...And Never Let HerGo

for the day.
    They were so close to the end of Debby’s testimony. She had been on the stand for three days and it seemed cruel to ask her to come back another day for the ten to fifteen minutes that Connolly estimated it would take to finish his redirect.
    In the end, Judge Lee decided to continue with Debby’s testimony. Tom would have to ride in the bus back to Gander Hill anyway, and in court or on the bus, the time would be the same. “I’m sure that’s going to be unpleasant for him but so’s the ride back going to be unpleasant for him,” Lee said. “And without dealing with the issue too much, I’m not inclined to let him tell me when Ican hold court—and I think there is a certain element of that involved in this.”
    No one in the courtroom could miss the way Tom sought to control his own attorneys, the guards—and now even the judge. His notes to Oteri and Maurer had become more frequent and intricate. And he still turned to chat with his family whenever he felt like it. Even as an attorney who knew what the protocol should be, he continued to try to make his own rules.
    For another forty-five minutes, Maurer continued to ask Debby questions that implied that she was somehow involved in Anne Marie’s death. She was exhausted; the gallery was exhausted. But she knew she hadn’t been anywhere near Tom’s house on the night Anne Marie died, and there was no way on earth anyone could prove that she had been.
    It was almost six when it was finally over and Debby was allowed to step down from the witness stand. Tom, still gripped by intestinal spasms, shuffled out of the courtroom and onto the bus bound for Gander Hill.
    T HANKSGIVING was only two days away when Nicholas Perillo took the witness stand. Handsome and glib, he was an instant hit with the women in the gallery. Perillo told the jurors of Tom’s plans to have Debby’s house burglarized and how Tom had ordered that special attention be given to the destruction of items that would remind her of their love affair. Perillo spoke with easy familiarity about Kay Capano and Christy, Katie, Jenny, and Alex, Tom’s daughters. Apparently, Tom hadn’t been at all concerned about having his fellow prisoners contact them. Of course, Perillo was a prime target for the defense, but he cheerfully admitted his failings in his deep, tough-guy voice.
    Jack O’Donnell suggested that Perillo had deliberately ingratiated himself with Tom. Yes, Perillo agreed, he had asked his brother, the
ER
actor, to send Tom’s daughters an autographed picture.
    “You were earning Tom’s trust, weren’t you?”
    “I was making a fifteen-year-old tickled to death that she had a picture of some actor—I thought it would be a nice thing to do, given the situation the poor kids were in.”
    “You had no ulterior motives?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “It never occurred to you, if you set Tom Capano up, you might have Christmas dinner outside of the institution this year?”
    “That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Perillo’s face was a study of imperious outrage.
    “Well, you’re going to have Christmas dinner outside the institution, aren’t you?” O’Donnell pressed.
    “That has absolutely nothing to do with my participation in his case,” Perillo said. “I’m here to tell the truth to this jury, this courtroom, and it has absolutely nothing to do with why I’m in prison—
absolutely nothing.”
    “You’re here to tell the truth as a law-abiding citizen for what—the first time in your life?”
    “Got to start somewhere.”
    “. . . You’ve agreed you are a liar, haven’t you?”
    “Sure.”
    “You’ve lied, stolen, and cheated nearly your entire adult life? Agreed?”
    “Agreed.”
    There was something refreshing about Nick Perillo. But most compelling, more than anything he said, were the scrupulously drawn floor plans of Debby’s house that he had delivered to Ferris Wharton. No one but Tom could have drawn them. No one but Tom knew Debby’s security code or where she hid her jewelry, her valuables, and her secret things. And he had given those drawings to the man on the witness stand, apparently in the belief that he was ordering a burglary of the home of the woman who loved and trusted him.
    Such an action was not that far removed from betraying another woman who had loved and trusted him; only, in Anne Marie’s case, the state believed he had carefully planned to murder her. That was why Jack O’Donnell fought hard to destroy Nick