An Ordinary Decent Criminal

by Michael Van Rooy

  I could have kicked myself. “Yes. I yelled out that I wanted a lawyer when Walsh arrested me. The cops heard, so did the paramedics and about thirty of my neighbors. It might be worth getting statements, if they’ll give ’em.”

  He waited for more but I was tired, so he left. I found I couldn’t sleep, even when they brought me back to my room. I was still thirsty but I ignored it and started to read Bowhunter’s Digest. A new cop, a uniformed one, came in and sat in a chair they brought and ignored me. A few hours later, Claire and Fredrick showed up to visit and after that the hospital finally gave me something to eat. It was barely edible but Fred seemed to like it. Claire held my hand and she talked about moving furniture around in the house. Then she broke off on a new subject.

  “You know, this is a pretty dumb way for you to spend the third day in our new home town. It’s suspicious, even.”

  Fred grabbed the handcuffs on my left hand and rattled them.

  “You think I did this to avoid unpacking?”

  She nodded solemnly and we both smiled.

  7

  The Winnipeg Law Courts were downtown near the provincial legislative building and were an unattractive pile, a mixture of old and new buildings. Half were built of pale Tyndall limestone blocks and half were made entirely of steel and tinted glass, both with tall, narrow windows. Inside, Thompson told me, there were lots of steel barricades, bars, bulletproof glass, metal detectors. I’d been given a temporary release from the Health Sciences Centre with police escort and had been dropped off on the corner with a leg chain hooked through the frame of the wheelchair. Claire and Fred were already at the court and so it was just me in the chair with Thompson pushing and a sparse scatter of pedestrians. Well, actually, it was us two plus six cops in civilian clothes making sure I didn’t make a break for it, and to top it off the sun was out and Thompson was singing Gilbert and Sullivan. Badly.

  “. . . felonious employment, lonious employment . . .”

  He was struggling with an obvious hangover and seemed determined to ride it out.

  “Must you?” I had a lap full of three briefcases and was busy keeping them from falling to the ground.

  “Could be worse. I could be singing ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ ”

  He belched and paused to adjust a shoe and then looked up. “We must hurry, though. We have a date with justice. A date with destiny. A date with . . . shit.”

  He muttered to himself just loudly enough for the cops around us to hear. “Too much for some, too little for others, too late for all.”

  I looked up and saw a crowd of about thirty people with microphones, TV cameras, and still cameras coming towards us from the court entrance. Three of the cops from behind moved to intercept the crowd while the other three stayed close to me. One of them put his hand on my arm and my lawyer looked at him in disgust, and said, “Like he’s gonna run.”

  He turned back and his lips moved as he counted. “We’ve got print, radio, and TV bringing up the rear. Not bad. Mr. Parker, let me do the talking.”

  In the front of the pack were reporters with micro cassettes; the ones behind had big belt units of recording gear and collapsing poles, while the ones with the TV cameras were far at the back. Cables draped across from battery to microphone and back, and the poles probed up and over to catch every nuance. Thompson, looking grayer, spoke in a loud and booming voice that obviously hurt him. “Ladies and gentlemen. Please, excuse us.”

  The crowd shouted him down as the camera beings caught up and we tried to keep moving. A man with greased hair and a severe overbite wagged a long microphone marked Station C43FM in my face and spoke over my head. “Is your client going to plead?”

  Thompson went on with his hands outspread and the microphones started to reach towards him. The cameras focused on him and everyone seemed to take a deep breath as he concentrated on the man in front of him. “Plead? What? No. Who told you that? That’s actionable, you know, the kind of thing that can prevent someone from getting a fair trial. What’s your name? Who told you a lie like that?”

  That was good strategy. Deal with one person at a time. Separate them. Don’t let them gang up. Just like dealing with a bank full of people during a robbery or paying a bribe, deal with a crowd one at a time. There was silence for a half-second and then a bleach-bottled blonde with old eyes and immense breasts cut in. She was holding a microphone that looked like a latex penis and right behind her was a fat guy wearing overalls and carrying a really big camera.

