Читать книгу Winston Patrick Mystery 2-Book Bundle - David Russell W. - Страница 20

A funny thing happened when I returned to my apartment after leaving Carl: I slept. Almost immediately upon closing my door, a wave of tiredness hit me. It was like walking into a big wall of exhaustion. In fact, I was so tired, I actually felt nauseous.

I’m no scientist, but when I feel that way, it is a sign I should go to sleep. Simple as it sounds, for those of us for whom sleep is a constant battle, just the notion of going to bed can fill you with anxiety. The bags under my eyes add at least five years to my age.

It was nearly two a.m. as I undressed, carefully picking up my clothes and placing them in the laundry hamper next to the ensuite bathroom door. Sandi was always amazed at what she deemed my obsessive need for tidiness and order around the house. We would come home from a party or family gathering—and with her family, there was always a wide assortment of social responsibilities—and Sandi would simply dump her clothes on the floor, only to wait in bed while I went around picking them up and hanging them in the closet where they belonged, or placing them in their assigned spot in the laundry room.

In the past week, I had accumulated probably around eight hours of sleep. Sleep deficit often catches up with me at the strangest times. No doubt many lawyers taking on a murder case, especially when it was the kind of case likely to be difficult, long and very public, would sit up all night worrying about the case and beginning a mental to-do list of briefs to prepare, witnesses to interview, and assorted menial startup tasks ad infinitum.

I found myself remarkably calm. It was as though returning to my original calling had brought about an inner peace. That worried me. Fortunately, it didn’t worry me enough to lose sleep. I literally collapsed into bed and crashed.

The phone rang minutes later. Actually, it was hours later, but the phone’s interruption of my sleep made it seem as if I had just lain down. The only thing worse than the phone ringing and waking you up is when it gives two short rings instead of just one. As nearly every apartment dweller knows, the double ring is an indicator someone is standing outside the front door of the building waiting to see you.

I grumbled into the receiver. “You better not be selling something.”

“Get up,” came a much-too-perky voice. “I have fresh raisin scones and coffee.”

“That’s not good enough,” I replied.

“I have a gun, and I can shoot my way in.”

“That’s better,” I said, pressing the number six to admit Detective Andrea Pearson.

Glancing at the clock, I saw it was nearly ten a.m. I had slept for almost seven and a half hours, some kind of record for me. Maybe things were getting better. Then Carl flashed into my barely conscious memory, and I realized things were likely to get worse long before they got any better. Stumbling out of the bedroom, I managed to make my way to the front hallway just as Andrea began to pound on the door. Fists of steel, that one.

“Good morning, sunshine!” she beamed as I opened the door.

“Hmmph,” was my reply, walking away from the door in the general vicinity of the bathroom. “I gotta whizz.”

“Lovely. Maybe you could find some pants in your travels. This is how you greet me? In your boxers?”

“I don’t remember inviting you,” I growled, closing the bathroom door behind me. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed the vast amount of sleep had done little to improve my overall visage.

For informal clothing, I managed to find an old pair of warm-up pants. I rarely wore them, because they were those annoying plastic type that make swishing sounds when you walk. I hate announcing my pending presence. But for Andrea, they would just have to do.

When I resurfaced from the bedroom, Andy had already placed scones in the toaster oven and was scanning the fridge for jam.

“You need to shop,” she complained. “Don’t you have jam?”

“In the cupboard,” I replied wearily.

“Who keeps jam in the cupboard?”

“I do.”

“You’re supposed to refrigerate it.”

“Only after it’s opened.”

“How are you going to enjoy your jam if you never open it?”

“This conversation is already wearing me out,” I groaned.

Reaching into the cupboard above the sink, Andy let out a little cry of victory upon discovering a jar of Smucker’s Grape Jelly. I think I got it as part of my divorce settlement. With a slight grunt, she popped open the jar’s lid, pausing first to blow off the accumulated dust.

“So?” she asked.

“So what?” Sometimes we play beat around the bush games like this.

“Well, you were sleeping at nearly ten in the morning, which for you is some kind of miracle. That means, I guess, that the remainder of the evening—after the point you blew me off and left me alone in a restaurant, I might add—must have been particularly tiring, meaning you were kept busy for some time with your client. Correct?”

