02 - The Guilty Plea

by Robert Rotenberg

  The only perceptible movement Wyler made was the way she tightened her jaw as her voice on tape shattered the controlled image she’d tried to portray. This was why Raglan had insisted on playing them.

  Greene and Raglan had spent the last week preparing for this hearing. Since Wyler hadn’t come forward with an alibi, they hadn’t told DiPaulo about Simon’s evidence that his mother had come into his room that night. They hoped Wyler would testify at the bail hearing and say she hadn’t been in the house. If that happened, she’d be caught under oath in a barefaced lie, and the case would be as good as over. The fact that she’d never get bail would be a bonus.

  That was the other reason Raglan insisted on playing the tapes in open court. They were hoping to scare her into the witness-box.

  “You’re a king-size asshole, you know that, Terry. You make me so angry sometimes I think I could … I could … fuck you, go running home to your mommy.”

  Greene watched Wyler. It looked as if she was trying to swallow without any saliva. DiPaulo must have sensed this. He made a show of pouring her a glass of water from an ice-filled pitcher, hoping to create a minor distraction. Then he stood up.

  Raglan hit the Pause button.

  “Your Honor, really,” DiPaulo said. “The Crown’s had its fun humiliating my client. The tapes are all very colorful. Must we hear ten more? The defense concedes that Ms. Wyler was angry. Not shocking, given that her husband was seeing another woman. Here’s the key point that I fear will get lost in all this melodrama. Nowhere in these tapes, or in the e-mails, did my client make an actual threat. Commit a criminal act. It’s perfectly legal to be mad at a philandering husband.” DiPaulo had worked himself into an indignant anger. He’d taken the negative of the tapes and tried to turn it around on the Crown.

  “Madam Crown. Do we really need to hear any more?” Norville went through the binder DiPaulo had given her. “I’ve got the flavor of what was going on here.”

  Greene watched Raglan rock on her heels.

  “I’m not here today to judge guilt or innocence.” Norville was staring at Raglan. “But I’m mindful of the fact that if Ms. Wyler is not guilty, then she’s in a nightmare scenario, looking at a prison sentence of twenty-five years and probably never seeing her son again.”

  Norville turned to DiPaulo. “I’m also aware that, to date, the defense has not produced any alibi evidence.”

  Back to Raglan. “I’ve heard enough.” Norville sat taller in her chair. “Let’s move on.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Raglan said. “May I have a moment to confer with my officer in charge?”

  “Take your time.”

  Raglan’s robes dangled down by her side. “I’m glad Ted objected,” she whispered, her lips near Greene’s ear. “We have Samantha’s skin crawling, but I was starting to feel like a real asshole playing those tapes.”

  Greene could feel Raglan’s breath. The heat of her body so close. “Mission accomplished. Let’s see if DiPaulo puts her on the stand.”

  “I like working with you, Ari,” Raglan said before she straightened her back. She swished her robes back over her arm.

  “Your Honor, that’s the case for the Crown.”

  Norville looked at the courtroom clock. “We’ll take a longer lunch than usual. Back at two-fifteen.” She rose from the bench and took her time striding out.

  Greene kept his eyes on Samantha. As soon as the judge’s door closed, she rolled both hands into fists and smacked the table in front of her. Damn hard.

  30

  The moment court adjourned and Samantha was taken out by the guards, Ted DiPaulo rushed down two flights of stairs to the lawyers’ lounge, grabbed a coffee, and hurried to the elevator that went to the cells. When the doors opened, the whole Wyler family was right in front of him.

  This was always awkward for defense lawyers. Even in a large courthouse, inevitably you’d run into the family of the deceased. Innocent victims. People in mourning. And the lawyer who was standing up for the accused was often a lightning rod for their anger.

  No one said a word. Mrs. Wyler stood beside Jason, who was holding himself up on two canes, his strong arms and shoulders a stark contrast to his shriveled legs. Nathan Wyler and the father were in back. Tall, imposing men. Something moved, and DiPaulo realized it was one of Jason’s canes. The rubber tip at the end came up and he efficiently pushed a button. In a moment the doors swung closed.

