Beach Wedding(18)

Her Dominican accent was pretty thick, but I thought she spoke English quite well.

“How did you get the job?” my dad asked.

“Through my uncle Freddie. He was a doorman at Mr. Noah’s building in Manhattan. Mr. Noah had fired his old maid and asked my uncle if he knew anyone.”

“Could you please walk us through the early morning of July 5, 1999?”

“I had taken my vacation the week before back to my parents in Santo Domingo and was coming back from the airport, from JFK.”

“You were coming back to Noah’s house on Meadow Lane?”

“Yes.”

“In a taxi?”

“No, a car service. Mr. Noah’s service he told us to use. It was a Lincoln town car.”

“What time did it pick you up?”

“Around 6:00 a.m., and we arrived at the house at about 7:00. Maybe 7:15.”

“How did you get in?”

“I used my security code at the gate. I didn’t buzz because my coworker Hortencia had told me there had been a big party, so I didn’t want to wake anyone up.”

“The driver dropped you off at the front door?”

“Yes, with my bags. Then I let myself in.”

“How? With a key?”

“Yes, with my key.”

“The front door was locked?”

“Yes.”

“Was that uncommon?”

“No, Mr. Noah was very security, um...”

“Conscious?” my dad said.

“Objection,” the defense lawyer Byron Seager said with a charming little smile.

“Sustained,” the judge said.

“Noah Sutton liked to keep the doors locked at night?” my dad asked.

“Yes,” Ms. Mercado said.

“Okay, so you went inside the house. What then?”

“I went to the buzzer and opened and closed the security gate for the radio car.”

“Did you see anyone inside the house? Anyone awake?”

“No. I came in with my bags, and it was quiet and dark with the shades down. I was about to go downstairs to my room when I noticed that the light was on in Mr. Noah’s office.”

“Was the door to his office open?”

“No, but it has a glass...”

“A glass front? Like a French door?”

“Objection.”

“Enough with the leading, Counselor.”

“Please continue, Ms. Mercado,” my dad said.

“I saw the light and thought maybe Mr. Noah was up, and I could tell him I was back, but—”

That’s when she lost it. I watched as my father tried to console Ms. Mercado by handing her a box of tissues.

“Can you tell us what you saw?”

She took a deep breath and nodded, wiping at her eyes.

“As I got to the door, I saw Mr. Noah’s legs on the rug through the glass. He was on the floor half under his desk. He was in his underwear, and when I got closer, I saw the blood.”



26

A sudden loud murmur went through the courtroom, and the judge called for order.

I watched as my father went to the prosecutor’s table to check his notes before he resumed his questioning.

“Did you enter the office at that point, Ms. Mercado?”

“No.”

“What did you do?”

“I screamed and ran. Ran out of the house. But then I thought maybe Mr. Noah needed help, so I went back inside and ran upstairs to get Miss Hailey.”

“Was Hailey Sutton in her bedroom?”

“No.”

“Where was she?”

Ms. Mercado shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Did the bed look like it had been slept in?”

“Yes, it did. It hadn’t been made up.”

“What did you do then?”

“I ran downstairs and called 9-1-1 from the kitchen.”

“Okay, Ms. Mercado. Now, I’d like to fast-forward a little and go over the testimony you made to the police later that morning when you were interviewed at the station house.”

As my dad said this, I held my breath, my heart thumping.

Because this was where it was going to get interesting.

I actually knew what was up next. My dad’s best friend, Detective Marvin Heller, had arrived at my house three nights before for a strategy session, and I had listened in by the door of my dad’s office and heard every word.

Marvin Heller was the first arriving detective, and as soon as he came on the scene, he quickly whisked Ms. Mercado away to the station.

And received a bombshell.

During questioning, Jailene Mercado had told him that she had seen a gun in a drawer in Hailey’s closet two weeks before when she had gone to the room to change the sheets.

Not only that, Marvin had shown Ms. Mercado a book of guns, and she’d ID’d the pistol she had seen in Hailey’s closet as a blue-steel Smith & Wesson Model 52 semiautomatic with walnut grips.

The reason why this was such a bombshell was because a Model 52 was a special target pistol that shot .38-caliber wadcutter bullets.

Which was the same exact type of round found in Noah’s head.

What was also completely incriminating was the fact that under the brief amount of questioning Hailey had been subjected to before her army of attorneys had arrived, she had been asked if she possessed a gun, to which she had said no.