Hangman

by Michael Slade

  Leeches, I thought.

  At half past one, I left Suzy to defend the fort and, stepping over the puddle of piss outside, turned toward the harbor at the foot of Main to walk the same route to the law courts I had the other day. The black hooker was back on the stroll at the corner of Powell, trying to earn money to hire a lawyer to defend her on the charge I had seen her face in remand court a few hours earlier. On one breast of her scoop-necked blouse she wore a red poppy.

  “A day late,” I said.

  “Soldier, it’s never too late to hide in my warm trenches.”

  “Later,” I lied.

  “I be here,” she cooed.

  Strolling up Granville, I passed the Birks clock. As lovers have done for the past century, an embracing couple rendezvoused on the corner for a late lunch and come what may. I wondered if the Mountie and Alex Hunt had met here too.

  As always, I paused for a moment at the Rattenbury courthouse to gaze up at the stone lions and soaring pillars. I recalled the last day of the Hanging Judge, and how, as I was thrown out of Kinky’s court, I swore to myself I’d return one day to argue a headline murder case.

  Well, that day had come.

  But gone was the tradition.

  When the law was centered here, practicing was fun. The assize court was a masterpiece of past British rule, a cavern of ornately carved hardwood complemented with brass fittings and rich red drapes. The accused in the dock and the jurors in the jury box were guarded by Stetsoned Mounties in full red serge. Once the jurors had been sequestered to consider their verdict, counsel would join the judge in chambers for a drink or two, at which time the trial would be rehashed witness by witness to laugh at the funny moments, determine the turning points, or place a friendly wager on the result.

  The lawyers would then retire to the Crown counsel cubbyhole, which was squirreled away in the attic over the pillars supporting the roof. While the jury pondered, the court jesters partied, and if the Scotch ran out before there was a verdict, the cops were asked to make a booze run. Shortly after, they would show up with a brown evidence bag.

  The night I remember most clearly from my days as a court watcher was the one when a troubled jury posed a question to the judge at midnight. The young defense lawyer was so full of Scotch that he had to be dragged into court with both arms around two seasoned prosecutors who could hold their booze. They propped him up at the counsel table as best they could and waited to see if the cranky judge would end his budding legal career for being drunk on the job.

  In came the jury as the lawyer teetered from side to side. Then in came the judge, who was known as the Bounder for his habit of bounding up onto the bench. He caught his toe on the top step and sprawled across his chair, which rolled on casters to the jury side of the bench. There, he lay across its arms like Superman in flight, grinning at the jurors as he slurred: “Laddies an shenlemen of the shury. Ishh there a pro’lem? Ishh it becau ya think the shun of a bitshhh nex ta ya doeshn’t have a brain in hishh head? Shorry, laddies, her head tooooo.”

  Whereupon he shwung his arm in a wide shweep that encompasshed the twelve shtunned faces.

  “Tha bashtard won’ look like ashh mush of an ash-hole in the morning, sho I’m gonna ashk the shhhheriff to put ya up fer the night.”

  Whereupon he fell on the floor, shtruggled to his unshteady feet, and shtaggered off the bench back to the bottle in chambers, unable to perform that feat as shober as the proverbial judge.

  No sooner had the Bounder stumbled from court than the Crown attorney closest to the sloshed young lawyer leaned across and laughed. “Come tomorrow morning, you won’t be the only one praying for an acquittal to keep this record out of the court of appeal.”

  That’s what it was like in the free-wheeling days before the West Side silver spoons built their new law courts two blocks down the street. For some reason the main door is situated in the corner farthest away from the center of town, so it’s rarely used—except for media shoots. This being my big case, I walked the extra block to make my grand entrance and played the earnest defense counsel rushing to meet the enemy for a mass of camera lenses.

  “No comment …”

  “No comment …”

  “No comment …”

  Wait and see, people.

