“I can’t say it was five feet, things were real hectic.”
“Okay, a few feet anyway.”
“Maybe a few feet.”
“So when you said Gooch fell flat on his face, then the other guy raced past him, you had it exactly backward, right? No one was chasing Gooch when he fell. I’m not accusing you of lying, you just made a mistake, right?”
Fleiger looks to the prosecutors for help, gets blank stares. “I must have. It was very confusing at the time.”
“I assume that when you saw Gooch sprawled unconscious on the road, you hurried over to give him aid.”
“Not exactly right away. I had my hands full with Barney and I was calling 911.”
“Well, when did you check as to his well-being?”
“I didn’t see no blood and it looked like he was breathing, so we kind of left him there until the ambulance came. It was only like ten minutes.”
Beauchamp owns Fleiger by now, and gets out of him that he once saw Gooch take a couple of pills and that he reeked of marijuana.
Beauchamp acts like he’s shocked. “My Lord,” he goes and then resumes a familiar line of questioning. “Who hired this Gooch fellow?”
“Mr. Howie Griffin.”
“And did Mr. Griffin give him the keypad codes for the doors of the plant?”
“That’s company policy for all night watchmen, so, yeah, that would have happened, but they change the code every week.”
“And so Gooch could have unlocked the back door without being seen, right?”
“I don’t think he . . .” He reflects. “Yeah, I guess that’s possible.”
“In your initial interview with Inspector Maguire you called Gooch a loser. What did you mean by that?”
“Well, it looked to me he had a big drug habit, and he wouldn’t be a guy I would hire as a security watchman.”
“Do you know why Mr. Griffin hired him?”
“Something about outreach. I understood he was on drug rehab. It was a company policy to take on unskilled workers as trainees. Keeps the wage costs down, I guess.”
“You knew Gooch had a criminal record—”
“Objection!”
Beauchamp raises his hands in mock surrender. “Quite right. It’s not Mr. Fleiger’s department. We’ll wait until Inspector Maguire takes the stand.”
That’s it from Beauchamp. Nancy Faulk again declines to cross, obviously lying low because her two veteran lefties aren’t charged with doing the B and E.
Before court adjourns for the day, Justice Donahue reminds the jury about not reading, listening, or watching the news about the case and not talking to friends and family about it, as if that’s humanly possible, and to report anyone who seeks to influence them.
Maguire has to give round one to Beauchamp on points, but the jury will soon realize he was bullshitting them about Howie Griffin and Archie Gooch being the real conspirators. But that’s what lawyers do best, sling the bullshit.
Maguire reminds himself to have a sit-down with Howie real soon. Not tonight, because Maguire needs his sleep — he’s on tomorrow, it’s his last stand on the witness stand, last stop on his farewell tour.
4
Tuesday, May 14
Wearing his best brown suit, feeling sharp after a good sleep, ready to take on the mighty Beauchamp, Maguire is met at the courthouse door by Khan’s student, the flamingo, who hustles him up to the sixth floor for a corridor conference with the prosecutors. The topic is Beauchamp’s theory of a con game between Howie Griffin and Gooch.
Azra Khan is cynical. “He’s just digging around in the mud to see what worms he might stir up.” A pause while his adoring student laughs. “Mainly, it’s an effort to distract us.”
A successful effort, in Maguire’s case. Maybe it’s his old phobia about defence lawyers acting up, but he can see Beauchamp and Faulk pulling something out of their asses with the fragrant aroma of reasonable doubt. Just in case, Maguire has put out an all-points bulletin for Howie Griffin, who has not been receiving calls.
“Still,” says Khan, “it would be interesting to know what other jobs Howie gave Gooch.”
The nerdy, expressionless junior finally speaks: “Like how tight they were.”
Maguire says he’s on it, he’ll check into the company’s outreach program. He’s about to follow them into court when Gaylene waves him down. She finishes a phone call with, “Late-model BMW. Also, Wiggie, check his cottage on Georgian Bay.”
