Chapter 11
JOANIE’S WAS A locals’ hangout. By the time we found it, Kitchens was already at a table in the rear. As we sat down across from her, I introduced McEvoy. They shook hands and Kitchens knew the name.
“You wrote the DNA book, right?” she said. “About that predator down in L.A., the one who used genetic traits to pick his victims.”
“Uh, yes, that was me,” McEvoy said. “Fair Warning. You read it?”
“I did,” Kitchens said. “Definitely in my sphere as an ethicist.”
“Cool,” McEvoy said. “I write a Substack. You should check it out.”
On the way over, I had told McEvoy I wanted to shift things in the second conversation with Kitchens.
He would be the lead, and this would allow me to analyze her answers without having to worry about keeping the conversation going.
It would also allow me to watch McEvoy to get a read on how much of an asset he would be to the case.
He had already shown his skills as a digger by coming up with Kitchens.
Now I would see how well he could use an interview to get case information.
He knew that I had set two goals for the trip to Palo Alto. So far, we had achieved neither.
A waitress arrived at the table, put down menus, and took our order for iced teas all around.
“So,” McEvoy said. “Why academia?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kitchens said. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
“No, not at all,” McEvoy said. “I’m just wondering how bad it got at Tidalwaiv that you said, ‘The hell with this whole AI business.’”
“Yeah, well, it got bad,” Kitchens said. “And my sense was that this was an industry-wide issue, not just a Tidalwaiv problem. Ethics were not really part of the equation. They needed to say they were paying attention to it, but it was the Wild West. They didn’t care about ethics.”
“That’s a pretty strong statement. You mean there weren’t enough guardrails?”
“I mean, what guardrails?”
“So what did you tell them when you quit?”
I wanted to call time out before he finished the question, but it was too late. He had taken it a step too far.
“That would be considered work product,” Kitchens said. “I can’t talk to you about work product.”
I could tell by her demeanor that the question had reminded her who she was talking to and that it wasn’t an innocent lunchtime chat.
“Oh, okay,” McEvoy said. “I didn’t realize—”
No, not okay. I had to step in. “I assume your nondisclosure prohibits you from talking about work product with competitors and probably the media,” I said. “We’re neither.”
“He just said he writes a Substack,” Kitchens said. “That’s media.”
“He’s not writing about this case now,” I said. “He’s part of the plaintiff’s team. Once the trial is over, he may decide to—”
“I don’t really care,” Kitchens said. “I’m not—”
She stopped when the waitress came back and put three iced teas in front of us. The waitress seemed to read the intensity at the table and didn’t ask if we were ready to order. She just turned around and left us alone. I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket but it was not the time to take a call.
“Naomi, we need your help,” I said. “This company’s creation turned a kid into a killer. I think you tried to stop that from happening. We’re trying to stop it from happening again.”
“I help you, and what’s to stop them from coming after me?” Kitchens asked. “You don’t understand. These people are as dangerous as their product.”
I nodded and put my hands out, palms down, in a calming motion.
“There is nothing in all of the discovery materials we have received about Project Clair that so much as has your initials on it,” I said. “And I happen to know that the first rule of ethical oversight is ‘Document everything.’ Professor Kitchens, did you do that?”
“Of course I did,” Kitchens said. “They probably purged it all when I left the company.”
“What about you? Did you purge it all?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Like I said, we can protect you.”
“No, you really can’t. Not from them.”
“You—”
My phone buzzed again, and I pulled it out of my pocket just to make sure it wasn’t the one person whose call I would accept under any circumstances—my daughter.
It was not Hayley, but close. Maggie McPherson had made both calls.
I sent this one to voicemail and turned my attention back to Kitchens.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “They are setting you up, Naomi. They have purged you from the project. You’re a redaction.
That means you are their out. You will be given as the reason there were no guardrails.
You were there to keep them on the straight and narrow and you failed.
If you don’t come forward, they will throw you under the bus.
You understand? Their defense will be this: We had an ethicist on the project and she didn’t say shit. ”
I was just riffing, totally contradicting myself and my earlier statements, but I was getting desperate. She had what I needed and I was ready to try anything, say anything to get it. I stopped to see how my words were playing. I saw a slight stress crease start to form between Kitchens’s eyebrows.
“So what I’m hoping is that you kept copies of your work product,” I said. “It would have been against company policy and maybe even illegal, but I’m hoping you documented what you said and when you said it and that you have copies of those documents.”
The stress crease became more pronounced.
“If you did, that’s what I need,” I said. “And I’d love to have you testify, but if that is asking too much, there is a way to make it work without you coming anywhere close to the courthouse.”
“How?” she asked.
She had just cracked open the door. I leaned across the table.
“If you give me material that should have been in discovery, they won’t be able to tell the judge it wasn’t,” I said. “You understand? They won’t reveal they held it back, because the judge would go ballistic. She’d sanction them.”
“And you’re saying I wouldn’t have to testify?” she asked.
“Don’t get me wrong—I want you to testify.
I would love for you to testify. And I already broke their standard NDA once on this case.
I’m confident I could do it again. But if push comes to shove, and you kept records of the alarm bells you rang that they ignored, that’s all I would need. I could go to court with that.”
“But they would know it came from me.”
“Not necessarily. I’m sure your ethics reports went to all the stakeholders on the project.
