Читать книгу Winston Patrick Mystery 2-Book Bundle - David Russell W. - Страница 16

By the time I had taken Carl to his home and me to my mine, it was well past midnight. And still I had not completed my marking.

I had managed to convince Carl it would be a good idea not to come to work on Thursday morning. In fact, I had called our “teacher-on-call” service even prior to going to the police station to ensure Carl’s classes would at least be looked after. Somewhere down the line since I had been a high school student, substitute teachers had changed their moniker to teachers-on-call in a bid to get more respect from students and colleagues alike. As far as I know, students still figured it was holiday time whenever their regular teacher was away. The only time I had ever been thrown out of high school during my own adolescent years was over the grief I had caused a “sub” during a Social Studies class. Back in the eighties, schools had no sense of humour. You told one substitute teacher to fuck off and you were outta there.

Fortunately, Carl was meticulously organized, and his lesson plans were prepared for someone to take over for him. It would have been hard for him to be prepared for the circus at the front of the school when I arrived on Friday morning. If news of Tricia’s death had brought out the best of Vancouver’s media machine, news of Carl’s questioning by the police had brought out the rest of them. How they even knew he had been picked up for further questioning was a mystery that wasn’t too difficult to solve. Detective Furlo would be going out of his way to make sure I had a difficult job defending the man he had already decided was guilty. He had even let it slip that a certain former lawyer turned teacher was acting in Carl’s defence. The moment I stepped out of my car, Cameron Dhillon, a local television reporter, was headed my way. I’d never met him, but he knew just who he was looking for.

“Mr. Patrick?” he began, cameraman in tow. “Are you defending Carl Turbot?”

“Yes, I am,” I replied lamely. I felt as ill-prepared as I had been during my first trial—which I had lost. Working with legal aid clients, it had been rare that the media took interest in any of my defendants.

“Has Mr. Turbot pleaded not guilty?” he pressed on. By now, a handful of other reporters had noticed the activity near the staff parking lot and were hurrying over to get in their two bits before I could make it to the doorway.

“Mr. Turbot has not and will not be pleading guilty or not guilty because he has not been arrested or charged with any crime. A plea would be premature at this time.” I used my snotty lawyer tone.

“Sir, why has Carl Turbot hired a lawyer if he isn’t guilty?” came a question from a print reporter. You could always tell. They still carried notebooks.

“I have no comment on Mr. Turbot’s decision to retain counsel. That is information that is privileged between solicitor and client.”

“Aren’t you a teacher at Sir John A. Macdonald high school?” Cameron Dhillon continued.

“I am, and I have classes to teach, so if you’ll excuse me.” I pressed forward through the gathering throng of media hounds and did my best not to hear the questions they shouted at me as I went by. It’s a curious phenomenon, the media scrum. What we often see on television is the tail end where reporters figure that the subject of their scrum leaving is a cue to start shouting as loudly as possible. How they figure that would help to hear their questions and respond to them any better is an enigma. I suppose when their bosses see the tape back at the studio, reporters want to be seen at least trying to get the all-important quote from their source.

Once I reached the doorway of the school, the press backed off. It is an unwritten rule—it may even be written for all I know—that schools are somehow sacred ground onto which reporters shall not tread without an engraved invitation. As a general rule, school administrators are all about avoiding negative publicity, so I was fairly confident Don would not be inviting the press in to ask questions. But of course, Don was waiting for me inside the doorway, just past the line of sight of the press. I pretended not to see him, despite his position in the middle of the hallway. That was pretty immature, I admit, but immaturity is an occasional unintended side effect of working with teenagers all day. Don didn’t look happy to see me.

“I see your client is not coming to work today,” Don began, foregoing a polite “good morning.” Don said the word “client” with a sneer, as though he found the word personally distasteful. I suppose from his perspective as the person in the school at whom the buck purportedly stopped, the word could be distasteful.

