“Very well, the jury is excused.”
“What the hell?” I hear Jeff breathe as the jury files out.
“What can there be to rebut?” Moulton asks. “I heard nothing over the past week that resembles a new issue.”
“The new issue is this: The accused, Mr. Trussardi, in his evidence, has—for the first time—raised the issue of the absence of previous violent conduct by the accused toward the deceased.”
“And you propose to rebut that, Mr. Kenge?” Justice Moulton queries.
It hits me like a blow to the belly. Lois in the kitchen. Lois warning me of the occurrence report.
“I do,” replies Cy. “Important evidence emerged late in the case that indicates the accused was indeed violent—very violent—toward his wife and that she feared him.” Cy picks up a sheet of paper that Emily has placed before him. “The evidence consists of an occurrence report filed by a member of the West Vancouver Police just two days before the murder. The officer reports that, while on a routine patrol near Marine Drive in West Vancouver that evening, he observed a woman running down the street. She was wearing high heels, and as the headlights of the police car revealed her, she fell. The officer stopped to make sure she was okay. He asked her where she lived. She pointed to a nearby house, which he later determined to be the Trussardi residence. He reports that the woman kept saying she couldn’t go back, that she had to get away, but when he offered to take her to a shelter, she refused. She ran away from him, back down the drive to the house. He waited awhile and then returned to the police station and wrote up his report.”
“He didn’t follow her to the house to investigate?”
“Sadly, no.” Cy lets his words, potent with the possibility of a murder averted, hang in the silence.
“Jilly?” Jeff whispers. It’s not like me to say nothing.
I rise and smooth my gown. “Three points, my Lord. First, Mr. Kenge should have put this report to the accused in cross-examination. Second, this is not proper rebuttal evidence. The relationship between my client and his wife has been at the center of this case since the charge was laid.” I take a deep breath, plow on to my final point. “Third, my Lord, the defense has had no notice of this report. The law—Stinchcombe to be precise—is clear. All evidence the Crown seeks to use must be disclosed to the defense well in advance of trial to allow the defense to meet it—in a word, to allow a fair trial, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. The rule is as simple as it is absolute: if evidence has not been disclosed to the defense, it cannot be admitted.”
I take my seat as Moulton turns to Cy. “What do you say to that, Mr. Kenge?”
“My Lord, the evidence came to light only late in the day.”
“It’s up to the prosecution to ferret out the evidence and disclose it. Your failure to find the evidence is no excuse for lack of disclosure.”
Cy bows his head. “The matter is somewhat delicate, but I do not think that Ms. Truitt will deny that she was made aware of the existence of this report long before she put her client on the stand.”
Every eye swivels to me. Jeff stares at me in shocked disbelief.
A red tide creeps up Moulton’s face. He spits his words at me like pellets of poison. “Is this true, Ms. Truitt?”
“The possibility that such a report existed was mentioned to me.” I stand shakily. “But it was in a casual conversation with someone who is not part of this case. With Mr. Kenge’s wife, to be precise. The meanderings of a person at a party do not count as formal disclosure. Not having had formal disclosure, I disregarded them.”
Justice Moulton turns away, studies his bench book, looks up.
“You knew that this report might exist before you put your client on the stand, and now you complain that using it to bring forth the truth is unfair.” He fixes me with an icy stare. “This is not a game, Ms. Truitt; this is a trial. A woman has been brutally murdered; a just verdict is at stake. Mr. Kenge, you may call your witness.” He nods to the sheriff. “Bring the jury back.”
It doesn’t take long. Constable Cooke, a rookie cop, tells the jury what he saw and what he put in his report. Challenging his claim is futile. I cross-examine, do what I can. The officer never got the woman’s name, doesn’t know who she was—just that she was slender, blond, and ran back toward the Trussardi residence. Nor did she say what had happened or who she was afraid of.
But I know this is damning. After all, who but Laura St. John Trussardi could the woman have been? Who but her husband could she have been running from? Sure, she had a secret life. But crying in the street, outside the matrimonial residence?
