"Was Riley with her throughout that visit?" Sandy asks Judge Mason.
Judge Mason summons Riley Moran. She has known Anna for two years, since Riley's clerkship began before Anna's ended. Riley remembers things pretty much the same way I heard them from Anna at the time. Peter Berglan, one of the most demanding assholes Anna has to work for, had reached out for her on her cell and basically told her she had to participate in a conference call. Riley says that Anna got up from the computer and went to a chair across the room. Riley stepped out, because it was clearly a client matter she shouldn't overhear, but she peeked back in at least three times in the next forty minutes to see if Anna was done. Anna was in the chair and nowhere near the computer on each occasion. Eventually, Anna came next door to tell Riley she was ready, and Riley watched when Anna returned to the computer to finish downloading and making notes about my dad's upcoming appointments. The log reflects that the calendar was open to the same date it had been when Anna got up.
"Is that it?" George asks when Riley is gone.
Sandy thanks Judge Mason, then we all sit in the office in silence.
"What will Molto say?" asks Sandy out loud. "It does not seem possible anyone could have tampered with the computer."
"An hour," says Marta. She's talking about Anna.
"An hour is not enough time," Sandy says. "Rusty, even Rusty's son, might have anticipated a defense and done this, but Anna is clearly the least likely. If worse comes to worse, we can get her cell phone records and talk to Peter Berglan."
I have come to the same conclusions. My dad lacked the technical expertise even to try this. So do I, frankly, and obviously I know I wasn't responsible. Anna, as Stern says, would have had no reason to risk her entire career. None of us really makes a credible culprit.
Stern tilts his hand toward my father. "Rusty, did you have keys to the courthouse?"
"To my chambers," answers my dad. "That's all."
"Do you still have them?"
"No one has asked for them back."
"Did you ever visit after hours?"
"Before or after I went on leave?"
"After."
"Never."
"And before?"
"Once or twice, when I'd forgotten something I needed over a long weekend. It was a pain, frankly. There was one security guard. You'd have to stand there pounding on the doors until you got the guy's attention. It took me twenty minutes to get in one time."
"And whose chambers was the computer in?"
"George's."
"As acting chief, had he moved into your chambers?"
"He still hasn't, so far as I know."
"And what about the security guard. Would the security guard have keys to all the chambers?"
My father thinks. "Well, he carried one hell of a key ring. You could hear him coming. And there were times when people locked themselves out of their chambers and security was called to let them back in. But whether night security had the keys-I just don't know."
"That's their theory," says Marta. "Right? Inside job. Maybe Rusty came in there with a computer whiz in the middle of the night."
"Talk to the security guard," my father suggests.
"You can bet Tommy is keeping company with him right now," Marta says. "And you know how this will go, Rusty. Either they'll accuse the security guard of being your best friend, or find he has a felony he didn't disclose when he applied for his job and they'll threaten him with prosecution until he remembers letting you in. Or they'll find a day the regular guard was off and Jim Brand will badger the substitute into saying, Well, she can't remember which judge, but there was a night one of those judges came in. They'll patch together something."
"Res ipsa loquitur," says Sandy. The thing speaks for itself. "No one but Rusty really had the motive to do this. No one else in November could have known what the evidence would show or what defense might work. We didn't even have complete discovery yet."
"It's weak," says Marta. "And we'll end up with a trial within a trial. All these witnesses? Judge Mason and Riley. And the security guard. And Nat and Anna. Rusty again. The PAs'll be lucky if the jury even remembers what the case is about by the time all that's over."
Sandy is pondering. His hand goes up to his face unconsciously to pat around the edges of the rash. From the looks, it must still hurt.
"All true," he says. "But overall, we should not fool ourselves. This is still not a fortunate development for the defense."
With that judgment spoken, we each end up looking at my father to see how he has reacted to the discussion. Slumped in a club chair, worn and pale and sleepless, he has lost track of all of us and is startled by the attention when he finally glances up. He smiles faintly at me, a bit sheepish, then looks back down to his hands folded in his lap.
At four p.m., we are summoned by Judge Yee, who wants an update so he can set a schedule. Several reporters have heard about this session, and Yee agrees to meet in open court. A number of the deputy PAs have also followed their bosses across the street to savor what all of them are sure is going to be a sweet moment. I sit in the front pew, only a few feet behind my dad. He is saying next to nothing to anybody, folded in upon himself like a piece of empty luggage.
Yee asks simply, "What is going on?" and Stern comes up to the podium. He has brought his cane to court for the first time.
"Your Honor, our experts have reviewed the image made late last November, and they agree that the object does not appear there. They will need at least twenty-four hours to determine why."
Brand again stands to answer for the prosecution. "'Why'?" he asks with his voice rising sarcastically. "With all due respect to Mr. Stern, Judge, there's an obvious answer. This was a fraud. Pure and simple. This object was clearly added to Judge Sabich's computer after it was seized last November and before it was returned to the prosecution's custody after Your Honor's appointment. There is no other explanation."
"Judge Yee," answers Stern, "that is hardly as clear as Mr. Brand wishes it were. Neither Judge Sabich nor any of his agents had access to that machine for longer than fifty-eight minutes. We have been advised by experts that the kind of alterations they are talking about could never have been accomplished in that time frame, probably not even by professionals, which none of those persons were."
"I don't know about that, Judge. We would need to test that," says Brand. The hedged way he responds makes me think that Gorvetich gave him a longer time estimate than we received from Hans and Franz. They will need another theory, but they have one, just as Stern supposed. "And besides, Your Honor," says Brand, "did Judge Sabich ever surrender his keys to the courthouse?"
"Judge Sabich had no keys to the chambers of Judge Mason, where the computer was housed," says Sandy.
"Are we saying that Judge Sabich never in his life entered the courthouse after hours? Are we saying he doesn't know the security staff members who had the keys to all the chambers?"
Judge Yee watches the back-and-forth with his hand across his mouth, but the pencil starts wagging in his hand. It's like a dog's tail in reverse, a measure of when he is displeased.
"Your Honor," says Stern, "the prosecution is very quick to accuse Judge Sabich. But without any compelling evidence."
"Who else benefited from this fraud?" Brand answers.
"Judge, I confess that what keeps going through my mind is that twenty years ago Mr. Molto admitted and was sanctioned by the prosecuting attorney's office for deliberately mishandling evidence."
This produces another of those courthouse moments when I am entirely lost. Sandy said nothing about this in his office, and the effect on Brand is volcanic. He has a temper anyway, and he stands at the podium screaming, with his face crimson and the veins throbbing at his temple. At the prosecution table, Tommy Molto also has come to his feet.