Presumption of Guilt

by Rachel Sinclair

  She got on the bus with her sleeping bag under her arm, well aware of how she looked and smelled – it was tough trying to find a restroom that she could use anywhere in the city, so she usually did her business in whatever bush happened to be around, which meant that more than a few drops of urine ended up on her pants and underwear – and sat down, putting her head against the window. She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about how it was she ended up here, in this situation. She tried to block out the voices in her head that told her to kill virgins and drink their blood, or that told her that aliens had planted a probe in her brain that transmitted government secrets to the United States government in Washington. She tried not to see the colorful monsters that boarded the bus after her, with their skins the color of the rainbow, their eyes bloodshot and bugging out of their head, their mouths a mawing gape of teeth that threatened to eat her alive. She only saw these things and thought these thoughts at night, when she was through with her work, and knew that she was going to be completely alone.

  She shook her head rapidly, trying to get the intrusive thoughts and visions out of her head.

  But it was no use.

  Chapter 8

  “So, what did you think about Esme’s story?” I asked Regina over a dirty martini and rare steak enjoyed at the Stake Chophouse and Bar, one of my favorite places by my condo. Stake was a modern steakhouse, with a bit of a retro feeling to it, with the wood-paneled walls and leather bucket seats, combining that with distinctly modern touches such as stone backsplashes, lighted murals and a large wine rack in one corner of the room.

  Regina shrugged. “She didn’t do it, that much I know. Who did it, I don’t know, but I know that that girl is innocent.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I had an idea that Esme was innocent as well, but I wanted to pick Regina’s brain to find out what made her so positive.

  “I told you, I got a finely tuned bullshit meter, and it wasn’t getting set off when I talked to her,” Regina said. “That’s really all. I didn’t get hairs standing up on my arms when she spoke. Good enough for me.”

  I sighed. I knew that we had a long investigation ahead of us, too long, and I really had no idea where to focus for this one. The obvious place was on the creepy father and equally creepy stepmother. As Regina said, that was some weird shit, what those people were doing with Esme. It was bad enough that they needed her to be a baby incubator, but what was up with making her actually have sex with Jacob Whitmore? Couldn’t they have artificially inseminated her? They certainly did have the money to do it that way. The only thing that I could think of was that Jacob and Colleen had some kind of fetish that involved Jacob sleeping with the hired help. I had heard of that kind of thing in the reverse – that couples got off on the wife sleeping with a random guy while the husband watched. It was called “cuckolding,” but it was usually the wife having sex with a guy, not the other way around.

  “You said that you would start by asking around on the street if somebody knew something,” I said. “What makes you think that a girl like Aria would have known somebody on the street?” I asked her.

  Regina shrugged. “It makes sense. A rich girl who’s ignored by her parents, got money to burn and no doubt feeling depressed and rejected. Wouldn’t be surprised if she turned to drugs in that kind of situation. Trust me, girls like Aria are ripe for the picking with the drug dealers around town. And she wouldn’t have to get her hands dirty by actually going to the dealer herself. She could certainly use a stooge to get her the junk. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually did see the dealers herself, just because she was bored and looking for adventure. That’s the kind of thing that I could see someone like her doing. I could even see her banging a dealer just for kicks.” Regina cut into her prime rib, dipped it into the horseradish sauce once and then into the au jus, and pointed her fork at me before putting the piece of meat into her mouth. “You gotta think outside the box.”

  I nodded my head. “Just don’t spin your wheels. I’d like to go ahead and start my part of the investigation with Jacob and Colleen.” I smiled at Regina. “No offense, but-“

  She nodded her head. “I know, I know. I’m a little too rough for little rich shits like Jacob and Colleen. You don’t even have to tell me that. Which is bullshit, because you don’t see me reverse cuckolding. I mean, that’s just all kinds of wrong, if you ask me. I don’t care what you want to do in your bedroom, but to coerce an innocent woman into your sick games…” She shook her head. “Have sex with my shriveled prune of a husband or go back to El Salvador and get murdered. What kind of crap is that?”

  “I agree,” I said. “I also have written down that I want to know about her mother. What happened to her? Why didn’t Aria herself know what happened to her? Don’t you think that’s just a bit weird that everything seemed to be such a secret about her?”

  Regina shrugged. “Not really. Probably the rich bastard got rid of her, not killed her or nothing like that, but paid her ass off to go away when Aria was young. Then, when Aria got a little older, old enough to ask questions, he just told her some kind of crap story. ‘Your mother didn’t want you, so she went to Europe, never to return. So sorry, could you please pass the butter?’ Happens all the time.”

  “Well, I still want to find out about the mother,” I said. “I want to cover every base around the Whitmores, their associates and friends. I just have a feeling that there’s something there. You go ahead and do your street investigation. Hopefully, you’ll turn up something along the way. I’ll stay close to the family, and hope to get some leads there. Maybe between the two of us, we can come up with a reasonable theory.”