I watch the jurors’ faces harden. It’s over.
CHAPTER 51
WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU think you were doing?” Jeff looms over me in our little room.
I’ve filled him in on my conversation with Lois at Cy’s party. Finally.
“We’re a team, Jilly—or so I naïvely thought. You held out on me. You fucked me over, and you fucked the case.”
“I’m so sorry, Jeff,” I say, and I am. “I didn’t even know if the report was real. And if it was, I never dreamed Cy would try to use it, never imagined Moulton would let it in.”
Jeff seizes my shoulders. “You never told me what you knew,” he says. “You left me out—you let me down.” He lets his hands fall to his side, turns away.
There’s nothing I can say to make it right.
“I believed what I wanted to believe, that Lois would never trick me, that Cy would never stoop so low as to use his wife just to win a case. You’re right, Jeff. I’ve become too close to this case, addicted to proving Trussardi didn’t kill Laura. I was blind.” My words trail off in a whisper. “And I thought Cy was my friend, once.”
Jeff studies me. But he says nothing, and it hits me that we’re done, Jeff and me. He’ll cross the street to Peck or somebody. He’s good—he can go anywhere he wants and make more money, too.
I steel myself. I wait for Jeff to speak.
“Let’s get the hell back to the office,” he says, granting me a temporary reprieve.
I nod. We pick up our bags and leave.
* * *
I’M GETTING INTO A CAB outside the courthouse when Damon finds me. I motion and he slides into the seat beside me. Numbly, I give the driver the address of his condo. I should be angry with him. He let us know too little, too late; revealed his part in the saga in dribs and drabs; and then ended up testifying for the Crown. He didn’t have much choice—Cy subpoenaed him—but what niggles at me is how it happened.
“I underestimated you, Damon,” I say, as the pieces fall into place in my mind. “You played your cards superbly. Not guilty of killing Laura because you’ve sunk Trussardi. Immune from prosecution on anything else because you’ve made a deal with Cy. Congratulations, Damon.”
“No,” Damon whispers, a sob in his throat. “I don’t know how Cy found out about the drugs. I think he’s after me.”
“Nice try, Damon.”
“No, Ms. Truitt, it’s not like that. I was delivering a document from Jeff, and Cy invited me in and showed me around the Crown offices. I thought he was being nice, but then he started talking about Trussardi. He said he knew that I’d delivered drugs to the Trussardis’ house. I started getting uncomfortable. I told him I had to go. But he just refilled my coffee cup and smiled. ‘Sit down, Damon,’ he said, that soft edge in his voice. ‘We know everything.’ I had no choice. He didn’t say much, but he made it clear—cooperate or he’d bring me in. I told myself what he was asking wasn’t so bad, just the truth, after all.” He shrugs.
I want to believe him. Maybe he didn’t set out to betray me. Maybe Cy got what he wanted by empty threats about past deeds. I feel a chill. Or maybe not so empty. It’s over, Damon told me that night in the hospital. Was he talking about Kellen?
The cab pulls up to Damon’s building.
“Damon, we shouldn’t be discussing this. Whatever Cy thinks he has on you, let it go. Lie low for a while and keep o
ut of trouble.”
He gives me a desultory wave as the cab speeds away.
CHAPTER 52
TUESDAY, DAY TWELVE OF THE trial. My closing address. But I know it’s too little, too late; the image of Laura Trussardi fleeing her home in terror has snapped the jury members’ minds permanently shut. I hit the weak points in the Crown’s case, and there are many—the shoddy police work, the unexplored alternatives: Trevor Shore, the footprints, Damon. I talk about my client’s spotless past and stellar reputation. I remind the jury of Carmelina’s testament to matrimonial harmony, ask them to remember that the accused believed—rightly, as it turned out—that his wife was carrying his child. I deal, as I must, with the rebuttal evidence. It is weak and should not be relied on. All we know is that some woman who may or may not have been Laura was on the street, professed not to want to go back to the house, and then did precisely that. We do not even know for sure who she was. Such evidence cannot rebut the mountain of contrary evidence as to the happy state of affairs between the accused and his wife. And then, knowing Cy is waiting in the wings, I bear down on the theory of the Crown.
