The One Who Got Away

by Caroline Overington

  She was seated in the far corner of the floral sofa doing the Times crossword. She hadn’t looked up when I entered the room, but a smile played on her face.

  ‘Why thank you,’ I said, moving towards the bar, ‘and now it’s over, and so is my career.’

  ‘Tosh.’ Cecile put the folded newspaper aside and removed her reading glasses. ‘You’re leaving the bench. You can still work in the law.’

  ‘Ah, but can I?’ I said, holding a seventieth birthday bottle of whisky up towards the light to see what remained. ‘I’m only saying I would’ve liked to have seen this one through to the end,’ I continued, taking a glass down from shelves built at eye level over the bar, ‘and instead I have to hand the matter to a girl who wasn’t born when I graduated from law school.’

  ‘She isn’t a girl,’ said Cecile. ‘She’s a lawyer. A grown woman. Now, stop moping and turn on the TV so we can watch David Wynne-Estes bury his wife.’

  Bury his wife?

  Yes, indeed. While I’d been in court, David had been at home, preparing to bury Loren. If that sounds macabre, it absolutely was, because it wasn’t like they had a body.

  About a week earlier, David had given a short press conference to explain his motivation.

  ‘My lawyer, Dick van Nispen,’ he’d said, ‘intends to move a motion saying Bienveneda court has no jurisdiction in this matter. He has, however, advised me that we have a no better than fifty-fifty chance of winning, and as such, it seems that I must prepare myself for what is likely to be a long, drawn-out trial.’

  David paused. ‘I’m also advised that if we lose the motion – and we might – I will be taken into custody. Now, as most of you know, I have two small children. Girls. Twins. Hannah and Peyton.’

  David paused again, to touch the corner of his right eye. ‘Night after night, my girls ask me, when is Mommy coming home? I have dodged and weaved because I just haven’t wanted to answer, but now it seems I have no choice. I’m to be charged with murder. As such, anyone can conclude that my wife – Loren – must be dead. And if she’s dead, then the time must have come to bury her.’

  ‘Why is he doing this?’ Cecile had asked. ‘Is this part of some plan to soften up the jury?’

  I had no idea.

  ‘Given that I have only a fifty-fifty chance of the motion to dismiss being granted, I propose to hold Loren’s funeral on the day that my lawyer is in court. We will wait for the judge’s decision, and then proceed.’

  Cecile couldn’t wait to watch.

  * * *

  ‘You two look like a couple of rap stars.’

  I’m quoting our son. That is what he said the first time he saw the black leather viewing chairs with the extended foot rest, the walnut panelling and drinks holders I got to go with the mega-widescreen I got for Cecile’s seventieth birthday.

  ‘Your mother likes to binge-watch,’ I said.

  And it’s true. She does. We both do. We like it more than reading books in the evening, mainly because neither of us can see the text anymore. We like it more than crosswords, because, ditto. We got into it with Breaking Bad and Mad Men, before moving on to House of Cards and Orange is the New Black (a very realistic look at a female prison, I thought). We haven’t watched Game of Thrones (too much violence).

  In any case, we meandered from the sitting room into what Cecile now calls the Viewing Room. I took my whisky; Cecile prefers gin-and-tonic, but usually only after four pm.

  ‘But I guess I can make an exception,’ she said, ‘for your last day on the bench.’

  I settled down with my footstool right up, and the chair reclined.

  ‘How can you even see?’ said Cecile. ‘You’re nearly horizontal.’

  ‘I can see fine,’ I said, putting the chair back up a little.

  The funeral hadn’t yet started but Fox9 was running what it called ‘exclusive, uncut footage’ from Liz Moss’s earlier interview with David – bits and pieces that maybe hadn’t made it to air the first time, including what they described as a ‘dramatic revelation’, so we settled back to watch that. I do like Liz. She’s got what they call the Voice of Experience.

  ‘How old would she be?’ I asked. Because I mean, Liz was an ABC war correspondent during the first Gulf War. That’s, what, forever ago. Yet her show still starts with shots of Liz in tight cammo pants and a press vest.

  ‘She’d be a fair age, now,’ said Cecile, ‘not that you’d ever be able to tell. She’s holding up okay, don’t you think?’

