The Endless Knot

From my perspective, Linda Fritz and Zack seemed to accept or challenge the jury candidates pretty much on the basis of instinct. I didn’t know how much digging the Crown had done into the background of the members of the jury panel, but I knew Falconer Shreve’s investigations had been casual. Zack’s firm had possessed the panel list since Labour Day. It included the ages and occupations of each potential juror. The obvious bad fits had been culled, but Zack believed in common sense and gut reaction, and it seemed Linda Fritz did too. In a little under three hours, the jurors who would try Samuel Parker on the charge of attempted murder were selected.

Zack had rolled his eyes about the impossibility of finding a jury of peers for a right-wing fundamentalist millionaire who made no bones about the fact that he would do anything to protect his transgendering child. As I watched the jury members take their places in the box, I wondered how Sam Parker would fare with the six men and six women who were solemnly assuming their new and unfamiliar roles as “judges of the facts” of his case. They were as typical as any random group you might find searching for videos at Blockbuster on Friday at 5:00 p.m. There was a dapper little man with a scowl and an aggressive combover; two pleasant-faced women with gently permed white hair and seasonally patterned cardigans; a tall, imposing woman with a pale oval face Modigliani would have lusted to paint; two men in three-piece suits; a woman with a Lucille Ball explosion of red curls and a smile that looked slightly demented; two young people, one male, one female – both of whom squirmed and looked distinctly unhappy; a silver-haired gent who turned out to be a serious notetaker; a cocky, meaty man who sprawled in his chair, seemingly defying all comers to explain why they weren’t wasting his time; and a woman about my age, wearing a vintage granny gown, lace-up shoes, and the last rose of summer in her glorious salt-and-pepper mane.

Despite Zack’s somewhat lackadaisical approach to jury selection, once he had a jury, they were his focus. From the moment they were sworn in, the members of the jury became players in the legal drama, joining the judge, the defendant, the lawyers, and the witnesses on the other side of the fourth wall, that invisible curtain that, in theatre, divides actors from their audience. On that first day, Zack’s eyes wandered towards me, but he never established eye contact. Later he told me that only inexperienced, showboating lawyers play to the back of the room. Experienced lawyers remember who makes the decisions, and they keep their focus on the judge and the jury.

When the jurors were seated, Arthur Harney read the jury some elementary points of law and announced that we would recess so the jury could select a foreperson and we could all have lunch.

Brette Sinclair slid her notebook and pen into her vintage bag. Kevin Powers, obviously over his snit, leaned across me again and addressed her. “Do you think there’s a decent place to eat around here?”

“I’m sure there is,” Brette said. She gave my media identification tag a sidelong glance. “Joanne and I arranged to have lunch. I’ll give you a report on the restaurant when we get back.”

Kevin glared at her. “You do that,” he said, and he got up and stomped off.

When he was out of earshot, Brette picked up her bag. “Sorry,” she said. “Super-stud and I have some history I’m not anxious to repeat.”

I knew Zack would be eating with his client. “I don’t have any plans for lunch if you’d like to join me.”

She squinted. “Seriously?”

“Why not? What do you like?”

Her eyes sparked mischief. “Cake.”

I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder. “I know just the restaurant for you,” I said. “Follow me.”

In its previous incarnation, Danbry’s had been the Assiniboine Club, a gents-only place where men with deep pockets could sit in leather chairs, sip Scotch, read their papers, and escape women. Sense and shifting sensibilities had been the death knell for clubs like the Assiniboine, but an enterprising developer had seen the potential in the graceful old downtown building, and that wintry day, Brette and I walked into a restaurant of real charm. We arrived without reservations, but we were in luck – not only were places available, they were prime – in front of the fireplace in the high-vaulted dining room. Brette shrugged out of her trench coat. She was wearing nicely fitted blue jeans, a white shirt, a black cardigan, and a long string of pearls. Her outfit was a theme that would appear with variations throughout the trial.

The server came, took our drink orders, and handed us menus. “What’s good?” Brette asked.

“Everything,” I said. “But the lamb burgers with gorgonzola are amazing.”

She snapped her menu shut. “I accept your recommendation,” she said. We ordered and she leaned forward. “So what’s your take on this case?”

“Too soon to have a take,” I said.

“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll know after the opening statements.”

“That soon?” I asked.

She wrapped her pearls around her forefinger. “How many trials have you covered?”

“This is the first,” I said.

“Everybody has to start somewhere,” she said equitably. “Anyway, the conventional wisdom is that 75 per cent of cases are won or lost in the opening statement.”

“Because you never get a second chance to make a first impression?” I said.

She smiled. “My mother used to say that. Anyway, I’ve never seen Linda Fritz, but I have seen Zachary Shreve, and he’s a trip. I covered a trial where he was defending a Hells Angel named Lil Joe. Even slicked up for his court date, Lil Joe was a gorilla, but in his opening statement, Shreve wove this touching story about Joe’s kindness to widows and orphans. Of course, he failed to point out that Joe was responsible for a lot of those widows and orphans becoming widows and orphans, but no matter. Shreve got the jury on Lil Joe’s side.”

“That must have been a killer opening statement,” I said.

“It did the job,” Brette said dryly. “More importantly, Shreve managed to keep the jury on side. It must have been tough sledding for him. One of the Crown’s witnesses – hostile, needless to say – quoted the defendant as saying, ‘If you mess with the best, you die like the rest.’ ”

“Scary stuff,” I said.

“Yes indeed, but Shreve got the jury to buy his theory about the facts in the case, so Lil Joe got off. Afterwards when we were doing the post-trial scrum on the courthouse stairs, a contingent of Angels roared past on their bikes. They were carrying a banner: ‘Ride Hard. Die Free.’ ”

I shuddered. “Sounds like a great moment in Canadian justice.”

“From what I hear, Shreve is responsible for a lot of those,” Brette said.

The server arrived with our drinks and Brette raised her glass. “Thanks for rescuing me from Kevin. I grew up watching him read the nightly news. Doing him was on my life list.”

“Like hiking the West Coast Trail,” I said.

“Exactly,” Brette agreed. “Except they give you a certificate for that. Anyway, onward and upward. What do you know about the judge in this case?”

“Arthur Harney? He’s a farm boy. I heard him give a speech once, and he said he became a lawyer because shovelling shit was shovelling shit, and the law paid better than farming. The lawyers I know like him. He’s fair. He’s not a showboater. He trusts the lawyers to do their jobs. When he quit smoking, he took up origami to keep his hands busy.”

“The origami’s a nice touch. Mind if I copy?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“I’ll trade you,” Brette said. “I’ll bet you tomorrow’s lunch bill that at some point this afternoon, Zack Shreve will give Sam Parker a LifeSaver.”

“A LifeSaver?”

“Yep. Shreve and Lil Jo must have gone through a dozen packages during his trial. The intent is to show the jurors that the defendant is just an ordinary guy.”

“I have a lot to learn,” I said.

“Stick with me,” Brette said. “I’m young, but I’m savvy.”

When court reconvened, the jury announced that they had chosen a foreperson. I’d put my money on one of the three-piece-suit men, but the jurors picked the earth mother. Given the many complexities of Samuel Parker’s case, an aging hippie with flowers in her hair was probably as good a choice as any.

Linda Fritz’s opening address to the jury was admirably economical: no theatrics, no emotionally loaded language. Her summary of the facts of the case was concise and concrete. Samuel Parker’s only child was a transsexual, making the transition from male to female. Glenda Parker had given an interview explaining the process to Kathryn Morrissey. The interview had been intense, and its appearance in Kathryn Morrissey’s book Too Much Hope had repercussions. Publicly humiliated and hounded by the media, Beverly Parker had been hospitalized for exhaustion; Glenda herself had considered suicide. Samuel Parker had attempted to have publication of the book stopped, but when his lawyers told him he had no legal recourse, he had taken matters into his own hands. The Crown would prove that Samuel Parker had, with forethought and intent to kill, fired a pistol at Kathryn Morrissey. Linda Fritz then gave a quick sketch of the evidence the Crown would bring forth, including that of a witness who heard Samuel Parker utter threats against Kathryn Morrissey and who saw Samuel Parker take aim and pull the trigger.

I noticed that Linda Fritz stood very close to the jury box during her opening statement. In her barrister’s robes with her smoothly coiffed red hair, she was a striking figure, and the jury was attentive. Only once did she change position, but once was enough. Towards the end of her opening, she began to sneeze. When she went back to the counsel table to get a tissue, her connection with the jurors was broken. Zack, who had been watching Linda Fritz carefully, noticed that the jury’s attention had wandered momentarily towards the defence, and he pounced. More accurately, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a package of LifeSavers. The jury’s eyes were on him now. When, very slowly, he unwrapped the package and offered a candy to Sam Parker, everyone was watching. Sam took the LifeSaver and smiled his thanks. It was a small moment, but a nice one.

Beside me, Brette Sinclair whispered, “Bingo.”

Linda Fritz finished her opening statement with the assertion that the job of the Crown is to see that justice is done. It was a powerful statement, but the jury’s attention had been diluted. They listened respectfully, but Linda knew she had lost momentum, and as she resumed her place behind the Crown prosecutor’s table, her shoulders were tense.

Zack’s opening was quiet. He wheeled over to the jurors and in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper, he introduced himself. “My name is Zachary Shreve,” he said, “and I’m Sam Parker’s lawyer. My task is to show you the kind of man Sam is and to show you what was in his mind and heart on the afternoon of May 16. It’s a duty I’m proud to undertake, because Sam Parker is a decent man.

“My learned friend, the Crown prosecutor, has done a commendable job of laying out the facts in this case, but you and I know that facts without context are like paving stones before they’re set in sand. Until they’re anchored, you can make paving stones point in pretty much any direction you choose. With all due respect, I think my learned friend is pointing the stones in the wrong direction. So I’m going to put the facts into context – anchor them down. I’m trusting that you, as ‘judges of the facts,’ will make certain that we come out in the right place.

“You have a serious responsibility ahead of you. Serious responsibility is something that Sam Parker understands. Sam is a father who loves his child. That’s why he’s in this courtroom today. When Glenda Parker confided a matter of the utmost privacy to a journalist, and she betrayed him, Glenda’s father acted. That’s what parents do for their children. That’s what a father does for his son.”

Before that moment, Zack had always been careful to refer to Glenda in the feminine. The reference to Sam and Glenda as “father and son” had been a slip, but the jury, which to this point had been dutifully attentive, was now alert. Zack picked up on the change in the emotional temperature immediately. He shook his head and a little half-smile played on his lips. “There’s a primal bond between a man and his son,” he said, and his emphasis on the word son was unmistakable.

Beside me, Brette breathed the words “son of a bitch.”

As he continued, Zack’s voice was sonorous, pitch perfect for the tale he was telling about a decent man thrust into unthinkable circumstances who was guilty of a grievous error in judgment but not of attempted murder.

I glanced across at Glenda Parker. Her outfit for court was smart and androgynous: grey slacks, a black turtleneck, and an unstructured black jacket. Her only jewellery was the heavy gold band she wore on her ring finger. When Zack first used the phrase father and son, Glenda flinched, but from that moment on, she was stoic. All of the horror – the pictures of her competing as a male swimmer, the unpacking of her private life – everything she feared most was coming to pass, but it was in aid of a good cause. Her father’s trusted barrister had found a note that resonated, and so Glenda swallowed hard.

Zack wheeled close to the jury. “Sam Parker loved his son,” he said. “That was his crime. That was his ‘sin.’ Four hundred years ago, a poet lost his first-born son. He wrote about a father’s anguish. ‘Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; / My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.’ ”

The meaty man rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

Zack went to him. “The poem makes me weep too. But those lines didn’t make Kathryn Morrissey weep. For her, they were just material. She needed a title for her book, so she took what she wanted from a father’s heartbreak. She needed a best-seller, so she took what she wanted from the broken lives of young people who trusted her. All Sam Parker did was love his son. He did not attempt to murder Kathryn Morrissey.”

The courtroom was silent. Linda Fritz stared studiously at her files.

“Bull’s eye,” Brette said admiringly. “Also bullshit.”

When Zack wheeled back to his place behind the counsel table, he touched his client’s arm and said a few words. Glenda Parker was sitting directly behind them. She stood, squeezed Zack’s shoulder, then bent to kiss her father’s head. The gesture delivered a message more powerful than words. “Whatever it takes,” the kiss said. “Whatever it takes.”

Later, as I stood on the courthouse steps with Rapti Lustig running through the points I was going to cover in my report of the trial for Canada Tonight, I didn’t mention the kiss. But as the snow swirled around me, and Rapti dabbed at my imperfections with Max Factor, the memory of Glenda’s pain was sharp. So was the memory of the gusto with which Zack had played his trump card. But when he came through the glass doors of the courthouse, his focus had shifted from the trial to me, and I remembered why I loved him.

He glowered at my bare neck. “Where’s your scarf?”

“I couldn’t find it this morning.”

“How long do you have to stand out here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably another ten minutes.”

He reached up, flicked off his own scarf, and handed it to me. “Take this.”

I knotted his scarf around my neck.

“Better?” he said.

“Much,” I said. “It’s still warm from you.”

“Anytime you need a little body heat.”

Rapti scowled. “Hey, you two – get a room.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I wish?” At that moment, Linda Fritz came through the courthouse doors, and Zack called her over. Without her barrister’s robes, Linda looked surprisingly vulnerable. It was clear from the hectic glitter in her eyes and the rasp in her voice that the volley of sneezes in court had just been a prelude: Linda was well on her way to the miseries of a cold.

She took in the scene. “What’s up?” she said.

“I wanted Joanne to meet you. Although since she’s already seen you in action, I guess we can skip the formalities.”

“You were terrific in there,” I said.

“Not terrific enough,” Linda said glumly. “But tomorrow is another day – speaking of which, I have a ton of reading to do.”

Zack’s tone was matey. “If you’d accept our invitation to join Falconer Shreve, eager associates would simplify your life.”

Linda blew her nose loudly and turned to me. “This man can’t get it through his head that I actually like my work. He believes that when Falconer Shreve calls, I should just put on my lipstick and hightail it over to the dark side.” She coughed. “Zack, for the record, I don’t get my thrills from pulling the hair out of other people’s drains. I’m happy where I am. Je ne regrette rien.”

“The offer’s always open,” Zack said. He took my hand. “Gotta go. I’m going to meet my guy back at the office. I’ll call you tonight.” He pulled me towards him and kissed me. “I love you,” he said.

Linda Fritz pounded her ear the way a swimmer does to get the water out. “Did I hear what I thought I heard?”

Zack frowned. “I told you Joanne and I were seeing each other.”

Linda blew her nose. “I thought it was like all your other relationships. Slam bam, thank you, ma’am. You’re always a pal afterwards, but love … hey, who knew?”

Zack grinned. “I wasn’t counting on it either, Linda, but I got lucky. Take care of that cough.”

My first report on the Sam Parker trial was complicated by a wind that was either keening into my lapel mike or lashing my hair in front of my eyes. But I stuck with it, and my report live to the East Coast was on time and on target. We all agreed the spot had gone well and as I removed my microphone, I felt a wash of relief. One show down, probably twenty more to go.

On the way to my car, I spotted Ethan Thorpe. He was walking through the parking lot behind the courthouse. He was wearing a full-length black coat with the collar pulled up against the weather – a figure of Gothic romance. I called to him. “Hey, Ethan.”

He whirled around and recognized me. “Ms. Kilbourn – hi!” Turtle style, he pulled his head even farther down inside his collar.

“What are you doing down here?” I said.

“A project,” he mumbled. “For social studies.”

“Well, court’s over for the day.” I said, “Can I give you a lift home?”

“No!” His voice cracked with adolescence and emotion. Clearly, he didn’t want me invading his private space. He tried to smooth the rough edge of his response. “Thanks, but it’s okay. I like walking in storms.” Then he turned on his heel and, in an exit worthy of Soul-fire, vanished in the swirl of snow.

Taylor and I watched my debut on Canada Tonight together in the family room. When the host gave a rundown of the stories the show would be covering that night, an image of me flashed on the screen. Taylor’s new fashion radar was on full alert. “Hey, that scarf you’re wearing would look really great with my orange boots.”

“You’ll have to talk to Zack. The scarf belongs to him.”

Taylor’s smile started small and grew. “Zack would give you anything you asked for.”

“Of course, he would,” I said. “He’s passion’s slave.”

Taylor’s eyes widened.

“I picked up the phrase passion’s slave from Soul-fire,” I said. “Which reminds me, I saw Ethan downtown today. He was in the parking lot behind the courthouse.”

“What was he doing there?”

“He said something about a social studies project. Anyway, I offered him a ride home, but he wanted to walk in the blizzard.”

“He doesn’t like being around other people much,” Taylor said.

“How come?”

“Because he thinks other people don’t like him.”

“Is he right?”

By a stratagem I had come to recognize well from my years as a mother, Taylor deflected the question by changing the subject. Luckily for her, she had help. Just as the silence between us was growing awkward, my segment on Canada Tonight began. Taylor’s relief was palpable. “Hey, your show’s starting,” she said.

We both watched critically. When it was over, Taylor flopped back on the couch. “Too bad about your hair weirding out in the wind like that, but what you said sounded good.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stood up. “And since I get to perform again tomorrow, I’d better do my homework.”

Taylor ran her fingers through her choppy bob. “Maybe get some hairspray too,” she said thoughtfully. “Gracie says Curlz Extra will keep your hair glued down in a monsoon.”

Like many best-laid plans, my plan to make a quick run to Shoppers Drug Mart for industrial-strength hairspray and curl up with the background information Rapti had sent went awry. As I was rinsing our dishes, the phone rang.

It was Angus telling me he and Leah had a blast in New York, and that he was available 24/7 if I needed help with any legal points. I thanked him, told him I loved him, and went back to the dishes. I’d just put the last plate in the dishwasher when Howard Dowhanuik called.

His voice was thick. “I fucked up,” he said.

“Stop the presses,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “I deserved that.” His voice was muffled and barely comprehensible.

“Howard, hang up and call me again. There’s something the matter with this line.”

“It isn’t the line. It’s the towel I’m holding up to my goddamn face. I fell and cut myself.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. I need to see a doctor.”

“Keep the pressure on the wound,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

Like a gracious host, Howard was at the door waiting. A bloody bath towel was pressed to the left side of his face. Behind him on the tiled entrance floor was a liquor store bag that appeared to be leaking booze and blood. Recreating the sequence of events didn’t require much imagination.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You tripped coming in the door and fell face forward on your bottle of rye. It broke and cut your cheek.”

Howard eyed me malevolently. “You always were a smart broad. Now take me to the emergency ward.”

Two of my four children were risk-takers, and I knew from experience that the waiting time in emergency could be hours. I drove Howard to a walk-in clinic near the hospital. Whether it was the basset droop of Howard’s good eye or the blood that was dripping from his towel to the clinic floor, we were attended to quickly. Howard had just finished answering the admitting clerk’s questions when a nurse appeared and directed him to examining room F. I went with him.

“Are you going to hold my hand?” he asked.

“No, but you might have trouble remembering the doctor’s instructions. I’m here for backup.” I had just memorized the symptoms of West Nile Fever from a poster on the wall when the doctor came in. He was middle-aged and courtly. He glanced at the admission sheet on his clipboard. “Good evening, Mr. Dowhanuik,” he said. “My name is Winston Govender.” He removed Howard’s bloody towel and peered at the wound. “A nasty one,” he said. “What made the cut?”

“Glass,” Howard said.

“Was the glass sterile?”

“Bathed in alcohol. As was I,” Howard said gloomily.

