Victim Impact

by Mel Bradshaw

  “Not Fred. Fred’s lost his stomach for our son and his trouble. There’s someone else, a woman, that wants to defend him.”

  “Does Shawn like her?”

  “He says she makes him laugh. I tried to tell him that’s not the point.”

  Meryl’s shoulders were drooping now, and there was a quiver in her lower lip. If Cliff let himself, he could get angry too. Guilty or innocent, how could Shawn put his family through this? Someone had to stay calm, though, and it had better be Cliff, even at the risk of being thought slow.

  “I know this is rough,” he said. “Look, I’ll mind the store while you go home and get a good rest. When you get up, everything will look better.”

  “We have to arrange bail for him. It won’t be like when he was a juvenile and they released him on just his undertaking that he’d show up for his trial. Or even like this Niagara business. It’s murder he’s charged with! They may not let him come home at all. And if they do, they’re going to want to know how much we can afford.”

  “We’re in good shape, Mer. The truck’s almost paid off. Go home as soon as the rain stops. Get some rest. Then we’ll talk about it.”

  Ted’s week with Markus had stretched into two. Both men felt the need of a well-ordered existence just now, and Ted found routine easier to maintain when compelled to share someone else’s living space. Markus continued to counsel his angry clients, and indeed was kept busy by the judges, who often made anger management part of a conditional sentence. Meanwhile, in the lulls of the criminal investigation, Ted worked as best he could on his academic writing.

  Then two days before Shawn’s bail hearing—on Monday, October 2—Markus came home with a story of a woman whose husband would tell her stories of injustices he’d suffered at work and let her get indignant for him. She was doubly angry because he seemed so indifferent himself. Markus had had to explain to her that she should let her husband do his own reacting, not feel she had to shoulder that responsibility herself.

  “The situation reminded me of us two,” said Markus, spooning pickled herring onto two plates. “I get furious at you for staying so cool.”

  “Cool?” Ted put down the glass of mineral water he was raising to his lips. “No cooler than you, Markus.”

  “I’m seething inside.”

  “Inside—exactly.” Ted helped himself to pickles and salad. “Although right now I’m more sorrowful than angry, I think.”

  “Sorry for yourself?”

  “How could I not be? But sorry for Karin too, about everything she’s missing. The autumn colours she went nuts over. The new opera house she never got to play in. The painfully corny movies she won’t get to see.” In his mind Ted added, the child she’ll never watch grow up healthy, take music lessons, make the swimming team, graduate, fall in love, give her grandchildren. Or do none of the above and still fill her heart to bursting with fierce joy. The crisp bread cracked in Ted’s hand. “Maybe angry too,” he added, “underneath. The rotten unfairness of it.”

  Markus looked pleased to have got him going. “So what are they going to do to Shawn Whittaker?”

  “First degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence without eligibility for parole for twenty-five years.”

  “Guess I’ll have to keep eating my veggies,” said Markus, with a chuckle, “so I can be there with my gopher gun to meet him at the prison gates when he gets out.”

  The joke stank; still, Ted bit. It occurred to him that some time down the road Shawn might try to convince a judge that he was a changed man and that a jury should be given the chance to revisit the conditions of his parole eligibility.

  “If you’re really lucky,” he replied, “he’ll get out under the faint hope clause after fifteen years. Think of it: a whole decade less to wait.”

  “And you, Ted? What would you like to do to him?”

  “Nothing. I never want to see him again. Remember, Markus—I know him. He’s counted change out for me. We’ve traded banalities about the weather. I’m hoping there was someone else that broke into the house with him and did the murder, because I hate to think that a young man I could practically draw you a picture of smashed the life out of Karin on our basement floor. He’s in custody now. If he is guilty, let him die in custody. Quietly, in his sleep.” Then Ted found himself voicing an opinion that repeated on campus would be a career-ender. “A state that declines to hang murderers should keep them until they’re dead.”

  When they had eaten, Markus cleared the dishes and made coffee.

