Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

She poured each of them a strong drink, a few fingers of bourbon over ice. Juliana was still on her first Buffalo Trace when Martha finished her second. She told Martie everything, held nothing back. About finding the man’s dead body. The horrible conversation with Duncan.

“He let you leave the house while you’re under this kind of threat?”

“He doesn’t know — I didn’t get a chance to tell him.” She’d told Duncan about Chicago, but before she could go any further, tell him about everything that had happened since, he’d cut her off. “Okay, I can’t hear anything else.”

“I’m so sorry,” she’d said.

“I can’t be around you right now,” he’d replied.

Martie came over and enveloped Juliana in a tight hug. Her tears were hot on her face.

“Honey,” Martie said. She was wearing a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. She’d been in bed when Juliana called. Sure, Juliana could have gone to a hotel, but she was in desperate need of support. “You must be terrified.”

Juliana thought. “You know, there’s so many different kinds of terror, I’m coming to realize. There was what I felt when I saw the body — I felt like screaming and running. And there’s what I feel now, which is more like a dull ache. Worse than that. God, I’m such an idiot !”

“You’ve made some mistakes,” Martie said briskly. “Was it at least a relief to have it all out with Duncan?”

Juliana shook her head. “It was awful.”

“And his law student chippy — that didn’t come up at all?”

“That was three years ago, and again, he didn’t sleep with her.”

“So he says.”

“So he says. But I believe him.” Well, she didn’t know for sure, of course. But she had to believe him.

“What about your kids? Have you talked with them?”

“Haven’t had a chance. I dread it. I mean, Ashley could maybe deal with it, but this is the last thing Jake needs, his parents splitting up.”

“Hmm.” She clasped and unclasped her hands. Juliana could hear the steady ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer. The walls were painted pale yellow and hung with fine antique oil portraits of relatives.

“What does Philip say?”

“I haven’t told him yet.”

“You haven’t? Tell him at once. If you’re right, and it wasn’t a suicide — if what you saw was a murder — you may have something to worry about.”

Juliana nodded, put down her drink, and reached for her phone. She sent off a brief text to Hersh, telling him about Matías and that she needed to speak with him tomorrow.

She saw a photograph in a silver frame on a side table and picked it up. A woman in her fifties or sixties wearing a black-and-white-striped shirt, like the gondoliers in Venice wear. She had an impish smile. A boathouse in the background. It looked like Cambridge and the Charles River, probably the Harvard boathouse. “I’m sorry I never knew Iris,” she said.

Martie’s face clouded. Iris, who’d died of cancer ten years ago, had been the love of Martie’s life. She had been a Shakespeare scholar at Harvard and an avid rower.

“Me too,” she said. “You would have enjoyed her. She’d have admired your mind.”

Juliana looked at the picture a moment longer and then put it down. “Not only have I wrecked my marriage, but I’ve put my family in danger. Now I don’t know what to do.”

“I wouldn’t say you’ve wrecked your marriage. It’s probably a good deal more resilient than you give it credit for. But you’re cornered. They can still release that video.”

“It’s already done its damage.”

“Oh, there’s a lot more it can do. That... gigolo was a party to a case you’re presiding over. You could be sanctioned by the CJC, and worse.” The CJC was the Commission on Judicial Conduct, the secretive body that investigated all judges accused of wrongdoing. “It would destroy your public standing, love. It would end your career. We don’t want this video made public. You can’t be associated with this man.”

“Oh, God, what have I done?”

“I know this looks bleak, but there’s nothing to be done about it tonight. Right now, what you need is rest. Let me show you to your bedroom and get you some towels and whatnot. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

“You’re the best.”

She thought of something and retrieved her purse from the floor next to her chair. She rifled through the purse, groaned, looked up. “Oh, God.”

“Anything you’ve forgotten I’m sure I can provide.”

“My sunglasses.” Her stomach went tight.

“That I can’t help you with. You’ll have to stop home tomorrow, pick up some clothes while you’re at it.”

But Juliana’s thoughts were elsewhere. “My purse fell when I saw his — body. I nearly fainted, and everything went flying. My sunglasses must have gone under the desk or something. I must not have seen them.”

“Is your name on them? Are they in a case?”

Her head was pounding. “My name’s not on the case, but—” She pulled her car keys from her purse and stood up, her eyes throbbing.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to get them back before the police declare it a crime scene.”

“What if it is already?”

“Then I’ll turn around.”

“Don’t go back there,” Martie said. “Plus, you’ve had a drink. I don’t think you should drive.”

“You’re right about driving,” Juliana said. “I’ll get a Lyft. But I have to get over there now.”

It was past midnight, but she was wide awake. A terrible panic had seized her, electrified her blood. The Honda Accord hurtled along the Mass. Turnpike. It was not the route she’d have taken, but she was too distraught to say anything to the Lyft driver. Was she leaping to conclusions? Might she have dropped her sunglasses in her car? She was pretty sure she hadn’t. She kept her car tidy and would have noticed. No, she was increasingly certain that they’d fallen out in the hotel room and were still there, probably under the desk.

Assuming the police hadn’t been called, she was then faced with the problem of getting into the hotel room. That was a tough one. All the housekeepers would have left for the day. Hotel security? A low-cost, bare-minimum hotel like the Home Stay Inn probably didn’t have security. Just someone at the front desk.

Well, there had to be a way. She would figure something out.

From a block away she saw the flashing blue lights of the police cruisers double-parked in front of the hotel.

Her mouth went dry. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Can you take me back to Boston?”

The driver, a Vietnamese man with an unusually wrinkled face, gave her a baffled look and pulled a U-turn on the deserted street.

Her thoughts raced. The housekeeper must have notified her manager, who called the police. She was pretty sure it would be treated by the police like a possible homicide, the room designated a crime scene.

Her sunglasses. Even a rudimentary search of the room would turn them up. But they wouldn’t know whose they were, would they? There was no way to connect them to her. Was there?

Fingerprints. Her prints were all over the sunglasses. And her ten prints had been in the system since she joined the US Attorney’s office, however many years ago. It might not happen immediately, but the crime scene techs would put the glasses in an evidence bag and run the prints, and her name would come right up. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in the next few days. Then she would be connected to Matías Sanchez no matter what she did.

She stared out the window at the whizzing cars, the streaking lights. What a goddamned rookie mistake it was to go back to his hotel room! She was finding it hard to think clearly. Were there any strings to pull? Somehow she had to keep her name out of this investigation. Was that even possible?