01 - Old City Hall

by Robert Rotenberg

  Singh smiled. “Most mornings there is no one.”

  “Would you mind if I spoke with you for a minute?” Kennicott asked.

  “Of course not, once I make my final delivery,” Singh said. Kennicott waited at the elevator as Singh walked around the corner and down the hallway toward Suite 12B. Kennicott heard his steady steps, the sound of the newspaper being quietly deposited at the door, and the footsteps’ return. The only other sound was the whir of the air-conditioning fans. He remembered how quiet this hallway was that first morning he was here.

  “I’d like to take you back to 12A, Mr. Singh,” Kennicott said when he reappeared.

  “That would be fine,” Singh said. “I am three minutes ahead on my delivery schedule.”

  Without another word Singh walked ahead toward 12A. Kennicott followed. He unsealed the front door and then said, “Sir, in your initial statement you said that when you first came to this spot, the front door was halfway open.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Please, open the door to the exact position it was in that morning.”

  “It was like this,” Singh said. Without hesitation he opened the large door. “I stood in this spot, in the center of the doorway.”

  Kennicott nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, could I stand there?”

  Singh moved out of the way, and Kennicott took his place. From this angle, the view down the wide front hallway was obstructed. You could see only a sliver of the kitchen and the windows beyond. The kitchen table was out of sight, off to the right.

  “And when Mr. Brace came to the door, did it remain in the same position?”

  Mr. Singh had to think about that. “No,” he said finally. “Mr. Brace opened it all the way to the wall.”

  Kennicott nodded. Now he was seeing the apartment not through his own eyes, but through the cipher of the architectural drawing he’d seen in court. It was as if he were up in the air, looking down. “Show me where the door was after Mr. Brace moved it.”

  “Like this.” Singh pushed the door gently. It came to rest on a rubber stopper on the floor, just in front of the wall. “Then he said, ‘I killed her, Mr. Singh, I killed her.’”

  “And right then, what was the first thing that you did?”

  “I said, ‘We must contact the authorities.’ As I said in my statement.”

  “Yes. I know you said that. But what did you do? Here, stand back in the place where you were, and now I’ll go inside and face you. I’ll be Brace.”

  Kennicott went over the threshold and turned back to Singh, standing right in front of him. “Is this where he was?”

  “Precisely. Then Mr. Brace stepped aside, and I walked in,” Singh said.

  “Which side did he step to?”

  “The door side.”

  Kennicott moved to his left. “He moves, this way, toward the door. How far does he go?”

  “All the way over.”

  Kennicott nodded. He covered the narrow gap between the door and the wall. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he lets you in along the wall side.”

  “Exactly. I walked down the hallway to the kitchen, and Mr. Brace followed me. I believe I said all of this in my statement as well.”

  Kennicott nodded. “I’d like you to walk through it exactly as it happened. Please come in, Mr. Singh, just like you did that morning.”

  Singh did not hesitate. “I considered that the situation was most grave,” he said as he walked past Kennicott. “I proceeded directly down the hallway.” Saying that, Singh walked in at a steady pace.

  “And Brace, what did he do?” Kennicott asked, not yet moving from his spot by the door.

  “He followed behind,” Singh said. “I came directly into the kitchen. Mr. Brace came up behind me.” It had taken Singh only a few seconds to walk to the end of the hallway and enter the kitchen. Kennicott followed him, arriving a moment later.

  “Did Brace walk behind you like this?”

  “Yes, he followed me. I do walk quickly, and he joined me right at this spot a short time later.”

  Kennicott took a deep breath. “Mr. Singh, think carefully. Did you actually see Mr. Brace walk down the hallway behind you?” He expected that the older man might have trouble reconstructing such a small detail. But he was wrong.

  “No. I did not look back. I was most concerned to find Mr. Brace’s wife. So I walked directly here.”

  “Did he say anything else while you two walked down the hallway?”

  Singh seemed surprised by the question. “No. I do not like to indulge in chatter.”

