Chapter 17 - DEREK’S VERSION
Most defendants do not have to testify.
The prosecution cannot force them.
Derek chose to.
Rebecca explained that choice could help or hurt depending on how the jury viewed him and how well the prosecution cross-examined.
I did not care about strategy in the abstract.
I wanted to hear what story he believed could survive the evidence.
Marcus Bell began gently.
Derek described his career, his work with Blue Fern, and his past employment with Dad’s company.
He admitted the old expense fraud and said he had repaid the money years ago.
He admitted the affair with Megan.
He admitted knowing Blue Fern was in financial trouble.
He admitted knowing Megan had taken money from family accounts.
He admitted helping install the hidden camera.
Each admission seemed designed to make the next denial more believable.
Then Bell asked the central question.
“Did you ever tell Megan to injure Ethan Mercer?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her to deny him medical care?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her to lock the basement door?”
“No.”
“Did you block the exterior basement exit?”
Derek looked at the jury.
“No.”
He claimed the boxes he carried downstairs contained party supplies and extension cords.
He said he left them near storage shelves, not against the door.
He admitted telling Megan to “use” Ethan’s illness but insisted he meant use the situation to make me arrive quickly, not use Ethan’s suffering.
Bell asked about the tablet recording.
“What did you mean when you said, ‘Leave him there until the guests go’?”
Derek took a breath.
“I believed he was resting in a finished basement family room.
Megan told me he was being dramatic.
I did not know he was seriously ill.”
“What about the cold?”
“I did not know the basement was cold.”
“What about the locked door?”
“I did not know it was locked.”
“What about the text, ‘Put him downstairs and keep Jason calling’?”
“I meant keep Jason trying to reach Megan so he would become frustrated.
It was manipulative.
I regret it.
But I did not mean for Ethan to be harmed.”
Derek’s strategy was clear.
Admit manipulation.
Deny dangerous intent.
Separate himself from the physical confinement.
Then he addressed the threatening texts sent after the hospital.
He admitted buying the prepaid phone.
He denied sending the messages.
He claimed Evan Pike had access to the device for campaign testing.
Evan had testified the opposite.
One of them was lying.
On cross-examination, Camille Torres did not begin with Ethan.
She began with money.
“You were personally exposed if Blue Fern defaulted, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You were receiving consulting payments from Blue Fern?”
“Yes.”
“You knew some of those funds originated from Arthur Mercer’s trust accounts?”
Derek hesitated.
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
Torres displayed a message from six months before the party.
Derek to Megan: USE THE FAMILY ACCOUNT AGAIN.
WE CAN COVER IT AFTER THE SPRING CONTRACT.
“When you wrote ‘family account,’ what account did you mean?”
Derek shifted in his seat.
“The trust.”
“So six months before the party, you knew.”
“Yes.”
Torres moved to the hidden camera.
“You helped install it?”
“Yes.”
“You positioned it to capture the entrance and basement hallway?”
“Yes.”
“You told Megan to stop Jason if he went directly downstairs?”
“I wanted the confrontation on camera.”
“Why?”
“To show Arthur how aggressive Jason could be.”
“Was Mr. Mercer aggressive in the final video?”
Derek glanced toward me.
“No.”
“Did he strike Megan?”
“No.”
“Did he shove her?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“No.”
Torres let the silence sit.
Then she displayed the 3:37 p.m. hallway setup recording.
Megan’s voice filled the courtroom.
“This is better.
He’s actually sick.”
Derek’s recorded voice answered.
“Use it.”
Torres looked at him.
“What did you mean?”
“I already explained.”
“Explain again.”
“I meant use the fact Jason would be concerned.”
“Concerned enough to become angry?”
“Yes.”
“Angry enough to look dangerous on camera?”
“That was the idea.”
“You wanted a father to believe his sick eight-year-old was being mistreated so you could film his reaction?”
Bell objected to argumentative phrasing.
The judge sustained it.
Torres rephrased.
“Did your plan depend on Jason Mercer believing his son had been treated badly?”
Derek answered more quietly.
“Yes.”
Then Torres played the tablet clip.
“What about the kid downstairs?”
Megan asked.
“Leave him there until the guests go,” Derek’s voice answered.
Torres stopped playback.
“At that moment, did you know Ethan was downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he had been sick?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Megan to check on him?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her to call his parents?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her to let him upstairs?”
“No.”
“What did you tell her?”
Derek stared at the table.
“To leave him there.”
The jury heard it from him.
Not a recording.
Not a witness.
Him.
Torres moved to the blocked exterior door.
She showed photos of scrape marks from the metal rack and the boxes stacked against it.
