Chapter 8 - The Visitation Room
The Federal Detention Center on Arch Street was a monolithic tower of unpolished limestone and slit-windowed security glass that smelled of institutional carbolic soap, stale floor wax, and the cold, circulating air of a subterranean air filtration plant.
At 2:00 PM on Friday afternoon, Claire sat behind the thick Lexan glass partition in Visitation Booth 4.
She was wearing a soft gray cashmere sweater, dark trousers, and her wedding band was gone—replaced by her grandmother’s simple, unpolished gold signet ring depicting the balance scales of the Admiralty Court.
The heavy steel security door on the opposite side of the glass buzzed and clicked open.
Ethan Hawthorne shuffled into the booth.
He was wearing an oversized orange cotton jumpsuit with the letters FDC PHILA stenciled across the back in black ink. His manicured hair was greasy, unwashed, falling across his forehead in limp strands; his jaw was covered in three days of dark, patchy stubble; and his wrists were secured to a heavy leather transport belt with carbon-steel chains that clanked against the metal stool as he sat down.
He looked at Claire through the scratched plastic.
The arrogant, handsome Ivy League prince was completely obliterated. His eyes were bloodshot, hollowed out by sleeplessness and terror, his lower lip quivering with that pathetic, self-pitying rage common to wealthy men who find themselves in an environment where their money cannot buy an extra blanket.
Ethan picked up the black plastic telephone receiver with trembling fingers.
Claire did not pick up her receiver immediately. She sat perfectly still for ten seconds, watching him sweat in the cold room, before lifting the handset to her ear.
"Claire..." Ethan’s voice came through the wire, distorted by the static of the correctional recording system. "Claire, thank God you came. My lawyers... Latham & Watkins dropped my defense this morning! They said there’s a conflict of interest with the corporate bankruptcy! You have to call Harold Albright! Tell him to release five million dollars from the private trust account in Zurich so I can retain private counsel!"
Claire looked at his face through the plastic.
"The Zurich account was seized at dawn by the Department of Justice, Ethan," she said, her voice flat, clinical, and completely devoid of emotion. "The Swiss federal prosecutor signed the mutual legal assistance treaty waiver yesterday afternoon. There is no money in Zurich. There is no money in Grand Cayman. There is only what remains in the court restitution escrow."
Ethan’s breath hitched in his throat with a wet, ragged gasp. He slammed his cuffed hands against the metal partition, making the heavy glass vibrate.
"You can't do this to me!" he shrieked, tears finally spilling over his reddened eyes, running through the stubble on his cheeks. "I am your husband! That boy you're carrying... he’s a Hawthorne! He has my blood! You are destroying his heritage!"
"He has your blood, Ethan," Claire replied, her hand resting protective and calm over the curve of her stomach. "And every day for the rest of his life, I will make sure he knows how to wash it clean."
She reached into her purse, pulled out a single sheet of paper, and pressed it flat against the Lexan glass for him to read.
It was an official certified copy of an Action for Absolute Divorce and Complete Termination of Parental Rights, filed that morning in the Family Court of Philadelphia County.
Attached to the petition was a sworn, notarized deposition signed by Dr. Robert Sterling—who had entered into a cooperation agreement with the District Attorney thirty-six hours ago—detailing the plot to have Claire committed to a private psychiatric facility following the delivery of the child.
Ethan read the title page.
The color left his lips entirely, leaving them a pale, corpse-like purple.
"Robert... Robert talked?" Ethan whispered, his voice cracking into a dry, hollow rattle.
"Everyone talked, Ethan," Claire said softly through the telephone. "Vanessa gave up the offshore corporate registers to avoid a mandatory fifteen-year sentence for wire fraud. Your board of directors surrendered their executive options to save their personal homes. Even the mechanic in Camden—the one who cut Julian’s rudder cables thirty-eight years ago—signed a statement before he died in hospice care yesterday afternoon."
She leaned closer to the glass, her eyes boring into his soul with the unassailable clarity of the truth.
"You aren't going to a minimum-security camp in the Poconos, Ethan. The United States Attorney is seeking forty years at the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg. You will be eighty-two years old when your first parole hearing convenes."
Ethan’s forehead hit the Lexan glass with a dull, hollow thud.
He began to weep—not with the sorrow of a man who regretted destroying the lives around him, but with the pathetic, helpless weeping of a child whose toy had been smashed on the nursery floor.
"What about the house...?" he sobbed through the plastic receiver. "The paintings... the silver... my grandfather's library..."
Claire slowly lowered the telephone receiver from her ear.
She didn't answer him.
May you like
She stood up from the metal stool, smoothing the front of her gray cashmere sweater, letting her grandmother’s gold signet ring catch the fluorescent light through the glass.
She turned her back on the booth, walked through the heavy steel door into the corridor, and left the last Hawthorne weeping in the orange jumpsuit behind the iron gates.
