I shook my head. “No. Sarah never did any traveling around that time. At least she never did any traveling on her own. We went on some trips together. But as far as I know, she didn’t travel on her own.”
“Right. I figured as much. So, how is it that Baron was going to have met her? And, I found out that there was somebody else that your wife was seeing at the time.”
“Who? Who was she seeing?”
“She was seeing a guy by the name of Jake Brillis. Jake is your half-brother.” Nick shook his head and laughed lightly. “I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you that your father had children that he didn’t know about, and kids that he did know about, but didn’t want to acknowledge. Apparently, Jake was in the latter category. Your dad had an affair with a friend of Olivia’s back in the day. Her name was Nina Brillis. She worked with Olivia at the nude dancing place. Apparently your father was banging her about the same time he was chasing after Olivia and trying to get Olivia to sleep with him. I guess you might say that he had a thing for those girls. Anyhow, Jake was Nina’s son. And Sarah got to know him.”
“How did she meet him?” This was fascinating to me. I just found out that I had a half-brother, and that he apparently was Amelia’s father. That was extremely strange, to say the very least. But there was a part of me that was relieved, if it was true, that Baron was not Amelia’s father. If what Nick was saying was the truth, then I might have an easier time with this paternity case then I imagined I would’ve before.
“Apparently Sarah met Jake through Olivia. Olivia and Nina are friends. Sarah used to go over to Olivia’s sometimes, just to hang out. And I guess that Nina was there one evening with her son. Later on, Olivia told Sarah that Jake’s father was Josh Roland. Sarah knew at that time that Josh was your father as well, so she knew that Jake was your half-brother.”
I wondered if Sarah slept with him because he was my half-brother. She was just the kind of person who would do something like that. “So, how did you find out that this Jake was Amelia’s father?”
“Because I managed to talk to your assistant, Anna. I asked her if she could hack some databases, and she did, and she found out that Jake took a paternity test back in the day. He took it right after Amelia was born. It turned out that he’s the father of Amelia, not this Baron Wicker person.”
I didn’t quite understand. “So why is it that I got the results of the paternity test, saying that Baron was Amelia’s father? I don’t get that.”
“I don’t know the answer to that question. What I can tell you is that the reason why Sarah is naming Baron as the father of Amelia, is because Sarah and Baron are together right now. That’s who she’s seeing. And, Baron needs an heir. You see, his grandma, who comes from old money, is getting ready to die. And she’s one of those odd birds who wants to control her family from beyond the grave. She wants to make sure that everybody who’s in her will has children. I guess it was just important to her that her heirs could pass on the family name. Well, Baron isn’t married, and he doesn’t have any kids. I guess that her will doesn’t specify that her heirs have to be married, but it does specify that they have to have children before they can collect. Apparently, that meant that Baron stood to inherit one hundred million dollars, but only if he had a kid at the time of his grandmother’s death.”
“But what does he care if he gets money or not from her? He’s a goddamn billionaire, after all.”
“On paper, he’s a billionaire. He has assets that make him a billionaire. But he’s leveraged to the hilt. He’s not that liquid either. So, he had a chance to inherit one hundred million dollars in cash, which would make him a lot more liquid. And he went for it. Apparently, he and Sarah cooked up this plan to falsify a paternity test that says that Baron is the father of Amelia. And they apparently thought that they would get away with it.”
For some odd reason, I was stifling a laugh. I knew that my ex-wife was devious, but I had no idea how devious she really was. But then again, there was $100 million at stake, and I would imagine that there was something in it for her. If she helped him suddenly, magically, obtain a child before his grandmother died, he probably offered her cut. “And what does Sarah get out of the deal?”
“From what I understand, now this is just hearsay, but he offered her $10 million to do this. She did it for him, I guess because she’s with him, romantically involved with him, but I’m sure that she was in it for the money as well.”
“I’m sure she was. Now, I guess I have to worry about this Jake Brillis person? He’s the real father of Amelia?”
“Yeah. He is.” Nick put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, buddy. I know it’s hard to hear that somebody else is the biological father of your daughter, but at least you don’t have to worry about those two clowns taking her away from you. Listen, I actually talked to Jake about it, and he told me he has no interest in raising a child. He’s married himself now. He told me that if his wife found out that he had fathered a kid out of wedlock that she wouldn’t be happy about it. She’s not the kind who would happily take in other people’s children. So, I don’t think you have to worry about him. I don’t think he’s going to be coming after you for anything.”
Nick and I fist bumped. “I guess it’s just a matter of proving that the paternity results I got in the mail are fraudulent. And then I think that both my wife, I mean ex-wife, and her lover, are going to be in trouble with the law. Falsifying documents like that.” I shook my head. “Sarah really must think that I’m a fool. She must’ve really thought that she would get away with something like this. After all we’ve gone through together, and she still doesn’t know me that well.”
