02 - The Guilty Plea

by Robert Rotenberg

  “Young Brandon’s in grade twelve. Doing the ‘victory lap,’ taking an extra year to get out of high school. His midterm exams are crucial. They start the second week of February.”

  “If your client spoke to us, I could let him know well in advance when he’ll be called. Schedule him in on a day when he doesn’t have an exam. Glad to do it. But since we don’t know what he’s going to say, how can I predict when I’ll need him?”

  Carmichael laughed. The man was smart enough to know when he’d hit a brick wall. “Jennifer, when did you become such a hard-ass?”

  “Actually, I think you can credit Detective Greene with this idea. Why don’t you have a word with young Brandon’s folks.”

  “I’ll do that. Tell Greene I say touché.”

  The parents eventually realized they were stuck with the Crown, just as Raglan was stuck with their son. As the days ticked down before the trial, negotiations with Carmichael intensified. Greene had Kennicott look at Legacy’s computer to confirm the kid was playing video games all night. Legacy consented to a DNA swab, and forensics confirmed there wasn’t a spec of his DNA in the Wyler house. He took a polygraph test and passed it without a hitch.

  Raglan watched the gangly teenager amble into the boardroom. “Hi, Brandon.” It was freezing cold outside, but all he wore was a thin black T-shirt, a ripped pair of flared jeans and running shoes with holes in them.

  “Yeah, hi,” he said, his hair down over his face.

  “Hello, Ms. Raglan.” Canton Carmichael was an elegant black man, always beautifully dressed in hand-tailored suits, even on a Sunday afternoon, who often joked that he was the first to crack the white ceiling. It was true. Color had been no barrier to his representing rich and powerful defendants from every community in the city—wealthy whites included.

  As part of the agreement they’d worked out, Carmichael would sit in on the interview. Detective Greene, who’d brought them into the office, would also be present. After everyone was seated, Raglan jumped right in.

  “Brandon,” she said. “Thanks to your cooperation with this investigation—showing us your computer, the DNA test, and the polygraph—at this time you’re not a suspect. Given that, we’ve come to an agreement with your lawyer that the statement you make today is involuntary. That means anything you say cannot be used against you, should you ever be brought to trial. The exception is perjury. You lie to us, all bets are off. That clear?”

  Legacy brushed his hair from his forehead, revealing a few red pimples. He turned to his lawyer and the two of them whispered together.

  “Yeah,” the boy said, looking both contemptuous and bored at the same time.

  Raglan’s oldest son was two years younger than Legacy. In the last six months he’d grown half a foot, and recently there’d been bits of facial hair and a few pimples. There was a childishness about him. He’d still sometimes ask her to slip into his bed at night so he could snuggle up. But it was fading fast. Looking at the arrogant teenager across the table, Raglan thought, There’s the future, in all its sweaty glory.

  “Once you’re on the stand and sworn in as a witness,” Raglan said, “I’ll ask you a few questions about yourself. Your age, where you go to school, what subjects you’re studying, et cetera. To get you warmed up and give the jury some background.”

  “Uh-huh,” Legacy said.

  “There’s no need to look at the judge or the jury. Look at me, or at the defense counsel when he’s asking questions.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And in court, no uh-huhs. You need to answer yes or no. Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m going to ask you how you met the Wylers.”

  “They were neighbors. Moved in when I was a kid. I used to shovel their driveway sometimes. When I got older they asked me to babysit Simon.”

  “How often did you do that?”

  “Lots. Mrs. Wyler was always at work. Mr. Wyler liked to sail all the time.”

  “How’d you get along with Simon?”

  “He’s a nice kid. Sometimes I played his dad’s piano for him, so he called me Piano Man.”

  “I understand the Wylers separated a year ago.”

  “Yeah. Sam—I mean Mrs. Wyler—moved out.”

  Raglan took a look over at Greene. Carmichael moved forward in his chair.

  “And did you continue to see Ms. Wyler?”

  “Uh-huh. We were like friends.”

