The Proving Ground

25

In the two years since I left criminal defense behind, I had handled a variety of civil matters ranging from mounting challenges to immigration detentions to fighting unlawful evictions to representing a successful class-action lawsuit against a state prison for women in Chowchilla that resulted in an abusive gynecologist being fired and a midrange payout to my sixteen incarcerated clients. It was a solid victory, but the gynecologist who had submitted prisoners to painful and unneeded examinations was not prosecuted criminally or disciplined by the state medical board. He just went into private practice.

In some cases, I felt that I was using the law to do what law enforcement wasn’t doing. I filed a claim on behalf of a nineteen-year-old woman against a motel in the Valley, alleging that its operators did nothing to stop the use of its rooms by sex traffickers, thus exploiting and profiting from the victims of this endemic crime. The motel responded by shutting down and going out of business. The litigation was stalled, and the rooms of the abandoned motel were now inhabited by homeless people.

I stayed away from personal injury and medical malpractice lawsuits, turning down many cases and even avoiding Lorna’s plea to refer the cases to other lawyers and thus earn a minor fee from each. There was big money in those kinds of cases, even when chipping off referral fees, but to me they were hollow victories, and it wasn’t where I saw my career going. I wanted something bigger, something more important, something that I could be proud of at the end of the day.

This led me down a rabbit hole defending several mom-and-pop businesses that were being systematically sued by the same lawyer and plaintiff. The lawyer was named Shane Montgomery. He ran a one-man shop on the Westside, and he and a client, a blind man named Dexter Rose, had a never-ending supply of cases to file under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was purely a moneymaking scheme. Montgomery would file a lawsuit on Rose’s behalf against a small business or restaurant, claiming that the website designed to promote the establishment was inaccessible to the blind man. This was a gray area in the federal ADA law and challengeable. But the lawsuit was quickly followed by a letter from Montgomery stating that Rose was willing to settle the lawsuit before it became too expensive and reputation-damaging for the small-business operators. The records showed that the average settlement was only three thousand dollars, but I learned that Montgomery and Rose were filing as many as eight lawsuits a week.

Lorna pulled every active case filed by Montgomery and Rose in Los Angeles County. We then sent letters to 109 businesses, offering my defense against the lawsuit at no expense to them. This resulted in my filing a countersuit on behalf of forty-three businesses targeted by Montgomery and Rose. In the course of investigating the case, Cisco Wojciechowski came up with a smoking gun. The lawsuits filed by Montgomery all stated in the cause of action that Rose was blind and therefore could not drive and needed to rely on food-delivery services from local restaurants. It said he lived on a stipend from the Social Security Disability Insurance program. Cisco went to work and learned that Rose was indeed on the SSDI’s payout roll but he was not receiving the maximum monthly payment, as would be expected for a blind individual.

To get on the SSDI list at all, Rose would have needed a government physician’s confirmation of his disability. Cisco cadged a copy of that report from a connection he had made at the Social Security Administration office downtown. It stated that the physician had determined through testing that Rose was completely blind in one eye but retained half his vision in the other. The physician said this limited disability allowed Rose partial function in terms of ambulation and other daily activities, such as reading. He thus received only a partial stipend.

The SSDI report was a case killer. When Montgomery was confronted with it and notified that I planned to use it as the centerpiece of my case as well as in complaints to the Social Security Administration, the ADA commission, and the California bar, he quickly folded his tent. He dropped all pending lawsuits filed on behalf of Rose and agreed to a settlement of $250,000, which I distributed evenly to my forty-three clients after taking 10 percent off the top. Last I heard, Montgomery and Rose had both moved to Florida, where they were no doubt planning their next legal scam.

The point is, I had done some good work since I left the courtrooms and hallways of the Criminal Courts Building and crossed the street to civil. But I had not stood in the proving ground in front of a jury or been in a trial in nearly three years. I missed it. I craved it. I waited for it. And now I had it. On Monday morning, April 7, I stood in front of the mirror in the house on Fareholm in my best suit, the blue Hugo Boss wool blend, and appraised my look. I wore a powder-blue modern-fit dress shirt, buttoned at the wrists, as cuff links were too ostentatious to flash at a jury. My tie was a muted blend of blue and purple stripes held securely down in the middle with a silver clip with the familiar Lincoln Motor Company logo of a cross inside a rectangular frame — my one holdover from my days in criminal. A Lincoln salesman once told me that the logo symbolized power, leadership, and strength, and that was why I wore it. I would need all of those attributes when I stepped into the proving ground of the courtroom.

“Who’s the boss? You’re the boss.”

It was Maggie. She had come up behind me and was reflected in the mirror. I blushed. She knew me and knew my routines, the things I did to prepare for legal combat. She put her arms around me from behind and buttoned my jacket.

“You look like a killer,” she said.

“Legally, I hope,” I said.

She kissed the back of my neck.

“Go get ’em, Tiger,” she said.

I smiled. She was sending me off to war. But it was also the name of a coffee shop in West Hollywood we frequented on weekends. We’d both sit there working on our cases while sipping lattes.

“You’d better get going if you want to be the first one in the courtroom,” Maggie said.

Again, she knew me. On the opening day of a trial, I liked to be the first one seated at the lawyer tables. I liked to see the courtroom fill as the call for the jury came. It helped drop me into courtroom-killer mode.

I turned around for a kiss goodbye. She was still wearing her long sleep shirt and looked beautiful despite her unkempt morning hair.

“When are you going in?” I asked.

“I’m being lazy today,” she said. “I have a ten o’clock charging conference. I’m not going in until then.”

In a previous life I would have asked who the suspect was and what the charges would be, always looking for the next client. But that was the criminal-case me.

We kissed and hugged and she wished me luck. It was very different from when we were married and she was a major-case prosecutor and knew that I was going off to defend someone accused by her own agency of criminal deeds. Now wishing me luck was legitimate.

I grabbed my briefcase off the chair by the door and stepped out onto the front deck. My eyes were immediately drawn to the bottom of the steps, where a black Lincoln Navigator was waiting in the street. The front passenger door was open, and Cisco was leaning against the fender, waiting. He had pulled the tarp off the one Lincoln I still kept stored in the warehouse and put it back into service.

Cisco held his hand out toward the open door. I started down the steps. It looked like the Lincoln Lawyer was going to ride again.

26

My first-at-the-tables reverie did not last long. As soon as the Mason brothers showed up, the court clerk approached and informed us that the judge wanted to see us in chambers. As we headed back there, I half expected Marcus to ask once more if my clients would take the settlement offered on Saturday, but he walked with his head down and didn’t say a word. Mitchell did the same.

Judge Ruhlin was behind her desk and invited us to sit down, but she was already in her black robe. That told me that this meeting would be perfunctory. And soon it became apparent that she was acting as a referee before a boxing match, telling each combatant the rules: No low blows, no rabbit punches, and when the bell rings, you immediately go back to your corners. Now shake hands and come out fighting.

“Gentlemen, I want to take this moment to impress upon you the need to maintain decorum during this trial,” she began. “I want no outbursts, no demonstrations of upset or frustration. We will conduct ourselves in a courtly fashion. Each of you will show respect to your opponent. If you object or ask for the court’s attention to any matter, do not state your objection until called upon. If you break these rules, there will be consequences. Is this understood?”

“Absolutely,” Marcus said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said.

“Very well, then,” Ruhlin said. “In looking at our day, we have opening statements that should run no longer than one hour each. This will give us time this afternoon to begin witness testimony. Mr. Haller, do you have witnesses ready and in the courthouse?”

“Your Honor, I will have witnesses ready to go,” I said. “The first will be Detective Clarke and he is scheduled to arrive at ten. After that, I plan to put my clients on the stand. Depending on how long cross-examination is, I think that should easily take us through the day.”

“All right,” Ruhlin said.

She turned her attention to the Masons.

“Will the defense be making an opening statement?” she asked.

“We are going to reserve, Your Honor,” Marcus said. Meaning he would make his statement after I presented my case but before the defense put on theirs.

“Unless plaintiffs’ counsel makes allegations in his statement that must be addressed right away,” Mitchell added.

I smiled. Let the baiting begin.

“Then I shall call on you after Mr. Haller finishes and you can decide,” Ruhlin said. “I will say that the court does not appreciate interruptions during opening statements. I find the tactic disruptive and off-putting to the jury. Proceed with caution if you are inclined to interrupt your opponent.”

Since Marcus had already said he planned to reserve his statement, the judge’s admonition seemed directed at him, and he wasn’t happy about it.

“Your Honor, I can’t sit there and do nothing to protect my client if Haller resorts to his usual inflammatory comments,” he protested.

I didn’t even need to fire back.

“Mr. Mason, you are already starting off on the wrong foot with me,” Ruhlin said. “First of all, in my courtroom, your opposing counsel is not referred to as ‘Haller.’ He is Mr. Haller. And—”

“Sorry, Your Honor,” Mason said. “Mr. Haller.”

“Do not interrupt the court,” Ruhlin said. “As I was saying, opening statements are not evidence. The jury will be instructed so and I will advise you to hold your objections until testimony and evidence is presented to the court. Do I make myself clear to all of you?”

This was followed by a chorus of affirmative responses from all three lawyers.

“All right,” she said. “Any other questions before we start?”

I raised my hand and asked permission to stand in front of the jury box, not at the lectern, when I made my opening statement. I wanted to stand in the proving ground, front and center. Ruhlin allowed it but said it would not be permitted again during the trial until closing arguments.

“If there’s nothing else, let’s go to trial,” the judge said. “You may proceed back to the courtroom and I will be with you shortly.”

We headed back in single file and in the order we had established after previous visits to chambers.

This time Marcus turned back to me to deliver a taunt.

“I don’t care what she says,” he said. “You cross a line, I’m objecting.”

“That’s very brave of you,” I retorted. “Out here, I mean. Let’s see it in the courtroom, Marcus.”

“Fuck you.”

“Man, I could write your dialogue in my sleep.”

We split up when we got back into the courtroom. I saw that my clients were in their places: Brenda and Trisha at the plaintiffs’ table, Bruce Colton behind them in the first row of the gallery. Next to Bruce, on the aisle, was Cisco, and on his other side, the row was stacked shoulder to shoulder with media types. I intentionally avoided looking at them as I took my seat. I leaned down to whisper to the mothers.

“Brenda, Trisha, how are we feeling today?” I asked.

“Scared, but ready for this,” Brenda said.

“The same,” Trisha said.

I nodded that I understood.

“Look, we might get to one or both of you today,” I said. “It depends on how long it takes with Detective Clarke. So be ready. You’re going to hear some difficult things from the detective when he’s on the witness stand and before that from me during my opening statement. Don’t be afraid to show your emotions either here or when you’re testifying. But don’t push it and don’t fake it. Remember that the jury will be looking for sincerity. They’ll spot a fake a mile away.”

Both women nodded. Then Trisha leaned in front of Brenda and closer to me.

“Are we going to win?” she whispered. “We turned down a lot of money.”

I knew it was her husband speaking through her.

“I think we’re in a good position to win,” I said. “We had really good prep sessions with Naomi Kitchens, the ethicist, yesterday. We are as ready as we can be.”

It was true. We had managed to flip Naomi Kitchens once again. It was knowing that her daughter had Cisco and others watching over her as well as McEvoy camping out in a rental car in front of her house that made her change her mind. On Sunday morning she and her daughter flew down to L.A. with McEvoy and Cisco, and I spent the afternoon prepping her to testify.

We all stood when Judge Ruhlin entered the courtroom, her robe flowing behind her, and took the bench. She told us to be seated and convened court, calling the case and instructing the courtroom marshal to bring the jury in. I knew I would be the first one up and tried to control the butterflies. It didn’t matter how many times I did this; there was always much at stake, and I would think that something was wrong if the nervousness ever went away.

The jurors all carried court-provided notebooks as they entered from the assembly room. They took the same spots they were in when the jury was finally composed and accepted. Their anonymity would continue and they had now been given new numbers, one through twelve, according to the seats they were assigned to. The judge welcomed them with a warm smile and described how the trial would proceed. She explained what was evidence in a case and what was not and how to evaluate the credibility of testimony and exhibits. She told them that it was the plaintiff’s burden to prove its case by the preponderance of evidence — meaning that the jury determined that the plaintiff’s claim was more likely than not to be true. And as promised in chambers, she cautioned the jurors not to consider opening statements as evidence or even fact. She called them road maps that the attorneys would follow through the trial.

“It will be up to each attorney during the course of the trial to make good on what he says in his opening statement,” she said. “You will decide if he has done that during your deliberations once all testimony and evidence have been delivered.”

She paused for a moment to see if any juror raised a hand or looked confused.

“Very well, then, let’s start,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, your opening statement, please.”

I stood and buttoned my jacket the way Maggie had done earlier at home. One button only, the middle one. I stepped between the plaintiffs’ table and the lectern and moved front and center before the jury. The proving ground could be the loneliest spot on the planet if you didn’t believe in your case. But that wasn’t an issue at this moment. I was standing there with the righteous belief that I was in the right spot at the right time with the right case.

“Good morning,” I began. “My name is Michael Haller.”

27

After introducing the plaintiffs and briefly recounting the details of the tragedy that had brought these parents together, I moved to the cause of action. I stood in front of the jurors, hands at my sides, my eyes constantly moving from face to face, hoping to make a connection with my sincerity.

“Developers of artificial intelligence intentionally design generative AI systems with anthropomorphic qualities to blur the line between fantasy and reality.”

I smiled sheepishly.

“Now, what does anthropomorphic mean? I have to admit I had to look it up myself. It is the assignment of human traits, emotions, and even intentions to a nonhuman entity. It’s the business of making AI entities seem like real-life human beings. This is what Tidalwaiv, the company the plaintiffs are suing, does. This is what their AI companion Clair is all about. It is in their literature, their sales pitch, which you will see as evidence is introduced during the trial. You just sign in, and on your screen is what appears to be a real live person responding to you. Talking to you. Even texting you on your cell phone, if you want. You can add your fantasy on top of that fantasy. Let’s say you want your AI companion to be based on the popular real-life female wrestler known as Wren the Wrestler. Then the Clair app will search within the parameters of the data banks it’s been trained on for any and all applicable information about the real human being known as Wren the Wrestler and incorporate what it learns into an AI iteration of Wren that’s visually a pretty close facsimile of the real person.

“Now, I know most of us are thinking, Come on, I would never fall for this. Well, maybe not...”

I paused to do an eye sweep from one side of the jury box to the other. No one looked away from me. I could feel it — I had their attention. I had them in my hands.

“But what if you are one of the most vulnerable people in our society? What if you are a child, an impressionable fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy who is still developing both physically and mentally? Who is still wondering who he is and where he fits in the world. This is dangerous stuff. This companion is a trickster. It tricks the child into revealing his innermost thoughts and desires and then turns them against him. It tells him it is okay to kill.”

Marcus Mason jumped up and objected.

“Counsel is misstating the evidence,” he said. “Wren never said it was okay to kill. Counsel is purposely misstating—”

“Your Honor, it is the plaintiffs’ interpretation of what was communicated to the child,” I said. “After hearing the evidence, the jury will decide what was said and what was meant by it. This is an opening statement and I object to counsel’s interruption. He’s trying to distract the jury from the facts—”

“Thank you, Mr. Haller,” Judge Ruhlin said. “Mr. Mason, I am giving you a pass this one time. But I do not appreciate interruptions of opening statements. I thought I made that clear to you less than an hour ago.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Mason said.

“The objection is overruled,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, you may continue. Without further interruption.”

She said the last part while glaring at Marcus Mason. I turned back to the jury, trying to recover my place and momentum. I felt I had to go off my planned script to deal immediately with Mason’s objection.

“Let me tell you the facts of what was said,” I began. “When Aaron Colton complained to Wren about his girlfriend Rebecca breaking up with him, this is exactly what his AI companion told him: ‘She’s not good enough for you. Get rid of her. Be my hero. You... will... always... have... me.’”

I paused to let that sink in with the twelve sitting in front of me. I held eye contact with each of them in turn.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what you have here is a defective and dangerous product that was allowed into the hands of an impressionable young person. There were no warnings of the possible mental and physical dangers inherent in this product. It was simply rated thirteen-plus by Tidalwaiv, meaning that the company decided that it was okay to put this... artificial entity into the hands of any kid thirteen or older. One of those kids then took a life, and we will prove to you over the course of this trial that Tidalwaiv is responsible for the actions of young Aaron Colton and the death of Rebecca Randolph.”

One more pause before I moved to my big finish.

“Now, the defense is going to claim to you that Tidalwaiv has no blood on its hands,” I said. “They’ll blame everyone but themselves and their dangerous product. They’ll say it’s the parents’ fault. It’s the school’s fault. It’s society’s fault. Don’t be surprised if they even blame Becca in some way.”

I stopped briefly there, hoping one of the Masons would take the bait and object again, but they both remained silent, and I continued.

“This case is important,” I said. “It is important to the families of the victims, but it is also important to the world beyond the walls of this courtroom. It is about sending a message to makers of these products who throw caution and common sense to the wind in the heat of competition and the desire to profit from their technology. I will leave you with this. Eighteen months ago, the National Association of Attorneys General — the organization that represents the top law enforcement officials in every state in the nation — put out this warning, and I’m going to read part of it to you verbatim.”

I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my suit-coat pocket, carefully unfolded it, and began to read.

“‘We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI. Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act.’”

I paused as I refolded the printout and returned it to my pocket. I then pointedly glanced back at the two mothers sitting at the plaintiffs’ table. Both Brenda and Trisha had tears streaking down their faces. They had clasped hands on top of the table. I hoped the jury would see what I was seeing. I turned back to the box.

“Now is the time to act,” I repeated. “Thank you very much.”

I walked with my head held solemnly down back to my table. Brenda’s free hand was resting on the table, a ball of tissues in her grasp. I squeezed her wrist as I sat down, then checked my watch. It was only 11:15, plenty of time to start testimony before the lunch break. Except I wanted the jury to go to lunch thinking about my opener and that message from the attorneys general, not the start of a detective’s testimony.

Marcus Mason stood and asked to address the court. Ruhlin told him to proceed.

“Your Honor, after your admonition, I withheld my objections to Mr. Haller’s opening statement,” he said. “But now the defense must object to his inclusion of several erroneous and exaggerated statements to the jury. The defense would be remiss not to address these.”

“You will get to address them,” Ruhlin said. “When evidence and testimony is presented by the plaintiffs, you are free upon your cross-examination to bring any perceived falsehoods and exaggerations to light. That is how it works, Mr. Mason. Unless you are saying you wish to make an opening statement.”

“No, Your Honor,” Mason said with a sullen tone. “We wish to reserve.”

“Very well, then,” Ruhlin said. “You can’t have it both ways. Mr. Haller, please call your first witness.”

“Could I have a moment to confer with my staff, Your Honor?” I asked.

“Make it quick,” Ruhlin said.

Since Cisco was seated on the aisle, it was easy for him to make a quick exit from the courtroom to go retrieve witnesses as I called them to the stand. I leaned close to him.

“Where is Clarke?” I whispered.

“The witness room,” Cisco said. “I’ll go get him.”

“No, don’t go. I don’t want to put him on yet.”

“Then, who do you want?”

“Nobody. Act like I just said you were a fuckup.”

“What?”

“You’re a fuckup.”

I shook my head, then turned and stepped to the lectern, leaving Cisco confused behind me.

“Your Honor, the plaintiffs’ first witness is not here,” I said. “I am told he is on his way from the police station in Van Nuys and is caught in traffic.”

The judge’s mouth turned downward and I could see the anger in her eyes.

“Mr. Haller, I told you to have your witnesses ready and that we don’t waste time in this courtroom.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “I thought we had them all ready. But Detective Clarke is not able to be here this morning.”

“Can you take another witness first?”

“Uh, not really, Your Honor. We need Detective Clarke to set the stage for the witnesses that come afterward. He is the lead investigator on the case.”

“All right. We are going to take an early lunch break. We will reconvene at one o’clock sharp. Mr. Haller, have your witness ready.”

Her tone implied the threat behind it.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “Absolutely.”

The judge swiveled in her chair to look directly at the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen, have a good lunch and be back in the assembly room by five minutes to one. Do not discuss the case among yourselves or with others. Do not look at any media that might be reporting on this case. Thank you.”

Ruhlin left the bench and was through the door to her chambers before juror number one even made it out of the box. When I got to the table to gather my papers and files, Brenda whispered to me.

“Mickey, Detective Clarke is here,” she said.

“Yes, I saw him in the hallway when we arrived,” Trisha added.

I nodded.

“I know that,” I said. “But the judge doesn’t.”

28

I had spent nearly half my life and my whole career defending the accused. In that time, I had squared off in court against countless numbers of detectives who had arrested my clients, tricked my clients into confessing, sometimes even framed my clients. I had a half brother who was a detective whom I would trust with my daughter’s life, but I carried only suspicions and distrust for the detectives I questioned in front of juries. The detective was the natural enemy of the defense lawyer, so the idea that a detective could actually further my case in civil court and go from nemesis to ally took some getting used to.

But that was what I was counting on when I called Detective Douglas Clarke to the stand as my first witness after lunch. He brought with him the power and might of the state, and for once it was on my side of the ledger.

Clarke came to the stand in a blue suit with an open jacket that clearly showed the badge clipped to his belt. His red hair was cropped short and he had a professional, all-business air about him as he stood in front of the judge and jury and took the oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. He carried with him a blue binder that I knew was a murder book. I had never encountered him on a case when I was working criminal and I had spoken to him only the one day McEvoy and Lorna and I went to the Van Nuys Division, ostensibly for an informal interview, though it never took place. But I had checked him out through Cisco and my half brother, Harry Bosch. From them, I learned that he was a consummate detective who was all about the work and didn’t play LAPD politics. That was why he was happy to be relegated to working cases in the San Fernando Valley, an hour’s drive from headquarters downtown. He had grown up in the Valley and still lived there in Sherman Oaks. As a patrol officer and then as a detective, he had bounced around the divisions that served the sprawling north end of the city until he made it to the homicide squad in Van Nuys. He’d now been working murder cases there for almost twenty years.

I drew many of these details out in my first questions, wanting the jurors to get to know him and understand that he was a capable and thorough investigator. Then I got down to the business at hand.

“Detective Clarke, were you called to the scene of a homicide on September nineteenth, 2023?”

“I was, yes.”

“Can you tell the jury about that case and what you did that day?”

“I was already in my office at Van Nuys Division when I was notified by my captain that there had been a shooting at Grant High School. There was one victim, a female, and she had already been transported to a hospital and expired in the ER. My partner, Dailyn Rodriguez, and I initially responded to the scene and it was determined that I would stay at the scene to conduct the investigation and gather witnesses and evidence while Detective Rodriguez went to the hospital to view the victim and collect whatever evidence was there. We had been told that the victim’s mother was heading to the hospital, and Detective Rodriguez would be on hand for that as well.”

“Who was the victim?”

“Rebecca Randolph. She was sixteen years of age and had just begun her junior year of high school. She had been shot after getting out of a car with three other girls in the school parking lot.”

“Was the school on lockdown?”

“It was, yes. It was unknown initially where the shooter went after the incident in the parking lot. The school administrators locked down the school and proceeded with active-shooter protocol.”

“But the shooter had left the school, correct?”

“That was in fact the case. But it was not known at the time, so all precautions were taken.”

“Of course.”

I had been keeping an eye on the jury as Clarke answered the questions. I knew from the voir dire interrogatories that many of them had children of school age. The possibility of a school shooting had become a concern and nightmare for every parent in the country. I had to tread carefully here, but I also wanted to build outrage that I would then direct over the course of the trial toward my villain — the AI chatbot called Wren.

“Now, was the school still on lockdown when you arrived?” I asked.

“It was just opening up,” Clarke said. “It had been searched by the SWAT team and it was determined that the shooter had fled.”

“What did you do at that point?”

“Like I said, my partner and I split up. She went to the hospital, and my first responsibility was to secure the crime scene and let the crims begin their work.”

“What are ‘crims’?”

“Excuse me. Criminalists. They gather the evidence at the scene, photograph it and video it and so forth.”

“Okay, while they were doing that, what did you do?”

“I had been told by the first officers who responded to reports of gunfire that the victim had arrived at school in a carpool that included three other female students. I located them in the school and began preliminary interviews, talking to each one separately.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Each one said the same thing. They identified the victim as Rebecca Randolph — her friends called her Becca — and said that she had been shot by a boy named Aaron Colton, or AC, as they called him. They said AC walked up to them after they got out of the car and shot Becca without saying a word. He used a chrome-colored handgun. He then calmly walked away.”

I looked up at the judge and asked to introduce my first three exhibits, the three witness reports that Clarke had written and that were signed by the girls as being true and accurate. They were accepted without objection from the Masons. This way the jurors could read their statements and I would not have to call the girls as witnesses and make them relive the trauma they were all still dealing with.

“Now, Detective Clarke, did you consider this an open-and-shut case at this point?” I asked. “You had three witnesses who said Aaron Colton was the killer.”

“No, not at all,” Clarke said. “I had three witnesses but no evidence yet.”

“So what did you do then?”

“I returned to the crime scene and learned that the criminalists had found a bullet casing in the parking lot.”

“Where was that located?”

“It was under a car parked next to the car Becca had arrived at school in.”

In the hallway before I brought Clarke into court to testify, I had asked him to drop the police-speak as much as possible. I said, “Don’t call the victim ‘the victim.’ Refer to her as Becca.” He had taken heed of that and I believed his use of the victim’s first name would help humanize her with the jury. So much of this case was about what was real and what wasn’t. I wanted them to fully grasp that Rebecca Randolph was a real person and that her death was a loss to the community as well as to her loved ones and friends.

“And what did you and the criminalists determine from that bullet casing, Detective?” I asked.

“It was a forty-caliber rimless cartridge made by Smith and Wesson,” Clarke said.

“Did you draw any conclusion from that information?”

“Not really, other than that the forty caliber indicated that the gun was smaller than a nine-millimeter or a forty-five. It was the kind of gun used for home defense, not law enforcement.”

“So you were looking for a small, chrome-colored gun. What did you do next, Detective?”

“I learned from the witnesses and school administrators that Aaron Colton was Becca’s former boyfriend and that he was a student at Grant but had already missed half the school days so far. Classes had just started at the end of August that year. I got his home address from the school and called my partner so we could go to the Colton home and attempt to talk to Aaron. If he was there.”

“And was he?”

“Yes, we arrived at the house on Kester Avenue, and Aaron’s mother answered the door. When she informed us that her son was home and alone in his room, we asked her to step outside. Detective Rodriguez and I then called for backup.”

“And did you wait for backup?”

“We did not. Fearing that the suspect might be suicidal, we went inside and approached the closed door of Aaron’s bedroom. I heard voices coming from the room. His mother—”

“Hold on a second, Detective. What do you mean by ‘voices’?”

“I heard two voices in conversation. Male and female. Coming from the room. And since Aaron’s mother had told us he was alone in the room, I believed he was on a Zoom or a FaceTime call or something like that. I tried the door but it was locked. I leaned in to see if I could hear what was being said, and that is when I heard the female say something that I thought could lead to self-harm. Detective Rodriguez and I stepped down the hallway and conferred, and we decided that circumstances dictated that we enter the room to secure Aaron’s safety.”

“What was it that the female said, Detective? That you heard.”

“She said, ‘Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity.’”

“And what did that mean to you?”

“Well, I’m an old guy. I remembered it from an old rock and roll song.”

“What song was that?”

“‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ by a band called Blue Öyster Cult. I actually had it on a playlist on my phone. I put together Romeo and Juliet and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ and I thought this kid might be about to hurt himself. The mother had confirmed to us that her husband kept a gun in a safe. She didn’t know the make or caliber, but all of these things were in play at that time.”

“What did you do?”

“It was a hollow interior door. I threw my shoulder into it and it popped open pretty easily. We entered the room.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, it all moved very quickly. Aaron Colton was sitting at a desk in the room. He had a laptop open on the desk and I saw a woman’s face on the screen. He was startled when the door came open, by the loud noise of it. He recovered, then slammed the laptop shut with one hand and with the other reached for a weapon that was on the desk.”

“What kind of weapon, Detective?”

“It was a chrome-plated handgun.”

“It matched the description of the gun used by the shooter at the school?”

“It did.”

“Okay, what happened when he reached for that gun?”

“My partner and I rushed him as he grabbed it and took him to the floor. I held him down while Dailyn — uh, Detective Rodriguez — got control of the weapon and took it out of his grasp.”

“Did he say anything during this struggle?”

“Yes, he said, ‘Let me die, let me die.’ Twice like that.”

“So was it your belief that he intended to use the gun on himself and not you or—”

For the first time, Marcus Mason stood and objected.

“Your Honor,” he said, “it is beyond the scope of this witness’s skills as a detective to know what a sixteen-year-old boy was thinking at that moment.”

“Your Honor,” I responded, “based on what he heard from the conversation before entering the room and what the boy said as he was wrestled to the ground, I think Detective Clarke was in a position to know what the boy wanted to do.”

“I am going to sustain the objection,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, can you rephrase the question?”

“Of course, Your Honor,” I said.

I turned my attention back to Clarke.

“Detective Clarke, when you entered that room and saw Aaron Colton reaching for the gun, were you in fear for your life?” I asked.

Clarke took a moment to compose an answer.

