Presumption of Guilt

by Rachel Sinclair

  She looked over at Regina, examining the blue streaks in her hair with a smile on her face. “Cute,” she said to her. She self-consciously put her shackled hands to her own hair. “Wish I could do something like that with mine. Never had the cojones to, though, you know? And the Whitmores, they probably wouldn’t have ever let me do something like that, anyhow. Their fancy friends might have talked about the blue-haired maid.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Lord knows we can’t have that.”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry, I didn’t introduce you. This is Regina Baldwin. She’s my private investigator. She’ll be working your case.”

  “Hello,” she said to Regina. “What is that you say? The more the merrier?” She smiled. “If Ms. Baldwin helps you win, Ms. Collins, I’m all for her helping out with the case.”

  “And Regina will be recording this conversation if you don’t mind,” I said.

  “Of course, I figured somebody would be.”

  I took a deep breath and brought out my list of questions.

  “Now, I understand that you have been working as a live-in maid for the Whitmores, and you’ve been working there for the past 6 years. Ever since 2013. Do I have that right?”

  She shook her head and started to mumble in Spanish.

  I wasn’t quite understanding her, but Regina spoke and understood Spanish. She explained to me that it was a necessity living out in Imperial Beach, which was where her own condo was. Imperial Beach was the closest beach to the Mexican border, and most of her neighbors spoke Spanish. I was impressed that she was able to pick up a different language so rapidly, but she told me that that was just her. She was able to pick up languages really easily and it had always been so.

  I looked over at Regina, who was still studying Esme intently.

  “I’m so sorry, but I don’t understand Spanish,” I said to Esme. “Could you please speak English?”

  Regina just looked at me. “She was just blowing off steam,” she said. “Mostly I just heard a lot of curse words.”

  “Yes, sorry,” Esme said to me. “Sometimes, when I think of those people, I just get so angry I could scream. What I said just now I can’t repeat in English.”

  “I see,” I said. I had no idea why it was that Esme had that reaction, but I had to admit that it intrigued me.

  Regina leaned over to me. “She was cussing a blue streak just now about the family she was living with. Guess the good family Whitmore ain’t exactly the pillars of the community that they’re pretending to be. Guess they really are a bunch of greedy bastards who treat their hired help like crap.” Then she looked over at Esme. “But I guess the term hired help really doesn’t apply here, does it? I think that the term domestic slave is probably the term that is more appropriate in this case.”

  Esme nodded her head. “You got it, muchacha,” she said to Regina. “I got to this country with nothing. Less than nothing. My family – gone. My home – burned to the ground. The things that I went through to get here, you don’t want to know. It might ruin your view of the world and how people are treated.” She looked over at Regina. “But something tells me that anything I say to you, you won’t even think it’s anything. I think that you’ve probably seen as many hardships as me.”

  Regina didn’t say anything, but I could see in her eyes that she agreed with that statement.

  Esme continued. “I got here with just the clothes on my back. Worse than that, I arrived here with a child in my belly. I was raped by an old man by the name of Humberto Gonzalez and all of his friends. I had no idea who was the papa of this baby. I had no idea what I was supposed to do in this country. I had some skills – my family had a small farm. I knew about agriculture. But I asked around, some of the muchachos I met on the bus and just around, and they told me that they’re working for $6 an hour, back-breaking work. I knew that it would be the same for me. How could I support a child on that kind of wage? There wasn’t anything else that I could really do, either.”

  I felt my sense of injustice burning brightly within me as Esme spoke. $6 an hour for back-breaking work in the hot sun? That was less than minimum wage. The only reason why these migrants accepted that low of a wage was because they didn’t have a choice. Probably most of the people that Esme met were illegal. They couldn’t possibly negotiate something better. They were just happy to have a job at all.

