Ever the fixer, I think.
“Do they know what happened?” I ask.
“Yes, her tests came back: opioids, they think. No idea how she got them. Maybe some doctor gave her a prescription years ago, when it was still legal, and she’d been hoarding it all this time, her ticket to nowhere in case things got to be too much.” He rubs his face. “Why she did this now I don’t understand. I was with her yesterday evening. I picked her up around six, we went to the Jericho Tennis Club for dinner. She seemed more relaxed and happier than she had been in months, despite the trial. After dinner we drove back to the house and she invited me in for a drink. I do get so tired of being alone, she said. I poured her a glass of wine; I had a scotch. I kissed her goodbye and left.” He shakes his head. “I just don’t understand. I’m going over to the house now to see if I can figure out what happened.”
“Don’t bother,” says Nicholas, an unexpected hint of animosity in his voice. “I checked out her bathroom while the paramedics were with her. Pill bottles everywhere. I found these. Empty.” He holds up two plastic prescription bottles. “OxyContin, just as you suspected.”
Joseph Quentin looks momentarily surprised—Nicholas, the dependent youth interested only in his own musical pursuits, is showing new and promising colours today. “Good lad,” says Joseph. He extends his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Nicholas drops the bottles into it.
“If you’re worried about the trial, you can relax,” I say. “There won’t be one. At least not next week.”
“Not next week, not ever,” he says. “After this, Cy won’t dare proceed. Prosecuting a vulnerable woman for the death of someone who wanted to go anyway—a travesty, nothing less.”
“When Vera’s able to instruct me, I’ll talk to him,” I say. “But don’t hold your breath waiting for Cy to turn compassionate.”
Joseph shrugs, no appetite for argument. We stand in awkward silence. Son and father exchange a potent glance I cannot read. They are family; I am suddenly an intruder.
“I’ll be off,” I say. “Let me know where to call. I’ll have to get instructions from Vera with respect to adjourning the trial.”
“That won’t be necessary, Jilly,” Joseph says crisply. “I’ll talk to her and get back to you.”
I decide to let it lie. This is neither the time nor the place to tell him I will need to speak to Vera personally, regardless of his kind offer to act as go-between. Take instructions only from the client—basic rule of criminal practice.
“Goodbye, then,” I say, and turn to go.
“Don’t go yet, Jilly. I am remiss.” Joseph glances up at his son standing at his shoulder then looks back to me. “Nicholas and I owe you a deep debt of gratitude. If you hadn’t gone to the house, crawled in under the fence, called 911 and Nicholas, we would have surely lost Vera.”
His eyes run from my face down my body. For the first time in four hours I’m aware of how I must look. The leg of my dressy trousers is torn, and my stylish jacket is smeared with mud. I touch my cheek and feel dried blood from where the metal scraped me.
“It was nothing,” I say, stepping back.
Joseph, to my surprise, pulls me into a quick hug, then holds me at arms length. “Wonder Woman,” he says. “Now go home and get cleaned up.”
I nod and move away, leaving Joseph smiling while Nicholas stares stonily on.
CHAPTER 24
“GETTING THIS ADJOURNMENT WILL BE a piece of proverbial cake,” Jeff says as I park my car outside the Palestrina Suites, a low-slung seventies apartment house discreetly tucked off Beach Avenue, where Vera Quentin is staying.
“I’m not so sure. Joseph clearly wants it. Vera, maybe not so much,” I say. “That’s why you’re here. If she doesn’t agree, I need a witness to her instructions.”
It hasn’t been easy setting this meeting up. Joseph has understandably been protective of his wife’s fragile state. Getting this address has cost us promises: we won’t upset her; we won’t scold her; we won’t mention the unfortunate episode that has unexpectedly brought us to the Palestrina Suites. Not a hospital, not a hotel. Just a distinguished address where you can dry out or sober up without the world suspecting the depths to which you have temporarily fallen.