Dr. Govender’s smile was perfunctory. He went to the sink and scrubbed his hands. “I’ll stitch you up now. You were fortunate, Mr. Dowhanuik. Just a few millimetres higher and you could have damaged your eye.”

“My lucky day.”

“It was indeed,” Dr. Govender said, and he set to work.

Howard’s cut required nine stitches. When the procedure was completed, Dr. Govender washed his hands again and then pulled up a stool next to Howard and scrutinized his handiwork. The flesh around the black line of stitches was already puffing up and blooming purple. Howard was going to look like hell in the morning and for a lot of mornings after.

“You’re going to experience some pain tonight,” Dr. Govender said. “I can give you something to ease it, but you must answer a question for me first. How much do you drink, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

Howard sighed heavily. “Not enough, Dr. Govender. Not nearly enough.”

We left without a prescription, but with written instructions about how to care for the wound. When I pulled up in front of Howard’s, he thanked me and beat a path to his door. I wasn’t about to let him escape that easily. I followed him in, found the phone book, opened it to the number for Alcoholics Anonymous, and handed it to Howard.

Howard glanced at the page. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You’re supposed to call the number,” I said.

Howard glared and thrust the phone book back at me. “Ian always said that you were a goddamn Sunday-school teacher.”

I felt the sting. “What else did my husband say?”

“That you were a moralist – a pain in the ass who never got over being twenty-two and idealistic. That everything was black or white for you. That you never grew up enough to understand that life is lived in shades of grey.”

A lump of sadness formed at the back of my throat.

Howard peered at me. “Jesus, now you’re crying. I’m sorry, Jo. What can I do?”

I handed him back the phone book. “Call the number,” I said. “Call Alcoholics Anonymous.”

When I got home, Zack’s car was in my driveway, and he was in my living room staring at his BlackBerry. I came into the room and he held out his arms. “At last,” he said.

I went to him. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Nope. Just got here.” He looked at me closely. “Have you been crying?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk about it?”

I took a tissue from my coat pocket and blew my nose. “Am I a moralist?”

“No,” he said, “you’re moral. There’s a distinction.” He leaned back and gave me an appraising glance. “I take it your question didn’t just come out of the blue.”

“Howard fell and cut his cheek open on a bottle of booze. I spent the last couple of hours at the Medicentre getting him stitched up.”

“And after Howard was stitched up he called you a moralist?”

“According to Howard, he was just quoting Ian, who apparently also called me a Sunday-school teacher and a pain in the ass.”

“Well, Ian’s not here to defend himself,” Zack said. “So why don’t we find ourselves a place where we can sit down and talk this out?”

As soon as we got into the family room, Zack pushed himself out of his chair onto the couch. I moved close to him, ran my hands over his chest, and breathed in his aftershave.

“Better?” Zack said.

“Yes,” I said. “You are always exactly what I need.”

“And you’re always exactly what I need.” Zack squeezed my shoulder. “Try not to let what Howard said get to you. He made an ass of himself tonight. He was probably just lashing out.”

“Maybe. But what he said had the ring of truth. At the end, Ian and I had a lot of flash points.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

Zack leaned towards me in his arms. “I love you very much.”

“I love you too,” I said.

“In my opinion, that means we should be together.”

“Unfair,” I said. “I’m tired and vulnerable.”

“I’m tired and vulnerable too,” he said. “But you don’t hear me whining.”

“That’s because you’re tough.”

“Says who?”

“Brette Sinclair.”

“The pretty girl with the silky hair that you were sitting next to in court.”

“We had lunch together too,” I said. “I’m learning a lot from her.”

“For example …?”

“For example, she predicted you’d do that LifeSaver trick with Sam – very clever.”

Zack laughed softly. “Just a variation on a theme,” he said. “If a female lawyer has a male client who’s accused of a violent crime, she touches his arm, gives him a little pat on the shoulder just to show that her client’s not all that scary.”

“Maybe I should give you a few more touches and pats in public – humanize you.”

“Bad idea,” Zack said. “It’s my job to be scary. As long as I don’t scare you …”

I didn’t respond.

Zack pulled away. “I don’t scare you, do I?”

I touched the furrow that ran down his cheek. “You did today,” I said. “You’ve always been so careful not to refer to Glenda as Sam’s son. I thought it was a matter of principle.”

“The first time was a slip,” Zack said. “But the moment it happened, I knew I’d connected with the jury. I’d hit the sweet spot – I could feel the ball fly off the bat and soar over the outfield fence. I was in the game, and I needed that.”

“For you or for Sam?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is it felt really good.” He ran his finger over my lips, then kissed me. “That wasn’t the answer you wanted, but I’m not a hero, Jo. I’m just a guy who needs to win. And when I win, my clients win. Can you live with that?”

“I guess I’m going to have to,” I said.

Shades of grey. Shades of grey.

CHAPTER

7

Every night during the trial, Rapti Lustig e-mailed me more background information. Early that first week she forwarded an article about criminal lawyer Eddie Greenspan in which the writer riffed on the idea that in a jury trial, everything but the basic script is choreography and improvisation.

During its first week, it seemed the Sam Parker trial was desperately in need of a script doctor. The job of the Crown was to establish the evidence, and for Linda Fritz that apparently meant taking police officers through every line of every note they had made on the case. Her dogged precision exasperated Zack, but since his job was to make sure the police and the Crown had done their jobs, she gave him a good base from which to work. And so we listened as the Crown called witness after witness to buttress its case and the defence picked away endlessly at the testimony of officers who were accustomed to testifying and were unlikely to risk their careers to falsify a detail like the angle of the sun on a late afternoon in May.

Throughout the period Brette Sinclair referred to as “the parade of the essential but boring as hell witnesses,” I found my attention drawn to the jurors. Like the members of any ensemble cast, they were beginning to declare themselves as individuals. The angry man with the aggressive combover turned out to have an odd mannerism. He responded to everything the lawyers or the witnesses said with a vigorous negative shake of the head. Until Zack figured out the shake was a tic not a comment, he was distinctly uneasy. The foreperson with the shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair had arranged her features in a mask of serenity that suggested she had withdrawn from the courtroom’s swirl of bad karma and negative thoughts. The young people made no attempt to disguise their boredom at the lacklustre performance they were forced to endure. Their faces were blank, as if they had detached themselves and were listening to invisible iPods. The Modigliani woman and the meaty man had become Zack’s partisans, smiling encouragement when he did well with a line of questioning and dropping their gaze when the judge (as he frequently did) chastised Zack for pushing too hard (as he frequently did). The notetaker grew more notetakey, barely glanced up at the proceedings, so intent was he on recording everything. The Lucille Ball wannabe seemed pathetically eager to lighten it up. On the trial’s third morning, an earnest young constable described in precise detail the size of a bullet hole; when he was through, she rewarded him with a rubbery grin. The men in the three-piece suits were clearly impatient, like senior managers forced to listen to the concerns of underlings. The ladies with the gentle perms drifted off from time to time as ladies with gentle perms will when the topic of conversation turns to the trajectory of a bullet.

The one real source of drama that week was Linda Fritz, who, it became increasingly clear, was suffering from the mother of all colds. On the first day it had attacked her voice, roughening it and reducing it to a painful croak. By the second day, Linda could barely whisper, and the judge gave her permission to use a lapel mike to question her witnesses. The cough that was plaguing Linda when we met had grown noticeably worse. To my ears, it sounded like bronchitis.

The ladies with the seasonal sweaters watched Linda with anxious eyes. From the outset, they had been sympathetic to her; now they looked as if they’d like to take her home and get her under a croup tent. The beefy guy was clearly pissed off that he was in the room with a walking petri dish of viral stew, and he and the Modigliani woman ostentatiously flattened themselves against the back of their chairs whenever Linda approached the jury box. The three-piece-suiters contented themselves with raising a handkerchief to cover their nose and mouth as if they were walking through the city of the plague. The I Love Lucy juror produced a bottle of hand sanitizer and passed it around. Interest in the testimony of “the essential but boring as hell witnesses” waned.

Zack was uneasy too, but his concern wasn’t hygiene. He was genuinely fond of Linda and he respected her as an adversary. When she failed to pick up on inconsistencies or points that she normally would have hammered home, he was at first baffled then concerned. She seemed to be having trouble hearing, and on the morning of the fourth day, she didn’t even bother trying to put on her game face. She soldiered on until the luncheon recess, but when court reconvened, she was not in her place and when the clerk announced that the Crown had asked for a continuance, and that court was adjourned until Monday morning, the relief in the courtroom was palpable.

I did my standup for NationTV and headed home to a long nap and some prophylactic echinacea and vitamin C. Zack was giving a speech at a dinner in Saskatoon on Monday night. We were planning to stay over and savour the pleasures of a first-class hotel, and I didn’t want to miss the pampering.

Saturday morning Zack came over for pancakes before he went back to the office. He had news of Linda Fritz, and it wasn’t promising. The virus that had begun as laryngitis moved to bronchitis and then an ear infection had turned her right ear deaf. Her eardrum was bulging due to the pressure of fluid behind it. She was on massive doses of antibiotics, but it would take up to three weeks for the fluid behind her eardrum to be absorbed. She was off the case.

“She must be disappointed,” I said.

“She’s furious,” Zack said. “I went over to her apartment this morning. She still feels like shit, but not being able to prosecute this case is making it a hundred times worse. She put in a lot of hours on this one, and she thought she could win.” He picked up the maple syrup and flooded his plate. “Can you think of anything we can send to cheer her up?”

“What does she like?”

Zack furrowed his brow in concentration. “Practising law. Beating me.”

“How about a dartboard and a picture of you.”

“Perfect,” he said. “So what are you up to this morning?”

“It’s moving day. Pete’s moving in with Charlie.”

“Big job?”

“No. Pete’s got his truck and he travels light. Charlie’s coming over to help. If you stick around, you can see him.”

Zack checked his watch. “I have a few minutes. Hey, I got our reservations for the Bessborough – the lieutenant-governor’s suite.”

“I’m impressed.”

“I was hoping you would be.”

“It’ll be fun to get away to Saskatoon for a night.”

“Even if it means spending the evening with a bunch of lawyers.”

“As long as I end up with the lawyer of my choice.” I kissed him on the head. “Now, I’d better find Taylor and get her to her art lesson. If you’re not here when I get back, give me a call.”

Zack was there when I got back, so was Charlie Dowhanuik. When I walked into the kitchen, they fell silent.

I joined them at the kitchen table. “So what were you guys talking about?”

Charlie’s eyes met mine. “My father.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t remember,” Charlie said tightly. “And, Jo, I don’t want to talk about him with you.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So how’s the big move progressing?”

“Haven’t done a thing, but I figure it should take us twenty minutes to load the truck. You know Pete – fourteen boxes of books, some sports equipment, and two garbage bags of clothes.”

“Don’t forget his collection of baseball cards. I’ve been trying to get them out of here since he went to vet school.”

Zack leaned forward in his chair. “I’ve got a foul ball from the sixth game of the Toronto/Atlanta World Series in 1993. I caught it myself.”

Pete came in. “The game where Joe Carter hit the series-winning home run. I watched that on TV – it was great.”

“It was a lot of fun. Anyway, if you want the ball, say the word.”

“I want the ball.”

“My pleasure,” Zack said.

Charlie stood up. “Now that everybody’s happy, let’s get this move underway. The faster we get this over, the faster I can get back to bed.” He walked over to Zack. “I’ll be in touch.”

They left and I turned to Zack. “So what’s Charlie going to be in touch about?”

Zack’s green eyes were thoughtful. “Things you don’t want to know about. Can we leave it at that?”

“Do I have an option?”

His cell rang, and Zack flashed me a mischievous smile. “Saved by the bell,” he said. As he talked, I put some eggs on to boil for lunch. After Zack ended the call, he came over and grabbed me from behind. “My lucky day,” he said. “Garth Severight is replacing Linda.”

“Garth Severight isn’t formidable?”

“He has his strengths,” Zack said. “He’s quite the orator, and he looks like Mr. Big, from Sex and the City.”

“However …?”

“However … he’s got this monster ego. He doesn’t listen, and he always knows best. Linda’s ten times the lawyer he’ll ever be, but he’ll torch her case and go in with his guns blazing.”

“He sounds like an idiot.”

“Pretty close,” Zack said equitably. “And best of all, I know how to push Garth’s buttons. Nothing I do ever fazes Linda, but Garth reacts to me. I had a professor who said that if the only tool you use is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.”

“And Garth Severight’s only tool is a hammer?”

“Yep, and he uses it indiscriminately. No finesse, no reflection, just bang, bang, bang, bang. It makes juries edgy and it drives judges nuts. A couple of years ago, we were in front of a judge with a notoriously short fuse. I honestly thought she was going to spontaneously combust. Garth saw it too, but every time I hove into view, Garth would start in. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.” Zack shook his head, remembering. “Even I felt sorry for the poor fuck.”

“So you stayed out of his way?”

Zack was incredulous. “Are you kidding? I made sure I was in his face every single second.”

“You’re licking your chops,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. “But with this case, it’s been a while. Anyway, I gotta go. Tell Pete I’ll drop the ball by. Hey, maybe you and I could go over later on today and check out his new digs.”

“And you and Charlie could get together and talk about the things I don’t want to know about.”

Zack nodded his head approvingly. “No flies on you, Ms. Kilbourn. No flies on you.”

On Monday morning, when Howard Dowhanuik took his place in the witness box, it was clear there were no flies on my beloved either. All weekend, I had fought the urge to get in touch with Howard. I had hoped that, left to his own devices, he might pick up the phone and call AA. On Sunday night, he had phoned me. He sounded sober, but he was good at that.

“Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll buy.”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I need to be distracted.”

“Hard to turn down such a gracious invitation,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Humpty’s. They make a great Meatlovers Pan-Scrambler: eggs, hash browns, ground beef, bacon, and ham. The whole thing is covered in cheese sauce.”

“Does it come with a fibrillator?”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes. I’ll meet you there.”

I continued packing for the trip to Saskatoon. Zack and I were flying there as soon as court was over that day. As I zipped my best dress into a garment bag and added strappy pumps, an evening bag, and the long black slip appliquéd in lilies that Zack liked, I tried to focus on the romance of staying in the lieutenant-governor’s suite with the man I loved. But all I could think of was Howard and the ordeal ahead.

Taylor was sleeping over at the Wainbergs Monday night, so I dropped her bag off at their place on the way to the restaurant. Delia Wainberg, already dressed for the office, met me at the door. She was full of questions about how I thought the trial was going, so I was late getting to Humpty’s.

Howard was sitting at a booth in the corner. He had done what he could about shaving, but the railroad track of stitches on his cheekbone had clearly defeated him. His bruise had mutated to a purplish green and it bristled with a three-day growth of hair. He looked like hell, and as he picked up his mug, it was clear he was suffering from a killer hangover. His hands were shaking so badly that the coffee slopped onto the Formica tabletop.

I pulled some napkins from the dispenser and mopped up. “You’ve got a tough morning ahead,” I said. “Herbal tea might be a better choice.”

“Strychnine would be a better choice,” he said. “But this is what I ordered. You’re not my mother.”

“And I thank God for that every day of my life,” I said. “But you’ve been a good friend, Howard. You stayed with me the night Ian died, and you were there all those months when I crawled into a hole and didn’t want to crawl back out. You drove me to the hospital the time Pete got that concussion playing football –”

Howard raised his hand in a halt gesture. “I don’t need the Life and Times crap, Jo.”

The server came to take my order and to deliver Howard’s Meatlovers’ Pan-Scrambler. After she left, Howard rested his jaw in his palm and stared at his plate.

“Come on,” I said briskly. “You’re hungover. You need to eat. Shovel in some of that health-food special in front of you.”

Howard picked up his fork obediently and took a bite. He could barely swallow.

“Okay,” I said. “Save the manly meal for another time. Just try to get a piece of toast down.”

It was a silent and miserable breakfast. When I was finished eating, I left some bills on the table. Howard, who was normally the most generous of men, didn’t fight me for the cheque. “I’ll see you at the courthouse,” I said. “Do me a favour. Don’t have anything to drink before you take the stand.”

As I was going up the courthouse stairs, Zack was coming up the ramp. There had been a warming trend over the weekend. The snow had melted; the sidewalks were dry; the sun was bright and the air was mellow. Zack was wearing a lightweight mochaccino suit and a red tie.

“I like your tie,” I said.

“I like everything about you,” he said.

We stopped in the lobby under the mural celebrating our majestic legal heritage.

“How bad is it going to be?” I asked.

Zack shrugged. “It depends on how prepared Howard is. Have you seen him?”

“We had breakfast together – at Humpty’s.”

Zack’s smile was faint. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s a little under the weather. He’ll be all right. Howard is a good man, Zack.”

“That may be true,” Zack said. “But he’s not my client.”

“Still …”

“There is no ‘still,’ ” Zack said. “Howard is the Crown’s chief witness against my client. His testimony can send Sam Parker to jail.”

“So you’re going to tear Howard apart.”

“I’m going to do what I have to do for my client.”

“No matter what,” I said.

Zack’s gaze didn’t waver. “No matter what. There’s a saying among criminal lawyers: ‘If you don’t have blood on your hands, you’re not doing your job.’ ” He turned his chair. “I do my job,” he said, then he wheeled over to the doors, hit the accessibility button, and disappeared inside.

After Zack left, I went to the courtroom in search of Howard. He wasn’t there. It was entirely possible Garth Severight and the Crown were keeping Howard hydrated and calmed, but somehow I doubted it, and when I went back to the lobby and saw a young lawyer from the Crown’s office frantically scrutinizing the lobby and the street, I knew I’d been right to worry. So far, Howard was a no-show.

I took a place on the bench beneath the mural and waited. I knew that, as he always had, Howard would come. The lobby emptied of press, interested parties, and spectators, and I was suddenly alone with that hollow-pit-in-the-stomach feeling I’d had as a child when I was late coming over from the dorms and I’d arrived to find the school halls empty and silent.

I had just about given up hope when Howard appeared. He no longer looked defeated or hungover. He just looked drunk. He was fumbling with a small metal tin of breath-mints, and he’d obviously given himself a fresh shellacking of Crown Royal. I took the tin from him, popped the corner, and handed it back to him. He threw a handful of mints into his mouth.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Like the bottom of a latrine,” he said. “But I’ll get through.”

I sniffed his breath. “You do realize that those things aren’t working,” I said.

Howard studied the label on the tin with a drunk’s care. “Freshens the breath,” he read. His eyes were sorrowful. “Seems like you can’t believe in anything any more, doesn’t it?”

His words were prescient. The first witness that morning was not Howard Dowhanuik, but his son, Charlie. When the court clerk called Charlie’s name, my heart lurched, but I wasn’t surprised. As promised, Zack had dropped by Charlie’s house with the baseball on Saturday afternoon. When I’d gone upstairs to help Pete unpack, Charlie had stayed behind with Zack. Now Charlie was in the witness box.

I stared at Zack, but he didn’t return my gaze. As Garth Severight took Charlie through his testimony, Zack never once looked my way. Charlie’s story was simple. He had approached Garth over the weekend and offered to substantiate Howard’s story. Garth had jumped at the offer.

Severight’s eagerness made sense. Howard was not an ideal witness. According to Zack, Linda Fritz knew Howard had a drinking problem and that he was hostile. She would willingly have left him off the Crown’s witness list except for one fact. Howard was prepared to testify that he had heard Sam Parker threaten Kathryn Morrissey and that he had seen Sam raise and aim the gun. Without Howard’s testimony, there would be a gaping hole in the Crown’s case. Howard might have been a compromised witness, but the Crown needed him. Charlie’s testimony could plug up the holes.

When Charlie took the stand, Brette Sinclair put her mouth to my ear. “Finally – something interesting.”

