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

a lawyer who can defend you.”
    She glared at him. Challenging.
    He stared back. There was a moment with clients when they were ready to confess. It was human nature, this urge to confide in someone. That’s why he hadn’t responded a few minutes ago when Wyler said she didn’t kill her husband. Didn’t want her to feel trapped by her own words. He needed to keep his professional distance.
    “Why did you go to the house?” he asked. “Theoretically.”
    “After midnight, Terry e-mailed me. I can show you if you want.” She pulled out her BlackBerry, scrolled through the e-mails, and passed it over to him. “See. He said he’d accept my offer after all. Asked me to come to talk about it.”
    DiPaulo watched her, transfixed. She’d dropped saying theoretically. Greene must have seen these e-mails on Terrance’s BlackBerry before he came to DiPaulo’s office. That’s why he’d said if she has an alibi. He knew she didn’t. This kept getting worse. “You went over?”
    “He was dead on the kitchen floor.” She was breathing hard now. “The knife was right there beside him. I ran upstairs to see if Simon was okay. Then I left.”
    “You left?”
    “With the knife.” She sat statue still. “I wrapped it in a dish towel. A red-and-white one.”
    “Why?”
    “To protect my son.” She opened her hands in a helpless gesture of resignation.
    This couldn’t be worse. The risk of having this type of theoretical conversation at such an early stage was that your client would lock into her denial. Now Samantha had convinced herself of a story that no jury in the world would believe. Especially if she spoke to them in this cold, remote tone.
    “You didn’t call the police?”
    “I was in shock.”
    “And you left your son alone in the house?”
    Her body jolted. “I panicked. He was asleep.”
    “He’s four years old.” DiPaulo felt a surge of anger. He was slipping into his old Crown Attorney role, cross-examining his own client.
    The last major case he did at the Crown’s office, he’d prosecuted a man who’d grabbed a young girl jogging in the Humber River valley, raped and strangled her, then left her dead in the woods. The man’s pathetic explanation as to how his sperm was found in a fourteen-year-old’s vagina? That he had been out running, happened upon her dead body, and had sex with it. The jury convicted him in less than two hours. Samantha Wyler’s story wouldn’t keep them out much longer.
    “It’s awful,” she said.
    “The jury will hate you for it.”
    She started to hyperventilate. Her face flushed. “Okay. You want to make a list of everything I’ve done wrong in my life?”
    “No, Samantha, I …”
    She balled her hand into a fist and pointed her index finger at him. “After my father died, I blamed my mother.” She flicked out her middle finger. “Those teachers and librarians back home—I never showed any appreciation.” Her ring finger came next, the wedding ring still on it. “Terry. It’s true what they say. I hated his family. Couldn’t stand how they controlled him.” Her baby finger. “And I wasn’t a great mother. For Terry it was the best thing, having a child. He wanted more kids and I wouldn’t do it.” She yanked out her thumb. “I’ve always been a misfit.”
    With her open palm she slammed her hand down on his desk, barely missing the glass of water. “But I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill him.”
    She rolled her hand back into a fist and started to gnaw on the end of her thumb, almost like a child. DiPaulo had never seen her cry, but in a flash she was heaving tears. “I want to see my son.”
    He shook his head. “I have more bad news for you. The Wylers have got a court order prohibiting you from seeing Simon for the next seventy-two hours.”
    “What?” She was screaming.
    “Unless you have an alibi …”
    Wyler sobbed. It was as if some embedded plug in her emotions had been torn asunder. She cried for a few minutes and he