Jeff and I, by mutual agreement, have enacted a new office rule—no working on weekends. Translation: I should be having brunch with Mike and Jeff should be with Jessica shopping for ski equipment—at her urging, he’s decided to try hurtling his uncoordinated body down Blackcomb’s slopes. But as all good lawyers know, rules exist to be broken, and here we are working Saturday morning. With luck, we’ll be done by noon.
In the lobby, a woman in a print dress greets us and takes us down the hall to a small sitting room where Olivia sits, gazing through the window at English Bay. She turns as we enter, tucking her velvet robe around her with a sardonic smile. “As you see, I am much recovered.”
I repress a gasp of shock. Vera’s near-death experience has left her drained and wan. Her visage is all bones and hollows, her eyes dark pools, her cheeks sunken. In an effort to make herself presentable, she has incongruously coloured her lips bright pink—perhaps the only shade the staff could find.
Not well enough to go on with the trial, I think but don’t say. Violating Joseph’s injunction, I ask the question that has been burning in my brain since I discovered her on the floor of her breakfast room yesterday morning: “Mrs. Quentin, what happened?”
She leans forward. “I wish I knew, Ms. Truitt.”
“Tell us everything,” I say, taking a seat across from her.
“Joseph and I went out to dinner at the club. I felt happy. My husband was taking me out; he was at my side after I’d been alone for so long. After dinner, he drove me back and I asked him in—Silly, I said, inviting you in when it’s your house, too—we laughed about it and he came in. He went into the kitchen and poured me a glass of white wine, himself a scotch. It was so good”—she chokes a sob and looks out over the ocean—“like old times.”
“Then what?” I ask.
“And then he left. I don’t feel right about being here, he said, not until after the trial. After all, I have to testify against you. A little joke. I told him not to worry, that it would be over soon. He kissed me. Everything will be alright, my darling, he said. Then I went to bed. I was so happy with those words in my head: my darling.”
“Did you take a sleeping pill, maybe more than one?”
“No. I went to bed, fell asleep right away. Then I woke, I don’t know how much later, feeling sick. I got up—went to the kitchen, staggered. That’s the last I remember. But the doctors don’t believe me. They think I took all those pills on my own.”
I don’t even have to look at Jeff to know what he’s thinking. This lady has denial aced.
Vera wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “I would never try to end my life. Just like I would never end my mother’s.”
Vera’s lovely face, her great innocent eyes, gaze out at me, asking me to trust, to believe. I could cross-examine her, tell her about the empty pill bottles Nicholas found, tell her she’s lying. But there’s no point.
“The trial is set to begin Monday,” I say. “You are ill. There is no way it can proceed in your absence. We will ask for an adjournment.”
“But the trial must proceed,” Vera says. “I cannot live in this limbo any longer. I know that I did not kill my mother. But I’m tired of denying it, tired of the pitying looks at my ankle bracelet. It’s been two years. If I am to be convicted, so be it. I will accept the jury’s verdict, the judge’s sentence. I need this thing to be over.”
I sit back. If Joseph and the doctors are right, Vera tried to kill herself so she won’t have to go to trial, but now she’s saying the trial must proceed. In the hospital, she was confused, asked Nicholas what happened. Could it be that she’s telling the truth?
Jeff clears his throat. “Have you discussed this with your husband?”
“Well, a little. He wants
an adjournment. He has this idea—if we get an adjournment, this will all go away. But I’ve been thinking about it. It won’t all go away. For once in my life, I have to face reality and stare it down. Come what may. I will explain it to Joseph. He will accept my decision.” She turns to me. “You are a woman, Ms. Truitt. How could you go on knowing that everyone believes you murdered your mother but your husband’s machinations spared you a trial?”
I’ve learned not to answer such questions. How do I know what I would do were I in her situation?
“It is not my job to answer that question, Mrs. Quentin,” I say. “But it is my duty, as your legal counsellor, to give you my best considered advice. And that advice is that you should ask the judge for an adjournment—an adjournment that in the circumstances the judge will most certainly grant.”