  What greeted me inside the automatic sliding doors were thirty-five courtrooms on five tiers stacked up the right angle of a glass wedge. Coldly antiseptic was the overall feel, despite the greenery spilling from each level like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The tomb reflected the minds of those who built it, so sucked dry of humor and drama was this lifeless waste. By the time I scaled the zigzagged stairs to Courtroom 53, I was as bored as an East End kid could be.

  Time to light the hair of a judge on fire.

  Fun and games.

  Like it used to be.

  The courtroom gallery was packed as I made my way through the gate to the counsel area. Hardwood, brass, and velvet had given majesty to courtrooms in Kinky’s day, but the silver spoons had tastefully done this one up in concrete and felt. The court watchers in this bland shell were more upscale than those mobbed into remand court this morning, for that was the East End and this was the West Side. A chance to see the Hangman was not to be missed.

  Short, stout, flush-faced, and mustachioed, Lyndon Wilde, QC, reminded me of the trademark CEO on a Monopoly game. Definitely a West Side silver spoon. Because this hearing was in open-court chambers, it wasn’t necessary for lawyers to robe. Wilde, however, had robed anyway, and he stood there at center stage in his striped gray pants, bulging black vest and starched white shirt with upside down V tabs. To please the gallery, he fiddled with a pocket watch on a gold chain.

  “Lyndon,” I said.

  He ignored me.

  I doubt the old fart knew who I was.

  “Jeff Kline,” I said.

  I held out my hand.

  I’m sure he shook it only to look civilized to the crowd.

  His palm was dry.

  He was confident.

  My arrival had interrupted a quiet argument. Wilde was flanked by Chandler and DeClercq. There was no love lost between the prosecutor and the Mounties, for I had heard the story of Wilde’s fall from grace when he lost big time to the chief superintendent in a cause célèbre trial alleging Corp. Nick Craven had killed his own mother. The result was that the province quit sending Wilde cases, so that’s why he now worked for the Feds. Trying to thwart Chandler in his attempt to try Ethan for Hunt’s hanging was like throwing gas on embers.

  “Why won’t the AG give us consent?”

  Chandler had to stoop to stare Wilde in the face.

  “Not here. Not now.” Lyndon glanced at me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Fight it out. Looks like the cops are on my side.”

  Out came the watch.

  “Time for court,” said Wilde.

  And right on cue, in came the judge. The Mounties were forced to retreat from “the pit” as the associate chief justice climbed to the bench. Again it struck me how dull the law courts were. There would be no Scotch shared with counsel in this judge’s chambers, for back when the silver spoons moved to this prissy palace, the law lords upstairs gave them a ruling to help maintain decorum. Henceforth, to make us teetotalers one and all in chambers, everything that went on behind closed doors had to be recorded.

  Imagine that.

  What party-poopers.

  “The United States of America versus Ethan Shaw,” announced the clerk.

  “Mr. Wilde?”

  “May it please your lordship. Ethan Shaw has been arrested under the provisional extradition warrant you issued this morning.”

  Quick Draw nodded. “Bring him in.”

  Associate Chief Justice Lance McGraw—Quick Draw McGraw to the bar, on account of his tendency to make hasty decisions—was a horse-faced man with a lantern jaw and large teeth befitting his cartoon namesake. He watched the sheriff unlock the door to the holding cells below to usher Ethan in
to court and across to the prisoner’s dock. Back in Kinky’s and the Bounder’s day, the prisoner sat in a raised, carved hardwood box, guarded by a Horseman in regal red, but the dock today had shrunk to a small plastic one, and the sheriff on guard wore boring brown.

  Could the silver spoons do any more to foster contempt of court?

  They sure earned mine.

  “The clerk will unseal the sealed file,” said the judge.

  Showtime, folks.

  I walked to the dock.

  The best defense is a good offense, they say in America, and since I was at war with America, I took their sage advice.

  “Jeffrey Kline appearing for Ethan Shaw, my lord. I wish to put on record at this first appearance that my client has been—and is being—framed. Ethan Shaw is the brother of Peter Bryce Haddon, a man wrongfully lynched for murder by the state of Washington in 1993. Now the state seeks to compound that crime by attempting to lynch my client.”

