The Judge

by Randy Singer

  “Love is an emotion,” Ando replied. “We must lose every emotion.” Finney had to hand it to the man—he didn’t blink when it came to defending traditional Buddhism. “Attachment to other individuals means embracing a lie. We end up showering our family with material expressions of our attachments and we ‘spoil’ our children, as you would say in the West. But the Buddha said, ‘I have killed all of you before. I have been chopped up by all of you in previous lives. We have all killed each other as enemies. So why should we be attached to each other?’”

  Finney smiled. “So you may have chopped me up in a prior life, Dr. Ando?”

  “The more surprising thing,” the witness said without returning the smile, “is that we may have been friends. Perhaps family members. Perhaps I was your family pet.”

  Finney didn’t miss the implication. Perhaps Ando had been reincarnated into a higher form, whereas Finney was stuck or regressing on his march toward nirvana. Oh, well, if Buddhism was true, Finney would probably be a cockroach in the next life after this cross-examination.

  “Sounds a little like the story about the monk named Katayana,” Finney said. He thought he detected a brief flicker of surprise shoot across Ando’s face. Finney had done his homework.

  “Yes. That story illustrates my point.”

  “Please share it with us, Dr. Ando.”

  “The short form goes something like this. A monk named Katayana walked through a forest and saw a man, a woman, and a baby eating lunch. Katayana laughed at the scene before him, and when his disciples asked why, he told them. ‘They’re eating a fish they caught from the lake,’ Katayana said. ‘In a former life, that fish was the grandfather. The dog who is now barking for the fish was the grandmother. The nursing baby in a former life was an enemy of the husband, a man the husband killed for attacking his wife.’”

  Ando paused and took a drink of water. “That may sound foolish to you, Judge Finney, but that is because you have a Western mind-set. We look at reality differently. You grew up in the most prosperous country on earth—you have never been truly hungry or seen a family member murdered. But in other parts of the world, people suffer greatly. My religion helps them detach from the things of this world and overcome that suffering.”

  Now who’s giving the speeches? Finney thought. “I appreciate the explanation, Dr. Ando, but I think the story speaks for itself.”

  “That it does.”

  Finney and the witness sparred for another half hour, with Finney spending most of his time on the concept of nirvana—the extinction of all personality. Javitts eventually interrupted, telling Finney he had one more minute.

  “So you’re saying that real enlightenment comes from realizing that our situation on earth is hopeless and we just need to detach from it?” Finney asked.

  Ando thought about the question for a moment and gave Finney a patient smile. It was almost as if the witness was waiting just long enough before starting his response so that Finney wouldn’t have time for a follow-up.

  “You ask excellent questions, Judge Finney, and as long as we keep asking these questions, we will find the truth. Your own King Solomon, one of the smartest men in the Jewish and Christian tradition, asked a lot of the same questions. He searched for the purpose of life. He tried everything—wealth, labor, women. In the end, what did he conclude?” Ando did not wait for Finney to answer. “‘Vanity of vanities . . . All is vanity.’ Material things did not satisfy. That’s why Buddha teaches nonattachment. Perhaps your Solomon was not so far from Buddha?”

  “Time is up,” Javitts said.

  “Didn’t Solomon conclude that book by saying we should fear God and keep His commandments?” Finney asked.

  “Time is up,” Javitts repeated.

  Finney frowned and reluctantly returned to the counsel table. When he did, Kareem leaned over and provided his assessment: “Not bad for an infidel.”

  “Not bad for which infidel?” Finney asked. “Me or him?”

  28

  Nikki double-checked the address and pulled her bright-red Sebring convertible into the drive. She expected a college dorm, maybe a frat house, or at least some college apartment. Instead, she got middle-class suburbia—a two-story vinyl-sided house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Chesapeake, Virginia.

  Nikki walked up to the front porch, smoothed her short leather skirt, and rang the bell.

  A middle-aged woman in knee-length shorts and a T-shirt cracked the door. She was tall and thin with curly brown hair and a forgettable face. She blocked a brown-and-white corgi with her foot. The dog looked like a fox that somebody had mistakenly fitted with Chihuahua legs.