  DiPaulo headed to the stairs and ran down to the prison cells. A guard had already brought Sam into the interview cubicle. DiPaulo sat across from her and they both had to bend down to speak through the airholes near the bottom of the glass. She looked awful.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m never going to get bail.”

  “We have a chance. And some good case law.”

  “The judge hates me.”

  “You can’t tell.”

  “I went to university with women like her. Believe me. I know.”

  Wyler rubbed her hands together. They were rough. Scraped. She started picking at her nails.

  “We have to stick to our plan,” DiPaulo said.

  Wyler nodded with no enthusiasm. “I know. You’re going to put my mother on the stand. You don’t want me to testify.” Her voice was drained of all emotion. “But if I don’t testify, how do I get out?”

  In the middle of a bail hearing clients often panicked, prepared to try anything to get out of jail. They had no vision beyond the moment. Worse than teenagers, he thought. His job was to protect them, even from themselves.

  “We’ve gone over this. Raglan will tear you apart,” he said. “She’ll play every one of those tapes.”

  Wyler rocked back and forth, like a mother with a child. Except her arms were empty.

  “Doesn’t the judge want to hear from me?”

  “Not necessary. This is about bail, not guilt or innocence. You’d be testifying under oath. One misstep, and they’ll throw it at you in front of the jury, and the whole case is blown.”

  “I need to go home,” she said.

  “We both want the same thing.” It wasn’t entirely true. In jail she was less likely to do something stupid, like leave more voice mails or talk to some guy in a bar who was an undercover cop. Sam would adjust to prison. Clients always did. She’d already read her way through most of the beat-up paperbacks on the nightly book cart and was talking about teaching some of the young mothers how to read.

  Wyler stopped picking at her hands. “The food in here’s horrible,” she said. “A stale bun with one slice of cheese for lunch.”

  DiPaulo smiled. With all control of their lives taken from them, clients would focus on the most irrelevant things. Small bargaining chips to make them feel better. It meant he’d prevailed.

  “I’ll talk to the guards and see if I can get you some soup,” he said.

  “I need to get back to Cobalt.”

  “Cobalt?” He laughed. “I thought you hated your hometown.”

  “You’re not hearing me.” She didn’t crack a smile. More intense than ever. “I’ll agree to any condition they want. Just get me back up there.”

  Clients always have a hidden agenda, DiPaulo thought when court resumed after lunch. He stood the moment Judge Norville took her seat.

  “The defense calls Mrs. Jacquelyn Frankland.” He motioned for her to come forward. DiPaulo wanted to move things along fast, change the tone after those devastating tapes this morning.

  He watched Samantha’s mother take the stand and be sworn in as a witness. There was something solid about Frankland. Dull dress. Sturdy shoes. Her maiden name, she’d told DiPaulo, was Cormier, and her English had a trace of a French-Canadian accent.

  “Mrs. Frankland, you’re Sam’s mom, right?” DiPaulo’s choice of words was folksy as a small-town politician at a country fair.

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice was nasal.

  “And you live in Cobalt, Ontario. I believe that’s north of North Bay.”

  “North
of North Bay, north of Temagami, south of Liskeard,” she said. “Proper name is New Liskeard, but everyone calls it Liskeard. Know what I mean?”

  “How long you lived there?” DiPaulo asked.

  “Whole life.”

  “You have two children.”

  “Sam came first. Jimmy two years after. Jimmy’s like me, knows how to fix things. Sam’s like her dad, always in the books.”

  “Your husband passed away many years ago.”

  “Karl died Sam’s first year in high school. She was crazy for her dad. He was at the gas station, changing the oil on his convertible, when the hoist broke. We had one of those old single-shaft ones. Karl was always bugging me to get a double-shaft, but where was the money? Sam’s the one who found him.”

  Frankland spoke in the no-nonsense tone of a woman who knows herself. Great witness for the defense.

