The One Who Got Away (27 page)

Will the outcome be different for him? A number of people are betting that it will. I've seen the odds that the bookies are giving: three-to-one, David Wynne-Estes walks. I can understand that. The case against him is weak and that is certainly one of the factors that we need to take into account, but what else is different? Mr Wynne-Estes has top-class representation. He has a team of people working on his public
image. He doesn't look like the kind of man who belongs in prison. Will he end up there regardless? Time will tell.

* * *

DID HE DO IT
?

That was the headline on the first page of the
Bugle
website on the first morning of the first day of the Wynne-Estes trial.

Cecile, sitting opposite in our atrium with her egg and her juice, asked: ‘Who wrote that? And come on, what's his or her verdict?'

My eyes scanned the page for a by-line. They're not always easy to find on the web.

‘Aaron Radcliffe,' I said, ‘he's only been at the
Bugle
about a year, but he's broken some good stories on this one.'

‘Must have a good source,' said Cecile, winking and biting into her toast.

Gossip around town was that he had struck up a friendship with Molly Franklin. He'd been spotted, by a rival publication, helping one of Loren's girls out of Molly's car in the Kiss-and-Go at Grammar. The Department of Child Services in Bienveneda had granted Molly temporary custody of Hannah and Peyton when David went to prison. Janet had protested, saying, ‘Their mother left the girls with me when she went to Mexico, which must surely be taken as a signal of Loren's intentions, should anything ever happen to her.'

The problem with that argument was that Loren had signed a legal document back when the girls were born, saying Molly should have custody of the girls in the event that neither she nor David were capable of taking care of them (one imagines that she hadn't figured prison time for Dad into the equation).

Janet's counsel – Dick van Nispen – argued that note was signed when Loren was new to marriage and motherhood – and to the High Side.

‘Loren was still getting used to her new situation when she signed that note,' said Dick. ‘These girls have spent their whole lives on the High Side. They'd be able to stay in their own home on the High Side if they stay with their Aunt Janet. She has the means to take care of them.'

Buried in that argument was the idea that Loren had grown apart from her family after she married David. Her life – and the girls' lives – was conducted entirely on the High Side, with occasional visits to her father on the Low Side. The High Side was where Loren shopped and socialised, and it was where the girls went to school. Molly occasionally visited Loren at home, but did Loren visit Molly in her condo? Not all that often.

As arguments go, it wasn't a bad one, but Dick still lost. (‘I'm not having much luck, am I?' he said, over rattling ice cubes at the Nineteenth Hole, after court that day.) The document Loren signed when the girls were born was legally binding; had she wanted her girls to grow up on the High Side with Janet, she needed to have said so.

As I understood it, Molly hadn't moved to accommodate the twins. They were all squeezed into her little condo, with Grandpa around the corner. Not fancy, not flash, but in all the circumstances, probably not a bad outcome.

What she'd told them about their dad, I couldn't say. No question, Grammar would be doing its best to shield the girls from gossip, but there's only so much a school can do.

‘So, come on, what does Aaron Radcliffe say?' asked Cecile.

I cleared my throat and began to read aloud from the newspaper: ‘There is one person who knows for certain whether
Bienveneda businessman David Wynne-Estes murdered his wife.'

‘Oh, really?!' said Cecile.

‘That person is David Wynne-Estes.'

‘Ah,' said Cecile, disappointed. ‘I see. I thought they were going to reveal some super new witness. Do they predict an outcome?'

‘Not overtly,' I said, skimming the text. The tone of the article clearly suggested that David was guilty, but the
Bugle
had been leaning that way for a while.

‘There's a quote from me,' I said.

‘Oh yes?' said Cecile. ‘What do you say?'

I took a quick sip of coffee and began to read again: ‘This will be the last trial in the long and distinguished career of the judge, L. Samuel Pettit, who has agreed to keep a journal for the
Bugle
.

