Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  "You're late!" the judge snapped.

  "Sorry, My Lord. I worked all night and lost track of time."

  Colefax turned to the witness. "You're still under oath."

  Nervously clutching disheveled notes, Wilde began, "You were telling Mr. Foot about being forced to dance with the broom. Then what happened?"

  "That one"—he pointed—"grabbed the broom from me and rammed it up my rectum."

  The jury jumped.

  "Pardon," Wilde said meekly. "I didn't hear."

  The witness raised his voice. "That one took the broom and shoved it up my rectum. Then he ran me around the clubhouse on the stick."

  The jury jumped again.

  Wilde dropped his notes.

  Gathering them up, he mumbled distractedly, "Where was I? Oh, yes. The dance with the broom. Then what happened?"

  "The gang laughed when that one jammed the—"

  "Really, My Lord!" Fat Fred's counsel was on his feet. "He's belaboring the point."

  "What point?" said Wilde.

  "The point about my client shoving the broom into his anus."

  The jury jumped.

  "I am not belaboring the broompole rammed into his ass."

  "Mr. Wilde," the judge said. "I'm sure we've all heard quite enough about the broompole inserted in this man's private parts."

  The jury flinched.

  "Get on with it."

  "Yes, My Lord. Now after Fat Fred jammed the broom into your rectum and all the others laughed . . ."

  By the time the jury retired for coffee, they were clenched so tight they squeaked as they walked. The act with the broom had been described not only by Wilde and the witness, but also by defense counsel and the judge. It was as if they all accepted it as fact. Young Lyndon Wilde struggled on as best he could, outgunned by nine lawyers so slick they qualified as slugs. The gang was laughing and sniggering at him, unaware the jury felt the bikers were mocking them. The judge was now leaning toward the Crown to balance the case. And the witness, pissed off, was growing stronger on the stand with each question asked.

  It was a performance worth fifteen years in jail.

  Earning Wilde the nickname "Broompole." for taking a losing case and ramming it up the outfinessed rear of nine defense counsel.

  After convicting the biker gang, Wilde returned to his office at Foot, Peabody, and Strong. For his call, his parents had bought him a huge mahogany desk. With a Swiss Army knife, Lyndon carved a notch into the underside.

  Twenty-six years had passed since then. The firm was now Strong, Wilde, and Finch. The underside of that desk had hundreds of notches, and though the old system of hiring Assize Court Crown counsel from the private bar was long gone, a vestige from those days remained. If the case was too big or too hot or too politi-

  cal for Crown minions to handle, the call went out for Lyndon Wilde QC.

  Like this case.

  Last week the Crown had feted Wilde with a roast, as good an excuse as any to tie one on. The barbs were flying thick and fast when a drunk asked "Broompole of the Bailey" for his epitaph. Slowly drawing the Havana from his grinning lips, Wilde outlined a tombstone with the burning end. "Lyndon Wilde QC," he intoned, hushing the room. "Any Crown worth silk can convict the guilty. But it takes a hell of a lawyer to convict an innocent man."

  The prosecutors howled.

  They thought he was joking.

  He wasn't.

  For Lyndon Wilde QC, winning was everything.

  "Corporal Kidd," said Broompole, approaching the witness stand. "I show you a garment in a plastic bag. Do you recognize it?"

  "Yes, it's the one I seized on December eighth of last year. Here's my signature on the exhibit tag."

  "My Lady," said Wilde, turning to Hatchett. "Might this be marked an exhibit in the trial?"

  "So ordered," said the judge. "Exhibit twenty-three."

  The lawyer turned back to the Mountie, who wore Red Serge. "Please tell her ladyship and the jury how you came to make this seizure, Corporal. . . .

  THE KNIFE

  Vancouver

  Wednesday, December 8, 1993

  "You look beat." "I am." "Zinc^-" "I know, Alex. 'Avoid sleeplessness. And never—I re-

  peat never —miss taking your drugs.' That's why I'm home. Wake me at four?"

  He left her working at her desk in the writing den of the house they leased, editing Deadman's Island: The Case of Skull & Crossbones, and wandered to the bedroom to change for sleep. In his pajamas, he fetched a glass of water from the bathroom en suite, then returned, sat on the bed, and opened the night table drawer. Reaching for the vial of Dilantin, his antiepi-lepsy drug, Zinc spied the knife at the back of the drawer.

