02 - The Guilty Plea

by Robert Rotenberg

  “Oh, yes.” Ocaya’s shoulders relaxed as she talked about a safer topic.

  “And was he close to his father?”

  Ocaya looked down at her hands and gulped for air, her emotion real. All she could do was nod.

  “Arceli,” Raglan said, putting her hand on the top of the witness stand. “In court you cannot just nod. You need to answer with words. I know it is tough.”

  “Yes. They were so close.” Her voice was a notch above a whisper. “Mr. Wyler was a good father.”

  “What about Simon’s mother?” she asked. “Was she close with her son?”

  Ocaya glanced at Samantha Wyler. “No.” She looked away. The bitterness palpable. Believable.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The mother was busy. With her job, then the business. Mr. Wyler worked hard too, but he had time for Simon.” Ocaya’s voice had found its steel.

  “I see,” Raglan said.

  “Mrs. Wyler had a bad temper. She would yell at the child. Grab him by the arm.”

  “Did you see that?”

  “One time, yes I did.” Ocaya thrust her chin out.

  There was the sound of a chair moving behind Raglan. “Your Honor, I must object,” Ted DiPaulo said in his smoothest voice. Raglan turned to see that he was up on his feet, his tall frame dominating his half of the courtroom. He had on his most charming smile.

  “This is a criminal court, not a family court,” DiPaulo said. “My client is a thirty-five-year-old mother who’s never been charged with a criminal offense. She doesn’t drive, so I can’t make a big deal about the fact that she has a perfect driving record. Mrs. Wyler’s not on trial for occasionally disciplining her own child. My friend knows this is totally irrelevant.”

  In Canadian courts, no matter how vicious the arguments were between them, competing lawyers always referred to each other as “friends.”

  Raglan saw Norville nod at DiPaulo. With only a few words he’d emphasized his strongest argument—that his client was a mother with a clean record. Even made a casual joke about her not driving. His confident tone was meant to intimidate the judge into thinking he was absolutely right about the law, which he wasn’t. Raglan was close to the line with her questions, but nowhere as far over as DiPaulo made it sound.

  “Your Honor.” Raglan cranked up her voice. “The accused is charged with first-degree murder, not shoplifting. At a bail hearing, character evidence such as this is both admissible and relevant. My friend neglects to mention that in the last weeks of the victim’s life, his client, the accused, sent her husband a series of nasty e-mails and left him numerous angry voice mails.”

  Raglan never referred to Samantha Wyler by name. Instead she called her “the accused” and “his client.” Terrance Wyler was “the victim” and “her husband.”

  Up on her bench, Norville looked terrified. This was crucial evidence. She’d have to make a tough decision.

  Raglan strode back to her counsel table and grabbed the bound blue book of materials she’d filed. “If you’ll please turn to tabs seven through nine, Your Honor will see the threatening e-mails the accused sent to her husband from July the thirtieth to August the twelfth of this year.”

  She stood still. Confident. Not hurrying things. Raglan waited until Norville found the right page, then kept waiting. It would have been easy to read the text out loud, but she wanted to force the judge to read the e-mails herself.

  When Norville finished, Raglan dropped the book on the table, where it landed hard. She had the judge’s full attention.

  “The anger of the accused is well documented. That’s why this witness, the family’s nanny for so many years, must be permitted to testify about any acts of ill temper she observed. Mr. Terrance Wyler was stabbed seven times. Somebody was extremely angry at him, angry enough to enter his home and murder him.”

  “Murder.” That was the word to emphasize.

  Norville looked back and forth between the two lawyers with an expression that said, “Why can’t you two just get along?” She stared out over their heads at the packed courtroom, then turned to Ocaya. “I can see the witness is shaken by her testimony,” she said. “I suggest we take a twenty-minute break.” With that, Norville scooted off the bench, her flat-footed deputy tailing out behind her.

  Off to call her husband, Raglan thought, looking at the courtroom clock on the wall behind the jury box. It was only ten-thirty. She turned back to the front row. Nathan Wyler’s face was red with anger. This was going to be a long day.

