Chapter 7 - The Interrogation Room
The interview room in the Alexandria Federal Courthouse was sterile, cold, and lit by a single buzzing fluorescent fixture.
Eleanor sat at the metal table, wearing an ill-fitting orange inmate jumpsuit that clashed violently with her dyed blonde hair and pale, lined face. Without her makeup, her expensive skincare routines, and her diamond earrings, she looked every one of her sixty-one years. The illusion of youthful high-society elegance had completely washed away.
Across from her sat Evelyn Reed, the federal prosecutor, and Special Agent Miller.
I stood in the corner of the room, my arms crossed, leaning against the cinderblock wall. I hadn't said a word since we entered. I simply watched her.
Eleanor refused to look at the prosecutor. She kept her eyes glued on me, her expression a toxic mixture of maternal outrage and desperate manipulation.
"Natalie, look at me," Eleanor demanded, her voice hoarse from two days of screaming in her cell. "Look at what these people are doing to your mother! Tell them to give me my clothes! Tell them to let Chloe out! Chloe had a panic attack this morning, and the prison doctor refused to give her her designer anxiety medication!"
"Your daughter is in federal holding, Mrs. Carter," Reed said sharply, tapping a thick sheaf of papers on the table. "She is receiving standard medical care. Now, let’s discuss the Fallen Warriors Memorial Foundation."
Eleanor scoffed, waving a handcuffed hand dismissively. "I already told you, that was an independent non-profit! I am not responsible for accounting errors made by our bookkeeper!"
"You didn't have a bookkeeper, Eleanor," Reed countered, sliding a bank wire confirmation across the table. "You were the sole signatory on the Chase account. On November fourteenth of last year, you authorized a transfer of two hundred and forty thousand dollars from the charity's general fund to a cosmetic surgery clinic in Beverly Hills for Chloe's rhinoplasty and your own facelift."
Eleanor’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.
"On March third," Reed continued relentlessly, sliding another document forward, "you transferred one hundred and eighty thousand dollars to pay off Chloe’s credit card balance at Saks Fifth Avenue. Meanwhile, the family of Sergeant First Class Michael Torres—who died saving four men in Syria—was denied their emergency mortgage relief grant from your foundation because your office claimed the charity was 'temporarily experiencing funding shortfalls.'"
"That family was ungrateful anyway!" Eleanor blurted out, her narcissistic mask cracking completely. "They were low-class! They didn't appreciate the work I put into hosting those charity galas! Do you know how exhausting it is to organize a five-hundred-person dinner at the Willard? The dresses, the floral arrangements, the catering! I earned that money! I was General Carter's widow! I deserved to look the part!"
The room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Special Agent Miller shook his head in absolute disbelief.
Reed simply marked a checkbox on her legal pad. "Thank you, Mrs. Carter. We just recorded your full admission of personal conversion of non-profit funds on federal audio and video."
Eleanor froze. Her eyes darted wildly to the small black camera mounted in the upper corner of the ceiling, its tiny red LED blinking rhythmically.
"No... wait," Eleanor stammered, realizing what she had just done. "That was... that was off the record! Natalie! Stop them! You’re an officer! You have influence! Tell this woman to tear that paper up!"
I pushed off the cinderblock wall and took three slow, deliberate steps toward the table.
Eleanor looked up at me, her eyes pleading, searching my face for the compliant, guilty little girl she had spent twenty years manipulating.
"Do you know what Dad wrote in his journal before he died, Eleanor?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.
Eleanor flinched. "His... his journals?"
"He wrote that you were a parasite," I said, every word hitting her like a physical blow. "He documented how you threatened to destroy his military career if he didn't give you control of his insurance. He saw right through you. He knew you were poisoning Chloe. And he spent his final days ensuring that you would never, ever touch the legacy he left behind."
"He was a liar!" Eleanor hissed, her face contorting into pure, venomous hatred. "Thomas was a cold, arrogant brute who cared more about his soldiers than his own wife! He left me alone in that giant house while he played hero in the sand! I gave him my youth! I gave him my beauty! I took what belonged to me!"
"You took what belonged to dead soldiers' children," I whispered, leaning down until my eyes were level with hers. "And for that, you will spend the rest of your pathetic, vain life in a federal penitentiary."
"Natalie!" she shrieked as I turned my back and walked toward the heavy steel door. "Natalie, come back here! I command you to come back here! I am your mother! YOU HEAR ME? I AM YOUR MOTHER!"
I tapped on the glass. The guard buzzed the lock.
As the heavy steel door slammed shut behind me, cutting off her hysterical screams, I let out a slow, long breath.
May you like
The ghost had finally been laid to rest. Now, there was only the reckoning.
***
