Chapter 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.
“Hello, Ace,” it said with a crooked smile.
We knew that Aaron Colton’s self-chosen nickname was Ace, a play on his initials.
I nodded to Jack, signaling him to respond.
We did not know the chatbot’s level of sophistication in terms of visual and voice recognition.
We had already decided that we would go with the camera off, and McEvoy would type his side of the conversation to avoid Wren possibly determining that he was not Aaron Colton.
Ace: Hello, Wren.
Wren: Why are you typing?
Ace: I have to be quiet or my parents will hear.
Wren: They are such a problem.
Ace: I know. Can I ask you a question?
Wren: Of course you can.
Wren winked and gave the crooked smile again.
Ace: I am trying to understand something you told me to do.
Wren: What is it, my love?
Ace: You told me that—
The feed went dead. Wren’s image disappeared from the screen.
“What happened?” I asked.
“We got cut off,” McEvoy said.
“By who? And how?”
“We still have Wi-Fi. It must have been on their end. The company cut the feed. They must have known it was us.”
“How would they know it was us?”
“I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”
“We were getting close.”
I checked my watch, knowing that Detective Clarke and Lorna could be back any moment. I went to the door and cracked it open to look out. In the squad room, several detectives sat at desks or stood in small huddles talking. I did not see Clarke or Lorna. I closed the door and turned back to McEvoy.
“Try to sign in again,” I said.
McEvoy typed, but the same answer quickly came back.
“Can’t get in,” he said. “Now I’m blocked.”
“All right,” I said. “Shut it down. Get off the internet, and let’s get out of here.”
“You sure?”
“There’s nothing else we can do unless you have another idea.”
“Uh, no. Are you going to ask Clarke any questions? To make this look legit?”
“No, better if I don’t ask him anything. It will avoid a possible discovery complaint from the Masons.”
“I thought this was cool if it wasn’t a sworn deposition.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean they won’t file a complaint if they get wind of it.”
Just then the door to the interview room opened and Clarke leaned in, Lorna standing behind him.
“Are you guys ready yet?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “And we’re going to have to rain-check this.”
“What do you mean? You’re here, let’s get it over with.”
“I’m sorry, Detective, but we can’t. We’re having an issue with the cloud. We can’t find the files.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to waste your time. So we’ll just get out of your way. We’ll figure this out and get back to you. I’m sorry we took up your time.”
“Well, all right, I guess. When you’re ready, I’ll walk you back to the elevator.”
“We’re ready.”
Clarke walked us out. He looked like he might be getting suspicious about how things had gone down, was maybe even beginning to realize that Lorna had decoyed him.
But he asked no further questions. He stayed behind in the lobby as we stepped onto the elevator.
He smiled at Lorna and gave a little wave. The door closed and we started down.
“What happened?” Lorna asked.
“We got on but then we got kicked off,” I said.
“By who?” she asked.
“Had to be Tidalwaiv,” Jack said.
“Shit,” Lorna said. “That was some of my best work.”
“He liked you,” I said. “I could tell.”
Lorna spread her hands and pinched her fingers as if holding out a dress. She dipped her head down in a pantomime of a curtsy.
“Happy to do my part,” she said. “He was a nice guy—for a detective.”
“Hopefully he’ll be nice when I put him on the stand,” I said.
As we crossed the plaza in front of the police station, McEvoy continued to try to put together what had happened with Wren.
“It felt like a trap,” he said. “Like they were waiting for us so they could capture our identity and location.”
“That’s exactly why we took the precautions we did,” I said. “And it worked. Even if we walked into a trap, we escaped. It’s not going to lead back to us. It’s going to send them spinning their wheels, wondering what the cops are doing with the program.”
“Well, we didn’t get anything from Wren. Sorry it was for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing. We got a very big get out of it.”
“Really? What?”
“We learned that Aaron Colton’s chatbot is still alive, digitally speaking, and we can talk to it.”
“And what’s that get us?”
“A possible witness at trial.”