  Regina nodded her head. “I hope so, because what’s going on out there in the media is just crap. I would tell you that you should try to get a change of venue, because every single hearing with this woman has resulted in hundreds of protestors lining the street in front of the courthouse. I’ve seen the news coverage on her hearings, her bond review and her arraignment and all that, and there’s some douche with a bullhorn standing on the top of the steps telling the cheering morons that all Central American refugees were criminals that are coming over here to murder our rich young beautiful women, and that Esme was just the start. They held hearings in the Congress today on capping the number of refugees that can come to this country to, like, 1,000 a year or some shit. Saw the coverage on C-Span, because I was bored and curious, and they had a picture of Aria blown up on some easel while some loud-mouth was carrying on about how we were going to lose our country if we keep letting these people in to rape and murder us white folk.” She shook her head. “When did we get like this and how?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said. I actually hadn’t paid too much attention to the media circus that was surrounding this case. I tried to limit my exposure to what was being said, because I didn’t want it influencing me. I knew that I was as susceptible to rhetoric as anybody else, and if I listened to what was being said about my client, I might start to believe it. I couldn’t have that, so I tuned out all the noise. And that was all it was – noise. None of it had any basis in reality. Or, maybe, there was a kernel of truth somewhere buried in all the lies, and that’s what made the lies more believable.

  There was a faction in this country that believed that immigrants were the cause of most of our problems. Esme was apparently caught in the cross-fire of this undeclared war on immigrants. Her case was too on the nose for there not to be a big deal made about it. The victim was too perfect, Esme was too powerless, and the mood in this country was too hot. Just as she had been made a villain by the anti-immigrant right, she was a martyr and a cause celebre for the other side. Each side was just as passionate as the other, and, in the meantime, there was Esme, caught in the middle of the warring factions.

  It was too much to bear for any woman.

  Chapter 9

  I got home that night, just wanting to get into the tub with a glass of wine or three. Just light some candles, get a good book
and soak. I had some lavender bath crystals that relaxed me more than anything else ever did.

  But that was not to be. Harlow and Lola greeted me the second I walked in, and Aidan was sitting on the couch, surfing through Netflix. “The dogs been outside?” I asked him. Aidan had picked the dogs up from their doggie day care after his last class at 3:30. That was the arrangement we had, but he also was to put the dogs out periodically until I got home to do it myself.

  He shook his head. “Nah. Listen, I’ve had a shit day at school and work, and all I want to do is veg out in front of a good movie.” He continued to surf the site, clicking through one picture after another.

  I took a deep breath. “Aidan, I thought we had an understanding.” Our understanding was that Aidan would help me around the house, including cooking for me, walking the dogs and cleaning up. I took one look around, at the half-eaten pizza in the box, the clothes strewn around the floor, and the dirty dishes, and I lost it.

  “Get up. Off your ass.” I picked up his jacket, that was covering the back of the sofa, and threw it at him. I picked up his shoes, which were on the dining room table, and hurled those at him, too, for good measure.

  “What’s your problem?” he asked as a shoe flew at his face. He covered himself and ducked before the other shoe could make a similar trajectory. “Why are you losing your shit right now?”

  “Why? Why? Because, you lazy POS, I’ve let you live here and you’ve done jack for me. These dogs have to be walked before I get home. And I expect the dishes to be done, your crap to be picked up off the floor and the bathrooms to be cleaned. I don’t think that’s asking a lot, considering you’re staying here for free.”

  Aidan just shook his head. “You better not throw me out of here. You might need me.”

  “Why would I need you?” I asked him. “What do you bring to the table?”

  He got up off the couch and flexed his muscle and pointed to it. “This. This is what I bring to the table. That and the fact that I’m proficient in MMA. I can take anybody, anytime, anywhere.”

  “Yeah. So?” What was he getting at?

  “Well, sis, in case you haven’t been paying attention, which you clearly haven’t, you are public enemy numero uno these days.” He brought his laptop over to me. “I got on your personal email when I found out that you have the Esme Gutierrez case. I think that you need to read some of the messages you’re getting. It’s some pretty jacked-up shit if you ask me. If I were you, I would get a gun.”

  I shook my head. “What are you talking about? Listen, I can’t deal with this right now. Lola and Harlow need to go out. How would you like to hold your pee for hours on end?”

  He waved his hand at me. “I took them out an hour ago. Chill, baby, just chill.”

  “What do you mean, you took them out? You told me you didn’t.”

  Aidan shrugged his shoulders. “I like seeing you lose your shit, what can I say. But I took them out. I’m not that cruel.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. My brother was standing on my last nerve, to say the very least.

  “You sure the dogs have gone out?”

  “Positive. While I was out there, by the way, I ran into a bunch of people with cameras and microphones and shit. You must not have seen them because you came up through the garage, but they’re out there.”

  I went out onto the balcony and looked down. Sure enough, there was a crowd of people standing on the boardwalk, some of them with bullhorns in their hands. I also saw some satellite trucks that apparently had just arrived. They were parked out on the street. “What the hell?” I asked.

  “They’re trying to talk to the neighbors and anybody coming out about what they know about you. They asked me a bunch of questions, I guess because somebody tipped them off that I’m your brother, but I told them all to F off.” He smiled broadly. He loved this type of thing. Ate it up. Being in the middle of the action was right where he wanted to be. “Anyhow, sis, I think that you need to look at your emails. You’re not going to like what you see.”

