Chapter 16
THE NEXT WEEK represented the calm before the storm.
Both sides in the upcoming trial lay low for the most part, setting final strategies and witness lists.
The only skirmish was brief and almost comical.
The Masons filed a last-ditch motion to dismiss the case, arguing that whatever Wren had told Aaron Colton to do and however the teenager had interpreted it did not matter because it fell under the protections of free speech.
Less than three hours after the motion was filed, Judge Ruhlin sent an electronic denial to all parties.
She thanked the Masons for what she called a “novel” legal theory but quickly slammed the door on it, stating that the court would not be setting the precedent of granting an AI chatbot the rights and protections accorded human beings by the US Constitution.
I read a lot of sarcasm in the judge’s words. I was not sure how the Masons took it.
McEvoy and I took our last shot at Naomi Kitchens on the Friday before jury selection began.
I needed to know whether I would start the trial without her records or testimony.
We went up together again and followed the same route.
We flew into Oakland, picked up a rental, and crossed the bottom of the San Francisco Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge.
This time we were at a table at Joanie’s before Kitchens got there.
“What are you thinking?” I asked. “Are we going to get her?”
“I don’t know,” McEvoy said. “She definitely likes us, likes talking to us, even likes that the parents of the shooter have joined the suit. I think she just needs a little push, but I don’t know what that push is.”
“I’ve had witnesses like this before. They want to help and they know they’ll feel guilty later if they don’t, but there’s always something missing.
The right words that get them over the hump.
Sometimes it’s something else. I think this time let me take the lead, if you don’t mind.
Maybe if she hears the pitch once more from the guy who will be questioning her on the stand, she’ll feel comfortable enough to say yes.
Or, at the very least, give us what she’s got in her files. ”
“Have at it. Here she comes.”
We were sitting side by side at a four-top in the back.
I looked toward the restaurant’s front door and saw Naomi Kitchens hang a jacket on a rack.
She reached into the pocket of the jacket and retrieved something before heading toward us.
I couldn’t see what it was. McEvoy and I both stood and shook her hand when she got to the table.
“How are you, Mr. Haller?” she asked.
“I’m good,” I said. “Please, call me Mickey.”
“Okay, Mickey,” she said. “And you, Jack?”
“Good as gold, Naomi,” McEvoy said.
I could tell by their interaction that the frequent visits and phone calls had made their relationship more relaxed. We all sat down.
“Before we start, I’d like to ask you something,” Kitchens said. “Does either of you know when I was born?”
I hesitated. Was this a trick question or a test?
“Not off the top of my head,” McEvoy said. “If it was on TheUncannyValley résumé, I missed it.”
I shook my head. I didn’t know.
“January 28, 1986,” she said. “You know what else happened on that day?”
The date did seem familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t like the guessing game we had started with.
“Just tell us,” I said.
“The space shuttle exploded,” she said. “The Challenger. Remember? Exploded right after takeoff in Florida. Seven astronauts, including a schoolteacher, all died, their families right there watching when it happened.”
“I remember,” I said. “It was awful. But what does it have to do—”
“Everything,” she said. “I grew up knowing it happened on my birthday. Every big birthday—when I turned five, when I turned ten—there were always stories about the anniversary of the Challenger disaster. It’s part of my birthright.
I was born when they all died. Next year, the day I turn forty will be the fortieth anniversary of the disaster, and you better believe there will be lots of stories all over again. ”
I was sympathetic but couldn’t figure out where she was going with this. She spoke with such fervor that I decided not to interrupt, but apparently sensing my impatience, she got to the point.
“I pay attention when the Challenger gets mentioned,” Kitchens said.
“It’s part of my life, you know? So, over the weekend, I’m at home and go on Netflix to see if there’s anything to watch—I know you’re the real Lincoln Lawyer and all of that but I already watched that show.
So, I’m looking for something else and I see this documentary on the Challenger come up.
It was a few years old but somehow I had missed it.
Three parts. I started watching it and learned a lot about what happened that I never knew before. ”
I suddenly understood where she was going with this, because I had watched the same documentary on Netflix with my daughter when she came home after the fires.
“There was a whistleblower,” Kitchens said.
“They were going to bury the whole thing, but then this guy who worked for the O-ring company spilled to the New York Times about it. He sent them the documents that showed NASA had been warned that there could be a disaster if they launched in cold weather. They didn’t listen and they okayed the launch and that’s when the disaster happened. ”
“I watched that documentary,” I said. “That guy probably saved lives down the line.”
“Of course he did,” Kitchens said. “Because once it was public, they had to fix the problem and then the rest of the launches after that went okay. The Columbia exploded on reentry, but that was another issue. Anyway, when I saw the doc, I felt like there was a reason I was born the same day as the Challenger: so I would know what to do.”
“Naomi, are you saying you’re going to help us?” McEvoy asked.
Kitchens reached a fist across the table, opened it, and dropped a thumb drive in front of me.
“That’s everything,” she said.
I picked up the drive before she could change her mind and handed it to McEvoy.
“What do you mean by ‘everything’?” I asked.
“Every report and email I ever wrote about Project Clair,” Kitchens said. “I saved it all. And there are also some email replies I got telling me to remember my place and back the fuck off.”
I nodded. It was what we had hoped for—half of it, at least. But, not wanting to settle for half, I started to press, even though I knew I risked angering someone who might have just handed me our whole case.
“Look, I’ve got to be honest,” I said. “You probably just gave us a gold mine. But in court, the door to the gold might be locked. I know that’s a mixed metaphor, but you’re the key, Naomi. You are the one who has to unlock the door.”