Tom was just sitting there, watching us. He had trained Nick pretty well, because he let him take the lead on this Baron Wicker investigation, and he did a stellar job. He looked over at me and he smiled. “Some people, huh? I’m pretty pissed at Sarah, too. I can’t believe that she would do something like that. Even if she was getting a lot of money out of the deal, I just can’t understand why she would do it.”
“I figure it’s two birds, one stone, really,” I said. “She hates me. She has a chance to get back at me by taking away my daughter. She knows that if something like that happened, it would rip out my very heart. And that’s what she wants to do. She wants to see me suffer. And if she gets money out of seeing me suffer? All the better for her. That’s the kind of person she is. I can’t believe that I ever loved her.”
Nick and Tom and I shot the shit for the rest of the night. I was feeling lighter that night, lighter than I’d felt in a long time. I had the whole paternity issue hanging over my head like a Sword of Damocles for all this time. It was threatening to consume me. But I knew, now, that it was just a matter of showing those two fools for what they were – a couple of charlatans, a couple of greedy whores, who were just after money. As soon as I could show the court that they falsified that paternity test, I would get the whole case thrown out.
And Amelia would be with me forever.
Chapter 25
Once I got the information that I needed from Beck, Tom and Nick, I knew that I was going to have to talk to Heather. I was going to have to ask her if she was afraid of Charlie, and if that was the reason why she came in my office the other day and told me not to go down the road that she thought that I was going to go down. Although I don’t know how it was that she had found out that I was going to be looking at Charlie at that time. At that time, I was simply going down the road of looking at Jordan.
I had her come into my office. She came in and sat down, and looked at me with a look of attitude on her face. I think that she knew that she was going to be cornered, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.
“Okay, Heather. I need for you to come clean with me. I found out that Charlie Williams had a relationship with the victim in Beck’s case, and you didn’t tell me about that. Did you know about it?”
When I looked at her face, I knew that she was hiding that from me, too. “
Listen, I don’t want Charlie getting in the middle of this. At least, I don’t want me to be saying anything to you about him. You forget that he knows about what happened with Reverend Scott. He knows about it, and he could do some serious damage to me.”
“Nevertheless, I have to bring him in as a possible suspect. I have to. He had a reason to kill Adele. I mean, Adele was stealing drugs for him. The cops were closing in on her, and I did my homework, and she was about to be arrested for stealing those drugs from the hospital. And what do you think she would’ve done if she was arrested? She would’ve turned on Charlie. After all, Charlie was the one who put her up to it. Charlie was the one who was distributing the drugs on the street. Adele was just giving the drugs to him to sell. And, I know that he’s been an active drug dealer for quite a while, and I’m sure that the cops would love to have any kind of information to get him. Adele had the information. So tell me why it is that Charlie should not be a suspect in this case?”
“Goddammit, if you bring Charlie into this case, you better not miss. I mean, if you’re going to say that he’s a suspect, then you better have your ducks in a row on this, so that he gets arrested for killing Adele, and for distributing those drugs, immediately. I want him off the street, because he’s gonna be pissed that I didn’t prevent him from becoming a suspect in Beck’s case. I think he’s dangerous, and I don’t know what he’s gonna do to me.”
I sighed. “I think that you know that that’s not how it goes. I mean, I have at least one other suspect on my list. The way that I approach cases is that I try to find plausible individuals who would’ve done it, and bring them all into court and question them. Charlie is going to be just one of the people that I’m going to bring into court as an alternative suspect in this case. I’m also looking at Jordan. I’m also looking at –”
“I think you should be looking at Larry Rodriguez,” Heather blurted out.
“Why Larry Rodriguez?” I was curious about this one. Beck did tell me how William had become Adele, and I was curious about how it was that William was able to pay for all those surgeries and so forth. And he also told me that Larry was interested in learning information about Vincent Sharpelli’s organization, and that he felt that William would be a good source for that. Plus, Larry was the one who, according to Beck, helped William become Adele. He helped her get a new birth certificate, and a new social security card. He also apparently had the real Adele killed, and made sure that her death certificate was misfiled. He did all of that. But I wondered if he did other things as well. And if he did, why would he have had her killed?
Heather’s hand flew up to her hair, and she tugged lightly on her braid. “I’ll tell you the reason why you should be looking at Larry Rodriguez. He paid a lot of money for William to become Adele. He paid for all the surgeries for her. All those hormone injections. All that shit. That shit’s expensive. In fact, he was going to pay for her entire sex reassignment surgery. And why do you think that he did all that? You think he did all of that out of the goodness of his heart? You think he was doing that because she was a charity case? No. He wanted something from her. He wanted her to work for him, and, more than that, much more than that, he wanted her to give him all the secrets of the Sharpelli organization. That’s the only reason why he would do something like that. The only reason why.”
“And did he get a return on his investment?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m gonna say no. I’m going to say that she screwed him over and left him with the bill, and didn’t give him what he wanted. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Let’s just say that when William became Adele, he decided, just out of the blue, that he didn’t want to do drug dealing anymore. Or, at least, he decided that he didn’t want to do street drug dealing anymore. He didn’t want to work for Larry anymore. After all Larry did for him, and he turns around and does something like that?” Heather shuddered visibly. “And –”
“Hey, I notice you calling Adele ‘him.’ You insisted to me that he was really transgendered. Was he?”
