The Guilty Plea (34 page)

Raglan looked away. “Because of Jo Summers.”

“What?” Greene loosened his grip on the door.

“Jo. The Crown. Judge Summers’s daughter.”

“I know who Jo Summers is.”

“Did you know Terrance was her half brother?”

Greene closed the door behind him with a bang. “I knew who the father was. Nathan told me. But I wasn’t going to tell anyone his identity, not even you. That’s why when I told you Mr. Wyler wasn’t Terrance’s dad, I didn’t say who the father was.”

“Jo was terrified this would come out,” Raglan said. “She begged me to take the case. That’s the only reason I’m on it.”

“When did she tell you?”

“The day after the murder. I couldn’t say no to her.”

“So we both knew it all along,” Greene said.

“You were protecting the Wylers. I was protecting Jo,” Raglan said. “That day back in August, when I saw you for the first time. When we were alone in that hot little room at Old City Hall. After that I was
determined to get off this case. I was afraid to be this close to you. Then Jo called, and I was stuck.”

Their bodies were inches apart. Greene reached behind him and snapped the door lock shut. It made a cold click sound.

“Lucky we both know how to keep a secret,” Raglan said as she undid the top buttons on her shirt and slid his hand inside.

“Blame it on Judge Norville,” Greene said before he kissed her, “and her unusually long lunch.”

All through the lunch break Ted DiPaulo wondered what Raglan was going to do next. She hadn’t come into court yet, and it was almost 2:15. This wasn’t like her. Usually she was in court early. He had his fingers crossed that his little bluff this morning had worked. He was terrified that she was going to close her case, not call any more witnesses. This could be the turning point in the trial, depending on her decision.

The door swung open and Raglan marched right up to DiPaulo. She looked flushed. “Ted, we have to talk,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Please tell Her Honor I need five minutes,” she said to the registrar. “Something’s come up and I have to speak to my friend.”

The registrar put aside his sudoku and reached for a phone. “Okay.”

Raglan turned back to DiPaulo. “Ted, I’m calling the middle brother, Jason.” There was no joy in her voice.

“The disabled one?” He frowned, acting disappointed.

“He has real evidence about his last conversation with Samantha. I’m not calling him because of his disability. You’ve read the disclosure.”

“If you insist, Jennifer.” He gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders.

Raglan frowned. “I know you hate this kind of thing,” she said.

“It’s your call.” He looked away from her. I deserve an Oscar for this performance, DiPaulo thought. He was thrilled. After what Samantha had told him on Saturday morning in his office, he desperately needed her to call Jason Wyler as a witness.

She sighed. “Carotid artery. Neck guard. They’re fanatical about
them in Dana’s hockey league. I’ll admit, I can see it. Why the hell didn’t she take the manslaughter plea?”

“I tried,” he said.

“Deal’s still open. I’ll sweeten it, ask for fifteen years, not eighteen.”

“That’s against the office rules,” DiPaulo said, lightly mocking her. The Crown office rules were that once a trial had started, all plea offers were off the table.

“Fuck the office rules. We’ll go in chambers. I’ll even tell Norville to give her twelve. She’ll be out in four frigging years. You taught me that the Crown Attorney never wins. Manslaughter’s a just result. No way she’ll get less. Once Jason Wyler testifies, it’s all over for this family. The bitterness will ramp up forever.”

Raglan was right and they both knew it. What she didn’t know was that with the new evidence DiPaulo had in his back pocket, it would be worse for the family than she could imagine.

“You’re a good lawyer and a good person, Jennifer,” he said. “I’m stuck. Client wants a trial.”

“Is she going to testify?” Raglan was angry now.

“I still don’t know.” Little white lies were sometimes necessary in the heat of battle.

“Any other defense lawyer, and I’d say screw you.” Her eyes were blazing with fury.

“We don’t choose our witnesses or our clients,” DiPaulo hissed back at her. He was pretending to get angry too. “You know that.”

“Okay, if that’s how you want to play it. But don’t ever forget, I tried to settle this thing.” Raglan straightened up. “We’re ready for the judge now,” she said to the registrar with forced cheerfulness. “There was a technical matter my friend and I had to work out.”

