Chapter 43
CISCO WASN’T EXACTLY dressed for an audience with a federal judge.
He was in faded jeans, boots, a tight-fitting white T-shirt, and a black leather riding jacket.
He had gotten my message and obviously rode to the courthouse without any stops.
I had known him for more than two decades and could read his face and demeanor.
Judging by the way he raised an eyebrow when he saw me, he had no idea what he was walking into.
“Thank you, Deputy,” Ruhlin said to the marshal who had escorted Cisco in. “If you could stand outside the door for me, I would appreciate that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the marshal said.
He stepped out and Ruhlin directed Cisco to take one of the chairs from the table and bring it over to the desk. I moved my chair to make room for him to slide into the line of men facing the judge.
“Do you know why you are here, sir?” Ruhlin asked.
“I sure don’t, Judge,” Cisco responded.
“Well, I can show you.”
“Please.”
Ruhlin once again cued up the video and she turned the laptop so Cisco could watch it. She kept her eyes on him while it played. Cisco was nodding his head before it ended.
“Okay, that’s me, if that’s what you want to know,” Cisco said.
“I know it’s you,” Ruhlin said sharply. “I want to know what you were doing there.”
“Well, I was following a lead. Turned out to be a wild-goose chase and… that’s it.”
“Do you know who that woman is?”
Cisco shook his head.
“Uh, not really,” he said. “She didn’t give me the chance to find out.”
“Are you telling this court that you didn’t know that she is a juror in this case?” Ruhlin asked.
Cisco’s head snapped back as if he had been punched in the jaw.
“Whoa, wait, no—in this case?” he said. “No, I didn’t know she was a juror.”
Cisco raised his right hand as if taking an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“We’ve been in trial all week,” Ruhlin said. “How could you not know her?”
“Your Honor?” I said.
“Let him answer the question,” Ruhlin ordered sharply.
“Judge, I wasn’t paying much attention to the jury,” Cisco said.
“That’s not really my job. I wasn’t in court for jury selection, and during the trial I was dealing with getting witnesses to and from court and other duties.
When she came to the door, she had a do-rag on her head and a robe, and I just didn’t recognize her. ”
Ruhlin shook her head in frustration.
“Then what brought you to her door last night?” Ruhlin asked.
“I got a text,” Cisco said. “On WhatsApp.”
“It was encrypted?”
“Yes.”
“And that didn’t make you suspicious?”
“It did, but we get a lot of anonymous tips, Your Honor. I mean, that’s my job—to run these down.”
“And what did this tip say?”
“The texter said they had important information regarding a witness in the case. I responded and asked what witness, and the answer was Wiseacre, and that made it seem like it might be legitimate.”
“How so?”
“There’s a witness named Nathan Whittaker. He’s a coder at Tidalwaiv, and we learned that his nickname is Wiseacre. Whittaker, Wiseacre—it’s close.”
“I understand. Go on.”
“Well, seeing that nickname in the text gave it enough credibility that I decided I should check it out. I asked for a time and place to meet and I got that address.”
He pointed at the laptop screen.
“I asked for a name and the texter gave me Robin,” Cisco said.
“No last name. I went over there at the meeting time, six thirty, as you can see, and the woman who answered the door said her name was Robin, but she didn’t know what I was talking about or why I was there.
I didn’t recognize her and she apparently didn’t remember me from court.
At that point I thought I had bad info or something and left. ”
“And you didn’t tell any of this to Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.
“He went home yesterday afternoon to finish working on something, so I just went to the meeting. I usually don’t bother him with stuff like this unless it pans out.
This didn’t, so I didn’t even mention it.
If she had told me she was a juror, I would obviously have sounded the alarm and said I was set up.
But she didn’t, and I didn’t know about any of this till right now. ”
Ruhlin stared at Cisco for a long moment, apparently trying to judge his truthfulness, before she finally spoke.
“Would you be willing to let me look at these texts you received?” she asked.
“Uh, sure,” Cisco said hesitantly.
He looked at me as he leaned to his left to reach into his back pocket. I nodded my approval even though he didn’t need it. He pulled out his phone, opened WhatsApp, and located the texts in question. He handed the phone to the judge, screen up. She took it, read the texts, and nodded.
“And you say this was encrypted,” she said. “It can’t be traced?”
“Well, when I realized I was at the wrong address, I called that number,” Cisco said.
“The line was dead—number no longer valid. But I have a… friend who, uh, can run down numbers for me. I gave it to him and he said the text came from a burner phone. So, yeah, we’re not going to be able to trace it. ”
“Okay, Mr.… uh…”
“Wojciechowski—pronounced like ‘Watch your car key.’ My father always said that when people had trouble with it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Watch-your-car-key. I think you can go now. And can you ask the deputy marshal to step back in?”
“Sure, Judge. Thank you.”
The big man stood up and gave me a nod. He returned his chair to the meeting table on his way to the door. He left and the marshal came in.
“You can go now, Jaime,” the judge said. “Everything is fine.”
Once the marshal was gone and the door to chambers was closed, Ruhlin focused on the Mason brothers, giving them the same scowl she had directed earlier at me.
“Is there anything you men wish to say to me?” she asked.
“Your Honor, we had nothing to do with this,” Mitchell Mason said.
“Nothing,” Marcus Mason added.
“Then who did?” Ruhlin pressed.
“This could have been set up by them,” Mitchell said, pointing to me. “So this would happen, so we’d get the blame.”
I shook my head.
“You know, Judge, I was just about to say that I give them the benefit of the doubt,” I said. “But then they have to go and try to throw me under the bus.”
“All I will say at this time is that I will be in contact with the US Marshals Service and call for a full investigation of this matter,” Ruhlin said.