  Hefting Pop's knife in his hand brought memories flooding back.

  When he was a kid on the prairies, all cream soda was red . . . till Pop took him and his brother Tom to the Calgary Stampede. Back then, the Stampede was the real McCoy, not the glitz and schlock hyped today. Get off a plane and you were given a white Stetson hat, now you'd be lucky to get a smile. Bales of hay and log palisades appeared in shops, while cowpoke and dude alike dressed for the range. Flapjacks for breakfast were served free in the streets, streets blocked impromptu for square dancing by whites or tribal dances by Blackfoot, Blood, Sarcee, and Peigan. Wild cow milking or bucking broncs, Roman racing astride two steeds, bulldogging steers or roping calves, it was the Wild West going, going, gone. The bets were fast and furious for chuck wagons to win, a figure eight around barrels while outriders threw in the stove, the race on around the track as hooves and hats flew, Zinc, Tom, and Pop in the stands with Gene Autry sipping soda pops.

  Calgary Cream Soda was crystal clear.

  Like 7UP with vanilla taste.

  That was the second-best day Zinc ever spent with Pop, Pop becoming the sort of dad he willed him to be, not a drunk and his sons, but three kids at the rodeo. On the final day, at a Western store, with Zinc sipping pop and a case of Calgary Cream Soda in the truck, Pop bought hunting knives for both boys.

  "Man ain't a man without a knife," he said.

  Zinc glanced at the knife belted on Pop's hip, the sheath for the blade a good eight inches long, the stag

  horn handle finger-polished from use, then proudly held up his knife, the happiest "man" in the world. On their return to Saskatchewan, Pop trained the boys on a backwoods trek, showing his sons how to paddle a birch-bark canoe, teaching them survival in the bush, coureurs de bois and voyageurs in the Chandler past. Disney's Davy Crockett was the mania of the year, so Zinc and Tom had coonskin caps.

  Late the first day, they camped by the lake. "Tom, gather wood for a fire," Pop said. "Zinc, go cut sticks for a wiener roast. Greener the better, then they won't burn."

  Alone in the woods like Davy, Zinc the Frontiersman threw his knife at a tree. A grin lit his face when the point stuck in the trunk. A frown replaced it when he wrenched the blade out sideways and snapped off the tip. Popll kill me, he thought, for Pop's belt enforced respect for property.

  They sat around the fire with hot dogs to roast. "We're gonna starve if you don't strip those sticks," Pop said. Zinc was out of excuses for not drawing his knife. Slowly, he withdrew it from the sheath at his waist

  "Lemme see that!"

  Zinc passed Pop the broken blade.

  Pop held the damaged knife out against the bonfire sparks. Zinc had been warned: "Lose it and it won't be replaced." Eyes that could read a forest glaring at his son, Pop growled "Shoddy work!" with contempt. Zinc was sure the comment referred to him, then Pop unbelted his own knife and handed it to his son. "Whatever the job," Pop said, "this will see it done."

  Stripping sticks, Zinc felt as if Jim Bowie of the Alamo had bequeathed his knife.

  That was the best day he ever spent with Pop.

  Now, three decades and a bit later, Zinc replaced the knife in the drawer and went to sleep.

  If only he knew how important to him Pop's knife would be.

  "Zinc." "Uh."

>   "Wake up. Four o'clock." She kissed him on the forehead while he opened his

  5. In the dreamworld of awaking, fragments of memory crossed his mind. . . .

  Of those who came off Deadman's Island alive. Katt was cut by the Ripper's knife. Alex suffered a broken leg. and Zinc was stabbed in the back.

  Alex Hunt. The plane to that island. Love at first sight . . .

  Barely visible through the rain was Vancouver's do-n core. Huddled like a waif at its feet was the shack of Thunderbird Charters. From the shack to the plane on the water stretched a gan^ / hundred-foot dock.

  The woman sea-legging down the gangplanks struggled against the storm, suitcase in one hand, umbrella opposite bucking the wind to block sheets of rain. She wore a black tight-waisted top over black jeans tucked into black cowboy boots, and a black trenchcoat flapped about her like Dracula's cape. Blond hair pulled back in a ponytail held by silver heart-shaped clips, wayward strands snake-danced about her face, masking it. bearing the plane, she looked up, and Zincs heart was gone.