  “That’s as far as my client is going on this line of questions,” Carmichael said.

  “Maybe for now. But in court the defense is going to delve into this.”

  “And you’ll object, won’t you?” Carmichael asked.

  “On what grounds?” Raglan asked.

  “How is it relevant?”

  “If he was having an affair with Samantha Wyler and her husband is found dead next door, your client’s in defense counsel’s line of fire. Much better if I get this evidence out in chief and not leave him exposed on cross-examination. I’m not going to look like an idiot in front of the jury, objecting to things and being overruled.”

  Legacy had his head down and was playing with his hair. “It wasn’t, like, really like that.”

  “Brandon, don’t answer these questions,” Carmichael said.

  “Mostly we really were friends,” Legacy said.

  For the first time since the interview began, the teenager looked at Raglan. She had a vision of him ten years from now—skin cleared of pimples, hair cut, neat clothes. He’d be a real winner, a lovely young man, except for this dark cloud forever in his past.

  “Tell me about the night of the murder,” she said. Best to take what she could get right now. And perhaps Carmichael was right. If the defense really tried to point to this kid and claim he was the murderer, they’d look ridiculous. Brandon Legacy was an overgrown boy. She’d make sure the jury saw that.

  “My parents were up north at the cottage. I had a job as a lifeguard at a city pool. Sam came over.”

  “How did she get to your house?”

  “I don’t know. She doesn’t drive. She likes to walk. Her apartment’s about ten blocks away.”

  Raglan caught Carmichael’s eye. Sounded like Brandon was familiar with Samantha’s place. “When did she arrive?”

  “Before ten, I know that. At ten we watched a repeat of The Amazing Race. It’s her favorite show. This one was in Moscow.”

  “That went until when?”

  “Uh. Eleven. Show’s an hour. We hung out for a while and she left.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  Legacy looked over at his lawyer. “Well, kind of, yeah. Like sometimes she stayed, you know. Late.” The boy’s voice was a whisper.

  “Did you two have anything to drink?” Raglan asked.

  He shook his head. Raglan didn’t bother telling him he had to say yes or no.

  “Any illegal drugs?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Did you do anything else?”

  Legacy fidgeted and picked at his fingernails. “We, you know. Played around.” He said it as if sleeping with a woman twice his age were nothing more than having a glass of milk. How long, Raglan thought, until her son was so casual about sex? “Then she had to go.”

  “Why?”

  “She got an e-mail on her BlackBerry from Terry. I mean Mr. Wyler.” Legacy’s head slumped down. No longer a sloppy teenager, but a person who’d been at the edge of tragedy.

  “Did you see the e-mail?”

  “No.”

  “Did she tell you about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she say?”

  Legacy looked over at his lawyer. Carmichael nodded.

  “She said, ‘That fuckhead. After all he’s put me through, now he’s going to accept my offer. He wants me to go over there to settle this, just the two of us.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you?’ She said, ‘I know how to settle this once and for all.’ Then she left.”

  That’s how I’ll end my closing j
ury address, Raglan thought: “‘I know how to settle this once and for all.’ And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is exactly what Samantha Wyler did.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Went online and played Flight Simulator for a few hours. Checked my Facebook. I’d worked all day at the pool and it was hot. I was tired so I slept in late.”

  It was almost four o’clock by the time they finished. After everyone shook hands, Carmichael checked his expensive watch and put his arm around Legacy.

  “Time to get young Brandon home so he can study for his mathematics examination tomorrow.” Carmichael gave them an exaggerated wink over his client’s shoulder before he slipped out the door.

  Raglan was going to call Brandon Legacy to the witness stand. The jury wouldn’t like him. But he’d make them despise Samantha Wyler.

  51

  “Juror look upon the accused, accused look upon the juror,” the registrar called out into the packed courtroom. It was near the end of the first day of the trial and Ted DiPaulo was tired. Almost six o’clock, well past the usual end of the court day at four-thirty. They’d spent all morning and a long afternoon picking the jury and eleven had been chosen. With one more to go, Judge Norville was determined to finish selection before she adjourned the court.

