Spiked

by Randall Denley

  On the weekend, he didn’t wear his usual dark-suit editor uniform, looking much more relaxed in a denim shirt, khaki pants and some sort of reddish loafers with tassels. Those could be improved upon, I thought, but overall, I preferred weekend Colin.

  “Right then, tell me about your jumper.”

  Clearly, he was humouring me. “My jumper?” I asked.

  “Well, you have rather taken her on. What’s her name again?”

  “Mae Wang. At least, that was the name she went by. There is no record of such a person actually existing.”

  “Not entirely unusual. With the Chinese one-child policy, a lot of children never officially exist, especially girls.”

  “This is something more than that. The story has moved quite a bit since we spoke about it Thursday night. For starters, this is definitely a homicide. I have that from the Ottawa police.”

  “Ah, not a jumper then. Interesting.”

  “That’s just the start. It looks like there was a struggle on the roof of my building and that she was pushed off. And get this, a big posse of people from the Chinese Embassy showed up at the morgue and basically bullied the guy on night duty into giving them the body. Some bullshit about Chinese burial customs. The body’s long gone now.”

  Colin sipped his tea and leaned forward in his leather armchair. “Now this is starting to sound like a story.”

  “There is one other intriguing angle. The Mounties bigfooted the Ottawa Police and turned this into a joint investigation, with them in the lead. National security. They gave my police contact a line of bull about how they were the first to know the girl was killed. From what I hear, she might be some kind of Chinese spy and the Mounties had her under surveillance.”

  “Hmm, I can see the headline: Chinese Spy Murdered In Ottawa Love Nest,” Colin said.

  I wasn’t sure whether he was serious or having me on. “Fleet Street flashback?” I asked.

  “They do know how to present a story. Tell me, what inquiries have you made so far?”

  “I have spoken to Mae Wang’s graduate student adviser at Carleton and to her room-mate. I’m working with an Ottawa police source, as well. Even though he’s off the case, he’s still digging into it.”

  “Reilly?”

  “Yes,” I said, annoyed that Colin would know my source’s identity.

  “We‘re certainly not at a publishable stage yet,” he said. “We could go with something on the death being a homicide, but all that would do is attract the jackals from the other news organizations. No one else is on to this yet, I trust?”

  “No, I’m quite sure of that.”

  “You and Reilly, do you have a special relationship?”

  “Jesus Colin, are you asking if I’m screwing him? Last time I looked that was Suzy Morin’s beat.”

  “Well, quite, but I hear that’s not on any longer.”

  “You hear correctly, but I’m certainly not lining up to take her place.”

  “So there is a line then?” he asked, smiling. No doubt happy that I wasn’t in it.

  “Only the same one that every middle-aged guy imagines.”

  “Ah, touché.”

  “Here’s my problem. I’m going to be stuck in court day after day covering this Sandhu trial. Interesting situation, interesting back story, but a lot of the trial itself will be as dull as mud. The star witnesses will be interesting, and Sandhu himself, if they bring him on. The usual arm wrestling between the lawyers and the judge will be deadly stuff, though.”

  “I’m sure. Still, those who care about such things tell me your coverage of the trial is getting more hits online than anything else we’re offering.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess. Must be the celebrity gossip angle. It’s still going to make it tough for me to dig into the Mae Wang story. That could be huge, and exclusive. We can’t just let it go.”

  “Agreed,” Colin said, placing his teacup on the black coffee table that filled the space between us. “My inclination is to ask you to work with Suzy Morin on this. She is the police reporter. She and Reilly, are they able to work together?”

  “I think he’s still madly in love with her. Christ knows why. The woman’s an airhead. What she thinks, or if she thinks, I have no idea.”

  Colin sat back in his chair, as if to escape the range of my claws.

  “I guess this is your way of saying you and Suzy wouldn’t make a natural pairing.”

  “You got it.”

  “Perhaps I should ask her to undertake the entire thing, then.”

  “Oh, don’t be an asshole. This is my story.”

  “There’s something else,” he said, frowning and sweeping back his longish grey hair. I had seen this gesture before, and it had never been the prelude to anything good.

  “It worries me that this girl was thrown from your building. Why that building, and why just at the time that you habitually leave for work? And then there is the Chinese angle. The Chinese are very serious people, Kris. Embassy employees aren’t here to attend the Dragon Boat Festival and thrill us with the details of their bloody culture. They’re looking for the weak links in the human chain, to collect as much military, business and political information as they can. Despite their vigorous efforts, not everything can be learned by hacking into our computers.”

  “I get that, but I’ve spent my whole career dealing with scumbags and criminals.”

  “Just so, but these people act unfailingly in their own interest and there is really no limit to what they are capable of. They can commit murder and get nothing more than a slap on the wrist from our government and a ticket back home. That stunt you described at the morgue was just an opening act. I hear things on the diplomatic circuit, you know. I don’t go to all these tedious dinners just for hors d’oeuvres.”

  “So what do we do, give them a free pass because they’re bad guys? I’m not afraid of these pricks.”