  Eyes the hue of Caribbean lagoons.

  Narrow, delicate chin around a kissable mouth.

  Fine-boned nose just the right length.

  But how she moved, this ballerina, was what captured him.

  Grace under fire.

  The quest of his dreams.

  Zinc touched the indent in his forehead, subconsciously hiding it.

  He wished — God how he wished — he was the man he once had been.

  So he might stand a chance with her . . .

  Alex Hunt. On Deadman's Island. The night the murders began. . . .

  So here he stood in front of the mirror dressed in his regalia: the standard Red Serge of the Force except for the black-bordered cuffs, harnessed into a stripped Sam Browne without the usual sidearm, his blue breeches yellow-striped and his riding boots fitted with spurs. At least the Stetson covered the indent in his forehead.

  Half filling a glass with water from the decanter on the washstand, Zinc popped his third Dilantin of the day. He

  set the pill bottle down on the table beside his bed as a reminder to take the fourth cap before he went to sleep. Opening the door, he stepped into Castle Crag's deserted upper hall. . . deserted that is till Alex opened her door.

  She stopped on the threshold.

  "My, my," he thought she said.

  Then Alex put two fingers to her lips and wolf-whistled him.

  "Likewise," he replied, nonplussed.

  Alexis wore a plain cream dress with simple gold jewelry, but she might as well have been wearing Queen Elizabeth's crown. "How much to hire you as a boyfriend for the weekend?" she asked, slipping her arm through Zinc's to guide him down the hall.

  "You want a buffer between you and Bolt?"

  "I definitely want him to leave me alone. That man radiates danger."

  "Being your boyfriend's a job Til gladly take on for free."

  "Good," said Alex, and before he knew it she had his hat in her hand, plunking the Stetson down on her head at a jaunty angle.

  His hand rose automatically to his indented brow. "It doesn't bother me," Alex said, gently intercepting him. "Don't let it bother you."

  So that was that.

  He had a new girlfriend.

  At least till Sunday, beggars would ride . . .

  Alex Hunt. In the year and a month since Dead-man's Island . . .

  When Zinc came out of the hospital — hospitals had ruled his life since the shootout in Hong Kong — Alexis lured him south to her Oregon house to recuperate. For weeks she hobbled around on crutches with her leg in a cast, while Zinc walked up and down Cannon Beach, mending body and mind. One morning, he returned to find her scribbling at her desk, drafting the outline for a new true crime book. Without being told, he knew the tale she planned to tell. . . .

  Now, gazing up at her bent over the bed, Zinc felt as happy as he had ever been.

  If only he knew the tragedy fate was plotting for them.

  THE POISONED TREE

  North Vancouver

  To love this city, you gotta love rain. Drizzling rain. Drenching rain. Dismal rain. Driving rain. Dreary rain, rain, rain, rain. . . . The clouds from the west have crossed the Pacific, and must drop what they've sucked up to scale the North Shore peaks. West Coast sunshine comes in two forms. Dry sunshine like what beamed down this morning. And liquid sunshine like what flowed down Lonsdale now.

  Rachel parked at the foot of the hill in the Seven Seas Seafood Restaurant lot, then turned up her collar, opened the door, popped her black umbrella, and stepped out into a puddle. The restaurant was an old boat permanently moored near shore, its beacon Seven Se underlined with blue neon waves, the as flickering as if the rain short-circuited those two letters. The gray water beyond was dulled by gray mist, as smothering dark gray clouds mottled the sky, the downtown core of the city across the harbor inlet so vague it might be a mirage, this gray on gray on gray washed by depressing gray rain.

  Her back to the inlet, Rachel sloshed and splashed uphill.

  To her left was Lonsdale Quay, a big red Q looming high, one of those trendy markets on pilings every seaport spawns these days. To her right were the abandoned sheds of Burrard Dry Dock, once the finest shipyards in B.C. and builders of the St. Roch RCMP boat that plowed Sergeant Larsen with eight crew along the icy Northwest Passage in the 1940s for history's first two-way voyage through the Arctic. Rusty gray with broken windows, the sheds were now sets for Vancouver-filmed TV series like The X Files.

  To Bean or Not To Bean was up the street.

