Presumption of Guilt

by Rachel Sinclair

  “Yes. That is correct.”

  I let that fact speak for itself. It was very suspicious that Jacob would do that. Why have his daughter’s body exhumed and cremated, unless you’re trying to do a coverup?

  He was a clever one, that Jacob Whitmore. But maybe not that clever. If he was, he would have had the body cremated to begin with.

  I opened my mouth, intending to ask some more questions, but I realized that the questions I really needed to ask were the ones that I needed to ask Jacob himself. It was going to be a very fruitful examination when he finally took the stand.

  The prosecutor had a few more witnesses, and then it was time to wrap up for the day.

  I felt fairly confident that I had drawn blood, so I was happy with the exchange with the medical examiner. I knew that I could wrap things up in a nice neat bow when I had to.

  And I was looking forward to that.

  Chapter 36

  At the end of the day, I got out on the street and saw that people were still gathered in front of the courthouse. In fact, there were more people now than there were earlier. Some guy had a bullhorn, and he was talking into it. He was telling the crowd about how we must not let things stand. He was saying that immigrants were the cause of all the problems in this country, and Esme was just the tip of the iceberg. I had to bite my tongue to keep from engaging with the guy. He was such a lunatic. In a way, I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for anybody who had so much hatred in their heart.

  I got home, and Christian came home with me. I invited him over for dinner, as I wanted to go through the case with him. I also wanted to talk to Aidan about all of this. Aidan was no longer being as weird with me about this case as he used to be, just because there was no longer a reason to be. I had already talked to Julian Rodriguez about the situation, because he was finally cooperating with me. In fact, Julian had agreed to testify in court about what he knew. So, as far as Aidan was concerned, he was in the clear with this whole situation.

  However, Aidan had a surprise for me. A surprise guest.

  His guest’s name was Brad.

  Brad Whitmore.

  Chapter 37

  “Hello,” I said to the guy who was standing in the living room with my brother. Brad was tall, about 6 foot 3, and was small framed, but he had kind of a large gut. He was balding on top, which was highly unusual, considering the guy was only 20 years old.

  “I am Avery, Avery Collins,” I said to him, extending my hand. He just looked at my hand and didn’t shake it. “I’m representing Esme Gutierrez in the murder of your sister.” I looked over at Aidan, who was looking pretty satisfied about having found this guy.

  Ever since I found out that there was a Brad, and that Brad was Aria’s brother, and that he was the one who was being blamed for the death of the original Aria, I was in hot pursuit of trying to find him. I’d asked Lauren about it, but she was no help. She told me that he moved without telling her where he was going, just out of the blue.

  I knew that Brad was going to be a material witness, to say the very least, but I had no idea where he was. Yet, Aidan was able to track him down, finally. I had no idea how he was able to find him, but I was happy that he did.

  The guy nodded his head at me. He looked down at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with me. He looked at Aidan furtively and I got the impression that Aidan and he had bonded in a way.

  Aidan came over to me. “Brad told me that he was the one who broke into the house that one night. He was the one who had the knife. He wanted me to tell you this, because he’s very sorry about it. He hopes that you can forgive him, but he really wanted you to not defend Esme Gutierrez. He told me that the reason why he wanted that was because he thought that he had killed Sophia Delgado. He told me that he got the incident with Sophia mixed up with the incident with Aria all those years ago, and that the two things blended together in his mind. He still was convinced that he was one who had killed Aria all those years ago, but now, he’s not so sure.”

  I opened my mouth, and I shut it. “Brad, I would like to ask you a question.”

  I had a feeling that this Brad was the mysterious X. The reason why I thought that was because I had always suspected that X had known that Christian was on the case with me because the person who had threatened me over the email was the same person who had broken into my home. The reason why I thought that these two people were one and the same was because there was a business card from Christian on the table. The business card had indicated that he wanted me to call him about the case. That’s what was written on the back of the card. Call me about the case, I’d like to help. That card was gone, presumably taken by the intruder. There was a second business card, one that I used to call Christian.

  I wondered if the person who had contacted me, X, knew that Christian had been on the case because of that business card.

  I felt my heart start to quicken as I realized that there was a possibility that this guy, along with the possibility that he would be able to testify in court, assuming he was not in the throes of psychosis, would also have information for me. Information for me about who killed Becky.

  He didn’t look at me. Rather, he looked over at Aidan, who nodded his head. “You’re going to have to address the questions you have for him to me. He does not communicate very much with people. In fact, it took me a long time to gain his trust.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. I wondered how long it was that Aidan had known about this guy. I was going to have to talk to him later about how it was that he found him, how long he had known him, and why he didn’t tell me about him a long time ago. I was very thorough with my witness list, and I had included him on it. However, I could just see the prosecutor asking the judge to exclude him, because the prosecutor did not know about his existence prior to the trial. He was not made available to the prosecutor to speak with before the trial.

  Once again, I found myself wanting to brain Aidan. He managed to make things much more difficult than they had to be.