  “Hi. I’m Nikki Moreno, law clerk for Judge Oliver Finney. I’m looking for Wellington Farnsworth.”

  “Corky!” the woman said, but it was too late. He was already jumping up on Nikki’s bare leg and licking. Nikki wanted to drop-kick the runt. Dogs were not her thing.

  “It’s okay,” she found herself saying. She squatted down, bending at the knees in a ladylike fashion, and reached out to pet him ever so gingerly with her left hand. This made the dog slobber more, his potent bursts of dog breath almost knocking Nikki over. She scratched his back for a few seconds, in order to pass herself off as a dog lover, and then stood.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “He loves people.” She reached down and dragged the dog by its collar back into the foyer. He ran into another room to grab a ball.

  “Wellington!” the woman yelled.

  “Who is it?” came a shout from upstairs.

  “Someone from Judge Finney’s office.”

  The corgi was back with a slimy plastic ball in his mouth. He dropped it at Nikki’s feet. Fat chance.

  The woman picked it up and threw it, sending the dog scampering. A few seconds later, Wellington came clumping down the stairs.

  Nikki’s first thought was that she must be getting old. This kid looked way too young for college. If it hadn’t been for a trace of acne, he could have passed for an oversize middle schooler.

  Wellington was big—about six feet two inches or so, Nikki would guess—and chunky, with a round baby face and curly brown hair he must have gotten from his mom. It didn’t look like a razor had ever grazed the boy’s skin. He wore dress shorts that were a size too small—halfway up the thighs and tight—together with a tucked-in button-down shirt and white socks that covered his calves.

  Nikki had been expecting a Pierce Brosnan–style James Bond. Instead, she got Napoleon Dynamite with a Twinkies fetish.

  There were now four of them in the foyer since Corky had returned with his disgusting ball. It looked like Mom planned to stick around too.

  Nikki stuck out her hand. “I’m Nikki Moreno, law clerk to Judge Finney,” she said. “He asked me to talk with you in private about a matter where he needs your help.” She knew she must have been overwhelming for the kid. This was Nikki Moreno dressed for the second Oliver Finney party—a tight knit aqua top, appropriately low cut, a black leather miniskirt, and color-coordinated sequined sandals with straps that wound provocatively up the ankles. No sense spending money on a pedicure if you weren’t going to draw a little attention to it.

  Wellington swallowed hard and shook Nikki’s hand. “More LSAT questions?”

  “Something like that.”

  Corky dropped the ball at Nikki’s feet and started pawing at her. Nikki waited a second, giving her hosts time to call this mutt off. Then she bent over and picked up the ball, using only the tips of her thumb and forefinger, and tossed it down the hallway. She wiped her fingers on her skirt.

  “Why don’t you use the dining room table?” Wellington’s mom suggested.

  After Nikki and Wellington settled in at the table, Nikki started asking questions right away. Though she had to pry it out of her painfully shy new partner, Nikki learned that Wellington was a seventeen-year-old whiz kid in his second year at Old Dominion University. He had been homeschooled and had graduated from high school at sixteen. He was now pursuing a m
ath major with an emphasis in differential equations and approximations theory. Whatever, Nikki thought.

  As they talked, Wellington’s mom and the dog competed for the prize of most annoying. Mrs. Farnsworth was a hoverer. She brought in iced tea. She checked to see if they needed anything. She busied herself in the kitchen, puttering around at a counter just on the other side of the dining room door.

  Meanwhile, the bothersome little Corky kept bringing his slimy plastic ball and placing it at Nikki’s feet. Wellington would reach down and throw it, but the dog would bring it back to Nikki. She ignored him until he started chewing on her sandal. She slyly slid her feet under the table . . . and gave him a swift kick.

  Above the table, she swore Wellington to secrecy and told him about Finney’s clandestine contact with her. She showed him a printout of Finney’s e-mail and noticed his eyes go wide as he read his own name. “There’s a code in there,” Nikki said proudly.