  Kennicott had watched Singh carefully a few minutes before at the elevator, when he’d asked the old man to come down to Suite 12A. Singh had just walked straight ahead, without saying a word or looking back at Kennicott.

  “Mr. Singh, listen to this next question,” Kennicott said. Suddenly he felt like a defense lawyer again, trying to nail down a witness on a key point in cross-examination. “At any time from the moment you walked into the doorway until you came to this spot, did you look behind the front door?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “And now you and I are facing the kitchen, away from the front door. Did you look back down the hallway at this time?”

  “No. As I said in my statement, I proceeded directly here, to the kitchen area. When I did not see Mr. Brace’s wife here, I proceeded to the bedrooms.” He pointed off to his right, where the master bedroom and the second bedroom were located, beyond the kitchen. “There was no one in the bedrooms or the bathroom back there. I returned to the kitchen. Mr. Brace remained right here, where we are standing now.”

  “Let’s walk through your exact movements, Mr. Singh.” Kennicott took a quick glance at his watch, then followed Singh as he walked into Brace’s bedroom, the en suite bathroom, the second bedroom, which was Brace’s study, and then came back to the same spot in the kitchen.

  “That took just over a minute, Mr. Singh,” he said. “Does that sound about right?”

  “Certainly. But Mr. Brace did not follow. He remained right here, at this spot, in the kitchen.”

  Kennicott nodded. He turned and looked back up the hallway, where he had a clear view of the opened front door.

  “I then asked, ‘Mr. Brace, where is your wife located?’ He pointed up the hall, and I went to the lavatory there.” Without prompting by Kennicott this time, Singh walked back up the hall.

  Kennicott walked behind and stopped him just before he got to the bathroom door. “Mr. Singh,” he said, pointing to the front door, “when you walked back up the hall, did you look at the front door? Do you remember what position it was in?”

  For the first time since he’d entered the apartment, Singh seemed a little unsure of himself. “Let me see,” he said. “Mr. Brace did not move from the kitchen. He just pointed. I walked here. I must have looked back at the front door.”

  “Don’t assume, Mr. Singh. Try to remember.”

  “I was most concerned about Mr. Brace’s wife.”

  “Of course you were.”

  Mr. Singh closed his eyes. Kennicott could see that he was beginning to reenact things in his mind. His head started to bob, as if he were walking. Suddenly his eyes flew open. “My goodness,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of this before. The front door was back the way it was when I first arrived, half opened. I remember thinking it was strange, because I had been most careful not to touch it for fear of fingerprints.”

  Kennicott remembered the exhilaration he used to feel in court when he’d gotten a key fact from a witness in cross-examination. “Thank you very much, Mr. Singh,” he said.

  Singh’s mouth was agape. “But that could only mean—”

  “Yes, I know exactly what that means,” Kennicott said, ushering Singh back out the front door. “And I’d ask you not to discuss this with anyone but myself and Detective Greene and Mr. Fernandez.”

  “Such a wide hallway. Such a large door,” Singh said. “The possibility had neve
r occurred to me.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Kennicott said as he walked Singh to the elevator and shook his hand. “Please excuse me, sir,” he said. “I’ve got a few calls to make.”

  “Most certainly, Officer Kennicott.”

  Kennicott turned and walked quickly. You’re working a homicide now, he told himself. You are not supposed to run. But as soon as he was around the corner, he sprinted back to the condominium. To call Greene.

  50

  It felt strange for Albert Fernandez not to be driving downtown on a weekday morning, but instead to be heading north to the suburban wasteland, on the way to an industrial park he once knew so well. He was surprised that before seven in the morning the traffic was as heavy as it was, a sign that the unabated urban sprawl surrounding Toronto had led to constant gridlock in all directions. It’s as if my car has muscle memory, he thought after he exited the main highway and drove seamlessly through the twists and turns of the antiseptic streets of the industrial park. He stopped at the last building.

