Judgment

55

All right,” she said as soon as she sat down. “Ms. Craft, this is your motion. I’ll hear you first.”

Glenda Craft stood. She was wearing an elegant black suit over a white top and pearl earrings. A perk of being a judge, she reflected: no one expects a judge to look especially put together. Judges should look dignified. Dignified, with a black robe on, was easy.

“Your Honor,” Glenda said, “a couple of months ago, we served a request for the production of documents. We requested copies of any and all e-mails that mention Rachel Meyers, including e-mails to and from her. But the defense is stonewalling us once again. Now, Mr. Madden and I have discussed this, and we were unable to arrive at a satisfactory resolution.”

“How many e-mails are we talking about?”

“Well, it’s a string. A chain of e-mails. The chief operating officer, Andrew Westerfield, forwarded an e-mail he’d gotten from Rachel Meyers to his boss, the chief financial officer, Eugene Brod. For some reason they’re withholding that.”

“For what reason?”

“They claim it’s ‘proprietary and confidential,’ Judge. And—”

“Hold on. Let me talk to you, Mr. Madden. How many e-mails are you withholding?”

“Five, but they’re all part of one conversation, one thread, between Mr. Brod and Mr. Westerfield.”

“And the basis for your claim of privilege?”

“Your Honor,” Madden interrupted, “the e-mail correspondence back and forth between the CFO and the COO contains proprietary and confidential business information that has absolutely no bearing on this case. Which is, let’s remember, alleged sexual harassment.”

“All right,” Juliana said, her hands up, palms out. “Let’s make this easy. I’m ready to rule right now. Mr. Madden, I want you to produce that entire e-mail thread for me to read in camera. And I don’t want to see pieces of paper full of black lines. I want to see the whole exchange. And show me what you propose to redact, and why. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Madden.

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Craft.

“I want it within one week,” Juliana said.

She wondered what the Wheelz Corporation might be withholding. Was it the identity of the principal investor? Was that it? How could the top officers not know who owned their own damned company?

Or were they withholding something else?

When she returned to her lobby, she found a couple of phone messages. One was from an assistant to Attorney General Kent Yarnell asking her to join General Yarnell — she actually called him General! — for a drink that night at the Bostonia Club. She was too intrigued by how sociable it sounded — was Yarnell trying to make nice? — to be put off by how last-minute it was. She was amused that Yarnell didn’t extend the invitation himself but instead had an assistant do it. That was officious, of course, and probably meant to send her a message, to remind her of her place in the ecosystem.

The second message was from her old friend Aaron Dunn at the Justice Department.

“Jules, okay, call this number,” he said, and he gave her a Boston-area phone. “He’s a good guy. Works in the FBI in counterintelligence. I told him about you and said you were going to call.”

She was glad the guy was in the Boston office of the FBI. She wanted to talk in person, not over the phone, and preferred not to go to DC if she could avoid it. Rescheduling her court obligations was a massive pain.

She wrote down the name — Special Agent Paul Brickley — and the number on a pink message pad and called it.