best served cold

by Sinclair, Rachel

  “Yep. It certainly was.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about being recognized in the jail. It was embarrassing, in a way. It was humiliating to be an attorney who was put in the clink. These other the ladies in the jail probably didn’t care what I was. To say the least. Yet, I was still embarrassed.

  “Yeah. And I guess that you’re also the one that was put in prison all those years ago for something that you didn’t do. I remember. I read all about that online. Weren’t they even going to make a Netflix special about you, or something? I think I remember reading about that.”

  “Well it was going to be for TruTV. And, yes, after the Esme Gutierrez case, I was approached with offers to make my story into a Netflix special. But I didn’t want to have that happen. I just wanted to shut the door on all of that.”

  Her eyes got wide when I said that. “Close the door on being famous? Oh my God, I would love to be famous. For any reason. I would love to be rich, too. I bet you’re rich, aren’t you?”

  I took a deep breath. It was clear that this girl was not going to leave me alone, no matter how many nonverbal cues I was giving her that I wanted just that. “Yes, I am rich. However I’m only rich because I was thrown in prison for seven years, and I sued the state of Missouri, or should I say misery, for doing that to me. I sued, and I won a boatload of money. I was able to show corruption with the prosecutor all day long.”

  “I know what you mean, I’m being falsely persecuted all the time. Listen, I’m a hairdresser. I don’t know why I’m always being picked up for being a working girl. I think maybe I got on the wrong side of somebody, too. Maybe you and me, we got stuff in common, huh?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, who was behind murdering your friend, all those years ago? Did you ever figure that out?”

  “No. I mean, I thought I was on the right track, but it turned out I wasn’t.”

  “Who did you think did it?” she asked.

  “A guy by the name of Carl Williams. I’m sure you read about him in the paper.” This girl seem to be pretty up on all the latest scandalous gossip.

  The girl shook her head. “Oh my God, what was that all about? I mean, come on, what a sicko. I dated his son for a little while, and let’s just say that the apple don’t fall too far from the tree with that family. I mean, Jurgen, he’s a bit of a psycho himself. I had to get a restraining order against him, because he was stalking me. Turned out he stalks just about every girl he dates. Can’t take no for an answer. But, oh my God, what his dad was doing, that’s just wrong.”

  My ears perked up when she was talking about Carl’s son. “Jurgen? What do you know about Jurgen?” Regina had mentioned Jurgen from time to time. She said that he was Carl’s son, and apparently he was a wealthy man in his own right. He didn’t hang out around the house all that often, just once or twice, and she never saw him actually participate in any of the parties. Regina had no reason to suspect that Jurgen was anybody who she should be looking into, but maybe, after talking to this girl, he should be.

  The girl just shrugged her shoulders. “By the way, my name is Naomi. And I know you’re Avery Collins. You’re like a total rock star, just so you know.”

  I felt flattered, but I was mainly just very intensely curious as to what she could tell me about this Jurgen person. “Tell me more about his son.”

  “What is there to tell? We went out a couple of times, I decided I didn’t like him. I mean, he’s a good looking guy, he’s loaded, but there’s just something very off about him. Besides, my boyfriend Vinnie, he came back in the picture. He ain’t in the picture no more, but that’s besides the point. He came back in the picture back then, and Jurgen, he just didn’t like me telling him that we couldn’t see each other no more. So, you know, he came around the house all the time. He’d wait until he saw Vinnie’s car outside my apartment – I live in Ocean Beach in an apartment – and he’d come up to the door, and start screaming at me. And one time, he had sex with me, even though I told him I was not wanting to see him anymore. He like came into my apartment, and just kinda just ripped off my clothes, threw me on the bed, and did it to me. After that, I got a restraining order. I guess he moved on, because I ain’t heard from him since then.”

  “Did he ever threaten you? Did he ever make you think that he was going to kill you?”

  Naomi looked into the distance as she was trying to think about my question. Her eyes were scrunched up, her posture was slumped, and she was focusing on a tiny little crack in the cement wall. “Yeah. He did. He put his hands around my neck that last time, when he –”

  “When he raped you, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. I mean he told me that he couldn’t rape me, because we were dating at one time. I was pretty sure that that was not how it worked, but he told me that once I agreed to have sex with him one time, that meant that he could have sex with me anytime he wanted to. You know a lot of people think that you can’t rape someone that you’re dating or married to. Did you know that?”

  “I’m very familiar with that idea, unfortunately. But, as you probably know, that’s not true. A husband can rape a wife and a boyfriend can rape a girlfriend. In your case, he was not even your boyfriend at the time, so that really was a case of rape. But I’m sorry I interrupted you. What were you saying earlier?”

  “What was the question again?” she asked.

  “You were saying something about Jurgen putting his hands around your throat when he raped you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. He raped me, and he put his hands around my throat. And I thought he was going to kill me. I really did. I even blacked out. Everything was blackness, and I was scared to death. But something must’ve happened, because I’m still alive. Still alive, and still get brought in for things I don’t do.”

