“Oh, I am so sorry,” Jordan said, dabbing at the table with her napkin. A moment later the flurry of activity had ceased and Jordan was again seated, a fresh glass of wine on the table in front of her. When she looked at Ted, he saw open fear in her eyes.
“What is it, Jordan?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
Jordan pushed her glass to one side and leaned forward. “I could go to prison for fifteen years,” she said.
Ted dropped his butter knife, sending it clattering against his bread plate and off the edge of the table.
The waiter looked over. Jordan smiled pleasantly at him and waved to indicate everything was fine.
Now Ted leaned forward. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I leaked Michael Dency’s medical report to Christina Ferragamo,” she whispered. “There’s a whole task force sweeping the city to find out who did it. And somebody’s been reading my files.”
Ted stared at her in confusion. “What?” he asked finally.
Jordan put her head in her hands. “I leaked Michael Dency’s medical report. The suspect who was arrested after the second murder.” Jordan sat up again and took a deep breath. “Michael Dency had just confessed to that murder and the Maria Sanders murder,” she said quietly. “One of the police officers involved in the arrest came to see me. He had a file of papers with him, the police still do everything on paper. I asked him about the confession and it seemed like his answers were—I don’t know what it was, something just didn’t seem quite right about it.” Jordan’s face was pale. “Well, at one point the officer left to go to the bathroom and I decided to look through that folder of papers. And that’s when I saw the medical report. God, it was so clear. It was so clear what had happened. He confessed to two murders but not until the police had beaten him nearly to death. I was sick.” She swallowed hard.
“All right, Jordan, calm down,” Ted said. He reached both arms across the table and took her hands. They were warm. “How could anybody possibly trace that to you?” he asked. “Did you just make one copy of it for Christina Ferragamo?”
Jordan nodded. “I scanned it into my computer,” she said. “I put it in my confidential files folder, where it wouldn’t be accessible to the rest of the network. Then later I printed one copy for Christina, and then I deleted it from the computer.”
Ted squeezed her hands. “Well, if you deleted it, it’s not there for anyone to find on your computer, is it?”
“I don’t think so,” Jordan said. “Not unless they can read deleted files.”
“Probably not,” Ted said uncertainly. “When you sent the copy to Christina Ferragamo, did you create a cover letter?”
“I hand-wrote the cover letter,” Jordan said.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Ted said. There was that oddly reassuring tone again, as if she were locked in a tower and he had arrived to slay the dragon guarding it. “If there really is a task force sweeping the city to find out who leaked the medical report, they may have looked at everybody’s computers. That doesn’t mean they found anything.”
Jordan’s wireless rang. She jumped in her chair.
The wireless rang a second time, then a third. Jordan took it out of her pocket and looked at it warily.
“Go ahead, answer it,” Ted said.
Jordan clicked the button. “Jordan Rainsborough,” she said in her businesslike tone.
“Ms. Rainsborough, how are you this evening?” Ted could hear the unmistakable boom of Dobson Howe all the way across the table.
“Hello, Mr. Howe,” she said, “I’m just fine, thanks. How are you?”
“Quite well, thank you. I wonder if I might impose on a moment of your time.”
“Well, certainly, Mr. Howe,” she said. “How can I be of assistance?”
Howe cleared his throat. “It’s a somewhat delicate matter,” he said, “Something I’d rather not discuss over the telephone. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow at my office.”
“I’d rather not come to your office.” Jordan’s voice sounded nervous.
“I understand,” Howe said. He suggested a Mexican restaurant about five miles from the courthouse complex. Jordan agreed, and they set the meeting for 6:00 p.m. She pressed a button on the wireless and slipped it back in her pocket.
“What was that about?” Ted asked.
“He wants to discuss a delicate matter with me.”
“Oh,” Ted said.
“I think I ought to stay on good terms with defense lawyers,” Jordan said.
The bar at Ricardo’s was crowded and noisy. A dozen television monitors were all tuned to a basketball game. Jordan glanced around the bar, did not see Howe, and walked over to a young man standing behind a brightly-painted podium.
“Excuse me,” she said. The young man looked up at Jordan and his jaw dropped. Jordan smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. He looked barely twenty years old and he was staring at her as if she were standing naked in front of him.
“Sure,” she said mischievously, “You think that, but you won’t call.”
The young man was speechless.
“I’m meeting someone here,” Jordan said. “Have you seated a Mr. Howe?”
The young man struggled to take his eyes off Jordan and look at the reservation book open in front of him. “Yes,” he said. “Right this way.”
He led her through two rooms and into a third, where Dobson Howe was seated in a corner booth, studying a menu. Howe stood up when he saw her.
“Ms. Rainsborough, thank you for coming,” he said quietly.
Jordan shook his hand. “Certainly,” she said. She slid into the booth, which was too soft and too low. Seated there across from that imposing figure, she felt seven years old.
Howe filled time with polite small talk until they had ordered dinner. Then he got down to it.
“I have it on good authority,” Howe said in a low voice, “that you are not as happy as you might be over at the D.A.’s office.”