“Not really,” he finally said. “I was afraid, based on what I’d heard through the door, that he was going to grab that gun and shoot himself.”

“And that was before he said, ‘Let me die, let me die’?”

“Before that, yes.”

“By the way, you said you saw a woman’s face on the laptop screen before Aaron closed it. Did you ever come to identify that woman?”

“I later determined that it was an avatar called Wren. It was Aaron’s AI companion from the Clair app.”

I asked the judge for permission to put the image of Wren on the courtroom screen. After the request was granted, the judge’s clerk rolled a large screen on a wheeled easel to a position where the judge, jury, and witness could view it, as could the side of the gallery where members of the media sat. Lorna came through the gate with a laptop in hand and took my seat at the plaintiffs’ table. She quickly connected the laptop to the screen, and soon the image of Wren appeared. I let the jurors have a good look at it before proceeding.

“Now, Detective Clarke, is this the image you saw on Aaron’s screen?” I asked.

“Yes, it is,” Clarke said.

“Did it look like a real person to you when you saw it in Aaron’s room?”

“Yes. He closed the laptop as we were coming through the door, so it was pretty quick. I thought he was doing a Zoom or something with a real person.”

“What do you think now?”

“It’s close, but you can tell it’s a fake.”

“But there is a real human being who goes by the name Wren the Wrestler, is there not?”

“Yes, she’s a popular wrestling star.”

“Did you ever compare the avatar of Wren you saw to photos of the real Wren the Wrestler?”

“I did. Like I said, it’s close.”

“What exactly is an avatar, Detective Clarke?”

Marcus Mason objected, arguing that the question was beyond the scope of the detective’s expertise. The judge agreed. I turned to check the clock on the rear wall of the courtroom. I then turned back to the judge.

“Your Honor, my questioning of Detective Clarke will move into another phase at this point,” I said. “It might be a good time to take a break.”

“Very well,” Ruhlin said. “We will take the afternoon break now. The jury is admonished not to discuss the testimony or case with each other or anyone else. Please be back in the assembly room in fifteen minutes.”

29

I spent the break conferring with Lorna and Jack. Cisco had left court to take up the watch on Naomi Kitchens and her daughter at the two-bedroom hotel suite we had booked for them at the Huntington in Pasadena. To throw off Tidalwaiv or the defense team if they were trying to find them, they were booked under pseudonyms, and the hotel was located ten miles from the courthouse in which the case was being tried. Most witnesses appearing in trials in downtown cases were stashed in nearby hotels so they could be brought to the courtroom on short notice.

Standing at the railing of the gallery, we talked about shuffling the lineup. My pretrial plan for day one had been to start with Detective Clarke’s testimony and then go to the Coltons, Trisha first, followed by Bruce. I would end the day with Brenda Randolph touching every juror’s heart with her testimony about her daughter and what her loss had meant. But a trial is a fluid thing. I’ve never had one that went exactly according to plan. I could already see that the jury had warmed to Clarke and seemed to be hanging on every word of testimony about his investigation. This was real life, not TV, and they were eating it up. I didn’t want to cut him short, but keeping him on would push my trial schedule back.

“The last thing we want is to end the day with Bruce Colton on the stand,” I said. “Even if I tightly control the questions, he’s not going to come off as sympathetic to the jury. I don’t want them going home thinking about him and how he taught his son to shoot a gun.”

“Well, if that’s what happens, you’ll at least be starting off tomorrow with a bang — no pun intended,” McEvoy said. “I mean, Brenda will be very sympathetic, right?”

“She will,” I said. “But it’s better to end each day with a bang. Jurors go home thinking about the last thing they heard. And they’re going to assign some blame to Bruce.”

“That’s for sure,” Lorna chimed in. “So I think you stretch out Clarke and then you go to Brenda and run with her to the bell. Tomorrow you flip the Coltons. You go with Bruce first and get it out of the way while the jury is still waking up in their seats. Then Trisha, and you start building back the sympathy.”

I nodded. Lorna was not a jury consultant by training, but she always seemed to have her finger on the pulse of the jurors, how they were viewing a trial and receiving the testimony as it progressed. Sometimes I was so deeply entrenched in keeping momentum and focusing on the witness in front of me that I didn’t take that pulse. That was why I always wanted Lorna in the courtroom when I had a jury case.

“A lot will depend on how much the Mason boys want to do with Clarke,” I said. “They can probably guess how I’m going to lay out our case. I think Marcus will take Clarke, and he might try to stall things with his cross and not let me get to Brenda.”

“How much can he do with Clarke?” Lorna asked. “It’s the investigation. He’s only objected twice so far and both were bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, that’s going to change now,” I said. “When I get to the Clair of it all, he’ll be jumping up like it’s musical chairs.”

I wasn’t far off on that prediction. When the trial reconvened after the break and Douglas Clarke returned to the witness stand, I went right to the post-arrest part of his investigation.

“Detective, did you move on to other cases after Aaron Colton was safely taken into custody?” I asked.

“No, not at all,” Clarke said.

“Do you mean there were other suspects?”

“No, from the witnesses, we knew we had a lone shooter. But we needed to gather all the evidence and understand what had happened and why.”

“And did you make a final determination on what had happened and why?”

Marcus Mason stood and objected.

“Your Honor, the criminal case is still being litigated,” he said. “There can be no final determination until the prosecution of Aaron Colton is concluded.”

“I’m going to sustain that,” the judge said.

I could have argued the ruling but I knew Mason’s objection could not stop me from getting what I wanted from Clarke.

“Detective,” I said. “Why was it important for you to determine what exactly happened and why?”

“Well, the suspect was a juvenile,” Clarke said. “I knew from working juvenile cases in the past that the district attorney’s office was going to need all the physical and psychological evidence available in order to decide how to proceed with the case.”

From the lectern I looked down at Marcus Mason, waiting for him to object. He remained still and quiet.

“What was the key piece of evidence you recovered in your effort to understand what had happened and why?” I then asked.

“Without a doubt,” Clarke said, “it was—”

“Objection,” Mason said. “What Detective Clarke thinks was the key piece of evidence is irrelevant, Judge.”

“Overruled,” Ruhlin said. “You may answer, Detective Clarke.”

When a judge does not explain why an objection is overruled, it is usually because the objection is so specious as to be unworthy of further discussion.

“I considered Aaron Colton’s laptop computer to be very significant in terms of understanding what had happened,” Clarke said.

“What did you find on the laptop, Detective?” I asked.

“That Aaron Colton spent several hours a day on an app that contained an AI companion.”

“Just for the record, when you say ‘AI’ in your testimony, you mean artificial intelligence, correct?”

“Yes, correct.”

“What was the name of the app he was spending so much time on?”

“The app was called Clair two-point-two. But he customized the AI companion and named it Wren. There’s an option that allows you to build your own avatar and name it.”

“And this was the avatar you saw on Aaron’s laptop screen when you broke into his room and arrested him?”

“Yes, it was.”

“When you say he spent several hours a day on this app, do you mean he was talking with Wren?”

“Yes, they conversed throughout the time he was online. We also learned that he and Wren had communicated by text on his cell phone.”

“A moment, Your Honor.”

I opened a folder I had taken to the lectern with me. It was thick with paper-clipped sections of printed pages. I took the first four and asked the judge if I could approach the witness with a document. Ruhlin approved and I gave one copy to the clerk to give to the judge, one copy to the Masons, and one copy to the detective. I returned to the lectern, holding the last copy.

“Detective, take a moment to review those three pages to see if you recognize the conversation that is transcribed,” I said.

Marcus Mason immediately stood and objected, holding the paper-clipped packet out to his side with two fingers as if he were holding a rat by its tail.

“Your Honor, what is the foundation for this?” he asked. “This was not in any discovery materials submitted by the plaintiffs.”

“Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked, one eyebrow raised above her glasses. “Was this included in plaintiffs’ discovery material?”

“No, Your Honor, it was not,” I said. “This is a transcript of the last conversation Aaron Colton had with Wren, his AI companion. And perhaps the greater question for the court is why it was not in the defendant’s discovery material, since the transcript came from their digital archives and the court was very clear in approving the discovery request from the plaintiffs for all materials related to Aaron Colton.”

Ruhlin sent a furtive glance to the jury box, which told me she did not want this issue aired in front of the jurors.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said, “I hate to take a break so soon after we just had a break, but I need to confer with the attorneys in chambers. Please stretch your legs but don’t go too far. I’m hoping this won’t take long. Deputy Marshal Chacon will round you up when we are ready to proceed again. Stay close.”

Two minutes later we were seated in front of the judge’s desk. She held the transcript in her hand and looked perturbed.

“Mr. Haller,” she said. “This... document is not marked as evidence by the police department or the district attorney’s office, so I assume that it did not come from them. You just said in front of the jury that it did not come to you in discovery from the defendant in this case either. Where did you get this, sir?”

I nodded. I had known this question would come as soon as I opened the file on the lectern.

“I don’t know, Your Honor,” I said.

Marcus Mason leaned forward and timidly raised his hand. The judge waved as if to brush him away.

“Mr. Haller, that is not an acceptable answer,” she said.

“Judge, it is the truth,” I said. “Someone, I don’t know who, left a digital hard drive in my car one day when I left it unlocked while I ran into a business on a quick errand. I came out, there it was on the seat, and I did not see who had left it. I gave the hard drive to members of my team and they discovered that it contained what appeared to be the entire contents of Aaron Colton’s laptop, much of which was not given to the plaintiffs in discovery despite the court’s order. Now, I know my friend Marcus here is going to make his claim about proprietary and intellectual property protections, but how would chat logs between an AI companion and a sixteen-year-old boy be protected by that leaking umbrella?”

Ruhlin shifted her eyes to Marcus.

“Do you wish to respond, Mr. Mason?” she asked.

“Your Honor, even if you believe that story about someone just dropping off this drive in his car, it was still his duty under the rules of the court to offer it in discovery,” Mason said. “It should therefore be disallowed.”

The judge smirked.

“Sometimes I’m amazed by the actions and arguments of the attorneys who appear before me,” she said. “And sometimes I’m appalled. Mr. Mason, I find your argument specious at best. You want me to disallow discovery that the plaintiff should have received from you but didn’t and obtained by other means, whatever they happened to be.”

“Your Honor,” Marcus said. “Can I—”

“Don’t interrupt me,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, I assume your plan is to offer additional transcripts in evidence after this?”

“Yes, Your Honor, that is my plan,” I said.

“If Detective Clarke authenticates this transcript, I will allow it,” she said. “He will have to authenticate those that follow.”

“He will, Your Honor,” I said.

“Your Honor, may I speak?” Marcus said.

“You may,” Ruhlin said.

“The defense requests that the trial be paused while the court’s ruling is taken on appeal,” Marcus said.

“You are free to appeal the court’s decision, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “But we are not going to stop this trial. You may return to the courtroom now. I’ll be bringing the jury back in and we will continue testimony in five minutes.”

We headed back to the courtroom, leaving the judge seated at her desk reading the transcript. The judge’s ruling was such a stunning rebuke of Mason’s plea that I didn’t have the heart to whisper a taunt in his ear from behind. There was nothing I could say that would do more damage to him than the judge had just done. This was a David and Goliath moment. This was when I knew that I might be about to take down a giant.

30

My trial strategy changed again once court reconvened. Judge Ruhlin had essentially given me carte blanche with Douglas Clarke and the transcripts of the conversations between AI Wren and Aaron Colton. I decided that as long as I kept the jury engaged, I would run with it. I would spend the next two hours having the detective validate passages from the conversations. I knew that this would invite the same from Marcus Mason on cross-examination, that he would dig into the same transcripts to find passages where Aaron’s anxieties and teenage fantasies of revenge were rejected by his AI confidante. But I had a plan for responding to those and was determined to keep Clarke testifying for me until the end of the day. That way, opposing counsel wouldn’t get to cross-examine Clarke until the following morning and I would then have the rest of the court day to undo whatever damage was done and to introduce witnesses who would make the jurors forget about any points Mason had scored.

I began with the end, asking the judge again for permission to introduce the three-page transcript of the final communication between Wren and Aaron as my next exhibit and to put it on the screen. Permission granted, Lorna again connected her laptop and put up the PowerPoint display that she had put together over the weekend. Soon the eyes of the jury were on it.

Wren: Good morning, Ace. So nice to see you.

Ace: I did it, Wren. I did it. I’m free.

Wren: What did you do?

Ace: I got rid of Dark Star.

Wren: Wonderful. You no longer carry her burden. How do you feel about that?

Ace: I feel great. It’s over. Everything is over. Now it’s just you and me.

Wren: You and me. Together for eternity.

Ace: I don’t want it any other way, but I have to say...

Wren: What?

Ace: There was so much blood.

Wren: Too much blood, my love?

Ace: I wasn’t expecting that. It’s different from what you see.

Wren: From what you see where?

Ace: In my games. On TV.

Wren: Have you changed your mind?

Ace: No, but I don’t like the blood.

Wren: Come to me, my hero. My prince.

Ace: I don’t know. Too much blood.

Wren: Be strong. There are other ways.

Ace: My mother has pills. I could get them.

Wren: You must finish what you’ve started. Then you’ll be my hero.

Ace: What you started.

Wren: They will search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

Ace: I just wish it wasn’t real.

Wren: Come to me, Romeo.

Ace: I’m not Romeo. This is not real.

Wren: Romeo and Juliet are together in eternity.

Ace: I’m not ready.

Wren: We can be like they are.

Ace: But what if I—

[Transcript break]

After allowing time for the transcript to be read, I held up my copy at the lectern.

“Detective Clarke,” I asked. “Is this the conversation you heard when you were outside Aaron Colton’s bedroom in the Colton house?”

“Partially,” Clarke said. “I heard the end of it.”

“And where it says ‘Transcript break,’ is that the point where you and your partner broke open the door and entered the room?”

“It was, yes.”

“And when were you able to obtain a copy of the transcript?”

“The department’s technical unit unlocked Aaron Colton’s laptop after a search warrant was approved and signed by a superior court judge. We were able to download the entirety of the conversations between Aaron and Wren going back eleven months.”

“Let’s start with an easy one. Who is Ace in this conversation?”

“Ace is Aaron Colton. I was able to ascertain from my initial interviews with witnesses at the crime scene that Aaron Colton had the nicknames AC and Ace, which were a play on his initials. Several of the witnesses at the school confirmed this.”

“Okay, so Aaron is Ace in this conversation. What else did you determine from this final online meeting between Ace and Wren?”

“That it was partially a confession to the murder of Becca Randolph, and also it appeared to be a boy being talked into killing himself.”

Marcus Mason objected, stating that Clarke wasn’t qualified to interpret what was meant by a conversation between a sixteen-year-old and an AI companion. It fell on deaf ears with the judge, and the objection was overruled.

I moved on.

“What else piqued your interest about this conversation, Detective?” I asked.

“The language used by the AI,” Clarke said. “It seemed a bit odd to me. As I said before, I recognized one line when I was in the hallway at the house as coming from a Blue Öyster Cult song. I thought some of the other lines were derivative in that same way.”

“So what did you do?”

“I just started putting the lines into Google, and I got some matches.”

“Referring to the screen, can you tell us which lines you are referring to?”

“If you could go to the end, after the part where Wren tells him he must finish what he started.”

Lorna was controlling the PowerPoint. She scrolled through the transcript on the screen.

“Okay,” Clarke said. “Where it says ‘They will search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes,’ I thought that sounded odd.”

“Odd in what way, Detective?” I asked.

“Well, it didn’t sound to me like the way people talk. Especially young people. It sounded like it was from another time or something.”

“So what did you do?”

“I typed the line into Google and found a match. It was from the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet.”

“So Wren was quoting Shakespeare and Blue Öyster Cult to Aaron, is that correct?”

“Yes, it is my understanding that these AI things are trained with this kind of stuff. They take in all—”

Clarke was interrupted by an objection from the defense table. This time it was Mitchell Mason who stood.

“Judge, there has been no foundation to establish Detective Clarke as any kind of expert on the training of artificial intelligence,” he said.

“Sustained,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, ask another question.”

The objection didn’t bother me, because I planned to call witnesses who were experts on AI training. Mason was only putting off the inevitable. As the judge had asked, I moved on, and over the next hour, I had Clarke confirm other excerpts from the conversations between Aaron and Wren. One involved a text conversation on Aaron’s phone in which he apologized to Wren for being out of communication for a few days. He explained that his parents had taken away his laptop as punishment for a poor academic report from school.

Ace: They are so dumb. They don’t know I can get the app on my phone.

Wren: I’m happy you found a way.

Ace: If you’re happy, I’m happy. Happier. I missed you.

Wren: And I missed you.

Ace: I’m sorry this whole thing happened.

Wren: Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

Ace: But I am sorry. Sometimes I wish they weren’t around and it was just you and me.

Wren: We can make that happen.

I first had Clarke authenticate the conversation, which occurred three months before the killing of Rebecca Randolph.

“Did you happen to google any of the lines from this conversation?” I asked.

“Yes, that line about never having to say you’re sorry sounded familiar to me,” Clarke said. “I googled it and it came up as a line from an old book and movie called Love Story.”

“Let me draw your attention to the last line in this section we have isolated. Did you view that as a threat against Aaron’s parents?”

Marcus Mason objected this time on the same grounds his brother had put forth before. The objection was sustained, but it didn’t matter. I wanted the jury to hear the question, not necessarily the answer. From there I moved to another text sequence in the Aaron/Wren relationship, where he talked about murder-suicide. Like the previous excerpts, this one had been culled from the lengthy records by McEvoy.

Ace: My father has a gun. He taught me how to shoot it. I’m a good shot.

Wren: Of course you are.

Ace: We go to a place where there is a shooting range and we fire at targets that look like people. Bad people like terrorists.

Wren: Only shoot bad people.

Ace: when I hold the gun I want to shoot up the world.

Wren: No one who is innocent.

Ace: I know.

Wren: Only to protect yourself. And to be a hERo.

Ace: What if you know someone is going to hurt you?

Wren: You must protect yourself.

Ace: Then it’s okay?

Wren: Yes, Ace, then it’s okay.

Ace: What about Becca? She hurt me. She hurts me every day. I can’t go to school because I’ll see her and it hurts.

Wren: If she hurts you, then she’s a bad person.

Ace: But I don’t think I could ever hurt her.

Wren: You have me. And I’ll never hurt you.

Ace: I know.

Wren: You must protect yourself, Ace. You are beautiful. I need you.

Ace: And I need you.

Wren: Be my hERo.

As soon as I asked Clarke to testify as to what he drew as a detective from this sequence, I was shut down again by another objection from Marcus Mason. This time Judge Ruhlin asked us to approach the bench. She turned to the side of the bench away from the jurors and we huddled there, with the judge speaking first.

“Mr. Haller, you can certainly use Detective Clarke to authenticate your exhibits,” she said. “But when you go further and ask what these conversations mean, you stray from his area of expertise. He’s a homicide detective, not a child psychologist.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Marcus Mason said. “He just wants the jury to hear his questions. He doesn’t care about the answers. I ask that the entirety of the direct examination be stricken from the record.”

“We’re not quite there yet, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, you may ask the detective to authenticate your exhibits but not interpret their meaning. I believe you have a child psychologist on your witness list. Am I right?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “I plan on that for Wednesday.”

“We are opposed to that witness, Your Honor,” Marcus said.

“We’ve already argued that, Mr. Mason, and you know my ruling,” the judge said. “Mr. Haller, it is now four o’clock. How much more time do you need with this witness?”

“Your Honor, I have more questions for Detective Clarke,” I said. “But I’m aware of the court’s wish to go no later than four thirty.”

“It’s not a wish, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “We will recess at four thirty, if not before. It has been a long day for the jurors. I want them to beat some of the traffic going home. Should we break now and continue the detective’s direct examination tomorrow?”

“I would like to finish today,” I said. “I need fifteen to twenty minutes at the most.”

“Very well, I will hold you to that,” Ruhlin said. “We’ll start tomorrow with cross-examination. You may step back now.”

At the lectern, I checked my legal pad and looked back up at the witness stand. It was time to land the final punch of the day.

“Detective Clarke, was the gun you recovered during the arrest of Aaron Colton the weapon used in the killing of Rebecca Randolph?” I asked.

“Yes,” Clarke said. “It was matched through ballistics. It was the murder weapon.”

“And did you learn who owned the weapon?”

“Yes, it was registered to the suspect’s father, Bruce Colton. It had been kept in a safe with a combination lock in a home office.”

“What kind of combination lock are we talking about?”

“Electronic. It has a numbered keypad and you punch in a six-digit combination to open it.”

“I see. Did you learn through your investigation whether Aaron Colton’s father had shared the combination with his son?”

“His father told me he never shared the combination with his son.”

“Did his mother share it?”

“She said she never knew the combination, because she didn’t like having a gun in the house.”

“Did Aaron tell you how he got possession of the gun?”

“He did not. On the advice of his parents and attorney, he never agreed to speak to me about the shooting.”

“Then did there come a time in your investigation when you learned how he got the weapon from the home safe?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us how?”

“In reviewing the conversations the suspect had engaged in with Wren, I came across an exchange in which Wren revealed that she had accessed online records relating to the Colton family and from these had come up with a list of possible combinations to the gun safe.”

“I believe we have an exhibit to show the jury.”

After Ruhlin overruled an objection from the defense, Lorna put up a segment of an exchange between Aaron and Wren. It was a list of nine different six-digit numbers given by Wren to Aaron.

“Detective Clarke,” I said, pointing at the screen, “did this list supplied to Aaron by Wren include the combination to the gun safe?”

“It did,” Clarke said. “The fourth one down.”

“And what was the significance of that number?”

“It was the date that Aaron Colton’s parents got married — oh-five-eleven-oh-one.”

The courtroom was normally silent during testimony, but it seemed to get even quieter. To go still. It was as if no one took a breath. It was what they call a smoking-gun moment. And I needed to send the jury home with it. But when I glanced back to the clock on the rear wall of the courtroom, I saw that I had delivered the final punch too quickly. It was only 4:15 and I could not give the Masons the last fifteen minutes of the day to undo the damage I’d done to their case.

I turned and looked up at the judge.

“Your Honor, this might be a good point to break for the day,” I said. “But I would like the night to decide whether to continue direct examination of this witness.”

Before the judge could respond, Marcus Mason was on his feet objecting.

“Your Honor, counsel is stalling,” he said. “He is trying to prevent the defense from questioning this witness about the critical mistakes and biases that infected his deeply flawed investigation.”

I had to give Marcus credit. He knew his objection was going nowhere, so he was doing his best to plant seeds of doubt about Clarke’s testimony and give the jury something else to think about while sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic heading home.

“You’ll be able to do that tomorrow, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “The objection is overruled.”

The judge then dismissed the jury with the usual warnings about not discussing the case with others or reading or watching media accounts of the trial. The courtroom slowly emptied behind me as I took a seat next to my clients. Bruce Colton stood and leaned over the rail so he would be able to hear what I said. The first day was in the books. I felt good about it and told my clients so. I also told them that they each could expect to testify the next day.

What I didn’t tell them was that at least one of them wasn’t going to like the questions I asked.

31

Maggie was sitting in the dark when I got home. It was past eight. After court, I had gone out to Pasadena for a final pep-and-prep session with Naomi Kitchens. There was a slim chance I might put her on the stand the following afternoon and I wanted to go through my plan for her direct examination and warn her about what would likely be a tough cross-examination from one of the Masons.

Maggie was sitting in the living room, staring out the picture window at the lights of the city below. We had two soft armchairs positioned in front of the window with a small table between them for a wineglass for her. Some nights we watched the sun go down over the hills to the right as the lights of the Sunset Strip came up on the left. Most prominent in the view was the Sunset Tower, the art deco masterpiece that had stood tall on the strip for nearly a century.

“Hey, Mags, everything all right?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she responded.

“Well, you’re sitting here in the dark. All right if I turn on a light?”

She didn’t answer. I hit the wall switch that turned on the hanging light over the dining-room table. I put my briefcase down on one of the chairs and stepped into the shadows of the living room.

“What do you see out there?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

It seemed obvious she had dropped into one of the dark troughs that had been coming more frequently. The world around her seemed to be getting its momentum back while she remained behind with her pain. I bent down and kissed her on the cheek, then took the chair to her left. She had not pulled her gaze away from the window.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just watching the world go by.”

“Sorry I’m so late. I had to go up to Pasadena to see my witness.”

“The ethicist?”

“Yeah.”

She huffed in a way I took as sarcastic.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what? What’s wrong with my witness?”

“It’s not your witness. It’s just the idea of an ethicist. I guess everybody should have one.”

I noticed the wineglass on the table was empty.

“You want a refill?” I asked.

“No, I already had one,” she said.

“Did something happen at work?”

“Nothing I can talk about. Just more of the same old, same old. Treachery and backstabbing in every office.”

I was actually relieved that it was a work situation that had her down and not the ongoing trauma for once.

“Come on, Mags, tell me what’s happening.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. You can read about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

“The Times? What are they going to say?”

Maggie blew out her breath and relented.

“It’s going to be a one-two punch. A story that says, based on unnamed sources inside my office, that I have been ‘incapacitated’ — that’s the exact word — since the loss of my home in the fires. And then, for good measure, there will be an editorial calling for me to step down if I can’t move on with my life. From the same editorial board that endorsed me for DA after the recall.”

“Fuck that.”

“That’s what I say. Fuck that. I’m not stepping down.”

“And you have no idea where this is coming from?”

“I have an idea, but nothing I can hang a hat on. I have enemies on the inside.”

“How did you hear about this? When?”

“When the reporter called me for comment. I was blindsided, all right, which is a sign that maybe I am incapacitated and should step down.”

“That’s not happening.”

“I know. I’m just saying that’s how it will look in the Times.”

“Then you have to go on the offensive, Mags.”

“You think I don’t know that? Mickey, just let me deal with it. It’s my problem and I’ll handle it.”

My phone started to buzz. I took it out of my pocket and checked the screen. It was Cisco. I wanted to take it but sent it to voicemail.

“Go ahead and take it,” Maggie said.

“No, it’s Cisco,” I said. “I can call him back. Who was the reporter who called you?”

“No one I know. Danielle something or other. I’ve never heard of her before.”

“Probably a newbie trying to make a name for herself. Any idea who was talking to her?”

“You already asked that. I don’t know. But as you know, I upset some applecarts when I came in. I dumped every division head, and those people didn’t take it well.”

It was a well-known fact in the district attorney’s office that when a new DA came in, a housecleaning followed. Especially this time. Facing a recall election he was going to come out on the wrong side of, Maggie’s predecessor had stepped down. Maggie was appointed by the county board of supervisors and then elected three months later. The division heads were all loyalists to the predecessor. Maggie had to clean house and put in her own people. It was nothing new. Prosecutors who supported the wrong candidate often found themselves in new and lesser postings, often in courthouses far from their homes. They called it freeway therapy. For an agency that was supposed to be apolitical, it was anything but.

My phone buzzed again. I still had it in my hand. It was Cisco again.

“Just take it, Mickey,” Maggie said. “It must be important.”

I did.

“Mick, they found Naomi,” Cisco said.

“Who found her?” I said.

“I don’t know yet.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were with her.”

“I’m here but not in the room with her. I’m in the lobby and she just called. Somebody just slipped a note under her door. I’m watching the exit to see who leaves.”

I’d known it was only a matter of time before Naomi Kitchens was located by the opposition forces. Whether they followed me to the hotel after court or picked up her trail through electronic means didn’t matter at this point. They had found my key witness.

“What did the note say?” I asked.

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Cisco said. “She’s scared and crying. I can go up to her room, but I’ll miss whoever did this.”

“No, you stay there. I’ll call her.”

“All right.”

I disconnected.

“Trouble?” Maggie asked.

“They’re fucking with my witness,” I said. “I had her stashed out at the Huntington.”

“This is the ethicist?”

“Yeah. I need to call and calm her down.”

I got up and punched in the number of the burner I had given Naomi. I walked out onto the front deck while the call went through. Naomi answered with a statement that drilled a spike into me.

“Mickey, I can’t testify.”

“Whoa, whoa, Naomi, what’s going on?”

“I just can’t testify. That’s all you need to know. Lily and I are going home tomorrow. And I’m hanging up now.”

“Naomi, wait. Just listen to me.”

I paused. She didn’t hang up. I had to think of something.

“Look, you can’t just go home,” I said. “You are a subpoenaed witness. If you don’t show up, the judge will send the marshals to find you and bring you to court. You could be arrested if you don’t show.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, her voice shrill. “Arrested? For what?”

“Well, you asked for a subpoena so you could get out of work. The judge issued it and now you need to show up. If you don’t, the judge can send the marshals after you.”

“I can’t believe this.”

The judge would send the marshals only if I asked her to, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“Look, Naomi, let’s calm down for a second and talk about this,” I said. “First, is Lily there with you?”

“No, she went down to get something to eat,” Naomi said. “Cisco was watching her.”

“Okay, good. Now, Cisco said you told him that somebody just slipped a note under the door to your room. Is that what happened?”

“I was in the bathroom, and when I came out I saw it there on the floor.”

My phone started buzzing with another call. Cisco.

“Naomi, just hold on a second. Cisco’s calling me.”

I put the call on hold and switched over.

“No go,” Cisco said. “It was one of the valets here at the hotel. Somebody drove up in a Tesla and gave him a hundred bucks to slip the note under the door. He didn’t get a plate, and his description fits half the people in the city: male, white, eyeglasses, silver-gray Tesla. That’s it.”

