ROMANCING MO RYAN (35 page)

“I found out about it, that’s my role.
 
I didn’t mean to, but Judge was out sick one day and I was like in charge of the office.
 
We were having a particularly bad few days, so I took a little liberty and decided to see what I could see.
 
So I was looking around in her office, snooping if you like, and I ran across this thumb drive.
 
It was in one of her locked desk drawers, where she keeps a lot of her personal stuff, but she had, mistakenly I’m sure, left the keys.
 
So I decided to check it out.
 
Why not?
 
I didn’t owe her anything.
 
It was a disk filled with all of these old emails.
 
And every letter was from somebody using the name SOS.
 
SOS One, or SOS Two, or SOS Three, and so on.
 
And they were all talking about how this nomination of this person had been withdrawn, or this other person lost by a landslide, and on and on.
 
And they would say how SOS strikes again, or SOS does it again.
 
Naturally I'm curious now.
 
So I dig deeper in that desk drawer.
 
And there’s more thumb drives.
 
And I find out quite a bit about SOS.
 
That next day, I come to work and she’s waiting for me.
 
And she knows.
 
She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell.”

“Somebody told her?” Nikki asked.

“The computer told her,” Karla said.
 
“They were Word documents...”
      

“Right.
 
At the end of the File menu it lists the last programs that were run.”

“It didn’t even occur to me to take care of that.”

“Did you make copies?”

Karla didn’t respond.
 

Nikki kept going, she didn’t want to lose her.
 
“Tell me about SOS, Karla.
 
What did you learn?”

Karla continued.
 
“It stands for Sisters of the Struggle.”

“Sisters of the Struggle?”

“Yes.
 
They’re women from all around the country, but they work in cells, by state.”

“You mean there’s a Florida group and a Georgia group, and so forth?”

“Right.
 
Judge French heads the Florida group.”

“Do you know any of the other members?”

“Almost all of the names I saw I never heard of.”

“Was Tonya Wright one of those names?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about Marlene Wingate?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, no.”

“But you know,” Karla said, thinking about it.
 
“Tonya Wright rings a bell.
 
I think she’s a member.”

Nikki’s heart began to pound.
 
That was what she needed: a connection between two of Mo’s accusers.
 
“Why do you say that?” she asked Karla.
 
“You have some documentation?”

Karla was hesitant again.
 

Nikki didn’t press her advantage yet.
 
“It sounds so clandestine,” she said to Karla.

Karla went on.
 
“They make it their business to stay out of the spotlight.
 
So many women’s groups are pigeon-holed because of that very reason.
 
Too much publicity.
 
But they seem to be more issues-driven activists than publicity hounds.”

“And what are their issues?”

“They’re a group of women who work tirelessly to slow down what they call the “right wing agenda” in government, the judiciary, and education.
 
There may be other areas too, but those were the ones they talked about in those emails.”

“How do they slow down this right wing agenda?”

“With propaganda.”

“But how?”

“They’re slick, Miss Tarver...”

“Nikki, please.”

“They’re real slick.
 
They don’t do that wide open stuff.
 
They hit hard and run, cover their bases, they don’t leave anything, and I mean anything, to chance.”

“And according to those emails they’ve had some successes?”

“Oh yes.
 
Plenty.
 
And the targets apparently never knew what hit them.
 
From important school board appointments to federal judgeships, they don’t play around.
 
They seem to pick their enemy based on what they perceive as the level of threat that person poses, and then they strike.
 
And hard.”

Nikki leaned back.
 
She was scared and excited.
 
“Was Judge Ryan on that list?”

“Ryan?”

“Yes.
 
Governor Gibson recently nominated him to be on Florida’s Supreme Court, but Jameela French claimed he had sexually harassed her.
 
You haven’t heard about that?”

“No, I haven’t.
 
Wow.
 
Since I left Florida I don’t keep up with Florida news.
 
But that name...”

“Ryan?”

“Yeah.
 
Michael or . . .”

“Montgomery Ryan?”

Her youthful face lit up.
 
“Yeah.
 
Him.
 
He’s on the list.”

The list?
 
Nikki leaned forward.
 
“What list?”

Karla exhaled.
 
“There is a list, okay?
 
A list of targets.
 
That’s not what they called them.
 
They called them their next projects, but it was obvious what they meant.
 
I wrote down the names.”

Nikki’s heart was pounding.
 
“And Mo Ryan was on that list?”

“Yes.
 
Along with twelve, no, eleven other judges.
 
They had a list of judges, school board officials, and political appointees.
 
I wrote down the names of the judges.
 
And the names of the members who will work to bring down the different judges, along with the A.T.s”

Nikki frowned.
 
“The what?
 
What’s an A.T.?”

“An A.T. is an Against Type person.
 
For instance, if it’s a judge they want to bring down, they will find lawyers or law clerks who worked for that judge.
 
But then they need an additional person who’s not a lawyer to give the allegations more credence.
 
That’s an A.T.”

Nikki could hardly believe it.
 
“Would you happen to have those lists handy by any chance, Karla?”
 
Nikki sounded calm, measured, although she wasn’t.

Karla seemed hesitant yet again.
 
But Nikki was determined.
 
“Karla, this is vital.
 
All I need are the names, that’s all.
 
Please.”

Karla hesitated again.
 
And then pulled an manila folder out of her bag.
 
It was a small, crinkled-up folder that carried more value to Nikki right then than a million bucks.
 
She contained herself long enough to very politely receive the folder from Karla’s hand.
 
And
 
Karla was right.
 
Mo’s name was near the top of the page.

“You can’t mention my name in any of this,” Karla employed Nikki.
 
“I’m just getting started.
 
The firm I work for will find a way to get rid of me if I get caught up in any kind of controversy.
 
You have to keep my name out of this.”

“Karla, trust me,” a grateful Nikki said to her, “your name will never come up.
 
You’ve done more than enough.
 
You’ll never know what this means to me.
 
Thank-you.
 
Thank-you so much.”

But her roller coaster ride wasn’t over yet.
 
She flew back to Jacksonville and arrived at JIA eight thirty that night.
 
Mo phoned her cell phone just as she was getting in her car. He asked if she was coming over.
 

“Not tonight, bud,” she said.
 
“I’ve got work to do tonight.”

“Understood,” he said, although she could hear the disappointment in his voice.
 
But he bid her goodnight, and allowed her to get back to it.

As soon as she made it home she got on the internet.
 
The notes in the folder showed how Tonya Wright, when she was a young public defender, once defended Marlene Wingate on a worthless check charge.
 
Marlene mentioned that she once worked for Mo Ryan when they thought Mo was going to be the presiding judge in the case and Tonya and Jameela, therefore, decided to use Marlene Wingate as the A.T. .

But Nikki needed dirt on Jameela French.
 
She was the big cheese of the bunch.
 
So Nikki Googled every name on the list of judges, except for Mo’s, to see if there were any problems.
 
Articles turned up left and right on each one of the judges.
 
She didn’t find where there were any negative stories or investigations on three of the targets, one judge died of natural causes, but the remaining seven judges had two very glaring similarities: all were known for their conservative views and each one either was forced to withdraw his name from a possible judgeship, lost an election for a judgeship because of some damning news reports, or was asked to resign their current judgeship after allegations surfaced accusing each one of them of some form of sexual misconduct.
 
All of the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations, so there were never any lengthy trials.
 
Just the allegations themselves.
 
Just like Mo’s case.
 

Nikki leaned back and exhaled.
 
There it was.
 
In black and white.
 
Mo, as if confirming what she knew all along, was telling the truth.