...And Never Let HerGo

interminable explanations. He had yet to give his version of the long ride to Stone Harbor and the trip on Gerry’s boat to Mako Alley. Perhaps he thought that if he was able to convince the jurors that Anne Marie’s death was an accident, he could go home again and pick up his life. Even Debby MacIntyre would have nothing hanging over her head but a tragic accidental shooting. Tom had admitted he was a coward—but apparently he could live with that. He seemed more anxious to show the jury that he was a gentleman who always treated his women well.
    On Tuesday, December 22, Tom was on the stand again, explaining how he had “compartmentalized” and done what he had todo. Gallantly, he had sent Debby home so that she wouldn’t be involved. On the same trip to the basement when he chose the cooler over the garbage can as a body receptacle, he found a bottle of Clorox bleach. He estimated that he had spent only ten to fifteen minutes putting Anne Marie’s body in the cooler. He wasn’t sure just when he had used the bleach—before or after he went to Anne Marie’s apartment. It was only a three-to-five-minute drive. He had let himself in with her keys.
    “I’ve only done this [compartmentalizing] one other time in my life—when my father died,” Tom told the jury. “And yet I didn’t have enough sense not to pour Clorox straight onto a dark maroon love seat, and it left a very large discoloration.”
    Tom insisted that Gerry could not have seen as much blood on the couch as he had described because the Clorox had turned the maroon upholstery yellow. “I also tried to clean up [the floor]; there were some fairly light bloodstains on the carpet,” he said. “And then I just sat down and tried to think of what I was going to do at this point—what I could possibly do.”
    Oteri had seen the effect that Tom’s matter-of-fact explanations were having on the jurors and tried to soften his image. “Now,” he asked, “are you normally an emotional person?”
    “Yes,” Tom said.
    “You’re not being emotional today,” Oteri offered.
    “No—well, first of all, I’m drugged, and secondly, I’m compartmentalizing again.” Tom said that Dr. Tavani had increased his dosage of Xanax (for anxiety) and added another drug whose name he’d forgotten.
    “Does that, in your opinion, account for your semi-zombielike state?” Oteri led.
    Connolly objected, but was overruled. Judge Lee let Tom testify about the effects of his prescription drugs. If Lee was erring at all during this trial, it was always on the side of fairness to the defendant. He allowed Tom to go even further and explain how his father’s death had made him “put his feelings in the attic.”
    Once more, as his testimony continued, Tom drew Debby into his accidental-death scenario, incriminating her even further. Regarding the toll back edit of calls from his phone, he testified that all of them had been placed, but not for the reasons Debby stated. Yes, he had called his office answering system to establish he was home at 12:05 A.M. And he and Debby had called back and forth about what they should do to get rid of Anne Marie’s body. He had to get the cooler and the carpet out of the great room, and she had knownhe was far too weak to do it alone. He said Debby had volunteered to come back and help him. “She was certainly at my house no later than one,” Tom said.
    “When she arrived,” Oteri asked, “what did you do, the two of you?”
    Tom said they had carried the cooler down the steep narrow back steps to the laundry area and the garage beyond. “It was something I could never, ever have done myself,” he stressed. “And she helped me. And then we moved furniture around and we rolled up the rug. It was almost wall-to-wall, with rubber padding underneath. Very heavy. It took two people to lay it when it was first brought in.”
    According to Tom, Debby stayed with him for a while and he reassured her over and over that Anne Marie’s death had been only a horrible accident. He said he himself would bear the guilt because he had not been honest with her about Anne Marie.
    Tom’s avowed concern for others carried over into his testimony about Gerry’s part in disposing of Anne Marie’s body. He told the jury he had tried desperately not to involve his little brother, but Gerry had been adamant about not giving Tom the keys to his boat. As for Gerry’s testimony that Tom had once told him he might have to kill an