Hair neatly brushed back, shoes shined, suit pressed, Charlie was the epitome of the responsible citizen. He was also a very effective witness who told his story well. According to Charlie, his father had called him the evening of the shooting and asked him to come to the condominium. Although he and his father were estranged, Charlie had agreed. His father had been agitated on the telephone, and Charlie had been concerned that something had happened to a family member. As soon as Charlie arrived, his father described an incident that had happened twenty minutes earlier. According to Howard, he had been out in his yard when he heard a man shouting. In May, the trees between Howard’s condo and Kathryn’s were leafing, but he had a clear view of what had happened. The man, whom Howard recognized as Sam Parker, raised a gun, pointed it at Kathryn Morrissey, and pulled the trigger.

Howard told his son he had dialed 911 and reported the shooting. He had not left his name. Charlie suggested that 911 probably logged all incoming phone calls, and that Howard should prepare to be interviewed. He then made a pot of coffee for his father and stayed with him until a police constable arrived.

Zack’s eyes were hooded as Charlie testified. There were no interruptions to mar the silken flow of Charlie’s performance. When Garth Severight returned to his place at the Crown’s table, he was purring with satisfaction.

As Zack approached the witness box, Garth was still preening. Zack’s voice was warm. “Hello, Charlie. It was good of you to come forward the way you did.”

Charlie shrugged. “I try to do the right thing.”

“Still, a lot of people – especially young, successful people – might not have bothered.” I gazed at the jury box. For the first time since the trial started, the young jurors had dropped their masks of ironic detachment. Charlie D was famous. Suddenly, they were into the trial big time.

“Your testimony was very helpful in giving us a picture of exactly what happened that afternoon,” Zack said. “For example, you said that after you explained to your father that his call to 911 would have been logged and the police would be coming to his house, you made him a pot of coffee. Considering that you and your father were estranged, that was a friendly thing to do.”

“It was a necessary thing to do,” Charlie said firmly. “My father was drunk. He was in no condition …”

Severight was on his feet. “This is hardly relevant.”

Mr. Justice Harney overruled him. “It speaks to the competency of the case’s only eyewitness. I’ll allow it.” He turned to Charlie. “You may continue.”

“As I said, my father was drunk. I thought the coffee might sober him up so he could give a coherent explanation of what he’d seen.”

Zack was cool. “So your father wasn’t in a state where his words could be trusted?”

Severight was on his feet again. “The witness is not an expert on degrees of drunkenness, m’Lord.”

Zack smiled at Severight. “I’ll rephrase that. Charlie, could you describe your father’s state when you arrived at his condominium that evening.”

“He was slurring his words. His gait was unsteady. At one point, he tried to pour himself a drink and he missed the glass. He was very emotional – maudlin even.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“As I said, my father and I were estranged, and he was crying about that.”

“Anything in particular trigger this show of remorse?”

“He said that what Sam Parker did made him ashamed of himself.”

Zack narrowed his eyes. “Why would your father be ashamed of himself?”

Charlie turned towards the jury. “Because when Sam Parker’s child was betrayed, Sam did everything in his power to protect her.”

“And your father didn’t protect you?”

“How could he?” Charlie said. “He was the one who betrayed me.”

CHAPTER

8

After Charlie left the stand, there was silence in the courtroom. His revelation about Howard’s state on the night of the shooting was the stuff of prime-time drama, but it was Charlie’s anguish that stilled our tongues. A glance at the jury box was enough to see that the jurors had been deeply affected by Charlie’s pain. The notetaking man with the angry combover had capped his pen. Apparently, Charlie’s testimony had convinced him that human beings were a waste of ink.

I didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse that someone from the office of the Crown had decided to sequester Howard until it was time for him to testify, but as he climbed into the witness box, the question was irrelevant. Sam Parker’s freedom depended on what happened next.

Garth Severight greeted his star witness with the gush of a high school debater meeting a political idol. His game plan was built around Howard’s status as a former premier and a man of integrity; come hell or high water, he was going to stick with it. At first, it seemed Garth had made a good call. The hostility in the courtroom was palpable, but drunk or sober, Howard was a pro who had spent a lifetime gauging audiences. Our ex-premier delivered his testimony with enough self-deprecating references to his own bad judgment, pride, and stupidity to disarm all but the meanest of his foes.

It was a credible performance and, again, one that was not interrupted by the defence. Throughout Howard’s testimony, Zack peered over his glasses, faintly amused at Howard’s rueful admissions of fallibility, stone-faced as Howard acknowledged that he had been disloyal to his son. If Garth Severight sensed a storm brewing, he didn’t show it. When he finished his examination, the Chief prosecutor strode back to the Crown’s table and resumed his seat with the satisfied air of a man who once again could feel the wind beneath his wings.

As Zack manoeuvred his chair towards the witness box, my pulse spiked. He had told me once that if he’d had the lousy luck to be born in Spain, he would have been up shit creek because the continental European legal system didn’t permit cross-examination. That day, Zack wasn’t the one with the lousy luck. From the moment Zack gave Howard a sympathetic half-smile and bade him good morning, Howard was doomed.

“How tall are you, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

The question came out of left field, and Howard looked confused. “A little over six feet,” he said finally.

“You just told us that you happened to be gazing over your fence when you saw Mr. Parker enter Ms. Morrissey’s yard. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“But in his testimony, Constable Gerein said that the fence that separates your property from Ms. Morrissey’s is six and a half feet tall. To see what you described in your testimony, you must have been standing on tippytoe, Mr. Dowhanuik.”

There was a burst of nervous laughter in the courtroom. When Howard remained mute, Zack wheeled closer. “Were you standing on your tippytoes, Mr. Dowhanuik? That’s a question.”

“No,” Howard said.

Zack’s face wrinkled in exasperation. “Then how did you see what was going on?”

“I … there was a little stepladder against the fence.”

“A little stepladder – that’s right. Constable Gerein noted that too. So you heard a man’s voice, picked up your little stepladder, and moved it to the fence so you could see what was going on. Is that correct?”

Howard flushed crimson. “No, I was standing there.”

“On your little stepladder?”

“Yes.”

Zack made a moue of disgust. “Why ever would you be doing that?”

“I was watching.”

“You were watching Ms. Morrissey?”

Howard nodded.

“The court clerk needs your answer in words, Mr. Dowhanuik.”

“Yes,” Howard said. “I was watching Ms. Morrissey.”

“Was this the first time you spied on Ms. Morrissey when she was in the privacy of her yard?”

Howard’s face was an unhealthy crimson. “Not the first time, no. I’d been watching her for a week. Since the book was excerpted in the paper.”

“What are you, some kind of peeping Tom?”

Garth exploded from his seat. “Objection. Objection, m’Lord. Objection.” Rat-a-tat-tat.

Arthur Harney winced at Garth’s volley, but he sustained the objection.

“I’ll try again,” Zack said agreeably. “Mr. Dowhanuik, tell me why you were standing on a stepladder spying on your neighbour.”

Howard’s fire might have been dampened, but there was still a spark. “I wanted her to know that I was watching her.”

“Were you attempting to intimidate her?”

“I wanted to remind her that I was there.”

“You wanted to remind her that you were there?” Zack repeated the explanation mockingly. “After you moved next door to her, you and she spent many intimate hours in each other’s company. Ms. Morrissey’s a well-known journalist. Did she need you standing on your little stepladder peering in on her to remind her that you were her neighbour?”

“She needed to know how it felt to have her privacy violated,” Howard said defiantly. “She needed to know what it had been like for Charlie and me.”

“So you were angry at her for what she’d written about your family in her book.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to her aid after she was shot?”

Howard’s head dropped. “I called 911,” he muttered.

“But after you called 911, you didn’t go to Ms. Morrissey to ascertain how badly she’d been wounded or to reassure her, did you?”

“No.”

“You weren’t in any danger, Mr. Dowhanuik. The assailant had fled the scene. You’ve testified to that. But instead of doing what 99 per cent of the people in this courtroom would have done, you left Ms. Morrissey out there bleeding and alone and you … What did you do after you called 911?”

Howard seemed confused. “I called my son,” he mumbled.

Zack sighed. “Now again, that doesn’t strike me as the course of action 99 per cent of us in this room would have followed. Why did you call Charlie?”

The casual use of Charlie’s name hit a nerve. For the first time, Howard seemed to realize that the defence knew more about his actions that afternoon than Garth Severight had led him to believe.

Zack withheld his next blow, but he made certain Howard knew it was coming. “I asked you a question, Mr. Dowhanuik,” he said. “The jury has heard your son’s version of what happened after he arrived at your condominium. What’s your version?”

“Charlie advised me.”

“Really. Now that is interesting. You hadn’t committed a crime. Unless we count the peeping Tom incident.” Zack waved his hand towards the Crown’s table. “I know. I know. I withdraw the characterization of the witness. But, Mr. Dowhanuik, this is where I’m having a problem following your thought processes. I know you were angry at Ms. Morrissey, but she’d been shot and you had witnessed the shooting. Why would you just hop off your ladder and leave Ms. Morrissey out in her yard alone and bleeding while you called your son for advice?”

“Because I was drunk,” Howard said.

“Ah,” Zack said with a Cheshire smile. “Finally, we’ve arrived at the crux of the matter. You were drunk. Were you so drunk, you couldn’t navigate the distance between your house and Ms. Morrissey’s? Officer Gerein paced off the path between where you were standing on your little ladder and the spot where Ms. Morrissey was enjoying her wine. He testified it was less than ten metres. That’s not much of a walk. It was still early – 4:30 in the afternoon. How many drinks had you had?”

“I don’t know,” Howard said. “It had been a difficult time.”

“You mean the time since you became aware of what Ms. Morrissey had written about Charlie in your book.”

“Yes.”

“The fact that you’d played the role of Deep Throat for her must have made the situation even more depressing.” Zack wheeled closer to the witness box. “And you were already depressed, weren’t you? You were using the prescription drug Paxil?”

“Yes.”

“And …” Zack looked at his notes. “Your drug regimen also includes prescriptions for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and something else …” Zack squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. “Chronic back pain – Charlie said you were also being treated for chronic back pain.”

Garth Severight rose to protest Charlie’s information as hearsay, and Mr. Justice Harney upheld his objection. It didn’t matter. The knockout punch had been delivered. Howard knew that his son had revealed everything to the defence. Bruised, battered, and desperate, Howard was a fighter on the ropes, but Zack kept pummelling. “That’s quite the chemical stew, Mr. Dowhanuik. I’m certain your doctor didn’t suggest that you add alcohol to the mix.”

“No, my doctor told me not to drink.”

“And still you drank.”

“I did.”

“How many drinks have you had today, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

“I don’t know.”

“More than three?”

“Yes.”

“Five? Six?”

“I don’t measure.”

“Do you have a flask of liquor with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve taken all your medications?”

“Yes.” Zack turned his chair so that his back was to Howard. “We’ve been pretty close to each other for the past twenty minutes. Do I wear eyeglasses?”

“I didn’t notice.”

Zack turned, faced Howard, and adjusted the black wire-framed glasses he’d worn throughout the cross-examination. “Let’s try again, Mr. Dowhanuik. What colour was the dress Ms. Morrissey was wearing on May 16?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Blue. Ms. Morrissey was wearing a blue dress. Attention to detail doesn’t seem to be your strong suit, Mr. Dowhanuik. But we’ll persevere. On the afternoon of the incident, was Ms. Morrissey sitting or standing.”

“Sitting at a kind of little table.”

“Was she reading or staring off into space, or what?”

“I think she was reading.”

“Just to let you know, there was no reading material found at the scene, Mr. Dowhanuik, so wrong again.” Zack glanced over at Garth Severight. “Usually, the Crown does a better job of coaching its witnesses.”

Severight popped out of his chair. “I object.”

“Sustained,” Arthur Harney barked. “Cheap shot, Mr. Shreve.”

“I apologize, m’Lord. So, Mr. Dowhanuik, Ms. Morrissey was sitting at her little table. Then, according to your version of events, my client entered her yard through the side gate and said what?”

“I don’t remember his exact words.”

“You remembered them an hour ago.”

Howard pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at his knees.

Zack was unrelenting. “Do we need ask the court clerk to read you the words that you swore were true an hour ago. I’m confused, Mr. Dowhanuik. An hour ago, you swore under oath that you remembered exactly what my client said to Ms. Morrissey. Word for word. And now you don’t remember. Could you give us a paraphrase?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you testified. You swore on the Bible that what you were about to say was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. You were so confident of your memory then that you swore that you could relate exactly what was said on May 16. That was five months ago, Mr. Dowhanuik. All I’m asking is that you paraphrase what you said an hour ago. Surely you can remember what you told us an hour ago?”

Howard stared fixedly at the knees of his pants, as if he hoped that somehow the answer would appear there. It didn’t. After an agonizing wait, he finally responded, “No, I can’t.”

Zack was looking intently at the jury. Aristotle understood the mix of pity and terror an audience feels at the fall of a good man. Zack might or might not have read Aristotle, but he could read a jury and he knew this one had had enough. When he spoke again, his voice was kind.

“Mr. Dowhanuik, no one here today wants to humiliate you. As my friend pointed out repeatedly, you are an expremier. Why don’t I just take a stab at relating what was said, and if anything I say differs substantially from what you swore to an hour ago, you sing out. Fair enough?”

“Yes,” Howard said.

“Good,” Zack said. “Now, I’m an ordinary guy. I don’t have total recall. A lot of time, I have problems remembering where I parked my car, but I think I can convey the gist of your testimony about the conversation between Ms. Morrissey and my client. According to you, when Ms. Morrissey spotted my client, she said ‘What are you doing here?’ He replied, ‘This is destroying my family. I thought perhaps if we talked …’ At that point, Ms. Morrissey cut him off, saying, ‘Your lawyer has already been in touch with my publishers. You have no grounds for a lawsuit. The book is in the stores. It’s too late …’ Am I in the ballpark so far, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

“Yes,” Howard whispered.

“You told us that, at that point, Mr. Parker took out a pistol, aimed it at Ms. Morrissey, and said, ‘How does it feel to know this might be the last day of your life?’ And then you remember a gunshot. Surely, you can fill us in on the circumstances of that moment. A man’s freedom depends on your answer. What happened in the seconds before the shot was fired, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

“I don’t remember. It was all so fast. One minute she was sitting in her chair drinking wine, the next she was on the ground bleeding.”

Zack exhaled as if relieved at the completion of a distasteful task. “Thank you, Mr. Dowhanuik, the people appreciate your co-operation.”

Like a felon, Howard bolted from the witness box. Zack wheeled into his exit path, blocking him. “You were a lawyer, Mr. Dowhanuik. You must remember that you’re supposed to wait for Mr. Justice Harney to tell you that you may step down.”

For a brief and heartbreaking moment, the two men at the centre of my life faced each other. Whether it was the booze or the disgrace, Howard was unsteady on his feet; in his wheelchair, Zack was a coiled spring. “You didn’t let me finish,” he said. “Ms. Morrissey was not found bleeding on the ground. She had gone inside her home, and was putting pressure on her wound. She, too, called 911. When the EMS arrived, she opened her front door and admitted them herself.

“Mr. Dowhanuik, I hope you know that our encounter today has brought me no pleasure. My friend is right in saying that most of us know you as a fine, upstanding citizen, the clear-eyed leader of our province, but liquor and drugs have a way of distorting vision, of making a person see things, not as they are but as he wishes they might have been.” Zack wheeled over to the jury box. “Members of the jury, judges of facts, when you deliberate over Mr. Dowhanuik’s testimony, remember what you saw today – a man stitched and bruised from a drunken fall, his eyes bloodshot, his hands trembling, who, despite what I’m certain was diligent coaching from the Crown, was unable to get his story straight. Ask yourself if you would want your fate determined by the testimony of this man. Ask yourself if the testimony he delivered and then couldn’t remember an hour later was the truth or some drunken, drug-addled fantasy he spun out of his desperation and guilt.” Zack wheeled back to the defence table. As if as an afterthought, he threw Howard the sentence that liberated him. “Oh, no more questions.”

As he left the courtroom, Howard was a broken man. I remembered Zack’s hesitancy about having me cover the trial for NationTV. He’d said he wanted me to keep believing he was a nice guy. He hadn’t been a nice guy with Howard. He’d been mocking, diminishing, intimidating, and menacing. On our first date, Zack and I had eaten at a restaurant that looked over the Qu’Appelle Valley. It had been a spectacular summer night and after we ate, we gazed across the hills and Zack said that the still waters and green pastures beneath us made him understand the Twenty-third Psalm. In that instant, I felt a sense of communion with him that had never left me. Now it was gone. I was dazed. What Zack did to Howard was primal: bone hitting bone until the weakest of the combatants was destroyed.

Brette had been crouched over, writing frantically; when Howard finally left the witness box, she slumped back in her chair and exhaled theatrically. “Wow. At J school, they told us that cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth, but that was brutal. And how about Charlie D’s dramatic last-minute appearance on the witness list? I kept waiting for Shreve to object, but why would he? Charlie D turned out to be a great witness for the defence.”

“Too great?” I said.

Brette rubbed her hands together. “You mean his obvious rapport with Zack Shreve? Are you suggesting collusion? It’s a possibility, but Shreve’s too smart for that. He’s playing it close to the line though – ‘cusp collusion’ – almost illegal but not quite. That’s Shreve’s specialty – the whiff of sharp practice but nothing blatant enough for the Law Society.” Brette twirled her pearls. “So far, Shreve’s doing a good job of salvaging his case. In my opinion, the verdict in this trial is now officially up for grabs.”

More unanswered questions, but despite everything, when court was adjourned for the day, the tension I’d been holding in my body drained. Howard had been chewed up and spit out, but he was alive and as the old adage has it, “while there’s life, there’s hope.” I’d told Rapti that Zack and I were flying to Saskatoon, so when I stepped out of the courthouse she and the cameraman were already set up and waiting. She shuddered when she examined my face. “You have definitely lost your glow,” she said.

“You have a kit full of blush and bronzer,” I said. “Work a miracle.” Rapti dabbed away dutifully, then stepped back to examine her handiwork. “Not great,” she said. “But definitely better.” I snapped on my microphone. Just as I was about to start, Zack came out of the courtroom.

He came over to me. “Mind if I watch?”

“No.”

Rapti raised her hand. “I’m counting down, Jo.” I watched her fingers. “Five, four, three, two …”

The last finger fell and I began, “It was a good day for the defence in the Sam Parker case …”

When I was through, Zack said, “Let’s get out of here. Sean’s bringing the car around.”

“My overnight bag’s still in my car. Do you think Sean would mind driving the Volvo back to my place?”

“Sean’s an associate,” Zack said. “He’d eat ground glass if he thought it would improve his chances of getting a promotion.” He glanced down the street. “Here’s our car. Do you want to drive?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’ll be good to feel I’m in control of something.”

The glance Zack shot me was questioning, but he stayed silent. When we were away from the courthouse, he reached over and massaged the back of my neck.

“You’re pretty tight there,” he said. “Are you mad?”

“I’m not mad, just shaken. I could hardly recognize you today. You were –”

“A ruthless son of a bitch?”

“Pretty much.”

“I had a job to do.”

“And Charlie helped you do it.”

“Charlie was more than willing to co-operate.”

“At what point does rapport with a Crown witness become collusion.”

Zack’s gaze was probing. “When someone can prove it,” he said.

“So you’re okay with all these private arrangements you and Charlie made.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because they’re illegal.”

“Not illegal – just close to the line. I have to win this case, Jo.”

“Even if winning means bending the rules.”

“Rules are made to be bent. I never go too far.”

“You went too far with Howard today.”

“That’s a different issue,” Zack said.