“I can see why you’re a detective,” I said, slowly beginning to wake up. Just the smell of coffee in the morning has that effect on me.

“How’d it go?”

“About as well as I could have expected. They had a warrant, they were determined to pick him up and hold him over the weekend while they gather more evidence.”

Andrea frowned at this. In her mind, you didn’t make the arrest until you had ample evidence—and to her way of thinking, ample generally was meant to include more evidence than the prosecution could ever need. There is nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into an investigation and still finding you don’t have enough to get a conviction. I could tell Andy wasn’t pleased with the way this investigation was going, but there was little she could do without being accused of interfering with her fellow detectives’ work. This was especially true considering Furlo and Smythe would know full well about Andy’s friendship with me. Even if she had caught the case, she likely would have been forced to recuse herself as the lead detective because of my involvement.

The toaster oven bell chimed, and Andy reached in, placed the four scone halves onto two plates and began applying large amounts of grape jelly to them.

“Is the intent to completely disguise the taste of the baking?” I asked.

“I told you. You’re too skinny. We’ll start with jam, then I’ll find something really fattening to feed you.”

Placing the two plates at the small pass-through bar between my kitchen and dining area, she dragged a stool from the dining room side back to the kitchen so she could face me while we ate. “How’s your client?” she asked.

“He’s lost. This is a man who probably hasn’t even driven through the neighbourhood the jail’s in, let alone set foot inside one. I hope he survives the weekend.”

“You gonna see him today?”

“Yeah, at some point.” I took a bite of the still-hot scone she had provided. “You still haven’t told me what brings you here, other than your ulterior motive of fattening me up for the slaughter.”

Andy studied me a moment. “I’m here to help you solve the crime.”

“What?”

I waited while she wolfed down half a scone. “You really convinced that your boy didn’t do it?”

“Yes. I am. I know it sounds ridiculous, especially considering he admitted to me last night that he did, in fact, have a sexual relationship with her, but I don’t believe he killed her.”

“Good enough for me,” she said. “Your best defense on this one is going to be finding someone else to pin it on.”

I scowled at her. “I’m not looking to pin a homicide on anyone.”

“You know what I mean, Winnie,” she said with aggravation. “There’s something going on with this case that it’s being rushed through so quickly. Furlo and Smythe are both good cops. This is rushed even for them. There’s pressure, big pressure to get this solved, and the big ‘they’ may push ahead for prosecution with what little evidence, albeit pretty damning evidence, they’ve got.”

“You know, that’s what I was thinking last night. Even if we stipulated to the sexual relationship, that sort of gives them circumstantial, but not much else.” I waited a moment. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

“Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you, though you know I would. It’s locked up pretty tightly, ‘eyes only’ kind of stuff. A fellow can’t even do a little snooping out of interest on this one.”

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, it is,” she agreed.

I finished off the last of my scone. Andy, well ahead of me as always in the food department, had already crossed the kitchen floor to put two more scones in the toaster oven.

“I think I’m fine with this one,” I told her.

“We’ll see,” she replied. “So. What’s the first order of business?”

“Well,” I told her, sipping my coffee, “Carl’s going to have to face bail hearings on Monday. And I’ve got to teach. So I’m going to have to call in some reinforcements. I’ll get on that today.”

“You going to get a co-chair or something?”

“At least someone who can pinch hit for me when I have to be in the classroom.”

“Who you gonna get?” she asked.

I smiled at her. “You don’t want to know.”

Andy shook her head seriously. “Oh, shit, Winnie. You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m not,” I replied as the toaster oven chimed.

Derek Cuffling, barrister and solicitor, practices a wide variety of law. He began his career as a junior crown counsel, prosecuting minor cases for the Attorney General’s ministry. He soon found the draw of greater billing hours and greater billing rates of private practice much too compelling to continue in the direct employ of Her Majesty, so he set up a small practice close to the downtown law courts.