  I hadn’t looked at my personal emails for awhile, I had to admit. I typically only looked at my personal email account every third day, because it was 99% spam anyhow. I was always meaning to unsubscribe to stuff, and mark other things as spam, but I either never got around to it or I didn’t do it because I thought that maybe someday, somehow, these email messages might come in handy. Like maybe one day I would go ahead and print out a discount coupon for Macy’s, so I better not mark it as spam. That was silly, though, because I hardly ever shopped in a regular store. I mainly did like most everybody else – bought everything on Amazon.

  With a sigh, I put out my arms. “Go ahead, show me my emails. I have to admit, you got me curious.”

  “You’re not going to be curious when you read these emails, sis,” he said. “You’re gonna be pissed. And maybe scared, although you’re a badass and ain’t nobody scaring you.”

  I sat down with my laptop on my kitchen table, and saw that my email inbox was flooded. “What the hell?” I asked, seeing that most of the messages were not from companies and the usual suspects. These were email addresses that I had never seen before. And they had hateful message lines such as to the whore representing Esme, and I hope you die.

  Subtle, these messages were. Real subtle.

  I opened one message after another, seeing that most of them were threatening in nature. One of the emails threatened that if I stayed on Esme’s case that I was going to be “gutted like a pig.” Another said I deserved to get the needle along with my client. Quite a few accused me of destroying this country by defending Esme and people like her.

  One of the more coherent emails began innocuous enough. Argumentative, but innocuous.

  Dear Ms. Collins,

  I’m writing this email because I’m concerned that you don’t know what you are getting into by representing Esme Gutierrez. I don’t think that you know exactly how the country feels about her. I realize that Ms. Gutierrez is entitled to representation, even though she’s not a US citizen. I’ve read about you, and I know that you enjoy taking on cases that are long-shots. Underdogs. I know that you were wrongfully imprisoned in your youth, and that’s why you have a passion for taking on cases that are hard to win.

  I shrugged my shoulders as I started to read this email. After reading hundreds of messages that were filled with people misspelling simple words like “kill,” and messages that talked about my “loosing my head,” in reference to their fantasy about my being beheaded like Marie Antoinette – I mean, come on, it’s losing my head not loosing it, get it right – a coherent and reasonably intelligible email like this one was a refreshing change.

  Which was why the second part of his email was that much more chilling.

  Ms. Collins, I don’t want to be rude, but if you continue on this case, you will die. That is a fact. You are representing a cold-blooded murderer, one that should not even be in this country to begin with. Nobody asked her to come to this country. She killed a beautiful and talented woman, and if you walk her, you have signed your death warrant. Believe this. I know many people who believe like I do, and they all agree with me – both you and your client should be shot.

  I hope that you treat this message fairly and in the spirit to which it was intended. Withdraw from her case or suffer the consequences.

  Sincerely,

  X

  Oh, boy. I looked up at Aidan when I finished reading my death threats and hate mail. “How did these clowns get my email address, I wonder?”

  “Duh. Did you use your personal email address when you signed up for Facebook?” he asked.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So? After all the data breaches places like Facebook have seen and with all the privacy issues that site is having, and you think that your personal information isn’t going to get out there? All it takes is for a few hackers to get your email address and post it on-line and consider yourself Doxed, my friend. Doxed. I’ve been doing a few Google searches and
your personal information is all over the Internet by now.”

  I took a deep breath and went out onto the balcony. By now, there were quite a few protestors that started to line the boardwalk, signs in hand. “This won’t stand,” I said. “These are private condos. They’re trespassing.”

  “Well, actually, the boardwalk isn’t private property. It belongs to the city of Coronado, so those people down there are well within their rights to be there. Now, if they make themselves a nuisance, they might be sternly talked to by the beach cops who run around on those Segways. But they have a First Amendment right of assembly, they’re being peaceful so far, and…”

  “And they’re blocking the egress of the people on the boardwalk,” I said. “Surely there’s something that can be done about them.”

  “I’m afraid there’s not,” he said. “I’ve been studying my Con Law for the bar, so I know from where I speak.”

  I looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember Con Law myself. I studied that stuff, too, for my own Bar Exam, but it seemed so long ago. It wasn’t, really, it was only 4 years ago that I was studying for the bar, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  I was doubtful that that crowd of people couldn’t be shooed off, so I did a quick Google search, which brought me to the ACLU site, which clearly stated that protestors had an absolute right to use a public sidewalk. They didn’t even need a permit.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, smarty pants, you win. They can stay down there. At least, until one of them gets out of hand.” I felt my cheeks flush, and I put my hands on my face. My skin was burning hot. “Oh, God, I didn’t expect this.”

  Aidan had a smirk on his face that I wanted to slap right off. “What were you expecting if you got on this case, sis? I mean, seriously, this case has been like the lead story on Fox News for like a month now. Everybody’s been just waiting to see who was going to represent her after the state decided to go for the death penalty on the case. You won that lottery, now you get the prize.”