  “Mr. Haaviko? Mr. Haaviko? Did you murder those men during a drug transaction?”

  Thompson kept shredding the radio guy, who was backing out of the crowd, looking prim and claiming various amendment rights and privileges. I looked idly at the woman and Thompson stopped and leaned down to whisper. “Her name’s Mildred Penny-something. She does provincial news and sports, mostly light stuff, and people trust her. She gets sourced big time from lots of cops. Don’t talk to her.”

  “Thanks. But I must, I must.”

  And then I spoke up loudly and directed it at her. “Mildred? Good morning.”

  Thompson was watching and trying to look amused and confident.

  “You really should check your sources and you shouldn’t believe everything people tell you. I will answer that question, though.”

  Everyone was quiet and stopped pushing. Thompson glanced at his watch and I talked faster.

  “I killed three men who broke into my house and tried to rape my wife. The police know this. I am going to talk to the Crown attorney right now so justice can be done. I am very sorry the men are dead but they gave me no choice at all. That’s it.”

  More cops and a few sheriffs in brown uniforms showed up and we made it through to the courthouse steps without answering any other questions. Thompson relinquished the chair to a deputy and walked beside me so I could see his face.

  I asked, “What do you think?”

  He looked pissed and sour and angry. He had been that way since he’d arrived at the hospital. I’d expected to meet him at the courthouse and he’d tried twice to talk with me in private at the hospital and in the prison van, but the cops had been adamantly on some timetable all their own. He’d finally put his foot down when they’d tried to slip me in the back prisoner’s entrance to the courthouse, but we still hadn’t had a chance to talk.

  “Very good. No way anyone can put too big a spin on what you gave ’em and there were too many people recording to not get out at least one or two accurate versions. I wonder how they found out we were coming this morning, though?”

  Somebody opened the doors to the courthouse and we went into the big foyer.

  “Last night I asked Claire to call in exclusive tips to all the stations in town,” I said.

  He looked at me with respect mixed with his hangover. “I never would have thought of that.”

  I tried to look bashful and failed. “Well, that’s the difference between being a shit-kicker ex-thief and a big-time lawyer.”

  Thompson grunted and we went on.

  The Crown prosecuting attorney we’d drawn had an office on the third floor of the older court building. Her name was Nancy McMillan-Fowler and that was all Thompson could tell me as we waited in the hall. He kept looking at me and opening his mouth to talk, but the cops were thick around us and the reporters were not far off.

  Finally, she opened the door and ushered us in. She was plain, almost ugly, thinly built with good bones and fine skin. She was wearing a simple, gray, tailored suit that emphasized her shoulders and minimized her ass and she’d splurged for some makeup, maybe because she expected to have to talk to the press later. Behind her the intercom buzzed and she turned and picked up the headset. “Yes?”

  She had a good voice and she could use it well, bringing it from a tenor to an alto and back again, and probably capable of filling it with disbelief, passion, or contempt as needed. “No. No. Yes. No. Never. Fine.”

  Then there was a long pause.

  “I said o
kay.”

  She pressed the disconnect bar on the phone and reached someone new. “Please bring your recorder with you. We’ll need a record of this.”

  She leaned over the big steel desk in the middle of the room and squared her files before finally coming around to shake Thompson’s hand. I held mine out but she ignored it and went back to the desk to sit down.

  “Good morning, I am Thompson and I am the counsel for Mr. Parker.”

  “And this is . . . ?”

  “Samuel Parker.”

  She looked at me and her eyes turned to slits. “You mean Montgomery Haaviko.”

  I grinned. “It was Haaviko, it’s not anymore. Pleased to meet you.”

  I held out my hand again and she ignored it again. Then she drummed her fingers briefly as a woman in a plain black dress came in with a stenograph machine.

  “All right, gentlemen. I trust you don’t mind if I keep a record of this meeting?”