  “I know,” Wellington said. “The dates are a dead giveaway. I can’t believe Judge Finney used something this easy.”

  “Yeah,” Nikki said, clucking in agreement. Easy?

  “I can’t believe the show’s producers didn’t catch this one,” Wellington said.

  “Me, either,” Nikki said, though she felt out of her league with a guy who studied different kinds of equations and approximated theories.

  “Did you check Westlaw?” Wellington asked.

  “Yeah,” Nikki said just as Mrs. Farnsworth reappeared to fill their tea glasses.

  “You sure you don’t want anything to munch on?” she asked, sneaking a peek at the message on the table.

  “Nope,” Nikki said. She let silence fill the air until Mrs. Farnsworth took the hint and left.

  Nikki leaned forward. “Even your mom can’t know about this, Wellington. The judge said nobody but you.”

  “Okay.”

  Nikki brought out her second prized document. It was a printout of the words she had deciphered by applying the same code to the Westlaw search requests. She had double-checked her work and now watched as her new prized pupil studied it.

  change codes frequently use capital letters in search requests then solve using keys from my book each new search session use new key from next chapter starting with introduction for next message and so on

  “What book?” Wellington asked.

  Nikki lowered her voice so the eavesdropping ears of Mama Farnsworth wouldn’t hear. She gave Corky another not-so-gentle kick. “Finney wrote a book under a pen name. It’s called The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ. I don’t think anybody else knows about it. He told me once that he hid secret messages in that book.”

  Wellington smiled, his shyness dissolving as the task became clear. “Brilliant,” he said. “Judge Finney wants to send secure encrypted messages, so he references a key source that only you will know. The key never changes hands and therefore can’t be compromised. The encryption method changes with every message and therefore can’t be deciphered—even if they figure out that encrypted messages are being sent.” Wellington shook his head in amazement and approval. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

  What?

  He must have noticed the look on Nikki’s face. “I mean a good kind of ridiculous.”

  “Yeah,” Nikki said. “It is ridiculous.”

  Nikki had to get going; she was already late for her own Judge Finney party. She had mixed emotions about dragging Wellington along. On the one hand, he would severely cramp her style—it wasn’t exactly like appearing on the arm of Brad Pitt. On the other hand, she needed to get him away from Mama Farnsworth so they could talk more freely. Also, she wanted him around if Finney sent another set of Westlaw messages tonight.

  Against her better judgment, she ended up inviting Wellington to the party, confident she could sneak him into the bar despite his youthful looks. She needed him to explain the keys in Finney’s book, and then they could check Westlaw afterward to see if there were any new messages. When she asked him, Wellington looked like he had mixed emotions—perhaps torn between this intriguing new mission and his fear of meeting people he didn’t know. To help the kid make up his mind, Nikki pulled her legs out from under the table and strategically crossed them. “I could really use your help.”

  “Mom,” Wellington called out, “I’ve got to help Ms. Moreno on some things for Judge Finney. It’s kind of confidential, but we’ve got to get started tonight.”

  Ms. Moreno? She’d have to break the kid of that habit.

  Mrs. Farnsworth immediately appeared at the doorway, shooting a disapproving look toward the Moreno legs. “Can’t you do it here?” she asked.

  “No, we really can’t,” Nikki said.

  Wellington ended up promising his mom he’d be back by midnight.

  Mrs. Farnsworth let him borrow the keys to the minivan. He and Nikki exchanged cell numbers in case they got separated.

  “I’ll wait here while you throw on some jeans,” Nikki said. If this guy was such a code expert, he could certainly catch that hint. She would have to work on the shirt next time.

  “Okay,” Wellington said, heading upstairs to change.

  When he came back down, he had his laptop tucked under his arm. Nikki didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t that kind of party.

  29

  Right after dinner, Finney slipped back to his condo and sat down at the keyboard. He logged on to Westlaw and stared at the screen. This would be so much easier if he could write a few things down. But the camera recorded every move and he couldn’t take that chance.

