Denial

by Beverley McLachlin

  “Thank you, Dr. Menon, that would be appreciated. You’ve been most helpful,” I add.

  On the way back to the office I mull the implications. Olivia Stanton, facing dementia, had decided to put her affairs in order. A new will was part of the process. But why not ask Joseph to arrange it, as he always had in the past? Why clandestinely call the small Kerrisdale firm of Black and Conway? And why are they reluctant to talk?

  It’s a puzzle, and the pieces I have aren’t fitting. I need to find the missing parts.

  CHAPTER 21

  JEFF AND I HAVE AN unwritten rule—no drinking in the office. We’ve seen too many criminal lawyers go the way of dependence. It starts innocuously—a nip to ease the pressure or the pain, then another. Before long there’s a bottle of rye in the bottom desk drawer, which slides open more and more frequently.

  Still, we’re not averse to sharing the odd glass of wine, along with the latest developments on our respective files. Returning to the office from my visits to Riva Johnson and Dr. Menon, I run into Jeff, just back from court.

  “Time for a glass of Cab Sauv next door, Jeff?”

  Jeff’s eyes light up. “You bet.” His briefcase hits the floor with a thunk and we push out the door and onto the street.

  The pub is small and dark, with funky art on the walls. We find a quiet corner and order.

  “I was just thinking about that killing in Ottawa. You know, the retired judge of the Tax Court,” Jeff says as we wait for our drinks.

  I’m familiar with the case. It sent shock waves through the courts when the news broke that the judge, his wife, and a neighbor who seemed to just have been in the way were brutally murdered. The police couldn’t get anywhere on the case for years.

  “It wasn’t a contract killing after all,” Jeff is saying. “The killer had a habit of taking out people who he thought had crossed him. The judge was on his list for making him pay up on his income tax. Makes you think about some of the loons we represent, doesn’t it?”

  I search his face. Did he spot the unmarked patrol car outside the office just now? If he did, he doesn’t let on. I’m thankful when my wine arrives. I take a sip.

  “So back to Mrs. Quentin. What have you learned?”

  I tell him about Riva first. “She refused to cooperate. We need to know what’s in the file, but there’s no time to get a court order before the trial starts next Monday.” I stare into my drink. “Assuming we could get one—technically the right to keep information confidential doesn’t end when the client dies. We’d have to persuade the judge to make an exception.”

  “I guess we subpoena her and see where it takes us,” says Jeff.

  “Yes, Riva will have to come to court and show us her file then. If there’s nothing relevant in it, or if the judge rules it’s still confidential, so be it. Though it would be nice to know now, before the trial.”

  I switch to Dr. Menon. Jeff listens thoughtfully as I describe the visit.

  “How does the dementia discovery fit in to who killed Olivia?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Strange that Vera has never mentioned the possibility Olivia might be worrying about dementia. Joseph either, although he said she was sometimes a little forgetful or confused—witnessed Olivia’s confusion over her pills the night she died. But they put it down to chemo brain fog.”

  “Clearly Olivia didn’t want the family to know.”

  “Right. Vera always took her to her appointments with Dr. Menon, but this time Olivia called a cab. Why? Joseph talked to Olivia the day after, but she didn’t tell him about the diagnosis of dementia she had just received.” I pause. “Unless, of course, that was one of the things they discussed behind the closed door when Maria heard Olivia raise her voice.”

  Jeff pushes his glasses up his nose. “How does Olivia’s diagnosis change our case?”

  I swirl my wine thoughtfully. “The timing of it all is just too much of a coincidence. What if the diagnosis provoked Olivia to action to arrange for someone to help her end her life before she was mentally unable to?”

  “Who? Not her family, if she was keeping them in the dark.”

  “Elsie?” I suggest. “When I interviewed her, I had the sense she was holding back. Maybe she knew Olivia was worried about dementia. Maybe she knew that those worries had been confirmed on her visit to Dr. Menon. Elsie maintains Vera killed her mother, but that may have been just a cover.”

