Presumption of Guilt

by Rachel Sinclair

  I found that I was holding my breath. I wondered if she had come across something that she did not tell me about.

  She nodded her head. “I have in my possession some DNA test results that my daughter got from that organization called 23 and Me. And it clearly shows that my husband had something to hide.”

  Chapter 40

  What? She had the test results? She never even told me that. And she didn’t bring it up on direct examination, either. I’d knew that chances were good that they would not be able to be come into evidence, but this was a possible game changer.

  I thought that Brent recognized the implications of her having those test results. And he was not going to ask her about them at all. He was not going to open the door, and I could hardly blame him. In fact, he wanted to shut down questioning after she mentioned that, right away.

  “I have nothing more for this witness,” he said.

  I stood up. “I would like to ask for a short recess, because I need to speak with my witness.”

  Judge Warner nodded his head and banged the gavel. “Actually, it’s time for lunch. So this is a good time for a break, anyways. It is now 12:15, I would like to ask the jury to be back here at 1:30. Please do not be late. There are lots of great restaurants in the vicinity that you can go to, but don’t forget, none of you can discuss this case. I’ll see everybody in a little over an hour.”

  I motioned to Lauren to come with me.

  “Let’s go to lunch, my treat.”

  She smiled, and put her arm around my shoulder. “Avery, I owe everything to you. You are the one who got me into that wonderful place in the Pacific Palisades. It has literally meant everything to me. I mean, I’m not cured. I’ll never be cured. But I’ve had a longer period of lucidity than I’ve ever had, at least since I first started coming down with the symptoms of this disease. I have hope now that maybe I can live a normal life, and it’s all thanks to you.”

  “Well, you did the hard work. But I need to talk to you about what you just said on the stand. So let’s go and get some lunch. Christian will come with us, and I need to talk to you about this.”

  The three of us left the courthouse, and we shoved our way through the throngs of people. I was happy to have cops down there keeping the peace with everybody, because I was always afraid that they were going to attack me the second they saw me. They couldn’t attack Esme, of course, because she was in the courthouse, being guarded. She could not come to lunch with me. But me – I was a target. I had always been a target. But the cops were able to keep them away from me, so, for that, I was grateful.

  “Where do you want to go?” I asked when we got out on the street.

  “I’m game for anything,” Lauren said.

  “I know. There’s this great little Italian place called Osteria Panevino. It’s over in the Gaslamp Area, over on Fifth Street. They have gnocchi to die for, and a lot of northern Italian dishes. When it comes to Italian places, it’s my favorite place to go. We could sit outside, it’s a beautiful day.”

  Lauren smiled. “I know that place. In my former life, Jacob and I used to go there all the time. You’re right, it’s a great place to go. Let’s go. I would say that I would like to treat you, but –”

  “I wouldn’t hear of it,” I said to her. “It’s on me.”

  We walked over to the restaurant, which was about a little over half a mile away from the courthouse. It was a beautiful day, high 70s, bright and sunny. Autumn was the perfect time to be in San Diego, because it was after the “May Grey” and “June Gloom” that this area always went through. “May Grey” and “June Gloom” referred to that constant overcast days that were during those months. The sun never really came out during May and June in this city, but it never really rained, either, during these months. So it was just days and days of grey. Unrelenting grey. It was so funny that everybody always assumed that San Diego was the sunniest city in the world. It was, except for during those two months.

  But today, it was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky.

  We got to the restaurant, and asked to sit outside. I was lucky that they actually had tables outside. This was a place with white tablecloths, waiters in white with black ties, and the food was magnificent. Dishes started at around $20 for basic chicken dishes. And they went all the way up to about $50. I usually ordered the Fettuccine Alfredo. They used to have a dish that I actually went crazy for. It was a gnocchi with brown butter and walnuts and goat cheese. That was no longer on the menu, but their Fettuccine Alfredo was the best I’ve ever had. With the fettuccine, I ordered a side salad that had pears, goat cheese, walnuts and a blood orange vinaigrette. Christian ordered Chicken Parmesan, and Lauren ordered a dish called Pollo Siciliano, with tomatoes, eggplant, mozzarella and a white wine sauce. They both got a Caesar salad to go with their meals.

  Christian leaned forward. I knew that he was just as curious about the whole 23 and Me thing. If she did have those results in her possession, I was going to have to figure out a way to get them into evidence. Christian and I were going to have to brainstorm that one.

  “Okay,” Christian said to Lauren. “What gives? You said on the stand that you had the results of the DNA test. How did you get ahold of them?”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I told you that she was doing that for a school project. I didn’t think that she was able to get the test results to her teacher. It was a project in their history class. It was extra credit, but most of the kids were doing it, because they wanted to see what their own history was. The teacher was going to tie in everybody’s results into the lessons that she was teaching. You know, it was a world history class. A lot of the kids have ancestors from different parts of the world, and it was always more interesting to learn about parts of the world that you know that somebody from your family tree came from. And that’s what the project was about. I always assumed that Aria was killed before she got her chance to turn her test results into the teacher. Mind you, it was always voluntary. The kids did not have to give the teacher the test results if they didn’t want to. But I knew that Aria wanted to. She wanted to participate in it, because she was interested in finding out the history of the people who were her ancestors.”