  The big parking lot was packed. In a few minutes it would be shift change, the night workers would roll out, and soon half the cars would be gone. Fernandez parked on the far eastern extremity, just inside a bend in the chain-link fence, and started toward the front door. He passed through the rows of workers’ cars—aging trucks, large vehicles, worn-out-looking vans—many of them adorned with blue-and-white Maple Leafs flags or GO LEAFS GO AND MEMBER OF LEAF nation bumper stickers. Tucked under the windshield of each one was a black-and-white leaflet, flapping in the wind and making a birdlike fluttering sound.

  Fernandez leaned over a rust-colored Pontiac and yanked out a flyer. He recognized the bold typeface and the grainy card stock. How many thousands of similar leaflets had he tucked under windshields or tried to hand off to scoffing workers?

  WORKERS—UNITE IN OUR STRUGGLE

  FRIDAY—MEET TO SUPPORT THE TRANSIT WORKERS’ UNION

  SPECIAL SPEAKERS—PRESTON DOUGLAS—VICE PRESIDENT—TWU

  190 CLINTON STREET—8:00

  REFRESHMENTS SERVED

  Underneath the headline, a few paragraphs in achingly small type outlined in mind-numbing detail the alleged transgressions of the “employer.” Fernandez forced himself to read through the prolix prose, then folded the flyer once vertically and slipped it into his shirt pocket, where it stuck out like a flag.

  He spotted the coffee truck parked near the factory entrance, and keeping his head down, he eased his way into line. He was much too well dressed to fit in, and it didn’t take long until he was recognized.

  “Hey, Little Alberto, that you?” It was a man carrying a helmet and goggles.

  Before Fernandez could say a word, a second man chipped in. “I saw you on TV last night. It’s a big trial, eh?” His accent was even stronger than the first man’s.

  “Not really,” Fernandez said.

  “You going to nail the bastard, aren’t you, Alberto?” It was the first man speaking. “My daughter, Stephanie, you remember her? Now she’s living with an older guy. They come for dinner on Sunday, and an hour later they’re gone. Like she’s his prisoner. But this Brace, he’s rich. The judge will want to help him out, no?”

  “Rich. Poor. It’s all the same,” Fernandez said.

  The two men exchanged cynical glances. “But you going to win?” the second man asked.

  Fernandez shrugged. “The Crown never wins and never loses,” he said. “My job is to let the judge or jury decide.”

  “Yeah, I heard you say that on TV. Same old Little Alberto,” the first man said. He clapped a meaty paw on Fernandez’s shoulder. “Your dad’s over there. Still with the leaflets. Every Friday another meeting.”

  “And his own mug of coffee,” Fernandez said, giving the men a knowing smile.

  They both nodded. As Fernandez began to walk away, the first man said, “Think of Stephanie, and nail that old guy, Alberto.”

  Fernandez approached his father from the side, just out of his line of vision. His dad’s hair was still thick and matted, but significantly more gray than the last time he’d seen him.

  “Meeting this Friday . . . take a leaflet . . . important meeting . . . help out the transit workers’ union . . . take a leaflet . . .” His father spoke in a constant patter, like a popcorn vendor at a baseball game, working the passing crowd.

  Fernandez counted as ten men walked past. Only three took a leaflet, and none even bothered to look at it.

  Gradually his father felt a presence at his side. He turned with his arm out, trying to hand off a leaflet. “Here, there’s an important meeting Friday night, take a . . .” His voice slowed as he recognized his son, and his arm slid back down to his side.

  “Hi, Father,” Fernandez said, filling the sudden silence.

  “Albert,” his father said, regaining his voice. “What are you doing back here?”

  “I came to talk to you,” he said, watching his father’s jaw clench. “It’s been long enough.”

  His father eyed him suspiciously. “What is it? You getting divorced or having a baby? Got fired and need your old job back?”

  Fernandez shook his head. “I’m not getting divorced. And, no, we’re not having a baby.”

  His father frowned. “They’re firing you? Why? You’re on this big case. Your mother has been following it in the newspaper for months. Okay, we’ll talk. But this is the best time for the leaflets.” His father turned back to the row of men passing by. Fernandez waited. About a dozen men walked past, and only a few took the leaflets.

