best served cold

by Sinclair, Rachel

  I knew that there was the good possibility that this case was going to be easier to win than I originally thought it would be.

  “Well, Jonathan,” I said. “We have our deadlines and our marching orders. And you are in receipt of a subpoena for Carl’s deposition. We can agree to a video deposition if you like. I know that it would be a burden for him to have to fly back here from Sweden just for a deposition, so I’ll agree to that.”

  “I’ll be quashing that subpoena,” he said.

  “You won’t be. I just told you that I’ll agree to a video deposition. If I demanded that he flew back from Sweden, you could quash it. But I’m being more than reasonable. Now, it’s up to you to set it up.”

  At that, I walked away. He could try to play his games all he wanted. I knew the law and the procedure.

  I thought that he probably couldn’t say the same.

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  Chapter Two

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

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  Chapter 29

  Regina

  Regina went to Jefferson City, Missouri, to confront Ron Astin, with Ari in tow. When they got to Jefferson City, Ari made a face. Regina knew what he was thinking. Jeff City was not exactly the most urbane capitol city in the entire world, to say the very least. The buildings outside the window were old and worn, and there just seemed to be a sense of despair that permeated the air in this town.

  Yet the capitol building, where Regina and Ari were headed, was beautiful. It was there that she fell in love with the art of Thomas Hart Benton. The Benton mural in the House Lounge was the most amazing thing that she’d ever seen. The rotunda had its own works of art, with women walking around with baskets of fruits on their heads and lots of blues and oranges. Visiting this capitol was one of the few happy memories she had of her childhood.

  They were going to ambush this guy. Regina managed to get a copy of Ron’s schedule and saw that he had an opening right at 2:30. She made an arrangement with his chief of staff to see him, by calling the chief of staff and lying about who she was. She explained that her name was Angela Queensland, and was a lobbyist for the poultry industry and she needed to talk to Ron about some legislation that was pending. That was the only way that she could get in to talk to him. She felt badly to be lying like that, until she thought about what this guy was up to, then felt that anything that happened to him was probably deserved.

  They got to the capitol building and found Ron’s office suite. Regina explained to the receptionist who she was, and, within 15 minutes, she and Ron were heading back to Ron’s office.

  “Hello,” Ron said as Regina and Ari sat down in chairs in front of his enormous desk. “What can I do for the two of you?”

  Ron’s decor seemed to favor the gaudy - his curtains were gold, as were his walls, which were papered in gold lamé. Ron himself seemed like a tacky kind of guy, really - his suit didn’t fit him well, and his hair was done in a combover that was extremely obvious. The guy was around 30 lbs overweight, and probably was less than 5’5”. His legs were tiny and spindly, his gut was huge and he had sizeable man boobs.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush, here,” Regina said. “My name isn’t really Angela Queensland. It’s Regina Baldwin. I’m a private investigator. This is Ari Romo. He’s a reporter for the New York Times. He’s going to file a story in the New York Times about your son, Jerry, and about his DWIs and his confession to killing a five-year-old girl while shit-faced and going 75 MPH on his bike through a residential neighborhood. His story is also going to talk about all the coverups that have been going on in the Jackson County prosecutor’s office, because you led the appropriations committee that funded the office and you threatened to choke off funds for the office unless they turned a blind eye to your son’s f-ups. I mean, he killed a young girl. A five-year-old girl who was chasing after a ball when your son came barreling down the street, too blind drunk to see her.”

  Ron’s face, which had a bit of an orange tint, with white around his eyes, as he apparently self-tanned with goggles on, suddenly got very pale. His rheumy blue eyes - he seemed to share his son’s love of the drink, judging by how bloodshot his eyes were - darted from Regina to Ari and back again. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” Regina said. “I have all the evidence I need to expose exactly what happened. I have a copy of the police report, all the police reports for all of his DWIs, and I have circumstantial evidence that you threatened to choke off the funding to the Jackson County prosecutor’s office unless they didn’t pursue charges against your son for anything at all. I admit, we’re still investigating and interviewing witnesses, but just the fact that your son had what, 10 DWIs in the span of two years, and no prosecutions, is proof enough that a major shakedown was happening in that office.”

  Ron knew that he was caught. Regina could see that by looking at his face. She raised an eyebrow at him and folded her arms.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “You want something, I know you do. If you didn’t, you would have just written the story and been done with it. Now, what do you want?”

