High Crimes

by William Deverell

  Bishop coughed. “Bail! He’s an American, no fixed address, lifetime criminal and dope dealer, fluent in Spanish. He’d be just about as good a candidate for bail as the Ayatollah Khomeini would be for president of the U.S.A. He’d be gone and out of here forever, in about two seconds after leaving court.”

  Peddigrew just looked at him.

  After several seconds, Bishop said, “Okay, I get your point.”

  ***

  The provincial court judge was a solemn-looking man with a broad, heavy face and no glint of humor in his eyes. To Bishop, he looked somehow friendless. He was a rookie judge, and that made Bishop nervous. His scouting report told him that Judge Squires had been a small-town conveyancer of properties and a Lions Club booster before his recent appointment to the lower-court bench, a political payoff.

  But Judge Squires was writing everything down and seemed to be getting it straight.

  He read it out. “Larochelle, stay of proceedings. Court doesn’t have to do anything. Pike, stay of proceedings. Court doesn’t have to deal with him, either. Nighthawk, his own bail, and the court adjourns his case for a month. Kerrivan pleads guilty. Court gives him at least fifteen years.”

  He looked at Bishop suspiciously. “You say you’re working directly for Ottawa, Mr. Bishop. We don’t usually do things this way. Not that I’ve heard.”

  “I’m appointed by the minister himself,” Bishop said. That seemed to impress the judge. “Just to keep the record straight, the Crown isn’t asking for these dispositions. It is not opposing. The defense makes the application.”

  Bishop realized the subtlety of that was lost on the judge.

  “The Crown doesn’t ask, doesn’t oppose,” repeated Judge Squires. “But that is what you’re agreed on.”

  “The fifteen years,” said Peddigrew, “we’re not asking for that. But I agree to say anything less might be regarded as an unreasonable sentence. Under the circumstances.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Squires repeated. “You’re asking for that, and the Crown is not opposing.”

  “No, the Crown asks for that, and I’m not opposing.”

  “But you’re not consenting.” There were beads of sweat on the judge’s forehead.

  “Well, we’re not consenting, but we’re not not consenting, we’re not saying anything but what I’ve said we’d say.”

  For the judge it was, as Bishop’s teenaged daughter would say, confusion city. There was despair in the man’s face.

  “Except,” Peddigrew continued, “I’ll make the usual submission. Then we leave the sentence up to the court. In its discretion,” he added nervously.

  “The usual submission?” said the judge. “Is there a usual submission? I don’t mind telling you boys that I’m a little new at this.”

  “The submission as to character,” said Peddigrew. “The good character of the accused.”

  “That being . . .”

  “Kerrivan.”

  “And that’s before I sentence him.”

  Bishop and Peddigrew were both feeling little flutters of panic.

  “Well, I know about Kerrivan,” Squires said. “I know about his character, all right. I have a niece went out with him.”

  Peddigrew felt himself relax, but it was just for a moment.

  “He got her all screwed up on drugs. She’s never been right since. Moved out to the West Coast. Living with a bunch of dope fiends in a commune, is what I hear.”

  Peddigrew tried to catch Bishop’s eye. But the prosecutor was studying a watercolor of a sailing ship running into the sunset. Peddigrew said, “Of course, Your Honor, being a well-known jurist in these parts . . .”

  “No, I don’t fancy I’m well known,” Squires said. “I’ll be frank, I’ve got a lot of learning to do yet.”

  “Yes, yes,” Peddigrew said, “but all of us understand, of course, that what you have personally heard, which is hearsay after all, can’t be an influence in sentencing.” He said loudly to Bishop: “I’m sure the Crown agrees with that.”

  “Yes, of course,” Bishop said heartily.

  “Oh, I understand I can’t base my decision on pure hearsay,” Squires said. “I have to take account of what happens in court. But it’s not hearsay, either, Mr. Peddigrew. I saw her with my own eyes. All screwed up on drugs. Giggling and smiling. She was up her tree.”

