Chapter 6 - The Deposition
Three weeks later, we gathered in a sleek, glass-walled conference room on the fourteenth floor of a downtown legal office for the official pre-trial deposition.
The contrast between the two sides of the long mahogany table was stark.
On my side sat Francis Hartley and myself, dressed neatly, calm, and prepared with three color-coded binders of certified banking records.
On the other side sat my mother, wearing a plain grey suit that looked slightly too big for her, flanked by a court-appointed public defender named Marcus Vance. She had been forced to hire public counsel because all her bank accounts remained frozen, and no private defense attorney in the county would take her case without a twenty-thousand-dollar retainer up front.
Caroline sat in the corner of the room on a small vinyl chair, looking exhausted, wearing simple jeans and a cardigan, completely stripped of her designer wardrobe.
“We are on the record,” the court reporter announced, her fingers hovering over the keys of her machine. “Deposition of Diane Westbrook in the matter of Westbrook v. Westbrook.”
Francis Hartley leaned forward, opening the first binder. Her tone was surgical.
“Mrs. Westbrook,” Francis began, “I direct your attention to Document C: a wire transfer authorization dated November 14th of last year, transferring two hundred thousand dollars from the estate trust of Richard Westbrook into an account belonging to Vance Real Estate Investments. Is that your signature on line one?”
Diane looked down at the paper. Her hand trembled slightly. “Yes.”
“And on line two, where it requires the co-signature of the co-beneficiary, Adeline Westbrook... who signed that name?”
Diane cleared her throat. She looked at her attorney, who gave her a grim, warning nod.
“I signed it,” Diane said, her voice barely audible.
“Louder for the record, please,” Francis demanded coolly.
“I signed it!” Diane snapped, a flash of her old fiery temper breaking through. “I signed her name!”
“Did you have power of attorney to sign Adeline Westbrook’s name?”
“She is my daughter!” Diane said, leaning over the table, her eyes wide. “Everything I did, I did for this family! Adeline was doing fine on her own! She had a successful career! Caroline needed a house! She needed a wedding! She needed a future! A mother is supposed to provide for her children!”
“By stealing from one to feed the other?” Francis asked smoothly.
“It wasn’t stealing!” Diane cried out, looking at me with desperate, pleading eyes. “Adeline, tell her! It was a temporary loan! I was going to pay it all back as soon as the land investment cleared!”
“The land investment in Florida that went into foreclosure six months ago?” Francis asked, pulling out a legal notice from the state of Florida. “The one where you lost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of your own money before touching your daughter’s?”
Diane closed her mouth. She sank back into her leather chair, looking suddenly twenty years older.
Francis turned to the next page. “Now, let us address the events of June 12th—the rehearsal dinner at Sound Harbor Club. You presented Adeline with a typed document titled 'Letter of Reconciliation and Financial Accord.' In this letter, Adeline was asked to acknowledge that she had 'irresponsibly mismanaged family vendor funds' and agree to pay a ten-thousand-dollar penalty fee to her sister, correct?”
“It was to keep the peace,” Diane whispered weakly. “The vendors were demanding cash. The venue was going to cancel. We needed ten thousand dollars by midnight.”
“So you attempted to extort your daughter into covering your financial fraud under threat of public humiliation?”
“Objection to form,” her public defender murmured tiredly.
“I’ll rephrase,” Francis said with a cold smile. “Did you send a text message to Adeline Westbrook at 4:12 PM on June 12th reading, and I quote: 'Pay or else.'?”
Diane didn’t answer. She pulled a tissue from her purse and pressed it against her eyes.
“Mrs. Westbrook, answer the question,” Francis pressed.
“Yes,” Diane sobbed. “Yes, I sent it.”
Francis closed her binder with a sharp, definitive thud that echoed through the glass room.
May you like
“No further questions.”
In the corner, Caroline buried her face in her hands and began to weep softly. I sat still, watching my mother realize that no amount of charm, social standing, or emotional blackmail was ever going to save her from the truth.
