Richard shaved his wife’s head on their tenth anniversary

The next seventy-two hours unfolded with the clean, mathematical precision of a demolition project.

By Monday morning, Chief Judge Evelyn Harrison executed the final civil forfeiture decree in The Estate of Arthur Prescott v. Richard Bennett.

Under the statutory provisions of the Illinois Slayer and Abuser Statute, Richard was legally declared an unfit spouse, forfeiting every penny of marital property, every claim to alimony, and every interest in our suburban estate.

Sitting in my father's old executive office at Prescott Construction Materials, I watched Mathilde execute the recovery wires:

The eight million four hundred thousand dollars in the Cook Islands escrow was recalled and deposited into the Prescott Foundation for Women's Sovereignty.

The four hundred thousand dollars in domestic accounts was liquidated to pay the back wages of thirty-two factory workers Richard had laid off six months earlier.

The suburban house—the house with the stone columns and the dining room we used four times a year—was deeded to the Chicago Metropolitan Women’s Shelter to serve as a thirty-bed emergency residential center.

At 2:00 PM on Tuesday, I visited Richard in the holding annex of the Cook County Jail.

He sat behind the thick acrylic partition, wearing a coarse orange jumpsuit, his manicured hair disheveled, his eyes hollowed out by seventy-two hours of solitary confinement. He had lost ten pounds; his skin was pasty, and his large hands trembled against the steel counter.

He picked up the phone. I lifted mine.

"You took everything," he whispered, his voice cracked and raw.

"I took nothing that belonged to you, Richard," I replied, leaning back in my chair. "I simply returned what you stole."

"Evelyn is having my child in four months, Claire," he choked out, tears finally breaking through his defenses. "She's alone in Zurich. She has no money. The Swiss authorities froze her apartment when your lawyers filed the injunction. What is going to happen to my baby?"

I looked at him through the scratched plastic.

"The baby will be provided for, Richard," I said calmly. "I established an independent educational trust for the child this morning. Two million dollars, administered by a Swiss guardian ad litem. The child will never know poverty."

Richard’s face lit up with a sudden, pathetic flicker of hope. "You... you helped my child? Claire, thank you—"

"Do not thank me, Richard," I interrupted, my voice dropping into ice. "I helped an innocent child because I am Arthur Prescott's daughter. But Evelyn Cross will never touch a single dollar of that principal. She was served with an international extradition warrant at dawn. She’s being deported back to Illinois on Friday to face federal wire fraud conspiracy charges."

Richard’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The last shred of his constructed fantasy disintegrated before his eyes.

"You're going to Stateville Penitentiary for fifteen years, Richard," I said, standing up from the booth.

"Learn to cut your own hair.