02 - The Guilty Plea

by Robert Rotenberg

  “Plays with his trains all the time. The social worker’s been terrific. Recommended he stay at the nanny’s place until Christmas. Keep him with all his friends. We’re making the transition gradually. Jason picks him and the nanny up every Friday night and they’re here all weekend. We love having him around.”

  The zipper on Greene’s old briefcase made a ticking sound as he opened it and pulled out some forms. “If any of you would like to take the stand and talk about Terrance, you’re more than welcome to do so. If you don’t wish to speak, then you can write out what we call Victim Impact Statements. I brought a few that you can fill out.”

  The three looked at one another. Often, testifying or writing out a statement could be cathartic for people, but everyone was different. You never knew who’d want to step forward.

  “My brother can speak for me,” Jason said. His body was beginning to sag, but he looked determined to stay on his feet.

  “I don’t want to fill out any damn forms,” Mr. Wyler said. “Let Nathan talk for all of us.”

  “I agree, dear.” Mrs. Wyler put her hand to her husband’s cheek. It was, Greene realized, the first time he’d seen any physical contact between the two. She guided him down to the sofa and laid her head on his shoulder, the white stripe in her hair disappearing in the folds of his neck. “I hope tomorrow is the last time in my life I ever have to see that woman.”

  41

  The moment Margaret Kwon’s plane landed on the runway she booted up her cell phone and scrolled through for the number she wanted.

  “Ari Greene,” the detective said, answering her call.

  “I need a dinner date tonight,” she said.

  “Margaret?”

  “Plane’s pulling up to the terminal.”

  “Why didn’t you call before you took off? I would have picked you up.”

  “Damn. I forgot how polite you Canadians are. I hear there’s going to be a guilty plea tomorrow.”

  Greene laughed. “You have very good contacts. Tell the cab to take you to the House of Seoul, a Korean place on Bloor, west of Christie.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s a Little Korea in Toronto too.”

  “Eleven restaurants on one block,” he said.

  When she arrived half an hour later, Greene was talking to the owner, a squat woman who was about four and a half feet tall. “An nyeong ha seh yo,” he said to Kwon when she walked in, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Hello to you, Detective,” Kwon said. “That’s the only thing I can say in Korean too.”

  They sat on a bench seat. Paper-thin napkins were stuffed into a green cup on the table, along with cutlery—long-handled metal spoons and matching chopsticks, held in a plastic container. There were no tablecloths. Greene’s was the only white face in the place.

  Kwon kicked him under the table. “You like it here because you’re at least a foot taller than everyone else.”

  As they ate Greene filled her in on the details of the expected guilty plea. He didn’t seem very happy about it.

  “Isn’t a guilty plea what you wanted?”

  “Let’s see what happens.” He fixed her with his eyes. “Any news about April Goodling?”

  “Nothing. She’s disappeared.”

  “Want to go for a drive?” he asked.

  “Sure. Where?”

  “If it was my last time in New York, you’d probably take me to the Statue of Liberty. So I thought—”

  “Niagara Falls? I’ve never been.”

  The trip took about an hour. When they arrived at the deep gorge beside the Niagara River she heard a roar come up from over the edge. The windshield filled with specks of water and, after one last sweeping turn, the falls jumped into view. The noise grew louder and Greene put on his wipers.

  Greene drove to an empty parking lot near the edge, where there were restricted access signs all over the place. He parked at the curb closest to the water. Within seconds a security vehicle appeared out of the darkness.

  An older man in ramrod shape jumped out. “Evening, Detective Greene.”

  “Gerald, this is Margaret Kwon, reporter from New York,” Greene said.

  “Evening, ma’am,” Gerald said. “Have a nice night.”

  “Is there any place we could go where no one knows you?” she asked Greene.

  “Probably not.”

  They walked through the light mist. There was a wide stone walk-way and a wrought-iron-and-stone fence along the edge. The dark water above the falls moved at a steady, powerful pace.

  Greene led her to the spot where the sidewalk and railing turned. They were looking right across the top of the falls. The water was so calm a second before it hurtled down in a chaotic white froth, as if each drop had been taken by surprise, the floor under its placid world evaporating in a moment.

