He cleared his throat. “My main job is to vet the people who want to join our site. We’ve had quite a few trolls try to join our community, trolls who want to do nothing but make fun of our members.”
“And how do you vet your members?”
“They have to complete a thorough questionnaire that gets at why they want to join our group. I figure that screens out the people who don’t really want to join the community. Not many trolls bother to complete a long questionnaire of 20 questions. All short answer questions, too.” He looked over at the jury. “Trust me, it’s a pain in the ass to get onto our community site, and that’s by design.”
“So, if a troll slips in through your vetting process, and starts harassing your members, what happens?”
“They get banned immediately.”
“How do you find out about the trolls harassing your members?”
“I get reports.”
I had carefully laid a trap for him, and he walked right into it. “You get reports about trolls, but not about violent murder and rape fantasies about prominent celebrities.”
He leaned back in his chair again. “You’re making it seem like our site is some kind of a warehouse for violent men.”
“Well, wouldn’t you say that it is if a message like what my client allegedly wrote would not be reported?”
He crossed his arms in front of him and didn’t say a word. He looked at the ceiling and then looked at me.
“Not to mention the message that was posted after Addison went missing. The message where my client allegedly admitted, in great detail, to raping and murdering Addison Wentworth. Was that message reported to you?”
“No. It wasn’t.”
I started pacing around. “Admit it. Messages that are as violent as the ones that my client allegedly wrote would have been reported by at least one of your members. Or are you saying that nobody on your community site has the decency to report messages that make specific threats about a specific person? Not one person would have reported such messages?”
He sighed. “I admit, those messages that your client posted were vile and disgusting, even by our standards. I mean, we sometimes get members who write fantasies about rape, but nothing like the messages that your client wrote.”
“So, wouldn’t you say that if he had actually posted those messages on your message board, on the date that they were allegedly posted, somebody would have reported them to you and you would have banned my client?”
“Yes. That’s true.”
I accomplished what I needed to, so I decided just to end the questioning. I showed that if my client had actually posted those messages at the time that he was alleged to have posted them, they would have been reported.
“I have nothing further for this witness.”
Unfortunately, that was the only one of the prosecution witnesses that I was able to draw any blood on.
I was just going to have to hope and pray that I could break down my own witnesses.
Chapter 39
The prosecution rested after John Wilson’s testimony, and, by that time, it was the end of the fifth day of the trial, and the judge asked everybody to go home.
“Be back here at 9 AM Monday,” he admonished.
I packed up my enormous file box that I had dragged into the courtroom on wheels. I felt okay about my ability to cross-examine the prosecutor’s witnesses, but not great. I was going to have to do an incredible job, above and beyond, to overcome the presence of my client’s hair at the murder scene. I didn’t do a good enough job cross-examining for me to feel like I was going to win this case. Not at all.
Worse yet, I had no idea what Jackson Anderson and Senator Nash were going to say on the stand. I’d interviewed both of them, and they both denied everything that I asked them. I wasn’t able to depose them, either, because of the California rules regarding depositions.
The only thing that I could do would be to treat both of them as hostile, which would mean that I could ask them both leading questions on direct. From there, I would have to hope that they would give themselves away with their demeanor.
I dragged my file box out the door, Declan and Carter following me close behind. I depended on the two men to clear a path for me every time I tried to go through the crowds of people who were surrounding the courthouse.
As we got out onto the sidewalk, we had to push through the phalanx of reporters, most of whom were shouting questions to all of us. “How did the trial go, Ms. Justice?” a reporter shouted. “Did the state prove its case?” shouted another.
We just kept walking. There were many cops who were trying to keep order out of the mayhem, and they started to get restless as more and more people started to descend on the three of us. I started to feel like I was about to suffocate, and Declan did his best to clear a path, but it seemed like parting through the mess was more difficult than ever.
I finally made it to my SUV, and I got in, giving Carter and Declan rides to their cars.
“How did things go, Ms. Justice?” Carter asked me anxiously.
I didn’t know how to answer him. I knew the truth - the jury wasn’t too impressed with our side just yet. They probably weren’t going to be at the end of the day. I just hoped that I at least put some doubt into their heads with my cross-examination of John Wilson, the sub-Reddit moderator who admitted that Carter would have been reported if he would have actually written vile and violent messages about a specific person.
Other than that, however, I couldn’t shake any of the witnesses.
“Well, Carter, we start our side on Monday.” I planned on calling on the good senator first thing Monday, and possibly Jackson if there was time. I wanted to save my expert witness, Jeffrey Bauer, for the last, because I felt that he was going to be my strongest testimony.
I dropped off the two men, although Declan was coming over later to try to help me brainstorm. He knew how badly I was feeling about this case, and he was going to be a source of moral support as well as a sounding-board.
Chapter 40
Emerson - December 6. Sixth day of the trial.