  “Even after she found out what she found out about Jacob? She even wanted to give the test results even then?”

  “See, that’s the thing. I always figured that Aria never found that out. I always thought that the results were never given to the teacher. I would have been very surprised if Aria would have known some like that and not said anything to me. But here’s what I found out. I found out that Aria had ordered two sets of this DNA test. She ordered one set to come to the house, and one set to go directly to the teacher. I don’t really know why she did that, but that’s what she did. And the reason why I found that out was because I contacted her teacher. Her name is Helen Rosen. She had never looked at the test results. But she did have them in Aria’s file, and she gave them to me.”

  I started to get excited. Maybe I was being prematurely excited, because I didn’t know if the judge would allow these test results to be admitted into open court. I was going to have to ask for an emergency motion in limine on the matter. I had a feeling that the prosecutor was going to have a very good argument for keeping those DNA test results out. Namely, because it would be impossible to show the chain of custody. I would have to get the teacher to come and testify about how she received the test results, and there was no time for that. Not only that, it would be too easy to just doctor up the document. It wasn’t like I going to be able to get around the hearsay rule by saying that it was part of the business records exception, unless I actually was able to call somebody from the 23 and Me place, who had actually composed the report, who could testify that it was prepared in the ordinary course of business.

  It would be an impossibility to actually get the test results into evidence. I wondered if I could possibly use it in another manner. I wondered if I could use the DNA report to throw Jacob off balance by
stating to him that I had the test results. Probably, Brent would object even to that. I could not make reference to the 23 and Me report, because I would be making reference to a piece of evidence that would not be allowed.

  I gamed out the possibilities, but I came up empty. The most I could do would be to try to get the evidence into open court, relying on the fact that the judge had been liberal with my evidence so far. That would be a long shot. To say the least. And it would be an appealable error if he did allow them in.

  In a way, I wished that she didn’t actually have those test results in her possession. After all, they weren’t going to do any good.

  I looked at Christian. “Think about any kind of possibility that we could get those test results into evidence,” I said.

  “I’m thinking, but I don’t see it. It wouldn’t come under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, and, let’s face it, the chain of custody isn’t there. But it’s good to know that she has the records.”

  The food came, and, just like I remembered, it was delicious. The salad was perfectly balanced with the pear, the goat cheese, the walnuts, and the vinaigrette. The Fettuccine Alfredo melted in my mouth. We chatted about how she was doing, and she told me about her new job. She said that it wasn’t much, and it was a lot of work, but she was happy to be doing it. She was happy to be doing any kind of job. She was thrilled that she was off the streets, working an honest day’s work, and had a soft place to land at night.

  Chapter 41

  After lunch, we made the half-mile trek back to the courthouse. I was actually looking forward to my next witness, because I felt that she could shed a lot of light on what had happened with Sophia, and why she was murdered.

  When we got in the courtroom, the jury was just coming back in. The judge came back in, banged his gavel, the bailiff announced him, everybody stood up, and sat back down. “Now, I hope that everybody got a good lunch. We’re going to be continuing with the defendant’s case, and Ms. Collins, call your next witness.”

  “The defense calls Calista Kassis.”

  Calista had the baby. It was a boy, thank God for her, and, as with Esme, the boy was given to Jacob and Colleen. I checked to see if there were any adoption records, and there weren’t. Just like with Esme, Colleen pretended that she was pregnant while Calista was actually pregnant. She had a pregnancy pillow, she had baby showers, she took Lamaze classes, she pretended that she had the baby at home. She told everybody that she had been training to have the baby in her bathtub, with a doula. Then, when the baby was born, she announced to everybody that Calista’s baby was hers. When people asked her about Calista’s baby, in this case Calista was allowed to go ahead and be visible with her own baby bump, Colleen just said that Calista gave the baby up for adoption. Her friends never suspected. Who would ever suspect that Colleen would be doing something so devious? After all, she was a wealthy woman, and she looked like such a sweet person. She was 35, looked 25, and had blonde hair, big blue eyes, a trim fit body, and looked like your girl next door. She was active in charity work, and had a lot of friends. She got away with the ruse, simply because nobody could ever imagine that somebody like her would be doing something like that.

  But she was.

  And Calista was going to tell this fact to the entire world. At the moment, I was happy that the media had been invited into the courtroom. Because, if nothing else, this sick part of their lives was going to be broadcast to the world. Jacob’s even more sick secrets were going to also be broadcast to the world, but nobody thought that Jacob was a choir boy. He was known to be ruthless and a scumbag. But Colleen’s reputation was sterling.

  It wouldn’t be after this.

  Calista approached the bench. She was dressed in a black pantsuit, with a green turtleneck underneath it. Her blonde hair was straightened, and she was wearing minimal makeup. On her earlobes were a pair of earrings that dangled. On her neck was a pearl necklace.