  Most of all there was the sound. A primitive rumble from deep below. The spray on Kwon’s face felt like a cleansing mist. She was transfixed by the black water. Flat and constant, hitting the edge, breaking up, turning to foam, disappearing from view. Over and over and over and over and over again. She lost track of time. Space. Drawn to something so unstoppable. The water. The movement. The darkness.

  “Only the surface water from the Great Lakes comes over the falls. About three percent,” Greene said. It had been a long time since either of them had spoken. “Some of the original glacial water is still there, down deep.”

  Kwon hadn’t expected to be so transfixed. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk.

  “I went to Europe for the first time when I was thirty years old,” he said. “Instead of flying, I took a freighter. We tooled up the St. Lawrence River, and the land on both sides fell away, and the boat pushed out into the ocean. It was like I was being released.”

  “The water never stops, does it?” she said.

  “Never,” Greene said.

  The spray was fogging up her glasses. “I can see why you come here.”

  “Sometimes I sit for hours,” he said.

  She reached for his hand and he held it. They hadn’t done this before. Part of her never wanted to let go. But they were both looking at the falls, at the point where the water always flowed over the edge.

  42

  Good, good, Jennifer Raglan told herself, looking into the mirror in the female barristers’ robing room. She clipped the white tabs onto the collar of her white shirt. Samantha Wyler was going to plead out today. Fifteen years for manslaughter. Great. Now Raglan could go back to small cases, work nine to five and be home for dinner, weekends her own.

  Her daughter, Dana, was thrilled. At the beginning of September she’d joined an all-girls’ hockey team. Either Jennifer or Gordon had to get home, toss Dana into the car, and battle through traffic to practices and games in far-flung suburbs. Because the trial hadn’t ramped up yet, Raglan had been doing the bulk of the driving. Yesterday, when she was tied up preparing for the pretrial with Judge Norville, her husband had driven. Somehow Dana’s neck guard had been left out of her hockey bag and she wasn’t allowed on the ice.

  This afternoon the team had a game after school, and since the Wyler case was going to be a guilty plea, Raglan was on driving duty.

  Then there was Ari Greene. She’d been spending a lot of time with him during the last few months. He’d been steadfastly cool toward her—but never cold—sending her the message that the door between them was closed. The problem was, she was still rattling the handle. This morning she’d awakened at four o’clock, out of breath, the dream she’d had about his body so real she could almost touch it. This wasn’t healthy.

  Yep, all good, Raglan thought as she entered Norville’s court. The big room was packed. The seats directly behind the Crown counsel table on the far right had been reserved for the Wyler family, with ropes across the rows, as if they were being saved for the groom’s side at a wedding.

  No special accommodation had been made for Samantha Wyler’s family, Raglan noticed as she picked out the mother and brother, plus t
he librarian who’d been at the bail hearing. They all sat on the left-hand side.

  It was always like this. Both sets of families staked out opposite sides of the courtroom and kept to themselves during long trials. Somehow they’d work out an unspoken choreography of avoidance, one group coming or going before the next, inhabiting different sides of the courtroom, finding their own nooks and crannies in the hallway during breaks, and sitting far from each other in the basement cafeteria.

  Raglan took her place at the counsel table. Greene was already there, wearing a well-tailored suit. In the helter-skelter way people’s lives crisscrossed in the courthouses of such a big city, she might not see him again for months. Maybe years. At the other counsel table, Ted DiPaulo sat beside Nancy Parish. A long red coat was draped over a third chair, which was empty. Raglan recognized it from a photo of Samantha Wyler in the morning paper, taken the day before when she was leaving court.

  At Crown School they taught you to never make eye contact with the accused. Hey, I’m human, Raglan thought as she stole a quick glance back at the raised prisoner’s box. Wyler wore a black dress and no jewelry. Her eyes were vacant, out of focus.

  A staccato rap sounded on the oak door to the left of the judge’s dais. It flung open, and a court officer in full uniform shouted, “All rise.”

  Raglan heard a rustle behind her as the spectators stood. Norville, her robes dancing, trotted up to her raised seat. Raglan got a glimpse of the judge’s shoes. They were the same expensive Italian pumps Raglan had worn to the pretrial yesterday. Damn you, she thought.

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez,” the court registrar said, rising from his spot directly below the judge. “All persons having business before the Queen’s Justice of the Superior Court of Justice, attend now and ye shall be heard. Long live the Queen. Please be seated.”

  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.

  43

  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.

  44

  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, cordu
roy 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.”