Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“I’m glad I ran into you,” she said. “Your name came up in an interesting conversation I had recently with an old sorority pal of mine.”

“Yeah?”

“I had dinner at Nine Park with my old Sigma Kappa sister Joan, who was visiting from Springfield. So Joan runs a state pension fund, I’m sure you haven’t heard of it, the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System, out of Springfield? Anyway, it’s this enormous fund, assets of almost two hundred billion dollars or something. She’s the chief investment officer.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it.” He sounded suddenly alert.

“Joan’s just not happy with their legal representation, especially the compliance part. You do compliance work, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Anyway, Noah, I told her I really shouldn’t make any recommendations, given my position, but I said the conversation starts with Noah Miller.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Oh, it’s the truth. Nothing but the best for Joan, I figure.”

“I’m sure we can do better for your friend — what’s her name?”

“I’ll send you her bio and CV. The e-mail address on your website?”

“Right.”

Her sorority sister, Joan Pollock, was indeed the chief investment officer at a huge pension fund in Springfield, Massachusetts. It wasn’t true that Joan was dissatisfied with her legal representation, but she was willing to pretend so for one phone conversation.

On the phone last night she’d told Joan, “Hey, this is complicated, but you’re gonna get a call from Noah Miller — yeah, that Noah Miller. I told him that your fund might be interested in pursuing new legal representation. Just a possibility. So just take the call, hear him out, and say you need to confer with your colleagues. Like that. And that’s the end of the road.”

“What, are you pranking the guy?”

“No. It’s actually kind of a long story. Let’s have drinks in a week or two and I’ll fill you in. Meanwhile, I owe you big time.”

Juliana looked at her watch — twenty minutes until the morning trial began. She turned her attention to other matters for a bit — another decision, in a long queue, that needed more work — and after a respectable amount of time, she wrote a brief e-mail to Noah Miller, attaching the PDF that Sasha the hacker had prepared. The payload, he called it.

There was no chance in the world that Noah wouldn’t download and open the attachment. He would probably do it immediately, the moment he saw her e-mail. It would be irresistible. Greed was fairly predictable.

A few minutes later, she glanced at her watch, then stood up and put on her robe.

As she was about to enter the courtroom, her phone made an unfamiliar sound, a sort of outer-spacey chime.

A WhatsApp text. Sasha had instructed her to install the secure messaging app on her phone.

She read the text.

Her heart started thudding.

It was from Sasha.

We’re in.

During a recess, she was back in her chambers when there came a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she said.

Her clerk, Kaitlyn, entered, holding a thick manila envelope. “Judge, plaintiff in the Wheelz case just asked for an emergency hearing.”

“Emergency?”

Kaitlyn held aloft the envelope as if it were the answer. “This is unbelievable. This is revenge porn.”

“Revenge porn? What are you talking about?”

“Take a look.”

She handed Juliana the envelope. It was from Craft & Connors, the firm that represented Rachel Meyers, the plaintiff. Juliana slid a hefty sheaf of papers out onto her desk.

The first thing that caught her eye was a photograph of a nude young woman. You could tell right away who it was: Rachel Meyers.

Underneath was another nude photo, with Rachel in a different position, but her face still visible. Then came printouts of text messages between Rachel and someone named Jason.

She read one page:

RachelMeyers: then you take me from behind or hold me down while you tease me.

JasonCooke: I’m thrusting into you and you scream my name and you’re coming so hard.

The ones that followed were more explicit.

“What the hell?” she said.

“Jason Cooke was her longtime boyfriend, but I think they’re broken up,” Kaitlyn said. “Most of those texts are between her and Jason. Some are texts she sent on Tinder. Sent on her personal account — but on the laptop Wheelz gave her for work.”

“So it’s company property. Isn’t it kind of sloppy of her to leave all that on a work computer?”

“She wiped the disk. But the Wheelz legal team hired a digital forensic expert to recover all the deleted files.”

“And turned it over for what reason?”

“Plaintiff asked for all correspondence to and from, and mentioning, Rachel Meyers.”

“What the hell?” she said again.

“You see what’s going on? They’re trying to slut-shame her.”

Juliana nodded. It was a threat. A way to pressure Rachel Meyers to settle. By handing those highly personal, embarrassing files over to their opponent, Wheelz’s attorney was implicitly threatening her: Who knows, maybe something’ll leak to The Boston Globe or get filed as an exhibit to a motion. One way or another, it’ll get out there. Settle, or the world would see the most personal details about Rachel Meyers’s sex life.

Meyers had refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, because she wanted the world to see what had happened to her at Wheelz.

So now Wheelz was exacting its revenge.

You won’t sign a confidentiality agreement, they were saying, fine. But it’s going to cost you big time.

You will be completely and utterly shamed and humiliated before the world.

Juliana called both sides into her courtroom for the emergency hearing. Rachel Meyers was seated in the second row, wearing a green suit over a white blouse. Unusual for the client to come to motions, but it was her right. Her face was tight, and she looked exhausted. There were purple circles under her eyes. The poor woman. The trial hadn’t even begun.

“All right,” Juliana said, “I’ve had the chance to read the papers. Plaintiff, what’s the issue here?”

She knew what they wanted, of course. Glenda Craft, Rachel’s lawyer, had filed a motion for a protective order. They wanted this set of personal texts to be declared confidential, so they couldn’t be released to the public, couldn’t be used in any other case. But she wanted the argument on the record.

Craft stood up. “We just received supplemental discovery material that contains highly personal and private e-mail exchanges between my client and a couple of male friends of hers. Some of them were messages exchanged on the dating app Tinder. And we are concerned about what the defense is planning to do with them.”

“Which is what?” she said.

“This is a deliberate move to pressure my client into settling.”

“Your Honor—” said Madden.

But Juliana cut him off. “All right. I have your motion to protect.”

“Yes, we—”

“Okay, I’ll hear from the defense.”

Harlan Madden stood up, cleared his throat. He spoke in a bland, guarded tone. “Yes, uh, in response to the discovery request made by the plaintiff, we engaged the services of a computer forensics specialist to recover all deleted files on a laptop used by the plaintiff while working for the Wheelz Corporation. We have provided the plaintiff with those recovered files, as requested.”

“Hold on, Mr. Madden,” Juliana said. “I have looked at the discovery materials, and I saw sexually explicit text messages and nude photos, and I have to say, it made me wonder what you’re planning on doing with all that.”