Chapter 12 - The Bail Hearing Humiliation
By Wednesday afternoon, the Oakridge Municipal Courthouse was swarmed by regional news crews, courthouse bloggers, and curious townspeople.
The Miller family had spent thirty years looking down their noses at the blue-collar residents of the county.
Now, the same residents lined the courthouse steps with cups of gas station coffee, watching the mighty fall from grace.
Because of my strict bed rest orders, I watched the proceedings via an encrypted high-definition video link set up on Arthur’s laptop in the Vance farmhouse.
Marcus sat to my left, wearing his Sunday suit, while Toby sat beside me with a notepad.
The courtroom doors swung open on screen, and Judge Evelyn Holbrook took the bench with a face carved from cold Vermont marble.
Eleanor Miller was led into the courtroom through the prisoner holding door.
Her silver hair was tied in a hasty, messy ponytail; she wore an orange county jail jumpsuit that hung limply on her gaunt frame; and her hands were cuffed to a chain around her waist.
Nathan followed right behind her, unshaven, sporting deep dark circles under his eyes, his designer posture reduced to a miserable, hunched slouch.
Representing them was Harrison Vance-Caldwell, a high-priced defense attorney who looked visibly exhausted and deeply regretful of taking the case.
"Your Honor," Caldwell began, clearing his throat nervously. "My clients are pillar members of this community with no prior criminal record."
"We request an immediate reduction of bail to fifty thousand dollars personal recognizance."
"Mrs. Eleanor Miller suffers from severe hypertension and cannot receive adequate dietary care in the county facility."
Judge Holbrook didn't even look up from the stack of financial affidavits on her desk.
"Mr. Caldwell, your client, Eleanor Miller, attempted to board a charter flight to the Cayman Islands from the Dayton municipal strip three hours before her indictment was formally unsealed."
"Her carry-on bag contained eighty-five thousand dollars in bearer bonds and two undeclared Swiss passports under her maiden name."
Eleanor opened her mouth to interrupt. "Your Honor, those were for my winter holiday—"
"Silence, Mrs. Miller!" Judge Holbrook slammed her wooden gavel down with a resounding crack that rattled the courtroom microphone.
"You do not speak in my courtroom unless directly addressed under oath!"
The camera zoomed in on Eleanor’s face, which turned an unappealing, chalky gray.
"Now, let us examine the domestic endangerment charges," Judge Holbrook continued, adjusting her reading spectacles.
"I have reviewed the dashcam footage from the Vance recovery vehicle, the medical trauma reports from Oakridge Regional, and the deposition of Clara Evelyn Miller."
"I have also reviewed the photographic evidence of Mrs. Miller’s knee injuries sustained when your client, Nathan Miller, intentionally disengaged the brake on an incline."
Nathan stepped forward, his voice cracking into a pathetic whine.
"Your Honor, it was an accident! The emergency cable slipped! I love my wife!"
"Mr. Miller, the state patrol mechanical inspection team examined your sedan yesterday afternoon," Judge Holbrook countered, her voice ice-cold.
"The emergency handbrake cable was in pristine mechanical condition."
"The ratchet mechanism was manually disengaged by human pressure applied directly to the thumb release."
"You released that vehicle with full awareness that your eight-months-pregnant spouse was positioned directly in its retrograde trajectory."
A collective gasp rippled through the spectators in the gallery.
Several elderly women from Eleanor’s former church auxiliary shook their heads in audible disgust.
"Regarding bail," Judge Holbrook stated, her voice echoing with the finality of iron bars.
"Given the extensive offshore accounts uncovered by the Federal Financial Task Force, the documented attempts to flee jurisdiction, and the egregious nature of the reckless endangerment charges, bail is denied for both defendants."
"Nathan Miller will remain remanded in custody at the county detention facility."
"Eleanor Miller will remain in federal custody pending her transfer to the federal correctional complex in Alderson."
Eleanor’s knees gave out, and two female bailiffs had to seize her upper arms to prevent her from collapsing onto the carpeted floor.
"Nathan, do something!" Eleanor wailed, her aristocratic mask completely obliterated into tears of primal panic.
"Nathan, fix this! You’re the man of the house!"
"Shut up, Mom!" Nathan screamed back, turning on her with bared teeth as the deputies dragged him toward the opposite holding corridor.
"You put me up to this! You told me she was too stupid to ever figure out the accounts! You ruined my life!"
The video feed cut out with the sound of the wooden gavel striking the bench three rapid times.
In the Vance sunroom, Toby took a deep breath, gently setting his pen down.
"They’re tearing each other apart," Toby whispered.
May you like
"That’s what wolves do when the trap snaps shut, Toby," Marcus said, closing the laptop screen.
"Now, we finish cleaning up their wreckage."
