Old City Hall (40 page)

She turned and looked around the near-empty courtroom. There was only one person in the public gallery, which just yesterday was full. In the back row sat a dark-skinned guy with salt-and-pepper hair, probably in his late fifties, and wearing a beat-up leather jacket with a union logo sewn on the front. Obviously he’d stumbled into the wrong courtroom.

There was a smattering of reporters in the press section of the first row, only a few young journalists, sent to cover what was expected to be a nothing day while the real reporters were at the parade. Awotwe
Amankwah was sitting closest to the door. Positioned to make the quickest getaway. Parish gave him the slightest nod.

Well, this is my one lucky break, Parish thought. Even with the guilty plea, this story will be buried by the avalanche of Leafs coverage.

It was ten to ten. Fernandez and Greene weren’t there yet, which was unusual for them. The damn parade had made a mess of the city.

Parish walked up to the clerk’s desk. The man’s head was buried in a crossword puzzle. “I assume that despite the traffic, His Honor is here and ready to go,” she said.

“Right about that,” the clerk said without lifting his pen. “Before we left court yesterday, he told the staff that parade or no parade, there was no excuse for being late. Captain’s orders.”

“My client’s downstairs,” Parish said.

“I know. I’ve already got a call to bring him up.”

Parish wandered over to her counsel table and thought back to her visit with Brace downstairs half an hour ago. At the cell door, she’d asked a favor of the shift supervisor. He’d agreed to let her meet Brace in the P.C. interview room so she could talk to him in private, not through the glass with other prisoners listening.

The supervisor led Brace to the little room. He was handcuffed.

“Good morning, counsel,” the officer said, and Brace turned, without being asked, to have his handcuffs removed.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said to the supervisor as Brace, his hands free, moved inside the small room and took the seat opposite her.

“No problem,” he said. “It’s busy today. Lots of arrests last night, drunk kids celebrating, breaking windows. I can’t spare a guard for the door, so I’m going to have to lock you two in. Just bang hard on the door when you want out. Kick it if you have to.”

Brace looked surprised to see her. Which made sense after his instructions to her last night. He was pleading guilty. What else was there to say?

“Good morning, Mr. Brace,” she said once the door was shut. She pulled out a fresh pad of paper and a brand-new pen and passed it across the table toward him. He didn’t move. Just stared back at her.

She looked away. My turn to play the averted-eyes game, she thought.

“I figured out why you’re pleading guilty,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I pulled out the file and took another look at the floor plan of your apartment. The one that Officer Kennicott was staring at in court.”

There was no need to tell Brace about her call from Amankwah.

Brace was watching her, his arms crossed in front of him. She took back her pad and started to draw.

“Here’s the apartment,” she said, quickly sketching the floor plan. “This is the main hallway. It’s pretty wide, isn’t it? Here’s the front door. I’ve drawn it touching the wall. Lots of room behind it.”

She looked up at Brace. He glanced down at the page for a moment.

“You led Mr. Singh into the apartment, all the way to here,” she said, drawing a line to the kitchen. “And he sat back in this chair, with no view of the front hall. Right?”

She didn’t bother to look up, but she could feel his eyes on her.

She put a big X behind the front door. “But you could see the hallway. There was someone hiding behind that door. And whoever it was, you’re protecting them, right? Kennicott couldn’t take his eyes off the floor plan. He figured it out. And you saw it, didn’t you?”

Finally she looked back up at Brace. She wasn’t sure how he’d react to this. His eyes were wide-open. Filled with emotion.

“Want to tell me who it was?”

Brace stood up so fast that for a brief moment Parish felt a flash of fear. But it passed instantly when she saw what he was doing. He was on his feet, his back to her, banging as hard as he could on the door and kicking it with his foot in a worn-down spot where it looked like hundreds of other prisoners had kicked.

Great last meeting with my client, she thought now as Horace came over and put his brass bell on the table beside her.

“I see you’re here nice and early,” he said.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” she said.

“Well, dear. Judge just sent word, we might be delayed a bit.”

“Summers delayed. What’s the world coming to?”

