Chapter 10 - Confrontation Across the Glass
The side door of the boardroom opened, and Detective Morrison of the NYPD Special Victims and Domestic Violence Unit stepped into the room, accompanied by two armed detectives and a uniformed precinct officer carrying a pair of heavy steel handcuffs.
Camden scrambled backward, knocking over his water glass. The crystal shattered on the hardwood floor, water soaking into the cuffs of his trousers.
"What is this?" he stammered, his voice rising into a panicked wail. "Vicki, what did you do?"
"Camden Tatum," Detective Morrison said, pulling a laminated warrant from his inner jacket pocket. "You are under arrest for aggravated felony assault in the second degree, domestic battery, and reckless endangerment."
"Assault? What assault? This is an internal corporate dispute!"
"Last night at nine-forty-two PM," Detective Morrison recited, stepping forward, "inside the Grand Ballroom of the Meridian Hotel, you intentionally struck Vicki Vance-Tatum in the thoracic cavity with a shod foot, causing a documented fracture of the ninth rib and severe internal soft-tissue trauma."
"It was an accident!" Camden screamed, thrashing wildly as the two detectives grabbed his arms and forced him down against the conference table. "I tripped! My foot slipped! Ask anyone who was there! It was a party!"
"We did ask them, Mr. Tatum," Detective Morrison said calmly, pulling Camden’s hands behind his back.
*CLINK. SNAP.*
The cold steel of the handcuffs locked around Camden’s wrists.
"We interviewed twelve gala attendees this morning," the detective continued. "Including your chief marketing officer, two hotel banquet captains, and three high-net-worth investors. All twelve provided sworn written affidavits stating you verbally degraded your wife, announced your intention to discard her, and deliberately kicked her with enough force to knock her into a banquet table."
"They’re lying!" Camden shrieked, his cheek pressed flat against the damp mahogany wood. "They’re siding with her because she has the money! It’s a conspiracy!"
"We also have the hotel ballroom’s four-K ultra-high-definition security footage," Jaziel Mills added smoothly from his seat at the table. "Angle three captured the entire strike in pristine clarity, including audio of Miss Rivers laughing and you stating: *'Looks like you're in the way again, honey.'* The footage has already been transferred to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Special Prosecutions Bureau."
Camden stopped struggling. A terrible, suffocating silence descended upon him as the finality of the trap clicked shut.
There were no loopholes. There were no offshore bank accounts. There was no friendly board of directors coming to post his bail.
"Because the offense involved domestic violence resulting in a skeletal fracture, and because you represent an extreme flight risk given your prior access to international chartered aircraft," Jaziel noted cheerfully, "the District Attorney has requested remand without bail. You will spend the next three months in the Rikers Island intake facility awaiting formal trial."
"Rikers?" Camden gasped, his face draining of all blood. "No... no, please! Vicki! You can't send me to Rikers! I won't survive in there! Look at me! I’m an executive!"
"You're not an executive, Camden," I said, looking down at him with eyes as cold as deep space. "You're an inmate. Detective, please remove this trespasser from my building."
The officers hauled Camden to his feet. He stumbled, his expensive Italian leather shoes dragging across the floor, leaving scuff marks on the pristine marble hallway as they dragged him toward the freight elevator.
May you like
His pathetic screams of "Vicki, please! I love you! Vicki!" echoed down the corridor until the heavy steel doors slid shut with a definitive, mechanical thud.
***
