I LOVED MY WIFE,” VINCENT Trussardi tells Cy Kenge on Monday. “I could never have harmed her.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
Cy stands at the prosecution table, one hand on its leather surface to support the weight of his torso but otherwise relaxed, rested, and ready to go. He smiles at Vincent’s assertion that he could not have harmed his wife.
“You maintain your wife had no reason to fear you, Mr. Trussardi. What if someone were to say that, a few days before the murder, your late wife was in the street outside your house, crying and afraid to return?”
“I would say it’s nonsense. I never laid a hand on her.”
“What’s this about?” Jeff whispers.
“Maybe Cy’s just trying to get him mad,” I whisper back, but I feel nervous all the same.
Cy has been going at Vincent Trussardi for over an hour now, by turns cajoling and attacking. He’s made limited headway. Trussardi remains cool and collected.
Cy shakes his head, all sympathy. “Enough to drive any man to distraction, the way your late wife was carrying on. Do you agree?”
“No, I loved her.”
“I didn’t ask if you loved her, Mr. Trussardi. I asked whether you liked the way she was carrying on.”
“I didn’t like the adultery. I hated it. But it was over.”
“So you say,” says Cy, with a cynical nod of his head. “We’ll let the jury decide about that.” He moves close to the witness box, fixes Vincent Trussardi with his stare. “Admit it, Mr. Trussardi. Your wife was doing drugs, committing adultery, and cavorting with street boys. It made you angry; it pushed you over the brink; you couldn’t take it anymore.” Cy’s voice drops. “So you killed her.”
“No,” says Vincent Trussardi. “No, no, no.”
He’s holding his own. Still, the constant barrage is starting to wear on the witness. His face, pale a moment ago, is flushed with anger at the suggestion that his wife could have feared him.
Cy moves on.
“Let’s go back to the gun—the gun that killed your wife. Did you always lock your safe?”
“Yes, of course.”
“As far as you know, no one else ever opened the safe?”
“Not that I know. But someone must have.”
“When was the last time you opened the safe?”
“I’m not sure. I used to check the contents every few months.”
“Was the gun in the safe when you last looked?”
“But when the police had the safe unlocked by a locksmith after your wife’s death, the gun was gone?”
“Yes. That’s what I was told.”
“How do you explain that, Mr. Trussardi?”
“I can’t. Trevor Shore knew where I kept the code—he designed the false compartment. Damon Cheskey watched me take out the code, open the safe. And Laura knew.”
“You’re surely not suggesting your late wife tied herself up and shot herself,” Cy scoffs. “And as for Damon Cheskey, it’s lunacy to suppose a drugged-up street boy would have the wit to know the code and get the gun, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know—”
“Much less that he would have reason to kill the woman he adored?”
“Objection.” I rise. “Mr. Kenge is asking the witness to speculate on matters he cannot know.”
Moulton nods. “Sustained.”
Cy moves on to our alibi. “Let me take you back to that fateful day, Mr. Trussardi. You say you drove to the yacht club about eight thirty that morning.”
“I do. I did.”
“And you had breakfast there, then took your boat out.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t come back until four o’clock or so.” Cy proffers a sheaf of small papers. “This is a copy of the club’s charge slips for that day. Have a look.”
Trussardi inspects the slips.
“And as you’ve pointed out in your evidence-in-chief, one of them is your breakfast chit. Twelfth from the top, I believe.”
“Would you count the breakfast chits for me?”
The courtroom sits in silence while Trussardi counts the slips of paper. “Twenty-seven,” he says at last, raising his head.
Cy takes the sheaf back, hands the witness a second spike of slips, much thicker. “I’m told that these are the slips from the afternoon and evening, with lunch and dinner charges. Would you be so good as to count them?”
Again Trussardi counts; this time it takes longer. “One hundred seven,” he says faintly. I see where Cy is going.
“A lot of people were at the club during the late afternoon of May fifth, Mr. Trussardi.”
“The inference is yours, not mine, Mr. Kenge.”
“We will leave the inferences to the jury, Mr. Trussardi,” Cy snaps. “Let me put it this way—the charge slips I have just given you show that there were many people in and about the Vancouver Yacht Club about the time you say you docked your boat, walked directly in front of the lounge and up to your car. Yet you have been able to produce only one witness—a man who says he is your friend and admits to being drunk at the time.”
I frown, a warning. Vincent picks up on it. “All I can say is that I was there.”
Cy offers the jury a sad, cynical smile. “Now let me take you back to that evening, Mr. Trussardi. You told the jury you waited for the police out on the terrace.”
“Yes.”
“And you saw a young man—a boy—there. A boy who said something like, ‘I killed her.’ Did you tell the police about this when they interviewed you, Mr. Trussardi?”
“No,” Trussardi answers.
“This is vital information to your case, wouldn’t you agree? Someone else saying they killed her?”
“Yes.”
“Then why wouldn’t you have told the police about it at the first opportunity?”
“My lawyer said to answer only the questions they asked. They didn’t ask.”
Excellent response.
“So you want the jury to believe that you didn’t give the police the one piece of information that might have cleared you?”
“The boy was crazy, out of his head. When he said he killed her, I didn’t make much of it, not at the time.”
I bite my lip. Don’t undermine what Damon said.
“So you didn’t believe the boy killed your wife, Mr. Trussardi?”
“No. I thought he was just raving.”
“So why are you asking the jury to believe that the boy might have killed her when you didn’t believe that yourself?”
“I didn’t know what to believe then. But now he admits he knew where the gun was, knew how to get in the safe. If I’d known that, I would have made more of his threat.” His voice drops. “The truth is, I still don’t know who did this terrible thing. All I know is that it wasn’t me.”
Good, I think, stop there. But he doesn’t. He is looking down, lost in his memory.
“The rain was freezing. I was looking out over the ocean, the water beating against my face, the wind cutting it. The boy started screaming. I grabbed him, pushed him away. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you didn’t kill her. I killed her.’ ”
Shock descends over the court. The jury reels back in their soft red seats. I feel the blood drain from my head, the bile rise in my gut. What is he saying?
“No further questions.” Cy swings triumphantly back to the counsel table.
Out of the stunned silence comes Justice Moulton’s voice. “Reexamination, Ms. Truitt?”
I struggle blindly to my feet. How can I fix this? Then words come.
“What did you mean when you said, ‘I killed her,’ Mr. Trussardi?”
He is sobbing, wiping away his tears. “I meant that I let her die. I married her. I was supposed to look after her. I left her alone, went out sailing, left her there to be killed.”
“Mr. Trussardi,” I say, voice low. “Did you physically kill your wife?”
His body is shaking. He’s falling apart; it’s all over. Then he draws himself up and looks the jurors in the eye. For the first time in the trial, he is a lion, magnificent.
“I did not physically kill my wife,” he says, emphasizing each word. “I loved her. I did not kill her.”
“Thank you, Mr. Trussardi.” I sink to my seat.
Cy starts to stand, but thinks better and falls back into his chair. His triumphant moment is clouded, the fatal admission qualified. Still, I fear it’s the end for us. I killed her. The words have been uttered, seared into the jurors’ brains. The explanation that came after is just so much noise.
Moulton’s eye moves to the clock. “We’ll take the noon break.”