Hangman

by Michael Slade

  Ethan was a civil lawyer. Extraditing someone from Canada to face execution in America wasn’t his field of practice.

  Nor was it mine.

  Until now.

  “Remember Charles Ng? Wanted by California back in the 1980s for at least a dozen sex-torture killings? Ng was arrested in Calgary, and fought extradition back to the States by claiming he was protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights. Since Canada no longer has the death penalty, he said it would be cruel and unusual punishment for a Canadian court to send him back to face the gas chamber in California.”

  “He lost, didn’t he?”

  “Sure,” I replied. “What Ng had going against him was his citizenship. Lawyers for the States scared the Supreme Court of Canada with a floodgates argument. If Ng won, our country would become known as a safe haven for American killers on the run. Faced with having the dregs of the States as nose-thumbing tourists, the SCC ruled there was nothing wrong with shipping Yanks back to face their own legal system.”

  That didn’t cheer him up.

  His coffee cup was shaking.

  “It’s one thing to send an American back to death in America, but it’s a profoundly different matter to expose a Canadian to a penalty Canada has abolished. Under the Charter of Rights, we have the legal right to enter, remain in, and leave our country. If extradited to face death, we would be denied the right to return home. Except in a box, and that doesn’t count.”

  The cup was still shaking.

  “Where does that leave me?”

  “You told me this morning at the office that you were born in Seattle. In law, that makes you an American. The family was split, you said, when your parents divorced. Your brothers remained with your dad in Seattle, while your mom moved baby you to Vancouver so she could live with a Canadian she met at a Seattle convention. After he and your mom married, you got his last name through adoption. The question is, buddy, did you also get his citizenship?”

  “No,” said Ethan.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “Mom didn’t know if the marriage would last. If it didn’t, we’d go back to the States. She came north only because of Brad Shaw, so what he did was sponsor us for permanent residence. Me as an accompanying dependent of Mom. We were issued visas and were landed as permanent residents of Canada. There was no reason for me to become a Canadian citizen, so I kept my American citizenship.”

  “You fucked up, Eth. If only you had gone for dual citizenship, we could use your right to live in Canada as a Canadian to thwart America’s right to execute you as an American.”

  He set down the coffee cup to keep from dropping it. Fear distorted his face.

  “Don’t worry,” I added. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “I didn’t do it, Jeff.”

  “I know, Eth.”

  “It’s a frame!” he said forcefully.

  “By whom? Justin?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose as if in psychic pain. “He’s my brother, Jeff.”

  “So?” I said. “Cain was Abel’s brother too.”

  Ethan shook his head, trying to shake suspicion.

  “I left him with you when Alex took me for a walk on deck.”

  “We spoke for a few minutes in the bar,” I said. “Then Justin excused himself and left.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I have no idea. What if he followed you and Alex down to your cabin, knocked on the door while you were throwing up in the can, knocked her out with a blow to the head, then waited in ambush for you to come out of the toilet compartment? He knocked you out, hanged her and left you to blame.”

  Ethan wasn’t convinced.

  He was in denial.

  “Why kill Alex? That doesn’t make sense. The Hangman hangs jurors, not crime writers, Jeff. I can see no reason for Justin to kill her.”

  “I can, Eth. He gave me one himself. When we were talking after you and Alex left, he told me she wanted to write a book about the Hangman jointly with him. He said she had phoned him from Vancouver early this week and suggested they meet tonight on this ship to consider a partnership.”

  “So?” Ethan said.

  “Think it through. If Justin is the Hangman, as you suspect, what use to him would a writing partner be? He’s obsessed, remember? The Haddon crusade is his. At best, he’d see Alex as competition. At worst, he’d see her as a threat.”

  “A threat to what?”

  “His secret identity. Alex was sharp. We both saw that tonight. For all we know, Justin might have slipped up with her, and was fearful that clue might lead Alex to the skeleton in his closet.”

  “So he killed her?”

  “Why not, Eth? What you have going for you, buddy, is lack of motive. Opportunity and means can be pinned on you, but without motive the cops will never be able to convict you. The Hangman hanged Alex out of fear she would unmask him. Since you had no reason to fear Alex would unmask you, the police have no reason to suspect you are the Hangman.”

  My law associate looked as if he was going to cry again.

  “Jeff …”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I’m in big trouble.”

  “Are you holding back on me, Eth?”

  “I have a skeleton, too.”

  “Motive?”

  He dropped his eyes.

  “How strong?” I asked.

  “Strong enough to convict me. This morning, after I told you Justin was my brother, you asked why in all the time you’ve known me I never mentioned him. ‘There’s a reason,’ I said, then we changed the subject.”

  “What reason, Eth?”

  “I had two older brothers.”

  “Had?”

  “Yes. One twin died.”

  “Died how?”

  “Guess.”

  “Jesus, he was hanged.”

