Lost Girls

chapter 9

After a breakfast of toasted bagel discovered deep inside the pocket of my overcoat I head back up to the courthouse for my conference with a Mr. Goodwin, the Crown attorney assigned to the trial. I'm feeling a little sluggish, having limited myself to only a single line of wake-up coke, but the fatigue seems to come from a different source. Since arriving in Murdoch my sleep has been degraded to a series of five-hour toss-and-turn marathons. Waking lacquered in sweat or balled up in shivers, eyes opening at the imagined scrape of the window lifting open. A rattling breath joining my own in the dark room.

I make a mental note to buy pills.

When I find Goodwin's office I take a second before entering to finish a heaving yawn and guess at what sort of opponent I'm about to meet. ''Never heard of him,'' Graham had e-mailed back when I'd asked if Goodwin was a known quantity. ''They assign the weird ones up there.''

And he is weird, if being startlingly fat satisfies the definition. A peony-faced water retainer jammed behind a desk occupied by neatly arranged columns of documents. He's still straightening them carefully from top to bottom when I come in, fingers rolling down their sides as if sculpting pottery on a wheel.

''Hay-lo, you must be Bartholomew Crane. Pete Goodwin,'' he says, his mouth sounding as though there's something in it but there's not, just his thick tongue banging up against the inside of his teeth.

''Good morning, Mr. Goodwin,'' I say, and try at a brisk smile. There's a moment when a handshake is mutually considered, but because it would be a stretch for me to reach him across the broad desk and because his position there appears more or less permanent, I simply take a seat.

''So, this is it?'' I nod toward the fondled papers.

''That's right. Of course, you'll have to review all the materials in whatever detail you deem fit, but I thought in the meantime I might provide you with a summary. The main highlights, as it were. By way of courtesy.''

''Sure, yes. Courtesy. Give me your best shots.''

Goodwin pushes his chair back and stands, revealing his full immensity. Panting a little, he takes a black marker from his jacket pocket and begins to make point notes on the white presentation board on the wall behind him.

''First, there's the fruits of our search of Tripp's apartment. Not sure if you've seen the place--it's your standard one-bedroom above the corner store at Brock and King-- and pretty tidy when the police arrived. Your typical single-guy setup, I guess.''

''Was he always that way?''

''Tidy?''

''Single.''

''I would've thought you knew.''

''No, I don't. That's why I'm asking.''

Goodwin pauses as his brain registers my sarcasm, but for the moment he does nothing more than file it away.

''Tripp was divorced three years back. We've provided a list of witnesses, among whom are people who knew him before and after the split who will testify as to the terrible strain the whole thing put on him. Stopped calling friends or going out, noticeably distracted at school staff meetings, diminished performance in the classroom, things like that.''

''So he was depressed. The wife left him. Is that considered unique up here?''

''Not on its own. But he didn't just lose his wife. The man lost his family.''

''What family?''

''Well, his wife left in something of a hurry--I really would've thought you knew this--and took their daughter with her. Then a prolonged custody hearing over the girl, Melissa I think her name was. Is. A real backstreet brawl, I understand. And it got personal. Tripp accusing the wife of sleeping around and the wife accusing Tripp of becoming obsessive over the daughter, constantly taking photos of her, not letting her play with other kids, that sort of thing. So one day she just packed up and took the girl with her.''

''Still, I don't get--''

''There's a bit more to it, Mr. Crane.'' He smiles uncertainly, little teeth huddled beneath a glistening lip. ''Melissa was only ten years old when she left, and the accused's only child. That's bad enough. And then a year later he lost all his visitation rights after she told her mother that Daddy wanted her to bring her big suitcase and passport next time because the two of them were going to go on a long trip. Mother went to court, changed address, got a restraining order, and all of a sudden Tripp's totally out of the picture. After that he dropped everything and kept to himself. Except for some of his favored students, of course.''

This last bit isn't meant as provocation, you can tell just by looking at the basset hound arc of Goodwin's brow. But I clear my throat threateningly anyway to let him know I've taken notice.

''Next on the list are the photographs of the accused's bedroom that show the catalog pages he'd ripped out and plastered over his wall,'' Goodwin continues, adding a long dash and PICS to the list on the board. ''All girls, aged ten to eighteen. And as the photographs indicate, Tripp selected pages showing their subjects in underwear, pajamas, or revealing sportswear.''

''Revealing sportswear, you say? Oh, my. What else?''