  She raised her hand, was sworn in, I asked her name, she stated it, and I got right to work.

  “Now, Ms. Kassis, you are, or you were, the domestic worker for Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore, is that correct?”

  “Yes. Yes I was. I was up until a few months ago.” I knew that when I talked to that immigration judge, and threatened to expose him for his corruption, so Calista was no longer in fear of being deported, she was free to quit the job and to testify against them.

  “Did you have a child, recently?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who was the father of that child?”

  “Jacob Whitmore.”

  I knew that the jury was waiting for this particular witness to take the stand. I knew that they were aware of what she was going to say, because I had covered all of that in my opening statement. But I still heard gasps behind me, which told me that they were still shocked.

  “Jacob Whitmore. Can you tell me how it was that you came to have a child for Jacob Whitmore?”

  She nodded her head. She looked ashamed, as she looked down at the stand in front of her. She had tears in her eyes.

  “Mr. Whitmore, he told me that when I came to work for him what he wanted from me. Or, actually, it was his wife, Colleen, who told me. She explained to me that she could not have children, and that she needed me to bear children for her. I was an immigrant, a refugee from Syria, and this is a very bad time for people like me. Not many people from my country are even being allowed to come here anymore. I came here without papers, without documentation. I applied for asylum the moment I got here, but I didn’t know if it was going to given to me. I was lucky to even be able to come to this country at all. They’re banning people from my country. They’re saying that people from Syria cannot come over here. I managed to come into this country before the ban happened, and I was terrified of being sent back. So I was going to do anything I possibly could to make sure that I stayed in this country.”

  “Did Mr. Whitmore make any promises if you did this for him?”

  She nodded her head. “He did. He told me that he had a line with this certain immigration judge, and one bad word from him, and I would be sent back. But he also said that one good word from him, and I would be guaranteed to stay. So I was going to do anything at all to stay.”

  I knew that, just like with Esme, she was forced to have abortions. “Was there anything in particular that Jacob wanted, as far as babies? Did he want a son or a daughter?”

  She nodded her head. “He definitely wanted sons.”

  “And what would happen if you got pregnant with a daughter?”

  “He would force me to have an abortion, and we would start all over again. We did that four times, before I finally got pregnant with a son.”

  Now for the piece de resistance. “Did you happen to tell Aria about what was going on?”

  She hesitated. “I did. But I knew that Aria was not Aria. She told me one night in confidence about what had happened. She didn’t tell Esme, though. She was afraid to tell even me, but she had to tell somebody. She was having a lot of problems with doing what she was doing. She told me that she had to tell somebody about it.”

  “You mean, she told you that she was actually Sophia Delgado?”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Brent said getting to his feet. I wondered why he didn’t make an objection earlier. Maybe he wasn’t paying attention.

  “Sustained,” Judge Warner said. “Ms. Kassis, you may tell the court what you told Aria. You may not tell the court what she said in response. Please proceed.”

  I was happy that at least something came in as far as what Calista knew, as far as Aria being Sophia. This would explain a little bit about why it was that Sophia got upset enough that she went and told Jacob what she knew, and what she was going to do about it.

  Because I knew that Sophia was extremely upset when she found out about the abortions that Jacob was forcing Calista and Esme to have. She was Catholic, very religious. I knew that she thought it was disgusting that these women were being forced to have abortions.
I knew that Calista and she had spoken. She knew that both women were being exploited by Jacob, and she also knew that she held the secret that would ruin him.

  “So, did you tell the woman that everybody knew as Aria that you were being forced to have abortions?”

  “Objection, relevance,” Brent said, getting to his feet.

  “Goes to motive, Your Honor. My theory of the case is that Sophia found out exactly how much Jacob and Colleen were exploiting immigrants, and that led her to decide that she was going to go to the authorities about what he was doing. And, since she had an ace in the hole, and that was the proof that she was not really his daughter, he knew that she was dangerous.”

  The judge nodded his head. “I’ll allow it. Ms. Kassis, please proceed.”

  “Yes.” She bowed her head, and dabbed her eyes.

  “Did you tell her that my client, Esme, was being forced to have abortions as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the woman that everybody knew as Aria knew that you and my client were been exploited by the Whitmores?”

  She nodded her head. “Yes. That’s what they do. They exploit the vulnerable, the weak, the helpless. They know that if they get immigrants in from countries that are brown, they can do anything at all to these immigrants. They know that all they have to do is threaten to have them deported, and these women, they’ll do anything. And she was an immigrant too. Sophia. She was an immigrant.”

  “Other than being forced to have abortions, and being forced to have a child for the Whitmores, did they treat you well?”

  She shook her head. “No. They did not.”

  “What do you mean, they did not treat you well?”

  “They didn’t pay me. At all. And I did a lot of work for them. Me and Esme, we did all the housework around that enormous house. That was a lot of work, and we also did a lot of the cooking. The laundry, cleaning their six bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, every single day. Mopping, picking up dry cleaning, on and on and on and on. And neither Esme nor I got any money for any of that.”