  28

  Daniel Kennicott settled into the window seat of the train and pulled out the Samantha Wyler file. He was on his way up north to Cobalt, the place where she’d grown up. Detective Greene had waited to send him there until her family was down in Toronto for the bail hearing. It was a smart move. There weren’t many secrets in a small town and people would be more likely to talk knowing that Samantha’s mother and brother weren’t there.

  Greene’s instructions were open-ended: “Nose around, see what you can find out about her.” That was all the detective had said. Kennicott was learning that if the person you arrested remained silent, as Wyler had done, you had to figure out who they were by other means.

  Who was Samantha? That was his mission. The Wylers had a one-dimensional take: she was self-centered, controlling, had alienated Terrance from the family. In a word, she was the “bitch.” Friends? She didn’t seem to have any in Toronto. At the bank where she’d been for three years, people said she’d worked hard. No one got to know her. Kennicott tracked down some old professors who remembered only that she was smart and diligent about her studies. He even found her first-year roommate, Jocelyn Bathurst, a socialite from one of the city’s wealthiest families. He had paid her a visit at her Rosedale mansion.

  “Sam was invisible,” Bathurst told Kennicott after insisting on serving him a latte from her spanking new espresso machine. It would have taken up half the counter space in his little galley kitchen. “Pretty, but she studied all the time. Came from some small town up north. Didn’t even try to make friends.”

  “How long did you know her?”

  “First year. Everyone moved out of residence after that. Most of the girls got places together. She told me once that she had her own apartment. I’d see her sometimes in class. Final year, when everyone was interviewing for an internship program at one of the big banks, she didn’t get an offer. Samantha had the marks. Better than me. I don’t think she had what they were looking for. Only time I ever saw her angry. She ended up at some retail branch in the west end, and that’s the last I heard of her until she married into the Wyler family. That was a shocker.”

  The train pulled out of the station, heading east, hugging the shoreline before it swung north through the industrial edge of the city and the sprawling suburbs, and in minutes it was tunneling through the forested hills, gaining altitude bit by bit as it climbed onto the glacial remains that made up the great Canadian Shield. Ahead lay six hours of travel time, punctuated by the occasional stop in small towns, which grew farther and farther apart along the way.

  Kennicott looked through the file for the folder that interested him the most. It was an interview another cop had done with Jo Summers.

  Question: How did you meet Terrance?

  Answer: Our families’ boats were next to each other at the yacht club on the island. He was a few years older, but I was a good sailor even as a kid.

  Question: How well did you know him?

  Answer: Very well.

  Question: What was the nature of your relationship?

  Answer: Our relationship? We were close. As friends. Just friends. On Fridays we’d meet for lunch if I was free. That was it. Lunch and Christmas dinner once a year.

  Question: I don’t want to embarrass you, but were you involved romantically?

  Answer: Romantically? Never.

  The train whistle gave out two loud blasts. It was a sound that crept right into you. A moment later the whole car shu
ddered as an oncoming train whizzed past on the other track.

  Kennicott had been studying statement analysis. Looking closely at interviews to determine if people were telling the truth. Perhaps the most famous example was Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who strapped her two young sons into her car and drowned them. “My children wanted me. They needed me. And now I can’t help them,” she tearfully told reporters when the boys were still missing. In contrast to Smith, who referred to her children in the past tense, the father said, “They’re okay. They’re going to be home soon.” Police concluded, correctly, that the father believed his children were alive and the mother knew they were dead.

  Another indicator of untruthfulness was stall tactics—words and phrases like “to tell you the truth,” or “honestly,” or repeating a question that had been asked instead of just giving a direct answer. It was obvious that Summers was stalling when asked about her relationship with Terrance. There was more there than she was telling the police.

  Question: Did you know Samantha Wyler?