  The billboard outside inquired: To Bean or Not To Bean, Is That The Question? Aromas from aged Sumatra, spicy Sulawesi, Arabian Mocha Java, and dark French enticed customers in from the rain. Around the corner, a stairway off the side street climbed to an apartment.

  Up Kidd went and knocked.

  Having bounced her suspicions off Staff Sergeant Tipple, Rachel had driven to Special X to question Nick about the "Mother letter."

  "You missed him by ten minutes," the Mad Dog said. His eyes were squinted from stress, anger, and lack of sleep.

  "Say where he was going?"

  "Home. Personal time. Got to make arrangements for his mom."

  "Know where he lives?"

  "Lower Lonsdale. Above a coffee store called To Bean or Not To Bean."

  The woman who answered Rachel's knock was Fili-pina and young. She was dressed in a sweatsuit with her hair pulled back in a scrunchie. A vacuum on the carpet down the hall, a bucket and mop outside the bathroom door, laundry for the cleaners hanging on a knob, the essence of exotic cooking wafting from the kitchen: Rachel figured she was Nick's girl Friday. Was he also screwing her?

  "Mr. Nick not home." Friday checked Rachel out. As if trying to figure how she fit into Nick's life. As if wondering if he was screwing Kidd.

  The black Mountie took in the white Mountie's home in a glance. Where you live, she believed, says who you are. Just as Craven lived in retro town, so his living room was that of a retro man. The CD box sets were all fifties rock. The bookshelves were lined with classics in uniform editions, as if he'd joined a club to make up for illiterate time. Nooks and crannies were crammed with Mountie kitsch, probably from the flea market down the street: Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Barbie, and Cabbage Patch dolls in Red Serge. Hung on the walls were Mountie movie posters. Susannah of the Mounties, with Shirley Temple, cute as could be. Northwest Mounted Police, "I thought you Canadian girls were cold . . . like

  your northern climate!" printed beside Gary Cooper. Saskatchewan, with Alan Ladd, "Actually filmed in the Canadian Rockies!" blared the poster, out a few hundred miles from the gopher-hilled plains.

  Her eyes fell on the tunic.

  Grimed when he scaled the rickety bridge on Colony Farm, Nick's Red Serge hung on a doorknob in the hall, waiting for Friday to go to the dry cleaners. Was that blood on the cuff of the right sleeve? Rachel flashed a smile and her regimental badge.

  "You work with Mr. Nick?"
the Filipina asked.

  Nodding, Rachel reached for the tunic. Don't say a word. Let her think what she thinks.

  "You take to clean?**

  Another nod.

  "He say nothing to me. Where you take?"

  "Special cleaning at Headquarters." Stretching the truth.

  "Receipt," Friday said, holding out her hand.

  As Kidd wrote on ihe French side of her RCMP card, she recalled the promise Craven extracted from her last night:

  "Remember this is Canada, not the States. Fruit of the Poisoned Tree is much weaker here."

  "Spit it out, Nick. Whars bothering you?"

  "I hope you're not tainted by the American Bill of Rights? Promise me, whatever it takes, you'll nail who killed my mom. Whatever it takes. Understand 9 Use your brain. No candy-assed Charter of Rights and Freedoms bullshit."

  "I promise," she replied.

  Vancouver

  The RCMP Forensic Laboratory was a mushroom-shaped building at 5201 Heather, a few doors along the street from Special X. In 1937, Surgeon Maurice Powers was one of the first graduates in forensic medicine in North America. Assembling equipment in a vacant bedroom off the Officers 1 Mess, he established the first laboratory at Depot Division in Regina that September. Sections specialized in documents, toolmarks, firearms,

  toxicology, and spectrograph analysis. Powers died in a plane crash in 1943, but his legacy continues to grow.

  In 1987, the Pitchfork case revolutionized police work. Two teenaged girls were sexually assaulted and murdered in the same small English village. The crimes were separated by more than two years. From the bodies, police collected evidence in the form of vaginal smears and semen stains. After the second murder, a youth confessed to both crimes. To buttress his statements, DNA analysis was performed. DNA showed the victims had been raped by the same man, but not by the youth confessing to the murders. Using a "blooding" dragnet of unprecedented scope, police asked all mature males in the village to submit blood samples for DNA analysis. Several thousand samples were collected, but none matched the semen from the two bodies. The case was solved when police learned Colin Pitchfork convinced a coworker to submit a blood sample in his place.