DiPaulo felt a flush of nervousness. This is going to be messy, he thought.

“The last witness for the Crown will be Mr. Jason Wyler,” Raglan said once Norville and the jury were back in place.

Wyler had been seated in the back row. Like everyone else in the court, DiPaulo turned to look. Cheap move, Jennifer, he thought, putting the disabled man as far away as possible from the witness stand. And a not-too-subtle message: make me fight this all the way and I’ll pull out all the stops.

There wasn’t a sound in the courtroom as step by painful step Wyler shambled up the aisle, his canes squeaking on the polished floor. DiPaulo caught Samantha’s eye and looked down at his papers, silently instructing her to do the same. As Jason made slow progress to the witness-box, his breathing grew heavier. DiPaulo peeked at the jury. They were staring down, to the side, anywhere but at the man with the canes.

At last Wyler was on the stand. The registrar tilted his head toward him, asking the judge: Shall I help him? Norville gave a firm shake of her head.

“Ahh. Ahh,” Wyler said as he scaled the steps and steadied himself on the railing at the side of the witness-box.

Once he was settled, Norville turned to the registrar. “Swear the witness,” she said, as if Wyler had run right up and stood beside her.

“Mr. Wyler.” Raglan moved out from behind her counsel table once the Bible was put away. “Terry was your brother.”

Nicely done, Jennifer, DiPaulo thought. Refer to the victim by his informal name. Sound real familiar.

“I’m the second of three boys. Terry was the baby.”

“Were you close?”

This was a totally irrelevant question. But DiPaulo wouldn’t object and Raglan knew it. The jury would be angry at him if he interrupted poor Jason.

“We’re a close family. We were raised to stick together. All three of us work at …” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I guess I should say we
worked
together, before my brother was murdered.”

Raglan strolled to the witness-box. “You know Samantha, the accused.” She was beside Wyler now, talking chummy, chummy. Raglan pointed to Samantha, just as she had in her opening.

“Six years. Ever since she left the bank and came to work for our family.” He was glaring at Samantha. DiPaulo had expected this and had instructed her to look down.

“I understand she met Terrance about a year after she joined Wyler Foods, when he came back to visit.”

“Terry was living in the States. We have an annual barbecue at the house for our employees every summer, and he was back for a visit. I couldn’t work much anymore, so we needed him. He met Sam, and
before we knew it they were together. My mother was planning a big wedding, and they eloped. Samantha’s idea of course.”

“Why do you say of course?” Raglan asked.

“She took over his whole life. Simon was born a year later, and we hardly saw him. Mom would make Sunday dinner and Samantha always found some excuse not to come. She made Terrance quit Wyler Foods and they started their own store. We all knew she wanted to alienate him from the family.”

With a witness like this, DiPaulo would only object once. He made his move. “Excuse me.” He spoke slowly. “I don’t like to interrupt this witness. Perhaps Your Honor could instruct Mr. Wyler that he’s only permitted to tell this jury what he observed, and not to offer his or other people’s opinion.”

Wyler shot DiPaulo an angry look. DiPaulo knew that juries learned the basic rules of evidence with remarkable speed, and they’d know his objection was reasonable. What ever sympathy they had for Jason Wyler, they wouldn’t like it that he was trying to embellish his evidence.

“Ms. Raglan, Mr. DiPaulo has a point,” Norville said, not even asking her to respond to the objection. Raglan wisely didn’t put up a fuss.

Norville pulled herself over to the witness-box and spoke to Wyler as if she were confiding a secret. “Mr. Wyler, we all appreciate that this is difficult. But please, tell us only what you saw and heard, and nothing else. Okay?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” He didn’t look contrite.

“Did you have a chance to observe them together very often, your brother and the accused?” Raglan asked.

Wyler lifted his right arm. His elbow was badly deformed. He pointed at Samantha before he replied. “Almost every time I saw them together something happened.”

For the next half hour Raglan led Wyler through a litany of explosive episodes: Terrance and Samantha having a fight at his parents’ house the first Christmas after they were married; Samantha walking out during their mother’s birthday party and Terrance running after her; Terrance and Samantha having a screaming match at the yacht club.

“Did you ever see any physical violence between the husband and wife?” Raglan asked.