  Esme continued. “I met a man while I was in line at an employment agency. Jose Garcia. We talked, and he told me about Colleen Whitmore. He said that he heard along the line that she was looking for a live-in housekeeper. That she lived in a big house in Coronado. I thought that nothing could be better for me. At that time, I was living in the United States without any kind of documentation. I was in line to get a hearing in the immigration court, but I didn’t have the right papers for an actual job. I ended up going right there to Colleen’s home and knocking on the door. She answered it, wanted to know why I was there. I told her that I heard that she was looking for a housekeeper.”

  Something about that story wasn’t ringing true for me. “I don’t understand. You just show up at her door, and she hired you? She didn’t have an actual process for interviewing and trying to find just the right person?”

  Esme shook her head. “Yeah, that’s what happened. Turns out that the Whitmores were looking for a certain type of girl, if you know what I mean.” She looked over at Regina, who looked back at her knowingly.

  I thought I knew what she was getting at, but I had to pin her down. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “They wanted a woman to have children for them. They were looking for a woman who was light-skinned and light-eyed and who was desperate and couldn’t object to anything that they wanted that woman to do. I fit what they were looking for perfectly.”

  I looked over at Regina, who was looking revolted. It was hard to shock her, but I thought that I saw just that on her face – shock. Disgust. “You mean that old geezer knocked you up?” Regina asked Esme. “Did you actually have to make it with him?”

  “Mm hmm chica,” Esme said with a disgusted look on her face. “I did. Nasty old beast. I had to have an abortion when I went to work for them, of course. My mama would tell me that I was going to go to hell for killing my child, but I felt only relief when I went in to have it done. Colleen told me, right before I had my abortion, what they really wanted from me.”

  “You mean that they weren’t up front and honest with you from the start?” I asked her.

  “No, muchacha. When I showed up at her door, she told me that she wanted me to be their housekeeper. She didn’t tell me that she needed me as a surrogate.”

  Regina was shaking her head. “Man. That’s all kinds of messed up. That’s some kind of weird Handmaid’s Tale shit right there.”

  “Right?” Esme agreed, shaking her head. “That’s what they ended up wanting from me, but they didn’t tell me that until I accepted the job. And by job, I mean that I was accepting the job of live-in housekeeper. I certainly wasn’t accepting the position of baby incubator, which is what I ended up being.”

  I looked at the file. “Let’s see...Jacob Whitmore is 75. Colleen Whitmore is 35. That must mean that Aria’s mother was somebody other than Colleen. Do you know anything about that? Who her birth mother was?”

  Esme shook her head. “No, nobody ever told me about that. All that I know is that, after I took that job and got settled into the house doing the usual kind of housework – cooking, dusting, toilets, windows, laundry, mopping, picking stuff up at the dry cleaner, dishes, the usual – Colleen came to me, crying. She told me that she couldn’t have kids. She told me that she had just married Jacob, and that he needed an heir to pass on his fortune. I asked her about Aria, what about her? She was his heir. But she said that he specifically wanted a son to run his empire. She told me that Aria had no interest in the business, that Aria wanted to become a classical pianist and didn’t have the desire to run the hotels. Also, Aria didn’t have any kind of business skills. She’s always bee
n the kind of person to sit in trees, writing, practicing ballet and acting in plays. And her piano. Could play at the age of 3, according to Colleen. At least, that’s the story that I heard around the dinner table when I served the Whitmores and their friends their meals.”

  “I see,” I said.

  Regina rolled her eyes. “Typical patriarchal crap. ‘Needs a son to pass on the business,’” she said dismissively. “What kind of 19th Century bullshit is that?”

  Esme shrugged her shoulders. “That’s just how he thought, I guess. I guess he just needed some kind of son who was like him. Cold, ruthless, greedy. Colleen told me that the only thing that Jacob cared about was having a son who could be forced from a young age to learn everything he could about Jacob’s business. I guess Jacob believed that any daughter who came into the world would be just like Aria – emotional, artistic and not at all wanting to have anything to do with taking over after Jacob dies.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I said. That was a red flag, the fact that Jacob wanted a son so badly, but I didn’t quite know where it all fit into this whole scenario. “So, what happened after Colleen came to you in tears?”

