Stranglehold (40 page)

Kreitinger saw a few jurors smile.

DiPaulo shrugged. “Well, be prepared to be disappointed. I’m going to spare you all that mumbo jumbo.”

DiPaulo had put the jurors at ease, Kreitinger thought. They like him. They’ll never like me. But that’s not my style. This isn’t a popularity contest. Still.

“Life is never as simple as it seems, is it?” He looked at the jurors one at a time. A number of them nodded. “Clearly, for Jennifer Raglan, by the morning of September tenth, it had become very complicated. Hadn’t it?”

He walked right up to the railing of the jury box. Put his hands softly down on it and shook his head.

“Why?” he asked. “Because she was loved by two men. Yes. Two good men. Both loved her.”

Kreitinger thought back to DiPaulo’s gentle cross-examination of Howard Darnell.

Mr. Darnell, you loved your wife.

Very much.

That’s my only question. Thank you, sir.

He’d set this up right from the start, she realized. The jury was totally with him.

“Howard Darnell didn’t kill his wife of twenty-three years, the mother of his three children. Of course not. He loved her. And Ari Greene didn’t kill Jennifer Raglan either.

“Ari Greene loved her too. And that’s exactly what he’s going to tell you when he takes the stand right here in this court.”

He walked over to the witness box, put his hand on the high front ledge, and rubbed it back and forth, comfortably, like a chauffeur getting ready to open the back door of a limousine for a special guest.

“You all know the law. Ari Greene has the absolute right to remain silent. He doesn’t have to testify. But of course he will.”

Well, that settles that, Kreitinger thought. She’d been up night after night preparing for this cross-examination and had a binder filled with her questions and notes.

“He’s going to tell you that he loved Jennifer Raglan. That on the morning of September tenth, thanks to a traffic jam on Kingston Road, he didn’t get to room number eight at the Maple Leaf Motel until 10:41. And what happened next was the worst thing that ever happened in his life. Worse than getting arrested. Worse than having to endure this trial. Worse than being publicly exposed for his human failings. Worse than having to see the pain he caused to Mr. Darnell, and his and Jennifer’s three children.”

DiPaulo’s voice rose steadily as he spoke. Kreitinger looked up at Judge Norville. She was staring at DiPaulo, as captivated as the twelve jurors.

“He found her dead. Horribly murdered. Who did this terrible crime? We still don’t know. But what we do know, and we know it with absolute certainty, is that Ari Greene loved Jennifer Raglan. Is that Ari Greene did not kill her.”

DiPaulo looked at the jurors again, one at a time, went back to his chair, and sat down.

The courtroom was still.

Here we go, Kreitinger told herself. This was going to be the battle of her legal career.

Judge Norville leaned forward. “Mr. DiPaulo,” she said. “The first defence witness, please.”

THERE WAS VERY LITTLE ABOUT BEING A LAWYER THAT KENNICOTT MISSED, NOT THE TEDIUM
of the paperwork, the politics of a big law firm, the constant pressure to docket for time, and the difficult, demanding clients. But whenever he was in court and watched a top lawyer at work, it planted a seed of doubt about his impetuous decision to quit the law and become a cop. And it helped him justify his decision to keep paying his annual legal dues.

Watching Ted DiPaulo at work this morning was one such moment. After his powerful opening to the jury, he’d seamlessly led evidence to bolster the key point of his case: that Greene could not possibly have committed the murder because he couldn’t have got there early enough.

He started by calling as his first witness Matthew Arban, a technician from a media monitoring firm, who played a tape of a TV reporter broadcasting from Kingston Road at 10
A.M.
on September 10. There was a huge traffic jam behind her, caused by the Oprah–Tiger Woods event. Arban also had the audio of the helicopter traffic report from one of the local radio stations, which he played to the otherwise silent courtroom.

Next DiPaulo had a retired traffic cop take the stand. He testified that a vehicle caught behind this mess would be delayed “a minimum of twenty minutes.”

Who was he going to call next? Kennicott wondered when he came into court after the morning recess. DiPaulo was up at the front of the court, chatting to Mr. Singh, still looking relaxed.

Clearly he was saving Ari Greene until the end. Would it be the prostitute, Hilda Reynolds? She could introduce the idea that there was an alternative suspect still out there. He thought not. She’d be a terrible witness, and would make the defence look like it was grasping at straws.