“No, it isn’t. You used Charlie to get to him, and then you gutted him. What happened to the quality of mercy?”

“With luck, the jury will extend it to my client.”

“And you don’t care about what you did to Howard?”

“Jo, I didn’t force the booze down Howard’s throat this morning. He made a choice, and he has to live with it. If Howard had chosen to stay sober this morning, he could have cleaned our clock, but he didn’t, so I went after him.”

“But you had him, Zack. You showed that his memory of what happened that afternoon couldn’t be trusted. That was all you needed to do. You didn’t have to keep pummelling him.”

“Are you sure of that? Are you absolutely certain that at that point in Howard’s testimony, I’d won my case? Because I didn’t know that. I still don’t. What if I’d got squeamish and pulled back and a juror who was wavering went against me. Nice lawyers lose cases they shouldn’t lose. I don’t, because I don’t leave anything to chance.”

He continued rubbing my neck. “Better?”

“I wish this day was over. I hate flying.”

“I know you do. Jo, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“But you have to be there,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean you do.”

I saw the exhaustion in his face. “I think it does,” I said. I touched his hand. “Besides I’m not about to miss my chance to sleep in the lieutenant-governor’s bed.”

The logistics of getting a wheelchair onto a small plane were humiliating for a man who didn’t take kindly to being dependent on the kindness of strangers. As Zack was being shunted aboard, I tried Howard’s home number. No one picked up. I dropped my cell in my bag and mounted the steps into the plane.

When the propellers revved, my body grew tense. Zack, who knew I was a nervous flyer, squeezed my hand and leaned towards me. “You okay?”

My teeth were gritted, but I was reassuring. His mind at rest, Zack closed his eyes, and before we’d left the runway, he was sleeping the sleep of the just. He would, I knew, sleep deeply during the thirty-five minutes we were in the air, and he would awaken refreshed. I envied him. Alone with my thoughts, I examined the face of the man who had become so central to my existence.

There is a vulnerability in the faces of most sleepers – a relaxation of the facial muscles, a slackening of the jaw, but asleep or awake, Zack never seemed to lose control. In the grey afternoon light, his face was as familiar to me as my own, and that was the problem. I was deeply in love with him, and yet that day in court he had been a stranger. The man I knew was warm, compassionate, loving, humane; none of that had been in evidence as he destroyed Howard Dowhanuik. I wasn’t naive. I understood that Zack had a job to do, but like the pain in a troubling tooth, the question Mieka had whispered in my ear before she left at Thanksgiving stabbed me: How much did I really know about this man?

As the plane started its descent, I leaned close. “Time to wake up,” I said. He turned towards me and grinned lazily. “And I wake up to you, Ms. Kilbourn. I am blessed.”

Built in the dirty thirties on land that slopes towards the South Saskatchewan River, the Bessborough Hotel has the rococo extravagance of a chateau in a children’s fairy tale. When times are tough people dream of champagne, and the Bessborough has always been a champagne hotel: liveried doormen, polished brass, deep and welcoming chairs in the lobby, rooms of understated luxury that promise discretion. The clerk who checked us in wore a suitably conservative hotel uniform, but she had dyed the tips of her braids aqua marine. According to her discrete identification badge, her name was “Heaven Olsen.” We live in a time of flux.

Our suite on the sixth floor was spacious and quietly grand with champagne on ice and a sinfully inviting bed. It was a place for romance, and as I straightened Zack’s tie and felt the warmth of his breath of my forehead I wanted him, and I knew he wanted me. But as Mick Jagger memorably sang, what we want is not necessarily what we need. That night I needed time to think and so, for the only time since I’d met him, I was relieved there was no time for Zack and me to make love.

We arrived at the reception in time for a glass of Veuve Cliquot before we went into the dinner. Zack was delighted when he realized that we’d been seated with Linda Fritz. Ignoring her warning that she was a walking corpse, he reached over and embraced her warmly. “God, you’re a welcome sight. How are you doing?”

Linda’s pleasure in seeing Zack matched his. “I’m a little dented, but definitely better. I seem to sleep all the time, and I’m taking these massive doses of antibiotics so I can’t drink. Anyway, I’ll live. But what’s really killing me is watching my case blow up.”

“You heard about what happened today?”

“Are you kidding? Howard Dowhanuik’s meltdown was topic A during the champagne reception. I still can’t believe Garth let it happen. Are you slipping stupid pills into his water jug?”

“No need,” Zack replied. “Garth self-medicates.”

Linda laughed. “You’re telling me. The day I finally packed it in, Garth came over to my apartment. I told him to get an adjournment. He could have had three weeks to get up to speed on this case. It’s hard on a jury to wait, but it’s better than going in there unprepared. Garth refused to listen. I tried to brief him on what was coming up, but he just gave me his big fat stupid smile and told me that it was his case now and I shouldn’t worry.”

Zack chuckled. “I have to admit, I’m grateful. If you’d been sitting in that chair, I would have been in a lot more trouble.”

“You think I don’t know that,” Linda said.

“Would you believe me if I said I wish you’d been able to finish the case?”

Linda glared at him. “I had a virus, not a lobotomy. Anyway, enough shop talk. We’re boring Joanne.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Just prepare to hear your thoughts about Mr. Severight on NationTV tomorrow night.”

The waiter set down our salads: arugula and watercress served with smoked whitefish and roasted peppers. Zack and I dug in, but Linda just gazed at her plate.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” Zack asked.

“No,” Linda said. “It looks tasty, but my malaise makes everything taste like cardboard.”

“Give it to Jo, then,” Zack said. “She loves smoked whitefish.”

Linda pushed her plate towards me. “Be my guest,” she said. “Consider it a thank you for the dartboard and the lovely photograph of our friend here. It’s brought me hours of pleasure.”

Zack put his arm around me. “I told you she’d like it.”

Linda observed us with interest. “How long have you two been a couple?”

“Not long enough,” Zack said.

“Three and a half months,” I said.

Linda gave Zack the thumbs-up sign. “Way to go. That’s three months, thirteen and a half days, and about eleven hours longer than most of your relationships.”

There were eight of us at table, and for the rest of the meal we chatted about the inconsequential and pleasant topics that people talk about when the food and wine are excellent and the mood is mellow. After the chocolate mousse had been served and the coffee poured, a string quartet began to play “The Lark.” I drank in the beauty of the music and of the small white tulips in our centrepiece and felt the pieces of myself knitting together again. Zack leaned close and whispered, “You look happy again.”

“I am happy again,” I said.

“Then so am I,” he said, and we sat hand in hand and listened to Haydn, and all was right with our world.

Before the speeches started, I excused myself and went to the ladies’ room. As I was freshening my makeup, a blonde wearing a very short emerald dress caught my eye in the mirror. Her mascara was smudged and she was having trouble focusing. She had, it appeared, drunk well if not wisely.

“So you’re Zack’s latest,” she said.

I met her mirror gaze. “I am,” I said, reaching for my lip liner.

The blonde reached into a sequined evening bag and found her lipstick. “He’s a son of a bitch,” she said. “And he’ll dump you.” She began outlining her lips, overshooting the mark in more than a few places. I didn’t bring the matter to her attention. “He’ll be classy about it,” she said. “There’ll be some serious flowers and a handwritten note, but he’ll never call again.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said.

“Caveat emptor. Don’t say you weren’t warned. One way or another, Zack has fucked 90 per cent of the people at this dinner tonight.”

I turned to her. “Are you through?” I asked. “Because the man I love is about to give a speech and I’d like to be there.”

“The man you love,” she repeated. “I am impressed. Is the man you love still into threesomes?”

“He doesn’t need a threesome,” I said. “He has me.”

As exit lines went, it wasn’t bad, but my heart was pounding, and the walk back to the ballroom seemed agonizingly long. I slid into my place at the table just as Zack was about to speak. When he saw that I was seated, he gave me a conspiratorial grin and began. He opened with Mel Brooks’s trenchant observation about retirement: “ ‘Never retire! Do what you do and keep doing it. But don’t do it on Friday. Take Friday off. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, do fishing, do sexual activities, watch Fred Astaire movies … My point is: Live fully and don’t retreat.’ ” It was a good opening and it got a laugh. When Zack moved to a more measured assessment of the accomplishments of the retiring dean, his comments were gracious and touching.

When my life had centred on politics, I’d written more than my share of speeches, and I knew Zack’s speech had been effective, yet the applause when he was through was oddly grudging. I glanced around the room and I noticed that the faces of the guests were closed. They had enjoyed the speech, but they didn’t like the speaker. For the first time it occurred to me that Marnie Dowhanuik’s assessment of her son might also be true of Zack – that like Charlie, Zack was a man who had fans, not friends. Both were men who needed to win and that meant they would always be surrounded by people they’d beaten. Remembering the blonde’s cutting appraisal of Zack, I felt a chill.

We were silent as the elevator took us to our suite. Once we were inside, Zack turned to me. “So what happened?” he said. “You were happy again, and now you’re not.”

“Let’s get some sleep,” I said. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Uh-uh,” Zack said. “Not if it means you sleep on one side of the bed and I sleep on the other. Why don’t I make us some tea and we’ll talk about what’s bugging you?”

There was a table and chairs in front of the window that overlooked the hotel’s formal gardens. In gentle weather, brides and grooms would exchange vows in those gardens and sip champagne under the cherry trees. Now, in mid-October, the lawns were leaf-strewn and the trees were spectral. Symbols everywhere.

Zack wheeled over, picked up the basket of teas the hotel supplied, and brought it to me. “A cornucopia of possibilities,” he said. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Camomile,” I said.

Zack started the tea and came back to me. “Your turn for a good deed now. Can you untie this damn tie?” I untied it and handed it to him. “Thanks. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.”

“When I went to the powder room tonight, I had an unpleasant encounter with an old girlfriend of yours.”

“Who was it?”

“I didn’t catch her name. She’s blonde. She was wearing a very short green dress, and she has amazing legs.”

“Margot Wright,” Zack said. “She’s with Ireland Leontowich.”

“Another lawyer.”

“They’re everywhere,” Zack said. “And I like your legs. Anyway, Margot and I saw each other for a while and then we broke it off. End of story.”

“It wasn’t the end of the story for Margot. She’s still steaming.”

“So what did she say?”

“She said you were a son of a bitch. I let that slide. Then she said that one way or another, you’d fucked 90 per cent of the people who were at the dinner tonight. And I let that slide. Then she asked if you were still into threesomes.”

“And you didn’t let that slide.”

“No, I said you didn’t need threesomes because you had me.”

“Sounds like you handled the situation.” He stroked my cheek. “But you’re not happy, so what Margot said must have got to you.”

“Yes, I guess it did.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

“You want people to like me.”

“It sounds stupid when you say it, but yes, I do.”

“Jo, with a couple of exceptions, the people in that room weren’t my friends, they were competitors or adversaries. It doesn’t matter if they like me. What does matter is that they respect me because that means that, a lot of the time, they’ll settle rather than face me in court. And, believe it or not, that’s good news for everybody.”

“I understand that. What I don’t understand is why you have to play so hard to win.”

“Because that’s the way I am. I’m like that guy in Candide. ‘I’m neither pure nor wise nor good, but I do the best I can’ – for my clients, for my friends, and, if you’ll let me, for you. I’ve never lied to you, Jo, and I’m not going to lie about what Margot said. There were threesomes. You may have noticed that the mechanics of sex don’t always work for me. Three-ways with interesting partners helped for a while. But what you told Margot was true. As long as I have you, I don’t need anybody else. I’ve loved you since the night we had dinner at The Stone House. You reached over and took my hand, and for me, that was it. If what Margot said has screwed us up, I won’t know what to do next.”

“It’s not just Margot, it’s everything. I just wonder if we’re moving too fast.”

“You think that hasn’t occurred to me. Jo, ask anybody – ask Margot, for crissake – I’ve never been known to rush into commitments. There was never any reason. I had everything I needed: my job and my law partners, and then last summer when Chris drove his car into the lake and everything at Falconer Shreve turned to shit, I felt like somebody had dropped a piano on me. When I was finally able to focus, there you were. And despite everything, even losing Chris, I knew that the best part of my life had just begun.”

Zack had been sitting across from me at the table. He moved his chair so he was beside me. “And now it seems you’re finished with me,” he said. He was pale and the shadows of exhaustion under his eyes were deep.

But it wasn’t pity that drew me to him. The words formed themselves. “Whatever happens, I’ll never be finished with you,” I said.

He slumped with relief. “And I’ll never be finished with you,” he said. “Not ever. Come here. Let me unzip you.” I stood and turned so he could undo my dress. I let it fall to the floor. I was still wearing my bra and the black slip with the lilies Zack liked.

He kissed the small of my back. “I think we’re ready to get married,” Zack said.

I turned to face him. “So do I,” I said.

He drew me to him. “Thank God for that,” he said. “Thank God for that.”

CHAPTER

9

My first thought when I awoke the next morning was that Zack and I were, in the parlance of a gentler time, betrothed. My second thought was that we had forty-five minutes to shower, dress, and get to the airport if we were going to catch the 6:00 a.m. flight that would get us back to Regina in time for the trial.

It was going to be a big day. Kathryn Morrissey was testifying. The filmmaker Jean Renoir once said that the trouble with life is that everyone has his reasons, and Kathryn, articulate, attractive, and intelligent, would be a force to be reckoned with as she explained hers. Even Garth Severight wouldn’t be able to blunt her effectiveness on the stand. Since Too Much Hope had been published, Kathryn had given a hundred interviews placing her actions in a context that suggested she was acting in the finest traditions of the third estate. She was going to be a thorny problem for the defence, but as the propellers revved for the flight home and Zack snapped open his computer, his focus was not on the Crown prosecutor’s appealing victim but on real estate.

“I found us a house,” he said. “I must have looked at fifty listings, and I knew you wouldn’t like any of them, but this one is different.”

“Can I see it?”

Zack slid his laptop over to me. I glanced at the screen. “I know that house,” I said. “I’ve walked by it a thousand, thousand times.”

The statement was not hyperbole. I had lived in my house for more than thirty years, and this house was on my route when I ran in the morning. In a neighbourhood of two- and three-storey houses where people tended to visit, it was an oddity – a sprawling, well-tended, one-storey ranch house that never showed signs that human beings lived inside. No toys, bikes, basketball hoops, seasonal wreaths, or holiday lights – just stone gargoyles on either side of the front door and discrete but tasteful landscaping that did not draw attention to itself. It was a quiet house that looked over the same creek my house backed onto.

“Ever been inside?” Zack said.

“No.”

“Well, click onto the virtual tour. That’ll give you an idea. Incidentally, if you don’t like it, I’m going to suck gas.”

“But I shouldn’t feel any pressure,” I said.

“Nah, of course not.” His tone was light, but as I gazed at the pictures his eyes never left my face.

Zack had no cause for concern. The house was a winner. The rooms were spacious, the windows were large, and the hardwood floors seemed splashed with sun. The kitchen was strictly 1960s, but it had generous counter space, hickory cupboards, and a walk-in pantry. The bedroom Zack and I would use opened onto a deck that looked out on the creek. There was also, mirabile dictu, an indoor swimming pool. “I think we just got Taylor’s vote,” I said.

“How about your vote?” Zack said.

I took his hand. “It’s a great house,” I said. “But this is a big step for me. I’ve lived in my place since Mieka was born.”

“If you don’t want to move, we can get your house retrofitted.”

“It’s a two-storey house. Zack. We’d have to put one of those gizmos on the stairs so you could get up to the second floor. You’d hate that.”

“I could live with it. I want to be with you, Jo. I can put up with whatever it takes. I’m not going to fuck around about something as insignificant as having to use a gizmo.”

I met his gaze. “You’d really put up with that just to please me?”

“Sure. We’re not kids. We don’t know how much time we have.” His look was searching. “So what do you think?”

I rubbed his hand. “I think we should make an offer on the new house,” I said.

Zack was meeting Sam at the office before court, so on the way back from the airport he dropped me at my house. Whether I’d been absent for ten minutes or ten days, Willie was ecstatic to see me. Like Zack, he believed in going for what he wanted. In Willie’s case, it was his leash. I snapped it on, changed into my runners, and headed for the door. When I opened it, Ethan Thorpe was facing me.

We both jumped. Ethan blushed and stared at his feet. “You must think I’m a stalker or something. I just didn’t want to miss Taylor.”

“But you did miss her,” I said. “I was in Saskatoon last night, so Taylor stayed with a friend.”

“A friend,” he repeated miserably.

“You can see her at school,” I said.

“I wasn’t planning to go to school,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s going to be a bad day,” he said. He fingered the pentangle that hung from the piece of hemp around his neck. “Sometimes, it’s just easier to stay away.”

“Ethan, why do you wear that pentangle?”

“The same reason Gawain did – to remind me that I should have courage and seek the truth.” He flushed. “I get the message,” he said. “I should be more like Gawain.”

“You could give it a try.”

When Ethan left, he was headed in the direction of school, but he was a boy who could change direction easily. He wasn’t mine, but I felt the kinship an adult who has been solitary as a child feels for the lonely, and I found myself hoping that wherever he was going, he would make it.

I checked my watch and realized that if I was going to make it to court by nine o’clock, Willie and I would have to truncate our run. Instead of setting out for the lake, I led Willie through the backyard towards the levee that the city had built on both sides of the creek to protect us from floods during spring runoff. Indigenous bushes had been planted on the banks and now, after an early snow, the few leaves that clung to the branches had a spare Japanese beauty. Willie and I crossed the bridge that linked my neighbourhood, Old Lakeview, with the Crescents, the neighbourhood of the house where Zack and my daughter and I might now live.

I walked along the levee until I came to the spot where it met the yard of my new house. The levee’s uneven turf was not favoured by joggers, so Willie and I were able to sit on a rock in the pale morning sunshine and reflect in peace on the changes that were about to overtake our lives.

I had told Zack that the indoor swimming pool would win Taylor’s vote, but it was the new house’s proximity to the creek that won mine. My life and the lives of my husband and children had been inextricably linked to it. When Ian had come back from a rancorous night in the legislature – too much emotion and too much Scotch, we had walked along the bank of the creek until his head was clear enough for sleep. In the year after he died, I’d walked the creek alone – remembering, and trying not to remember.

In winter, the creek froze over and the kids skated on it and tobogganed down the bank behind our backyard and partway up the bank that led to the house Zack and I might live in together. My future had been there all along. Seemingly, the Turks were right about kismet: the course of events is predestined. All we can do is keep a firm grip on the toboggan.

I was watching Willie decide whether his fate was linked with that of a duck floating on the glassy water when my cell rang. It was Zack. “Sam and Glenda send their best wishes,” he said. “They’re happy we’re getting married.”

“I’m happy we’re getting married too,” I said. “Willie and I are on the levee, scoping out the new house.”

“We can get the keys and check out the inside when court’s over. Hey – shouldn’t you be getting down here?”

“I have another half-hour,” I said.

“You might want to speed that up,” Zack said. “Big doings today.”

“Kathryn Morrissey is testifying,” I said. “I know that.”

“There’s an added attraction,” Zack said.

“Care to elaborate?”

“No, but when you come into court, take a gander at who’s sitting in the front row of the seats reserved for the public.”

The added attraction was worth more than a gander. Six of the thirteen subjects Kathryn had written about in her book had found seats that put them right in her sightline when she testified. If Charlie hadn’t been sitting with them, I might not have made the connection immediately. The photos Kathryn had chosen for her book had shown the Too Much Hope kids at the worst moments of their lives. With the exceptions of Charlie and Glenda Parker, whose only crime was a private burden they were forced to bear in public, Kathryn’s subjects had been whirling black holes of self-destruction. They had been photographed drunk, stoned, beaten up, or under arrest.

