...And Never Let HerGo

ordinary?”
    Tom’s lawyers objected and Judge Lee overruled them. Theyneedn’t have worried. Kay testified that Tom had been as he always was. But when he left, he took the Suburban, leaving the Jeep for her. She didn’t know why.
    “I guess what I’m asking you,” Wharton said, “is did the defendant take your daughters for the weekend on Friday?”
    “No, not on Friday.”
    Kay said she saw Tom on Saturday between five and six, and the girls spent the night with him. Tom had come to pick them up and had kept the Suburban until Sunday night or Monday morning.
    “Now, when he picked the girls up on the twenty-ninth [Saturday], was there any difference in his demeanor—his behavior?”
    “He seemed a little agitated.”
    Wharton then jumped ahead eighteen months. “Since he has been arrested, have you sent any money orders to people at the Gander Hill correctional facility?”
    “Yes, I did. Twenty-five dollars, and there were a couple of fifties.”
    “Do you know how many you sent?”
    “. . . six or ten . . . I never kept a record of it.”
    “Did you send money orders to anyone other than the defendant?”
    Kay nodded. “All of them [were] . . . I can remember three different names.”
    “What names do you remember?”
    “Tito. And Nick Perillo, and then there was someone else, but I don’t remember his name.”
    “Fusco?”
    “You know, I think I did, but I don’t remember. I know that name.”
    Wharton didn’t stress the names to the jury. Who and what they were would come out later in the trial. Kay had simply done what Tom asked. Like the other women in his life, she had long since grown used to his directives.
    Wharton had one more question. “In 1995 to 1996, did any of your four daughters have brain surgery?”
    Kay looked at him, slightly puzzled. “No.”
    It was a quarter of five on a long November afternoon, but Kay had only to face Jack O’Donnell on cross and then she could go home. She knew O’Donnell and didn’t fear him. He had been very good to the girls when they insisted on coming to court, giving them hugs and trying to ease their pain.
    “How are you?” O’Donnell asked.
    “Swell,” Kay said flatly. It was obvious she would rather have been anywhere but where she was.
    “I’ll get you in and out of here soon,” O’Donnell promised. All he wanted to do was emphasize that Tom often took the Suburban when he was driving their daughters, that he was a devoted father at their sports events, and that the Capano house was a magnet for their girls’ friends.
    “Tom would stop by frequently,” he asked, “either on the way to work or after work—just to see the girls for a few minutes here and there?”
    “Yes.”
    “And these would be among the times when he would just stop by unannounced that you were talking about?”
    “That’s right.”
    There were no fireworks while Kay was on the stand. She seemed only to be a tired, worn woman whose marriage had been a sham for a quarter century, a woman who was trying desperately to protect her daughters from the scandal surrounding the father they idolized. Through it all, she retained her dignity.
    Somehow the reporters, who seemed to live at the courthouse, knew everything that was going to happen. If Kay had disappointed them, the word was out that Louie would be testifying very soon. More titillating than that were the rumors in the media underground that Debby MacIntyre would appear soon after. Short of Tom himself explaining their affair, Debby was the witness everyone wanted to hear.

Chapter Thirty-nine
    L OUIE C APANO ’ S TURN to testify against his brother came on Friday, the thirteenth of November. The witnesses the media sought most avidly entered the courtroom through a side door to avoid the throng of reporters at the top of the stairs, and left the courthouse itself through the back door. Gerry had done that, and now Louie too appeared suddenly at the front of the courtroom. Where Gerry had been anguished, Louie was polished and suave, obviously a man who was not easily flustered. However, he did appear curious about the room in which he found himself. He looked at the gallery andstared up at the high ceiling as if he had never been in a courtroom before. And perhaps he hadn’t; Tom had always taken care of Louie’s legal problems before they reached the courtroom stage. “For a minute there,” reporter Donna Renae commented, “Louie looked around as if he were a child lost in a