Chapter 7 - The Trial of Sullivan Logistics
The following six weeks in Davidson County were a storm of legal depositions, forensic accounting audits, and grand jury indictments.
I didn’t step foot near the private collection operations or the back-alley merchandise trades that had funded the Sullivan family’s rise twenty years ago. The very first morning after Megan’s return, I summoned our chief corporate counsel and signed an irrevocable transfer of authority: forty percent of Sullivan Logistics was placed into an untouchable trust for Mason, Bryce, and Hazel, with Megan appointed as the sole trustee and legal executor.
In the federal courthouse on Church Street, Walter Briggs sat behind the defense table wearing an orange correctional jumpsuit. His attorney attempted to argue for a reduced bail, citing his decades of service to the Sullivan estate.
District Attorney Marcus Vance—Tiffany’s second cousin, who had recused himself from the case after state investigators seized his office records—watched from the gallery as the special prosecutor laid out the damning trail of digital forensics. Russell Cole had turned state’s evidence within twenty-four hours of his arrest, handing over six encrypted thumb drives containing recorded telephone conversations between Walter and Tiffany.
“Play exhibit four,” the prosecutor instructed the clerk.
The courtroom speakers crackled with Tiffany’s distinct, drawling voice:
“If the girl survives the surgery in Memphis, Walter, don’t let her go to a foster agency. Keep her under a private nurse in the east carriage house. If Megan ever comes up with the legal fees to challenge the paternity of those boys, we show Garrett the baby and tell him Megan tried to sell her to an illegal adoption broker in Georgia. He’ll hate her so much he’ll sign the remainder of the company stock over to me before the week is out.”
The gallery erupted in gasps. Across the aisle, Tiffany Vance sat trembling, her immaculate platinum hair falling across her makeup-free face, her designer blouse replaced by standard-issue gray cotton scrubs from the Davidson County Detention Center. She had been charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit child endangerment, grand larceny, wire fraud, and falsification of legal records.
Walter Briggs stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched, never once looking at me or the gallery. The judge denied bail for both defendants, remanding them to maximum security pending a trial that legal analysts predicted would carry mandatory minimum sentences of twenty-five to thirty years without the possibility of parole.
I walked out of the courthouse steps into the bright August glare. A dozen television reporters lunged forward, thrusting microphones and digital cameras toward my face.
“Mr. Sullivan! Is it true Sullivan Logistics is liquidating its underground holdings?”
“Mr. Sullivan, what do you have to say to your ex-wife?”
I paused at the bottom step, looking directly into the primary news camera.
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“My ex-wife is the strongest human being on this earth,” I said, my voice carrying over the chatter of the press pool. “Everything I owned was built on blind arrogance. From this day forward, every dime, every truck, and every acre of land in my name exists solely to atone for the debt I owe to her and our three children.”
I turned my back on the cameras, climbed into a modest, unarmored SUV, and drove back toward Belle Meade.
