The Guilty Plea (14 page)

Wyler’s story would be easy to verify. Greene slipped the garage key card into his pocket. “I’ll check out your alibi.”

“This comes out, I’m screwed.” Wyler reached back into his cigarette pack, but it was empty. “House will be gone for sure. Doesn’t matter to me. I could live in a crate. But my parents, my sick brother, and now my nephew, Simon. Where they going to go?”

Daniel Kennicott was staring at Terrance Wyler’s casket at the front of the church. Attending the funeral was Detective Greene’s idea. “Go as a mourner, and keep your eyes and ears open,” he’d said. Kennicott knew the detective was testing him. Making him think.

But Kennicott was having trouble not thinking about Jo Summers. He’d left her a message on Tuesday morning and she hadn’t called back. Yesterday, when he was out working, she left him a cryptic voice mail.

“
Daniel, I’m sorry I didn’t return your call. Something’s come up and I won’t be able to talk to you for a while. I can’t explain it now, maybe in a few weeks
.” There was a long pause. Was she crying? “
It’s an awful time. This has nothing to do with you. With you and me, I guess. I mean. Please, don’t call me back
.” And then she hung up.

He’d listened to the message over and over, and now he kept playing it back in his mind. Stay focused, Kennicott told himself. He opened the thin brochure he’d picked up on his way into the chapel. It had the title
TERRY WYLER: SON, BROTHER, FATHER
. No mention that he’d been a husband for five years. Inside were photos of Wyler—with his mother on a sailboat, in a kitchen cooking with one hand and holding baby Simon in the other, a group family shot that didn’t include Samantha. There were no pictures of her anywhere. In two pages of clichéd prose—he loved sailing, cooking, his family and friends, and most of all his son, Simon—her name wasn’t mentioned.

Kennicott studied Terrance Wyler’s face, which he’d seen plastered all over the newspapers for the last few days. He felt as if they’d met before, but he couldn’t place it.

The church filled up and the noise level rose. You’d never know all
these people were here for a funeral. The women behind him were particularly loud.

“Could you ever understand what Terry saw in her?” one of the female voices said.

Kennicott turned halfway around, pretending to look back up the central aisle. The woman had a thick neck and bulky arms.

“She’s still pretty,” her friend beside her said. She was short, with dark hair. “But so limited.”

“Did you ever see her at the club?” the first woman asked.

“Not once,” the second woman said.

“They’re coming,” a third woman said. “Look.”

Kennicott followed their eyes back to the chapel entrance, where people were assembling. Within seconds a silence descended on the crowd, as if some unseen net had fallen on them from its spot on the high wooden ceiling. The volume of the church organ rose, creating a cozy bed of sound.

Mr. and Mrs. Wyler led the procession, looking stern and exhausted. Next came the brothers: Jason, using his two canes, slow but determined, and Nathan towering over him, his face angry. Behind were Nathan’s wife, Harriet, and other cousins Kennicott recognized from his visit with Greene to the Wyler house.

Once they were seated in the front row, Samantha Wyler entered. She wore a high-necked black dress that accentuated her long neck. Her face was stark white, in contrast to her dark hair, which was pulled back tight. She looked straight down the center aisle at the coffin. Walking beside her was a man who was obviously her brother. He had the same general features but was nowhere near as good-looking. His cheap suit looked at least one size too small, and the shirt was tight around his collar. Must be the first time in years he’d dressed up, Kennicott thought. Brother and sister didn’t touch.

Kennicott looked to the front row, where the Wyler family was seated. Jason, the middle son, was the only one who turned around. He shot an angry glance at his former sister-in-law, then snapped his head forward.

The priest waited until everyone was seated before he rose. The service took a long time, and the church, filled to capacity, was hot. When it was over, Kennicott drifted out with the crowd to his car,
which was parked near the end of a long line of vehicles. All had
FUNERAL
signs wedged into their front hoods.

A police motorcycle escort moved them through the city. As the cars turned south onto Mount Pleasant Avenue, Kennicott saw another funeral procession coming up the hill from the other direction. It created a bottleneck at the entrance to the cemetery.