  DiPaulo watched the potential twelfth juror take her place on the witness stand.

  “Juror look upon the accused, accused look upon the juror.” The same words were said to potential jurors at every trial, forcing them to make eye contact with the defendant, the man or woman they were sworn to pass judgment on.

  Samantha Wyler stood at DiPaulo’s side behind the counsel table. Judge Norville had agreed that she didn’t have to remain in the prisoner’s box during the trial. DiPaulo watched Samantha turn toward the witness, her deep brown eyes flat, emotionless.

  The rules of jury selection in Canada allowed both the defense and the Crown to have twenty peremptory challenges, people they could refuse to allow on the jury without a word of explanation. With eleven jurors picked—seven women and four men—DiPaulo was in good shape. He’d only used up seventeen of his challenges. Jennifer Raglan, the Crown, had gone through nineteen.

  Unlike in the United States, where jurors could be examined at length by counsel, no questions of substance were allowed. All that DiPaulo and Raglan had to go on were a potential juror’s name, age, and occupation.

  At the beginning of the proceedings DiPaulo asked Norville for permission to make some further inquiries when people gave generic job descriptions. The judge grudgingly agreed, and this led to a humorous moment before the lunch break when a middle-aged woman was called to the witness stand.

  “If I may, Your Honor,” DiPaulo said. “Ms. Platt lists her occupation as operator. I’d like to inquire where she works.”

  Norville shook her head. “I don’t see the point, but go ahead. Keep it short.”

  “Ms. Platt, where are you an operator?” DiPaulo asked.

  Platt was a white woman with a stiff-set jaw. Her face flushed red. “The marine unit of the Toronto Police Service,” she said. Everyone in the crowded courtroom laughed, breaking the tension that had built up during the long morning. Even Norville smiled.

  Lawyers had all sorts of theories about how to pick jurors: Asians are law-and-order types, women tend to be less sympathetic to women, blacks are harder on fellow blacks, nurses are used to dealing with cops so tend to believe them, schoolteachers try to run things.

  This morning Clarke Whittle, the lawyer with a thousand pairs of glasses—and, according to him, just as many girlfriends—told DiPaulo, “I always pick at least one attractive woman, so no matter how ugly the evidence gets, I have one good thing to look at.”

  DiPaulo preferred to focus on careers. Engineers, accountants, and computer geeks were his preference, people who could follow logic over emotion.

  Most of all he used his own intuition. When jurors were called to the witness-box, he watched them closely. As the registrar intoned, “Juror look upon the accused, accused look upon the juror,” DiPaulo zeroed in on their eyes. If they looked directly at his client, he often said “Content”—the polite way of accepting a juror. But if they avoided eye contact, he always said “Challenge.”

  DiPaulo was happy with the eleven jurors so far. His two favorites were a thirty-nine-year-old Vietnamese male engineer—so much for the don’t-pick-an-Asian theory—and a forty-six-year-old female computer programmer from some Slavic country. He had a hunch one of them would end up being the jury foreperson.

  Potential juror number twelve lumbered up to the witness stand. Her name was Eunice Brown. A woman in her mid-twenties, she was extraordinarily overweight. Her mouth drooped in a permanent scowl. Another theory was that if your client was an attractive female, never pick an ugly woman. Pick as many men as you could. With only four males on the jury so far, he was planning to use one of his two remaining stand-asides on this woman. The next three jurors in line were all men.

  Raglan swiveled toward DiPaulo so the jury couldn’t see her face. She rolled her eyes. The math was obvious. If he cut the woman he’d have his choice of the next three men.

  “Is the Crown content or does it challenge?” the registrar asked Raglan.

  “Content,” she said without hesitation. Her strategy was to force DiPaulo to use up one of his three remaining stand-asides.

  “Defense, content or not content?” the registrar asked.