''The other evidence from the apartment was a pair of brown dress pants found in Tripp's laundry hamper, covered in dried mud from the cuff up to the shin. We have a witness, a colleague of Tripp's at the school, who will testify that she recalls these pants being the same ones he wore on the day of the girls' disappearance.''

''Mud. Well, well, well.''

''Next up is Tripp's car,'' he goes on, actually drawing a picture of a station wagon, complete with spoked hub-caps and door handles. ''Once impounded we discovered half a dozen small bloodstains on the backseat. We believe that these will yield a large enough sample for DNA testing, and so we've gone ahead and sent a section of the upholstery down to forensics in Toronto for a run-through along with hair samples taken from each of the girls' hairbrushes. We expect the results back shortly--they're really getting better and better at these things, aren't they?-- although, in the event they aren't available, certain arrangements can of course be made to adjourn for a period. . . .''

Then I lose him. Not him actually, but his words. In fact my attention turns more closely to the man himself. There is a particular aspect of Goodwin's obesity--a posture, perhaps even an aura, to it--that compels one to stare and await disaster. By ''disaster'' I mean either embarrassment of the first order (a popping of shirt buttons, a pastry slipping out of a jacket pocket and splatting, jelly side down, onto the floor) or something worse, the spontaneous regurgitation of the past twelve hours' consumption or the final explosion of his overworked heart. When he stands I can't resist calculating his dimensions, thinking of his very being in terms of so many hundred cubic feet or comparing his belt length to the width of living rooms. Even when he's seated it's a struggle to do anything but watch him and his heaving movements as he bends forward to take notes or dig around for his pen, the flesh of his face folded over itself like a partly disassembled tent. While I have known body size of his type to work to the advantage of other lawyers who have managed to harness the authority of the jutting belly and bulldoggish ferocity of the triple chin, in this man it suggests only ineptitude.

But more. His fatness tells a story. On Goodwin's pink layers and crimson cheeks is written the history of a man who once believed that when he'd reached a certain point of accomplishment in his life, when he could stand knowing that his own words represented the voice of Queen and country, that then, after years of schoolyard mockery and half-concealed giggles over his shoulder, he would be taken seriously. But here he is, finally, and nothing has changed.

I don't know any of this for a fact, of course. But his body told me just the same, as clearly as if his biography were written on the vast fabric of his suit. However, while Goodwin presents a pitiable picture to the world, there is little pity in me as I wait for the hand that rests too heavily on the back of his chair to flip it over and send my opposing counsel's rice-sack ass to the floor. He's on the wrong side of the proceedings for pity.

''Thank you for that informative presentation,'' I begin when Goodwin has found his chair, pushing my totally blank legal pad into the middle of the table for him to get a good look. ''But I have some questions.''

''Go ahead,'' he swallows.

''First of all, what's the evidentiary basis for your obtaining the warrant to impound Tripp's car?''

''We were investigating the possibility of--''

''I don't care what we were investigating. I'm asking what you put before the justice of the peace to get him to sign an order to search my client's car. Do you understand the question?''

''I understand, Mr. Crane. And the short answer is tire tracks.''

''What tire tracks?''

''At the crime scene. The ones left at the end of the road on Lake St. Christopher are consistent with the size, wear, and brand variety tread on Tripp's Volvo.''

''Tire tracks are not what you'd call scientifically precise, are they?''

''They were good enough for the jp.''

''They must've been. But we'll see how that stands up before a judge who actually holds a law degree. And let me remind you that your reference to the location of the tire tracks as the 'crime scene' is desperately premature. No bodies, no crime, no crime scene.''

''You're free to call it what you like, Mr. Crane.''

''Thank you. I think I'll call it horseshit, then, if you don't mind, because I don't see a single good reason for the police to have been searching the end of that road for tire tracks in the first place. Why there? Why, in a county with a hundred and seventy-two prime locations to ditch bodies, would the bright sparks of the Murdoch Ontario Province Police detachment all head to the one place?''

Goodwin presses his lips together, pushes the color out of the skin around his mouth. ''A collection of reasons,'' he says finally.

''I'm curious.''

''Well, Tripp used to spend his summers on St. Christopher for years, so he would know the area well. That's for starters. Next, his car had been seen up there once or twice driving around in the months prior to the girls' disappearance. But more important, it was simply the first place people around here thought to look. The woods are thick, the water's deep. And there're stories.''

''Stories?''

''Bad things that happened, years back. And you know how people can turn old facts into new tales.''

Goodwin tries at an embarrassed laugh, brings the pads of his hands together in a single smack of flesh.

''I know all about turning facts into tales, Mr. Goodwin. And I'm beginning to see that you and the police up here are enthusiastic amateurs at it.''

