by Peter Kirby
“Eddie. Good to hear from you. What’s the word?”
“The target’s Montpetit. Tomorrow morning on Sherbrooke, on his way to work. Tony and Nick are going to follow him on motorcycles. When he stops at a light, Tony will pull alongside and pop him. Not very sophisticated, but it’s Tony’s gig.”
“How will they know when he’s on his way?”
“Someone will be looking out for Montpetit leaving his house. When he’s about to hit Sherbrooke, Tony will get a call and be on him from there.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“Make sure you get the right guy. Tony is the shooter. Don’t shoot Nick. Don’t shoot the guy with short hair. Remember, Tony’s got long hair and a beard.”
“We’ll do what we can, Eddie.”
“It’s going to be hard to keep things under control after it happens. You guys better offer a deal right away.”
“We’ll make you look good, Eddie. Don’t worry.”
Pickton clicked disconnect and walked back inside his apartment.
Fourteen
Vanier hadn’t seen his original lawyer since their first interview. Isabelle Lavoie had become his lawyer, and he didn’t have any say in it. Saint-Jacques had also been demoted to a junior lawyer. Lavoie was on her feet before Justice Otis arguing for a dismissal of the case. Unfortunately, she had been distracted from her argument plan by a copy of the Journal de Montréal that featured an interview with Colonel Montpetit, who was, in the words of the journalist, “incensed” that the Barbeau case was in danger of being dismissed. The Colonel noted that those allegedly responsible for beating him up would have a serious motive for making him disappear. He all but accused Vanier of killing Barbeau to save his career. Now Lavoie was digging the hole deeper, making sure that, if the idea hadn’t crossed the judge’s mind before, it was now front and center.
“Maître Lavoie. What exactly is your point?” asked Judge Otis.
“My point, Judge, is that the court should not be influenced by such ill-informed speculation as this,” she said, holding up the Journal de Montréal.
“But you’re the one who brought it to my attention. Are you asking me to look at it so that I can ignore it?”
“What I’m saying is that this Court shouldn’t be influenced by sensationalism. My client has been sued, and if the plaintiff will not appear for examination, the claim must be dismissed.”
Vanier was clenching his fists, struggling to maintain control. Judges had never warmed to him, but he figured even he could have done a better job. Lavoie was circling the sinkhole, about to disappear.
“My client has the right to go on with his life. Maître Dufrene has failed to produce his client for examination and he has failed to provide any explanation whatsoever.”
Dufrene jumped to his feet. “It’s grotesque to suggest that I should be providing an explanation when my client has disappeared off the face of the earth in the most suspicious circumstances.”
The judge wasn’t impressed. “Sit down, Maître, you’ll get your chance.” He turned his attention back to Lavoie. “Anything else, Maître?”
“Only this, Judge. This pending lawsuit, which has no merit whatsoever, is, by its very existence, ruining my client’s life.”
“You’ve already said that. But let’s not exaggerate. He’s suspended with pay while the case is pending. There are lots of people who would appreciate an extended paid holiday.”
“Not my client, sir.”
“So you say. Maybe he should take up fishing.” The Judge was careful not to look in Vanier’s direction. He turned to Dufrene. “Do you have any idea where your client is?”
“If I did, Judge, I would have produced him. All I am asking for is a ninety-day delay to investigate what happened to him.”
“Investigate is a loaded term, counsel,” said the Judge.
“I’m sure that the Court is also interested in finding out what happened to Serge Barbeau. All I’m asking for is a short delay to produce him.” He made a theatrical pause. “If he’s alive.”
The Judge turned back to Lavoie. “Last words?”
“Briefly, Judge. This court’s role is not to speculate on what might happen. It must simply deal with the matters brought before. If Maître Dufrene wants an investigation, he can bring his suspicions … ”
“To the police?”
She knew a judicial smack-down when she heard one. She stood her ground. “Yes, Judge. To the police.”
Judge Otis looked down at his notes and then back to Lavoie. “I’m suspending the action for sixty days to give Maître Dufrene time to, ah, locate his client. I understand that this will cause a prejudice to the police officers involved, but I consider the broader interests of justice demand a continuation.”
