The Ex(82)

As I watched Judge Amador nod, I realized why Scott Temple had been so confident, when I thought the evidence was so equivocal. As a prosecutor, he could get information from sources that would never cooperate with a defense lawyer—sources like e-mail providers. The DA’s office would have gotten a subpoena for Jack’s e-mails, and then Madeline’s, within hours of his arrest.

For weeks, we’d been convinced that someone had framed Jack. Would I have figured out the truth earlier if I’d known that all of the Madeline messages were sent from Jack’s neighborhood? I thought I saw a pang of sympathy as I caught Scott Temple’s eye. He had tried to warn me. Scott had been right. I was the scorpion.

“Then take a look at paragraph seven,” he said. “See that IP address there? It’s a one-time log-in, for less than a minute. It’s the one and only time anyone ever logged in to the Paperfree account from a nonpublic Internet connection. That IP address belongs to Jack Harris’s Verizon FiOS account.”

Amador peered over his reading glasses, first at Temple and then at me. He didn’t need to use words. A few numbers in an affidavit had just changed the entire case.

“Your Honor, this is a lot of technical information all at once,” I said. “I’m going to need an opportunity to consult with an expert.”

“Nice try, Ms. Randall, but we all know what we’re looking at.”

“I don’t understand why the prosecution didn’t provide this information earlier. I’ve been pressing Mr. Temple for discovery.”

Temple was ready with an explanation. “Initially, because we hadn’t yet identified Ms. Lawson. The escort service was less than cooperative. Even now, we’re continuing to work on an immunity agreement with Ms. Lawson so she will testify, but in light of recent . . . unusual circumstances with the press, we decided we needed to reassess Mr. Harris’s detention status.”

Amador was fiddling with the edges of a motion on his desk. “I take it the People are arguing that this makes your case stronger, which gives the defendant a greater incentive to flee?”

“Yes, but there’s more,” Temple said. “The day of the shooting, police seized a desktop computer from Jack Harris’s office. A forensic analysis of that computer reveals no online use at the time of this one log-in to the Paperfree account, nor any evidence that the computer was ever used to access Paperfree’s website.”

“You’re starting to lose me again,” the judge said.

“An IP address covers an entire WiFi network, not just one computer,” Temple explained. “Put simply, Your Honor, a different device was used to check the Paperfree account from Mr. Harris’s wireless connection. Mr. Harris has spoken at various writing workshops about his practice of writing on one computer—his desktop, the one police seized—and confining his Internet use to another, his laptop. How ever, we found no such laptop in his apartment when we executed a search warrant, and have been unable to locate it since.”

Judge Amador’s brow furrowed as he turned in my direction. “I think we can all agree this is quite different from what I heard at the original bail hearing. A stronger case, plus indications of hiding or destroying material evidence.”

“Your Honor, this is the first I’ve heard of any of this. Again, I need time to respond.”

“That’s fine, Ms. Randall, but, at this point, I don’t think your client will have the luxury of living at home while you prepare. Maybe you two should talk.”


WHATEVER EMPATHY TEMPLE HAD FELT for me in chambers had dissipated by the time we hit the hallway. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Olivia. Harris is a sociopath. He hired you as his lawyer for a reason. You were so sure he was innocent, you may as well have been a rookie.”

I told him he was overplaying his hand, and that he was the one who should have been paying closer attention. “Someone—probably Max Neeley—went to maniacal lengths to frame my client. Is it any surprise that they’d access this e-mail account from spots near Jack’s home, even logging on once to Jack’s home network?”

“Are you even listening to yourself at this point? You’re saying he can’t be guilty because he looks too guilty? You’re too good for that, Olivia.”

“And you were too good to slip phone records into a truck full of documents, but that happened. You buried Brady material.”

“You know what? You’re right. I should have told you about Tracy Frankel’s number being in those LUDs. It’s just a weird f*cking fluke; she was probably selling dope to one of Neeley’s employees. But I didn’t tell you, and I got nailed for it. So now I’m showing you everything. We’ve got Harris solid. You know he was in a psych ward? Only some one bat-shit crazy could come up with something this elaborate. But he f*cked up one time—one log-in to his fake e-mail account.”

“If he’s so maniacal—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it’s too stupid a mistake so it must be a frame job. Save it. I ran the same theory past our IT expert. Here’s the thing. Paperfree? If you leave it open on your browser, it will automatically update every few minutes. So Harris is being all sly with his anonymous e-mail account, sneaking off to Starbucks and hotel lobbies to check it, but then forgets to close the browser. He comes home. The laptop automatically connects to his home network. And then the account refreshes. Voilà. He f*cked up. And then he realizes that the laptop refreshed his account, so, lo and behold, the laptop goes missing. I won’t even ask whether you knew. I assume he threw it in the Hudson before the shooting.”