best served cold

by Sinclair, Rachel

  And I just had a sinking feeling that Becky was heading for disaster.

  Chapter 11

  Avery - Modern Day

  I felt sick when I got the results back from the computers I sent in for forensic analysis. While Nathan did find that the computers that I and Christian took from Max’s house did have child pornography on them, he also found that there was not any kind of DNA or fingerprints he could get off of it.

  “Looks like it’s been cleaned pretty good,” he said.

  Of course it was cleaned pretty good, I thought. Turns out that Paul might not have been as stupid as I thought. Now, I knew that Paul’s DNA was in that house. If cops went in there, they would find his hairs and skin cells all over the place. But how would I be able to prove that he was the one accessing the child porn? How would anybody be able to prove that? If Paul was smart, he probably invited other people over to this house, so that there would be a plethora of DNA samples that would be found in that house, should the FBI conduct a raid.

  I went down to Christian’s office. “We’re going to have to go to Plan B,” I said.

  Christian nodded his head. “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Christian and I had talked about setting up surveillance equipment remotely. Christian knew how to set up a hidden camera that he would monitor from his house. The only thing that we needed to do was to go to Max and get his permission to set this up. Max had a legitimate purpose for having surveillance for his house. It was vacant, after all. Then, if Christian could set it up, I could catch Paul in the act of downloading the porn. At any rate, I could prove that he was the one using the computers in that room.

  But first, it was imperative that Christian and I got back into that house and put those computers back. We also had to hope that a nosy neighbor didn’t already talk to Paul and tell him about Christian and I getting into this home and taking the computers out. If that happened, then the entire plan was going to fall apart. Paul would be put on notice that something was going on, and he would not go back to what he was doing if that were the case.

  I needed Paul to keep doing what he was doing. I needed to get that kind of leverage over him. That was the only way that I could see that it would be possible for him to not only bring charges against Carl, but also see to it that they made those charges stick. In other words, if he went to trial against Carl, he wouldn’t be playing hide the ball like he was with my case.

  So, I decided to go back and see Max and see if he would give me written permission to install surveillance equipment in his home. I decided to go ahead and take Christian with me, just because I needed him to explain exactly what he planned to do to install the equipment. He was going to have to explain to Max how he was going to monitor it, as well.

  So, on that day, Christian and I made the trip out to Bakersfield to see Max.

  We went through the procedures to visit Max in the common visiting room, and then Christian and I sat at one of the tables and waited for him to come out. He appeared in about 20 minutes.

  “Hey,” he said to me, with a smile. “What happened? Did you go over to my house?”

  “We did, and we took some of computers that we found in one of the bedrooms. There were three different computers in there, all of them brand-new. And one of them had thousands of images of child pornography on it. Unfortunately, I tried to get a DNA or fingerprint analysis done on the computer, and it turns out that the guy knows how to wipe his computer clean. So, I feel that we have to have overwhelming evidence that the guy is the one who was downloading the kiddy porn before I can convince a prosecutor to bring charges against him. And that’s where you come in.”

  Max was nodding along as I spoke. “So, my brother’s a perv.” He shook his head. “Figures.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen, Paul hasn’t had the easiest life. He was molested by a priest when he was very young. He’s gone through counseling and all that, but we were warned that he might act out like this. And, well, I guess he is. Acting out, that is. His mind is completely warped because of what happened to him. Anyhow, I’m sorry that he’s doing this.”

  I felt a twinge of sympathy for Paul. In a way, he was like many of my clients. The guilty clients usually had a terrible story to tell about what made them that way. They would tell me about fetal alcohol syndrome, abuse, neglect, head injuries, any number of things, and that always made me want to go to the mattresses for them in court. No matter what they did.

  But I was going to have to set it all aside for Paul. I had to remember that Paul was the guy who was dirty enough to send me to prison for the rest of my life, knowing that I didn’t do anything wrong. Knowing that was the case, and, still, he hid evidence and made sure that I went down. I had to not forget that fact.

  “I’m very sorry to hear about your brother,” I said to Max. “Listen, here’s what Christian and I want to do. We want to put surveillance in your home. We want to catch Paul in the act of downloading porn or accessing it from the computer. Only then will I have enough evidence to have leverage over him or, even better, have enough evidence to bring to a prosecutor and have him put away. Where he belongs. Because he’s not just accessing child porn, he’s actually living out his fantasies as well. He’s a part of an elite pedophilia ring in Del Mar.”

  Just then, it hit me. I wondered how it was that Paul had the money for the dues for Carl’s ring. I remembered that Carl talked about how the dues were $50,000 per month. I just figured that Carl might have given Paul a free pass because Paul was the person who allowed him to go free for Becky’s murder. To me, that was damning evidence that Carl actually was the person who killed Becky. It would have been quid pro quo - “I’ll cover up evidence for you and make sure that somebody else pays for murdering Becky, in exchange for your giving me a lifetime membership to your exclusive club.”

