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.”
Craft: “Do what you want. Come on, Rachel, let’s confer out in the hall.”
Madden: “I am suspending this deposition based on improper conduct by the plaintiff’s counsel, and I intend to file a motion to ask the court to intervene and instruct the plaintiff’s lawyer to allow me to conduct this deposition as I’m allowed under our rules of civil procedure, without improper coaching and interruptions.”
The blank table, the white wall stayed on-screen for another ten seconds, and then it went dark.
She understood why the defense lawyer was pissed off: he was on a roll, he’d gotten the plaintiff in a corner and wanted to keep her there. And the plaintiff’s lawyer, Glenda Craft, had in fact been coaching the witness. In her objection to Madden’s question, about what Rachel wore that night at Madrigal, she’d all but supplied Rachel’s answer. On the other hand, she shouldn’t have interrupted the deposition, taking a break while a question was pending and meeting with her client. You didn’t do that.
Juliana figured she’d wait for the plaintiff’s lawyer to submit her opposition, and then she’d make a ruling quickly, which meant within the week.
She ejected the disk and packed up her files. She had a meeting at Jake’s school to get to. Her regular life went on.
Duncan picked her up outside the courthouse for the conference with Jake’s math teacher. They’d decided to go together.
She got in, said, “Hi.” Wary.
Duncan said, “Hi.” Same.
They avoided each other’s eyes. Juliana watched the road.
Duncan’s 2014 Prius was littered with coffee cups and empty Diet Coke cans. The cans rattled around, sliding front to back and side to side as he drove. For a long time, she listened to the uneven clatter. Once again she was distracted by that obsessive part of her brain that kept cycling. She kept seeing the dead body of Matías Sanchez. The man with the shaved head and the steel-rim glasses: Greaves, and his terrifying threats. Trooper Markowski and — what was his name, she’d forgotten. What would happen to that video that Matías had shown her, the blackmail video?
“Doing okay?” Duncan said.
“I’m okay,” she said. She was grateful he asked about her.
“Do we have a strategy here?”
“I don’t even know what’s going on with Jake in math. Did he tell you? He wouldn’t tell me. He said he didn’t know how he’s doing.”
“Oh, he knows.”
“Does he?”
“I’m sure. But he won’t tell me either.”
“Wild guess: not so good.”
A long silence passed. She started thinking again about the police and what they wanted. She hated being this scattered and willed herself to think about Jake and his damned math class. “Has he been doing his homework?” she asked.