The Guilty Plea (4 page)

She seemed to roll into a tight ball, her head above her knees. There was something in her hands that she was protecting, like a child cradling her special blanket.

“They’re going to have a lot of questions.”

She looked at him, a thin line of mascara streaking down her cheeks.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “You don’t have to answer any questions.”

She nodded.

“But that won’t stop them from questioning you. They’re going to want to know where you were last night. This is no time to be ashamed if you did something foolish. If you have an alibi I need to know it now.”

She froze.

“I don’t care where you were and the police won’t …”

Her body lurched. For a moment DiPaulo thought she was going to vomit. She opened her arms and held out a red-and-white dish towel.

He was about to take it. Then his lawyer’s instincts kicked in and he pulled back. “Sam, listen to me. Put that on the carpet and open it. Slowly.”

Fixing him with her eyes, she placed the towel down and unfolded the corners one at a time, like a jeweler unwrapping a precious stone.

DiPaulo felt a tingle at the edge of his fingers. Before she lifted the last layer, he could already see the outline of the object inside.

“It’s from our kitchen,” Wyler said, speaking at last. She exposed a black-handled knife, stained from top to bottom with blood.

Our
kitchen, DiPaulo thought. Interesting choice of words.

She looked at him, those dark eyes now swimming in confusion. “I took it,” she said.

“Well,” DiPaulo said, fighting to keep his voice steady, “we’re going to have to find a way to give it back.”

Right now, Margaret Kwon had to be statue still. The door of her hotel room, number 403, was open a crack, and she stood at the threshold, her camera tucked into her palm. Even after twenty years as a celebrity journalist for
Faces
magazine, chasing Hollywood stars all across the continent, she lived for moments like this.

She had gotten this prime location the night before, when, for fifty bucks, a Somali limo driver tipped her off that April Goodling wasn’t holed up at the Four Seasons, the hotel usually frequented by stars who came to Toronto, but was here at the Gladstone, a boutique hotel in the west end.

This was typical of Goodling. A control freak, in Kwon’s opinion, she complained bitterly about being hounded by the celebrity press, at the same time courting their attention at every turn. This was especially true when one of her new films was about to be released, or when she was showing off her newest boyfriend.

Last September, when she’d been here at the Toronto International Film Festival to promote her latest film, Goodling had met Terrance Wyler at the Wyler Foods Festival Picnic. Remet, to be exact. The pair had dated twenty years before, when they were students at a small college in Vermont, and hadn’t seen each other since. For once, the attraction on Goodling’s part appeared to be genuine.

Kwon, who came to Toronto every year to cover the festival, received a tip from an actor who had been a part-time waiter at the picnic and had snagged a picture of Goodling and Wyler kissing behind the tent. The story went international—everyone loved the old-flames-rekindled angle. Wyler and his wife had broken up the next week.

This morning Kwon knew that Goodling had an 8:15 pickup. The actress planned to slip out the side door to her limo. Kwon had positioned one photographer, dressed like a street person, in the bus shelter across the road. A second, wearing a tracksuit, was in the lobby. With her door opened a crack, Kwon had a clear sight line of Goodling’s door, room 408, diagonally across the hall.

It was the part of the job Kwon adored. Catching the moment. No matter how rich and famous they were, there was no magical way for celebrities to get out of a hotel. No Scotty to beam them up. Sooner or later they had to walk the walk, and Kwon was going to be there.

Hard work. That’s how she’d broken the Brad torn condom story, the Britney implant piece, and the Jessica sixth-toe blockbuster. In her pursuit of celebrity trash, Kwon bought off hotel workers, charmed flight attendants, and cajoled hospital workers. She would wait endlessly in nightclub parking lots, hotel lobbies, and illegally parked cars. Most of all, she outthought the dumb-ass actors and their entourages of arrogant handlers.

Of course, at her age Kwon really shouldn’t have been doing this anymore. By the time they were forty-five, most reporters had graduated to being editors, content to lounge behind a desk and let the young guns stay up on all-night stakeouts or go through a celebrity’s garbage before the truck arrived.

Her parents thought she was flushing her brains down the toilet. Last weekend she’d trekked out to Long Island for dinner. There were her two younger sisters, parked in the living room with their lily-white husbands and their kids in OshKosh and Ralph Lauren. All of them had been right on time, of course. Kwon was an hour late.

