Chapter 17 - The Nurse's Broken Silence
The courtroom erupted into pandemonium. Judge Sterling slammed his gavel repeatedly, the sharp cracks echoing like gunshots against the mahogany paneling.
"Silence! Counsel, control your client!" Sterling roared.
"He isn't counsel's client, Your Honor," Evelyn countered, her voice piercing the noise. "He is the chief prosecuting witness, and under Rule 602, he is offering eyewitness and documentary evidence of systemic, premeditated homicide."
Daniel didn't wait for Sterling’s permission. He slammed the velvet ledger onto the clerk's desk, followed by an antique micro-cassette tape.
"Twenty years ago, my father died in a bathtub," Daniel stated, his voice echoing with ruthless clarity. "The attending private nurse was a woman named Hannah Morales. Within forty-eight hours of my father's death, Nurse Morales received a wire transfer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from an offshore shell corporation registered to Julian Beaumont."
Julian Beaumont didn't move, but a muscle feathered along the edge of his jaw.
"Where is this nurse now, Mr. Vance?" Judge Sterling asked, his tone turning sharply defensive. "You cannot submit hearsay from an unverified witness."
"She’s sitting in room 204 of this courthouse," Evelyn announced, smiling without warmth. "And she has spent the last four hours giving a sworn videotaped deposition to the State Attorney General's office."
Patricia’s veneer of aristocratic composure shattered. She stood up, her chair screeching violently against the floorboards. "You ungrateful, pathetic bastard! I gave you life! I built this empire for you!"
"You built a mausoleum," Daniel said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "And you tried to put my daughter in it."
The double doors at the back of the courtroom swung open. Two uniformed State Marshals stepped inside, followed by an elderly woman in a wheelchair, clutching an oxygen tank with one hand and a rosary with the other.
Hannah Morales looked directly at Patricia Vance.
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"I kept the syringe, Patricia," the old woman wheezed through her nasal cannula, her voice frail but steady. "The potassium chloride you handed me that night. I never threw it away. It’s in the state evidence vault right now."
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