“Jury tampering will not be tolerated by this court. In the meantime, I will be dismissing juror eleven and we will proceed Monday if the other jurors remain healthy.”
I held my hands up in confusion.
“Your Honor, you’re penalizing the plaintiff for being the injured party here,” I said.
“How do you see that, Mr. Haller?” Ruhlin asked.
“If the court recalls, during jury selection the defense clearly didn’t want juror eleven, a Black woman, on the panel.
It was only when I objected and the court agreed with me that they reversed their position.
So what they couldn’t do then, they just succeeded in doing now.
Maybe that was their thinking all along: If we can’t get a mistrial, we’ll pick off the jurors we don’t like. ”
“Your Honor, I vigorously object,” Marcus Mason yelped. “Thirty seconds ago he was giving us the benefit of the doubt. Now he’s accusing us of this crazy scheme to get one juror kicked off the panel. It’s preposterous and insulting and I object.”
“We’re not in front of the jury, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “No need to object. But are you saying you would accept number eleven staying on the jury?”
“No, she’s been tainted by this whole thing,” Marcus said. “She can’t stay on the jury. No matter who set this in motion, we can’t lose sight of the fact that a member of the plaintiff’s team crossed a line and knocked on a juror’s door. It means she’s gotta go.”
“The fact that this was clearly a setup means she should stay,” I said.
Ruhlin didn’t respond as she considered the arguments.
“The weekend is upon us,” she finally said. “When juror eleven is healthy, I will question her about this. You will have my decision on all this Monday morning.”
“Your Honor, may I speak?” I asked.
“If you can be brief,” Ruhlin said.
“There is still the issue that obviously someone would have had to follow this juror home to set this whole thing up,” I said. “This concerns me. How many other jurors were followed home? How many are being watched?”
“I can assure you, that will be part of the investigation by the US Marshals Service,” the judge said. “But, Mr. Haller, this reminds me—you made an alarming statement a few minutes ago about attempted bribery. Please tell me more.”
“Victor Wendt, the founder of Tidalwaiv, came to see me at my office yesterday,” I said.
“He was accompanied by both Mr. Masons but insisted on meeting me privately in my office while they waited outside. He had a briefcase with him and he showed me its contents. Two million dollars in cash. Hundred-dollar bills. He said it was mine if I convinced my client to take the last settlement offer proffered by the company. I said no.”
“Your Honor, this didn’t happen,” Marcus said. “He can’t prove any of that and he knows it.”
“Well, he might have knocked out my cameras to make it impossible to prove visually,” I said. “But, Judge, I would invite you to ask the Masons to confirm that they accompanied their client to my office yesterday.”
Ruhlin squinted at the Masons. Before she took me up on my suggestion, Marcus Mason spoke.
“Your Honor, Mr. Wendt may have met privately with plaintiff’s counsel, but that proves nothing,” he said. “He was, in fact, there to personally ask counsel to reconsider the offer to settle the case. There was no money, no bribe. That is pure invention by counsel.”
I waved off the statement and the entire argument. I knew this would go nowhere. It was time to move on. I had done what I could to throw shade on the actions of the defense team and their client.
The judge also knew it was time to move on.
“Gentlemen, you are excused,” she said. “I will see you Monday morning promptly at nine, when you will have my decisions. Good day.”
“Thank you, Judge,” I said.
The Masons said the same. As we filed out of chambers into the hallway leading back to the courtroom, we were silent. It felt more awkward than the times we had sniped at each other while returning to court.
The judge’s clerk passed us, heading the other way, obviously summoned to chambers by Ruhlin.
When we reached the courtroom, it was empty except for Cisco sitting in the first row of the gallery.
The Masons went through the gate and passed by him without so much as a glance in his direction. I stopped in front of him.
“So?” Cisco said.
I waited until the courtroom door closed behind the Masons.
“So, she’s going to ask the marshals to investigate,” I said. “They’ll want to talk to you.”
“No doubt,” Cisco said.
“Are you sure about what you said, about the burner not being traceable?”
“They’ll be able to tell what cell towers the messages came through. But that’s as close as they’ll ever get. Why, Mick?”
“Just curious.”
“Hey, Mick…”
“What?”
“I mean, I know what you did with Bamba up north. I figured that out. But this? I mean, the judge could’ve put me in jail.”
“Are you asking if I sent you—”
“No, never mind. I don’t want to know. Better that way.”
“How would I even know where that juror lives? This is them, Cisco. If not the Masons, then Tidalwaiv and Victor Wendt’s team.
Wendt tried to bribe me yesterday. He’s desperate, and this thing with the juror?
That has desperation written all over it.
I think they know Whittaker is going to blow their case up and they’re doing whatever they can to end this by settlement or mistrial. ”
Cisco nodded as he followed the logic of my words.
“You’re right. Never mind what I said.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “You can head home now.”
“Wait, what about the juror? In or out?”
“We’ll find out Monday. But I think the judge will keep her. She doesn’t seem interested in doing the Mason boys any favors at the moment.”
“That’s good.”
I nodded as Cisco stood up to leave.
“We’ll see what happens Monday,” I said. “Have a good weekend. Call me if anything comes up.”
“Yeah, Mick, you do the same.”
Cisco headed to the courtroom door. When he got there he turned around and saw that I had not moved from the railing that divided the gallery from the lawyer tables and the judge’s bench.
“You coming?” he asked.
“You go ahead,” I said. “I’m going to hang out for a few minutes.”
“Have a good one.”
“Yeah.”
Once Cisco was gone, I walked back through the gate and stood in front of the empty jury box.
It was the proving ground where I would make my final stand in the case.
I faced the two rows of leather seats in the box.
There was a time in my life when I believed this was sacred ground.
But now it seemed that nothing was sacred anymore.
Not the rule of law, and not those who practiced it.