“Judge,” protested Madden.
“We’re done here,” she said.
When she finished for the day, she locked her lobby, left the courthouse, and walked over to the parking garage. Normally, she tried to make it home by six, but tonight she was going to be a little late. She texted Duncan to let him know.
She was going to make a detour. She was going to try to find Matías Sanchez.
25
Maybe Matías had left town, gone back to Chicago, his work done. But she had no other way of reaching him than to try his hotel. If he was gone, he was gone. All she could do was try.
Was it foolhardy? Was she sticking her head back in the jaw trap? Maybe so. But she needed to find out what he knew, if anything, about Mayfair Paragon. He’d called himself a chess piece in a game whose players he claimed not to know. But her instincts told her that he knew more than he was letting on. Maybe a lot more.
Not that he would readily cooperate with her. She’d have to force a deal. There was a way out of this nightmare, and she was determined to find it.
As she drove, she checked her rearview mirror from time to time, looking for a following vehicle, feeling sheepish about it, ruefully recalling how she’d nearly torn into Chae-won Kim. The fact was, several cars had been behind her since Kenmore Square, three or four of them. None, as far as she could tell, since leaving the courthouse.
Legally, of course, she was putting herself in a compromising position just meeting with a member of the defense team. For her to do so without the other side there was considered ex parte communication. If she was photographed meeting with Matías, she could face all sorts of questions. And if the truth ever came out, that would be sure grounds for impeachment. Her career could be over in a flash.
She found a parking space easily, on the curb a block beyond the Home Stay Inn. Just as before, she entered the hotel lobby with purpose and turned left to the elevator bank and took it to the third floor. As before, no one tried to stop her or ask where she was going. Look like you belong and most people won’t bother you. But just in case she was recognized, she wore sunglasses and a hat.
She passed an open door and a housekeeper’s cart in the hallway. When she came to room 322, she could hear noise inside, what sounded like the television on, fairly loud. For a moment she hesitated, listened for other voices, then finally rang the doorbell. Right away she sidled away from the door, along the wall, out of view of the peephole. If he looked out and saw her, he might not open the door. She waited. The TV blared, muffled-sounding. The door remained closed. She waited some more.
Was it possible he hadn’t heard the doorbell over the noise of the television? She slid back over to the doorway, her face hidden behind the brim of the hat, in case he was looking out the peephole — and rang again. Then she knocked. The TV remained on. She waited another minute; then she pounded hard on the door.
Coming down the corridor was the housekeeper, diminutive and Latin-looking, pushing her cart. She avoided Juliana’s eyes. It wasn’t her business.
But then Juliana had an idea.
“Excuse me,” she said to the housekeeper.
The maid looked up reluctantly.
“My husband forgot to give me a key. Could you let me in?”
She was wearing her blue suit and looked respectable. She lowered her sunglasses, her back to the camera. Sure enough, the housekeeper looked her over, her eyes moving up and down Juliana, sizing her up. She said, “Is three-two-two?”
“That’s right. I’m positive.”
The woman approached, gave her a questioning look, pulled out a keycard, and beeped the door open. She didn’t seem happy about it. It was probably against the rules: hotel guests who’d misplaced their keys probably had to go to the front desk and present ID. But she pushed the door open for Juliana, and a split-second later she made a strange yipping sound, a high-pitched scream. “Ay Dios mío!”
Juliana pushed her way into the room and saw what had so frightened the housekeeper.
In the twilit gloom, she could just make out a naked male body slumped on the floor, unmistakably dead.
26
It took her a few seconds to recognize Matías Sanchez, and by then she’d collapsed to the floor, her purse tumbling beside her, its contents spilling onto the carpet.
“Dios mío! Dios mío!” the housekeeper keened, clutching her hands to her bosom. “Llama a la policía!”
Juliana got to her feet unsteadily, looked again, confirmed that what she had first thought was in fact the case. Sanchez had been strangled, or maybe hanged, by the black electrical cord around his neck. He was seated and leaning over, his head canted all the way forward. The electrical cord that had served as a noose was wedged between the bathroom door and the door frame.
Her heart fluttered in her rib cage. She felt dizzy, weak-kneed, as if she were about to pass out. The housekeeper was retreating slowly down the hallway.
She looked away, but not before registering the lolling tongue and the red staring eyes. She searched for the toilet, found it, rushed there, and, before she reached it, vomited into the sink.
For a long moment she kept her head bowed, willing herself not to lose consciousness. Her field of vision sparkled. She gripped the front edge of the vanity.
She remembered the note of desperation in his voice. These people will do anything — stage an accident, a suicide, whatever they need to do if they think you’re an inconvenience.
Slowly she raised her head, saw herself in the wall-to-wall mirror. Her face was red, a splotch of vomit on her chin.
She had to leave this room, this hotel. Suddenly that realization hit her, filling her with panic. She couldn’t risk the police arriving, her presence here impossible to explain. She had to leave before the housekeeper summoned hotel security or the Boston Police.
She hesitated before rinsing out the sink carefully, running the water until all trace of her vomit — her DNA — was gone.
She wondered if the housekeeper had already called for help, though there was nothing to do. The man was dead.
She knelt down on the carpet, began picking up all the objects that had fallen when her purse fell to the floor and stuffing them back. She moved quickly, her hands reaching and grabbing, hurrying. Finally, when she’d retrieved everything she could see, she got to her feet and raced out of the room and into the carpeted hallway. Then she forced herself to slow to a walk to avoid drawing attention.
She emerged from the elevator into the lobby. A few people were gathered at the reception desk. Not the housekeeper.
Maybe she didn’t call for help, Juliana thought. She ran away. Maybe she was an illegal immigrant, afraid she might be so identified by the police.
Juliana increased her pace, striding down the block and to the next. Her blue Lexus SUV was still there as well.
She drove in a dazed state, barely noticing where she was going, navigating home by instinct. Should she find a pay phone and alert the Boston Police about the death? But not only were pay phones ridiculously hard to find anymore, she couldn’t take the risk of being traced and then connected to the murder.
And she had no doubt it was murder. The man had been frightened, not suicidal, when she’d last seen him. He’d known what might happen to him. Had his unseen controllers learned he had talked to her? Was that what had happened? Matías was a gigolo who had betrayed her, but he was also pitiable and a victim.