Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of Eleanor Sterling
The interrogation room in the basement of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse was small, windowless, and chilled by aggressive air conditioning.
Eleanor Sterling sat across a stainless-steel table, her Russian sable coat confiscated, wearing a prison-issue orange smock that was three sizes too large for her frail, aristocratic frame. Her manicured nails were chipped; her carefully coiffed silver hair had collapsed into a disheveled tangle around her ears.
Across from her sat Marcus Kane, flanked by two forensic accountants whose desks were piled with thick, black binders labeled *STERLING OFFSHORE / RECOVERY*.
"You have no jurisdiction," Eleanor hissed, her voice vibrating with venom despite the dark circles under her eyes. "My family has funded this state for three generations. My late husband was personal friends with three governors. I demand to see my counsel!"
"Your lead counsel, Richard Sterling, resigned thirty minutes ago," Kane said calmly, turning a page in his binder. "He is currently negotiating a plea agreement regarding his role in falsifying the nineteen-ninety-eight probate filings for Arthur Sterling’s estate."
Eleanor froze. Her mouth opened, then snapped shut like a turtle’s beak.
"Arthur’s probate?" she whispered, her voice losing its edge for the first time. "That was closed twenty-two years ago."
"It was closed based on a death certificate that listed coronary thrombosis as the primary cause of death," Kane said. He slid a single, yellowed sheet of paper across the metal table. "This is an exhumation order signed by the Chief Medical Examiner this morning at zero-seven-hundred hours."
Eleanor stared at the document as if it were a coiled viper.
"You see, Eleanor," Kane continued, leaning forward with his elbows on the steel table, "Cassandra Vance never forgot the way Arthur died. Arthur was ruthless, but he had a conscience when it came to human cargo. He was on the verge of turning state’s evidence in ninety-nine. He had already scheduled a meeting with our task force in Zurich. And then, two days before the flight, he died suddenly of heart failure after drinking his evening cordial."
Kane tapped the paper.
"The digital toxicology screen from nineteen-ninety-nine was rudimentary. Today, we run high-performance liquid chromatography. We found thirty milligrams of digitalis glycoside in Arthur’s preserved liver tissue. Who prepared his cordial every evening, Eleanor?"
Eleanor gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles whitening, her breath coming in shallow, frantic wheezes. "That’s... that’s a fabrication. Arthur had a weak heart. Everyone knew that!"
"And then there is the matter of Chloe Vance," Kane said, his tone dropping into a terrifyingly soft cadence. "The surveillance footage from your private driveway last night has been recovered from your cloud backup. Your IT director tried to wipe the server at four AM, but our cyber division intercepted the data stream."
Kane placed an iPad on the table and tapped the glass.
The screen lit up with high-definition, infrared footage.
The rain was falling heavily. In the frame, Eleanor Sterling stood on the covered portico, holding a heavy silver candelabrum, watching with cold detachment as her son Liam dragged Chloe across the stone pavers by her hair. Chloe was sobbing, curled in a fetal ball, her hands clawing at the stone.
The audio was horrifyingly clear:
*"Hit her again, Liam,"* Eleanor’s voice crackled from the speaker. *"Make sure she doesn't carry that gutter blood into this house. Teach the girl what happens when she breaks my grandmother’s china."*
Then came the sickening, metallic *crack* of the golf club striking bone, followed by Chloe’s agonizing scream.
Eleanor squeezed her eyes shut, turning her face away from the screen. "Turn it off!" she screamed. "Turn it off!"
"No," Kane said, leaning across the table until he was inches from her ear. "You are going to watch it. Because this is the exact footage that will be played for the jury when we seek the death penalty for aggravated federal murder of an unborn child and premeditated domestic torture."
Eleanor fell forward, her forehead hitting the cold steel table, sobbing with the ugly, dry hysteria of an empress who had realized her throne was made of ash.
"Where is she?" Eleanor moaned into the steel. "Where is the mother? Cassandra... what does she want from me?!"
Kane stood up, buttoning his jacket.
May you like
"She doesn't want anything from you, Eleanor," Kane said, walking to the heavy iron door. "She already took everything you had. The rest is just paperwork."
***
