Barrington Street Blues (11 page)

“No — I've had guys who think they're being monitored by aliens, or the
KGB
, or the
CIA
, but I've never had anyone from Roman times.”

“There but for the grace of God go you and I. Anyway, he performed or fought — it's never the same story — at the Colosseum. Says he can take me there but then he gives me a sly look and says I wouldn't like it. I got the impression he was talking about a place here in the city.”

“Nope. It may be real to him but not to the rest of us. Here's the
little chef. Good night, angel. See you soon.”

Brennan and I took our leave and went our separate ways.

†

I finished a chambers application at the Supreme Court building the next morning, then stood in front of the windows chatting with one of the other lawyers on the case, Glen Crocker. I peered through the gloom and saw what looked like a fellow barrister leaping about the plaza in front of the Law Courts. “Is that Al MacDonald doing a step dance out there on the pavement?”

Glen joined me at the window.

“Probably.”

Another lawyer became visible in the fog. He machine-gunned MacDonald in the manner of a hot-dog hockey player who had just scored the winning goal against the Russians; then they high-fived each other and made “We're number one” gestures to a non-existent
TV
camera.

“What's that all about?” I asked.

“Big bucks, that's what it's about. Remember the humongous development project that was halted out there on Highway 103? Well, it's on again. Shopping centre, office tower, condos.”

“But it was more than that, wasn't it? Weren't they practically building a small city?”

“Right. The consortium designed an entire community, not just a strip mall with some shoddy housing nearby. They were making a genuine effort to do it right. The part closest to the water, out on the point and along the ocean, would be residential. The commercial stuff would be closer to the highway. It was all supposed to blend in.”

“Yeah, I heard they were ambitious. They wanted houses, shops, parks, trees, a school, doctors, dentists, a city square, everything within walking distance. The people would live and work in the neighbourhood. They wouldn't have to commute to the city to work.”

“Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. But it used to be the norm.”

“Thought I might move out there myself,” Glen said. “Where you've got people and businesses, you need lawyers! The biggest thing
was that a couple of federal and provincial departments were going to relocate there. A government building. Jobs leaving downtown and going out to Bromley Point.”

“That was the name — I'd forgotten. But did it ever got off the drafting table?”

“Oh, it got a lot farther than that. Then it came to a screeching halt. And I do remember the screeching. They were crying in their Corona at Wigginstaff's. The project was halted because of environmental concerns, land-use problems — there was probably an old Indian burial ground to top it all off. Anyway, as I'm sure you know, it's been on hold for six years while a whole tangle of legal issues wound their way through the courts. Supreme Court of Canada heard it, sent it back here. Our court just gave it the go-ahead with some modifications.”

“So we've got a big development that's going ahead, after years of delay. You're right: big bucks for somebody,” I remarked.

“Yep. MacDonald and company, and a few other firms, stand to make a pile. Some lawyers worked on it and never saw a cent; now they will. Money that's been held in trust, earning interest, is about to be released. It's been a long wait for some of them. You're obviously not in on it, so don't go near Wigginstaff's tonight. I hear there's a big party planned. Poor old Albert Farris never lived to see it; guess his partners will reap the benefits.”

“I never knew Albert.”

“You must have known Dice Campbell. His ghost will be hovering over the gathering tonight. Old Dice loved a party!”

“Dice was involved?”

“Oh, yeah. Big winnings for him if he'd stuck around. Poor bastard.”

“Is that right. Who took over Dice's files when he died, do you know?”

“Jamie McVicar.”

†

Jamie McVicar and I had gone to law school together. When I returned to the office I gave him a call and asked him whether I could
go through Dice Campbell's files. I told McVicar about the Luger P-08, which suggested a connection between the Campbell suicide and the putative murder-suicide of Leaman and Scott. I didn't mention what I had just heard about Campbell and the Bromley Point development. McVicar told me to come right over.

As I was leaving, though, I saw someone wheeling our television and
VCR
into the boardroom, and that reminded me I had not yet retrieved the Netherlands Liberation video I had lent to Bill Groves. So I took a detour over to Camp Hill to pick it up. I didn't recognize the man in Bill's room. When I tracked down a nurse, she told me Bill had died early in the week.