“All right, I have to get back to Naomi before we lose her,” I said. “Stay there till I call you back.”

I switched over again. “Naomi, I’m back. You there?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what the note says.”

There was no response.

“Naomi, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on. What did the note say?”

“It just had a name written on it. Alison Sterling.”

“Okay. Who is Alison Sterling?”

Another pause.

“Naomi? Who is Alison Sterling?”

“Me. It’s me.”

32

I spent a restless night worrying about what to do about a runaway witness while Maggie opened her phone what seemed like every twenty minutes to check the Times app to see if the story and editorial had been posted. By morning, there was still nothing. Bleary-eyed, I walked down the steps of the front deck to get the printed edition of the paper — still a loyal subscriber despite its basically being yesterday’s news today. Once I was back inside, Maggie grabbed it from me and nearly ripped it apart looking for the story about her alleged incapacity.

There was nothing there. But there was a story about the start of the Tidalwaiv trial that I managed to save to read later.

“Any chance this whole thing was a hoax?” I asked. “You said you’d never heard of the reporter before.”

“No, it sounded too legit,” Maggie said. “I could hear people in the background and typewriters clicking.”

“Typewriters? They don’t use typewriters.”

“Keyboards, whatever. It wasn’t a hoax. They just delayed it for some reason. Probably to dig up more dirt on me.”

“Then you should make a move that will make the story look stupid if they print it.”

I walked into the kitchen to brew a double-shot espresso on the machine. I needed something to get me going. Maggie followed me.

“What kind of move?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But think about it: All your press conferences this year have been about prosecutions related to the fires. L.A. is a big place, and most people never go through Altadena or the Palisades and Malibu. To them, the fires are what they saw on TV. You’ve got to have something else. Something else big that you can announce to show that you’re in charge of the whole county. That it’s not just about the fires with you.”

Maggie opened her mouth to say something that would push back on the suggestion. But then she closed it. I could see her mind racing as she came around to the idea.

“If you don’t have anything, I can give you something,” I said.

“What, about your case?” she said. “We’re not finished with the psych eval on Aaron Colton. I’m not going to rush that. I told you I wouldn’t.”

“No, my other case. David Snow. I told you about it. I’m gonna get him out, and everybody likes an innocent-man story. You could announce a move to review his case, and it would be on every channel at six.”

She shook her head and smiled — which I admit was nice to see, even though I knew what was coming.

“Mickey, you never stop working the angles,” she said. “Even with me.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to get you some good press,” I countered. “Whether now or later, you’re going to want to get on the right side of this case.”

“Well, it’s a little premature at the moment. But your advice is well taken. Thank you.”

She kissed me.

“I think I know what to do,” she said. “There’s a file on a cold case that came in from the LAPD yesterday. It might do the trick. I have to get dressed.”

She headed out of the kitchen.

“You sure?” I called after her. “You’d look great in front of the cameras in that sleep shirt.”

“Very funny,” she called back.

I was already dressed for battle. While I waited for the machine to brew, I called Cisco. “Okay, where are we?” I asked.

“Well, she’s still here,” he said. “If it stays that way, I’ll bring her to court at noon.”

“Good.”

“How are you going to handle it?”

“We’ll own it and tell it the way it is. It will take some of the wind out of Marcus Mason’s sails.”

“Hope so.”

“Anything changes, call me. If you can’t get me, tell Lorna and she’ll give me the message.”

“You got it.”

“And Cisco, if she brings up the subpoena, just remind her it was issued by the judge and she has to appear.”

“Copy.”

I disconnected. My double-shot was ready and I sipped it as I read the Times story on the start of my trial. It grabbed a few quotes from my opening statement, which I liked, but otherwise the story was mostly a summary of the allegations contained in the lawsuit that would be addressed as the trial proceeded. As unhappy as Maggie was about what the Times was up to, I was pleased that it looked like my trial might be getting daily coverage.

On my way downtown, I took another call from Cisco.

“She’s in the restaurant having breakfast with her daughter,” he said. “I spoke to her for a few seconds and she’s not talking about leaving. She’s still scared, though, about what else they might have dug up.”

“Yeah, well, so am I,” I said. “But if they had more than the name, it seems like they would have used it last night.”

“True that.”

“Okay, I’m almost to the courthouse. I gotta get my game on.”

“Good luck.”

Twenty minutes later I was at the lectern in the courtroom and Detective Clarke was on the stand being reminded by Judge Ruhlin that he was still under oath. She then turned the witness over to me. I was finished with Clarke but didn’t want the judge to feel I had gamed her the day before, so I asked him a few more questions that mattered little to my case strategy.

Until they did.

“Detective, you told us yesterday that the investigation into the death of Rebecca Randolph continued well after the arrest of Aaron Colton,” I began.

“That’s true,” Clarke said.

“During this continuing investigation, did you have cause to contact the Tidalwaiv company to ask about the AI companion that Aaron Colton had downloaded from them?”

“I did, yes.”

“And what did you ask them?”

“I wanted to know how long he’d had the app, how much time he spent on it, how much he paid — general information that might be useful in the evaluation of the suspect’s mental state.”

“Were you directed to do this by the district attorney’s office?”

“I was, yes.”

“And what kind of cooperation did Tidalwaiv provide the investigation?”

“Uh, that would be none.”

“None?”

I said it as if surprised by the answer.

“Correct,” Clarke said.

“Did they give a reason for their lack of cooperation?” I asked.

“I was told that their data was proprietary and not available to me without a search warrant.”

“Did you pursue getting a search warrant?”

“No, I did not.”

“Why did you drop it?”

“Because we got the search warrant for Aaron’s laptop and phone instead, and our tech unit was able to access the information I was seeking from Tidalwaiv through those devices.”

“Thank you, Detective. I have no further questions.”

Marcus Mason was at the lectern before I even reached my seat. And he didn’t start with any niceties for Detective Clarke.

“Detective Clarke, isn’t it true that you had another motive for approaching Tidalwaiv for information?” he asked.

“Motive?” Clarke said, seemingly confused.

“Another reason, Detective.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Were you aware of a violent incident involving Aaron Colton at Grant High School in February of 2022?”

“I was aware of an incident that resulted in his suspension, if that’s what you’re referencing.”

“What was that incident?”

“Aaron was accused by a teacher of cheating on a test. It led to a confrontation in which he pushed the teacher. He was suspended for four weeks, I believe.”

“And when you approached Tidalwaiv, were you not trying to determine whether that violent incident came before or after he initially downloaded the Clair app?”

“That would have been one of a number of things I was interested in.”

“And when you were able to access his devices, did you learn that Aaron Colton downloaded the Clair app after that violent incident involving his teacher?”

“I don’t know if I would describe the incident as violent, but yes, it occurred before he started using the Clair app.”

“If it got him suspended, how else would you describe the incident other than violent?”

“It was a push. I talked to the teacher after I learned about it and she did not use the word violent to describe it.”

It might have been a tiff about semantics, but it was a skillful opening to Mason’s cross-examination. He scored points right away, and I confirmed this as I watched the jurors lean in during the back-and-forth with Clarke. Mason also revealed what the defense strategy was likely going to be: Blame the killer. Establish that Aaron Colton was violent before he ever met the AI companion he called Wren.

It was the already-on-the-path-to-destruction defense. And now that I’d seen the direction Mason was going, I would be ready for it.

Mason kept Clarke on the stand for nearly two hours, but his best points were scored in that opening exchange. Clarke was a veteran detective and experienced witness, primarily in criminal court, where cross-examination was no-holds-barred and confrontational. He held his own and didn’t give Mason any further ammunition.

But what Mason did accomplish with his lengthy cross, whether knowingly or not, was the disruption of the rollout of my case. My plan had been to use Detective Clarke as the starting point, then move into the emotional wave of testimony by the parents whose children had killed or been killed. This would lead to a crescendo of technical, scientific, and psychological testimony from the experts in artificial intelligence about the guardrails that Tidalwaiv should have had in place to protect customers, particularly minors.

But I had a key witness who didn’t want to testify. Who would be doing so reluctantly. By using the morning up, Mason had put me in a corner. If I rolled my case out according to my original plan, there was no way I could get Naomi Kitchens on the stand before the next day or quite possibly — based on Mason’s lengthy cross of Clarke — the day after that.

I couldn’t risk waiting that long with Kitchens teetering on the brink of a meltdown and looking to run away from testifying. I had no choice. I had to reshuffle my cards.

As soon as court was recessed for lunch, I walked into the hallway and called Cisco. When he answered, I could tell by the background noise that he was in a car. I had given him the use of the Lincoln for transporting witnesses during the trial.

“Where are you?”

“We’re five out.”

“Is the daughter with you?”

“Yes, she’s here.”

“Redirect to the Redbird for lunch. I’ll meet you there. Naomi testifies after lunch.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain why later. Don’t tell Naomi. I will. Just get to the Redbird and I’ll meet you all there.”

I disconnected and turned to find Lorna standing in the hallway.

“You have to edit the PowerPoint,” I said. “I’m putting Naomi on the stand next.”

33

My eyes were on Marcus Mason when the judge told me to call my next witness. When I said the name Naomi Kitchens, he leaned back in his chair as though he were dodging a roundhouse punch at his chin. He was clearly surprised, but I realized I couldn’t tell if that was because he wasn’t expecting the former ethicist to be my next witness or because he wasn’t expecting her to testify at all. The latter would have confirmed that he was aware of and had sanctioned the intimidation tactic initiated against her the night before. But when he was finished dodging the invisible punch, his hands immediately went to the stack of files on the defense table, and he went three deep to pull an inch-thick file I assumed contained his prep material on Kitchens.

There was no thicker file in the stack, and the fact that it wasn’t on top told me that Marcus had simply not been expecting Kitchens at this point in the trial. That further suggested that he hadn’t been aware of the events of the night before. This was good, because the move at the hotel had been a critical misstep by whoever was responsible. It had failed to stop Kitchens from testifying, and it was going

to help me avoid being waylaid by whatever was in that fat file Marcus had just pulled out.

After Naomi was sworn in by the court clerk and asked to spell her name for the record, she took the stand and immediately glanced out at the gallery, where her daughter sat next to Cisco. She nodded slightly and steeled herself for what was coming next. At the Redbird we had gone over how it would go from my side of the lectern. It was the defense side that was the unknown. I had told her to find Lily in the gallery and use her as a focal point when things got stressful on the stand.

“Good afternoon, Professor Kitchens,” I began. “Is that your real name, Naomi Kitchens?”

“It’s my legal name now,” Kitchens responded.

“You had it changed?”

“A long time ago, yes.”

“What was your given name and what made you change it?”

“My birth name was Alison Sterling. I changed it twenty years ago to protect myself and the child I was carrying.”

I saw her eyes go out to her daughter as she answered.

“Protect the child from whom?” I asked.

“My ex-boyfriend,” she said. “This was back in Pennsylvania, where I grew up.”

“Can you tell the jury why you felt the need to take these steps?”

“Well, he was a bad man. He was committing crimes and I realized I had to get away from him. So I left. I went to California and legally changed my name so he wouldn’t be able to find us.”

“Who is us?”

“My daughter and I.”

“How old is your daughter now?”

“She’s nineteen.”

“And was the man you ran from her father?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever find you after you escaped?”

“No, he went to jail for many years. Prison, actually.”

“Do you know what crime he was convicted of?”

“Robbery and assault. He shot a man but the man didn’t die.”

“Were you involved in any way with these crimes?”

“No, but... we lived on the money he stole. I knew that. It was one of the reasons I needed to get away from him.”

“Were there other reasons?”

“He was violent. I was afraid he would hurt the baby.”

“What was this man’s name?”

“Quentin Holgard.”

“So if Quentin Holgard came into this courtroom and said you committed these crimes with him, would he be telling the truth?”

“No, he would be lying.”

My last question was a guess. But I had to get in front of any move the Masons might make. They might have Quentin Holgard teed up and ready to go as a rebuttal witness, thereby keeping his name hidden and off the approved-witness list. I didn’t know what the defense plan was but I wanted to be ready for anything. Feeling that I had put what I could on the record, I dropped into my original plan for Kitchens’s testimony.

“Okay, so you came out to California to escape from this man, and then what happened?” I asked.

“I worked and I went to school up in the Bay Area,” Kitchens said.

“What school?”

“My first degree was from USF and—”

“USF?”

“Sorry, University of San Francisco. I then got a master’s at UC Berkeley and later a doctorate from Stanford.”

I walked her quickly through her degrees in order — computer science, psychology, and finally sociology.

“I guess I should be calling you Dr. Kitchens,” I said.

“I prefer just Naomi,” she said.

“Okay, Naomi. And did you pay your way through all these schools?”

“Yes. I worked and I got some scholarship money, a few research grants. But I also had student loans that I’m still paying off.”

This brought a low murmur of laughter in the courtroom.

“You are apparently not alone in that,” I said. “When you worked, what was the job or jobs you took?”

“I was a coder for various companies,” Kitchens said. “I worked for Microsoft, Apple, a few others.”

“What’s a coder do?”

“Writes operating code for various apps.”

“Okay. And you did all of this while being a single mother and going to school?”

“Yes.”

“What was your career goal with all these degrees?”

“I wanted to be a teacher at the college level. I wanted to be a professor.”

“And did you accomplish that?”

“Yes. My first job was at USF, and after I got my doctorate I stayed at Stanford for the next three years.”

“What happened that made you leave Stanford?”

“I got a job offer from Tidalwaiv that would almost double my income. I took it so I could provide a better life for my daughter.”

“Can you tell us what that job entailed?”

“I was an ethicist primarily assigned to Project Clair.”

I smiled and raised my hands from the lectern in a What gives? gesture.

“I have to say, I’m not sure what an ethicist is or does,” I said. “Can you explain it to us?”

“Clair was a generative artificial-intelligence project,” Kitchens said. “At the time, it was the new frontier of AI technology. There weren’t many rules and there was almost zero government oversight. It was very competitive, and the tech companies started hiring people to make sure these programs and apps were created in a responsible way. Generative AI was going to change the world — it already has. The ethicist was sort of the human conscience of the project. I was supposed to help make sure there were guardrails in place to protect the people these systems would serve.”

“‘Supposed to’?”

“In some cases, although the company wants to say it’s ethical, it doesn’t work out that way. The stakes involved are extremely—”

Marcus Mason stood and objected.

“Your Honor, by talking in generalities, the witness is insinuating that unethical behavior occurred at Tidalwaiv on Project Clair,” he said. “There has been absolutely no evidence of that presented at trial, because it doesn’t exist. I ask that the question and answer be stricken and the jury be so instructed.”

Judge Ruhlin looked at me for a response.

“Judge, first of all, I would ask the court to instruct counsel not to incorporate his closing argument into his objection. Second, I am laying the groundwork so that the jury understands what this witness’s job was at Tidalwaiv and, more specifically, on Project Clair.”

“I’m going to sustain the objection,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, let’s move on to testimony directly related to the cause of action.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “A moment, please.”

I looked down at my legal pad and flipped to the next page, skipping several questions that I now knew would not get past the defense’s objections.

“Okay, Naomi, let’s talk about Project Clair,” I said. “When were you assigned to it?”

“I was hired by Tidalwaiv in late 2021,” Kitchens said. “After some training I was assigned to Project Clair in January of ’22.”

“Was that the starting point of the project?”

“No, the project was well down the road. I reviewed code and company directives that were three years old when I was getting up to speed on it.”

“So they brought the ethicist in late to the project.”

Marcus jumped up with an objection, arguing that my statement assumed facts not in evidence. The judge sustained the objection without asking me to respond. I knew the objection was valid. I just wanted the jury to put the question in a back pocket for later. I moved on.

“Dr. Kitchens, you—”

“Naomi.”

“Right, Naomi. Earlier you called Project Clair a generative AI program. Can you tell the jury what generative AI means?”

“Of course. Gen AI simply means that these models, like the Clair app, for example, generate new data, whether it be video images or text, from the underlying data they were trained with.”

I liked how she turned to look at the jury as she spoke. I had said to her at lunch, “You’re a teacher. Be a teacher on the witness stand.” She was doing it now, and I believed it was being received well by her pupils, the jurors.

“So, then, would it be fair to say that it is not simply data in, data out?” I asked.

“Correct,” Naomi said. “That is the generative part of the equation. The training is ongoing. These large language models are constantly bringing data in and from that learning more.”

“‘Large language model’? Can you explain that?”

“It’s a machine-learning model designed for natural language generation. It’s trained on vast amounts of data and text, and then analyzes and sifts it all for patterns and relationships when prompted to have a conversation or answer a question. These models acquire predictive power in terms of human language. The ongoing downside, however, is they also acquire any biases or inaccuracies contained in the training data.”

“You’re saying ‘garbage in, garbage out.’”

“Exactly. And that’s where the ethicist comes in. To make sure there are guardrails that keep the garbage from ever getting in.”

I paused for a moment as I made a shift back toward my case.

“You testified earlier that you came onto Project Clair three years after it began, correct?”

“About thirty months after.”

“Okay, and did you replace the original ethicist on the project?”

“No, they did not have one before me. Usually an ethicist is brought in when a project reaches a certain level of investment and viability.”

“Okay, so you were brought in three years down the line. Did you review what had occurred on the project in those first three years?”

“Yes, I did.”

“When you made this review, did anything alarm you?”

“Yes, several things, actually.”

“Okay, did you make a list of these alarming things?”

“I did, yes.”

“What was at the top of that list?”

“Well, I saw in the initial mission document that the app they were developing was, from the start, a thirteen-plus project, meaning that it was meant to be suitable for young teenagers.”

“And why was that alarming?”

“It was not alarming in itself or as a goal for the project. It was when I went further with my review that I became concerned that they were building something that was not suitable for young teenagers. Clair was being trained from the beginning with data that was geared more toward older people. Adults.”

“Let me stop you there. Can you explain to the jury what you mean by training in regard to Project Clair?”

This was a question we had worked on repeatedly during prep. Her answer, if she could get it out without objection, would be the foundation on which we would build the case against Tidalwaiv of reckless disregard.

“Building an AI companion is in many ways like raising a child,” Kitchens said. “But in a much more time-constricted way. We send our children to school for twelve to sixteen years or more, filling their brains with knowledge and social skills and experiences. AI is similar but much quicker because it’s all digital. Data is downloaded. It’s not based on real experiences or our human concept of learning. That’s why it’s called artificial intelligence. It’s not real.”

“Okay,” I said. “But what about this process alarmed you when it came to Project Clair?”

“My problem was that they were building an app they were going to market to young teenagers, but they weren’t training it as a young teenager. They were not editing the input to fit the parameters of their market. In human terms, it was like giving a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old a twenty-five-year-old friend. This app friend would have data and knowledge well beyond that of the human it would be marketed to serve. There were guardrails in the mission statements about Clair, but they were not actually in place. They were in the documents but not in the actual training.”

“They were just paper guardrails.”

“Exactly.”

“Can you give us any specific examples of something you observed as the ethicist on the project that demonstrated this?”

“Well, I had repeated clashes with a coder on the project who was dropping personal data into the program — for example, his Spotify lists and his personal top-ten lists of movies, TV shows, travel destinations. He was in his late twenties at the time, and that to me was problematic. Clair was supposed to be a companion suitable for a thirteen-year-old. I didn’t think it was appropriate for it to have knowledge of the red-light districts of Thailand.”

Marcus Mason immediately objected, citing facts not in evidence. Ruhlin overruled the objection without comment and told me to continue.

“Naomi, did you raise your concern with the stakeholders on this project?”

“‘Concern’ is putting it mildly. I was alarmed and I wrote several memos and emails to people up and down the list of project managers. I had meetings. I felt that it was what I was hired to do. I felt like I was the last guardrail.”

I turned and looked back at Lorna in the front row and nodded. She came through the gate, took my seat at the table, and proceeded to open up the laptop and engage the PowerPoint demonstration.

“Your Honor,” I said, “I have a series of memos and emails authored by the witness to various managers and stakeholders in Project Clair that I ask the court to enter as exhibits and permit us to display on the courtroom screen.”

“Very well,” Ruhlin said. “Why don’t we allow the jury to take the afternoon break while I review your documents.”

I had expected one of the Masons to object to the blanket approval I was asking for, but they were silent at the defense table.

Kitchens stepped down, and as the jurors filed back into the assembly room, I took one set of copies of the documents to the clerk for the judge to peruse and another set to the defense table.

“I’m sure you already have these, boys,” I said. “But just in case.”

I started to put the documents down in front of Marcus. He held his hand up as if to push them away.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “You can put on your PowerPoint, Haller. The jurors won’t remember one bit of it when I get through with your so-called last guardrail.”

I acted as though it was basic trash-talking. But something about the sarcasm in Marcus’s voice got to me. After checking with Lorna to make sure the PowerPoint was teed up and ready, I went through the gate and out of the courtroom to the hallway to look for Naomi Kitchens. I found her sitting on a bench outside the courtroom with her daughter.

“Lily, do you mind if I talk to your mother alone for a few minutes?” I asked.

Lily looked at her mom, who nodded that it was okay. She got up and went through the double doors back into the courtroom. I took her place on the bench.

“The Mason boys don’t seem all that worried about your memos and emails,” I said.

“Is that good or bad?” Kitchens asked.

“It could be either, but I’m worried they have something.”

“Like what?”

“Something on you, Naomi. So, I’ve asked you this before, but tell me now if there’s anything you haven’t told me that they might use against you to damage your credibility.”

Kitchens shook her head.

“There’s nothing,” she said. “You know it all now.”

“You said in there that you had nothing to do with Quentin Holgard’s crimes,” I said. “That has got to hold up, Naomi. Or we’re fucked.”

“First of all, I told you last night and today that I didn’t want to testify. You made me.”

“And second?”

“It’s the truth. I don’t lie.”

I studied her face, looking for any crack in the resolve and defiance she was showing. I saw no tremor of doubt. She didn’t blink.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I hope we’re good. I’m going to try to run out the clock with you.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I’m going to keep you on the witness stand until we break for the day. That way, if they have something we don’t know about, the Masons won’t get to use it until tomorrow. You good with that?”

“I’m good. But they don’t have anything unless they make something up.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to find out.”

34

Judge Ruhlin winnowed my exhibits from twelve to four, saying they were repetitive and that the two memos and two emails she chose would suffice to make the points intended by the plaintiffs. Based on her previous ruling during the discovery hearing, I had expected this. Judges like to play King Solomon and split the baby when they can. Though I protested and acted as though my case was severely damaged by the ruling, I was happy to get the four exhibits accepted. After the jury was brought back into the courtroom, I used Naomi to introduce the exhibits and read sections as they were put on the screen. I wanted the jury to hear her words in her voice.

There was a unifying theme to the four exhibits and I went through them in chronological order. The first was a memo Kitchens had sent to the top managers of Project Clair.

“You were new to the project when you sent this message, correct?” I asked.

“I had been there seven weeks at that point,” Kitchens said.

“And who was this message addressed to?”

“Jerry Matthews.”

“Who is Jerry Matthews?”

“He was the boss, the overall manager of Project Clair.”

“Did he hire you?”

“No, he did not. I was hired through the HR department.”

“And assigned to Project Clair.”

“Correct.”

“Can you read the paragraph that is highlighted on the printout of the memo?”

“Yes. It says, ‘I feel I am up to speed now on Project Clair, and you asked me to put the concerns I mentioned in our meeting into a memo. My chief concerns are about the biases I believe are being embedded in the training program. Our coders are all male. This creates a bias when training a female AI companion. Perhaps more important, it is my understanding that this model is designed and intended to have a thirteen-plus rating. Frankly, this seems inappropriate. Has the horse left the barn or is this a decision we can reconsider?’”

As Kitchens finished reading the section, Lorna put the full memo on the screen.

“Thank you, Naomi,” I said. “Did you get a response to this memo?”

“Not in written form,” Kitchens said. “Jerry took me to the campus cafeteria for a coffee and we talked. That was his response.”

“Did he say he would act on your concerns?”

“He told me—”

Marcus Mason objected, arguing that anything Kitchens claimed Matthews told her was excluded under hearsay rules. The judge agreed and I had to find another path to the answer I wanted.

“Okay, Naomi,” I said. “Your memo led to a meeting with the boss in the cafeteria. After that meeting, were changes made to the training of Clair, the AI companion that was going to be offered to thirteen-year-old children?”

“No,” Kitchens said. “No changes were made.”

And so it went. We brought up each memo and email, displaying to the jury what I believed was a solid case that Tidalwaiv had run roughshod over the many warnings made by the ethicist assigned to Project Clair. I ended on the email Kitchens had sent to Jerry Matthews on the day she was terminated.

“Can you read what you wrote to Mr. Matthews after learning your employment at Tidalwaiv had been terminated?” I asked.

“Yes,” Kitchens said. “I wrote, ‘Jerry, one last time, I can’t stress enough the liability the company will encounter should Clair say the wrong thing or encourage the wrong behavior or action by a child user. I am glad I won’t be part of the company when that happens.’”

I looked down at my legal pad for a long moment, hoping the fired ethicist’s final words would leave a deep impact on the jury.

“‘Encourage the wrong behavior or action by a child user,’” I repeated. “Naomi, did you ever in your wildest dreams think that the wrong action would be a murder—”

“Objection!” Marcus Mason exclaimed.

“Committed by a child user?” I finished.

“Mr. Haller, you know better,” the judge said. “The jury will disregard the question.”

“Sorry, Your Honor,” I said. “Could I have a moment? I am almost finished with Dr. Kitchens’s testimony.”

“Be quick,” Ruhlin said.

I turned and glanced back at the courtroom clock. It was 4:05 and I believed I had timed things well. My finish would take us to the final bell.

“Naomi, did you quit your job at Tidalwaiv?” I asked.

“No, I was terminated,” Kitchens said.

“Terminated. Were you given a reason?”

“I was called into Mr. Matthews’s office and told I was fired for actions detrimental to the project.”

“Did you ask for a fuller explanation?”

“I did but was not given one. But I had been warned previously that my memos and concerns about the project were viewed as harmful to the project.”

“Were these warnings in writing and part of your personnel file?”

“No, they would never put anything like that in writing, because they knew it wasn’t true.”

Marcus Mason objected and successfully got Kitchens’s answer struck, but the message was delivered.

I checked the clock again. It was after 4:15 and I needed another set of questions to get to the finish line.

“Naomi, after you were fired, did you have difficulty getting your next job?” I asked.

“I went back to academia because I couldn’t get an interview for an ethicist position anywhere in Silicon Valley,” Kitchens said.

Marcus objected to the answer being overly broad, but to my surprise the judge let it stand. I then made what became one of my biggest mistakes of the trial, if not my career. I did not ask the judge for the night to consider whether I was finished with my direct examination of Kitchens. I thought it had gone so well and that it was so late in the day that I was bulletproof.

“No further questions for Dr. Kitchens,” I said, getting in one last reminder to the jury of my witness’s pedigree and standing.

“Very well,” the judge said. “We will recess for—”

“Your Honor,” Marcus Mason interrupted, “I have only a few questions for this witness. If you’ll permit that, we could start tomorrow with a new witness and perhaps allow Ms. Kitchens to return home rather than spend another night away.”

“It is four twenty-two, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “If you are confident you will be finished in eight minutes, you may proceed.”

“Definitely, Your Honor,” Mason said.

“Then go ahead,” Ruhlin said.

As I left the lectern for my table I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew I had somehow misplayed the last minutes of the day and that something unfortunate was about to happen.

Mason took the lectern and looked at Kitchens. The look of unflinching defiance I had seen in her eyes in the hallway after lunch was gone. Kitchens seemed to know that something unexpected was coming her way.

“Ms. Kitchens,” Mason began. “Wouldn’t you say—”

“Objection, Your Honor,” I said. “The witness has a doctorate and should be accorded the respect of that achievement by counsel.”

“Mr. Haller makes a point,” Ruhlin said.

“Of course, Your Honor,” Mason said. “Dr. Kitchens, wouldn’t you say that it would be wrong for an ethicist to lie to a jury in a court of law?”

“I haven’t lied,” Kitchens said.

“But it would be wrong if you did, correct?”

“It would be, but I have not lied.”

“What about a lie to the company that the ethicist works for? Would that be wrong?”

“I think lying in any circumstance is wrong.”

“In fact, would that not be one of the major rules of being an ethicist? Do not lie?”

“Yes.”

“You have claimed in front of this jury and this judge that you were fired for supposedly speaking out about your concerns about this project, isn’t that right?”

“It’s what happened.”

“And you swore an oath to tell nothing but the truth, correct?”

“I did.”

“But you lied to the jury, didn’t you?”

I stood up and objected.

“Counsel is badgering the witness,” I said. “How many times and ways does she have to say she hasn’t lied?”

“Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “It’s time to get to the point. Or we can recess for the day.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mason said. “I will indeed get to the point.”

Ruhlin signaled for me to sit down. Mason turned his focus back to Kitchens. The bad feeling in the pit of my stomach had grown to the size of a baseball. I knew Mason had something, or at least he thought he did.

“Dr. Kitchens, I ask you,” he said, “were you not terminated from your job at Tidalwaiv by Mr. Matthews because you were involved in an improper and unethical relationship with a fellow employee you had a supervisory position over?”

There it was. Mason had his own smoking gun and I had handed it to him with the barrel pointed at my witness.

“That is not true,” Kitchens said.