On Monday, we got started right at 9 AM. The first witness that I was going to call was Senator Nash. He appeared in a dark suit, light blue shirt and red tie. He walked, ramrod straight, through the doors of the courtroom, and everybody in the galley involuntarily gasped. It wasn’t every day that one sees a sitting senator coming to court to answer for possible murder charges.
I called him to the stand, he was sworn in, he stated his name, and I got right to business. “Now, Senator Nash,” I began, “you are here testifying because you actually had an affair with the victim in this case, Addison Wentworth, correct?”
He got closer to the microphone and bowed his head. “Yes. I’m ashamed of my behavior. I’ve never strayed in my marriage before, and I haven’t since her, either. My wife and I are in counseling, and we’re doing well.”
I knew that he was lying about that. My investigation showed that he had had plenty of affairs, both men and women. None of this was public knowledge, however. I found out that he had a fixer who was the publisher of the rag, The Global Examiner. Sonny Mancino bought exclusives to all damaging stories about the senator and then didn’t publish them. If somebody refused to sell their story to him, he blackmailed them. However, none of this was relevant to the case at hand, so I wasn’t going to question him on his overall sleaziness.
“Permission to treat witness as hostile,” I said to the judge.
“Permission granted. Please proceed, counselor,” Judge Carson said.
I took a deep breath. “Senator Nash, isn’t it true that you were concerned about your political career coming to an end if word got out about your affair with Addison Wentworth?”
“Yes, of course I was concerned about that,” he said.
“And she was pregnant, wasn’t she?”
“I guess so. I read in the paper that she was pregnant with Jackson Anderson’s baby, but I don’t see what her pregnanc
y has to do with me.”
“But you’ll allow that there was at least a possibility that the father of her baby was you and not Mr. Anderson, isn’t that right?”
He shifted in his chair and then leaned back and glared at me. “No, there wasn’t a possibility of that.”
I nodded my head. “There wasn’t a possibility? Senator Nash, have you had a vasectomy?”
“No. I haven’t.” His glare was penetrating through me, making my skin crawl. I could see in his eyes that he was capable of violently killing Addison.
“And when were you having an affair with her?” I knew that the Examiner had reported that the two of them had been having an affair for the past year, and that their affair had lasted up until Addison’s apparent death.
“For the past year,” he said.
“And, at the time of this crime, you were still seeing her, isn’t that true?”
“Yes, that is true.”
“And, to your knowledge, there hasn’t been a DNA test done, isn’t that right?”
I knew that there was a DNA test, and that Senator Nash was shown to be the father. Nonetheless, I couldn’t use the test, so I wanted the jury to believe that a test wasn’t done. That way, they could believe that either Jackson or Senator Nash might have had cause to kill her. Split the difference, as it were.
“No, there wasn’t a test done,” he admitted.
“So, it was never established that Ms. Wentworth’s unborn child was Jackson Anderson’s, was it?”
“No, I guess Jackson Anderson wasn’t established as the father.” He glared at me. “Neither was it established that I was.”
“But you have to concede that there is the possibility that you were the father, then?”
He opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Yes. There was that possibility.”
“And fathering a child with another woman, while your wife was allegedly dying of metastatic breast cancer, would have destroyed your career, wouldn’t it?”
I knew the truth. He was hanging on by a thread to his senate seat. He had been censured by the entire senate, and there were calls for him to not run for re-election. These calls were coming from members of his own party. He was going to be fending off primary challenges from six other well-qualified senatorial candidates.
And he dropped his bid to become POTUS after news had broken about him and Addison. There was literally no other choice for him.
He sighed. “Yes, obviously, fathering a child with Addison would have destroyed me. But don’t you think that murdering a woman would destroy my career even more? Answer me that. I knew that my affair with Addison was going to hit the airwaves the second she went missing from her home. It was only a matter of time. I think that I could survive an affair much more than the insinuation that I was involved in a murder.”
He made a point, but I was going to press on. “But you hoped that somehow news of your affair wouldn’t come out, didn’t you? You certainly could have killed Addison and hoped that your story could have stayed a secret. After all, it had been a secret for over a year. You certainly could have risked it.”
“No, I wouldn’t have risked that. Ms. Justice, I’m not that stupid. If I would have killed her, and news of my affair had come out, then I would have been the first suspect. That is, if your client’s hair wasn’t found at the scene, and if your client didn’t write those vile messages about poor Addison.”
He smirked, knowing that he was scoring points on me, instead of the other way around.
“Oh, but how was my client made the first suspect in this case? It seems to me, Senator Nash, that you would have all the right contacts to frame my client. If anybody would have known the way to frame an innocent boy, it would be you, with all of your powerful friends who owe you a solid.”
He started to laugh. “Oh, you think that, do you? How, pray tell, would I possibly have known somebody who would have had access to your client’s hair? We don’t exactly run in the same circles, your client and me.”