“I'm sorry. You didn't know? Are you a relative?”

“No. I just met Bill a few days ago.” But I felt the loss all the same. The nurse found the video for me, and I decided the least I could do in memory of Bill was watch the film about Canadian soldiers in Holland. I put it on my dashboard to take home that night, and continued on to McVicar's law office.

Jamie led me to a boardroom, where he had stacked the dusty boxes containing Dice's files. A cup of coffee, a pen and a notepad were in place on the table. I thanked him, and got to work. With even a cursory review of the files, in chronological order, you could plot the rise and fall of Dice Campbell on a graph. He started with the usual storefront practice: low-end property transactions, wills, divorces, a bit of commercial work. And he was obviously well-regarded in the profession. Rowan Stratton had sent some work his way. Even the lordly John Trevelyan had selected Campbell for a little job, namely to amend a lease, write to the Canada Pension office, and prepare a will, all for a woman named Matilda Lonergan. If Mrs. Lonergan had been in a nursing home, Trevelyan's hourly rate for the trip out to see her would have been three times the fee he could decently charge her for the work. No wonder he handed it off to a younger, cheaper lawyer. I flipped to the last page of the will, which was a list enumerating every teacup, china poodle, and knickknack the old lady owned. The lease was for a duplex she owned in a rundown area of central Halifax. But it was not long before things began looking up for Dice. I saw that one of the largest insurance companies in the city had directed a healthy portion of its defence work his way. He began to get more and
more criminal work as the years went by. I found the correspondence file relating to a large and complicated drug trafficking trial he and Ed Johnson had worked on for over a year; they represented two of the five accused men. Ed told me he and Dice had done some cases together. I didn't recall hearing anything in particular about this one, but no doubt there was a story; Dice's performances in the courtroom were still the subject of boozy reminiscences in the legal fraternity.

I moved on to duller things. Agreements of purchase and sale, mortgages, minute books for small companies, file folders with sheets of handwritten notes attached. One caught my eye because I recognized the name Debbie Schwartz, a highly regarded psychologist I called upon from time to time to assist my clients. Had Dice used Debbie's services too? I didn't learn much from his note: “Asked Debbie Schwartz re: fruitcake from DT; yukked about house call, says don't pay him time & 1/2 or might come back! Name familiar but doesn't know him; suggests try again, call Drug Dependency.” Aside from the drug reference, the note was obscure, and I put it back in the file.

Dice kept a file of press clippings. Some were about his courtroom triumphs. Others seemed to be cases Dice found interesting. One stood out because of the unusual weapon involved, a food blender. The kid, whose identity was protected by the
Young Offenders Act
, had been sentenced to three months in jail for assaulting one of the workers at the group home where he was residing at the time. I imagined sharp blades whirling, and I pushed the thought from my mind. It was a Legal Aid case, and I noted that even the kid's mother did not show up to support him. The judge gave her a blast
in absentia
.

The deterioration in Dice Campbell's law practice seemed to coincide with his increasing involvement in criminal work. But there was nothing in his files to suggest this was anything more than coincidence. The papers showed unreturned phone calls, missed appointments and even court dates, and escalating harassment from clients, fellow lawyers, and courthouse staff.

Among the papers Jamie McVicar had given me were Campbell's account books. I dug them out and took a quick look at the books reflecting the latter years of his practice. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary except declining revenues. Nothing to suggest improper dealings with his trust accounts, which can lead to a lawyer being disbarred.
But I couldn't be sure. I was not an accountant.

The biggest surprise was what was
not
there. There was not a word about the delayed and recently revived Bromley Point property development out on Highway 103. Glen Crocker had told me Dice was involved. The scheme promised — and would now belatedly deliver — a big chunk of fees with interest compounding at generous rates over six years. Why was there nothing in his files?

†

By the time I got back to the office, it was early evening. The staff had left, and only a few lawyers were still at work. My desk was piled with correspondence to be signed, and messages to be returned. I started to slog through the pile. One of the messages, I saw, was from Constable Phil Riley. I got him on the phone.