People ahead of him began parking their cars on the side of the road, getting out, and walking. Kennicott pulled his vehicle over and ran down the street until he got to the bridge that went over the graveyard. He stopped halfway across, at its highest point. There was a concrete barrier topped by two parallel rows of metal railing and he leaned over the top rail. A road was underneath, about fifty feet below, and to the left was the open grave. There was no wind and it was hot.

He’d got there just in time. The back door of the hearse was open and the casket was out, being carried by eight pallbearers. Mr. and Mrs. Wyler walked behind it with their disabled son, Jason. Samantha Wyler and her brother stayed well back.

Kennicott was trying to keep his mind on the present. Not think about those other funerals. His own family, which had vanished in such a short time. He scanned the crowd below.

“Hello, Officer Kennicott,” a female voice beside him said.

Margaret Kwon, the American reporter from the impromptu press conference outside the Wyler house the morning of the murder, was standing beside him. She was taking pictures with a telephoto lens.

“Hello, Ms. Kwon.” Kennicott looked away.

“I imagine you don’t approve, but this is my job. Don’t you think the press should cover funerals?” Kwon hefted the camera up to her eye. Kennicott heard it go click-click-click.

“I didn’t appreciate it when my brother was buried,” he said.

Kwon put her camera down. “I’m sorry. It sounds trite, but I mean it.” She grabbed her bag, rushed across the bridge, and disappeared down a flight of stairs on the south side.

Kennicott looked back at the crowd. He’d noticed something just before Kwon spoke to him. It was a woman’s hair, piled high on her head. For a moment he wished Kwon was still there so he could get a better look through her camera lens. But then the woman turned in his direction and he knew. It was Jo Summers.

Now he remembered why Terrance Wyler’s face looked familiar. Last year, a few days before Christmas, Kennicott had run into Jo Summers on College Street. She was with Terrance, and they were going out to dinner, and he’d wondered if they were involved with each other. He thought of the funeral brochure photos of Wyler sailing. At Jo’s house on the Islands, he’d seen a picture of her and her dad on a sailboat, holding up a cup they’d obviously won in a regatta. Her father, Judge Summers, made a big deal about being a sailor.

Maybe Samantha Wyler never went to “the club,” Kennicott thought, but it looked as if Jo Summers did. Must be how she knew Terrance. Now he understood. Jo was seeing a married man who’d been murdered. That’s why she’d said in her voice mail that this was such bad time for her.

Kennicott caught Summers’s eye for a moment before she looked away. So this was why she had to avoid all contact with him. Kennicott was with her all Sunday night when her secret boyfriend, Terrance Wyler, was murdered. He was her alibi. And the only way to maintain the integrity of an alibi witness was to cease all communication.

So that’s the story, Kennicott thought. Truth or dare.

After he’d been widowed, Ted DiPaulo became numb to funerals. They were simply something he had to endure, like his need for reading glasses since he’d hit his mid-forties. His goal was always to leave the services as quickly as he decently could.

Today he had a good excuse. Lauren had to take her final English exam on Friday, and he’d promised to keep all day Thursday open to help her study
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. But going with Samantha Wyler to Terrance’s funeral was unavoidable. So he’d compromised. Gone to the church service, but not the cemetery. And he swore to his daughter that, no matter what, he’d be home by noon.

The country’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, said that Canadians understood that a good compromise meant that everyone went away a little unhappy. That’s what happened this morning. Lauren didn’t speak to him when she got up, and Samantha Wyler clung to him when he left.

Good to his word, it was a few minutes before twelve when DiPaulo pulled into his driveway. Racing up the front steps, he saw a white piece of paper taped haphazardly to the front door. He took the final steps slowly and pulled off the note.

Dad

Gone 2 Frans

2 study

L

That was all she wrote. No “Love, Lauren,” with a smiley face above the
u
the way she used to do it in grade school. No “xxx ooo,”
the way she signed her letters home from camp. Not even her full name.

Inside he sensed the static stillness of the house. He couldn’t wait to get out of his dark suit, the uniform of death. He loosened his tie.

“Dad, you’re home.”

Lauren came rumbling down the stairs, her long black hair flapping off in all directions. Like her mother’s, DiPaulo couldn’t help thinking for the hundredth time. After keeping it short for years, she’d grown it out this winter.

