by Adam Mitzner
Toolan looked over at Gwen, and she offered a confirming nod. Ethan had briefed her on what he was going to say—and reminded her that her job was to support him.
She understood the instructions, but she didn’t agree with Ethan’s advice. After hours upon hours of rehearsing with Toolan, she firmly believed that what Toolan had told her was true. And as much as she was in awe of Ethan’s ability to sway a jury, there was simply no way he could convey that sense of being so hopelessly in love that nothing else mattered but being with that person, which meant that he couldn’t sufficiently capture the despair that Jennifer Toolan must have experienced upon hearing her husband confess that another woman was his soul mate.
The knock on the door was so sudden that it startled Gwen. Kanner stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but Carolyn has an issue she needs to discuss about today’s schedule.”
Ethan nodded. “Okay. I’ll be right out.” After Kanner closed the door, Ethan said, “Think about it for a few minutes, Jasper. Talk it through with Gwen. But when I get back, I need an answer. I suspect that’s what Carolyn wants to know too.”
The moment they were alone, Toolan caught Gwen’s eye. “Et tu, Gwen?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but Benjamin is right. Testifying has too much risk for you.”
He smiled. “Well, if I’ve lost you . . .”
“You haven’t lost me, Jasper—”
She was about to tell him that it was still his choice, that if he wanted to testify he could. Maybe even say that, deep down, she thought he should. But then she saw a smile come to Toolan’s face.
“There’s one bright side to my not testifying, at least,” he said.
“Aside from being acquitted?”
“Yes. It means that I can stop lying to you,” Toolan said.
It was the very last thing that Gwen wanted to hear. In that moment, she realized that she had held on to the belief that he was innocent as much for her sake as his. She desperately needed to be on the right side of justice for once, not just a hired gun helping a wife abuser get away with murder.
Jasper Toolan was now going to take that away.
“Being with Hannah was like nothing I’d even contemplated was possible,” Toolan said, almost as if he were delivering a soliloquy to a packed house rather than speaking to Gwen in a cramped room. “I’d be the first to admit that I’ve had more than my fair share of happiness. But being with Hannah was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I thought I knew what being in love was like, but this wasn’t remotely comparable. Being with Hannah was . . . a perfect drug high.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Gwen said.
Her voice snapped him back to her. A smile curled around his lips. “Trust me, Gwen. It’s euphoric. I would have given my life to be with Hannah.”
Gwen put aside her normal bedside manner. A murderer didn’t deserve it.
“But instead you gave up your wife’s. Not really much of a personal sacrifice, was it?”
“I didn’t do it for myself. The part I told you about asking for a divorce, not caring about the money? That was all true. I only cared about being with Hannah.”
Toolan’s expression narrowed. He seemed more thoughtful than Gwen had seen him before.
“You have no idea what goes into a decision to take another life. I suspect that only people who have made that decision have any conception of it, and it’s easy to say that you would never do it when you’ve never had any reason to do it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I should be rewarded for it. But Jennifer would never have let me be with Hannah. Not in a million years. She would have done anything and everything she could to poison Hannah against me. So you see, I really had no choice. It was kill Jennifer or never be with Hannah.”
39.
As best Will could tell, Eve presided over a criminal enterprise comprised of a confederation of partners, each engaged in their own operations. Her role was to provide protection and financing, and in return, they kicked back a percentage of their revenue. As far as anyone of them knew, Will Matthews had replaced Sam Abaddon as the Godfather of it all. Each and every one had been told to kiss his ring or suffer the consequences.
Eve had made a point to tell him that they had not missed a beat in the transition. As long as the resources they needed continued to flow, the others in the organization were indifferent to whether their financing and protection were dispensed in the name of Sam Abaddon or Will Matthews.
Will’s days were spent mainly in his apartment, which he now equated with a very luxurious prison. Whenever he made that connection, however, he quickly reminded himself that actual prison would be much worse than his self-imposed exile from the world in a Manhattan penthouse. How much worse he wasn’t sure, but he was terrified he’d find out soon enough.
