The Guilty Plea (36 page)

It was the crunching of his boots on the snow that was so different, Ari Greene thought as he walked across the main street in New Liskeard. He’d spent most winters of his life in Toronto, where the temperature wasn’t this cold, nor the air this dry. Tonight, in this small northern Ontario town, it was minus forty degrees, the point where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet. The air had a dry snap to it, making his footsteps sound hard and treble, but clean.

No one up here seemed bothered by the temperature. “Ah, you get used to it,” the man at the gas station on Highway 11 had said at about seven o’clock when Greene pulled in to fill up his Oldsmobile. The guy didn’t even wear gloves.

“I hate the cold in Toronto—too damp,” a woman at the central stoplight in town told him. She didn’t even wear a hat.

The main street had an old-fashioned 1950s feel to it. It was all local merchants: a shoe shop, two women’s clothing stores and one men’s, a butcher, a barber, a jeweler’s and an electronics store, a bike shop, a few restaurants. Not one chain store. In the window display of the travel agency, a beach umbrella was stuck into a pile of white sand. A number of southern vacation books were circled around its base.
Cruise Vacations for Dummies
was prominently displayed.

New Liskeard was across the lake from Quebec, and in the store signs and the talk on the street, there was an easy bilingualism about the place. So Greene wasn’t surprised when he spotted a bookstore named Le Chat Noir.

The store had a homey feel, with a touch of sophistication, including dark wood bookshelves, a well-preserved tin roof, and an Italian-looking café over to the side. At the checkout counter, a handmade
poster announced that it was “P.J. Party, Reading Night.” Greene watched a parade of children and parents wearing long winter coats take them off to reveal that they were dressed in pajamas. Slippers were pulled from carrying bags and everyone sat on a round carpet in front of the fake fireplace.

Greene found a seat in the café and ordered an herbal loose leaf tea, which came in a small French-press glass pot. It poured easily without spilling. An improvement on the thin metal teapots in most Toronto restaurants that seem guaranteed to leak all over the place. He settled in and looked at the Carnegie library to his left, across the street.

He’d read the historical plaque staked on the snow-covered front lawn before stopping in at the café. After the turn of the century, Andrew Carnegie endowed libraries all over North America, and most shared the same classic architectural design—built with local stone, a wide front stairway leading up to a functional center hall.

With time to kill, he picked up a local newspaper,
The Voice … of the Shores
. man pleads guilty to removing road signs was the headline. Apparently an eighteen-year-old resident had been apprehended by the local constabulary, and a search of his bedroom had uncovered a collection of stop, yield, and moose crossing signs, plus a pile of hubcaps stashed in his closet. What a crime wave, Greene thought.

At about ten to eight a small stream of people walked out of the library, pulling their coats tight against the cold night air. All lights but one on the main floor were turned off.

Greene paid for his drink and bought a teapot for himself and, for his dad, a biography of Tim Horton, the late hockey player so well known for the ubiquitous coffee shops named after him. Horton, who was born in another Northern Ontario mining town, Timmins, was still a hockey hero up here.

Grabbing his coat, Greene slipped it on as he went outside. In the cold night air there wasn’t any wind, only the crisp sound of snow underfoot. Greene crossed the street as Lillian Funke, the librarian, was locking up. He recognized her from the bail hearing, when Samantha’s mother had pointed the woman out in court.

“We’re closed,” she said, startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger out of the dark.

“My name’s Detective Greene, from the Toronto Police Homicide
Squad.” He pulled out his badge to show it to her. “I need to speak to you.”

“It’s been a long day.”

“This will only take a few minutes.”

She took a deep breath. “Couldn’t we talk tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid not. Can we go inside?”

Funke hesitated. “Sam obeyed her bail when she was here. She taught reading in the basement and went home with her brother, or she’d take the tri-town bus. Sometimes she even walked. Sam loves to walk.”

Even though there was no wind, it was so cold that Greene was getting chilled. “I have a search warrant.” He tapped his breast pocket. “I’d rather not have to execute it on the New Liskeard Public Library.”