Jordan was startled. She placed her glass of iced lemon grass tea back on the table. “What?” she asked.
“Since the Robert Rand trial,” Howe continued, “word has reached me that you have been upset, quite rightfully, with the outcomes of some of these cases.”
Jordan studied Howe’s face. Did he know about the Dency medical report? Was he blackmailing her? She considered asking him straight out who had been talking about her and thought better of it. Carefully, she picked up her glass and took a sip.
“Ms. Rainsborough,” he said kindly, “I know the difficult situation in which you find yourself. You are not alone. I am going to lead an effort to return sanity to our legal system.”
Jordan said nothing.
Howe continued. “It is my belief that a well-orchestrated campaign of public information will persuade the electorate that the 37th Amendment must be repealed. This is no longer a matter for law review articles and judicial conferences. It must reach the public. This will involve daily press briefings and an intensive schedule of media interviews.”
Jordan looked at him in disbelief. “Mr. Howe, I can’t give interviews about my employer.”
“No, no, no,” Howe said. “I will give the interviews.”
Jordan leaned back and was silent.
“I assure you,” Howe continued. “I am not asking for your public endorsement. I am not asking for your public participation in any way.” He paused. She waited. He watched her face. “I am seeking information,” he said finally.
“Information,” she repeated. “What kind of information?”
Howe leaned forward and spoke in a very quiet voice. “The kind of information that moves public opinion,” he said. “The names of people whom you know to have been wrongly convicted. People with family members who will go on television and draw instant public sympathy.”
“Just names?” Jordan asked.
Howe smiled. “Well,” he said, “Perhaps a bit more. There is a credibility issue to address. Family members would
be expected to declare the innocence of their loved ones. They won’t be persuasive unless they are supported by documentary evidence.”
Jordan was silent.
“Ms. Rainsborough, the integrity of the criminal justice system is at stake here. We cannot continue to convict people of crimes they did not commit and tell ourselves it’s the price of a civilized society.”
Jordan sipped her tea. “What are you asking me to do, exactly?”
“I’m asking you to take a significant risk. I know that. I wouldn’t ask this of you if I thought there was another way.” He paused. “I need proof,” he said. “I know there are people you believe to have been wrongly arrested, prosecuted and convicted. I believe you can acquire the documents that prove it. I need your help to get this information out to the public.”
Jordan looked straight at Howe, her clear blue eyes unblinking. “That would be a felony, Mr. Howe,” she said firmly. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
Ted was in line at the drive-through of his favorite burger place when his wireless rang. “Yeah?” he answered.
“I want to scramble this call, okay?” It was Jordan. Ted keyed a series of numbers into his wireless and after a moment it responded with a long beep. “Thanks,” Jordan said. “You’re not going to believe this. Dobson Howe wants me to pull documents out of the files and leak them to him.”
A horn sounded behind Ted and he inched the car forward. “Do you think he’s heard something?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Jordan answered. “He didn’t mention the Dency medical report. But he said he heard I wasn’t happy with the way the D.A.’s office was handling some of these cases.”
“Sounds like somebody knows something.”
“Oh, Ted! What if they know it was me? I could go to prison for fifteen years!”
“They can’t possibly know it was you,” Ted said.
His tone seemed to calm Jordan. “You’re right,” she said. “I know you’re right. That leak can’t be traced to me. Even if they check my computer for records of all the documents I accessed, they won’t find any trace of anything about that medical report.”
Somewhere inside Ted’s brain, a light went on.
“May I take your order?” A scratchy voice came spitting out of a red speaker on a post as Ted reached the drive-through’s menu board. “Give me a number three and a chocolate shake,” he said automatically.
“What?” Jordan asked.
“Nothing, I’m ordering dinner.”
“What?” the scratchy voice asked.
“Nothing, that’s it.” Ted pulled forward. “Jordan, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.
“So he wanted you to leak documents to him?”
“Yes. He said he wants to lead a campaign to repeal the 37th Amendment and he needs documentary evidence of wrongful convictions.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I couldn’t do it and I got out of there as fast as I could. I just pray no one saw me with him.”
Ted shoved some cash at the employee behind the drive-through window. “Why?” he asked.
“Because he’s trying to bring back due process,” Jordan said. “I wish I could help him but it would be career suicide for an assistant district attorney to be connected with that. Assuming I haven’t already committed career suicide by going to prison.”
“Jordan, you’re not going to prison,” Ted said. “Give me a day and I’ll have the answer for you.”
“The answer to what?” she asked.
“Give me a day,” Ted repeated. He clicked the phone off and sped out of the drive-through, where a confused young woman was waving a paper bag out the window and yelling after him.
Thirty minutes later, dressed for an evening out and carrying two dozen red roses, Ted rang the doorbell at Julia’s house.
He was on his knees when she opened the door. “I know you can never forgive me,” he said. “Have dinner with me anyway.”
Ted was smiling at Julia as the waiter brought two crab cake appetizers and gracefully set them down on the table. “Mmm, that looks wonderful,” Julia said.
