Punishment (29 page)

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Jackson said, frowning. “But yes, it’s in their interests to be neighbourly.”

“But there’s obviously more going on in their establishments than meets the eye.”

“Oh that’s for sure.”

“Okay,” said Sullivan, standing straighter. “Let’s go to July 27. But, first of all: Have you ever seen the accused at any of these get-togethers?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Had you ever heard of the accused before July 27?”

Jackson frowned. “Can’t say that I had.”

“But that shouldn’t be surprising, right?”

“Right. There are a lot of low-level drug dealers around the countryside who wouldn’t normally come up in conversations.”

“So you would have considered Mr. Strickland to be pretty ‘low level’?”

“I suppose.”

“Or maybe ‘no level’ … sorry, strike that.” Sullivan turned and faced the little crowd of spectators and smiled. Then he continued with his back still turned toward the witness. “But seriously, when was the first time you heard the name Dwayne Strickland?”

“That evening. I asked the other guy that I was with.”

“The other guy was a biker.”

“An associate. Not full patch.”

“Which was why, on the evening of July 27, you didn’t immediately arrest the individual identified as Dwayne Strickland. You didn’t want to, as they say, ‘blow your cover.’ ”

“It was one of the reasons.”

“There were other reasons?”

“Mainly, we wanted to arrest him in his place of residence.”

“So yes. Let’s be perfectly clear here. The drug drop was not at his place of residence.”

“No.”

“Can you describe exactly where it happened?”

“Yes. At the end of his lane.”

“At the end of his lane, where it joins up with … the
‘Beach’
Road.”

“Yes.”

“For the record, where did you grow up?”

“Swan River, Manitoba.”

“You don’t know this area very well, do you?”

“Well enough.”

“But you’d never been there, to the
Shore
Road, before that evening, had you Corporal Jackson?”

“No.”

“Which is why you aren’t even precisely sure of what the road is called, Beach or Shore. Which was why they didn’t send you there alone. After all, it was hardly necessary to send
two
gangsters to make a relatively small delivery of pot to a
low-level
pusher in the boonies. You were being trained to be a mule, so to speak.”

“I wouldn’t consider three kilos …”

“Where exactly did you put it?”

“In one of those garbage bins.”

“A garbage bin? I’m assuming it had Mr. Strickland’s name on it.”

“No.”

“It didn’t? And so how did you know it was Mr. Strickland’s garbage bin?”

“We didn’t. But it had a municipal number on it and we’d been told to look for that. And to wait to confirm the pickup.” He paused, watching Sullivan closely. In the split second before Sullivan would have pounced, he said, “We were pretty certain it was the right place, though, when Mr. Strickland came and retrieved the package from the bin.”

Sullivan laughed. “Ahhh. Corporal Jackson, you share my talent for anticipating questions. I’m impressed.”

The witness smiled.

Listlessly now, Sullivan said, “The weather was warm that night?”

“It was evening, actually. Before dark. But it was cooling off.”

“And what was the individual wearing, the person who showed up to retrieve the package from the garbage bin?”

“I’m not sure, I …”

“Very simple question, Corporal. Was he wearing a T-shirt? A tank top? A sweater? Was he wearing anything on his head?”

“I seem to recall Dwayne was wearing a hoodie and a ball cap.”

“I see. And you noted that it was a hoodie because, presumably, the hood was up?”

“Possibly.”

“In fact, more than possibly. The hood was up.”

“I think so.”

“So this individual walks down the lane from where you think Mr. Strickland lives …”

“He was driving.”

“Interesting. You’d have noted his plate number then.”

“It wasn’t a car.”

“No? A truck then?”

“No. A quad. Or four-wheeler, whatever they call them around here.”

“So he gets off the four-wheeler, wearing his ball cap the way they do everywhere nowadays, down over the face, his hood up, fishes this package out of the garbage bin, and drives back up the lane toward the house. By the way, could you see the house from the road?”

“No.”

“So he drives in the direction of where you think there’s a house?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then where exactly did he go?”