Without exception, the young people in front of me were well groomed, self-possessed, and clearly struck by the gravity of the situation. As survivors of tragedies that had been played out in full public view, the Too Much Hope kids were also the subject of intense and feverish scrutiny from the press.

When I slid into my accustomed place next to Brette, she was gleeful. “This is going to be so good. The word is that Charlie Dowhanuik arranged for Kathryn’s victims to be here today. She’s a cool one, but this is going to throw her.” She looked down at her notebook. “I need your opinion. I think I’ve identified everybody, but is that really hunky guy on the end Morgan Dafoe – the kid who drove the family speedboat into the dock and killed his friends?”

“It is him,” I said. “He’s in medical school now. Kathryn promised him she’d write about how he’s trying to make up for what he did.”

“He was drunk, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said. “He was also fourteen years old. A friend of his mother’s decided Morgan was cute, and it would be fun to get him drunk.”

“What happened to the friend?”

“She got a slap on the wrist.”

Brette swore softly. “And two kids die and another kid’s life is mutilated.” She stared over at the row where Morgan was sitting. “Speaking of mutilated lives, wasn’t Krissy Treadgold supposed to have her anorexia under control?”

“When Charlie Dowhanuik interviewed her last spring, she said she’d gone to a clinic that specializes in eating disorders and she’d managed to turn things around.” I glanced at the young woman sitting next to Charlie. She was dressed fashionably in a vintage black velvet jacket whose generous cut couldn’t disguise the fact that the body inside was stick-thin. As she turned to talk to Charlie, Krissy Treadgold’s profile was as sharp-edged as a carving. “She doesn’t look cured to me,” I said. “She looks as if she should be hospitalized.”

“The book pushed her over the edge,” Brette said flatly. “I did a story on eating disorders, and you’re never really cured.”

“Kathryn Morrissey is planning to make a victim’s impact statement,” I said. “Maybe the defence should get impact statements from the victims of the victim.”

Brette grimaced. “You know, when I think about Kathryn Morrissey, I wonder if I have what it takes to be a journalist. I’ve read the texts. I know that truth is elusive and that the journalist’s job is to go in with a flaming sword and cut through all the contradictions and self-justifications until she finds out what really happened. But Kathryn knew the truth – we all did. Most of those kids had screwed up big time, but a lot of them were trying to make amends. All Kathryn cared about was selling books.” Brette snorted derisively. “I’d rather scrub toilets.”

“I’m sure the defence would be pleased to hear that.”

“That part maybe, but not the rest. Kathryn may be opportunistic, but she didn’t deserve to be shot.”

“So if you were on the jury, you’d vote to convict Sam Parker?” I said.

Brette chewed on her pearls. “If I were on the jury, I’d be feeling like Solomon about to cut the baby in half.”

If Howard Dowhanuik’s testimony had been a slug-fest, Kathryn Morrissey’s was a soap opera. In retrospect, even the unpredictable was predictable. Dressed in a suit of soft grey, with hose and shoes in complementary grey, her silver hair smoothed back to set off her untroubled brow and brilliant blue eyes, Kathryn was a casting director’s ideal of the brave but suffering victim. When the court clerk called her name, Kathryn approached the bench, glancing at the jury box long enough to fix her image in their minds, then she stepped in front of the judge’s bench and waited to be sworn in. A flawless performance until she stood to take the oath and her eyes met those of the six men and women whose lives she had ripped apart by her blithe disregard for their trust and their need.

Kathryn was a professional, but the appearance of the Too Much Hope kids was a distraction, and before she placed her hand on the Bible, she shot an angry glance at Garth Severight. He should have spared or at least prepared her for this, but he hadn’t, and now she would have to tread carefully. As Garth approached the bench to take her evidence, she was not happy. Kathryn was knowledgeable enough to realize that the Crown prosecutor was not her lawyer, but she knew she was his main witness, and she should have been told what was up. It was a variant of the old legal truism: false in one thing, false in all things. Garth had let her down and now Kathryn was on edge, wondering what other traps awaited her.

That said, she acquitted herself well. Garth led her through her testimony with the courtly attentiveness of a gentleman at a cotillion. There were no surprises in her testimony. She had been enjoying a glass of wine on her deck. Sam Parker had appeared through her side gate. She recognized him from his appearances in the media. He was very emotional. He asked her to postpone the publication of her book. She explained that was impossible. He asked her if she realized what she was doing to his family. Kathryn told him people must accept responsibility for their own actions. According to Kathryn, her statement infuriated Sam Parker. He became, in her words, “a madman.” He pulled out his gun, aimed it at her, and said, “How does it feel to know this could be the last day of your life?” Certain he was about to kill her, Kathryn lunged at him. Sam pulled the trigger. At this point in her account, Kathryn grew teary, and Garth produced a snowy linen handkerchief and handed it to her with a flourish. Lazy as a lizard sunning himself on a rock, Zack watched the testimony with hooded eyes and a small smile playing on his lips.

As Garth ceded his place to the defence, the energy level in the courtroom rose. The cage match between Zack and Kathryn had been hotly anticipated. The consensus was that he was good, but she was no slouch. She had been interviewed many times, often by questioners who were hostile, and she had learned to spin an awkward question, turning it back on the interviewer, making it seem that he, not she, was the character assassin. But as Zack wheeled towards the witness box, Katherine seemed surprisingly nervous. Her eyes darted towards the row in which the Too Much Hope kids were sitting and she asked for a glass of water.

Zack waited as the water was brought and Katherine sipped and composed herself. “Set your mind at ease, Ms. Morrissey,” he said. “There’ll be no pyrotechnics here. The Crown and the defence are in agreement on the basics of what happened on the late afternoon of May 16. We differ only in our interpretation. You say Mr. Parker’s actions were intentional; Mr. Parker says what happened was an accident. Disregarding Mr. Dowhanuik’s testimony, which I believe we can safely do …” Garth leapt to his feet and fired off a machine-gun round of objections. Zack heard him out, withdrew his statement, and turned back to Kathryn. “At any rate, Ms. Morrissey, it seems this case boils down to a matter of she said/he said, so what we’re working towards is getting a clear picture of exactly what happened in your encounter with Mr. Parker.”

Garth was on his feet again. “Is there a question in all this?”

Zack nodded. “Actually, I have a number of questions.” He moved his chair closer to Kathryn. “Ms. Morrissey, you said that after you refused to postpone publication of your book, Sam Parker became ‘a madman.’ Exactly how did this madness manifest itself?”

Kathryn’s lip curled in disdain. “He became red in the face. He gesticulated wildly. He was out of control.”

“Did Mr. Parker mention where he had been in the hour before he arrived in your backyard?”

“He said he’d been with his daughter.”

“Did he elaborate?”

“He said something about his daughter being in a state of anguish.”

“Did he explain why?”

Kathryn raised her chin defiantly. “He said Glenda was upset about my book. He said she had a gun and she had threatened to kill herself.”

Zack smiled. “Thank you. A very complete answer. So the gun Mr. Parker used was not his own. It was his daughter’s.”

Kathryn shifted position. “Yes.”

“Then we can conclude that Mr. Parker didn’t come from Calgary to Regina with the intention of killing you.”

“He obviously decided that later,” Kathryn said. “Otherwise, why would he arrive in my backyard, gun in hand?”

Zack frowned. “I’m confused,” he said. “I thought the weapon was concealed. Mr. Parker came to plead with you, Ms. Morrissey. He wanted to save his daughter’s life. Why would he be waving a gun around?”

“The phrase gun in hand is just a figure of speech,” Kathryn said dismissively.

Zack nodded. “Of course. Still, this is a court of law. Sam Parker’s future will be determined by the accuracy with which you recall his words. With all due respect, Ms. Morrissey, you should attempt to be precise. Now, at what point did Mr. Parker tell you that his daughter was contemplating suicide?”

“When he asked me to postpone the publication of my book.”

“So when you heard that Glenda was suicidal, your response was that she had to accept responsibility for her own actions. That’s a little heartless, isn’t it?”

Kathryn furrowed her brow. “It might have been later.”

Zack cocked his head. “I’m sorry. What might have been later?”

“Mr. Parker might have told me about his daughter’s state of mind later, when he took out the gun.”

Zack made no attempt to hide his pleasure. “Then you and Mr. Parker are in agreement on that point,” he said. “Good. And you’ve already testified that after he came through your gate, Sam pleaded with you to postpone publication of your book, and you refused and made your speech about people being responsible for their own actions. So you’ve corroborated that part of Sam’s version of events. And now you agree that when he took out the gun, he didn’t threaten you, he told you that the gun he was holding had been in his daughter’s hands that same day. Sam didn’t want to kill you. He wanted you to know that he was desperate.”

Kathryn flushed with anger. “That’s not the way it happened. Sam Parker tried to kill me. That’s the truth.”

Zack sighed. “So, we’re back to she said/he said.”

Indeed, it did seem the combatants had reached an impasse, but then, in true soap-opera fashion, there was a shocking development. Krissy Treadgold, the wispy blonde whose eating disorders had been explored with such clinical zeal in Too Much Hope, stood up and braced herself against the railing that separated the gallery from the business end of the courtroom. She was directly in front of Kathryn, and for a beat, I thought she was about to shout out an accusation. But the drama took another turn. Krissy crumpled against the railing and then fell to the floor. In the confusion that followed, one image was indelible. Glenda Parker had been sitting next to Krissy, and when Krissy fell, Glenda dropped to her knees and raised Krissy’s head so that it rested in her lap. Then, very quietly, she asked someone to call for a doctor. Obeying some kind of herd wisdom, the rest of us gave the two young people their space, watching but not intruding on the small circle of intimacy that enclosed them. When the EMS team arrived, Krissy had regained consciousness, but she was deadly pale and clearly in medical trouble. As the gurney that she’d been placed upon was wheeled out of the courtroom, there was silence. Her illness had made her unnaturally small. With her thin blonde hair loose about her shoulders and her vintage velvet coat, she looked oddly like Alice in Wonderland. To add to the Through the Looking Glass quality of the moment, when I turned towards the back of the courtroom, I spotted a couple of unlikely spectators: Howard Dowhanuik was sitting in the back row and Ethan Thorpe was standing out in the hall, watching.

Zack, who had turned his chair to watch the dramatic events in the gallery, wheeled towards the jury box. One look at their stricken faces told him all he needed to know. “I only have one more question for the witness,” he said. “Would you do it again, Ms. Morrissey?”

Kathryn was clearly irritated. “What?”

Zack moved back to face her. “Given what you know about the impact your book has had on the lives of its subjects, would you write it again?”

Kathryn didn’t hesitate. “My obligation was to the text. People’s feelings are secondary.”

“No matter how much they suffer,” Zack said.

“Their suffering is not my concern,” Kathryn said, and her voice was flinty. “And to answer your question, yes I would write the book again.”

“Thank you,” Zack said. “No more questions.”

And, as it turned out, no more witnesses for the day. Sam had been scheduled to testify, but Zack had asked for an adjournment, citing the fact that his client was obviously under the weather. During Kathryn’s testimony, Sam had suffered a chill, and he was now feeling dizzy and unwell. Mr. Justice Harney took one look at him and adjourned court until the next morning.

The decision was humane. Glenda had tried to keep up Sam’s strength and spirits through a regimen of morning laps in the hotel pool and nightly games of cribbage, but the vigour I had noticed when I met Sam was gone. The energy seemed to have been sapped from him. It seemed he had been easy prey for the bug that was making its rounds in the courthouse.

When Zack went back to change out of his barrister’s robes, I walked outside to do my five-minute standup on the day’s events. I had just unclipped my microphone when Zack came out of the courthouse. He was in high spirits. “What are your plans for the next hour?” he asked.

“Nothing that can’t wait,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”

“How would you like to check out the new house?”

“I’d love to,” I said.

“Good,” Zack said. “The agent for the seller is going to meet us there in ten minutes. I told him we wanted to see the place on our own, so he’s going to unlock the door and meet us afterwards to answer our questions.”

“Boy, you’re good,” I said.

“Highly motivated,” he said. “Ready to go?”

“Absolutely.”

As promised, the agent was waiting for us at the house. He let us in and agreed to come back in an hour. After the man left, Zack held up his cellphone. “Ms. Kilbourn, you will note that I am now turning this off. I hope you appreciate the symbolism.”

“I do, but couldn’t they disbar you for that?”

Zack gave me a wide smile. “Probably, but you still have a job.”

We took our time walking through the silent rooms. The only sound was the swoosh of Zack’s wheelchair on the hardwood. It was, as the virtual tour had shown, a solid house of big rooms filled with light, outdated fixtures, and endless possibilities. The indoor pool that was the house’s only noteworthy feature had been installed because the previous owner’s physician had prescribed swimming as therapy. Both the pool and the room that housed it were new and bleakly functional. Zack made a face when he saw them. “Looks like a high school gym,” he said.

“Taylor’s going to see those bare walls as a gift,” I said. “She’s been talking about doing a mural, and if a room ever called out for a mural it’s this one.”

“You think she’ll be happy here?” Zack asked.

“I think we’ll all be happy here,” I said.

“In that case, let’s check out the bedroom. Because the real estate agent says it’s neat.”

The real estate agent was right. Filled with the saffron light of afternoon, the bedroom was immensely inviting. I threw open the double doors and walked out onto the deck. “In good weather, we’ll be able to sit out here and watch the sun rise over the creek,” I said.

“So what do you think?” Zack asked. “Is this the one?”

I gazed across the water. “Hey, look over there – on the bank by that wolf willow – a beaver.”

“Is a beaver a good omen?” Zack said.

I rested my hand on the back of his chair. “No. A beaver is a beaver. But think how much fun it’ll be to have him for a neighbour.”

There was intriguing news from the realtor. If we were interested, we could purchase the lot next door. The current owners had bought it, intending to build a greenhouse there, but their plan had never materialized. As I paced the lot, I could see Taylor’s new studio taking shape. By the time Zack dropped me off at my place, the wheels had been set in motion.

“What are you going to do with the rest of the afternoon?” Zack said.

“Errands,” I said. “And there is no shortage of them. I’m going to pick up some photographs that I had framed for Pete’s new clinic and take them over to him, then I’m going to make a chip, dip, and pop run for Taylor’s party. After that I’m going to curl up with the background material on closing statements that Rapti sent me. It appears that the trial is winding down and I want to be ready. How about you?”

“I want to be ready too,” Zack said. “I’m going back to the office to ponder, yet again, the best line of questioning for Sam.”

I kissed him goodbye. “It’s going to be so good when all this is over,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zack agreed. “Especially if we win.”

Pete’s clinic on Winnipeg Street had been a pawn shop in its previous life, but Pete and his friends had given it a coat of paint to erase the lingering stench of desperation. The office now smelled of paint with a musky overlay of animal – very pleasant. The joint was jumping. School was over for the day, and owners of pets with problems were out in force. Pete had his work cut out for him. There were four boys with dogs of intriguingly mixed lineages, a determined-looking girl about Taylor’s age with a litter of kittens wrapped in a blanket, and an old man with a parrot in a cage. None of the animals was happy to be there, and they made their displeasure known. Despite the bedlam, Pete’s assistant, a university student who was volunteering at the clinic to polish up his resumé for the admissions board of the vet college, was cheerful.

“This isn’t as bad as it looks, Ms. Kilbourn,” he said. “There’s an organizational principle at work here. Believe it or not, everything’s under control.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said. “Any chance I can see Pete for a second? I have a gift for the new office.”

“Let me buzz him. He’s just nuzzling two hundred pounds of English mastiff.”

“I’ll keep my distance,” I said.

“This one’s a sweetie. His name is Pantera – you know, like the heavy-metal group.”

“Actually, I didn’t know,” I said. “But thanks for filling me in.”

“No problem. They’re in examining room one.”

Pantera was splayed on the floor, grooving while Pete rubbed his belly.

I went over and stroked Pantera’s flank. “He’s a beauty,” I said.

Pete raised his eyebrows. “Do you want him?”

“Serious?”

“Very.”

“What happened to the owners?”

Pete walked over to the corner sink and began to wash up. “They dropped their mastiff off to be neutered and never came back. When I called, they said they didn’t realize how big he’d be, and they hoped I’d find him a good home. I’ve been calling everybody I know, but so far no luck.”

“If he’s been mistreated, he might be difficult.”

“He wasn’t mistreated,” Pete said. “He was just inconvenient. It turned out he was too big for his owners’ apartment.”

“Their apartment? What were they thinking?”

Pete shrugged. “They saw a mastiff on that TV show American Chopper and thought it looked cute.”

I bent and nuzzled Pantera. “If I didn’t have Willie, you’d be a definite possibility,” I said. I straightened and turned to my son. “Pete, keep me posted about what’s happening with this guy. Now, I’d better let you get back to work.” I handed him the package. “Here’s a present – some old photos of you with our dogs. I had them framed for your waiting room.”

“I’ll look at them on my break. Thanks, Mum, and don’t worry about Pantera. I’ll take him home with me until I figure out what to do.” Pete dried his hands. “Might be good for Charlie to have him around too. He’s obsessed with this trial. If Sam Parker’s convicted, I think Charlie will implode.”

“Maybe you should remind him that no matter what happens to Sam, he still has a life to live. That’s what Zack keeps telling me.”

“I’ll give it a shot, but I think the words would have more weight coming from Zack.”

“He’ll be at the house tomorrow night,” I said. “He promised Taylor he’d help with the decorations for her party. Why don’t you and Charlie come over and give us a hand?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Pete said. “Charlie’s not a big partisan of the human race, but he admires Zack.”

“Zack’s going to be anxious about the verdict too. He and Charlie can form a support group.”

Pete laughed. “I can’t imagine either of them in a support group.”

“Neither can I.” I gave Pantera a rub. “See you tomorrow night. Bring our friend here. Let’s see what Willie makes of him.”

Zack and his colleagues had spent long hours deciding on the witness list for the defence. To convict Sam Parker of attempted murder, the Crown had to prove, in the ponderous language of the law, that Sam intended “to cause the requisite degree of bodily harm coupled with the necessary recklessness as to its effect.” In lay terms, that meant the Crown had to prove that Sam was both cold-blooded and irresponsible. His temperament was key, so there were solid reasons for producing witnesses who would testify that Sam was a good and responsible man who, placed in untenable circumstances, had committed an act that was utterly uncharacteristic.

Sam provided a long list of friends and associates who were prepared to attest to his moral fibre, but when Zack and his colleagues interviewed Sam’s friends, they discovered a troubling common denominator: all were rich, powerful, and short-fused when it came to being challenged. The consensus was that Sam’s friends would not fare well in cross-examination, so Zack thanked them for their co-operation and went back to exploring his options.

Glenda was anxious to testify for her father. More than anyone except Sam, she could have given insight into his state of mind on the afternoon of May 16. She would have been a compelling and sympathetic witness, but Sam refused outright to allow her to testify. His daughter had suffered enough, he said, and that closed the matter.

So, as Sam Parker was sworn in on that cold October morning, he was the sole witness for the defence. He was impressive. When he’d come into court with Zack and Glenda, he had appeared depleted, but as he settled into the witness box, Sam came to life. He had spent a lifetime in the spotlight and he seemed to draw strength from the fact that he had every eye upon him. It was a phenomenon I’d observed in other public figures, and that day it served Sam Parker well.

Spine ramrod-straight, eyes blazing, Sam was a man to be reckoned with. As he went through the by-now-familiar narrative of events on the day of the shooting, Sam’s baritone was melodious and firm. He faltered only once – when he described seeing Glenda in her apartment holding the gun with which she planned to end her life. Sam’s agony at that memory was still painful to observe. When he testified he was in a state of shock as he drove to Kathryn Morrissey’s condominium, his words had the ring of truth.

