Chapter 5 - The Glass House Shatters
The courtroom of Judge Evelyn Mercer did not look like the television dramas. It was cold, panelled in dark walnut that had absorbed seventy years of human misery, and smelled of wet raincoats and legal bond paper.
There were no supporters sitting on the defense side of the gallery.
In the forty-eight hours since the raw video had been made public, the Vandermeer empire had ceased to exist.
Bellamy’s primary sponsor—the Parisian cosmetics conglomerate—had terminated her multi-million dollar contract within three hours of the video’s release, publicly announcing a one-million-dollar donation to the National Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation in an attempt to scrub their brand from her name. Her social media accounts, once boasting five million combined followers, had been banned across all major platforms for violations of terms regarding violence and graphic abuse.
Declan’s private equity firm had locked him out of his office by midnight on the day of his arrest. The board of directors had voted unanimously to strip him of his shares, initiate an independent forensic audit of his accounts, and refer three separate instances of embezzlement to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Even the family’s country club had sent a courier to the jail delivering an immediate, non-appealable termination of their family membership.
Now, they sat at the defense table in identical orange county-jail jumpsuits, their hands and ankles bound by heavy transport chains that clinked every time they breathed. Without her hair extensions, her professional makeup, and her silk blouses, Bellamy looked small, sharp-featured, and terrified. Una’s hair was unwashed, hanging in limp gray strands around her hollowed, furious face. Declan sat with his chin glued to his chest, refusing to look anyone in the eye.
Julian Vance was no longer smiling. His brief was thin, his legal team reduced to himself and a trembling junior associate who looked like he wanted to crawl beneath the linoleum.
On the prosecution side sat the District Attorney, Marcus Ruiz, and myself.
Beside me, dressed in a simple dark blue suit that was two sizes too large for his thin frame, was Kieran. He was pale, his hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles were white, but his back was straight.
"We are here for the bail and preliminary evidentiary hearing in the matter of the State versus Bellamy, Declan, and Una Vandermeer," Judge Mercer said, her reading glasses perched low on her sharp, hawkish nose. "Mr. Vance, I have reviewed your emergency petition for conditional release on personal recognizance. Are you seriously suggesting this court grant bail to individuals facing Class A felonies involving the intentional sabotage of a medical device keeping a nineteen-year-old alive?"
"Your Honor," Vance said, rising with a heavy sigh that sounded like he had spent the last two days without sleep. "The defense concedes that the optics of the situation are... distressing. However, these are lifelong residents of this county. They are substantial property owners. The incident, while tragic, was a domestic misunderstanding that escalated—"
"A domestic misunderstanding?" Judge Mercer’s voice was like ice hitting an iron stove. "Mr. Vance, I have spent the last three hours in chambers reviewing the forensic telemetry from the Pulmo-Dyne rebreather. I have also watched the video captured by your client, Declan Vandermeer."
She leaned forward, her gaze piercing the defense attorney.
"I saw an eighteen-pound framing hammer struck into a pressurized life-support system three separate times. I listened to your client, Bellamy Vandermeer, state that she was tired of the noise because it interfered with her social media production. And then I watched a father—a biological father—stand over his dying child and state, on record, that 'maybe now she will learn not to be so weak.'"
In the gallery, a collective shudder ran through the few observers and reporters permitted in the room.
"Your Honor," Vance whispered, his voice cracking. "The defendants are willing to surrender their passports—"
"They certainly will," Judge Mercer snapped. "Because I am remanding all three defendants to the custody of the State Department of Corrections without bail. In my thirty-four years on the bench, I have rarely seen such a grotesque combination of narcissism, cruelty, and depravity. Furthermore, I am issuing a permanent, lifetime protective order. Neither the defendants, nor any agent acting on their behalf, shall come within one thousand yards of Veta Mercer or Sloan Mercer."
She looked over her glasses at Declan.
"As for you, Mr. Vandermeer," the judge said, her voice dropping into a register of pure, unadulterated contempt. "You have already executed a voluntary termination of parental rights in the civil division this morning as part of your desperate attempt to mitigate your criminal exposure. Let the record reflect that this court has accepted that termination with immediate effect. You are no longer her father in the eyes of this state, in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of God."
Declan let out a ragged, dry sob, burying his face in his cuffed hands. The chains rattled against the dark wood of the table.
"Get them out of my sight," Judge Mercer ordered the bailiffs.
As the officers hauled Bellamy to her feet, she turned toward our table. Her eyes found Kieran.
"You ruined us!" she shrieked, her voice echoing off the high walnut ceiling as the transport chains dragged along the floor. "You worthless little rat! You killed your own family!"
Kieran didn't flinch. He didn't look down. He looked directly into his sister’s furious, ruined face and spoke with a quiet, devastating clarity:
"You aren't my family, Bellamy. You're just monsters who lived in the same house."
May you like
The heavy oak doors of the prisoner holding area slammed shut, cutting off the sound of Bellamy’s screaming.
***