  “It fits,” Jeff goes on, reviewing the scenario. “Olivia knows Vera won’t help her, knows Vera will only get in the way, so after receiving her diagnosis, she summons Elsie to visit her, and asks her friend to help her end her life that very night. Or maybe get someone else to do it.”

  “Let’s test our theory.” I straighten. “How does Elsie or her surrogate enter the house? The doors were locked, the alarm set.”

  “Olivia gives Elsie the key and the code before she leaves and whoever killed Olivia returns it when the deed is done and resets the alarm.”

  “But how would the person lock up after she leaves?” I counter. “With a Medeco lock you have to turn the key to lock the door—I think.”

  Jeff scratches his chin. “Maybe Olivia knows about the loose basement window. Tells whoever was helping her to get out that way.”

  I think of Elsie’s cane. “Elsie or her surrogate climbing through that window?”

  “There was a stool, remember, and the window was easy to remove,” Jeff says, but even he sounds doubtful. I’m beginning to regret my hunch.

  “Elsie was urging Olivia to change her will to leave a juicy bequest to her charity, the Society for Dying with Dignity. We know the change wasn’t made before Olivia was killed. She may have agreed, but Riva Johnson visited her that afternoon and estate lawyers don’t work that fast. Why would Elsie help her friend die before the will was changed?”

  Jeff puts his empty glass down with a scowl. “Either Vera is lying or there’s something we’re missing.”

  “Maybe both,” I say. “All we can do is present her with what we have on Friday and go from there.”

  The waiter bustles up and interrupts Jeff’s scowl. “Are you Jilly Truitt?” he asks, looking at me.

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Is your cell phone off? Someone called and said they were trying to reach you. It’s urgent, apparently.” He wanders off to tend another table as I scroll through my phone.

  “It’s Alicia,” I say to Jeff. “She’s called three times.”

  I punch the number. Alicia picks up on the first ring.

  “They’ve found out where May is hidden,” she says, her voice panicked. “She just called using the phone of one of the other girls in the shelter. She saw the men who used to guard her outside her place—”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Locked in her room. I told her not to move. But they’ll get tired of waiting; they’ll go up and drag her out.”

  “I’ll call Deborah,” I say, hanging up before Alicia can reply.

  I find Deborah’s private number, wait as the rings mount. I am a coiled ball of anxiety. No answer. No, I’m not leaving a message, not about this. Furiously, I put the phone down; Jeff looks at me with concern. I consider. Perhaps there’s another way. I pick the phone up and dial the number only I know.

  To my relief, he answers. “Damon, they’ve found May.”

  I don’t need to say what I’m asking him to do; he knows.

  “Fuck. If we try to rescue her, they’ll be on to us. The whole case we’ve built—everything—will go out the window.”

  “I see,” I say coldly. “We let them take May so you can build your case. May, your sacrificial lamb. So what? A fragile life is gone, but it’s all for the greater public good.” I hesitate, then say the words. “I could have let you go, Damon, but I didn’t.”

  I wait while the message sinks in. “Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll talk to Deborah, see if I can organize something. Undercover cops. They’ll go in, maybe take her out a back way if there is on
e.”

  “You have the address.”

  “Jilly. I have everything.” Of course, I think. This is Damon.

  His tone turns brusque. “You stay out of this. You know nothing; you do nothing. Understood? Alicia, too. Except first, she has to call May back if she can, right now, to tell her that two women in jeans and tees will be coming to pick her up.” A beat. “And Jilly, don’t call me again.”

  “Understood.”

  The phone goes dead; Damon is gone.

  CHAPTER 22

  FRIDAY MORNING COMES AND I’M in my office waiting for Vera Quentin. Her trial begins Monday, and I still have no theory of the defence. Correction, I don’t even have a credible idea of a defence. Panic is setting in.

  I return to the tentative schedule I’ve been drawing up for how the trial will go. This will be that rare thing, a two-week murder trial.

