...And Never Let HerGo

returned her call, he told her that it was apparently true. Tom had been trying to have her killed.
    “Oh, my God,” Debby gasped. The only thing she thought about was her children, Steve and Victoria. Moreover, the press had found out about Tom’s murder plot and it would probably be all over Wilmington soon. She had to get to them and tell them before they read about it in the papers. “I got in the car and went looking for them,” she said. “Victoria was working a block from the federal building and she would have to walk by the reporters. I found them both in time—and I guess it’s funny now, but they saw the look on my face and each of them blurted, ‘What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?’ ”
    She just hugged them.
    O N August 31, 1998, Tom was indicted on three counts of criminal solicitation (for the two murder plots—against Debby and Gerry—and the plot to burglarize Debby’s house). These three charges, if proven in a court of law, could result in a sentence of thirteen years in prison. But you can pour only so much water into a vase, and if Tom was convicted of murder, the charges might be moot.
    Tom’s defense team was taking one hit after another. They denied vociferously that there had ever been real murder plots, and hinted that the state had deliberately put prison snitches next to Tomto entice him into wrongdoing. Tom Bergstrom characterized Capano’s plots as those of a man “acting in total desperation and arrogance.”
    The Fahey family looked on with weary understanding. It had been so long now, and they resented anyone who tried to slow down Anne Marie’s day in court. They were understandably angry at the defense team. “How can [they] come out and feed this stuff to people and expect us to believe it?” Kevin asked.
    “He just seems to be a desperate person who is trying to control MacIntyre the way he controlled Annie,” Kathleen commented.
    The women in Tom’s life, from mistresses to daughters, had been offered up to burglars, alleged hit men, and sex offenders. It was not a question of their safety but of his; it was a matter of priority. (It took until June 13, 1998, before Tom conceded that his daughters were not the source of the blood spots found in his house. When he stipulated to that, he saved them from giving blood samples or from having to testify about their menstrual periods.)
    Even so, there were those who said privately that Tom was prepared to ask his daughters to lie for him if need be. They clearly adored him. As a last-ditch effort, would he suggest they testify that they had been in his house on June 27 and therefore he could not possibly be the one who killed Anne Marie? One of Tom’s defense attorneys had left the team unexpectedly the first week of April. Joe Hurley resigned without any public explanation, although it was alleged that he was unwilling to go along with Capano’s proposed game plan. Hurley made his exit as splashily as he made his entrance, vowing he would never reveal his reasons in this lifetime.
    Headed for trial, Tom still had four attorneys representing him: Charlie Oberly, Gene Maurer, his old friend Jack O’Donnell, and a new member of his team, whose flamboyance made up for the loss of Joe Hurley—Joe Oteri of Boston. Many people said Oteri was the top criminal defense attorney on the East Coast.
    The state didn’t have nearly as much weight in terms of sheer numbers—only two prosecutors—but they were arguably the two men whom Tom hated and feared the most: Colm Connolly and Ferris Wharton, the “Nazi/snake/weasel” and “the hangman.” Neither was a showboater; both were workhorses, and although there were witnesses that each would give his right arm to cross-examine, there was no lead prosecutor. They would be co-prosecutors in every sense of the word.

PART FIVE
    . . . nor shall any person be subject for the same offense
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb;
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a
witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law. . . .
    Fifth Amendment,
    Constitution of the United States

Chapter Thirty-six
    I T HAD BEEN A LONG TIME COMING , but finally, on October 6, 1998, the trial would begin—first with jury selection, and then in earnest. In retrospect, it was autumn that seemed to have marked critical turning points in Anne Marie Fahey’s life and death. In earlier autumns, she had returned to Wilmington