Judgment

by Joseph Finder

“They’re in the middle of deposing the defendant and they have a dispute. They need to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “The plaintiff’s lawyer is asking the CEO—Allerdyce?—if he’s ever settled any sexual harassment claims before—”

  Juliana nodded. “And the guy is refusing to answer because he says any such settlements, if there are any, are confidential.”

  “You got it.”

  She told herself to focus. Part of her mind was cycling again, obsessing over what was happening to her. Uselessly rehearsing the nightmarish situation she’d found herself in. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Okay, put ’em on,” she said.

  She imagined for a second the CEO of Wheelz, Devin Allerdyce, and saw his rodent face. She had no doubt that guy had harassed other women who worked for him, that there’d been other claims against him that the company had settled quietly, the terms of the settlement kept confidential. But of course she couldn’t say that aloud. She had to maintain a pose of fair-mindedness.

  Kaitlyn put Juliana’s phone on speaker. Juliana said, “This is Judge Brody. Is everybody here?”

  A female and a male voice said yes at the same time. She said, “Can you please identify yourselves?”

  “Harlan Madden for the defense, Your Honor.”

  “Glenda Craft for the plaintiff, Your Honor.”

  “Stenographer?” she asked.

  “Terri Rhodes, stenographer.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No,” said Madden.

  No Matías.

  “Okay, let me see if I can help you. Ms. Craft, can you give us some background as to what the issues are here?”

  “Sure. I asked Mr. Allerdyce about any prior claims made against him and Wheelz regarding sexual harassment. This information is highly relevant to establish a pattern and practice of discriminatory behavior at Wheelz. It’s also relevant to whether or not the company’s practices and policies provided effective remedial measures to prevent harassment—”

  “Judge.” Harlan Madden.

  “Let her finish, please.”

  “Effective remedial measures to prevent harassment,” Glenda Craft went on. “The plaintiff’s claim in this case is that they did not, and evidence of other claims will help establish this.”

  “Mr. Madden, what’s your position?”

  “Not only is this information irrelevant, Judge, but to the extent that there are prior claims that have been resolved, those claims were resolved subject to confidentiality agreements, and the company is bound by these agreements not to divulge the nature of the claims or the terms of the settlement. To require them to produce this information would be forcing them to breach confidentiality agreements that they may have entered into with other employees. The company is not at liberty to disclose those terms. That information is privileged and not discoverable.”

  Juliana wasn’t surprised, of course, that Harlan Madden didn’t want his client talking about any sexual harassment claims that might have been made against him in the past. That made sense. And he had a point: if Wheelz had settled claims made by other women, it had surely required the terms of the settlements be kept confidential. That was fairly standard. Wheelz didn’t want those details made public.

  On the other hand, it was perfectly legit for Rachel Meyers to know if the CEO had harassed other women before. That strengthened her case.

  What made the dispute interesting was that Rachel had refused to sign any confidentiality agreement with the defense. Probably for the same reason she had persistently refused to settle: above all, she wanted her story told. She wanted everyone to know everything that happened in the courtroom. She wanted a public trial.

  Juliana thought for a moment about requiring both parties to submit briefs and then make oral arguments. But she realized she didn’t need to make them go through all that. She had a pretty good idea of what the right solution was. A compromise of sorts.

  “All right,” she said, “here’s what I’m going to do. Courts in our jurisdiction have found that this information is relevant and discoverable. At a minimum it speaks to the policies and practices of the company and whether they were effective in remediating these disputes. So I’m going to compel the defendant to produce this information, but I’m going to impose some confidentiality restrictions. Access to any settlement agreements is restricted to Ms. Meyers, her attorney, and her experts, and these individuals cannot make any further disclosure.”

  “Judge,” protested Madden.

  “We’re done here,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  When she finished for the day, she locked her lobby, left the courthouse, and walked over to the parking garage. Normally, she tried to make it home by six, but tonight she was going to be a little late. She texted Duncan to let him know.

  She was going to make a detour. She was going to try to find Matías Sanchez.

  25

  Maybe Matías had left town, gone back to Chicago, his work done. But she had no other way of reaching him than to try his hotel. If he was gone, he was gone. All she could do was try.

  Was it foolhardy? Was she sticking her head back in the jaw trap? Maybe so. But she needed to find out what he knew, if anything, about Mayfair Paragon. He’d called himself a chess piece in a game whose players he claimed not to know. But her instincts told her that he knew more than he was letting on. Maybe a lot more.

  Not that he would readily cooperate with her. She’d have to force a deal. There was a way out of this nightmare, and she was determined to find it.

  As she drove, she checked her rearview mirror from time to time, looking for a following vehicle, feeling sheepish about it, ruefully recalling how she’d nearly torn into Chae-won Kim. The fact was, several cars had been behind her since Kenmore Square, three or four of them. None, as far as she could tell, since leaving the courthouse.