Sam did not attempt to use his mental state to excuse his actions, and his refusal to ask for pity gave power to his testimony. Given context, Sam’s rationale for carrying a pistol when he turned up in Kathryn’s backyard made sense. He said he had simply been afraid to leave Glenda alone with a gun. He had, he admitted, been frightened, stupid, and guilty of execrable judgment, but on one point he was resolute: he had never intended to harm Kathryn Morrissey.

His story was believable, but Kathryn Morrissey’s account had been credible too. Sam’s defence team had assessed their chances of winning the game of she said/he said at around 50 per cent. The odds weren’t good enough, and so Zack decided to go for broke.

His direct examination of Sam had focused on the fact that Sam’s actions on the afternoon of May 16 were a response to the unendurable stress Kathryn Morrissey’s book had caused the Parker family. The argument was plausible, but there was a worrying footnote. Sam Parker was known to be an expert marksman. As an articulate opponent of gun registration, Sam had built up extensive media files, and every one of them included footage of him brandishing a firearm and stating that he found target-shooting a great tension reliever.

When Zack asked Sam how he typically dealt with stress, there was nervous laughter in the courtroom.

Sam was prepared for the question. “I pray, I swim, and I go to the shooting range,” he said.

Zack smiled. “Your abilities at prayer and swimming are none of our business,” he said, “but how would you estimate your skill as a marksman?”

“I’ve been shooting all my life,” Sam said. “I hit what I aim at.”

“What do you normally aim at?”

“Metal targets,” Sam said. “Just the standard recreational shooting setup.”

“So when you’re shooting for recreation,” Zack asked, “how far away are you from your target?”

“When I’m feeling sharp, six hundred yards. When I’m feeling old, five hundred yards.”

There was more laughter in the courtroom. Sensing that people were beginning to like Sam Parker, Zack waited until the laughter died down.

“And whether you’re feeling sharp or old, you generally hit your target?” he said finally.

“I always hit my target,” Sam said. There was no boasting in his voice. He was simply stating a fact.

“If you were aiming at a target a yard away from you,” Zack asked, “would you say your chances of hitting it were 100 per cent?”

Sam nodded. “100 per cent.”

“How far from Kathryn Morrissey were you standing when the gun you were holding went off?”

“Very close,” Sam said. “A couple of feet.”

“Yet you only grazed her shoulder,” Zack said.

“Yes,” Sam said. “The shot only grazed Ms. Morrissey’s shoulder.”

Kathryn Morrissey was sitting in the front row behind the Crown’s desk. Sam’s eyes found her. “I am thankful every moment of the day for that, Ms. Morrissey,” he said. “I hope you believe that.”

It had been a strong finish. To close its case, the Crown had to get Sam to admit that he wanted to kill Kathryn Morrissey. Try as he might, Garth Severight was unable to get that admission. His cross-examination put a couple of dents in Sam’s testimony, but it didn’t do any serious damage. When Sam stepped down, everyone in the courtroom knew it had been a good day for the defence.

During the trial, Taylor and I had created a comfortable routine for our evenings: an early dinner, homework, some time to goof and gossip while we watched TV, and then bedtime. That night after I read Rapti’s notes, Taylor and I watched something as funny as it was forgettable and were in bed by 9:00 p.m. I called Zack to say good night before I turned off the lights. The trial had consumed him. The dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes had become permanent. I had stopped asking him when or if he slept.

“How’s it going?” I said.

“Not great,” he said. “Did Sam seem okay to you today?”

“Where did that come from?” I asked. “Everybody I talked to this afternoon thought Sam did well.”

“I’m not talking about his testimony,” Zack said. “I’m talking about his health. When he got off the stand, he looked as if he’d been bled dry.”

“It’s been a gruelling experience for everybody,” I said.

“I guess,” Zack said. “And I’m about to make it worse. My closing statement is six times longer than it should be, and it’s boring as hell.”

“I can help,” I said. “Get a pencil.”

“Is this a joke?”

“You’re beyond jokes,” I said. “My cheat sheet from Rapti says a closing statement is where you bring your story to a close and make certain the jury writes the ending you want. She also says you should end with a bang: move from the particular to the universal – convince the jury that your case gives them insight into the mystery of the human condition.”

“Not bad,” he said. “So where did Rapti go to law school?”

“Actually, she’s a proud graduate of the cosmetology program at Kelsey Institute in Saskatoon.”

“Well, the cosmetology program does good work. That’s sensible advice. Anything else?”

“Be sure to wear your red tie.”

“I’ll be wearing my robe. The jury won’t know what colour my tie is.”

“But I will.”

The next morning as the jurors filed in, their faces were grave. The tension in the air was thick. I checked the room for familiar faces. Charlie and the other Too Much Hope kids were in the first row. Krissy Treadgold was notable by her absence. Howard was sitting at the back.

Garth Severight’s closing statement was carefully composed. He commended the jury for the gravity with which they had assumed their burden; he gave a careful précis of the evidence. The facts he cited were the same as the facts that would be cited by the defence, but the story he chose to tell was very different. The Sam Parker of his story was a brash, wealthy oilman who was accustomed to getting his way at all costs. As he spoke I watched his face, and I was struck with the realization that Garth, the clown whom we had dismissed as stupid and egotistical, believed every word he was saying. His case had gone south on him. Linda, a smart lawyer with confidence in her ability, had believed Sam Parker should be charged with attempted murder and that she could prove her case. Had the Crown gone for a lesser charge, the outcome would have been different, but to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when Sam entered Kathryn Morrissey’s backyard he had murder, not rapprochement, on his mind had been a tough sell for Garth Severight.

During the trial we had mocked him, but as Garth delivered his earnest closing statement, I was moved. His address to the jury touched upon truths to which we all paid lip service. No one, not even a millionaire, not even a person with powerful political connections, is above the law. If the justice system that governs our dealings with one another permitted people to take the law into their own hands, none of us would be protected. The words he uttered were aphorisms, but they had power because it was clear that Garth believed what he said.

I glanced over at Zack. He was alert but impassive, and I remembered Ed Mariani saying that Zack could have argued either side of a case with equal fervour because his interest was not in justice but in winning. As Garth made his final plea to the jury to summon the courage to bring in the verdict that the evidence supported, I knew Zack could have uttered Garth’s lines brilliantly, but brilliant as he was they would have lacked the fervour I heard in the voice of this limited man who believed every word he said.

At the outset, Zack’s closing statement was tight and quietly emphatic. He analyzed the evidence and found it wanting – not because the police hadn’t done their job but because they had brought forth no credible witness to establish that the shooting had been anything other than an accident – the result of a terrible, terrible lapse in judgment by a good man who had been under incredible pressure. He underscored Howard’s lack of credibility. Zack’s point was simple. For a conviction of attempted murder, the Crown must prove forethought and that the defendant’s action was deliberate. They had, he said, failed to do this.

Then having dealt with the facts, Zack went to town.

“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man who loved his child. How many stories do you know that begin like that? Ten? Twenty? Every culture in every time has a story that begins with that one simple sentence. And that’s how Sam Parker’s story begins – with a father who loved his child so much that when his child was betrayed and despondent, he was prepared to do anything to save her. As a God-fearing, law-abiding man, Sam Parker went to his lawyer to see if the law could help him. It could not. Faced with a shattered family and a child prepared to die rather than cause him further pain, Sam Parker flew to Regina, took the gun from his child’s hands, and went to talk to Ms. Morrissey. He was hoping to appeal to her humanity. It was a faint hope, but it was all he had.

“We all heard Ms. Morrissey testify that her obligation is to her text and that the suffering of those who trust her is not her concern. I was chilled by Ms. Morrissey’s statements. Judging from your faces, you were too. Can you imagine how a loving father would respond to those words?

“Only two people know for certain what happened in Ms. Morrissey’s backyard. You’ve heard from them both. As importantly, you’ve seen them both. You’ve been able to take their measure.

“You heard Sam Parker testify that, unlike Ms. Morrissey, he knows what he did was wrong. He would not repeat the stupid and harmful action he took on the afternoon of May 16. He’s a good man, and good people recognize their mistakes and learn from them. I ask you, as judges of the facts, to see that justice is done here. Don’t punish a good man because he loved his child. Humans are fallible. We make mistakes. Sam Parker made a mistake. Love makes us foolish, but it also ennobles us, transforms us into people who put the needs of those we love above our own needs. Please remember that when you determine the future of Sam and his family.”

As Zack wheeled back to his table, Brette whispered, “Shreve gets both ears and the tail for that one.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Brette leaned towards me. “In a bullfight if a matador does a lot of manly cape-swooshing before he kills the bull, the crowd awards him both ears and the tail.”

“So you think Zack won his case?”

“I don’t know,” Brette said. “But he sure swooshed his cape.”

Mr. Justice Harney began his charge to the jury by giving what I had learned were standard instructions about the credibility of witnesses, the weight of circumstantial evidence, and the concept of reasonable doubt. His charge on the law centred on proof of intent.

He read the relevant passage from the Criminal Code: “ ‘A conviction for attempted murder requires proof of the specific intent to kill. No lesser mens rea will suffice. The key element of the mental element in this offence is the intention to cause the requisite degree of bodily harm, coupled with the necessary recklessness as to its effect.’ ” He ruled that the jury could find Samuel Parker guilty of attempted murder only if the Crown had established proof of intent; that is that they had proven the accused intended to cause bodily harm to the victim.

“One for the defence,” Brette said, and I felt a small blooming of hope.

The judge outlined the evidence presented during the trial; then, without drama, the jury filed out to begin their deliberations. There was the usual hubbub in the courtroom. Brette and I packed up our things, said we’d see each other on the day the verdict was returned, and exchanged goodbyes. When Zack left the courtroom with the Parkers, he looked over and mouthed the words “wait for me.”

We caught up with each other in the lobby under the mosaic of the God of Laws. Zack rubbed his hands over his face and yawned. “Well, the ship has sailed,” he said. “I’m going to back to the office with Sam for a few minutes. After that, we’re free. What do you want to do?”

“What I want to do is irrelevant,” I said. “What I have to do is paint eyeballs for Taylor’s Halloween party. Are you up for that?”

“Hand me my brush,” Zack said.

CHAPTER

10

The days before the jury’s verdict were a time of limbo, but if this was limbo, I didn’t need Paradise. For weeks, Zack’s life had centred around Sam’s trial and now there was nothing to do but wait. I thought he would be preoccupied and on edge, but with Zack there were always surprises. After the case went to the jury, he spent a few hours at the office catching up, then at 5:30 p.m., he arrived at my house with a bottle of wine, and we made dinner together. We had eaten with Taylor and were clearing up when Delia Wainberg arrived with Isobel and Gracie Falconer. The girls had made a last-minute decision that everybody at the party should carve a pumpkin with prizes awarded to the coolest, the lamest, and the grossest, so Delia was taking them off on a final pumpkin run.

Alone at last, Zack and I settled at the kitchen table with a bowl of white floating candles and brushes and paints to transform the candles into bloodshot eyeballs. Zack set about his task with quiet concentration. A visitor from another planet might have believed he’d never seen the inside of a courtroom.

“This is nice,” he said.

“It’s called Ordinary Family Life,” I said.

Zack smiled. “Well, I like it. It’s good to think about something other than the case.”

“Then I miscalculated. I assumed you’d want to talk about the trial tonight, so I invited Charlie and Pete over.”

Zack applied a stroke of red to an eyeball and held it out to me. “Does this need more anything?”

“Taylor tells me the first rule of art is always take one thing away.”

“I notice Taylor chooses not to work in eyeballs,” Zack said. “What are these for, anyway?”

“The night of the party we float them in a bowl of slime and light them.”

Zack nodded. “As long as I know. And I don’t mind seeing Charlie. He’s been a reliable ally.”

“So I noticed,” I said. “Pete’s bringing over his new dog.”

“A new dog? When did that happen?”

“Today. I saw him this afternoon. He’s an English mastiff and he’s huge.”

“But good-natured?”

“Very. He’s just been neutered, but he seems pretty happy.”

Zack winced. “I wouldn’t be happy.”

“Well, Pantera’s braver than you – he was still in there smiling and twitching.”

Zack stopped painting. “Pantera, huh? That’s a nice tribute to a great metal band.”

“You know who Pantera is?”

“Everybody knows who Pantera is. The day Dimebag died was the 9/11 of rock.”

“Who was Dimebag?”

“Pantera’s one-time guitarist. He was shot by a deranged fan.”

I shook my head. “How do you know these things?”

Zack finished his eyeball and held it up for my approval.

“Perfect,” I said.

“Not bad,” he agreed. “Anyway, when I have lunch with my clients during a trial, we talk about what they want to talk about. One of my guys was a serious Pantera fan. After the trial was over, he sent me some CDS.”

“To thank you for getting him off.”

“No, to console me for not getting him off.”

“There’s a lot about you that I don’t know,” I said.

“There’s a lot about you that I don’t know,” he said. “I thought that’s why we were getting married – to find out.”

“What happens if you don’t like what you find?”

Zack shrugged. “I’ll live with it,” he said. “Speaking of our marriage. When are we going tell your family?”

“Taylor’s birthday’s on a Friday. I was thinking we could invite Mieka and Greg and Angus and Leah down on the weekend to celebrate her birthday and make the big announcement.”

“Let’s invite the Falconers and the Wainbergs too. They’re as close to family as I have.”

“Sounds like a major shindig,” I said.

Zack looked at me hard. “You don’t look very happy about it – cold feet?”

“Just a twinge. Everything’s happened so fast with us.”

He reached for my hand. “Too fast?”

“No,” I said. “Every time I look at you, I know I don’t want a miss a moment of our life together.”

It was a nice moment, short-circuited as many nice moments in my home were by the arrival of one of my kids or their friends. This time the friend was Ethan, and he was positioned at what appeared to be his favourite post: the kitchen door.

I walked over and invited him in. He was wearing a black knit watch cap that made him appear older than thirteen. As always, he was jumpy and abrupt. “Is Taylor here?” he asked.

“She and Isobel and Gracie went out to buy more pumpkins for the party.”

“I didn’t think I’d be invited,” Ethan said. “But Taylor asked me today at school.” For a beat, the three of us stared at one another, waiting for deliverance. “I should get out of here,” Ethan said. “If Taylor sees me, she’ll think I’m stalking her.”

It was an exit line, but Ethan didn’t exit. Finally, accepting the inevitable, Zack threw Ethan a lifeline. “Why don’t you stay for a while? I’ve wanted to talk to you since I noticed you in the courtroom.”

“You saw me?” Ethan’s voice cracked with alarm.

“You were always somewhere around the doors at the back, right? So what’s the deal? Are you interested in becoming a lawyer?”

“No,” Ethan said. “I’m interested in justice.”

Zack’s mouth twitched to suppress a smile. “They’re not supposed to be mutually exclusive.”

Ethan flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like a dork.”

“Neither did I,” Zack said. “So, do you think justice will be done in this trial?”

“I don’t even know what justice is in this trial. At first I thought I did; now I’m not so sure. That’s why I keep coming back.”

“That’s why I keep coming back too,” Zack said.

“To make sure that the right people are punished.”

“And to make sure that the right people go free,” Zack said.

“That’s a noble aim.” Ethan’s fingers crept towards the pentangle around his neck. “The poet says that Gawain possessed five virtues that made him a noble knight – love and friendship for other men, freedom from sin, courtesy that never failed, and pity. His five senses were free of sin, his five fingers never failed him.” Ethan’s eyes were glazed as he quoted the ancient lines. “ ‘And all these fives met in one man / Joined to each other, each without end / Set in five perfect points / Wholly distinct, yet part of one whole / And closed, wherever it ended or began.’ ”

For a moment he seemed to exist in a parallel universe; then he vaulted back to ours. He stood up so suddenly that, in what appeared to be his signature move, he knocked against the table. Zack reached and caught his jar of paint just in time.

“Now you really will think that I’m a dork,” Ethan said.

“Not at all,” Zack said gently. “I enjoyed our talk, Ethan. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Okay,” Ethan said. “I’d better get home.”

“I’ll tell Taylor you stopped by,” I said.

Ethan looked stricken. “No. Please. Don’t. She’ll think I’m insane.”

And with that, he raced off into the dark.

Zack stared at the door through which Ethan disappeared. “I’d forgotten how much being thirteen can hurt,” he said.

“Was it a bad time for you?”

“Apart from being friendless, hornier than hell, and convinced that the only person I’d ever have sex with was myself, it was a blast.”

“Well you have me now. All your troubles are over.”

“And believe me, I’m grateful. When I was thirteen, I never thought my troubles would be over. I’ll bet Ethan doesn’t think so either. What’s his home situation?”

“His parents are divorced. He was living with his father, but his father’s new wife doesn’t want Ethan. He’s with his mother now. She doesn’t seem to want him either.”

“So faced with a shitty world, Ethan spends his time with Gawain.”

“And longs to spend time with Taylor,” I said. “And that is beginning to trouble Taylor, which means it’s beginning to trouble me.”

As soon as the girls got back with their pumpkins, they began drawing up rules for the contest, an activity that was abandoned the moment Pete’s truck pulled up and Pantera unfolded himself from the back seat. Ungainly, enthusiastic, graceless, and boundlessly energetic, he was irresistible. The girls ran him around the backyard, then I brought Willie out and everybody bundled up and came out on the deck to watch Willie and Pantera get acquainted. The night was crisp and starry – perfect weather to sit on the deck and observe the meeting of the titans. But we had miscast our titans. After a few rips around the yard with Willie, Pantera spotted Zack, loped over, dropped his great maw on Zack’s lap, and refused to budge. Rejected, Willie slunk over to me. Pete offered wieners and praise in an effort to induce his new dog to play, but Pantera wasn’t buying. Finally, we accepted the inevitable. The girls drifted back inside to plan; the rest of us stayed outside and talked.

For Charlie, only one topic mattered: the trial. “So what’s going to happen?” he asked Zack.

Zack rubbed Pantera’s head. “Serge Kujawa used to say that speculating on what a jury is doing and why was a total waste of time, so he spent all his time speculating.”

“So if you’re speculating, you must have some idea about the outcome.”

“I’d say our chances are fifty-fifty,” Zack said. “If Linda Fritz had been there all along, the odds would have been different.”

Charlie pounced. “But Linda Fritz wasn’t there.”

“And the charge she decided on was. That was a break for us. With attempted murder, the Crown has to prove intention to kill and that’s difficult to prove. If the Crown had gone for a lesser charge, it would have been a slam-dunk for them – even with Garth.”

“Then why didn’t they go for the slam-dunk?” Pete asked.

Zack absently wiped Pantera drool off his slacks. “Why do people do anything? But Linda’s a person of principle, and I think she genuinely believed that when Sam pulled that gun he intended to kill Kathryn Morrissey. She also knew that Sam had the money to mount a strong defence.”

“And that’s relevant?” Pete asked.

“There’s an old saying, ‘The more evenly matched the lawyers, the better the chance of justice.’ Linda knew Sam had enough money to get a fair kick at the can. And truthfully, no matter what the jury decides, I think Sam had a good defence. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m going inside. It’s getting cold out here.”

I stood back to watch how Pantera would react when Zack wheeled away. Pantera watched for a moment, then trotted off behind the chair as if he’d been doing it all his life. I felt the wisps of a challenge developing in our lives.

