Chapter 12 - The Interrogation of Vanessa Sterling
The state police barracks at Troop K smelled of burnt commercial coffee, wet wool, and floor wax.
It was 8:40 AM on Christmas morning. Outside, the gray winter sky was dumping heavy, wet flakes across the Hudson Valley, turning the roads into slush. Inside the concrete facility, the Christmas decorations consisted of a sad, plastic wreath hanging crookedly on the bulletproof reception partition.
Because Mateo was still listed as an executive vice president of the Sterling Corporation and a key complainant in the domestic assault report, the duty lieutenant allowed us into the observation room behind the two-way glass.
Elena sat in the corner of the small room, her coat pulled tightly around her shivering frame, completely silent. Clara took Camila into the family liaison room down the hall so my daughter wouldn't have to hear what was coming.
Mateo and I stood side by side in the dim observation booth, peering through the darkened glass into Interrogation Room 2.
Vanessa looked unrecognizable.
The expensive black silk robe she had been wearing during the confrontation at the estate had been replaced by a stiff, oversized orange jumpsuit. Her elaborate holiday makeup was smeared across her cheeks in muddy streaks of black mascara and foundation. Her styled blonde hair was a tangled rat’s nest, and her hands were cuffed to a steel ring welded to the center of the bolted table.
Sitting across from her was Detective Miller, a broad-shouldered man with tired eyes and a thick gray mustache, holding a legal pad.
“I told you three times!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice audible through the intercom speaker above our heads. She lunged forward against the restraints, rattling the chain against the steel ring. “My father is Ricardo Sterling! He is on his way right now with our corporate legal team! When he gets here, he will have your badge, you pathetic little state trooper!”
Detective Miller didn’t even blink. He tapped his pen against the pad, turned a page, and looked up at her with flat indifference.
“Miss Sterling, for the fourth time: we contacted your father’s primary legal counsel in Manhattan. Mr. Sterling’s chief attorney informed us that he no longer represents your father. In fact, your father boarded a private Gulfstream G650 at Teterboro Airport at 6:45 AM. Flight tracking shows the aircraft cleared Canadian airspace twenty minutes ago, heading transatlantic toward a non-extradition jurisdiction.”
Vanessa stopped screaming.
The blood drained from her face so fast that her lips turned a pale, sickly lilac. “What... what did you say?”
“He left you,” Miller said plainly. “He took his personal passports, four carry-on containers of bearer bonds and certified bank drafts, and he left. Furthermore, the local precinct found a signed affidavit in his desk drawer before the crime scene was taped off. In that affidavit, Ricardo Sterling states that you broke into his gun safe, retrieved his personal firearm without authorization, and attacked your brother and sister-in-law during a manic depressive episode.”
“No,” Vanessa whispered, her voice shrinking into the squeak of a terrified child. “No, no, no... Dad promised me. He said we were partners! He said if we got Mateo off the trust before Camila turned seven months, the forty million was ours! We were going to split it!”
“You confessed to conspiracy to commit corporate fraud, Miss Sterling,” Miller said calmly, writing on his pad. “And the tape recorder on this desk is running.”
Vanessa looked around the bare room like a trapped animal realizing the walls were made of steel. Her chest heaved, and she let out a piercing, hysterical wail, dropping her forehead against the cold metal table.
Mateo didn't wait.
Before the detective could ask another question, Mateo pushed through the heavy metal door separating the observation booth from the interrogation room.
“Mateo!” the detective snapped, standing up with his hand instinctively dropping toward his holster. “You can’t be in here! Step out immediately!”
“Give us five minutes, Miller,” Mateo said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, lower and deeper than I had ever heard it. He pulled a folded document from his coat pocket and tossed it onto the table in front of the detective. “That is the corporate authorization removing Vanessa Sterling from the board, signed by the majority shareholders twenty minutes ago via my digital portal. And behind me is Sofía Sterling, the woman your suspect tried to scald with boiling soup.”
Detective Miller glanced at the paperwork, then looked at me standing in the doorway, my coat still stained with chicken broth and dried grease.
Miller sighed, picking up his clipboard. “Five minutes. I’ll be right outside the door. If anyone touches anyone, you’re all spending Christmas in a holding cell.”
The heavy steel door clicked shut.
Vanessa slowly lifted her head from the table. When she saw Mateo standing over her, her eyes flared with a desperate mixture of hatred and terror.
“You think you won?” she spat, though her chin was trembling uncontrollably. “Look at you, Mateo. The righteous son. Dad used me, but at least I was carrying Sterling blood! Julian Sterling was my father! You’re just a clinic bastard!”
Mateo didn't flinch. He didn’t raise his voice. He stepped right up to the table, rested both hands on the cool steel, and leaned down until his face was inches from hers.
“Tell me about the Swiss dossier, Vanessa.”
Vanessa’s lips curled into a crooked, spiteful sneer. “Why should I tell you anything? Let it eat you alive. You saw the name, didn't you?”
My heart hammered against my throat. I stepped forward, slamming my palm down onto the table with a force that made the steel ring vibrate.
“Look at me, Vanessa!” I commanded, my voice shaking with pure maternal fury. “You threw boiling soup at my six-month-old daughter! You tried to burn my baby because of money! If you think you’re walking out of here on bail, you’re delusional. The county prosecutor is charging you with attempted aggravated assault on an infant and attempted manslaughter. You are facing fifteen to twenty-five years at Bedford Hills!”
Vanessa flinched, shrinking back into the hard plastic chair.
“The only thing standing between you and twenty-five years in maximum security,” I continued, leaning over her until she was forced to look directly into my eyes, “is whether Mateo and I tell the district attorney that you were coerced by Ricardo, or that you acted with premeditated malice. You give us the truth about that Swiss file right now, or I swear to God I will personally attend every single parole hearing for the next thirty years to make sure you rot in a cage!”
Vanessa’s bravado cracked. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over the dark, smeared mascara.
“It wasn’t Dad’s idea,” Vanessa whimpered, her voice breaking into ragged gasps.
Mateo leaned closer. “What wasn't his idea?”
“The name,” Vanessa whispered, looking down at her handcuffed wrists. “Dad didn't forge the name today. He didn't forge it last week.”
“Then where did it come from?” Mateo demanded, his voice trembling with dread. “Why is Gabriel Delgado’s maternal family name on my fertility dossier?”
Vanessa looked up, her bloodshot eyes darting toward the two-way mirror where Elena was watching in the dark.
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“Because Dad didn't just pick a random donor in 1993, Mateo,” Vanessa said, a horrifying, bitter smile touching her cracked lips. “Dad didn't go to Switzerland to find an anonymous student. Dad went to Zurich to buy revenge.”
***