“I believe he was feeling a bit under the weather,” I reported to my supervisor. “And good morning.” I continued walking away from him, down the hallway towards the main office.

Don nearly snarled at me. “He was under the weather, or he couldn’t bring himself to show his face around here.”

I turned. “Are you asking a question or making an editorial comment?”

“I’m asking you. Is he sick? Is he quitting? What’s going on?” Sweat was forming on his nearly bald head.

“I don’t represent Carl with regard to his teaching duties. From what I understand, he called in sick, he has arranged for his classes to be covered. End of story. If you have questions about his health or the appropriateness of his sick leave, I suggest you take it up with the union representative.”

Don stepped in front of me to bring me to a halt. “You know something, Winston? I used to like you.”

“Thank you,” I interrupted. “That’s very nice to know.”

“You have an impressive resumé, you had a very good interview, I hear good things about you from the students,” Don continued.

“I feel a ‘but’ coming.”

“You’re damned right there’s a ‘but’ coming. ‘But’ you’re a smart ass. ‘But’ representing a teacher who may have been sleeping with and killed a student is a really odd way of endearing yourself to me. ‘But’ going out of your way to alienate yourself from me is not a good way to ensure a continuing appointment to this school or even this school district.” He was on a roll.

“Are you out of ‘buts’ yet?” I posed calmly.

“Don’t push me,” he hissed quietly, since a couple of teachers had rounded the corner and were doing a poor job of pretending not to listen to our exchange. I decided to take advantage of the audience to ensure the line was clearly drawn in the sand.

“I have no desire to push you. But endearing myself to you is not only not paramount on my list of immediate or long term goals, it would likely ‘unendear’ me to the rest of the staff, who are frankly more useful to me personally and professionally than you are. Since you’re bringing up my status as teacher, let me remind you of my continued status as litigator, and if you think you’ve got bad PR now, wait until you see what happens when I sue you, personally and the school board corporately should I not secure tenure because I failed to ‘endear’ myself to you. Have a nice day.”

I walked away in a self-righteous huff. After spending time with both Sandi and Furlo, I had a pressing need to ensure that the last word in a conversation was mine for a change. It took only thirty seconds for me to feel guilty about snapping at Don. Having all of this go down couldn’t be easy for him. I also knew I was going to face a very tough class first period: Law Twelve.

Law Twelve class is intended to serve as a general introduction to legal principles and perhaps interest senior students in a career in the practice of law or law enforcement. The class has the potential to be very interesting, intellectual and enlightening, unless, of course, school counsellors use it as a dumping ground for any student who needs a Grade Twelve credit. My three law classes contained an eclectic mixture of students, some of whom were generally interested in law and how the legal system worked, some who reluctantly did the minimal amount of work in order to get through the course, and a small spattering whose interest in law class was directly related to their perceived need to beat some kind of Youth Criminal Justice Act prosecution hanging over their heads. This morning, I knew one hundred per cent of my budding legal practitioners would have only one case on their mind.

Reaching into my letter box in the office, I pulled out a stack of those little pink-coloured “while you were out” message slips. Not only had every major and minor media outlet attempted to contact me at school that morning, but it seemed a fair chunk of my students’ parents had also tried. I have 214 students. Maybe I should have called in sick. Carefully sorting the messages from parents from the messages from reporters—and promptly depositing reporters’ requests for interviews in the garbage—I caught the stare of Fiona Bertrand, the head secretary. She was not pleased.

“Good morning,” I tried.

“Perhaps for those of you who aren’t charged with having to answer phone calls non-stop for the same teacher,” she huffed.

“Sorry. I’m certainly not pleased the media is hounding you at school. They were not invited.”

“I guess it can hardly be surprising when you take on a case like this one, can it?” She continued. “I thought you gave up law so you could work for the benefit of young people?”

Mental note. Ensure Fiona Bertrand never makes it onto a jury should Carl ever be brought to trial. Since I could think of nothing better to say, I turned and headed for my classroom. Fiona did not seem the type who would permit me to have the last word, even if I tried.