“Excuse me,” says Jeff, scanning his smart phone. “Something just came in.”
I carry on. “Mrs. Quentin, you should know that if we go forward now, it is almost certain that you will be convicted of murdering your mother. You will spend the better part of ten years in prison. We have only been on your case for a few weeks. A little more time would allow us to pursue investigations, find a way to present a better defence on your behalf.” I let my words sink in. “We need more time. Please let us ask for it.”
Vera Quentin pulls her body into her chair as if to distance herself from me. “I really don’t care whether you believe me or not, Ms. Truitt. I will tell you how it will be. I will be in court on Monday morning. I will tell the judge that I wish the trial to proceed, whether you are with me or not. I am finished with the hedging and prevarication, finished with pleas and games. I will have my trial.”
“You are instructing me not to request an adjournment of your trial,” I say.
“I am.”
“You wish to go forward, against my considered advice to you.”
“I do.”
I sigh. “Very well, we will proceed. But we have a problem.”
“What problem?”
“Our investigations have turned up a number of new matters that we need to share with you. We had planned to spend all day Friday getting your insights and instructions for the trial, but your—your accident made that impossible.”
Vera Quentin’s body visibly sags. “Must we? I’m feeling rather tired at the moment.”
“It might be possible to see you Sunday morning,” I say, ignoring Jeff.
“No, that is when I am going home. Joseph is coming to get me. He is so sorry for what’s happened to me, wants to be together as much as we can. I can’t refuse him.”
I try to digest what I’m hearing. Her description of dinner at the club with Joseph, the intimacy that followed; her excitement about being with him on Sunday—she yearns to be with him, yet he keeps her at arms length.
“It’s not ideal,” I say. “But Monday will be taken up with the formalities of jury selection and the like. We can talk to you that evening. But there are a few things I need to raise now.”
Vera pushes her shoulders forward. “Okay, I’ll do my best.”
“We’ve learned that your mother was suffering from early dementia,” I say gently.
“No, that’s not possible. She would have told me. She told me everything.” The words choke in her throat. “We were so close, no secrets, never any secrets. Perhaps she didn’t know.”
“She knew,” I say gently. “It was another reason she wanted to end her life. Before she would not have the wits to do it.”
Vera shakes her head, still not believing. “No, she would have told me.”
I move on. “We’ve also learned that Olivia intended to change her will and make a substantial bequest to the Society for Dying with Dignity. We believe that’s what the call to Black and Conway was about.”
She stares at me woodenly. “A substantial bequest would cut into what Nicholas would receive.”
“Exactly. And—I hate to raise this—it appears that Nicholas was in debt to the bank for more than a hundred thousand dollars.”
“If you are insinuating that Nicholas would have—could have—killed his grandmother, you are mistaken.”
“I’m sure I am,” I say. “But it’s my duty to raise these facts with you. We may need to get your instructions at some point.”
She draws herself up, suddenly angry. “I will not allow you to involve Nicholas in this. I know you lawyers, promising one thing and subtly shifting to another. Leave Nicholas out of this.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I must ask you to leave now. Perhaps you would ask the staff to come, on your way out.”
I exchange a glance with Jeff. “Of course. And thank you, Mrs. Quentin. Until Monday, then.”
CHAPTER 25
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, JEFF AND I are back in our boardroom.
“Okay,” I say. “Time to lay our case out. I’m not working tomorrow, neither are you. We need to salvage that much of our new rule.”
Jeff reaches for a pad of paper and a pen.
“Proposition Number One,” I say. “We go with Vera. Accept her thesis. She didn’t do it, and she has no idea who did. She slept through it all. It isn’t up to us to show she didn’t do it—the burden is on the Crown to show she did. Beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Fine,” Jeff says. “But we need to give the jury at least the hint of someone else who could have done it—otherwise, the jury will never buy Vera’s innocence. That bugbear of defence lawyers—the rule in Hodge’s Case.”