Mostly through Providence, but also through the assistance of his high society-minded parents, Derek had drawn a couple of very high profile cases, particularly one involving insider trading allegations against a former provincial cabinet minister, one of many former and current government officials with whom Derek’s legal career would bring him into legal contact. Those early successes garnered the attention of one of Vancouver’s largest law firms, McAllister, Willson, McAllister and Dupere, who had recently bought out Derek’s practice, making him a junior and one of the youngest partners in their firm. Derek is also the older brother of my ex-wife, Sandi.

Though Derek and I had met through Sandi, we’d really become friends while I was at law school. Three years my senior, Derek was active in the U.B.C. Law faculty long after his graduation as an alumni advisor to students nearing completion of their law degrees. As an immediately successful graduate, at the time leaping ahead in the Crown Counsel’s office faster than any of his peers, he was inspirational to young associates-to-be trying to forge a career despite what was seen then as Vancouver’s relatively limited legal opportunities.

By the time I had graduated, the legal career opportunities seemed much more vast, with Derek helping his U.B.C. peers wade through the widening areas of law springing up. Recently, in addition to his successful criminal defence practice, Derek had ventured into the entertainment and intellectual property law field as Vancouver’s burgeoning film and television industry grew to eclipse all other locations save Los Angeles and New York. If there was an area of law in which to make a buck, Derek was there. In that regard, he was very much like his sister. In all others, he was quite different. For starters, he still liked me.

McAllister, Willson, McAllister and Dupere occupied four floors of a building on Georgia Street, kitty-corner to the renowned Vancouver Art Gallery and directly across from the historic Hotel Vancouver. The building was pretty much chock full of law firms. From the outside, like many downtown offices of the late eighties and early nineties, it was rather ugly, though the architects had adorned the building with lady of mercy nursing statues on the four pillars. On the inside, however, Derek’s employers had spared no expense in bringing opulence to their workplace. It’s an odd legal principle that the grander your office is, the more confidence your high-end clients will have in the firm. Never having been a high-end client, I can’t pretend to know how they think. I would think, however, that the more ostentatious my lawyer’s office was, the more I would want to scrutinize my legal bills to ensure I wasn’t being bilked any more than necessary.

Although it was Saturday, I knew Derek would be in the office, along with most of the other junior partners and associates who aspired to be one. Contrary to the popular perception of those outside the legal profession, lawyers, even high-priced, successful ones, often put in ridiculously long hours, working six day weeks in order to maintain their client load and an acceptable number of billable hours. For lawyers like Derek, financial necessity wasn’t so much the reason he worked on the weekend, because his family was wealthy long before he went to law school. Derek loved to work.

Rather than calling ahead to announce my pending visit, I opted instead simply to show up at the firm’s headquarters. Though it was unlikely Derek’s team of secretarial staff would be present on the weekend to intercept calls for him, it also meant there would be no one answering the phones. If there should be a secretary there, he or she would likely run interference for Derek also. Throughout last summer, in between finishing classes to prepare for my teaching career, I had managed at least once a week to drag Derek away from precious billable time to engage in such fruitless pursuits as running Stanley Park’s seawall or rollerblading in Mount Seymour’s demonstration forest on the North Shore. Not exactly serious lawyerly behaviour.

The security guard at the front desk of the building knew well enough by now to grant me access. When I arrived in the reception area of, there was no one at the front desk, though the main office doors were unlocked. Who would attempt to rob a law firm? Making my way past the floor-to-ceiling picture window with a spectacular view towards the port and North Shore mountains, I wound through the maze of hallways to the northwest corner of the building, where I could see Derek through the open door of his office, dressed casually in a golf shirt I knew was more expensive than the suits worn by some of the legal assistants on his staff.

“And I gave up all of this for teaching?” I announced as I approached his office doorway.

Derek looked up from the laptop at which he was busy hacking away. The modern day lawyer frequently does his own typing. “No, you gave up a scrubby little run-down office, where you invited society’s riff-raff not to pay you for your services,” he replied. Derek has a terribly disarming smile, nothing smarmy about it. But it was powerful enough to charm clients, juries, opposing counsel, even the occasional judge. At thirty-eight years old, Derek stands at over six feet tall and is a bit of a health fanatic. He runs about as much as I do, but whereas running has made me skinny to the point of concern, it has contributed to his muscular physique and all round “Adonis-ness”. It occasionally pisses me off.

