The Guilty Plea by Robert Rotenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

Sam?” He took the chair beside the window and swiveled it to face her.
    “No.” She studied the glass of water. Her voice was hollow, her eyes unfocused. Classic signs of shock.
    “We have to talk.” He sounded neutral, not overly sympathetic.
    She glanced at him, jarred by his unusually cool tone. “Terry is dead, God knows when I’ll get to see Simon, and …” Her voice faltered. She shook her head.
    “Terry isn’t just dead. He was murdered.”
    She let her brown eyes rest on him. Even when they were in distress, those eyes warmed everything in their path.
    “I didn’t kill him.” Her voice was so faint DiPaulo had to strain to hear her.
    This didn’t surprise him. Most clients told him they were innocent at the initial meeting. He never let himself believe or disbelieve them. But he knew that denial runs deep. On the other hand, if she had an alibi, nothing would make him happier than running a murder trial he thought he could win.
    “Sam, listen. We have almost no time and little room to maneuver. If you weren’t in that house last night, I need to know where you were.”
    She looked again at the water.
    “They could arrest you at any moment.” He had to break through to her. “The first question will be: Where were you last night?”
    She didn’t say a word.
    Clients usually grew quiet when he got them out of the denial stage. Silence was often a form of surrender to the inevitable.
    He pushed on, looking straight at her. “Every murder case comes down to two things. Motive and opportunity.”
    “Ha.” She laughed, catching him off guard. “I have motive in spades. The divorce trial about to start … his movie-star girlfriend.”
    Good, DiPaulo thought. She’s talking. “Those angry voice mails and e-mails you sent Terry. They don’t help.”
    “So it all depends on whether I had the opportunity?” She turned to the closed door beside her. For a second he was afraid she was going to bolt.
    “Listen carefully before you say another word,” he said. “I can’t knowingly present false evidence in court. If you tell me you were in his house last night, you can’t turn around later and testify that you were somewhere else.”
    In fact, this was an overstatement. There were many ways DiPaulo could finesse the problem, especially, if like most clients, she told him more than one story. Then his position would be simply that he had no way of knowing what the truth was. But right now, he wanted to maximize the pressure he was putting on Samantha.
    Her head bobbed. Her back was to him, but he knew he had her full attention.
    “I can do great things with the truth, however bad it is,” he said. “Nothing would be worse than for you to lie to me right now. I’d rather you say nothing.”
    Wyler swung her chair back to him. She was silent. That seemed to say it all.
    “There’s one thing we can do,” DiPaulo said. “If you’re not sure of what to say to me, you can ask me a ‘theoretical’ question and I can give you a theoretical answer.”
    She finally spoke. “So, theoretically, if I was in the house, that would mean …”
    They were entering the danger zone. The fine line between preparing a client to talk to the police and coaching them about what to say. “So, theoretically, you don’t have an alibi?”
    “Let’s say, theoretically, I was in the house.”
    “Then we better make a deal.”
    “What if …” Wyler reached for the glass of water. She was putting her thoughts together. Teetering on the verge of something. Not quite trusting him.
    “Theoretically. If I said I was at the house last night …” She tossed her hair off her face and took a sip before she turned back to face DiPaulo. Those dark eyes bore into him. “But that I didn’t kill him. Theoretically. Would you believe me?”
    “It’s not my job to believe you.”
    She slammed the glass down. “I need a lawyer who believes me.”
    “That’s the last thing you need.” DiPaulo kept calm. “You need