  “The prosecutor is not insisting on more than fifteen years,” Peddigrew said.

  “No,” said the judge, “but not opposing either.”

  ***

  Outside in the hallway, Peddigrew spoke to Bishop in a hushed, urgent voice. “I don’t like this.”

  “We don’t have time to go judge-shopping,” Bishop said.

  Johnny Nighthawk

  In court, light-headed, fuzzy, trying to focus, I fix my eyes on the judge. He is blinking his eyes around the courtroom, as if he is surprised to find himself there. I am minutes from breathing fresh, free air, as soon as my bail papers are drawn up and signed. I am as close to being long gone from Canada as I am to the St. John’s airport.

  Mitchell sits solidly at the back, a stone lion guarding the door.

  The prosecutor is a grandfatherly type, he seems okay, not beating any drums in here. Peddigrew, as is his habit, is preening and showing off with a long, windy speech about Pete’s good background, although he is heaping the offense up on his shoulders alone.

  Old man Pike is sitting there nervous, but he is a free man, and Marianne, sitting poised and beautiful as ever, with that soft inner smile, is a free woman. I notice her hair is dyed black. Pete, however, seems unable to look at her.

  The judge waits for Peddigrew to sit down, then begins to read off a piece of paper something he wrote up, I guess, after the lawyers met with him.

  “It is my duty to sentence you, Peter Kerrivan.” The voice sounds sonorous, like that of a preacher at a funeral. “I have taken into account all the things that have been said about you by your lawyer, and there was a lot. He has made an excellent submission, and he has said everything he could possibly think of on your behalf.” He clears his throat.

  “I have to take account of the protection of society and the vast amount of drugs that you have brought into Canada for illicit sale and consumption. That is the main thing. The amount. There is no way to estimate the millions of minds that might have been crippled if the RCMP had not caught you and all the drugs. I have heard a lot of people gripe about the police, these days, but it is only through their hard work that this vast and massive shipload of narcotics was consti . . . confi, confiscated.” He turns the page.

  “Now the other thing is deterrence. I have to impose a sentence that will deter you, and those of like mind, from doing this again. I have let one of your gang out on bail, and two of you have got off altogether, so there is not much deterrence there. The minimum sentence for this is seven years. I can see a point to seven years if you were bringing a small amount across the border for your own use. But I have to think of this massive shipment in terms of all the young people in this country whose minds are prey to these drugs. Peter Kerrivan, will you stand up and be sentenced?”

  Pete shambles to his feet.

  “I sentence you to life imprisonment.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Theophile O’Doull stormed through the operations center like a Nazi lieutenant, bawling orders, swearing, slamming boxes shut, sweeping papers and tools from his worktable.

  “Clean up and get out. We’re closing shop. Get your damn reports in. Come on! Move it! Move it!”

  He stopped by the desk of the fingerprint man. “Where’s your report? I haven’t seen a single fucking print sheet.”

  “Jeez, Sarge, the case is over. What’s the point of fingerprints?”

  “Get off your ass, tab the prints, and close your file.”

  The print man sulked. “The
re ain’t gonna be no trial.”

  “Do it!” O’Doull screamed at him.

  He stomped down the hall to the chemical lab and threw open the door. The analyst, Wegthorne, was so startled he dropped his paperback on the floor. O’Doull glared at him with eyes like hot coals. “Are your reports in?” he said, his voice barely controlled.

  The toluene and petroleum ether solutions for the Duquenois-Levine and thin-layer chromatography tests were still in their flasks, sealed, the marijuana samples still in exhibit envelopes.

  “Hey, Theo,” Wegthorne said, “how are you doin’? Guess you and I can go back home.”

  O’Doull had recruited Wegthorne from his lab in Ottawa with the idea that he might be able to dump him permanently in Newfoundland.

  “You’re not going home until you’ve done the analysis and signed your certificates.”

  “What’s the point, Theo? There ain’t going to be a trial, Kerrivan copped a plea.”

  “You’re the laziest goddamn chemist I have ever encountered. Do your job!”