  I suddenly realized that I had to get out of that cell. I realistically knew that I would not be able to call Christian for hours after being put in the cell, and that it probably would be hours after that before I would be able to bond out. It was currently 2 o’clock in the afternoon, and I knew it would be at least midnight before I was out of there. But I was anxious to get going on this case. I couldn’t believe that I actually overlooked this Jurgen person. And that Regina did as well. This guy must not have been giving off too much of an evil vibe, otherwise Regina would’ve been on him like white on rice.

  * * *

  Four hours later, I was finally able to call Christian. “Christian, I’m in jail. That rat bastard Jonathan Augusto was as good as his word. He apparently planted some cocaine in my car, and then got an informant to call the cops to search it, and they found it. But listen, I need for you to bond me out, but I probably won’t be out of here before midnight. I need for you to call Regina. I need for you to call her, and ask her to do some research on Jurgen Williams. He’s Carl son. I need to know if he was ever arrested, and if he was, if his DNA was given to the cops. And then I’m going to have to have his DNA compared to the DNA that was found inside of Becky when she died. I just have a feeling that Carl was behind the prosecutor railroading me. Carl obviously didn’t do it, but he was covering for somebody who did.”

  “On it. Listen, I’ll bond you out. Hopefully you’ll be out of there soon.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully soon. Just make sure that she does it. It’s very important.”

  I took a deep breath after I called Christian. I just had this hunch that Jurgen was behind killing Becky all those years ago. Carl would have covered for him. Wouldn’t he have?

  The only thing was, how was I going to get anybody to prosecute him for it? The murder was so long ago. Carl must’ve really leaned hard onto the prosecutor to make sure that he did not finger his son for anything. Paul, all those years ago, was prosecuting small time cases in Kansas City, Missouri. He was lured to San Diego by Carl himself, and Carl’s promise of endless young women for him to enjoy. Of course, it had to have been even more sinister than that. Carl knew how to push Paul’s buttons all those years ago.

  But Paul w
as not the prosecutor in Kansas City, Missouri, any more. Somebody else was. Maybe somebody who was not as compromised as Paul was. At any rate, Carl did not have the same kind of power that he did back then. I knew that if I got some pretty good evidence that this Jurgen person was the one who raped Becky, I might be able to convince them to reopen the case and nail him to the wall.

  Chapter 24

  Regina

  Regina got the call from Christian about Jurgen. She immediately kicked herself, because she should’ve known that there was something wrong with that guy. Her first instinct was that something was a bit off about him, but she only saw him a few times, and she didn’t really think much about him. But she should have. If she would have, she would’ve been on him like white on rice.

  The first thing she did was go through arrest records, and found out that he was arrested. Surprisingly enough, considering who his father was. It was probably one of those things where the dad let him get arrested, because he wanted to teach him a lesson. She found out that during his arrest, which was for a DWI right there in San Diego, he did indeed have to give DNA. This arrest happened two years ago, which explained why there was no DNA on file that matched the DNA that was found inside of Becky at the time of Avery’s trial and her retrial.

  Other than that arrest, she didn’t see that he had been arrested for anything else. Surprisingly enough. Considering the fact that he apparently was a violent person, she figured that there might be other arrests lurking about. That made her more convinced than ever that the one arrest he did have for the DWI was just to teach him a lesson. There was just no way that a stalky kind of person who goes around raping and strangling women would go his entire life with only one relatively minor infraction.

  Then it was just a matter of matching up the guy’s DNA with the DNA found inside of Becky, and she figured that maybe that would be enough evidence to hopefully get the case reopened. At the very least. Personally, she thought it was probably an open and shut case. It wouldn’t be difficult for a prosecutor worth his or her salt to show that Paul was evidently compromised by Carl. After all, his name was on the client list that had been circulating around the Internet. It would be pretty simple to show that A led to B. Paul was a pedophile who was dying to get his kicks with real live girls, and Carl offered him a veritable smorgasbord of what he was craving, in exchange for Paul nailing somebody else for Becky’s murder. It was just too neat of a scenario. It would fit beautifully into a very neat box.

  So, Regina figured that her friend Avery was wrong about Paul. Avery had assumed that there was not necessarily a quid pro quo between the two of them, Carl and Paul. When she found out that Paul had his own money to pay for the admission into Carl’s sick world, and she found out that Carl had an airtight alibi for the murder, she figured that there was not a tit for tat involved in the situation. Granted, she knew, as did Regina, that Carl must’ve put a bug in Paul’s ear about his little sick ranch in Del Mar, which was the reason why Paul came out to San Diego in the first place. But the inherent quid pro quo was dismissed by Avery when it was discovered about Carl’s alibi.

  Now it was time for Regina to connect the dots again. The dots that were not connected earlier when it was assumed that Carl had nothing to do with the murder of Becky.

  So the first thing she did was contact the Medical Examiner’s Office in Kansas City, Missouri. She made an appointment with the medical examiner there, explaining what it was that she needed. She knew that the medical examiner was clean in this case, and not involved in the cover-up. There was a reason why the medical examiner was never called at trial, and that was because the medical examiner would have told the truth on the stand. And the truth was that Becky was raped before she was murdered.