  Thompson sat down in a really cheap chair that creaked like an old man farting and nodded as he opened his briefcase on his lap. “Oh no. We’re going to tape this as well.”

  He looked very confident and the prosecutor shuffled the files on her desk from pile to pile until her confidence came back, “So you’re going to plead?”

  I answered, “No.”

  Thompson interrupted and talked fast. “Oh no. No plea, let’s go to trial. Quickly, too. How’s next week? Maybe the week after?”

  She focused on me and reshuffled her files. “Do you know what you’re doing? Three murders in the commission of a felony? You’ve been in prison before but do you really know what you’re doing?”

  Thompson started looking through his briefcase. “How about the week after? That’s good too.”

  She raised her voice until it was almost a shout. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  Thompson slid a file across to her. “No joke. Look at this.”

  She held the manilla file and scanned it quickly. “A doctor’s report from a Dr. Leung stating that Mr. Haaviko/Parker has bruised kidneys and assorted other injuries.”

  Thompson handed over another file from his case and she took it.

  “A report from the Edmonton Major Crimes Division detailing surveillance on Haaviko/Parker. So?”

  “One of my associates in an Edmonton firm has filed a court order for the video tapes before the cops could destroy them. They’re coming. Look at the dates.”

  “Thirteen to ten days ago. Video surveillance of your client?”

  “Right. Shows Mr. Parker loading a truck full of furniture in Edmonton prior to moving here. There’s also a statement from the halfway house where Parker was living up to two weeks ago, it’s just a fax but it includes a medical report from an attending physician. He was recovering from various addictions and there are references to thirty weeks of weekly drug tests, all negative, all administered by the parole board and Corrections Canada.”

  He pulled a little plastic vial with a flat top and bottom out of his case and set it on the desk. It contained a murky yellow solution full of particles. “Urine sample.” He covered it with a piece of paper and made a face.

  I said, “That’s a signed deposition by a nurse who drained the catheter coming out of me. The particles in it are blood, but ignore that. Mr. Thompson asked the nurse to keep the sample and sign across the seal. It’s also dated.”

  McMillan-Fowler raised her voice. “What is this all about? I have a signed and witnessed confession.”

  Thompson smiled. “Bear with me. The police version is that my client killed three men, was injured during the fight, was overcome by guilt, confessed to the police, went to the hospital. Right?”

  She nodded and he went on.

  “Our version is that three men broke in, our client killed them, was arrested by police, was beaten by police, confession was extracted by police, went to hospital.”

  She was tight-lipped. “Do you really think a jury’s going to believe that kind of garbage?”

  “Maybe not. But forget that for a moment. Police videotape showing our client in good shape prior to arrest and medical records showing a bad shape after. That’s one element that leads to the second question. If the police knew our client was injured during the fight, why wasn’t an ambulance called?”

  “Maybe the police didn’t know.”

  “Sure. They searched him, stripped him, and didn’t find the bruises, or anything wrong at all, and my client just started pissing blood and screaming. After eight hours of interrogation.”

  She didn’t even blink and Thompson went on. “We have pictures taken at the hospital, plus X-rays and lots of statements that are evidence. Evidence that shows extensive internal bruising and disabling abuse, which would mean that the police tortured my client by not providing medical attention, perhaps due to ignorance. That’s option one, but there’s a second option.”

  She was flicking through the files and the image of card games stayed with me. “And that would be?”

  “The police tortured my client while he was in custody. Supporting this is the fact that the interview room camera was turned off for more than eight hours. Look for the tape if you want, but it doesn’t exist.”

  I smiled and she quickly turned away while Thompson went on. “In either case, the confession is invalid. In one case, stopping my client from getting medical attention, the counter-charge will be civil. In the second case, the beating, the counter-charge will be criminal and civil. You pick which version you want.”

  The Crown looked at me again out of the corner of her eye while Thompson kept talking.

