The One Who Got Away

by Caroline Overington

  ‘So that collapsible case wasn’t quite empty, but it was pretty much empty when David checked it in?’ suggested Sandy.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘And how commonly do you see people checking in almost-empty cases?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not uncommon,’ said Naomi. ‘Many people take half-empty cases when they travel. Shopping is a big part of the vacation experience for them. They know they’re going to be buying things. A light case like that isn’t something I’d normally be concerned about.’

  ‘And so you weren’t concerned?’

  ‘I wasn’t. In fact, I remember joking with his – the defendant’s – wife: “Oh, you’re going to have fun filling these up,” and she said, “Yes, yes, yes.”’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Sandy, and Naomi was dismissed.

  Sandy turned to the jury. ‘Now I’d like to show you some more footage,’ she said, using the clicker to change the images on the screen. ‘You’ve seen the defendant and his wife getting into their car with three cases. You’ve heard Ms Naomi Linden saying she checked in three cases. Now you see David and Loren boarding the ship. Up the gangplank they go. There’s Loren, with a little frangipani behind her ear. There’s David with his glass of champagne. And look here, behind them; that’s one of the ship’s porters, and how many cases does he have? Two! One of them is the tall black Samsonite, and one of them is a tall blue Samsonite.’

  A couple of the jurors nodded. Yes, okay, the porter had only two cases, and both were Samsonite.

  ‘So, where is the third case?’ asked Sandy.

  The jury didn’t answer. They weren’t supposed to answer. Also, how were they to know?

  ‘Well, our side say it’s inside that black Samsonite,’ said Sandy, ‘which was of course where it started its journey. You all remember that, don’t you? David says that Loren had this case inside her big black case, ready to do some shopping, and he took it out and stuffed her clothes into it, right? The clothes she wore on the night she killed Lyric. Which, if he had them, would help to prove that she did indeed kill Lyric. Because maybe they’d have a fleck of blood or something on them. But he doesn’t have those clothes. Why not? He says that when he got to Cabo, he threw them out. Why? Because he was helping Loren cover up her crime. That’s what he says. What I say is that David did no such thing. I say he simply told Loren that he was going to make three cases two cases, by folding this collapsible case back into her Samsonite before they got on board the ship. And I say that we can prove that, because these suitcases were weighed going onto the plane, and they were weighed again going onto the ship, and Loren’s case, when it goes onto the ship, is no longer twenty-two pounds, it’s actually almost forty pounds, so it seems to me that the collapsible case is now inside this bigger case.’

  Some of the jurors nodded. That seemed to make sense.

  ‘And now, if it pleases the court, I’d like to recall Melissa Haas,’ said Sandy.

  A door at the back of the courtroom opened. The Guest Relations Manager of the company that owns the Silver Lining wasn’t happy to be recalled. She had previously asked the court for permission to give all her testimony at once, rather than having to make multiple trips to the States, but that didn’t suit Sandy.

  ‘I realise this is your second time here, and I do apologise for the inconvenience,’ said Sandy.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Ms Haas, smiling weakly.

  ‘The reason I’ve called you back is, I need you to confirm something for me. How many suitcases did David and Loren have when they boarded?’

  ‘Two,’ said Ms Haas.

  ‘And how many suitcases did your porters carry off the ship for David after Loren disappeared?’

  ‘Two,’ said Melissa, her lips in a thin line.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘That’s correct. Two.’

  ‘So two went on, and two went off?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And, Ms Haas, just while I’ve got you there,’ Sandy continued, ‘you testified to this earlier, but just to be sure, you have checked every inch of the surveillance tapes, haven’t you?’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘And it goes without saying that you found no footage of anyone lobbing a suitcase over the edge of your ship?’

  One juror gasped.

  ‘We most certainly did not,’ said Ms Haas.

  ‘You’re sure? You’ve checked all the tapes? All the cameras? Every inch of every one? That’s got to be a big job. A labour-intensive, time-consuming task, checking all those tapes. Maybe you missed it?’

  Ms Haas shook her blonde head. ‘We have examined every inch of every tape,’ she said, firmly, ‘as have your police here in Bienveneda, as have police in Holland. That’s not the kind of thing we – or anyone – would be likely to miss. Had one of our cameras captured that, we’d have seen it.’

  ‘Okay, but just to be doubly sure that I understand the situation correctly, you don’t have Man Overboard technology that would detect an item of that size going over, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Ms Haas.

  ‘And you don’t have security cameras aimed …’

  ‘At every balcony? On every deck? Into all corners and on all levels? No. Of course we don’t. Nobody does.’

  Ms Haas was getting cross. Sandy could sense it, too.

  ‘Please don’t misunderstand me,’ she said, ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, but for the jury’s sake, I need this point to be extremely clear. A suitcase – an expandable case, like the one we’ve all been looking at here in the courtroom today – could go overboard, and you’d never know?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ms Haas conceded.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, it’s possible.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s not possible,’ said Sandy, smiling. ‘It’s much more than possible. Because we say that’s what happened. A case like this one went on your ship but it did not come off.’