“The Crown’s case rests on the supposition that Vincent Trussardi killed his wife in the deliberate and cruel fashion you have heard about for no other reason than that she accepted the delivery of drugs and that she was having an affair with Trevor Shore. That theory is absurd. You have heard the evidence. Vincent had known of the affair for some time, believed it to be over, and had reconciled with his wife.
“The Crown has the burden of disproving any other reasonable alternatives as to who killed Laura Trussardi, and it has utterly failed to do so. Other plausible theories—Trevor Shore, Damon Cheskey—are sufficient to raise not only a reasonable doubt, but a substantial doubt as to Vincent Trussardi’s guilt. In a nutshell, the prosecution case against Vincent Trussardi is nothing more than speculation. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, on a full and fair consideration of the evidence, you will conclude, as you must, that the Crown has failed to discharge the burden upon it. You must acquit the accused.”
It’s not a bad address, as addresses go, nor a bad defense. But in my heart, I know the jurors have decided. Now it’s Cy’s turn. He goes through the evidence, then sums up the Crown’s theory by recounting the tale of Othello and Desdemona: the story of love—maybe too much love—betrayal, and jealousy turned to madness.
“Mr. Trussardi’s wife was no longer the sweet girl he thought he had married. He says he loved her, but he had also lost her—to another man and to drugs. And we all know what happens when great love becomes great loss. It fuses into an insane burning fury that demands destruction of its cause. A fury capable of turning a gentle, civilized man into a murderer.”
“Objection!” I shout, but Cy pulls back before Moulton can hammer him.
“It is for you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he goes on, “to decide if Vincent Trussardi was crazed with jealousy. For you to decide if he murdered his wife. All I ask is that you consider the evidence impartially. You will find the answer.”
* * *
AT FOUR THIRTY, JUSTICE MOULTON, having spent the afternoon instructing the jurors on the law and the evidence, gives them his final invocation. Their verdict must be unanimous. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we await your decision.”
They file out, Justice Moulton descends and exits, and Jeff and I busy ourselves straightening our papers. Cy tries to catch my eye as he makes his way down the aisle to where Lois waits, but I ignore him. At 6:00 p.m., Marion finds us where we lurk in the corridor and tells us the judge is coming back. “Have they reached a verdict?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “He’s decided to tell them to go to dinner and resume their deliberations tomorrow.”
Jeff and I head for the parking elevators. I glimpse Raquella behind a pillar. Hildegard bends to whisper something in her ear. Raquella laughs, a short bark.
“Sis can’t wait for the verdict,” says Jeff.
“Got that right.”
An angry pain gnaws in my stomach. Despite all my efforts, I have failed. I will know everything, I told Raquella. Stupid, idle boast. All I know is that I will never know.
CHAPTER 53
I GET HOME LATE. I turn on the TV, turn it off. A novel—a slight thing on the bestseller lists called The Rosie Project—lies on the coffee table in front of me, its spine cracked at page three. I flick on CBC Radio 2 hoping for something soothing—a pianist plays “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” and I think of Mike. Numbly, I stare at my Jack Bush. I’m in full letdown mode. I hate it when I lose, hate it more when I lose and the client’s innocent.
The phone rings—Vincent Trussardi, out on his last night of freedom.
“What can I do for you?” I ask coldly. I have no time for this man, even if he didn’t kill his wife.
“I need to talk to you, Miss Truitt.”
“It is my professional opinion that you do not need to talk to me and that I do not need to talk to you.”
“Miss Truitt, we must speak.”
“Mr. Trussardi, the die is cast. We have done our best. The evidence is in. You should know that things don’t look good for you.”
“I am aware of that. But there are things that you should know.”
“Mr. Trussardi, it’s late and—”
“Go to your window,” he says, “look out.”
Something is different about his voice. It makes me cross to the window.
“Do you see a limo?”
“Yes.”
“I would not detain you if it were not important.” A long silence. “Please.”
