"You bet your life," answers Brand. "This was a fraud on the Court."
Stern shakes his head sadly. "The defense obviously cannot proceed, Your Honor, until we have conducted our own examination."
We all head back to Stern's to await word from Hans and Franz, who have their own copy of the imaged hard drive in storage at their office. I call Anna in the interval to tell her what has transpired. She has believed all along that when push came to shove, Tommy Molto would cheat to win, and she's certain he's trying to do it again.
"The leopard doesn't change his spots," Anna says now. Last night, she made the same prediction as Marta that Molto would figure out some excuse to avoid dismissing.
Hans and Franz are in the office in an hour, dressed pretty much as they were yesterday, in their designer jeans and gelled hair. It seems the boys are in the clubs every night until closing, and they look like Marta got them out of bed.
"Even a broken clock is right twice a day," says Hans, the taller of the two. "Gorvetich is correct."
"The card isn't on the image?" Marta asks. She had taken off her heels, perching her squat feet in her hose on one of her father's coffee tables, and nearly falls over. I groan out loud. I am sick of not knowing what to believe. The last to react is my father, who emits a shrill laugh.
"It's Barbara," he says. He puts his fingers on the bridge of his nose and pivots his head back and forth in utter amazement. It seems like a bizarre idea, but even so, I feel instantly he may be right. "She figured out a way to do this so it wouldn't show up on the image."
"Could that be?" Marta asks the two experts. "Could she have used something like invisible ink and created this object so it wouldn't copy?"
Hans shakes his head but looks at Franz for confirmation. He also shakes his head emphatically.
"No way," says Ryzard. "This software, the Evidence Tool Kit, that's like the bomb, man. Industry standard. Makes exact copy. Been used thousands of times in thousands of cases, with no variation reported."
"You didn't know Barbara," my father says.
"Judge," says Franz, "I got an ex-wife. Sometimes I think she got superpowers, too, especially when I get some extra money. She's like in court for more alimony before the check clears."
"You didn't know Barbara," my father says again.
"Judge, listen to me," says Franz. "She would have to have known exactly what software was going to be used-"
"You just said it's the industry standard."
"Sixty percent of the market. But not one hundred. Then she would have had to penetrate the algorithms. And create a whole program to run counter to the software, which would launch on start-up. And which wouldn't show anywhere on the image. Or on the drive when we looked at it yesterday. I mean, dude, you can take every geek in the Silicon Valley and put them together, they couldn't do that. You're talkin every kind of impossible."
My father studies Franz with that stupefied, still-eyed look I see on my dad so often these days.
"So when could the card have been added?" Marta asks.
Franz looks to Hans, who shrugs.
"Had to be when it was over in the other judge's office."
"Judge Mason? Why? Why not after that?"
"Dude, the whole computer was sealed and shrink-wrapped and initialed until yesterday. You saw it. Gorvetich even made us look at the seals before they took them off in court so I would agree they were the originals. And Matteus and Gorvetich and I peeled off the last of the evidence tape and connected the monitor and CPU in the courtroom together."
"Couldn't they have taken off the wrappings and the seals and put them back on?"
Hans and Franz are trying to explain why that is not possible-the evidence tape says "Violated" in blue once it's peeled away-when Sandy interrupts.
"Prosecutors don't generally tamper with evidence in order to add proof that supports a defendant's innocence. If the card is a fraud, we will not get very far with the judge or the jury by arguing that this is the prosecutors' handiwork. Either we pursue Rusty's theory about Barbara, or we find another way to explain why the imaged hard drive did not capture what was actually there."
"Didn't happen," Hans answers definitively.
"Then we had better see if we can counter what the PAs are bound to say."
In the last couple of days, Stern has begun using a cane. With it, he gets around a good deal more nimbly than in the courtroom. Now he poles his way behind his desk and dials the telephone.
"Who are you calling, Dad?" Marta asks.
"George," Sandy answers.
Judge Mason, still the acting chief, is not available but calls back in twenty minutes. When he comes on, Stern and he have an exchange, obviously about Sandy's health, because Stern keeps answering, "All according to plan," and, "Better than expected." Finally, Stern asks if he can put the judge on the speakerphone so the rest of the trial team can hear. I probably should not be here, but I have no thought of leaving. I was one of the people, along with Anna and my dad, who used that computer while it was in Judge Mason's chambers.
"I've already had a conversation this morning with Tommy Molto," says the judge. "As you remember, Sandy, when we received the computer, we all agreed that no one would have access to it alone, and that I would keep a log of every document that was examined. Tom asked me for a copy of the log, and I e-mailed it to him. I'd be happy to do the same for you."
"Please," answers Stern.
Judge Mason and he agree that it makes more sense to talk after we've seen the log. While we are waiting for the document to cross the Net, Stern and Marta question Hans and Franz about what would have been required to pull this off. The two have already been engaged in rapid speculation, notions whizzing and pinging like bullets in a shooting gallery, and have pretty much agreed with Gorvetich that this was done with a piece of shareware called Office Spy, which would then have to be shredded.
"And how long would it take to do all that?" Sandy asks. "Install the software, add the object, delete the software, and clean up the registry?"
"An hour?" answers Hans, looking to Franz.
"Maybe me, I could do it in forty-five minutes, if I'd practiced some," says Franz. "Let's imagine I've already got Spy and the object on a flash drive, so I can save a little download time. And I've done the same operation with another PC, so I know exactly where to look to clean up the deletion of Evidence Eraser. But you know, somebody who doesn't have an extensive background? Has to be twice as long. At least."
"At least," says Hans. "More like several hours."
When the log shows up, it records four separate visits. My father went to the private chambers where George had my dad's PC set up on November 12, a week after the election. It was a dismal experience that caused my dad to vow no more. George witnessed this himself. My dad was there for twenty-eight minutes. He copied four documents to a flash drive, three draft opinions and one research memo from one of his clerks, and opened up his calendar and wrote down his remaining appointments for the balance of the year.
I came a week later to copy three more draft opinions and returned the next day for one more about which I'd misunderstood my dad's instructions. Riley, one of Judge Mason's law clerks, was with me on both occasions. And I was there for twenty-two minutes the first time and six minutes the day after.
Finally, right before Thanksgiving, Anna went over, standing in for me at the last minute. My dad was desperate to get a look at an earlier draft of an opinion he was working on at home that was already late. He was also starting, in optimistic moments, to book appointments in 2009 and wanted to review his calendar. I had gotten called to sub that morning and didn't want to say no, but the assignment was going to last at least two weeks. Anna had volunteered earlier to do the copying for my father, since she was normally in Center City, and Judge Mason had approved her enthusiastically. The log says she was there for about an hour, but that was because she had gotten a call from the office and was on her cell most of the time.