She looks Maguire over, straightens his suit jacket, fills him in. “Howie Griffin may have done a bunk. He moved out of his apartment when the lease expired. We tried to phone, email, text, we even tried Skype, and no Howell J. Griffin. He hasn’t cut his services off, so maybe we should worry about finding him in some deadbeat motel hanging from a beam with a chair tipped over.”
Maguire doesn’t want to hear that kind of speculation just before testifying — he’s prepped, he’s primed, he doesn’t need the distraction.
* * *
But he does okay, even better than. The jury warms to him quickly, this easygoing, straight-talking chief investigating officer who shruggingly confesses to his thirty-five years of service to the people of Ontario as a peace officer, thirty as a detective, the last ten as Inspector.
Khan looks pleased the way Maguire motors along, negotiating the curves, avoiding the potholes as he describes the scene of the crime, the Vigor-Gro mess and mop-up, questioning witnesses, collecting exhibits, giving orders, then moving smoothly on to the next day, and the day after that, all without having to even glance at his notes. Standing tall throughout, to give the jury an impression of confidence.
Nor are there any glitches over the exhibits, no fumbled handoffs, which often happens in court, especially with photographs out of chronological order or otherwise mixed up, but today everyone, including judge and jury, is on the same page, picture-wise.
There’s a hiccup, though, when Khan tries to introduce an exhibit labelled I-33 for Identification, a blow-up of Howie’s ejaculate on the tile floor of his office-in-home, its partial impression of Rivie Levitsky’s left foot. Before the jury can look at it, Justice Donahue sends them away early for lunch because Beauchamp wants to argue it isn’t admissible.
The judge is livid. “Why wasn’t this raised as a pretrial motion?”
Beauchamp looks at Azra Khan. Khan looks at Beauchamp. Finally, Nancy Faulk steps up. “During the pretrial hearing last month on the court’s motion to exclude necessity, our footprint motion was also on the list. Along with a motion to exclude a wiretap. The transcript has you saying, ‘We’ll deal with them when I decide to deal with them.’”
Silence. Maguire remembers how she stormed out, pissed that Khan sided with the defence. Now she’s red-faced, looking for someone to blame. She chooses Miss Pucket. “Madam Clerk, please see me in my chambers after we break.”
Miss Pucket goes white. “Thank you, M’Lady, yes.”
Maguire sits, massages his neck, as Beauchamp carries on. “Hopefully, we can run through our motions quite smoothly,” and he launches into his argument to exclude the footprint evidence.
Maguire expects the judge to give it short shrift, but Beauchamp comes up with a pretty good argument. Under the Identification of Criminals Act, offenders can’t refuse to be fingerprinted, but the Act doesn’t mention feet; it’s specific to fingers. It follows, Beauchamp says, that his client was denied her right not to be footprinted.
He’s got case law from Manitoba to support this, so Maguire can see this one going to the defence, allowing Beauchamp to claim there’s no proof Levitsky ever snuck into the dork’s inner office. Nice try, except Howie will testify all she had to do was dig the keys out of the pants he wasn’t wearing. But hold on — will Howie testify? His Spanish is good, what if he skipped to Peru where the coca plant grows? What if he is suicidal, and jumps in fron
t of a GO train?
Azra Khan’s reply is technical, about DNA and the intention of Parliament. Meanwhile, it’s getting close to half past twelve, and the judge finally interrupts him in mid-flow wanting to know how long this will take. Khan needs another half hour.
“Which probably means an hour.” Her Ladyship is still in a bitchy mood. “And then there’ll be a reply. And then I’ll need time to consider. We will take the noon break.”
* * *
Not that he doesn’t enjoy Gaylene’s company, but Maguire wants to be alone over lunch, he doesn’t need all her carping over his food choices. So he takes a healthy, long walk to a rib house on Bloor, and does justice to a pile of glistening, succulent, meaty pork ribs with fries, fuel for getting through an afternoon of legal technicalities.