“Yeah, but work, work, work. It’s all you ever do.”

“As if you’re here to try to take me away from all that.”

“What makes you think I’m not here to invite you to a rousing defeat in racquetball?” I asked him, though I was fully cognizant that by now Derek would be fully apprised of my legal relationship with Carl. Anyone who read a newspaper would be.

“Two things, really,” he replied, cautiously hitting ctrl-s on the keyboard to save whatever it was that had brought him to the office on a Saturday. I wondered why he didn’t just take it home with him. “One: you haven’t defeated me in racquetball in nearly two years and two: you’ve really plucked a ripe apple this time.”

“It was more like the apple fell onto my head as I was walking by.”

“People are wondering if you went into teaching to tap into a market of educators needing legal counsel.”

“People?”

He turned to face me again and smiled. “Okay, Sandi’s wondering that.” My continuing friendship with Derek since our divorce was a constant strain on the sibling relationship. Sandi believed her brother showed a profound sense of disloyalty by remaining a friend of her ex-husband. Derek thought it was terribly amusing to see his little society sister get so immensely pissed off. I wondered if our friendship hinged on Sandi’s lack of acceptance of it. “What’s up?” he asked.

I flopped into the chair opposite his desk. The chair caught me in a soft embrace, its distressed leather gently distributing my weight into the luxurious padding beneath. This lone chair was more expensive than my previous budget for my entire office. “I need favours.”

“Of course.” Derek hit a few more keys on his computer. I knew he was bringing up his calendar to determine just where my legal career was going to coincide with his. “What do you need? First appearance?”

“Yep.” It was amazing how much he seemed to know about where my case stood. I knew part of it was due to the media coverage; the rest was simply based on his instincts as a trial lawyer.

“Paper said he was arrested yesterday,” he continued, already formulating a plan in his head. “Couldn’t find a late night judge?”

“Nope,” I replied. At least some of the anxiety that had been building since Carl first came to me was beginning to ebb, knowing that Derek was taking an interest in the case. For a fleeting moment, I toyed with the idea of asking him simply to take over the defence altogether. Carl would certainly be in more capable hands than mine. I also knew I would be pushing the boundaries of both friendships if I were to attempt to offload my client now that he faced a murder trial.

“First appearance on Monday?” Derek was almost muttering to himself as he stared at the laptop’s screen, alternately clicking with the mouse and typing in a few quick strokes on the keyboard. I knew he was clearing things out of the way to devote a few hours of time to my case. I didn’t try to express it, but I really did appreciate it. We knew each other well enough that I didn’t have to say it.

“Eleven a.m.” Carl’s appearance had been arranged before I even got out the pre-trial centre’s doors the previous night.

“Can’t go getting all ‘Chartery’ on this one,” Derek murmured. Canada’s overarching Charter of Rights and Freedoms pretty much spelled out that an arrested person gets his or her first court appearance within twenty-four hours of arrest, unless it is unreasonable for that to happen. The word “reasonable” in the Charter has been the cause of much difficulty in legal proceedings because of its subjectivity: one man’s reasonable is another’s utterly ridiculous. It was generally held though that a person arrested late in the evening—especially on a Friday and especially when the charge involved homicide—could scarcely make an argument for a weekend delay in first appearance somehow depriving the person of fair process.

“I suspect not,” was all I could think of to say in agreement. In most of our endeavours, Derek and I operated on an equal footing. Sitting here with my first—and hopefully last—really difficult murder case had me feeling somewhat inferior.

“Okay,” he said, typing the finishing touches on his keyboard. I knew that before he left the office today, his computer calendar would be linked up to his secretary’s, and she would be aware of his schedule for Monday morning and would make the requisite changes to his appointments. “First appearance should be fairly straightforward. What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Hmm, go to it for me.”

He looked up at me quizzically. “What do you mean? You’re not coming?”

“I have to teach classes,” I lamely explained. “The principal is already not too pleased he has a teacher on staff accused of the crime. He is even less pleased that another teacher on staff is representing the first.”

Derek leaned back in his chair and glanced up at the high ceiling in his office. “Yeah, I guess I can see how that might not look so good for a principal. He must really be losing sleep. How’s he handling things?”

