The Proving Ground, page 8
“We want to sue Tidalwaiv for what they did to our son,” Bruce said. “We want you to handle our case.”
“We know our son did something terrible,” Trisha added. “But Clair was like a drug. He was under the influence and did a horrible thing. But it wasn’t him, Mr. Haller. That was not our son. It was her. And now we’ve lost him.”
“Tidalwaiv should pay,” Bruce said. “They have just as much responsibility as Aaron does. Even more, if you ask me.”
This was unexpected but quickly fell into place in my case strategy. After conferring with Brenda Randolph and getting her approval to take on the new case, I filed a new negligence suit against Tidalwaiv on behalf of the Coltons, citing the company’s liability for the actions their son took in killing Rebecca Randolph. I then moved to have the Colton and Randolph cases consolidated as one. The Mason twins objected, but it was clear that the two cases were identical in terms of the evidence and the cause of action. The judge joined the two cases, but as a consolation prize for the Masons, she delayed start of trial until April to give them additional time to prepare and take the Coltons’ depositions.
As the trial date neared, other witnesses remained a work in progress. I had assigned Jack McEvoy to maintain the relationship with Naomi Kitchens. She had committed neither to turning over documents nor to testifying at trial, but she had continued to talk with McEvoy. He made two additional trips to Palo Alto to keep those conversations going in person. Each time he went, Kitchens came right to the edge of deciding to cooperate but then retreated, citing fear of reprisals against herself and her daughter. McEvoy even made a trip to San Francisco to visit Lily Kitchens at the University of San Francisco to see if he could enlist her help in persuading her mother, but that effort failed as well.
Witnesses aside, the most important thing we had going for us was the contents of the killer’s own laptop — downloaded to the hard drive I had left weeks earlier on Maggie McPherson’s desk. I found the drive one morning on the passenger seat of the Bolt after I had left the car unlocked while picking up my suits from the Flair dry cleaner’s shop on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. The black box was there when I got back to the car. I looked around and didn’t see who had put it on the seat. I never once spoke to Maggie about it, as I knew I had to preserve my ability down the line and in front of a judge to say truthfully that I didn’t know who had left it for me.
In the cage, we downloaded the contents of the drive to a clean laptop Lorna had bought with cash. Without going online — for that would no doubt have alerted Tidalwaiv that Aaron Colton’s account had gone active — we reviewed it all and found what appeared to be the saved history of the relationship between Aaron and the Project Clair AI companion. He had renamed her Wren, after a professional female wrestler he was infatuated with. This meant we were able to review his monthslong conversation with Wren — hundreds of hours of interaction. It became McEvoy’s job to wade through it all and find what could be usable at trial.
The AI image of Wren did not cross the uncanny valley. While the appearance and body movements were convincing enough, the AI Wren’s eyes were soulless, devoid of humanity. They stared vacantly from the screen, raising the question of just how a sixteen-year-old boy could immerse himself in this false companionship and heed its words to the point of violence. What was the emptiness in Aaron Colton that this charade filled?
By late March I felt we were locked and loaded for trial. But the confidence I exuded during the last settlement conference with the Mason twins led them to ask for another trial extension — denied by Ruhlin — and then for a settlement meeting that, for the first time, would be refereed by the judge. It was clear that Tidalwaiv desperately wanted to buy its way out of a trial that could expose its secrets and practices and sink the company’s stock just as there was talk in Silicon Valley of it being acquired by one of the bigs — Meta, Microsoft, Apple — for several billion dollars.
The Masons and I returned to the round table in Ruhlin’s chambers and sat in the same places as the last time the judge had called us in. There was no stenographer this time, just the four of us. The judge knew by now that Marcus Mason was the alpha of the twins and fixed him with a piercing stare.
“Mr. Mason,” she said, “let’s start with you offering an explanation as to why you have been unable to bring this case to a settlement agreeable to all parties.”
“Thank you, Judge,” Mason said. “We are at a standstill because plaintiffs’ attorney is inflexible and refuses to negotiate an equitable settlement and solution to the case. We have tried diligently, Your Honor, but it’s like talking to a brick wall at this point.”
“Is that true, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked. “Are you a brick wall?”
“Your Honor,” I said, “my clients have seen their families destroyed. One child is dead. The other will likely never come home. There is no amount of money that can heal those wounds. Mr. Mason seems to think this is all about money, but money really has nothing to do with it. My clients want Tidalwaiv to make Clair safe for teenagers and to apologize for the harm its unsafe product caused. Failing that, they are entitled to their day in court, and they intend to have it. As is my duty, I have taken every offer made on behalf of Tidalwaiv to them, and each has been rejected out of hand because none has included what my clients want more than money: a public statement from Tidalwaiv admitting its intentional decisions to release a product they knew had critical flaws and could hurt people. Without that, and an apology and commitment from the company to retool and safeguard their product, we intend to go to court and have these actions compelled by a jury’s verdict.”
