The Guilty Plea (6 page)

DiPaulo went down the hall to get Samantha. He didn’t have the luxury of time. If she had an alibi, he needed to hear it now. But what alibi could she have? After all, she’d brought the bloody knife with her to Feindel’s office.

Sam followed him back to his office and flopped down into the chair closest to the door. She was the only client he’d ever had who didn’t take the seat by the window. “I don’t like to have my back to the wall,” she’d said at their first meeting. “I was attacked when I was a kid, in high school. I always have a Plan B.”

He closed the door and gave her a glass of water. She placed it on the coaster on the edge of his desk.

“You okay, Sam?” He took the chair beside the window and swiveled it to face her.

“No.” She studied the glass of water. Her voice was hollow, her eyes unfocused. Classic signs of shock.

“We have to talk.” He sounded neutral, not overly sympathetic.

She glanced at him, jarred by his unusually cool tone. “Terry is dead, God knows when I’ll get to see Simon, and …” Her voice faltered. She shook her head.

“Terry isn’t just dead. He was murdered.”

She let her brown eyes rest on him. Even when they were in distress, those eyes warmed everything in their path.

“I didn’t kill him.” Her voice was so faint DiPaulo had to strain to hear her.

This didn’t surprise him. Most clients told him they were innocent at the initial meeting. He never let himself believe or disbelieve them. But he knew that denial runs deep. On the other hand, if she had an alibi, nothing would make him happier than running a murder trial he thought he could win.

“Sam, listen. We have almost no time and little room to maneuver. If you weren’t in that house last night, I need to know where you were.”

She looked again at the water.

“They could arrest you at any moment.” He had to break through to her. “The first question will be: Where were you last night?”

She didn’t say a word.

Clients usually grew quiet when he got them out of the denial stage. Silence was often a form of surrender to the inevitable.

He pushed on, looking straight at her. “Every murder case comes down to two things. Motive and opportunity.”

“Ha.” She laughed, catching him off guard. “I have motive in spades. The divorce trial about to start … his movie-star girlfriend.”

Good, DiPaulo thought. She’s talking. “Those angry voice mails and e-mails you sent Terry. They don’t help.”

“So it all depends on whether I had the opportunity?” She turned to the closed door beside her. For a second he was afraid she was going to bolt.

“Listen carefully before you say another word,” he said. “I can’t knowingly present false evidence in court. If you tell me you were in his house last night, you can’t turn around later and testify that you were somewhere else.”

In fact, this was an overstatement. There were many ways DiPaulo could finesse the problem, especially, if like most clients, she told him more than one story. Then his position would be simply that he had no way of knowing what the truth was. But right now, he wanted to maximize the pressure he was putting on Samantha.

Her head bobbed. Her back was to him, but he knew he had her full attention.

“I can do great things with the truth, however bad it is,” he said. “Nothing would be worse than for you to lie to me right now. I’d rather you say nothing.”

Wyler swung her chair back to him. She was silent. That seemed to say it all.

“There’s one thing we can do,” DiPaulo said. “If you’re not sure of what to say to me, you can ask me a ‘theoretical’ question and I can give you a theoretical answer.”

She finally spoke. “So, theoretically, if I was in the house, that would mean …”

They were entering the danger zone. The fine line between prepar
ing a client to talk to the police and coaching them about what to say. “So, theoretically, you don’t have an alibi?”

“Let’s say, theoretically, I was in the house.”

“Then we better make a deal.”

“What if …” Wyler reached for the glass of water. She was putting her thoughts together. Teetering on the verge of something. Not quite trusting him.

“Theoretically. If I said I was at the house last night …” She tossed her hair off her face and took a sip before she turned back to face DiPaulo. Those dark eyes bore into him. “But that I didn’t kill him. Theoretically. Would you believe me?”

“It’s not my job to believe you.”

She slammed the glass down. “I need a lawyer who believes me.”

“That’s the last thing you need.” DiPaulo kept calm. “You need a lawyer who can defend you.”

She glared at him. Challenging.

