Dark Justice

by Sinclair, Rachel

  “Follow me,” Detective Paulson said. “Up to the bedroom where all that blood was found. I’ll warn you, though, it’s a mess. And it’s weird, too.” He shook his head. “Just weird. My crew is trying to figure out how it was that there was so much goddamned blood in that bedroom and not a drop anyplace else. Not a goddamned drop. I’ve been keeping my crew working this scene overtime, because this fancy broad has such a huge lot to process. They’ve been going through every little blade of grass, looking for a drop of blood, but there’s none. It’s a really bizarre thing, if you ask me.”

  I narrowed my eyes, thinking about my client. If the prosecutor’s theory of the case was to be believed, my client murdered Addison in her bedroom, getting her blood all over that room, and he absconded with her body by dragging it out the window or down the steps. That part was unclear, and the prosecutor didn’t have a good answer, either, for how my client got rid of the body. I did notice that, when I looked at the preliminary report about the crime scene, there was an absence of blood anywhere in the house or grounds, except for the bedroom, and talking to the detective, this was confirmed. He had his men searching for days, processing every carpet fiber and every blade of grass, but apparently the original assessment hadn’t changed - there wasn’t blood anywhere except for in the bedroom.

  And there was a lot of blood in the bedroom.

  So, my client was around 6’3”, and probably didn’t weigh over 160 lbs. He was quite skinny and little. He wasn’t exactly a bodybuilder. I knew that Addison was also quite small, but she was tall as well. I had seen pictures of her in various magazines, and she was like any other Hollywood starlet, in that she probably wasn’t larger than a size 2. Even so, since she was 5’9”, she probably still weighed between 120 and 130 lbs. My client was alleged to have dragged a woman of her size out of her bedroom and into a car, without spilling a single drop of blood anywhere in the vicinity? That was a hole in this story, one that I could drive a truck through. I couldn’t imagine even a man of incredible strength getting her body out of the house without spilling a drop of blood, let alone a skinny guy like my client.

  I cleared my throat as I watched the men and women in that home walk around with plastic on their shoes, crawling around on all fours with magnifying glasses and tweezers, looking, looking, looking for anything at all that would lead them to believe that Addison’s body was dragged out of that house.

  I turned to Declan. “No blood anywhere but in the bedroom. Quick, tell me your theory on how that’s possible in this scenario. Make it good. I need a theory that I can poke holes into.”

  “Well, that’s pretty easy, really,” he said. “The killer wrapped her body tightly into a blanket that doesn’t shed fibers. He waited for her to completely bleed out in the bedroom before he wrapped her in this blanket, so that she wasn’t dripping blood anymore. That would probably work, unfortunately.”

  I was dubious. I knew what he was saying, and that would be a logical explanation. But I still thought that a drop of her blood would be somewhere around the scene. And I still hadn’t figured out how it would be that my skinny client would be able to haul 130 lbs of dead weight down the stairs or out the window. And what about the cleaning crew that Addison had in this house? Nobody heard anything that night?

  “Detective Paulson,” I said. “Tell me everybody who was here the night that Addison disappeared,” I said. “This is an enormous place, and, as you can see, everything looks spotless. There’s not a speck of dust anywhere that I can see in this place. No crumbs on the floor, no hairs on the carpet. It looks like a cleaning crew comes in here every day and makes sure that this place is squeaky clean. From your investigation, do you know if she had a live-in cleaning crew or if she had people come in from the outside all the time to get this place spick and span?”

  He looked at his notes. “She had outside help. She has a cleaning crew that doesn’t live here in this house, but who comes in every other day. Also a crew of personal chefs and trainers, but they don’t live here, either. Apparently, the only other person who lived here was her sober-living companion, whose name is Katherine Wylder. And Ms. Wylder has gone missing, as well.”

  My ears perked up when he said that. “Katherine Wylder was her sober-living companion, and now she’s gone as well? What do you mean, she’s missing? Have you guys been trying to find her?”

  He shrugged. “Nah, we don’t care about Katherine Wylder, even though she was probably the only goddamned witness to this crime of the century. We’re not trying to find her at all.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to read him the riot act, but then I realized that he was being sarcastic. “Oh, of course you guys are trying to find her. But what do you mean, she’s missing?”

  “I mean, she’s missing. She’s as missing as Wentworth is. No trace of her. I’ve personally talked to everybody who knows her - her parents, her sisters and brothers, her friends, the people who work at that Promises Rehab place, because that’s who referred her to Wentworth. I went to her yoga studio that she goes to all the time, and her pilates studio, too. They kept referring me to various crunchy granola type food places around town, because the woman was apparently a vegan who went to the same places to get her food all the time, and they haven’t seen her since Wentworth went missing. I talked to everybody I could find, and they all told me to talk to this person or that person, and, everywhere I’ve gone, I hit a brick wall. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.” He shrugged. “It’s bad enough that Wentworth has gone missing, but I find it pretty goddamned odd that her sober-living companion is also missing.”

