Chapter 23
“Your Honor, it has come to my attention that Ms. Leary has been giving interviews and inside knowledge of what’s going on during this trial to a true crime podcaster. She is trying to influence the outcome of this trial.”
I shook my head as if I needed to rattle something loose to make sure I heard him correctly.
“He has no idea what he’s talking about,” I said.
“There is a podcast called Tallon of Justice, hosted by a woman named Tallon Shipley,” Addison continued.
“In the past week, that podcast has garnered thousands of downloads. In an episode, Ms. Shipley aired an interview with Ms. Leary in which she gave detailed opinions and outlined her personal knowledge of the victim in this case.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I need to stop you right there. I didn’t give an interview to Tallon Shipley.
She ambushed me at Tom Loomis’s graveside service.
She recorded a private conversation I was having with someone else, without my knowledge.
My only direct communication with her was me telling her no comment. ”
“A convenient denial,” Quick said. “There is more than that though. Ms. Shipley has leaked information about Katy Loomis’s statement to the police.
A statement Ms. Leary motioned this court to suppress.
But Ms. Shipley has cherry-picked portions of the statement.
Only those that might exonerate the accused.
It didn’t come from my office. Nor the sheriff’s.
I believe Ms. Leary herself is the leak.
If she has been talking to a reporter or a podcaster and feeding Katy Loomis’s statements to her, then those statements should be admissible here and subject to cross-examination. ”
“What statements?” I asked.
“I’d also like to know,” the judge said.
“The absurd story that Katy Loomis was too intoxicated to remember or know what she was doing the night of the murder. Ms. Shipley had access to Katy Loomis’s toxicology report.”
“Again, that didn’t come from me. If it’s true, I’m just as caught off guard as you are.”
“All right, all right,” Judge Castor said. “Ms. Leary, is it your position that you had no part in leaking any of your client’s statements to the press?”
“It is absolutely my position. Because it never happened.”
“Mr. Quick, do you have any proof that Ms. Leary did something wrong besides your own assumptions?”
“Well, I … that is … I just don’t see who else could have done it.”
“That’s not good enough,” Castor said. “I haven’t put a formal gag order in place.
I’m doing that now. Neither of you are to speak to the press or try to influence the jury in the media in any way.
They’re admonished not to consume media on this case outside of trial anyway.
But I am not going to hold anyone in contempt on the basis of assumptions. Got it?”
Quick grimaced, but seemed to acquiesce. I was fuming. He’d just attacked my character in front of the judge. At the same time, I needed to know what in the world Tallon Shipley said on that podcast.
“How much have you got left, Mr. Quick?” Castor asked.
“I have one more witness I’d like to get to today. Depending on how that goes, I may rest by the end of the day.”
“Who’s on deck?” the judge asked.
“Joe Leary,” Quick answered. I bristled. I knew he’d likely call my brother. I just hadn’t anticipated it would be today.
“He’s ready to take the stand?” Castor asked.
“He’s out in the hallway, yes,” Quick answered.
“All right, then, let’s get on with it. I’ll have the jury brought back in. Let’s try to wrap this portion of the trial today. Ms. Leary, be ready to present your defense first thing Monday morning. How long do you anticipate you’ll need?”
“You know I can’t say for sure. But I would think two trial days.”
Castor did some mental math. “All right. So let’s say we might actually have this to the jury by the end of day Wednesday, possibly Thursday morning?”
“Hopefully, yes,” Quick said.
“Then let’s get going.”
We went back to our tables.
“What’s going on?” Katy whispered.
“I don’t have time to get into it,” I said. I very much wanted to ask her if she’d been talking to Tallon Shipley or anyone else. But there wasn’t time. The jury was already filing back in.
“Jeanie,” I said. “You’re up. He’s putting Joe on next.”
That was the deal we made. I would not cross-examine my own brother.
“I’m ready.”
“Is he?” Katy asked.
“He just has to tell the truth,” I said.
“All rise!” the bailiff called out.
Judge Castor retook the bench. “Mr. Quick?” he said.
“The state calls Joseph Leary,” Quick said, nearly shouting it.
My brother walked in wearing the blue suit I bought him last year. He was clean shaven, handsome. He looked exactly like our father if the old man hadn’t let himself get pickled by alcohol.
He took his oath and stared Addison Quick down. Keep your cool, I thought. The last thing Katy needed was a flash of my brother’s legendary Leary temper.
“Mr. Leary,” Addison started. “I’d like to cut right to it. Please tell me your relationship to the accused.”