  “Retribution is in bad odour,” he said later, punching on the CD player. “If you want to punish someone for a crime, it means you’re vengeful. How terrible! What’s wrong with vengeance, I’d like to know? Think how Karin loved Verdi. There’s revenge in just about all his stuff.”

  Ted was not a lifelong Verdi fan like Markus, but had gone when Karin had been in the orchestra. “In the operas I’ve seen,” he said, “vengeance goes hideously wrong—Rigoletto, A Masked Ball . . .”

  “But not in Macbeth.” Markus gestured towards the stereo speakers, which were keening out an ominous prelude. “Not in either Verdi or Shakespeare. Are you with Macduff the avenger or are you against him?”

  “Drama is different from life.”

  Markus smiled grimly.

  “Also,” said Ted, “if I remember right, an army comes to topple Macbeth from the throne, an army Macduff is part of. It’s not as if he goes careening around on his own.”

  “If there’d been no army available, I’ve a feeling he would have, though. We should go to the bail hearing on Wednesday.”

  “Why?” Ted was startled. Hadn’t he just told Markus he had no desire to see Shawn this side of hell?

  “Watch the circus. If they let him out, I won’t have to eat my veggies after all. And you know the kicker, Ted? I’m now taking beta blockers to slow down my heart. That stuff is so good for your aim that it’s banned in competitive shooting.”

  Give it a rest, thought Ted.

  His own rest that night was interrupted around three twenty, when he heard Markus banging about the living room. There was a sound of glass breaking. Then the front door slammed. The engine of a large vehicle, presumably Markus’s SUV, roared to life and moved off rapidly. When Ted went to look, he found the television screen lying in shards on the carpet and the heavy leather chesterfield opposite it overturned.

  He rubbed his eyes. No, it wasn’t a dream. To dysfunctional social workers, crazy shrinks, divorced marriage counsellors, and sick doctors, add enraged anger managers. Ted was on the point of warning the police to be on the lookout for an erratic GMC Yukon with a berserker behind the wheel when the vehicle returned, screeching to a halt out front. Its owner stormed into his house and slammed the door.

  “You can stop making noise now,” Ted called from the kitchen table. “I’m up.”

  “That’s exactly what Karin would have said.” Markus, all contrition, dropped into the chair opposite. The face behind the yellow-grey beard had fallen and looked older than Ted had ever seen it. “How long were you two together?”

  “Eight years this past August.” Ted spoke gently, though his father-in-law should have known this.

  “You must have been close,” said Markus.

  “As flesh to blood.”

  “Did I ever tell you, Ted, how excruciatingly painful it is to lose your only child?”

  Ted let the silence stretch out between them. Next day he went back to his own house.

  Chapter 11

  The October 4 bail hearing in Brampton turned out to be a much bigger deal than the one twenty days earlier in St. Catharines, or than either of the two Shawn had faced in the youth criminal justice system. He’d expected arguments to be made when he went before the Justice of the Peace hours after being charged with Karin Gustafson’s murder. In view of the gravity of the crime, however, all the JP could do was send Shawn to jail. If he wanted interim release, he would have to apply for it, then wait in Maplehurst until a Superio
r Court justice was available to hear his application. Natasha Cullen told him that it would be up to her to show why he should be released, not up to the Crown to show why he should stay behind bars, but that his situation was far from hopeless.

  Inspired by television, Shawn advised her to jump up with objections while the other side was making its case. “Shout, ‘That’s hearsay, Your Honour!’ ” he urged. “Stuff like that shows them you mean business.”

  Natasha curtly informed him that it was common practice in bail hearings to let a police officer lay out the case against the accused without other witnesses being called. For her to object on hearsay grounds would show the other side nothing but that her client was represented by a buffoon.

  When the hearing date rolled around, the lawyer wanted as many members of Shawn’s family as possible in attendance. Dwayne took a day off from community college to escort Meryl. Cliff, meanwhile, was turning down a run out west to man the Handy Buy and to break in a new employee.