  “Okay, here’s the question that I want you to ask him. I need for you to ask him if he was the person who wrote me threatening emails, signing them simply X. Could you ask that of him?”

  Aidan turned to Brad. “My sister, Avery, wants to ask you if you were the person who was threatening her over the email.”

  Brad got closer to Aidan, and whispered something in his ear.

  “Yes,” Aidan said to me. “He was the one who wrote that threatening email.” And then he looked over at Brad, who was holding up two fingers. Brad whispered something else to him. “The two emails.”

  I swallowed hard. I wondered how it was that a guy who seemed to be so nonfunctional would have been able to write such an intelligent and articulate email. But perhaps I didn’t need to wonder that. This guy obviously was noncommunicative with people in person. That didn’t mean that he was not highly intelligent, and able to write a good email. In fact, that was one thing that his mother had said – he was highly intelligent.

  I took a deep breath. I did not want to get my hopes up. I did not want to think that this guy really had information about the murder of my best friend. But then again, I had to ask him that question. If there was even a chance that he had that kind of information, I was gonna press him on it.

  “Ask Brad if he was serious when he wrote that he had information about the murder of my best friend. Please ask him that.”

  Aidan bowed his head as he talked to Brad, and I saw Brad whispering in his ear.

  “Yes. He states that he does know information about that.”

  I shook my head. This was all so crazy, that I would be getting information like this after all these years. Then again, I had no idea if I was going to be able to trust anything this guy had to say. However, if he could possibly lead me to a place where I would be able to tell a cop about what had happened to Becky, then this guy was gold, as far as I was concerned. No, not gold. Platinum. He would be that valuable to me.

  “Okay. What informati
on does he need to tell me? Who killed her?”

  I saw Brad whisper into his ear. He whispered in his ear for quite a while. I could not hear what he was saying, and that, of course, was by design.

  “He just said that he has some information about who knows about what happened to your friend. He told me that there was a friend that he knew, back when he was young. This was back before he had gone into the mental institution when he was 12. He told me that that friend knew your friend. He said that the reason why things happened the way they did in this case was because the person who killed Becky was someone who was extremely wealthy. He said that the person who killed her makes his own father look like a pauper. His father is a billionaire, Avery. So if the person who killed her was even richer than him, then you can just imagine. He told me that that’s the reason why the prosecutor hid evidence, and your attorney was apparently in on the whole situation. They conspired to make sure that you were convicted of this crime.”

  Actually, what he was telling me was something that I had suspected all along. I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that somebody would have that kind of power over other people’s lives. That they could be so corrupt that they could railroad an innocent person into prison. These people, they ruined my life. And they did it because, why? Money, did he bribe them? Or maybe he blackmailed them. No, he probably just bribed them. I’d come to know over the course of my life that if you dangle enough money in front of people, they will dance to your tune, no matter what your tune happened to be. If you offered the prosecutor and the public defender enough money to make sure that somebody is railroaded for a crime that you did, that person is going to get convicted, no matter what.

  That person was me.

  All of a sudden, I thought about the stories I had learned about in prison. I went to the library one day and I found the Count of Monte Cristo. That was a story about an innocent boy who was made to pay for a murder that he did not commit, and that, as in my case, the reason why he was put in prison was because of corruption at the highest level. In the end, he managed to escape from prison and take revenge, one by one, on everybody who was responsible for him being put in that situation.

  I wondered if I was going to be able to get that same opportunity. I wondered if I was going to be able to find out exactly who it was that caused me to go to prison for something I did not do, and I wondered if I was going to be able to take my revenge on them. One by one, just like in the book.

  First of all, however, I was going to have to find out who did it. And why.

  “Does he know exactly who it was that was behind all this?” I asked him. “Can he give me a name?”

  Aidan whispered into his ear, and he whispered back. “Yes. He can. He can tell you exactly who it was who did it. However, he’s afraid to tell you. This person is still alive, and this person still knows that Brad knows what he did. This guy’s been watching him all these years. Brad’s afraid that if he tells you, this guy’s going to kill him. And also, he tells me that there’s not much you can really do to him. There is no way you can be able to prove he did anything. It was too long ago, and there is no real evidence against him. So, Brad doesn’t really want to tell you about who exactly it is. He just told me that he thought that it would cause more harm than good. He wanted you to know that the reason why you went to prison was because of corruption.”

  I sighed. What this guy was doing was almost cruel. He knew who was responsible for me going to prison, and he couldn’t tell me? I could understand his reasoning – if he really felt that his life was in danger, or it would be in danger if he said something about this guy, then I could hardly blame him for not wanting to tell me about who it was. But to come over here and tantalize me with these hints – it was too much.

  “That’s good, Aidan. Listen, thank you for bringing this guy over, I appreciate it. But I’m in the middle of a trial. My client’s life literally depends on my being sharp. So, I’m very sorry, but I have to go out on the balcony with Christian. We have to brainstorm about the questions I’m asking of my witnesses. I’m going to present my case within the next few days, so I’m going to have to be on my game.”