  “She told me that she needed me to have Jacob’s child. I told her no. I wasn’t going to do that, because I was already pregnant with my own child. I didn’t want that child, but I wasn’t going to have an abortion. I didn’t even know how that was going to work, anyhow. What would her friends say about me, the maid, having her husband’s child?” She shook her head. “I didn’t know what was going to come. I really thought that the Whitmores were decent people. I had no idea.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked her. “What did they do?”

  “Colleen immediately told me that I had to go along with everything they asked of me. If I didn’t, they were going to go to ICE and turn me in. I told them that I was waiting for my asylum application to be approved, so I couldn’t be deported. She told me that her husband had influence with my immigration judge, and that if I didn’t go along with their plan, her husband would tell that judge to deny my application. If I went along with their plan, her husband would tell him to approve it.”

  “Was that true? Jacob had influence with the immigration judge?” I asked.

  “Yes, it turned out that was true. I called Jose, the man who referred me to the Whitmores, and asked him if he knew if Jacob Whitmore had influence with my immigration judge. He told me that he had heard around that Jacob was responsible for three different people getting deported in this area. These people worked for Jacob, too, working in his hotels. They would do something that he didn’t like, and he would fix things with that judge to make sure that their asylum applications would be denied. Jose told me that this was just a rumor, but that I shouldn’t take my chances.”

  “So, you went along with the plan?”

  “I didn’t feel that I had a choice. My asylum application was going to be hard to win as it was. Those gang members killed my entire family, but I didn’t have proof of anything. The United States government was not going to be able to verify anything that I said. I knew that the chances were that I was going to be sent back, even if Mr. Whitmore didn’t influence my judge. But if Mr. Whitmore could tell that judge that I should stay and be given protected status, but only if I went along with his plan, I was going to go along with his plan.”

  “What happened next?” I asked her.

  “Colleen told me that I had to have an abortion. I had the abortion, then went to confession about it and did my Hail Marys. Then I had to have sex with Mr. Whitmore. It wasn’t so bad. They gave me Quaaludes. I’ve never had one before, but they gave them to me because I told them that I didn’t want to have sex with him. I thought that they were going to take me to a clinic and have the whole thing done in a test tube like they do. Or use a turkey baster – I've heard of lesbians using that. I didn’t think that actually having sex with Jacob was going to be involved, but when I found out that it was, I said no.”

  “And after you said no?” I asked.

  “Colleen said that it had to be that way. She didn’t say why. She told me that I had to do it. I had no other choice. Then I kept saying no, and, one day, some ICE agents showed up at the door to come and get me. Handcuffed me, took me to a detention center. I told them that I had applied for asylum and I was waiting for my court date, but that fell on deaf ears. I couldn’t afford an attorney to get me out of there, either. They told me that they could deport me for working for the Whitmores without a work permit.” Then she started to speak Spanish again, shaking her head.

  “You got that right,” Regina said to her, nodding her head along as Esme continued to speak Spanish at a rapid rate. “Our governmental policy is all kinds of whacked out.”

  “What is she saying?” I asked Regina.

  “She’s talking about how stupid it is that you can’t work until your asylum application has been pending for 150 days. Yet people in this country get all up in the migrants’ grills about going on public assistance. What are they supposed to do if they can’t legally work for 150 days after they get here?” Regina shook her head. “Stupid.”

  Esme nodded her head. “Sorry, Ms. Collins, but sometimes I get so damned mad at this country.”

  “That’s okay. I agree completely. So, the ICE agent came and took you into custody. And then what happened?”

  “They were going to deport me. They started a removal case against me. I didn’t know what to do. They were right, I was violating the law when I went to work for the Whitmores. I was working without a permit. I was terrified of going back to El Salvador. All that I knew was that the people who killed my family were going to kill me. Those Mara Saltruchas, they don’t forget. I was marked for death in El Salvador. And I had gone through too much to get to this country. Too much.”