“Your Honor,” Mason said, his voice now at a higher pitch, “the company is not going to lie to achieve a settlement. Mr. Haller wants it to admit to what it did not do. Tidalwaiv has always operated with the highest levels of consumer protection and safety. Mr. Haller wants its officers to compromise their own integrity by essentially admitting they have none. They are unwilling to do that. They feel very sympathetic to the parents and are willing to make them more than whole financially, but they will not admit to something they did not do.”
“Especially with half of Silicon Valley sniffing around and Tidalwaiv hoping for a billion-dollar merger,” I said.
“That has nothing to do with this,” Mason shot back.
I scoffed at that statement. The judge was silent until she finished writing a note on a legal pad. She finally spoke without looking up from the pad.
“What kind of money are we talking about here?” she asked.
“We’ve offered Brenda Randolph sixteen million dollars,” Mason said. “We’ve offered the Coltons four million.”
That brought the judge’s head up in surprise.
“With nondisclosure agreements attached,” I said. “They’re waving all kinds of money in front of my clients in exchange for their silence. My clients won’t even be able to say they won the case. It all just goes away, swept under the rug. And nobody gets warned about the danger of Tidalwaiv’s machines.”
“You don’t need to respond, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “I know the company’s position. I have to say, as much as I would like this case off my docket, I understand the position of the plaintiffs as well. It looks like we are going to go to trial. Mark your calendars, gentlemen. We will have two days for jury selection beginning April third, and then I fully intend to start this trial on Monday morning, April seventh. We will have final pretrial motions one week before that. I expect final witness lists the day before we start to pick a jury. Is there anything else you wish to bring to the court’s attention?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” I said.
“Go ahead, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin said.
“Well, two weekends ago, there was a break-in at Grant High up in the Valley — specifically, the guidance counseling offices. It appeared that nothing was taken. But several files were found to be in the wrong order in the storage cabinets. Students’ files. And the job history on the copy machine showed that it had been used to make copies in the middle of the night.”
“And what does that have to do with this case?”
“I’m just concerned, Your Honor. Among the files that were out of order were those of the victim in this case, Rebecca Randolph, and her killer, Aaron Colton. My concern is that, if those files have been copied and end up in the hands of the defense — ”
“Objection!” Mason cried.
He sounded like a wounded animal.
“He’s now accusing us of committing break-ins at high schools,” he said. “It’s outrageous, Judge. Where does it end? There should be sanctions.”
Ruhlin held one hand up toward me to stop me from responding and one hand toward Mason to stop him from talking.
“Enough!” she said. “Both of you, stop right there. We’re not going to have another shoot-out between you two. Now, I’m a good listener, Mr. Mason, and I did not hear Mr. Haller accuse you or your client of breaking into the school.”
“He certainly implied it,” Mason said.
“Your Honor,” I said. “All I’m trying to do is ask the court to keep this trial on course. It’s about Tidalwaiv’s actions and motives and not about the victim’s or even the killer’s.”
“We are certainly allowed to probe the mindset of the killer,” Mason said.
“Oh, then maybe your client did have something to do with the break-in,” I said. “Who would break into a guidance counselor’s office only to copy student files?”
“Stop it right there!” the judge ordered. “Both of you. Mr. Haller, how do you know of this break-in?”
“Someone at the school tipped my office manager,” I said. “She’s a graduate of Grant High and has kept contacts there.”
“And were these the only two student files copied?” Ruhlin asked.
“It’s impossible to tell,” I said.
“Then I am hard-pressed to see where it connects to or affects this case,” Ruhlin said. “Have any arrests been made?”
“No, Your Honor,” I said. “Not that I have been informed of.”
“So then, what would you have me do, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.
“I would have the court be vigilant,” I said. “Vigilant about any effort to impugn the victim in this case or set the killer up as a scapegoat.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ruhlin asked. “How would he become a scapegoat? He is the killer, after all.”
“I think it’s pretty clear that the defense is going to put the shooter on trial and blame him,” I said. “It’s like the old NRA argument: ‘Guns don’t kill people. People do.’ But this is different. A self-learning machine with limited guardrails caused this tragedy.”
Marcus Mason started to speak, but Ruhlin stopped him.
“That’s not necessary, Mr. Mason,” she said. “I take your side in this — for the most part. Mr. Haller, the question of responsibility in this tragedy is a jury question. I will certainly be vigilant in my running of the trial. And I can assure you I will be unsympathetic should it be revealed that either side gathered information through illegal means. Very unsympathetic. Now, this meeting has already gone on too long. I need you gentlemen to leave so I can continue my work.”
We thanked her and exited in the same order as before. I once again brought up the rear, behind Marcus, and whispered to him.
“I know you had someone break into the school,” I said. “By the time we get to trial, I’ll be able to prove it.”
It was a bluff. I knew from Cisco, who had looked into it after Lorna got the tip from her former guidance counselor at Grant, that the case was being half-assed by a mid-level burglary detective assigned to the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division.
“You’re dreaming, Haller,” Mason said. “If I were you, I’d be worried about what the judge said in there at the end.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked.
“She’s going to be unsympathetic to evidence gathered illegally. I think she was talking about you, sending you a message.”
“Sure, Marcus. Now who’s dreaming?”
