The Guilty Plea (40 page)

Thank goodness for my children, DiPaulo thought, wiping his face with the rough paper towel. He tried without success to dry off his shirt and tie. His son and daughter had conspired with Nancy Parish to plan this trip. He was being shipped out, like a FedEx package. Urgent delivery. One big, broken-down lawyer. Destination: April in Paris.

Back out in the cabin all the other passengers were asleep. He checked his watch. It was 1:45 Toronto time. The plane was only about a third full, so he had his own three-seat row. Sitting down, he looked out the window into the deep darkness.

Sleep. Ted, when will you sleep?

“Sir, I am very sorry to be bothering of you.” The air hostess came from out of the darkness. She was bent over the empty seats beside him.

Air hostess. The term felt awkward. But stewardess was out of the question. Some words felt wrong. Like widower. It sounded like an add-on to the real word: widow.

“I see you are not sleeping.” She had a lovely French accent to go with her Air France uniform.

“I don’t sleep much, I’m afraid,” he said. She was attractive, not beautiful, but there was a gentleness to her.

Sleep. Everyone he knew in the world was asleep right now. The kids were asleep. His partner, his colleagues, the Crowns, the judges, his clients, even Samantha Wyler at the penitentiary for women. For a few hours she’d be asleep.

He was the only one awake. And now this pleasant woman. Don’t be silly, he told himself. She’s more than pleasant. In the plane’s half-light she looked pretty.

“You are Mr. DiPaulo, that is correct?”

“That’s right.” He wondered how she knew his name. The passenger manifest, he supposed.

“I have a message for you—”

“Something wrong?” My kids, DiPaulo thought, his spine seizing up.

“Oh,
non
.
Pardon
. Excuse me, please. Nothing is wrong.”

Was she blushing? Hard to tell. He noticed for the first time that she had a piece of paper in her hand.

“We have a message to be given for you. The copilot wrote it in his English. A detective in Toronto, Monsieur Greene, said to give it to you as soon as you are awaken.”

“Monsieur Greene?” I sound foolish, he thought. And charmed by her French accent.

“Yes. He said telephone to him when you are arriving in Paris.”

DiPaulo could feel his pulse jump as she handed him the paper.

“You will be staying in Paris, no?”

“Yes.” He straightened up.

“Here,” she said. He heard a click overhead. A cone of light came on, illuminating for a moment her shoulders and her breasts in the crisp uniform.

Ted

Wanted you to hear this right away. It appears Samantha didn’t kill Terrance Wyler.

Wyler’s brother Jason confessed. Looks like you were right. He killed Terrance by accident with a knife. Then stabbed him six times after in anger. Set Samantha up by using Terrance’s BlackBerry.

Sadly, he committed suicide.

I’ve called your partner Nancy Parish. We will get your client into court tomorrow so she can be released.

Call me when you land. I’ll explain all.

Paris me manque.

Ari

P.S. April Goodling was pregnant with Terrance’s baby. A boy she named after him.

DiPaulo stared at the piece of paper in the airplane’s dim light. Samantha not guilty. Jason the killer, by accident. He’d committed suicide. April Goodling had Terrance’s child.

His hands were shaking. “
We will get your client into court tomorrow so she can be released … Paris me manque
.” I miss Paris.

“You are okay, Mr. DiPaulo?”

Who was speaking? Oh, it was the stewardess. The air hostess. The woman with the beautiful accent.

“Thanks, yes. Fine. Nice of you to give this to me.”

He wanted to touch her arm for a second. Convince himself this wasn’t a dream.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to go to the bathroom.” Half standing, the way you do on planes, he brushed his hand against her forearm. The material was coarse. Real.

Back in the airplane bathroom, he smelled the forced air. He took off Chiara’s tie, rolled it up, and put it in his back pocket before turning on the water. It was that same lukewarm temperature. He wet his face and used the greasy little bar of soap. He felt its harsh smell, almost acidic.

“
Looks like you were right. He killed Terrance by accident with a knife
.” This wasn’t a dream. It fit. DiPaulo remembered Jason Wyler leaving the court while he was cross-examining that arrogant pathologist, Dr. Burns. The clatter of his canes. The swatch of blood at the bottom of the back door. The other person in the house.

The air hostess was waiting for him in the aisle when he got back to his seat. She was holding a blanket and a pillow. No one else in the plane moved. They were all asleep.

I was wrong, he thought. Everyone else in my life is awake, not
asleep. Samantha Wyler walking her cell for the last night. Nancy Parish, up with excitement. Jennifer Raglan, padding the floor, confused that she’d used all her skill to convict an innocent woman. And Ari Greene. Thank you, Ari.

