The Judge

by Randy Singer

  Wellington thought about this for a minute. “How did you know about the atbash cipher in the first place?”

  Nikki explained, as briefly as possible, about her conversation with the judge after the Stokes hearing. This put Wellington even deeper in thought, as if Nikki had simply ceased to exist.

  “Well?” she asked at last. Being invisible was not one of her strong suits.

  “I think reading the book might act as kind of a shortcut for deciphering the code,” Wellington said. “It might help me know what Judge Finney was thinking when he wrote the chapter in question.”

  Nikki could see where this was headed and wasn’t excited about the idea of parting with her one copy of the book. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Think about it, Ms. Moreno.”

  She withered him with a look.

  “Nikki, I mean. The atbash cipher was a religious cipher used by Old Testament scribes. Have you ever read the introduction to the book?”

  Nikki shrugged. “Sort of skimmed it.”

  “Well, I read the introduction last night during the party. The book is about how the lawyers and scribes cross-examined Jesus and, of course, His ultimate cross-examination by Pilate as well. It shows how Jesus turned their hostile questions into opportunities to teach or minister.”

  “I figured that much from the title.”

  “The point Finney made in the introduction is that he discovered a lot of himself in the Pharisees, particularly in the questioning and cynicism that characterized them. He said, ‘To become more like Christ, I first had to understand how much I was already like the scribes and Pharisees.’ Or something like that. In other words, this concept that Finney is unpacking in the introduction is counterintuitive, exactly the opposite of what you might expect.”

  “Like A being Z and Z being A,” Nikki interrupted, finishing the thought.

  “Exactly. And it seems to me that the key to understanding some of these codes might just be to read the book.” He glanced furtively at the book on the table. “I can run my frequency analysis techniques, but that might take a few hours. It might save us time if I just read chapter 1.”

  Nikki found it hard to argue with Wellington’s logic—no surprise there—so she reluctantly left the book with him and told him she would call in a couple of hours. By tomorrow, her new Cross Examination book would probably arrive. She had already called several local bookstores, but they no longer stocked it.

  Somehow, though, she would have to teach Wellington a thing or two about priorities. What was he doing going to class when there were codes to be solved?

  Two hours later Nikki received the phone call while sitting in her small office adjacent to Judge Finney’s chambers. Wellington’s name showed up on caller ID, so Nikki answered in an appropriately secretive tone—not quite a whisper, but almost. “Wellington?”

  “I solved the code, Ms. Moreno.”

  Nikki ground her teeth. For a genius, this guy sure was slow at certain things. “Great,” she said. “But it’s Nikki, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, sorry. Do you want to meet?”

  Nikki thought about the prospects of driving a half hour to Starbucks. What if it was another one of those Skip chapter one–type messages? And what was the likelihood of someone’s tapping her cell phone, anyway?

  “I don’t think we need to, Wellington,” Nikki said. “Nobody’s listening to this phone. You can just give me the message.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Just a few seconds ago, Nikki had plugged her credit card number into an Internet site, and for all she knew, some hacker might be accessing it right now. She was getting ready to do it again. Life was full of risks. “Yes, Wellington, I’m sure.”

  “All right.” She could hear the sigh coming through the phone line. These cipher guys sure were paranoid. “But don’t you want to hear how I solved chapter 1?”

  Not really, Nikki thought, but she knew she couldn’t tell Wellington that. “Of course.”

  “Well, I assumed maybe it was another substitution cipher, so I started with a standard frequency analysis—checking out individual letters, digraphs, and trigraphs.” His tone conveyed the excitement of a morning deejay. “One thing that stood out was the letter combination S-A, which was used four times. Well, I naturally suspected that those letters represented T-H, since that combination is by far the most commonly occurring digraph in the English language.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Since the code started with the letters S-A-N, and I knew that S-A stood for T-H, I followed a hunch that N represented E, since a lot of sentences start with the. Another reason this made sense is because the code letter N also happened to be adjacent to more letters than any other code letter—behavior absolutely consistent with the most popular and sociable vowel.”