Any one of them could have kept the documents and backdoored them to me.
And you don’t have to worry about us. We would never give you up.
This guy next to me once went to jail for sixty-three days for not giving up a source in court. ”
I put my hand on McEvoy’s shoulder.
“And I’ve spent nights in jail protecting clients myself. After this meeting, we would never have to see each other again. You provide us with your reports, and we take it from there.”
I stopped with that. The offer was on the table. There was nothing more to say.
“I have to think about this,” Kitchens said. “I want to talk to my daughter.”
I nodded and smiled.
“How old is she?” I asked.
It wasn’t just a get-to-know-you question.
I wasn’t asking because I had a daughter too but because her child could be a tell.
Children are idealistic when young and become pragmatic the older they get.
I wanted to know whether Kitchens had a pragmatic daughter who would tell her to play it safe and not get involved.
“She’s nineteen,” Kitchens said. “She goes to USF.”
“What’s she studying?” I asked.
“Psychology. She wants to be a social worker.”
“Good for her.”
A student at the University of San Francisco who wanted to be a social worker—that all tilted toward idealism to me. I reached down for my briefcase and brought it up to my lap.
“Of course you should talk to her,” I said.
“I’m going to give you a phone. It’s charged up and already has my number saved in it.
Use it to call or text me at any time. After you talk to your daughter, let me know.
If it’s a no, toss the phone. If it’s not, we’ll use it to communicate and I’ll give you instructions on how to send me what you’ve got. ”
I took the phone out of the case and put it on the table in front of her. She looked at it but didn’t pick it up.
“It feels like spy work,” Kitchens said.
“Yes,” I said. “But as you know, we need to take precautions. Tidalwaiv has a lot at stake, and I want to protect you. We’re going to leave now so you can enjoy your lunch.”
“Easier said than done.”
“I know. But thank you for your time.”
McEvoy and I stood up and left her there. The burner was still on the table. I don’t know if paranoia is contagious, but outside the restaurant, I scanned the parked cars and the other businesses to see if I could pick up on anybody watching us. McEvoy noticed.
“You think she’s right?” he asked. “They’re watching her?”
“Hard to say,” I said. “If not physical surveillance, I’m sure they’ve got their sniffers on her. That’s why I brought the burner.”
“You always carry phones like that?”
“Not always. But sometimes. Going to make a good book, huh?”
“Yeah. If you win.”
“I plan to. I need to call my ex. She was blowing up my phone the whole time we were in there.”
“Lorna?”
“No, my first ex-wife.”
“She in the legal business too?”
“Sort of. She’s the DA.”
“What? Of L.A. County? You mean Maggie McFierce?”
I nodded.
“I was the one who gave her that nickname,” I said. “Then they used it as a campaign slogan.”
I had already pulled my phone and hit Maggie’s number in my contacts. My hope was that she was calling to say she was going to return the external hard drive with the contents of Aaron Colton’s laptop downloaded onto it.
She answered right away. I could tell she was in a car.
“Mickey, where have you been? Did you listen to my messages?”
Her voice was adrenalized and panicked.
“No, I just called back. What’s going on? Is Hay—”
“The fires. My house is in an evacuation zone. I’m going home to try to grab things. Pictures and clothes.”
“What fires?”
“What are you talking about? Where are you?”
“Palo Alto. Maggie, calm down and tell me what’s going on.”
“The wind is causing fires all over the place. Palisades, Malibu, Altadena—big fires. I’ve got to get home and get things. I want to know, can I stay at your place?”
“Of course, if it’s safe.”
Her house was in Altadena. My house was on Fareholm Drive in the hills at the southern end of Laurel Canyon, an area also vulnerable to wildfires.
“Right now your house isn’t in the fire zone,” Maggie said. “I’ll go there. Is the extra key in the same spot?”
I had to think back to when we were married and shared the house.
“Yes, same spot. Hayley’s frog.”
Our daughter had made a frog at a pottery-painting party.
“I’ll see you at the house,” I said. “I’m heading to the airport now, and we’re landing at Burbank around six.”
“No, you’re not,” she said. “Burbank is closing. Probably LAX too. It’s hurricane-force winds.”
I remembered the warning Lorna had mentioned in the office yesterday. I hadn’t watched the news or read a newspaper since then. I had been consumed by the Tidalwaiv case.
“All right, I’ll see what’s going on and I’ll get to the house as soon as I can, Mags. Stay safe.”
“You too.”
I disconnected. Once we were in the rental but before we left, I filled McEvoy in. “Sounds like L.A. is burning and Burbank is grounding flights.”
“Shit. Where are the fires?”
“She mentioned the Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena.”
“Only?”
“I don’t know. Where do you live?”
“Sherman Oaks. In the flats.”
“You should be okay.”
“You?”
“In the hills at the front of Laurel Canyon.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
I looked at the JSX app to see if there was an earlier flight we could take, but there wasn’t; all flights out of Monterey and Oakland to Burbank were either canceled or delayed due to high winds.
I had apps for Delta and American, and I told McEvoy to check United and Southwest for any flights from Bay Area airports to L.A.
or Burbank. Every flight I found that was still going to LAX or Burbank or John Wayne Airport in Orange County was booked, likely with travelers who had been moved off canceled flights.
McEvoy found the same on the airlines he checked.
“We’re fucked,” he said.
“No,” I said. “We’re driving.”