Judgment

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 you 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.”