Then she showed the hallway camera footage of Derek carrying two boxes downstairs and returning without them.
“Where did you put the boxes?”
“Near the shelves.”
“Which shelves?”
“I don’t remember.”
She displayed a police photograph of the basement.
“Show us.”
Derek pointed vaguely.
Torres enlarged the image.
The area he indicated contained no boxes when police photographed it.
The boxes were at the exterior door.
Bell objected that multiple people could have moved them afterward.
The judge allowed the jury to consider the evidence without accepting Torres’s implication as fact.
That was fair.
Then came the prepaid phone.
Torres showed the store footage of Derek purchasing it.
She showed location data placing the device near Blue Fern’s office when the threatening messages were sent.
She showed Evan Pike’s phone location placing Evan at home across town.
Derek’s face changed for the first time.
“You said Mr. Pike may have sent the messages,” Torres said.
“I said he had access.”
“The phone was near your office.
Mr. Pike was not.”
“He could have left it there.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why blame him?”
Bell objected.
Sustained.
Torres changed direction.
“After Ethan was hospitalized, did you send Jason Mercer a message saying, ‘Your son is safe now.
Let it end there’?”
“No.”
“Did you send, ‘Next time, keep your family out of other people’s business’?”
“No.”
Torres held up a forensic report.
The prepaid phone had connected automatically to Blue Fern’s office Wi-Fi because someone had entered the password earlier.
Device logs showed the Wi-Fi password was entered at 10:22 p.m. the night the messages were sent.
Blue Fern’s security system recorded Derek entering at 10:15.
No one else entered until morning.
Torres did not call him a liar.
She did not need to.
Derek’s testimony ended near four o’clock.
As he left the witness stand, he no longer looked toward me.
The defense rested the next morning.
Closing arguments began after lunch.
Bell reminded jurors that being manipulative was not automatically the same as committing every charged offense.
He emphasized uncertainty around who moved the boxes and urged jurors not to punish Derek for Megan’s choices.
Torres agreed with one point.
“This case is not about punishing Derek Sloan for what Megan Mercer did,” she said.
Then she walked through what Derek himself had done.
Helped plan the confrontation.
Monitored the event through Evan.
Encouraged Megan to exploit Ethan’s illness.
Told her to leave him downstairs.
Participated in efforts to manipulate Arthur.
Sent intimidation messages afterward.
The jury received instructions from the judge and began deliberating.
We went home.
Waiting was worse than testimony.
Ethan came back from robotics club carrying a cardboard bridge he had built.
“Did you win?”
I asked.
“There wasn’t a winner.”
“What kind of competition is that?”
He rolled his eyes.
“It’s engineering, Dad.”
I laughed.
For two hours, I forgot there was a jury.
Then my phone rang.
The courthouse clerk said the jurors had a question.
They wanted to hear the 3:37 recording again.
The one where Megan said Ethan was actually sick.
The one where Derek answered, “Use it.”
During Derek’s trial, Lily testified by closed-circuit arrangement permitted for child witnesses under the court’s procedures.
She was older by then but still nervous.
Her mother sat nearby.
Lily described hearing Ethan ask for help and telling Megan he could not breathe well.
The defense asked whether she might have misunderstood because the party was loud.
Lily said, “I know what Ethan sounds like when he’s joking.
He wasn’t joking.”
No one in the courtroom moved.
Marcus Bell did not attack her.
He thanked her and ended quickly.
I appreciated that more than I expected.
Advocacy did not require cruelty.
Later, Lily sent Ethan a note through their parents.
It said only, “I told them what I remembered.”
Ethan wrote back, “Thanks.”
Two children had been forced into adult consequences, yet their exchange was simple.
No speeches.
No demands.
Just recognition.
I kept copies of neither note because they belonged to them.
During cross-examination, Derek repeatedly used the phrase “I assumed Megan would handle it.”
Torres asked what “handle it” meant.
He could not answer without admitting that he delegated responsibility for a situation he helped create.
The phrase became a quiet theme of the trial.
Everyone had assumed someone else would handle the child.
Kelly assumed Megan had called us.
Guests assumed Ethan was resting.
Derek assumed Megan would manage the risk.
The person least able to protect himself had been left with everyone else’s assumptions.
Derek’s decision to testify surprised even his attorney’s observers.
Later, Rebecca said confidence can become a trap when someone believes explanation can overpower records.
“Documents do not get tired,” she said.
“Recordings do not become intimidated on cross-examination.”
I thought about that every time Derek tried to talk around his own messages.
Derek’s testimony taught me that confidence and truth are not synonyms.
May you like
A person can speak smoothly while records quietly dismantle every convenient sentence.