  It shocked me that I knew so little about Ethan’s background. We first met at school in the East End, and since our home situations were alike, I assumed he was an only Canadian child like me, also being raised by a single mom. His stepfather, Brad Shaw, was out of the picture by then.

  “Spill your guts,” I said.

  It came out like a confession.

  “I was born Ethan Quinn Haddon. That name changed to Ethan Shaw when my mom remarried. I was just a baby when we left Seattle. My dad thought I was fathered by another man, so I never met him before he died. My mom loathed my dad and didn’t want me near him, so she saw the twins without me. The twins were raised in Seattle by my dad. One was named Peter Bryce Haddon. The other was Steven Mark Haddon. When Peter was found guilty of murder in 1984, Mark was a journalism student. He took a pen name and later made it legal. Steven Mark Haddon became—”

  “Justin Whitfield,” I said.

  Hired Gun

  Vancouver

  Tonight

  “How can you defend someone you know is guilty?”

  That’s the question the Mountie asked of me, and that’s the question every layman asks or wants to ask if he corners a criminal lawyer.

  What’s the answer?

  Well, I’ll tell you.

  The practical answer is Peter Haddon. That’s what I meant by saying, “The writing is on the wall.” Enough people knew he was guilty to loop a noose around his neck and drop him through the gallows floor for a crime he didn’t commit.

  You think he’s the exception?

  Think again.

  From 1900 to the present day, American jails have either executed or released from death row more than a hundred convicts who were found to be innocent. Canada bears the guilt of what it did to the three Ms: Morin, Milgaard, and Marshall. Britain hanged Evans on the word of Christie, and might have done the same in more recent years to framed Irishmen if it still had the noose.

  Courts, not lawyers, determine guilt. A lawyer has no right to prejudge a client. The last thing a client needs by way of defense is a lawyer doing a half-assed job because he thinks him guilty. If lawyers turn away clients they prejudge, many an in
nocent accused may be denied counsel. If the day arrives when that accused is you, should you not have the right to demand of your lawyer, “I hired you for your skill as an advocate in court, not to suffer the prejudice of your personal beliefs?”

  If you seek medical help for cancer, you don’t expect a doctor to turn you away because he thinks your death should help rectify the population imbalance between men and women. Nor do you expect him to refuse you treatment because your conservative politics are adding to the misery of the homeless on the streets. Instead, you expect him to be professional, and to put aside his personal beliefs while he does the goddamn job you want him to do.

  So why not lawyers?

  That, however, is only the practical answer to the Mountie’s question. As I was standing in the doorway to Ethan’s cabin, with the corpse of Chandler’s lover hanging from the rod, I could—if I hadn’t feared he’d haul off and slug me—also have given the inspector the theoretical answer.

  When I became a lawyer, I took an oath. That oath imposed a duty on me to “uphold the rule of law.” The rule of law is the reason we live in a free and democratic society. Without the rule of law, chaos and anarchy are the norm: you take what you want, you rape who you want, you kill who you want in that Darwinian jungle.

  The rule of law means everyone has the right to a fair trial. A fair trial is one in which the prosecutor presents the case against, the defense lawyer vigorously tries to tear it apart, and the judge and jury decide what’s true from what they witness in court. A lawyer cannot lack the courage to honor his oath. The moment lawyers start refusing to take cases because of conscience, the rule of law begins to fall apart. To quote an American journalist, Edwin Yoder, Jr.:

  The law will protect the good man and the righteous cause only if it also extends an even hand to the evil and iniquitous as well. That lesson, hard to grasp and still harder to embrace, is the heart of the rule of law.

  A lawyer is duty bound not to “throw” a case. The apotheosis of advocacy is boldly to defend the case of the most unpopular or repugnant client. In such cases, the lawyer represents a principle and an ideal: the notion that the worst client in the worst case is entitled to be defended by all honorable means.

  Can it be put better than Sir Thomas More’s words in A Man for All Seasons? In the 1500s, More lost his head to King Henry VIII because the lawyer refused to forsake the rule of law so the king could marry yet another wife.

  “How can you defend someone you know is guilty?”

  I do it, says the lawyer, to protect us all:

  ROPER: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!

  MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

  ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

  MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—Man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

  Of course, I don’t know a single lawyer who thinks like that, so that’s why I didn’t give the Mountie both barrels of bullshit. The player on the other side knew the legal game, so he knew why we lawyers really defend clients we know are guilty.

  Lawyers are gamblers.

  Courts are gambling casinos.

  Clients are betting chips.

  And the goal of the game is to win!

  The harder the case, the bigger the win!

  The bigger the win, the greater your reputation.

  The greater your reputation, the more money you make.

  The more money you make, the more inflated your ego.

  The more inflated your ego, the higher you rise to the top.

  And when you get to the top, you’re the king of the world.

  So was Ethan guilty?

  Who gave a fuck?

  I had a notorious case to win!

