by Adam Mitzner
“It’s going to be okay,” Eve continued. “You’ll see. The two of us will make a great team. Much better than Sam and I, even.”
FALL
35.
Will’s arrangement with Eve had become as straightforward as it was uniquely strange. He continued to live in his penthouse. She dutifully made the payments to the condo board and provided him with a modest amount of spending money. She even told him that she would repay the Maeve Grant $10 million loan, although she wanted some time to pass before cutting that check, so as to not raise too many suspicions. Will recognized this as just another way for her to have power over him.
Not that she needed it, of course. He was, for all intents and purposes, her prisoner. Even the fact that he was allowed to come and go mattered little—he rarely left the apartment unless it was to perform some task that Eve required.
Not a day went by when he didn’t think about running. As far away from New York, and Eve, and his mistakes, as he could get. It was the one time that his lack of family was an advantage. He could be gone in a moment and vanish without anyone missing him.
He wondered if he could do it, disappear into the ether in a way that Eve couldn’t find him. Or would he leave some crumb for her to follow? And if Sam’s experience was any guide, Eve would not be merciful if she did find him.
But it wasn’t fear of what Eve would do to him that kept him there. Rather, it was the threat she’d made to him that day, when she told him who she really was and how he fit in to her plans for the future.
“It’s only natural for you to think about a way out from under all of this, Will,” she’d said. “But remember: even if you don’t value your own life, I know where Gwen lives.”
That evening’s assignment found Will outfitted in the tuxedo Mario had crafted, accompanying Eve to a $50,000-a-table charity function at the Hayden Planetarium. The cause was to raise funds for glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer found in children.
The gala took place outside the theater. Guests were free to mingle in the Rose Center for Earth and Space during the cocktail hour, then were ushered to a sit-down meal to hear speeches describing the great strides being made by medical research, followed by an appeal for donations so that more good work could be done. Once the hat had been passed around, Kesha would perform a few songs for the well-heeled crowd.
The guests were each assigned to tables where name cards designated their seating assignments. Will was the titular benefactor of their ten seats, and although buying a table entitled the purchaser to invite the other nine guests with whom he or she would dine, Will had generously donated that right back to the foundation—with the exception of a single ticket in addition to his and Eve’s.
“Will Matthews,” Will said, extending his hand to the man who pulled up the chair beside him.
“Timothy Paulson,” the man said, fingering his name card, which read the same thing.
Timothy Paulson was almost exactly as Will had imagined: in his midtwenties, which made him the youngest person at the event and likely the only person younger than Will, and wearing a tuxedo that Will was certain had been rented for the occasion. The fact that he was wearing it with regular business shoes all but confirmed that conclusion. The most disturbing aspect of his appearance, however, was that he was obviously thrilled to be there. A night with the rich and powerful of New York City was clearly a rare exception in his worker-bee life.
“So nice of you to support the cause,” Will said. “Do you have someone in your life touched by the disease?”
“No,” he said. “It’s a very good cause, and I’m happy to support it, but I’m here somewhat by happenstance. I’m in wealth management over at Harper Sawyer. They had one ticket available for tonight, offered first come, first served. I’m a big fan of Kesha, so I replied to the email. I never win those things, but I suppose the stars were in alignment this time, because here I am.”
“A man of faith who also makes his own luck,” Will said. “I like that. I’m that way too. I find that it’s rare among people of our generation.”
“And how did you come to your ticket . . . Will, is it?”
“Yes. Will Matthews. I purchased the table.”
Will saw the switch flip in Timothy’s eyes. As if it were a reflex, he sat up straighter, assuming a business-meeting posture.
“If I’m not out of line saying this, I think it’s rarer for people of our generation to be able to afford a $50,000 table at a charity event.”
Will smiled. “Not out of line at all. Honest. Another attribute I value.” He turned to Eve. “My dear, allow me to introduce you to my new friend, Timothy Paulson. Timothy, this is Eve Devereux.”
Eve extended her hand. It might as well have been a hook. The moment their fingertips touched, Will knew that Timothy Paulson was a goner.
He imagined it was precisely the thought Sam had at the hockey game. And wondered if Sam had also been dying inside, like he was, at the prospect of luring an unsuspecting idealist into Eve’s orbit.
36.
As was the case for Beautiful Agony, the People v. Jasper Toolan was a Jasper Toolan production in every way. People came to see the star. In both instances, that was Hannah Templeton.
By virtue of her age and gender, Gwen had the most firsthand familiarity with Hannah’s work. She had been an avid watcher of Murder High, Hannah’s star-making television role. Even when Gwen was in college and Hannah’s character had supposedly been in her seventh year of high school, Murder High had been must-see TV for Gwen.
Then came the rom-coms. Gwen had seen them all, and she doubted that the men on the trial team were really as ignorant of them as they claimed. Given that they all had wives or girlfriends, they must have been dragged to at least one of her films, The Fabulous Felidia, if no other, as seemingly everyone had seen that.
There was a hush in the courtroom when the prosecutor called Hannah as her final witness. As the woman of the hour walked down the center aisle toward the witness box, Gwen had the feeling she was watching a bride. For the briefest flicker, she actually felt surprised that everyone in the gallery hadn’t stood.