“Katy is my ex-wife,” he said. “We were married for almost seventeen years.”
“That’s a long time. Do you have any children together?”
“Not together. Not biologically. But Katy and I raised my daughter from a previous relationship together. Emma.”
“Got it.” Quick rifled through some notes, then left them behind and came out from behind the lectern. He leaned against the jury box for the remainder of his direct exam.
“Mr. Leary, please explain the circumstances of your divorce from Katy.”
Joe stared straight at me. Jeanie sat with her hands folded on the table.
Katy’s bottom lip quivered. Part of me wanted to strangle her.
Everything that happened to Tom was horrific.
He was the victim in this. But because of it, my brother would now be forced to recount in open court some of the worst, most humiliating events of his life.
“That’s hard to answer,” he said. “There wasn’t just one thing.”
“Oh, I’d say there was a pretty big thing, wasn’t there?”
“Objection,” Jeanie said. “Argumentative.”
“Sustained. Try that again, Mr. Quick.”
“Fine. Mr. Leary, what would you describe as the biggest factor in the unraveling of your marriage to Katy?”
Joe cleared his throat. “It came to my attention that Katy was having an affair with Tom Loomis.”
“When did this begin?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there when it happened,” Joe said through gritted teeth.
“Do you know how long it had been going on?”
“Not definitively, no,” Joe said. “A few months, I believe.”
“How did you become aware that your wife was cheating on you?”
Joe picked at his sleeve. “She told me.”
“She just came out and told you one day? All of her own volition?”
“No,” Joe said.
“In fact, you confronted her, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Joe’s nostrils flared. “I was made aware that Katy and Tom had been seen together in a compromising position. I asked Katy about it. She didn’t deny it.”
“Did you file for divorce right away?”
“Pretty much. Yes.”
“Did you argue?”
“Of course.”
“Would you describe your divorce from Katy as contentious?”
“Yes.”
“Your Honor,” Jeanie said. “The circumstances of the break-up of Joe and Katy Leary’s marriage isn’t in dispute. It’s also not relevant to the issues in this case.”
“Mrs. Loomis’s state of mind is very much relevant.”
“Her state of mind regarding the events surrounding her husband’s murder,” Jeanie said. “Joe Leary is not on trial. His marriage to Katy isn’t on trial either.”
“Sustained. Let’s move on, Mr. Quick.”
“Fine,” Addison said. “Mr. Leary, isn’t it true you also had a confrontation with Tom Loomis after you learned of his affair with your wife?”
“We had words, yes.”
“More than words though. You got into a bar fight, didn’t you? A police report was filed. You hit Tom Loomis, didn’t you?”
“It was a private matter,” he said. “Nobody was charged. Tom took a swing at me. He missed. He tried to start the fight and I finished it.”
“I see. When was this?”
“Almost three years ago,” Joe said.
“So you and Katy divorced. Then she married Tom. Was that the end of your relationship with Katy?”
“No,” he said. “Our relationship can’t end. Ever. We have a daughter together. Katy is the only mother Emma has ever had. But, for a while after she married Tom, we weren’t on speaking terms, if that’s what you mean.”
“That is what I mean,” Addison said. “But that changed, didn’t it? In fact, you and Katy rekindled your romance, didn’t you?”
Joe’s face turned to stone. At that moment, I didn’t know who he was more angry with: Addison Quick for asking the question, or Katy for making him have to.
“I don’t think I’d call it a romance, no.”
Quick snickered. “What would you call it?”
“We weren’t getting back together. But yes. For a brief period last year, Katy and I had … we became physical again.”
“Physical. What exactly do you mean?”
If Joe could shoot fire out of his eyes, Addison Quick would have turned to ash.
“We had sex. Got it? That’s what you want me to say? Katy and I hooked up for a little while earlier last year. But it didn’t last very long. We both realized pretty quickly it was a bad idea.”
“So Katy Loomis, in essence, cheated on you with Tom. Then turned around and cheated on Tom with you.”
“You asking me a question?” Joe asked before Jeanie could even get to her feet.
“Katy was married to Tom while you and she started having sex again, right?”
“She was married to Tom. Yes.”
“But you say this was a brief liaison. How brief?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Addison said. “How many times did you have sex with Katy while she was married to Tom?”
“Objection,” Jeanie said, exasperated.
“Sustained,” Castor said without even letting Addison respond.
“All right,” Addison said. “To your knowledge, did Tom Loomis ever become aware of the fact that Katy committed adultery with you?”
“Yes.”
“How did he become aware?”
“It’s my understanding that Katy told him.”