“He sped off down the Beach … the Shore Road, and after about a hundred metres cut off onto a recreation trail and kept going.”

“Going fast?”

“He wasn’t wasting any time.”

“So let me summarize. Somebody who might have been Dwayne Strickland collects a package of marijuana out of a garbage bin that might have been Mr. Strickland’s garbage bin at the end of a lane where Mr. Strickland might have lived but you couldn’t see a house, and then took off quickly, for somewhere else.”

“Well,” Jackson said, “I don’t think I’d …”

“Your Honour, I have a lot more questions but I don’t see much point in asking them of this witness. Too much ‘might’ and ‘maybe’ in the situation. Not his fault. I think he’s done an honest job in trying to be helpful but his usefulness is limited by his lack of particular knowledge. Oh, I have one more question,” he said, turning back to Jackson. “Have you or any other officer ever obtained and/or executed a search warrant on the premises of Mr. Strickland?”

“Yes.”

“When, exactly.”

“I forget the exact date, but it was after the young lady was … found there.”

“And the search produced what?”

“Drug paraphernalia and a quantity of marijuana.”

“How much marijuana?”

“Approximately a hundred grams.”

“Not three kilos?”

“No.”

“No other drugs?”

“No.”

“Oxycodone?”

The witness shook his head.

“I take it that’s a no.”

“We found no oxycodone, which is not to say …”

“One other thing.” Sullivan bent down and whispered in Strickland’s ear. Strickland whispered back.

“Would it surprise you, Corporal Jackson, that Mr. Strickland doesn’t own a four-wheeler and never has?”

“I don’t think it surprises me one way or the other.”

“Probably not, sir. I don’t think I have any further questions.”

The judge looked toward the prosecution table. “Mr. Jones?” Jones stood.

The re-direct by Jones didn’t amount to much. He helped the officer retrace his steps through the territory Sullivan had vandalized. They admirably emphasized the sinister influence upon society of outlaw motorcycle gangs, the integrated structure of a criminal organization in which a friendly local chapter was part of the same ruthlessness that produced gunfights in public places, massacres of rivals, the corruption of the social fabric—our youth, our public institutions.

The evening of July 27 had been sunny and clear and the sun had set just after nine. There was absolutely no doubt in Jackson’s mind that it was Strickland who picked up the package; perhaps more tellingly, he testified that Strickland was well-known to local law enforcement officers as an important link in the regional chain of drug distribution and that in recent months the drug problem in the area had crept beyond the hash and pot that was lamentably tolerated among the older generations; young folk here were developing a taste for more exotic drugs, ecstasy, crack cocaine and the more serious narcotics, oxycodone, Dilaudid, Percocet, even morphine.

Strickland was part of all that, part of an axis of evil—Jones actually used the phrase—that could be shown to have led to the death of a talented and beautiful young woman.

There was a lunch break. The judge was gone, spectators and lawyers milled about, chattering. Caddy had the little ball of tissue at her nose. I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her close.

In the corridor I saw Jones and an assistant slip into a conference room. It’s like a hockey game, I thought. Between periods, strategy. The Crown is trailing badly. Caddy headed for the ladies’ room and then Neil, as if on cue, was by my side, staring with undisguised hostility at Sullivan who was speaking with the clerk near the entrance to the courtroom. “Lawyers, eh,” said Neil. “Make you want to stand up and screech.”

Then he grabbed my lapel, put his face close to mine. “See, that’s the trouble with a courtroom. The lawyers pack every
question full of lies, but it’s the poor fucker who has to give the answers who has to swear to tell the truth.”

I was surprised by my visceral reaction, a mix of fear and spontaneous aggression. What a cop he must have been, exuding certainty and menace from somewhere deep within the core of him. Growing up he’d been a bully, but this was different. Bullies are, essentially, afraid of something, destined eventually to be exposed as cowards. But there was no cowardice here, no fear, no doubt—his legacy from carrying a gun for thirty years.

“How come the lawyers don’t have to swear to tell the truth? Answer that.” He let go of my jacket and jammed his hands into his pockets, and stared off into the distance, face scarlet.