Greene’s father?

The defence was not allowed to lead an exculpatory statement by the accused, so he couldn’t get on the stand and say:
Ari told me he didn’t do it.
No, he was only good for the defence as a Crown witness.

“Good afternoon, Mr. DiPaulo,” Judge Norville said when everyone was seated. “Your next witness.”

“The defence calls Detective Daniel Kennicott.”

Kennicott was shocked. He couldn’t move.

He felt his whole body jolt. Jo Summers looked him right in the eye for the first time in months, even though they were sitting side by side. Angela Kreitinger swung her head around. She looked stunned.

“Detective?” Judge Norville said. She looked surprised as well.

Kennicott straightened his neck, put his pen down, and walked to the witness box. As he was being sworn he kept wondering why DiPaulo was putting him on the stand. What was he missing here?

“Good morning, Detective,” DiPaulo said once Mr. Singh had sat down.

“Morning,” Kennicott said. Try to smile, he told himself. Don’t let the jury see how confused you are.

“I want to take you right back to room 8 at the Maple Leaf Motel on the morning of September tenth.”

“Fine.”

DiPaulo went to the registrar, who handed him a cardboard box. He strode right back to the witness box. DiPaulo had dropped the aw-shucks-I’m-never-good-with-things-like-exhibits persona he’d used earlier in the week. Kennicott realized he’d organized everything during the break. He was loaded for bear.

“I have here a number of exhibits that were put in evidence as part of the Crown’s case.” DiPaulo reached into the box and pulled out the six candles, the iPod and dock, the wig, the backpack, the sunglasses, the champagne bottle, and two plastic wineglasses.

What is he doing? Kennicott wondered.

“These are all items seized from room 8 at the Maple Leaf Motel, correct?” DiPaulo asked. His eyes were fixed on Kennicott.

“Yes,” Kennicott said. But there was something missing. What was it?

DiPaulo put the box to the side, reached into the backpack, and pulled out two pillowcases.

“And these two pillowcases as well. They were found like this, inside Ms. Raglan’s backpack. Weren’t they?”

Kennicott stared at the pillowcases. He couldn’t even blink. His mouth was dry. He was such an idiot. How could he not have seen this?

He looked at Ari Greene. This had his fingers all over it.

He’s still my mentor, Kennicott realized. And he’s just taught me a very big lesson.

GREENE WATCHED KENNICOTT CLIMB DOWN FROM THE WITNESS STAND, HIS HEAD LOW.

You have nothing to be ashamed of Daniel, Greene thought. I didn’t see this for the longest time either.

It was 3
P.M..

DiPaulo had had Kennicott on the stand for a few hours, going through every detail of the investigation of room 8. Also, as at the bail hearing, he got Kennicott to admit he’d told Greene not to come to the scene. And DiPaulo didn’t shy away from what happened afterwards: that the two detectives had met at the bakery, that Greene had never told Kennicott about his affair with Raglan or that he’d been in the motel room that morning.

Kreitinger tried to make some headway on cross-examination, but DiPaulo had put everything on the table and there wasn’t much left for her to ask.

“Your next witness, please?” Judge Norville said, glancing at the clock.

“The defence calls Ms. Nancy Parish,” he said

Kreitinger bounced to her feet. “Your Honour, Ms. Parish is part of the defence team. How can she be a witness at this trial?”

Judge Norville shrugged. “Mr. DiPaulo?”

“Your Honour, Ms. Parish is going to testify to the results of an examination she undertook as part of the defence. This is no different than if, for example, Detective Kennicott, sitting right here at the Crown table, was called as witness. There’s nothing improper about it at all.”

“Proceed for now,” Norville said.

Parish walked to the witness stand, carrying a familiar-looking backpack, identical to the one Raglan had used that morning. Greene saw that a few of the jurors were nodding. They got it.

“Ms. Parish,” DiPaulo asked, once she was sworn as a witness, “I understand last week you rented a motel room. Why don’t tell us about it.”