  Cy’s pitch is clear. This may not be a vicious murder, but murder it is, and the law, in all its majesty, demands that a person who takes another’s life must be held accountable. Vera Quentin’s mother had been pressuring her daughter to help her end her life. Vera refused, but the night of August tenth, riven by frustration and anxiety, she crumbled, and she did what she wanted, what she told herself her mother wanted. Cy will not claim that the murder was planned and premeditated—he’s content, thank you very much, with a verdict of second degree and a sentence of ten years in prison.

  Then it will be our turn. My pen halts. What will follow?

  I’m having trouble concentrating. I’m still on edge about May. It’s been two days since she called, and we’ve yet to hear if the policewomen rescued her or if she fell into the clutches of Danny’s guys. I reach for my phone to call Damon, hear his voice—Don’t call me—and lower my hand. I note the time. Vera is late.

  “I talked to her yesterday,” Debbie assures me. “She seemed fine. Said she would be here at ten sharp. I can’t reach her. No answer on her cell phone, no answer on the landline.”

  “I’m going to her house,” I say.

  Perhaps she’s fallen ill, I tell myself as I wheel onto the Cambie Street Bridge and head south. Maybe worse. Just what we need, on the eve of trial. When I arrive at the estate, the gate stands before me, wrought iron glinting black in the late summer light. I ring at the entry panel, wait, ring again. No answer. Something is wrong. I can feel it.

  I get out of my car and push the metal, but it doesn’t move. Why hadn’t I asked Vera for the code? But then, how could I have foreseen that my client would lock me out?

  I look around. A high iron fence extends on each side. I run to the right, follow the fence into an encroaching cedar hedge, and spot a place where the fence does not meet the ground—some animal has dug a tunnel beneath. I gouge at the earth to enlarge the space, turn on my back, and squeeze through, feeling the metal scratch my cheek.

  I stand shakily on the other side, then sprint down the long drive, across the lawn to the door. I ring the bell, knock. No answer. I peer in the window. The living room, shadows of furniture. No Vera. I run to the back of the house, the patio. The pool to my right shimmers in the morning sun.

  There, in the breakfast room, I see the shadow of her body beneath the glass table where we talked what seems like a lifetime ago. She is sprawled on the floor, limbs akimbo beneath a loose gown. Her head is thrust back at an awkward angle, her hair splayed in tangled shanks across the tiles. I pound on the window, but she does not stir.

  I try the back door—locked. I lift the mat, nothing. My fingers scrabble in the planter. There must be a key stashed for emergencies. But then I remember that the locks are electronic. Who needs to stash a key when all you need is a number in your head or on your phone? I look for a stone, anything, to throw at the window. Finding nothing, I rummage in my bag for my phone and dial 911. An aeon before they answer. I describe the situation and give them the address.

  “Hurry, for god’s sake, hurry,” I yell. “She’s unconscious. Maybe dead. Just come.”

  “On it,” they say, and the line goes dead.

  The sense of relief at having done something disappears as a new thought hits me—how will they get through the locked gate? Once more my heart is racing. I need to find someone who knows the code.

  I scan for Joseph’s number, stop at the thought of the bank of secretaries that stands between his voice and mine. Who else, who else? And then the name comes—Nicholas. Nicholas with his apartment at UBC, close by if he’s in. I search my recent calls, and miracle of miracles, his name rolls up. I push the call button.

  “Answer the phone,” I mutter, “Please, pick up the phone. Nicholas, Nicholas…”

  I hear his voice, surprised. “Ms. Truitt?”

  “Nicholas, I’m at your mother’s house. Something has happened to her.”

  He starts to speak, panicked now, but I cut him off.

  “I’ve called 911, but they won’t be able to get through the gate.”

  “How did—”

  “Don’t ask me how I got in, just come.” I hang up.

  I go back to the window, look in, as if Vera could suddenly have come to life while I’ve been on the phone. I pace in an agony of waiting.

  An eternity passes before I hear distant sirens. I run to the front of the house. The gates are open and a red sports car is bearing down the drive. Nicholas jumps out and races past me to the door where he punches buttons on the panel.

  “She’s in the breakfast room,” I say, following him down the hall.