He didn’t even glance in the direction of Vanier and Saint-Jacques, just picked up his file, wheeled back his chair, and disappeared through the door behind the bench.
Show over. Vanier and Saint-Jacques were contemplating the struggle through the journalists that were waiting outside.
It was 8:30 in the morning, and Tony Esposito and Nick Delisle had their motorcycles backed to the curb on Sherbrooke Street. Esposito was cradling his cell phone in one hand and watching traffic. It was heavy in both directions, and he was beginning to wonder if it was such a good place for a hit, but it was too late for him to back out. Delisle was yawning next to him. He had only slept two hours and was feeling a hangover coming on.
“Where the fuck is he?” said Esposito.
“He’ll be here, Tony. Just wait for the call. Soon as he leaves the house, Rico’s gonna call, and then it’s four or five minutes until he gets to Sherbrooke.”
Esposito was staring at the corner where the Colonel’s car was supposed to turn onto Sherebrooke. Traffic was backed up at the light, and they’d have no problem picking him up.
“He’d better get here soon. This waiting is killing me,” Esposito said as his phone rang. He put it to his ear and listened for a couple of seconds. Then he turned to Delisle. “He’s on his way. He’s alone in the car.”
They both watched the intersection until the Colonel’s minivan came into view and stopped at the red light.
“The fuck he’s driving a minivan for?” asked Esposito.
“He’s got kids. I guess he drives them to hockey.”
“They’ll be orphans in five minutes. You ready?”
Esposito was clipping on his helmet. He felt for the gun stuck into his pants and revved the engine. The minivan pulled out onto Sherbrooke Street. They let it pass and pulled out into traffic three cars behind.
The Colonel was a careful driver, indicating lane changes and pumping the brakes well before he had any reason to stop. The light ahead turned orange, and he slowed to a stop before it turned red.
Esposito held up his hand to indicate to Delisle and pulled out of traffic, slowly rolling along the centre lane past three cars. He reached into his jacket and down for the gun. When he got to the minivan, he had one hand steadying the bike, the other holding the gun. Then he saw in the driver’s mirror, and it wasn’t the Colonel in the car. He was approaching the driver’s door when it swung open forcefully into his front wheel, tipping the bike to the ground. It fell on his leg, and he lost his grip on the gun. He tried frantically to free it and grab for the gun at the same time. Delisle swung out into the oncoming traffic to avoid crashing into him. He made a quick turn in the middle of the intersection and stopped the bike. He reached for his gun, but it was too late. The driver was already pumping three shots into Esposito’s chest, the explosions muffled by a silencer. Esposito’s body jumped at each shot, and Delisle knew he couldn’t do anything without getting shot himself. He wheeled the bike around and sped off. The minivan did a U-turn and took off in the opposite direction. Esposito lay motionless on the ground.
Hugo Desportes didn’t see
m surprised to hear of Barbeau’s death and burial, but he had Star repeat what she knew three times to make sure he got every detail.
“So what do you think we should do, Star?”
“Tell his mother? That’s what she hired you to do, no?”
“Maybe. And if we do that?”
Star was thinking. “She’d go to the police. She would want the body.”
“I guess. Then she would tell the police where she’s heard it and they’d come looking for you. That brings me into it. And to the kids who watched the burial.”
“And Barbeau would still be dead.”
She was beginning to see it wasn’t a good idea.
“Plus, I don’t want the police here. Especially not over a dead body.”
“So someone gets away with murder?” she asked.
“It happens all the time.”
“But that’s not right.”
“You’re beginning to learn, Star.”
“But we have to do something. Even if Barbeau was a shit, killing him was wrong. And why did they kill him?”
“Good question. Who knows?”
“Maybe we can call in the information anonymously.”
“I suppose. Assuming they would even bother to dig up the garden, what then? The guys who did it would start wondering how the police found out. If your buddies go to the park often enough, it probably isn’t a secret. Maybe they find them. So they’re in danger. And the guy you talked to leads to you.”
“Or they do nothing. Maybe they just sit tight and hope the police do nothing.”
“Possibly. Want to take the chance?”
Kyle was asleep on the couch. Star removed the book on his chest and placed a blanket over him. “If I wake him up, he won’t go back to sleep again.”