  Wegthorne slowly removed his feet from the table and turned to face O’Doull. “I don’t know if you’ve got the right to order nobody about, Theo. Being that you got your ass suspended by the inspector.” His lips curled up in a smirk, but he didn’t look O’Doull in the eye. “Speaking of ass, that cute Frenchie dame — I hear you got a little bit. That’s what the boys are saying. How was it? I hear she’s got a box about as big as an open-pit mine, and just as busy.”

  O’Doull swung his fist almost as a reflex action. Two seconds later, blinking his eyes, he realized Wegthorne was sprawled on top of the table, blood pouring from his nose.

  He wheeled around, strode down the hall, told the receptionist to make plane reservations for him to Ottawa, then took a taxi to the airport, where he began to drink a lot of dark rum while he waited for his plane.

  The last two days had been the blackest period of his life. The suspension. The blackmailing by Bishop. The life term for Kerrivan. The cold, cold shoulder from Larochelle outside the courtroom.

  O’Doull, unable to marshal strength enough to watch the proceedings, had stayed outside the courtroom doors. Earlier, in the subtlest of dialogues, Bishop had bought O’Doull’s silence with a promise of freedom for Larochelle.

  The thought of her spending ten or fifteen years in the Kingston Women’s Penitentiary had caused flutters of nausea in O’Doull’s stomach. He had had sleepless nights over it, rolling and tossing in agony, blankets and sheets balled up and crushed and damp with his sweat.

  The first person to come out of the courtroom had been Mitchell. Mitchell with a smile, clenching his fists in front of him as if he had just coached his team to a narrow win.

  But it was Larochelle he had been waiting for. All his dreams, waking or sleeping, had converged into a dream of Larochelle. One more night with her had been all he dared to pray for. One long, rich, fulfilling night that might set him free of her.

  And when she came out, she had given him a look that froze him.

  “You bastard,” she hissed. “You lying bastard! I really believed you, and you were trying to set me up all along.”

  He had tried to move her, but Peddigrew had blocked his path.

  “Keep away from her, O’Doull. You’ll be happy to know that you helped get your old pal Kerrivan a lifer in the pen. Does it feel good?”

  O’Doull’s stomach had turned to acid, and he had stood there, feeling it burn, long after Peddigrew had taken Marianne’s elbow and led her out of sight.

  Johnny Nighthawk

  I don’t have a chance to put my head together before I am dog trotted out of the courtroom by Peddigrew. I want to talk to Pete, I want to touch him. But only our eyes touch, and mine are wetly out of focus, and his seem empty.

  Peddigrew begins grumpily thrusting money at me, three or four thousand dollars American, telling me the fastest way to get to the airport is by running down the street to the nearest taxi stand, a couple of blocks away.

  “Dorchester Pen is a hell hole, Mr. Peddigrew,” I am saying. “They will break a guy like Pete. They’ll put him in the damper and they’ll break him. He’ll end up on the spike, wired on jail-house smack. What are you going to do about it, Mr. Peddigrew?”

  “I don’t think we can win an appeal. I’ll agonize over it, but the main thing now is for you to heel out of here and go into hiding.”

  I am a blur of feelings right now. I have to get away by myself. I shake his hand — he has done well for me — and move on down the street, up a few blocks to where my old Ford pickup has been sitting for the last month. I wiggle the ignition key out of the ashtray. The engine does not turn over, so I ask a guy for a boost, then head down to the Blue Boar to seek the company of the boys.

  Jimmy Arthur is polishing the bar. None of the boys are in here.

  “Congratulations, Johnny,” he says. But he looks a little down. For Kerrivan. The word has got out fast. “What will you have?”

  “A double rye on the rocks. I am going to get drunk.”

  Comes a familiar voice from behind me. “We got other things to do first, John.” It is Crazy Dewey Fitzgerald, second bike of the Phantom Riders, a guy I remember beating up during the brawl down here the night Pete and Kelly got acquitted. This, I am thinking, is all I need. Some asshole from a former grievance wants vengeance in a bar. But I note that Dewey has a serious expression. Not fighting serious. Serious serious.

