Chapter 6 - The Fall of Albany’s Golden Boy
By 9:00 PM that night, the primary interrogation room at the 78th Precinct in Brooklyn was cold, stark, and quiet.
Behind the two-way mirror stood ADA Sarah Lin, Detective Morales, and myself. My cheek was still swollen and discolored, but the heavy bandage had been replaced with a smaller butterfly strip over my temple.
On the other side of the glass sat Raymond.
He no longer looked like the polished, confident real estate executive who used to strut through country clubs in Albany. His expensive suit jacket was rumpled and rain-stained, his tie was loosened, his hair was messy, and heavy steel handcuffs locked his wrists to the iron ring set into the center of the wooden table.
A public defender sat beside him, looking through a mountain of fresh indictment papers with an expression of pure dread.
"He’s trying to offer a plea," Lin said, pointing a gold pen at the video monitor. "His attorney offered to surrender his real estate license and pay full restitution for the fraudulent loans if the federal government drops the attempted kidnapping charge."
"And what did you tell him?" I asked quietly.
Lin turned to me with a sharp, triumphant smile. "I told him the United States Attorney’s Office doesn't negotiate with men who hire hitmen to assault women in diners."
Through the speaker system mounted above the mirror, we heard Morales’ voice enter the room as she walked into the interrogation chamber, dropping a massive black binder onto the table in front of Raymond.
THUD.
Raymond flinched at the sound. "I want to speak to the District Attorney directly. This is a domestic misunderstanding that has been blown out of proportion by local—"
"Shut up, Mr. Fletcher," Morales said, her tone as dry as bone dust as she sat down across from him. "You’re not in Albany, and you’re not talking to a country club board. Let me read you your current charge sheet."
She opened the binder.
"Count One: Conspiracy to commit federal wire fraud, carrying a maximum sentence of twenty years in federal prison."
Raymond’s jaw tightened, his face turning pale.
"Count Two: Aggravated identity theft—mandatory two-year consecutive sentence."
"Count Three: Interstate stalk-and-retaliation under the Violence Against Women Act—ten years."
"Count Four: Felony solicitation of a violent crime—the assault on Amelia Hayes—fifteen years."
Morales closed the binder with a soft click and leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.
"And finally, Mr. Fletcher... forty minutes ago, federal agents in Albany executed a search warrant on your private office computer. They found five years of suppressed tax returns, offshore shell accounts, and active correspondence with three secondary lenders whom you defrauded out of three million dollars."
Raymond’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He looked down at his handcuffed wrists, his chest heaving as the absolute finality of his ruin crushed him.
"She’s nothing," Raymond mumbled, a bitter, pathetic venom seeping through his voice as he looked at the floor. "She was a waitress. She had no money, no family, no power. She couldn't even stand up to me when I took her car keys."
Morales stood up, pulled her jacket shut, and looked down at him with pure disdain.
"She didn't need power, Fletcher," Morales said softly. "She had truth. And in a courtroom, truth builds a cage you will never walk out of."
Behind the mirror, I let out a long, slow breath I felt like I had been holding for four long years.
May you like
I turned away from the glass. I didn't need to watch him break anymore.
His power over me was officially, permanently dead.