  “I’m afraid I have to ask you a few personal questions, ma’am,” DiPaulo said.

  Frankland turned to the judge. “I got no secrets,” she said.

  Judges hated it when witnesses spoke directly to them. And normally DiPaulo lectured them to always watch him—never, ever look at the judge or the jury. But Frankland was so unpretentious, he’d intentionally not mentioned this to her.

  Norville smiled back at Frankland and nodded a few times before she caught herself. Clearly she was charmed by Samantha’s mother.

  “You’re fifty-five years old, you have no criminal record, and you run the only gas station in town,” DiPaulo said without looking at a note. “Silver Shores Motors.”

  “Been doing it for thirty-five years. Jimmy works in Liskeard at the foundry. He’s a grinder. Helps out on weekends. I do the tires. Lots of flat tires up our way. Ice in winter pops huge potholes every spring.”

  DiPaulo put his hand on his client’s shoulder. “If Her Honor grants bail to your daughter, are you willing to have her home until this trial’s over?”

  “Where else she going to live?”

  There was a murmur of laughter in the court.

  “And could you keep her busy?”

  “Sure. Sam’s the smart one in the family. Straight-A student. Won that scholarship to the university here in Toronto. Did better than all those rich girls, but they’re the ones got those jobs at the big banks.”

  “You understand, Sam won’t be allowed to leave town unless she’s with you or her brother.” This was the third time he’d referred to his client by her first name. Make her sound like a small-town girl who wanted to go home and live with her family, not a woman accused of murder.

  “That could be a problem,” she said.

  Norville jerked her head up and looked at Frankland.

  “What kind of problem?” DiPaulo asked.

  “The libraries,” Frankland said. “Sam lives in them. There’s one in our town, but her favorite’s the one in Liskeard.”

  “I see,” DiPaulo said, as if this were news to him. Of course he’d spent hours going over this with Frankland before putting her on the stand. “Well, if she went to one of the local libraries, how could you guarantee she stayed there?”

  “Stay? She never leaves. Books and librarians are her best friends. Always researching something, the way her dad taught her. I could get Lillian to call me.”

  “Lillian?”

  “The librarian in Liskeard. She’s here in the court.” Frankland pointed back behind DiPaulo. A tall woman in the audience, sitting beside Samantha’s brother, gave a little wave. Exactly as they’d planned it.

  “She came down with you for the bail hearing?” DiPaulo moved out from behind the counsel table.

  “On the train,” Frankland said.

  DiPaulo approached the witness-box as if he had something difficult to confide in her.

  “Do you have any travel plans?”

  Frankland smiled. Her teeth were jagged. “I got nowhere to go. I sent Jimmy down for the funeral. I haven’t been south in ten years.”

  “Is there room for Samantha at your house?”

  She looked at DiPaulo as if he were a customer who’d asked a really stupid question. “Her bedroom.”

  This brought more laughter.

  Frankland looked confused. “Haven’t touched it since Sam left after high school.” She turned to Norville. “She won’t let me move a thing in there. Know what I mean?”

  The judge couldn’t help but nod. DiPaulo saw she was scribbling away in her notebook. A good sign. Let’s hope she’s working out conditions for a release on bail. He waited until Norville finished writing. The evidence couldn’t have gone in better.

  He smiled his best smile. “Those are my questions.” DiPaulo turned and headed back to his seat.

  “Am I allowed to say one more thing?” Frankland said behind him on the witness stand.

  Oh, no. She’d been perfect. What the hell did she want to add? Be calm, Ted, he told himself. No way you can shut up your own witness. Look happy. He pivoted to face the judge. Not quite Fred Astaire, but not bad. He plastered a smile on his face. “What do you want to say?”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you, sir. Or anyone else. And I guess I have to.”

  Keep smiling, DiPaulo screamed at himself. The key to this whole hearing was to get the judge to trust the person who was signing the bail. If there was even a whiff of suspicion that Frankland was hiding something, it was game over.

  “You never told me about this?” In for a dime, in for a dollar, he thought. “Even when we prepared for you to testify?”