  “Down the drink,” he says. “My chopper’s out on the street. You follow along behind. Try to keep up.” That’s all. No explanation. He leaves. I follow. I am too tired to try to figure out what is going on.

  Half an hour later, I follow him off the Trans-Canada Highway, onto a long gravel road that winds in among a grove of grungy little spruce.

  There are a couple of cars outside and abut eight or nine bikes sitting there. An old farmhouse, club rooms of the Phantom Riders.

  Dewey takes me in. At the head of the table is Midge Tobin, head honcho of the Riders. “Okay, gentlemen, last order of business,” he is saying. “We talked about it in executive session. The motion is we volunteer two outriders. Behalf of the executive, I so move. I see a seconder, Ned Noseworthy. Discussion — we ain’t got much time. Okay, all in favor. Carried.”

  The club members are sitting around a long table. On a chair against the wall is Dave Doncaster, looking somber. A few days earlier Dave and I were laughing our heads off at Captain Pike’s boat shed. Dave is one of Pete’s most loyal boys. Later, I learned he picked up Billy Lee Tinker a few days before and helped smuggle him out of Newfoundland.

  “There being no other formal business, I will entertain a motion for adjournment,” says Midge Tobin. “Moved by Noseworthy, no seconder required, no debate on a motion to adjourn. All those in favor, signify. Motion carried. Hi, Johnny, me old trout, this is going to cost you. We ain’t doin’ it for love.” He turns to his members. “Two volunteers, boys, I recognize my own hand up first and . . . I pick Dewey, thanks anyway, Barney and Horse.”

  Midge pounds out of the building like a rhinoceros, followed by Crazy Dewey Fitzgerald, and I hear their bikes starting up outside. My head is whirling.

  Dave grabs me by the elbow and hustles me outside. I should have noticed his car. It is a classic old Packard, nicely restored.

  “Far out,” Dave says, “you brought your dirty old truck. That’s just the ticket. I ain’t gonna let the boys use this baby.” He pats his car on the hood. “Follow along behind me, Johnny. The rest of the boys is waitin’. We got ground-to-air radio, and the cops is gonna be leavin’ the lockup soon if they’re gonna get Pete to the ferry. We got to time this to the split second, boy.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Two uniformed guards held Kerrivan, one on each arm. He was handcuffed, looking straight ahead. They put him in the backseat of the cruiser, alone. The rear do
ors were locked from the outside.

  Night was falling. They drove to the Trans-Canada Highway, moving fast in order to make the late ferry from Port aux Basques to the mainland, and to Dorchester Penitentiary.

  “I hope you guys made a reservation,” Kerrivan said after a while. “I’d hate to miss it.”

  There was no response.

  “Could I have a smoke?” Kerrivan asked.

  One of the guards pushed a lit cigarette through a hole in the screen.

  An hour later a big Harley roared past them, going in the opposite direction. Then a few minutes later it was behind them, on their tail. It moved up slowly alongside them, sitting square on the center line of the highway while the driver peered into the cruiser.

  “Get off of there or I’ll blow you off of there,” the guard-driver said. The bike swept ahead of them, accelerating to a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.

  “Did you get his plate?”

  “Naw, it’s smeared with mud.”

  Half an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, in the empty Newfoundland forest, they came to a sudden halt.

  “Jesus!” the driver said.

  A tall spruce had fallen over the road and was sitting on the cab of an old pickup truck. The headlights were on; the horn was blaring.

  “There’s gotta be somebody in there!”

  “I guess we better try to get him out,” Kerrivan said hopefully.

  “Don’t try anything smart, Kerrivan. Just sit tight.” One guard picked up a sawed-off shotgun and got out of the car. His partner glanced back at Kerrivan, then got out, too.

  Kerrivan saw shadows drifting among the trees beside the road.

  “This tree’s been cut,” one of the guards yelled.