“How did you come to understand that?”
“Tom confronted me.”
“What happened during that confrontation?”
“A lot of shouting. But by the time he came to me, Katy and I had already put a stop to it.”
“But he threw her out, didn’t he?”
“What?”
“Tom kicked Katy out of his home because of you, didn’t he?”
Joe shook his head. “I’m not in on what Katy and Tom talked about with each other.”
“But she stayed with you for a while during her marriage, didn’t she?”
“For a weekend, yes,” he said. “Just so Tom could cool off.”
“Wow,” Addison said. “So he could cool off. She cheats on him with you. You end it. Tom confronts you. Then you just open your door to her and let her move in.”
“Is there a question in there?” Jeanie asked.
“Did Katy go back to Tom?”
“Yes. They got back together and worked it out. Katy and I were through.”
“Through? What do you mean, through? You just said you can never end things with Katy because of your daughter.”
“I mean in terms of Katy and me. Of there being a Katy and me. It was over. We weren’t talking.”
“You weren’t talking. So when you say Katy and Tom worked things out, you don’t really know that, do you?”
“It’s what I understood.”
“You understood. But you had no contact with Katy, by your own admission, for months prior to Tom’s murder.”
“That’s right.”
“And yet, upon finding out she was being questioned regarding Tom’s murder, you immediately got involved, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You arranged for Katy to be represented by your sister, Cass Leary, didn’t you?”
“I asked her to help, yes.”
“Because Katy still mattered to you. Because you and she will never end, right?”
“Because she’s the mother of my daughter. And because I know she didn’t do this.”
I wanted to slap him. He was letting Addison get under his skin.
“You know she didn’t do this. But that’s not really true, is it? You have no idea what was going on with Katy and Tom because as you say, you had no contact with her.”
“We weren’t talking. But I know Katy. She’s not capable of murdering anyone.”
“You weren’t even in town.”
“I know Katy,” he said.
“You don’t really know anything. Were you there?”
“What?”
“Where were you the morning of March 14th? What were you doing?”
“Objection,” Jeanie said. “This is totally irrelevant. Mr. Leary isn’t the accused here.”
“Mr. Leary just vouched for his ex-wife on matters he has no knowledge of. I’d like to establish that.”
“Overruled,” Castor said.
“The question is,” Quick continued. “Where were you on the morning of March 14th?”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“You have no idea what was going on with Tom and Katy. Much less what happened in that house on the morning of March 14th, unless you were there? Were you?”
“No!”
“No. You weren’t. And where were you?”
“I spent the night in Northville. I had a large home renovation job I was overseeing. I told the police that.”
“So you did. You weren’t even in town. You have no idea what went on in the Loomis house that morning, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“By the way, you needed that job you were on too, right? Your construction company has been underwater for a while, hasn’t it?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” he said. “And it’s a lie.”
“Well, you certainly wouldn’t have been able to keep Katy in the lifestyle Tom Loomis could, could you?”
“This has nothing to do with me. None of this. Katy wanted to be married to Tom. That’s it. And she didn’t kill him.”
“But you don’t know that. You didn’t talk to Katy. You didn’t see Katy. You weren’t even in town. So you cannot vouch for Katy. You have no idea what went on in that house. You are not qualified to testify about what she did or didn’t do because you weren’t there.”
“I wasn’t there,” he said.
“But she wanted you to be, didn’t she?”
“What?”
“Because you’re still in love with your ex-wife, aren’t you?”
“Objection,” Jeanie said. “This is irrelevant.”
“Oh, I’d say it’s entirely relevant. Joe and Katy had been carrying on behind Tom Loomis’s back. Tom Loomis was about to hit the escape hatch and leave them to each other and Joe Leary’s negative-balance bank account.”
“Enough, Mr. Quick,” Judge Castor said. “Save it for your closing argument.”
“You can go to hell,” Joe shouted from the bench.
“Get him off,” I whispered to Jeanie. “Get him out of there.”
She nodded, her face turning purple with her own bubbling rage at Joe.
“I have no further questions,” Quick spat.
“Ms. Leary … rather, Ms. Mills?”
Jeanie slowly rose. “I have no questions for this witness,” she said.
“You may step down, Mr. Leary,” Castor said.
My brother practically vaulted out of the witness box. He didn’t look at me or Katy as he passed us by. He glared at Addison Quick and stormed out of the courtroom.
“Mr. Quick?” Judge Castor said.
Addison Quick was still on his feet. Still smirking. “Your Honor, at this time, the prosecution rests.”