The Guilty Plea (33 page)

“I want to ask you some questions about your relationship with the accused, Ms. Wyler,” Raglan said.

“We were friends,” Legacy answered before she had time to ask a real question.

“I see,” Raglan said. For the first time in the trial, she was staying put behind her desk. Kwon could see that Raglan was wary of Legacy, like a cowgirl who’d spotted a rattlesnake in her path. “Brandon, I don’t want to embarrass you—”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I told you we were friends.”

A blast of energy rolled through the court. Kwon looked at the jury. They were riveted.

“And the nature of that ‘friendship’?”

“We played a lot of video games. She’s real good at them. And sometimes we read books together. She reads a lot.”

Raglan nodded, like a teacher frustrated with an underperforming student.

“Was there an intimate nature to your relationship?”

“Objection. Clearly leading,” Ted DiPaulo shouted, flying out of his seat. It was the first time Kwon had seen him raise his voice like this in an objection. Everyone in the courtroom stared at him. “Your Honor, Mr. Legacy is the Crown’s witness. She’s asked him twice about the nature of this relationship and he’s answered. The question is absolutely improper, and my friend knows it.”

“Your Honor.” Raglan’s voice was high too, with a touch of anger. “This is an inexperienced witness. We’re talking about a complex thing, the relationship between two people, and I simply want to give this young man a chance to give all the relevant evidence to this jury.”

Both lawyers glared at Norville, who looked stricken. Kwon saw her glance at the clock above the jury. It was 10:15. No excuse to call a morning recess and phone her hubby’s law firm, as Greene said she often did.

He’d also explained to Kwon that Canadian lawyers were not allowed to approach the bench and talk quietly to the judge. There were no sidebars, as there were in the States. Everything was said in open court or the jury had to leave, which took a lot of time and was a pain in the ass.

“Mr. DiPaulo,” Norville said. “I think the Crown makes a good point. We need to give this witness every chance to give us his evidence. But Madam Crown, Mr. DiPaulo is right that the question itself is leading.”

Both lawyers nodded. Norville looked pleased with herself.

“Brandon, let me ask the question this way,” Raglan said. “You were friends with the accused, you played video games with the accused, you read books with the accused—was there anything else you and the accused did together?”

Nice work, Kwon thought. Now everyone knew what she had in mind. Were you fucking the married woman who used to live next door? If the kid denied it, no one would believe him.

“We cooked sometimes,” Legacy said.

This is delicious, Kwon thought. “Kid Cooks Up Cougar Omelette.”

“Cooked. I see.” Raglan was speaking slowly. “Lunches, dinners, which meals?”

“No, I mean we cooked, you know. Got it on.”

Raglan stopped in her tracks. There was some muffled laughter in the court. Norville looked up, angry. Greene had explained to Kwon that Canadian judges didn’t have gavels as they did in the States. But from what Kwon had seen, they didn’t need them. Everyone in Canada was so damn polite. The lawyers, in their cute black gowns, bowing to the judge when they walked in and out of court, calling each other “my friend,” even when they were pissed off with each other. You half
expected the defendant to bring in a guitar one day so they could all sing folk songs together.

“In a court of law like this, Brandon,” Raglan said, “sometimes we need people to spell things out clearly. When you say you got it on, you mean—”

“Sex. Once in a while. It wasn’t a big deal or anything. Mostly we played video games.”

Wow, Kwon thought. “B-Boy Preferred Xbox to Sex with Ex.”

“I see.” Raglan looked shaky. Kwon saw Greene look up at her, concerned. I knew it, Kwon said to herself. I thought there was something between him and Raglan.

“She didn’t make me do it or anything, and it was only after they broke up,” Legacy said. “Her husband was dating that slutty actress, so what’s the big deal?”

Perfecto. Kwon smiled. “Teen Lover: ‘April Is a Slut.’”

Legacy ran a hand through his hair, throwing it back. “Mr. Legacy.” Raglan stopped addressing him by his first name. “Please try to answer only the questions I ask.”

He cocked his head again and the hair moved back into position. For the next two hours Raglan extracted the story from Legacy of the night of the murder. How Wyler had watched TV with him, played a Flight Simulator game on his computer—“Man, is she a good flyer,” Legacy said. “Mom Plays Mile-High Games with Babysitter,” Kwon wrote—and how she’d received an e-mail from her husband saying he accepted her offer and she should come over.

