Chapter 4 - The Safe-Deposit Box
By noon on Wednesday, the pressure began to build.
Arthur Vance, a slick man in a six-thousand-dollar suit, showed up at Saint Jude Hospital accompanied by two private investigators. He didn't come to check on his grandnephew. He came to intimidate me.
I met him in the hospital's private consultation room. I didn't go alone. I had called my sister's former probate attorney, a sharp, unyielding woman named Sarah Sterling, who sat beside me with a thick accordion folder.
"Bethany," Arthur said, taking a seat across the mahogany table and unbuttoning his tailored jacket. "This is an awful tragedy. A family nightmare. But we need to look at this rationally before things get completely out of hand."
"Your client is in a county holding cell, Arthur," Sarah Sterling interjected before I could speak. "She's facing charges of attempted murder, child endangerment, and illegal distribution of controlled substances."
Arthur smiled—a thin, patronizing flex of his lips. "My sister is seventy-two years old. She has a documented history of minor memory lapses. We have already scheduled an evaluation with a private neurologist who will attest that she was suffering from severe cognitive decline when she mixed those drinks. She didn't intend to harm Colton. She thought she was giving him standard performance vitamins."
"She kept a written logbook of his heart rates, Arthur," I said, leaning over the table. "She noted the exact minute his speech started slurring. That isn't dementia. That's a clinical trial performed on an unsuspecting sixteen-year-old boy."
Arthur’s smile didn't fade, but his eyes went cold as ice.
"If this goes to trial, Bethany," Arthur said softly, lowering his voice, "the public discovery process will be devastating for you. We will subpoena your dead sister's medical records. We will show that you had access to heavy narcotics. We will bring in character witnesses from your school district who will testify that you were under immense stress, financially dependent on Francine, and mentally unstable."
"Are you threatening my client, Mr. Vance?" Sarah Sterling asked, opening her notebook.
"I'm giving her a reality check," Arthur replied. "Francine has a five-million-dollar estate and a defense team that will drag this trial out for four years. By the time it's over, your family will be bankrupt, Colton’s name will be dragged through the mud as a drug-addicted athlete, and Melody will be a teenager grown up in courtrooms. Or..."
He slid a heavy manila envelope across the table toward me.
"...you sign a non-disclosure agreement, agree to a civil settlement of two million dollars paid from Francine’s trust, and allow her to be placed in a private residential psychiatric facility in Vermont. She leaves the state. You get the money. Colton gets his medical bills paid."
I looked down at the manila envelope. Two million dollars. Enough to buy a new house, pay for Colton’s college, and never worry about money again.
"You think my son's life has a price tag, Arthur?" I asked.
"Everything has a price, Bethany," Arthur said smoothly. "Especially silence."
Before I could answer, the door to the consultation room swung open.
Detective Miller stepped inside, followed by a young female forensic officer holding an official evidence bag. Inside the bag was a heavy silver key and a folded piece of yellow parchment paper.
"Mr. Vance," Detective Miller said, looking at Arthur. "We just finished executing a secondary search warrant on Francine Vance’s safe-deposit box at the First National Bank."
Arthur’s smug expression flickered for a fraction of a second. "That box is protected by attorney-client privilege—"
"Not when a federal judge signs a bio-hazard search warrant," Miller interrupted. "We found something very interesting inside, Arthur."
Miller pulled out a copy of the inventory sheet.
"We found sixteen original medical files from Saint Jude Hospital dating back to 1994," Miller read aloud. "Files belonging to patients who suffered 'unexplained respiratory failure' while under Francine Vance’s care when she was Chief Pharmacist."
I gasped. Arthur went completely rigid in his chair.
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"Colton wasn't her first, was he?" I whispered, the horror washing over me like ice water.
"We are reopening four cold-case homicide files from twenty years ago," Detective Miller declared, looking straight at Arthur. "Your sister isn't going to a private psychiatric facility in Vermont, Mr. Vance. She's being transferred to a maximum-security federal detention center."