More than he wanted them to, his thoughts went to Gwen. What was she doing? Was she happy? Had she forgotten about him? Was there another man in her life?
Hardly a day went by when he didn’t think about reaching out to her. But he could never play out the conversation in his head so that, at the end of it, he was happy to have initiated contact. Gwen had ended things because she didn’t see her life moving forward with him. With all his complications. And since then, it had only gotten worse. Much, much worse.
At eleven that night, Will heard the familiar knock at his door. By this point, late-night visits were more the rule than the exception. Just like when he was at Maeve Grant, saw a blocked caller ID, and knew it was Sam on the line, these knocks on his door meant Eve was calling.
Tonight she was dressed as if she had attended some sort of function. Her little black dress was slit up the leg, and her high heels made her a good two inches taller than Will. For his part, Will was wearing pajamas.
“Did I wake you?” she asked when he opened the door.
“No,” he said coolly.
He had long since stopped acting like he enjoyed these visits. In fact, when he reflected on his life, he couldn’t help but note the irony that once upon a time he had thought Robert Wolfe was the worst boss imaginable. But the Wolfe had never threatened to kill him.
Eve made herself at home on his sofa. She looked around the space, a smile coming to her lips.
“You know, I like this place even better than Sam’s. His was . . . I don’t know . . . too over the top. You know what I mean? Your place has a warmth that I never quite achieved with his. Probably because you have a warmth that he lacked, Will. Plus, I really like having you in such close proximity. Letting Sam live in another building was a mistake that I don’t intend to repeat.”
Even after two months, Eve’s world was still mostly a mystery. She was barely thirty, and yet somehow had achieved the role of criminal mastermind, engaged in money laundering and financing who-knew-what for God-knew-whom. At the same time, she worked behind a straw man—first Sam, if he even had been the first, and now Will. She made sure that they looked the part and lived the life of a Bond villain while she lived in a small apartment, as if her only income derived from interior-decorating work. Will wondered if somewhere Eve had a home that befitted her status—an island compound somewhere in the South Pacific or a mountain retreat in Gstaad. Even in her role as kept woman, she could have played Sam as the kind of sugar daddy who would buy her an expensive apartment. Eve never mentioned money around Will, other than in the context of making more of it. It was as if earning it—illegally, that is—was more important to her than spending it.
As Will sat down on the armchair across from Eve, he wondered if she knew about his meeting today with Jessica Shacter. Was that the reason she was here?
Eve would not be pleased that Maeve Grant had provided him with a lawyer. She undoubtedly would offer to pay for someone else, a lawyer who would report back to her directly about the investigation. And while he still didn’t completely trust the arrangement that Jessica Shacter had with Maeve Grant, he was reasonably sure that neither his ex-employer nor his new lawyer had any interest in se
eing him dead. He couldn’t say as much for Eve.
“So where do things stand with our favorite Kesha fan, Timothy Paulson?” Eve asked.
Will breathed a sigh of relief. Eve must not be following him, or else she would have known that the Midtown office building he’d visited today was not the Harper Sawyer building where Timothy Paulson worked. But perhaps this was Eve’s way of lulling him into security. The doorman could have told her that today was one of the rare times Will had left the building.
“I spoke with him today,” Will lied. “It’ll take a few more meetings, but you’ll be able to do business with him.”
After the gala at the planetarium, Eve had said that bringing Paulson aboard was a priority. It made sense that Will would have reached out to him the next day to discuss setting up some accounts at Harper Sawyer. Will considered the irony that Paulson was probably sitting in his cube cold-calling, cursing the fact that Will hadn’t yet made contact.
“We’ll be able to do business with him, Will. You’re part of this. It’s disconcerting to me when your language doesn’t reflect that.”
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, Eve. Is that why you’re here? To check on the progress with Paulson?”
“No. The reason I’m here regards another of our mutual friends. Jian-Ying Qin.”