  Shawn rode down from Maplehurst in a vehicle something like a Brinks truck, only less comfortable. Then he had to wait in a holding room until a prisoner escort officer hustled him into a cattle pen on the side of the courtroom. He had a good look at the judge to see what made him different from a JP. Not much, it seemed. Just a red sash over his black gown instead of a green one. And the lawyers had to grovel a bit more. His face didn’t look mean or anything. In fact, he reminded Shawn of Arnold Somers, the ineffectual Lincoln Navigator driver. Turning his attention to the public area at the back of the room, he picked out his mother and brother. He also recognized, some seats away, the black detective and—sitting on the other side of an older man with a trimmed beard—Karin’s husband. What’s Ted doing here? thought Shawn. Just stirring himself up for something that isn’t even a trial.

  Right off the bat, Natasha Cullen asked for and was granted a publication ban. She had previously explained to Shawn and his family that she didn’t want potential jurors’ minds to be tainted by any discussion of the evidence. The judge agreed that his decision could be reported, but none of the testimony that it was based on.

  Black gowns were worn by Natasha Cullen and her Crown counterpart—an older, taller, and more fashionable woman. The judge called her Ms. Haughton. She got to make her case first.

  The only witness she called was Detective Nelson, who testified as to the multiple traumas to Karin Gustafson’s skull that had caused her death, as to the evidence against Shawn, as to the circumstances of his arrest in Niagara Falls, and as to his criminal record. Shawn had thought all that was no longer disclosable, but Natasha Cullen didn’t object.

  Shawn was afraid she wasn’t going to cross-examine, but she did have one or two matters to get off her flat chest. She got Nelson to admit he had no witness who had seen Shawn kill Karin and that he had no idea whether, when arrested in Niagara Falls, Shawn had been carrying any passport or papers such as would permit him entry to the United States.

  When it was her turn to make the case for Shawn’s release, Natasha called as witnesses his mother and Shawn himself. Meryl was every inch the good soldier Shawn expected. She’d dressed up in a satin blouse and new high heels that made her look any woman’s equal. Her face showed strain, but no sign she might blow her cool or anything. Yes, Shawn had a criminal record as a juvenile, she admitted, but he’d complied to the letter with all conditions both times he had been granted interim release. Through his work at the Handy Buy and his volunteering at the Fair Share, Shawn was well integrated in his community. Meryl professed herself willing to act as surety for him and had every confidence that he’d appear for his court date. After Natasha sat down, Ms. Haughton stood and asked Meryl if Shawn listened to her and did what she told him to, at which she bristled becomingly. “He’s a grown man, and I don’t expect him to ask ‘How high?’ whenever his mother says jump. But my son and I are very close. I know that in the big things, he won’t let me down.”

  Next up at the hearing was Shawn. Natasha had warned him that she would not be asking him whether he had killed Karin Gustafson and that he must say nothing about any of the offences he was charged with. If he did, he would be giving the prosecutor permission to question him about those offences. What Natasha wanted him to testify about was whether, when apprehended in Niagara Falls, he had any intention of fleeing, either within Canada or to foreign parts. No, he said. He was simply taking a holiday. Natasha also had him deny that he was addicted to any drugs.

  When the lawyers were finished, the judge looked at his watch and stroked his jaw with a tinge of regret. “We are running well past the time when we’d normally break for lunch,” he said. “But I don’t want to hold you all here over the noon hour, so I’ll give you my decision now. Murder in the first degree is a reverse onus offence, and it was therefore up to the defence to show why the accused should benefit from judicial interim release. Having regard to the nature of the evidence against Mr. Whittaker, to his record of compliance with past orders, and to the degree of his integration into the community, I am satisfied that the defence has discharged its burden, and I am ordering Shawn Whittaker’s release with his mother Meryl Whittaker as surety on a recognizance of $10,000.”