The girls’ Halloween party was Zack’s introduction to pre-teen, pre-dating culture, and he was as captivated as Margaret Mead had been when she clapped eyes on Samoa. The ritual of boys and girls trying to impress one another while pretending not to be impressed by one another was intriguing, and the fact that these girls and boys were in costume gave the ceremony an extra fillip. As there had been every year since my kids were little, there was a solid contingent of Star Wars characters: Princess Leia with her light sabre; Queen Amidala with her royal pistol, Luke Skywalker and two Darth Vaders. Marge Simpson made an appearance with a swarm of bats and a half-dozen pacifiers nesting in her elaborate cone of hair; Grace, Isobel, and Taylor had dressed as triplets – a clever choice because they were inseparable, and a funny one because they were as physically different as it was possible for three girls to be. Zack had a lot of fun spotting and identifying costumes, but there was one that baffled him. “What’s that kid supposed to be?” he whispered, pointing to a boy with a plastic dagger and little boxes of cereal stapled to his track suit.

“I thought you’d get that one,” I said.

He frowned. “Well, I don’t.”

“He’s a cereal killer.”

Zack beamed. “Clever.”

We’d doled out the chili and were just about to slip into the family room with Zack’s collection of The Simpsons’ Halloween episodes when Ethan arrived. He was late, breathless, and without a costume.

“Am I too late?” he asked.

“Of course not,” I said. “There’s some food left if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t feel like eating. But Taylor mentioned something about carving pumpkins, and I’d kind of like to do that.”

“Then you’re timing is perfect,” I said. “Because they’re just about to start.” I reached into my utensil drawer and pulled out my favourite paring knife. “Take this,” I said. “Good carving tools are in short supply tonight.”

“Thanks,” Ethan said. “I’ve got my own knife.” He sounded as if he was close to tears. I touched his hand. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing’s ever okay for me,” he said bleakly, then he turned and walked into the party.

Zack and I were just nicely into our third episode when my daughter popped in with the ballot boxes for the winning pumpkins. Taylor had shown me sketches of the design she was planning. It was of a phoenix, and as she described how the flames would flicker behind the bird rising in flames, I figured she was a lock for the coolest, but Ethan’s mystical heraldic coat of arms with its glowing pentangle surrounded by a ring of flaming hearts won hands down. His prize was three hours of Phantom bowling at the Golden Mile Lanes, and whether it was Taylor’s genuine delight at his win or the fact that the other kids had voted for him, Ethan was ecstatic.

“Maybe it’ll work out for him, after all,” Zack said.

“I hope so,” I said. “No kid should think his life is over at thirteen.”

“No,” Zack said. “C’mon, enough gloom. Mr. Burns is just about to remove Homer’s brain.”

We looked at each other and recited Mr. Burns’s trenchant line. “ ‘Dammit, Smithers. This isn’t rocket science. It’s brain surgery.’ ”

Later, as he zipped his jacket and pulled out his car keys, Zack gave the pumpkins glowing in our living room a final glance. “Is it always this much fun around here?” he asked.

“Stick around,” I said. “The best is yet to be.”

The next morning when I walked into St. Paul’s Cathedral for the 10:30 service, Zack was at the back of the church waiting.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am pleased,” I said. “And surprised. You didn’t mention anything about this last night.”

“It was an impulse,” he said. His eyes took in the stained glass, the vaulting arches, and the oak pews. “Nice,” he said. “Is this where we’re getting married?”

“It’s my first choice,” I said.

“Then it’s my first choice,” Zack said.

The accessible area was at the front to the left of the altar. By the time we took our places, many members of the congregation had a chance to see Zack and me together. Zack was oblivious, but I wasn’t, and as our dean came forward to give us communion, a lot of necks were craned. The recessional hymn was “Let Streams of Living Justice.” Zack had a sonorous bass and a musician’s ability to pick up tunes, and as he belted out the line “abolish ancient vengeance: proclaim your people’s hour” more than a few heads turned our way. I had spent my entire life going quietly about my business. Being married to a head-turner was going to take some getting used to. When we were leaving, our dean, a generous and open-minded man, seemed startled when Zack offered his hand, and he hesitated for a split second before taking it. I was going to have to get used to that too.

As we walked to our car, Zack gazed towards the park. “Hey, look at that,” he said. “You can see my apartment from here. Want to see the view from my balcony?”

“I’ve seen the view from your balcony,” I said.

“I’ll throw in lunch. We can order in from Peking House. Think about it – almond prawns, those silky sheets you like, and me. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

It was a fine afternoon. We ate, made love, napped, went down to the fitness centre in Zack’s building to work out, came back to the apartment, showered, and crawled back between the silky sheets. We were lying there, discussing how to spend the evening, when Glenda Parker called. In an instant, Zack’s mood shifted.

The news was not good. After he’d rung off, Zack rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Glenda’s worried about Sam,” he said. “The tension’s getting to him. No surprise there. I’ve spent my share of time in hotel rooms when a jury was out. All you do is stare at the wall and imagine the worst.”

I put my arms around him. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Have you got a magic wand?”

“No, but I do have a fireplace and a quiet house. Taylor’s having supper at Gracie’s. Why don’t you invite Sam and Glenda to come over for a couple of hours tonight? We could light a fire and have a drink. You said they like to play cribbage – it might be fun to play a few hands.”

The Parkers arrived at a little after seven. They brought some very good wine and some very good chocolate. Thoughtful guests, but it wasn’t the gifts that made me glad I’d invited them. The trial had clearly taken its toll on them both and their relief at being in a private home was poignant. As strained as he was, Sam was gracious. “This means a great deal to us, Joanne. I know you and Zack don’t have much time together.”

“We were together all today,” I said. “Besides, this is a treat for me. I’m a big Sam and Bev fan. I have all your records.”

Sam was incredulous. “Still?”

“You were one of the reasons I never threw out my record player.”

“I haven’t heard those songs in years.”

Glenda put her arm through her father’s. “It’d be fun to hear them again, wouldn’t it?”

Sam and Glenda exchanged glances. “Yes,” Sam said. “It would be fun.”

“It’s settled then,” I said. “Zack, why don’t you get everybody a drink, and I’ll bring down my record player.”

Except for the fact that nobody was smoking dope, the next hour was like many hours I’d spent when I was in university and Sam and Bev were the coolest thing on the Canadian music scene. The Parkers and Zack and I sat around the fire listening – really listening – to Sam and Bev. I had forgotten what a perfect blend their voices were: his was pure and oddly vulnerable; hers, husky and filled with power. As the artists who’d covered their songs had learned, the music of Sam and Bev resonated powerfully with a wide range of audiences, but for those of us who remembered the passionate certainty of the era that had forged them as artists, there was a special pleasure. Sam and Bev had been a mirror of what we hoped we were: idealistic, smart, world-changing.

Their eyes fixed on the fire, Sam and Glenda’s thoughts were their own, but after listening to her mother sing a particularly moving song about a child who gets lost at the fair, Glenda asked her father, “What happened to her?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. All I know is that what was best in Beverly and me found a place in you.”

After that, there didn’t seem to be much to say. We listened to the rest of the record, then we got out the cribbage board. The evening passed companionably – kibitzing about cards, making small talk, and laughing. More Ordinary Family Life, but the four of us were content. When they were leaving, Sam held out his hand to me, then, changing his mind, embraced me and leaned down and embraced Zack.

As I watched their taxi pull away, the tears came.

Zack shot me a worried look. “Hey, what’s that about?”

I fished around in my pocket for a tissue. “Weltschmertz,” I said. “Sorrow for the sadness of this world.”

Zack turned his chair back into the house. “Fair enough,” he said.

Given our city’s early snowfall, it seemed we were destined for a chilly Halloween, but the benevolent weather that had arrived the second week of the trial was staying with us, and the kids in my neighbourhood were buoyant with hope that this year their costumes wouldn’t be hidden by ski-jackets and snow-pants. I was feeling buoyant too. Zack had called that morning to say that the house inspection had been completed. Our new house had passed with flying colours, and the realtor was certain the offer we put in would be accepted. If I was interested, we could go over and start measuring. I didn’t have to be asked twice. As soon as Taylor left for school, Willie and I walked across the bridge and along the levee to our new house.

Zack was in the driveway when we got there. He handed me a jeweller’s box. Inside were two charms: one was a tiny castle; the other was a key. “The castle is supposed to be the Bessborough Hotel. There’s a date on there.”

“The date we decided to get married,” I said.

“The key is to everything – the house, the car, my heart, the place at the lake, the boat, the whole shebang.”

“That’s quite a shebang,” I said.

“Maybe, but I get you. Now let’s go in there and see what we need to do to turn this joint into our dream home.”

As Willie scrutinized this potentially challenging environment, his toenails made a clacking sound on the hardwood. The clacking was a good sign. Hardwood made Zack’s passage through the house easier. In terms of accessibility, we had been lucky in our choice. The new house was generously proportioned with doorways and hallways already wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair and flush thresholds. But as Zack continued to make notes on his BlackBerry, I became aware of how much we would have to change: there were his and her bathrooms off our bedroom. The bottom cabinet beneath the sink in Zack’s bathroom had to be removed to accommodate his chair and the sink traps and pipes had to be padded to keep his legs, which had no feeling, from being burned. A grab-bar and a shower seat with non-skid legs would have to be added to the bathroom. In the kitchen, counters would have to be lowered, doors put on sliding rails, and rollout shelves and lazy-susans added for all the cupboards. The list seemed daunting to me, but Zack shrugged it off. “We’ll get a good contractor and it’s November – people in the trades are happy to have work. The realtor said we’d be smart to go with a whole new kitchen – what do you think?”

“I’ve been wanting a whole new kitchen for twenty years.”

“That’s settled then,” Zack said. He held out his arms to me. Our kiss was passionate but awkward, as it often was between a standing person and one bound to a wheelchair. As usual, we both ended up laughing. “You know what we need in here,” Zack said. “A bed.”

“Let’s get one like the bed at the lake,” I said. “Lots of room and a good firm mattress. Where did you buy it?”

“Beats me,” Zack said, “But Norine will know.” He flipped open his phone and dialed Norine’s number. His greeting was high-spirited, but within seconds the joy drained from his voice. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call Sam. Thanks.” I knew without asking that the verdict was in. It was soon – too soon. The consensus had been that there’d be no decision until at least the middle of the week.

Zack was already calling Sam’s room at the hotel. “No answer,” he said. “They’re probably swimming. Jo, I’ve got to get downtown.”

“Okay,” I said. I was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, but as luck would have it, I’d put on my best jacket, and Zack’s cashmere scarf had been in the jacket pocket. The camera would shoot me from the waist up. “Let’s drop Willie off, and I’ll come with you.” I read the anxiety in his face. “Is this necessarily bad news?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been through this more times than I want to remember, but it’s never easy. You get close to people during a trial, and Sam and Glenda were worth getting close to.”

During our time together, I had never seen Zack park his car in the space reserved for the handicapped, but that day at the courthouse, he drove into it without comment. We were rushed, but we weren’t the only ones who’d been caught off guard.

As Zack disappeared down the corridor to get ready for court, Garth Severight was right behind him, shrugging into his barrister’s robe. Not long afterwards, Sam and Glenda came through the front door. Sam was wearing a three-piece suit; Glenda was in slacks, a shirt, and a jacket. Both had damp hair. Zack had been right about the call catching them during their morning swim.

I slipped into my place in the media section and waited. The air was tense, but the protocol that governed the delivery of the verdict was low-key. The jury filed in. Zack and Garth both turned towards them, then having seen enough, turned away.

The court clerk’s voice was mechanical. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?”

The jury foreperson stood. There were no flowers in her hair today. Her thick mane was braided and twisted into a neat chignon at her nape, and she had traded her granny gown for a sensible black wool dress. I tried to decide what her newly conservative clothes choice augured for Sam. I didn’t have long to ponder. There was no theatrical pause for effect. In a voice as flat as that of the court clerk, the fore-person stated that the jury had agreed upon a verdict.

The court clerk read his lines: “How say you? Do you find the accused guilty or not guilty on the charge of attempted murder?”

Zack and Glenda were stoic, but Sam, surprisingly, had lost his composure. As he stood to hear his fate, he looked grey and unwell. The jury foreperson looked neither to the left nor the right. “We find the accused not guilty,” she said.

I found myself almost insanely relieved. Sam and Glenda Parker held each other for a moment, then both leaned over to embrace Zack in his chair. Zack grinned, turned to catch my eye, then moved towards Garth Severight’s table. The men exchanged a few words, then Zack headed for the exit with the Parkers. Charlie Dowhanuik and the Too Much Hope kids stood to follow them out of the courtroom. Krissy Treadgold was back. Looking more Alice-like than ever, she was dressed in a filmy blouse and her blonde hair was tied back in a large velvet bow. She was still wearing her hospital bracelet. Charlie turned towards me and raised his arms in a sign of victory.

Suddenly exhausted, I threaded my way through the melee. By the time I got to the foyer, Zack had taken off his robe, and Sean, the ever-obliging associate, was at his side. He handed Zack and his clients their coats, then provided a wedge to get them through the crush towards the area on the courthouse steps for the inevitable media scrum.

I put on my jacket, raised my eyes one last time to the mural of justice in the foyer, and left through the double doors. The whole sequence took less than five minutes. By the time I walked onto the portico, Sam and Glenda Parker were accepting congratulations and Zack was fielding questions from the press that had closed in on them. I crossed the courthouse steps and overheard Garth Severight trotting out a maxim that was both ancient and true: “The Crown never wins or loses. The Crown’s job is to see that justice is done.”

The temperature was a chilly ten degrees, but the atmosphere was warmed by the giddy heat of victory. Against all odds, the defence had triumphed. When Sam Parker appeared to slip and fall into Zack’s chair, the moment seemed one more instance of the dizziness that affected us all. Grinning, Zack stretched to catch him, and there was laughter and an impromptu scattering of applause. Glenda reached over to help her father up. She was smiling, but as she saw his face, her smile froze.

“Call 911,” she said. “And somebody help me get him inside.” A police officer who’d been detailed to prevent any incidents when the verdict was delivered stepped forward, took one look, made a call, and then moved Sam from the snowy steps. Zack pushed his way back into the building. There was a crush to get inside, but whether from respect or some sort of atavistic fear, we all kept our distance from the stricken man lying on a blanket spread on the marble floor of the foyer. Glenda knelt beside her father, holding his hand and murmuring reassurances. Finally, the EMS people arrived, strapped Sam Parker onto a stretcher, and carried him to the waiting ambulance. Above us, in his majestic red robes, the God of Laws held aloft the arms of the balance of right and wrong. I glanced at my watch. It was 11:15.

CHAPTER

11

Sam Parker’s collapse set in motion a series of aftershocks that exposed fault lines in many lives, mine included. But in those first moments, all any of us could do was react to this sudden and devastating fracture in the order of things.

Zack was hyper-alert. “Let’s get down to the hospital. Glenda shouldn’t be alone.”

“Give me the keys,” I said. “I’ll bring the car around.” But as I started down the stairs in front of the courthouse, Randy, the cameraman from NationTV, grabbed my arm. “Give us five minutes, Joanne,” he said. “You were standing right next to Sam Parker. Rapti will want something.”

Zack was close enough to overhear the exchange.

“Do what you have to do,” he said.

“I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can,” I said.

I walked over to my usual place on the courthouse steps, clipped on my lapel mike, and watched Randy set up. When he signalled me to go ahead, my hands were shaking. I jammed them in my jacket pockets and began to speak. My voice was reassuringly steady and by the time I’d finished my standup, I felt stronger, restored by the experience of doing an accustomed job. Randy offered me a lift in the NationTV van and I took it. He dropped me off at the main entrance to the hospital, and I made my way through the cluster of smokers shivering outside in their blue hospital robes, crossed the lobby, and headed for Emergency.

Zack and Glenda were in the waiting room.

“How’s Sam doing?” I asked.

“They’re moving him to Intensive Care,” Glenda said, her voice small and strained.

“Has anyone called your mother?” I asked.

Zack moved his chair closer to Glenda. “You have enough to deal with,” he said. “I’ll make the call.”

Glenda shook her head. “I should be the one to tell her.” She reached for her cell.

“Probably best to use a land line here,” I said. “There’s a pay phone over there by the door.”

Zack and I watched Glenda walk to the pay phone, then steel herself to call her mother. I didn’t need to hear Beverly’s side of the conversation to know that Glenda was getting a tongue-lashing. When she came back, Glenda was pale. “My mother says it’s all my fault.”

Zack and I both started to offer reassurance. Glenda waved us off. “Don’t worry about it,” she said wearily. “My mother has been blaming me for everything since I told her I was a girl.”

The physician who approached us was a tall, no-nonsense woman whose hospital badge identified her as Roses Stewart. Certain that the name must be Rose, I checked again, but that whimsical final s was no mistake. There was a romantic in Dr. Stewart’s past.

“Are you Sam Parker’s family?” she asked.

“I’m his daughter,” Glenda said.

“It might be best if we sat down,” the doctor said.

Television has taught us all to read the signals of tragedy. Glenda closed her eyes, shutting out the messenger. “He’s dead,” she said quietly.

The sorrow on the doctor’s face was real. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We did everything that could have been done. It was simply too late.”

Glenda nodded numbly. “Can I see him?”

“Of course,” the doctor said. “But why not wait till we get some of the tubes and wires out of the way.”

“No,” Glenda said, tilting her chin. “I want to see him now.”

“All right,” Dr. Stewart said. “Come with me.”

After they disappeared down the corridor, Zack uttered an expletive.

I rubbed the back of his neck. “You should call Beverly,” I said. “It would be cruel to let her show up here thinking there’s still hope.”

“You’re right,” Zack said. “Although I wish you weren’t.” He wheeled towards the nursing station. As he talked to Beverly, I could see him fighting anger. When he came back, he was coldly furious. “Grief has not softened Beverly’s heart,” he said. “She’ll be here in an hour, and she wants me to make certain that Glenda is nowhere around. To quote the lady, ‘I don’t want Sam’s death to turn into a freak show.’ ”

“What did you say?”

“My first impulse was to tell the widow to go fuck herself, but then I thought about Sam. His family life was complicated, but he loved his wife and he loved his daughter. Anyway, I told Beverly I’d get Glenda out of the way.”

“Glenda won’t object,” I said. “When she comes back, she and I can get a cab and go back to my place.”

Having deferred the meeting of the Parker women, Zack and I sat back to wait … and wait. When Zack checked his watch and realized Glenda had been gone half an hour, he narrowed his eyes. “Maybe somebody should get her out of there,” he said. “This is getting a little weird.”

As if she’d read his mind, Dr. Roses Stewart strode through the doors from Intensive Care. She seemed surprised to see us in the waiting room. “Glenda left twenty minutes ago,” she said. “She only stayed with her father for a few minutes. I apologize. Someone should have told you.”

“It’s a crazy day,” Zack said simply. “But I could use your help. There will be media people downstairs wanting answers. Is there someone who can give them the facts and get them the hell out of here? Mrs. Parker is coming to the hospital straight from the airport. She shouldn’t have to deal with the press.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Dr. Stewart said. The three of us were silent as we took the elevator to the main floor. But as the door opened, Dr. Stewart turned towards us.

“I’d just heard the verdict when they brought Mr. Parker in,” she said. “All the time I was working on him, I kept thinking how relieved he must have been to know he was a free man.”

The press had been shepherded into a boardroom on the main floor. Dr. Stewart’s announcement was brief. She gave the time and cause of death, and said there was no point asking questions because she had no answers. Then she walked out of the room. The press spotted Zack and when they redirected their energies to him, he followed the doctor’s lead and told everyone he had nothing to say, so they might as well go home. There was grumbling, but with no reason to stay, people left. When the boardroom had emptied, Zack rubbed his forehead. “Jesus, Jo. I’m going through the motions, but I really can’t believe any of this.”

I could see the sorrow gathering. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s blow this pop stand. There’s a Robin’s Donuts down the hall. We can have a cup of coffee and be back in the waiting room at Intensive Care by the time Beverly arrives.”