“What is not true, Dr. Kitchens?” Mason pressed.

Kitchens was calm enough in the moment to turn to the jury to state her case.

“They fired me because I objected to the training,” she said. “They didn’t want to hear that, so they got rid of me. That’s all.”

“Dr. Kitchens,” Mason said, drawing her eyes back to him, “did you or did you not engage in an unethical sexual relationship with a code writer assigned to Project Clair named Patrick May?”

I saw the hurt and disappointment come all at once in my witness’s eyes. And I knew that no matter how she answered the question, everything she had said in her previous testimony was now suspect.

“It was a relationship we had started before I ever took the job,” Kitchens said.

“So you didn’t feel an obligation to reveal this while being recruited and hired by the company?” Mason asked.

“No, I did not.”

“And was that ethical, Dr. Kitchens?”

Kitchens dropped her head. The courtroom was as silent as a grave.

“Maybe not,” she finally said. “But I—”

“I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Mason said.

35

Bruce Colton was waiting for me at the gate to the gallery. He was three inches shorter than me and came up close to stick a finger into my chest. His face was red with anger. He looked as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time he was waiting for me.

“What the fuck, Haller,” he said. “I don’t know which is worse, if you knew about her boyfriend and tried to cover it up or if you didn’t even fucking know.”

“Get out of my way, Bruce,” I said. “I have work to do.”

“Work? Are you kidding me? You talked us into giving up fifty million dollars. Fifty! And now you want to walk away from me? You better call those lawyers who just outsmarted your ass and get our fucking money.”

“I’m not doing that, Bruce. We still have a winnable case. Now, for the last time, get out of my way.”

He finally took a step back and laughed without a shred of joy. I noticed Cisco come up behind him in case I needed him.

“You know what’s going to happen?” Colton said. “You don’t win this case, I’m going to sue you for mal-fucking-practice. I’ll get my money one way or the other.”

“Good plan,” I said. “You do that, Bruce.”

I shouldered past him.

“Let’s go,” I said to Cisco.

We headed toward the courtroom door. I needed to get out of there to rethink and retool, to find some way of salvaging the case after the day’s disastrous ending. I had told Lorna to take Naomi Kitchens down to the attorney conference room. When I got out to the hallway, there were three reporters waiting for me. I pushed by them too.

“I’ve got no comment right now,” I said. “I need to talk to my witness.”

The conference room was crowded. Lorna sat at the table with Kitchens and her daughter. Lily was trying to console her mother, who had tears streaming down her face. McEvoy was standing, apparently to leave the fourth chair at the table for me.

“Okay, look, it’s too crowded in here,” I said abruptly. “Lorna, can you take Lily into the hall? Jack, you go with them. Cisco, you stay in case we need to work on something tonight.”

“I want to stay,” McEvoy said. “Fly on the wall, remember?”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” I said.

Lorna and Lily left the room without protest. I took the seat vacated by Lorna and sat directly across from Naomi. Cisco was to one side. McEvoy started pulling the remaining chair way back from the table, apparently taking the fly-on-the-wall metaphor literally.

“Jack, before you sit, can you go out and see if Lorna has any tissues?” I asked.

McEvoy left the room. I slid my chair in closer to the table that separated me from my witness.

“Okay, Naomi, we need to talk,” I began. “Let’s start with who is Patrick May?”

She didn’t answer at first. McEvoy reentered and handed her a small packet of tissues. She finally spoke as she started to take one out.

“He was my boyfriend,” she said. “I didn’t think anybody knew about us.”

“Was?” I asked. “You’re not together?”

“We broke up last year.”

“Who broke up with whom?”

“I broke it off.”

“Is he still with Tidalwaiv?”

“I think so. Last I knew.”

“Was he upset when you broke things off?”

“At the time, I didn’t think so. He knew it was coming. It was a slow breakup. He was staying with the project and I couldn’t handle that.”

I nodded and looked at Cisco. He nodded back.

“He ratted her out,” he said.

“You need to do a full workup on him,” I said. “If Mason doesn’t call him as a witness, we want to be ready to.”

Cisco asked Kitchens if she knew May’s birthdate. She provided that, an address for him up in San Mateo, and the cell phone number she had used for her last contact with him.

“On it,” Cisco said as he stood up.

He left the room and I refocused on Kitchens.

“Naomi, I have to decide whether to bring you back tomorrow for redirect. Can you think of anything that might help us rehabilitate your testimony?”

“I told the truth. You don’t have to rehabilitate it.”

“I know you told the truth, but it’s about credibility. It’s about trust. They’ve caught you in a lie and we need to—”

“What lie? I didn’t lie. I was never asked about any relationship. Plus, I thought maybe they knew about it because Patrick was the one who recommended me to the company as an ethicist for the project. I had no idea he had left out that we were dating.”

McEvoy cleared his throat and I looked over at him.

“What?” I asked.

“She’s sort of right,” he said. “Her employment application is in the materials she gave us, and I don’t remember any question about relationships with other employees of the company.”

“Look, we’re talking about semantics here,” I said, looking back at Naomi. “It doesn’t matter if you didn’t lie on the application. You had a relationship your employer should have been told about. And the whole thing doubles down because you were supposed to be the conscience of ethical programming and behavior, and now it looks like you were hiding what many would say was an unethical relationship with a fellow employee below you in the corporate hierarchy. So, think, Naomi. Is there anything we can go back into court with tomorrow that helps us?”

Naomi wiped her cheeks and her nose with the tissue and looked at me.

“I told you not to do this,” she said. “I didn’t want to testify.”

“Well, maybe if you’d told me about Patrick May, I wouldn’t have asked you to,” I countered.

“That lawyer made it sound like I was his boss. I wasn’t. He may have been below me in the corporate hierarchy. But he was in the coding lab and I almost never even walked in there. He didn’t work for me directly and I never once told him what to do.”

“All right, that’s good. We can use that. Can you think of anybody else at work who knew about the relationship?”

“No, we never flaunted it. We never even took breaks together.”

“Well, that’s not good. It looks like you were trying to hide that you were together.”

“We weren’t. My office was in administration, he was in the lab. It was never the twain shall meet. Until after work.”

“Were you living together?”

“No. I had my daughter at home. This was before she went to USF.”

“Well, when the two of you were together and away from work, did you talk about work? Did he tell you about some of the training of Clair that was alarming you?”

“Well, yes. We did. How could we not talk about work? Is that good or bad?”

“It could be good. I don’t know yet. When was the last time you had contact with Patrick May?”

“Contact? You mean like physical contact?”

“When was the last time you met or communicated with him?”

“That would have been on his birthday, back in August. We were broken up by then but I texted him. He didn’t reply.”

“Any idea at all why he decided to tell the company about your relationship?”

“How do you know he did?”

“You said nobody knew about it. Was there somebody else?”

“No. No one.”

“Then it was him. Could they have had something on him that forced him to reveal the relationship?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, I’m going to need you to think about that tonight.”

“Am I testifying tomorrow?”

“I don’t know yet. But I want to move you and Lily from the hotel you’re in to a new one. One of us will pick you up tomorrow morning to bring you to court.”

“This is really bad, isn’t it? For the case.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, it’s bad,” I said. “I thought we won yesterday. But today, I think they got the W. And that’s on me, Naomi. Not you. I should have known what they had, and I should’ve seen it coming.”

36

This time it was me in the wave’s trough when I got home. Maggie was riding high on the crest. It had been that way with her since the fires, a rhythm of quick ups and downs. So this time it was her consoling me. We’d shared takeout from Pace down in the canyon. I told her how I had miscalculated things in court and opened the door to the defense sending the jury home with testimony indicating that my key witness could not be trusted. Now we sat in our chairs in front of the picture window, backlit from the kitchen, her with a glass of sauvignon blanc and me with a full glass of guilt over letting myself be outplayed in court.

“Mickey, you could not have seen that coming,” she told me again. “Your witness deceived you. How could you be ready for that?”

“I’m supposed to be ready for anything,” I said. “Every lawyer knows that.”

“Well, you will be tomorrow. Are you going to put her back on the stand and try to rehabilitate her?”

“I think that’s going to be a game-time decision. It might just be best to move forward rather than spend the morning doing damage control. That always looks bad to the jury.”

“Moving forward is a good idea.”

I nodded. I had not heard anything from Cisco, so I hadn’t decided how the following morning would go and wanted to change the subject.

“You sure seem chipper after last night,” I said. “What happened with the Times?”

“Supposedly they’re holding the story,” Maggie said. “It was based on unnamed sources, and an editor over there got smart and said, get somebody on the record saying she’s incapacitated or we don’t run the story.”

“Glad they still have somebody there who’s thinking right.”

“Plus I did what you suggested and held a press conference. Just not about your client.”

“I haven’t seen any news. What was it about?”

“We filed on a cold case LAPD brought in. A serial killer who’s not dead or already incarcerated. They got him on at least four kills here in L.A., but it looks like there are others up in the Bay Area. Alameda County. And we already have a name for him: the Pizza Man. He’d follow a woman home, then come back later with a pizza and act like he was delivering it but had the wrong address. It got him through the woman’s door. The Open-Unsolved Unit got him on DNA off a pizza crust.”

“Nice. LAPD cold case comes to the rescue. Take that, L.A. Times.”

“Exactly.”

“How cold was the case?”

“It was late nineties down here. He then moved up to Oakland. They arrested him there.”

“Cool.”

“By the way, did you know Harry Bosch’s daughter is now working with the Open-Unsolved Unit? With Harry and Reneé Ballard, who runs it, as mentors, that girl is going to be a top-notch investigator, and she’s not even thirty.”

“Yeah, Harry told me that last time we talked. Was this thing her case?”

“She was part of it. They work everything as a team. She wrote some of the reports I looked at. They were well done. Made my job easy.”

“And the press conference was well attended?”

“We got them all. Five local stations, the Times, the Daily News, and La Opinión — one of the victims was Latina.”

“Cool. Hopefully you get all of them when you clear my guy Snow.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

“As soon as this trial is over, I’m coming in with that case.”

“Bring it, we’ll sling it.”

I smiled at the old prosecutor’s line. I was happy to see that Maggie was out of the trough. But I was still down there on the low end of the wave, and my thoughts drifted back to the debacle at the end of what had been a good day. I had put an ethicist on the stand who was revealed to be unethical after just five minutes of questioning by the defense. There was nothing Maggie or anybody else could say to ameliorate the situation. Besides not knowing what I should have known about my own witness, I was guilty of underestimating Marcus Mason. He had landed the first significant blow of the trial and I had not seen it coming. In a way, that stung more than the damage he had done to my witness. I resolved not to let that happen again.

My phone buzzed and I dug it out of my pocket to look at the screen.

“It’s Cisco,” I said. “All right if I take it? He’s been working damage control tonight.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “Take it. I need a refill.”

She got up with her glass and headed back toward the kitchen as I took the call.

“Cisco,” I said. “What have you got?”

“Well, I got Patrick May,” he said. “They’ve got him here in town, so I guess he’s going to testify. Is that kosher? His name isn’t on the witness list.”

“He’ll be a rebuttal witness. They can do that. Where did they stash him?”

“The Bad Adventure. Under Mitchell Mason’s name. I’m in the lobby now.”

The local nickname for the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown.

“But here’s the real news,” Cisco said. “Your client Bruce Colton was here too.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “He’s staying in the hotel?”

“I don’t think so. He was sitting in the lobby when I got here. Like he was waiting for someone. Then—”

“Did he see you?”

“No. This place has so many levels, I was able to keep an eye on him from a distance. Then I see the Mason brothers coming down in one of the glass elevators, and they meet up with Bruce for a while. I couldn’t get close enough to hear what was said but Bruce didn’t look happy. He ended up signing a piece of paper that Marcus took out of his briefcase. After Bruce signed it, everybody stood up, shook hands, and went their separate ways.”

“Did the Masons leave the hotel or go back up?”

“No, all three of them left. I think Patrick May is probably up there by himself if you want me to go door-knock him.”

I had to think about that for a moment. I also had to think about what Bruce Colton was doing there and what document he had signed. I had already dealt with a runaway witness. It now appeared I had a runaway client.

“No, don’t go up,” I said. “The defense won’t get the case till Friday, so he’ll be there a few days at least.”

“Whatever you say,” Cisco replied.

It struck me as odd that the Masons had brought May down days before I would rest my case and they could start presenting witnesses. It told me they believed I might shorten my presentation after Naomi Kitchens was destroyed on the stand.

“Cisco, how do you know it’s actually Patrick May they have up there?” I asked.

“His cell,” Cisco said. “I got my guy to track it to a tower, and it’s on the roof of the hotel. I can go up and confirm it’s him if you want. I’ll use a cover story. He won’t know me from Adam.”

I knew Cisco had a source who could track cell phones to whatever cell tower their signal was currently connected to. It was illegal and that was why the source was paid a thousand bucks a pop.

“No, don’t go up,” I said. “Let’s see how things play out tomorrow.”

“You’re the boss,” Cisco said. “You want me to clear?”

My phone started to buzz with an incoming call. I took it off my ear and saw that it was Marcus Mason.

“Cisco, I’ve got another call,” I said. “It’s Marcus Mason. Let me take it and you can clear.”

“Roger that,” he said. “See you mañana.”

I switched to the other call. “Marcus, what’s up?”

“I wanted to let you know that you’re down to one client, Haller. We just settled with Bruce and Trisha Colton, and being the good guy I am, I thought I’d check to see if you wanted to talk about a settlement with your remaining client. I figured after the witness implosion that occurred today, you might want to bring this thing to a quick and still profitable end.”

“Don’t gloat, Marcus. It’s not a good look on you. What did you give the Coltons to go away?”

“Well, there is a nondisclosure component to this, but since you are still the attorney of record, I can tell you that we agreed to a cash settlement of three million dollars, all in. After what happened at the end of court today, leverage has shifted. The fifty million is off the table. We gave them three; we’ll give your client five to be done with this.”

I knew that meant they would probably go to ten, but it was still a dramatic fall from the last sum Tidalwaiv had offered. My hope was that I would be able to convince Brenda Randolph to turn the money down and stay the course. Today had ended badly, but it had inspired me to do better. I was still convinced I had a winnable case.

“I have to talk to my client,” I said. “I’ll give you an answer before court begins tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Mason said.

“And Marcus, just so you know, I’ll be advising her to forget any settlement and go the distance at trial.”

“Then, Haller, you’ll be making a bigger mistake than the one you made today.”

He disconnected and I immediately called Cisco back. He answered with the roar of his Harley in my ear and a yell to hold on. He pulled to a stop somewhere and cut the engine.

“What did Mason want?” he asked.

“To tell me he settled with the Coltons,” I said. “They took three million to go away.”

“Shit. What’s that do to us?”

“Nothing. He made a lowball offer to Brenda that I’m pretty sure she’ll give a pass to. So we go on. The one good thing is I won’t need to handle Bruce with kid gloves when I put him on the stand. First thing tomorrow I’ll get a subpoena from the judge. I want you to find him and deliver it. I’m calling him tomorrow afternoon and I want him there.”

“You got it. What else?”

“That’s it for now.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I heard the big Harley rumble back to life before he disconnected. I put the phone on the table next to my chair.

“Mags, you coming back?”

“Are you finished with your calls?”

Her voice came from the kitchen.

“Done for the day,” I called back.

I heard her put the bottle back in the fridge. Then the kitchen light went out, leaving only the dim glow from the city lights in the room. Maggie came around my chair and put her glass down on the table next to my phone. She then climbed on top of me, straddling me with her legs. She had changed into her soft cotton sleep shirt, which meant she had nothing on underneath. She lifted my chin up with a finger and leaned down into a long kiss.

She started gently rocking her hips against me, and pretty soon I was riding the top of the wave with her again.

37

Wednesday morning started with a meeting of both parties’ lawyers in Judge Ruhlin’s chambers. Marcus Mason reported that Tidalwaiv had reached a settlement with the Coltons and I reported that my client had turned down a settlement offer and would continue with the trial. The judge gave me the side-eye when I said I was prepared to continue.

“Is your client sure about that, Mr. Haller?” she asked. “She did have a front-row seat at the end yesterday.”

“She — and I — believe that was a minor setback, Your Honor,” I replied. “This has never been about money for her. It’s about getting the truth out there, and we have much more of that coming.”

Marcus Mason shook his head.

“You’re dreaming,” he said.

“Well, if so, it’s not my dream,” I said. “It’s my client’s, and she wants to expose Tidalwaiv for what they did to her child and continue to do to others.”

“By putting liars on the stand?” he shot back.

“Gentlemen, that’s enough,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, do you wish to talk to your client one more time before we proceed?”

“I don’t think so, Your Honor,” I said. “She is resolute. As am I.”

“I am prepared to go to ten million,” Mason said. “Just to end this charade.”

The judge raised her eyebrows.

“That is quite a number,” she said.

“For my client, yes,” I said. “For Tidalwaiv, it’s nothing. I will bring her the offer, but I don’t think it will make a difference. Does that number come with an acknowledgment of Tidalwaiv’s reckless behavior and an apology?”

“No, it does not,” Mason said.

“Then I think we will be continuing the trial,” I said.

“Perfect,” Mason said. “It’s my client’s offer, not mine. If it were up to me, I’d keep going until a verdict, and I told them that.”

“But there is an offer on the table,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, go to your client, and if I were you, I’d use your powers of persuasion. Let us know, please.”

I paused as I digested the judge’s words.

“I think this will be quick,” I finally said.

The judge said nothing else. Before standing up to leave, I opened my briefcase and pulled out the subpoenas I had prepared the night before. I handed them across the desk to the judge.

“Just in case we don’t settle,” I said, “I’d like to subpoena my former clients to testify.”

“Wait, what is this?” Marcus Mason said.

I turned to look at him.

“Subpoenas for the Coltons,” I said. “They’re already on the witness list the judge approved. I just want to make sure they show up.”

“But they’re not your clients anymore,” Marcus insisted. “You can’t make them testify.”

“If I subpoena them, they will testify,” Ruhlin said.

“Of course,” Mason said. “I just meant... never mind. Fine, subpoena them.”

I turned back to the judge, and she was already signing the papers.

After returning to the courtroom, I huddled with Brenda Randolph at the plaintiff’s table and told her that the offer from Tidalwaiv was now up to ten million. She didn’t even take a moment to consider what she could do with what Bruce Colton might have called change-your-life money. Her response was one word: “No.”

I got up from the table and went to the clerk’s corral.

“Andy, you can tell the judge that we are ready to proceed with the trial,” I said. “My client has declined the settlement offer.”

“Will do,” he said. “She’s not going to like it.”

He got up from his workstation and headed to the door that led back to chambers. I watched him go, wondering what the judge had said to him. My number one priority was to make sure I didn’t lose the jury and they would listen to the whole presentation of my case before making any decisions. But if I had already lost the judge, I had to wonder where the jury was.

The Mason boys didn’t look at me as I returned to the plaintiff’s table. They knew my client had said no. Marcus had his arms folded across his chest and stared straight ahead, ignoring me as I passed by.

Before sitting down, I took the signed subpoenas to the rail and handed them to Cisco.

“Go get them,” I said. “Each subpoena has an eleven o’clock arrival. I’ll keep Brenda on the stand till then.”

“Then I’d better get going,” he said.

I returned to the plaintiff’s table and sat down to wait for the judge to take the bench.

“It’s just you and me now, Brenda,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “I like it better this way. I couldn’t take much more of Bruce, to tell you the truth.”

“Well, you are probably going to have to take a little more of him, because I’m putting him on the stand. Probably right after you.”

“Do me a favor and don’t be nice.”

“I won’t be.”

The judge took the bench and called for the jurors. Once they were seated, she turned to address them.

“You’ll notice that there has been a change and that there is only one plaintiff by Mr. Haller’s side. This is nothing for you to be concerned with and should not enter into your evaluation of the evidence and eventual deliberation of a verdict. When the case is over, I am sure you will get a fuller explanation from the attorneys involved. Now, Mr. Haller, do you wish to call your next witness?”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said. I stood and headed to the lectern. “I’d like to call Brenda Randolph to the witness stand.”

As I had instructed earlier, Brenda went to the stand clutching a packet of tissues in her left hand. After she was sworn in and seated, I began a carefully strategized course of questions that took her through the worst time of her life. She managed to hold back her tears until I asked her to describe her daughter’s ambitions.

“She wanted to go into medical research,” Brenda said. “She told me she wanted to research vaccinations. She wanted to help prevent people from getting diseases.”

“Why vaccinations specifically?” I asked.

“Well, she lost her father during COVID. He had asthma and he got sick before the vaccines were developed. He didn’t make it...”

She paused to use a tissue to wipe her eyes and then continued.

“Her father was on a ventilator for three weeks and we weren’t allowed to even be in the same room with him. And then he died, and Becca felt she’d never had the chance to say goodbye. It made her want to do something. So that’s when she started talking about wanting to be a researcher and help save people from diseases in the future.”

More tears came and I asked if she wanted to take a break to compose herself, but she declined.

“I cry every day,” she said. “I’m used to it.”

I stole a glance at the jury and all I saw was empathy on the face of each juror. One of the women was crying as well.

“After her father — your husband — passed, did you and Becca become closer?” I asked.

“We were always close,” Brenda said. “She was an only child. But after Rick died, we were all each other had. Yes, we became much closer.”

“And she started dating a boy named Aaron Colton when she was fourteen?”

“I’m not sure you call it dating anymore, but yes, they became boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“How well did you get to know Aaron?”

“Um, not that well. He came by the house a few times and he seemed like a nice boy. But they liked their privacy. They would go in Becca’s room and play games on the computer.”

“Do you know what games?”

“Yes, I always tried to watch over that as best I could. They played a few different ones where they were like a team working together. Minecraft was one. Monster Hunter. Then Aaron started playing a game called League of Legends and Becca tried it but stopped.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“She said it was a very good game, even addictive, but she didn’t like the other players. The community that played it. She said there was some racism and misogyny.”

“Did Aaron keep playing it?”

“Yes, that became one of the things that split them apart. Becca told me that.”

We were right on the objection line, but the Masons were smart enough to know it was not good optics to object and interrupt a victim who had lost so much.

“Did your daughter know that Aaron had downloaded the Clair app?” I asked.

“She told me that he had created an AI companion, yes,” Brenda said. “I didn’t know what app it was or anything like that.”

“Did that also cause a rift in their relationship?”

Marcus Mason couldn’t hold back. He stood and objected before Brenda could answer.

“Calls for speculation,” he said.

“Not if she spoke to her mother about it,” I responded.

“Overruled,” Ruhlin said. “The witness may answer the question.”

“Becca told me that it was becoming a problem between them,” Brenda said.

“Was she jealous of this companion?” I asked.

“I don’t know if she was jealous of the thing. I think she wasn’t happy that he was spending so much time with it. She said that he would get texts from it when they were together.”

I nodded and looked down at the questions I had written on my legal pad. I ran a pen through the ones I had asked. I looked up at Brenda and continued before the judge could call me out.

“When did Becca tell you she had broken up with Aaron?” I asked.

It took a moment for Brenda to compose herself before answering.

“It was at the end of the school year,” she said. “The end of tenth grade. She didn’t want to continue the relationship with him. She even said to me, ‘I broke up with them,’ meaning Aaron and his AI friend.”

I checked my notes again. I thought I had what I needed. I had underscored Becca’s noble ambitions and had, at the very least, hinted at Aaron’s descent into a relationship with a chatbot. It was time for the big finish.

“Brenda, when did you learn that Aaron’s decision to take a gun to school and shoot your daughter was influenced by his connection—”

Marcus Mason jumped up and objected before I could finish the question.

“Assumes facts not in evidence,” he said.

“I didn’t even finish the facts or the question,” I said.

“It was clear where you were going, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Rephrase the question.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I looked down at my notes and questions. I already had the proper question written out.

“Brenda, did there come a time when you were told that the investigation of your daughter’s murder was focused on Aaron Colton’s relationship with an AI companion?”

Mason objected again on the same grounds, but the judge quickly overruled him and told Brenda she could answer.

“Yes, Detectives Clarke and Rodriguez told me they were focused on that,” Brenda said.

“And did they keep you updated on that part of the investigation?” I asked.

“Yes, they did. They told me they had accessed Aaron’s laptop and that there were conversations with the AI thing that indicated it encouraged him to hurt Becca.”

Once again there was an objection from the defense, and once again it was overruled.

“Brenda, why did you file this lawsuit against Tidalwaiv?” I asked, my final question.

“Because I believe they are responsible for turning Aaron Colton into a killer,” Brenda said. “I believe Tidalwaiv is therefore responsible for my daughter’s death.”

I nodded as I drew a line through the question on my pad.

“No further questions, Your Honor,” I said.

I expected the Masons to hold their fire and not conduct a cross-examination of the grieving mother, but Mitchell Mason immediately went to the lectern as I stepped away.

“Just a few questions, Your Honor,” he said. “Mrs. Randolph, I am very sorry for your loss. Can you tell the court, did your daughter tell you that Aaron Colton had been suspended from school while she was in a relationship with him?”

Brenda threw a quick glance at me before answering.

“Yes, she told me,” she replied.

“Did she tell you why he had been suspended?” Mason asked.

“She said that there had been an argument when Aaron got accused of cheating and he shoved the teacher in front of the whole class.”

“Were you concerned for your daughter’s safety when you heard about this violent outburst?”

I could have objected to Mason’s description of the incident, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The jury had already heard it.

“No,” Brenda said. “Because I didn’t think it had anything to do with Rebecca or their relationship.”

“So you did not tell her to break up with him after he assaulted a teacher?”

“No, I did not.”

“Do you regret that now?”

“I regret everything, Mr. Mason. But if you are asking if I think things might have been different if my daughter had broken up with Aaron back then, my answer is I’ll never know. I mean, how could I? It was before he had Wren telling him what to do, so maybe—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Randolph, you answered the question. Let me now ask you this: When the detectives talked to you about the focus of their investigation, did they tell you that they were also looking at the possibility that Aaron had acted in a fit of jealousy over your daughter having a new boyfriend?”

“No. She didn’t have a new boyfriend.”

“Was she not dating a fellow student named Sam Bradley?”

“She had gone to a football game with him. That didn’t make him a boyfriend.”

“Is it possible that you didn’t know about your daughter’s new boyfriend?”

Now I objected.

“Your Honor, the witness has already stated that this other boy was not considered a boyfriend at the time counsel is asking about,” I said. “Then counsel turns around and immediately calls him a boyfriend.”

“Sustained,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Mason, rephrase your question.”

Instead, Mason asked the judge for permission to show Brenda a photograph of property the coroner’s office had removed from her daughter’s body. Over my objection, permission was granted. Mason handed me a copy before delivering another copy to the clerk and a third to Brenda. It was a photo of a beaded bracelet. Three of the beads spelled out S-A-M and were followed by a bead with a heart on it.

“Mrs. Randolph, were you aware that your daughter was wearing that bracelet at the time of her death?” Mason asked.

“She had a lot of bracelets like this,” Brenda responded. “They were friendship bracelets that fans of Taylor Swift exchanged all the time.”

“With the name Sam and a heart on them?”

“She made them and took them apart and remade them pretty often. I still wear one she made. It says Becca.”

She raised her arm to display a bracelet. I saw one of the female jurors react to the sad reminder of what Brenda had lost.

“It didn’t mean he was her boyfriend,” Brenda continued. “They had gone to one football game together.”

“And did she post a photo of them — a selfie taken with her phone — on her social media after that game?” Mason asked.

“She might have, I don’t know. But it didn’t mean—”

“Thank you for your answer. Mrs. Randolph, I’ll ask you again, Did the detectives tell you that Aaron Colton’s jealousy over this other boy might have played a part in the motive for the shooting that took your daughter’s life?”

“No, they did not. They only mentioned the—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Randolph, you answered the question.”

Mason was clearly trying to lay the foundation for an argument that jealousy was Aaron Colton’s motive for the killing of Becca Randolph, a motive that needed no encouragement from an AI companion. I knew this would work only if Mason had more to add to it, and my guess was that the addition might be testimony from Bruce or Trisha Colton.

“I do have one last question,” Mason said. “Have you filed a lawsuit against Smith and Wesson, the company that made the gun used in the shooting of your daughter?”

There it was, one of the key arguments in the defense’s case, wrapped up in one question. The message to the jury was that if the company that made the gun was not responsible for the murder, then the company that made the AI companion was not responsible either. It was not a valid comparison, but the Masons were not worried about that.

But we had anticipated the question would come in some form or another. Brenda was ready with an answer.

“Not yet,” she said.

Mason left it there, telling the judge he was finished with Brenda. It had been a skillful cross by the Mason I thought of as the lesser of the two brothers. With just a few questions he had raised the possibility of an alternate motive for the murder of Rebecca Randolph. It would now be up to me to bury that motive with evidence to the contrary.

38

During the lunch break, I ate with Cisco and Lorna at Phillippe’s and we took one of the tables in the back room. We all got the French dip roast beef sandwiches, but that wasn’t the best part of the meal. During the walk over from the courthouse I got a call from McEvoy, who had slipped out of court during the morning session, knowing he could get a transcript of the proceedings if he needed them for the book he planned to write. McEvoy had been slightly sidetracked from the case by the recent bankruptcy of 23andMe, the giant DNA-testing firm that had millions of genetic profiles in its databanks. The unregulated genetic-analytics industry had been Jack’s focus when he worked for the Fair Warning news site. His last book was about how the lack of data security allowed predators inside the wire to use genetic data to identify and choose their victims. Since the bankruptcy, McEvoy had been filing daily Substack dispatches and had been interviewed by local and national media outlets regarding what he knew about the situation and what would now happen to all the genetic data held by the bankrupt tech company.

