Chapter 19 - The Witness Chair
The courtroom was smaller than I expected.
That made everything worse.
Conrad sat close enough for me to see the crease beside his mouth.
He wore a dark suit.
No handcuffs.
No dramatic expression.
Just the same calm face he had worn while telling me I had failed his family.
I entered with Leah.
My hands were cold.
Grant sat behind the prosecutors.
Eleanor sat farther back.
Sloane was not there.
I was grateful.
The twins did not need even indirect proximity to this.
When my name was called, I stood.
Claire Morgan.
Not Whitmore.
The sound steadied me.
I took the oath.
The prosecutor began with simple questions.
My career.
My marriage.
The inheritance.
The investments.
The documents I recognized.
The signatures I did not.
I identified the date I had supposedly signed one authorization.
Then the prosecutor displayed photographs from the Boston scholarship dinner.
There I was.
Standing beneath a banner bearing my mother’s name.
Hundreds of miles from the Chicago office where the notarized document claimed I had signed.
The jury looked at the photograph.
Then at Conrad.
I did not.
Cross-examination began after lunch.
Conrad’s attorney was polite.
That made him more dangerous.
“Ms. Morgan, you received twenty-eight million dollars in your divorce settlement, correct?”
“Yes.”
“A substantial amount.”
“Yes.”
“You were angry with the Whitmore family.”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised.
“Very angry?”
“Sometimes.”
“You wanted Mr. Conrad Whitmore punished.”
“I wanted my financial records examined accurately.”
“That was not my question.”
I looked at him.
“I was angry enough to want consequences if he had done what the documents suggested.”
“So you wanted punishment.”
“For wrongdoing.”
He walked closer.
“And after your divorce, you created a fund using money recovered from the Whitmore family.”
“No.”
He paused.
“No?”
“The Hawthorne Fund includes money from multiple sources. Some funds came from amounts recovered in connection with my financial interests. Some came from assets I already owned. Some came from donors.”
“So you financially benefited from these accusations.”
“My money being returned is not a benefit created by an accusation.”
The prosecutor objected.
Sustained.
Conrad’s attorney shifted.
“Your marriage was failing before you discovered these financial concerns.”
“Yes.”
“You blamed Mr. Whitmore’s son for infidelity.”
“He was unfaithful.”
Grant lowered his head.
“And you discovered that the woman involved had also been in a relationship with Conrad Whitmore.”
“Yes.”
“That must have been humiliating.”
“It was painful.”
“You hated him.”
This time, I looked at Conrad.
He watched me.
Waiting.
Perhaps he wanted anger.
Perhaps he believed anger made me less credible.
“I don’t know what I feel about him now.”
The attorney frowned.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
I turned toward the jury.
“I stopped organizing my life around him.”
The courtroom became very still.
The attorney tried another direction.
He asked whether I had read every financial document during my marriage.
No.
Whether I had trusted professionals.
Yes.
Whether informal approvals sometimes occurred.
Yes.
“Then isn’t it possible you authorized certain actions and simply forgot?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know where I was when one document says I signed it. Because digital records show another approval came through an executive account controlled by Conrad’s office. Because I did not give him authority to take my mother’s inheritance and use my identity for whatever was convenient.”
His tone sharpened.
“But you trusted the Whitmore family.”
“Yes.”
“And now you regret that.”
“Yes.”
“So your memory may be influenced by regret.”
I paused.
“My regret affects how I feel about what happened.”
He waited.
“It does not move me from Boston to Chicago.”
A juror looked down quickly, hiding a reaction.
The attorney ended soon afterward.
When I stepped from the witness box, my knees almost failed.
Leah caught my elbow.
Outside, I walked into a courthouse restroom and vomited.
Strength, apparently, could include vomiting.
I washed my face.
When I emerged, Grant stood down the hall.
He did not approach.
Good.
Eleanor did.
I tensed.
She stopped several feet away.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Not today.”
She nodded.
“Then another day.”
I started walking.
“Claire.”
I turned.
“You were very brave.”
The old me might have needed that.
The woman I was becoming did not.
“I was scared the entire time.”
Eleanor looked surprised.
I held her gaze.
“Bravery wasn’t the absence of that.”
Then I left.
Noah waited outside.
He opened his arms.
I walked into them.
“I threw up,” I said against his coat.
“Very dignified.”
“Extremely.”
“Want lunch?”
“Never speak about food again.”
He laughed.
Behind us, cameras shouted questions.
We walked past them.
That evening, I slept for eleven hours.
May you like
The trial continued without me.
And four days later, Conrad Whitmore asked to change his plea.