‘“I will go into court with an open mind,” Judge Pettit says. “There has been a great deal of publicity and gossip surrounding this case, but everyone is entitled to a fair trial and I will be working to ensure that's what happens for Mr Wynne-Estes.”'

‘Very good,' said Cecile, nodding approvingly. ‘Now, off you go and get yourself to court.'

I rose from the breakfast table. It's a timber table, built long and narrow, and able to seat ten, although it hardly ever seats more than two these days. In rising, I lowered my head to place a light kiss on Cecile's raised hand. It's one of our traditions.

As a judge, I'm entitled to a car and driver, but my habit has long been to drive my own car to the courthouse. The new building sits above an underground car park; I can glide right in and make my way up in the elevator. The building is, as I've said, quite modern. There are seven courtrooms, all identical in their furnishings – the walls are blonde wood; the seats are pale blue – but Court Five is extra large, for cases like this one.

Ben was standing ready to help me into my robes. The clerk's job is also to ensure that all my notes are in order. Court goes into session at ten am, but anyone who wants to be inside should be seated before that.

‘Is the public gallery full?'

‘Yes, Your Honour,' said Ben. ‘Some people have been waiting since before dawn.'

‘Are the families here?'

‘Yes, Your Honour.'

‘His and hers?'

‘Yes, Your Honour.'

‘And they have reserved seating?'

‘Yes, Your Honour.'

‘And the press seats? Are they full?'

‘Yes, Your Honour.'

‘Well then, please go in and remind them to turn off their phones.'

‘Yes, Your Honour.'

I waited for Ben to return before striding down the corridor to the courtroom. I won't shy from this, it's a magical feeling, having everyone rise and fall silent upon the clerk's opening the door to announce my arrival.

I've been at pains over the years to ensure that power – I'm the most important person in the room – hasn't gone to my head. Cecile had been generous in her desire to assist in this regard (now, where do I find one of those winky emoticons?).

I gathered my robes around myself, and settled into the high-backed chair.

‘Court is in session,' said Ben.

The court manager – his identity changes from one day to the
next, depending on rosters – strode across the courtroom and opened a side door for David.

David Wynne-Estes has been described in the
Bugle
– and online – as tall and handsome too many times to count. He is indeed tall and handsome. I knew him slightly; we are – or were – members of many of the same clubs. Flanked by burly armed security, he did not look particularly tall. Nevertheless, he was the star attraction, so all heads turned to watch as he made his way not to the front but to the back of the courtroom. In Bienveneda, the defendant sits at the back of the court, directly facing me. His chair – an ergonomic chair like mine, although not as high in the back – sits within a three-sided, bulletproof Perspex box. The box is open at the front, so the defendant can see and hear (and, I suppose, breathe). He sits behind a desk, made of the same blonde wood as the table for the attorneys, with a modern microphone – thin, like a black straw – screwed into the top.

David reached out and bent and tapped the microphone, as if to see whether it was working – it was – but thereafter he left it alone.

David seemed to be doing extremely well, given the circumstances. He hadn't been in prison all that long and he hadn't yet put on, or taken off, any weight (either is possible, depending on whether one can stomach the food; also depending on how much use one makes of the gym). He was wearing a terrifically expensive suit, but who besides those who routinely wear terrifically expensive suits would have known that? To most people, the suit would simply have said: ‘I accept that this is a serious situation, and I am taking it seriously.'

Predictably enough, his tie was yellow.

There was no sign of David's daughters, for which I felt grateful. Little girls should not under any circumstances have
to sit through their father's murder trial, and doubly so when the victim is their mother. Then again, it's amazing what some image makers put up as ideas to win the jury's sympathy.

The defendant's sister-in-law, Molly Franklin, was there with Loren's father. David's new girlfriend was also there, sitting right in the front row, with Janet, and David's parents.

His new girlfriend? Yes, the
Bugle
had already outed David for having a new squeeze. Cecile assures me that Cody Kim is her real name. Cody had platinum-blonde hair. Her cardigan was pink. Her bosom swelled perfectly. The first time Cecile saw her picture in the paper, she said: ‘She looks like Betty Draper. Where did they find her? She's so perfect.'