  In seconds, Nicholas is on the floor, leaning over his mother, pressing his hand to her neck. “She’s alive,” he breathes. He’s saying something else, face contorted in fear or maybe anger, but chaos drowns out his words. Sirens scream and die; paramedics rush in.

  “What happened?” a woman demands as she bends over Vera.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  They work silently, no words needed to do what they must. I step back as they roll Vera onto a stretcher, open the back door of the ambulance, and disappear in a wail of sirens.

  Nicholas brushes past me. “Get in,” he says, motioning to his car. “We’re following.”

  “I need to phone your father,” I say as I get in.

  His jaw is set and hard. “No, leave him to me,” he says. His foot is on the gas and the tires scream as we accelerate away.

  CHAPTER 23

  VERA LIES ON THE HOSPITAL bed. They have pumped her stomach and thrust tubes and catheters beneath her delicate flesh. She’s alive, but it was close.

  “Mom,” Nicholas says, moving to her side.

  Her eyes flutter and open. “What happened?” she whispers.

  “The doctors think it was an overdose,” he says. “Mom, did you—”

  She blinks, focuses on her son. “No, you know I would never do that.”

  Nicholas’s fists clench. “No,” he says. “No.”

  Vera holds his gaze. Then the moment of anger passes and he takes her thin hand in his, bows his head. She brushes her other hand through his hair.

  I have been investigating this family for two weeks plus, but nothing prepared me for this closeness, this trust—a trust that appears to exclude Joseph. Leave him to me, Nicholas had said. I wonder if he’s called his father.

  A nurse comes and waves us outside. I lean against the wall, but Nicholas paces the corridor. Has he been through this before, I wonder. Maybe more than once?

  “Nicholas,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to hear me.

  “She lived for him,” he says, “and now she’s dying. Because of him. He always knew best and we believed him, she and I. Love, he called it.” His voice sinks, choking his words in bitterness. He looks up, his eyes wet. He brushes them. “Forget what I said, Ms. Truitt. I’m not myself.”

  Was Nicholas suggesting Vera tried to kill herself for Joseph? I want to ask more, but his bleak face stops me. He’s lost his beloved grandmother, and now, almost his mother.

  “She’s not going to die,” I say. “She’s going
to make it.”

  “Yes,” he says. “You’re right. That’s all that matters.”

  A figure is bearing down the hall toward us. Joseph Quentin. So Nicholas did call him.

  “Nicholas, Jilly, what’s happened?” And then, in the same breath, “Is she going to be alright?”

  “It looks like an overdose, but the doctors are running some tests. She’s going to be okay though,” I say.

  He rushes by into his wife’s room. Nicholas slumps into a chair on the wall opposite the nursing station. I leave him to his grief or rage or whatever it may be that possesses him, and find a quiet nook to call Debbie to tell her what’s happened.

  “Jeff just walked in,” she says, and puts him on.

  I give him a condensed version of Vera’s near demise and rescue. “Here we are, three days before the trial, and our client is at death’s door. How the hell can we conduct a defence?”

  “You’re missing the point, Jilly. The trial can’t go on without her—the accused has a right to be present throughout. The judge will have no choice but to adjourn the trial. We may even be able to get a stay in proceedings.”

  “Of course, you’re absolutely right.” In the panic of getting Vera to the hospital, I had failed to see the single biggest implication of what has just happened. I’ve been worrying about how the trial will go on without Vera, when the obvious answer is that it won’t go on at all, maybe never.

  I end the call and move back to the waiting room, take a seat next to Nicholas.

  “One thing puzzles me, Nicholas,” I say. “Why did your mother ask what happened? Do you believe her when she said she would never—?” I let the question hang.

  “Let it go, Ms. Truitt.” He turns to me, his face once more composed. “My mother will be alright, like you said,” he mouths mechanically.

  His eyes waver; I wait. And then I hear a step.

  Joseph Quentin is coming toward us. He walks with a tired air, suddenly old. “I’ve spoken to the doctors,” he says. “She’ll be fine. I’m moving her to a private care facility. The fewer people who know about this, the better.”