Walking down the stairs to my classroom, I was astounded as I rounded the corner and saw a most unusual sight: students, a whole bunch of them, waiting outside my classroom. This was unusual, because class didn’t start for nearly ten minutes. By November I had grown accustomed to having kids wander in at the last minute—or several minutes after the last minute. As of yet, my magnetic personality had never drawn an early crowd.

“Good morning,” I said, unlocking the classroom door and trying to sound non-plussed. I’m not entirely sure what plussed sounds like, mind you. They weren’t buying it. The group of about fifteen students poured into the room after me.

“Hi, Mr. Patrick. How are you doing today?” began Elizabeth Lawson, a brighter student on whom I could usually count to participate and lead discussion and debate about legal issues.

“Hi, Liz,” I replied calmly. “You’re all here early.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, other students in the class began to trickle in. I was heading towards perfect attendance.

“So?” Jillian Ballantyne had a penchant for understatement.

“So?” I responded. I imitate understatement when the need arises.

“So, what’s happening?” Liz pressed on. “With Mr. Turbot?”

“Liz, Jillian, everyone, look. We may have only been together for a few months, but I have to believe there are a few sacred things you’ve learned during our time.” They looked at me, then each other, then back at me. Doesn’t anyone study any more?

Virtually the entire class had entered by the time Sarah Kolinsky spoke up from her desk, where she had moved away from the growing crowd around mine. “Solicitor-client privilege.” The bell rang to punctuate her assessment of where I was attempting to lead them in the conversation.

“What?” Jillian asked.

“Solicitor-client privilege,” Sarah responded. “He can’t say anything about it because, as Mr. Turbot’s legal counsel, any information he has is strictly confidential.”

“Thank you, Sarah. Thank God someone’s been listening to me.” The class began to settle unusually quickly this morning. As much as I wanted to focus their attention away from Carl’s troubles, I had to remind myself that they had just lost a classmate, and a trusted teacher was suspected of killing her. They had to be going through all kinds of confusing emotions. As was I.

“We can’t talk about it at all?” Scott Harton demanded. Scott could be a bit of whiner when it came to doing his work, but he was also very bright and occasionally very funny.

I sighed. Why had it taken a tragedy to get the rapt attention of my law class? “I guess we can talk about it in very general terms. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll fill you in as much as I can. You can ask questions, but I reserve the right to decline to answer. Fair enough?”

“But don’t we have a right to know what’s going on, since it’s happening in our own school with one of our own teachers?” another student, Jessica, asked. I noted that Tricia had described Jessica McWilliams as her best friend. I was surprised to find her there—she should have been grieving at home.

“How much information the school releases to you is really up to the principal. You need to understand that I’m talking here not just as your teacher but also as a lawyer. I’m wearing two hats. I’ll tell you what I can, but I’m also retained as defence counsel. I have to protect the integrity of the case. I’m required to by law.”

A silence fell on the room as they considered their next move. I felt for them. I couldn’t help but lament that this “teachable moment” was essentially out of my reach because of my solicitor-client restrictions on speaking freely. Any other teacher in the school would have had much more freedom to pursue this line of conversation.

Finally, Gurpreet Jewal, a beautiful, intelligent student who rarely spoke in class discussion, raised her hand tentatively from the back of the room. “Mr. Patrick?”

“Yes, Gurpreet?”

“Are you able to tell us if Mr. Turbot will likely go to jail?” she asked with genuine concern.

“I can tell you that at this point the police have not sworn out an information or sought an arrest warrant. That means they do not have evidence to support the allegations you’re hearing in the media this morning.” I noticed one student had the front section of this morning’s Vancouver Sun on her desk. It was disturbing how much conjecture there already was. On the other hand, it was refreshing to see high school students reading the newspaper.

“But do you think they’re going to arrest him?” Scott interrupted, pressing harder for my opinion.