  “I want you to take off the kibosh on prosecuting anybody associated with Carl Williams for the murder of Becky Whitfield. I have found evidence that Jurgen Williams, Carl’s son, was behind the murder of Becky. The prosecutor’s office won’t do anything about it because you’ve threatened them not to. You need to take off the stranglehold you have over there and allow a prosecution to go forward. That’s what I want.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that. I have an agreement with Carl. If I go back on that, I-”

  “You what?” Regina demanded. “What? Listen, Carl is in Sweden. He’s been run out of this country on a rail. He’s not in with the mob anymore. You’re not going to end up floating in the Mississippi River if you cross him. On the other hand, if you don’t do what I ask, Ari is going to go public with the story. In fact, he’s going to go public with the story about Jerry’s crimes, no matter what. The public has a right to know. The public might forgive you, eventually, because it was so long ago. But if Ari writes a story that you’re currently corrupt and currently carrying water for a child rapist and murderer, well, you’ll be lucky to be elected dog-catcher. And you’re going to be in prison yourself.”

  Ron narrowed his eyes and got a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer. He put it to his lips and took a large swig of it, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You go forward with that story about my son, and I will go to the joint, that’s for sure.”

  “No, you won’t. The statute of limitations has run on all your extortion crimes. But if you keep extorting the Jackson County prosecutor’s office and keep them from filing charges against Jurgen, then, yes, your ass is going to be in a prison cell in no time.”

  “But my son, he’s going to be prosecuted for killing that little girl.”

  “Oh, cry me a river. That girl is dead. She’s dead because your son was riding his motorcycle through a residential neighborhood, going 75 miles per hour while shit-faced. He needs to be held to account.”

  Ron took another large swig of his whiskey. He knew that he was screwed. So was his son. There was nothing that could be done.

  “I’ll call my guy at the prosecutor’s office today,” he said. “And they will be allowed to prosecute that Jurgen person.” He was a defeated man. So was his son. Regina couldn’t feel sorry for either of them. The father enabled the son, who apparently never did grow up. Regina found out that Jerry Astin continued to be a monster, probably because he was allowed to be one when he was young. He was currently 38 years old and had had several restraining orders on him over the years. He was a rich guy, and Regina knew that he was going to be able buy his way out of trouble, as rich guys always do.

  But at least he would face charges.


  Regina went back to see Beth Ahern two days later. Beth smiled at Regina when she showed up in her office. “I’ve looked at the evidence against Jurgen, and I’m recommending charges. He’s been arrested in San Diego, and is en route to Missouri for extradition as we speak. I hope that there will finally be justice for Becky Whitfield. God, I hope that that poor girl can finally get justice.”

  “Me too,” Regina said, thinking about Avery. “Justice for Becky and for Avery.”

  Chapter 30

  Avery

  I got the phone call from Regina, telling me that, at long last, somebody was going to stand trial for the murder of Becky all those years ago. While I didn’t necessarily think that Jurgen was going to be convicted, because he had the money to get the best justice money could buy, I was happy that he was going to go through the motions of a criminal trial.

  That made me happy.

  What also made me happy was that the case against Carl was going forward. The class was certified, discovery was exchanged, and I had done several depositions of the people who were around the compound when those young girls were being raped. They all seemed like they were apprehensive about talking to me. I had to reassure all of them that they would not be prosecuted, which was true. The prosecutor told me that they did not plan to pursue any of the ancillary people, and I told each of them that they were safe to speak with me. And they did. In deposition after deposition, I heard the same types of stories.

  The entire thing made me sick, but I knew that my deposition of Carl was going to shed a lot of light on exactly what happened. I had a long list of questions for him.

  To tell the truth, I didn’t want to try this case. The girls were doing well, relatively well, in the group home that I created for them. A lot of them were still suffering from PTSD, but I made sure that all the girls got intense therapy, at least the ones who were still suffering the most, and they all were in school. And they all had each other. That was important. They were around others who knew what they were going through. They had each other to lean on.

  And I didn’t want to drag them through the pain of a trial. So, if there was a way, any way, that I could have persuaded this guy to give me the money I was looking for, without there being a trial, I was going to do it. As it was, I was trying to figure out a way that I could try the case without calling any of the girls to the stand. I knew that that was an option. There were enough witnesses to what was going on that I probably could do it without them having to be revictimized on the stand. And with Jonathan being cowed by the threat of the Ukrainian gangster killing him for not paying his marker, I knew that there was a good chance that I could probably win the case without a single girl taking the stand.

  So, I took Carl’s deposition. It took 8 hours, and he lied all the way through it. He somehow tried to make it seem like he didn’t do a thing wrong, and that when he hired those girls, he thought that they were all of age because they all had fake IDs. Then he tried to say that the parties weren’t sex parties, they were just regular parties. When those men disappeared with those girls, all of whom were 21, according to him, they weren’t going to places to have sex. They were just going to go and make out. No, no sex ever happened on his grounds, none at all. And certainly nobody underaged appeared at these parties, at least none that he knew of. He was shocked, shocked, that these hussies all gave him fake IDs. How was he to know they were lying?

  He dared me to prove that any sex happened on his grounds during these parties.

