by L.H. Thomson
“I heard on the radio this morning that he’d lost his representation, but I didn’t catch the details.”
Andrea crossed her legs, then leaned forward and hugged her knee, looking downward toward her lap, her hands clasped self-consciously. She looked even more undersized in the big office chair. “Anthony Croce was our… was Paul’s lawyer. Well… mine, too, until they dropped my assault charge.”
“Tony C. Big-time guy.”
“He’d approached us when Paul was arrested and offered to represent Paul pro bono. The police seized all of our assets as the ‘proceeds of crime’.”
“And Croce figured he’d get some good exposure while fulfilling his pro bono obligations for this year. What happened?”
“He told the court that he was unaware at the time that he offered free service that his firm was also representing PetroMas in another matter. You know, the company Mr. Featherstone… well… you know…”
“The victim’s employer.”
“Uh huh.”
That would raise a few eyebrows at the Law Society, Jessie thought, although he’d probably argue scope if there was an investigation. Croce Barr Douglas had twenty-two lawyers on staff, one of the bigger firms in the west. And he recused himself before the case went to trial.
“So why come to me? We’re not really positioned to handle a murder case…”
“We knew this was coming last week, so I’ve been phoning every lawyer in Edmonton,” Andrea explained. “To be honest, we haven’t found anyone who will take the case and who we can afford.”
“You can petition the court for assistance…”
Andrea cut her off, her voice inquisitive. “Last year… you’re the lawyer who got the Sawyer boy off on trying to kill his uncle, right?”
“We were very lucky to get last minute evidence…”
“I heard you did that case for free.”
“We get a small grant to help us each year from local community agencies, but I do charge a fee,” Jessie corrected. “It’s greatly reduced.”
“Would it be possible to do, you know… a payment plan kind of thing? Or maybe I could work off some hours in your office here? I have good secretarial and Word and stuff.” Then she meekly added, “I haven’t had to work much since high school on account of my husband paying the bills.”
“What does he do?”
“Oh. He’s a drug dealer. I thought you knew.?” She said it matter-of-factly, the way others might say “He’s a carpenter,” or “He installs drywall.”
“No, I mean… he doesn’t have a regular day job of any sort?”
Andrea looked apprehensive and her gaze flitted around the room. “No. He never needed one. Paul’s been selling weed since we were kids. He’s real good at it, too. And he hardly smokes any himself.”
Wonderful. An exemplary drug dealer. That’ll really help.
Jessie had come to believe she already dealt with biases and a strike against her clients every time she represented them. Judges, Crown attorneys, defense lawyers; they’d remain stoic while dealing with the marginalized on the stand. But the undercurrent was sometimes there, whispered gallows humor in the hallways between sessions: the built-in motive, the fact that, to the powerful and successful, their lives were seen as so sad and empty and desperate that almost anything gave a reason to break the law.
“I’m going to record all of this with my little hand-held, okay? The stuff on the recorder is privileged, so you don’t have to worry about it ever being repeated or used for anything but your defense.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me what happened the night Mr. Featherstone died.”
“Look… I know what you’re probably thinking about my husband’s job and what they said he did and all, but he’s a good guy, okay? He always did right by me and our little girl… Like, we got enough people looking down their noses at us already. So I don’t need that.”
“My job’s to help, not to judge,” Jessie assured.For every crook she saw who acted unrelenting, there were four or five who’d made one big mistake and regretted every second of it. “Unless they make me a judge,” she said to ease the tension, “and that’s not going to happen any time soon.”
“Because you’re an Indian?”
Ouch. “Because I’m thirty.” Jessie said it patiently. None of her clients, typically, needed to be talked down to; she’d learned early that not having an education didn’t make them stupid, just uninformed, unable to figure out their best options the way others did. That’s why she was there.
“Oh… Sorry. You know I didn’t mean nothing bad by that, eh? I got lots of native friends. I meant, you know, First Nations, or Aboriginal or whatever. Whichever you think is best.”
Jessie stopped her. “Please… Andrea, don’t worry. Like I said, I offer no judgments. Just fill me in on how your husband wound up arrested for murder.”
Andrea composed herself, but the memory cut deep; she looked as though she’d been through the story before, like reliving it took a slightly bigger toll each time. “It’s been a difficult few months, you know?” She rubbed her hands together tensely, shoulders hunched a little bit. “It was right after the first big snowstorm, the next night, in November. People have been real mean since then, eh?” She bit her lower lip slightly. “Since everything happened. The neighbors and all?”
Jessie needed her on topic. “And that night?”
“Paul wasn’t really thinking too straight. We’d just got a big stash of really strong OG Kush from his supplier, and we’d smoked some. Like, two big fatties, and neither of us is a big person, so we were pretty fucked up. I mean… we’re not, like, the heaviest smokers either. Well… Paul is, but I’m not on account of my size. I get fucked up real easy. I mean, messed up. High. Sorry...”
“Forget it.” On topic, on topic. “And your daughter was where?”
“She was in her room in the attic, sleeping. I don’t expose her to nothing bad, don’t you worry.”