He stared back. There was a moment with clients when they were ready to confess. It was human nature, this urge to confide in someone. That’s why he hadn’t responded a few minutes ago when Wyler said she didn’t kill her husband. Didn’t want her to feel trapped by her own words. He needed to keep his professional distance.

“Why did you go to the house?” he asked. “Theoretically.”

“After midnight, Terry e-mailed me. I can show you if you want.” She pulled out her BlackBerry, scrolled through the e-mails, and passed it over to him. “See. He said he’d accept my offer after all. Asked me to come to talk about it.”

DiPaulo watched her, transfixed. She’d dropped saying theoretically. Greene must have seen these e-mails on Terrance’s BlackBerry before he came to DiPaulo’s office. That’s why he’d said
if
she has an alibi. He knew she didn’t. This kept getting worse. “You went over?”

“He was dead on the kitchen floor.” She was breathing hard now. “The knife was right there beside him. I ran upstairs to see if Simon was okay. Then I left.”

“You left?”

“With the knife.” She sat statue still. “I wrapped it in a dish towel. A red-and-white one.”

“Why?”

“To protect my son.” She opened her hands in a helpless gesture of resignation.

This couldn’t be worse. The risk of having this type of theoretical conversation at such an early stage was that your client would lock into her denial. Now Samantha had convinced herself of a story that no jury in the world would believe. Especially if she spoke to them in this cold, remote tone.

“You didn’t call the police?”

“I was in shock.”

“And you left your son alone in the house?”

Her body jolted. “I panicked. He was asleep.”

“He’s four years old.” DiPaulo felt a surge of anger. He was slipping into his old Crown Attorney role, cross-examining his own client.

The last major case he did at the Crown’s office, he’d prosecuted a man who’d grabbed a young girl jogging in the Humber River valley, raped and strangled her, then left her dead in the woods. The man’s pathetic explanation as to how his sperm was found in a fourteen-year-old’s vagina? That he had been out running, happened upon her dead body, and had sex with it. The jury convicted him in less than two hours. Samantha Wyler’s story wouldn’t keep them out much longer.

“It’s awful,” she said.

“The jury will hate you for it.”

She started to hyperventilate. Her face flushed. “Okay. You want to make a list of everything I’ve done wrong in my life?”

“No, Samantha, I …”

She balled her hand into a fist and pointed her index finger at him. “After my father died, I blamed my mother.” She flicked out her middle finger. “Those teachers and librarians back home—I never showed any appreciation.” Her ring finger came next, the wedding ring still on it. “Terry. It’s true what they say. I hated his family. Couldn’t stand how they controlled him.” Her baby finger. “And I wasn’t a great mother. For Terry it was the best thing, having a child. He wanted more kids and I wouldn’t do it.” She yanked out her thumb. “I’ve always been a misfit.”

With her open palm she slammed her hand down on his desk, barely missing the glass of water. “But I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill him.”

She rolled her hand back into a fist and started to gnaw on the end of her thumb, almost like a child. DiPaulo had never seen her cry, but in a flash she was heaving tears. “I want to see my son.”

He shook his head. “I have more bad news for you. The Wylers have got a court order prohibiting you from seeing Simon for the next seventy-two hours.”

“What?” She was screaming.

“Unless you have an alibi …”

Wyler sobbed. It was as if some embedded plug in her emotions had been torn asunder. She cried for a few minutes and he watched her. At last she straightened her back and the tears stopped. She drank the rest of the water. “No one will believe me.”

DiPaulo felt ill. Sam had been in Terrance Wyler’s home. Left the child alone. Had the murder weapon. “Where did you go after you left the house?”

“To my lawyer’s office. Feindel.”

“He’s miles away. How did you get there?”

“I walked. It’s downhill. That’s all I remember.” She looked frightened. Lost. “It’s true. You don’t believe me, do you?”

From the beginning of his career, he’d lived by the mantra: a lawyer who believes everything a witness or his client says is a fool. It wasn’t so much that everybody lied. But everyone had secrets. No one ever told the whole story, so DiPaulo never took anything at face value. Always had his own Plan B.

