Chapter 9 - The Collapse of the Empire
The sickening audio recording played on, filling the foyer with the indisputable reality of Vanessa's calculated brutality.
On the screen, in razor-sharp high-definition color, the camera captured every angle of the attack.
It showed my mother sitting defenseless on the settee, clutching a photo album to her chest.
It showed Vanessa striding across the room, picking up Mark's wooden bat from the umbrella stand, and hefting it with two hands.
It showed Vanessa deliberately sweeping the heirloom tea service off the console table to manufacture the illusion of a struggle.
And then it showed Vanessa stepping forward and driving the heavy grain of the wood directly down into my mother's face.
My mother screamed, tumbling off the settee onto the floorboards, curling into a fetal ball while Vanessa stood over her, laughing.
*"Now scratch me,"* Vanessa's voice sneered on the recording.
*"Go ahead, try to fight back so I can tell the cops you attacked me first."*
When my mother refused to move, the camera caught Vanessa digging her own acrylic fingernails into her collarbone, dragging them down until blood welled up.
Then she picked up the house phone and dialed nine-one-one.
Sergeant Brooks stared at the screen, his face turning an apocalyptic shade of crimson.
He turned toward Officer Miller, who looked like a walking corpse awaiting execution.
"Miller," Brooks said, his voice dropping into a register of sheer, unadulterated disgust.
"Get out of this house. Go sit in your cruiser and surrender your sidearm to my front passenger seat."
"Sergeant, please—" Miller wept.
"Now!" Brooks roared, the sound rattling the chandelier above us.
Miller scrambled backward through the front doorway, practically falling down the porch steps in his rush to escape the room.
Sergeant Brooks turned back to Vanessa, his eyes burning with righteous fury.
"Vanessa Vance, you are under arrest for attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, felony elder abuse, and filing a false police report."
Vanessa did not resist as Brooks grabbed her wrists, roughly wrenching them behind her back.
The metallic snap of his heavy-duty steel cuffs sounded like a guillotine blade dropping in the quiet room.
"Mark!" Vanessa shrieked, thrashing against Brooks’s grip.
"Call my father! Call Richard right now! Tell him they are setting me up!"
Mark stood frozen, staring at his wife as if she were a venomous snake he had unknowingly shared a bed with for five years.
"Mark!" she screamed again, her face contorting into an ugly, spitting mask of hatred.
Mark slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and powered it off completely.
"No," Mark whispered, his voice trembling with disgust.
"I am calling a divorce attorney."
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Sergeant Brooks marched the thrashing, cursing woman out the front door into the flashing red-and-blue glare of the driveway.
Her screams echoed down the quiet suburban street as neighbors began gathering at the edge of their manicured lawns, watching the commissioner's daughter get hauled into the back of a squad car like common trash.