  “Well, maybe you should be. The last time you took on ruthless authority figures, things didn’t turn out terribly well.”

  “Yes, I’m aware that several people ended up dead, that it was mostly my fault, and that you and I were lucky to escape with our lives. Does that mean that I have to spend the rest of my life in the fetal position?”

  Only a few days ago, I had been wondering whether I still gave a damn about anything. The Mae Wang story and all the arrogant string-pulling had shifted my attitude.

  “First of all, what happened down there was not your fault. Those who helped you volunteered, and those who received rough justice got what they had coming to them.”

  It was a message Colin had given me many times in my recovery period. Maybe I would eventually come to believe it.

  “Now, I understand that you’re a lone wolf, Kris, but I want you to get Suzy to do some legwork for you. She has good contacts in the RCMP and in the intelligence agencies. I think that’s where this story lies. What you’ve uncovered so far is intriguing, but it’s a story full of questions with very few answers. There is a lot more work to be done.

  “It will still be your story, top byline and nothing in the paper until we are all satisfied. Let her gather some information and then we can assess where we are at. There are extremely serious implications in what you’ve told me today. We need to make sure it’s locked down tight.”

  “What, and you think I can’t do that?”

  “Of course not, but I need you to cover that trial. It’s going to be page one for weeks. The approach you proposed with the wife is intriguing. I also want to know what Luc Champagne’s angle is. You can be sure he’s got one. Chaps like that always do. The wife is already pointing us in that direction.”

  “All right,” I said, knowing I really didn’t have a choice and that there wasn’t one other person in the newsroom who would have had the chance to debate this with Colin at his place on a Saturday morning. His normal style was command and control.

  The idea of sharing a story with Suzy Morin was repugnant, but there would probably b
e a way to get Suzy to do the grunt work and still grab the story back later.

  “So it’s back at the courthouse Monday morning, and no more poking into the Chinese business for now,” Colin said

  “Sure.” I was certain that I would deliver on at least one of those demands.

  “Excellent. And you’ll meet with Suzy, bring her up to speed?”

  “Yes. You might want to give her a head’s up, just so she doesn’t think I’m sticking her with some piece of crap that I don’t want.”

  “Done.” Then, switching personas in that disconcerting way he had, Colin said, “It’s a lovely morning. Fancy a walk down to the market? We could grab a croissant.”

  My first inclination was to say no. I had worked hard to keep Colin at bay. On the other hand, I had probably loved him once, I still liked him now, and he had saved my life. All of that ought to be worth an hour of my time.

  “Sure, why not?” I said, trying not to think of the obvious answers to my question.

  THIRTEEN

  Justice Roderick Macpherson settled into his position and said, “All right people, it’s Monday morning and I intend to make up some ground this week. My aim is to resolve this matter within the allotted sitting days.

  “Ms Faulkner, I hope you are going to tell me that Vikram Gill is present and ready to testify.”

  Faulkner rose and with an apologetic shrug said, “I’m afraid Mr. Gill is ill again today, your honour. I’m told he suffers from migraine headaches.”

  I felt my day slowly starting to circle the drain. Testimony of one of the two accusers would make an easy column, leaving me mental energy to think about what to do next on the Mae Wang story. I was eager, too, to see just how wobbly Gill would be.

  Macpherson shook his head, clearly frustrated. “All right then,” he said, his tone suggesting that this latest delay was anything but all right. “Who do you have for us, Ms Faulkner?”

  “The Crown would like to call Inspector Terry Carmichael.”

  Macpherson looked up in surprise. “Not Thomas Fung?” he said, shuffling through papers on his desk with visible annoyance.

  “We would like to keep those witnesses in sequence, your honour. Inspector Carmichael will lead us through the genesis of the case.”

  “Genesis, always a good story to start with,” the judge said.

  I shot a glance at the rest of the media crowd. The older ones were smiling at Macpherson’s remark, the younger ones didn’t seem to get it. Had any journalist under the age of 30 ever opened the Bible? Not that I had spent a lot of time with the book myself, just enough to know that I favoured the Old Testament rules.

  On the surface, it looked as if Faulkner’s case was in a bit of disarray. Lawyers carefully planned the order of their witnesses to help build the story they wanted to tell. I had expected that Faulkner would use her two star witnesses, Fung and Gill, to establish the case against Sandhu, then lead the investigator through questions designed to shore up any weaknesses Bernstein uncovered in his cross-examination.

  At the defence table, Bernstein and his two colleagues were scrambling through documents and binders, bringing to hand the materials the Crown would have released about Carmichael’s investigation, and the questions the defence planned to ask him.

  Bernstein and his second, Pittman, were conferring in low voices, so as not to help the big ears in the media. Pittman was trying to make a point, but Bernstein dismissed it with a curt shake of the head. I guessed that Pittman was arguing for a protest over shaking up the witness list, but Bernstein wouldn’t bite.

  “Bring him on then, Ms Faulkner,” the judge said.

  Carmichael took the stand, was sworn and settled in like he was at home in his favourite chair. I remembered that I had seen Carmichael in action once before. He was a strong witness and tough to shake off his version of the truth.

