The reporters were right. He would attend court this morning, and it was his understanding that he would be the very first witness.
Despite himself, he considered the other reporter’s question. How will it feel to testify with Mr. Kevin in the courtroom? He imagined that the whole proceeding would be extremely uncomfortable for Mr. Kevin. Although he was a well-known radio personality who spoke to millions of people each day, Mr. Singh knew that Mr. Kevin was a very private man.
Take for example that terrible morning in December, when Mr. Kevin told Mr. Singh he had killed his wife. He could barely speak. After that, he did not say another word. When Mr. Singh asked if he would like some tea, Mr. Kevin had simply nodded.
The police detective who interviewed him that afternoon and the Crown Attorney who met with him last week had both pressed him to try to remember any other words Mr. Kevin had said. But there was nothing to remember.
Mr. Singh couldn’t understand what was so complicated about this case. Mr. Kevin had said he’d killed Miss Katherine, and she was dead in the bathtub.
An unfortunate circumstance, no doubt. Poor Miss Katherine. So sad for Mr. Kevin. Yes, Mr. Singh thought, it will be most odd to see him again today and not be able to wish him good morning and ask about his beautiful wife.
43
Boy Wonder finally delivered his toxicology report,” Jennifer Raglan said to Ari Greene as he walked into her cluttered corner office. She was holding a brown legal-size envelope in her hand, the words OFFICE OF THE CORONER OF ONTARIO clearly marked on it. He had a large latte in one hand, which he’d brought for her, and a chamomile tea for himself in the other.
They’d worked out this system on mornings when she’d stayed over at his place. He’d drop her off a few blocks away from the office, and she’d walk in alone. He’d show up sometime later.
“Just-in-time delivery,” Greene said as he put her coffee down on one of the few clear spaces he could find on her desk. “The Kiwi doctor is a busy man, but he always comes through.”
“Thanks,” she said, sipping the coffee. “Fernandez is down the hall, as always. The guy practically sleeps here.”
“Keen, isn’t he?” Greene said, standing across the desk from her.
Raglan exhaled loudly as she pulled a set of reports out of the envelope and began to read. “You have to watch it with young Crowns. They can get caught up. Want to win at all costs. Last thing I need is another Phil Cutter.”
She flipped through the document quickly, with a practiced eye. “Shit,” she said as her fingers traced a passage at the bottom of one of the pages. She tossed it across the desk to him.
Greene read the section marked “Toxicology.” He let out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of alcohol in her system at five in the morning. Two point five. Howard Peel, her AA sponsor, said she was back on the juice.”
Raglan bit her lower lip. “This case isn’t the straight shot we thought it was when it came in.”
“They never are,” Greene said, flipping through the medical report. “Look at this,” he said, coming around the desk and standing beside her. “Hospital tests of Torn’s platelet level. Ridiculously low.”
Raglan leaned over to look, putting her hip against his. “Seventeen,” she said. “Isn’t that almost like being a hemophiliac?”
“Close. Below ten’s the number. Dr. McKilty said anything under twenty and she’d bruise like a ripe banana. She had some prints on her upper arms. Could have been from anything.”
“Presumably the platelet count’s so low from the drinking,” Raglan said. “But she was in great shape. Didn’t she ride horseback almost every day?”
Greene nodded. “Often go hand in hand. Addicted to drinking, addicted to exercise.”
Raglan slipped her hand behind Greene’s back. “There’s never a perfect victim, is there?” she said.
“When Parish sees this, she’s going to push for a deal,” Greene said.
She nodded as she tucked her fingers into his belt loop. “And Summers is going to go ape shit. He’ll haul me into his chambers and practically demand a plea to second, if not manslaughter. But my hands are tied. Orders from on high—make no deal.” She slipped her fingers in under the top of his pants. “Two more days until the kids come back,” she said, turning her hip slightly toward him.
Greene nodded.
The BlackBerry she always wore on her hip began to buzz. She grabbed it and looked down.
