The Guilty Plea (27 page)

Summers had been a minor hockey star when he went to Cornell, and his old number 9 sweater with a big
C
sewn in over the left breast was in a glass frame behind his desk. It was surrounded by signed photos of His Honor with well-known players for the Toronto Maple Leafs. A collection of signed hockey sticks dominated a corner of the office.

Before going to college, the judge had spent five years in the navy, and some people felt he’d never left the ship. His nautical obsession was reflected in the photos and drawings of boats and frigates that covered almost every inch of remaining wall space.

Most people assumed Summers was born wealthy, but Greene knew it wasn’t true. The judge’s father died overseas during the war, when his mother was pregnant with him, and Summers went into the navy ostensibly to pay his way through school. Greene suspected it was also to honor, and in some sense replace, the father he never knew.

“Sorry to disturb Your Honor on such short notice during lunch,” Greene said, returning the judge’s powerful handshake.

“I hardly ever bother to eat during the day anymore,” Summers said. “Get a yogurt or something, unless Jo happens to be free. There’s a quiet little Thai restaurant up on Dundas where she likes to go.”

There were two high-backed chairs facing the judge’s desk, and Summers motioned Greene to one while he shut the door.

“What can I do for you?” Summers took the other chair. Greene had wondered if he’d sit behind his desk. The fact that he didn’t made Greene certain that the judge knew what this was about.

“As I think you are aware, I’m the officer in charge of the Terrance Wyler murder case,” Greene said.

Summers had a ruddy, full face that projected a confidence many people found intimidating. Despite the judge’s bluster, Greene had seen the man bend over backward to ensure that trials held before him were conducted fairly, and he was surprisingly sympathetic when it came to sentencing. Especially first offenders. Some Crowns had even nicknamed some of his judgments “A Summers Second Chance.”

He met Greene’s eyes and leaned forward. “I understood there would be a plea in that matter. Today, wasn’t it?”

“I’ve just come from High Court.” The Superior Court at 361 University Avenue was across the street. Greene knew that the news wouldn’t have reached Summers’s ears yet. “The defendant changed her mind and didn’t go through with the plea. Judge Norville’s not happy.”

Summers slumped back in the chair and put a hand over his eyes. “I see.” His normally powerful voice was weak.

Greene looked away. Among Summers’s sailing photos was a picture of the judge on the deck of a big boat, hoisting a two-handled trophy in the air amidst a crowd of smiling people. Hoisting the other handle was a young woman with a mane of blond hair and Summers’s big-toothed smile. His daughter, Jo.

Outside the Old City Hall clock tower rang.

“You know, Detective,” Summers said when the ringing died down, “in this job I see people at their worst. Every day. Oh sure, about twenty percent of them are hard-core bad apples, but most are quite normal. They go to work, shop, cook, raise their kids, shovel their sidewalks after a snowstorm. And they make mistakes.”

Greene sat still and waited for Summers to keep talking. But the man was silent.

“Nathan Wyler talked to me after what happened in court this morning,” Greene said.

“And that’s why you’re here, as you should be.” Summers lumbered up from his seat, strode slowly behind his desk, pulled out a bottom drawer, and handed a folder over to Greene. “You’re going to want to see this.”

Inside was a plane ticket for Justice Johnathan Summers and Mrs. Dorothy Summers on Porter Airlines, the airport located on the Toronto Islands, dated August 15, Toronto to Ottawa, returning August 18. Next was a receipt from the Carlton Hotel in Ottawa for three nights, August 15, 16, and 17. Finally, there was a program titled “National Provincial Court Judges Conference.” Greene opened it.

“I was the special guest speaker on the Sunday night,” Summers said. “You need to know if I have an alibi. About sixty judges from across the country could vouch for me if it came to that.”

“I’ll have to confirm all this, you realize,” Greene said.

“You’re investigating a murder. I’m not asking for any special consideration.” Summers put his hands down on the desk and braced himself, teetering, unsure whether he should sit or not. “As you can see from the documents, my wife was with me in Ottawa.”

“In every murder investigation I find out people’s secrets,” Greene said. “It’s always a judgment call—what’s relevant to an investigation and what isn’t. But unless I absolutely have to, I won’t damage people.”