What did they expect? She’d just landed the Marc and Jennifer satanic fertility story, for God’s sake. But all her family saw was Margaret, still single, with no professional degree behind her name. The night ended as they always did, with Kwon and her parents screaming at each other in full Korean rage.

Goodling’s door opened a crack. Gotcha, Kwon thought.

She tensed. A stocky guy in a baseball jacket came out and looked down the hall in the other direction, toward the elevator. Kwon shut her door before he turned back her way. She counted on her fingers. She estimated that ten seconds was enough time for the bodyguard to
check that the coast was clear and get Goodling into the hallway. She’d paced it out late last night: it was ten steps from her room to 408, then fifteen steps to the elevator.

Eight, nine, ten
. Kwon stepped into the hall. Right away she knew something was wrong. The bodyguard was staring back toward room 408, looking concerned. Goodling was still inside.

Kwon had no choice. If she turned back, it would alert the guard. She’d planned to film a secret video with the handheld camera while they were in the elevator together. She started down the hall.

A few steps in she heard a voice coming from the room. “No. No!” It was Goodling. She was screaming.

Kwon’s heart beat fast. She kept going. Five more steps and she’d be at the door. Then she made a rookie mistake—she sped up.

Her quickened pace caught the corner of the bodyguard’s eye. His head jerked around. Moving with surprising dexterity for such a big man, he lunged inside the hotel room.

He was slamming the door shut. There was only one thing to do. Kwon pressed the Video Shoot button and dove straight ahead, like a goalie in a soccer match reaching for a top corner shot. She heard Goodling scream out something and felt a whoosh of air as the door banged shut.

Kwon’s chin hit the wood floor and her teeth rattled at the back of her jaw. Then her whole body crashed.

I really am getting too old for this, she thought, lying spread out in the middle of the empty hallway. She turned the camera toward her and switched it to display mode. A short video of Goodling played on the screen. Kwon played it again, this time frame by frame, like the Zapruder film of President Kennedy getting shot in Dallas.

Kwon could feel the adrenaline still in her body. Her chest and rib cage were sore, her chin was ripped open, and her back teeth felt tight. But it didn’t matter. She’d hit pay dirt. Without a doubt, right there at frame thirty-four, was the next cover of
Faces
magazine.

Ari Greene stepped out of the elevator on the eleventh floor of the office building at 350 Bay Street, right across from the Old City Hall courthouse, and checked his watch. It was 9:50. As usual, he was early. A narrow metal sign that read
DIPAULO & PARISH, SPECIALISTS IN CRIMINAL LAW
, 1105, pointed to his right down a poorly lit hallway.

The door to suite 1105 was a dull gray, and his opening it triggered an unseen bell that chimed out a high-pitched ding-dong. The law firm’s lobby was a mishmash of old sofas and a smattering of dated magazines. On top of the pile, an issue of
The Hockey News
from last spring celebrated the Toronto Maple Leafs’ unlikely Stanley Cup win. This summer the team released the veteran goaltender who’d been the surprise hero of the series. Instead they signed a young Swedish goalie. Greene’s father had been apoplectic.

The reception desk was empty. The window behind it was covered by a dusty-looking blind clamped shut. Greene peeked over the edge and saw stacks of cardboard evidence boxes. An old-fashioned grandfather clock stood on the far wall, ticking as its pendulum swung back and forth.

“Ari.”

Greene turned to see Ted DiPaulo striding down the narrow corridor, the top button of his shirt open, his tie askew. The lawyer’s whole face broke into a grin as the two men shook hands. He had one of those winning smiles that lit up every room he was in, which he used like a weapon when he was in court to cajole witnesses, ingratiate himself to judges, and charm juries.

DiPaulo held out his hand. “Thanks for coming down. You’re here early.”

“Bad habit,” Greene said.

He followed the lawyer down the hallway, thinking, as he always did when confronted with DiPaulo, how well the man’s stature matched his big voice and big ego. They passed the office of DiPaulo’s partner, Nancy Parish, who Greene knew from a previous murder trial. Her door was closed.