“Agreed. Proposition Number Two—we throw out a rational explanation for Vera’s death that does not involve Vera.
“We call our window expert to establish that someone else could have got into the house that night,” I continue. “We cross-examine the security expert to establish that the alarm wouldn’t have gone off, once the motion detector had been deactivated. We point vaguely in the direction of people who could have killed Olivia but whom the police have not bothered to investigate. All we need is a suggestion that someone else could have killed Olivia Stanton. It’s not up to us to finger the person.”
“Unless we put a name on our alternate killer, it’s not likely to stick,” Jeff says glumly.
“True,” I concede. “Maria has an alibi—of sorts—a neighbour saw her come home and no one saw her go out after that. But more importantly, killing her boss would mean losing her job. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Joseph—if one could imagine why he might want to kill Olivia—has an iron-clad alibi. His home security cameras show him parking his car in front of his house around nine and no further movement until the morning, when he returned to it. No way he could have walked out either, without the cameras detecting it.”
“Elsie Baxter doesn’t have an alibi. She could have come back and performed the mercy killing Olivia had been asking for. But on the other hand, she had reason to hope that Olivia was going to change her will and leave a large donation to the Society for Dying with Dignity. Why would she kill Olivia before the will could be changed?”
Jeff drops the pen, slides the paper toward me. “None of the alternative hypotheses work, except Nicholas. And it’s too late for new theories—we’re on the eve of the trial.”
“It’s never too late,” I remind him. “Anything could come out at trial.” I draw a line under Jeff’s alternative hypotheticals. “But you’re right, Jeff. Right now, Nicholas is our only plausible alternative explanation.”
“Then we go with Nicholas,” says Jeff.
“Vera won’t let us push it in argument,” I say slowly, “but I suppose we can lay out all the pieces so the jury sees an alternative possibility. That’s all we need. Smoke and mirrors, remember? Our specialty.”
“Where does that leave us?” asks Jeff, fidgeting now, anxious to be gone.
“If the pieces of our alternate theory fall in place, we may not need to call Vera,” I say. “The jury will have her statement denying killing her mother in evidence as part of the Crown’s case. She’s so frail, so fragile
, the jury will feel sorry for her and, with luck, give her the benefit of the doubt. However, we don’t have to decide whether to call her today. We reassess when the Crown’s case is in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” says Jeff, rising. “See you Monday.”
As he turns, Alicia’s dark head rounds the door. She waves her phone. It’s Saturday, but she’s in the office, all systems go. “I just got a call from that girl at May’s shelter,” she says breathlessly. “No undercover policewomen ever came for May, but two men did this morning. They have her, Jilly.”
I feel a stone where my stomach should be. The men find me, May had said, fear widening her eyes. Take me back.
And they had.
CHAPTER 26
I’M ALONE IN THE OFFICE, braiding scraps of evidence into what I hope will be a narrative that gets Vera off. But the news that May has been kidnapped has cast a shadow over everything. I push it aside, but it keeps coming back. A decade and a half in criminal law has hardened me to suffering, but every so often a case like May’s cuts through the carapace of indifference and skewers me.
Panicked, I called Deborah on her special line; all I got was a recording. I punched Damon’s special number, but he didn’t pick up. Alicia and I agonized over the possibilities, until I decided our theories were useless and told her to head home.
Now, a flash on my phone catches my eye. I pick it up right away. But it’s not Deborah. It’s Cy.
“Jilly.” He sounds calm, but I detect an undertone of agitation. “I understand you may be asking to adjourn the trial.”
So he knows Vera Quentin overdosed. Probably knows exactly where her husband’s hiding her. Why am I surprised? Cy’s networks are deep and multitentacled, and he manages them with assiduity. A chill thought strikes me. Could Joseph have bypassed me and spoken to him?
“I don’t know where you got the idea I want to adjourn the trial, Cy. I’m at the office preparing as I speak. Looking forward to your dulcet tones in the Crown’s opening.”
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