  But what if that wasn’t the case? What if Paul actually did have the money for that exclusive club? Would that make the evidence against Carl weaker?

  “You said that Paul was molested by a priest,” I said. “Did he actually get money for that? Did he sue?”

  “Yeah,” Max said. “He did sue. He got $20 million for it. Why do you ask?”

  I just shook my head. “No reason.” He got $20 million because he was molested by a priest. Did that mean anything? Was that a fact that I could use?

  One thing was for sure, though. Even though the dues for Carl’s ring came out to $600,000 per year, Paul definitely had the money to pay. So, it was possible that his membership in that club wasn’t a freebie.

  I handed Max a document that gave me permission to set up his house with surveillance equipment. We went and found a notary, and Max signed the document, and then Christian and I were on our way.

  Once I got into my car, I looked over at Christian. “So, we found out that Paul is actually a rich man. What does that mean?”

  “It means that there’s one more person we can bring into this lawsuit,” Christian said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just wonder if it’s significant somehow, that’s all. I mean, the fact that he’s independently wealthy kinda shoots holes into one theory I had as to how Paul affords membership at Carl’s club. But it also shoots holes into another theory I had.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, it seems that he probably wasn’t bribeable. I mean, Regina checked his financials and didn’t find any money changing hands from Carl to Paul back in the day. But I always thought that there had to have been a different bank account somewhere where those transfers would have shown up.”

  “There obviously was a different bank account,” Christian said. “I mean, there’s obviously an account that has all those millions of dollars in it. I found evidence of some of his accounts online when I hacked, but I must have missed a major account. It probably isn’t on-line. It’s probably an account that is set up under a dummy account or perhaps was set up with a shell LLC. We’re going to have to figure that one out. Maybe that�
��s the account that showed that money changed hands.”

  “So, there still might be evidence of bribery from Carl to Paul, but we just haven’t found it yet, then.”

  “Right. But what else are you thinking about?”

  “I don’t know. I just wonder if we’re barking up the wrong tree here with Carl. I mean, he’s a bad guy. He’s a very bad guy. I’m burning with the desire to bring him down, just because what he’s doing with those girls is very, very wrong. It’s devastating for them. It’s going to mess them up for the rest of their lives. But I don’t know. Something’s off. I just wonder if Carl was the person who was behind Becky’s murder in the first place. I mean, it could be that Paul joined Carl’s club not because Paul covered up Carl’s murder, but because Paul has the cash to join. Nothing more than that.”

  As I spoke aloud, I realized that I had a nagging feeling, all along, that Carl might not have done Becky’s murder. Now, the nagging feeling just became that much more acute. The small voice inside of me was getting louder and louder. As much as I wanted to quiet it, I just couldn’t.

  “So, you think that Paul might have been covering up for somebody else, then? I mean, where are you going with this, Avery?” Christian asked.

  “I don’t know. I mean, whoever it is that he was covering for, he definitely was covering for somebody. Why he was covering for this person, I don’t really know. At any rate, I still want to bring him down. He’s still responsible for my imprisonment. So, I still want to go ahead with our original plans. We need to do surveillance of him and catch him in the act. And then, well, I’m going to have to figure out which direction I want to go with it. Either use it as leverage so that he will agree to bring down a bigger fish, like Carl, or just go straight to the FBI and show them my evidence of what he’s doing. If he goes to prison for being into child porn, and being into pedophilia, I won’t shed a tear. That’s just one less creep in the world.”

  I heard Christian sigh, and I knew him well enough by now to understand that when he sighed like that, he was holding his tongue about something.

  “What?” I demanded. “What’s wrong with those plans?”

  “Listen, Avery, I agree that we should do this. We should do it for the leverage. But, come on, you’re a criminal defense attorney. You defend people who do crappy things, really crappy things, and you do it for a living. Yet, you’re talking about this guy like he’s the absolute scum of the earth. And why? Because he was responsible for you going to prison. That’s why. That’s the only reason why. I just think that you need to be honest with yourself. If this guy wasn’t responsible for your prison sentence, you probably would be taking him on as a client, as opposed to being hell-bent on bringing him down.”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to react in anger to the horrible things that Christian was saying. I wanted to process them, and analyze them. I needed to dig deep and try to figure out if there was any truth to what he was saying.

  It was true that I did defend people like Paul. People who were child molesters and who were into child porn. Usually, they were one and the same. Not that I ever tried a case with a person who was guilty of pedophilia or possession of child porn. I would never actually try to get an acquittal for a guilty person. But I did work with the prosecutors to try to get as light of a sentence as possible.

  Yet, here I was, trying to burn Paul at the stake. Was I a hypocrite?

  “Avery? You there? Or did you check out after my calling you out like that? I mean, I’m sorry. I really am. I just want you to be a bit more intellectually honest on why you’re doing this. I mean, I agree that doing this is important. You can probably get this guy to spill the beans on who he was covering for when he railroaded you into prison. I think that’s the most important thing here. Yes, if we don’t turn him into the FBI, he’s going to keep doing what he’s doing. I understand that. But if we turn him into the FBI, we’re not going to get the chance to ask him the questions that we need to ask him. And that means that the bigger fish is going to get away. You have to look at the big picture here, Avery. Stay focused on that.”

