Chapter 7 - The Depositions
The primary conference room of the State Attorney General’s Regional Office was intentionally designed to intimidate.
There were no oil paintings. No plush leather wingback chairs. The room consisted of bare white walls, fluorescent overhead panels that hummed faintly, and a long laminate table with eight gray swivel chairs.
Margot Harrington sat at the far end of the table.
She was dressed in a dark navy Chanel suit, her hands folded tightly on top of her leather purse. But the suit couldn't hide the hollows beneath her eyes, nor could the foundation conceal the gray, sickly tint of her skin. In forty-eight hours, five major corporate sponsors had pulled their names from the children’s hospital wing, the governor had issued a public statement condemning her, and the Harrington family bank accounts had been frozen by a court order.
Across from her sat my mother and I.
I wore a simple white blouse and a dark blazer. The swelling on my face had begun to turn that ugly greenish-yellow that marks the slow healing of trauma, but my eyes were completely clear.
Between us sat Special Deputy Attorney General Sarah Jenkins, a sharp-featured woman in her forties whose reputation for dismantling corrupt non-profits was legendary across the state.
A court reporter sat in the corner, her fingers poised over the steno machine.
“We are on the record,” Jenkins said, her voice dry and flat. “Matter of the Commonwealth versus Harrington Charitable Foundation, civil and criminal asset forfeiture proceedings. Witness Margot Harrington, appearing with counsel Arthur Pence.”
Jenkins turned a page in her thick briefing binder.
“Mrs. Harrington, I show you State’s Exhibit Twelve. This is a wire transfer authorization dated October 14th of last year, transferring one million four hundred thousand dollars from the Harrington Children’s Pediatric Endowment to an account registered to *Crestview Logistics LLC* in Zurich, Switzerland.”
Jenkins slid the paper across the table.
“Mrs. Harrington, who is the sole managing member of *Crestview Logistics*?”
Margot didn't touch the paper. She looked at Arthur Pence, who sat beside her, sweating through the collar of his shirt.
“My client asserts her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination,” Pence said, his voice paper-thin.
“Very well,” Jenkins said. “Let the record reflect the witness refuses to answer. Let’s move to Exhibit Fourteen.”
Jenkins slid a second document forward.
“This is a sworn affidavit from Tyler Vance, the former audio-visual technician at the Rosemont Grand Hotel. In this statement, Mr. Vance testifies under penalty of perjury that at eleven-fifteen on the night of November 12th, your counsel, Mr. Arthur Pence, acting under your direct verbal instructions, offered him five thousand dollars in cash to delete the security recordings of the ballroom stage.”
Pence turned a deep, mottled red. “This is an outrage! That is an uncorroborated statement from a low-level employee!”
“We have the text messages from your burner phone, Arthur,” my mother said quietly from across the table.
The room went dead silent.
Amara leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. Her gaze pinned Arthur Pence to the back of his chair.
“You used your personal credit card to purchase the burner phone at a convenience store three blocks from the hotel at nine-forty that evening,” Amara continued, her voice possessing the terrifying, rhythmic clarity of an iron gate swinging shut. “The digital receipt has already been authenticated by the grand jury. If you advise your client to plead the Fifth on this point, Arthur, your name will be on the superseding indictment for witness tampering and destruction of evidence before the sun sets today.”
Pence looked like a man having a mild heart attack. He reached for his glass of water, his fingers trembling so violently that half the liquid spilled across the legal pad.
Margot slammed both palms against the table.
“Enough!” she snarled, her voice rising into that imperious, screeching register. “This is a witch hunt! I built this town! My family built the library, the park, the wing of the hospital! You ungrateful little peasant!”
She pointed a shaking, manicured finger straight at my face.
“You were nothing when Julian found you! You were living in a rental apartment with secondhand furniture! I clothed you! I put diamonds around your neck! I allowed you to stand beside my son in rooms you had no right to enter!”
I didn't flinch. I didn't look down. I held her gaze until her breathing hitched.
“You didn't give me anything, Margot,” I said, every word weighted with three years of stored truth. “You used me to hide the fact that your son was a violent degenerate and that your family was broke. You thought because my mother didn't attend your country club, we didn't know what justice looked like.”
I leaned in, just an inch.
“Look at me, Margot. The only thing standing between you and forty years in a federal correctional facility is the truth you’ve spent your whole life burying. And today, we’re digging it all up.”
Margot looked at me, then at my mother, then at the court reporter whose fingers never stopped moving.
May you like
She slowly sank back into her chair. The diamond on her hand caught the harsh fluorescent light, looking cold, hollow, and utterly worthless.
***