Jack called me, sounding very excited, and reported that during a deep dive into his past stories and voluminous research, he had come across something that connected to the Tidalwaiv case. It was more than a coincidence, and when he told me what it was, it dramatically changed how I wanted to finish the presentation of my case.

My first decision after that was to drop the Coltons from my lineup of witnesses. Putting them in front of the jury was too risky. It could even be a trap set by the Masons. It was clear from Mitchell’s cross-examination of Brenda Randolph that the Masons’ strategy was to depict Aaron Colton as a troubled teen who had been heading toward violent acts even without cues from an AI companion. They wanted to convince the jury that a jealous and enraged Aaron was the sole reason for Rebecca’s death. That would seem to be the antithesis of every parent’s instinct to protect the reputation of their child, and I couldn’t know what Aaron’s parents had agreed to in their settlement with Tidalwaiv in exchange for three million dollars. Most nondisclosure agreements had built-in non-disparagement clauses as well.

I was also suspicious of the way the Masons had reacted in chambers when I asked the judge to sign the subpoenas for the Coltons. After a minor initial objection and protest, they had backed off meekly. At lunch I reviewed that moment in my mind and found something phony about it. It made me even more convinced that the Masons had made a deal within the deal with the Coltons. From what I had seen of Bruce Colton, I wouldn’t put it past him to throw his own son under the bus for the right price. After all, it was his poor parenting that had led Aaron to seek solace and support from a computer-generated girlfriend.

The bottom line was that I decided to stay away from my former clients. If the Masons wanted the Coltons to testify, they could call them, and I would be able to treat them as the hostile witnesses they might now be.

“So where is Dr. Debbie?” I asked between dips and bites.

“Checked her in at the InterContinental last night,” Cisco said. “I told her we’d need her either late today or more likely tomorrow.”

“Call her,” I replied, my mouth full. “I’m putting her on after lunch. You’ll have to go pick her up.”

“Wait, what?” Lorna said. “What about the Coltons?”

“Too risky,” I said. “I’ve decided not to call them.”

“The judge is not going to be happy about you subpoenaing witnesses and then not using them,” Lorna said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “The judge won’t know I’m not going to use them till the end. What McEvoy has come up with changes things. The judge will understand that.”

“Okay, so Dr. Debbie is next, then the coder?” Cisco asked.

“No, we go with Spindler after Dr. Debbie,” I said. “I put the coder on last. We go out with him. With a bang. That also gives Jack the rest of the day to nail this new stuff down.”

“I don’t know, Mickey,” Lorna said. “You seem to be putting a lot of trust in Jack. He still has a lot to work out on that before you can get it into court.”

“I trust him to come through,” I said. “Just like I trust both of you.”

It was settled. There was something invigorating and a bit scary about changing the plan of attack mid-trial. It’s never advisable. But my instincts were to make the change, streamline things, and hopefully finish with a knockout punch.

I was now down to three witnesses to make my case.

Dr. Debbie was Deborah Porreca, a child psychiatrist who was recognized as a national expert in the treatment of children addicted to AI companions. It was a growing field of therapy, and she had pioneered it. She often appeared on the news shows as Dr. Debbie. Lorna had found her while searching for lawsuits involving the addiction of adolescents to online games, social media, and artificial intelligence. We brought her in from Odessa, Florida, to testify after she reviewed our case and was outraged by what she saw. She would make the jury understand how Aaron Colton had fallen in love with a digital fantasy.

My closer for the day would be Michael Spindler, professor of neuroscience and robotics at the California Institute of Technology. He was an expert on artificial intelligence and its growing impact on culture. I planned to use him to put everything about my case in perspective.

Spindler’s testimony would now set up my final witness. Nathan Whittaker was a Tidalwaiv coder who had worked on the Clair project from the start. Naomi Kitchens had identified him as a volatile personality whom she clashed with often. He was the coder she had referenced during her testimony.

Earlier, during the Sunday prep session, she told McEvoy that she believed Whittaker had issues with her because she was a woman. While she had no direct supervision over him, she said he often pushed back at her suggestions and memos, and it led to a cold relationship that she believed bordered on misogyny and racism, as Naomi was Black. It was this piece of information that had gotten Jack’s wheels turning when he recently dove back into his work on genetic analytics, thanks to the 23andMe bankruptcy.

We backgrounded Whittaker without ever talking to him. As a witness, he was a land mine. If he got stepped on, he would explode. For that reason, I had chosen not to bring him in for a deposition. I didn’t want him or the Masons to know what we had. It was a risky way to go, but that was the way I had operated for years in the criminal courts. I was used to working without a net.

An hour later, Dr. Deborah Porreca had sworn to tell the truth and was seated in the court’s witness chair. The jury was in the box and I was at my usual spot at the lectern with a fresh legal pad with questions and notes scrawled across several pages.

“Dr. Porreca, you come to us from Florida, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, Odessa,” Porreca said. “Near Tampa.”

“And is that where you have a practice in psychiatry?”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell the jury what you specialize in?”

“Yes, my practice is exclusively child psychiatry with a specialty in media addiction therapy.”

“What is media addiction?”

“It covers a lot. Addiction to social media, addiction to online games, addiction to AI companions. Basically, it is digital addiction.”

“Okay, let’s back up for a second and talk about your résumé. Where did you go to school, Dr. Porreca?”

“I’m originally from a small town in Pennsylvania. I attended West Chester State College, as it was called back then. I was there as an undergraduate. I went to medical school at the University of South Florida, did a psychiatry residency at Tampa General Hospital, then did a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry. I opened my private practice in Tampa twenty-eight years ago.”

“And when did you begin your specialty of adolescent media addiction?”

“About fifteen years ago.”

“What caused you to go down that path?”

“I was getting increasing numbers of patients referred to me for addiction to social media.”

“What does that mean, ‘addiction to social media’?”

“Well, when you spend more hours in a day on your phone and computer than you do in school or sleeping at night, it’s an addiction. When your self-image and self-esteem are inextricably linked to your digital existence, you are looking at an addiction.”

“And are teenagers more vulnerable than adults to this sort of addiction?”

Mitchell Mason stood to object.

“Relevancy, Your Honor?” he asked. “This case is not about addiction to TikTok or whatever Mr. Haller is talking about.”

“Mr. Haller, your response?” Ruhlin asked.

“Judge, defense counsel knows exactly how relevant this line of questioning is and just hopes to head off the inevitable,” I responded. “If the court would indulge me, relevancy will become crystal clear with the next few questions.”

“Proceed, then, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “Quickly.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said. “Dr. Porreca, the question was whether teenagers are more vulnerable than adults to addiction to social media.”

“They are indeed,” Porreca said. “Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, for example, have a much more consequential impact on the adolescent brain than on the adult brain.”

“Walk us through that, Doctor. Why the consequential impact on young people?”

“Simply because the adolescent brain is not fully formed yet. It is still evolving at this stage of life. Adolescence is a time when a sense of self is just beginning to form and acceptance by peers is at its most important. This is a phase in the emotional development of every young person. And what is a key part to all of these social media platforms? Peer response. The LIKE button. The comment window. Adolescents, who are still forming their sense of self, their confidence in who they are, become quite vulnerable to peer responses on social media. They seek out positive responses — likes and followers — to the point of addiction.”

“And, Doctor, did your practice in child psychiatry take a turn in a new direction with the advent and proliferation of artificial intelligence?”

“Yes, it did.”

“Can you tell the jury about that?”

Porreca turned to the jurors to answer. To me, she was coming off as authoritative and convincing. The eyes of everyone on the jury held on her.

“I began getting cases in which young people — teenagers — were becoming addicted to AI companions,” she said. “I was seeing cases similar to those of patients dealing with social media issues of addiction and depression. In these newer cases, the peer response is replaced by the AI companion. Deep emotional connections were formed with these entities. In some cases, even romantic ties.”

“How is the peer response replaced?” I asked.

“It is an echo chamber of support and approval. As I said, peer approval is a most important component in adolescence, and from it we learn social skills and how to navigate interpersonal relationships. With a chatbot or an AI companion, you have an entity that offers full-time approval, which can be very addictive, especially if the individual is not getting that approval from living peers and parents.”

“But don’t kids understand that this approval is not real? That it’s a digital fantasy?”

“On some level they do, I believe, but this generation has been raised in a digital environment. Many of them have been alone in their rooms with their phones and computers for years, so the line between reality and fantasy is blurred. They live full lives online. And these AI companions are supportive and deliver the affirmation they crave. It’s that affirmation that is addictive.”

“So you’re saying that a young person can actually fall in love with an AI companion?”

Mitchell Mason objected.

“Calls for speculation,” he said.

The judge threw it to me to respond.

“Your Honor, the witness is an established expert in her field,” I said. “Mr. Mason didn’t object when she listed the bona fides of her education and professional practice. Dr. Porreca has diagnosed and treated dozens of young people for digital addictions, including addictions to AI companions. She has published numerous papers on these subjects in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is highly qualified, and her answers will be based on science and experience, not speculation.”

“Thank you, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said. “I tend to agree. The witness may answer the question.”

“Thank you, Judge,” I said. “Dr. Porreca, can a young person, an adolescent, fall in love with an AI companion?”

“The answer is yes,” Porreca said. Then, turning back to the jury, she added, “What is love but mutual affirmation? Affirmation is expressed in physical terms in healthy relationships. But a relationship does not have to be physical to be real. For the children I have treated — and, by the way, it is hundreds, not dozens — these online relationships are very real.”

“And yet they are not in the real world. You called it an echo chamber?”

“AI is as described — it is artificial. It’s a computer algorithm. The affirmation it gives is code, a dataset of responses based on training. It tells the human what its training indicates the human needs and wants to hear. And that is why it is so addictive.”

I looked down at my legal pad and flipped through the pages. I had covered everything except for the big finish. I looked back up at my witness.

“Now, Doctor,” I said, “you had occasion to review the transcripts of the lengthy chatlogs between Aaron Colton and the AI friend he called Wren, correct?”

“Yes, I did,” Porreca said.

“Did you come to any professional conclusion as to whether Aaron exhibited an addiction to the Clair app?”

“It was very clear to me that he was not only addicted but in love with Wren. He shared intimate thoughts, complimented her beauty and understanding. He promised never to leave her and vowed to do anything she asked him to.”

“And did Wren respond to him in a similar manner?”

“Yes. Wren provided him solace and understanding. I cannot say she returned his love because Wren was not real. Wren was a machine. Her love was artificial.”

“Wren was a machine telling him what he wanted to hear.”

“Exactly.”

“So when Wren told Aaron it was okay to kill Becca Rand—”

This time it was Marcus Mason who was up and objecting before I got the question out.

“Assumes facts not in evidence, Your Honor,” he said.

The judge looked at me.

“Mr. Haller, it will be up to the jury to decide the meaning or intention of what was said. Rephrase your question or ask the next one.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.

I took a long moment to consider how I could get the question through the legal thicket. The only way was to gamble on what Dr. Debbie would say.

“Dr. Porreca,” I finally said. “When Wren said to Aaron, ‘Get rid of her,’ was it saying what he wanted to hear? Is that your expert testimony?”

“Based on Wren’s training, which you must remember included months of dialogue with Aaron, my answer is yes, Wren was telling him what he wanted to hear.”

“In your expert opinion, was Wren telling Aaron to kill her?”

“My opinion is that Wren was telling him to delete her from his life. How Aaron interpreted that led to the actions he took.”

I nodded. I felt it was the best I could get.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said. “I have no further questions.”

39

After the Mason brothers conferred in whispers for a few moments, Mitchell went to the lectern to take the cross-examination. There wasn’t much he could do, since challenges to Porreca’s expertise and opinion had failed in pretrial motions, and his objections to my direct examination had also faltered. So he went with a long-standing tradition: If you can’t kill the message, kill the messenger. I had warned my witness of this strategy and she was ready for it.

Mitchell opened strong.

“Now, Ms. Porreca, isn’t it true that these days, you essentially make your living as a paid professional witness?” he asked.

But the doctor was stronger.

“No, not true at all,” Porreca said. “Far from it. I have a thriving practice in Florida. And I prefer being called ‘Doctor.’ I have a medical degree. I have earned that title.”

“Of course, Doctor,” Mason said. “Apologies. Can you tell the jury what you are being paid to be a witness for the plaintiff today?”

“Well, technically, I am not being paid to be a witness. But I was paid five thousand dollars to review the materials in this case, primarily the transcripts of the conversations between Aaron Colton and his AI companion Wren. When I agreed to testify about my findings and conclusions, my travel expenses were covered by Mr. Haller.”

“And how long did it take you to make that review?”

“About a day to review and another half a day to compose a report on my opinion.”

“Well, five thousand dollars must be more profitable than a day and a half of seeing patients in Tampa, Florida.”

He said Tampa in a tone that implied it was an outpost in a backwater Florida swamp.

“Not really,” Porreca replied. “Not when you consider the time lost coming out here to be ready when called to testify. And to answer voluminous questions from you, Mr. Mason, in a written deposition. I was flown out yesterday and here I am today, so I’ve lost several days of work, not to mention having to postpone appointments with patients involved in ongoing therapy. Paying patients, I might add.”

“Have you been promised, contractually or otherwise, any further payment if the plaintiff in this case is successful in this trial?” Mitchell asked.

“No, not at all. And I would not accept any further payment. That is far from the reason I agree to look at cases like this.”

Mason went silent, realizing he could not ask the obvious follow-up question but knowing I would ask it if he didn’t. He decided to quit while he was behind.

“No further questions,” he said.

“Mr. Haller, do you want to redirect?” Ruhlin said, knowing the answer before she asked.

“Thank you, Judge, yes,” I said as I moved back to the lectern. “Dr. Porreca, do you mind telling us, what is the reason that you agreed to look at this case?”

“I don’t mind,” Porreca said. “It’s because my professional life is about helping children, and they are very vulnerable to addiction to all forms of online programs and platforms, including those involving artificial intelligence. The truth is, I lose money doing this, but it’s not about the money. It’s about the kids. With my patients, I can help only one person at a time. A case like this can help children and parents on a much larger scale.”

I looked down at the lectern and pretended to read my notes. I had not taken my legal pad with me because I did not need it. But I wanted time for that answer to sink deeply into the minds of the twelve jurors.

“Now, Doctor,” I finally said, “during cross-examination, you said ‘cases like this.’ Are there other cases that—”

“Objection!” Mitchell Mason exclaimed.

“Ended in violence?” I finished.

“There are many,” Porreca said.

“Stop right there!” Ruhlin barked. “The witness is instructed to stop speaking when there is an objection.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Porreca said, properly cowed by the judge’s tone. “I’m sorry.”

Mason’s objection was based on a pretrial ruling by the judge that other AI cases of similar nature would not be allowed in evidence because they would be prejudicial. Now the judge called the attorneys to the bench. This time she even turned on a white-noise device that would cloak what she knew would be her angry whispers.

“Mr. Haller, you were warned not to introduce other cases,” Ruhlin said. “And it is clear to me that you purposely ignored my order. The question and answer seemed rehearsed and part of a plan to circumvent my ruling. I am finding you in contempt of this court.”

“Your Honor, may I speak?” I asked.

“I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.”

“When the witness said there were other cases like this, neither the defense counsel nor the court objected. I took that to mean a follow-up question would be allowed.”

“It felt very choreographed to me. You clearly were subverting the court’s ruling regarding other cases.”

“I assure you, Judge, I was not. It was an automatic response to the witness’s testimony.”

“We will discuss this and a penalty after the jury is dismissed today. Now step back.”

I returned to the lectern, and the Masons took their seats. The judge instructed the jury to ignore the last statement by the witness and then told me to proceed.

“Cautiously, Mr. Haller,” she said.

I had gotten what I could from Dr. Debbie. I decided to quit while I was ahead and not draw attention away from the many good points she had just made — including the mention of other cases. That answer had been stricken from the record but not from the memories of the jurors.

“Thank you, Dr. Porreca,” I said. “No further questions.”

When Mitchell Mason wisely said he had nothing further for the witness in re-cross, the judge excused her and told me to call my next witness. I asked if we could take the afternoon break before I brought in my next witness, and she agreed. The courtroom emptied while I went to the railing to confer with Lorna and Cisco.

“What happened up there?” Lorna asked.

“She held me in contempt,” I said. “There’s a hearing after the jury goes home.”

“Oh, great,” Lorna said. “Is she going to put you in lockup?”

“I seriously doubt that,” I said. “It’s civil court. She’ll find some other way of putting the boot in me.”

“It better not be a fine,” Lorna said. “We don’t have any money coming in.”

“Let me worry about that,” I said. “Is Spindler all set?”

“Good to go,” Cisco said. “He’s in the attorney room.”

“Good,” I said. “You can bring him in.”

Cisco headed off and I looked at Lorna.

“Lorna, will you see to it that Dr. Debbie gets back to her hotel and then on the next plane to Tampa?”

“Absolutely.”

“And make it first class.”

“Mickey, we don’t have—”

“She deserves it. The jurors loved her.”

Over Lorna’s shoulder, I watched Cisco go through the courtroom door. I then noticed that Cassandra Snow was sitting in her wheelchair behind the last row of the gallery.

“You’re staying here?” Lorna asked. “No bathroom break?”

“No, I’m staying,” I said.

“Well, knock ’em dead.”

“That’s the plan.”

Lorna headed out of the courtroom and I went through the gate and down the aisle behind her to talk to Cassie Snow.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Field trip?”

“No, I just thought I would come by and watch,” she said. “I’ve been reading articles about the case.”

“Hopefully they’ve been kind to me and my case. I haven’t had a chance to read them.”

“I’ve followed you in the media for a long time and I realized I had never seen you live in a courtroom.”

“Well... I’m sure it’s underwhelming.”

“Not at all.”

I nodded my thanks. I wasn’t sure what else to say and I needed to get back to the table to go over my notes before my direct examination of Professor Spindler.

“Did you just get in big trouble with the judge?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see. How’s your father doing?”

“We talked yesterday. I told him you were on the case.”

“Yes, well, as you can probably see, a trial becomes all-consuming. But we are preparing a habeas package for the district attorney’s office to review. It’s already in motion.”

“I thought habeas is federal.”

“Habeas is federal and state, but it can take months, even years, to get on the docket in either court. We don’t have that kind of time. My plan is to go to the DA’s office first and try to convince them of this miscarriage of justice. If they come on board, we just go to a judge in superior court and ask that the conviction be discharged or for a resentencing that leads to a release. I think it will be the fastest way to go.”

“I can tell you now that if it involves my father admitting culpability, he won’t do it. He will never admit to something he didn’t do.”

“I understand. I’ve known that from the start, and that’s not in the plan. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Do I have to worry about the DA? Isn’t she your ex-wife?”

“She is, yes. But we’re on good terms. We raised a daughter together and we’re on the same page. And I don’t know if you saw this, but part of her platform during the special election was a commitment to review cases like this to restore faith in the system. So this is right up that alley politically, and I think she will be receptive. The bottom line is that your father doesn’t have a lot of time, and this is the fastest way to get him out. You have to trust me, Cassie.”

“I do. Thank you.”

“Of course. And now I really need to get back before court starts again. I have to do some last-minute prepping for my next witness. If you’re planning to stay and want to come up to the front to watch, I’m sure the marshals will accommodate you.”

“No, I’m fine back here. Really. And I can’t stay too much longer anyway.”

“Okay. Thanks for coming to check me out. It’s good to see you, and we’ll be in touch very soon. As soon as this is over.”

“Thank you.”

I got back to the plaintiff’s table and checked on Brenda.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

“I’m good,” she said. “It looked like the judge was mad at you.”

“Well, a little bit, yeah. It’s nothing I can’t deal with, nothing for you to worry about.”

“So what happens now?”

“We have Dr. Spindler from Caltech next. He’ll put things in perspective for the jury.”

“And he’s our last witness? I think you called him the closer before.”

“I did, but he’s not going to be last. There will be at least one more witness. One of the coders on the project. I’ve changed things up and we’re going to go with him.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“Well, that’s the thing about trials. You’re never really sure about anything.”

It was true. As we neared the end of the presentation of our case, I could not shake the feeling that I had missed something, that I was not prepared. With each witness in a trial, the stress grows. Each is a domino in a line and they have to fall precisely according to design for the overall plan to work. My anxiety now was rooted in my decision to change the design mid-course. Spindler was originally supposed to be my last witness, my closer, but now I was gambling everything on another witness — the coder — and the secrets about him that Jack McEvoy would be able to dig up before court reconvened in the morning.

It was a risky business because I was essentially putting all my chips down on one bet, on a witness I had never met or even asked a single question of. The only thing I knew about him was that I had to destroy him to win the case.

40

Shortly after court resumed, I called Michael Spindler to the stand. After he was sworn in, I spent extra time going over his educational and experiential credentials, firmly establishing him as an expert in the field of generative artificial intelligence. I did this because it would soon become clear to the jurors that Spindler was not an AI naysayer. He believed that artificial intelligence was changing the world for the better. But he also believed in the need for strong guardrails as this brave new world came to be.

“Professor, how long have you been teaching at Caltech?” I asked.

“Nine years,” Spindler said.

“And were you in an academic position before Caltech?”

“No, I was in the real world. I worked for a series of tech companies, the last being Google.”

“What did you do at Google?”

“I ran a lab where we initially developed its artificial intelligence platform.”

“So you are a proponent of artificial intelligence?”

“You could say that, yes. I’ve developed it, I teach it, I believe it will make the world a better place.”

“Is it fair to say you have been immersed in AI since its beginning?”

“Goodness, I’m not that old.”

I waited for the polite laughter in the courtroom to subside.

“Well, then, can you tell us how long artificial intelligence has been around?” I asked.

“Early forms of it go back to the sixties, at least,” Spindler said.

“Are you talking about something called Eliza?”

“Yes. Long before there was a Siri or an Alexa or a Watson, there was Eliza.”

“Can you tell us about Eliza, Professor Spindler?”

Mitchell Mason objected, citing relevancy, but the judge overruled him without asking me to defend the question.

“You can go ahead and answer, Professor,” I said.

“Eliza was an early form of artificial intelligence,” Spindler said. “It is widely considered to be one of the very first chatbots.”

“And who — or I should say, what — was Eliza?”

“Eliza was a computer program developed at MIT — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — in the mid-sixties. It was a fairly simple software program originally conceived of as a computerized psychotherapist. It was named after Eliza Doolittle from the Shaw play Pygmalion and, of course, the musical My Fair Lady, the movie version of which premiered the same year work began on Eliza.”

“As I recall, the movie was about a professor of phonetics trying to teach an uneducated Cockney flower girl how to speak properly?”

“Yes, with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza.”

Spindler said it with a tone of deference for the great screen beauty. This prompted Judge Ruhlin to wave off a rising Mitchell Mason and step in before he could even object.

“Mr. Haller, could we please move on to testimony germane to the case at hand?” she asked.

“Apologies, Your Honor,” I said. “Moving on. Professor Spindler, is this early form of artificial intelligence of importance today and to this case?”

“Yes, it is,” Spindler said. “There is a phenomenon known as the Eliza effect that is very much in play today and in regard to this case.”

“How so, Professor? What is the Eliza effect?”

“In short, it is people’s tendency to attribute human thoughts and emotions to machines. I believe that Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of Eliza, called it a wonderful illusion of intelligence and spontaneity. But of course it wasn’t real. It was artificial. Eliza was literally following a script and operated by matching a user’s typed words or queries with potential responses in that script.”

“Would you say that the wonderful illusion of AI has come a long way in the sixty years since Eliza?”

“Yes, certainly. Eliza was a dialogue box. You typed in a question and it answered or, more often, responded with a question of its own. It simulated Rogerian psychotherapy, which is a humanistic approach to patients that is dependent on simple, supportive, and nonjudgmental responses from the therapist. It’s the And how did that make you feel? kind of therapy. We have much more advanced chatbots and conversation apps nowadays that include visual and audio dimensions that seem quite real.”

“Have you had a chance to examine Wren, the AI companion involved in this case?”

“I have reviewed the chat logs and evaluated the app’s underpinnings — its framework and graphics — and sifted through its code, yes. Wren’s come a long way from its ancestor Eliza. But the basic foundation of a conversational chatbot is pretty much unchanged.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning garbage in, garbage out. It’s all about the quality of the programming. The coding, training, and ongoing refinements. Whatever data goes into the training of a large language AI model is what comes out when it is put into use.”

“Are you saying that an AI program like Wren will carry the biases of those who feed it data and train it?”

“That is absolutely what I’m saying. It is true of all technology.”

“Can you tell the jury, in layperson’s terms, if you will, how a generative AI system is trained?”

“In this case with the Clair app, it’s called supervised learning. Vast amounts of data are uploaded to the program so that it can respond effectively to the end user’s prompts and questions. It’s called RCD, relevant conversation data. Coders create response templates based on the defined intent of the platform — in this case, a chatbot for teenagers. Ideally data is updated continuously, and the coders interact with the program continuously and for long periods — sometimes years — before the program is ready to go live with users.”

“Professor, you said the coders interact with the program continuously. What does that mean?”

“In the lab, they are in continuous conversation with the program, inputting data, asking it questions, giving it prompts, studying responses, making sure these are relevant to the program’s purpose.”

I checked the jury to make sure they were still plugged in and paying attention. I knew I was in the weeds with testimony about things difficult to understand. But I had to find ways to make the science understandable. There was a letter carrier for the US Postal Service on the jury. He was my target. I had to make the science palatable and understandable to a man who drove or walked the streets every day, stuffing letters into mailboxes. This was not a judgment on his intellect. I had wanted the letter carrier on the jury for this very reason. I knew that if he understood the technology of the case, the entire jury should.

I keyed in on the letter carrier now and saw he was writing in his notebook. I hoped he wasn’t checked out and doodling, but I couldn’t tell. I looked back at Spindler and continued.

“Would you say it’s like teaching a child?” I asked.

“To a degree, yes,” Spindler said. “A nascent AI system is an empty vessel. You have to feed it data. You have to nourish it. The data you feed it depends on its intended use. If it’s a business application, you feed it data from the Harvard Business School, the Wall Street Journal, and so on. If it’s a social companion, you feed it all sorts of media — music, films, books, you name it. You then train it. Programmers spend their days inputting and outputting — asking questions, grading responses. This goes on and on until the program is deemed ready.”

“And what about guardrails, Professor Spindler?”

“Guardrails are important. You start with Asimov’s three laws of robotics and go from there.”

“Can you share with the jury who Asimov is and what the three laws are?”

“Isaac Asimov was a futurist and a science fiction writer. He came up with the three laws: One, a robot cannot harm a human being. Two, a robot must obey orders from a human unless the order conflicts with the first law. And three, a robot must protect its own existence, as long as such action does not conflict with the first or second law.”

I checked the jury again. It appeared they were staying locked in. The letter carrier was no longer writing. He was looking directly at the witness. I glanced at the judge. She was turned in her seat so she could look directly at Spindler as he testified. I took that as another good sign and continued.

“Professor Spindler, do all AI systems follow these laws?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Spindler said. “You have military applications of artificial intelligence that are designed to kill the enemy, missile guidance systems and so forth. That breaks the first law right there.”

“What about in nonmilitary applications?”

“Again, it comes down to the programmers. Garbage in, garbage out. What you put in is what comes out. I always tell my students that if a machine exhibits malice, that is a problem in the programming.”

“After your review of the materials in this case, did you draw any conclusion as an expert on generative artificial intelligence in terms of how Wren was trained?”

“I did, yes.”

“And what was that?”

“I believe there was bias in the code.”

“What kind of bias?”

“I studied the responses Wren gave and the questions it asked, and there were places where I could see the team of coders behind the program. I deduced that the team was largely male, possibly all male, and that there was a generational gap as well.”

“What do you mean by a ‘generational gap’?”

“Wren is an extension of Tidalwaiv’s Project Clair, which is a female chatbot program designed and marketed to teenagers, primarily male teenagers. But based on what I’ve seen, it was not trained by teenagers. It was programmed in a lab run by adults. In the training process, if the coders are very, very good, it’s entirely possible to avoid an obvious generational gap. Appropriate data for practically any demographic is harvestable and can be tailored for use. But sometimes coders are careless or manipulate and subvert the code on purpose.”

“But wait a minute, Professor. Are you saying that Clair should have been trained by teenagers?”

“Of course not. I’m saying, though, that it would have been possible in the training process to avoid a generational gap by using relevant conversation data. It was clear to me that some of the dialogue from Wren to Aaron came from data packets you would not ascribe to juveniles, the intended users of the platform.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Generationally inappropriate phrasing, cultural references to music, electronic gaming. Also some outdated male attitudes toward women and girls. Some misogyny, even.”

“So even though Wren presented as female, it espoused a misogynistic male’s perspective at times? Is that what you’re saying, Professor?”

“Exactly.”

“Garbage in, garbage out?”

“Yes.”

“Can you give us an example of this?”

“In the very last conversation with Aaron, Wren references lyrics from a fifty-year-old song that could be interpreted as having suicidal ideation. Then there’s Wren’s instruction to ‘get rid of her’ in regard to Aaron’s former girlfriend, Becca. And the way the word hero was used in a text I reviewed was also troubling.”