  Me? No, and I wasn’t just saying that because Cecile was there. Living in Bienveneda, I see a fair bit of plastic surgery. Mainly boobs. Big melon boobs. Whatever floats your boat, but in my opinion, women ought not to touch their faces. They’re trying to stay young, but they don’t. No, in my considered opinion, most women who have their faces stretched just look scared.

  The promo finished, and David came onto the screen.

  ‘Look at his hand,’ cried Cecile, pointing. ‘Is that his wedding ring?’

  ‘Good spot,’ I said.

  David was wearing his wedding ring. I’d heard on the grapevine – it starts and ends at Bienveneda Golf Club – that he’d employed image makers for the interview. The ring was undoubtedly part of that, and they’d had it buffed to make it gleam before the camera.

  ‘Good touch or bad touch?’ asked Cecile.

  ‘Hmmm … good touch?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Cecile. ‘A wedding ring says: “I’m a family man. Never in a million years would I kill my wife.”’

  I’d already been warned that Liz didn’t have her combat boots on for the interview. She started by saying, ‘This is a crime that has received a lot of attention. It seems that everyone has an opinion. We all think we know what happened. But now, in your own words, David Wynne-Estes, please tell us what you think happened.’

  David paused, and said: ‘I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I think that my wife decided to take her own life.’

  He was not crying exactly, but his lip trembled.

  I glanced at Cecile. She was not buying it.

  Liz pressed on. ‘And why do you think that?’

  David rubbed his forehead. ‘This is hard for me.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘I suppose the reason is obvious,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t thinking straight. Not before the cruise, and not during the cruise. But it’s still hard for me to face up to the fact that she didn’t want to be with me or with her children anymore because, whatever anyone thinks, Loren and I loved each other.’

  ‘The hide of him!’ said Cecile, sipping her gin.

  David dabbed at his eyes. ‘Loren’s family has been flinging mud at me. Loren’s stepsister, Molly, and her father, Danny Franklin … they’re wanting revenge and I suppose I can understand that.’

  I looked over at Cecile. ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘He’s doing okay,’ she said, shrugging.

  Liz said: ‘Loren’s father has told the world he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth. So I guess I have to ask you … are you a liar?’

  The question seemed to hang for only a second.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said David. ‘I lied to Loren about my affair with Lyric Morales. I told her it was over when it wasn’t.’

  Cecile scoffed. ‘She’s under his spell.’

  ‘And just for the record,’ said Liz, ‘what else have you been lying about?’

  ‘Nothing else,’ said David adamantly. ‘I promise you, Liz, I’ve given up telling lies. Lying gets you nowhere. It has cost me everything. So no, I’m not lying now. I’m telling the truth: I did not kill my wife.’

  ‘That can’t be it?’ said Cecile, eyes wild. ‘He got off pretty easy.’

  ‘That’s not the whole interview,’ I said.

  ‘No, but it’s all we get to see before the funeral, which I can’t wait to watch,’ said Cecile, rattling the ice in her glass.

  I rose to get her a refill.

  ‘Shame on you,�
� I said. ‘I’ve never known you to be so ghoulish.’

  ‘Everyone will be watching!’ she protested, and she wasn’t wrong.

  Everyone would be watching, and tomorrow they’d be gossiping. Bienveneda had the Wynne-Estes bug and why not? The case had everything: David was rich and Loren was beautiful. The mistress was a siren and the girls were angelic.

  Here was evidence that awful things could happen to beautiful people; that the big house and the expensive cars can be that old cliché, the glittering façade.

  Plus, sex tapes!

  Let’s not forget the sex tapes. Ever since David’s interview, all of Bienveneda had been abuzz with gossip about the sex tapes.

  ‘I can’t believe that the police were reluctant to investigate Lyric’s death lest the tapes got out,’ I said, returning to the room with Cecile’s gin-and-tonic. ‘It seems to me that the police believed David’s story. Why wouldn’t they? He was ready to plead guilty to being an accessory. That carries jail time, or at least, it might. Does David strike you as the kind of person willing to go to jail to protect the reputation of Fat Pete Evans?’

