The Guilty Plea (25 page)

The courtroom settled. Norville instructed the registrar to read out the charge.

DiPaulo went to stand beside his client. It was obvious that he’d made every effort to have her look as ordinary as possible. Wyler stood, stooped over, as if invisible weights were bearing down on her shoulders.

Raglan looked away. She’d won. No need to humiliate the loser.

The registrar straightened his robe.

“Samantha Wyler, you stand charged that on or about the seventeenth day of August, in the city of Toronto, in the county of York, you did commit the offense of first-degree murder of Terrance Wyler. To the lesser and included offense of manslaughter, how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”

The power of words always amazed Raglan. It all came down to one three-letter word to seal the fate of the accused. The difference between guilty and
not
guilty.

She waited to hear that magic word: “guilty.” Instead, there was silence.

There’s a natural rhythm of dialogue at a trial. Like a steady, underlying beat in a four-four piece of music. The mind grows conditioned to the sound. Expects the tune to continue. Silence felt wrong, like a radio station when the music goes blank and there’s dead air.

Raglan looked back over her shoulder.

Wyler had her hands behind her back, her shoulders squeezed together, her lips tight. DiPaulo stood beside her. Tall and still.

“Ma’am,” the registrar said, his voice patient. “Guilty or not guilty?”

A shiver raced through the courtroom. Raglan turned back and saw Norville pull off her brown court glasses

“Guilty,” Wyler said in a voice so soft it sounded like a distant whisper carried on the wind.

Thank God, Raglan thought. I’ll make it to Dana’s hockey game.

Ted DiPaulo’s collar felt tight. He could sense Samantha Wyler next to him, wilting like an overextended flower.

Judge Norville fidgeted with her glasses. “Mr. DiPaulo, I assume that experienced counsel such as yourself has given your client the pre-plea warning.” Her voice was cutting.

“Your Honor, I have written instructions to proceed with this plea. I’ve told her that any final decision in this matter will be yours and yours alone.” He kept his voice resolute and calm. Judges always liked being reminded of their power.

“And did you understand those instructions, ma’am?” Norville was talking right to Wyler.

She gave a timid nod.

Norville shook her head at DiPaulo. “Your client needs to say yes or no for the record. Gestures are not enough. Ma’am, you understand you are not obliged to plead guilty, that by doing so you give up your right to a trial and that I’m the one who will decide on your sentence?”

Wyler nodded and said yes in that same weak voice she’d used to say the word “guilty.”

Norville exhaled loudly. “Let the record show the defendant has both nodded her head and said yes.”

“Your Honor. Ms. Wyler’s never been in criminal court before.” Always try to find a positive in a negative, DiPaulo thought. Emphasize that Samantha was a first offender.

Norville turned to Raglan. “Madam Crown, may I please hear the facts upon which this plea is based.”

Raglan read the agreed statement of facts. Even though DiPaulo
and Wyler had rehearsed this in his office, hearing the words out loud in court sounded worse. More painful. More real.

“‘Before she left the victim’s house, the defendant went upstairs to Simon’s bedroom,’” Raglan said, coming to the end. “‘She told her son she wouldn’t see him for a long time.’ That’s the basis of the Crown’s case, Your Honor.”

Raglan was good, DiPaulo thought, proud of his former student. Straightforward, serious. He’d heard she’d gotten back with her husband. She must be happy about this plea. Why would she want a big murder trial in her life right now?

DiPaulo and Wyler were the only people left standing in the large courtroom.

Norville took her time, perhaps chastened by DiPaulo’s words about how tough this was for his inexperienced client. “Ms. Wyler.” She waited for Wyler to look at her. The courtroom was still. “Are those facts correct?”

DiPaulo didn’t dare look over. There are some doors you have to go through alone, a kind doctor had told him when his wife was near the end. You can walk right up to it with her, but you can’t follow. That was how he felt now.

“Ms. Wyler,” Norville said again. “We only want the truth. Did you stab him?”

DiPaulo glanced at the judge. It was an excellent question. Simple and clear. Amazing, he thought, how all this could be reduced to four short words.

Beside him Wyler rocked back and forth.

