Page 122 of The Proving Ground

There was no doubt about the anger in the judge’s tone. On the video, Cisco pushed a doorbell and waited briefly for an answer before pushing the button again and knocking loudly enough to be picked up on the camera filming from across the street.

“Whose place is this?” I asked. “And who’s taking the video?”

The judge held a hand up to silence me.

“Just watch,” she said.

The lantern light next to the front door went on and the door swung open. At first, Cisco’s large frame blocked the view of the person who had answered. Whoever it was, he was looking down at them. The verbal exchange was muffled but Cisco started gesturing with both hands, at one point holding them both up, palms out. It looked like a gesture of apology.

He then took a step back, revealing the woman who had answered the door. She was Black and wore a headscarf hiding her hair. She had on an open robe over a pink T-shirt and baggy blue sweatpants. She closed the door as Cisco turned away, but not before her face was clearly recognizable.

It was juror number eleven.

The judge scowled at me. It appeared from the video that my investigator had broken a cardinal rule of jurisprudence: He had attempted to make contact with a juror in the middle of a trial. There could be no excuse for such an act. I became aware that both Masons had turned to look at me with outrage written across their faces.

“Mr. Haller, do you know who that was on the screen with your investigator?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Juror eleven. The one with COVID.”

“Do you know of any valid reason why Mr. Woja… the man you call Cisco would go to a juror’s home?”

“I don’t at the moment, Your Honor. But I’m sure there is an explanation.”

“There’d better be, or he is going to jail—and you might be with him. This is a major breach of the protection and sanctity of the juror system.”

“I don’t disagree, Judge. But can I ask where this video came from?”

“It was sent anonymously to my clerk this morning.”

I raised my hands and immediately realized I was making the same gesture Cisco made at the front door of juror eleven’s house.

“Anonymous, Your Honor?” I said. “It obviously came from them.”

I pointed at the Masons.

“The court was clear when it said earlier this week that surveillance and intimidation of the parties of this suit would not be tolerated,” I continued. “But they’ve ignored that order and surveilled my team, and now they’re sending anonymous videos of that surveillance to the court.”

Marcus Mason shook his head as a smile cracked across his face.

“First of all, this did not come from us,” he said. “But this is trulylaughable. His investigator is caught crossing a line no one should ever cross, and he wants to blame whoever it was that caught him doing it? Your Honor, I think we have reached a new low with Mr. Haller.”

I shook my head vehemently.

“No, the new low was when your boss came to my office yesterday and tried to bribe me with a briefcase full of cash,” I said. “And this—”

“That never happened,” Marcus shot back.

“You don’t know,” I said. “You weren’t in the room. But I refused to take his money, so he set this up.”

I pointed at the screen.

“How?” Marcus asked. “How did he set this up?”

“Good question, Mr. Haller,” Ruhlin added.

The tension in the room was palpable. The judge was angry. The Masons were angry. I had to somehow make sure this didn’t spill over into a mistrial.

“Judge, I don’t know yet,” I said as calmly as I could. “But this is a setup. That camera—whoever was holding it—was already in place when my investigator rolled up. That’s clear on the video. They were waiting and hiding. Why?”