Chapter 6 - The Confession of the Golden Child
The news of Eric Bennett’s dramatic arrest at the lake house hit the local business community like a thunderbolt.
By Thursday morning, Eric was sitting in a gray holding cell at the County Corrections Facility, facing six felony counts, including Grand Larceny, Corporate Forgery, Obstruction of Justice, and Resisting Arrest with a Deadly Weapon. His bail was set at $500,000—an amount no one in the family could afford to pay, especially since all accounts linked to his name had been seized by the courts.
At 2:00 PM, Marcus Vance and I walked into the prison visitation room.
Eric was brought in wearing an orange jumpsuit, his wrists handcuffed to a belly chain. He looked hollowed out, dark circles under his eyes, his hands trembling constantly.
He sat down across from us behind the thick glass partition, slowly picking up the phone receiver.
I picked up my phone receiver on my side.
"Claire..." Eric whispered, his voice weak, stripped of all pride. "Please... get me out of here. The guys in my block... they know who I am. They know what I did. I can't survive in here."
"You did this to yourself, Eric," I said, my voice completely emotionless. "You had seventy-two hours to return the assets gracefully. Instead, you tried to steal them, threatened officers with a crowbar, and abandoned your wife and children."
"I was scared!" Eric cried out, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "Mom told me you were bluffing! She said you would never actually put your own brother in jail! She told me to take whatever I could from the lake house before your lawyers locked it down!"
I narrowed my eyes. "Mom told you to strip the house?"
"Yes!" Eric confessed, sobbing uncontrollably. "She gave me the key to her private safe at home yesterday! She told me there's eighty thousand dollars in cash hidden in her closet—cash she took from Dad's pension account over the last three years! She told me to take the cash and run!"
I felt a cold shock wave hit my chest.
My mother hadn't just helped Eric steal from me. She had been secretly draining my father's hard-earned mechanic pension for three years, hiding cash in a bedroom safe while telling my father that the pension fund was underperforming due to the economy!
Marcus Vance immediately took out a notepad, writing down Eric's words.
"Eric," Marcus spoke into the speaker. "Are you willing to sign a formal sworn affidavit stating that Ruth Bennett instructed you to liquidate stolen assets and provided you with concealed funds from Arthur Bennett's pension?"
Eric looked at me, his eyes wide with desperate pleading. "If I sign it... will you lower my charges? Will you help me get a plea deal so I don't get ten years?"
I looked at my brother—the man who had been coddled, praised, and protected his entire life, and who was now instantly throwing his own mother under the bus the second his own freedom was threatened.
"Sign the affidavit, Eric," I said coldly. "Give my father his pension back. And my lawyers will recommend to the prosecutor that your sentence be served in a minimum-security facility."
"I'll sign it! I'll sign whatever you want!" Eric yelled, reaching for the pen the guard handed him through the slot.
With shaking hands, Eric signed his name at the bottom of the multi-page confession, formally laying out every detail of his and my mother's financial crimes.
As Marcus gathered the signed documents, I looked at Eric one last time.
"You know what the saddest part about all this is, Eric?" I said softly into the receiver.
Eric looked up, tears rolling down his cheeks. "What?"
May you like
"If you had just asked me for help five years ago... if you had treated me with respect, worked hard, and loved my son... I would have given you everything you needed. I would have built you a business. But you were so consumed by jealousy that you chose to steal what I would have willingly shared."
I hung up the phone receiver, stood up, and walked out of the visitation room without looking back.
