Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“There’s no video for the entire past week. Some kind of freak malfunction. All of the hotel’s cameras, down the whole week.”

“Meaning someone got to them.”

“What I assume. But it’s good news for you.”

“Yes.” Without videotape, it would be that much harder for the investigators to prove she’d been there. Though not impossible. They could interview people who might have seen her. They might talk to the housekeeper who’d let her into the room. It would be easy to connect her, if the police pursued it.

“Why does it not feel like good news?” she said.

A few minutes before the morning’s court session was to begin, her mobile phone rang.

“Judge Brody, this is Trooper Markowski from the Attorney General’s office. A couple things have come up, some things we’d like to talk to you about.”

Her stomach seized. “Happy to talk.”

“Does this afternoon work for you?”

“I’m in court until four.”

“We can come by your office at four.”

“I have a meeting at my son’s school. Let me get back to you in a few minutes about my schedule.”

“Sounds good.”

She hit End, glanced at her watch — so she’d keep the courtroom waiting a minute or two — and hit Martha Connolly’s number.

“Martie,” she said, “the AG’s investigator wants to talk to me again. They have some follow-up questions.”

“That’s not good. But remember, you don’t have to talk to them.”

“I’m not talking to them without a lawyer.”

“Who’re you going to use?”

“You,” Juliana said.

There was a pause. Juliana wondered if Martie was taken aback.

“Let them know they are welcome to talk to you in my home,” Martie said. “And let me give you a warning I used to give all my clients, which I heard from an old Boston political boss: ‘Never write if you can speak, never speak if you can nod, never nod if you can wink.’”

“And never put it in e-mail,” Juliana added.

During lunch a large envelope had been hand-delivered to her lobby by a courier for Wheelz’s lawyer, Harlan Madden. Inside were a DVD and a short document. As soon as she glanced at the document she understood what it was. The two parties had been in the middle of depositions, with Rachel Meyers being questioned by Madden, when a dispute broke out. She looked at the paper. It was an emergency motion filed by Harlan Madden “to compel answers to deposition questions and to preclude counsel from improper coaching.” He said they were going to have to come back for a second day of deposing Ms. Meyers and wanted the plaintiff to cover the costs. She skimmed the rest of the motion, then put the DVD into her computer’s disk drive.

She hit Play. A wispy blond woman in her early thirties, Rachel Meyers, was sitting nervously at a conference table, looking directly at the camera. A male voice off-camera was asking her questions. That was Madden.

She couldn’t help but think about Trooper Markowski and what might possibly have “come up.” What the hell else could they have found? But at the same time she had to pay attention, because what she was doing was important. And there was nothing she could do about Trooper Markowski until later.

She fast-forwarded to a couple of minutes before the point in the time code where the controversy erupted. The offscreen voice asked, “Ms. Meyers, have you had a lot of boyfriends?”

Rachel Meyers looked to one side, probably at her lawyer, and said, “A lot? No.”

“How many, would you say?”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep a count.”

“More than ten?”

“No.”

“Twenty?”

“Much less.”

“Then how many?”

“Maybe four or five.”

“And are you seeing someone at the present time?”

“No.”

“And, Ms. Meyers, are you a member of any online dating sites?”

“Yes.”

“Which ones?”

“Uh, OkCupid and Bumble.”

“Have you had many dates as a result of these online dating sites?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, can you give me your best estimate? Would you say fifty?”

“Fifty? No way. Maybe five or six.”

“Ms. Meyers, Devin Allerdyce is the CEO of Wheelz, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did he invite you to dinner?”

“No—”

“No? When he said to you over chat, ‘OK if we meet at Madrigal at seven,’ were you aware that Madrigal is a restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“An invitation to a restaurant at seven o’clock in the evening is not a dinner invitation?”

“Well, I mean, it was supposed to be a business meeting. He said he wanted to talk about the Carras case.”

“A business meeting at the most expensive restaurant in Boston?”

“No, at first he asked me to come by his office. Later he changed it to Madrigal.”

“Ms. Meyers, did you know that Devin Allerdyce was single?”

She seemed to hesitate. “I think I’d heard that, but I don’t remember.”

“Ms. Meyers, when a single man invites you to dinner at an expensive, romantic restaurant like Madrigal, wouldn’t you assume that was a date?”

A female voice broke in: “Objection! This is ridiculous; this is improper and totally irrelevant and intending to harass the witness.”

Madden said, “Counsel, are you instructing the witness not to answer the question?”

“No, I’m not instructing her not to answer, but this is a highly inappropriate line of questioning. You can answer the question, Rachel.”

Rachel Meyers’s eyes slid from one side to the other, from her lawyer to Madden. “No, I did not assume it was a date,” she said. “He’s the CEO of the company. I thought it was business.”

“Ms. Meyers, is it true that you changed your clothes before dinner?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“What did you change into?”

“I... I don’t remember.”

“Have you been to Madrigal many times?”

“No, just that one time.”

“And you can’t remember what you wore that night?”

Glenda Craft’s voice broke in again. “Objection, this is completely irrelevant. How is the fact that she changed her clothes relevant? This was almost two years ago! How would she remember what she was wearing on one night two years ago?”

“Objection,” said Harlan Madden. “Coaching the witness.”

“Go ahead and answer, Rachel,” said Craft.

“I don’t remember,” Rachel said.

“Thank you,” Madden said. “Ms. Meyers, did you order wine at dinner?”

“He did.”

“Did you drink wine?”

“Yes.”

“How many glasses of wine did you drink?”

“The waiter kept filling my glass. I don’t know.”

“Really? Do you think it was at least two glasses?”

“Probably.”

“More?”

“Possibly.”

“Three glasses?”

“I don’t know.”

Another pause. “Ms. Meyers, were you intoxicated at your dinner with Devin Allerdyce at Madrigal?”

“That’s it!” Glenda Craft, loud and angry. “Time-out. We’re taking a break.”

“We’re not taking a break until I finish this line of questioning.”

“No, we need a break, and we’re taking one right now!”

“I’m not going to allow you to take a break and go off the record until I finish this line of inquiry.”

“Come on, Rachel, let’s go.”

Rachel looked uncertainly at her lawyer and slowly got up, walking off to the left of the camera. Now all Juliana could see was an empty side of the conference table and a white wall. The time code kept racing along.

Madden raised his voice. “If you guys get up now, I’m going to suspend the deposition, and I’m going to go to court and file a motion.”