Funke looked torn between her friendship and her role as a public servant. “Okay,” she said. “I should be more hospitable. It’s the northern way. Come on in and I’ll make some tea. What do you need?”

The main foyer was packed with books and posters and warmth. This would have been my refuge too if I’d grown up here, he thought. “I need Samantha Wyler’s library card.”

The librarian stepped back. “That’s confidential information.”

Greene smiled. “I couldn’t agree more. Like Samantha, I practically grew up in my local library. At Bathurst and Lawrence down in Toronto. I still remember Mrs. Calvert. She gave me
Animal Farm
when I was ten years old.”

“So you understand,” she said.

“I understand libraries and I understand privacy. That’s why I didn’t have the local police execute this warrant. I drove all the way up here so I could explain to you that this is different.” He held up the subpoena. “Ms. Wyler’s charged with first-degree murder. This could be crucial evidence. It might help her more than hurt her. I don’t know. All I can tell you is, you have to give it to me.”

Most defense lawyers would have their client on the stand for an hour or two for the examination in chief and pray that they’d survive the cross-examination, Jennifer Raglan thought. But not Ted DiPaulo. He’d had Samantha Wyler testify for most of the day yesterday. It was a brilliant strategy.

Raglan had been determined to dislike Wyler from the moment she hit the stand. But as her testimony went on and on, Raglan felt herself warming to this hard woman, with all her compelling contradictions. There was something lonely and vulnerable about Samantha. Of course, this was why DiPaulo kept her up there for so long. Why he went over every last bump in the road of her life, so that by the time he sat down and said to Raglan, “Those are my questions. Your witness,” it felt as if there was nothing left to ask.

This morning Greene was back and sitting at the counsel table. He’d done a twelve-hour round-trip and gotten back to Toronto at four in the morning. But you’d never know it. He looked as composed as ever.

Raglan knew the jury would be waiting for fireworks. Expect her to crack Wyler’s far-fetched story wide open. But Raglan knew that Hollywood-style Perry Mason moments never happened in a real courtroom. Wyler wasn’t going to break down and admit her guilt. Nor was anyone in the audience going to jump up and say, “She’s telling the truth. I did it.”

So where to start? Her goal wasn’t to cut Wyler’s story to shreds—but to poke a few big holes. Even one would do.

“Ms. Wyler, you stabbed your husband seven times, didn’t you?” She came out from behind the counsel table. Of course Wyler would
deny it, but Raglan had to make it clear to everyone that the battle was joined right from the get-go.

“I didn’t kill my husband. He was dead when I got there.”

“You’re sure? No problem with your memory on that point?”

“I didn’t stab him.”

“Answer my question. Do you have a problem with your memory on that point?”

“No.”

“But you were in his house that night?”

“After he was killed.”

“Ms. Wyler, answer my question. Were you in the house that night, yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“You went there to settle things once and for all. Didn’t you?”

“That’s what I said to Brandon. I wanted to avoid the divorce trial.”

“Conveniently, you were right next door.”

“Convenience had nothing to do with it.”

“But you were next door, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Raglan tried to make every question a leading question. Limit Wyler’s responses to either yes or no.

“And the first thing you saw was—”

“Before I saw anything, I smelled something horrible.”

This was something new. “You remember the smell?”

“Vividly.”

Raglan realized she’d made a mistake. Emphasized a piece of evidence that made Wyler’s story believable: that she walked in and smelled a dead corpse. Raglan needed to counterpunch fast. “You didn’t mention that yesterday when you testified, did you?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“You didn’t remember it?”

“I just … just didn’t think of it until now.”

Raglan had to keep on the attack.

“But you do remember going up to see your son in his bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“And telling him you wouldn’t see him for a long time?”

“Yes.”

“You remember picking up the knife?”

“I wrapped it up in a kitchen towel. It was red and white.”

“Is there anything you don’t remember about that?”

“No.”

“It’s all clear in your mind?”

“And my breathing. I remember the sound of it. After I turned off the music.”

“Music, what music?” As soon as she’d asked the question, Raglan regretted it.