“I’m going to bed, and you should too. Maybe we’ll have a better idea in the morning.”
Star wasn’t sure there were any good ideas. The idea of getting away with murder wasn’t something she had ever thought about. And then she thought about her father. She had spent the last ten years thinking about killing him. Now she thought about getting away with it.
Fifteen
Desportes had called in a favour from someone at the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, and by 11 a.m. he had the name and address that went with the plates Star had given him: Crazy Assed Shit 286. He sat down at the table and wrote a short note:
I know who you buried in the Alpine Gardens.
Call me.
Underneath the message, he wrote the telephone number of a pay-as-you-go cell phone he kept for untraceable calls. He folded the note and gave it to Star to deliver.
Star had no problem finding the truck. It was parked just up the street from the address Hugo had given her. She approached it from behind and stepped off the curb as though she was crossing the street. She kept walking next to the parked cars until she was alongside the truck. Then she reached over, slipped the envelope underneath the wiper blade, and kept walking. Her heart was pounding, but she waited until she got to the corner before she started to run.
Back at Desportes’s place, they had nothing to do but wait. Desportes was at the computer, and she was in her usual place, perched on the couch at Kyle’s feet. It took her an hour before she calmed down. Then she said, “So, Hugo, do you have a cv?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. You asked me for a cv before I could be your assistant. I told you my story. What’s yours?”
Desportes swivelled around in his chair to face her. His eyes would catch hers momentarily and then look away, like he was pondering. Then he swung back to the computer.
“Too bad, is it?” asked Star.
He swivelled around again. Another long pause, and Star waited.
“I used to have dreams, Star. Now I’m just a rat swimming around in the sewer with all the other rats.
“Years ago, when I was young, I worked my way out of a shit neighbourhood and a crappy family and graduated law school in the top third of the class. I had dreams of how I could do good. I didn’t expect a job at one of the big law firms, and they didn’t disappoint me. They didn’t even respond to my letters. The only choice for me, and all the others who weren’t in the club, was to start out on the fringes of the establishment and try to work your way in slowly. So, I opened my own practice, sharing space with a bunch of other lawyers. We were all struggling for any business that came along. The only clients we could get were those without money.
“I did a lot of criminal cases, legal aid, and I began to see how the justice system worked. Back then, it was efficient, but it had nothing to do with justice. Don’t know if it’s changed that much. Policemen lied, prosecutors hid whatever didn’t suit their case, judges snickered, and poor bastards went to jail. The system worked on deals cut between the prosecutor and the defence. If you didn’t make a deal, your client got shafted anyway, so you held your nose and made a deal. And the judges blessed all of the deals – especially the deals that stank.”
Star sensed that he wasn’t going to stop, so she put the kettle on to boil.
“Back then, I thought that all you had to do was put forward your best defence, and the Court, in its wisdom, would decide. That wasn’t the case. The courts had to lock up enough people to show people there were consequences to breaking the law. And if you weren’t greasing the judge or the prosecutor, your client was going to jail. Guilt and innocence were incidental; the system ran on money and power. A Mohawk who shoplifted a can of beer would get three months, but a call centre operator who fleeced widows and orphans wouldn’t even be charged.
“Freddy Bellville was my last client, a nasty, stupid piece of shit with the IQ of a weasel. The kind of guy that no one would miss if he fell under a truck.
“Freddy spent his last night of freedom in bed in his shithole apartment. He was woken up at five o’clock in the morning by a swat team; four of them standing around the bed with shotguns pointed at his head. Freddy sits up and puts his arms in the air. He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Then one of the swat team gives a signal, and the other three leave. According to Freddy, the guy who stayed behind took a gun out of a plastic bag and dropped it on the bed. Then he put the shotgun to Freddy’s head and told him to pick up the gun. He made Freddy handle it for a while, then told him to put it under the bed. Then he called for the other guys to come back in, and told Freddy to get dressed.
