Chapter 6 - Under Police Custody
The municipal courthouse in lower Manhattan smelled of industrial lemon disinfectant, damp wool, and cold stone. It was a brutalist labyrinth designed to crush the human spirit, a world completely removed from the manicured lawns and private country clubs Martha Lancaster had inhabited her entire life.
In interview room four, the lighting was a harsh, flickering fluorescent tube that hummed with a maddening buzz.
Martha sat at the metal table, her wrists still handcuffed and chained to an iron ring welded into the center of the steel surface. The stained ivory wedding dress had been confiscated as evidence of a violent crime, replaced by a scratchy, oversized orange jumpsuit that hung off her bony shoulders. Without her luxury cosmetics, her blowout, and her diamonds, she looked twenty years older—a gaunt, bitter woman with sunken eyes and cracked lips.
Sitting across from her was Arthur Vance, the court-appointed public defender.
Martha had spent the last twenty-four hours calling twelve different high-profile defense attorneys in the state. Every single one of them had refused to take her case the moment they learned that Judge Victoria Lancaster was the primary complainant and that the SEC had already frozen every trust, bank account, and credit line associated with her name. She had zero dollars to her name. She was legally indigent.
"This is an outrage!" Martha barked, her voice raspy from hours of screaming at the intake officers. "I demand a private phone call! I am a Lancaster! My husband’s family founded the shipping ports in this state!"
Arthur Vance, an exhausted man in his late forties with bags under his eyes and a chipped coffee mug, didn't even look up from the three-inch-thick stack of indictment documents.
"Mrs. Lancaster, your late husband’s family is currently paying for the state’s special financial prosecution team," Vance said dryly, turning a page. "And your son, Nicholas, just signed the final affidavit turning state's evidence. You don't have a private attorney because nobody works for free, and right now, you couldn't afford to buy a stick of gum from the vending machine in the lobby."
"Nicholas signed an affidavit?" Martha gasped, her voice wavering, the first real crack appearing in her armor of denial. "No. No, Nicholas loves me. He's my baby. He’s just angry. That girl... Clara... she brainwashed him. If I can just see him, if I can just talk to him for ten minutes without that witch present, he will drop the charges!"
"Your son didn't just sign an affidavit, Mrs. Lancaster," Vance said, finally setting down his pen and looking at her with cold, professional pity. "He provided four terabytes of encrypted server backups detailing how you forged Judge Victoria's living wills, diverted thirty-four distinct dividend payouts, and used corporate assets to pay off a four-million-dollar sports betting debt to an illegal triad syndicate in Queens."
Vance leaned forward, tapping the top page of the file. "The financial charges alone carry a mandatory minimum of twenty-five years in a federal penitentiary. But that’s not your biggest problem."
Martha swallowed hard, her throat clicking dryly. "What... what do you mean?"
"The District Attorney is charging you with aggravated felony assault with a deadly weapon for the haircut," Vance stated bluntly. "Under state law, using eight-inch tailoring shears to forcibly mutilate someone's head and neck area during a public gathering constitutes calculated physical battery. The video has forty million views worldwide. The jury pool is entirely poisoned against you. If we go to trial, you will be convicted in under an hour."
"It was a prank!" Martha shrieked, rattling the chains against the metal table. "It was hair! Hair isn't a body part! It grows back! How can you charge me with assault over hair?!"
"Because you did it with industrial steel blades two inches from her carotid artery, while verbally stating you intended to strip her of her dignity," Vance countered, not raising his voice. "And more importantly, the bride didn't just sit home and cry. She’s currently in the Grand Jury room upstairs, delivering her testimony alongside Judge Victoria Lancaster."
Martha’s eyes bulged. "Victoria is up there right now?"
"Yes," Vance said. "And the Grand Jury just returned a true bill on all twenty-six counts. The bail hearing is in twenty minutes. The prosecution is requesting remand without bail, citing you as an extreme flight risk who was caught actively fleeing toward an unregistered private charter flight."
"No... no, no, no," Martha began to hyperventilate, rocking back and forth in the steel chair, the metal screeching against the concrete floor. "They can't keep me in a cell! I have claustrophobia! I have asthma! I have delicate skin! I cannot sleep on a rubber mattress!"
"Then you should have thought about your skin before you tried to ruin four lives at once," Vance said, gathering his papers and stuffing them into his worn leather briefcase. "I’m going to advise you right now, Mrs. Lancaster: take the plea deal. The state is offering thirty years with eligibility for parole after twenty. If you force this to trial, Judge Victoria’s colleagues will ensure you die inside the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility."
Vance stood up and knocked on the heavy steel door. The sliding hatch opened, and an armed guard unlocked the heavy bolts.
"Wait!" Martha screamed, reaching her shackled hands out as far as the chain would allow. "What about my house?! What about my clothes?! My jewelry?!"
Vance paused at the threshold, looking back at her one last time.
"The Lancaster estate was reclaimed by the trust this morning," Vance said softly. "The locks have been changed. Your personal effects have been packed into cardboard boxes and placed in a commercial storage unit. The storage fees have been paid for thirty days. After that, if no one pays the bill, they will auction it off to the highest bidder."
The heavy steel door slammed shut. The deadbolts slid into place with a final, heavy *clack*.
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Martha was left alone in the cold, humming room. She collapsed her face against the cold metal of the table, her hysterical, unhinged wails echoing off the bare concrete walls, completely unheard by the world outside.
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