“Not well. He’s not talking to me much.”

“I guess not.” Derek leaned forward and began to laugh gently at my predicament. “Man. You still know how to get yourself in shit, don’t you?”

“It’s a character trait.”

“Or flaw, depending on your perspective.” We both smiled. We considered my habit of getting myself stuck with odd cases to be rather amusing and perhaps a measure of my belief in seeing that all people get a fair trial, not, as my ex-wife attested, a symptom of my poor judgment and character.

“So you just need me to handle his bail application?” Derek asked, almost a little sadly. I could tell this case had started to pique his interest, and he was looking to stay involved. It is little known to members of the general public that many lawyers, even the high-priced ones, often take on cases that offer little or no compensation, simply because they believe strongly in the legal principle at stake or because they feel a challenge in the case. Other times, major law firms require their associates, sometimes even their partners, to take on some pro bono cases each year, just to ensure their legal and courtroom instincts and ethics stay intact. I can recall a number of times in drug court where I would see high-powered talent from major firms doing Legal Aid defence cases. It’s a way of giving something back.

I smiled inwardly. “Well,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure I could use some litigation muscle. With some of the big-time losers you’ve defended, I can’t think of anyone better to turn to for assistance.”

“So your client is a big-time loser too?” Try though I might, it was virtually not possible to insult Derek. He has such thick skin that he takes nothing personally.

“Only in the ever-impartial eyes of the media,” I retorted.

“Okay.” He confirmed his attachment to the case with a slight slap on his glass topped desk. “What have you got so far?”

That gave me yet another moment for pause. I didn’t “got” much of anything. In terms of Carl’s defence, I was basically operating on my own conviction that his version of events was true. I had no evidence to back up that conviction, and I told Derek so.

“So you have a whole hell of a lot of work to do this weekend,” he stated the obvious.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’m going to drop by to visit Carl and then begin doing some research.”

“Library here is open if you need it,” he offered, granting me access to his law firm’s extensive legal reference library. This was essentially a no-no, but the firm was so pleased it had acquired Derek that he pretty much had the run of the place. “I take it then, you don’t have much of a strategy developed yet?”

“No. Andrea seems to think there is some kind of pressure from on high. Our best defence at this point might be a good offence. She’s decided she believes in me believing in my client and figures the best way to clear him might just be to find the actual perp.”

Derek gave me a careful look. Without saying it, Derek was giving me a basic law school caution. My job as Carl’s defence counsel was not to solve the crime for the police. It isn’t a good defence strategy to act as investigator and prosecutor of someone other than the client.

“I agree that would make life easier—” he began.

“But I’m going to work first of all on looking into his alibi at the time of death, something the police were largely quiet about,” I interrupted.

“Good a place as any to start,” he agreed. “Email what you have sometime tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll talk Sunday night before I go into court. You gonna be okay to get time for trial?”

“I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

“Better make plans in case wishful thinking doesn’t hold true.”

“Okay. Thanks, Derek. I’ll be in touch,” I said, standing to let him get back to his paying work.

“Just a minute,” he said, standing also and looking at me awkwardly. “Have you talked to Sandi recently?”

“Yeah. The other day.”

“Did she talk to you about anything in particular?” he asked cautiously.

I had nearly forgotten Sandi’s news. “Yeah. She told me she was pregnant.”

I could feel Derek searching my face for some kind of reaction. “And?”

“And? And I didn’t know she was even dating anyone in particular.”

“Neither did anyone else.”

“Ahh.”

“You’re okay with it?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Because for reasons known only to you and her, my sister has long before, during and after your marriage to her, managed to hold a bizarre, captivating spell over you, and news of her pending maternity may just affect you in matters that will cause you to sleep even less than you already do.”

“Man,” I told him, shaking my head in mock condescension. “You need to let go. It’s over between your sister and me. I’ve moved on. It’s time you did, too.”

“Right,” he told me. “Just don’t do anything stupider than usual.”

“Like re-marry your sister to make an honest woman of her?”

“Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“It hasn’t crossed mine. I’m happy for her.”

“We’ll see,” he cautioned. With that foreboding message, I turned and left Derek to defend the upper echelons of society from their brushes with the law.