“It’s Dana,” she said, turning away from Greene to take the call.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, looking at her watch. “How come you’re up so early?”
Raglan nodded.
“Oh, the zoo. That will be a great trip. I thought Daddy . . .”
There was a pause, and Greene saw Raglan clench her fist. “Isn’t the form in your backpack?”
Raglan rubbed her hand over her face. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
Raglan nodded again. “Yeah, I was working late, so that’s why I didn’t answer the phone at home. Sweetie, I told you to always call my cell. Okay, I’m going to leave the office in a few minutes and go home and get it, and I’ll drive it over to the school. Love you.”
She clicked the phone off and looked at Greene. “Grade-four trip. They won’t let her on the bus without the damn form.”
There was a knock on the door. Fernandez walked in proudly, holding a black binder. A label squarely in the center: R.V. KEVIN BRACE—PRELIMINARY INQUIRY BINDER—ALBERT FERNANDEZ, ASSISTANT CROWN ATTORNEY.
“Albert, I was just about to call you,” Raglan said. “Dr. McKilty finally got us the toxicology report. Bad news. Torn had two point five alcohol in her system. And her platelet level was pathetically low.”
Fernandez reached out and took a copy of the report. He sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk and began to read it slowly. Methodically.
Raglan looked at Greene and then back at Fernandez. She took a deep breath. “Albert, I’ve got a crisis with my daughter, so I have to run out.”
“She okay?” he asked, looking up. He seemed genuinely concerned.
“Yeah. Just a school permission form thing. Good luck today in court.”
He shrugged. “Summers is going to yell at me for not offering a deal. Especially when he sees this.”
Raglan’s cell phone rang again. She grabbed it and looked at the display. “Sorry, Albert, I have to take this . . . just a second.”
She turned sideways. “Sweetie, I’m on my way. What? He did. Tell him thanks. I’ll talk to you tonight. Love you.”
She clicked the phone off and looked at Greene. “Her father got another parent to fax him over a blank form. Crisis solved.”
Fernandez stood up. “Those are my marching orders, aren’t they? No deal.”
Greene looked closely at the prosecutor. Raglan was right about young Crowns. Young defense lawyers too, for that matter. The urge to win at all costs was so very powerful.
“For now,” Raglan said, “no deal.”
44
Nancy Parish put on her best smile as Justice Summers strode into court at precisely ten o’clock. She’d been a full minute early. Horace, the constable at the door with the bell, had been impressed.
She rose to her feet with everyone else in the packed courtroom and watched as Summers’s clerk rushed in and placed his books beside him on his desk. An old air conditioner rattled in the window, billowing out cold jets of air into the large room. Summers took one look at the noisy machine and with a powerful wave of his hand he dispatched his clerk to turn it off.
Parish stayed on her feet after the court had been called to order and everyone but her and Fernandez had sat down. She waited until the racket from the air conditioner stopped.
“Good morning, Your Honor,” she said.
“Good morning, Your Honor,” Fernandez said.
“Good morning, Counsel,” Summers said, acting for all the world as if this were just any day in court, not even deigning to lift his
eyes to acknowledge the crowd that filled every seat on the main floor of the courtroom and every available space in the upstairs balcony.
“If it please the court, Ms. Nancy Parish—that’s P-A-R-I-S-H—counsel for Mr. Kevin Brace; he’s the gentleman behind me in the prisoners’ dock,” said Parish.
“Yes. I’m glad to see they got him here on time today,” Summers said.
“As am I,” she said. “Thanks to your efforts, sir, they are now bringing my client to the courthouse on the so-called early run.”
“Good,” Summers said, clearly pleased with himself.
He’s happy with me so far, Parish thought. Just wait until I drop my first bombshell.
“Any preliminary motions, counsel?” Summers asked after Fernandez introduced himself and sat down. The judge made a show of opening a new book and dipping his pen into an ink bottle, which his faithful aide had unscrewed for him. “I assume there will be the usual exclusion of witnesses.”
“I would request that,” Parish said.
