Judgment

44

On her way to Jake’s school, she spotted an ATM on Comm. Ave. She pulled over and withdrew the maximum, four hundred dollars, and then used a second bank card to withdraw another two hundred. She got to the school a few minutes late. Signs pointed parents in the direction of the auditorium.

Duncan had saved her a seat next to him. They nodded to each other as she took her seat.

The head of the school, Dr. Cole, was speaking, an introductory welcome. “A place devoted to diversity, equality, and inclusion,” she was saying in her deep contralto.

She saw, under Duncan’s seat, a laptop bag. It was a Macbook Air that he hadn’t used in four or five years, but it still worked. She caught his eye, mouthed, Thanks.

He nodded, didn’t smile. He handed her a sheet of paper with their names on it that listed the classrooms they were to visit this evening and the times.

“A safe space for everyone,” Dr. Cole said. “An atmosphere of mutual respect.”

Then finally the headmistress was finished, and parents were getting up out of their seats, some men in suits and neckties, others in windbreakers. The auditorium was filled with voices. Juliana and Duncan remained seated, talking to each other quietly, each looking straight ahead. It could not have been more awkward.

“Did they take anything?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They were searching for, like, two hours.”

“File cabinets and the like?”

“I don’t know what the hell they were hoping to find, but they sure as hell didn’t find it. This about the death of that Argentinian sleazebag?”

“Yes.” She’d filled him in on everything, how she’d been blackmailed and her decision to hire a PI rather than give in to their demands.

“What are they looking for?”

“They want to know if I communicated with the guy. If I had a relationship with him.” She continued to stare straight ahead as she talked, at the now-empty stage. She couldn’t look at him.

“What, they think they have to take the computer to read the e-mail? They do all that stuff remotely now.”

“I think it was a display.”

“Of?”

“Like an alpha gorilla’s display of dominance.”

“Who’s the gorilla?” he asked.

“Kent Yarnell.”

Duncan smiled unpleasantly. “How did that asshole get involved in this?”

“The DA kicked the death investigation up to the AG’s office because it tangentially involves a judge.”

“How much do they know?” he asked.

“About me?”

“Yeah.”

“Not much. But Yarnell must think there’s blood in the water.”

“Maybe because there is blood in the water.”

“They can’t prove I had a... connection to this guy.” A long silence passed between them. Then she said, “Listen. I think we should go back to Dr. Ross.” Helen Ross was a therapist who did couples counseling. She was good, but Duncan didn’t like her. He thought she took Juliana’s side far too often, a kind of female-solidarity thing.

“I’d see somebody else. Not her.” He got to his feet, and she did too. A woman took her forearm — Juliana smelled Jo Malone — and said excitedly, “You look fantastic.”

“Hey, Suz.” Susan and Barry Marshall were both friends of theirs. They both worked at Fidelity and had a son in Jake’s class he didn’t like, which was a little awkward. She gave Susan a hug. The husbands shook hands. They had a superficial friendship based entirely on basketball.

“Are you still seeing that trainer?”

“No time,” Juliana said.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”

“Thanks.” Juliana couldn’t resist giving Duncan a quick look. He gave a smile that left out his eyes. He’d told her he wasn’t near ready to let her back in the house. It both stung and pissed her off, that he got to say who lived in their house. A house they owned jointly, the house she loved and had found and insisted they buy. On the other hand, she could only imagine how Duncan was feeling about her, the resentment he was accumulating the way a bear stores up on food before he hibernates. And there they were, acting like a happily married couple for the sake of appearances.

“We should have dinner!” Susan said.

Just then, Juliana’s phone rang: Hersh. She excused herself and walked off to a dark corridor where the school administration’s offices were located, all of them closed. “Hi,” she said.

“The janissary,” Hersh said.

“Eugene Brod, right?”

“Right. I followed him home from work this afternoon, but he made a detour before going home. He went to the Mandarin Hotel, went right up to someone’s suite there.”

“Whose?”

“I don’t know. No luck on that yet. But there were a couple of bodyguards sitting outside the hotel suite, talking to each other in Russian.”

Martie Connolly was lying on her sofa reading Jane Austen when Juliana returned. Martie gave her a wave. “How was parents’ night?”

“Fine. His English teacher is pretty great. I’d even be willing to read All Quiet on the Western Front again if I had a teacher like that. Too bad Jake’s not doing the homework.”

“So what is he doing?”

“Drugs, I think. I don’t want to talk about it. Hey, Kent Yarnell is on the warpath.”

“How so?”

She told Martie about the search warrants.

“That’s ridiculous,” Martie said, sitting up and putting the book down. “That’s harassment.”

“That’s what I think.” For a few seconds she was quiet, contemplating. She and Martie were dear friends who trusted each other completely. It wasn’t right for her to hold back.

She told her about her meeting with the hacker.

When Juliana finished, Martie said softly, “Well, now I’m starting to worry.”

“About...?”

“I think you’ve just crossed a line. With hackers and whatnot.”

“You do?”

Martie nodded. She looked sad.

She didn’t like hearing it put that way, but she knew Martie was right. She’d crossed the border into some foreign country where the rules were different. Where she was different. What she was doing, what she was willing to do. How far she was willing to go.

But it hadn’t just happened. She’d crossed that border the night she met Matías.

“You know,” Martie said, “you stare too long into the abyss... Point is, honey, you go down this path and they’ve done what they wanted to do. They’ve corrupted you. Turned you into an ends-justify-the-means type.”

“It’s not like I’ve got a lot of choices,” Juliana said.

“Honey.” She shook her head slowly, a disappointed woman. “Do you really think the law is for other people?”

In the guest bedroom later that night, she took out Duncan’s old laptop and turned it on. While it was booting up, she noticed the knife in her purse. She took it out, grasping it in her right hand, feeling its weight. Gingerly she pressed the button, and the blade shot out the front with surprising force. She touched the blade, amazed at how sharp it was. It glinted. Then she pulled at the nub in the handle and retracted the blade. A dangerous instrument. She was scared of the thing. She wondered whether she’d ever have occasion to use it, whether she’d need it, whether she’d ever have the courage.

It took her a few minutes to get onto Martie’s Wi-Fi — password certiorari — and then she checked her e-mail. She’d heard back from an old friend from Albany giving her the thumbs-up on the favor she was asking.

She was breaking the law, and she knew it. She was a Superior Court judge who was about to commit a crime, paying for a sketchy computer hacker to try to break into someone’s e-mail. That wasn’t much different from hiring a burglar to break into someone’s house. If she was caught, that would be the end of her judgeship, and that was the least of it. But if she didn’t do it, she knew the blackmail wouldn’t end. Her life wouldn’t be hers anymore.

And she’d gone too far to stop now.