Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

Once again she and Duncan were walking on eggshells with each other, back to being polite and formal and distant, and she realized it would take some time before relations got back to something approaching normal.

Then she got into her SUV and headed into town. As she drove, she called Hersh.

“Safe to talk on the phone?” she asked.

“As long as it hasn’t been out of your hands.”

She thought for a moment. She’d left it in the car when she was visiting the FBI. But the FBI parking lot was probably the safest place in the city to park. “Okay. You think you have a source on Protasov?”

“Not quite. Someone who may be able to get into that British lawyer’s e-mail for me. Legally or at least semi-legally.”

“At Linklaters.”

“Right. Fiona Charteris, her name is. The woman who was killed. She was basically doing her due diligence, closing a financing deal, and she obviously found out something she shouldn’t have about Mayfair Paragon and the money behind the deal. I want to know what else she found out. I wonder if she figured out about Yuri Protasov. It’ll be in her e-mails, I’ll bet.”

“Can you do this remotely? You don’t have to go to London, do you?”

“What, you worried about my travel costs?”

“I’m worried about time .”

“Well, I’m just making phone calls.”

“On Monday I’m going to DC for the day.” She explained about Aaron Dunn at Justice. “Let me ask you something. How do I know if I’m being followed?”

“I don’t know how to answer that over the phone. Beyond the obvious. You’re driving. You think you’re being followed?”

“Maybe.”

For the last couple of minutes she’d noticed a car behind her with a figure of a horse in its grill. A Mustang. Even she, not exactly a gearhead, knew it was a Ford Mustang. It was dark blue and new, and it had been behind her all the way down Route 9, for the last couple of minutes. And even before she turned onto Route 9, she remembered.

Odds were it was a coincidence. She knew that. She didn’t want to surrender to paranoia. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be oblivious.

“I want to know if you really think you are being followed, okay?” said Hersh. “Call me right away if you are.”

She next called Martie Connolly and told her about DC. “Do you know anyone at the CIA, by any chance?”

“I do — an old, dear friend,” Martha said, “who is not only an excellent person, but he’s as discreet as they come. I suppose that comes with working for the CIA. Anyway, he’s a real character. You’ll like him. Let me put in a call.”

“Thanks,” she said. She turned left onto Brookline Avenue, and the Mustang turned left as well.

At the next major intersection, she decided at the last minute to turn left onto the Riverway instead of going straight as she’d normally do.

The Mustang behind her turned left too.

Was she in fact being followed? Or was the Mustang simply heading into Boston the same way?

Because if this car was following her, it was not being subtle about it. It was following in an overt, obvious way, as if to taunt her. Or intimidate her.

She felt her nerves prickle.

At the light, at the intersection with Park Drive, she hit the stored number for her law clerk, Kaitlyn. “I need to be out of town on Monday,” she said. She asked Kaitlyn to continue her cases and “take off” the motions. She hated to do it, but she knew she had no choice. Trials are scheduled up to a year in advance. Motions are set up weeks in advance. She would be inconveniencing a long list of attorneys and witnesses, and she wasn’t happy about it.

The Mustang was still following her.

When she backed into a parking spot on the same block as the Bostonia Club, she saw the Mustang pass by.

She shut off the car and called Hersh again. “Okay, I really think that car might have been following me.”

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

“I didn’t, not really. A guy.”

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“If I see the Mustang again, I’ll look more closely.”

“A Mustang?”

“So?”

“Good acceleration. A good chase car.”

“Wasted on me. I generally keep to the speed limit. One of the drawbacks to being a judge.”

“But more to the point, a Mustang’s also instantly recognizable. They wanted you to know you were being followed. Let me know if you see it again.”

“I will.”

She pushed at the beautiful brass knob on the gleaming black front door.

Attorney General Kent Yarnell was standing in the lobby, alone, underneath the John Singer Sargent portrait, waiting for her.

The General , she thought.

Kent,” she said. Juliana and Kent Yarnell exchanged quick, social kisses. “Good to see you,” she said. “Been a while.”

“Juliana,” he said. He had never called her “Jules.” Always “Juliana,” and he liked to overenunciate each syllable, annoyingly.

They were both pretending to like each other. He disliked her, she knew, and the feeling was mutual.

“Library okay?” he said.

“Sure.” That meant a drink, not dinner. Good.

They found a nook in a far corner of the library, dimly lit. The attorney general sat on a green leather couch, and Juliana took the chair next to it.

Kent Yarnell had a high forehead, a ridiculously large dome, and small, deep-set eyes. He wore frameless glasses. His eyes, she’d always thought, were beady. He was dressed in a well-cut gray suit with a red tie. But with his long limbs and his slender wrists and his liquid movements, he’d always reminded her of a spider.

They chatted awkwardly for a few minutes. He mentioned someone they both knew from the US Attorney’s office. But Juliana didn’t really remember much about the woman. She said, “That was a long time ago. My memory’s hazy.”

“I know what you mean,” he said with a smile.

The server came, and they both ordered drinks. She ordered a chardonnay, and he ordered a Diet Pepsi.

“Well, I imagine your feminist sisters are proud of you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sexual harassment ,” he said. He flicked two fingers of each hand to make air quotes. He shook his head. “What a racket. You start handing out major awards, you know what’s gonna happen, don’t you? People start filing major grievances. And when one employee starts, another one joins in, and pretty soon you get a riot effect. It’s like looting. Once the storefront gets smashed, everybody wants to grab a stereo for themselves.”

“You aren’t really going to debate the Wheelz case with me, are you?”

“It’s the criminalization of, what did we used to call it? Nookie?”

“Kent, come on. We’re not going there.”

He crossed his legs and tented his hands atop his knee. “The reason I wanted to see you, Juliana, was to give you some advice. Consider it advice from a friend.”

She nodded, awaiting whatever came next.

“I think we both know what we’re talking about,” he said.

“I’m not sure I do, Kent.”

They looked each other in the eyes. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

“In the course of investigating a possible homicide,” he said, “the Boston Police found evidence indicating that you may have had a relationship with the deceased. An attorney who argued a case before you.”

“Are we talking about a pair of sunglasses, for God’s sake?”

He shrugged. His eyes were dead. “My investigator now has the deceased’s mobile phone records. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they found a call between you and Mr., uh, Sanchez.”

Her stomach did a twist. Did she ever call the guy on his cell phone? She didn’t think so.