  In long-winded legalese, the judge went on to enumerate three conditions, which Shawn interpreted to mean (1) that he had to report to the police station nearest his home once a week between now and the date of his trial, (2) that he couldn’t possess any explosives or weapons, and (3) that he couldn’t come within a hundred metres of 19 Robin Hood Crescent. Was that it? Not quite—

  “I remind the defendant that all of the very sensible conditions of the release order made on September 14 of this year in St. Catharines are still in force and must be observed. Shawn Whittaker, your mother will now proceed to the court office. Once the paperwork relative to your release is complete, you will be able to return home with her. Court will resume sitting at two thirty.”

  The prisoner escort officer fitted handcuffs on Shawn and opened the cattle pen. Before she could quite get him out the door in the side wall of the courtroom, Shawn managed to lift his manacled hands and flash a double thumbs up at Natasha. When he met his mother in the office as directed, his arms were free to hold her till she stopped shaking.

  “It’s okay, Mer,” he soothed. “We did it.”

  “Shawn—Shawn, I’m glad you’re out of that place,” she murmured into the front of his shirt.

  “Yeah. Don’t cry now. What’s the envelope you’re crushing in your hands?”

  Meryl handed it to him. Inside he found a business card and a two-line note from his lawyer. “Let your hair grow out for another six weeks,” it said. “Then get Emilio at this salon to give you a conservative cut with a part on the left.”

  Dwayne’s fellow students heard on the news that Shawn had been charged with murder. When they asked him about it, Dwayne had nothing to say.

  He thought he remembered his mother’s pregnancy and Shawn’s birth, but Dwayne had only been three at the time, so maybe he was imagining things. He had loved Shawn, had been proud when his parents had let him babysit his little brother. Shawn was cute: everyone saw that. Had they spoiled him? Dwayne didn’t think so—though now, looking back, he believed Shawn should have been pushed harder in school. Dwayne didn’t get good marks, so Shawn thought it was all right not to do well either, even though Shawn was smarter.

  Laziness, wanting things you hadn’t worked for, Dwayne understood how that could lead to stealing. But he didn’t know what to make of the murder charge. Did taking things lead to taking life? Maybe, as the boys’ father thought, it was all a mistake. But their mother wasn’t saying anything one way or another.

  When they all got home after the bail hearing, Dwayne asked him point blank: “Did you do it, Shawn?”

  “Hey, big guy! Think the Leafs are going all the way this year?”

  “Let’s watch a few games together and see.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “I was jus
t wondering,” Dwayne persisted, “whether this is the last fall we’ll be able to do that for a while.”

  “Depends how good a job my pit bull Natasha does.”

  “But you’re innocent, right?”

  Shawn cocked an eyebrow.

  “Tell me you didn’t kill her, Shawn.”

  “Dwayne, don’t you have a car to grease?”

  A couple of nights later, Shawn was just finishing a stint at the Handy Buy when two Harleys pulled into the lot. Dwayne was doing a washroom check and would not have been visible to the bikers through the front windows. Leaving his machine running, Scar came to the door and beckoned Shawn outside. Shawn went out to warn the bikers that he wasn’t alone. The second man in black leather immediately inserted himself between Shawn and the shop door. He was clean-shaven and wore his black hair closely cropped. Thick-limbed and stiff in the joints, he gave the impression of being bloated and enraged with steroids.

  “C’mere,” said Scar, squatting beside his bobber.

  “My brother—”

  The second man clapped Shawn on the back, propelling him forward.

  “Shh,” said Scar. “Get down here. I want to show you something.”

  Shawn squatted next to Scar and dropped his voice. “My brother’s in the shop.”

  “Don’t say anything. Just put your hand, better be your left hand, on this rear cylinder.”

  “What?”

  The second man, who had so far said nothing, was whistling under his breath. Meanwhile, he squatted to Shawn’s left with his right arm around Shawn’s back and his right hand immobilizing Shawn’s right arm. Scar grabbed Shawn’s left wrist and forced his left hand onto the hot cylinder.

  “The louder you squeal, the worse you get burned,” Scar hissed into Shawn’s ear.

  Shawn wasn’t squealing. He was trying his damnedest to suck up the pain and the humiliation. Scar pulled his hand away from the scorching metal.