  ‘I can’t see how you’d say that,’ said Ms Haas. ‘Mr and Mrs Wynne-Estes took two cases onto the ship and Mr Wynne-Estes took two cases off. The collapsible case could still be inside the big case.’

  ‘Absolutely true,’ said Sandy. ‘They took two cases on, but they left the US with three cases. We saw them do that! And we say that David took that third case onto the ship, inside one of those Samsonites. And that third case is now missing. And I think I know what happened to it. I think this man’ – here, she swung around, to point a finger at David – ‘put this beautiful woman’ – Sandy swung back to point dramatically at the large photograph of Loren on the easel in the courtroom – ‘inside a case just like this one,’ she said, swinging her arm back towards the collapsible case, ‘and then …’

  ‘Objection!’ said Tucker, nearly falling over his own boots as he pushed back from the defence table.

  ‘And then,’ said Sandy, ignoring the banging of my gavel, ‘he threw the third case over the edge of your ship, and watched while it sank to the bottom of the deep blue sea.’

  * * *

  ‘Your Honour, I call David Wynne-Estes.’

  David got to his feet and moved towards the witness box. Every eye in the courtroom followed him.

  From my position up high on the bench, I said: ‘Are you a Christian, Mr Wynne-Estes?’

  David said: ‘I most certainly am.’

  The clerk of the court rushed forward with a Bible. David closed his eyes and clutched the book to his chest, before placing his palm flat upon it, and taking the oath.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied.

  I took careful note of David’s stance. His shoulders were back. He stared straight ahead, towards where Tucker was standing. His hands were clasped loosely in front of his groin.

  ‘The first thing I’d like to do is to thank you for being here, David,’ said Tucker warmly. ‘I know in my heart that the jury will be pleased to meet you, and to get to know you. You know, and I know, and I guess everyone knows that you don’t have to be he
re, in the witness box. You don’t have to testify. Our friend, the District Attorney, has to convince these good folk on the jury of your guilt, and to my mind, while she’s made a big old song about this, that and the other, she’s well short of producing any evidence that you did anything wrong. And you don’t have to help her. You’re innocent until that jury there says you’re not, and I don’t believe they can do that, not with the evidence – or lack thereof – that we’ve heard to date. So I thank you for stepping up. You don’t have to be here, but as I understand it, you have something that you’d like to say?’

  ‘I do,’ said David. He was speaking far more softly, with much less cockiness than he had done in his TV interview with Liz Moss. He looked directly at the jury, and continued: ‘I’m charged with the murder of my wife,’ he said gently, ‘but I’m not guilty.’

  Tucker stepped forward so aggressively that at least one juror jumped. ‘You did cheat on her, though,’ he said gruffly.

  David hung his head. ‘Yes, I did,’ he said, his face full of remorse. ‘I did, and I’m sorry for that. I … well, I guess I was weak. I was tempted, and I gave into my temptation, and that was sinful, and that was wrong. I prayed for strength, and yet I was weak. I should’ve prayed harder, been stronger.’

  I could just imagine Cecile’s response to that. She would be maddened that Lyric Morales was twenty-five years old yet apparently capable of bringing not only David but many a rich, grown man to his knees with desire.

  ‘The way they paint this woman, it’s disturbing,’ Cecile would say. ‘Like she’s a temptress. A tigress. A vixen! Why don’t they just say she gets on all fours and waves her hindquarters about and that’s the end of any commitment that any man has made to his wedding vows. Why don’t you just say she had the power to make men crumble before the power of her coochie-hoo-ha, and that she had to be stopped!’

  I must say, it disturbed me, too.

  ‘Very well,’ said Tucker, ‘now, I won’t keep you here for long. But one thing I thought we should deal with straightaway is the matter of these suitcases. Let’s talk about them. What can you tell us about the suitcases?’

  David rubbed his forehead. It was exactly the gesture he had employed on television.

  ‘My wife, Loren, she loved to shop,’ he said. ‘She was excited by the idea of bringing exotic presents home for our girls. She had promised them the world, of course. It wasn’t uncommon for her to take an extra case when she went on holidays for shopping, and she’d normally fold it up and stick it inside her big case. That’s the point of having one of those collapsible suitcases: you can fold them up when you don’t need them and you can expand them after you’ve been shopping.’

  Tucker said: ‘So she put that collapsible case in her Samsonite, for shopping?’

  ‘Yes. And then, after the … the … incident with Lyric, I dragged the collapsible case out of the closet and threw Loren’s clothes she had been wearing at Lyric’s into the collapsible case, and checked it onto the flight.’

  ‘And yet, when you boarded the Silver Lining, you had only two cases?’

  ‘Right,’ said David, rubbing his forehead again, ‘because by then I’d gotten rid of Loren’s clothes.’

  ‘And where did you do that?’

  ‘In Cabo.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘I can’t even remember. I walked through the heat until I found a dumpster and I threw them in there, and I watched until a guy from a restaurant came out and flung more stuff on top of it, and that’s the truth of the matter.’