“It’s before noon,” he said.

“Fran called. She wants to study together.”

“I thought you were gone.” He waved the note at her.

“Forgot my cell. Fran says the play within the play, you know, like with Bottom as the ass, doesn’t make sense.”

“Want some lunch?”

“We’re going to Pizza Pizza. Abdi and Leonard and Kamil are coming too.” She frowned. When she did that, the dimple in her left cheek popped out. “This woman’s supposed to have all this power over two men because of some dust in their eyes. Do you buy that?”

“It’s a romantic comedy.”

She looked at her cell phone. “Some lady named Chiara called for you. She sounded nice.”

Chiara had called on Tuesday morning and they were going for coffee on the weekend. His kids had sworn they wanted him to start dating. But as hard as they tried to be cool, there was still something there. It had been just the three of them for so long.

“She’s a friend,” he said.

“You really helped me understand Puck last night. Thanks, Dad.”

Lauren kissed him on the cheek and was gone. The Houdini-like disappearing act of the young. It was so fast that for a moment he looked at the note still in his hand and wondered if she’d really been there.

Then he bolted, taking the stairs two at a time. He pushed open the bedroom door at the front of the house. Rushing up to the bay window, he reached for the blinds and parted them to get a view of the street below. He watched his daughter’s back for four or five strides until she passed out of sight.

He heard it again. The smothering silence of his home. When he
was alone, he’d taken to playing the stereo really loud. His son had introduced him to grunge music, and DiPaulo had fallen hard for Kurt Cobain.

There was another sound. A buzzing noise. Maybe a fly inside, was his first thought. He realized it was his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He’d turned the ringer off during the funeral.

Get it together, he told himself. “Ted DiPaulo.” He answered the phone the way he would if he was still at the office.

“Ted, it’s Ari Greene.”

The detective sounded serious. DiPaulo had heard this same tone of voice many times from cops. It always meant bad news.

“Hi, Ari.” DiPaulo could hear that his own voice had gone flat.

“We’re going to arrest your client.”

DiPaulo took a deep breath. “I appreciate the call.”

“I gave you four days,” Greene said. “She never came up with an alibi.”

“I told her this might happen.” DiPaulo avoided a direct response to Greene about the alibi. “I’ll bring her in tomorrow morning about six. She won’t give you any problems.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Can’t give you till tomorrow,” Greene said. “I had to get my elbows out to stop them from arresting her at the gravesite. Get her here by two, or I’ll have to send out a squad car.”

Do that and the press will be all over it, DiPaulo thought. “She should be heading home now,” he said.

“She arrived two minutes ago.” Greene’s meaning was clear: the police were following Samantha. They’d probably been tailing her from day one.

“She hasn’t seen her son yet. He’s at the nanny’s apartment.” DiPaulo looked back to the sidewalk where his daughter had disappeared moments before. “Her family lawyer was going to go to court tomorrow to try to get her access.”

Greene exhaled. Clearly he was torn. “Here’s the best I can do,” he said. “Pick her up and bring her to the nanny’s place. I’ll follow in an unmarked car. We’ll find a corner of the lobby and do the arrest. Upstairs she’ll have fifteen minutes with her son. I won’t be able to leave them alone.”

“Thanks,” DiPaulo said.

He hung up and tightened his tie. This was just what the doctor ordered: a big-time, center-stage, no-holds-barred, first-degree murder trial. To hell with sleep.

I deserve five minutes for myself, DiPaulo thought. He charged downstairs, blasted Cobain on the stereo, and danced around the vacant living room, playing air guitar like a young Tom Cruise. “‘Here we are now,’” he shouted out at the top of his lungs, “‘entertain us.’”

“Ms. Wyler, you know why we’re here,” Ari Greene said, more as a statement than a question. He was standing in a side room of the lobby of Arceli Ocaya’s apartment. Kennicott, who’d gone ahead and found this location, was at his side.

Samantha Wyler wore a pair of slacks and a blue work shirt. She had her left hand wrapped around her right wrist, manacling herself. Her shoulders were tight. Ted DiPaulo was beside her. Wearing a suit.

“Yes. Ted told me.” She flicked her head, moving her dark hair from her face.