Hannah Templeton looked nothing like the femme fatale that she’d been in Beautiful Agony and usually was in real life. Instead, Gwen could almost hear Hannah’s stylists saying “rich librarian” to describe her ensemble: cream-colored pants and a dark-blue sweater set. The hair that had launched a thousand teenage copycats was pulled tightly into a simple ponytail. No jewelry other than modest pearl studs. The pièce de résistance? Oversize black-framed glasses that caused Gwen to wonder whether they had any prescription in them at all.
Hannah had ended her relationship with Toolan after his arrest. According to news reports, she was cooperating fully with the prosecution, lest anyone think that she and Toolan had conspired together to kill his wife. Not surprisingly, she had refused to meet with the defense.
It had been Gwen’s job to coach Toolan on how to deal with his former lover’s testimony. They were aided in the effort by various jury consultants, all of whom were in agreement on the central points. Be respectful, which meant no facial gestures indicating disbelief, such as head-shaking or mouthing “no.” A well-placed tear wouldn’t hurt when she described their relationship.
When she and Toolan were alone, however, Gwen gave him different instructions. “Be yourself, Jasper. I’ve spent so much time with you over the last few months, I know that if you just react honestly to what Hannah has to say, the jury will get it.”
As it turned out, Hannah wasn’t the only one who had dressed up for this big scene. Carolyn Vittorio was also clad in her courtroom best—dark suit, dark shirt, serious hair. She stood behind the podium as she guided her witness through the “on-set sexual affair,” which was the term she constantly used.
“Who was the initiator of this on-set sexual affair?” Vittorio asked.
“Definitely Jasper.”
“Did you know that he was married at the time?”
> “I did, but given the way he pursued me, I assumed that this was his usual MO with his leading ladies.”
Gwen felt that punch land. The prosecution was going to try to show that Toolan wasn’t actually in love, was nothing more than a philandering husband preying on a young woman. It didn’t matter that Toolan had told Gwen in no uncertain terms that he had never before been unfaithful, and that with Hannah he’d felt as if he was no longer in control of his own actions. The prosecution’s theory that it had been Toolan who had manipulated Hannah into a relationship and then killed his wife rather than lose his mistress better fit the narrative that most people attributed to the movie business, and to men in general.
“Were you in love with Mr. Toolan, Ms. Templeton?”
She sighed, and then showed a glimpse of the smile that Gwen remembered as the expression Hannah had whenever she solved a case on Murder High. Looking right at the jurors, she said, “I can’t deny that, at the time, I thought so. I know that’s terrible, and I’m so sorry that I let myself get swept up in . . . all of it. But you have to understand, we were spending months on location in Morocco, and I’d never been on set or away from my friends and family for that long. Jasper was my only real connection to other people.”
“What about the other people working on the movie?” Vittorio asked.
“The role of Lily was really intense. Nothing like I’d ever done, and to be able to capture that on-screen, Jasper encouraged me to try to feel like she might all the time. I don’t think he did it in a malicious way. I’m not saying that at all. He wanted to get my very best performance out of me, which I think he did. That’s why Jasper is such a genius. But the collateral consequence of me living 24-7 as this repressed monster was that my costars, not to mention the PAs and other folks on set, really everyone but Jasper, kept their distance. It was the loneliest I’d ever been. I think Jasper saw that. Looking back on it, he used it to gain my trust.”
Gwen wanted to provide some comforting gesture to Toolan, but the jury would misconstrue any touch as evidence of another young woman who had fallen under the Great Man’s spell. So, like her client, she remained stoic as Hannah spewed her self-serving lies.
“Are you still engaged in a sexual affair with Mr. Toolan?”
“No. Of course not. It ended . . . when the shoot ended, actually. Same day. We packed everything up, I flew home to Los Angeles, and he went back to New York. But in the airport, before we boarded our planes, I told Jasper that I didn’t want to be the other woman.”
“And what did Mr. Toolan say?”
“That he loved me.”
“Did he ever say anything about his wife, Jennifer Toolan?”
“That day, or ever?”
“Let’s start with ever.”
“Yes, of course. I knew he was married, as I said. He told me that the marriage had been over for a long time, but he’d stayed with her because of the cost of a divorce. That they hadn’t had sex in years. That he didn’t love her anymore.”
Gwen got the distinct impression that Hannah had been told similar things by scores of married men. The way she rattled them off with ease, as if she were reading items from a menu.
“And on that last day?”
“He begged me not to end it. I told him that I just couldn’t be with him while he was married, and so he had a choice to make.”
“And he made that choice by killing her, didn’t he?”
“Objection!” Ethan shouted.
“Sustained,” Judge Pielmeier said. “Ms. Vittorio, you know better.”
“Apologies, Your Honor,” she said, looking anything but sorry.
With every other witness, Ethan had shown a sniper’s precision, asking only a handful of questions, each one striking at the core of the witness’s testimony so as to shake the foundation of what had been sworn to previously. Ethan’s very first question to Hannah followed that script.
