Judgment

31

How much longer is this going to go on?” Juliana said on the phone.

“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “We have a lot to talk about, but I’m not ready to talk.”

“Well, can I come home for a while tonight so we can all talk as a family?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“We need to tell Jake what’s going on.”

“I already did. He asked where you were this morning, and I told him that we’d had an argument and you were temporarily staying with Judge Connolly.”

“That’s all you told him?”

“Just that. He asked for details, and I said we’d talk later. He wasn’t happy to be kept in the dark.”

“I’ll give him a call, if you don’t mind.” She thought, in pique: He’s my son too.

As soon as she hung up, she called Jake’s phone, but it went right to voice mail. She texted, Call me. A moment later, she typed Matías Sanchez’s name into Google to see if his death had been reported anywhere. Not so far as she could see. She was about to call Hersh when her office landline phone rang. She picked it up.

“Yeah, I’m looking for Judge Brody,” a man said. “This is Austin Bream from The Boston Globe.”

She recognized the name. Bream was a columnist with a reputation for breaking scoops, usually having to do with city government fraud or abuse. He was trouble. She hesitated a moment, thought about pretending to be someone else, a clerk or a secretary. “Speaking,” she finally said.

“I assume you’ve heard about Matías Sanchez.”

So it begins. It was out there. “I’m sorry, who?”

“A lawyer from Chicago named Sanchez. He was in town on a case before your court.”

“What about Mr. Sanchez?”

“He was found dead last night in his hotel in Allston. Police are calling it a suicide. I was wondering if you had any comment.”

She quickly weighed the pros and cons of talking to a reporter. And realized there were no pros. Speaking to Bream would just feed the beast, make a story where there didn’t need to be one. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bream, I really can’t comment. This is the first I’m hearing of it. I’m sorry to hear of this man’s death, but I can’t say anything further.” She disconnected the call.

So the death had probably appeared on the police log overnight. Maybe the hotel had identified Matías Sanchez. His only connection to her was that he had argued in her court. His appearance in court was a matter of public record. Apart from that, no one would connect him with her, she was sure. She was fairly certain she hadn’t left fingerprints.

But what if they found the sunglasses?

Her cell phone rang.

“Yes?”

“I’m outside the courthouse.” Hersh.

“I’ll be out in five minutes or so,” she said, standing to leave even before she’d hung up. She’d left him another message first thing in the morning and had been waiting all day for a call back.

She didn’t recognize him at first. He looked like an old pensioner, down at the heels, wearing a threadbare herringbone scally cap and smoking a cigarette in front of the courthouse. Maybe he changed looks for different jobs. She tapped him on one shoulder, and he turned slowly.

“I didn’t notice you smoked.”

“I don’t.” He exhaled, his grin wreathed in smoke. “Well, not often. What can I do for you, Judge Brody?”

“Didn’t you used to be a police detective in Boston?”

He nodded.

“You still know people?”

“A few. Why?”

“I have a feeling the Boston Police may be contacting me.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. “I’m pretty sure I left my sunglasses in his hotel room.”

She could see recognition dawn on his face.

“That would be unfortunate. Is your name on them?”

“No. Just my fingerprints. Can you get them back for me?”

“From a crime scene?” His eyebrows shot up. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t stop them from doing their job. You know that. Anyway, by now I’m sure they’ve already been logged in as evidence.”

“Maybe I got lucky and they didn’t find them.”

He shrugged, took a drag on his cigarette. “Maybe. Are your prints in the system?”

“I used to work in the US Attorney’s office.”

“So they are. Well, we can hope that the death is treated as a suicide, in which case they’re not likely to run prints.” Twin plumes of smoke unspooled from his nostrils. “Did you happen to notice any CCTVs in the hotel, in the halls and lobby?”

“Cameras? A few. But I wore a hat and sunglasses.”

“Then you’re still on tape. Let’s hope you can’t be identified.”

“Let me ask you something. Candidly. Should I be afraid?”

“Because of what happened to Sanchez?”

“Right.”

“Look,” he said. “You take every precaution to try to prevent disaster—”

“Knowing you may fail,” she cut in, recalling his exact words.

“You got it.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway?” she said.

“You don’t agree?”

“It doesn’t exactly help. It’s just a very dark vision. Pretty extreme.”

“Is it? You’ve got kids; I don’t. Aren’t parents always reassuring their kids there’s no monster under the bed?”

She just gave him her skeptical look. When she did it on the bench, she unnerved whichever lawyer she aimed it at. But Hersh seemed unmoved. “Well, guess what. You’ve been lying to them and to yourself. Hell, yeah, you bet your ass there’s monsters under the bed.”

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.”