The hospital’s Robin’s was called The Heartbeat Café – a questionable choice for a place that pushed caffeine, sugar, carbs, and grease, but in every other way it was identical to its sister stores in the franchise: metal tables and chairs, perky servers in brown and orange uniforms. Zack peered gloomily at the displays that featured every conceivable permutation and combination of fried dough and glaze, then turned to me. “Why don’t they serve martinis here?”

“No initiative,” I said.

“They’re missing a bet. Life’s lousiest moments call for something more than coffee, and right now you and I are three for three: Sam’s dead, Glenda has vamoosed, and Beverly’s on her way.”

I picked up our coffee and followed Zack to a table.

“Do you want me to stay when Beverly comes?”

Zack sipped his coffee. “No. You’d probably feel compelled to kill her, and I don’t think I can handle any more complexities today.”

“Is she that bad?”

“Worse. She talks about Jesus so much you think he’ll be dropping by for lunch, but Beverly’s Lord wouldn’t be a lot of yucks. He’s pretty heavily into abominations and transgressions.”

“It’s hard to believe someone could change so much,” I said. “Last night when I heard that funny little twang in her voice, I remembered how much she and Sam meant to me. When I listened to them, I really believed we were the generation that could make a better world.”

“Beverly made herself a better world,” Zack said. “Can’t blame her for the fact that the poor and downtrodden didn’t know how to pick their investment counsellors.”

We finished our coffee and said our goodbyes. Zack went to the front door with me and waited till I got a taxi.

When I got home, I went straight to our family room. The crib board and cards were still on the table. Sam had given the cards a double shuffle before he slid them back into their case. “Luck for the next player,” he explained. Despite everything I felt a rush of gratitude. Out of nowhere, an old Dr. Seuss line came into my mind: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” I picked up the jacket of the LP on the turnstile. The album was called Skylarking and the photo on the cover was poignant: Sam and Bev, young, lithe, and exuberant, were frolicking on the rigging of a sloop. The sail of the sloop was billowing and the sky above was cloudless and impossibly blue. Nothing but good times ahead.

Seconds later, the phone rang again. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Luckily, she identified herself.

“Joanne, it’s Kathryn Morrissey. I wondered if I could come by and talk to you for a few minutes. I need your help.”

I was livid. “You really are a piece of work. Sam’s body is still at the hospital and you’re already lining up interviews.”

There was a silence. “I didn’t know he died,” Kathryn said.

“Well, he did – about an hour ago. He had a massive coronary, and it killed him. Find a radio. You can hear all about it.”

“You sound as if you think that somehow Sam Parker’s death is my fault.”

“Kathryn, do you have any idea of the impact Too Much Hope had on Sam’s life?”

“Sam Parker died of a heart attack, Joanne. You said so yourself. A heart attack is nobody’s fault. It just happens.”

“My God, Kathryn. What kind of human being are you?”

“What kind of human being are you, Joanne? I told you I need help. Can’t we at least talk?”

“No,” I said. “We can’t. Smarter people than me have fallen for your line, but I have the advantage of hindsight. I know what you do to people who trust you. I have nothing to say to you, Kathryn. Not now. Not ever. So, do us both a favour – delete my name from your address book.”

As I always did after I’d lost my temper, I felt better for thirty seconds and then infinitely worse. But as depleted and ashamed as I felt, I wasn’t ready for a rematch with Kathryn. When the phone rang again, I checked call display before I answered. It was Jill Oziowy.

“Quite a day for you, huh?”

“Zack and I were with Glenda when the doctor told her Sam was dead.”

“God, that must have been miserable.”

“It was. And then to add to the misery, I just had a call from Kathryn Morrissey.”

Suddenly Jill was all business. “What did she want?”

“She wanted to talk. She said she needed my help.”

“Perfect. We’re doing a piece on the life and death of Sam Parker on Canadian Morning. Call Kathryn back and ask her to meet you at the studio tonight. I’ll get Rafti to set it up. We can add your interview to the piece.”

“Jill, Sam Parker died today. If you want to talk to Kathryn, call her yourself. I’m not playing any more, and I told her that.”

“Mary, Mother of God, why would you do that?”

“Because, in the words of the sage, ‘There is some shit I will not eat.’ ”

Jill’s tone was cutting. “So while you stay lily pure, Kathryn is already on the phone with another network arranging her first live interview about the Sam Parker case. Christ, Jo, how dumb can you be?”

“Apparently very dumb,” I said. “I thought you shared my opinion of Too Much Hope.”

“That’s personal. This is professional. Your boyfriend would understand.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you might to want to take a look at how Zack Shreve operates. He knows that when you’ve got a job to do, principles get in the way.”

“Okay. Time to shut it down. You’re talking about the man I’m going to marry. No more slams. Got it?”

“Yes, I’ve got it,” she said. “I assume you’ll still do the Canadian Morning spot.”

“Have Rapti call with a time,” I said. “But, Jill, I really liked Sam. Don’t expect me to be impartial.”

“I’m sure Kathryn Morrissey’s interview with the competition will balance things out,” Jill said acidly. Then she slammed down the phone. It seemed our friendship was about to become another casualty of Kathryn Morrissey’s ambition. I wanted to cry. Instead, I went into the kitchen and made a pitcher of martinis. Zack had taught me his recipe – Citadelle Gin, enough Noilly Prat to round out the sharpness of the gin, and ice. I put the pitcher and two glasses in the fridge, arranged cheese and crackers on a plate, filled a bowl with more olives, then made up the hide-a-bed in the family room. When Zack arrived, I handed him a martini at the door.

He grinned. “Hey, aren’t you supposed be naked and wrapped in Saran Wrap when you do that?”

“I’m out of Saran Wrap.”

“Naked would have been okay.” He sipped his martini. “Oh God, that’s good. Come here.” He kissed me. “You’re good, but the world is an awful place.”

“I take it your encounter with Beverly didn’t go well.”

He handed me his martini and pointed his chair towards the kitchen “All Mrs. P cared about was ‘maintaining dignity,’ which meant keeping Glenda away from the press, and the size of my bill – which, incidentally, grew every time she opened her yap.” Zack cut a piece of Oka and wolfed it. “This is just what I needed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’ll make it up to you. How are you doing?”

“Not great,” I said. “But hanging in. I had a phone call from Kathryn Morrissey.”

“Whoa. What was on her mind?”

“She wanted to talk – said she needed my help.”

“I’m guessing some publisher has offered her a bundle to write about the Sam Parker trial.”

“That was my thought too,” I said.

Zack popped an olive in his mouth. “So what did you tell her?”

“I told her I had nothing to say and she could delete my name from her address book.”

“That sounds final.”

“I hope so. If I never see the woman again it will be too soon.”

“Moi aussi. Hey, one piece of good news. Glenda got in touch. She left a message at the office, apologizing for running off. She said she just needed to be alone. I understand the impulse. I feel like someone’s peeled the skin off me.”

“Is the martini helping?”

“Yes. So is the food. So is being with you.”

“I’ve got the daybed made up. When we’re finished our drink, I thought we could unplug the phone and take a nap.”

Zack’s eyes widened. “That is the best idea. Let’s go.”

The day of the party the girls had covered the windows in the family room with pale green tissue paper and fixed huge construction paper talons and beaks against them. Taylor had been so taken with the effect that she’d asked if she could leave the decorations up till Halloween. The afternoon light straining to come through the green tissue paper gave the room an unearthly glow. Zack took it in and nodded approvingly. “Sealed off from the world with giant birds to guard us,” he said. “Let’s stay in here forever.” We took off our clothes, fell into each other’s arms, and slept.

Two hours in the comforting proximity of a lover was therapeutic. By the time Taylor, Gracie, and Isobel came home to get ready to go trick-or-treating, the daybed was up and we were dealing with life. Zack was back at the office, and I was sitting at the table with my laptop, running through the Sam Parker file.

The girls and I ate dinner early. By the time we rinsed the dishes, the first small trick-or-treaters were at the door. I took my place by the bowl of candy and the girls went upstairs to get ready.

The triplets outfits Isobel, Gracie, and Taylor had worn at their party had been a hit, but everyone had seen them. Tonight the members of the trio were going out as cheerleaders. Taylor and I had had a discussion about the wisdom of girls their age going out at all. The innocence of an early Halloween evening had a way of souring when the hour grew late and only unaccompanied adolescents roamed the streets. But Taylor had pointed out, sensibly enough, that she would be with Gracie and Isobel, and I had asked her to promise to be home by 9:30 p.m. It had been a compromise, and when the three girls came downstairs in their cheerleading outfits, I was glad I’d caved. With their pompoms, pleated skirts, and heavy sweaters, they looked very 1950s and very cute. I got out the camera and shot enough Kodak moments to satisfy even me.

Given everything, it was good to be distracted by the repeated ringing of the doorbell, and the appearance of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night. Willie wasn’t impressed by our string of visitors, but I was, and when the phone rang, I was feeling mellow enough to try a seasonal greeting. “Happy Halloween.”

“Happy Halloween to you too, Jo,” my son-in-law said. “How’s everything in the Queen City?”

“I guess you heard the news about Sam,” I said.

“Yes, I did. I’m sorry. I know you and Zack liked him.”

“Yes we did. Very much. Anyway, is everything okay with you?”

“Well, I’m looking at two tired, happy little girls whose Halloween bags are bulging with candy. So that part of our lives is fine. I was just calling to check on Mieka.”

“On Mieka?”

“Isn’t she there?”

“No. Why would she be here?”

“She said she needed to make a quick trip to Regina. She took off about five o’clock this afternoon.”

“Are you sure she was coming to my house?”

Greg sounded distracted, as if he was reconstructing the scene. “I guess I just assumed that’s where she was going. After we heard the bulletin on the radio about Parker’s death, Mieka got a phone call. She said something like, ‘Don’t do anything, I’ll be right there.’ Then she told me the girls’ Halloween costumes were laid out on their beds and asked if I’d mind taking them around. I filled in the blanks and assumed you were the person on the other end of the line.”

“And you didn’t ask Mieka why she was coming to Regina?”

“No, she said she’d be back tomorrow morning.” He paused. “Jo, the truth is, Mieka and I are walking on eggshells these days. I didn’t want to start anything.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why? You weren’t the one who called. My guess is it was Charlie, the bottomless pit of unmet needs. Do you happen to have his number?”

I gave my son-in-law the number, hung up, and began to fret. I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I was surprised when I heard Taylor come in. I looked at my watch. By my reckoning, she still had half an hour to howl. I called out hello and waited for her to do what she did every Halloween: dump her candy on the kitchen table and give me a blow-by-blow of the evening’s events while she sorted her treats into piles on the basis of their desirability. But tonight, my younger daughter just said hi and headed for her room.

“Hey wait,” I said. I followed her upstairs to the landing. “How was your evening?”

She sat on the top step and flopped her pompoms listlessly back and forth. “It was good until Ethan caught up with us.”

“What happened?”

She sighed. “Nothing happened, Ethan was just way too intense. He made everybody so uncomfortable they just went home.”

“Leaving you alone with Ethan.”

Taylor nodded numbly. “And then things got really weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Ethan was just different than he usually is. For one thing, he’s stopped wearing his pentangle, and that was, like, the most important thing in his life.”

“Did he say why he’d stopped wearing it?”

“Just that he didn’t believe in it any more. He said the pentangle was just a piece of junk.”

“Something must have happened,” I said.

“Ethan wants to run away, and he wants me to go with him.” Taylor’s voice broke. “All I ever wanted to do was be his friend.”

“I know.” I put my arm around her and was struck again at the delicacy of her bones. She was still a little girl. “Why don’t you give me those pompoms and go up and have a shower. I’ll make us some tea.”

Beneath their turquoise eyeshadow, my daughter’s eyes were troubled. “Maybe you should talk to Ethan’s mum.”

“I’ll call her tomorrow,” I said. “Now, jump in the shower. When you get out, I’ll have your bed turned down, and the tea will be ready.”

I’d just finished warming the pot when Mieka phoned. “Mum, I just got off the phone with Greg. I know I should have called before, but to be honest I was hoping I could get in and out of town without bothering you. I figured you had enough on your plate.”

“Thanks for the consideration,” I said. “But since I know you’re here, you might as well fill me in.”

“Charlie had a crisis,” Mieka said. “Peter called me this afternoon. Apparently, when he heard that Sam Parker died, Charlie went a little nuts.”

“As Zack says, the hits just keep on coming. So what happened with Charlie?”

“He thought Kathryn Morrissey was responsible for Sam’s death, and he wanted to punish her.”

“You mean physically?”

Mieka’s voice was tight. “We’re handling it, Mum. Pete and I’ve always been able to bring Charlie down. It’s going to be fine. Anyway, I love you. And for once in your life, don’t worry.”

“Easier said than done,” I said. “But I’m glad you and Pete are there, Mieka. Charlie’s always better when you’re around.”

Mieka laughed softly. “Believe it or not, it goes both ways. I’ll call you when I get home.”

The morning of All Saints’ Day was grey and misty. Taylor came down to breakfast wearing her favourite outfit: a pink shirt, jeans with pink appliquéd hearts on the pockets, and a matching jeans jacket.

“Looking swish,” I said.

She poured herself a glass of juice. “I don’t feel swish, but I thought I could at least look good.”

I smiled at her. “One of the great lessons of life: fake it until you make it.”

“I have an early rehearsal for our Remembrance Day program,” she said. “Any chance I could get a ride to school?”

“Sure, what time do you have to be there?”

“Eight-thirty,” she said.

“No problem,” I said. “My spot on Canadian Morning is in twenty minutes. Zack’s going to drive me. We’re planning to go over to the new house after I finish, but we can swing by here and take you to school first.” I looked at her carefully. “Taylor, do you want a ride because you’re afraid of running into Ethan?”

She lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

“This has gone far enough,” I said. “I’ll call Ethan’s mum this morning.”

Taylor looked unconvinced. I put my arms around her. “It’s not always like this between girls and boys,” I said. “Most of the time, it’s a lot of fun. Look at me. I ended up with the big sparkly top banana.”

My big sparkly top banana followed me into makeup when we got to NationTV. It was comforting to have him nearby sipping coffee and making small talk with the young man who was spraying my hair and correcting my lip line as Canadian Morning played mutely on the TV in the corner. My cell rang just as I was getting out of the makeup chair.

“Where are you?” Jill said.

“Where I’m supposed to be,” I said. “Just getting out of the makeup chair, heading for the set.”

Jill sighed. “Jo, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For hanging up on you. For second-guessing you. For slagging you. For slagging the man you’re going to marry. For being a lousy friend. Is that enough?”

“It’s a start,” I said.

“I’ll call you after the show and continue to abase myself. Oh, one good thing. Kathryn Morrissey was supposed to be on Canada A.M. this morning, but she was a no-show. The host was stuck talking to an old lady with a narcoleptic dog.”

Rapti did a nice job producing the Sam Parker segment. There was a two-minute reprise of the trial; then Max Chan, the host of Canadian Morning, and I talked about Sam Parker. Max was a fine interviewer – quick and sensitive. Our discussion about how Glenda Parker’s personal crucible had caused Sam Parker to re-evaluate his stance on cultural issues was good television. Zack was in the studio with me, and when I finished, he gave me the thumbs-up sign.

When Zack and I dropped Taylor off at school, I watched until she waved from the door and disappeared inside; then Zack and I drove towards the new house. We’d just pulled into the driveway when my cell rang. I looked at the caller ID and cursed technology. The number was Howard Dowhanuik’s. Guilt made me pick up. I’d left messages at Howard’s, but I hadn’t seen him since the trial ended.

As always with Howard, there was no preamble. “There’s some trouble here,” he said.

“What kind of trouble?”

Howard tried his usual tone of sharp command. “Just get over here.”

“Not good enough, Howard. I haven’t heard from you in days. I have a life of my own. If you want me to come over, I’ll need a reason.”

“Jo, I need you to come and I need you to bring Zachary Shreve. I need help.”

“Howard, what’s happened?”

His tone changed. “Please just come to my house. I need a friend and I need a lawyer.”

CHAPTER

12

Zack’s notoriety and the fact that he was in a wheelchair were useful that morning. By the time we approached the entrance to the cul-de-sac where Howard lived, the police barricades were already up, and people in uniforms were moving purposefully over the careful landscaping, festooning shrubs with yellow crime-scene tape, snapping pictures, dropping samples into plastic bags. Most of the attention was centred on Kathryn Morrissey’s condominium. An EMS vehicle was parked in her driveway, but the emergency lights were not flashing. Zack angled his car beside a police cruiser, opened his door, and turned to the back seat to get his chair. My heart was racing. A young officer came over.

“So what’s going on?” Zack asked.

A flash of recognition crossed the young cop’s face. He knew who Zack was, and he knew what Zack did for a living. Keeping a trial lawyer on the other side of the barricade would be a pleasure.

“Police business,” the officer said.

Zack unfolded his chair and manoeuvred himself into it. “Fair enough,” he said equitably. He pointed to Howard’s house. “I have lawyer business over there, and I’d be grateful if you lifted your barricade for a moment so I can get my chair through.”

The officer clenched his jaw, but he moved the barrier and let us pass.

Howard met us at the door. I was relieved to see that he was both clean and sober. The stitches on his face had healed sufficiently to allow a proper shave, and his shirt and slacks were fresh. The living-room curtains were drawn, but the televisions were silent, and there was nary a glass nor a bottle in sight. The place smelled pleasantly of woodsmoke, but when I glanced at the fireplace, I saw that in his frenzy of housekeeping, Howard had even vacuumed up the ashes from his fire.

Howard extended his hand to Zack. “Thanks for coming,” he said. Then, surprisingly, he extended his hand to me. “You too. I appreciate it.”

“So what’s happening?” Zack said.

Howard’s narrative style had the finesse of a drill sergeant’s. “Somebody died next door.”

“Was it Kathryn Morrissey?” I asked.

Howard nodded.

I felt my stomach clutch. Zack and I exchanged glances. “So what’s my role here?” Zack said.

“It’s no secret that the lady and I didn’t get along, and Kathryn Morrissey was murdered.”

Zack put his hand up in a halt gesture. “Stop right there. For one thing, Joanne’s in the room, and lawyer-client privilege won’t extend to her. For another, I don’t know what your involvement is, but if you’re in deep, there are a number of reasons why you’d get better representation from someone other than me. I can give you a name.”

“Let’s hear it,” Howard said.

“Margot Wright. She’s an excellent trial lawyer and given that the victim is female and you’re male, Margot’s your best option. Do you want me to make the call?”

Howard nodded.

Zack picked up his cell, and within minutes it was settled. Howard asked us to stay until Margot arrived, then, in a gesture that was unprecedented when there was a woman around, he went into the kitchen to make coffee.

I went to Zack and rested my hands on his shoulders. “I’m glad you suggested another lawyer.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Even if it was Margot?”

“Even if it was Margot.”

“Good, because to be honest, I haven’t got the stomach for this one. Usually, I get a real rush when I smell a red-meat case, but not this time. I know too much, and everything I know makes me sad.”

“Me too,” I said. “So we’ll introduce Howard and Margot and go back to our measuring?”

“Let’s give it a shot. I’d rather watch our house take shape than spend fourteen hours a day working on a murder case.”

“I can’t believe those words are coming out of your mouth.”

“Neither can I,” he said. “I guess the Statue of Liberty is inching towards Lake Ontario, after all.”

Howard came back with a pot of coffee – real coffee on a tray, a carton of half-and-half, a bowl of sugar, and four mugs that appeared to be clean. Then he went to the window and threw open the drapes. “Nobody’s going to tell us what’s happening. We’re going to have to find out for ourselves.”