“There was a CD playing. Billy Joel. He was Terry’s favorite.”

“That’s another thing you didn’t mention yesterday, did you?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“You didn’t remember it?”

“I remember the blood. I remember the smell and my breathing. I remember the music.”

There was always a risk of what lawyers called cross-examining a witness into credibility. Overdoing it. Raglan was in danger of looking as if she were nitpicking at someone who was doing her best to recall complex and shocking events. Time to switch gears. Go for Samantha’s weak underbelly.

“You were rational enough to check on your son, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“To wrap up the knife?”

“Yes.”

“As we’ve heard, you have no criminal record. Correct?”

“Yes. No. I mean, correct. I have no record.”

Wyler was starting to get flustered. Raglan kept up the pace of her questions. “You’ve never been arrested before, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And when the police went to talk to you about those phone calls and e-mails you sent Terrance before this happened, they were polite, weren’t they?”

“Very.”

“You’ve never complained to anyone about their behavior, have you?”

“No.”

“And you weren’t afraid of the police, were you?”

“No.”

“But you say you walked into Terrance Wyler’s home and found him stabbed to death in his kitchen and you didn’t phone 911. Why not?”

Every once it was a while it was good to break the rhythm of leading questions by asking one that was open-ended. And, after all, this is what the jury was thinking: Why didn’t Samantha call the cops? Whatever answer Wyler gave, it was bound to look bad.

“It’s my biggest regret.”

“You have no explanation, do you?”

“I was in shock.”

“That’s it? All you can say about leaving your child, taking the knife, not calling the police, is ‘I was in shock’?”

Wyler ducked her head down. Her long neck turned red. I almost have her, Raglan thought.

“I didn’t call the police,” Wyler said. “I was, I was … I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You didn’t even lock the door, did you?”

“I don’t remember locking the door, no.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I was in shock. I wanted to get to my family lawyer. Let him take care of things. I was lost.”

“Oh. You remember how that felt.”

“Yes.”

“You want us to believe you have no memory of how you got downtown, what you did for the hours before your lawyer, Mr. Feindel, showed up at his office. No memory at all?”

“I wish I did.”

“But you don’t?”

“I must have walked.”

“You must have walked? You know there’s no evidence of you on the subway cameras, no bus drivers remember seeing you, no cabs. Is there?”

“No.”

Time to hit her from another angle. Raglan grabbed the file from the table behind her. “This folder contains your high school report cards. Straight As all the way through. You were even offered full scholarships at quite a few universities. Weren’t you?”

“I was a good student.”

“Top student.”

Wyler didn’t answer.

“Ms. Wyler, let me get your story straight,” Raglan said. “You claim you went into the house, saw your husband dead on the floor, picked up the bloody knife, wrapped it in a kitchen towel, and left?”

“It’s not a claim. It’s what happened. I was in shock. I took the knife away to protect Simon.”

Raglan shook her head. She wanted the jury to know she was having none of it. “May I have Exhibit Four F, please?” She had prearranged with the registrar to have it ready. She grabbed the photograph and headed straight for the witness-box. “Can you identify the item in this photo, ma’am?” Her voice was filled with contempt.

Wyler glanced at the picture for a second. “It’s the kitchen knife holder,” she whispered.

Raglan echoed her words. “The knife holder.” She let her voice boom across the courtroom, a confident contrast to the witness. “How many knives are in it?”

“Looks like six,” Wyler said.

“Well, count them.” She thrust the photo into Wyler’s hands. “You’re a banker. Good at math.”

Wyler dropped the picture as if she wanted no part of it. She flicked the hair away from her face. “There are six,” she said.

Raglan snatched the photo. She walked over to the jury box and took her time parading it before them. “Didn’t take any of these knives away, did you?”

“No.”

“You left six knives in the kitchen. And you walked out the door. Left it unlocked. And you did this to protect your four-year-old son, Simon? Is that your evidence?”

“That’s what I did. Not what I should have done.” Wyler began to shake. For a moment Raglan almost felt sorry for her.