“Ms. Templeton, I take it that Mr. Toolan never once suggested that he might murder his wife.”
“Of course not.”
“And in the course of his telling you about his marriage, did he ever mention that his wife suffered from severe depression?”
“I don’t know if he said it was severe, but I do recall him saying that she was on medication, yes.”
“And did Mr. Toolan also tell you that he was very concerned, given his wife’s mental state, about how she would react to the news that he was in love with you?”
“I don’t know if he said it like that, but—”
“Let me ask you this, then,” Ethan interrupted, a master at keeping control of the witness. “You knew that if Mr. Toolan told his wife that he was in love with you, that would not make her happy, right?”
“No one wants to hear that their husband is in love with another woman.”
“And you also knew that Mrs. Toolan had not filed for divorce, correct?”
“Yes. They were still married.”
“So you must have presumed that hearing that Mr. Toolan wanted a divorce would be very upsetting to Mrs. Toolan.”
“Yes.”
“If I understand your testimony, on the day that Mrs. Toolan died, you told Jasper Toolan that if he wanted to continue a relationship with you, he had to ask for a divorce. Is that your sworn testimony, Ms. Templeton?”
She exhaled deeply. “Not exactly. I told him that I couldn’t continue a relationship with him while he was married.”
“But you also said that you would continue a relationship with him if he were not married, correct? Or at the very least, isn’t that what your words suggested?”
“Objection!” Vittorio shouted, seemingly more to break the rhythm than for anything else.
“Basis?” Judge Pielmeier asked, because she also didn’t grasp what was wrong with the question.
Vittorio hesitated. “Compound question.”
“Rephrase, Mr. Ethan.”
“I believe you previously testified that, at the time you were having your discussion at the airport with Mr. Toolan, telling him that you did not want to be the other woman any longer, you believed you were in love with Mr. Toolan, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you wanted to be with him, but only if he wasn’t married, correct?”
“But he was married.”
“That was not my question, Ms. Templeton. Do you want me to ask the court to have my question read back, or do you remember it?”
“I remember. If Jasper had not been married, we would not have broken up at that time. That’s true.”
“And you believe that Mr. Toolan knew that too, correct?”
“I told him that his being married was the reason we were breaking up. So he would have assumed that if he were not married, we wouldn’t have broken up, yes.”
“You wanted Mr. Toolan to ask his wife for a divorce, didn’t you?”
“I don’t—”
“Come now, Ms. Templeton. You say you were in love. You say you would have stayed together if he wasn’t married. Are you really saying that you didn’t want him to get a divorce?”
“I . . . I didn’t want to be involved with a married man.”
“And there are two ways for him to be not married, correct? Mrs. Toolan could die, or he could get divorced. But you never, even for a moment, thought that Mr. Toolan would murder his wife to be with you? Did you?”
“No, of course not,” she said, sounding convincing for once.
“That’s right. What you thought—what you wanted—was for Jasper Toolan to walk into his house and tell his wife that he wanted a divorce. Wasn’t it?”
Hannah appeared to now realize that Ethan’s cross-examination was like quicksand—the more she struggled, the more she went under. It was better for her to just give him what he wanted.
“Yes.”
“And you have no idea that this isn’t exactly what happened after he left you, correct? That just as you expected, and as you wanted, when he left you, Mr. Toolan went into his house and as
ked his wife for a divorce so he could be with you. Is that right?”
“I don’t know what went on in their house. I wasn’t there.”
“Right. None of us was there, that’s true. But you had just spent months with Mr. Toolan on location. Is it fair to say that you believed you knew him very well?”
“Yes. I thought so.”
“Ms. Templeton, you never thought—not in a million years—that Mr. Toolan was going to then kill his wife so that the two of you could be together, right? That thought never entered your mind for a split second. Because if it had, you would have done something to prevent that from happening. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes. I never thought that Jasper would hurt his wife.”
Judge Pielmeier ended the court day as soon as Vittorio rested her case. After the jury left the courtroom, Toolan’s face lit up in a broad smile.
“That was amazing,” he said to Gwen.
“It was,” she agreed. “I think Benjamin completely neutralized Hannah as a witness.”
“You want to know what a sap I am, Gwen?” He didn’t give her time to respond. “I still love her. Can you believe that? After all this time, after hearing that she doesn’t love me anymore, that she thinks I took advantage of her in some way, I am still in love with her.”
“I don’t think that makes you a sap, Jasper. It makes you a romantic.”
He laughed. “You always know the exact right thing to say, Gwen. I take it that’s because you’re a romantic too.”
Even though Gwen had had very limited client contact in her career, she knew that being a lawyer was like being a therapist. It was all about the client, all the time. You didn’t bring in your own life, even to make a point. So she smiled but didn’t otherwise respond to Toolan’s comment. She was saved from having to do so by Ethan’s approach to discuss the evening’s agenda.
If she had responded, however, Gwen would have told Toolan that she didn’t recognize him as a romantic because she was one herself. To the contrary, she was the least romantic person she knew. After all, she’d given up the love of her life because she was afraid it might hurt her career.