He returns to court to find the public gallery has thinned out except for a scattering of press and lawyers and a few dogged Bee-Dazzlers. The jury has been sent away for the day. Maguire settles into a back pew, valiantly trying to grasp the Latin phrases being tossed around by counsel. Soon, his stomach begins voicing loud objections that he has trouble overruling.
The judge interrupts Khan: “In a nutshell, as I see it, you’re saying that when the Act was passed Parliament must be presumed to have contemplated feet and toes.”
That is punctuated by a dissent from the back row, hopefully audible and smellable only to those in Maguire’s immediate neighbourhood. He does a show of looking about for an alleged perpetrator, his anus clenched against another threatened eruption. He holds on for another few minutes, then slinks out as a grinning court officer holds the door for him.
* * *
Maguire tells himself that’s it, lesson learned. No more mindlessly packing away all those carbs and fats. Partly it’s the tension of being on stage, he reckons, but mostly it’s a reaction to Sonia’s starvation diet based on Dr. Wendy’s Ninety-Day Foolproof Diet Plan that she saw on TV and bought the book. It’s a form of marital abuse.
He reminds himself to call her, to tell her how he did in court, and she should watch the evening news — CTV had a camera on him a little while ago when he went out to get some Soothe Digest capsules.
Gaylene had texted him to meet her, and he locates her in the courthouse café, downstairs, nursing a mug of tea. He goes for one of their so-so coffees, proudly ignores the pastries, and sits down beside her, carefully, his gut still settling.
She’s got the latest dope on Howie. “He was up at his cottage on the weekend, in Pentangoo . . . I never get that right.”
“Penetanguishene.” Finally getting the best of her, he’d done patrols there.
“One of our members interviewed the neighbours. They said he looked like doom, so they didn’t try talking to him, but they saw him spring clean his cottage and tune up his launch — the ice is gone. Then yesterday morning he drove off in his BMW X3 and hasn’t returned.”
“Okay, let’s stop playing pat-a-cake with this doofus, he’s under subpoena, get a bench warrant.”
“Already done.”
* * *
Maguire is back in 6-1 and it’s half past two and the judge is ready with her footprint verdict. The room is fairly empty, only a few media stragglers. The Sarnia Seven look bored and weary.
Maguire has to give Justice Donahue credit, she’s no slouch, doesn’t even use notes as she rules the footprint admissible no matter what. Maguire feels good about that — Operation Vig did no wrong.
They go on to the next motion, to exclude the mini-camera video of the perps in the backroom of Ivor Antiques. Maguire suffers through it until almost five, the judge going overtime. She reserves her ruling until the morning.
5
Wednesday, May 15
For breakfast, Maguire kept it down to just a stack of pancakes, no meat, easy on the butter and syrup, and as part of his new fitness regime, went out for a hike up to Queen’s Park and around the University Annex area. He even thought about taking the stairs to the courts’ sixth floor but decided not to be extreme about it on his first day.
He slept okay, feels on top of things, and is determined to maintain his rapport with the jury — competent, casual, not your typical stiff-necked law enforcer. A pleasant surprise greets him when, as he steps off the escalator, he sees Mrs. Sonia Maguire down the hall, chatting with Gaylene, now waving as she works her way to him through the media pack.
Uncomfortable with public shows of affection, he responds to her hug awkwardly, but with a big grin. She gives him a peck, pats him on the belly.
“You can stop sucking it in,” she says.
Sonia always sees through him so he admits to some weakness of will, and begs absolution — this is the last case of his career, his last time on the witness stand, hunger pangs were distracting him, but he woke up today full of resolve. She says it’s not resolve he’s full of.
But she laughs, and he relaxes. She didn’t want to miss his last day in court, she says, and just jumped into the Corolla. She’s looking great in the tropical blouse she scored in Honolulu, still got her shape at fifty-eight, maybe a little more ample than thirty years ago, plus she has also retained the personality of a college cheerleader, which she was. Retired RN, who Maguire met in Emergency over an exit wound in his inner upper left thigh, three inches from his balls. She got to know his junk pretty good even before their first date.
