That is, until Bertram Ludik stood up, cleared his throat, shook his head sadly at Cody as if admonishing a child, and walked to the podium stiff-armed and stiff-legged, like a bear.
AT FIRST, I couldn’t understand where Ludik was headed, and I didn’t listen closely. Cody’s testimony had taken everyone in the room up a roller coaster and plunged them down, me included. My mind wandered. Ludik’s questions were procedural. When the search warrant was applied for, when it was granted. The exact time of the raid. How the items found inside Coates’s trailer were cataloged. How many officers were present and the duties of each. Several times, Ludik messed up names of officers, and Cody had to correct him. Cody’s patience with Ludik was impressive, I thought. He was gentle and professional, and I could see that the jurors liked him. Ludik seemed confused and disorganized. His questions bounced all over the place, and he paused after Cody’s answers as if searching on his note pad for what to ask next to fill the time. When I looked to Olive with amusement, wondering what she had seen in the past of Bertram Ludik that so impressed her, she looked back and shrugged.
I looked at my watch, wondering how long it would go before Judge Moreland concluded the session for the day. I reconstructed my meeting with Julie Perala and the black ball of dread returned. My mind drifted back to yesterday.
I was jolted back to the courtroom when Blair bolted to her feet, saying, “Objection, Your Honor! Mr. Ludik’s line of questioning is without foundation.”
I looked to Olive. She had heard his question and was straining to hear more.
“What?” I asked her.
“Bertram asked Cody something about the laptop.”
“Approach the bench,” Judge Moreland said, clearly irritated with Ludik.
The discussion between the attorneys and the judge was heated. Judge Moreland covered his microphone with his hand while they argued. The U.S. Attorney heard enough from the table that he joined in the discussion. I had no idea, of course, what was being said.
Because Cody was in the witness box, he could obviously hear snippets of the argument. Although his face didn’t change expression, it drained of color, and he seemed to be staring at something over our heads as if watching his life pass by. I recognized the look, and it scared me because I’d seen it before. When we were in high school together, Brian’s father gathered the three of us, sat us down in his den, and asked which one of us had broken into his wet bar and taken two bottles of bourbon. I knew it wasn’t me, and I guessed it wasn’t Brian. Cody was the guilty party and looked it and finally confessed.
What, I wondered, was he guilty of now?
JUDGE MORELAND SENT the attorneys away. The U.S. Attorney looked furious and sat back down in a huff. Assistant U.S. Attorney Blair seemed tight as a bowstring, and she glared at Cody, her jaws clenched. Ludik, meanwhile, smiled at the jury as he walked back to the podium. I realized now Ludik’s opening act of stumbling and disorganization had been a ruse, a way of getting Cody off his guard. His questions were now crisp, and his tone contemptuous.
“Detective Hoyt, I need you to clarify something for me.”
Cody nodded. Then, before he could be reminded by the judge to speak so the reporter could hear him, said, “Yes.”
“During the raid on my client’s trailer, your report indicates 108 items of so-called evidence were taken.”
“I believe that’s correct,” Cody said.
“I need better than your belief, Detective. You can check your notes or read the file. Don’t worry, I can wait.”
I knew Cody well enough to know he was angry, but he internalized it. It was the face and attitude he used to adopt when he played middle linebacker in high school, just before he fired through the offensive line and crushed somebody. He flipped through the pages of the case file until he found what he was looking for.
“Yes. There were 108 items of evidence.”
“And these items of evidence were logged in at the Denver Police Department facility, correct?”
“Correct.”
“But this was a joint federal and local task force. Why weren’t the items taken to the federal facility, as per normal procedure in this kind of investigation?”
Cody cleared his throat and glared at Ludik. “Because the feds are nine-to-fivers. I knew our building would be open.”
“So you not only arrested my client without informing or involving your federal partners, you took the so-called evidence to your friends downtown as well?”
“Yes I did,” Cody said.
“Interesting. Now back to the evidence itself. At the DPD, each item is given a description and assigned a specific number, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Each and every item. Each piece of charred paper from the trash barrel, everything.”
“Correct.”
“I’ve looked this list over many times, Detective, and I can’t seem to find the description or number for the hard drive of the server in my client’s trailer.”
Cody looked up at Ludik.
“Did I miss something?” Ludik asked.
“No. There was no hard drive.”
“What?”
“I said there was no hard drive. Coates destroyed it or hid it before we could have it analyzed.”
Ludik rubbed his face. “Detective, I’m a Luddite when it comes to computers. My wife calls me ‘Luddite Ludik’ ”- this caused some titters from the jury-“so please forgive me if I have to ask you to explain obvious things.”
Judge Moreland, bless him, cut Ludik off at the pass. “Mr. Ludik, please get to the point or drop it,” he said sternly.
“Yes, Your Honor. Sorry. Detective Hoyt, correct me if I’m wrong, but a hard drive is like the brains of a computer, correct? Where all of the files, all of the memories, are kept?”
“Yes.”
“Without the hard drive, a computer is nothing more than a nonfunctional piece of machinery, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So without the hard drive of my client’s server, there is no way to know what the computer was used for or where my client went in his midnight forays onto the Internet?”
“Correct.”
“Same with the missing memory sticks for the digital cameras?”
“Yes.”
“So all that you supposedly have to connect my client to the disappearance of poor Courtney are photos of her not on the missing hard drive from the computer supposedly used in the middle of the night or from the cameras found in his trailer, but from my client’s laptop computer, correct?”
“Correct.” Cody’s voice was flat.
“And the photos of poor Courtney we saw earlier, they’re from the laptop?”
“Yes.”
“And the other photos of the missing children, they’re from the laptop as well?”
“Yes.”
“So did you find other things on the laptop connecting my client to child pornography? Like movies, or other disturbing photos?”
“No.”
Blair was again on her feet. “Your Honor, this is going nowhere. Physical evidence of child pornography was found in the trash barrel outside the defendant’s trailer!”
Ludik said to Moreland, “We don’t dispute that, Your Honor. But no one has testified in this courtroom that they saw my client burning anything. There are no address labels on the magazines, and no subscription or postal records have been introduced that prove my client owned or used that material. For all we know, it could have been put in the barrel outside my client’s trailer by someone else.
“Or,” Ludik said, taking a theatrical step toward Cody in the witness box, “it could have even been placed there by a third party and burned just before the raid itself.”
“OBJECTION!” This was from the U.S. Attorney himself, who until this moment had not been involved in the proceedings. “This is nothing but reckless speculation!”