It didn’t take long for the name to compute. “The guy who called me when I was still at Maeve Grant? The one who knew Sam was dead?”
“The one and the same. He controls quite a bit of our distribution in the Far East. When he was told about the change of leadership at the top, from Sam to you, he insisted on a face-to-face with you.”
“So you want me to meet with him?”
“Yes, but I also want to warn you about what you’ll be walking into with Qin. I’ve been concerned about him for some time. I think that he finds his role a bit limiting and feels he’s in line for a promotion. Remember how right before Sam’s unfortunate demise he was out of the country?”
Will nodded that he did, recalling the early morning phone call and the meeting at Sam’s apartment.
“I believe that Sam was meeting with Qin.”
“About what?”
“That I’m not sure, but I have my theories. Given that it wasn’t a meeting Sam told me was happening, I can only assume it was about Qin’s ambitions and how Sam could help him. Although I could have it backward, I think Sam had sought out Qin to see how to improve his own position. Either way, I’m of the view that Sam and Qin were plotting something. I think Sam might have also fallen into equating the position he held in name with his actual importance. My very strong advice to you, Will, is that you not become victim to the same faulty logic. It won’t end well for you. Believe me on that.”
Will certainly believed her. Eve had never explained how Sam came to his role, but Will had assumed it was similar to his own ascent. He already knew that Sam fit the bill of an orphan—if that part of the backstory was even true—and even though Sam wasn’t actually from Michigan, Will could certainly believe that he had come to New York from someplace else with a dream, just as Will had. And Eve had somehow exploited that dream, just as she’d done with Will. Just as Will was doing now to Timothy Paulson.
“What am I supposed to do at this meeting?”
“Nothing. Just listen to what Qin has to say and report back to me.”
“Okay. Where and when?”
“Tomorrow. At the Central Park Zoo. A little too cinematic for my taste, but it was his selection. On a bench on the west side, across from the sea lion tank. Qin will be wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap. Meet at 3:45 p.m.”
“That’s an odd time, don’t you think?” Will said.
“The sea lions are fed at 3:45. He figures that there will be lots of people around. He thinks it’ll be safer that way.”
Will didn’t like the sound of that at all. Murder was part of Eve’s business—Sam, George Kennefick, and maybe even Robert Wolfe had taught him that. But he didn’t like the idea that he might be setting Qin up for a hit.
Eve must have read Will’s mind, because she laughed. “Relax, Will. It’s not like the movies. I’m not going to have a sniper waiting to take Qin out. I need him as much as he needs me. That’s why I’m asking you to meet with him. If I wanted him dead, I wouldn’t ask you to meet with him—I’d just kill him.”
40.
Ethan returned to the witness holding room a minute after Toolan’s reveal. Gwen was still speechless, uneasy being so close to a man who had murdered his wife, and furious at herself for all the comfort she’d provided him until that moment.
“So, are we decided?” Ethan asked.
“If you think it’s best. I’ll follow your advice, Benjamin,” Toolan said.
“I do. It’s the right call, Jasper. Trust me on this.”
Toolan smiled. For the first time, Gwen saw the cruelty behind it.
She followed Ethan into the courtroom, leaving Toolan behind. Ethan started making his way toward Carolyn Vittorio, no doubt to tell her that the defense was going to rest without calling any other witnesses.
“Benjamin, can I talk to you for a second?” she said from a step behind him.
He stopped and turned. “Sure.” And then, noticing her demeanor, he added, “Are you feeling okay, Gwen? You look . . . like you’ve seen a ghost, frankly.”
“Yeah . . .” She looked around. There were too many people within earshot for her to share her news. “Can we go somewhere private? It’ll just take a second. I need to tell you something that Jasper just told me.”
Gwen looked for some hint of recognition from Ethan. After all, the list of things that Jasper could have so quickly imparted that would have made Gwen blanch were surely limited to the one thing that he’d actually said. But Ethan didn’t flinch.