  He racked his brain to think of search requests that would fit the encryption pattern for the code contained in the introduction to The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ. Everything that crossed his mind was too obvious. Today he had cross-examined Ando. Tomorrow it would be Finney’s turn to be grilled by Kareem. Finney needed to think of search requests that made it look like he was getting ready for Kareem’s questions.

  He finally settled on a few simple searches, though he knew Nikki Moreno would not be happy.

  da (after 1/1/03) Hearsay and “Proof of Resurrection” and “firsthand Knowledge”

  He received a response from Westlaw that said no documents satisfied his request, but he thought it at least looked legitimate. His next request read:

  da (after 1/1/02) Resurrection and Muslim and “Generally held beliefs”

  This search generated a whole slew of documents, and Finney took his time reviewing them. Then he typed in one final search:

  da (after 1/1/00) Islam and “Lebanese sects”

  He reviewed the one newspaper article that surfaced and shook his head. He should have thought of this earlier. He could hear Nikki now.

  Nikki arrived at the Waterside parking lot after a painfully slow trip from the Chesapeake suburbs. Wellington Farnsworth might be the world’s greatest code geek, but he clearly had a thing or two to learn about driving if he intended to keep up with Nikki Moreno. Twice she had to pull the Sebring over and wait after sneaking through a yellowish-reddish light that Wellington refused to run. She tried to reach him on his cell phone so she could tell him to pick it up a little, but she ended up in his voice mail. On the interstate she finally gave up and puttered along in the right lane with the grandmas and accountants so Wellington wouldn’t disappear from her rearview mirror.

  By the time they hit the parking deck, it was nearly 9:00 p.m. Nikki had been working her cell phone furiously, making sure the collection buckets would be sitting at the door of Norfolk’s Finest Sports Bar.

  Nikki squeezed into a spot with her Sebring and watched Wellington take forever to park the minivan. Forward and back three times before he finally got it straightened out. He emerged from the vehicle with his trusty laptop under his arm.

  “You won’t need that until later,” Nikki said. “We’ll check for messages after the show.”

  Wellington put the laptop back in the van and pushed the automatic lock on the key chain twice. Each
time, the van responded with an obedient beep.

  Nikki gave Wellington the dog-eared copy of The Cross Examination of Jesus Christ she had lifted from Finney’s office. “Don’t lose this,” she said. “I ordered another book online, but right now it’s the only copy we’ve got.”

  Wellington took the book gingerly, his round eyes wide, as if he were holding some ancient Egyptian treasure. He opened it to the introduction.

  “Not now,” Nikki said as she started toward the elevator in the parking garage. “We’re already running late.”

  In the elevator Nikki handed Wellington the second piece of the puzzle: a folded sheet of paper with a series of random letters written on it.

  “I pulled these from the first page of the introduction,” Nikki explained. “Finney tried to hide them in the interior design of the book—you’ll see what I mean. They’re somewhat obscure, but I found them.” She took a second to bask in her accomplishment before having to admit her failure. “But I couldn’t find the key anywhere in the introduction. Seems like we’re missing the secret decoder ring.”

  Wellington took the paper and stared at it. The bell rang and they disembarked from the elevator. Wellington walked slowly, his eyes glued to the letters Nikki had recorded:

  YOVHHVWZIVGSVXLWVYIVZPVIHULIGSVB

  HSZOOFMWVIHGZMWGSVNBHGVIRVH

  “C’mon,” Nikki said, picking up the pace. “You’ll have time to analyze that inside.” She watched Wellington tuck the paper inside the book as they crossed the street.

  “I can probably solve it without a key,” Wellington said matter-of-factly. “I think that’s the whole point.”

  “Yeah,” Nikki said. “I tried that too.” She tried not to sound defensive. But how could anyone solve that list of garbled letters without a key?

  “By the way,” she said, “you might want to make sure your cell phone is on. I tried to call a couple times but kept getting your voice mail.”

  “I know,” Wellington said. “Sorry about that, but I don’t use my cell phone while I’m driving, and I didn’t want to pull over and lose you.”