  I nodded my head and focused on my white knuckles which were gripping the steering wheel of my SUV. “I know. The person who killed Becky was a child murderer. That person needs to be brought down. And Paul can help us do that. Big picture. Big picture.”

  “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Christian said. “We do this right, and your false imprisonment is avenged and a child murderer is off the street. We jump the gun, and Paul might end up behind bars, which is a fine outcome, but the child murderer is going to slip through our fingers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that to happen.”

  We got to Max’s home, and, just like last time, Christian disabled the security system and the two of us jimmied the lock on the front door. I made a beeline for the bedroom, and, to my relief, the computers were still there. Their position was unchanged. I was afraid that Paul might have become wise to what we were doing, and then would have hid the computers away. Or maybe destroyed them. But that wasn’t the case.

  Christian busied himself with hiding a camera in the wall. It was microscopic. Nobody would ever be able to detect it unless you were specifically looking for it, and, even then, it would be almost impossible to find without some kind of high-tech equipment. It wasn’t something silly like planting a teddy bear with a camera in it, which was what parents did all the time to watch their nannies in action. No, this was much more sophisticated than that. Christian had access to the latest in technology, and, for that, I was grateful.

  It took him the better part of an hour, and then, when he was done, he slapped his hands together. “Okay, it’s in position. This little camera can pan all the way around the room, so, even if he decides to switch positions, the camera will still pick it up.”

  “What about putting one in the living room? Or in the other bedroom?”

  “Good thinking,” he said. And then he spent the next two hours putting cameras in the other rooms.

  He got through with all this, and the two of us slinked out of the house. It was dark by that time, which was a good thing. I was still paranoid that a nosy neighbor was going to tip him off on what was going on. But I never saw anybody around when Christian and I were doing our thing, so I had to hope and pray that nobody saw us. It seemed like this was a neighborhood where people weren’t around during the day, so we were probably safe.

  * * *

  Two days later, I got my answer. Christian had been monitoring the feed at Max’s house, and one night, he texted me. “Get online and look at this,” he said, giving me the site that he was accessing, his username and password.

  I logged in, and my heart was pounding as I wondered what it was that I was going to see when I logged on.

  And there it was.

  Paul was sitting in front of his computer. I could see the images on the computer, and they were clearly that of a pre-pubescent girl and boy. They were both nude and they were touching each other. While Paul watched it, he was clearly masturbating.

  We had him.

  Now what?

  Chapter 12

  Regina

  Regina found out as much information as she could about Emma’s father. She had gotten to know Emma, who was the 14-year-old with the millionaire father who was nailed for embezzlement. The mother had sent Emma into prostitution because she didn’t want to lose her big fancy house in La Jolla.

  Regina had no use for the mother. She was too far gone, as far as Regina was concerned. There wasn’t a thing that she could use from a woman like that. But the father, now that was another story. Regina was going to go into this dude’s background and see what he did. Better yet, if he was a millionaire, he probably had some connections of his own.

  Regina started with the court records for the guy. His name was Harrison Baker. As Emma said, he was apparently a very wealthy person. At least, he was at one time. Emma was wrong, however, as to why the guy ended up in pri
son. It wasn’t that he was embezzling from his company. From what Regina could read, the guy went down for racketeering. She read further, and found out that he was involved in running for the Aslanian clan. The Aslanian clan were Armenian mobsters who ran the territory from Los Angeles down to Oceanside, and what Harrison was doing for them was hacking. He was involved in identity theft and was responsible for obtaining the social security numbers of thousands of people in one incident, and, in another incident, he was the mastermind behind breaching a major credit agency and obtaining sensitive information for millions of this agency’s customers.

  For this, he was apparently paid very good money. He had been doing it for a period of twenty years, and, during those twenty years, he was paid millions. According to the statement of information for the guy, he was finally brought down by the FBI after he breached the Department of Defense. He obtained some very sensitive information, some top-level classified information about an assassination plot that was carried out by the CIA. It was a foiled plot, because he got that information and threatened to blow the whistle by giving that information to a reporter with the New York Times. He told the cops that he wanted this information for his clan, because they demanded it from him. The person who was to be assassinated was an Armenian diplomat, and the assassination was to take place in New York City. On U.S. soil, in other words.

  This was fascinating reading for Regina. More than that, it presented to her a roadmap on how she could possibly use this guy. Yeah, Carl had some high-level prosecutors and judges and cops in his pocket. He used those contacts to stay “above the law.” But what if Regina nabbed somebody even more powerful than those people? This guy was put into prison before he could reveal the details about this CIA assassination plot. Regina wondered what else he knew. She wondered what kind of dirt he had on other people. She also wondered if he would be willing to use any kind of information he had to make sure that somebody made Carl pay for what he was doing.