...And Never Let HerGo

Kathleen would recall. “Losing her brought the rest of us together, stronger even than before.”
    O N Wednesday, November 18, there was, perhaps, the most provocative lineup of witnesses in the six-week-old trial. The state was going to call Debby MacIntyre. Somehow, court watchers knew it, and the lines of people determined to get into Courtroom 302 curled around and around the stairwell. Debby had never talked tothe press and no one knew what she might say about Tom Capano. Did she still love him? Or did she hate him now?
    Before the prosecutors called Debby to the stand, however, they had to make a difficult decision. Keith Brady had been the chief deputy attorney general of Delaware for three years. He was Ferris Wharton’s superior and his friend. He was a good man, married, with a family, but the information that Tom had induced Brady to participate in a ménage à trois with himself and Debby was going to come out; there was no way to stop it. Connolly and Wharton understood now what absolute control Tom had maintained over Debby—but it was a concept that would be difficult to impart to a jury. By calling Keith Brady, they could show that Tom had offered Debby up to Brady in what he hoped would turn into a sexual orgy. And even then, Debby had followed his directions without question. They had seen it themselves; Debby had been so blindly devoted to making Tom happy that she never questioned him about
any
orders he gave her. She always believed what he told her.
    If the prosecutors called Brady to the stand first, their direct examination would be as sensitive as they could phrase it. They couldn’t just pretend that Tom hadn’t brought Brady to Debby’s house that night, now years in the past. But even as Connolly and Wharton understood that Brady’s career, his marriage, and his place in the community would be in peril, they had no choice but to call him as a witness against Tom Capano.
    Keith Brady, who reported directly to Jane Brady, the attorney general of Delaware (no relation), took the stand. He was pale but resolute and his answers came with an economy of words and without emotion. He kept his eyes on Colm Connolly and didn’t glance around the courtroom. He knew that Connolly had no alternative but to question him.
    Brady explained that he had once been Tom’s assistant when they both worked for Governor Castle as his legal advisers. When Tom left, Brady had taken his place as chief counsel. Tom had, he said, confided in him about Anne Marie. “He initially had indicated to me that he found her to be a very attractive woman,” Brady testified, “and over a period of time, he eventually told me that they were involved in a relationship.”
    “Do you recall,” Connolly asked, “if he said anything about whether or not this relationship needed to be kept confidential?”
    “Yes,” Brady answered. “I recall one incident in which he said that, because she worked in the governor’s office and his law firmwas doing a significant amount of legal work for the state, that it was important that the relationship be kept confidential.”
    Brady said that Tom had told him about his trip to the Homestead with Anne Marie. He wanted to have a long time alone with her and was unhappy when she ended their relationship. Tom had called his office on Friday morning, June 28, to ask him to play golf, but Brady said he was attending a CLE (Continuing Legal Education) seminar that day.
    “When did you learn that Anne Marie Fahey was missing?” Connolly asked.
    “I was in my office working on Sunday, June thirtieth, and I received a call from Ferris Wharton,” Brady said. Wharton had told him that Tom Capano was the last person known to have been seen with her.
    After that, Brady said, he and Tom had played phone tag on Monday and Tuesday, leaving messages. Because Brady was a prosecutor, he took notes of the conversations they finally had. “He said he was blown away by what was happening,” Brady testified, “spooked by the way the cops were treating him.”
    Tom told Brady essentially the same things about the night of June 27 that he had told the police, his brother Louie, and Debby. Brady was not only Tom’s old friend; he was also the second-highest-ranking law enforcement official in Delaware. He had turned his notes over to the law enforcement officers who were investigating the case.
    He himself had been recused from the case. “That means,” Brady said, “I was not participating in