“As would I,” Fernandez piped in, rising briefly to his feet. Summers gave him a look that seemed to say, “Relax, Fernandez, don’t be such a bootlicker.”
Thanks, Fernandez, Parish thought. Let Summers start the day getting pissed at you.
“And I imagine, Ms. Parish, you’ll be asking for the usual ban on publication of these proceedings.” Summers was already making a little note in his book. Parish had learned always to watch the judge’s pen. Never start talking until he’d stopped writing.
He finished his scribbling and looked up, surprised to see that Parish still had not responded. She let the silence settle in for another moment.
“Thank you for that suggestion, Your Honor, but the defense will not be requesting a ban on publication of these proceedings.” She sat down quickly.
There was a gasp from the gallery behind her. She heard a shuffling of papers and a clicking of pens in the front rows, which were filled with anxious reporters.
“Silence,” Summers roared. “Members of the press will remain silent, or they will be removed from my court.” Then he smiled down at Parish. A real Cheshire cat grin.
Summers is smarter than some people give him credit for, Parish thought. Clearly her move had taken him totally by surprise, so he used the opportunity of yelling at the press to give himself a few moments to absorb what she’d said. Now he’d appear to take it in stride.
“That’s your option, Ms. Parish,” he said coolly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Parish saw Fernandez glare at her. Just as she thought he would.
Fernandez stood up.
“Yes, Mr. Fernandez?” Summers asked.
“Your Honor, if the defense is not requesting a ban on publication, then the Crown will.”
“Oh, you will, will you?” Summers said. He was starting to growl.
Parish was ready. She opened a yellow file folder on her desk as she stood. Some more informal judges didn’t mind if counsel spoke to them while seated, but in Summers’s court you never uttered a word unless you were on your feet.
“Your Honor, the case law is settled on this point. The defense has an absolute right to request a ban on publication at the preliminary inquiry stage; the Crown does not. For the Crown to gain a ban on publication, they will have to show extraordinary reasons, usually something in the nature of a threat to an undercover operation or national security. Surely that’s not an issue in this case.”
She took a blue-bound casebook from the file and handed it over to the clerk, who passed it up to Summers. She gave a second copy to Fernandez. He took it reluctantly, like a rejected suitor taking back his ring.
Summers grabbed the binder from his clerk’s outstretched hand and tossed it aside—making a show of not even looking at the cases.
“Ms. Parish, the court very much appreciates your assistance. I believe that after thirty years on the bench I am well familiar with the law on this point. The leading case is De La Salle, isn’t it—1993,’94, somewhere around there? Volume . . . what . . . four or five of Supreme Court Reports. Summers gave the case name a hefty French accent, and as he spoke, he waved his hands back and forth like a man estimating the age of a vintage wine.
Summers loved showing off like this, and Parish knew the trick was never to upstage him. Never interrupt. And if he cracked a joke, never, ever crack one back. In other words, always let Summers have the last laugh.
“Very good, Your Honor,” Parish said. “It’s in 1994.” In fact the case was called Dagenais, not De La Salle, and it was in volume three. But there was no need to contradict His Honor on such trivialities in front of a packed courthouse. She knew that at the break he’d go back and check the citation, and then he’d be even more grateful that Parish hadn’t shown him up in court.
Summers smiled. He turned his gaze to Fernandez. “Mr. Fernandez,” he said, speaking slowly, “can you convince me to rewrite the Criminal Code of Canada?”
Parish sat down quietly and kept her eyes lowered. She didn’t have to look up to feel the waves of tension emanating from Fernandez. She’d learned a long time ago never to gloat in court. Don’t ever be a bad winner.
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Fernandez practically spit out the words. Still keeping her eyes down, Parish could only see Fernandez’s legs. Instead of his usual ramrod-straight posture, he seemed to be swaying on his feet. “I think my friend Ms. Parish makes a good point. Upon consideration, we do not request a general ban on publication.”
Fernandez had regained his cool quickly and been smart enough not to fight a losing battle with Summers. Parish was impressed.
