And Never Let Her Go (63 page)

Louie was on the stand most of the day. Maurer had perhaps succeeded in showing him as something less than a faithful husband or a straitlaced citizen (and even a liar), but Louie had been convincing when he described Tom's attempts to cover his own tracks at the expense of Gerry—and of Louie himself.

And yet, they were still brothers. During his testimony, Louie had searched his memory for some detail about a friend's occupation and, as he had done his entire life, looked down at Tom for help. For a moment, it was as if nothing had changed between them, but Tom only stared back at him coldly as if looking at a complete stranger. Finally, Louie had shrugged his shoulders. For the first time in their lives, they weren't on the same side.

The Capano section of the gallery that Friday, the thirteenth, seemed to support Tom rather than Louie. There had never been much love lost between Louie and Lee Ramunno, Marian's husband, who continued to champion Tom. During a break on the marble stairway outside the courtroom, Lee had encountered Louie, who put his hand on Lee's shoulder and muttered, “You're the world's biggest asshole.” Lee walked by him without replying.

Finished with his testimony now, Louie walked toward the family benches, but as he attempted to step into a row and take a seat, Lee put his leg up on the bench in front of him, blocking Louie. Marian turned around and whispered,
“Lee! Let him in!”
After the next break, Louie hurried in and deliberately took Lee's seat.

T
OM
continued to eat bagels at the defense table when he took his pills, and a courtroom artist drew cartoons of him—full of bagels and with a forked tail—much to the hilarity of the media. The heat in the courtroom rose higher and higher; many of the Capanos were barely speaking to one another; and Tom's own attorneys looked with more and more distaste at the barrage of suggestions he passed down the table to them. Judge Lee watched his courtroom warily, alert for any smoldering embers that could erupt suddenly into flames.

Thanksgiving was less than two weeks away and there promised to be a decimated group around Marguerite's table. But although Anne Marie was gone, her brothers and sister were closer than ever. “That was the gift that Anne Marie left us,” Kathleen would recall. “Losing her brought the rest of us together, stronger even than before.”

O
N
Wednesday, November 18, there was, perhaps, the most provocative lineup of witnesses in the six-week-old trial. The state was going to call Debby MacIntyre. Somehow, court watchers knew it, and the lines of people determined to get into Courtroom 302 curled around and around the stairwell. Debby had never talked to
the press and no one knew what she might say about Tom Capano. Did she still love him? Or did she hate him now?

Before the prosecutors called Debby to the stand, however, they had to make a difficult decision. Keith Brady had been the chief deputy attorney general of Delaware for three years. He was Ferris Wharton's superior and his friend. He was a good man, married, with a family, but the information that Tom had induced Brady to participate in a ménage à trois with himself and Debby was going to come out; there was no way to stop it. Connolly and Wharton understood now what absolute control Tom had maintained over Debby—but it was a concept that would be difficult to impart to a jury. By calling Keith Brady, they could show that Tom had offered Debby up to Brady in what he hoped would turn into a sexual orgy. And even then, Debby had followed his directions without question. They had seen it themselves; Debby had been so blindly devoted to making Tom happy that she never questioned him about
any
orders he gave her. She always believed what he told her.

If the prosecutors called Brady to the stand first, their direct examination would be as sensitive as they could phrase it. They couldn't just pretend that Tom hadn't brought Brady to Debby's house that night, now years in the past. But even as Connolly and Wharton understood that Brady's career, his marriage, and his place in the community would be in peril, they had no choice but to call him as a witness against Tom Capano.

Keith Brady, who reported directly to Jane Brady, the attorney general of Delaware (no relation), took the stand. He was pale but resolute and his answers came with an economy of words and without emotion. He kept his eyes on Colm Connolly and didn't glance around the courtroom. He knew that Connolly had no alternative but to question him.

Brady explained that he had once been Tom's assistant when they both worked for Governor Castle as his legal advisers. When Tom left, Brady had taken his place as chief counsel. Tom had, he said, confided in him about Anne Marie. “He initially had indicated to me that he found her to be a very attractive woman,” Brady testified, “and over a period of time, he eventually told me that they were involved in a relationship.”

“Do you recall,” Connolly asked, “if he said anything about whether or not this relationship needed to be kept confidential?”

“Yes,” Brady answered. “I recall one incident in which he said that, because she worked in the governor's office and his law firm
was doing a significant amount of legal work for the state, that it was important that the relationship be kept confidential.”

Brady said that Tom had told him about his trip to the Homestead with Anne Marie. He wanted to have a long time alone with her and was unhappy when she ended their relationship. Tom had called his office on Friday morning, June 28, to ask him to play golf, but Brady said he was attending a CLE (Continuing Legal Education) seminar that day.

“When did you learn that Anne Marie Fahey was missing?” Connolly asked.

“I was in my office working on Sunday, June thirtieth, and I received a call from Ferris Wharton,” Brady said. Wharton had told him that Tom Capano was the last person known to have been seen with her.

After that, Brady said, he and Tom had played phone tag on Monday and Tuesday, leaving messages. Because Brady was a prosecutor, he took notes of the conversations they finally had. “He said he was blown away by what was happening,” Brady testified, “spooked by the way the cops were treating him.”

Tom told Brady essentially the same things about the night of June 27 that he had told the police, his brother Louie, and Debby. Brady was not only Tom's old friend; he was also the second-highest-ranking law enforcement official in Delaware. He had turned his notes over to the law enforcement officers who were investigating the case.

He himself had been recused from the case. “That means,” Brady said, “I was not participating in it or informed of any of the events, details, or substance of the investigation.”

And now, Connolly asked Keith Brady if Tom had ever confided in him about Deborah MacIntyre.