Does that mean he already knows? Or does he always have this cool demeanor, even when about to be told something truly shocking?
Ethan’s eyes surveyed the courtroom. They had just come from the only place where they could truly be afforded privacy, but Jasper was still there. Everywhere else was a public space.
He led her over to the twelve seats in the jury box, all of which were now empty. He sat in the seat reserved for juror number seven—the one in the back row farthest from the judge’s bench. That gave them a twenty-five-foot buffer from the nearest other person.
Without any prompt, Gwen leaned in toward Ethan and whispered in his ear. “Jasper just told me that he killed her.”
Ethan displayed no visible reaction. Gwen wondered if it was because they were in plain view, but she had a sinking feeling that wasn’t the reason at all. He already knew. Maybe even from day one.
In a conversational voice, Ethan said, “Then we’re making the right call keeping him off the stand.”
“That’s it?” Gwen said.
“What more is there, Gwen?” Then, more sotto voce: “I understand that this is disturbing news, but it can’t have taken you completely by surprise. I mean, the man is on trial for murder. The thought he might actually be guilty must have entered your mind.”
“But you said he was innocent. I believed you. I believed him.”
He looked at her sternly, the way her father sometimes did. As if she were at fault for this turn of events. Gwen held his stare, however. She had done nothing wrong except believe that they were representing an innocent man.
“Gwen, now is not the time for this type of discussion. I’m sorry, but I need to prepare our closing.”
When Judge Pielmeier took the bench, before the jury was summoned, Ethan stood and announced that the defense was resting, without calling Toolan to the stand.
“Is that correct, Mr. Toolan? You have chosen not to take the stand in your own defense?”
Toolan stood. “Yes, Your Honor. On the advice of my counsel.”
“Did your counsel also advise you that it’s your choice, not his?”
“Yes.”
“Please confirm on the record t
hat you are aware that you have the right to testify in your defense, but you are freely relinquishing that right.”
“That is correct.” Then he added, “On the advice of counsel.”
When Toolan sat down again, he smiled at Gwen, as if to say he was glad that was over. Or maybe he was looking for her to smile back, as she had so many times during the trial.
This time, however, she looked away.
If Benjamin Ethan had any qualms about representing a guilty man, his closing argument didn’t betray it. He spoke for more than an hour about the injustice that convicting Jasper Toolan would be.
“Jasper Toolan is an artist the likes of which the world has far too few. And as an artist, he feels things very deeply. It is because he can plumb the depths of his own emotions that he can bring them to the screen and make each of us sitting in the audience feel them just as deeply. Can there be any doubt that when he told his wife of eight years just how much he loved Hannah Templeton, she too felt that those words were true? That in those moments, she realized the utter loneliness that would follow her, since she had irretrievably lost the man she had always believed she would grow old with? And you heard the evidence that Jennifer Toolan was already suffering from depression, already under a doctor’s care. That she had attempted suicide once before. I know she did not leave a suicide note, but you heard from experts that only a small percentage of suicides—something on the order of fifteen to forty percent—leave behind a note. It’s certainly reasonable that Jennifer Toolan was one of the vast majority who did not. Besides, her one loved one was her husband, and Jasper Toolan knew exactly why she had taken her life.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Ethan said, his voice booming in a closing crescendo, “there is no possible way—none—that you could find beyond a reasonable doubt the prosecution’s version of events to be true. Would Jasper Toolan, a man who could have easily afforded whatever division of marital property or alimony a court provided, have sooner murdered his wife than simply file for a divorce? There is a far more plausible scenario: that Jennifer Toolan, already depressed, already suffering, took her own life when she heard the news that her husband was leaving her for a younger woman. And if you are saying to yourself that either scenario is possible and you just don’t know, then reflect on the one thing that is beyond doubt.” He waited a beat for emphasis. “When you just don’t know, or even if you think it happened one way but recognize the other way is still reasonably possible, the law requires you to acquit.”