  Faulkner opened the large binder in front of her and flipped to the appropriate tab. “Now, Inspector Carmichael, for the benefit of the record, could you describe your position and experience with the RCMP?”

  “Yes. I am the lead investigator with the commercial crime branch in the National Capital Region, which investigates matters such as fraud and political corruption. Myself, I have been with the RCMP for 27 years, 10 of those with commercial crime.”

  Nice work to mention political corruption right in the opener. Maybe I wasn’t going to miss Vikram Gill after all. Carmichael’s testimony would still be the first time the Crown had really gotten into the details.

  “All right, inspector, I think that establishes your credentials. Now let’s turn to the matters that brought us here today. Can you tell the court how you first became aware of these allegations against Mr. Sandhu?”

  “We were contacted by an official in the federal government, a person with oversight of the program that Mr. Fung and Mr. Gill had applied to, seeking a federal grant for their wind power project. The person alleged that the project was bogus and the grant was improperly obtained.”

  “And the allegation seemed credible to you?”

  “The source seemed credible. I had no view on the validity of the allegation at that time.”

  It was important to show the investigator to be completely impartial, but I had read the documentation Carmichael had put together to obtain search warrants. It was typical of the dark picture the police painted to persuade a judge or justice of the peace to grant the warrant. The media routinely reported on the “information to obtain” in an important case as if it were all factual. Faulkner would pick and choose now.

  “And your initial focus, inspector, that was on Mr. Gill and Mr. Fung?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And how did Mr. Sandhu come to be involved in your investigation?”

  Smart move. Don’t dwell on Gill and Fung and what a pair of crooks they likely were. No doubt Bernstein wouldn’t be as kind.

  “We investigated the normal procedures for the Renewable Power For A Strong Canada program, as they call it. The typical paperwork and due diligence that was done, the amount of time it took to get an approval. That sort of thing.”

  “And generally, what did you find?”

  “It was a slow process. Federal bureaucracy, lots of paperwork and delays. Some grants were given out.”

  “And how long did the process take, typically?”

  “Eighteen to 24 months.”

  Faulkner paused to let that one sink in.

  “So up to two years to get an approval through. Inspector, remind us how long the Gill-Fung project took.”

  “Just two months.”

  “Did that strike you as unusual?”

  “Objection,” Bernstein said. “Inspector Carmichael is a police officer, not an expert on federal project approval.”

  It was a weak objection, but Macpherson sustained it. “Please rephrase Ms Faulkner.”

  “Inspector, in your direct research on this particular grant program, did the Gill-Fung project stand out in terms of how quickly it was approved?”

  “Yes, it did. This was the fastest approval given. The next fastest was one year.”

  “And given the anomalous nature of this project, did that lend credibility to the original information you received?” Faulkner said.

  “It did. It seemed that there was something unusual about this particular project.”

  “And in what direction did your investigation go next?”

  Carmichael shifted in his chair, and adjusted his tie. I imagined that he spent a fair amount of time in front of the mirror on the average day. Typical middle-aged guy who thought he still had it.

  “We dug deeper into the particular approval process for this project.”

  “And what did you discover?”

  “The standard application form was filled out, but the usual bureaucratic evaluation was missing. We inquired with departmental staff and were told that the project had been flagged from the political side.”

  “Flagged from the political side? Can
you explain that for the court?”

  “Of course. The assistant deputy minister in charge of the program had received a call from the industry minister’s parliamentary secretary, suggesting that the minister would be very pleased if this particular application were quickly approved.”

  “The minister?” Faulkner said, adopting an expression of fake surprise.

  “The minister of industry, yes.”

  “And who was the minister at that time?”

  “That was Luc Champagne.”

  My media colleagues started to tweet furiously, thinking they were going to get a Luc Champagne angle out of this. Maybe this was what Gail Rakic had been referring to when she talked about what Champagne was up to. Champagne and Sandhu had been seen as the two leading contenders for the future Conservative leadership at the time that Champagne had deep-sixed his deputy. The political motivation was obvious.

  “And you spoke to Mr. Champagne about this, I assume?”

  “I did not,” Carmichael said “but my colleagues did. I can tell you that their inquiries established that Minister Champagne had no familiarity with this project whatsoever and that he had not spoken to his parliamentary secretary about it.”

  Bernstein was up again. “Objection. This is a critical point. I am going to want to cross-examine the officer who gathered that information.”

  “Agreed,” the judge said. “Ms Faulkner, I expect you will present this information direct from that particular horseman’s mouth at some point.”

  The lawyers gave the obligatory laugh at the judge’s witticism. One of the many great things about being a judge was that at least some of the people in the room were going to appreciate your jokes.

  “I will, your honour.”

  “Let’s hold this line of questioning until then. Please focus on matters of which Inspector Carmichael has direct knowledge.”

  “Of course. So, inspector, returning to your investigation, you determined that the accused, Mr. Sandhu, was the parliamentary secretary involved?”

  “I did.”

  “Very good. Now, I’d like to lead you through your forensic investigation of the financial affairs of Mr. Gill and Mr. Fung.”