  “Mmm,” Nikki grunted, showing her enthusiasm. She was distracted by the jean styles she was now checking out on the Internet.

  “After I had those three letters, I used what’s called a crib. Since the first chapter is all about the cross-examination of Jesus before Pontius Pilate, I guessed that the message might have the name of Jesus in it. I already knew that N stood for the E in Jesus. And of course, the word Jesus uses the letter S twice—immediately following the E and again three spaces after the E. So I looked in the code text for a place where the same letter immediately followed the N and occurred again three letters after the N.”

  “I see.” She had her eye on the low-cut Duchesse stretch denim jeans with a cool pink pocket embroidery and a light-blue vintage wash that made them look old as dirt.

  “Sure enough, I found the word Jesus. And so now I knew all the letters in that word as well as T and H. From there, it was just a matter of time and a few educated guesses.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Sixty-eight bucks. She ought to be able to do better than that.

  “Chapter 1 of Finney’s book is all about how Jesus maintained incredible dignity and grace in front of Pilate and how He answered through His actions the ultimate question that troubled Pilate: What is truth? So when you solve the code, the hidden message in chapter 1 of Finney’s book says this: ‘The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’”

  Nikki clicked to add the jeans to her cart. You couldn’t stress out over price when you found exactly the jeans you’re looking for.

  “Still there?” Wellington asked.

  “Yeah, sure. Good work, Sherlock. Listen, I’ve got about a million things going on this afternoon, so why don’t you just go ahead and give me Finney’s new message so we can figure out what to do next.”

  “Okay,” Wellington said. “But one more thing first . . . and this is the coolest part of all.”

  Nikki bit her tongue. Hard.

  “A lot of cryptologists use a key phrase when they’re doing a substitution cipher so they can remember how they did the substitution without having to write it down. That way, the cipher alphabet is the key phrase first and then the remaining letters of the alphabet in their correct order, starting where the key phrase ends. Are you on your computer?”

  How does he know? “Um, sure.”

  “Good, check your e-mail.”

  Nikki pulled up an e-mail from Wellington.

  “I figured even if they happened to be listening, they wouldn’t have access to your e-mail as well,” Wellington continued. “Check out the key phrase our friend used at the start of the cipher alphabet.”

  Nikki glanced at the simple table in the message Wellington had sent. “Very clever,” she said.

  “Just in case you had any doubt who wrote the book,” Wellington said.

  “Sounds like the judge had too much time on his hands,” Nikki replied, “which is certainly not true of me right now. So what’s the message in Finney’s Westlaw searches using this key?”

  “You want me to say it over the phone?” Wellington asked. “That’s why I sent you the key, so you could figure it out.”

  “Okay.” Nikki star
ted working through the letters one at a time. “Hold on.” Let’s see. F is the first capital letter in Finney’s Westlaw search, so that would actually be C. A is the second letter, so that would actually be H. Or is it the other way around?

  “This is insane,” Nikki concluded after a few minutes. “Why don’t you just tell me Finney’s message?”

  “Are you sure?”

  Nikki grunted. “Do the words Black Gangster Disciples and cat’s got my tongue mean anything to you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind, Wellington. Just read me the message.”

  “Okay. Here’s what Finney’s message says: ‘Check ties between Murphy, McCormack, and Javitts and my speedy-trial cases.’”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Do you know what he’s talking about when he says ‘speedy-trial cases’?”

  “Not yet,” Nikki said. “But I’ve got ways of finding out.”

  36

  The two cameramen who joined the nightly card game with Finney and the Swami were a regular Mutt-and-Jeff combination. Finney thought the taller of the two, a hairy European named Augustus, was the more dangerous card player. Gus had that deadly quiet thing going, along with a dry wit that always made you wonder whether he was serious or kidding. During off-hours, he was fond of displaying his hairy and wiry body at the beach in his classic-cut European Speedo. He competed with the Swami for having the island’s darkest tan, with his hairy back and chest giving him a natural advantage.