“But, Your Honor, there may be certain witnesses for whom I will ask to revisit this issue,” he said. “I’m sure Your Honor will keep an open mind if certain extraordinary circumstances arise.”
Parish looked at him. Something about Fernandez’s tone caught her attention. “Extraordinary circumstances” was a code phrase in an open courtroom. It usually meant that there was a rat somewhere in the prison who’d claim he’d heard a jailhouse confession. Every defense lawyer’s nightmare. She glanced at Summers, who was giving Fernandez a knowing nod. He’d gotten the message.
“Certainly, the bench will be prepared to revisit this issue, Mr. Fernandez,” he said, all sweetness and light, “should the need arise.”
Parish clenched her pen. Despite herself, she glanced quickly back at Brace in the prisoners’ dock. Suddenly she didn’t see him as Kevin Brace, famous broadcaster, the Voice of Canada. Now he was just another client in an orange jumpsuit. Another client she’d told a hundred times to keep his mouth shut. Another client who had probably torpedoed his own case by something stupid he’d said in jail. Shit.
“I’m sure you won’t object to that, Ms. Parish?” Summers said. She could almost hear what Summers was thinking—“Nancy, for God’s sake, didn’t you tell your client to shut the fuck up?”
“Of course I did,” she felt like standing up and screaming. “Only about a hundred goddamn times. He wouldn’t say a word to me, and still he’s in the bucket yakking away, like they all do!”
Instead she rose slowly to her feet. “Thank you for your ruling, Your Honor,” she said. Her head was pounding. Fuck, what did Brace say? What did Fernandez have?
She smiled at Judge Summers. “The defense,” she said, “is ready to proceed.”
45
The first witness for the Crown will be Mr. Gurdial Singh,” Albert Fernandez said as he moved to the podium at the side of the counsel table, speaking in a slow, confident voice.
Some Crown Attorneys believed that it was best to start a prelim with the police witnesses—set the scene, get the forensics out of the way. But Fernandez liked to tell the story in order—in simple Anglo-Saxon language—even if it meant pissing off a bunch of cops because they had to sit around all day waiting to be called to the stand. That’s why he was starting with Singh.
Besides, Singh was just the kind of witness Crown Attorneys loved. He had
no criminal record, of course, was a completely respectable citizen, and had no motive to do anything but tell the truth. Best of all, a jury would adore him. The perfect opening witness.
“Mr. Gurdial Singh!” a police officer at the door called out into the hall. A moment later Mr. Singh walked in. Despite the hot day, he wore a white shirt and tie, gray flannel pants, and thick-soled shoes. He was carrying a long raincoat over his arm, and as he walked in, he looked around for a place to put it. This simple, small act suddenly made Singh look unsure of himself. If a jury ever saw that, Fernandez realized, their first impression would be that he was a confused old man. And first impressions, Fernandez knew, counted for seventy percent of a jury’s final impression.
It always amazed Fernandez how the slightest thing could change how you felt about a witness. Credibility was a fragile resource. Thankfully, this is just the prelim, he thought as he made a notation in the margin of his court notebook to be sure, before the trial, to walk Singh through the courtroom, get him fully acclimatized to the setting, and have someone take his coat well before he testified.
Just as Fernandez was about to speak to Singh, Summers jumped into the breach. “Good morning, Mr. Singh,” he sang out from his perch high up on the dais.
“Oh, hello, Your Honor,” Singh said, raising the coat in his arm.
“The clerk will take that for you. Just have a seat right up here beside me.” Summers patted the wood railing by his side.
The clerk shot out of his seat below the judge and rushed over to relieve Singh of his coat.
“Good morning, Mr. Singh,” Fernandez said after Singh had taken the stand and been sworn in as a witness.
“Good morning, Mr. Fernandez.”
“Mr. Singh, I understand that you were born in India in 1933, that you’re a civil engineer, and that you worked for forty years as a railway engineer in India, rising to the position of Chief Engineer for the Northern District of Indian Railways before you retired.”
“It was forty-two years, to be precise,” Mr. Singh said.
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