  I looked over at Brad. “Thank you, Brad, for coming and telling me this piece of information. If you decide to change your mind about actually giving me a name, then please don’t hesitate to come back. In the meantime, I’m going to get my investigator, Regina, to look into the matter. Hopefully she can figure out something. At least we know now that the person who framed me came from the upper-crust world. I had a feeling that he did, and this just confirms it. So, in a way, that narrows it down for Regina.”

  At that, I went out my sliding glass door, and sat on the balcony with Christian. He was sitting in one of my big comfortable chairs, a Bloody Mary next to him. There was a Bloody Mary for me as well, just waiting for me to take a sip. We were going to go over our notes, and brainstorm about the witnesses that were going to be put on the stand the next day by the prosecutor. I was just going to have to put the visit from Brad out of my mind. I certainly could not have what he told me occupying my headspace. Not now, and not at least for the next week or so. Not until the end of the trial.

  I did go ahead and call Regina.

  “Regina, it’s Avery. Listen, I need for you to start doing some digging. Brad Whitmore was just here. He’s the son of Jacob, brother of Aria, and is also apparently the author of the threatening X emails. Which makes sense, because his mother told me that he was a computer genius. That was the reason why he was able to cover up his digital footprint so well that even Christian was not able to find him, let alone the FBI. Anyhow, he gave me some clues as to who framed me for the murder of Becky. Not many clues, but just the fact that he knows who did it, is the biggest clue. He told me that the guy who was behind it all was an average guy who makes Jacob Whitmore look like a pauper. He apparently got the information from a friend of his, before he went into the mental institution at the age of 12. Now, he won’t tell me anything more than that. But you’ve tracked down people with less information, so see what you can do.”

  “Will do, boss. So what are you going to do once you find out who is behind all that shit? You going to take it to them, Count of Monte Cristo-style? You gonna ruin their lives, one by one? ‘Cause you know that it wasn’t just the one bastard involved with this. There’s probably five or six rotten eggs in this bunch. I’ve a feeling that when I get going, the rot is going to go from the highest level down to the lowest. But yeah, I’ll start shaking the trees. I’ll see what kind of rotten fruit falls out of it. Just leave it to me. I’ll figure it out.”

  I nodded my head. I felt better knowing that Regina was on the case. She was right, however. Once I found out who was involved, I was going to take my vengeance. I was already marking my public defender and the prosecutor as part of it. I always suspected that they were dirty. Now that I knew that they were, I just needed to get the proof of that so that I could bring them down. I was going to burn everybody down by the time I got finished.

  If I did that, maybe I could start sleeping at night.

  Chapter 38

  The prosecutor’s case wrapped up in two more days, and it was time for my side to get going. Jacob was the main witness for the prosecutor, as I knew that he would be. He put on a show, crying on the stand. I had to bite my tongue to not rip into him when I cross-examined him. I knew the truth. Colleen was another witness that the prosecutor put on. She, too, put on a show. Just as much of a show as Jacob. I held her less responsible for this entire shit-show, but I still blamed her. I didn’t know how much she knew about the whole Aria-to-Sophia mess. For all I knew, she could be the innocent party in all of this.

  But that still didn’t make her an innocent party, in general. After all, she was complicit in the whole Handmaid’s Tale shenanigans that they were doing with the domestic workers over there. She knew about it, she encouraged it, the whole thing was just sick. And, personally, I thought it was probably
the reason why Sophia was killed.

  The one thing I did not do when I cross-examined Jacob, however, was ask questions about what I needed to know about his prior life. Because, he did have a prior life. Literally. That was one thing I found out from 23 and Me. I was anxious to ask him questions about it on the stand. However, since cross-examination questions are generally limited to topics that were brought up during the direct examination, I didn’t want to get too far over my skis. I reserved the right to call Jacob as my witness, and I was relishing the fight.

  But the first thing I had to do was lay the groundwork for what was to come. I had a couple of key witnesses on the roster who were going to establish a couple of things. One was the voice coach who coached Sophia. The other one was Calista Kassis. She was the Syrian immigrant who was working for Jacob, and who apparently had his kid. She was going to be integral in my proving motive for why Jacob would have killed Sophia. She was willing to testify, because I had worked hard in getting her green card. That meant that she would be less likely to be deported, no matter what Jacob said.

  While I knew that there was a possibility that Jacob was going to try to frame her for some kind of crime, which might still cause her to be deported, I figured that that was not going to happen. The reason why it wasn’t going to happen was because Christian managed to get some dirt on the judge who Jacob used to deport people he didn’t like, and make sure that the people he did like were not deported. He hacked into the judge’s bank account information, and found large payments to him from Jacob. Once I got ahold of those bank account receipts, I knew that I had the dirt on the judge to make sure that, at the very least, he did not deport Calista for any reason. I knew that he was going to have some explaining to do if it ever came to that, and he knew that too. So, he agreed not to ever deport Calista, even if there were some trumped up charges against her, and, for good measure, I warned him against deporting any immigrants at Jacob’s request. He begrudgingly agreed with that, and I knew that I had a win.