  “Time of the shootings is listed at 11:07 p.m. Monday. Time of arrest is listed at 1:35 a.m. Tuesday. My office was called by Mr. Parker’s wife at slightly past 3:00 a.m. and the authorities didn’t let me see my client until 9:40 a.m. on that Tuesday.”

  She shuffled her files. “Maybe Mr. Haaviko wanted to confess.”

  “Parker. Mr. Parker. Not Haaviko, not anymore.”

  Thompson handed over another file. “This is a notarized statement made four years ago regarding another . . . um, legal matter. In it Mr. Haaviko is advised by his lawyer of record in Edmonton never to make a statement to the police or anyone without either himself or another legal representative being present. He knew his rights.”

  She shrugged. “This’ll never make it to court. Maybe Mr. Haaviko was suddenly overcome by guilt and remorse.”

  “You gonna sell that to a jury? Guilt-wrought? After the first half of the trial details what a cunning, ruthless, professional criminal Mr. Haaviko was?”

  “I never said he was a cunning— Oh. You will.”

  “Right. I’ll also bring up the fact that it took the police eight hours to extract a 308-word confession from my client, which he then didn’t sign. That’s 28,800 seconds in total, which translates to one word every minute and a half. Hell, maybe I’ll read the statement out to the jury, one word every ninety-three seconds. That might convince them.”

  The Crown prosecutor picked up a cheap yellow pencil and tapped it against her teeth to make an unpleasant, tinny noise. “This case can get convoluted, I admit that, but I’ll win anyway.”

  “Ah yes, but it will get worse. First, my client’s not gonna press criminal charges against the police, he’s going after the City of Winnipeg in the civil courts for not providing health care while he was in custody. The pictures and medical evidence will prove that he was unharmed before the arrest and injured afterwards.”

  Thompson finally put his briefcase down and stretched out his feet. “Now, that’s gonna be open and shut. The city police will lose credibility if they try to force the issue of the confession there and it’ll tie up the confession in the criminal courts until the whole thing is dealt with.”

  The Crown attorney smiled. “You’re forgetting. We have LERA in this province. The Law Enforcement Review Agency, all charges against members of the police have to go through that agency first.”

  My lawyer just shook hi
s head. “No. We’re suing the city, not the police as an organization and not a single officer. LERA isn’t involved, not now. You think it’s confusing now, just wait.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  I spoke up for the second time. “Yes. We’re serious. We’re also willing to talk.”

  McMillan-Fowler didn’t seem to want to, but she found herself responding. “You mean a deal? There’s no deal that I can see. We have your fingerprints on the gun, tests that show you fired the gun, a confession you shot the men. We have everything.”

  Thompson adjusted his tie as he spoke. “We have a gun that doesn’t tie anywhere to my client. It was brought by the men breaking in. That contradicts the police. The men who broke in had a history of similar offenses and that contradicts the police. We have a jimmied door showing where the men came in and that contradicts the police. We have evidence of a fight that supports my client’s story and contradicts the police. We have statements by citizens that my client asked for a lawyer immediately upon arrest and that contradicts the police. We have evidence that my client knew his rights and wanted a lawyer and that contradicts the police. We have evidence that police procedure wasn’t followed in extracting the confession and that contradicts the police.”

  He mopped his brow with a red silk handkerchief that looked seriously out of place and continued. “We have two separate scenarios that describe how the confession wasn’t entered into voluntarily. We also have two scenarios that show either criminal behavior or stupidity on the part of the police.”

  I spoke up again. “Pick one.”

  She stared at me and I went on. “I can explain the gun, the paraffin test, and the bodies. The police cannot explain any of these things.”

  Thompson shushed me with two fingers and handed over another file.“Ms. McMillan-Fowler, I’ll cut to the chase. Here’s a copy of our complaint to LERA about the fact my client was not given access to a lawyer immediately. That’s despite past advice he’s been given by his attorneys of record. Here’s a copy of the charge I’m going to be laying in civil court for mistreatment of my client by the city. Here’s a copy of my client’s real statement, given to me the morning after the incident. And . . . can we talk privately now?”