  ‘And, just to be clear, you didn’t dispose of those stained clothes in the collapsible case that my colleague, Ms Ruiz, has been going on about?’

  ‘No I did not.’

  ‘Although it would be very easy for you to say that you did, because that of course would explain why that case was missing when you boarded the Silver Lining.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not going to say something that’s not true.’

  ‘And – just so as we don’t insult the good people of the jury – that’s not because you don’t like telling lies. Because you are a bit of a liar by nature aren’t you, Mr Wynne-Estes?’

  ‘I have lied,’ said David, sighing deeply, ‘and I’m paying for that now. I’m paying for that in that people don’t believe me when I’m telling the truth. But I am telling the truth. I didn’t throw that collapsible suitcase away, and the reason I’m not saying I did – although that would be handy – is because when the police said the case was missing, I thought, oh, sure. And they want me to come up with some wild explanation for what happened to it, so they can say, “Well, actually, we found it,” and it was somewhere that I couldn’t explain, so then they could say, “Why did you lie? And what else are you lying about?” So I won’t lie. I didn’t throw out that suitcase, and I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘If you didn’t throw it away at the villa, you must have put it into one of these two Samsonite cases – the blue, or the black.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But when the police here in Bienveneda asked me to give them that third case, well, I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘You couldn’t find it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice that it was missing when you got off the ship?’

  ‘I didn’t notice anything. I searched Loren’s things, for a note. I didn’t find one. Then police in Mexico asked me to leave my cases – to take what I needed and to leave my cases – so they could continue their investigation. Maybe this was foolish, but I agreed. I had no choice. I had to get home to my children.’

  ‘And it was two weeks before the cases came back to the US?’

  ‘Correct. And I was still grieving. Distraught at losing Loren. Horrified by what had happened to Lyric. I opened Loren’s case, and to be honest, I still didn’t notice that the collapsible case was missing. I had so much to contend with, what with trying to shield the girls and with Loren’s family making accusations. It wasn’t until after I got charged that I was asked about it. And I can see how it looks. There’s a missing case. That’s bad for me. There’s no note from Loren, and there’s a missing case.’

  ‘So you never mentioned to police that one case was missing?’

  ‘No, because I didn’t notice. They brought it up, as part of the investigation.’

  Sandy stood up. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘you just said, you can see how it looks?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said David.

  ‘Just checking,’ said Sandy.

  Tucker resumed, saying: ‘This is not great for you. This is in fact terrible for you. But it is what it is, and we need to move on. What I’d like you to do now, David, if you could, is explain in your words, how Loren was when you last saw her.’

  David cleared his throat. ‘Publicly or privately?’ he asked. ‘Because her two faces were very different. Privately, she was a complete wreck. She trembled so badly on our first night in the villa at Cabo … it was like she was freezing cold and she could not get warm.’

  Tucker said: ‘And yet, on the last night of her life, she got all dressed up and went out with you to the Captain’s Dinner?’

  David blanched. ‘Yes, because Loren was doing her absolute best to keep up our charade,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t stay locked up in our cabin the whole time. That would have looked very suspicious. So we did our best to get amongst it, like two people enjoying their second honeymoon. And Loren was keeping up appearances, but behind the scenes she was a wreck. Yes, you can find photographs of her sipping champagne on the ship. What people couldn’t see was what was going on behind closed doors. Every second of every day, we dreaded getting a call about Lyric. It was no secret that I’d had an affair with her. I was sure that the police would call as soon as she was found. We were anxious. We were frightened.

  ‘We returned to the stateroom after the Captain’s Dinner, and Loren began to drink. I urged her not to drink too much. She had been drinking every night, and she was already di
stressed. The alcohol made everything worse. She kept saying: “What does it matter? It’s not like you love me.” I was on my knees – in my suit, on my knees – pleading with her, saying: “Please, please, Loren, we have to hold it together.” She drank and drank, and her head began to loll on her shoulders. I picked her up – gently – and put her into the bed.

  ‘At some point, I must have fallen asleep. I was exhausted. I had been exhausted for days. I reached out—’ here, David spread his fingers to mimic his hand feeling the bed next to him ‘—and Loren was not there. Instantly, I sprang from the bed. I can’t say how or why, but I knew that something was wrong. I checked the en suite. I went out onto our balcony. I looked over the balcony, which I think shows that I was already dreading what might have happened. I pulled on loose pants, a loose shirt. I did up one button, and I hurried out of our cabin. And I searched. I searched everywhere.

  ‘I was in such a panic. But from the moment that I couldn’t find her,’ David said, ‘I knew. I just knew.’

  * * *

  Which way would the jury go? That was the question on everyone’s mind on the final day of the trial. The Bugle had a long piece, ending with a prediction: not guilty. To my mind, they’d have done just as well to flip a coin. Heads for guilty. Tails for not guilty. There was no way to know. It was too close to call.

  I spent the morning speaking directly to the jury about the responsibility that lay before them. I summarised some of the evidence, such as it was, and I made the point that nobody could say for certain what had happened to Loren, or to Lyric for that matter.