“While the kid was pulling on his jeans, the cop looks under the bed and acts all surprised when he sees the gun. They cuffed Freddy and brought him to the station. Freddy doesn’t have a clue and he’s sitting in a cell, scared shitless. Then, like a gift from heaven, Tony Paletto, a hotshot criminal lawyer shows up to represent Freddy. Back then, Paletto was the lawyer of choice for half the criminals in Montreal. He told Freddy how lucky he is that someone cares for him, cares enough to pay for a fancy lawyer. Then he drops it on Freddy that he’s being charged with murder and that normally he’d be fucked, except Paletto has a plan; the kid should cop a plea and hope the prosecutor will buy it. Paletto just happens to have a statement all ready to be signed. He says that Freddy might get off with self-defence. At worst, it would be manslaughter, which was no big deal. With time off for good behaviour, Freddy could be out in two years. If he fought it, it could be up to fifteen. So the kid signed.”
Star spooned tea into a pot and poured boiling water into it. She took three cups from the cupboard and put them on the counter. Then she sat down again. Desportes barely noticed.
“The kid’s statement says something along the lines of: I, asshole kid, was minding my own business around lunchtime in O’Shea’s Hot Dog Emporium and Pool Room when some guy walked in and asks to play a game of pool. The guy wanted to bet fifty dollars he could beat me. Sure, I say. And I beat his ass. When I asked him for the fifty bucks, he got pissed and pulled a gun on
me. We struggled, and the gun went off. The guy dropped to the floor, and I got scared and ran out with the gun.
“So everyone’s happy, case solved in record time and another punk off the streets. Well, everyone’s happy except Nick Coluso. Back then it wasn’t a good idea to make Coluso unhappy. If you crossed Coluso you were dead, simple as that. And he wasn’t shy about letting people know. Anyway, it seems that the guy who got shot in O’Shea’s was Coluso’s brother Gino. Whoever killed Gino was up shit’s creek. So whoever really did it, stitched up Freddy as the shooter in record time.
“Now Freddy wasn’t smart by a long stretch, but he eventually realized that he was screwed, and that maybe Paletto wasn’t working for him. Freddy’s mother came to see me. She decided that if Freddy could prove his innocence, he’d be off the hook with the court and, more importantly, with Nick Coluso. And I was stupid enough to take the case and have the kid plead not guilty.”
Star poured three cups of tea. She put one into Kyle’s hand and placed another next to Desportes. He was off in another world. She took her own cup and sat down again, facing Desportes. He barely broke stride in his story.
“We were a dangerous combination: an idealistic kid pretending to be a lawyer with a stupid punk for a client. We didn’t have much to go on. Freddy said that he hadn’t been to O’Shea’s, he’d spent the afternoon in his apartment. I believed him, but credibility wasn’t going to be Freddy’s strongest suit. Paletto’s statement had ‘fix’ written all over it, and I figured we could get it thrown out by arguing that the kid’s constitutional rights had been violated. The fingerprints on the gun were a real problem, I figured all I could do was cross-examine the cops and try to shake them off their story, and then put the kid on the stand to explain what really happened. Even with the best of luck, I knew the kid would probably be convicted. But we didn’t have a choice. The kid was dead unless he could prove to Coluso that he’d been framed.
“The trial was a disaster. Tony Paletto got on the stand and lied as only a trained lawyer can lie. He said that Freddy had called him after his arrest and begged him to take the case. It didn’t matter that Paletto was one of the most expensive defence lawyers in the city, and the kid didn’t have a pot to piss in. Paletto made a speech about every lawyer’s duty to do pro-bono work, like he was some kind of defender of the downtrodden. The swat-team stuck together like a Greek chorus. The Sergeant said they showed up at the kid’s house after a tip from a concerned member of the public. The judge freaked out when I started to cross-examine one of them about how the gun ended up in the kid’s room. He threatened me with contempt if I was too energetic in suggesting that upstanding police officers were not telling the truth. Then the Crown led in a parade of witnesses from the pool-hall, each one telling the same story: Freddy was the shooter. The Crown had given me notice of the witnesses a month before the trial, and I had a file on every one of them. They were all the typical pool hall clients, dealers, small-time crooks, and pimps. The jury would never have believed those bastards if they knew their background, but the judge said the witnesses weren’t on trial and refused to let me cross-examine them on their previous convictions, or how they earned their living. Not only did they point the finger at the kid, but they destroyed his self-defence argument. They all said it was the kid that pulled the gun after he lost the pool game. So Freddy was convicted.