Caddy emerged from the ladies’, glanced briefly in our direction, then turned away. I was about to go to her when Neil caught my sleeve.

“Anyway, it’s a good thing the old judge isn’t being fooled by any of the lies and double-talk. Being a lawyer himself he can see right through it.”

“You think so?” I said.

“Sure as shit in a dead dog,” he said. “I’ve been watching his face, watching when he takes notes.”

“Isn’t he always taking notes?”

“You mark my words. I’ve been in more courtrooms than I care to remember. You get a vibe.” And he sauntered off, smiling.

——

The tavern was busy as it always is on court days, being the only public place to eat in the barren months of winter. Caddy was shocked to see Sullivan and Jones obviously sharing a joke near the bar. Earnest Mounties drinking coffee. A young woman and a man from competing media were engaged in a quiet conversation of some intensity. “Look at them all,” said Caddy bitterly. “One big happy family. You’d never know what brought them all together.”

I groped for a comforting thought. “The older I get the more it takes to surprise me.”

“What are you talking about—old,” she said, now smiling. “You’re far from old.”

“About last night,” I said, feeling the colour in my face.

“What’s that got to do with old?”

I tried to read her expression, the tone of voice. Both seemed neutral.

“Well, let me assure you,” she said. But I couldn’t let her finish.

“After this is all over we should take a trip somewhere,” I said.

“A trip,” she said. “What a nice idea. A trip where?”

I hadn’t thought it through so retrieved the first memory that came to mind. “Years ago, one spring, I went to the Florida Keys. Very laid back. None of the usual family tourism, or hysterical college students. Lots of quiet gay couples, as I recall, around Key West.”

“Gay couples,” she said, with a raise of eyebrows.

“They seem to know the best places, tend to be respectful of other people.”

“All by yourself you went?”

“It was back in my single days.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t know it was a question.”

She smiled mischievously. “Maybe you’re gay.”

The words were out of me without a thought, “Maybe that’s what you think.”

“Oh Tony, for Christ’s sake.” She laughed and grasped my hand: “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” I said. “I hardly slept a wink last night.”

She studied my face for a while, caressed my hand. “Poor Tony,” she said. “I slept like a log.”

“I call Katriel Pikar,” said Jones.

I didn’t recognize the witness. “Do you know her?” I asked Caddy.

She nodded, face tense. “Slightly.”

She was slim, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She said she was nineteen but looked much younger, spoke softly.

Sullivan turned to Strickland who was leaning forward. They whispered briefly. Sullivan was smiling.

“I think people call you Kat,” said Jones.

“Yes,” she said, and smiled.

She relaxed as he gently led her through her brief friendship with Maymie Stewart. They met in school. Kat was new to the community. Maymie was friendly, they were interested in the same music, did homework together frequently. That was just after Kat moved here, in 2000, and the friendship flourished through most of 2001, but then diminished.

“You began to see less of each other, I think it’s fair to say?”

“Yes.”

“And was there a particular reason, a falling out?”

“No, there was no falling out.” She looked at her lap, fidgeted with her hands. “She just started hanging out with a different crowd.”

“I see. People that you knew?”

“Yes. They were from the school.”

“Did you know Angus John MacLeod?”

“A little bit …”

Sullivan was on his feet then, “Your Honour—”

Jones interrupted: “Your Honour, Mr. MacLeod will be my next witness.”

“Carry on,” the judge said.

“Was there any particular reason why you didn’t become part of this group?”

There was a long pause. “No,” she said finally.

“Miss Pikar,” said Jones. “I’m going to suggest to you that there
was
a reason why you kept away from the people she started to spend time with, and that you and Maymie Stewart drifted apart sometime in early 2002 when Maymie became interested in drugs. Am I not correct?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well let me ask you this. Did you, in 2002, become aware that Maymie had begun experimenting with drugs.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“And how did you become aware of that?”

“She told me.”

Jones turned away from her, faced the spectators. “You know the name Dwayne Strickland?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that name?”

“People talked about him.”

“And what were they saying?”