  Stirring in the gallery.

  American reporters?

  “A serial killer known as the Hangman is loose in the Pacific Northwest. His motive for hanging his victims, all but one of them jurors, is thought to be to avenge Haddon’s hanging. To that end, the killer plays a word game with police, the answer to which spells out Peter Bryce Haddon’s name.

  “Bryce—as legally registered—is spelled B-R-Y-C-E.

  “The warrant before this court involves a hanging that occurred on a ship cruising from Seattle to Vancouver by way of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and our territorial sea off the coast of Vancouver Island. The crime was committed somewhere along that route. The body was discovered in my client’s cabin when the ship was unarguably sailing in Canadian waters.”

  Wilde was making notes.

  No doubt he thought me a young fool for revealing my poker hand.

  “I ask your lordship to note that the body was found by a crewman when he spied it hanging inside through an open door. That means anyone on board could be the killer. The open door gave everyone opportunity.

  “My client was found unconscious on the floor, in blood pooling from slashes on the body. Nearby was the knife that caused those wounds, and I’ve been told the hanging rope was cut from a life preserver line out on deck. The open cabin door and the fact that no fingerprints were recovered from the knife means everyone aboard the ship also had means.

  “That, my lord, leaves motive.”

  Among the press reporters jotting notes, I caught sight of Justin Whitfield.

  Good, I thought as I withdrew from the breast pocket of my cheap business suit the newspaper piece he wrote on Haddon’s hanging.

  “Drawn in blood on the wall beside my unconscious client was the Hangman’s word game with a letter added. An I was in the center of the middle word, so if Peter Bryce Haddon is the answer to the game, that means the killer spells Bryce B-R-I-C-E. The same way the name is spelled in this article”—I waved the clipping in the air—“by that reporter”—I pointed at Whitfield—“printed in the Seattle Star the day after Haddon hanged.”

  Hey, what can I say?

  I’ve seen “Perry Mason” reruns on TV.

  “Motive, my lord? There is no motive here. If Ethan Shaw is the Hangman, out to draw attention to the wrongful hanging of his brother, why would he hang a victim in his own cabin on the ship, pointing the finger of suspicion at himself even if he hadn’t been found unconscious in a pool of the victim’s blood, then fill in the hangman game to make his motive perfectly clear by misspelling the name of his own brother?

  “How does that make sense?”

  The judge scratched his head.

  Quick Draw was intrigued.

  “Let me see that clipping, Mr. Kline.”

  I gave it to the court clerk, who passed it on up to the judge. Sitting smugly silent in his seat, Wilde gave me what he thought was enough rope to hang myself. Only a fool telegraphs his strategy to the prosecution before he calls his defense at trial. Time stood still while the judge read:

  “I’M INNOCENT!”—CONVICT’S LAST WORDS

  HADDON HANGS

  Justin Whitfield

  Seattle Star

  Walla Walla—He stood before us on the gallows of the state penitentiary, a moment before the hangman cinched the noose around his neck and dropped him to his death, to protest his innocence one more time.

  “My last words are—”

  His voice broke.

  “That I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Be under no illusion. This is injustice. I owe society nothing. I am—”

  He choked the words.

  “An innocent man. Something wrong is taking place here tonight.”

  Then it was over. Peter Brice Haddon was dead …

  “Mr. Whitfield?”

  Among the reporters, Justin rose to his feet.

  “Yes, your honor?”

  “Why is Bryce misspelled?”

  “I phoned the story in from the state prison. The person who took it down misspelled the name throughout the piece. The typos came to my attention after it was published.”

  “You may be seated.”

  Justin sat down.

  “Yes, Mr. Kline?”

  “Ethan Shaw was drunk, my lord. Too drunk to have perpetrated this crime. There is a bruise on his forehead”—I pointed to my client—“which doesn’t match any blunt object found in the cabin, including the footwear of the victim. Whoever framed him took the club away. Given the misspelling in the hangman game, that person could be anyone violently opposed to capital punishment who read the story in the Star after Haddon hanged and mistakenly stored the wrong spelling in his memory.