  Answer: I only saw her once. They were shopping on Bloor Street. Terry—that’s what everyone called him—was outside the Max Mara store with Simon in a stroller. Samantha was inside buying something for herself. She came out and he introduced me as an old sailing friend. Later, Terry said she kept asking about me. He never told her about our Friday lunches because he said she’d be jealous. He wasn’t allowed to see any of his old friends, especially female friends. That was hard for him, because Terry was such a friendly guy.

  Question: What do you think Terry saw in her?

  Answer: He liked good-looking women, and Samantha fit the bill. Terry always felt like the third wheel in the family. Nathan could do no wrong. Jason was sick and needed extra attention. Samantha convinced him he’d been hard done by.

  Question: And Samantha? What do you think she saw in Terry?

  Answer: He was her ticket. To money. To prestige. Don’t forget, for years the Wyler Foods store was big in the city. And he was a wonderful man.

  Kennicott was impressed with the way the interviewer switched from Terrance to Terry. Speaking Jo’s language. Keeping his questions short, open-ended. Summers’s answers here were direct.

  Question: How’d Terry get along with his family?

  Answer: His family? It was complex. Growing up, Terry had to get away. When he came back from the States, he wanted to modernize things. Prepared food in the store. Get rid of those stupid bow ties. Change the ugly colors and that ridiculous logo. I think Mr. Wyler and Nathan felt threatened, so nothing happened. Terry became frustrated and Samantha exploited that. But when she had him arrested for that stupid threatening charge, they were there for him. The Wylers are loyal. Like a clan.

  What, Kennicott wondered, was so complex about Terrance’s relationship with his family? Why had Jo gone back to being evasive?

  Question: Why do you think they split up?

  Answer: April Goodling wasn’t the only reason. After Simon was born, Sam wasn’t into being a parent. She was obsessed with the new store. Terry was desperate to have more kids and she flat-out refused. They fought a lot. When the business failed, everything went to pieces.

  Question: Did you ever see Terry get violent?

  Answer: Terry? Never.

  Question: What about Samantha? Did he ever tell you about her being violent with him?

  Answer: Sam was the one topic Terry refused to talk about. Even after they split. Frustrated the hell out his family that he wasn’t more critical of her.

  Question: I understand you had lunch with him on Friday, two days before the murder. And that Terry came over to your place on the island with Ms. Goodling and Simon on Sunday afternoon. What did you talk about?

  Answer: The upcoming divorce trial. He showed me the last-minute offer Samantha’s lawyer had made. His lawyer and his family were pushing him to turn it down. Said he could win hands down at trial. He wasn’t sure what to do.

  Question: What did you say?

  Answer: I thought he should take the deal. Think of his son. He said, “Simon still needs his mother. Samantha’s not the monster my family thinks she is.” That’s the last thing he ever said to me.

  Good advice, Jo, Kennicott thought. He put the Summers interview back and read through the rest of the file as the hours and the countryside passed by. The clouds grew dark and soon it was pouring great sheets of rain.

  “Cobalt, former home of the world’s largest silver mine,” the ticket taker said late in the afternoon. He was an energetic little man with a 1950s-style pompadour. “Haileybury after that. Home of Leslie MacFarlane, the first author of the Hardy Boys books, using the pen name Franklin W. Dixon.”

  A lovely old station came into view to the left as the train rounded the bend into town. The rain was still belting down, so Kennicott was relieved to see there’d be some shelter.

  “That’s my stop.” He pulled down his bag from the overhead rack and headed for the door. Although the train was about half full, he was the only one getting off. They glided to a stop. The ticket taker swung the door open and tossed out a metal step. The station was about a hundred yards farther down the track.

  Kennicott pointed to the station, which featured an overhanging slate roof and a wide stone porch. “Here?”

  “’Fraid so.” The man wore a blue-and-white-striped shirt with ONTARIO NORTHLAND across the breast pocket and the name HAMISH sewn in above it. “Everyone says the same thing first time. Station’s a beauty. Been closed for years.”

