Chapter 7 - The Interrogation of Margaret Vance
The county detention center smelled of industrial disinfectant, cold concrete, and human despair. The visitor’s booth was divided by a thick, reinforced pane of scratched plexiglass, with an archaic telephone receiver mounted on either side to facilitate communication.
I sat down on the metal stool on the visitor’s side, adjusting my coat, and waited.
A few moments later, the heavy metal door on the opposite side creaked open, and two guards escorted Margaret Vance into the booth.
Gone was the immaculately groomed, arrogant matriarch who had sneered at me in the kitchen and shoved me down the stairs. In her place was a haggard, disheveled woman wearing a coarse orange jumpsuit, her hair unbrushed, her eyes red-rimmed and hollowed out from a sleepless night on a steel cell bunk.
Margaret sat down heavily on the stool, picked up the phone receiver with shaking hands, and pressed it to her ear. I picked up mine.
“Emily,” Margaret rasped, her voice trembling, stripped of all its venom. “Please... you have to drop these charges. They put me in a cell with... it’s horrible in here. I’m an old woman, Emily. My heart... my health is failing—”
“Your health was fine yesterday morning when you pushed me down a flight of stairs and watched me bleed out on the hardwood floor,” I replied smoothly, my voice cold, calm, and carrying the weight of absolute detachment.
Margaret flinched, tears welling up in her eyes as she pressed her palm against the plexiglass. “It was an accident! I lost my temper! Daniel said you slipped! We didn't mean for... we didn't want the babies to—!”
“Stop talking, Margaret,” I interrupted, raising a single finger. “Every word you say is being recorded by the prosecutor’s office. You didn't just push me because you lost your temper. You pushed me because I caught you embezzling our joint savings to pay off your illegal casino debts.”
Margaret froze, her mouth opening slightly in silent terror.
“And now,” I continued, leaning closer to the glass, “your son Daniel has just been fired from Vance & Sterling Logistics with cause, stripped of his stock options, and indicted on federal wire fraud and embezzlement charges for laundering corporate funds to support his mistress, Jessica Miller.”
Margaret’s eyes bulged in utter disbelief. “No... no, Daniel... my boy... you ruined him?”
“No, Margaret,” I said, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. “He ruined himself the moment he decided to cover up murder to protect his bank account. And you ruined yourself the moment you thought you could treat my life and my children’s lives as disposable.”
“Please, Emily! Have mercy!” Margaret sobbed openly now, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, sliding down the orange jumpsuit. “I’m begging you! Family forgives family! We can make a deal—!”
“There are no deals left to make,” I said, standing up from the metal stool and placing the phone receiver back onto its cradle with a definitive, metallic click.
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I looked at her through the glass—small, pathetic, and utterly destroyed—and felt nothing. No anger. No hatred. Just the profound, beautiful peace of absolute justice being served.
As I turned and walked out of the visitation room, leaving Margaret sobbing uncontrollably against the plexiglass, I knew the final pieces of the puzzle were falling perfectly into place.