  I was going to do exactly that.

  I knew that he wasn’t going to appear for trial, and that was fine. No way would he ever set foot on United States soil, because the pressure was high for the prosecutor’s office to throw the book at him. I knew that the prosecutors hoped that he would never return to this country, because they didn’t want to deal with it.

  Nevertheless, I was going to show this deposition to the jury, and they were going to know how much of a liar he was.

  Chapter 31

  As it turned out, I didn’t settle the case. I decided that I needed to talk to the girls and ask all of them if they were okay with taking the stand, and I knew that I needed to find a few girls who might have been mentally okay with testifying.

  Naomi King stood up and told me that she wanted to testify. Naomi was a beautiful black girl, with cheekbones that could cut glass, big brown eyes that were framed by the thickest eyelashes I had ever seen, and dimples. She had natural hair that fell around her face with large curls. She was a skinny girl, although she had strong legs and curvy hips.

  “Ms. Avery, if you need somebody to get up there and tell what happened to us girls, I’ll do it. I want to do it.”

  Three other girls concurred. One was named Angela Todd. She was a tall red-head, willowy and statuesque with natural curls, light green eyes and broad shoulders. The second girl was Dakota Murphy. She was a natural brunette, but had taken to streaking her hair with midnight blue. Like everybody else in the house, she was gorgeous, with dark eyes, a straight Roman nose, perfect teeth and full lips. She easily could have walked the runway. The third girl was Cameron Hayes. A skinny blonde, Cameron was only 15, the youngest of the group who volunteered to take the stand, as the other three girls were 17. But she was probably one of the self-possessed of all the girls in the house.

  They all gave similar reasons for wanting to testify. “We need to make the case against the guy was strong as we can,” Angela informed me. “I’ve been talking a lot to that shrink, and I realize that what he did to us was not just wrong, but criminal. Us girls are going to go through this horrible trauma for the rest of our lives.”

  “And we need to get some cash for what we went through,” Dakota said bluntly. “Listen, some of these girls in this house aren’t going to be able to get over what happened. They might not ever be able to work a job. That’s how bad they’re traumatized. They’re going to need money, and if the only way they’re going to get it is that the four of us take the stand, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Cameron chimed in. “I agree, Ms. Collins,” she said. “Somebody needs to take this guy down. What he did to us, he needs to pay for it.”

  Naomi simply said that she was looking forward to taking the stand. “I want to look that guy in the eye and tell him exactly what I think about him. I think that my therapist calls it closure.”

  So, I got my core group of girls. I prepared them for what they were going to experience on the stand. “You’re going to get cross-examined by a guy who has it in his bones to be a ruthless jerk,” I said.

  “I know,” Cameron said, with a roll of her eyes. “I watch CSI. And Law and Order. I know all about cross-examination. I’m ready for it.”

  Still, even though the girls all told me that they were prepared, I spent days and days preparing them anyhow.

  I also managed to certify their therapists as both an expert witness on the effects of child sexual molestation and rape, as well as a witness about the mental trauma that the girls were experiencing because of Carl’s sickness.

  So, I was ready for trial. Christian was going to second-chair me, and I felt like it was the dynamic duo together again. We did so well with the Esme Gutierrez case, and I was happy that the two of us could team up again. We prepared for trial by staying at the North Park house with the girls, so that Christian could prepare them for trial while I spread out the evidence on a table in the sunroom and went over everything that I possibly could.

  Chapter 32

  December 16 - The First Day of Trial

  When I got to the courthouse on the first day of the trial, ready to pick my jury, I knew that I was going to win. It was just a matter of how much we were going to be awarded. I decided that, come what may, I would give most of the money to the girls. They were the ones who deserved it. Besides, I had more than enough money. I was never the girl who needed a lot of money, I only just ever wanted to be comfortable. And my $10 million settlement with the state of Missouri was
stretching very far.

  Then again, I didn’t really know what the girls would do with all that money. Most of them did not really have a family to help them manage their finances. Since many of the girls were minors, the state of California would have a guardian ad litem appointed to them. A guardian ad litem was basically an attorney who decided what was the best interest of the child. Most likely, any money that they received from this lawsuit would go into trust for them, or a structured settlement, where the minor would get a certain amount each month from the settlement, at least until they turned 21.

  So I knew that any amount of money they received was going to be safe for them, in that they would not be able to just spend it all wildly. And, some of the girls who I managed to bring into the class were adults now. They could spend the money however they chose.

  Yet, I also knew that most of these girls were unsophisticated, did not have very good role models, and I was concerned for them. If we won big in court, they were going to be instant millionaires. How would they handle that?

  Yet I knew that that was the least of everybody’s problem. We all just had to get through the next week or so.

  And that was something that was making me very, very nervous.

  Chapter 33