Chapter 21
When Idle Words Come Back to Haunt You
"I thought we had them!" Elijah said from the living room of his large, grey, two storey home located in the north east section of Toronto known as Rosedale.
"What happened in there?" Elliot asked, "Yesterday evening when we were talking, everything seemed to fit nicely together, and now, night has fallen and we're still no closer to finding the real murderer."
"It's called we didn't have all of our ducks in a row," Becca replied sipping her water. "Since the defense doesn't have the burden of proof and only has to show reasonable doubt, sometimes the conclusions we draw come back to bite us in the butt."
"Still Becca, this was an amateur mistake on my part," Elijah said in despair. "We worked so hard on the angle that the embezzler had to be the murderer that we twisted the facts we had to suit our theory, instead of our theory to suit the facts. The facts we thought pointed to Daniel and Audrey as the murderers in actuality do not point any such way. We could not place either one at the park, and even though Audrey lied as to when she arrived back in Toronto, we should have investigated further as to her whereabouts. Instead, we drew an inference and ended up jumping to the wrong conclusion."
"So what do we do now Elijah?" Becca asked. "Do we look at other suspects? What about Tim Parker and Kevin Craig. Perhaps we need to give them another look. They after all had a lot to gain with Scott Taylor out of the way."
"Tim Parker and Kevin Craig could have done it, but what was their motive? The OPP were already onto their drug scheme, so it only would have been a matter of time before they were exposed," Elijah said.
"Yeah, but they didn't know that. I say we give them another look," Becca said.
"You can give it a try, but I don't think you'll get anywhere," Elijah said.
"Then what do we do!" Pamela said. "My husband is about to be convicted of a murder that he didn't commit, and all that seems to matter to you is that you were hoodwinked in the courtroom."
"It does matter that I was hoodwinked in the courtroom!" Elijah responded. "I'm not discouraged because my ego was hurt here, but because I'm running out of time to show that your husband didn't kill Scott Taylor. Sending an innocent man to jail is a vast injustice, but that is exactly what will happen unless we find something in the evidence already collected. The solution to this murder is sitting right here in this stack of papers. I have been through the interviews and exhibits a dozen times but still haven't found that one clue which will prove to be the key. I know it's there though."
Cameron's car pulled into the driveway, and Elijah saw him admiring the house as he walked up the flight of stairs to the front door. Becca opened the door and invited Cameron inside.
"Wow, you and Becca really have a nice house. How much did it cost you?" Cameron said.
"That doesn't concern you," Elijah commented. "So what have you got for us?"
"Audrey's story checks out. Both her and Daniel checked into the hotel on Century Rd. at 5:45 PM and were shown to their room. The hotel offers 24-hour room service which the couple took complete advantage of. At 8:00 PM they ordered dinner, to which Audrey signed for, and at 11:00 PM, they ordered dessert to which Daniel signed for. The dinner trays were picked up by the waiter who remembers Daniel handing them to him, while the dessert trays were handed to the waiter by Audrey at 1:45 AM. They checked out of the hotel at 2:35 AM. It is exactly how Audrey Taylor described it in court today."
"Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? It's almost as if they went out of their way to show the waiter that they both were in the room. One picked up dinner, one handed back the trays. Then one picked up dessert and the other handed back the trays. Now that could be just a coincidence or a crafty ploy to hide the fact that there was only 1 person in the hotel room," Elijah said.
"That still doesn't prove anything. Besides, both times food was delivered, the waiter remembers hearing the shower. Two people were in that hotel room and no one can prove otherwise," Cameron responded.
"Dinner's ready!" Becca yelled, carrying a pot roast into the dining room.
"Smells good," Cameron said. As he sat down at the table he remarked, "Elijah, not only is your sister a great lawyer, it looks like she's a good cook as well."
"Hey, wait a minute. I cook in this house too. It just so happens that it was her night," Elijah said as he sat down.
Once everyone had gathered around the table, Elijah said a prayer and everyone began to eat. Cameron thanked Becca for the dinner invitation commenting that this was the first home cooked meal he had had in weeks. When asked why, Cameron said that between school and investigative work, he barely spends anytime in his house, let alone in the kitchen, cooking.
A tradition in the Deville house is that whoever doesn't cook does the dishes. After everyone was done eating their meal along with their cheesecake for dessert, Elijah went into the kitchen to tackle the mounting load of plates and silverware. The rest went into the family room that was adjacent to the kitchen and turned on the 6 o'clock Toronto Television Newscast. The lead story of course was the debacle for the defense. Reporters described the scene as an embarrassment for the city renowned lawyer Elijah Deville who rarely makes mistakes in the courtroom. During the story, the crime reporter tried to ask Audrey Taylor, who the police were leading away in handcuffs, if she had killed her husband, but got no response. After the report was finished, the next piece was about how the police had finally arrested a man who fled the scene of a hit and run accident on June 30, 2010. Bored with the news, Becca picked up the clicker and changed the channel. Just as she was going to begin an epic round of channel surfing, Elijah yelled from the kitchen for her to go back to TTV and turn up the volume. Upon returning to the program, Police Correspondent Tammy Cerise was about to begin reporting.
"At 7:00 PM on June 30, 2010, a family's life was changed forever," the story began. "Traveling westbound on the 407 just east of Exit 39 in Mississauga, the SUV carrying Edwin and Marissa Cloverleaf and their 10 year daughter Miranda was struck in the rear by a passing pickup truck. The SUV swerved off of the road and hit a lamp post, while the driver of the pickup truck fled the scene. EMS arrived on the scene at around 7:20 PM, and managed to pull all three victims from the car. Despite life saving procedures being performed, Mr. and Mrs. Cloverleaf died at the hospital a short time later, orphaning their only daughter who sustained only minor injuries. The suspect in custody is Terry Giguere of Oshawa. He was arrested late Tuesday night after a tip was received by the OPP saying that Giguere had confessed to a neighbor about accidentally being involved in a motor accident that he had ran away from. Giguere is charged with fleeing the scene of a crime for now, although the crown expects to file other charges in the near future. For TTV news, I'm Tammy Cerise, back to you Cale and Kristy."
After hearing the story, Elijah immediately dropped the plate that he was washing and ran to the living room. Hearing the commotion, Becca and the others rushed after him, not knowing what the matter was. Once they got to the living room, all they could see was Elijah frantically rifling through papers, quickly reading them and then casting aside the irrelevant ones.
"What's the matter Elijah?" Becca asked.
"I don't know yet, but I think I just remembered something that we previous thought was meaningless, which in fact could be the answer to all of our problems." Elijah then found a copy of an interview stapled to a receipt and his eyes opened so wide, that you thought they might fall out.
"What is it?" Becca said.
Elijah showed them the papers and said "It was there all along." Becca then showed the papers to Elliot, Pamela and Cameron. Elijah leaned back on the sofa and remarked "Sometimes the smallest detail will end up being the deciding factor."
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