Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“Right?”

“‘Sparky irreverence’?”

Jake groaned, though he looked secretly pleased. “I can’t even,” he said.

Her phone rang on the table next to her. She picked it up.

“Is this Judge Brody?” a woman said.

“It is.”

“I have the governor.”

“Excuse me,” she said to the table as she got up. “I have to take this.”

Duncan threw her a who is it? look, and she got up to take the call in the little bedroom off the kitchen.

Duncan and Juliana walked along the beach very early the next morning, so early that it was still dark. She’d spent most of the night tossing and turning and getting up, and finally Duncan took her by the elbow and out of the house. They walked barefoot along the sand and down to the water’s edge. The waves were lapping gently and the moonlight shimmered on the water, and she was momentarily overcome by how beautiful the world could sometimes be.

They walked a mile down the deserted beach. As they set off, Duncan said, “Why are you struggling with this?”

“Because — I mean, who am I to dispense justice, after all I’ve done?”

The governor had put her on the short list to be named acting Attorney General, with the understanding that whoever he chose would have the party’s support in the next election. Juliana just had to tell him whether she was up for it.

“All you’ve done ? I’ll tell you what you’ve done. You refused to be a victim. You saved the lives of your family.”

They walked in silence for almost a minute before she said, “Yes, but I walked right into their trap. It all started with a decision I made.”

“What does that have to do with anything? You need to forgive yourself, Jules.” He stopped and picked up an oyster shell. The first pale glimmerings of the morning had begun to appear, blood-orange at the horizon. “Don’t be such a hanging judge with yourself. Look, you’re a great mom. You take care of people. You make us better than we are.”

“Tell that to Calvin.”

“Dammit, Juliana. That wasn’t your fault. Calvin shouldn’t have been driving drunk. And that tractor-trailer shouldn’t have been going seventy in a fifty-mile-per-hour zone. Yeah, that’s a detail you never remember, because charges were never filed, not when the victim was DWI. You shouldn’t ever have blamed yourself. Time to dismiss the goddamned case, Your Honor. And let the defendant go free. God knows she deserves it.”

“But what I did in Chicago—”

“What you did in Chicago — it’s not like in court, when you can strike something from the record. We can’t forget what happened. But you move on, right? You live your life forward. You have to.”

They walked on some more, and then Duncan said, “Head back?” They turned around and started back the way they had come.

“Anyway,” he went on, “it’s like Martie says, there’s sand in every oyster’s shell, but only some of them make pearls. And you, babe, make pearls.”

“Oh, please. You’ve been talking to Martie?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“I’m sure she was behind this offer.”

“Maybe so, but you’re the one they want.”

“You really think?”

“Of course. This is your path. You wanted to resign from the bench, here’s your chance. You should take it. Martie thinks this is just the first step toward — well, she just thinks you have an amazing future ahead of you.”

She nodded.

“Listen, we have a decision to make.”

“I know.”

“Not what I mean. Another decision.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mrs. Barnet is finally willing to sell.”

“She is?” Mrs. Barnet was the elderly widow who owned the house they rented every summer in Wellfleet, except for the summer Jake spent in the hospital. They’d given up asking about buying it from her; the answer was always no.

“And she only wants to sell to us. She likes us, loves our connection to the house, the way we take care of it.”

“Can we afford it?”

“It’ll be a stretch.”

“It does need a lot of work, you know.”

“I know. But it’s got good bones. And the best thing about it is how it’s all on one level.”

“So?”

“So in, you know, forty years from now, when we can’t deal with stairs any longer, we can live here. We can enjoy it here.”

“Forty years, huh?”

“Hey, ‘Grow old along with me,’ right?” At their wedding, Duncan had read the Robert Browning poem, the one that begins, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.”

Her face felt warm.

The house came into view. The kids were asleep, she knew, and would be for hours. In the distance, a pair of seagulls jousted noisily over some scrap of something.

They walked along the edge of the water. She’d fallen silent. “Yes,” she said.

“Yes to the house? Yes to the job? Yes to the growing-old part?”

She took his hand and rested her head on his shoulder. She could hear the gulls cawing. She said, simply, “Yes.”

Five illustrious judges helped me flesh out Juliana’s daily and internal life. I want to thank Judge Heidi Brieger, Judge Susan Garsh, Judge Nancy Gertner, Judge Karen Green, and Chief Justice Margaret Marshall for giving me a debt-free legal education and illuminating the customs of the black-robed guild. Their upright and upstanding ways put my own judges to shame. I’m deeply grateful for their help.

Michael Rossi of Conn Kavanaugh in Boston is a terrific lawyer whose contribution to this book was substantial. I couldn’t have done it without his legal advice. Thanks as well to Elliot Peters of Keker Van Nest & Peters, for his savvy early guidance on the Wheelz defense, as well as Nina Kimball and Justine Brousseau, of Kimball Brousseau, for very helpful advice on the plaintiff’s sex-discrimination case. I was assisted too by Joseph Berman, the general counsel of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers, John Markey of Prince Lobel, Paul Dacier of Indigo Agriculture, and Jay Shapiro of White and Williams.

For medical help, I’m grateful to Dr. Mark Morocco of UCLA Medical Center and Dr. Thomas Workman of Winchester (MA) Hospital. My friend and unindicted co-conspirator Giles McNamee lent me his considerable expertise in investment banking and financial engineering. On Russian oligarchs and sanctions, I was assisted by Bill Browder, Anders Åslund of the Atlantic Council, Adam Szubin of Sullivan & Cromwell, and my old friend Mikhail Tsypkin of the Naval Postgraduate School.

For details on technical surveillance countermeasures, many thanks to Ian Sweeney of Mias Consultants International (and thank you, Thomas Slovenski) and, once again, Kevin Murray of Murray Associates. On computer hacking, Kevin Ripa of Computer Evidence Recovery, Inc., was quite helpful, as was Skip Brandon of Smith Brandon, on investigations. On Argentina, I thank Susana Lopez; and on Mallorca, Antonia Ramis Miguel. In Boston, my thanks to Detective Jeremiah Benton of the Boston Police Department, retired Boston Police superintendent Bruce Holloway, and my friend Jay Groob of American Investigative Services. Thanks to Peter Wayner for help on autonomous vehicles and to Jillian Stein for important advice on shoes. Thanks too to Clair Lamb for all sorts of research and editorial assistance.

At Dutton, Judgment benefited enormously from some terrific editing by Jessica Renheim and John Parsley. A big thanks to the rest of my wonderful team at Dutton: Christine Ball, Amanda Walker, Carrie Swetonic, Elina Vaysbeyn, and Marya Pasciuto. Thanks to my wife, Michele Souda, for her smart close reading; to my daughter, Emma J. S. Finder; to my awesome agent, Dan Conaway of Writers House; and above all to my brother, Henry Finder.