  Huh. I wondered if this Katherine Wylder person had anything to do with Addison’s disappearance. Perhaps she was the one who killed Addison? “Tell me about what you found out about Katherine,” I said to Detective Paulson. “She’s not wealthy, is she?”

  I was getting a portrait of this Katherine from the Detective that made me think that if she was the one who killed Addison, she probably would do something like give my client $5 million to spend on legal fees. She sounded like somebody who was socially conscious, as she was a vegan, and might be compassionate as well. That is, if she was a vegan because she didn’t want to harm animals. She went to yoga and pilates, and apparently ate at local whole food-type places, if that was what Detective Paulson meant by “crunchy granola type food places.”

  Yet, she probably also suffered from substance abuse issues in the past, as she was a sober-living companion, and, from what I had always understood about sober-living companions, they were usually people who “walk to walk.” They kicked substance abuse issues and knew about how to stay sober, which was why they were able to guide others in how to do the same. I had known quite a few people who were sober-living companions - this is, after all, Los Angeles, where such companions are a dime a dozen, and a good percentage of people are working their own 12 steps - and not one of them came from a background that didn’t feature addiction.

  And she was referred to Addison by Promises Malibu. That told me that she probably had money, if she got a referral from Promises because she did her rehab there. All signs pointed to the possibility that she was the benefactor and maybe the killer. But I didn’t want to jump the gun on this one.

  Detective Paulson went through his notes. “Let’s see, is Katherine Wylder wealthy or has a wealthy family. Yeah, she’s wealthy. Or her family is. Her dad is a CEO for an international pharmaceutical company, Osiris Pharmaceuticals, and her family’s net worth is $3.5 billion. From all that I’ve been able to find out about Ms. Wylder, she was addicted to Oxycontin when she was 17 years old, then turned to heroin when her candy-man doctor cut her off and she couldn’t bribe him to give her more. She went to rehab at that Promises place when she was 23, and she’s been clean and sober ever since.”

  He nodded his head. “Her dad’s a piece of work, by the way. A cold bastard, that one is. Her mom ain’t much better. Typical rich assholes with a stick up each of their butts. Her brother was pretty alr
ight, though. He’s a fruit living in the East Village of New York City. He’s an artist, and not a bad one, at that. Not that I’ve taken art history classes or nothing like that, but I like his stuff. Katherine has a sister, too, name’s Natalie. She’s a housewife up in San Fran, living in one of those fancy painted lady homes that sell for millions. Married to a hedge fund manager, three kids of her own. She’s okay, too. And, by the way, I’m calling her Katherine, but everybody said that she goes by the name of Katie. So, I guess I should use that name as well.”

  I nodded my head. I had a tape recorder in my pocket, one that I forgot to disclose, but I imagined that if I told Detective Paulson about it, he would be okay with being recorded. “Thanks for that information. By the way, I’m recording this conversation between you and me. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He shrugged. “I figured you were. You ain’t taking no notes, and nobody has that good of memory that you would be able to just put all this detail into your head and puke it back up. So, thanks for telling me that you’re recording this, but I already figured you were. Now, where were we?”

  “Katie’s sister and brother,” I said.

  “Yeah. Talked to them, they hadn’t heard from her for about a month. They tell me that’s not unusual though. They’re all worried now, though, ‘cause nobody else has heard from her around town and I guess they’ve started trying to call her after she went missing, and she’s not picking up her phone.”

  I nodded my head, thinking that this Katie person was looking quite interesting to me. But, then again, if I was going to try to sell a jury on the theory that my client was too skinny and weak to haul Addison out of her house without spilling a drop of blood, how was I going to sell them on the theory that this Katie would have the upper-body strength to do that? And why would this Katie person kill Addison, anyhow?

  “How big was Katie?” I asked Detective Paulson.

  “Not big. She was a runner, I guess, on top of being a crunchy vegan type. But it says that she wasn’t very tall, and she wasn’t very big. About 5’6”, 110 lbs, so she was really little. I went to one of those yoga classes that she goes to, though, ‘cause I wanted to meet some other people in that class, and, oh boy, you don’t do the things that they do in that class unless you’re stronger than hell. So, she was probably stronger than she looked, I’ll tell you that.”

  “But was she strong enough to drag a woman the size of Addison out of this place?” I wondered aloud.

  “Maybe, with enough adrenaline going, she would. You ever see those little tiny women lift a car up when the car is pinning their son, or whatever? You ever hear of that? That little Katie, if she had enough adrenaline pumping, she might have been able to drag Addison out of here. But that don’t explain how your client’s hair was in Wentworth’s bedroom. Unless your client has an answer for that, I think it’s still looking bad for him. He still looks the best to us for this murder, because he ain’t got no reason why he would have his hair at that scene. Katie’s hair was found at the scene, a lot of it, but Katie was around Wentworth all the time, so that’s easily explained. Other than that, we found hairs that belong to six other people. We identified four of those people by asking everybody in Wentworth’s cleaning crew to give DNA samples, so those four hairs have been accounted for. There were two other hairs that belonged to somebodys completely different, but we haven’t been able to match them up just yet. Other than that, the only other hair that was found was Dixon’s hair, your client.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Now, let me get this straight. Your people found hairs belonging to eight different people. Katie was one, my client was another, and four of them belonged to people who cleaned this bedroom, so those are easily explainable. And there were two other hairs that you found that belonged to somebody unidentified?”