“Family business, apparently.”

What did a few minutes matter? she thought. An hour from now
she’d be back in her office, her five minutes of fame a thing of the past. The stack of unfiled papers, legal memorandums to write, unanswered e-mails and voice mails, her dreary future.

The comedown after a big trial was always the same. A big burst of energy, the excitement of suddenly having your life handed back to you. Just great. Time at last to catch up on all your other files, straighten out your banking, get the Law Society off your back, see all those friends you’d ignored for months and read those
New Yorker
magazines piling up on the floor beside the bed, radiating guilt.

None of it would happen. A few years earlier Parish had dated a defenseman on the Maple Leafs, and she’d been warned by some of the other players’ wives that there was no one lazier than a professional athlete in the off-season. It was true. Once the play-offs were over, he spent about six weeks barely getting out of the house. Then he got traded to Pittsburgh, and that was that.

She pulled out the sports page of the
Star
. At least she could read about the great Leafs victory and the amazing save by the old goal-tender at the end of the game.

The courtroom door opened. Two Crown Attorneys every defense lawyer hated—Phil Cutter and Barb Gild—sauntered in along with Hap Charlton, the Chief of Police. The axis of evil, Parish thought to herself as they sat in the front row.

Fernandez finally came in just before ten. Neat and trim as ever. He approached the counsel table without even looking around the room.

Parish put down her newspaper and walked up to him.

“Albert, I got here before you,” she said, shaking his hand. “That’s a first.”

He just nodded. None of his usual banter. Did he have any kind of hint of what was coming? As ever, Fernandez was impossible to read.

She was tempted to tell him that something was afoot. The only other case they’d had together, when she’d won it, he’d taken it well. He insisted that he hadn’t lost anything. That it wasn’t his job to win or lose.

Parish had laughed when he said that. It was the oldest line in the book for Crown Attorneys.

Maybe he was a good loser. Let’s see if he’s a bad winner.

F
ollow me,” a deep voice called out behind Daniel Kennicott. It was the burly off-duty cop from the construction site. Kennicott hadn’t realized that the man was behind him. He barreled into the crowd, and Kennicott tucked in behind him. They squeezed their way across Queen Street as the chimes of the bell tower finished their four-part introduction.

Bong,
it rang out. Nine more to go, Kennicott thought. I’m not going to make it.

The plaza in front of Old City Hall was packed. The off-duty cop kept moving people aside, like a plow cutting through virgin snow.

Bong. Bong. Bong
.

They got to the broad steps leading to the front door, and there was an opening. Kennicott took the steps three at a time. A group of hookers were standing in front of the cenotaph smoking, sending out clouds of smoke as he brushed by them.

The clock was up to its eighth bong.

Kennicott kept moving. He had to break through the waiting line. He spotted two bewildered-looking businessmen in suits. Must be a tax-evasion case, he said to himself as he rushed up to them. He could hear the clock bong again.

“Police. Let me through.”

The men looked up, startled, and instinctively parted.

Bong,
the clock rang out for the tenth and last time, silence filling the space where the next beat should have been.

Damn, Kennicott thought as he grabbed the big oak door and yanked it open. Inside, he cut his way to the front of the line, grabbed his badge, and waved it at the stunned-looking guard.

“Police, urgent business,” Kennicott yelled as he rushed through the security check and ran into the big main rotunda. It was packed with cops, lawyers, clients, and even a few judges, accompanied by their clerks, rushing to court. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, creating a buzzlike hum.

He charged up the stairs, cut around the corner to his left, and ran headlong toward courtroom 121. The old constable with the bell was still outside. Kennicott waved his badge as he ran up.

“You haven’t started yet?” he practically screamed at the man.

“His Honor was delayed. Had an important phone call. Family business.”

“What luck,” Kennicott said as he rushed inside and stopped. His heart was pounding. His forehead broke out in sweat.

The court was about to begin. Kevin Brace was standing in the prisoners’ box. Fernandez and Parish were on their feet. Up in his chair, Judge Summers was uncapping his old fountain pen. Next to him in the witness-box, Detective Ho was opening his police notebook.