“Bridge is cancelled tonight so I can stay over. I won’t make you nervous?”
“Nah, you make me proud. You always bring good luck, because justice gets done.”
“How’s the neck, dear?”
“I don’t turn suddenly, I don’t notice it.”
“I’ll give you one of my special massages tonight.”
He arranges with one of the court officers to escort her to a seat up close, watches as the press follows them in.
He stays in the hall because Gaylene Roberts has been hovering. “Boy, thirty years,” she says. “I’ll be lucky to make it to fifteen.”
“Having a little rough patch?”
“He hates Toronto. Career versus family, it’s the old story.”
“You want to talk, I can be your emergency responder.”
“It’s okay, we’ll work it out. I don’t know why I mentioned it. Okay, Howie Griffin. He’s made contact. Through a lawyer. I’m holding off on the warrant.”
* * *
Maguire struggles to retain his good humour as he slips into court. Another lawyer gumming up the works, advising Howie to honour the subpoena but keep his yap shut. Azra Khan will be pissed, but they can’t confer right now because 6-1 is in session, except the jury is still out.
Maguire waves at Sonia, who gives him a bright smile. She’s nestled in the middle of the accredited press. Their pens are working, Justice Donahue giving reasons for upholding the wiretap order and search warrant for Ivor Antiques. She finds there was a “firm evidentiary basis for the authorities to proceed.” Judge Gerlach made “an inadvertent slip” in signing the warrant on the wrong page.
“He’s an inadvertent soak.” That’s from Nancy Faulk, intended for Beauchamp but loud enough for Maguire to hear as he takes his seat behind the counsel table. But maybe not loud enough to be heard by Justice Donahue, who twitches angrily as she concludes, then glares at Faulk.
“Did you have something to say for the record, counsel?”
“Sorry, M’Lady. I was repeating ‘inadvertent slip’ in my brain, trying to imagine a slip that wasn’t inadvertent.”
An icy pause. “I will assume for the moment, Ms. Faulk, that you are not mocking the court. If, later, I am forced to assume otherwise, please be on notice there will be repercussions.”
“Thank you, M’Lady, I am much obliged.”
Jaunty and not snide, though the mockery is loud and clear. Donahue is supposed to have it in for Faulk over a drunken insult using the c-word, but lawyers are always insult
ing one another, it’s part of their job, then they get together over drinks and laugh about it. Usually. With these two it may be different.
“Bring the jury in,” Justice Donahue commands.
* * *
Back on the stand, Maguire gets a chance to pretend he’s modest about his coup of tracking down that eighth-inning TV footage, starring Howie Griffin and Rivie Levitsky. The jury like it, a true detective story. The media are lapping it up because it’s news to them.
Sonia is like a talisman, proud of him, beaming him smiles from the second row. Before court was called she was gaily chatting with the reporters. If you’re wondering about his tan, we just celebrated our thirtieth in Hawaii. You should have seen his sunburn. This is the way she talks to total strangers.
Maguire has a file folder of ten-by-eight prints in front of him, some of them already entered as exhibits, by consent of counsel, others what the Crowns call “potentially contentious.” Khan asks him to look at I-44, an image captured from the Jays game, the foul ball video. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture, Inspector?”
The judge interrupts, scrambling through her ten-by-eights. “I don’t seem to have that one.” Khan’s junior digs out another, and Miss Pucket relays it to the judge, who asks the foreman if the jury have copies, which they do, six to share.
Finally, Maguire gets to answer. “The male person leaping up is Howell J. Griffin. The young woman flinching is the accused Rivke Levitsky—”
“I was not flinching!”
Maguire immediately loses centre stage, all eyes turning to Levitsky as she slaps her hand to her mouth. People are laughing in the gallery, media section, even the jury — but not Miss Pucket or Justice Donahue.
Maguire’s reaction is to forget he’s holding his exhibits folder, and it slips and spills twenty ten-by-eights onto the floor of his cubicle. Thankfully, all attention is on the judge berating Levitsky as Maguire squats down and tries to reassemble them.
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