  ‘So Pete is on the tapes,’ said Cecile.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I have no idea. That’s just what people say. But anyway, are you sure you want to watch the funeral?’ I added, even while settling into my extravagant chair to watch it. ‘Burying an empty coffin for the theatre of it? That seems wrong to me.’

  ‘I want to see the empty coffin,’ said Cecile. ‘I want to see David bend over the flowers on top of the coffin and whisper something, and I want the microphone hidden in the flowers to pick up what he says.’

  ‘What makes you think the police will bug the flowers? I’m not sure that would even be admissible.’

  ‘Well, if they don’t, they should,’ she said, taking a satisfied sip of her drink.

  A Fox9 logo zoomed across the screen along with a photograph of Loren. The funeral was about to start.

  ‘We’re coming to you live from the little church in Bienveneda where Loren Wynne-Estes was married,’ said Liz.

  ‘Oh look,’ said Cecile. ‘It’s Liz again!’

  ‘Shhhh …’

  ‘And you can see here, a centrepiece inside the church is a photograph of Loren on her wedding day,’ Liz continued in a reverential tone.

  ‘She’s so pretty,’ Cecile murmured.

  The Fox9 cameras zoomed back to show different pictures of Loren, including one in which she was wearing Breton stripes – I know what they are because every woman at Bienveneda Sail owns a boat-neck top with Breton stripes, Cecile included – with her hair swept up in a ponytail, and David’s arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders.

  ‘He’s so creepy,’ said Cecile.

  The cameras zoomed away from the photographs, and back into the church. It seems that David’s team – I’m guessing it was his team – had been busy all morning, tying yellow balloons to the posts at the end of each pew.

  ‘What’s with all the yellow?’ said Cecile, because the casket was likewise laden with yellow flowers.

  I had no idea.

  ‘We’ll just do a sweep over the guests,’ whispered Liz, ‘and I think we’ll find that Loren’s father and stepsister are not here.’

  The cameras swooped, and Liz was correct: Daniel and Molly were not there.

  ‘But we can see here, David’s parents, Belle and Garrett Wynne-Estes,’ whispered Liz. The camera lingered. Loren’s parents-in-law sat stiffly near their son. They wore dark suits, and their lips were drawn thin.

  ‘Are you sure we don’t know them?’ I asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ Cecile said immediately. ‘They aren’t from here.’

  ‘They live on this road,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a long road,’ she replied dryly.

  David’s regal sister, Janet, was next to fall into Fox9’s all-seeing viewfinder.

  ‘Is that really a pillbox hat?’ said Cecile. ‘She’s like something out of The Godfather.’

  ‘And now, here, we see the little girls,’ said Liz, her voice more hushed than ever.

  Hannah and Peyton were seated near the very front, to the right and to the left of their father.

  ‘Now, they’ve been dressed by somebody who knows what they’re doing,’ said Cecile approvingly. From what I could tell, the girls had come as flower girls. Their dresses were white satin; they had wide yellow sashes, short socks, and polished black shoes.

  ‘Why all the yellow?’ Cecile said again.

  Liz must have heard. Quietly, she said, ‘And notice there, Hannah and Peyton also have the yellow in their sashes … yellow being Loren’s favourite colour.’

  ‘He made that up,’ said Cecile.

  You can probably guess what colour David had chosen for his tie. Red. No, I jest. More yellow. The camera did another swoop over the audience, pausing here and there to pick up other bits of yellow.

  ‘Ooh, the Grammar girls have yellow ribbons in their hair,’ said Cecile. The Grammar moms hadn’t let the side down. They’d come with sunflowers.

  ‘Not one of them supports David,’ said Cecile confidently. ‘He’s become an absolute pariah. They’re there for Loren.’

  David’s team had placed a simple rostrum on the stage, near Loren’s coffin. There were a number of speakers. Liz’s voice came on during breaks in speeches, reminding the audience at home that the matter of jurisdiction had been decided just hours earlier, meaning David would face trial.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Cecile. ‘I only want to see the murdering bastard.’

  The Fox9 cameraman seemed to get that. He spent much of the service with his lens trained on David, who sat with his arms around his daughters, who took turns resting on his chest and weeping.