“Last Friday, before the trial began, I rented room 8 at the Maple Leaf
Motel. I brought with me six candles, a half bottle of champagne, two new plastic wineglasses, an iPod and dock, and two pillowcases. All of these items were the same as the ones found there on September tenth. I brought them all in this backpack, which is the same size and brand that Ms. Raglan used that morning. I also put in it the same pair of running shoes and gear that she was carrying.”

As she spoke, Parish pulled each item from the backpack.

“I also brought a tape measure, a thermometer, a timer, and a camera,” she said.

“Tell us what you did when you got to the room,” DiPaulo asked.

“I started at exactly ten in the morning. First thing I did was set up the iPod and began playing the same Oscar Peterson song that was playing on Ms. Raglan’s iPod that was seized in evidence. Then I went down the hall and filled one of the motel’s ice buckets with ice. I brought it back, put the ice in the sink, poured cold water on it, and put the bottle of champagne in it.”

“After that?”

“I set up the candles the way they’d been set up that morning and lit each one.”

“And then?”

“I took my clothes off, except a one-piece bathing suit I was wearing underneath, and put everything under the bed.”

“What about the two pillowcases?”

“I left them in the backpack where they were found.”

“Why did you do that?”

“They were made of very good cotton. Much nicer than the ones supplied by the motel. I photographed the ones that were on the pillows when I arrived and compared them with the ones in the crime-scene pictures.”

“And?” DiPaulo asked.

“They appeared to be the same. Here.”

She had copies of both photos mounted on a small board. DiPaulo paraded it slowly in front of the jury, showed it to Kreitinger and her team, and then handed it back to the registrar to show the judge before marking it as an exhibit.

“As you can see,” Parish said, “both sets have the same pink frill.”

“Did you check the label to see what material they were made of?”

“They were sixty percent polyester, forty percent cotton.”

“And the ones in Ms. Raglan’s knapsack?”

“One hundred percent cotton. A heavy weave.”

“And why did you leave them in the backpack?”

“I assumed that Ms. Raglan had intended to put them on, but that something had interrupted her.”

Such a simple thing but it was the key to whole case. Thank you, Jennifer, Greene thought, for caring about the little details. The small things that really matter. His dad was right. He did know her after all.

“And the music was still playing?” DiPaulo asked.

“It was. This all took me five minutes and thirty-two seconds to set up everything.”

“What did you do next?”

“The two plastic wineglasses had price tags on them.” She turned to the glasses on the ledge.

“I sat down on the bed and began to pick the tags off,” Parish said.

“Why did you do this?” DiPaulo asked.

She started to pick away at the edges of the first label. “In the autopsy report bits of glue and white paper were found under Ms. Raglan’s fingernails. As well, we independently tested the plastic glasses that were found in the motel and discovered traces of glue in squares the size of a small label like these ones.”

Greene let himself look at the jurors. They were fixated on Parish’s fingernails as she picked the second glass clean.

“How long did this take?”

“A little more than a minute and a half. I put the glasses beside the candles on the chest of drawers, as they were found at the scene, and sat back on the bed. It was exactly 10:07:15.”

“What did you do next?”

“I sat on the bed and didn’t move until 10:15:33.”

“Why 10:15:33?”

And thank you too, Oscar Peterson, Greene thought.

“When the police arrived the iPod was not playing. It had been paused at fifteen minutes and thirty-three seconds in. The recording was “Canadiana Suite” and it is thirty-three minutes and thirty seconds long.”

“And after that, you say you didn’t move for eight minutes and eighteen seconds?”

“That’s right. Didn’t move.”

“Let’s see how long that actually is,” DiPaulo said. He walked back to his counsel table and leaned against it. “I have a timer right here on my iPhone. I’ll start it right now.”

The courtroom was silent. DiPaulo, a man constantly in motion, didn’t flinch. Silence in such a large space, filled with people, was powerful. As the seconds, then minutes rolled by Greene could feel the tension rise. The words of the coroner, Dr. Fassen, played back in his mind. He hung his head. Every person in the courtroom could imagine the horror of these minutes and seconds of Jennifer Raglan’s life.

After about five minutes, he heard someone in the first row start to weep. He didn’t dare turn. Didn’t have to. Howard Darnell was crying.

So was Greene.

At what point, he wondered, did Raglan realize she was going to die? At what point had his dad known that Sarah would be killed? At what point did Kennicott’s brother, Michael, know that his life was about to end?