Chapter 12 - Agnes Behind Shattered Glass
The visitor booth at the Tri-County Maximum Security Detention Center was divided by a two-inch-thick pane of scratched, bulletproof acrylic glass.
On Monday afternoon, Agnes sat on the prisoner side of the partition.
She wore a bright orange canvas jumpsuit that hung loosely off her shrinking frame. Her silver hair had been stripped of its salon highlights, pulled back with a plain plastic elastic band. The manicured nails were gone, clipped down to the quick. Without her designer jewelry and tailored suits, she looked like what she had always truly been: a bitter, hollow, aging woman whose kingdom had turned to dust.
I sat on the visitor’s stool.
I didn't bring Leo. I didn't bring David Keller. I came alone, wearing a simple navy coat, sitting with my spine straight and my hands resting calmly on my knees. My surgical incision had finally healed into a clean, faint pink line beneath my clothes.
Agnes picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver on her side with trembling, bruised fingers.
I lifted mine.
"Have you come to gloat, you pathetic little creature?" Agnes rasped into the receiver, her voice sounding tinny and flat through the intercom line. "Look at me! Look what you did to Leo’s family!"
"You did this to yourself, Agnes," I said, my voice level and calm.
She sneered, leaning closer to the glass, her yellowed teeth showing. "You think you’ve won? Leo will never forgive you for this. A son always comes back to his mother. The moment the trial starts, he will look at me in chains and he will remember who raised him. He will fire that shark lawyer and bring me home."
"Leo signed the final probate deposition two hours ago, Agnes," I said.
The sneer on her face faltered.
"The Swiss court has liquidated Vance-Maritime Ltd.," I continued, holding her venomous gaze without blinking. "The entire 2.4 million dollars, plus ten years of compounded interest and penalties, has been seized and returned to the primary estate. Whispering Pines is going on the auction block next Tuesday. Every piece of antique furniture, every silver setting, every fur coat you bought with Leo’s money is being sold by a court-appointed receiver to satisfy your restitution judgment."
Agnes’s chest heaved. Her knuckles turned white around the plastic receiver. "You're lying! He wouldn't sell our home! His father built that house!"
"His father built it for a family," I replied softly. "You turned it into a slaughterhouse."
"And Chloe?" Agnes demanded, her voice cracking with desperation. "What about my daughter? Leo would never abandon his sister!"
"Chloe took the plea bargain this morning," I said. "She pleaded guilty to second-degree accessory to grand larceny. In exchange for testifying against you at trial, she received three years of supervised probation, five hundred hours of community service, and full financial forfeiture. She’s currently working forty hours a week at a commercial laundry facility in the next county to pay off her own restitution."
Agnes dropped the phone receiver. It swung against the concrete wall, clattering hollowly.
She pressed her palms against the scratched glass, tears of pure, impotent rage spilling down her wrinkled cheeks. She screamed at me through the acrylic, her words muffled and unintelligible, her fists thudding against the partition until two corrections officers stepped in behind her, seizing her by the shoulders and dragging her backward toward the steel cellblock door.
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I didn't smile. I didn't feel triumphant.
I simply hung up the receiver, stood up from the stool, turned my back on the glass, and walked out into the crisp, clean afternoon sun.
