...And Never Let HerGo

Anne Marie wasn’t in the courtroom, at least not in the sense that anyone could see or hear. She could be portrayed only in words, photographs, and videotape.
    Wharton moved on to the last night of Anne Marie’s life. He described the strange evening at the Ristorante Panorama, where Tom and Anne Marie sat through a three-course dinner and barely ate—or even spoke. The timetable was extraordinarily important here. “So they leave the restaurant sometime around nine-twelve,” Wharton explained. “That’s when the receipt is printed. It’s a little unclear what happens next. It depends on who you believe.”
    Did they return to Tom’s house, or did he take Anne Marie home? Wharton told the jurors that someone was in her apartment between 9:45 and 10 P.M. , according to Connie Blake, who lived beneath it, and not someone in high heels. Someone was also there at 11:52—someone who dialed *69 on her phone to determine who her last caller had been.
    “And at 12:05 A.M. ,” Wharton said, “for some reason, Tom Capano decides it’s necessary to call the Saul, Ewing answering service to get his voice mail . . . what that does, if you think about it, is place him in his house at that time.”
    Less than six hours later, Tom was waiting in his brother Gerry’s driveway for help with a “problem.”
    Wharton touched on the carpet, the blood evidence, the cooler, the gun, and the bloody couch. He let the jury know that Gerry, Louie, and Debby had initially held back the facts of their participation in the case and had been allowed to plea-bargain in exchange for telling the truth. (If something is likely to come back and bite him, the prudent lawyer brings it up himself before the other side can spring it.)
    “The state has the burden of proving the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Wharton told the jurors. “The evidencewill show you that before Anne Marie Fahey stepped out of the Ristorante Panorama on June the twenty-seventh, she had a life, she had a family. She loved people and people loved her. She had friends. She had confidants. You will see and hear from many of them. Before Anne Marie Fahey stepped out of the Ristorante Panorama with Tom Capano, she had a job. She had responsibilities. The governor of the state depended upon her to make sure his schedule was set. After Anne Marie Fahey stepped out of the Ristorante Panorama with Tom Capano on June the twenty-seventh, no one—not her family, not her boyfriend, Mike Scanlan, not her many friends, not a single one of them, no one from work, not her employer, not the governor, not anybody—has had any contact at all with her.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” Wharton concluded, “a person like Anne Marie Fahey, someone who loved so much and is loved by so many, just doesn’t disappear. Someone like Anne Marie Fahey who is responsible just doesn’t disappear without a trace unless something is terribly, terribly wrong. Something did happen which was terribly, terribly wrong to Anne Marie Fahey. The evidence will show you, ladies and gentlemen, that the man she described as ‘a controlling, manipulative, insecure, jealous maniac,’ the man who would not even allow her to decide what she had for dinner on June 27, 1996, would not allow her to decide with whom she was going to spend the rest of her life. The evidence will show you, ladies and gentlemen, that Tom Capano murdered Anne Marie Fahey.”
    Tom Capano looked straight ahead. People in the gallery had no clue about what he was thinking; they could see only the back of his expensive suit.
    J OE O TERI began his opening remarks by promising the jury he would not talk for an hour and a half, and he pointedly reintroduced his team. Then he explained that in Boston attorneys called other attorneys “brother.” “My brother, Mr. Wharton,” he said, “pointed out to you that Tom Capano was a controlling freak because he ordered a meal for Anne Marie Fahey at the Panorama. You will hear that Tom Capano considers himself a gentleman. You will hear there’s an E-mail between Anne Marie Fahey and a girl named Kim Horstman where she tells her, ‘Go to dinner with Tom—he’s a perfect gentleman.’ A gentleman who is a host at dinner orders dinner for his guest.”
    Oteri started out magnanimously, dealing with the easier questions about the case. He said he didn’t want to cast shadows over Anne Marie, and then he proceeded to do just that, moving swiftlyto chip away at her character.