“A pillow? A blanket?” the woman asked.

“That would be lovely.” He slipped past her to his seat. Perhaps he could ask her to sit beside him for a moment. He was shaking.

“You are certain you are okay?” she asked.

“Shocking news,” he said. “Good news. But it’s a shock.”

“Here is the pillow,” she said.

Shock. He thought about Sam. Finding her father dead in the service bay of the garage when she was a teenager.

“Would you like to read something, perhaps?” the air hostess asked.

Read. Like Samantha reading all those medical books. Trying to figure out for herself what had happened. How Raglan had used them to destroy her in cross-examination. He remembered that engineer as the foreperson.

He thought about Jason Wyler. Poor man. Exposed during the trial as Samantha’s secret correspondent. A traitor to the family compact. His confession made sense. A lonely, dying man. He was in love with Samantha. How could he live with letting her suffer for his mistake?

Out the window he searched the sky for a sliver of light, but it was only black. DiPaulo thought of the last thing Samantha had instructed him to say to Jason when he was on the witness stand. She’d insisted on the words being said exactly as she’d written them: “Thanks for your courage and honesty not only today, but always.”

“But always,” DiPaulo whispered.

“Monsieur?” the woman asked.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

What if Samantha had a hunch about Jason? And this was her signal, a call to his conscience. The real reason she was so desperate for him to be called as a witness at the trial.

“The pillow. You can use it, perhaps?” the air hostess asked.

DiPaulo hadn’t realized he’d been holding it in his lap. He put it behind him.

“Lie down,” she said. “I will put the blanket over the top of you. It is more comfortable like this. No?”

He felt the softness of the pillow on the back of his head. A wave of warmth rolled across his skin as the blanket draped over him.

DiPaulo heard a cranking sound.

“This will be feeling nice,” the woman said. Cool air came from above. He smelled a hint of something. Was it perfume?

At last his eyes drifted shut. Now, even he could sleep.

I’m sitting in the lawyers’ library at the 361 University Avenue courthouse—the building where most of the action in this book takes place. It’s a beautiful, round room in this city of mostly straight streets and square blocks. And a place I’ve been so often—anxiously reviewing my notes before court begins at ten o’clock, frantically looking up a case during the too-brief lunch break, or quietly slipping in with my laptop to work on a few chapters of writing when my court day is done.

Being here makes me think of two colleagues who died in the last few years. Much too young. Ken Danson was a defense lawyer with great energy, a rapier wit, and a strong commitment to his practice and clients. Paul Vesa was a Crown Attorney with whom I tried many cases. He had a lovable penchant for bad puns and a true belief in the integrity of the law. Neither was a close friend, but I miss them both, as does everyone who works in these courts. More keenly, perhaps, on a day like today.

I have many people to thank for getting me through this second novel. I’ll not bother you with the details of their contributions, for which I’m content to thank them personally. Here, in no particular order, are their names: Douglas Preston, Ricki Wortzman, Alan Bardikoff, Ann Birch, Glen Gaston, Kate Parkin, Howard Lichtman, Kathy McDonald, Cheryl Goldhart, Kevin Hanson, Alison Clarke, Amy Cormier, Amy Jacobson, Eddie Greenspan Q.C., Tom Klatt, Deb Klatt, Corinne LaBalme, Michael Levine, David Flacks, Barbara Silverstein, Andras Schrek, and Shel Whitteker, my local bookseller in Haliburton, Ontario, where we have our cottage.

Special thanks to my editor Sarah Crichton and to all the people at
the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency who represent me. In particular Elizabeth Fisher, who has done so much to sell my books worldwide.

My agent, Victoria Skurnick, and I have now been together for three years. I know, I know. Every author always writes in their acknowledgments how they love their agent. Makes pretty boring reading. The thing about Victoria is that, as well as being brilliant, tough, and loyal (yes … all the things writers always say), she’s one of those rare people with great integrity right to her core. A special person in my life.

My two families—my law partners Alvin Shidlowski and Jacob Jesin—and my wife, Vaune Davis, and our three remarkable children have stuck with me through the birth pangs of my sophomore novel. For that, of course, I am most grateful of all.

Robert Rotenberg is the author of
Old City Hall
, available in John Murray paperback. He is also one of Toronto’s top criminal lawyers, defending, as he likes to say, ‘everything from murder to shoplifting’. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Vaune Davis, and their three children.