“No, you look wonderful,” Ted answered.
Julia looked up in surprise. “Thank you,” she said. Then she resumed her story about the malfunctioning cash register at the mall.
Ted smiled and nodded. At least the crab cakes were good, he thought, and why not, at a price that could have included one-way airfare from Maryland.
They were halfway through their entrees when Julia’s chatter subsided. “So,” she asked, “How are things at work?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” Ted said. “In fact, we were discussing something today that’s right up your alley. We were trying to figure out if it’s possible to copy documents from a secure network without leaving any kind of a record that you’ve done it.”
“Oh, there’s always a way,” Julia said.
“Really?” Ted asked, “Even when there are a lot of different security measures and passwords and all that?”
Julia smiled. “Have you ever seen a magic act?” she asked. “Did you ever see a magician climb into a box, and then see the assistants close it, and wrap it in chains, and put big steel padlocks on it? How could anyone escape, right? I mean, you see the chains, and they’re real, and you see the locks, and they’re real. How can the magician possibly escape? Well, guess what? All the chains and locks in the world don’t matter if the magician isn’t in the box.”
Ted was listening intently.
“Every organization has to be prepared in case of a catastrophic data loss,” Julia explained. “All the data must be backed up every night. And of course, there should always be a second back-up that’s stored off the premises in case of a fire or a natural disaster. Because if everything’s in the same location, the same disaster that destroys your computer system would also destroy your back-up.”
Ted’s eyes were lit up.
“So if somebody wanted to steal documents from an organization, the easiest way is to steal them from the off-premises back-up. I mean, it’s not easy, and it’s totally illegal, but it can be done.”
“But what about the passwords and the security features?” Ted asked.
“Back-up software copies everything,” Julia said. “It ignores passwords and all the rest of it. The whole idea of a back-up is to restore absolutely everything that was on the system before the loss.”
“That’s amazing,” Ted said. “Where do they do this kind of thing?”
“The back-ups?” Julia asked. “There’s one place in Camarillo that’s very big, and another one in Ojai. There are probably five companies that do this. We’ve used them all at one time or another.”
“Okay,” Ted said. “Enough about work. Flynn’s at her mom’s tonight. Let’s go back to my place.”
Julia beamed at him. “Okay,” she said.
Julia’s creamy skin was flushed with color as Ted idly ran his left hand over her breasts. She was stretched out on her back on the rug in front of the fireplace. Ted, lying on his right side, had the full length of his body pressed up against her. Their discarded clothes formed a trail that led from the living room all the way upstairs to the front door.
Ted moved his hand gently down over Julia’s flat stomach, then down the inside of her thigh, then slowly up. Julia moaned as Ted rocked his hand slowly back and forth, slipping a finger gently upward. Through the windows, the lights of Hollywood sparkled like a spilled load of diamonds.
Ted thought about the back-up software. If the D.A.’s office had an off-premises back-up, Julia would be able to find out where it was. Then the question was, could it be copied without anyone knowing about it. It would be a risk.
Julia extended her arms and grasped Ted around his ribcage. He felt himself pulled down on top of her. “Not yet,” he said. He rose to his knees and straddled her legs. Then, leaning forward, he ran his hands over her breasts, down her sides, over her hips and down her thighs to her knees
. Then he leaned forward and did it again. “Aaaah,” Julia agonized. She tried to catch his hands and pull him down on top of her. Ted caught Julia’s wrists instead and pinned them playfully to the floor above her shoulders. Then he leaned down and kissed her neck, biting gently until he heard her moan.
There must be a way, Ted thought, to get a copy of the back-up software and pull the critical documents out of it. Even if a password were required, Jordan had a password. She had all the same IDs that the software was programmed to recognize. Suppose the passwords were changed on the D.A.’s system. An old back-up would still recognize an old password. The question was, how complicated a job would it be to find documents on those back-up disks?
Julia had apparently freed one of her hands because he felt himself in her grasp. Her hand moved up and down, then tightened and gently pulled him toward her. He followed without resisting, pressing against her for a slow moment and then gliding inside. A tiny sigh escaped her. Then he was pounding against her and her whole body was rocking under the force.
Jordan would know where to look for the documents, he thought. She would be able to print them from the back-up disks and give them to Dobson Howe, and her computer at the office would show no trace of any of it. Any investigators watching her network traffic would have to conclude that Jordan was completely innocent.
Ted heard himself make a growling, gasping sound which was almost drowned out by Julia’s near-scream. Then they both fell back, drained and glinting with sweat. Julia’s breasts were rising and falling with her breathing. “I love you,” she said. Ted covered her mouth with his and kissed her.
Tuesday, June 20, 2056
Ted was struggling to get to the office by 8:00 a.m. so he could have an hour to work before everyone else descended on him with their problems.
His doorbell rang.
“Coming!” He was buttoning his shirt as he raced up the stairs to open the door. Julia was standing there, looking amazingly bright-eyed for seven o’clock in the morning. She held up an aluminum briefcase. “Your order, sir,” she said with a big smile.
The 37th Amendment: A Novel Page 13