  * * *

  The next day, she was on a plane heading towards Kansas City. She really didn’t like to fly. She always flew coach, and for some reason, she always got stuck in the middle seat. She couldn’t count the number of times that she got stuck sitting next to some old coot, who apparently thought that he had a chance with her, and he would talk to her the entire time that they were on the flight. And when the flight was over, he would ask her what she was doing later on that day. Some of the time, Regina got the impression that the man thought that she was a working girl. She was inevitably insulted by that, because why would they think that about her? She didn’t dress like a prostitute. And she tried to give every guy who hit on her on the plane the slip, but they usually never got the message.

  On this particular flight, she got lucky. On her right was a teenage boy who was listening to something on his Beats headphones. The second the plane got into the air, he closed his eyes, and leaned back in his chair. On her left was a young girl, probably about 15 years old. She was flipping through a magazine. She smiled at Regina, and Regina got the impression that she was shy. There was just something about her demeanor that made Regina imagine her sitting in her bedroom most nights, maybe reading, maybe watching something on the television, but not participating in online games, or chat rooms, or Instagram, or even anything like that.

  Maybe that was just Regina projecting her imagination on this girl. At any rate, Regina could not help but think about how this girl was about the same age as the girls who were saved from Carl’s ranch. Unlike those girls, this girl hopefully had her whole life ahead of her, trauma free. In Regina’s mind, there would be no psychotherapists in her future, no waking up in a cold sweat every night because of having a nightmare about old men forcing her to go down on his shriveled whiskey dick. She wouldn’t have problems with intimacy, no self-esteem and insecurity problems. No sense of burning shame.

  Regina knew enough about the root of her own problems to know that shame was at the core of all of it. It was shame that caused her to not want to get close to anybody. It was shame that caused her to not be able to sleep at night without having nightmares. It was shame that haunted her every waking moment of every day. She couldn’t close her eyes without seeing them – the men who put money in her G string while she danced in front of them, copping a feel while they did it. The men who did unspeakable to things to her while she lay on the bed counting the popcorn dots on the ceiling. The men who would beat her, and, when she told Michael about them beating her, the only thing he could say was “I hope you got extra money from him, because you know that I do charge extra for that.” And then, when she told him that she did not get extra money from these men, Michael would beat her as well.

  As she looked at this young girl, projecting all of her hopes for this girl’s future, Regina felt a certain sense of satisfaction that she was helping Avery get Carl. She was helping these young girls through transitioning from the worst period of their lives. Yet, at the same time, she knew there were millions of other Carls out there. Millions of other Britneys. She couldn’t not be happy knowing that there were such monsters still in the world, and that there was an endless number of prey for them as well.

  She wanted to tell this girl that she needed to keep her eyes open. She needed to know the signs of somebody who wanted to exploit her. She needed to not be too friendly with older men that she didn’t know. She needed to know that the world was a dangerous place, and that she needed to not be naïve. Regina would have told her all of this, except that she knew that the girl would look at her like she was absolutely bonkers. And she would probably try to change her seat with somebody else. Regina knew that most girls like this girl next to her didn’t see the world in quite the way that she did. Most of them preferred to see the world as a place of good. Regina wished in her heart of hearts that she could have the same kind of outlook on life, but she just didn’t. She was destined to be a Cassandra, warning people about what was to come, and not being believed.

  The plane touched down at KCI, and Regina got off the plane with everybody else, not having said a word to this girl. And it was just as well. She was doubtful that the girl would’ve ever listened to her anyways. Besides that, she probably would’ve thought tha
t Regina was an absolute loon.

  The first thing she did when she got off the plane was rent a car. Then after she rented a car, she got a room at the airport Hilton. That was the room that Christian had reserved for her. She took her bags up to her room, and then lay down on the bed, thinking about what it was she was going to be doing the next day. She only hoped that she would be persuasive in getting the prosecutor to reopen the case.

  * * *

  The next day, she went to the Medical Examiner’s Office to speak with the person who was the chief medical examiner. His name was Stellan Barner. He was a tall and lanky man, about 75, with white hair. A pair of glasses perched on the end of his long nose. He was dressed in white lab coat and black pants.

  He shook her hand. “Regina Baldwin? My name is Dr. Stellan Barner. I understand that you wanted me to reopen the results of the autopsy for Becky Whitfield. I reviewed the file before you arrived, and I understand that you wanted me to analyze the DNA sample and compare it against a DNA sample that is on file for a Jurgen Williams. I took the liberty to go ahead and do that, and the results were conclusive. The DNA that was found inside Becky Whitfield matches that of Jurgen Williams.”

  Regina felt that was a foregone conclusion, yet she was grateful all the same. “Now I know from the results of the autopsy that there was evidence that she was raped before she was murdered. And what was the evidence that you saw for that?”

  “Well, obviously, it’s not easy to tell if a sexual encounter was consensual or not. I will say that there were tears in the vagina that were consistent with forced penetration. There were also bruises on her abdomen and face that were consistent with being hit in the face, and kicked in the abdomen. These signs were all consistent with forcible sexual assault. And if I would’ve been called to the stand in her case, during the first murder trial, I would have testified to just that. I was called to the stand on her retrial, and that was my testimony.”