WE DIDN’T DRIVE BACK TO THE FARMHOUSE IMMEDIATELY. Maggie had reached Duke and arranged for us to meet both him and Gloria at Barker’s again. There was a possibility I might have to call Gloria to the stand. It would be a risky move, and I needed to get some idea of what she might say. Surprise testimony from your own witness is seldom a good thing. We met at Barker’s downstairs grill again. They seemed to like the ambience, especially since they were eating and drinking on my dollar.
I asked Gloria if she knew anything about David’s cousin, taking care not to disclose anything we had learned about his software during the trial.
She was on her second martini by now and more than willing to elaborate. “Oh, I bet he was trying to help his cousin Richard. Richie’s a good boy, but he got in with a bad crowd when he was a teenager. He got caught selling more than just a little weed and was sent to Angola. He’s out now, trying to turn his life around. You know, get a real job, be a good citizen and stay out of my father’s business. He’s got a nice girlfriend who’s encouraging him, but it isn’t easy. Having a record is a huge obstacle. His mother told me he’d asked David for help, but I don’t know what David could have done. I haven’t seen the boy in years. I should have visited him in prison, but I didn’t. Couldn’t face seeing him in a place like that.”
Everything Gloria had just told us would be considered hearsay and inadmissible, but at least she was willing to talk. I tried another way.
“What kind of witness do you think Richard would make?” I asked.
Gloria shook her head. “Like I said, Richie’s a good boy at heart, but he does have a temper. A guard gave him a shove when he was at Angola, and he lost his cool, knocked the guard out cold. His temper got him an extra six months in solitary. From what Duke’s told me about Duarte, she would eat him alive.”
Scratch Richard as a witness.
“Gloria, could you recognize David’s handwriting?”
She laughed. “Do I look like a mother who checks her son’s homework?”
Very funny. I waited in silence until she responded.
“Look, David and I talk, but we don’t write. Anyway, who writes? It’s all email now. The last time I saw his handwriting was probably when he sent me a Mother’s Day card years ago.”
I’d run into a dead end.
Duke asked how he could help, and I gave him a few ideas about how to get under Jordyn’s skin. I left Barker’s feeling totally frustrated.
Brian said he wanted to clean up some work at the office, so Clovis drove Maggie and me back to the farmhouse. We rode in silence for some time. I had almost dozed off when I realized Maggie was speaking to me.
“Okay, Jack. Don’t tell me you’re trying to sleep. What’s the matter?”
You’re usually full of yourself after the first day of a trial. You want to talk about what happened and what you expect to happen the next day. By the way, I thought you were brilliant today.” she said with a smile.
I couldn’t find a return smile, but I found I did want to talk after all.
“Thanks, Maggie. I appreciate your confidence, but we’re in a Catch-22 situation. The only way I can prove that David invented the software is to call him to the stand. But if I do, I waive his fifth amendment rights. He can say how and why he created the software, but he possibly faces a lifetime of criminal charges if he does. We still don’t know what the government is accusing him of doing, but if I let him take the stand, I am sure Duarte and Stanford will find a way for him to put himself in jeopardy. Gloria told me why he wanted to help his cousin, and now I have a good idea when he first had the idea that led to the software and his application. I’ve got to find a way to prove it without putting him on the stand.
“I have the perfect defense to the criminal charges, but the moment he testifies, it’s game over and he lives out his life in jail. If I had even fifteen minutes alone with him, I’m sure he would say that between keeping his software and a life in prison, he’d give up his software in a heartbeat.”
“That’s not a hard choice,” Maggie commented.
“No, it’s not. If I put him on the stand, I make the wrong choice for him. I’ve thought about seeking habeas, trying to get Moorman to delay the trial so I can think through this with David. But my gut tells me I have one chance to win both cases, and a delay will blow it. Besides, Moorman isn’t about to grant a delay. He doesn’t care a tinker’s damn about David. He’s made a deal with the devil and just wants this case to be over, preferably with his own skin intact.”
Maggie responded, “Jack, I trust your trial instincts more than anyone I know. This case and these issues are tough. You’ll find a way to win; of that I am certain.”
An oddly hoarse voice from the front seat commented “Ditto.” All three of us laughed, and I did my best to change the conversation to a more agreeable topic. But I couldn’t help thinking about David, alone in a jail cell wearing an orange jumpsuit.
We finally pulled into the driveway to the farmhouse, and I asked Clovis to find Royce and ask him to send me certified copies of Richard Ruple’s court papers. Everyone else was waiting for us in the great room. I explained to Stella and Rita what we now thought David’s software was supposed to do. Armed with new information, they returned to searching David’s box. Brian was hard at work drafting proposed jury instructions. Maggie and I settled down on the sofa with a glass of cabernet to work through a possible closing argument.
David’s note kept swirling in and out of my mind. Surely he knows whether his own software works.
We’d gone through the fourth iteration of my proposed closing argument, when Rita suddenly ran into the room, clutching several small pieces of paper in her hand. She was out of breath, not from exertion, but from the excitement of her find.
“Look! I found it! I found David’s first scribblings about a software that limits access. I told you he used to sit at ball games and doodle. Well, this baseball scorecard is just that.”
She handed me a scorecard from a Phillies/Nats game last year. I must admit that my first thought was how could the Nats have won that game? The Phillies’ best pitcher… but the game faded from my brain when I noticed that beneath the smudges of ketchup and mustard someone had scribbled what every gamer would recognize as computer programming code. The scorecard was dated October 1, 2022. The Nats were awful last year, but on that day, they beat the Phillies 13-4. Garcia went three for five with five RBIs. I was at that game and remembered it well.
Stella followed Rita into the room, grinning from ear to ear. I raised the card and asked, “Is this the code we’ve been looking for?”
“It is. It’s the beginnings of the formula for the software that you described in court today. David must have come home that night and continued to work on it. We found more of his coding in the bottom of the box. Once we found the score card, we knew what we were looking for.”
“No doubt it’s his handwriting?”
“None. I’ve compared it to other samples. It’s his.”
But how could I get these documents into evidence? I could ask David, but again that was a non-starter for the same reason as before. We could put Rita on the stand but given her relationship with David that was not without risk. Another approach came to mind, and I whirled it around for a while. It was iffy, but it was all I had.
We split up into two teams. One prepared Rita to testify that she found the scorecard in David’s box, and that it was his handwriting. The second team worked on my idea. It was worth a try.
After two hours, I reassembled the two teams and ordered everyone to bed. Tomorrow would be a long day.
On the way to our rooms, I asked Maggie, “How did Rita do?”
“She’s scared, she’s in love, and Jordyn will eat her alive. She knows coding, but she’s fragile when it comes to David. I wouldn’t risk it, but it’s your call.”
I responded, “Problem is, she may be all we’ve got.”