“Yes—he first mentioned her when we worked together in the governor's office in the early nineties,” Brady said. “He told me she was a wonderful person that he cared very much about.”

“Did he tell you what the nature of his relationship with her was?”

“My recollection is that he told me they had a long-term relationship.”

“Did you ever have a sexual encounter yourself with Deborah MacIntyre?”

“Yes.”

An audible gasp rose from the gallery—save for the press rows. The line of questioning had turned on a dime and shocked everyone
else in the courtroom. “Who arranged that sexual encounter?” Connolly said, moving ahead swiftly.

“Tom did.”

“Was this while he was having a relationship with her?”

“Yes it was,” Brady answered. “My understanding of his interest in my having a sexual encounter with her was that that would be in the context of his relationship with Deborah MacIntyre.”

“No more questions, Your Honor.”

But Joe Oteri, for the defense, would have many questions. He had been briefed by Tom, who knew Keith Brady's secrets. But first, Oteri suggested that Brady, five years Tom's junior, had long been jealous and resentful of his client.

“In other words,” Oteri said, “you really didn't like the guy?”

“That's not true.”

“You liked him?”

“Yes.”

And now Oteri had his opening. “And because you liked him, you confided in him and he confided in you. Correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you confided in him the fact that you had adulterous relationships. Correct?”

“I confided in him that I had committed adultery.”

“On numerous occasions,” Oteri said, “with three different women at least.”

“No.”

“How many women have you committed adultery with?”

“More than one.”

“More than two?”

“I have committed adultery,” Brady said evenly, “with three women, not including Deborah MacIntyre.”

Oteri labored the area of questioning, asking for the length of Brady's adulterous incidents, and Connolly objected.

Judge Lee sustained the objection and Oteri moved on to the night at Debby's house. In answer to his probing questions, Brady testified that he had been unable to achieve an erection when Tom instructed Debby to perform fellatio upon him.

He was a man in pain. Mercifully, Oteri changed the subject, asking about the carpets that Brady had helped Tom carry into the Grant Avenue house when he first moved in.

Then, returning to the subject that fascinated the gallery, Oteri asked, “You had a second encounter with Deborah MacIntyre?”

“I had a drink with her.”

“She propositioned you?”

“That's not my recollection.”

Before he was finished with Brady, Oteri returned once more to the night in Debby's house after his golf game with Tom. Although it was true he was trying to save Tom Capano's life, his questions struck many in the gallery as crude and irrelevant. “Let me ask you a question now, sir. You were thirty-nine, forty years old at the time. You didn't want to be there. You're butt naked or half dressed, you got your clothes off, you're in a bedroom with a guy and a woman who are naked and doing the nasty, and you didn't want to
be
there? Somebody holding a gun on you to keep you there?”

“No one was holding a gun to me.”

“Did Debby MacIntyre grab you and say you can't leave?”

“No, she did not.”

“In other words, you were there because you wanted to be there, because you wanted some action.”

“No.”

“No? Never mind.” Oteri turned away with mock disgust.

“I'm
ashamed
that I was there.”

“Ashamed of the other relationships you had, too?”

“Yes.”

“I have no further questions.”

I
N
his pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification, Tom Capano had left a number of victims behind. It was Connolly's intention to prove that Debby had been one of them. And the man on the witness stand might well have been another. Connolly moved to ask a redirect question. “You've testified that you were involved in a sexual encounter with the defendant and Deborah MacIntyre and about your participation in some adulterous affairs. What are the repercussions of your testimony about that?”

Brady gazed at him. “It has been a profoundly agonizing experience for my family. I am dealing with it with God's help as well as I can. My family is dealing with it. They have been devastated by it, obviously. I am extremely remorseful for the anguish I have caused my wife and my children and my parents.”

T
OM
barely glanced at the man he had once considered a good friend. Brady was leaving the courtroom—but Tom knew who was going to take the witness stand next. Debby. Not long ago he had told Debby what an asset she would be in a trial and how well she would reflect on the side she supported. But now she wouldn't be
testifying for him. She was going to be on the side of “the Nazi” and “the hangman.”

Aware that she no longer even read his letters, Tom had tried a more subtle tack to bring Debby back to his side. He had arranged to have books sent to her. “One was called
Marguerite,”
Debby would later recall, “some kind of romance and not the sort of book I ever read. The other was about Canadian provincial history. I knew what he was trying to convey. He was saying, ‘Think of my mother—and remember the wonderful time we had in Montreal.' But it was too late for that.”

I
T WAS SHORTLY AFTER ELEVEN
on the morning of November 18 when Debby MacIntyre entered the side door of the courtroom, took the witness stand, and raised her hand to be sworn. She was familiar to many Wilmingtonians, but those in the gallery who didn't know her were surprised to see that she looked nothing like a sultry femme fatale. She was petite, her face was clean of makeup as always, and she didn't look anywhere near her age, which was forty-eight. She wore a powder blue skirt and vest, a tailored white blouse.

Inside, Debby was frightened, and yet there was relief in finally being able to tell her whole story. Even though she had friends who had supported her in the year since Tom's arrest, there had been so many things she wasn't allowed to talk about. “There were legalities,” she said, “that I had to keep secret until the trial.”

She looked down now on Wharton, Connolly, Alpert, and Donovan—the men who had once annoyed her and whom she now trusted completely. And she looked Tom in the eye. He was scowling at her, and yet his displeasure no longer had any effect on her. He no longer had any power over her.
He was just a man.

Ferris Wharton would conduct Debby's direct examination. He had warned her she might be on the stand all day—and quite possibly for several days. She had to be prepared to bare her personal life for all the world to see and to have Tom's attorneys ask impertinent and insulting questions. They would have to—Debby was probably the prosecution witness most dangerous for Tom.