  Kennicott looked out into the rain. “Politicians keep talking about building a shelter,” Hamish said. “Talk, talk, talk. Be grateful you’re not here in the winter.”

  “Thanks.” Kennicott stepped down. The rain was coming hard. Running over to the station, he stood beneath the eaves while the train pulled away, blowing its deep bass whistle. Warm and comforting, it echoed off the hills and across the wide river that bent out into the distance along with the tracks, following them into the horizon.

  It was 4:20 in the afternoon and this far north the sun was still high. Hovering. Relaxed.

  Growing up, Kennicott had spent his summers at his family cottage north of Toronto and was familiar with the late-summer sun, the rhythm of the long days. He wasn’t intimidated by storms. The clouds were low, moving fast. The rain wouldn’t last long. There was an expression they had in the north—you want a change in the weather, drive five miles or wait five minutes.

  By the time he walked up to the Silver City Motel, which was up the hill and around the bend, the sky had cleared. His room on the second floor had just enough space for a bed, a bathroom, a TV mounted on the wall, and a view of the river. This was the only accommodation in town.

  There was a tourist brochure on the night table. A hundred years ago Cobalt was famous. As the conductor said, it was the home of the world’s largest silver mine. It had a population of thirty-five thousand, mostly miners, a large hospital, two theaters, an opera house, and a streetcar running up to Haileybury, where another thirty-five thousand people lived.

  The rush lasted well into the 1920s. By the end of World War II, the mining had petered out, leaving behind hundreds of abandoned sites, decaying buildings, and a plethora of relics of what was. Unlike most old mining towns that died, somehow Cobalt hung on. Barely. The last grocery store closed about twenty years ago, two small restaurants were only open for breakfast and lunch, and there was a native Indian souvenir shop, a mining museum, a library, a school, a hockey rink, and one gas station, which Samantha Wyler’s family owned.

  Kennicott watched the shadow crawl up the far shore, leaving a dark blanket of silence in its wake. He could see why Samantha Wyler worked so hard to get out of this place and head south to make it in the bright lights of the big city.

  29

  It was past noon, and Ari Greene had already made twelve pages of notes. The nanny, Arceli Ocaya, had testified for almost two hours. After her initial hesitation—and once Norville came
back and made a ruling in favor of the Crown allowing Jennifer Raglan to ask more probing questions—the nanny had opened up and painted a damaging picture of Samantha Wyler as an inconsistent and unpredictable parent.

  Jennifer Raglan had just called her next witness, the police officer who’d been on duty when Terrance Wyler made his complaints about Samantha’s e-mails and voice mails.

  Ted DiPaulo jumped to his feet. All smiles.

  “I’ve prepared a transcript of all the calls,” he said, handing a set of bound documents to the court reporter and another set to the registrar. “We can save a lot of time and simply enter them as evidence.”

  The registrar handed the papers to the judge. “Sounds like a good idea,” Norville said to Raglan.

  “Your Honor, I submit that the court should listen to the actual voice mails,” Raglan said. “The accused’s tone of voice, which isn’t conveyed by the written word, is evidence as well.”

  Greene was impressed with Raglan in court. She always used the term “I submit,” never “I think.” The last thing in the world judges wanted was to be told what to do or, even worse, what a lawyer thought they should do. Instead, she used body language to get her message across. Back straight, confident, smart.

  “The tapes are short,” Raglan said, as if the judge had already decided to let her go ahead.

  “Play them,” Norville said, not even asking DiPaulo to respond.

  Greene peeked over at Samantha Wyler. Dressed in simple clothes, she’d sat beside DiPaulo all morning, projecting an image of silent submission. She flinched when the static of the recording started and her voice carried out across the courtroom.

  “Terry, you scumbag. I can’t believe what you are doing to me. And that lawyer of yours. She’s a piece of work.”

  “Terry, fuck you. I read your affidavit. Thanks a lot for making me out to be the bitch queen of the universe. You may not believe it, but I tried to be a good mother. Did it ever occur to you that Simon will see this garbage one day?”