''Now, there's no need for--''

''You said 'bad things.' What kind of bad things?''

''I'm not sure of the particulars. A drowning, I think. And now there's a ghost story to go along with it.''

''Beautiful. So are all the cops up here gypsies or something?''

''I'm not trying to--''

''Regarding the search of Tripp's apartment: there was no journal or diary found? No half-finished letters?''

''No.''

''Just the muddy pants and catalog pinups?''

''That's right.''

''And both easily explained, wouldn't you say? Lonely father seeking comforting images to remind him of his only child. A lonely father who also lives in a town of wall-to-wall mud, particularly after the big spring thaw?''

''Perhaps, but I think--''

''And no weapon found?''

''Nothing yet.''

''No bloodstains or anything gruesome in the laundry hamper?''

''No, just--''

''Just the bloodstains in the Volvo. I know. Now, assumingyou get a readable result on the DNA analysis, I ask you, what do you propose to match it against?''

Goodwin raises a corner of his mouth slightly to reveal star-shaped dimples cratered high in his cheeks.

''Perhaps I neglected to mention,'' he says, mouth still raised, ''that in addition to the bloodstains in the back and the hair taken from their hairbrushes at home there were also a number of hair samples found in the car, apparently emanating from two distinct sources: one dark, one blond, both long. Not Tripp's. We've sent these out for DNA tests as well, and if the hairbrush hair matches the hair found in the car, or if the hairbrush hair matches the bloodstains--well, I think at the very least it would go a good way toward proving their presence in the car.''

''Big fucking deal!'' I'm shouting now. ''Nobody's denyingtheir 'presence in the car.' Who cares about their 'presence in the car'? The elements of the offense of firstdegree murder, Mr. Goodwin, involve establishing that a planned and deliberate homicide has occurred. Girls with long hair having nosebleeds or picking scabs in the back of their teacher's car falls a little short, wouldn't you say?''

Then Goodwin does something alarming. He sits forward (as far as this is possible), his face a shiny mackintosh, his upper lip dancing in the involuntary way that signals the onset of either frustrated tears or violence. But neither come. Only his voice, struggling for calm.

''Mr. Crane, this is a pretrial conference. It is meant to assist in defining the issues of trial, thereby to expedite procedure. It's not an opportunity to practice your closing submissions, nor am I a witness obliged to sit through a test run of your cross-examination strategy. I'm pleased to answer your inquiries, but I find your argumentative tone extremely inappropriate.''

Then he sits back again. The redness (at least the additional redness) drains from his face and his upper lip is released from its seizure.

''Quite right, Mr. Goodwin,'' I admit, vaguely impressed by the big man's performance. ''I'm aware that what you call my argumentative tone can sometimes get the better of me. I suppose it just wouldn't let me sit here, having appreciated what I take to be the full extent of the Crown's evidence, without pointing out its woeful deficiencies. Sometimes my argumentative tone overwhelms me when a client of mine has been charged with the highest criminal offense known to our law on the basis only of catalog pictures, muddy slacks, a haunted lake, and crossed fingers on the outcome of what will in any event be inconclusive DNA results. For this, I apologize.''

I rise at this point, collecting the stacks of papers left on the table and sticking them randomly into Goodwin's accordion file, now mine. But I can't help noticing at the upper extreme of my vision a wet-looking grin moving across the fat man's mouth.

''You think I don't wish I had more? I know darn well the limitations of my case, Mr. Crane.''

I direct a mocking snort at his ''darn well,'' but once again he continues as though he hadn't noticed.

''There's a difference between you and me, Mr. Crane. And it's likely not one of the differences that's already occurred to you. The thing is, you want to win this case because it would be doing yourself a service. I want to win because I believe Thomas Tripp is guilty. Everyone in this town knows it. He tried to steal his own daughter once, and when he couldn't do that, he stole someone else's.''

''Very nice, very--''

''And you know what else?'' He raises himself from his chair in a single movement of surprising agility, extending his arm in my direction at the same time. ''I believe you know this yourself.''

''You can't tell me what I believe.''

''No, I can't. But I'll ask you this. Next time you have a talk with your client take a good long look into his eyes and tell me he didn't do it.''

The meeting's over. His hand, puffy and spotted white, wavers before me. When I finally take it he gives my own hand a long, dry squeeze.

It's ridiculous how some small, totally inconsequential things can come to drive you nuts. But what bothers me about this handshake is that it's my hand that's slick with moisture when it should be his. It's my sweat that is wiped from the fat man's hand onto the front of his cheap pants.