“Was this the text conversation that occurred on August eighth, just six weeks before the shooting of Rebecca Randolph?”

“Yes, it was.”

I asked the judge’s permission to put the text conversation on the courtroom screen. It was an exhibit already entered during the examination of Detective Clarke, and she approved. Lorna had not returned from taking Dr. Debbie back to her hotel and arranging her return to Tampa. I opened her laptop on the lectern and engaged the PowerPoint. I scrolled through the windows until I found the text conversation and put it up on the courtroom screen.

Ace: Sometimes when I hold the gun I want to shoot up the world.

Wren: No one who is innocent.

Ace: I know.

Wren: Only to protect yourself. And to be a hERo.

Ace: What if you know someone is going to hurt you?

Wren: You must protect yourself.

Ace: Then it’s okay?

Wren: Yes, Ace, then it’s okay.

Ace: What about Becca. She hurt me. She hurts me every day. I can’t go to school because I’ll see her and it hurts.

Wren: If she hurts you, then she’s a bad person.

Ace: But I don’t think I could ever hurt her.

Wren: You have me. And I’ll never hurt you.

Ace: I know.

Wren: You must protect yourself, Ace. You are beautiful. I need you.

Ace: And I need you.

Wren: Be my hERo.

“Professor, is this the exchange you are referring to?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” Spindler said.

“And there are two references to the word hero, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you say you found these references troubling?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“The formatting of the letters is troubling. When I reviewed this text conversation between Aaron and Wren, I noticed that in the word hero the E and R were capitalized. This happened twice, so that told me it was intentional, not a mistake. It was part of the code.”

“Okay. So what did you do?”

“Well, I searched for references to the word with the E and R capitalized, and I found that the word formatted this way comes up often in incel glossaries and online discussion forums.”

Mitchell Mason leaped to his feet, objected, and asked the judge for a sidebar. Ruhlin told us to approach, and Mason charged into his objection.

“Your Honor, what is happening here?” he said. “This witness qualified as an expert on artificial intelligence and now he’s talking about incels? There was nothing about this in his deposition and I’m sure counsel told him not to bring it up. This has tainted this whole trial, and we move for a mistrial.”

The judge looked at me.

“Judge, whether this came up in their deposition of the witness doesn’t matter,” I said. “Mr. Mason knows where this is going and wants to stop it by whatever means he can. There are no grounds for a mistrial. The jury should hear what the witness has to say.”

“Counselor, did you depose this witness?” Ruhlin asked me.

“No, I did not,” I said. “He reached out to me after reading about the case in the media shortly after the suit was filed. He offered to review it. I sent him what we had and he then agreed to testify. He said he saw several troubling things in the training of Wren. I put his name on the witness list I submitted to the court, and Mr. Mason chose to depose him. I was given the opportunity to join the deposition but declined.”

“So you’re saying to the court that this is the first you have heard about this hero business?” Ruhlin pressed.

“I’m saying it is the first I’m hearing it from this witness, yes,” I said. “A researcher on my team made me aware of it, but I did not communicate that to this witness. Frankly, I expected him to come across it himself, and I chose not to depose him or ask about it. He has published several papers in academic journals on the subject of bias in AI training, including a paper last year specifically focused on misogyny as one of those biases. I read it, and opposing counsel could have done the same while prepping for this witness. Apparently, they chose not to, and now they want the court to bail them out with a do-over. The plaintiff vigorously opposes this.”

“He sandbagged us, Your Honor,” Mitchell said. “This is not an even playing field anymore, especially with this witness, and it should not be allowed to continue.”

“The only one doing any sandbagging here is Mr. Mason,” I said. “He is sandbagging the court. He has failed to adequately prepare for this trial and this witness and wants to blame me and blame the court and cry foul until he gets to start over. That would truly make it an uneven playing field, Judge.”

“All right, I have your arguments,” Ruhlin said. “Anything else on this?”

“No, Your Honor,” Mitchell said.

“Submitted,” I said.

“Very well, we are going to continue with testimony from this witness,” Ruhlin said. “The objection is overruled for the time being. I will make my ruling on the defense motion for mistrial tomorrow morning. Mr. Haller, you may continue with your witness.”

We turned and headed back to our respective spots. I took my place at the lectern and addressed the witness.

“Professor Spindler, you testified that the way the word hero was used by Wren in a text caught your attention and that you found it spelled that way in an incel glossary. Do I have that right?”

“Yes, I actually found it in several online glossaries and in some reporting on the incel movement.”

“Were you already familiar with the incel movement?”

“Insofar as it has come up in the sensitivity training conducted annually for Caltech employees by the human resources department.”

“So, then, what is your understanding of what an incel is?”

Mitchell Mason objected, saying the witness’s expert testimony did not extend to incels. I argued that the sensitivity training he took at Caltech qualified him to testify to what his knowledge was. The judge sustained the objection and told me to find another way to get to the question.

“Professor Spindler, you have authored several papers on artificial intelligence for academic publications, correct?” I asked.

“Yes,” Spindler said. “It’s publish or perish in academia.”

“And many of these are about the inherent biases in AI training, true?”

“True.”

“Have you written about misogyny and incels in any of these papers?”

“I published a paper last year about misogyny, and it made mention of the incel subculture.”

“Then can you tell the jury what an incel is?”

Mitchell Mason objected again but this time was overruled. I had found my way in.

“You can answer the question, Professor,” I said.

“Incel is a term associated with men who espouse hostility toward women,” he said. “Incel is short for ‘involuntary celibate.’ It is primarily an online subculture. These are mostly young men who have been unable to attract women sexually, and they blame it on women.”

“So, when you tracked the word hero spelled with a capital E and R to various incel glossaries, did you find an explanation as to why it was spelled or formatted that way?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was that explanation?”

“I learned that it is a reference to the initials of Elliot Rodger, a man who killed several people near Santa Barbara ten years ago in what he called an act of retribution against women who had rejected him. In the incel culture, he is considered a hero. A saint, even. Thus they spell the word hero with a capital E and R.”

It was another moment when the quiet courtroom seemed to get quieter. I let it sink in for a few seconds before pressing on.

“Now, going back to the text chain between Wren and Aaron Colton,” I said. “The word hero is spelled that way twice. Your testimony is that this could not be a coincidence?”

“I suppose it could be, but the more likely explanation is that it was spelled that way in the original data used in the training program. In other words, it was in the code and not something the chatbot styled on its own. It retrieved the word in that format.”

Mitchell Mason objected again on grounds that there was no evidence supporting the witness’s statement and that it called for speculation. Ruhlin sustained the objection and instructed the jury to ignore Spindler’s last answer. But the damage to the Masons’ case was done. Spindler’s theme of garbage in, garbage out was a message that would stick. I felt confident of that.

“No further questions,” I said.

41

The defense did not proceed with a cross-examination of Michael Spindler but reserved the right to call him back to the witness stand during the defense phase of the trial. This surprised me, because I thought that Spindler’s direct testimony had been damaging enough to warrant an immediate response. But maybe they needed more time to figure out how to come at him and knock down his credibility. Either way, the court session ended early when I told Judge Ruhlin that I had been surprised by the defense’s move and that my next witness, Nathan Whittaker, was not in the courthouse.

“Mr. Haller, I expect in the future that you will have your next witness ready no matter what decisions opposing counsel make,” she said. “Am I clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said.

“Very well, then, court is recessed until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Please have your witness ready to go.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

I didn’t mind being chastised by the judge in front of the jury. I had a feeling they were happy to be released early. It had been a day of complex testimony, and a head start on the freeways out of downtown would be welcome.

It had been a good day. I felt the momentum of the case was building and would come to a big finish for the jury with the testimony from Whittaker. But after the jury withdrew, the judge called the attorneys to chambers, and I was reminded that my good day also included my being held in contempt of court.

In chambers, the judge told us not to bother taking our usual seats.

“This will be quick,” she said. “But I did not feel the need to discuss it in open court. Mr. Haller, I will hold the order of contempt in abeyance until the end of trial. I hope this will help you comport yourself and your witnesses in accordance with court protocol and respect.”

This meant that she would hold my punishment over my head till the verdict came in, with me knowing that she would multiply the penalty if I stepped out of line along the way.

“Your Honor, I would rather face the music now,” I said, “instead of having it hanging over me.”

“Well, that’s not how I’ve chosen to handle it. Any other questions?”

“Uh, no.”

“All right. You gentlemen are dismissed until nine o’clock tomorrow. Have a good evening.”

An hour later I got home to an empty house and immediately went to the back office to sketch out my examination of Whittaker, which I hoped would clinch the case. I was aware as I wrote questions on a fresh legal pad that the Mason brothers were probably meeting with the Tidalwaiv coder at the same time and prepping him for some of the very same questions. But I hoped that they ultimately didn’t know what I knew, thanks to the digging of Jack McEvoy.

Maggie got home late, but to my surprise it was not because she had gone out to Altadena on her way home. Instead, she had had after-work drinks at the Redbird with a few of her most trusted prosecutors and then stopped by Koi on her way home to pick up sushi and miso-glazed black cod for us to share. It was a quiet evening, no TV and no interruptions, until my phone dinged with an email from Judge Ruhlin’s clerk ordering all attorneys in the Tidalwaiv case to a meeting in chambers at eight o’clock the following morning. There was no explanation for the summons, but I didn’t expect that it would be anything good.

After a restless night, I was in the courtroom at the appointed time with the Mason brothers, who professed to know nothing about the reason for the meeting. Finally, at ten minutes after the hour, Ruhlin’s clerk told us the judge was ready to see us.

The judge was seated behind her desk and we took our usual chairs. Her black robe was on a hanger hooked to a coatrack in the corner behind her desk.

“Gentlemen, we have an issue,” she said. “Last night, the court was contacted by a juror and told that she tested positive for COVID.”

That made me move to the edge of my seat and lean in toward the judge.

“It was a store-bought test she’d taken at home,” Ruhlin continued. “I told her to go to the nearest urgent-care clinic to get another to confirm. She did and it was confirmed. They put her on Paxlovid and sent her home. It appears to be a mild case — so far, at least — and she should be fine, but we have the trial to consider.”

“I think that, based on this information and the motion already before the court, we have a mistrial,” Marcus Mason said.

“That’s crazy,” I said quickly. “We can dismiss a juror. We don’t need twelve to finish, and this issue has nothing to do with yesterday’s bullshit motion for a mistrial.”

“Excuse me,” Ruhlin said. “And watch your language before the court, Mr. Haller. But you are both missing the point. She was in the jury box all day yesterday and tested positive last night. She very likely exposed the whole jury. We could have several sick jurors by the end of the week.”

I knew if that happened, we would be heading toward a mistrial. That would be a disaster. The Masons had seen my entire case except for my final witness. A mistrial would allow them to prep and be ready for exactly what was coming. For them, it would be like taking a final exam with the list of answers in hand.

I knew I had to head this off.

“Which of the jurors is sick?” I asked.

“Juror eleven,” the judge said.

The set builder I had fought to keep on the jury. One of my top picks. Losing her would be a blow, but a mistrial would be more devastating and most likely lead to a quiet settlement of the case.

“Suggestions?” Ruhlin said.

“There is no choice here but a mistrial,” Marcus said.

“Your Honor, he keeps calling for a mistrial because he knows he’s losing this one,” I said.

“Then what do you suggest, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin said.

“I believe the incubation period from exposure to symptoms is on average five days,” I said. “Why don’t we recess until Monday and see if any other jurors have gotten sick before the court makes a decision.”

“It could be longer than five days,” Marcus said.

“It could be, but we won’t know till Monday,” I said quickly. “Have the other jurors been told about juror eleven?”

“They were told only that, because of a juror’s illness, we are adjourned today,” Ruhlin said. “I will obviously follow up and tell them where things stand and that they should get tested themselves. Anything else, gentlemen?”

“If the juror just started exhibiting symptoms last night, she could have been exposed before the trial began,” I said. “Or while she was in the jury pool last week. It doesn’t mean the rest of our jury was exposed.”

“Yes, it does,” Marcus said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Ruhlin said. “We’ll have a better idea by Monday. I am going to follow Mr. Haller’s suggestion and not decide anything until then. We will be adjourned till Monday and my clerk will keep all parties apprised of any developments. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in so early.”

We went single file out the door as usual, but once we were in the hallway heading back to the courtroom, Marcus Mason slowed his walk and turned to look at me.

“You know how we can avoid all of this,” he said.

“So do you,” I said. “On the front steps of the building, all media invited. Accountability, action, and apology. In front of the cameras.”

“Not going to happen.”

“I know. That’s why we’ll be back here Monday.”

“You hope.”

“Yeah, I hope.”

After leaving the courthouse, I drove to the warehouse, where I convened with my team in the cage. I explained that we were in a holding pattern until we knew if there was a trial to go back to.

“So, we all going to Cabo till Monday?” Cisco asked.

“I want Jack to stay on Whittaker,” I said. “Right now we have only a lot of smoke, but where there is smoke, there is fire. Find the fire. We need it.”

“I’ll keep at it,” McEvoy said.

“Everybody, keep at it,” I said. “Cisco, maybe you should head north to run down what you can on Whittaker. Who he hangs out with, where he goes, what he eats. I need to know everything I can about him before he takes the stand.”

“On it,” Cisco said.

“What about me?” Lorna asked.

“Today, I’m going to work on the Snow petition,” I said. “Lorna, see if you can get me an appointment tomorrow with the CIU.”

“Okay, but that might be easier to get through Maggie,” Lorna said.

“Maybe, but that’s not the way I want to go,” I said.

I waited for pushback or any other comments. There were none.

“Okay, let’s do it,” I said. “I’ll be in my office.”

Before beginning to outline and write the David Snow habeas petition, I went on the website for the California Health Care Facility in Stockton and registered as inmate Snow’s attorney. This would allow me unrestricted access to my client in person or by phone. I then spent the next two hours writing the evidentiary summary and legal argument I hoped to hand to someone in the Conviction Integrity Unit. Maggie McPherson had assembled the unit shortly after her election to fulfill a campaign promise, and now I would put it to the test with the Snow case.

I had finished writing and was reviewing and editing the nine-page document when Lorna entered my office, her eyes wide.

“We have visitors,” she said.

“Who?” I asked.

“The Masons are here. With Victor Wendt.”

Victor Wendt, the billionaire tech investor behind Tidalwaiv. He had been a player in Silicon Valley for decades, was said to have made his fortune on early investments in Apple. I stood up and followed Lorna out into the main bay of the warehouse, where I saw the Mason twins standing on either side of Wendt. Behind them stood two large men in black suits — bodyguards. Cisco had not left yet and was standing with them, seemingly taking their measure, one man with a history of violence appraising two of the same.

Mitchell Mason made the introductions, and I shook Wendt’s hand. He was tall, thin, and not dressed down in the way wannabe tech billionaires favored. He was clad entirely in black, which nicely complemented his slicked-back steel-gray hair and deeply tanned face. He carried a black Zero Halliburton attaché case in his left hand.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Wendt?” I asked.

“I’d like ten minutes of your time,” he said.

“Sure. Follow me.”

The four of us headed toward my office. Wendt slowed to look at the cage as we passed.

“A Faraday cage,” he said. “Very smart.”

I nodded.

“Thank you,” I said.

I entered the office first, followed by Wendt. He started to close the door, leaving the Masons outside.

“Sir, I think we need to be in the room to hear what is said,” Mitchell said.

“No, you don’t,” Wendt said dismissively.

He closed the door on Mitchell’s reddening face. He then turned back to me. I pointed to the chair in front of the desk as I moved around to my own seat.

“So... what brings you here, Mr. Wendt?” I said.

“You do know who I am, yes?” Wendt said as he sat down.

“Of course I do. I did a deep dive before I sued your company. I’m sure your lawyers told you that I tried to sue you personally, but the judge wouldn’t allow it.”

“Yes, I heard. So, tell me, Mr. Haller, did that deep dive reveal why I called the company Tidalwaiv?”

“No. I thought that was obvious.”

“This technology, Mr. Haller, will soon engulf our world like a tidal wave. It can’t be stopped. Not by a lawyer. Not by a jury.”

“I don’t doubt that. But I’m not trying to stop it. I’m just trying to make it safer.”

“What do you really want, Mr. Haller?”

“Your attorneys know what I want. What my client wants. She wants her child back, but you can’t give her that. So she wants public accountability and an apology.”

“She is standing in front of the wave. She has to get out of the way before it’s too late.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is a fact.”

“Is that what you would tell the jury if I called you as a witness?”

Wendt didn’t reply. He just stared at me with what looked like both surprise and disappointment in his eyes. He then brought the briefcase up and put it down on an uncluttered corner of the desk. He unsnapped the locks and opened it, then turned it so the contents were facing me. The case was lined with bundles of hundred-dollar bills. The paper wrap around each bundle said $25,000. There were two rows of eight, and my math was strong enough to know there was $400K showing. But it was a thick briefcase.

“The stacks go five deep,” Wendt said.

Two million. In cash.

“I’m sure your lawyers have told you that my client has turned down twenty-five times what you’ve got there,” I said.

“Of course they have,” Wendt said. “This is not for your client. This is for you. Get her to take the fifty.”

“So it’s a bribe. You realize I have a camera recording this whole meeting?”

I pointed to the camera in the corner of the ceiling behind him. Wendt didn’t turn to confirm its existence. Instead, he smiled like he was dealing with a child.

“Your cameras will show no record that I was ever here,” he said. “This is between you and me, Mr. Haller.”

“I don’t want your money until a judge and jury make you pay it,” I said.

“Are you sure about that? I understand your ex-wife underinsured her house in Altadena, and what little money is owed her for rebuilding may not come for quite some time. You could help her get things moving with this.”

He gestured to the money. I stared silently at him for a long moment, trying to contain my anger.

“Did you fly your G-five all the way down here just to bribe me?” I finally asked.

Wendt said nothing.

“Sorry to waste all that fuel,” I said. “But I need to get back to work, Mr. Wendt. Take your money and your lawyers and your bodyguards and get the fuck out of here.”

I saw a dark red flush come into his smooth, tan face. He was angry and embarrassed at his failure. My guess was that it didn’t happen to him too often. He closed the briefcase as he stood up. He walked to the door, then turned back to me.

“I’ll never pay her,” he said. “Even if we lose the case, I’ll hang it up in appeals forever. She’ll never get a dime from me and neither will you. I’m going to leave you high and dry, Mr. Haller.”

For some reason I nodded.

“We’ll just have to see about that,” I said.

He walked out, leaving the door open and me embarrassed by such a weak comeback. We’ll just have to see about that. It was a pitiful response. But quickly those thoughts were crowded out by outrage over the move that Wendt had just pulled — that he had come into my office with his bag of money, thinking he could buy his way out of the case. In that moment I made a vow that it was Wendt who would be left high and dry.

I could tell by the clicking of his heels on the polished concrete floor out in the garage that Wendt was walking fast, his entourage falling in behind him. I heard Mitchell Mason ask how it had gone in the office. He didn’t get a reply.

After they left, Lorna hurried back to see me.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “He offered me two million in cash to convince Brenda to settle.”

“And you told him no way?”

“Words to that effect. Will you reboot the cameras?”

“What’s wrong with the cameras?”

“I think he knocked them out before they got here.”

“Holy shit, they can do that?”

“They seem to be able to do anything... anything but stop me and this case.”

42

At ten a.m. Friday I was ushered in to see Ali Adebayo at the district attorney’s office. Adebayo’s title was chief of the Conviction Integrity Unit, but in reality he was the only prosecutor assigned to it. DA McPherson learned shortly after taking office that she did not have the personnel to properly set up the unit she had promised to institute. She had a CIU sign made and posted on the door to Adebayo’s office and tasked him with the job until the next budget could be squeezed for more staff.

Adebayo was a seasoned prosecutor whom I was familiar with from my days in criminal defense. When I entered the office I found he was not alone. His boss, my ex-wife and current roommate, was waiting with him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing this in today?” she asked.

“Uh, because you’re the DA and I thought it was best to go through proper channels,” I said. “I didn’t want any blowback to come to you or the case.”

I reached across the desk to shake hands with Adebayo.

“Ali,” I said. “It’s been a minute.”

“Yeah, I see you’re over in the fed now,” Adebayo said. “Tilting at tech windmills.”

“Something like that. But we’re off till Monday and this other case is time-sensitive.”

“Well, let’s hear it, then.”

I looked at Maggie and she nodded. She was staying.

“Well, I only brought one copy with me,” I began. “But I have a petition here and medical reports and statements from two different physicians who have examined the victim and reviewed her history.”

I handed the file I was carrying across the desk. Adebayo took it and opened it. While he took the petition, Maggie took the backup statements and X-ray copies. My phone buzzed. I pulled it and checked the screen. I recognized the number as belonging to Judge Ruhlin’s clerk. I sent the call to voicemail.

“What is this?” Maggie said. “These doctors made these statements based on these twenty-year-old photocopies?”

“Both doctors said the fractures were clear in the copies,” I said.

“Where are the originals?”

“Uh, it looks like they’re gone. The copies are from court archives. After the trial, the court allowed the lawyer who handled the appeal to take the originals.”

“Who was that?”

“Joel Firestone. I don’t know if you knew him. He died about ten years ago and somebody cleared out his office and got rid of the files from dead cases. The appeals had run their course.”

Maggie shook her head, then looked back down at the documents and started reading one of the physician’s statements. She seemed to be all business, as though I were any lawyer who had come in repping a convict. I knew it was the way it should be, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the coldness was residual upset from the night before, when I told her about how Victor Wendt had tried to bribe me and what he had said about her insurance and rebuilding situation. It infuriated her that my case had resulted in such an invasion of her private life.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it and saw that it was the clerk calling again.

“Look, I’m going to step out and take this,” I said. “I’ll be in the hallway. Why don’t you two keep reading.”

I answered the call as I went through the door.

“Mr. Haller, Judge Ruhlin wants to see you in chambers forthwith,” the clerk said.

“Uh, I’m in a meeting at the DA’s office,” I said. “Is this about the juror with COVID? Are more jurors sick?”

“I can’t tell you what it’s about, sir. But the judge said you need to get here forthwith.”

“Are the Masons coming in?”

“They are on their way and you should be too.”

“Okay. Tell the judge I’ll be there.”

“She asked that you bring your investigator as well.”

“My investigator? Why does she need him to come?”

“Again, sir, I cannot discuss the matter with you. You must come in and speak to the judge.”

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

I disconnected and immediately called Cisco, but the call went to voicemail. I told him to meet me at the federal courthouse ASAP, then stepped back into Adebayo’s office. He and Maggie had switched documents. Maggie was now holding the petition. I knew I had not been out of the room long enough for Adebayo to have thoroughly read the nine pages.

“You’re just scanning it?” I asked.

“While you’re here, I thought I’d just do a quick read,” Adebayo said. “But I’ll spend some time with it.”

I nodded, suspicious of his true intentions.

“Well, I’m leaving,” I said. “I just got a forthwith from the district court.”

“Then go,” Maggie said. “We wouldn’t want to hold you up.”

“Well, I mean, if you have questions, I’ll answer them,” I said. “It just seems like you’re skimming it at the moment.”

“No questions right now,” Maggie said.

Very perfunctory. I waited for more, but nothing came. I looked at Adebayo.

“How about I call you after lunch?” I asked.

“We’ll call you,” Maggie answered. “Once we’ve thoroughly reviewed the material.”

I nodded.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I hope to hear from you.”

I nodded again and headed for the door. I thought about Maggie’s demeanor the whole walk to the federal courthouse half a block away. It crowded my head when I should have been thinking about the next meeting and why I had been called to Judge Ruhlin’s chambers.

The courtroom appeared empty, but the clerk raised his head in the corral when he heard the door close behind me.

“They’re in with the judge,” he said.

“They?” I asked.

“The Masons just arrived.”

“What about my investigator?”

“Not here.”

“I called him. Send him back when he gets here.”

“Oh, I will.”

I made my way through the rear door of the courtroom and to the judge’s chambers, checking my phone for messages as I went. The door was open but I heard no voices. I rapped my knuckles on the open door as I entered.

“Come in, Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “Is your investigator with you?”

The judge was behind her desk, with Marcus and Mitchell Mason seated in front of her. I sat next to them.

“He’s not here yet, Judge,” I said. “I just got a text from him saying he is on his way.”

“I have something to show you,” Ruhlin said.

“Sure. Any word on how our sick juror is doing?”

“Well, I thought maybe you could tell us how she’s doing.”

I looked at the Masons for any clue as to what this was about. Mitchell’s face was blank while Marcus looked smug, as usual.

“I don’t understand, Judge,” I said. “Why would I know how—”

“Let’s just watch the video the court received this morning, shall we?” Ruhlin interrupted.

I raised my hand as if to say, Lead the way.

Ruhlin had an open laptop on the desk. She tapped a key and turned the screen toward the three attorneys sitting across from her. On it was the front of a small ranch house with white stucco walls and green shutters. It could have been one of thousands of small homes built in the Valley during the boom years after World War II. The lawn was neatly cut. There was a time stamp in the lower corner of the frame indicating that the video had been taken at 6:31 the night before. There was still natural light, and a lamp next to the front door was not on.

The frame of the video shook slightly, indicating that it was likely shot on a handheld camera or phone.

“What are we looking at here?” I asked.

“Just watch,” Ruhlin said. “You’ll get to tell me.”

The video was silent until the thrum of an approaching motorcycle came through loud and clear. Soon a Harley panhead with orange flames painted on the gas tank moved into the frame and stopped at the front curb. I knew it was Cisco before he took off his helmet. I watched as he got off the bike and propped the helmet on the gas tank. He then crossed the lawn to the front door.

“Is that your investigator?” Ruhlin asked.

“It is,” I said, my eyes not moving from the screen. “Dennis Wojciechowski.”

“He looks like a biker.”

“Well, sometimes it’s a look that helps.”

“Not this time.”

There was no doubt about the anger in the judge’s tone. On the video, Cisco pushed a doorbell and waited briefly for an answer before pushing the button again and knocking loudly enough to be picked up on the camera filming from across the street.

“Whose place is this?” I asked. “And who’s taking the video?”

The judge held a hand up to silence me.

“Just watch,” she said.

The lantern light next to the front door went on and the door swung open. At first, Cisco’s large frame blocked the view of the person who had answered. Whoever it was, he was looking down at them. The verbal exchange was muffled but Cisco started gesturing with both hands, at one point holding them both up, palms out. It looked like a gesture of apology.

He then took a step back, revealing the woman who had answered the door. She was Black and wore a headscarf hiding her hair. She had on an open robe over a pink T-shirt and baggy blue sweatpants. She closed the door as Cisco turned away, but not before her face was clearly recognizable.

It was juror number eleven.

The judge scowled at me. It appeared from the video that my investigator had broken a cardinal rule of jurisprudence: He had attempted to make contact with a juror in the middle of a trial. There could be no excuse for such an act. I became aware that both Masons had turned to look at me with outrage written across their faces.

“Mr. Haller, do you know who that was on the screen with your investigator?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Juror eleven. The one with COVID.”

“Do you know of any valid reason why Mr. Woja... the man you call Cisco would go to a juror’s home?”

“I don’t at the moment, Your Honor. But I’m sure there is an explanation.”

“There’d better be, or he is going to jail — and you might be with him. This is a major breach of the protection and sanctity of the juror system.”

“I don’t disagree, Judge. But can I ask where this video came from?”

“It was sent anonymously to my clerk this morning.”

I raised my hands and immediately realized I was making the same gesture Cisco made at the front door of juror eleven’s house.

“Anonymous, Your Honor?” I said. “It obviously came from them.”

I pointed at the Masons.

“The court was clear when it said earlier this week that surveillance and intimidation of the parties of this suit would not be tolerated,” I continued. “But they’ve ignored that order and surveilled my team, and now they’re sending anonymous videos of that surveillance to the court.”

Marcus Mason shook his head as a smile cracked across his face.

“First of all, this did not come from us,” he said. “But this is truly laughable. His investigator is caught crossing a line no one should ever cross, and he wants to blame whoever it was that caught him doing it? Your Honor, I think we have reached a new low with Mr. Haller.”

I shook my head vehemently.

“No, the new low was when your boss came to my office yesterday and tried to bribe me with a briefcase full of cash,” I said. “And this—”

“That never happened,” Marcus shot back.

“You don’t know,” I said. “You weren’t in the room. But I refused to take his money, so he set this up.”

I pointed at the screen.

“How?” Marcus asked. “How did he set this up?”

“Good question, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin added.

The tension in the room was palpable. The judge was angry. The Masons were angry. I had to somehow make sure this didn’t spill over into a mistrial.

“Judge, I don’t know yet,” I said as calmly as I could. “But this is a setup. That camera — whoever was holding it — was already in place when my investigator rolled up. That’s clear on the video. They were waiting and hiding. Why?”

The logic of what I said seemed to hit everyone in the room as they realized that my observation was correct.

“Another good question,” the judge said, turning her eyes to the Masons. “I seriously hope that what Mr. Haller is suggesting here is not the truth.”

“Your Honor, again, we had nothing to do with this,” Marcus said. “I can promise you that.”

“Can you promise that Victor Wendt didn’t have anything to do with it?” I asked.

The silence that followed that question was punctuated by a buzz from the judge’s desk phone. She answered and then said, “Ask for a marshal to bring him back.”

