Chapter 7 - The Audit of the Wolves
The holding cells beneath the Hennepin County Government Center smelled of industrial disinfectant, cold steel, and thirty years of accumulated despair.
It was 2:30 PM on Monday afternoon.
Through the reinforced polycarbonate interview partition of Conference Room C, Derek sat on a bolted stainless-steel stool, wearing a coarse orange two-piece jumpsuit with the letters HCSO stenciled across the shoulders in black ink.
The transformation was absolute, devastating, and complete.
His Savile Row suit had been confiscated by evidence technicians; his pomade had been washed from his hair during intake, leaving it matted and limp across his forehead; and his large, soft hands were linked by an eighteen-inch steel belly-chain that rattled continuously against the metal table whenever he shifted his weight.
Beside him sat Amanda, wearing an identical orange jumpsuit, her designer makeup washed away, her manicured nails bitten to the quick, staring blankly at the concrete floor with bloodshot, ruined eyes.
The heavy steel security door clicked open.
I walked inside, accompanied by Sarah Vance.
I wore my tailored charcoal wool overcoat, my blackthorn walking stick clicking softly on the linoleum, my posture straight, unyielding as an oak spar.
Derek surged to his feet, his chains screaming against the floor ring, his hands slamming against the polycarbonate glass with desperate, frantic force:
"Mom! Mom, please!" Derek wept, his voice cracking into high-pitched, pathetic sobs that echoed off the cinderblock walls. "You have to tell the prosecutor it was a misunderstanding! Amanda planned it! Amanda introduced me to Julian Marcus! She told me that if I didn't get the money, Julian's people were going to burn our house down! She manipulated me, Mom! I swear to God, I never wanted to hurt you!"
Amanda’s head snapped up like a viper striking.
She lunged sideways, her chained fists swinging toward Derek’s face, catching him across the cheekbone with the heavy steel links of her handcuffs:
CRACK.
"You cowardly little bastard!" Amanda shrieked, spitting blood and saliva across the partition glass as two female corrections deputies tackled her from behind, slamming her chest flat against the metal table. "You pushed the chair! Your hands were on the grips! You told me in the car that you couldn't wait to see her sink so you could buy that penthouse on Lake Minnetonka! Don't you dare put this on me!"
I didn't flinch. I didn't step back.
I pulled out a metal chair, sat down, and rested my hands over the silver cap of my cane.
"Sit down, Derek," I said softly.
My voice was not loud, but it possessed that quiet, absolute authority that made him instantly collapse back onto his stool, wiping a smear of blood from his nose with his orange sleeve.
Sarah Vance opened her leather litigation portfolio and laid three certified documents flat against the partition glass:
VANCE CAPITAL LIQUIDATION PROCEEDINGS – DOCKET #26-BK-0091
TRUST BENEFICIARY STATUS: PERMANENTLY REVOKED PURSUANT TO
MINNESOTA STATUTE § 524.2-803 (THE SLAYER STATUTE).
FORFEITURE: 100% OF CONTINGENT REMAINDER TRANSFERRED TO CHARITABLE TRUST.
PERSONAL ASSET ATTACHMENT: $4,600,000.00 EXECUTED IN FAVOR OF APEX CREDITORS.
"Here is your financial accounting, Derek," Sarah Vance said, her voice dropping into that chilling, clinical frequency.
"Under Minnesota’s Slayer Statute, any beneficiary who feloniously and intentionally attempts to cause the death of the decedent is barred from inheriting any property or benefit from the estate.
You are no longer an heir to eleven million dollars, Derek.
You are an unrepresented debtor with four point six million dollars in non-dischargeable commercial liabilities."
Derek’s breath caught in his throat. He looked at the paper, then looked at me, his eyes wide and wild with the terror of a man who has just realized that the universe has closed every single door around him.
"The house in Minnetonka, Mom?" Derek whispered, his voice trembling so violently his teeth clicked together. "The brokerage firm?"
"The sheriff seized the keys at noon, Derek," I replied softly, every word falling with the clean, brutal weight of an iron hatch closing.
"The firm is in Chapter 7 liquidation.
The house will be sold at the sheriff’s auction on the fifteenth of next month to satisfy Julian Marcus’s senior lien.
And your wife’s family..."
I looked at Amanda, who was weeping quietly into her handcuffs on the floor.
"...has already informed the court that they will not be providing a single dollar for your bail."
Derek sank forward, his forehead pressing against the cold polycarbonate glass, his body shaking with ragged, suffocating sobs of pure, unadulterated ruin.
"What am I supposed to do, Mom?" he wept, his voice muffled by the plastic. "I'm thirty-five years old. They’re talking about twenty-five years in Stillwater. What am I supposed to do with my life?"
I stood up slowly, smoothing the wool of my coat over my hips, looking down at my only child through the scratched glass.
"You’re going to learn how to swim, Derek," I whispered into the intercom grill.
"Because the water...
May you like
is very, very deep."
I turned on my heel, tapped my blackthorn stick once against the linoleum, and walked through the heavy steel door into the clean winter light, leaving the predators in their cages forever.