“Evening, Phil. You called? I was out for the afternoon.”

“Hi, Monty. I've got some news for you. It's the same gun. The bullet lodged in Darren Campbell's old office wall matches the ones that killed Leaman and Scott. Which may just mean Leaman stole Campbell's gun. Or somebody else stole it and it made the rounds, ending up with Leaman. I went through what we have on the Campbell suicide. Looks like we did a pretty thorough job of canvassing his friends and acquaintances, other tenants in his office building. The medical examiner's report shows the injuries were consistent with a jump or a fall from a great height. You know the building. It's twelve storeys high, and some of the upper floors are stepped back so the corner offices on those levels have small terraces. Campbell had one of those, on the tenth floor. The terrace door was open. There was nobody else around. If there was another individual involved, we found no evidence of it. Of course the offices were all closed for the night, except his. My partner and I went back to the building the other day and took a look around but except for the bullet we didn't come up with any new insights. We'll keep an open mind, but we don't have much to go on at this point.”

“I understand.”

“One more thing. You got lucky with Wanda Pollard. We can't find her. So, still no witness who can contradict the murder-suicide
theory. But we're going to maintain a lookout for her.”

“Thanks, Phil. Keep me posted.”

The cop's information left me, for the time being, with the appearance of a good case of suicide. Which was the whole point. Ross Trevelyan and I wanted to build a case for damages against the Wallace Rennie Baird Addiction Treatment Centre on the grounds that the centre had been negligent in releasing Corey Leaman before getting his drug habit under control; Leaman, still suffering from drug-related problems, had killed himself and, for some reason, had killed Graham Scott before putting a bullet in his own brain. If this wasn't a suicide — if the two men had been murdered by somebody else — our lawsuit on behalf of the victims' families was a non-starter. I was trying to rule that out. Phil Riley's information about Wanda didn't hurt us. But where was she? Her absence could mean many things: she was out of town; she was the victim of revenge by or on behalf of Yvette; word had spread about Wanda's presence at the shooting, and she had been frightened off or taken out by the killer. If there was a killer.

The gun connection was disturbing. In my mind, I pictured not an old German pistol but a time bomb ticking away in the background, set to go off at any moment and blow my case to bits.

†

Saturday morning, the fourth of May, was beautiful and warm. After I completed a few long-neglected chores, I stopped by the house on Dresden Row to see if the family wanted to head out to Lawrencetown to walk the beach and admire the surf. I saw that congratulations were in order: my daughter had a thriving little garden of daffodils and paperwhites in front of the house. The door was open, but nobody was downstairs, so I skipped up the stairs to Normie's room. When I glanced out the window overlooking the backyard I saw Maura, and was about to call down to her when I noticed two strong-looking legs sticking out from under the shed. A repairman? With bare legs? Then I saw that her chair and the one next to it each had a glass in the cupholder. Was this Giacomo, the young bit of stuff my wife had on the side? I wouldn't have thought his legs would be that
long. I waited, staring. The legs began to emerge, followed by gym shorts and a naked torso.

The man turned away from her and wiped dirt off himself. Then he reached for a white T-shirt lying by the shed, and put it on. It was — when he turned to my wife, I could see it was Burke! What the hell? He looked at her and shrugged. Whatever he was supposed to do under there, he hadn't done it. No surprise there. He was even less of a handyman than I was. But never mind that: what was he doing with her on a Saturday morning and how long . . . I stopped myself in mid-thought. I was acting the way I had on a couple of occasions when Burke first came into our lives as a client. I had got myself all balled up wondering whether there was something going on between the two of them — or, at the very least, whether he had his eye on her. Unfounded suspicions that reflected badly on only one person: me. I had put it down to the stress of Burke's trial. Thinking back on it now, I had to laugh. But here he was with her again, drinking and half naked. I told myself to get a grip. The man had become my closest friend; he was a friend to Maura and the children as well. And he had made it his own personal mission to get our family reunited.