Chapter 5 - The Deposition
Three weeks later, the sky over the city was a dark, bruised purple, heavy with the promise of the first winter snow.
I sat in a high-backed leather chair on the tenth floor of the County Judicial Building, wearing my dark civilian suit. Beside me sat Marcus Vance—no relation to the criminal doctor—a sharp, fifty-year-old former federal prosecutor who now directed our legal team.
Across the long oak conference table sat Rachel.
She was wearing a orange jumpsuit from the county correctional facility. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face was devoid of makeup, and her eyes were dark, hollow, and red-rimmed from three weeks of crying in a six-by-eight cell.
Beside her sat her court-appointed public defender, a tired-looking man named Sterling who kept shuffling his papers with an expression that said he would rather be anywhere else on earth.
“This deposition is for the civil asset forfeiture and divorce proceedings of Mercer v. Mercer,” Marcus announced, setting an audio recorder on the center of the table.
Rachel looked at me across the table. Her lips trembled.
“Daniel,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “Please. Look at me. They’re putting me in a maximum security facility with violent offenders. I can't survive in there. You know I’m fragile.”
“You weren't fragile when you tied an eighty-two-year-old woman to a bed frame, Rachel,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion.
“It was Cole!” she sobbed, leaning forward, the heavy iron chain connecting her handcuffs rattling against the table edge. “Cole came to me with the idea! He said he owed money to some bad people in South Boston! He said if I didn't help him get the house equity, they would break his legs!”
Sterling sighed, touching his client’s arm. “Rachel, refrain from spontaneous statements.”
“I don't care!” she yelled, turning on her lawyer. “My life is over! Daniel, please! Talk to the prosecutor! Tell them I was under distress! Tell them I was suffering from severe marital depression while you were deployed!”
Marcus opened his folder, pulling out a single sheet of paper with a pink seal at the top.
“Mrs. Mercer,” Marcus said smoothly. “Two days ago, federal agents executed a search warrant on your private safe-deposit box at First National Bank. Inside, they found a forty-page handwritten diary detailing your plan to commit your mother-in-law, sell this house, and purchase a luxury condominium in Miami under your maiden name.”
Rachel’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Page fourteen,” Marcus read aloud in a flat, monotone voice, “reads as follows: 'Once the old woman is at Pine Ridge, Daniel will be too broken by her illness to question the property sale. He trusts me completely. He’s just a simple soldier who wants a quiet home.'”
The conference room went dead silent.
Sterling looked at his client, closed his folder, and pulled off his reading glasses.
“We are prepared to accept the state’s plea offer on all counts,” Sterling said quietly.
Rachel stared at the pink sheet of paper, her face turning from red to a dull, waxy yellow.
“Daniel...” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. “You... you loved me.”
I stood up, buttoned my jacket, and picked up my leather briefcase.
“I loved the woman I thought you were, Rachel,” I said, looking down at her one last time. “The woman who volunteered at the veterans' center. The woman who brought my mother soup when she had the flu four years ago.”
I leaned down until my face was six inches from hers.
“But that woman was just a performance, wasn't it?” I murmured. “And the curtain just came down.”
May you like
I walked out of the conference room without looking back.
Through the heavy glass doors, I could hear her screaming my name—a high, desperate sound that was quickly cut off as the bailiffs guided her back toward the holding cells.
