Chapter 6 - THE DEPOSITION
The reality of a criminal trial is far less glamorous than television portrays. It is a slow, grueling process of attrition, fought in sterile conference rooms with terrible coffee and suffocating tension. Before the actual trial date in front of a jury, the defense requested a formal deposition. It was Michael’s attorney, Thorne’s, last desperate attempt to rattle me, to find a crack in my testimony that he could exploit in open court.
The deposition took place in a neutral boardroom downtown. I arrived with Vance and Sarah. I wore my best charcoal suit—the one I had worn to Margaret’s funeral. It felt appropriate, as I was laying to rest another profound relationship today.
We took our seats on one side of a long mahogany table. A court reporter sat at the head, her fingers hovering over a stenograph machine. Ten minutes later, the door opened. Thorne walked in, followed by two junior associates. And then, Michael.
He was escorted by a bailiff, wearing an orange county jumpsuit, his hands shackled in front of him. He looked utterly diminished. He had lost weight; his skin was a sickly gray, and the arrogant fire in his eyes had been replaced by a hollow, haunted stare. He looked at me for a fraction of a second before dropping his gaze to the table. I felt a painful tug in my chest, an instinctual fatherly urge to protect him, to tell him everything would be alright. I crushed that instinct instantly. I had to remember the crowbar. I had to remember the concrete truck.
Thorne began the questioning. He was aggressive, sharp, and relentless. For four hours, he grilled me on every minute detail of the morning the truck blocked the driveway.
“Mr. Lawson,” Thorne began, pacing slightly. “You claim you felt ‘trapped.’ Yet, you had a working telephone in the house. You could have called a taxi. You could have walked out through the woods.”
“I am seventy-one years old, Mr. Thorne,” I replied evenly, looking directly at him. “My closest neighbor is a mile away through dense, mountainous terrain. A taxi would not have been able to get past the ten-ton concrete mixer intentionally parked sideways across my only road. And yes, I had a phone. I used it to call for help because I was being held against my will.”
“Isn't it true that you and your son have had a strained relationship since your wife’s passing? Isn't it true you resent him for moving to the city and pursuing corporate business instead of working your farm?”
“Objection, relevance,” Vance interjected smoothly. “My client’s personal feelings about his son's career path have no bearing on the fact that his son committed extortion.”
“I’ll answer it,” I said, raising a hand to stop Vance. I looked directly at Michael. He slowly raised his head to meet my gaze. “I never resented you, Michael. I was proud of you. I only ever wanted you to be happy. The strain in our relationship began when you stopped seeing me as your father, and started seeing me as a real estate asset to be liquidated.”
Michael flinched as if I had struck him.
Thorne pushed harder, trying to twist my words, trying to suggest I had misunderstood Michael’s intentions, that he was merely being overprotective, that the concrete truck was an 'overzealous metaphor' for a family intervention.
“A metaphor does not block a county road, Counselor,” I stated, my voice echoing in the quiet room. “A metaphor does not demand a signature on a deed of transfer under threat of isolation. He handed me a contract. He told me the truck would not move until I signed my home over to him. That is not a metaphor. That is a ransom demand.”
Thorne then shifted tactics, bringing up the night of the trespassing. He tried to suggest it wasn't Michael on the tape, that it was a transient, a burglar.
“You did not see his face clearly, did you, Mr. Lawson?”
“I didn't need to,” I replied. “I raised him. I know how he walks. I know the slope of his shoulders. And I know that he knew exactly where the security server was located in my basement. He dropped a crowbar on my patio. A crowbar that, I believe, the DA’s office matched to a set in his own garage.”
Thorne visibly deflated at that. The prosecution had shared discovery the night before; the forensics on the crowbar were undeniable.
The deposition concluded in silence. Thorne had found no cracks. My story remained consistent, grounded in the unshakeable truth of the video evidence and the physical reality of his crimes. As the bailiff stepped forward to escort Michael back to lockup, my son finally spoke. His voice was a raspy whisper.
“Dad... please. I’m going to lose everything. Karen is leaving me. She’s taking the kids. If I go to prison... my life is over. Please, tell them you made a mistake. Tell them to drop it.”
He wasn't apologizing. He wasn't expressing remorse for what he did to me. He was only crying for himself, terrified of the consequences of his own actions.
May you like
“You made the choices, Michael,” I said softly, standing up from the table. “I am just surviving them. May God have mercy on you, because the law will not.”
I turned and walked out of the room with Sarah and Vance, leaving him to the darkness he had meticulously built for himself. The trial would begin in two weeks, but in my heart, the verdict had already been delivered.
