Chapter 4 - The Glass Wall
The Marion County Holding Facility was a bleak, concrete block structure sitting on the edge of the industrial district.
At 2:00 P.M., I sat in the private attorney-client visitation room on the second floor.
A thick sheet of bulletproof glass separated me from the steel chair on the other side. A small black intercom box sat in the center of the shelf beneath the glass.
The heavy steel door clicked open, and a female corrections officer escorted Vanessa into the room.
She was wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit, her wrists bound by a belly chain. Her silver-blond hair was unstyled, hanging in greasy wisps around her face. Her manicured nails were gone, scrubbed clean during the booking procedure.
She sat down heavily in the steel chair, glaring at me through the glass with absolute hatred.
She didn't pick up the phone handset. She just stared.
I picked up my handset and held it to my ear. I waited.
After thirty seconds of silence, her arrogance gave way. She snatched her handset off the cradle.
"Are you happy now?" Vanessa spat through the speaker, her voice harsh and raspy. "You have your own brother sitting in a cell downstairs, weeping like a baby. You destroyed your own family!"
"Brandon destroyed himself the moment he allowed you to put your hands on our father," I said, my voice completely steady.
"He's an old man!" she yelled, leaning closer to the glass. "He was going to die anyway! Look at him! He's senile! He can't even remember what he ate for breakfast! That land was just sitting there doing nothing while Brandon and I were drowning!"
"You hit him with an aluminum bat, Vanessa."
"He wouldn't sign the paper!" she shrieked, her eyes wild. "We had the buyer line up! All he had to do was press his signature on the deed transfer! We were going to give him a comfortable room in the best facility in the state! He would have been cared for!"
"You stole his ledger," I said, pulling a blue folder from my briefcase and laying it against the glass. "You forged his signature on three separate loan applications over the past six months. Did you really think my office wouldn't notice a federal handwriting discrepancy?"
Vanessa paused, her breath catching in her throat. "What are you talking about?"
"I am a forensic interrogator, Vanessa," I said softly. "My primary specialization for the last four years has been financial fraud and asset recovery for organized crime syndicates. You thought you were playing a local game with a local police department. You didn't realize that every document you uploaded to those private lenders crossed federal digital servers."
She turned pale. "That's... that's a civil matter..."
"Filing a fraudulent loan application using a stolen identity across state lines is a federal offense," I corrected her. "The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District has already accepted my referral. As of twenty minutes ago, three federal detainment warrants were added to your local charges."
Vanessa’s hands began to shake. The orange jumpsuit seemed to swallow her small frame.
"Sarah..." she whimpered, her voice suddenly dropping into the fake, desperate tone she had used at the police station. "Sarah, please... talk to them. Tell them it was a misunderstanding. Brandon... Brandon can't handle prison. He'll break. I was just trying to protect our future... we were desperate..."
I looked at her through the glass.
I saw no remorse. I saw no love for my brother. I saw only a predator who had finally realized she was inside the cage instead of beside it.
"Brandon signed a plea agreement an hour ago," I told her.
Vanessa froze. "What?"
"He agreed to testify against you on all counts—the assault, the forgery, the conspiracy to commit elder abuse—in exchange for a reduced sentence in a minimum-security facility."
"He... he wouldn't..." she whispered, tears finally streaming down her cheeks, real tears of pure, selfish terror.
"He did," I said. "He gave up the corrupt doctor. He gave up the real estate broker. He gave up everything, Vanessa. You are completely alone."
I hung up the handset, placed it back on its cradle, and stood up from my chair.
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Vanessa slammed her handcuffed hands against the bulletproof glass, her face twisted in a silent, desperate scream as the corrections officer grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back toward the heavy steel door.
I turned my back on her and walked out into the corridor.
