affidavits from husband and wife that were mirror images of each other. Classic “he said, she said” stuff.
Terrance’s affidavit was ten pages of dense prose detailing every faux pas and misstep. Samantha was a workaholic, she had never bonded with Simon, and she was a careless mother—as illustrated by the time in late July when the boy sliced open his cheek and had to go the hospital. She didn’t even notify Terrance. Samantha was untruthful, as demonstrated by the “patently false” charge she’d brought against Terrance, alleging that he’d threatened her with a knife. She systematically alienated Terrance from his family and almost bankrupted him two years ago with her ill-conceived plan to start a gourmet food shop.
Samantha painted an equally unattractive picture. Terrance was controlled by his family. He had lots of ideas to modernize Wyler Foods but no one listened and he was too weak to stand up to them. She started the food shop so he could realize his potential. Nathan Wyler used his contacts to undermine them and Terrance wasn’t prepared to work hard enough for it to succeed. Even though Terrance was acquitted of threatening her with the knife, he wasn’t the easygoing person he pretended to be, but was angry and potentially violent. He destroyed the marriage by leaving Samantha for the actress April Goodling.
Kennicott had seen this type of angry dispute over and over again. Two people who’d lived together, been intimate, had children, yet at the same time were secretly keeping score, like accountants at tax time.
The next file was marked E-MAILS . For some reason e-mail brought out the worst in people, especially when they were angry. There were three in a subfile marked “Samantha E-mails for Police”:
July 30
You’re unbelievable. Simon gets three stitches on his cheek and you’d think he’d lost a limb. No I didn’t call you about it because he’s fine. Now you’re trying to use this against me and it’s pathetic. I bet your family is behind this. All they want is to get their hands on Simon.
August 7
Where the hell does your lawyer get off saying I’m an incompetent mother!!! That I’d be lucky to get supervised access to Simon once a month if we go to trial!!! I’m so pissed off. Your family will stop at nothing to try to take my son away.
August 12
One week from the trial and now your lawyer amends her pleadings and asks for full custody. Says it’s not safe for Simon to stay overnight with me???!!! Who the fuck do you think you are? Just like you to stab me in the back. You want to go to war. Watch out. You’re not the only one with a knife.
Kennicott read the last message over again. “You’re not the only one with a knife.” The prosecutor will love that line, he thought.
He yawned. It was three-thirty in the morning. Kennicott had been going nonstop since the initial radio call early this morning, and there were hours of work ahead of him: read the correspondence between the lawyers, listen to the voice mails, go through the other e-mails, and comb through the financial information. Greene was spending the night at the morgue observing the autopsy. He was going to pick Kennicott up at eight in the morning to go see the Wyler family and would expect to be fully briefed.
Kennicott kept eating carrots as he read. The last forty-eight hours he’d hardly had time to breathe or eat—or do what he wanted to do most of all: call Jo Summers.
They’d met years ago in law school and had stumbled upon each other again last winter at the Crown’s office at Old City Hall. Kennicott was working on his first murder trial with Greene and Jo was running bail court. It was an embarrassing moment, because at first he couldn’t remember her name. Not a good thing with a woman who you had a one-night stand with so many years ago and never even called afterward.
Throughout the spring and early summer they’d become friends, edging closer to each other. In the last week of
Terrance’s affidavit was ten pages of dense prose detailing every faux pas and misstep. Samantha was a workaholic, she had never bonded with Simon, and she was a careless mother—as illustrated by the time in late July when the boy sliced open his cheek and had to go the hospital. She didn’t even notify Terrance. Samantha was untruthful, as demonstrated by the “patently false” charge she’d brought against Terrance, alleging that he’d threatened her with a knife. She systematically alienated Terrance from his family and almost bankrupted him two years ago with her ill-conceived plan to start a gourmet food shop.
Samantha painted an equally unattractive picture. Terrance was controlled by his family. He had lots of ideas to modernize Wyler Foods but no one listened and he was too weak to stand up to them. She started the food shop so he could realize his potential. Nathan Wyler used his contacts to undermine them and Terrance wasn’t prepared to work hard enough for it to succeed. Even though Terrance was acquitted of threatening her with the knife, he wasn’t the easygoing person he pretended to be, but was angry and potentially violent. He destroyed the marriage by leaving Samantha for the actress April Goodling.
Kennicott had seen this type of angry dispute over and over again. Two people who’d lived together, been intimate, had children, yet at the same time were secretly keeping score, like accountants at tax time.
The next file was marked E-MAILS . For some reason e-mail brought out the worst in people, especially when they were angry. There were three in a subfile marked “Samantha E-mails for Police”:
July 30
You’re unbelievable. Simon gets three stitches on his cheek and you’d think he’d lost a limb. No I didn’t call you about it because he’s fine. Now you’re trying to use this against me and it’s pathetic. I bet your family is behind this. All they want is to get their hands on Simon.
August 7
Where the hell does your lawyer get off saying I’m an incompetent mother!!! That I’d be lucky to get supervised access to Simon once a month if we go to trial!!! I’m so pissed off. Your family will stop at nothing to try to take my son away.
August 12
One week from the trial and now your lawyer amends her pleadings and asks for full custody. Says it’s not safe for Simon to stay overnight with me???!!! Who the fuck do you think you are? Just like you to stab me in the back. You want to go to war. Watch out. You’re not the only one with a knife.
Kennicott read the last message over again. “You’re not the only one with a knife.” The prosecutor will love that line, he thought.
He yawned. It was three-thirty in the morning. Kennicott had been going nonstop since the initial radio call early this morning, and there were hours of work ahead of him: read the correspondence between the lawyers, listen to the voice mails, go through the other e-mails, and comb through the financial information. Greene was spending the night at the morgue observing the autopsy. He was going to pick Kennicott up at eight in the morning to go see the Wyler family and would expect to be fully briefed.
Kennicott kept eating carrots as he read. The last forty-eight hours he’d hardly had time to breathe or eat—or do what he wanted to do most of all: call Jo Summers.
They’d met years ago in law school and had stumbled upon each other again last winter at the Crown’s office at Old City Hall. Kennicott was working on his first murder trial with Greene and Jo was running bail court. It was an embarrassing moment, because at first he couldn’t remember her name. Not a good thing with a woman who you had a one-night stand with so many years ago and never even called afterward.
Throughout the spring and early summer they’d become friends, edging closer to each other. In the last week of
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