Chapter 11 - The Final Desperation
Even behind the locked steel doors of the county detention center, Evelyn Vance refused to die quietly.
On the first Monday of February, Dawn called me into her downtown office. When I stepped inside, Dawn wasn't sitting behind her desk; she was pacing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a thick legal packet with a look of utter disgust on her face.
"What now?" I asked, setting my purse on a chair. "Has Ross filed an appeal?"
"Ross took a plea deal this morning," Dawn said. "Three years state prison, suspended to eighteen months with full restitution and mandatory labor. He rolled on his bookie to avoid federal time. He's finished."
"Then what is that?" I pointed to the papers.
"This," Dawn said, slapping the document onto her desk, "is Evelyn’s dying gasp. Her court-appointed attorney filed a petition for grandparental visitation and emergency guardianship."
I let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. "She is in a county psychiatric holding cell awaiting trial for attempted arson! How could any lawyer even file that?"
"Because state law allows any grandparent to petition if they claim the custodial parent is 'alienating' the child from family lineage, and Evelyn’s lawyer is arguing that her actions on your deck were an acute, temporary psychosis brought on by the trauma of family breakdown," Dawn explained, her eyes flashing with cold professional fury. "She’s claiming you deliberately provoked her mental break to alienate Micah, and she's demanding mandatory psychological evaluations for you and Micah before her criminal trial begins."
"She wants to drag Micah into a courtroom?" The fury inside me flared, hot and protective.
"She wants leverage, Nora," Dawn said. "She knows if she can force you into a family court mediation, her attorney can try to negotiate a drop in the felony arson charges in exchange for dropping the visitation petition. She is using the court system as an extortion racket."
"Can she win?"
Dawn leaned over the desk, her smile sharp as a razor. "Nora, in twenty-four hours, Judge Marcus is presiding over the preliminary motions docket. Judge Marcus is a seventy-year-old grandmother who spent fifteen years heading the state domestic violence task force. Evelyn thinks she’s walking into a theater where she can cry on cue. We are going to hand Judge Marcus the urgent care burn records, the Ring camera footage of Evelyn holding a gas can, and the sworn affidavit Arthur signed yesterday."
May you like
I paused. "Arthur signed an affidavit?"
"Arthur testified that Evelyn systematically physically abused you throughout your childhood, and that she premeditated the roast beef incident an hour before dinner because Micah wouldn't hug her when we arrived," Dawn said quietly. "Your father is done hiding her secrets."