  His cohort, all five feet eight inches and 210 pounds of him, was a talkative guy named Horace, who smeared on SPF 30 sunblock and managed to stay pasty white even on Paradise Island. Horace sported a thick mustache and rounded shoulders that came in handy for shielding his cards from the prying eyes of the other players, though nobody had to peek at Horace’s cards to take his money. Every time he bluffed, Horace’s balding head would turn a shade of red, the exact hue depending on how much was at stake. He hadn’t won a big pot in two days.

  The first night they played—Wednesday night—the men had painstakingly avoided any talk about the show or the challenges facing the contestants. Last night, Mutt and Jeff had brought their own drinks, chips, and dip. The conversation flowed as freely as the beer being consumed by the cameramen. Halfway through the night, they were making fun of all the contestants except Finney and the Swami. By the end of the night, there were no exceptions.

  On this night, the third straight poker night, the conversation centered on women and the upcoming challenges for the contestants. With regard to women, the Swami was the only player who rated Tammy Dietz ahead of Dr. Kline for looks. In fact, he seemed so adamant about it that Finney took special note. Regarding challenges, they talked a little about the next two courtroom challenges and a lot about the upcoming psychological challenge.

  “No offense, Judge O,” the Swami said, “but that one will come down to me or the mini-Buddha. Eastern religions know how to meditate and transcend.”

  On camera, Tammy had described the particulars of the upcoming Chinese water torture. Next Wednesday morning, the contestants would be shackled into a reclining chair; then water would be dripped onto each contestant’s forehead until he or she called it quits. A clinical psychologist would be on hand to continuously evaluate the contestants. Blood pressure and heart rate would be monitored. The last holdout would win one of the fifty-thousand-dollar verdicts for their charities. If more than one contestant was still in his or her chair after twenty-four hours, then the one with the fewest physiological signs of stress would win.

  “It’s basically what I go through every day in court,” Finney said. “I’ll be ready.”

  He coughed and grimaced, his chest aching as he hacked away. By now, his card buddies were used to it, hardly noticing as Finney coughed phlegm into a paper cup he kept by his side during the game. Lately, Finney had felt like he was coughing underwater, drowning by small increments with every breath he took. It was the beginning of fluid on the lungs, he realized—the final stages of his cancer.

  “Don’t they have allergy medicine for that?” Gus asked.

  When they decided to call it quits, Horace withdrew a folded piece of paper from his pocket and wrote each of their names on it. No money had actually changed hands in the last few nights; they merely kept a running total so they could settle up at week’s end.

  “Don’t we already have a tally sheet someplace?” the Swami asked.

  “Yeah, it’s on the kitchen counter, I think,” Finney said.

  Horace quickly wrote the night’s results on the folded paper he had in his hand. “Here,” he said as he handed it to Finney. “Add it to the other totals.”

  On the way out, Horace leaned over and whispered in Finney’s ear. “Check the other side of the score sheet.”

  A few minutes later, Finney took the paper into the bathroom with him, away from the prying cameras. He unfolded the paper and looked at the opposite side. It contained a photograph of Bryce McCormack and Dr. Kline holding each other close in the dark on McCormack’s patio.

  My new friend wants me to know, Finney thought. Finney might have lost money tonight, but the card games were paying off. Alliances were being forged on Paradise Island.

  37

  Saturday morning started with the religious rituals of the contestants: Kareem with his loud prayers. The Swami practicing yoga while Finney sat reading Scripture in a beach chair near him. Dr. Ando meditating inside someplace. The Swami had responded with a signature shrug to Finney’s decision to suspend his yoga exercises. “Whatever works for you, Judge O. But you’ve got to give it more than a few days to get any benefit.”