‘Perhaps she comes from Sally & Sons?'

‘I'd put nothing past them,' said Cecile. ‘They could well have a closet full of girls who look exactly like that for occasions exactly like this.'

I must admit to being perplexed as to why David would want a new girlfriend.

‘Isn't that a bad idea?' I asked.

‘Oh no,' said Cecile. ‘It's a fine idea. It's a subliminal message to the jury: “Look at this lovely lady. She believes me. Why not you?”'

I glanced over at the jury. They were six men and six women, all suitably, sombrely attired. At least one of the six men was indeed focused on Cody, and not in a bad way.

I turned my attention back to the court. Besides the girlfriend, it seemed that we were to be blessed with a daily performance by David's new lawyer, Tucker the Texan (after losing on the maritime argument, poor old Dick had been given the shove).

Tucker's real name is J. Tucker Bingham, III. Is he Texan? I heard a rumour he was from Tennessee. I guess it doesn't matter.
As he himself says on his website, Tucker is about the best defence that High Side money can buy. There are people within the Bienveneda legal community who will tell you that Tucker is a tool, but I quite like him. No, I do. I like him. He looks the part, if the part is that of the Texan. He has a good head of white hair. He brings his hat into court. He isn't allowed to wear it, yet he still brings it in and lays it on the table. He wears a suit built around the idea of a safari suit, with boots. The boots have amethyst detailing.

With court in session, I read out the charge – first-degree murder – and I asked David: ‘How do you plead?'

David leaned forward. ‘Not guilty,' he said.

The bloggers and tweeters in the back row tapped hurriedly at their screens: David Wynne-Estes has entered a not-guilty plea …

‘Very well,' I said. ‘Let's begin.'

* * *

‘Well, I don't think I've ever seen such an attractive jury.'

Tucker the Texan was standing in the middle of the courtroom with his thumbs in his pockets and his hat on the table.

‘No, I'm serious. Look at you folks,' he said, looking directly into the eyes of each of the twelve jurors. ‘What an attractive bunch you are.'

The jurors grinned. Probably they knew better than to be seduced and yet couldn't help themselves, not with Tucker standing there like Colonel Sanders, grinning right back at them. Tucker's strategy – and I've seen him do this more than once – is to appeal not to me, not to the noisy press in the back row, but directly to the jury. To their intelligence, their better natures,
their collective maturity, and to their sophistication. It's a clever move.

I've seen plenty of defence lawyers – especially the younger ones – go the other way. They address the jury, but in doing so, they bore the jury. Worse, they badger the jury.

Tucker the Texan, he flatters the jury. And why not? It's their vote he needs, not mine. It's the jury he needs to win over, not me, and not you, following on Facebook. He doesn't need you. He needs the vote of every single person on the jury. As such, he goes after them like a presidential candidate.

‘Now, I want you to know that we screened you people pretty well,' Tucker said. ‘And not only for your looks. We need you for your brains. I mean, maybe there's been a more attractive jury put together in Bienveneda, but I don't think so. No, I'm messing with you! Don't let me mess with you. What I mean to say is, you're good people. I know that. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. You're interested in justice. That's obvious. And you already know quite a bit about this case. You can't help that. You're smart people: you read the newspapers, you watch the news. You've heard this and you've heard that, and maybe you've already got an idea in your mind about whether or not my client here is guilty.

‘Well, I'm here to tell you, he's not. He's not guilty. Yes, yes, the media says otherwise, or implies otherwise, but you're not going to subject this man to a trial by media. That's not part of our Constitution. We're going to try him on the basis of the facts. We're going to try him in accordance with the law. And you're going to come to a verdict based not on what you've seen or heard to date, but on the basis of the evidence presented to you in this court. So, thank you for coming. I mean that. Thank you. It's a big job you've got in front of you, but we know you're up for it. We screened you just right.' Tucker took his seat.