“Ms. Wyler,” Norville said, “I know this is difficult, but I need an answer—”

“No,” Wyler said. “I didn’t stab him.” Her voice was surprisingly full. She threw her hands over her face and dropped back into the chair. DiPaulo heard a rising murmur from the courtroom.

“Silence,” Norville shouted. “Registrar, strike the plea from the record. Members of the press, I’m issuing an immediate ban on publication of these proceedings. If one word of what happened here is reported you’ll be in contempt. I’m going to call the trial coordinator immediately. I want this to start in January—February at the very latest.”

Norville flew off the dais, ran down the stairs, and yanked the door open before her deputy could get to it.

DiPaulo looked over at the Crown’s table. Raglan’s face was flushed red with fury.

At the defense table, Nancy Parish looked back at him, frowning. Sitting by his side, Wyler sobbed uncontrollably. “It’s okay, Sam,” DiPaulo said, not believing a word of it. Inside his QC robes, for the first time in his career, he was shivering.

There’s a cold damp in Toronto in November, before the snow and blue skies of winter come. People’s blood is not yet hardened to the lower temperatures and day by day the darkness creeps in. It was the month Daniel Kennicott hated the most, and on a gray day like this it was about the worst time to visit a graveyard.

At least he wasn’t in uniform. He wore a long winter coat, corduroy pants, and a pair of Australian boots. He’d been waiting an hour on a park bench across from Terrance Wyler’s grave and the chill had set in. It felt as if he’d be cold for months.

Coming here was his own idea, on his own time. He hadn’t even mentioned it to Greene, who’d told him that Jason Wyler was going to visit his brother’s grave this morning instead of going to court.

Kennicott had interviewed Jason at the Wyler house the day after the murder, and the man impressed him. His health was in steep decline, but Jason didn’t complain about it. His mind was sharp. And he seemed determined to wring everything out of his final days. Now that the case was going to be resolved, meeting the man one last time felt like the decent thing to do.

Something drew Kennicott’s attention to the road above the cemetery. A car had stopped and he heard a door open. Moments later Jason Wyler was standing against the metal railing right in the middle of the bridge, about where Kennicott had stood a few months ago to watch Terrance’s funeral. Wyler seemed to be inspecting the concrete barrier and the two parallel metal railings on top of it. Then he looked down at the road far below. It took a few minutes for him to raise his eyes to the grave. He noticed Kennicott, lifted one of his canes in greeting, and went back to his vehicle.

Kennicott rose from the cold bench to meet him when Wyler’s car pulled up. The driver’s door opened and he extracted himself with care.

“I heard you were going to be here this morning,” Kennicott said. “I thought I’d pay my respects. Hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s good of you to come.”

Kennicott could see that Jason’s decline had been dramatic since they’d met months before. “Detective Greene taught me to put a bit of myself in every case. My brother was murdered too.”

“Have any survival tips?” Wyler asked.

“Wish I did,” Kennicott said. “Sometimes I miss him more now than ever. Other times it seems hard to remember the silliest things. That’s the most painful part.”

Wyler took a few slow steps to the bench and sat. His breath was labored. “I’ve become much weaker.”

“I looked up SMA.” Kennicott sat beside him. “Some people with it lead full lives.”

“Depends on your lucky number. I’ve got SMA three. If I had one or two, I’d be dead already. Folks with SMA four can go all the way. But the numbers aren’t precise. It attacks the spinal column at its own damn pace.”

“I read that people with SMA tend to be very smart.”

“Brains not brawn. Technology helps. Computers, hand controls for the car. None of it’s very romantic.” He pointed his cane over to his brother’s grave. “That was supposed to be my plot. Typical Terry, he got everything first.”

Kennicott got up. “It sounds so trite. But if you ever want to talk …”

Wyler shook his head. “It’s not trite. It’s good of you. Believe me, when I want to, I’ll call you. Or Greene. He seems trustworthy.”

“That’s Greene,” Kennicott said.

They shook hands. “Did they ever catch the guy who murdered your brother?” Wyler asked.

Kennicott shook his head. “No. That’s why I’m a cop. At least you don’t have to deal with never knowing who did it.”

“Yeah,” Wyler said. “Lucky me.”

Kennicott gave him a final smile and walked away. He didn’t look back. Jason deserved time alone with his brother.

