Judgment

19

The first chat appeared to be between Devin Allerdyce, the CEO, and the chief operating officer, Andrew Westerfield, who was Rachel Meyers’s boss.

The next one was between the CEO and his CFO, Eugene Brod:

There was a long series of chats between Rachel and her new colleagues in the company, mostly introducing herself. A few more between Allerdyce and other executives calling attention to the attractive new general counsel and warning the other execs away from her. How serious those warnings were was hard to tell. It was totally frat-like behavior, and Juliana was surprised at how unrestrained the CEO was. He clearly lusted after Rachel Meyers and wasn’t shy about letting people know it.

Then there were chats between a couple of engineers that were all marked CONFIDENTIAL on the privilege log. Their chat was mind-numbingly hard to follow, with phrases like “standard back propagation algorithm” and “adjusting the n values” and “high degree of feature extraction in high-dimensional spaces.” And here and there were sprinkled mentions of the new general counsel. What is it with men and blondes? she wondered.

So clearly the CEO had a reputation for going after attractive women in his employ. No wonder the company wanted to suppress so many of these chats. It didn’t look good. She couldn’t help but think of all the crap she’d had to deal with. Her boss, the US Attorney, now the state attorney general, was a toad named Kent Yarnell who was always telling raunchy jokes or sizing her up physically, making comments about her bust size — sometimes it was just plain gross. “When are you going to ask me out, Juliana?” he’d say. Or he’d say things like “Weren’t those the clothes you were wearing yesterday? Walk of shame, Juli-girl...” That was stuff she preferred to forget.

She read on with fascination tinged with disgust. Until she came upon an exchange between Rachel and her boss, the chief operating officer, that was marked, in the privilege log, “confidential.” It made her sit up and reread.

This was followed by an exchange between the CFO, Eugene Brod, and the COO.

The next day Rachel messaged her boss again.

Juliana made a note on a legal pad: Mayfair Paragon? Then: accredited investor forms? What was that? Was this the reason she was being blackmailed? Did it have something to do with this?

A knock at the door.

“Come on in,” Juliana said.

The door opened. Philip Hersh entered, holding a paper bag. He closed the door behind him, crossed the room, and set the bag down on her desk. “You like chicken Caesar salad, right?” he said. “Light on the dressing?”

“How’d you know?”

He shrugged. “I understand this is your lunch break. Mind if I take a couple minutes of it?”

“Please. And thanks for the salad.”

“I have a bit of information on Matías Sanchez.”

“So do I. I saw him after we spoke.”

“I know.” He looked annoyed. “I asked you not to. Urged you not to.”

She was surprised by his tone. She said, “Well, I’m here, aren’t I? What information do you have?”

“It’s interesting. Harlan Madden doesn’t know much about him.”

“How do you know?”

“Harlan and I had a good chat this morning.”

“You talked to him?”

“Apparently American Lawyer is working on a piece about Boston’s Top Defense Legal Eagles.” He smiled. “Harlan’s a superlawyer.”

“And he fell for it.”

“Vanity knows no bounds. So he says that the client, Wheelz, insisted that Matías Sanchez be added to the defense lineup.”

“But why?”

“He has no idea. Sounds like they’re not coordinating, not working together at all. Madden’s not sure what he’s there for. It sort of pisses him off, I could tell, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. Okay, so your meeting with the guy. Was it really worth it? Did you find out something useful?”

“What I learned was that he’s not a player. He’s a pawn. And he’s scared.” She opened the bag, took out a clear plastic box and a plastic fork, opened the box, and speared a piece of grilled chicken.

“He said so?”

She nodded. She took a bite, chewed.

“Pawn of who?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure he knows. Which reminds me.” She checked her notepad. “I need you to dig into something called Mayfair Paragon.”

“What is it?” He took out a pocket notebook and wrote it down.

“That’s what I want to know. It came up a number of times in the chats they want to withhold. The Mayfair Paragon file.”

He pointed at the pile of boxes. “The chats are in there?”

She nodded.

“Can you show me?”

“I can’t. Legally, only my law clerk and I can look at the discovery materials.”

“Who’s gonna know?”

“Me. That’s the problem. Sorry.”

“Then at least give me context.”

“I can’t right now. I have to finish reading for the afternoon’s motion session.” She glanced at her watch. “Back to work.”

“All rise,” the court officer called out. He was a tall man of forty with a gray crew cut and a large pear-shaped protruding gut. His name was George, and he’d been working in the Suffolk courthouse since forever.

She entered the courtroom, laptop under her arm. She took her seat at the bench, put down her laptop, and looked over the courtroom.

Glenda Craft and Harlan Madden were there, along with their second chairs, but not Matías Sanchez.

“Uh, Mr. Madden?” she said.

“Yes, Your Honor?” He rose.

“I see your whole team isn’t here.”

“I’m sure Mr. Sanchez will be here any moment. Traffic, I bet.”

“Do you have any objection to our proceeding without him?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then let us begin.”

Matías Sanchez never showed up.