  When Victoria Kline finished her run, she and Finney enjoyed a relaxing sail around the bay. Today the sun burned bright in a cloudless eastern sky, yesterday’s thunderstorms a distant memory. After sailing, Finney decided to add a couple of laps of walking around the premises to clear his head. After one, he decided his head would clear just fine in a lounge chair next to the ocean.

  He still had more than an hour before he had to be in court. He took off his shirt and lay back on the lounger, pulling his hat down over his eyes. He listened to the gentle rhythm of the ocean, smelled the salt water, and tried to sort things out.

  Finney was a visual guy. He needed a yellow legal pad with a line down the middle and little boxes drawn on the page around important facts. But here, on Paradise Island, the cameras recorded everything except the thoughts in your head. So Finney had to sort this all out in the catacombs of his mind, building block by building block, solving this reality show like a complex encryption.

  What did he know for sure? Whom could he trust? Were some seriously bad things going to happen, or was this all just part of the reality show hype?

  One thing he knew for certain: this was not the reality show he had signed up for.

  The producers seemed to push everything to the edge and beyond—the lie detector test, the cross-examination about his speedy-trial cases, the upcoming Chinese water torture, and the way they exploited the terminal diseases of the contestants. The one thing that Tammy had promised on camera, but that Finney had not yet faced, was temptation. What did the show’s producers have in mind? What could they possibly tempt Finney with, especially knowing he would be on his guard against it?

  And then a thought hit him. Maybe they weren’t going to tempt him while his guard was up. Maybe they had already done it. They had already demonstrated that they knew a lot about Finney’s past. Who could say that they had limited the show to the confines of Paradise Island?

  Finney thought about one rather bizarre temptation that came his way shortly before he left for the show. William Lassiter, a representative from the governor’s office, had presented Finney with a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Could it have all been staged? There was one way to find out. Nikki. Finney’s own “windtalker.”

  It was becoming clear to Finney that this show would not be won or lost in the courtroom. He could only gu
ess at some of the other stunts the producers would throw his way in the days ahead.

  But it was quite a leap from staging those kinds of reality show gimmicks to physically harming one of the participants. Could Dr. Kline be playing mind games with him, trying to keep him from pushing for the finals?

  His instincts told him otherwise. Just this morning she had agreed to go back to Bryce McCormack’s condo one more time to troll for more information. Finney could tell from her body language that she didn’t relish the task. Plus, the picture Horace gave him seemed to confirm Kline’s story. Maybe, on the other hand, McCormack was playing mind games with Kline. It seemed unlikely, given the fact that the first piece of information gained by Victoria came when she overheard a conversation and McCormack didn’t know she was listening, but Finney supposed it was a possibility.

  Why would the producers seriously hurt or even kill one of the finalists? Finney knew that television shows lived and died with buzz. And what could generate more buzz than a freak accident—an “act of God”—happening to one of the contestants? Or maybe even a finalist dying an accelerated death from his or her terminal disease?

  Yet Finney had tried enough cases to know a thing or two about motive. And it didn’t seem as if a whole group of television executives would agree to kill somebody just for the sake of ratings. It could be that one or two executives hatched a plot, and McCormack found out about it surreptitiously. Still, murder for ratings didn’t seem plausible.

  Religion was another possible motive. Maybe Murphy or McCormack or one of the other higher-ups was sympathetic to a certain religion, and the fix was in. Game show rigging had happened before when a lot less was at stake. But it didn’t seem to Finney as if any of the bigwigs involved in filming this show were particularly religious people. And even if they were, they didn’t have to kill somebody in order for their religion to win.

  That’s why he kept coming back to the speedy-trial cases. A young woman dead—perhaps even a daughter or sister of somebody involved with the show. That would be a powerful motive to go after the judge whose negligence had allowed it to happen. Maybe one of the other speedy-trial defendants had done something equally reprehensible, and they purposefully didn’t show Finney a picture of that victim. There wouldn’t have to be a lot of people involved. It could be that just one person was targeting Finney, and somehow McCormack found out.