Chapter 4 - The Visit
On Thursday afternoon, the bail bondsman from Hamilton arrived at the Mercer County Correction Center with a certified bank draft for seven thousand five hundred dollars—the ten percent collateral required to secure Brooke Mercer’s release on the state assault charges.
He didn't get past the intake vestibule.
Detective Stone and two special agents from the Regional Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Housing and Urban Development were already standing at the glass counter when the bondsman walked through the metal detector.
"Are you representing Brooke Mercer?" Agent Miller asked, flashing a credentials wallet that bore the gold seal of the United States government.
The bondsman took one look at the credentials, took one look at the two uniformed federal marshals standing beside the water cooler, and slowly slid the certified draft back into his leather coat pocket. "I was retained by an uncle. Haven't executed the surety agreement yet."
"Keep it in your pocket, counselor," Agent Miller said calmly. "A federal detainer was lodged against the subject twenty minutes ago by the United States Magistrate for the District of New Jersey. She’s being re-booked under a federal sealed indictment for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Wire Fraud, and Aggravated Identity Theft. Her bail is revoked."
Two miles away, in the quiet, tree-lined suburb of Ewing, my mother was sitting in the front passenger seat of her brother’s Buick, clutching her purse to her ribs, waiting for the lawyer to call her back.
Her phone rang.
She snatched it off the dashboard, pressing it to her ear with shaking fingers. "Brooke? Brooke, did they let you out?"
"Mrs. Mercer?"
The voice on the other end was not Brooke. It was flat, formal, and carried the mechanical cadence of a state legal clerk.
"Who is this?" Cheryl demanded, her voice climbing into that defensive, indignant shriek. "Where is my daughter?"
"Mrs. Mercer, my name is Detective Stone. I am calling from the Special Victims Division. Your daughter Brooke is currently being processed by the United States Marshals Service at the Clarkson S. Fisher Federal Courthouse in Trenton."
"Federal courthouse?!" Cheryl screamed, her knuckles turning white against the plastic handset. "What are you talking about?! This was a family argument! A domestic misunderstanding! Her sister tripped on the linoleum!"
"Your presence is required at the county courthouse on South Broad Street at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, Mrs. Mercer," Stone continued, ignoring her entirely. "A warrant for your arrest has been signed by the Superior Court on charges of Criminal Witness Tampering, Endangering the Welfare of a Dependent, and Grand Larceny. If you do not present yourself to the booking desk by ten AM, a fugitive warrant will be issued to the state police."
Cheryl dropped the phone onto the carpeted floor of the Buick.
Her brother, Uncle Kevin—a burly man with concrete dust permanently embedded in the creases of his knuckles—looked at her sideways from behind the steering wheel. "Cheryl? What the hell did they say?"
"It’s Maya," Cheryl whispered. Her eyes were wide, glassy, staring through the bug-spattered windshield at the brick facade of the diner across the street. "That little bitch... she went to the feds."
"What could she tell the feds?" Kevin asked, frowning. "She’s nineteen years old. She works in a produce aisle."
"The grants," Cheryl breathed, her hand flying to her throat, her turquoise ring clicking against her collarbone. "The Pell grants from twenty-four. And the Section Eight renewals."
Kevin’s face went cold. He slowly put both hands on the steering wheel, his jaw clenching as he stared straight ahead.
Kevin had signed the affidavit two years ago claiming that Brooke had been employed as an uncompensated part-time secretary at his masonry yard, certifying that she had earned zero dollars in taxable wages.
"Did you keep those papers in the apartment, Cheryl?" Kevin asked, his voice suddenly dropping into a low, vicious growl.
"They were in the green box," Cheryl sobbed. "In the closet behind the winter blankets. Maya didn't even have a key to that box!"
"You stupid, careless old cow," Kevin said, his hand reaching for the gearshift, throwing the Buick into reverse with a violent jerk of the transmission.
"Kevin, where are we going?!"
"I’m driving you to the courthouse," Kevin spat, his knuckles white on the wheel. "And then I’m calling my own lawyer. Because if your ungrateful little brat has my name on an IRS referral, I’m telling the prosecutor that you forged my signature on those employment slips."
May you like
"Kevin! I'm your sister!"
"And I have four concrete mixers and eight employees to feed, Cheryl," he snarled, pulling out into the traffic on Route 31 without checking his mirrors. "I'm not doing five years in federal prison because you couldn't keep your hand off that girl's throat."