Uh huh. Raising a child in a drug house; what part of that did you miss in parenting 101? Jessie caught herself and held back from expressing the callous gut reaction, then chastised herself inwardly. She’d seen multi-generational poverty desensitize the brightest of kids. The woman had probably never known anything better, or smarter, or healthier.
“So you were both out of it?”
“Oh yeah, just weed though, nothing dangerous or trippy. You know, laughing about stuff and eating junk food. We were watching Shaun Majumder on CBC and Paul was bagging product.”
“Then what happened?”
“Someone pulls a U-turn at the end of the street, and the headlights shine through the front window of our living room, like, real, real bright. And Paul thinks that’s weird, because it’s nearly midnight already and we live in a pretty quiet neighborhood. So he goes over to take a look-see, and there’s set of tail lights turning at the far end of the street, out onto the avenue.”
“Did he see the type of car, or…?”
“No, just that it was an SUV of some sort. It was a ways away, eh? Then he notices there’s a lump in the road, like a sack or something, just up a house. So he figures maybe there’s some asshole threw his trash out the car, eh? So I come over to look and I figure it’s too big to be a trash bag. And I get paranoid that maybe he threw some puppies in a sack of something and was going toss them in the ravine, ‘cause I seen my uncle do that in the country when I was a kid.”
“So he went outside to check?”
“Not right off. He argued and pissed and moaned about it for a few minutes first, eh? Then he put his shoes and coat on and went.”
“So how long total?”
“We were pretty high. I don’t know. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
“The radio reports said police recovered the weapon believed to have shot Featherstone at the scene.”
“Yeah, uh huh.” Andrea paused for a moment, obviously uncomfortable, glancing away just barely, hands gripping the ends of the armrests firmly. “Paul picked it u
p from next to the body.”
You’ve got to be kidding … “Why would he do that, Andrea?”
“Well, he did. I ain’t lying to you.”
“How did…?”
“I don’t have no reason to lie at this point,” the woman insisted anxiously. “I don’t like the suggestion…”
“I’m not suggesting anything. How did it happen?”
“He saw a glint in the snow, and a wallet. He picked up the wallet and didn’t see any cash. And then he picked up the gun, saw what it was and dropped it right away. Then he put the wallet down next to it. Remember, we were pretty fried, eh? Like, real cooked. And then he realizes the guy has a puddle of blood by his head...”
“But he had the gun on him…”
“He decided if they found his prints on it, they’d match them to a juvie arrest he had.”
“For dealing.”
“Uh huh, I think so, yeah. So he decides to throw it into the ravine. He’s about to do that and he pauses, ‘cause he’s thinking maybe that’s the first place cops will look for a murder weapon, as he can see the dude has been shot in the head, eh? And I’m looking out the window the whole time wondering just what the fuck’s going on…Sorry. Pardon my language, I’m just kind of nervous. I… I’m just really fucking nervous, is all.”
“It’s okay.”
“Then a light comes on at one of the houses across the street, the two-story yellow one, one of the old people. And so Paul’s stuck, eh? He’s unsure of what to do. And the streetlight nearby is reflecting off the gun as he holds it in his hand, because it’s shiny metal…”
“Chrome,” Jessie suggested.
“Yeah, chrome. So it’s like a frickin’ beacon or something. So he puts it in his waist band and figures he can toss it away, eh? Later, after the body’s been picked up and the police have come and gone.”
“But instead…”
“Instead, the first car got there in just a few minutes. Maybe ten? Then the cops were knocking on our door. Paul was already all nervous, so he was getting our money and stash together…”
“How much?”
“There was about three thousand cash; the police were saying he stole that from Mr. Featherstone, but that was our entire fund for product for the next month…”
“The reports said he bolted when police knocked on the front door.”
Andrea scoffed at that. “They pushed their way in saying they smelled weed, and he ran. I don’t recall nobody knocking politely or nothing – they were real aggressive. I opened the door a crack to tell them we couldn’t help because they knew we was home, and they pushed right in. You should have seen the way they beat him down on the back step. I mean, we were pretty worked up by then because Paul had this gun, and there’s this body…”
It looked awful. He had the murder weapon on him, he had a pile of cash despite being poor and technically unemployed; he’d touched the victim’s wallet and left prints there as well. He’d probably left foot prints with distinctive tread marks next to the body, and he ran when the police came through the front door. Plus, he had a juvenile record for dealing.
“Mrs. Sidney, did your lawyer Mr. Croce talk to you before he quit about maybe talking to the Crown and working out a plea arrangement? You know, a deal to …”
“NO! No… fuck! I told you, I wasn’t lying!”
“I know, really…”
“Jeez… I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap, I’m under a lot of pressure.”
“That’s okay.”
“Look, I understand what you’re saying, Ms. Harper, I really do. But Paul didn’t do this. He didn’t kill anyone and never would. He’s a gentle man, a good man. He sells pot, sure, but he’s never been anything but great to me and Nina. I mean, is that so bad? They’re talking about legalizing it these days, so it can’t be that bad, can it? Can you help us, Ms. Harper? I don’t know what else to do or where else to turn.”