“What the fuck happened in there?” Nathan Wyler was pacing back and forth in Jennifer Raglan’s small office. His parents were sitting on two cheap chairs. Raglan stood beside Ari Greene, a stricken look on her face.

During the ruckus in the courtroom after Samantha’s aborted guilty plea, Greene had got Nathan out a side door fast. Greene knew that he would be upset, and he had to get him away from the press. Raglan came into the office soon after with the parents.

“Samantha didn’t go through with the plea.” Raglan’s voice lacked its usual confidence.

“Oh, really.” Wyler turned on her. “You think I’m an idiot? Tell me something I don’t know, like how the hell did this happen?”

Raglan’s shoulders sagged. “We can’t make her plead guilty.”

“Sam gets to jerk my family around all over again. It’s not bad enough that she killed my little brother. How much more do my parents have to take?”

“Nathan, keep your temper,” Wyler’s mother said.

“Goddamn lucky Jason wasn’t here.” Wyler’s face was bloodred. “Do you know what the stress is doing to his health? What do I tell him now?”

“I’m sorry,” Raglan said. Greene had never seen her look so shaken. “We’ll have to get ready for the trial.”

“Which won’t be for months,” Wyler’s father said. He was as mad as his son. “Why can’t we start next week?”

“Get this damn thing over with,” Nathan said.

Greene walked over to Nathan and put his hand on the big man’s
shoulder. “In the world of criminal trials, a trial in late January is lightning speed,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

On the broad steps outside the court house, the low November sky threatened rain. Wyler cupped his hands as he lit a cigarette. “Sorry I blew my top in there with the Crown. This is eating everyone up.”

“I understand.”

“One brother dead, one brother dying.”

They walked through the big square in front of the new City Hall. The clock tower above Old City Hall across the street rang out. It was 12:45. This whole debacle had taken less than an hour. A swirl of falling leaves twisted and spun in a crosswind, dancing bits of red and yellow.

“There’s something I should tell you if there’s going to be a trial,” Wyler said.

Greene knew that people always held something back.

“Terry was only my half brother.”

“What?” Greene kept walking beside Wyler.

“My mother had an affair.” Wyler took a final puff and discarded his cigarette, not bothering to stomp it out. “After Jason was born, she kept having miscarriages. Then Jason got sick, and the doctors couldn’t guarantee that another child wouldn’t get it. SMA’s an inherited disease. Comes through the X chromosome. Means both my parents are carriers.”

Greene said nothing. It was best to listen.

“When Mom found herself pregnant, she told my father she’d had a special test and there’d be no problem. Which was bullshit, of course. But my father—all he knows about is fruit and vegetables.”

That explained why Mrs. Wyler was so eager for a guilty plea, Greene thought. Bury her secret with her son.

Wyler dug out another cigarette. “Think I have a temper? It’s nothing compared to my old man. Mom lives in fear of him ever finding out.”

There’s knowing with your head and knowing with your heart, Greene thought. He remembered his first meeting with the Wyler family. Mr. Wyler saying, “This was always my wife’s greatest fear. To bury one of
her
sons.”

“How about your brother? Does he know?”

“Terry insisted that we both be told. We promised my mother we’d never tell anyone if she was straight with us.”

“Do you know who the father is?”

Wyler looked at his unlit cigarette and stuffed it back in his pocket.

“Judge Summers had his boat moored next to us at the yacht club. One afternoon my mother asked him to take her out for a sail. When Terry was nineteen and his daughter Jo was fourteen, they had to tell them. Terry and Jo were furious. Didn’t you ever wonder why Terry took off to the States for so long?”

My father did, Greene thought. They kept walking.

“This can’t come out,” Wyler said.

Greene felt a fresh gust of wind and watched a bright red leaf buffeted here and there on its erratic descent to the ground. Chaos theory, he thought. He’d studied it in a physics class years ago. Trying to predict the unpredictable. That’s what a trial was like. You could never tell where it would go or what damage it would cause.

“Daniel?”

Daniel Kennicott had just walked into his flat and grabbed the ringing phone. It was the call he’d been praying he’d get today.

“Hi, Jo,” he said.

“I’m so relieved Samantha’s pleading this morning, you can’t imagine.”

“I think we all are.”