“At this point, I honestly couldn’t say. Mr. Turbot is under suspicion for what I believe to be inaccurate, untruthful and irresponsible reasons. I do not believe there is any evidence linking him to this horrible crime other than the fact that he was, in fact, her teacher.” So there. I wished Furlo and McFadden were there.

Sarah spoke up with her usual sarcasm. “You sound like you’re holding a press conference.”

“Maybe I’m seeing you as good practice.”

“Why do they suspect him at all?” Gurpreet asked again.

“That’s one I can’t go into details about. I’m sorry.”

“Surely they must have some kind of evidence if they’re thinking about him as a killer?” another student chimed in. “Man, this is just unbelievable. I have him for biology.”

“Again, I don’t know what kind of evidence the police think they have. Why is that?” I asked, making an effort to at least get some usable teaching time out of this interrogation.

The class looked at me, stunned for a moment. Jessica popped open her law textbook and began thumbing through the pages. She seemed particularly interested, understandably. “Why is it,” I continued, “that I don’t know all of the evidence the police believe they have?”

“Because they don’t have to tell you?” Scott offered.

“Why not?” I insisted. Hmm. There could be an assignment in there somewhere.

“He hasn’t been charged yet,” Sarah responded. “They don’t have to release their information until after a charge is laid.”

“Good,” I confirmed. “And why would they tell me about their evidence even after a charge is laid? Wouldn’t they be just giving away their case to me?”

“Disclosure laws,” Jessica offered, looking up from her textbook. “The Crown is required to disclose its evidence, so the accused has a full understanding of the Crown’s case and can prepare a defence,” she continued, reading straight from the text.

“Right. So until such time as the Crown decides to lay charges and build and prepare a prosecution, which I don’t think is going to happen, I won’t necessarily know what evidence is available. This case is a little unusual, since it involves a young person. The police have been pretty good about sharing information with me, because more than anything, they want to catch the person responsible. The longer they focus on the wrong person, the harder it will be to find the real killer. That’s why I also try to be as helpful as possible.” Fortunately, the students would have no way of knowing how much I was going out of my way to be a smartass with Furlo. But the gist of what I said was true. “But again,” I attempted to conclude, “all of this concern about evidence and disclosure is essentially moot, because it is extremely unlikely the Crown will even decide to lay charges.”

“How can you be so sure?” Scott pressed.

I paused for a moment then sighed. “Because, Scott, Mr. Turbot is innocent. He did not kill Tricia Bellamy.” I realized how much influence I was having over class opinion. They seemed to accept my assertion of Carl’s innocence.

I wished I believed me as much as they did.

The other law class I taught that day went much like the first one, with students clamouring for as much information as they could wring out of me. Some of them were on the road to being pretty fine litigators. By and large, my students seemed at least to have satisfied their curiosity, but also some of their fears had been alleviated; most would feel pretty comfortable about going back into Carl’s science classroom when he returned to school.

It is often noted by those in the educational field that kids are much more resilient, forgiving and understanding than adults are. I noticed throughout the remainder of the day the nearly evenly divided response of the teaching faculty I encountered. For the most part, I aimed to keep away from them; they were understandably uncomfortable. Of the half of the staff that seemed to be on Carl’s side, about half of those were supporters because they knew, liked and respected Carl and could not or would not believe he could be responsible for Tricia’s strangulation. They at least made me feel like I wasn’t alone. The rest supported him just because he was a teacher; die-hard unionists, professional supporters and the like. Their thinking seemed to be that even if Carl was guilty, he deserved our support. Even they helped to keep my morale going.

The other half of the faculty was wary of my very presence. It seemed incomprehensible that a teacher could devote energy to defending someone who was accused of such heinous acts. It truly went against everything we were supposed to believe in about the sanctity of the teacher-student relationship and our primary objective of ensuring that students were safe with us at all times. By the end of the day, I was determined to bring Carl Turbot’s involvement in the death of Tricia Bellamy to a close.