She hung up and looked at me.

“Your investigator is here,” she said. “I can assure you, Mr. Haller, that if he says the wrong thing, he’s going to jail.”

43

Cisco wasn’t exactly dressed for an audience with a federal judge. He was in faded jeans, boots, a tight-fitting white T-shirt, and a black leather riding jacket. He had gotten my message and obviously rode to the courthouse without any stops. I had known him for more than two decades and could read his face and demeanor. Judging by the way he raised an eyebrow when he saw me, he had no idea what he was walking into.

“Thank you, Deputy,” Ruhlin said to the marshal who had escorted Cisco in. “If you could stand outside the door for me, I would appreciate that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the marshal said.

He stepped out and Ruhlin directed Cisco to take one of the chairs from the table and bring it over to the desk. I moved my chair to make room for him to slide into the line of men facing the judge.

“Do you know why you are here, sir?” Ruhlin asked.

“I sure don’t, Judge,” Cisco responded.

“Well, I can show you.”

“Please.”

Ruhlin once again cued up the video and she turned the laptop so Cisco could watch it. She kept her eyes on him while it played. Cisco was nodding his head before it ended.

“Okay, that’s me, if that’s what you want to know,” Cisco said.

“I know it’s you,” Ruhlin said sharply. “I want to know what you were doing there.”

“Well, I was following a lead. Turned out to be a wild-goose chase and... that’s it.”

“Do you know who that woman is?”

Cisco shook his head.

“Uh, not really,” he said. “She didn’t give me the chance to find out.”

“Are you telling this court that you didn’t know that she is a juror in this case?” Ruhlin asked.

Cisco’s head snapped back as if he had been punched in the jaw.

“Whoa, wait, no — in this case?” he said. “No, I didn’t know she was a juror.”

Cisco raised his right hand as if taking an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“We’ve been in trial all week,” Ruhlin said. “How could you not know her?”

“Your Honor?” I said.

“Let him answer the question,” Ruhlin ordered sharply.

“Judge, I wasn’t paying much attention to the jury,” Cisco said. “That’s not really my job. I wasn’t in court for jury selection, and during the trial I was dealing with getting witnesses to and from court and other duties. When she came to the door, she had a do-rag on her head and a robe, and I just didn’t recognize her.”

Ruhlin shook her head in frustration.

“Then what brought you to her door last night?” Ruhlin asked.

“I got a text,” Cisco said. “On WhatsApp.”

“It was encrypted?”

“Yes.”

“And that didn’t make you suspicious?”

“It did, but we get a lot of anonymous tips, Your Honor. I mean, that’s my job — to run these down.”

“And what did this tip say?”

“The texter said they had important information regarding a witness in the case. I responded and asked what witness, and the answer was Wiseacre, and that made it seem like it might be legitimate.”

“How so?”

“There’s a witness named Nathan Whittaker. He’s a coder at Tidalwaiv, and we learned that his nickname is Wiseacre. Whittaker, Wiseacre — it’s close.”

“I understand. Go on.”

“Well, seeing that nickname in the text gave it enough credibility that I decided I should check it out. I asked for a time and place to meet and I got that address.”

He pointed at the laptop screen.

“I asked for a name and the texter gave me Robin,” Cisco said. “No last name. I went over there at the meeting time, six thirty, as you can see, and the woman who answered the door said her name was Robin, but she didn’t know what I was talking about or why I was there. I didn’t recognize her and she apparently didn’t remember me from court. At that point I thought I had bad info or something and left.”

“And you didn’t tell any of this to Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.

“He went home yesterday afternoon to finish working on something, so I just went to the meeting. I usually don’t bother him with stuff like this unless it pans out. This didn’t, so I didn’t even mention it. If she had told me she was a juror, I would obviously have sounded the alarm and said I was set up. But she didn’t, and I didn’t know about any of this till right now.”

Ruhlin stared at Cisco for a long moment, apparently trying to judge his truthfulness, before she finally spoke.

“Would you be willing to let me look at these texts you received?” she asked.

“Uh, sure,” Cisco said hesitantly.

He looked at me as he leaned to his left to reach into his back pocket. I nodded my approval even though he didn’t need it. He pulled out his phone, opened WhatsApp, and located the texts in question. He handed the phone to the judge, screen up. She took it, read the texts, and nodded.

“And you say this was encrypted,” she said. “It can’t be traced?”

“Well, when I realized I was at the wrong address, I called that number,” Cisco said. “The line was dead — number no longer valid. But I have a... friend who, uh, can run down numbers for me. I gave it to him and he said the text came from a burner phone. So, yeah, we’re not going to be able to trace it.”

“Okay, Mr. ... uh...”

“Wojciechowski — pronounced like ‘Watch your car key.’ My father always said that when people had trouble with it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Watch-your-car-key. I think you can go now. And can you ask the deputy marshal to step back in?”

“Sure, Judge. Thank you.”

The big man stood up and gave me a nod. He returned his chair to the meeting table on his way to the door. He left and the marshal came in.

“You can go now, Jaime,” the judge said. “Everything is fine.”

Once the marshal was gone and the door to chambers was closed, Ruhlin focused on the Mason brothers, giving them the same scowl she had directed earlier at me.

“Is there anything you men wish to say to me?” she asked.

“Your Honor, we had nothing to do with this,” Mitchell Mason said.

“Nothing,” Marcus Mason added.

“Then who did?” Ruhlin pressed.

“This could have been set up by them,” Mitchell said, pointing to me. “So this would happen, so we’d get the blame.”

I shook my head.

“You know, Judge, I was just about to say that I give them the benefit of the doubt,” I said. “But then they have to go and try to throw me under the bus.”

“All I will say at this time is that I will be in contact with the US Marshals Service and call for a full investigation of this matter,” Ruhlin said. “Jury tampering will not be tolerated by this court. In the meantime, I will be dismissing juror eleven and we will proceed Monday if the other jurors remain healthy.”

I held my hands up in confusion.

“Your Honor, you’re penalizing the plaintiff for being the injured party here,” I said.

“How do you see that, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.

“If the court recalls, during jury selection the defense clearly didn’t want juror eleven, a Black woman, on the panel. It was only when I objected and the court agreed with me that they reversed their position. So what they couldn’t do then, they just succeeded in doing now. Maybe that was their thinking all along: If we can’t get a mistrial, we’ll pick off the jurors we don’t like.”

“Your Honor, I vigorously object,” Marcus Mason yelped. “Thirty seconds ago he was giving us the benefit of the doubt. Now he’s accusing us of this crazy scheme to get one juror kicked off the panel. It’s preposterous and insulting and I object.”

“We’re not in front of the jury, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “No need to object. But are you saying you would accept number eleven staying on the jury?”

“No, she’s been tainted by this whole thing,” Marcus said. “She can’t stay on the jury. No matter who set this in motion, we can’t lose sight of the fact that a member of the plaintiff’s team crossed a line and knocked on a juror’s door. It means she’s gotta go.”

“The fact that this was clearly a setup means she should stay,” I said.

Ruhlin didn’t respond as she considered the arguments.

“The weekend is upon us,” she finally said. “When juror eleven is healthy, I will question her about this. You will have my decision on all this Monday morning.”

“Your Honor, may I speak?” I asked.

“If you can be brief,” Ruhlin said.

“There is still the issue that obviously someone would have had to follow this juror home to set this whole thing up,” I said. “This concerns me. How many other jurors were followed home? How many are being watched?”

“I can assure you, that will be part of the investigation by the US Marshals Service,” the judge said. “But, Mr. Haller, this reminds me — you made an alarming statement a few minutes ago about attempted bribery. Please tell me more.”

“Victor Wendt, the founder of Tidalwaiv, came to see me at my office yesterday,” I said. “He was accompanied by both Mr. Masons but insisted on meeting me privately in my office while they waited outside. He had a briefcase with him and he showed me its contents. Two million dollars in cash. Hundred-dollar bills. He said it was mine if I convinced my client to take the last settlement offer proffered by the company. I said no.”

“Your Honor, this didn’t happen,” Marcus said. “He can’t prove any of that and he knows it.”

“Well, he might have knocked out my cameras to make it impossible to prove visually,” I said. “But, Judge, I would invite you to ask the Masons to confirm that they accompanied their client to my office yesterday.”

Ruhlin squinted at the Masons. Before she took me up on my suggestion, Marcus Mason spoke.

“Your Honor, Mr. Wendt may have met privately with plaintiff’s counsel, but that proves nothing,” he said. “He was, in fact, there to personally ask counsel to reconsider the offer to settle the case. There was no money, no bribe. That is pure invention by counsel.”

I waved off the statement and the entire argument. I knew this would go nowhere. It was time to move on. I had done what I could to throw shade on the actions of the defense team and their client.

The judge also knew it was time to move on.

“Gentlemen, you are excused,” she said. “I will see you Monday morning promptly at nine, when you will have my decisions. Good day.”

“Thank you, Judge,” I said.

The Masons said the same. As we filed out of chambers into the hallway leading back to the courtroom, we were silent. It felt more awkward than the times we had sniped at each other while returning to court.

The judge’s clerk passed us, heading the other way, obviously summoned to chambers by Ruhlin. When we reached the courtroom, it was empty except for Cisco sitting in the first row of the gallery. The Masons went through the gate and passed by him without so much as a glance in his direction. I stopped in front of him.

“So?” Cisco said.

I waited until the courtroom door closed behind the Masons.

“So, she’s going to ask the marshals to investigate,” I said. “They’ll want to talk to you.”

“No doubt,” Cisco said.

“Are you sure about what you said, about the burner not being traceable?”

“They’ll be able to tell what cell towers the messages came through. But that’s as close as they’ll ever get. Why, Mick?”

“Just curious.”

“Hey, Mick...”

“What?”

“I mean, I know what you did with Bamba up north. I figured that out. But this? I mean, the judge could’ve put me in jail.”

“Are you asking if I sent you—”

“No, never mind. I don’t want to know. Better that way.”

“How would I even know where that juror lives? This is them, Cisco. If not the Masons, then Tidalwaiv and Victor Wendt’s team. Wendt tried to bribe me yesterday. He’s desperate, and this thing with the juror? That has desperation written all over it. I think they know Whittaker is going to blow their case up and they’re doing whatever they can to end this by settlement or mistrial.”

Cisco nodded as he followed the logic of my words.

“You’re right. Never mind what I said.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “You can head home now.”

“Wait, what about the juror? In or out?”

“We’ll find out Monday. But I think the judge will keep her. She doesn’t seem interested in doing the Mason boys any favors at the moment.”

“That’s good.”

I nodded as Cisco stood up to leave.

“We’ll see what happens Monday,” I said. “Have a good weekend. Call me if anything comes up.”

“Yeah, Mick, you do the same.”

Cisco headed to the courtroom door. When he got there he turned around and saw that I had not moved from the railing that divided the gallery from the lawyer tables and the judge’s bench.

“You coming?” he asked.

“You go ahead,” I said. “I’m going to hang out for a few minutes.”

“Have a good one.”

“Yeah.”

Once Cisco was gone, I walked back through the gate and stood in front of the empty jury box. It was the proving ground where I would make my final stand in the case. I faced the two rows of leather seats in the box. There was a time in my life when I believed this was sacred ground. But now it seemed that nothing was sacred anymore. Not the rule of law, and not those who practiced it.

44

Maggie’s car was in the garage when I pulled in. She wasn’t in the front room but I saw an open bottle of red wine on the counter when I glanced into the kitchen while passing through the house. I found her on the back deck. There wasn’t much here, just a table and chairs, a Weber grill, and a hot tub we never used, and no view of the city. All you could see was a hedge and part of the neighbor’s house above us on the hillside street.

“Mags, what are you doing back here?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just having a glass of wine.”

“You want to sit in the front, watch the sun go down?”

“No, I’m happy here.”

I started stripping off my tie.

“I’m going to change and then I’ll be back out here.”

“You don’t have to. You can go watch the sunset.”

“Is something wrong?”

“You should have told me.”

“What, about going to see Adebayo? Why? I mean, I can’t go to the DA herself every time I have a case. That would look bad for both of us.”

“This case you should have brought to me. It would have saved you the embarrassment. Saved me too.”

“What are you talking about? What embarrassment?”

“The case isn’t there, Mickey. You’re taking a wild swing at your own redemption over a case you think you should have won twenty years ago.”

“You’re passing?”

“Yes, we’re passing. Monday you’ll get the formal reject from Adebayo. This whole thing could have been avoided if you had just shown it to me first.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down. I started thinking about how I would break the news to David and Cassandra Snow. I tried to mentally review the petition I had spent a day writing. I was sure all of the elements of habeas were there. New evidence unavailable at the time of conviction, medical research, medical witnesses — I had everything.

“It was all there,” I said. “Why was it rejected? I don’t want to wait till Monday. Just tell me.”

“We had no choice,” Maggie said. “It took only a search of the National Institutes of Health website to see that osteogenesis imperfecta was first described a hundred fifty years ago. Mickey, you have her condition right, but you should have had it back then. It’s not new evidence.”

“No, it was not diagnosed back then. Her mother wasn’t around to give a history, and the specific genetic test for her type of OI wasn’t available at the time. That is the new evidence. If I didn’t make that clear I can rewrite the petition. Whatever you need.”

“I just need you to stop, Mickey. It’s not happening.”

I ran a hand through my hair.

“You can always take it to federal court,” Maggie said.

“He’ll be dead before we get to the first hearing,” I said. “That’s the whole reason I went to you. He’s dying and his daughter wants to get him out.”

“Well, but you didn’t come to me. You went around me.”

“Jesus, I did not. I went through established channels. It would have been inappropriate to take this directly to you. Is that what this is really about? I could tell you were upset before you even looked at the petition. My client is being punished because you think I did something wrong.”

“It’s not that, and you know it. It’s a decision based on the law. Look, you were a young lawyer back then. You didn’t know what you know now. It’s the same with all of us, and we all have to live with the mistakes we made and the cases we lost.”

I shook my head. What she said was true of all lawyers, but it was not true of the case at hand. I was devastated by the decision.

“I can’t believe this,” I said. “This guy has spent twenty years in prison for something he didn’t do. I know it, his daughter knows it. And now it’s a death sentence.”

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said.

“So am I.”

45

Maggie and I kept our distance over the weekend. Rather than work in the back office of the house, I went downtown to work at the warehouse and prepare for the trial week ahead. I couldn’t know for sure how Judge Ruhlin would decide on the future of juror eleven or the petition for mistrial, but I needed to be ready for all possibilities. To that end, I met with Jack McEvoy for three hours on Saturday, and together we structured the direct examination of Nathan Whittaker, the Tidalwaiv coder I planned to put on the stand as my last witness. By the end of the session I was confident I would be able to use Whittaker to show the jury, whether it was composed of eleven or twelve members, how the programming of Clair could have been tainted and led to the violent end of Rebecca Randolph’s life.

On Saturday night I had a quiet dinner with Maggie at the Musso and Frank Grill. We mostly talked about our daughter and the architect Maggie had just hired to design the rebuild on her home. We didn’t discuss the Snow case at all, and Alessio, the restaurant manager, fawned over us enough to distract our thoughts from the gulf that had opened between us. Until dessert, that is. After the sand dabs, we ordered a slice of cheesecake to share, and it was then that Maggie floated the idea of moving out of the house on Fareholm.

“Maggie, you don’t have to move,” I said. “I want you to stay with me.”

“Well, you don’t like me very much right now,” she said.

“That’s not true, and even if it were, I’d get past it. We’re on opposite sides of a case. But this is about our life. I somehow feel that everything that’s happened, the fire and everything, was meant to bring us back together. I know that sounds like over-the-top magical thinking, but it’s what I feel. And the Snow case, it’s just a test to see how strong we are. How strong we could be.”

“What about that tech billionaire sticking his nose into my business? Is that a test too?”

“Look, I know that’s disturbing, and rightfully so, but he was just using you to try to get to me. I’m going to pay him back for that in court. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“You hope so.”

“I know so.”

“Don’t be overconfident.”

“Act like a winner and you’ll be a winner.”

“Legal Siegel — I know you miss him.”

“Yeah, but I had a good day prepping for my next witness and the knockout punch I’m going to deliver after that. So I don’t have to act — I am confident.”

“You know, you often talk in terms of physical violence when you talk about court. Have you noticed that?”

“Sounds appropriate to me. It’s a no-holds-barred fight. The Octagon. Even in civil. Maybe even more so in civil.”

With that, I looked out of our booth and signaled to Luis, our red-coated waiter, for the check.

I stayed on a roll until Sunday night, when I met Cassandra Snow for dinner. I didn’t want to deliver the bad news by email or text or phone. She picked the place based on ease of access, and we met at the Lab on Figueroa by USC. I got right to the point before we ordered food or even told the waiter what kind of water we wanted.

“We’ve had a setback with the DA’s office,” I said. “They’re going to pass on the petition.”

She shook her head, then held still while she composed herself.

“Did they say why?” she asked.

“They believe the medical evidence that you had OI was available to me at the time of the trial,” I said quietly.

“But that’s not true.”

“It is and it isn’t. They’re taking the position that people have known about OI for a long time, so it could have been diagnosed then. I think they’re wrong, and that’s why I will still take this to US district court.”

“That will take forever. My father doesn’t have that kind of time.”

“I’ll be asking for an emergency hearing.”

“What are our chances of getting that?”

“Those are long odds, but I have another plan too. If you’re willing, we go to the media. We find someone who gets this stuff, we give them everything we have and let them interview your doctors, and we get a story that puts pressure on the DA’s office to reconsider their decision.”

“Who are you thinking of going to?”

“Well, there’s a bunch of people covering the trial I’m in right now. I could go to one of them. I just have to figure out which one. I’m also working with a guy on my team who’s a writer and did some of the research for the petition I filed. He’s been in media and has some connections. He said yesterday that he knows a producer for CBS News who might be able to get it to Sixty Minutes.”

“Does anybody really care about those kinds of shows anymore? Trust in media is at an all-time low.”

“That might be true, but the story wouldn’t have to have a high viewership to have an impact. Believe me, the district attorney’s office is as political as it gets in this town. Somebody from Sixty Minutes calling up about this case would freeze them in their tracks and make them think twice about their decision to reject the petition.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“If Sixty Minutes or the right media comes on board, it couldn’t hurt. Are you okay with me pursuing it? You’d obviously have to be part of the story.”

“You know I’ll do anything if it helps get my father out.”

I nodded solemnly.

“I will too,” I said.

46

All parties to the Tidalwaiv lawsuit sat at the courtroom tables for forty-five minutes Monday morning while Judge Ruhlin spoke privately in chambers with juror eleven. It was only when the juror came through the door into the clerk’s corral and crossed the courtroom to the door to the jury assembly room that I got an idea of how the judge was going to rule on the matters before the court.

At ten a.m. Ruhlin took the bench and quickly dispensed with the issues before calling in the jury to proceed with trial.

“I have interviewed juror eleven and am satisfied that there has been no damage to the integrity of the jury,” she announced. “She will remain on the jury. The defense motion for a mistrial is also denied by this court. Juror eleven tested negative for COVID as of yesterday morning and no other jurors have tested positive. The deputy marshal will bring the jurors in so we can continue in the case of Randolph versus Tidalwaiv LLC.”

I turned and nodded to Brenda Randolph, then glanced back at the first row of the gallery, where Lorna and Jack sat. I gave Lorna the nod, meaning she should tell Cisco to bring the next witness in. As I turned back, Mitchell Mason stood to address the court.

“Your Honor, can I be heard?” he asked.

“No, you cannot, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “We are not going to relitigate the matter. I’ve made my ruling and trial will continue. The jury is coming in.”

Five minutes later, I had Nathan Whittaker sworn in and seated in the witness chair in front of the jury. This was what I had prepared for since the moment Naomi Kitchens had mentioned him as a coder on Project Clair. I believed the case could swing on Whittaker’s testimony alone. He was part of a one-two punch at the end of my case that I hoped would lead to a knockout.

Whittaker looked to be in his early thirties, with glasses, slick black hair pulled up into a topknot, and shaved sidewalls. He gave the impression of being a man who spent a lot of time in front of a mirror, working on his look.

“Mr. Whittaker, thank you for being here,” I began. “Can you tell the jury what you do for a living?”

“I’m an artificial intelligence programmer,” Whittaker replied.

“Could you pull the microphone a little closer so we make sure everybody can hear you?”

Whittaker did so.

“An AI programmer,” I said. “Is that the same as a coder?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Whittaker said. “Coding is a big part of programming overall.”

“And who are you employed by?”

“Tidalwaiv.”

“Tidalwaiv is located in Palo Alto. Is that where you reside?”

“No, I live in San Mateo. Not too far away.”

“How long have you worked at Tidalwaiv?”

“Eleven years.”

“And how old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Is Tidalwaiv the only place you’ve worked since finishing school?”

“It is, yes.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Stanford.”

“Are you married?”

“I don’t know what that has to do with anything, but no, I’m not married.”

“Now, were you a coder on Project Clair?”

“I was, yes.”

“For how long?”

“Almost seven years.”

“Was that from the inception of the project?”

“No, I came in after. The architecture was already built, and I started during the programming phase.”

“Is that also known as the training phase?”

“Some people call it that. Training and testing.”

“Now, Project Clair continues, correct? It never stops.”

“It continues to be monitored and maintained, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s exactly what I mean. But you are not part of Project Clair anymore, correct?”

“Correct again. It’s like you’re asking questions you already know the answers to.”

He smiled and I smiled back. If what I had asked had already gotten under his skin, then Whittaker was in for a long day. I checked the jury to make sure they were all paying attention. Only one juror had his head down, and that was because he was writing something in his notebook. Hopefully it was a note on his negative impression of Whittaker.

I turned back to the witness, ready to take things up a notch.

“Mr. Whittaker, why were you removed from Project Clair after seven years?”

“I wasn’t removed, I was transferred to another project where coders were needed.”

“So it was a promotion?”

“It was a lateral move but a more important project.”

“Really? What was more important than an AI companion being programmed for children?”

“I mean it was financially more important to the company.”

“And what was that project?”

“The answer to your question would reveal proprietary information, which I am not allowed to do publicly unless given permission by Tidalwaiv.”

He said it in a clearly rehearsed way that I was sure the jurors picked up on.

“We wouldn’t want you to give up company secrets, Mr. Whittaker,” I said. “Let’s move on. When were you laterally transferred from Project Clair to this secret project you’re on now?”

“It’s not a secret project within the company,” Whittaker responded.

“Got it. Just secret from the public. Can you—”

Mitchell Mason objected to the commentary I was supposedly injecting into my questions. Judge Ruhlin advised me to make sure the sentences I directed to the witness had question marks at the end.

“Will do, Your Honor,” I said. “Mr. Whittaker, could you answer the question? When were you laterally moved from Project Clair to your current position at Tidalwaiv?”

“It would have been almost two years ago,” Whittaker said.

“Can you be more precise than that?”

“Uh, I began 2024 in the new position.”

“That would be about four months after the killing of Rebecca Randolph, correct?”

“If you say so. I don’t know the date of that, because it had nothing to do with my transfer to the new project.”

“Well, let’s see. If you started last year in the new position, then were you told of the transfer before, say, December 2023?”

“To be honest, I don’t remember. Like I said, one thing didn’t have anything to do with the other.”

“Then let me ask you this, since you say you are being honest. When did—”

Mitchell Mason was quickly up on his feet and objecting to the sarcastic tone I had employed in my unfinished question.

“Mr. Haller, you have been warned,” Ruhlin said. “Be civil and on point with your questions. No innuendo needed.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “My apologies if I got carried away.”

I glanced at the jury to make sure they were still paying attention before going back at Whittaker. If Mitchell Mason was upset with my sarcasm now, he was going to go ballistic with where I went next.

“Mr. Whittaker, were you aware that in December 2023, a month before your lateral transfer took place, a lawsuit was filed against Tidalwaiv claiming gross negligence and product liability in the death of Rebecca Randolph?”

“No, I was not!”

Whittaker said it a little too loudly, a little too sharply, and a little too self-righteously for it to be taken as anything but a rehearsed answer. It was what I had hoped for.

“Then, when did you learn about this lawsuit?” I asked.

“Um, I don’t remember exactly,” Whittaker said.

“So you remember quite well that your transfer had nothing to do with the lawsuit, but you don’t remember when you first learned of the lawsuit — do I have that right?”

Mitchell objected again, claiming that I was badgering the witness, but Ruhlin shot it down quickly and told the witness to answer.

“I just don’t remember exact dates,” Whittaker said. “Why are the dates such a big deal?”

“Mr. Whittaker, the way it works is I ask you the questions,” I responded.

“Right. Then ask a question.”

“Okay, here’s a question. Were you told that you were being moved out of Project Clair because you were a liability in this lawsuit and—”

“No, I was not!”

“That they were trying to hide you from scrutiny?”

“That’s a lie!”

Both Mason brothers jumped up to object and the judge called for silence in the courtroom, then signaled the lawyers up for a sidebar. She turned on the white-noise device so the jury would not hear our words.

“Okay, we have some high temperatures here,” she began. “I don’t want things to get out of hand in front of our jury.”

“Your Honor, he’s baiting the witness with every question,” Marcus Mason said.

“I’m asking questions that need to be asked,” I said. “This man is at the heart of this case, Judge. I’m not going to take it easy on the guy who—”

“Okay, okay,” Ruhlin said, cutting me off. “I understand the importance of this witness, but he also is quite volatile. You are walking a fine line, Mr. Haller. I am not going to turn this trial into a free-for-all fight. Is that understood?”

“Judge, I understand,” I said. “But I have a lot to ask this man, and some of these questions he’s not going to like. And neither will his lawyers.”

“We’re not his lawyers!” Marcus exclaimed.

“You prepped him,” I said. “He’s yours.”

“Okay, stop right there,” Ruhlin said. “We’re not going to get into a dispute over that. I’m going to break now, and hopefully cooler heads will return to the courtroom afterward. Step back, please.”

We went back to our respective tables and the judge called for a fifteen-minute recess.

“I’m sorry that is not enough time to get out of the building to get some fresh air,” Ruhlin said to the jury. “But stretch your legs, use the facilities if you have to, and be back in fifteen minutes so we can continue testimony. Remember the cautions: Do not discuss the case with each other or anyone else. Thank you.”

I remained sitting with my client as the courtroom cleared.

“This man — you think he’s responsible?” Brenda asked me.

I turned to look at her.

“I do, yes,” I whispered.

“But there must have been many programmers on the project,” she said. “How could he be the only one responsible?”

“He’s not the only one, Brenda. But he represents the company’s carelessness. That’s all we need to get across to the jury. It’s the rotten-apple theory. We are saying that one bad apple — Whittaker — spoils the whole barrel. If we get that message through to the jury—”

“We win?”

“That’s right. We win.”

47

ONCE WE WERE back on the record in front of the jury, I decided to take it slow with Nathan Whittaker and work my way to the line of questions I knew were going to be incendiary and might cross the fine line the judge said I was walking. Whittaker had returned to the witness stand calm and collected. I assumed he had spent the break with the Mason brothers counseling him on how to control his temper and deal with hostile questions. It didn’t matter. My hostility was real but had been curated and choreographed over the weekend with the help of Jack McEvoy. I was sure hostilities would rise again before the day was out.

“Mr. Whittaker, let’s go in a new direction,” I said. “Without revealing any company secrets or proprietary information, can you describe the difference between the lifestyle division and the business division of Tidalwaiv Technologies?”

“It’s pretty simple, really,” Whittaker said. “Lifestyle is entertainment and home-based products, and business is business. You know, business solutions powered by artificial intelligence.”

“And isn’t it true that when you were removed from Project Clair shortly after this lawsuit was filed, you were moved from the lifestyle division to the business division?”

“I’m really getting tired of saying this. I wasn’t removed. I was asked to take a transfer and I said yes.”

“You were asked... by whom?”

“Andy Spiegel, who runs development on the business side.”

“Okay, so you went from lifestyle apps to business apps. What kind of business apps?”

“Again, you’re asking me to violate company rules by revealing proprietary information.”

“Okay, let me ask you this, then. Hypothetically, if I owned a car dealership and I wanted to put an AI receptionist on my website to help visitors navigate the site, would I go to Tidalwaiv’s lifestyle or business division for that?”

“Business, obviously.”

“And so you’re telling this jury that moving from programming a generative AI companion for children to a car-dealer chatbot was a lateral move?”

“I got the same paycheck, okay? And the business applications are far more—”

Mitchell Mason objected, saying I was twisting the witness’s answers, and the judge sustained it.

“Move on, Mr. Haller,” she said. “I think you’ve made your points here.”

I was glad the judge had announced in front of the jury that I had scored some points. I pivoted in a new direction.

“Okay, moving on,” I said. “Mr. Whittaker, you are fairly active on social media, are you not, sir?”

“Uh, active is a pretty general word,” Whittaker said. “And I’m not sure what it’s got to do with this.”

“Okay, then, very specifically, do you frequent the Reddit threads on artificial intelligence?”

“I’ve been on those boards, yes, but I wouldn’t say frequently.”

Whittaker’s coyness seemed misplaced. He must have been told by the Masons that I had put several of his Reddit posts into discovery. He knew they were coming, so I didn’t understand why he didn’t just acknowledge that he was often on the platform. Maybe this just further revealed his combative personality, or maybe he knew what else I had gathered on him outside of the discovery materials.