“And did she leave your house after that?” Raglan asked.

“Yeah. As soon as she landed her plane in Morocco.”

“And what, if anything, did she say to you before she left?”

Legacy lowered his head. He was still and didn’t say a word.

“Mr. Legacy,” Raglan said. “Previously you provided a statement. I have a transcript. Would you like to review it? Perhaps refresh your memory?” She moved up to the witness stand. It was effective.

He looked squarely at her. “I don’t need the transcript. I remember.” Legacy shot a glance over to the defense table at Samantha Wyler. “She said, ‘That asshole. After all he’s put me through, now he wants to me to go over there and settle this, just the two of us.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you?’ She said, ‘I know how to settle this once and for all.’ Then she left.”

There was an intake of breath from one of the jurors.

“Teen Testifies Against Former Lover,” Kwon wrote. This wasn’t a joke anymore. He was sinking her.

Raglan turned and walked back to her counsel desk. She looked pleased with herself. Kwon watched her wink at Greene as she put the transcript down. You flirt, Kwon thought.

“Sam said shit like that all time,” Legacy said.

Kwon saw Raglan’s brow furrow.

“She once told me she was a total chicken,” Legacy kept talking. “The only way to get Mr. Wyler’s attention was to yell and scream, but she wouldn’t have the nerve to squish a bug.”

Raglan grabbed the transcript off the desk and whirled toward Legacy. “You never said that in your statement, did you?” She was furious.

“Objection,” DiPaulo sprang to his feet. “She’s cross-examining her own witness.”

Canadian judges might not have gavels, but they knew how to yell when they had to.

“Counsel, Counsel,” Norville shouted. “Both of you, please.”

The court went silent. Legacy looked over at the judge. “No one ever asked me if she’d said things like that before. I mean, she got mad a lot. She told me she could never hurt anyone. In high school some guy tried to drag her into the washroom and she punched him so hard he blacked out. It terrified her, like when she found her dad dead. Said she was afraid of violence. Any kind.” He sounded confused. And honest.

Norville shook her head at the young man. “Sir, you are not to speak directly to me.” She looked at the clock. It was 12:30. “It’s early, but we’re going to break now and have a longer than usual lunch.” Judges always liked to get on the record how rare it was for them to take long breaks. “I’ll address this issue at two thirty.”

“No need, Your Honor,” Raglan said. “Mr. DiPaulo’s right. Mr. Legacy’s my witness and I shouldn’t be crossing him. I have no further questions.”

Clearly, Raglan wanted to get Legacy off the stand. But Kwon knew the damage had already been done. “Boy Toy Brandon Gets Neighbor’s Wife off Murder Rap.” What a headline.

“That rotten little shit.” Jennifer Raglan threw her file onto her small desk and slammed the door behind her, missing Ari Greene’s shoulder by inches as he followed her into the office. “He set me up. Can you believe it? He set me up.”

Greene watched Raglan storm behind the desk and plunk herself down on her cheap civil-servant chair. He’d seen her angry before. But never like this.

“The two of them must have planned this all out.” She was yelling. “Phone records. We have to get a search warrant. Samantha’s stuck up in Cobalt, he must have been calling her.”

Greene calmly opened his trial binder and took some folded papers from the inside pocket. “I had the same idea after you interviewed Legacy last week. So I swore out a warrant for both their phones.”

“You got the records? Great. What do they show?”

“Nothing.” Greene tossed the papers onto her desk. “No calls to or from Legacy or to anyone in Toronto except her lawyer’s office. No e-mails or text messages either. Nada.”

Raglan put her palms to her forehead. “Legacy was right. We didn’t ask him if Samantha had ever said anything like that before, did we?”

“No. We didn’t.”

“Or if she’d ever said anything about being violent.”

“No.”

“Or not violent, for that matter.”

Greene shook his head.

“Shit.” Raglan’s face was flushed. “I shouldn’t have taken this case first thing back. I’m rusty.”

“We make mistakes on every file.” Greene took the search warrant papers off the desk.