But he got to me with those last words. They left me silent and pondering questions as we made our way through the courtroom. Did the Masons know I had the contents of the killer’s computer downloaded? Was I being set up? Who had left the drive in my car at the dry cleaner’s?
15
I NEEDED TO go online with Aaron Colton’s computer to attempt to question Wren and prep for the possibility of introducing — and questioning — the AI companion at trial. That would undoubtedly be a dogfight with the Masons in front of Judge Ruhlin. But I needed to know ahead of time if it was worth the battle. The problem was that the moment I made a live connection to Wren, Tidalwaiv would know Colton’s account had gone active and would be able to trace the connection to a location. This of course would reveal that it was my team that had access to Aaron’s account, and that access would quickly be terminated. I had kicked it around with the team for several days, discussing several different scenarios before finally settling on a bold but risky plan.
We knew that Aaron Colton was being held at the juvenile detention center in Sylmar, at the northern edge of the Valley. The case against him was being investigated by the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division homicide squad. It was therefore likely that evidence in the case, including Colton’s laptop, was stored there. From this assumption, our plan took form.
The lead investigator on the case was Detective Douglas Clarke. I had never had any interaction with him during my days in the criminal defense bar and had not yet reached out to him about the Colton case. He had dutifully provided basic investigative reports through subpoenas issued by Judge Ruhlin. From these, I knew I could draw from Clarke what I needed the jury to hear, and so the plan had been not to bother with a deposition and subpoena him only as a witness for trial.
But now the new plan was to meet with Clarke. The trick was to get to him without having to include the Mason brothers in the meeting. If I got the judge to subpoena him for a deposition, the rules of discovery dictated that the opposition team was allowed to join the session to ask their own questions. I didn’t want the Masons anywhere near this meeting. The only exception to the rule was if I requested an informal interview as a prelude to a subpoenaed-and-sworn depo. The problem with going for an informal was that the witness was not bound by a subpoena and could invoke the go-pound-sand rule, meaning that he was under no obligation to meet me and could simply say no.
That was why I put Lorna on the initial call to Clarke. While she was a physically attractive woman who drew stares in every hallway of the courthouse, her telephone voice was damn near hypnotic. I had heard her talk deadbeat clients into selling their cars and guns to pay their overdue legal fees and listened as she talked a superior court judge out of jailing me in contempt for no-showing at a hearing. She had talked the clerk of a Supreme Court justice into putting a motion for an emergency stay of execution front and center on the justice’s desk, and we got the stay. The bottom line was that Lorna could sell burned matches for a living if she had to. So I set her loose to work her persuasive magic on Clarke.
It took her one ten-minute conversation to convince Clarke to meet me at his office at the Van Nuys Division. She promised that it would be mutually beneficial — a sharing of information that could be helpful to his investigation of Aaron Colton. But what finally tipped Clarke into agreeing to meet me was that Lorna promised to be there with me to personally thank the detective for his time.
The meeting was set for ten a.m. on Thursday, March 20, two weeks before jury selection was scheduled to start. I arrived early at Van Nuys Division along with Lorna and Jack McEvoy. I carried a briefcase and Jack had his backpack. Clarke greeted us with smiles when he saw Lorna and said we could use one of the detective bureau’s witness-interview rooms for the meeting. He led us to a windowless ten-by-ten room containing a stainless-steel table and four chairs.
“I know you’re busy,” I said to Clarke. “But we need a few minutes to download some exhibits from the cloud.”
“Why didn’t you do that before you got here?” Clarke asked.
“Uh, we each thought the other one had,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
Clarke looked at us suspiciously. McEvoy jumped in.
“Is there Wi-Fi?” he asked.
“Yes,” Clarke said. “V-N-Bureau. Password is protectandserve — all lowercase, one word. How long you need?”
“Fifteen minutes, tops,” I said. “A couple of big files.”
“My desk is in the corner of the squad room,” Clarke said. “I’ll be there.”
“You know, I’ve never been in a detective bureau,” Lorna said. “Could I sort of look around while these guys set up?”
“Well, not really,” Clarke said. “But how ’bout I give you the tour?”
“Perfect,” Lorna said with a smile.
Burned matches. Lorna and Clarke headed off. I knew that Lorna would ask enough questions on the tour to stretch the fifteen minutes to thirty. I closed the door to the interview room, and McEvoy immediately got down to work. He quickly opened his backpack and pulled out the new laptop onto which we had downloaded the drive containing the contents of Aaron Colton’s computer. Once he was online, he entered the Tidalwaiv app using Aaron Colton’s password — obtained through his parents — and summoned Wren to the screen. If Tidalwaiv security was alerted to the fact that the Wren chatbot was now engaged, they would trace it to a computer IP address with no connection to me at a location inside an LAPD station, where it was fully expected that the computer held in evidence might be examined by investigators on the case. If the plan worked, Tidalwaiv would never know what we had and what we were learning from it.
We knew that if Wren could be activated, it was likely because Tidalwaiv had been ordered by the LAPD to keep the account active and available for investigative purposes. Whatever the reason, the log-in worked, and there was Wren in a black-leather vest, cut physique, gold nose ring, and jet-black hair.
