ones, but lies all the same. That big shellacked bench that separated her from the criminal defendants who came before her? That was the biggest lie of all.

  She wished, desperately, that she could come clean about the sunglasses. They fell out of my purse because I freaked out upon discovering this guy dead, and the reason I was there . . .

  “Is this really necessary, all these questions? I have a lot of work to get to.”

  “I’m sorry for taking up your time,” said Krieger. “But I’m afraid we have a lot more questions for you.”

  34

  Duncan had texted her asking if she’d pick up Jake after school, since Duncan had his afternoon class. She was happy to do it and left right after court was adjourned. Jake didn’t seem so happy about it. He gave her a brief surprised look when he saw her pull up and got into the car with a surly expression.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  She couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. Considered making some sarcastic remark—Sorry, you’re stuck with me—but decided against it. “He’s meeting with students. Have you been getting my texts?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”

  “How was soccer practice?”

  He shrugged.

  “Okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about soccer. “What do you think Mr. Wertheim wants?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wants to meet with your father and me.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Mr. Wertheim?”

  “He’s a terrible teacher.”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  Another shrug. “How do I know?”

  “How are you doing in precalc?”