“Ari, why are we even having this trial?” Raglan asked. “Their marriage fell apart, he was with another woman, and like Norville said at the pretrial, she lost it. She should have pled to manslaughter.”

“You’re worried the jury might convict her of first, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I’m not in the business of convicting people of crimes they didn’t commit.”

“None of us are,” Greene said.

“I can identify with Samantha. Smart small-town girl comes here. I grew up in Welland, half a mile from the canal. A big day was driving out to the watch the freighters go through the locks. My parents loved waving at the Russian or the Nigerian sailors.”

“No one said this job is easy.”

“Why’s everything so complicated? My mom colored her hair from a box she bought at Woolworth’s.” Raglan rubbed her eyes. “As soon as this is over, I have to take the kids out to see her. It’s been months.”

“We’re all tired.” Greene pulled out his trial binder. “Which witness do you want to call next? All we have left are the brothers and Wyler’s parents.”

Raglan sighed. “Ted DiPaulo dropped in this morning to say hi and he gave me a real hard time. ‘Come on, Jen,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to put one of the family members up there to cry for the jury, are you?’ When he was a prosecutor, Ted hated doing it. Said it was cheap theater.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Greene said. “You can’t end your case with Brandon Legacy.”

“You’re right.”

“Besides, Jason, the middle brother, he has good evidence about the last time he talked to Samantha. How angry she was at Terrance.”

“I know. The jury has to hear the last words she said to him. I can imagine what Ted’s going to say: ‘Putting a disabled guy up on the stand to finish your case. Jennifer—save me the melodrama.’”

They stared at each other. She came out from behind the desk, and Greene stood up.

“I’m sorry, Ari,” Raglan said. “I need you to hold me for a minute.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her across the room until his back was against the office door.

“This feels too nice.” She snuggled against him.

“Tell me about your kids,” he said.

“We started having Sunday-morning brunch.” She wrapped her fingers around his hand. “Dana loves making waffles from scratch. I found this Swedish recipe. You make the batter the night before. The boys are into fresh-squeezed orange juice. We go through a whole bag in one morning.”

“Sounds delicious.” He opened his palm and their fingers intertwined.

“It is good.” With her thumb she rubbed the fleshy part on the top of his hand, between the thumb and forefinger.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said.

“What?” She pulled away.

“I didn’t think it was relevant and I still don’t. But you should know this before you put Jason Wyler on the stand.”

“Tell me, Ari.”

“Terrance wasn’t Mr. Wyler’s son. The mother had an affair.”

“How’d you find that out?” She looked mad.

“Nathan, the oldest brother, told me in November, when the guilty plea fell apart. The two brothers are the only ones who know. Their father doesn’t and that’s a good thing. He’s a hothead.”

“Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Think about what would happen if this gets out. Mr. Wyler will have a fit. He’s a scary guy. Mrs. Wyler’s been through enough. And Simon would hear this one day. It would damage the family even more.”

“So you hid it from me.”

“I protected you.” He was getting mad too. Neither of them raised their voice, for fear of being overheard. They spoke in harsh whispers. “So long as you didn’t know about it, you had no obligation to tell the defense. Most Crowns would be thankful.”

“What do you mean, ‘most Crowns’? You don’t think I’m up to this case?”

“Don’t say stupid things, Jennifer. You’re doing a good job.”

“I don’t need your protection.”

“I made a judgment call that this isn’t relevant evidence. No need to disclose it. I still think that. We tell DiPaulo, he tells Samantha.
What does that accomplish? What difference does it make who Terrance’s father was?”

“You believe that?”

“I do.”

Raglan made a fist of one hand and punched it into the other one. “You’re mad at me for taking this case, aren’t you?”

“Don’t cross-examine me,” Greene said.

“You think I took it just to be near you?”

“You asked the question. Why don’t you answer it?” He stared back at her. His heart was pumping. “There are enough other murders around.”

“‘
Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine
.’ Isn’t that what you think, Ari? Because every woman’s supposed to fall in love with the handsome, mysterious detective. Right? So you can just walk away.”

Greene still had the binder in his free hand. He hurled it across the room and it crashed on the floor.

“I can get Kennicott to babysit the rest of this case.” He reached behind him and cracked open the door. “I was never going to ask you. But you brought it up. Why are you on this case?”