Jessie took another deep, cleansing breathe and thought about it. The woman didn’t have anyone else; what else did she really need to know?
5
Det. Peter Carver waited for ten minutes outside the computer analysis room, standing in roughly the same place, leaning against the white concrete-and-plaster half wall that overlooked police headquarters’ open central hub. He felt anxious but tried to look casual, crossing his arms, then putting his hands in his suit pant pockets, then crossing his arms again. He felt self-conscious as other staff and serving members walked past, down the hallway on the third floor, and his patience had just about run dry.
He pushed the door open and leaned in. “Jesus, Bernie, how long is this going to take? I’ve got court this afternoon.”
LeVasseur was seated at a desk against the back wall of the small room, gazing intently over his half-spectacles at what appeared to be a blown-up image of a black-and-white security video on a thirty-inch monitor. A black box sat on the desk attached to a small, thin joystick that LeVasseur used to manipulate the on-screen pixels. “Just wait your turn,” he said. “I need to concentrate.”
After a few more seconds, LeVasseur finished tracing objects in the video and he hit a button on his keyboard. The image refreshed, the resolution artificially enhanced to show a small sign on the road behind a passing pickup truck. It was white-on-black, color bled away for clarity, and read “Valdosta 10 Mi.”
“So what is that, anyway?”
“Security camera footage from a car dealership of an ID thief we’ve been working on, a guy who was up here for a while then went south of the border.”
“Tombstoner?”
“Nah, more sophisticated than that. This guy’s all over the place: birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, passports; a dizzying array of credit cards. Real douchebag.”
“Look, we need to talk about this prelim. The Sidney thing.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I knew what you meant.”
“Uh huh.” Carver just let it hang there at first, before adding, “So… you’re cool?”
“I’m not even going to get called.”
“Yeah, sure… but if you were, you already wrote a report and are just going to stick with it, right? I mean, this is a clean closure, Bernie, you know? We don’t need some defense lawyer twisting this. You know we already lose too many of these to the system, to the fucking lawyers and plea deals.”
It had been a contentious point when they’d filed their respective reports; eventually Bernie agreed on neutral wording. “The body was found having sustained substantial blood loss at the scene, but blood spatter was difficult to pinpoint given the inclement conditions. Coupled with a lack of ejected cartridges and an abundance of freshly fallen snow, pinpointing the exact location of the shooter was difficult. However, scorching around the wound indicates at least one of the shots was at extremely close range.”
Bernie’s unease remained obvious. “Like I said, it won’t matter if they don’t call me, right?”
“And if they do?”
“Then I say what I say.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carver felt nervous. If Bernie got shaky and things went south, a closed file might go with them, even though the evidence obviously nailed Sidney as their guy. It had been a bad winter, a bad start to the year, and they were already seven-deep in open cases, the big board filling up with names. Three grand in cash and the murder weapon in his pants, and I’m still working this, days before court. What a bunch of shit.
“It means I say what I say. Just that I’ll be honest, that’s all.”
“Bernie…”
“You know what I think about this: you shut us down early; you know that. I said it at the time.”
“So you think we got the wrong guy.”
“I didn’t say that. When the fuck did I say that, Pete?”
“Then what the fuck are you saying, Bernie? I mean… ‘I say what I say’. Really?”
“You’ve got my answer. I’ll tell the truth, be straight.”
Carver sniffed a little. “O
kay then, I guess.”
“Are we cool?”
Carver nodded. “Yeah, sure. Sure, we’re good.”
He gave LeVasseur a grim smile, then ducked out of the doorway and let the door swing closed behind him.
Det. Jon Mariner waited outside for him; he wore a khaki green suit and chewed nervously on a toothpick. “So? You talked to Bernie?”
“Yeah. I think we’re good.”
“You think? What did he say?”
“Just that he doesn’t expect to be called and if he does, he’ll say what he says.”
“What does that mean?”
Carver just shrugged. Both men stood in the hallway under the glow of the fluorescent tube lights overhead, their minds running through potential scenarios.
“We’re good on this one, right?” Mariner worried for months; they’d been so hasty at the scene. “I mean… you don’t think maybe we rushed this a little?” He knew there wasn’t really that much point in asking. Carver was going to push for a closure if he could get it. His track record of calls suggested he would be right, too. “I don’t want to be facing a review or some shit just because we cut some corners…”
“Nah, we’re good. You saw how that guy lit out of there with that piece; he knew exactly why we were coming after him.”
“Yeah… But…’
“But? You having second thoughts? If you are, we can wade back into this thing. I mean, we can tell the boss it’s dicey, take the heat from the Crown when they let that scumbag Sidney go, start pulling paper…”
“Forget it,” Mariner said. “Forget I asked.”
6
When people were arrested and held over for trial in Edmonton, they stayed in the Remand Center, a series of gigantic whitewashed concrete buildings to the north of the city.
The residents of the Remand technically hadn’t been convicted of anything, yet. But it was still considered the second most dangerous place to be a correctional officer, after the nearby Max. The buildings tied together to look like some kind of base out of Star Wars from the outside, a mass of oddly shaped oblong and rectangular white plaster fronted by long vertical windows tinted black.