  “That’s right. Sam might be mad at me, but I don’t see anyone from Cobalt or Liskeard here except her friend Lillian and my son.”

  “Please. What is it?” he asked. As obsequious as a hotel doorman.

  “Sam teaches reading.”

  That’s it? The big secret? DiPaulo was ecstatic. But he had to keep calm. “Oh, I see. And do the children like her?”

  “That’s the secret. It’s not children. Adults. They’re real embarrassed. Only me and Lil knows.” Frankland pointed back out into the audience. “Whenever Sam’s in town she meets with folks in the library basement who can’t read. Got to keep this quiet.”

  Sure do, DiPaulo thought, suppressing the urge to whoop for joy. Run up and hug his witness. Norville was smiling, writing away.

  “Thank you, ma’am. Those are my questions.” He sat down, the blood flowing again in his veins. He’d graduated to the Eisenhower line. Ike was first elected in 1952. About a fifty-fifty chance now. This was the greatest goddamn job in the world, when magic like this happened.

  “Next witness for the defense?” Norville asked.

  “No more witnesses needed.” He was determined to project confidence. “I’d be happy to make submissions right now.”

  The indecisive Norville looked taken aback. She turned to Raglan. “Does the Crown wish to call any more evidence? A case like this, I’d like to hear everything.”

  Norville was practically begging the Crown to give her more ammunition so she could take the easy way out and keep Wyler locked up.

  Raglan made a show of looking at the wall clock. “Your Honor,” she said, standing up, her voice polite. “This has been a long day and the Crown would like some time to consider whether we’ll call further evidence.”

  Norville beamed at Raglan. “Excellent suggestion. Further evidence and counsel submissions tomorrow morning. I’ll make my ruling in the afternoon.”

  Plenty of time over lunch to pick the brains of the top young lawyers in her husband’s firm, DiPaulo thought. He scrambled to his feet, not wanting Raglan to get all the brownie points for good behavior. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

  Norville smiled at him.

  Good, DiPaulo thought. Rule number one in court: keep the judge happy.

  31

  Ari Greene always found the experience somewhat surreal. Here he was, sitting in a packed courtroom about to take notes on the next piece of evidence—the video of him in the child-friendly room at police headquarters, play
ing trains with Simon. Raglan had a big television screen on a movable stand and rolled it into position so the judge and everyone in the court could see.

  After DiPaulo closed his case yesterday, Greene and Raglan had decided to play the videotape in court. Since Samantha wasn’t going to testify, there was no reason to hold it back, and it was powerful evidence that might get Norville to deny bail. And even more important, it might convince Wyler that the case against her was overwhelming and set up a guilty plea.

  The video was made on the afternoon of the murder, before Simon’s family had told him the news. Up on the screen, the boy ran in through the door, holding a train he’d carried with him from home. The train’s name was Percy, he’d told Greene. He went right to the train basket. Greene saw himself come into view seconds later.

  “Do they have Thomas? I lost mine.” Simon sat down on the carpet and grabbed an engine. “This one’s Henry.”

  “I’m not sure,” Greene said. The squeak of little trains rolling back and forth on the wooden tracks and Simon making “vroom-vroom, choo-choo” sounds vibrated out across the courtroom.

  Simon fished out some bridges and track and started building. The boy was humming contentedly, his falsetto voice occasionally interspersed with “clang-clang” and “choo-choo” sounds. After a while Greene opened a square refrigerator on the far wall and brought out two juice packs.

  “Apple or orange?”

  “Apple, please,” Simon said. They sat on the floor and unwrapped the little plastic straws.

  “Simon,” Greene said between sips. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You do?”

  Greene looked back at the glass, which was a one-way mirror. Daniel Kennicott was on the other side with the technician who was running the camera.

  “That bridge.” Simon pointed to the one closest to him. “One of the parts is broken.”

  Greene put his head near the carpet to inspect it. One of the connector nodules was missing. “You’re right. But it still works, if you’re careful.”

  “I didn’t break it,” Simon said.