Summers sat. “After all these years on the bench, I’ve come to think we all have three lives. Our public life, our private life, and our secret life. We all have secrets. But when a crime like this happens all bets are off.”

Greene closed up the program and put it back into the folder. He knew Summers needed to talk.

“Funny thing is, I hear so much about people having affairs that go on for years,” the judge said. “For me this was the one and only time. A sunny afternoon. A beautiful woman. I knew what she wanted. A child without that horrible disease.” He bit at a fingernail. “I’ve probably sailed Lake Ontario a thousand times. That day the lake was calmer than I’ve ever seen it.”

Greene opened his briefcase with its noisy zipper and slipped the folder inside.

“The worst part was telling Jo and Terry. They were so young. She was only fourteen. I had to face that I’d disappointed my daughter. Burdened her with this secret. It would kill my wife if she found out. Jo was mad at me for a long time. Moved to Central America for a few years. Finally came back and went to law school. When she became a Crown Attorney and was in court every day, I felt like I’d gotten her back. Then this happens.”

“Nathan just told me about this today. Last night, when I informed Mr. and Mrs. Wyler about the deal that had been worked out I expected they’d be upset,” Greene said. “Most families want the maximum sentence. But they were happy to have this over with, especially Mrs. Wyler. Now I understand why.”

“I’ll tell you straight. That husband of hers isn’t too bright or he would have figured this out. He’s a violent man with a hell of a temper. She has good reason to be afraid.”

Greene stood up. “I’ll treat you as I would every potential suspect. That includes not causing any collateral damage that I don’t have to.”

“In my dark days, I like to think that this made me a better judge.” Summers pulled his robes forward over his broad shoulders. “I know I drive everyone hard in my court. Can’t stand lawyers who don’t do the best possible job. Every one of those accused people who come before me—you have to see who they really are, look past the mistakes they’ve made.”

Greene tucked his open briefcase under his arm and stood.

“I tried not to think of Terrance as my son. Felt it wasn’t fair to anyone.” Summers looked over at the photo on the wall of himself and his daughter with the trophy.

Greene scanned the sea of faces in the background and this time he picked out Terrance Wyler, over to the side near Jo.

“But he was my son,” Summers said. “And now he’s gone.”

Greene let himself out of the door, closing it gently. Lunch break at a courthouse is always strangely quiet. The hallways empty out, like a school at recess. He sat down on a hard wooden bench and pulled the zipper on his briefcase. Tick, tick, tick, until it closed. Then he shut his eyes to take in the silence.

“You don’t think I should let her testify, do you?” Ted DiPaulo asked Nancy Parish.

It was already noon on Sunday. The trial was starting in less than twenty-four hours and precious time seemed to be slipping away. They’d spent the weekend in the office boardroom, which had been turned into their war room for the duration. Boxes and file folders were everywhere.

“Is there ever a right answer?” Parish asked back.

To call your client to testify or not to call your client to testify—it was the Hamlet-like dilemma for criminal lawyers.

Every Canadian defense lawyer was haunted by the David Milgaard case. Back in 1969 Milgaard was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of a young nurse in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. For twenty-three years while he was in jail, Milgaard maintained his innocence. He was vindicated when DNA evidence linked Larry Fisher, a known serial rapist who’d been in the city at the same time, to the crime. The ironic twist: Milgaard never testified at his own trial.

If Samantha Wyler never took the stand, she might suffer the same fate. And yet there were countless murder trials in which, as the saying goes, the defendants talked themselves into convictions.

“You can advise and cajole your clients, but ultimately, it has to be their decision,” DiPaulo said. He picked up a pad of paper. The title “To Do List” was on top of the page, which was filled with notes. “She’s determined to testify. I think the jury’s going to hate her. A few days from now, I need you to do a mock cross-examination. See how she holds up.”

“Okay, but I want to cross-examine you first.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Mr. DiPaulo, you have more then twenty-five years of experience as a criminal lawyer, both as a Crown Attorney and a defense counsel, correct?”

“Twenty-six years, in fact.”

“And rule number one for you is that a good defense lawyer should never believe everything his client tells him. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“And never, ever let yourself believe your client’s innocent. Because it could blind your judgment. Correct?”