  Legally, of course, she was putting herself in a compromising position just meeting with a member of the defense team. For her to do so without the other side there was considered ex parte communication. If she was photographed meeting with Matías, she could face all sorts of questions. And if the truth ever came out, that would be sure grounds for impeachment. Her career could be over in a flash.

  She found a parking space easily, on the curb a block beyond the Home Stay Inn. Just as before, she entered the hotel lobby with purpose and turned left to the elevator bank and took it to the third floor. As before, no one tried to stop her or ask where she was going. Look like you belong and most people won’t bother you. But just in case she was recognized, she wore sunglasses and a hat.

  She passed an open door and a housekeeper’s cart in the hallway. When she came to room 322, she could hear noise inside, what sounded like the television on, fairly loud. For a moment she hesitated, listened for other voices, then finally rang the doorbell. Right away she sidled away from the door, along the wall, out of view of the peephole. If he looked out and saw her, he might not open the door. She waited. The TV blared, muffled-sounding. The door remained closed. She waited some more.

  Was it possible he hadn’t heard the doorbell over the noise of the television? She slid back over to the doorway, her face hidden behind the brim of the hat, in case he was looking out the peephole—and rang again. Then she knocked. The TV remained on. She waited another minute; then she pounded hard on the door.

  Coming down the corridor was the housekeeper, diminutive and Latin-looking, pushing her cart. She avoided Juliana’s eyes. It wasn’t her business.

  But then Juliana had an idea.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the housekeeper.

  The maid looked up reluctantly.

  “My husband forgot to give me a key. Could you let me in?”

  She was wearing her blue suit and looked respectable. She lowered her sunglasses, her bac
k to the camera. Sure enough, the housekeeper looked her over, her eyes moving up and down Juliana, sizing her up. She said, “Is three-two-two?”

  “That’s right. I’m positive.”

  The woman approached, gave her a questioning look, pulled out a keycard, and beeped the door open. She didn’t seem happy about it. It was probably against the rules: hotel guests who’d misplaced their keys probably had to go to the front desk and present ID. But she pushed the door open for Juliana, and a split-second later she made a strange yipping sound, a high-pitched scream. “Ay Dios mío!”

  Juliana pushed her way into the room and saw what had so frightened the housekeeper.

  In the twilit gloom, she could just make out a naked male body slumped on the floor, unmistakably dead.

  26

  It took her a few seconds to recognize Matías Sanchez, and by then she’d collapsed to the floor, her purse tumbling beside her, its contents spilling onto the carpet.

  “Dios mío! Dios mío!” the housekeeper keened, clutching her hands to her bosom. “Llama a la policía!”

  Juliana got to her feet unsteadily, looked again, confirmed that what she had first thought was in fact the case. Sanchez had been strangled, or maybe hanged, by the black electrical cord around his neck. He was seated and leaning over, his head canted all the way forward. The electrical cord that had served as a noose was wedged between the bathroom door and the door frame.

  Her heart fluttered in her rib cage. She felt dizzy, weak-kneed, as if she were about to pass out. The housekeeper was retreating slowly down the hallway.

  She looked away, but not before registering the lolling tongue and the red staring eyes. She searched for the toilet, found it, rushed there, and, before she reached it, vomited into the sink.

  For a long moment she kept her head bowed, willing herself not to lose consciousness. Her field of vision sparkled. She gripped the front edge of the vanity.

  She remembered the note of desperation in his voice. These people will do anything—stage an accident, a suicide, whatever they need to do if they think you’re an inconvenience.

  Slowly she raised her head, saw herself in the wall-to-wall mirror. Her face was red, a splotch of vomit on her chin.

  She had to leave this room, this hotel. Suddenly that realization hit her, filling her with panic. She couldn’t risk the police arriving, her presence here impossible to explain. She had to leave before the housekeeper summoned hotel security or the Boston Police.

  She hesitated before rinsing out the sink carefully, running the water until all trace of her vomit—her DNA—was gone.

  She wondered if the housekeeper had already called for help, though there was nothing to do. The man was dead.

  She knelt down on the carpet, began picking up all the objects that had fallen when her purse fell to the floor and stuffing them back. She moved quickly, her hands reaching and grabbing, hurrying. Finally, when she’d retrieved everything she could see, she got to her feet and raced out of the room and into the carpeted hallway. Then she forced herself to slow to a walk to avoid drawing attention.

  She emerged from the elevator into the lobby. A few people were gathered at the reception desk. Not the housekeeper.

  Maybe she didn’t call for help, Juliana thought. She ran away. Maybe she was an illegal immigrant, afraid she might be so identified by the police.

  Juliana increased her pace, striding down the block and to the next. Her blue Lexus SUV was still there as well.

  She drove in a dazed state, barely noticing where she was going, navigating home by instinct. Should she find a pay phone and alert the Boston Police about the death? But not only were pay phones ridiculously hard to find anymore, she couldn’t take the risk of being traced and then connected to the murder.

  And she had no doubt it was murder. The man had been frightened, not suicidal, when she’d last seen him. He’d known what might happen to him. Had his unseen controllers learned he had talked to her? Was that what had happened? Matías was a gigolo who had betrayed her, but he was also pitiable and a victim.

