Chapter 9
The trial lasted three weeks.
It was the trial of the century. Every day, new evidence came out. More bank records. More witnesses. Proof that Eleanor had paid off the detective who’d investigated the crash. Proof that Richard had embezzled over twenty million dollars from the Whitmore Foundation over the last decade to fund his gambling debts and his affairs with half a dozen younger women.
The worst part was the children.
Margaret had always wanted kids. She’d brought it up a dozen times in the first ten years of their marriage. Richard had always said no, said they weren’t ready, said she wasn’t ready. She’d blamed herself. Thought there was something wrong with her.
Then the prosecution found the medical records.
Richard had gone to a doctor fifteen years earlier, gotten a vasectomy, and never told her. He’d never had any intention of having children with her. He’d told his mother in an email, entered into evidence, that “knocking her up would just complicate the money thing later. Better to keep her empty and desperate. Easier to control.”
Margaret had to leave the courtroom when that email was read. She threw up in the bathroom, sobbing, as Cole stood guard outside the door. That was the worst part. Worse than the auction. Worse than the lies. The knowledge that he’d deliberately stolen even that from her.
But she came back.
She came back every single day. Because her parents deserved justice. Because the twenty-eight years stolen from her deserved justice. Because she was done letting the Whitmores win.
The defense didn’t have much. They tried to paint Maria as a senile old woman. Tried to say the cassette tape was doctored. Tried to say all the evidence was planted. But no one believed them. The tape was too real. Maria’s testimony was too raw, too honest. The paper trail was too long, too detailed, to be faked.
Then Richard flipped.
His lawyer made a deal with the prosecution. Testify against his mother, plead guilty to fraud and conspiracy, and he’d get a reduced sentence—fifteen years, with the possibility of parole in eight.
He took it.
He got on the stand, and for two days, he told the entire truth. How his mother had told him about Margaret when he was eighteen. How she’d made him pursue her, marry her, control her. How he’d known about the murder from the day they got engaged. How he’d gone along with it because he was scared of his mother, because he wanted the money, because he’d never had a choice.
He cried. He apologized. He told Margaret he was sorry, that he’d been weak, that he’d loved her in his own way.
Margaret didn’t believe a word of it.
When the prosecution asked her if she wanted to make a victim impact statement at the end of the trial, she said yes.
She stood in front of the judge, the jury, the packed courtroom, and she looked right at Eleanor, who was sitting at the defense table, cold and unrepentant to the end.
“For forty-eight years, you thought you won,” Margaret said, her voice steady. “You killed two innocent people. You stole a baby. You built an empire on their blood. You thought you’d gotten away with it. But you didn’t. Because my mother was smarter than you. She left proof. She left witnesses. She left me.”
She paused, her hand going to the locket around her neck.
“You thought making me quiet, making me small, would keep me from ever finding out the truth. But all you did was make me strong. Strong enough to stand here today. Strong enough to make sure you pay for every single thing you did.”
She turned to the judge.
“Your Honor,” she said. “Eleanor Whitmore is a cold, calculating murderer. She has never shown an ounce of remorse. She will never change. If she is ever let out of prison, she will try to hurt me again. She will try to hurt anyone who gets in her way. She deserves to spend the rest of her life in a cell, alone, with nothing but her own guilt to keep her company.”
She sat down.
The jury deliberated for six hours.
When they came back, the foreman stood up.
“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Rebecca Mercer, we find the defendant, Eleanor Whitmore, guilty.”
A cheer went up. The judge banged his gavel.
“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Thomas Hale, we find the defendant guilty.”
“On the charge of conspiracy to commit fraud, we find the defendant guilty.”
“On the charge of tampering with a witness, we find the defendant guilty.”
“On the charge of attempted murder of Margaret Mercer, we find the defendant guilty.”
Eleanor didn’t react. She just sat there, staring straight ahead, as the judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As the bailiffs put the chains back on her and led her away. She never looked at Margaret again.
Richard was sentenced the next day. Fifteen years in federal prison. He was led out of the courtroom, his head down, not looking at anyone.
It was over.
Really over.
Margaret walked out of the courthouse into the bright New York sunshine. Jonathan was waiting for her, along with Cole, Vivian, Maria and her entire family, and a dozen reporters shouting questions. She didn’t answer any of them. She just took Jonathan’s arm, smiled, and walked to the car.
That night, they had a small dinner at the penthouse. Just the people who’d stood by her. Maria and her family. Jonathan. Cole. Vivian. They laughed, they cried, they ate too much food. For the first time in her life, Margaret felt like she belonged. Like she was home.
May you like
After everyone left, she went into the spare bedroom. She picked up a brush, and she painted. She painted her mother, holding her as a baby. She painted the Maine coast. She painted herself, standing tall, no longer small, no longer quiet.
When she was done, she stepped back. It was the best thing she’d ever painted.