  She started to cry. “I was raped repeatedly on the way to this country. Beaten. I lost 30 pounds during the six months it took to get to this country because I was starving all the time. I weighed 90 lbs when I got to the border. That was why the farmer kidnapped me – he caught me eating his potatoes and corn. Said that he was going to turn me into the authorities, who would send me back, for stealing from him. I begged him not to, and he said that he wouldn’t if I spent one week with him on his farm. Then he raped me every night, had his amigos come over and rape me too. I didn’t protest. Didn’t say a word, because I was so scared that he was going to call the policia. He was through with me after a week, gracias a Dios, and I continued on my way. But there were other times that I was beaten and raped. I feared for my life every minute of every day. I had a traveling companion, two of them. One of them was killed on the train on the way up here. We had to ride on the top of the train, we call it The Beast. She fell off the train, and she was decapitated. Her limbs were severed. Her body was left where it was, for the animals to feed on. My other companion, she made it to the border with me. Her name is Camila Juarez.”

  “And what did she do when you were abducted by the farmer?” I asked her.

  “She took the same punishment as me. She wasn’t caught eating the potatoes and corn, but she was eating them, too. They just didn’t catch her. I tried to save her, tried to tell them that she didn’t eat the vegetables, but they didn’t care. Nasty old goats.”

  “Are you still in contact with her?” I asked.

  Esme shook her head. “No. She wasn’t as lucky as me. Her asylum application was denied, and she was sent back to El Salvador. I heard she was murdered by the Mara the day she got back.” Esme started to cry again. “So, when the ICE detained me and started the proceedings to deport me, I was desperate enough to do anything at all to stay in this country. Colleen came to see me at the detention place about two weeks after I got there. She told me that Jacob would pull strings to get me out of the detention place and off the deportation schedule. She told me that all I had to do was have sex with him until I got pregnant with his child. She also told me that she had called the ICE agents when I refused to have sex
with Jacob.”

  Regina looked like she was about to hurl when she heard what Esme was saying. Thankfully, she didn’t have a comment.

  “So, what happened?” I asked her.

  “I told Colleen that I would do anything. Three days later, I was getting out of the detention center, the removal proceeding was dropped, and I was back with the Whitmores. But they gave me Quaaludes before I had to have sex with Jacob, so the whole thing wasn’t that bad.” Then she shuddered. “I just never thought that I was going to have to do something like that in my life. I felt so dirty. I was 18 when I left my home country. I had never seen a man in the flesh. My life in El Salvador was peaceful. We farmed, raised chickens, our family was close. I didn’t know that my father was involved with the rival gang, the 18th Street. I had no idea. I should have known, though, because both of those gangs rule El Salvador. There is not a person in that country who is not touched by one or the other. My life changed when my family was murdered. My four brothers and sisters, my parents, my mama’s parents, all shot in the head and left in the house for the maggots to eat them.”

  My heart went out to Esme. She had gone through so much. Now this. “Did you get pregnant with Jacob’s child?”

  “Not right away. But I did, eventually. But it was a girl. They found that out while I was pregnant, and the baby was aborted. That happened three more times before I finally got pregnant with a boy.”

  “Did Colleen try to pass off the child as her own?”

  “Yes,” Esme said. “That was always the plan. That was why they were looking for somebody who looks like me – light skinned, light eyes. The Whitmores wanted the coloring of the baby to look right. Colleen has brown hair, light skin and blue eyes. Jacob has grey hair, but he was a blue-eyed blonde when he was younger. As I grew bigger, the Whitmores hid me away when their friends would come over, they used another girl to serve them their food when people were over, and Colleen got a special pregnancy pillow to make it look like she was getting bigger. She had all kinds of baby showers. Five baby showers. I had the baby at home, they named him Jacob Jr., and he’s 5 years old right now.”