Chapter 7 - The Interrogation of Elaine
Downstairs in the kitchen, Elaine Mercer was sitting at the breakfast bar.
She hadn't been arrested—yet. But she was being detained on an administrative hold while the deputies secured the premises. Her emerald-green silk gown was rumpled, the hem stained with slush from the club parking lot. Her silver hair had begun to unravel, falling in wisps around her heavily lined, haggard face.
She looked fifty years older than she had three hours ago beneath the crystal chandeliers.
Beside her, Sarah Lin was sliding a series of banking statements across the quartz island, each one bearing a bright yellow post-it note.
"Drink your water, Elaine," I said, setting a glass of tap water down in front of her.
Elaine didn't touch the glass. She looked up at me, her eyes burning with pure, concentrated venom.
"You ungrateful little peasant," Elaine hissed, her voice a cracked, ragged whisper. "We took you in. You had nothing! Your father was a broken soldier living in a rotting farmhouse, and my son gave you a life! He gave you this home! He gave you his name!"
Everett Langston pulled a chair out from the kitchen table, turned it backward, and sat down three feet from Elaine. He rested his forearms on the back of the chair, his posture identical to the way he used to sit when he was interrogating captured Iraqi Republican Guard officers in 1991.
"Your son didn't give her a life, Elaine," Everett said, his tone conversational, calm, and terrifyingly cold. "Your son was an embezzler who used my daughter’s credit score to secure a three-million-dollar fleet mortgage because your own family credit was destroyed by your late husband’s bankruptcy."
Everett leaned in, his eyes fixing on hers.
"Let's talk about the Waterloo property, Elaine."
Elaine flinched. The venom in her eyes flickered, replaced for a split second by a flash of raw, naked panic.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered.
"Clause 4 of the 2018 capitalization agreement," Sarah Lin stated, tapping a document on the counter. "You claimed the Waterloo terminal was wholly owned by Mercer Holdings. But when we pulled the county deed records this morning at 6:00 a.m., we discovered that you transferred the terminal deed into your personal trust three days before Corbin signed the loan covenant with Colonel Langston."
Marcus Vance stepped up to the counter, leaning over Elaine like a storm cloud.
"That is called fraudulent inducement to contract, Mrs. Mercer. In the state of Iowa, when the amount exceeds one hundred thousand dollars, it is a Class C felony carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in the state women’s correctional facility in Mitchellville."
Elaine’s hands began to shake violently. She grabbed the edge of the quartz counter, her knuckles turning white.
"Corbin... Corbin didn't know about that," she choked out, her voice suddenly losing all its theatrical grandiosity. "He didn't know. I was trying to protect our family! If the business failed, we would have had nothing!"
"You already have nothing, Elaine," I said.
I walked around the island until I was standing directly in front of her. I reached down, took her designer leather purse from the counter, unzipped it, and pulled out the brass key to 412 Whispering Pines Way.
I dropped the key into my coat pocket.
"You told me last night that my marriage hadn't been good for a long time," I reminded her, watching her face crumble as the reality of her total destruction settled into her bones. "You told me not to make it dramatic."
I leaned down until my face was inches from hers.
"This isn't drama, Elaine. This is foreclosure."
Sheriff Miller walked through the back door, carrying an official eviction clearance writ.
"Mrs. Mercer," the sheriff said, his voice completely devoid of the deference he had shown her for twenty years at the country club. "Your twenty minutes are up. Deputy Clark will escort you to your vehicle. If you enter these premises again without a court-ordered escort, you will be arrested for felony trespass."
Elaine stood up, her knees wobbling so violently she had to catch herself on the edge of the counter. She looked around the kitchen—at the custom Italian cabinets she had chosen, at the wine cooler she had bragged about to the garden club, at the marble backsplashes that had been paid for with my father’s money.
She looked at me, her eyes wide, pleading, and pathetic.
"Clara... please. Where am I supposed to go? My house on Country Club Lane... Corbin put the mortgage through the corporate account..."
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"Then I suggest you call a cab, Elaine," I said, turning my back on her and walking toward the living room window. "And make sure you wear a warm coat. It’s cold out there."
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