  DiPaulo had already put a black line through Brown’s name. He was about to say “not content” when he took another look at her. He was always decisive in front of the jury, but now he paused. She was still looking at Samantha. Most jurors gave the defendant only a quick glance and then looked away.

  “Your Honor,” DiPaulo said, “Ms. Brown lists her occupation as student. May I ask what it is she studies?”

  “If you must.” Norville was low in her chair.

  “Ms. Brown.” DiPaulo watched the woman’s little eyes in her jowly face. She looked back at him. “What are you studying?”

  “Engineering,” Brown said. “I want to be a dirt engineer. Build highways up north.”

  “Content.” DiPaulo flashed the last juror his best smile. She didn’t respond in any way.

  Raglan raised an eyebrow at him. She turned her pencil around and erased something in her trial binder.

  “Excellent.” Norville sat straight up. “We have our jury on the first day. Good.”

  Brown was sworn in, and Norville adjourned court. A few minutes later DiPaulo was back in the emptied-out lawyers’ lounge, sipping another coffee and shaking his head.

  Why did I pick her? he wondered, doodling with a pencil on a piece of paper. Pure instinct. In the end, that’s what so much of trial work came down to. If I lose this case, he thought, I’ll rue the day.

  52

  Detective Ari Greene was usually the first person in court in the morning. He liked to have time to settle in. Get everything in order. Do a few crossword clues with the registrar, joke with the court reporter, chat with the older court officers. He sat at the Crown counsel table, took out a fresh pad of legal-size paper and a new pen. Nothing too fancy, but one with a spongy band around the bottom to make it easier to grip. He numbered the first page and wrote in capital letters R. V. samantha wyler—day two, tuesday, february 1.

  In Canada, every criminal case was titled “R. v.” The R stood for Regina. The Queen. He’d explained this to Margaret Kwon when she started covering the trial.

  “Here’s what I don’t get,” she’d said. “You guys have Crowns and queens, where’s Prince Charles?”

  “Still at large,” he said.

  Kwon was back in town and they were going to have dinner later in the week. There was still no news about April Goodling.

  Right now his focus was the case. He’d been at the courthouse since seven this morning, going through all the boxes of evidence, reviewing the witness list for the week, following up on some last-minute reque
sts by Ted DiPaulo for bits of disclosure that were missing.

  Jennifer Raglan slipped into the wood chair beside him. She looked good in her pressed white shirt under the black robes. Nothing like a woman in uniform, he thought. This morning was her opening address to the jury, a big moment. He’d made a point of staying out of her way.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You ready?”

  “Little nervous,” she said. “That’s always good.”

  “Morning, Counsel.” The judge came in and settled into her chair high up on her dais. She turned to the court officer. It was exactly ten o’clock. “My jury, please,” Norville said.

  Sounds like she’s ordering her butler to get her car, Greene thought as he watched the jurors shuffle in, all wearing more casual clothes than yesterday when they were here for jury selection. Over the weeks of the trial, he knew their dress would grow even more relaxed.

  The jurors settled into their chairs, the same ones they’d sit in every day. The Crowns always had the counsel table closest to the jury. Raglan took a few steps over to the wood podium, which was at the corner of the jury box farthest from the front of the court.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.”

  As she spoke, Greene took careful notes. He tried to listen to the Crown’s opening and pretend he’d never heard the evidence before, like a juror. Listen for where it was solid, where it was weak.

  Raglan started with the background. Terrance and Samantha Wyler. Married five years ago. She was a banker who had begun working at the family business, Wyler Foods, the year before they met. Their son, Simon, born a year later. Samantha and Terrance leaving Wyler Foods to start their own business, how that caused a rift between Terrance and his family. How that venture failed and the marriage unraveled. The eventual split-up and Terrance seeing the actress April Goodling. Greene and Raglan had decided it was best to meet this issue head-on, so it didn’t look as if they were hiding anything.

  Greene glanced at the jurors. A few of them were sneaking looks at Wyler, who, dressed conservatively, looked straight ahead.