Chapter 6 - The Tiger in the Interrogation Room
The interrogation suites at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building were windowless concrete boxes painted that nauseating municipal shade of greenish-gray designed to grind a suspect’s morale down to dust.
Ryan sat at a stainless-steel table bolted to the floor, wearing his orange jumpsuit, his arms handcuffed to a steel D-ring in the center of the metal slab. He had been sitting there for seven hours. The cold fluorescent tube above him buzzed with an irritating, low-frequency hum.
The heavy steel door clicked open.
Ryan scrambled to sit up, expecting his brother Arthur or Gerald Vance with bail documents.
Instead, Colonel James Bennett walked into the room.
Dad didn't carry a weapon. He didn't carry a notebook. He was wearing his olive service uniform, his combat boots polished to an obsidian shine, his posture so rigid and commanding that the small concrete room seemed to shrink around him.
Behind him, the door clicked shut. The two county detectives stationed in the observation room behind the two-way mirror stepped back, giving the Colonel five minutes of uninterrupted air.
Ryan’s throat worked frantically. He pulled his hands back against the D-ring, the steel chains clattering loudly.
"Colonel... sir... look, you shouldn't be in here," Ryan stammered, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "The guards said I have a right to an attorney. Gerald is filing an ethics complaint about how you brought troops to my home—"
Dad pulled out the metal folding chair across from Ryan and sat down. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the cold steel table, his gray eyes pinning Ryan like an insect pinned to a corkboard.
"You have five minutes, Ryan," Dad said. His voice was extraordinarily quiet—a velvet whisper that carried more lethal weight than a cocked forty-five. "And in those five minutes, you are going to listen to me very carefully."
Ryan swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing erratically. "Sir, I loved Emily! Things just got out of hand! My mother—my mother was the one pushing the rules! She told me Emily was turning me against my own family! She told me pregnant women need firm discipline or they become unmanageable!"
"Your mother gave a full proffer statement forty minutes ago, Ryan," Dad said smoothly.
Ryan froze. "What?"
"Linda signed a sworn confession in exchange for a reduction from attempted murder to accessory after the fact," Dad continued, watching Ryan’s face with clinical detachment. "She handed over your text messages. She provided the encrypted password to the cloud backup where you stored the home birth research. She told the prosecutors that the Cayman insurance policy was your idea from day one."
Ryan’s mouth fell open. The betrayal hit him like a physical blow, his pale skin turning an ugly, sickly gray.
"She... she lied," Ryan whispered, tears of pathetic self-pity suddenly spilling down his cheeks. "She’s throwing me under the bus! She was the one who hid the vitamins! She was the one who told me to kick her!"
"You kicked a pregnant girl on the floor of a hallway," Dad said, leaning two inches closer.
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet below freezing.
"You hit my daughter," Dad murmured, every word razor-sharp. "You starved my grandchild. You stole my late wife's money to finance an execution. And you thought that because I was stationed four states away, because I was an old soldier with a retirement date on the horizon, that you were safe."
Ryan began to weep, his shoulders shaking, his forehead dropping toward the metal table. "Please, Colonel... please... don't let them send me to Menard... they’ll kill me in state prison... you have connections with the governor... please..."
Dad stood up slowly.
He looked down at the sniveling, broken creature who had strutted through my apartment calling himself a man.
"My connections are with the United States Army, Ryan," Dad said coldly. "And my grandson will carry the name of a soldier, not a dog. You are going to plead guilty to every single count on that indictment. You are going to forfeit every dime of your company stock, your pension, and your vehicle equity to Emily’s trust. And you are going to sign a permanent, irrevocable surrender of all parental rights before the sun sets today."
Ryan looked up, his face twisted in horror. "My parental rights? That’s my son!"
Dad leaned down until his mouth was one inch from Ryan’s ear.
"You don't have a son, Ryan," Dad whispered. "You have a warden. And if you ever speak my daughter’s name, if you ever look in the direction of my grandson, if you ever write a letter from that concrete cell... I won't send the police. I will come myself. Do you understand me?"
Ryan nodded frantically, his head bobbing like a broken toy, his teeth chattering against his lower lip.
"Yes... yes, sir... whatever you want... I’ll sign... I’ll sign everything..."
Dad straightened his uniform, turned his back on the prisoner, and knocked twice on the heavy steel door.
May you like
As the lock clicked open and Dad stepped back out into the corridor, he didn't look back once. The garbage had been bagged, tagged, and prepared for the incinerator.
Now, it was time to welcome life.