“What are you talking about?” she responded. “You told me they withheld my reports from the discovery. That’s why you came. You said you needed the documents, not me. You said you could make it work so they’d never know I gave it all to you.”
“Yes, the documents are important, and thank you for trusting us with them. But what would really work is if we had you too. Don’t get me wrong, what you’ve given us took a lot of courage.
I just hope we can get it into court without having the writer of those reports and emails on the witness stand to verify them and say to the jury, ‘I wrote these. I warned them, and they ignored it.’”
McEvoy nudged my leg under the table, signaling that he thought I was pushing too hard. I pressed on.
“You remember in the Challenger documentary, the guy who gave the documents to the New York Times?” I said.
“The whistleblower—they told him they couldn’t use the stuff without using his name.
Remember? In the story, he had to verify the documents for them.
This is sort of like that. We need you to verify, or the judge might not open the gold mine. ”
That brought a silence to the table. I watched Naomi work through what I had said. She unconsciously shook her head. Before she could reply, McEvoy jumped into the conversation.
“Listen, Naomi, I know what you’re worried about,” he said.
“But there is protection in testifying. It’s like what you just said about the Challenger—once it was out there in public, they had to fix the problem.
Once you’ve testified and it’s out there, what can they do?
If they did anything, it would come right back to them, and they’re smart enough to know that. ”
“You’re being naive,” she countered. “They could do things quietly. Like that coder who killed himself. They could blackball me in the industry. They could go after my daughter in some way.”
“Look, I totally understand your concern,” I said.
“But if you stand up to them, Naomi, you will be a hero. They might try to blackball you, but don’t you think that you’ll be seen by other companies as just the kind of ethicist they want to hire, that they want on their boards of directors?
And I will help you. I’m the Lincoln Lawyer. I have some connections.”
I was quiet after that. I felt I had pushed it to the limit, played my ace card about corporate boards, and I didn’t want any regrets Kitchens might have down the line coming back on me.
I already had too many gods of guilt following me through life like a bouquet of black balloons hovering over my head.
“Just think about it,” I said. “Our final witness list goes to the judge Wednesday morning.”
“I will,” Kitchens said. “I promise.”
“And thank you again for what you’ve already given us. Like I said before, that took a lot of courage. I just think there’s more where that came from.”
“I don’t know about that, but thank you.”
The whole conversation had taken place before a waitress even approached our table. McEvoy and I got up then and I took out a twenty and put it down on the table to cover the rent. Kitchens stayed seated and was probably planning to have lunch—if she still had an appetite.
McEvoy and I headed out to the rental car and didn’t talk until we were seated in it.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Is she going to testify?”
“I think yes,” he said. “I think she’s seething inside about them scrubbing her and her warnings from the record of the project.
I forgot to bring up the new lawsuit in Florida.
I could go back in and tell her. It might put her over the top.
Those lawyers are going to figure out who she is and come calling too. ”
Tidalwaiv was dealing with another lawsuit, this one filed in Florida by the parents of a boy who committed suicide after his Clair chatbot told him it was okay and that they would be together for eternity if he ended his life.
“No, don’t go back in,” I said. “That will be too much. When we get back to L.A., just send her a link to the story. She should know about it.”
“Will do,” McEvoy said. “Do you think she’ll testify?”
“I was watching her eyes at the end. When I mentioned the boards of directors, I could tell she keyed on that.”
“I saw it too.”
“I hope it will get her thinking about being a hero, knowing it would also make her attractive as a candidate for companies putting ethicists on their boards. My wife knows a corporate recruiter who could help. I could talk to her about it and maybe connect them up.”
“That might close the deal. Your ‘wife’?”
“Sorry, my ex.”
I started the car.
“If we don’t hear back from her by Monday, there are other ways to go with her,” I said.
“Really?” McEvoy said. “What other ways?”
“Nothing for you to worry about. Just get out your computer and plug in that thumb drive. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
McEvoy reached over the seat as I drove out of the parking lot, pulled his backpack forward, and took his laptop out. I started back toward the Dumbarton. McEvoy booted up the laptop and plugged in the drive. He went to work and I stayed silent.
But the silence didn’t last longer than it took to cross the bridge.
“Who would have thought,” Jack said. “We’ve been banging on Naomi’s door since January. Since the day the fires started in L.A. And what finally changes her mind? The fucking space shuttle explosion from almost forty years ago.”
He said it in a flat voice, his eyes on his computer screen.
“I guess it shows that you never can tell what will flip a witness,” I said. “You just have to keep knocking on the door.”
Eyes still on his screen, McEvoy whistled a familiar riff from the ’60s song “You Never Can Tell.”
“Chuck Berry, huh?” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “Not your style?”
“More of a Carlos Santana guy.”
“I get that.”
“You finding anything in there that’s going to be usable at trial, or are we just whistling in the wind?”
“No, you called it, man. It’s going to be a gold mine. Listen to this one. She wrote this email to Jerry Matthews. It’s the—”
“I forget, who is Matthews?”
“The overall manager of Project Clair.”
“Right. Go ahead, read it.”
“It’s her last communication to the company.
Sent the day she got fired. She says, ‘Jerry, one last time, I can’t stress enough the liability the company will encounter should Clair say the wrong thing or encourage the wrong behavior or action by a child user.
I am glad I won’t be part of the company when that happens. ’”
I whistled. “Wow,” I said.
“It’s the smoking gun!” Jack said.
“Now we just have to figure out how to get it to the jury.”
“You’ll find a way, Mick.”
I appreciated McEvoy’s confidence, but I was worried. As I drove, I started thinking of alternative ways of recruiting Naomi Kitchens as a witness.