“I never
saw
anything, no.” Clearly Wyler was dying to talk about how he felt. DiPaulo’s objection was the thumb in the dike, and barely holding.

“Did your brother ever talk to you about his relationship with Samantha?”

Wyler shook his head. His face was turning red. “My brother was an open book. We used to share a room as kids. But Samantha. You couldn’t talk to him about her.”

Raglan nodded. Understanding.

“How about the accused, Ms. Wyler? She ever talk to you about your brother?”

DiPaulo felt as if the blood in his body had slowed down.

“Once,” he said.

DiPaulo glanced at the jury. They were eating up every word.

“What did she tell you?”

DiPaulo knew what was coming next. He’d read it in his disclosure and he couldn’t prevent this evidence from going in. It was the price he had to pay for goading Raglan into calling Wyler as a witness.

“She said that sometimes she got so angry she was afraid she’d lose control.”

“And when did she tell you this?”

“The day before my brother was murdered.”

“Did she tell you what she was so angry about?”

“Everything. He’d left her for another woman. He never worked hard enough in her store. He was turning Simon against her. She hated my whole family.”

“Did she say anything else?” Raglan asked.

“She called. Asked me to talk to Terry. Try to get him to accept her last-minute offer.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said I had tried, and would try again. But not to count on it. That he’d made up his mind.”

“How did she react to that?”

“She became angry.”

“Did she say anything?”

DiPaulo cringed. This testimony was going to hurt.

“She said, ‘Fuck you and fuck your whole family.’ Then she hung up.”

“Have you talked to her since?”

Jason glanced back at Samantha. She had her eyes fixed on him. “They were the last words she ever said to me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wyler. Those are my questions.” Raglan walked back to her seat.

Wyler reached for his canes. He turned, about to leave the stand.

DiPaulo stood. “Excuse me, Your Honor. I have some questions for this witness.” He could feel the jury despising him because he was keeping this grieving, disabled man on the stand.

Norville was swept up in the moment too. Content to have Wyler step down. She regarded DiPaulo with a cross look. Then she got it. “Of course,” she said. “Sir, I’m afraid you can’t leave quite yet. The defense may have a few questions.”

How do you know it will only be a few? DiPaulo thought.

Wyler’s body sagged. He looked spent. Without being asked, Norville poured some water and passed it over to him. Wyler took a long drink.

DiPaulo walked out from behind the counsel table. Standing back there would make him seem distant, aloof. But where to go? If he approached the witness-box, he’d come off as aggressive, threatening. The only alternative was to sandwich himself between the jury and the Crown’s counsel table. It would be harder for the jurors to be mad at him if he was right in front of them.

He took his time moving across the court. He had no notes in his hand. The trickiest part of any cross-examination was getting that first question right. But no matter how much DiPaulo prepared, the question always came to him at the last second.

This jury would have no patience with him. He needed to make an immediate impact.

Ari Greene watched Ted DiPaulo place himself right beside the jury and look straight at Jason Wyler in the witness-box. DiPaulo was an imposing presence. Now he was stepping right into the lion’s den. The guy had guts.

Greene always tried to be neutral in court. Keep his head down, be constant with his note taking, and project for the jury an image of his own objectivity. But he couldn’t resist watching. Witnesses never told Crowns everything. And DiPaulo wouldn’t cross-examine a man with two canes unless he had something up his sleeve.

“Mr. Wyler, since my client’s arrest, she’s made no attempt to contact you. Correct?” DiPaulo was calm, matter-of-fact.

“That’s true,” Wyler said.

It was a good opening. Showed that Samantha had been respectful to the family since the murder.

“This is unusual, isn’t it? For the last six years, the two of you have been in contact almost every day. That’s true, isn’t it?”

Anger flushed across Wyler’s face. He cast a vicious look at Samantha before he clamped his mouth shut. Greene saw the jurors ease forward in their chairs.

“You used e-mail and telephones. And once in a while you’d meet secretly on a secluded walking bridge over in Rosedale.” DiPaulo’s tone was tougher. “Right?”

Wyler glanced over at Raglan, then at the jury box. He looked trapped.

“It’s true, isn’t it, Mr. Wyler?” DiPaulo asked.