“Do I have to answer that?”

She pointed an accusing finger at him. “In the case of Samantha Wyler, I suggest you’ve broken your own golden rule. You now believe she’s not guilty.”

The outside doorbell rang. “Saved by the bell.” DiPaulo grinned at his partner. “Guess who’s here?”

Samantha was in the reception room with a thick file in her hand. She looked excited. Clients were often strangely euphoric before their cases began, glad that their months of pretrial purgatory were ending.

She lifted the file. “I think I’ve found something.”

“Come on into the boardroom,” he said, leading her back down the hall.

Wyler was the most involved client DiPaulo had ever had. Terrance had called her a control freak in his family law affidavits, and DiPaulo could see why. She insisted on seeing every piece of disclosure, reading each witness statement, and combing over all the forensic reports.

“I’ve been going through the autopsy.” She took a seat in the crowded boardroom.

“Dr. Burns,” DiPaulo said, naming the pathologist.

“He says the fatal wound was the small cut to the neck,” Wyler said.

“Wound number two.” DiPaulo wanted Sam to know he was totally up on the file. “Nicked the carotid artery. He would have bled out fast. Burns estimates four minutes. I checked with two doctors I use as backup. Both thought that was about right.”

“Okay,” Wyler said, opening her file. “Look at this.”

Jennifer Raglan gazed at the seven evidence boxes stacked in the corner of her windowless office. The words
R. V. WYLER
were written on the side of each one in thick black letters. The consensus among her fellow prosecutors was that this was such an open-and-shut case that even a first-year Crown Attorney could win it hands down.

Crown Attorneys, of course, were not supposed to win or lose trials. They had a higher calling—to serve the general public interest, ensure that justice was done. This lofty goal was never easy to reconcile in an office filled with ultracompetitive type A personalities.

That’s what made this case a nightmare. Win, and you’d get no credit. But God forbid if you weren’t victorious—and with a jury, you never knew—she could imagine the whispers behind her back: “Jennifer’s rusty being out of court so long.”

“Think this thing with her husband distracted her?”

The reality was that for any murder trial, even a so-called easy case, you never had enough time to prepare. In November, Ralph Armitage told her to take two months for prep time—meaning she was supposed to be free of other duties. She scrawled a sign on a blank sheet of paper and taped it to the door of her office. It read do not disturb—lawyer trying to think.

Within hours the sheet was filled with witty written comments by her colleagues about the dangers of advocates using their brains. By the second day, Crowns were drifting in without knocking to ask about a difficult judge, a complicated case, a pain-in-the-ass defense lawyer. Or, even worse, to register complaints about Armitage, accompanied by sighs of how wonderful it had been “when you were in charge, Jennifer.” Finally, she insisted that they put a lock on her door.

It didn’t help. The downtown office was in a perpetual state of siege. Most afternoons she was interrupted by all-hands-on-deck emergency calls that required the attention of every available Crown to run to this or that court. Midway through the third week, she moved home.

Overnight, endless hours stretched before her without interruption. She could accomplish twice as much in half the time. Best of all, this put an end to the daily e-mail battles with Gordon about who would get to the after-school program by six to pick up Dana or face the dollar-a-minute wrath of the underpaid staff who worked there.

She began getting Dana before six—at five, even four-thirty. Instead of stuffing her daughter into the car, they’d walk home hand in hand, tossing snowballs, stopping at her favorite café to share a butter tart and hot chocolate.

Today was Sunday, and with the trial set to begin the next morning, she’d been in the office all day. It meant she’d had to miss taking Dana to her hockey practice. But there was no way around it, especially because after months of negotiations, she was finally going to interview her most troublesome witness, Brandon Legacy, the eighteen-year-old who lived next door to Terrance Wyler.

It was obvious to Raglan and Greene that the reticent teenager had been having an affair with his former neighbor, thirty-five-year-old Samantha Wyler. His parents had done everything in their power to protect him. They hired a top lawyer, Canton Carmichael, who advised them that young Brandon had no legal obligation to speak with the police or the Crown. Which was true. When Legacy refused to talk, Raglan and Greene counterpunched. They began what was known in the trade as the witness dance.