He got up and sat behind his desk. Samantha had her arms crossed in front, her hands clutching her shoulders. Logic dictated that he shouldn’t believe a word she’d said. But with this woman who was so remote, so difficult to like, what was true? What was denial? What was manipulation?

He would work like hell to get Samantha to admit her guilt while he bargained for the best possible deal. And if she stuck to her story, he would be prepared to defend her with everything he had.

“Don’t,” he said, looking Samantha square in the eyes, “ask me that question again.”

How many years have I waited to have a Monday morning like this? Jennifer Raglan wondered. She plopped her still-hot latte on the side table by the living-room couch and opened a new mystery novel, one set in Sicily. Bliss. Her two older boys were off at her mother’s place for another week, her daughter, Dana, wasn’t coming home from camp until this afternoon, and her husband, Gordon, was at work. It felt like the first time in decades that she’d been alone in her own house. On holiday from work. On a weekday. With no one to take care of but herself.

This past June she’d stepped down as the head Crown Attorney for the Downtown Toronto office, and since then she’d been luxuriating in the world of diminished responsibility. Raglan wasn’t going to prosecute any more murder cases that could take weeks or even months out of her life. Instead she was assigned to short daily trials. And now that she didn’t have to worry about the lives of fifty other lawyers, she could do her own work and go home.

Being back home was new too. A year ago the stress of the job, the kids, everything overwhelmed her. She moved out and within weeks started a secret affair with a homicide detective, Ari Greene. Breaking up with him to move back and give her marriage another shot had been tough. She was trying her hardest with Gordon. This morning she’d walked up to Queen Street with him and they even held hands while waiting for his streetcar.

But the best part of the morning, she had to admit, was wandering on the street after he was gone. Cruising the bookstore, buying the novel, picking up her fresh latte. Time for herself. What an amazing concept.

The phone rang.

No, no, no, she said to herself. I’m going to ignore it. She opened her book and let the phone keep ringing until it finally stopped.

She read the first paragraph. The phone rang again.

Damn. Maybe it was the camp. Something about her daughter. The bus was due in at twelve-thirty.

There was nothing around to use as a bookmark, so she folded back the first page along the spine of the book and peeled herself off the couch. Maybe if I go slow enough, whoever it is will hang up, she thought as she made her way into the kitchen. No such luck. It was still ringing when she got there. Raglan picked up the cordless phone. “Hello,” she said.

“Jennifer, thank God you’re home.” It was Ralph Armitage. Armitage had taken over as the head Crown two months ago. He called almost every day for advice. Even when she and Gordon were away in New England. It was too much.

“Ralph, please. I don’t want to be rude, but I’m on holiday and—”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” she said, not able to resist.

“Last night. Four murders. Terrance Wyler, the food guy who was dating that movie star, was stabbed to death in his kitchen.” Panic was rising in Armitage’s voice.

“Dana’s coming back from camp this afternoon. I have to pick her up.” Raglan went back to the living room. Sun was hitting the place on the cushions where her body had made an indent.

“I hate to bug you. But you know how short I am on experienced Crowns,” Armitage said.

It was true, and partly Raglan’s fault. Last spring she’d fired two of the top Crowns, Phil Cutter and Barb Gild, when they’d gone rogue. “How about Fernandez?” she said, naming one of the best young Crowns in the office.

“Back in Chile, visiting his in-laws.”

Raglan asked about a few others she thought would be up to the task. All were either on holiday or assigned to the other three homicides.

“I know you’re not doing any more murder trials,” Armitage said. “I just need you to get things rolling. You know how important the first few hours can be.”

Armitage was right. It was crucial to have a Crown who knew what she was doing on the case right from the get-go.

“I’m picking Dana up at twelve-thirty at Yorkdale,” she said, referring to a shopping mall in the north part of the city.

“Give me one hour.”

Raglan sighed. “Who’s the OIC?” If the officer in charge of the case was lousy, something like this could turn into a nightmare.

“Greene, Ari Greene,” Armitage said. “You ever done anything with him?”

“A few things.” Raglan was glad he couldn’t see her blushing. She looked at her cooling latte and her unread novel, which had folded back shut.

“Okay,” she said. “You’ve got me. One hour.”