Chapter 10: The Deposition
Three days later, I was discharged from Yale New Haven Hospital into the direct care of my children.
I didn't go back to the house in Westport. The police had sealed the property with yellow crime scene tape while forensic teams tore through the attic and the foundation, unearthing forty years of Gwen’s financial fraud and hidden correspondence. Instead, Toby drove us in his Volvo to a quiet, light-filled apartment overlooking the harbor in Boston—Lily’s home.
For the first time in four decades, I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of my family talking in the kitchen.
"Mr. Hayes?"
I looked up from the armchair by the window. Standing in the living room was a tall, sharply dressed man in a charcoal suit, holding a leather briefcase. Beside him stood Detective Miller and a court stenographer carrying a portable typing machine.
"Dad, this is Mr. Vance—sorry, Mr. Harrison," Lily said, stepping out of the kitchen with a cup of tea for me. "He’s the Special Prosecutor appointed by the State Attorney General's office for Fairfield County."
Mr. Harrison offered a respectful nod. "Mr. Hayes. I know you've been through a horrific ordeal, but Aunt Gwen’s defense team is already attempting to file motions to dismiss based on your health and age. They are claiming you are suffering from vascular dementia and fabricated the entire story about the mattress."
I felt my jaw set into stone. The weakness in my chest was still there, a constant reminder of my failing heart, but my mind had never been clearer.
"Set up the camera, Mr. Harrison," I said, my voice steady and firm. "I’ll give you your deposition."
For the next four hours, the quiet Boston apartment became a courtroom. The stenographer's keys clicked like rapid gunfire as I recounted every detail—from the afternoon Clara vanished in 1986, to the forty years of Gwen’s weekly visits, to the sound of the mattress spring snapping under my knees, to the cold, dead eyes of my nephew Marcus as he raised that crowbar.
"And to your knowledge, Mr. Hayes," Mr. Harrison asked, leaning forward, "did your wife, Clara Vance, ever sign over the power of attorney for the family estate to Gwen Sterling?"
"Never," I said clearly into the video camera lens. "Clara hid the original trust ledger in the subfloor of my study because she knew Gwen would murder her the second she got her hands on it. My wife died in a small clinic in New Hampshire under an assumed name, penniless, rather than give that monster a single dollar of our children's inheritance."
Mr. Harrison closed his leather folder with a heavy, decisive snap.
"That will be more than enough," the prosecutor said, a rare, grim smile touching his lips. "Gwen’s attorneys offered a plea deal this morning—twenty years in state prison. We rejected it. With this video testimony and the ledger from your study, we are pursuing full life sentences for both Gwen Sterling and your nephew, Marcus Hayes, on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, and corporate fraud."
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I took a slow sip of my tea, looking out the window at the blue waters of Boston Harbor.
"Tell her," I said softly, "that I'll be sitting in the front row of the courtroom when the judge reads the verdict."