  “Here, Dad,” he said. “Give me half of those.”

  For the next fifteen minutes they handed out leaflets together, falling back into the rhythm of Fernandez’s youth. When the flyers were all gone, they sat on a nearby bench. His father pulled a battered green thermos from his old backpack.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Sure, Dad,” Fernandez said. He sat down and watched his father unscrew the lid on the thermos. Fernandez smelled the deep aroma of the coffee. He was just eleven years old when his parents moved from Chile, and he still remembered them complaining about Canadian coffee. Even when money was desperately low, they always bought their own espresso beans to grind. This smell had been with him all his life.

  “All these years with the workers, you still can’t drink their coffee,” Fernandez said.

  His father shook his head. “It’s not coffee they drink. It’s just brown hot water. Albert, there are some things even a committed worker like me can’t do for the cause.”

  He took a sip from his detachable cup and handed it over to Fernandez. The taste was as familiar as the smell of the pillow in his old bedroom.

  “Have they really fired you?” his father asked.

  “Not yet. But I think they will, next week.”

  “Albert, I don’t agree with what you do. Working for the state to prosecute the poor—”

  “Dad, I didn’t come here to have a political—”

  “But I know you work hard. And I know you’re honest.”

  Fernandez clasped the cup firmly.

  “Your mother’s been cutting clippings of the trial from the paper,” his father said. “Yesterday she told me this Sunday was Mother’s Day.”

  “Disgusting capitalist institution,” Fernandez said, doing a pretty good imitation of his father’s voice.

  They looked at each other, and both chuckled.

  “I might need some help,” Fernandez found himself saying, not really sure how to talk to his father like this. How to ask for guidance.

  51

  DAY TWO = BORING!” Nancy Parish wrote in big, dark print in her trial book, then used her yellow highlighter to magnify the point. She couldn’t even think of anything to draw.

  For the last six hours Fernandez had been questioning Detective Ho. The man loved to hear himself talk. He’d gone over everything he’d examined in Brace’s condominium in minute detail, right down to the fact that the bathtub Katherine’s body was fou
nd in didn’t have a soap dish. It was almost 4:30, and Parish was hungry and tired and sick to death of Ho, who looked like he could happily talk for another century.

  “And finally, to wrap up your evidence for today,” Fernandez said, approaching the railing in front of the court clerk, “I want to ask you about the knife you found.”

  “Certainly,” Ho said, as eager as a dog at its dish at feeding time.

  There was a box on the counter. Fernandez reached in and pulled out two pairs of thin plastic gloves. He passed one set over to Ho, and then, with meticulous care, he slid on the gloves and opened the rectangular box that held the knife.

  The court grew silent, still. The court reporter pulled the recording mask from her face and looked over. Summers pushed up his eyeglasses and stared down. Fernandez knew he had everyone’s attention, and he took his time. This was only a prelim, and there was no jury, but Parish could see that he was playing to Summers and the press. His strategy was clear. End the day on a high note. Give the onlookers a memorable image they’d carry with them for the next eighteen hours. The murder weapon.

  “Do you recognize this, Detective Ho?” Fernandez asked, gingerly lifting up a big black kitchen knife.

  These are the moments at trial that defense lawyers dread—when a key piece of physical evidence is presented. It is one thing to hear about a knife or to look at photographs of a knife, but the moment when you actually see it has its own natural drama. Even from where she sat, Parish spotted specks of dried blood on the silver blade. She’d spent hours studying the pictures of the knife that had been provided to her as part of the disclosure of the Crown case, but actually seeing it for the first time sent a chill down her back.

  At law school her professor had told them about the cigar trick of the famous defense lawyer Clarence Darrow. He’d take one of his wife’s hairpins and insert it into the head of a cigar. The wire prevented the ash from falling, even as it grew precariously in length. Darrow timed it so that just when the worst piece of evidence was coming out, the ashes at the end of his cigar would be impossibly long. The jury would be distracted. Transfixed, they’d watch his cigar and ignore the prosecution.