Greene well remembered when DiPaulo had been the head of the Downtown Toronto Crown Attorney’s office. He’d been tough, even on the up-and-coming lawyers, who tended to idolize him. And he had loved big trials. The higher the profile the better.

“How’re the kids?” Greene asked when DiPaulo had ushered him into his office.

Unlike the barely furnished dinginess of the rest of the office, DiPaulo’s space was beautifully laid out.

“Growing up too fast.”

DiPaulo motioned Greene to the far chair near the window and settled himself into the other one. He left the door open behind him.

“Your oldest must be in university,” Greene said.

“Good memory, Detective,” DiPaulo said. “Only my daughter’s left at home, and just for one more year.”

Greene scanned the room. On the credenza near the entrance was a picture of DiPaulo hiking with his late wife, Olive, a lovely-looking Chinese woman. There were photos of their kids at various ages. Beautiful children.

He returned his gaze to DiPaulo. Both men knew the time for their cordial chitchat was over. The defense lawyer had called him an hour earlier and asked if he could come over right away. “Something urgent” was all he would say.

“Samantha Wyler.” DiPaulo checked his watch. “She’s my client. I assume you want to talk to her in relation to the death of her husband?”

“Seven stab wounds,” Greene said. “I think murder’s the appropriate word.”

DiPaulo nodded, keeping his face neutral, careful not to give away whether this was news to him or not.

“Know where I can find her?” Greene asked.

“I do. I need time to talk to her.” DiPaulo fiddled with his gold wedding band.

“If she has an alibi for last night, I’d like to hear it. The sooner the better.”

The lawyer sneaked another look at his watch.

He’s stalling, Greene thought. Waiting for someone.

The outer door opened and Greene heard the ding-dong of the bell. DiPaulo’s whole face broke into a grin.

Sharp footsteps pounded down the hall, and a moment later a pencil-thin black woman in a long dress and high heels stood in the doorway. She was young. In her hand was a plastic shopping bag with a longo’s fine foods logo on it.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, out of breath. “I’m looking for Detective Ari Greene.”

Greene stood and extended his hand. “You found him.”

“Barbara Delacroix.” She gave him a surprisingly firm handshake for someone with such a slender arm. “I’m a lawyer at Levine and Sundralingham.”

Greene looked at the bag. “What can I do for you?”

“Uh, can I talk to you alone, please, sir? If you don’t mind?”

DiPaulo popped out of his seat, his smile broader than ever. “Let me show you two the boardroom.”

Seconds later Greene was in a small, windowless room, sitting across from Delacroix at an oval-shaped table.

“Detective Greene.” She put the bag on the table and spoke in an over-rehearsed monotone: “The firm of Levine and Sundralingham has been retained by a client who wishes to keep his or her identity anonymous. That client has instructed our firm to deliver to you the contents of this package.”

Delacroix passed the bag across to him. She looked as if she’d just gotten rid of something highly infectious.

Greene pulled the top back. There was a clear plastic bag sealed inside. It contained a red-and-white dish towel.

“I don’t imagine you know what’s in here,” Greene said.

“I … I’m instructed to tell you only what I’ve just said.”

“Is it heavy?”

“Not too … I’m not supposed to say anything else.”

“Sharp?”

“Yes …” She stopped. Her breath became forced. “I’m sorry, Officer—I mean Detective. I was only called to the bar ten months ago.”

“You did fine.” Greene closed the outer bag. “Tell the lawyers at your firm: mission accomplished. You delivered the bloody knife.”

Delacroix scurried out, and the door ding-donged again. Greene strolled across the hall and found DiPaulo behind his desk, hanging up the phone.

They both knew what had just happened. Samantha Wyler must have given DiPaulo the bloody knife, and he’d set up a double blind, lawyer’s style. Step one: he hired Levine and Sundralingham. That way he was their client, and his identity was protected. Step two: he instructed his new lawyers to pick up the knife. Step three: he got Greene down to his office to facilitate the handover. This way no trail led back to his client Samantha Wyler.

“Interesting meeting.” Greene lifted the bag.

“Really.” DiPaulo flashed his golden smile and pointed to the phone. “That was Ms. Wyler.”

“Where is she?”

DiPaulo shrugged. “I’d rather not tell you right now. Trust me, she’s not going anywhere. As I said, I need to talk to her first.”