I tap the screen to end the call, consider my Jack Bush—the broad vertical strokes, so clear; the swirls of pink and gray, planted erratically, shades of doubt. Five minutes later I’m outside.
A liveried chauffeur steps smartly round and pulls the back door open for me. I slide in. Trussardi does not acknowledge my presence. The dim light of the street shadows his profile, the high forehead, the aquiline nose, the grim set of mouth. I have seen him sad; I have seen him angry; I have witnessed his ineffable charm. Tonight he is all business.
“Where are we going, Mr. Trussardi?”
“For a cruise.”
“I don’t think so.” I reach for the door, but before I can get out, the car is moving.
I sit back in my seat, face to the window. We cross the lagoon into the park, neither of us talking, and glide down the slope to the yacht club. Ahead, vessels rock against the night. The chauffeur opens the limo door and extends a hand. We walk along a pier, Trussardi and me, passing boat after boat after boat before he halts.
Above us, the hull of a yacht looms, broad and capacious. I catch her name, black letters on her starboard, La Trilla. Two white-jacketed men on the upper deck peer down. Trussardi waves me up the gangway and into the boat. A girl in jeans arrives with a tray laden with smoked salmon and long-stemmed glasses filled with pale nectar. I decline both, but Trussardi takes a glass, raises his drink to me. “At last, Jilly,” he says. “I have waited too long for this moment.”
My stomach clenches. What’s going on?
“Mr. Trussardi.” I’m angry; I’m wary. “What’s this about?”
“Your mother.”
CHAPTER 54
I ROCK BACK IN MY chair.
My mother, that dark hole at the beginning of my being. All my longing, all my searching, and here she is, evoked by Vincent Trussardi. I have a picture in my mind—a good woman, a kind woman, a woman forced by overwhelming circumstance to part with me. “I know all I need to know about her,” I say.
“You know nothing,” he replies flatly. “I remember the first time I saw her. She was standing in the door of a longhouse. She wore a long white dress and sandals. Her thick black hair fell over her burnished shoulders. She looked at me and smiled a slow, mysterious smile. I stood as though in the spell of a goddess. Then she held out her hand to me, and I took it.”
His face is lost in another time.<
br />
“What are you trying to tell me?” I whisper. Pain moves like a wave from my stomach.
“It was 1981, and I was spending a summer cruising the West Coast with a friend who had developed a sudden passion for the art of the coastal tribes. In the south, the villages had McDonalds and Safeways, but in the north, one could still find places where people lived the old way, in communal longhouses nested among totem poles in silent forests of giant Douglas fir, in Haida Gwaii. And that’s where I met her. Your mother.”
This is not my story I don’t want it.
“I was sure you had figured it out, Jilly. Your visits with Edith, your trip to Hildegard, your fascination with the dark-haired woman in the photo. I’m sorry, Jilly, so sorry. Do with the truth what you will, but you must know it.”
It comes together, fragment by fragment, in a mangled mental swirl. “That’s why you hired me to take your case.” My mother, his anguished regret. Me, his way back to her? “What happened?” I hear myself asking.
“I took her out on our boat, and when I brought her back to shore, her father was waiting. He said words to her in their language, and then he turned and left her standing on the shore, all alone. She waited a long time, but no one came from the village. I told my friend we could not leave her shunned by her people. He told me I was crazy, that they were just trying to teach her a lesson and would welcome her back before dusk. ‘You cannot take a girl who has never seen a proper house, never seen a streetcar or bus, back to Vancouver,’ he said. He was right, but I did not see it then. I brought her back.”
Dread encompasses me. I don’t like this story, don’t like where it’s headed.
“I took her to my apartment. It was a small place—I was still a student. We did all the things lovers do, went to movies, shared books, dined at little dives. She loved the city, its action, its brilliance. She plunged into my world—even though English was her second language—with gusto. But gradually things changed. We still loved each other madly, but her days alone while I studied or ran errands—my father was insisting I get into the business—were long and lonely for her. And then she told me she was pregnant.”
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