  ‘Such a scene!’ said Cecile.

  When time came for David to speak, he rose, kissed each of the girls on the parting of their hair, and whispered something to each of them. Behind the rostrum, he heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t want to be here,’ he said. ‘Burying my wife … it’s wrong.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t want to be there,’ said Cecile, ‘if she wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t be charged with murder.’

  ‘The fact that we all have so many unanswered questions just makes things so much harder,’ David continued. He looked up to the ceiling. ‘But somebody knows the answer,’ he said, pointing upward. ‘Our awesome God knows the answer.’

  Fox9 had been carrying tweets from home along the bottom of the screen, and Twitter at this point exploded: tweets like ‘#spareme’ were typical.

  Looking out towards his daughters, David continued. ‘Hannah and Peyton, I’m speaking directly to you now. Whatever gossip you might hear, your mom loved you. She really did. She loved you from the bottom of her heart. When she found out she was pregnant with the two of you – that was the happiest I had ever seen her. And the joy when you arrived … oh, yes, she loved you to the moon and back.’

  Cecile’s expression was priceless.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked, amused.

  ‘I’m thinking: lucky I’m not there, I’d pick up a cucumber sandwich and hurl it in his face. Now shush.’

  David was still speaking. ‘My darling girls, I know you’re finding it hard to accept that Mom is gone. But she is gone, and we have to accept it.’

  The Fox9 cameraman did a sweep back across the audience. The twins were weeping uncontrollably. Janet had taken up David’s seat between them. She mopped their tears with yellow tissues.

  ‘Now I’m going to show you some photographs to help you remember your mom,’ said David, stepping back to allow viewers to see photographs rolling along the big screens in both corners of the church. There were pictures of Loren and David on their wedding day; photographs of Loren in a lopsided tiara, seated on the now famous gold throne; photographs of Loren pregnant, with a delighted David pressing his hand against her belly; of Loren cradling the two babies at once; of David and Loren boarding the Silver Lining with champagne gla
sses in their hands.

  ‘Oh, he’s so gross,’ said Cecile.

  The photographs faded to black. A pastor stepped up, hands folded gently in front of white robes. Pallbearers – David included – got to their feet.

  ‘They’re not going to need eight men to carry the coffin,’ cried Cecile, ‘it’s empty!’

  They assembled nonetheless. Dolly Parton’s version of ‘I Will Always Love You’ began to play.

  ‘Look at them, look at them,’ said Cecile, ‘the coffin is so light it’s wobbling everywhere.’

  The cameras zoomed in on David’s face. He was to the right-side front of the coffin, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Behind him came the girls, also weeping. Aunt Janet stepped forward with her hard face, using her handbag to usher them towards a waiting limousine.

  David did not join them. He waited for their car to be halfway down the hill before clearing his throat, a signal that he wanted to speak. Reporters gathered round with iPhones and microphones.

  ‘You’ve no doubt heard the news,’ he said. ‘Our motion in court this morning – it failed. I won’t be able to speak to you again before the trial, so I’m using this – my last few moments of freedom – to make it plain: I did not kill my wife. Loren did a dreadful thing in killing Ms Morales, but I would’ve continued to support her for as long as I was able. Instead, I stand accused of doing my wife harm. Never in a million years did I expect to be here, saying, “I’m looking forward to my day in court.” But I am. I’m looking forward to clearing my name and returning to my family.’

  The camera watched as David got into a second limousine and went down the hill. He didn’t get far. Sandy Ruiz had done a deal with Dick van Nispen in my courtroom to take David into custody immediately following the funeral. The police waited for the limousine to pass the corner down the hill before flipping the lights atop the patrol car. David’s limousine stopped. The driver got out and opened a rear door. David stepped out and put his wrists together, on went the cuffs, and off David went, into custody, to await his day in court.

  * * *

  The original, domed Bienveneda Courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1998. The new building is modern. I would say stark, but that is a cliché. My chambers are adjacent. By chance, I was there when the telephone rang. It was my clerk, Ben Tandberg, saying, ‘I’ve got San Francisco on the line.’