I had to press on. I had no idea how he would have been able to get Carter’s hair, but I had to throw spaghetti against the wall and see what stuck. “Admit it. You knew my client’s mother. His mother would sell him up the river for a dime.”
I raised an eyebrow as I saw him shift uncomfortably in his chair. He narrowed his eyes and jut out his chin.
Was I onto something? Did I stumble onto the truth?
“I told you, Ms. Justice, I don’t run in the same circles as Mr. Dixon and his mother.” He pointed to Carter. “That kid’s Skid Row. That’s where he lives. I have to remind you that I am a multi-billionaire senator who was aspiring to run for president of the United States. I don’t trifle myself with those kinds of people.” He looked at Carter. “No offense.”
I nodded my head, ready to strike him with a vague rumor I had heard through the grapevine when I was preparing this case. “Isn’t it true that you have been known to have wild sex parties at your home, and that prostitutes have been known to frequent these parties?”
Neera decided that she had had enough. “Objection, relevance.”
“Ms. Justice, what is the relevance of this question?” Judge Carson demanded.
“My client’s mother is a prostitute. If Senator Nash is somebody who cavorts with prostitutes, he might have come to know my client’s mother that way. That, in turn, might have given him access to my client’s hair.”
Neera rolled her eyes. “Will all due respect, that theory is outlandish and offensive. Senator Nash is a public figure, still a very prominent one. To put this kind of evidence out there in a trial such as this one will destroy this man’s life, because the public will inevitably know about this testimony. Considering the fact that Ms. Justice’s theory is far-fetched, to say the least, I urge the court not to go down this prejudicial road.”
“Objection sustained,” Judge Carson said. “Move along, Ms. Justice.”
I sighed. “I have nothing further.”
I sat down, and Neera got up and asked Senator Nash questions.
I didn’t feel like I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish with Senator Nash.
I hoped that I could break down Jackson Anderson a bit more. However, by the time the cross-examination of Senator Nash was over, it was time to call it quits for the day again.
When I walked out into the throngs of reporters, I found out a piece of information that disturbed me greatly and could have very well been the death-knell for my case.
“Jackson Anderson has been found dead in his home. Gunshot wound,” a reporter said, sticking her microphone in my face. “This is breaking news. Would you care to comment?”
I felt shaken and shocked. “I’m so sorry, when did this happen?”
“His body was found within the last fifteen minutes,” the reporter said. “He was going to be one of your star witnesses, so how will his death affect your case?”
“It won’t affect my case,” I said, feeling uncertain. I had two of the witnesses from the party that I still planned to call, but finding out that Jackson was dead was certainly a blow. Sharona Wright and Tom Peoples were prepared to testify about Addison being passed out when they left the private gathering that was organized by Jackson. But that was certainly circumstantial evidence that really explained nothing.
Declan put his hands on my shoulders and the three of us, me, Declan and Carter, shoved through the crowd. Once I got safely onto the sidewalk, I looked into Declan’s eyes. “Jackson Anderson is dead.”
“I know, I heard,” he said. “But he wasn’t going to be admitting to raping Addison on the stand.”
“I know he wasn’t, but I had planned to structure my questions to corner him as much as I could. I mean, I have those other two witnesses, but what good are they going to do without Jackson? I don’t think that I can even establish my theory about him killing Addison without him taking the stand, so the judge might not even allow the testimony of Tom Peoples and Sharona Wright.”
I got to my S
UV and put my head down on the steering wheel. Where was this case going? Down the tubes, that’s where.
The fact that Jackson was now dead, combined with the fact that I wasn’t able to break down Senator Nash, meant that the writing was on the wall.
We were going down, and there was nothing that I could do about it.
Chapter 41
December 7 - Seventh day of the trial
The next day, I knew that I was going to have to do my college best to salvage the case. I went ahead and called Tom Peoples and Sharona Wright.
They both testified that they were snorting heroin with Jackson and Addison. “I was an addict,” Tom said, looking ashamed. “I’m not proud of it. Jackson was known around the industry for having some of the purest heroin in the world. Most high-grade. There weren’t many drug users and addicts who didn’t turn down a chance to share with Anderson,” Tom said.
“And did you end up doing drugs with Mr. Anderson until the morning?” I asked him.
“Yes. It was in the early morning that I was asked to leave.”
“And Addison was still in that room, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And what was her state when you left?”
“She was completely unconscious. Nobody could figure out why. She was known during that time to be a druggie.”
“So, Addison was unconscious when you left, correct?”
“Right.”
“And was there any other person in that room when you left, besides Jackson and Addison?”
“No. They were completely alone when I left.”
“Nothing further.”
Then Sharona testified, and her testimony was virtually identical to Tom’s testimony.
After Sharona and Tom testified, it was time to call Jeffrey Bauer, my expert who was going to testify about how he discovered that Carter’s computer had been hacked.
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