  That’s why, last Tuesday morning, November 14, four days after Alex Hunt was hanged on the North Star, and two days before the peril I’m in now, I strapped on the six guns and went to court.

  Spread the word.

  There’s a new gun in town.

  Turf War

  Vancouver

  Tuesday, November 14 (Two days ago)

  “Something’s up,” said Nellie.

  “What?” asked Zinc.

  “I don’t know. The Feds are acting cagey. It must be the consent.”

  The Criminal Code of Canada lay open on her desk, beside a file labeled with Ethan Shaw’s name. Nellie turned the book around so Zinc and Chief Superintendent DeClercq could read:

  477.2 (1) No proceedings in respect of an offense committed in or on the territorial sea of Canada shall be continued unless the consent of the Attorney General of Canada is obtained not later than eight days after the proceedings are commenced, if the accused is not a Canadian citizen and the offense is alleged to have been committed on board any ship registered outside Canada.

  Nervous Nellie was as fidgety as the Mounties had ever seen her. Nellie Barker was the deputy regional Crown counsel in charge of the provincial prosecutors at 222 Main. Her office was on the second floor of the Vancouver provincial courthouse in the heart of skid row, kitty-corner to the piss-stained door of Kline & Shaw. The fact that the Shaw of that struggling firm was in the cells downstairs charged with first-degree murder, and that the Kline of that street-legal storefront was sitting in Courtroom 102 waiting to defend him, did little to calm her nerves. Not when the case was shot through with this many holes, most of which were big enough to make Nellie bite her nails.

  “Where exactly did this murder occur?”

  “We don’t know,” Zinc said. “We’re still investigating.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “A turf war, Nellie. The ship sailed from Seattle up Puget Sound, then out through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the open sea. That means the North Star passed through American waters, then Canadian internal waters when it was in the strait, and finally Canada’s territorial sea as it sailed up the west coast of Vancouver Island.”

  The jumpy prosecutor was bouncing around in her chair, burning off more calories than meals could replace. Barker, a bag of bones in her baggy blue suit, was so gaunt she looked anorexic. What made her a sharp prosecutor was her trepidation. Nervous Nellie could see trouble coming a mile away.

  “Where might this murder have occurred? South of the border in the States?”

  “Unlikely,” Zinc said.

  “But possibly?”

  “At the moment. Until we have a witness.”

  “Inspector, I beg you, be more specific. Yesterday was the Monday holiday after Remembrance Day, so I took the long weekend off to be with my dad. He was at D-Day. It’s a rough time for him. So I wasn’t around when this case came in, and now I find myself caught in a Rubik’s Cube. To make it easy for me, spell it out.”

  “It’s a turf war, Nellie, over who gets to try the Hangman. The Americans want Ethan Shaw for two hangings in Seattle. We want him for one in North Vancouver. The death on the ship is the only crime for which there is a suspect and evidence, so both jurisdictions are after this accused.”

  “Where was the victim last seen alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s a turf war. The body was found when the ship was on Canada’s territorial sea. The American cops asked the captain to sail back to Seattle. Because we were then in Canadian waters, I countermanded their request and ordered the captain to sail the North Star to Vancouver.”

  “How’d the Americans react to that?”

  “We reached a compromise.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “A joint Hangman investigation was already under way. We agreed to investigate the crime
scene together, and to divide up the interviews of those aboard. There were a lot of people on the ship. Even now, days later, some statements have yet to be taken.”

  “What happened when you docked?”

  “I arrested Ethan Shaw for first-degree murder on Canada’s territorial sea. I drove him to the jail next door and booked him in. He was seen by a justice of the peace. Since Monday was a statutory holiday, the JP remanded him to appear in court this morning.”

  “And the Americans?”

  “They left in a huff.”

  “With their witness statements?”

  “Yes,” said Zinc. “They were south of the border before we knew they were gone.”

  “So we have half the evidence and they have the other half?”

  “For the moment.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’re meeting this afternoon to discuss exchanging witness statements.”

  “You haven’t seen theirs?”

  “And they haven’t seen ours.”

  “This isn’t a poker game.”

  “They’re Americans, Nellie. Americans are used to getting their own way. The Hangman killed two people in the States and two in Canada. He was caught here, so we try him first. Holding back the statements is a strong-arm tactic. I’ll be damned if I’ll give them the Hangman on a silver platter.”

  “The last victim was your lover?”

  “Yes,” said Zinc.

  “You’re too close to the case.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” said DeClercq. “The reason the inspector is still involved is that no one knows better than him what happened on the ship.”

  “Where was the boat when you last saw Alexis Hunt alive?”

  “In American waters,” said Zinc.

  “Have you any reason to believe she was killed in the States?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “Do we have a statement from anyone who saw Alexis alive in Canadian waters?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Do the Americans?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nellie had nibbled a finger down to the quick. One day, she would come unstrung from stress.