Heather shook her head. “I’m sorry about that. I should know better than that. It just gets confusing for me, because this is a confusing situation. I’m trying to say that William was the one that owed Charlie, so that’s why I called him by the male pronoun there. Because it was William that owed him. If William did become Adele, if he didn’t have a complete change of identity, he probably would’ve been dead right now. I mean, Jordan would’ve killed him, and if he didn’t, Vinnie would’ve. Please don’t ever look at Vinnie. He had nothing to do with this. Trust me on this, he had nothing to do with this. You can go ahead and try to do what you want with Charlie. I think I can handle him. He doesn’t know nothing.”
“What you mean Charlie doesn’t know anything? You told me that Charlie was the one that you called when you killed the Reverend Scott. And he was the one who sent Beck over to you. Are you telling me that there’s a different story?”
She swallowed hard. I could see her Adam’s Apple bob up and down as she swallowed. And then she looked at her nails nervously. I think that she knew that she had told me something that she wasn’t supposed to. But the cat was out of the bag, and I was going to have to press it. She was lying to me about Charlie. Apparently Charlie had nothing to do with covering up the homicide of Reverend Scott. But I wondered who did have something to do with it.
“Heather, you have to tell me about what happened. Listen, I –”
I knew that I was going to have to find someway, somehow, to become her lawyer. Even though I knew that there was going to maybe be a conflict of interest with Beck, it was looking less likely that that was going to happen. It was a grey area, anyhow. Granted, they were technically co-conspirators, in the death of Reverend Scott, but my case with Beck didn’t have a thing to do with that other murder case, so it was a grey area as to whether or not I could represent her.
At any rate, I felt the need to go ahead and skirt that line, so I could get the whole story from her.
“Heather, let’s sign an attorney-client agreement.”
“But you said that we couldn’t do that. You said it would become a conflict of interest.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m willing to take that chance that if something happens, and Beck turns on you, which means that one of my clients turns on another, I can handle the inevitable Bar Complaint. But, since you’re technically not involved with Beck’s current case, I think that it’s ambiguous as to whether or not it really is a conflict of interest at this moment. It might become one in the future, but at the moment, I can plausibly say that it’s not. So please, please sign this attorney-client agreement, and tell me what happened. I think that I have to know this. Because, as it is, I’m going to try to bring in Vincent Sharpelli as one of the suspects in this case. And I have a feeling that he’s the one that you are really afraid of. And I want to know why.”
Heather nodded her head. I gave her an attorney-client agreement, and she signed it.
“Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”
Chapter 26
“Okay. Here’s what happened.” Heather looked visibly shaken. She kept nervously fingering her necklace, and her legs were going up and down. Bouncing up and down, up and down, up and down. She looked nervously at the door. “The Reverend Scott, he was out on bail. I thought that when he was put into prison that he would stay there. I thought that he wasn’t going to be a danger to anybody. I thought he was going to go away for the rest of his life.”
“Go on.” Somehow, I thought that whatever Heather was about to tell me, it was going to be extremely serious.
“Reverend Scott, I guess he went right back to what he was doing, because all of a sudden, he gets out of prison, and all these gay boys and girls started to end up dead. Killed by their parents. I knew that he was doing what he was doing before. He was brainwashing folks into killing their gay kids. And it made me sick. He was still out there hurting people. Only he was doing it na
tionwide. I found out that he had a videocast that was attracting people from around the country. He was getting more and more subscribers to his YouTube channel. I took a look at the things he was saying on his YouTube channel, and it was disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. I don’t know why it was that YouTube allowed him to continue to be on there. In fact, after a little while, he was gone. His channel was gone. But, that didn’t matter, he went underground. He went underground, and he was still reaching millions of people. Millions of people with his hateful message. So, he had taken his act out on the road, and he was finding people all over the country who were willing to listen to what he had to say, and they were murdering their kids.”
“Do you have proof that he was getting parents to murder their kids?”
“No. I couldn’t prove that. But he was doing that before - getting parents to kill their gay and transgendered kids. And trust me, he’s the kind of guy who is such a fanatic, and such a believer, that he makes you believe, too. It’s sickening, what he does. And he started doing it right when he got out of prison. He was causing people to be hurt, and killed, all over the country. And I couldn’t let that stand.”
“So what happened? How did you stop him?”
“At first, I was just pissed off. I didn’t do anything about it. I was just really, really enraged. But, he started to threaten my mom. She showed me emails that he was sending to her. And the things that he was sending to her were vile, but they were also scary. He threatened to rape her. He threatened to kill her. He threatened to come down and burn her house to the ground. He threatened to chain her in the house, and burn the house down with her in it, so she would burn to death. He sent her all these emails, disgusting things, and then, one day, he actually showed up at the house. That part was true. He showed up at our house, and he had a gun.”
The Hate Crime Page 14