  Her thoughts were jumbled, chaotic. She couldn’t suppress a wild panic. Lost in desperate thought, she nearly passed her street. With a jerk of the steering wheel she turned off Beacon Street and pulled into her driveway.

  Glancing at her watch—it was nearly eight—she got out and slammed the door and for a moment stood there next to the car and looked at the side door to the house. The lights were on, upstairs and down. The men were home. She badly wanted to talk with Duncan.

  But she was stuck. She obviously couldn’t talk to him without revealing what she’d done and what kind of trap had closed on her.

  The door swung open as she approached, startling her. It was Duncan.

  “Everything okay?”

  A slight pause. She stepped in. “Sure.”

  “I saw you standing out there— What is it? What’s wrong?” He tipped his head to one side, peered at her. Was it that visible? Was it really in her face?

  And then she couldn’t hold it in: her throat tightened, and the tears started rolling down her face.

  He put a hand on each of her shoulders and brought her into him. “What happened?”

  She shook her head, put up a palm. She struggled to gain control of her emotions, hating herself for losing it when she needed to keep things together, but the stress, the jangled nerves, the sheer terror, of the last hour had all at once overwhelmed her.

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  27

  They sat at the kitchen table, the door closed.

  Duncan had betrayed no emotion at first, not anger or upset. He nodded a lot. But he avoided her eyes. “I’m glad you told me,” he said a few times, as if her belated candor was the main thing.

  “Look, I know what I did,” she said. “And all the clichés are true—it didn’t mean anything, all that. And they’re pointless, because it isn’t even up to me to say what it meant. I’m a horrible person, Dunc. I did something horrible; you have every right to hate me.”

  He was looking off into the middle distance, almost contemplative.

  “Say something. Yell at me. I deserve it. I’ve got it coming.”

  “That’s not who we are.”

  “Not who we are?” she echoed.

  “You want a big blowout? Like . . . a cleansing storm? That’s not how it works, not with us. Or I should say, not with me.”

  But she could see him fighting to control himself. She thought of the yoga nostrum about one-nostril breathing. It was as if he was trying to detach himself from his body, to float free. With exaggerated casualness, it seemed to her, he went to the sink and filled his glass with water, turned back around, took a sip. His hand was shaking slightly. The imperfect exertion of control. “I’m glad you told me.”

  She wiped away tears with her hand. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “It’s a lot to process, okay?” He breathed slowly, blinked a few times.

  “I understand.”

  He lifted his chin but still looked away from her. “Which means . . . I can’t be with you right now.”

  “Will you look at me, Duncan? Please?”

  But he couldn’t. “I can’t be under the same roof as you.”

  Realizing, she whispered, “Please don’t leave, Duncan. I mean, I need you. You know that. We need you.”

  “These things take time.” His words had a styptic, almost clinical edge.

  A little louder, she said, “Please don’t do it. Don’t move out.”

  “Oh, I’m not moving out.” Finally his injured eyes settled on hers, like the red dot of a weapon’s laser sight. “You are.”

  28

  Martha Connolly had a four-bedroom condo in the Ritz-Carlton with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glittering aerial view of Boston. It wasn’t purchased on a judge’s govern
ment salary; her great-great-great-grandfather was Samuel Colt, the gun maker. Once in a while she jokingly talked about her “blood money.” She was anti-gun, but not enough to turn away Mr. Colt’s bequest.

  She had a dog, a small, wire-haired Jack Russell terrier with pert ears and heart-melting brown eyes. Her name was Lucy. Tonight Lucy was seated at Martie’s feet, chewing on a dog toy that looked like Donald Trump.

  She poured each of them a strong drink, a few fingers of bourbon over ice. Juliana was still on her first Buffalo Trace when Martha finished her second. She told Martie everything, held nothing back. About finding the man’s dead body. The horrible conversation with Duncan.

  “He let you leave the house while you’re under this kind of threat?”

  “He doesn’t know—I didn’t get a chance to tell him.” She’d told Duncan about Chicago, but before she could go any further, tell him about everything that had happened since, he’d cut her off. “Okay, I can’t hear anything else.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she’d said.

  “I can’t be around you right now,” he’d replied.

  Martie came over and enveloped Juliana in a tight hug. Her tears were hot on her face.

  “Honey,” Martie said. She was wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. She’d been in bed when Juliana called. Sure, Juliana could have gone to a hotel, but she was in desperate need of support. “You must be terrified.”

  Juliana thought. “You know, there’s so many different kinds of terror, I’m coming to realize. There was what I felt when I saw the body—I felt like screaming and running. And there’s what I feel now, which is more like a dull ache. Worse than that. God, I’m such an idiot!”

  “You’ve made some mistakes,” Martie said briskly. “Was it at least a relief to have it all out with Duncan?”

  Juliana shook her head. “It was awful.”

  “And his law student chippy—that didn’t come up at all?”

  “That was three years ago, and again, he didn’t sleep with her.”