Chapter 5 - The Detention Center VisitOn Friday afternoon, against Arthur’s strict legal advice, I had my chauffeur drive me to the county correctional facility on the outskirts of the city.
The visiting room was a bleak, sterile space smelling of industrial disinfectant and old floor wax. The plastic chairs were bolted to the linoleum floor, and a thick sheet of reinforced Plexiglas separated the visitor side from the detainee side.
I sat down, resting my hands neatly on my lap, and waited.
A moment later, the heavy metal door clicked open, and Vanessa was escorted in by a female guard.
She looked a far cry from the immaculate, arrogant socialite who had smashed a plate over my head four days ago. Her orange jumpsuit was two sizes too big, her hair was unwashed and pulled back into a messy, lopsided ponytail, and the expensive makeup was entirely gone from her tear-streaked, hollowed-out face.
She sat down heavily on the metal stool, snatched up the heavy plastic telephone receiver, and glared at me through the smudged glass with eyes burning with pure, unfiltered hatred.
I calmly picked up my own receiver, holding it a few inches from my ear.
“You look terrible, Vanessa,” I said softly, my voice transmitting clearly through the small speaker box.
“You bitch!” Vanessa hissed into her phone, pressing her face so close to the glass I thought she might crack it. “You did this! You planned this! You set me up!”
“I didn't set you up, Vanessa. I simply refused to let you steal from me,” I replied, my tone as calm as a summer lake. “Forgery and wire fraud are entirely self-inflicted wounds. I merely pointed the police in the direction of the blood trail.”
“Drop the charges!” she screamed, slamming her fist against the Plexiglas. A nearby guard took a sharp step forward, hand resting on his taser, but I raised a calm hand to signal him away. “Drop the charges or I swear to God I will destroy Daniel! I’ll divorce him, I’ll take him down with me, I’ll ruin his life!”
I let out a quiet, pitying sigh.
“Vanessa, honey... Daniel’s life was ruined the moment he married a woman with the moral compass of a loan shark and the emotional maturity of a toddler,” I said smoothly. “As for dropping the charges? My attorneys tell me that the state’s attorney has already picked up the felony indictment. It’s out of my hands now. You’re looking at anywhere from five to ten years in a federal penitentiary.”
Vanessa’s knees seemed to buckle beneath the stool. Her face twisted into a mask of absolute, paralyzing terror.
“Ten years... no... no, you can’t do that to me! I’m too young! I have a business! I have a social life! Please, Margaret—please! You’re a mother! Have mercy!” she sobbed, pressing her palms flat against the glass, tears streaming down her hollow cheeks.
“When I was bleeding on your kitchen floor, with a concussion and broken porcelain in my hair, you told me I was seventy-one and had nothing left to live for,” I said quietly, my eyes locking onto hers with unyielding steel. “You thought my age made me weak. You thought my gray hair made me stupid. But let me tell you something, Vanessa: age doesn't make a woman weak. Age makes her dangerous, because she has nothing left to fear.”
I placed my receiver back onto its cradle with a sharp, echoing clack.
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Vanessa shrieked something into her dead phone, banging her fists against the glass as the guards moved in swiftly, grabbing her arms and dragging her backward out of the visitation room.
I didn't look back. I stood up, smoothed down my blazer, and walked out into the cool autumn air, feeling lighter than I had in twenty years.
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