  “B-R-I-C-E, my lord. Not the way Ethan Shaw would spell his brother’s name. That misspelling gives everyone aboard the ship except my client the hangman’s word-game motive.”

  I paused to let the reporters scratch a few notes. Tomorrow, what I was saying to the judge would be front-page news.

  Damn, I thought.

  I forgot to spell Kline.

  Sure as shit, someone would misspell it K-L-E-I-N.

  “My lord,” I said, “there is no case here. And if this extradition continues, it may clog the courts for years. My client wants to stand trial here and now, so he can be acquitted of this bogus charge. This morning, I appeared in provincial court at 222 Main to defend a charge of murder on Canada’s territorial sea. The refusal by the attorney general of Canada to give his consent is all that stands in the way of an expeditious trial in these courts. I ask you to order the Crown to give the necessary consent, and to vacate this provisional warrant granted to the United States.”

  I took my seat.

  Wilde stood up.

  He flipped open his pocket watch as if to confirm the time I had wasted, then addressed the court with a patronizing jab at me.

  “My young friend has much to learn about jurisdiction. The jury address we just heard is out of place. I am here to fix a date for an extradition hearing on the warrant issued by your lordship. This crime occurred on a foreign ship sailing from Seattle. The victim was an American. So is the accused. There is no evidence that this crime took place in Canada, and without that nexus, no jurisdiction to try Shaw here.

  “Consent is a matter for the attorney general. He has decided that consent should be denied. That puts an end to the matter. Let’s fix a date.”

  I was on my feet.

  “My friend could get consent.”

  “No consent is forthcoming. Those are my instructions.”

  “Mr. Kline,” said the judge, “that ends the matter of the necessary consent. No more tilting at windmills. Let’s fix a date.”

  “My lord,” I said, “I wish to read some law. Could this case be adjourned until tomorrow morning?”

  “Mr. Wilde?”

  “I’m in these courts, my lord.”

  The judge nodded.

  “Ten o’clock, Mr. Kline.”

  Fire one, I thought.

  The torpedo was in the water.

&nbs
p; One Angry Man

  Vancouver

  November 14 (Two days ago)

  Where would Zinc Chandler be today if not for Alex Hunt?

  And what would he do if he lost her?

  It was black beyond the windows of the TV room in which he and Alex had watched Twelve Angry Men, and it was black in here where Zinc sat alone in the dark, and it was black in the heart, mind, and soul of this angry, grieving man. Following the theatrics in Supreme Court that afternoon, the inspector had made arrangements for Alex to be cremated, and now he sat slumped amid the ashes of his smoldering life.

  God, how his head hurt from the bullet scar in his brain. With each thump of his broken heart, it screamed for release from the pain. He wished he could end this torment by eating the muzzle of his gun. One squeeze of the trigger and he could embrace oblivion, but then who would make sure that Alex got justice for the outrage done to her?

  He would.

  Count on it.

  Her killer would pay.

  Again and again, that final image replayed in his mind. Ethan approaching their table over dinner on the cruise, to take his brother Justin to meet Jeff Kline. “Go,” said Maddy. “We have files to discuss.” “Mind if I tag along?” Alex asked, as she gave Zinc a look that said, Here’s your chance to swing. If you love me, you must love me for me.

  Then she was gone.

  Gone eternally.

  And now Zinc was left wondering if Alex had died doubting that he loved her for her.

  If only he had flown home from Seattle that night Konrad was hanged. If only he hadn’t slept on the couch at Maddy’s place. If only he hadn’t told Alex that was what he did. If only he had recognized that she was worried about his commitment, this woman who had always seemed so sure of herself that he had never concerned himself with that phantom worry.

  If only … if only … if only …

  “Dammit!” he exploded.

  And instantly had the urge to smash something to pieces.

  His hand was around the neck of a lamp on the table beside the loveseat, about to hurl it against the wall with the full force of his anger, when the cellphone beside it called.