The rest of the courtroom was almost empty. Phil Cutter and Barb Gild were in the front row with Police Chief Charlton. Aside from a handful of reporters, there was only one other person in the audience, an olive-skinned man in an old leather jacket.

Kennicott looked at Phil Cutter. The guy had a smug smile on his face. He thought about Jo Summers and what she’d overheard Cutter say to Gild. The Crown’s office was a place where careers could rise and fall on the whim of whoever was in charge. Just like prisoners who never wanted to rat out their fellow felons, or doctors who’d never point out the mistakes of their colleagues, or cops who’d cover for each other, there weren’t too many Crowns willing to stick their necks out to criticize an office mate.

Kennicott thought about his last moments in Jo Summers’s cottage. He’d hung up the cell phone after talking to Greene, looked at her, and said, “I’ve got to run. You know your father. He’s never late for court.”

“Believe me,” she’d answered, “I know.”

He looked at his plate full of freshly cooked food. “Sorry,” he said. Instinctively he started toward the kitchen with it.

“Just go,” she said, stepping forward and taking the plate from his hands.

For just a moment they stood very close to each other. He reached out for her elbow, and she grasped his biceps. He kissed her and her hand tightened on his arm. It was only a second or two, but it seemed like much longer.

She was the only person who knew he was desperately trying to get to court on time. Her father’s court. And the constable had just told him that Summers was delayed by an important phone call, family business.

“Thanks, Jo,” Kennicott whispered to himself under his breath.

“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” the clerk said, pulling his robes lavishly forward on his shoulders. “All persons having business in this court, please attend and ye shall be heard.”

No one seemed to have noticed Kennicott come in.

The moment the clerk sat down, Nancy Parish said, “Your Honor, I wish to address the court immediately on an urgent matter. I have new instructions from my client. I’m going to be making an application to be removed as counsel, and I believe my client then wishes to address this court.”

Kennicott’s heart was racing, from nerves now, not exertion. After all his running to get here, the next few steps were the toughest to take. He swallowed hard, pushed through the swinging wooden gate, and entered the lawyers’ arena.

Suddenly noticing Kennicott, Summers glared down at him. Parish turned and stared. So did Fernandez.

“Officer Kennicott,” Summers shouted, “what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m here not as a police officer,” Kennicott said, instinctively straightening his tie, “but as a lawyer. In that capacity I wish to address this court on an urgent matter.”

Summers looked stunned. Good, Kennicott thought. He needed to buy a few seconds to talk to Fernandez and make him adjourn the case before Parish got to speak.

“But you have no standing in this case,” Summers said.

“Your Honor,” Kennicott said, planting his feet firmly, “I could argue that I’m technically a part of the prosecution team. But of greater import, I’m a member in good standing of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and as such I am obliged to act at all times as an officer of the court. I’m making an extraordinary application for standing in your court in order to prevent what I believe could be a serious miscarriage of justice.”

“In thirty years on the bench,” Summers stammered, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Kennicott moved up to Fernandez. “You need to adjourn for ten minutes,” he whispered.

“Your Honor,” Parish said, raising her voice, “it’s not just extraordinary, it’s improper. I need to address this court immediately.”

Kennicott kept whispering to Fernandez. “Greene just saw Katherine Torn’s mother. You need to hear this.”

Fernandez’s dark eyes widened as he stared at Kennicott. His look seemed odd. Hard to read.

“Mr. Fernandez, what do you say?” Summers said, shouting from the bench.

“If I could have a moment, Your Honor,” Fernandez said. He was remarkably calm.

Kennicott kept talking quietly. “Katherine almost choked her mother to death two years ago. Like Brace, Allison Torn can’t talk anymore.”

“Mr. Fernandez!” Summers was screaming now.

Kennicott tried to read Fernandez’s eyes, but they were expressionless. He kept whispering. “Greene told me to tell you that this is why Mrs. Torn never said a word when you met her in December. Why she
always wears a scarf around her neck. The reason Dr. Torn kept her away from you.”