  “As yet unidentified, but we’re working on finding out who those hairs belonged to. But, yeah, you got that right. Those were eight different hairs that we found with eight different DNA. Well, aside from Addison’s hair, of course. We was able to match Addison’s hair up with her by having her sister give DNA. Again, though, your client has no business being up in that bedroom. He’s been the only one that we’ve identified who’s got no business being up there. So, there you have it. He’s looking really good for this murder.”

  I sighed. “Yes, but there were other people who were in that bedroom, too, right? You just don’t know who those other people are, unfortunately.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s right. I mean, we could go around and get DNA from everybody who knew Wentworth, but we were lucky to get samples from the housekeeping crew without a court order. The owner of the cleaning service wanted to cooperate, so she went ahead and let her people give their DNA. They were all Guatemala refugees, so they ain’t refusing. But as you probably know, I can’t just get DNA from people willy-nilly. Privacy concerns and all that bullshit. I will say that we ran the DNA from those other hairs through the international database of crooks and others whose DNA is on file, and found no match for it. That’s all that we can really do at this point to try to figure out who else was in that bedroom.”

  Another brick wall, maybe. It was so frustrating, though. There were obviously two other people who were in that bedroom. Might one of them have been the person who did this? But, then again, Detective Paulson was absolutely correct about one thing - my client, Carter Dixon, had no business being up in Addison’s bedroom. No business at all. Unless I could figure out how his hair got into her bedroom, I was going to have an uphill battle proving his innocence.

  What was so frustrating was that I had something really good to go on - that Chris Warford guy admitted to spoofing Carter’s Reddit account and posting those nasty messages to make it look like they were coming directly from Carter. Made it look like my client had an unhealthy obsession with Addison. To me, that seemed to be air-tight evidence of a frame.

  But what about that goddamned hair? I remembered a case that I watched when I was a baby lawyer. I was learning the ropes of trial procedure, so I went and watched cases being tried all the time. There was one case in particular that I knew turned on something that couldn’t be explained - the hair of the victim in this case was found in the trunk of the defendant’s car. That was established by the prosecutor early on. I watched the entire trial, and the defendant’s lawyer did a good job of poking holes in the prosecutor’s story. It all seemed circumstantial, but I kept waiting for the lawyer to explain away that hair in the trunk. During the closing arguments, the defense attorney hit on every aspect of the case, but ignored the hair in the trunk. I knew that that hair had to be explained, or else that case would be toast.

  I was right, of course. The jury came back in less than an hour with a verdict of guilty. Everything in that case could be explained except the hair. It was always the physical evidence that torpedoed these cases. A good lawyer could explain away a lot, but if you couldn’t explain away the physical evidence, you’re case is officially in the territory of “dead-dog loser.”

  And that was what Carter’s case was going to be - a dead-dog loser. That is, unless I could figure out how his hair got into Addison’s bedroom.

  Chapter 23

  Michael - August 20. One day before Addison goes missing

  Michael Nash sped towards Addison’s home. He had tried to call her, several times, to no avail. She didn’t pick up. He also called the movie studio where she was shooting a biopic on Greer Garson, her latest work. He talked to the director of the film, Guy Forlani, who gruffly informed him that Addison hadn’t showed up on the set, and she better goddamned be there within an hour or she’s fucking gone.

  “I gave that druggie bitch a chance,” Guy had said to Michael. “And this is how she fucking repays me. I told the casting director that this was going to happen. I’ve worked with too many other druggies on other movies. They never fucking show up on time or at all. If you find her, you drag her ass in here yesterday. You hear me? Yesterday! I don’t fucking care if she’
s in some kind of heroin-induced coma, I want her ass in here working. If she doesn’t get here in an hour, she’s fucking gone.”

  Michael got the message. She was due on set, and she didn’t show. She wasn’t answering her phone, either. He was therefore going to have to go to her place and make sure that she was okay. He didn’t trust Violet any further than he could throw her. She was hot on her idea to have Addison killed, so Michael had to warn Addison about what was coming. He knew that Violet was serious. She knew that Sonny Mancino had mob ties and he could get the job done. Michael wasn’t going to chance that Addison was going to end up dead, and it was going to be his fault.

  He got to Addison’s place and put his code into the gates and drove through. He sped to her front door, and the first thing that he noticed was how quiet it was. Ordinarily, when he went into Addison’s home, he heard various noises. The sounds of vacuums running, of workers talking to one another, of a television or stereo blaring, with Katie or Addison, or both, watching something on Netflix or HBO. He usually heard signs of life.

  But that wasn’t the case on this day. Her house was as silent as a tomb. He walked through the foyer, calling out for Addison and Katie. “Addison, Katie,” he called. The place was so huge and the ceilings so high, his voice almost echoed. “Addison, Katie,” he called again.