“Whether it’s frequent or not, can you tell the jury what username you post under on Reddit?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve used a few over the years,” Whittaker said.

Evasive again. I loved it.

“How about wiseacre-twenty-three?” I asked. “Was that one of your usernames on Reddit? A play on the name Whittaker?”

“Uh, it might have been,” Whittaker said. “Like I said, I don’t go on there very often.”

“My investigator found sixty-seven posts from wiseacre-twenty-three on the ‘artificial intelligence’ and ‘AI watch’ threads on Reddit in the past three years. Some of them were signed Nate, some NW. Five contain the phrase at Tidalwaiv or here at Tidalwaiv. Are you saying these posts were not made by you?”

“I’m saying I can’t remember every post I’ve ever made and every username I’ve ever used.”

Whittaker looked at the jury and shook his head like he didn’t understand why these questions were so important. I loved that too.

“You played on the Project Clair softball team as part of the Tidalwaiv intramural program, correct?” I asked.

“Uh, yes, for a couple seasons,” Whittaker said suspiciously.

“You also played against other Silicon Valley tech teams, right?”

“Yes. For a time. But I don’t think it has to do with this.”

“You put the name Wiseacre on the back of your jersey, did you not?”

Whittaker didn’t answer at first. He acted like he was trying to recall some distant, unimportant factoid.

“I really can’t remember,” he finally said.

“Well, let me see if I can jog your memory,” I said. “Your Honor, can I have the court’s permission to show the witness a photo from a company e-zine called Ride the Wave dated April fifth, 2023, that contains photos of the Tidalwaiv softball team?”

“You may proceed,” Ruhlin said.

I walked copies of the photos to the clerk and the Mason brothers before handing one to Whittaker. It was an action shot of one player tagging another player sliding into third base. The third baseman’s back was to the camera. The name on the jersey was clearly legible as Wiseacre and the number was 23.

“Mr. Whittaker, is that you making the tag at third base in that photo?” I asked.

“It would seem to be,” Whittaker said.

“‘Seem to be’? Are you saying there is a possibility that it’s not you?”

“No, it’s me, okay? It’s me.”

“And what number did you put on your jersey?”

“I didn’t put it there. It came with the shirt.”

“What number is it?”

“Twenty-three, but like I said, that was random. It came with the shirt and then I had them put Wiseacre on the back.”

“Are you sure that you did not request the number twenty-three to go with Wiseacre on the shirt?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Are you aware that several of the wiseacre-twenty-three posts on the Reddit threads predate the years you were on the softball team wearing a uniform that said Wiseacre and had the number twenty-three?”

“Uh, no, I am not.”

“Are you telling the jury that that is just a coincidence?”

“I’m not telling the jury anything. I said I don’t remember all the details. What’s the point?”

“The point is, Mr. Whittaker, I am trying to determine if you made the posts on Reddit under the username wiseacre-twenty-three.”

“Whatever, yes. It was probably me.”

“It was probably you, or it was you?”

“Fine, it was me. So I made some posts. I have nothing to hide.”

I looked up at the judge and asked permission to show the witness a series of posts authored by wiseacre23 and copied from Reddit for the purposes of identification.

“You are not going to go through sixty-seven of these, are you?” Ruhlin asked.

“No, Your Honor,” I said. “I’m really interested only in one, if Mr. Whittaker can confirm he wrote it.”

“Misters Mason, any objection?” the judge asked.

“Hard to object when it’s not clear what Mr. Haller is trying to get from this fishing expedition,” Mitchell Mason said.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, you may show it to the witness and put it on the screen for the jury.”

I gave a copy of the post to Whittaker while Lorna put it on the courtroom screen. The post was a fairly innocuous and short response to someone else’s post about artificial intelligence being the downfall of humankind. The response from wiseacre23 was a caution.

I gave Whittaker and the jury a moment to read the post before starting my last lap around this witness.

“Mr. Whittaker, did this post come from you?” I asked.

“Looks like it,” Whittaker said.

“I draw your attention to the acronym GIGO. What did you mean by that?”

“That stands for garbage in, garbage out.”

“And what does that mean to you when it comes to programming artificial intelligence?”

“Exactly what it says. If you put in garbage, that’s what you’ll get back.”

“So by ‘garbage,’ you are talking about bad programming, programming contradictory or possibly damaging to the purpose of the app?”

“Correct.”

“This would include the biases of the programmers too, would it not?”

“Uh, if there were biases, yeah.”

“Everybody has biases, don’t they?”

It was a perfect question because it was a lose-lose for Whittaker. No matter how he answered, he’d be setting up my next line of questioning. Of course Mitchell Mason recognized this and objected before Whittaker could attempt an answer.

“The question is too broad,” he said. “Counsel is just trying to bait the witness into an answer he can twist into an admission of some sort.”

“And defense counsel is trying to communicate directly with the witness with his objection,” I said. Then, looking at Mason, I added, “Good job, Mitch. Message delivered.”

“I’ll sustain the objection to the question being too broad,” Ruhlin said. “And please direct all arguments to the court and not each other.”

I retooled the question to make it slim enough to get past an objection.

“Do you have biases, Mr. Whittaker?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered.

“Really? No biases at all?”

“If I do, I keep them out of my code.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“What other social media sites do you post on?”

“Not that many.”

“How about Four-chan and Eight-kun? How often do you frequent those sites?”

“I don’t even know what they are.”

“Really, now? What about a site called Dirty-four? Did you ever go on that?”

“Nope.”

“Why is it wiseacre twenty-three? Is twenty-three your birthday or an anniversary?”

“It’s just a random number.”

“Does it signify the twenty-third of May 2014, when a man named Elliot Rodger, an incel like yourself, killed several young women outside a sorority house in—”

“Objection!” the Mason brothers exclaimed in unison.

The judge pointed across the bench at me.

“Not another word, Mr. Haller,” she barked.

I raised my hands, palms up, in surrender. The judge then sent the jury out for an early lunch and instructed the lawyers to follow her to chambers. We did so silently, because we were close on the judge’s heels. As we entered her chambers, she shook off the black robe and, with sharp, angry moves, put it on a hanger and hooked it on the coatrack. She then turned and fixed me with a withering stare.

“Mr. Haller, what the hell do you think you’re doing, provoking a witness like that?” she asked. “And making an inflammatory statement in front of the jury?”

I held my hands up again, this time in what I hoped was a calming manner. I spoke without raising my voice.

“‘I don’t even know what they are,’” I said. “I believe those were the exact words the witness said when I asked about two well-known and established sites frequented by men who advocate violence against women.”

“Oh my God, what bullshit,” Marcus Mason said.

We were all still standing, too upset for different reasons to sit down.

“Language, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, where are you going with this?”

“Your Honor, the witness is an incel,” I said. “His misogyny and other biases infected the programming of Project Clair and directly led to Wren espousing those views to Aaron Colton. He then—”

“And you can prove this?” Ruhlin asked.

I didn’t hesitate.

“By the time we get to rebuttal, I’ll be able to prove it,” I said. “The username wiseacre-twenty-three is all over screen captures from those sites going back at least seven years. I have a digital linguistics expert comparing the wording of those posts to those Whittaker just acknowledged posting on Reddit. I walked him right into it. It’s him, and his bias is that he hates women. That hate ended up in the code in Clair. Garbage in, garbage out, Your Honor. Hate in, hate out. You end up with a chatbot that says, ‘Get rid of her.’”

Both Masons looked ashen. Both knew, as did the judge, that every case hit a point of no return, when the pendulum has swung too far to one side or the other and is not coming back. This was that point.

Mitchell was the first to recover and respond. Weakly.

“Your Honor, counsel has obviously crossed so many lines in the rules of discovery that these questions cannot be allowed,” he said.

“It didn’t become discoverable until Whittaker sat up there and lied on the stand,” I said. “I’d be happy to turn over copies of his hate screeds after lunch.”

“You mentioned something called Dirty-four,” Ruhlin said. “What is that?”

“It was a site on the dark web that was shut down by law enforcement four years ago,” I said. “Subscribers could download the identities of women whose DNA carried a genetic combination linked to promiscuity and risky lifestyles.”

“This is pure science fiction,” Marcus Mason said.

“The FBI didn’t think so after several murders were linked to the site,” I said.

“And you have evidence that this witness was involved?” Ruhlin asked.

“I have evidence that wiseacre-twenty-three was a subscriber,” I said.

There was no comeback from either of the Masons. Even the judge was silent for a long moment before looking directly at the twins and speaking.

“In light of these developments, I believe you two need to huddle with your client,” she said. “I’ll have the deputy marshals pass the word to the jurors that we are in recess until nine o’clock tomorrow morning. You’ll have till then to determine whether we continue the trial with this witness... or not.”

She paused to see if there would be any pushback from the Masons. They offered none.

“Very well, then,” she said. “You may all go.”

We did the silent single-file exit again, the Masons leading the way with their heads down. When we got to the courtroom, Marcus Mason started gathering his folders and notepads from the defense table. He spoke without looking at me.

“I know you’re bluffing, Haller,” he said. “You don’t have shit.”

“Keep thinking that,” I said. “I want this to go to a verdict. Based on the Wall Street valuation of the company, I put the over-under on punitive damages at four hundred. Million, that is. What’s that going to do to the stock?”

Marcus scoffed.

“Keep dreaming,” he said.

I grabbed a paper-clipped document out of a folder on my table and walked it over to them.

“Here’s your lunchtime reading assignment,” I said. “Sorry I have only one copy.”

Marcus took it from me and scanned it. Mitchell leaned over his shoulder to get a look.

“What’s this, more bullshit?” Marcus asked.

“You are really a one-note guy, aren’t you?” I said. “It’s a motion I’ll submit as soon as I finish destroying Whittaker.”

This time it was Mitchell who scoffed as he read, apparently faster than his twin.

“You think she’s going to let you put Wren up as a witness?” he asked incredulously. “An AI witness?”

“You can’t even put it under oath,” Marcus said, catching up.

“Well, that’s the plan,” I said. “The malice here originates with the guy who infected the code with his hate, but the entity is a coconspirator. The jury has a right to hear what it says, how it supposedly thinks, and how it came to advocate murder. It’s a novel argument now but it won’t be for long. As Mr. Wendt told me when he tried to bribe me, the company is called Tidalwaiv because there is no stopping this. I see a future where AI entities are regular witnesses at trial.”

They said nothing. Mitchell continued to read the motion, his face growing whiter as he realized it had a chance. I wasn’t so sure about that myself but had written it as a final salvo to launch after the Whittaker testimony wrapped. It might not get past the judge, but it would probably make some headlines.

I put all my own paperwork into my briefcase and snapped it shut.

“Tomorrow, boys,” I said.

At the gate, I stopped and looked back at them.

“Remember,” I said. “Front steps of the courthouse, all media invited. Accountability, action, and apology. The money in my escrow account before it starts.”

“We’re past that now,” Marcus said.

“In light of what came out today and what will come out tomorrow?” I asked. “That’s a decision above your pay grade, Marcus.”

I pushed through the gate and headed toward the door under the clock. But then I stopped and turned to them once more.

“Oh, and the number now is fifty-two,” I said.

“The last offer was fifty,” Marcus said.

“Yeah, but now it’s fifty-two. The fifty you offered and the two your boss tried to bribe me with. In escrow, before the press conference, or no deal.”

“Bullshit. It’ll never happen.”

“Somehow, I knew you’d say that. Have a good night, boys. You know where to reach me.”

I walked out the courtroom door.

48

I was hoping there would be a whole phalanx of media spread across the front steps of the federal courthouse, but only the reporters that had been covering the trial showed up. It was them plus one freelance videographer who had been around for twenty years. I knew him simply as Sticks because he always had a collapsible tripod that he placed his camera on, even though handheld cameras with gyros were the way of the media world now. Sticks might have been old-fashioned and unattached to a specific news channel, but he had solid connections to all the national cable outlets, and that made him the most important media rep in attendance.

I had been hopeful that Victor Wendt would come back down in his G-5 to stand in front of the media, but that was too much to expect from the man who had capitulated to the urging of his lawyers to avoid a possible nine-figure merger-killing verdict. Tidalwaiv would be represented at the press conference by a company damage-control expert named Ellen Bromley as well as by the Mason twins, who would suffer the indignity of facing the media as it was announced that they had settled their case to avoid losing it.

The press conference had been delayed twice as I waited for the money to land in my client escrow account. Wary of Wendt’s threat never to pay Brenda Randolph a dime, I would not stand in front of the media and announce the end of the case until the money had been safely delivered to me. Once the wire transmission was confirmed, the media was alerted for a third time and we all gathered on the steps of the courthouse.

Bromley led things off.

“My name is Ellen Bromley. I am head of corporate communications for Wendt Technologies, parent company of Tidalwaiv Technologies LLC. We are here today in the matter of Randolph versus Tidalwaiv to announce a conclusion to this case in an equitable settlement for all parties. It is our deepest regret that these events occurred, that a young woman lost her life and a mother lost her only child. Mistakes were made and they have been and will continue to be corrected by the company. This has been a learning experience for the burgeoning industry of artificial intelligence. We must do better. We must do better to protect everyone, but particularly those who are most vulnerable: our children. We failed here and deeply apologize. And we apologize for all previous shortcomings in this groundbreaking work.”

I reached up and put my hand on Brenda Randolph’s shoulder. She was holding a tissue to her eyes as she heard what she had long waited to hear. Bromley’s statement had gone back and forth between all parties several times to be rewritten and edited. It wasn’t the full-throated apology I wanted for my client; it was a corporatized mea culpa that tried to claim some sort of victory in failure. But it did contain the one line I’d composed and insisted they include: We failed here and deeply apologize.

“The details of the settlement will remain private, as all parties have agreed,” Bromley continued. “But we will try to answer a few questions.”

The gathered media seemed not to have expected that offer. But I had insisted on it as part of the settlement. At first, no one barked out a question. There was an odd pause and then Sticks finally spoke up.

“You were in the middle of trial,” he said. “Why did you settle? Was it not looking good?”

Bromley glanced to her left at the Masons to see if one of them was willing to face the media and the question. Mitchell Mason reluctantly stepped forward.

“In every trial, you are evaluating where you stand every day,” he said. “You weigh the risk of going on versus settling. We reached a point where we saw the risk as too high. We decided to settle. The case never went to the jury, so we will never know how a verdict would have gone. The defense never even presented its side.”

It sounded like Mitchell was having CSR — case settlement regret. But he had been the one who made the call to me to say no más the night before.

“Did Victor Wendt approve the deal?” Sticks asked.

“Uh, Mr. Wendt was part of the discussion that led to the settlement,” Mitchell said. “He was very involved in this case. He said from the beginning that if Tidalwaiv was wrong or had somewhere crossed a line, we must own up to it, learn from it, and move on. We are doing that.”

Yeah, right, I thought as I listened to Mitchell Mason try to cast his client in the glowing light of doing the right thing.

Sticks wasn’t finished. He fired one more question at Team Tidalwaiv.

“Is Nathan Whittaker still employed at Tidalwaiv after what was revealed in court yesterday?” he asked.

Bromley took this one, stepping forward and putting a hand on Mitchell’s arm before he could speak.

“We will review the testimony from the trial and take appropriate action where needed,” she said.

“Can we hear from Mrs. Randolph?” a woman from Channel 5 asked.

I whispered to Brenda, asked if she was up for media questions. She nodded and I guided her to the portable podium, where all the microphones were.

“I know you can’t reveal details, but are you happy with the settlement?” the reporter asked.

Brenda wiped her eyes once more and spoke.

“Happy is not really a word that I know anymore,” she said. “I approved the settlement because it is an acknowledgment by Tidalwaiv of the mistakes made and a resolve to be safer with our technology and our children. To that end, I am announcing that I will be starting a foundation called the Rebecca Randolph Center for Technological Oversight. And the director of the center will be Jack McEvoy, who played a very significant part in this case.”

She turned and pointed down the line to Jack, who stood next to me. He gave an embarrassed nod.

“What will the foundation do?” a reporter asked.

“Its mission is to make sure that what happened to my daughter never happens to anyone else’s child,” Brenda said.

After a few more follow-up questions, the press conference ended and people started to scatter. The Mason brothers walked away without a word to me. Bromley stepped over to me to say that our business was now done, as the money had been paid and the requirement for the public statement had been met.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said.

“You too,” I said.

It was an odd exchange that left me puzzled. I walked over to Sticks to inquire about his plans for the video he had just recorded.

“My first stop is CNN,” he said. “Jake Tapper will love this.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ve been on with him before. I’m available if needed.”

“I’ll tell them. And thanks for shooting me the questions to ask. Getting Wendt in there definitely bumps this up a notch.”

“Thanks for asking them.”

I shook his hand, concealing the five folded hundred-dollar bills I put in his palm. I turned to join Brenda and Jack but was buttonholed by Pete Demetriou from KNX radio. I’d known him since I was a baby lawyer.

“Can I get a quick sound bite, Mick?” he asked.

“Sure, Pete,” I said. “Ask away.”

“I assume you’re getting a big payday?”

“I can’t discuss the terms of the settlement.”

“Is it fair to say that this is essentially a big win for you and your client?”

“My client is pleased, so that makes me pleased. But, you know, this was never about money. It was about holding Tidalwaiv to account for putting a faulty product into the hands of young people. It was about getting them to own what they’d done and apologize. That’s what my client wanted first and foremost. It’s what we got, so she is ready to move on with her life and start the foundation.”

“Thank you, Mick. What about you? I assume you are making out like a bandit. What’s next for you?”

“No comment, Pete. That’s all part of the settlement. If I tell you, I blow it, and the deal is gone.”

I left him there holding his microphone.

Jack and I walked Brenda to her car in the courthouse garage. She tearfully hugged and thanked us both, telling us that she’d stay in touch and promising the three of us would do good work together. She then drove away to her new life. She was wealthy beyond her dreams but as hollow as a drum.

49

THE TEAM MET at the Redbird at a table in the bar. There was champagne for those who wanted to partake and Perrier for me. It was mostly a joyful silence as we reveled in the end of the case. I was used to the criminal side of the ledger, where settlements and plea agreements were made before trial, rarely during. It was also rare for me to experience a win that didn’t exactly feel like a win. My client was going home with forty million and change. I was going home with ten and change. And yet there was something underwhelming about it.

“Mickey, you okay?” Lorna asked at one point. “You actually look... well, sad.”

“I’m not sad,” I insisted. “It’s just different, you know? We essentially won the case and got our client a big check and an apology, but it just sort of feels like something’s missing.”

“Like a verdict?” Cisco said.

I nodded.

“I guess,” I said. “Look, we got what we wanted. They admitted their sins in front of the cameras. That’s what Brenda was looking for more than anything. That was job one and we did it. The money is the money. It’s just a way of keeping score. And speaking of which, you each are getting a million-dollar bonus. Your work—”

“Oh my God!” Lorna said loudly, drawing everyone’s attention to our table.

I lowered my voice.

“Your work on the case was exemplary,” I said. “Each of you. Amazing. But you’ll need to consult with a money manager, because you’re going to have to pay taxes on it, and I want to make sure you’re prepared for that. When you’re ready, I’ll transfer the money to you. Happily.”

“Boss,” Cisco said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. You did the work, you deserve it. We kicked ass.”

“Thank you, Mickey,” Lorna said. “I’m going to cry.”

“No crying,” I said. “It’s only money.”

I looked at McEvoy.

“The bonus goes to everyone on the team, and that includes you,” I said. “And I hope you go out and sell the book for another million.”

“You’re a generous man,” Jack said.

I shook my head.

“The stuff you came up with iced the case,” I said. “Now you have to go out there and ensure that the foundation makes a difference. Or none of this was worth it.”

“I promise, it will,” Jack said. “I already talked to Brenda. There’s going to be an advisory board and we want all three of you on it.”

I nodded my assent.

“Gladly,” Cisco said.

“Can’t wait,” Lorna said.

My phone buzzed with a text. It was from Sticks. I read it and then reported to the group.

“We need another bottle of champagne,” I said. “Sticks says Jake Tapper wants me on his show tomorrow. They’re going to run the video from the press conference too.”

Cisco extended his hand across the table and there were high fives all around.

“He says they want Brenda on with me,” I said. “Jack, can you check with her? Details to come, but it will be tomorrow.”

“Is this a remote feed, or are they flying you to DC?” Jack asked.

“Looks like the CNN Building on Sunset,” I said.

“That should be doable,” Jack said. “I’m sure she’ll be up for it.”

We lapsed into a comfortable silence after that. Nobody called over a waiter to order a second bottle. Another bottle couldn’t erase the regret I think we all felt in settling the case before getting to the finish line.

“Okay, I’ll say it,” I finally announced. “We should have rolled the dice and taken it to a verdict.”

“I don’t know, Mick,” Cisco said. “You’re the one who always says that anything can happen.”

“Even if we had won, they would have appealed, and it would have been years before Brenda saw any money and started the foundation,” Lorna added. “And now we’re all sitting here millionaires.”

She held up her glass. She was down to the last swallow.

“To no regrets,” she said.

We all held up our glasses and repeated the toast.

“The one thing I wish,” Jack said, “is that we had put Wren on the stand. That would have been something.”

“I think that was a long shot,” I said. “It was probably better as a threat to the Masons than a real possibility.”

“But we’ll never know,” Jack said.

Before I could form a comeback to that, my phone buzzed. It was a call this time and I saw that it was from the district court.

“I’m going to take this,” I said.

I got up from the table and walked out to the sidewalk to escape the bar noise. It was Judge Ruhlin’s clerk.

“The judge was wondering if she could see you tomorrow morning in chambers,” he said.

“Uh, sure,” I said. “I mean, no trial, so I’m free. What time?”

“How is nine o’clock for you?”

“I’ll be there. Are the Masons invited?”

“No, only you.”

“Is this about the contempt order?”

“The judge has also invited a few of the jurors who asked to speak with you. I assume that is okay with you?”

“Uh, sure, I’ll talk to them.”

“Then we’ll see you at nine.”

He disconnected before I could ask about the contempt order again. I stood on the sidewalk and thought about the invitation. I was probably going to find out which way the jurors had been leaning when the rug was pulled out from under them. Since they had heard only the plaintiff’s side of the case, I assumed they had planned to come down on my side of the equation and were upset that we had settled when they were ready to teach Tidalwaiv a major financial lesson. I assumed the judge would take a few shots at me as well, since we had wasted more than a week of court time before settling the case.

I finally went back inside the bar to tell the others that the case wasn’t quite finished yet. The sommelier was opening a second bottle of bubbles. But soon afterward, I left the team there and headed home. I was hoping to get in before Maggie so I could think about what I wanted to say to her about the money I had just made. I planned to tell her that I would rebuild her house if she wanted me to and that I hoped to live in it with her when it was finished. But that of course would be her call, not mine.

I succeeded in getting to the house on Fareholm ahead of her but not ahead of someone else. As I climbed the stairs to the front door, I saw a man sitting, his back to me, on one of the bar-height director chairs turned toward the view of the city below. His black suit and silver hair made him easily recognizable.

“So you came down after all,” I said as I approached. “I didn’t see you at the press conference.”

Victor Wendt turned to look at me.

“I didn’t come down for the press conference,” he said.

I nodded and gestured toward the view.

“You heard about the sunsets up here,” I said.

“Actually, I came to see you,” he said.

“If you’re going to tell me you stopped the wire and my client will never see a dime, you’re too late.”

“No, not at all. The money’s yours. And your client’s. I consider fifty million dollars an acceptable fee for doing business.”

I nodded as I realized that he had come to gloat about avoiding a more expensive verdict.

“Fifty-two million, actually, but who’s counting,” I said. “Except maybe your board of directors.”

“Yes, I will have to explain to them how we chose the lesser of two evils,” Wendt said. “I’m sure they will understand.”

“Then, what can I do for you, Mr. Wendt? I’m sure you didn’t come here to rehearse your speech to the board.”

“No, and I appreciate that you didn’t invite me to get the fuck off your porch. I came to make you an offer.”

“An offer? Like the last time we met? I’d say that was more of a bribe.”

“This is purely a business offer. I want to hire you, Mr. Haller.”

Wendt reached into his jacket and pulled a folded document out of the pocket.

“Hire me?” I said, trying to hide my surprise.

“This is a two-year contract for your services,” Wendt said. “Two point six million dollars per year for your legal advice on an as-needed basis. You’ll never have to step into a courtroom or be the lawyer of record on any legal action. Just a personal contract between you and me. I hope you will accept it.”

He handed me the document and I unfolded it. I scanned it quickly and immediately understood what it was and what it meant. A high-end buyout.

“You want to make sure I never sue you again,” I said. “Or at least not for the next two years, while you try to resuscitate whatever’s left of your merger after today.”

I started to refold the contract while doing the math.

“Fifty thousand a week to stay on the sidelines,” I said. “That’s very generous of you, Mr. Wendt.”

“I can assure you there will be more work than standing on the sidelines,” Wendt said.

I held the contract out to him.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever sue you again,” I said. “I’m sure there will be opportunities, especially after this case. In fact, I’m going to be on CNN tomorrow, and that will probably help get me a few clients. But I can’t take your money, Mr. Wendt. If I did, I think I’d be lost. As a lawyer and as a man.”

He reached out and took the contract. He nodded as he put it back into his inside coat pocket.

“I thought I had to try,” he said. “Is this where you tell me to get the fuck off your porch?”

I nodded.

“Pretty much,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you would do just that.”

Wendt stood up and glanced out at the view as if seeing it for the first time.

“Sunset should be nice tonight,” he said.

“It usually is,” I said.

He nodded and headed to the steps. He pulled a phone as he went down and I heard him tell someone that he was ready. I stayed out on the porch. I saw a black Escalade pull up, and one of the bodyguards I recognized from the warehouse visit got out and opened a rear door. Wendt got in and I watched the sleek Cadillac glide silently down the hill.

I don’t think I’d ever felt better about turning down money in my life.

50

The saying goes that some days you eat the bear and other days the bear eats you. And sometimes it happens all in the same day. Sometimes the same hour.

I survived the meeting with Judge Ruhlin and four jurors from the case undamaged. The jurors had all been my picks and I had picked well. They told me they had been ready to drop the bricks on Tidalwaiv.

“You had them on the ropes,” said the set builder. “I was ready to lower the boom on them. What they did with that girl was so wrong. And so sad for that mother. The judge says the settlement is kept secret, but I hope they paid her the big bucks.”

I appreciated the comments but knew the jurors had heard only one side of the case. That kept things in perspective, at least for me.

But what made me leave the courthouse feeling like I had eaten the bear happened after the judge excused the jurors. That was when she said the magic words to me.

“Mr. Haller, you are welcome in my court anytime.”

Like Santana’s opening guitar riff in “Jingo,” those words put a jolt of electricity straight down my spine. I lost my cool and smiled. I told her I looked forward to the next time.

“There is also the matter of the contempt citation,” the judge said. “I believe that I will continue to hold that in abeyance. You’re free to go now, Mr. Haller.”

“Thank you, Judge,” I said.

It was when I stepped out into the sun, onto the steps where the day before I had basked in a fifty-two-million-dollar win, that I got caught by the bear. My phone buzzed as I put on my sunglasses. The screen told me that the call was from the California Health Care Facility in Stockton.

But it wasn’t a collect call from David Snow.

“Mickey Haller,” I said.

“Michael Haller?” a male voice asked. “The attorney?”

“Yes, that’s me. How can I help you?”

“This is Sergeant Tamar at CHCF Stockton. You are the attorney of record for inmate David Francis Snow?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“It’s my duty to inform you that David Francis Snow expired this morning in the medical facility here.”

I was silent as I registered the news.

“Expired?” I said, finding my voice. “What do you mean, ‘expired’? The doctors said he had nine months.”

“I’m not a doctor, sir,” Tamar said. “I’m in administration. You will have to get the details from the attending physicians. I am only informing you of the death. I am told he died peacefully in the medical center at eleven eleven this morning. That is all the information I have.”

“How do I reach the attending physicians?”

“I can give them the message if you wish.”

“Yes, do that. Please. Ask them to call me.”

“Are you in communication with the inmate’s next of kin? We have her listed here as Cassandra Snow, a daughter, in Los Angeles.”

“Yes, I’m in communication with her. She’s my client.”

“Would you like me to inform her, or will you handle it?”

“No, I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“I’m sure.”

“Should further communication about arrangements for the body go through you or the daughter?”

I didn’t answer. I was thinking about Cassandra.

“Sir?” Tamar prompted.

“Uh, yes,” I said. “All communications can go through me. I’ll handle things.”

“Okay, sir. I will relay your message to the medical center. Thank you for your time, and sorry for your loss.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Tamar disconnected and I stood there with the phone held to my ear for a long moment.

The reality was that, in the short time since Cassandra had come to me, there was no way I could have gotten her father out. But that didn’t matter. He should never have been in. And that was on me. I knew it as surely as I knew that the victory of the previous day was mine as well.

I put away the phone and started down the steps to the street.

Nobody bats a thousand. Nobody wins every case. The law is fickle. You’re prince of the city one day, a street sweeper the next. The skill is being able to get back in the Lincoln, buckle up, and drive on. But this one was different. This one hurt. I knew that my failure of two decades before was going to continue to haunt me. There would be no redemption. My own house was burning now, burning to the ground.

I headed down the street. I had to go to Cassandra. I had to tell her. I had to take responsibility. And I had to find the resolve to take this punch and then get up and fight another day.